City Council Work Session Transcript –06/15/2016 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 6/15/2016 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 6/15/2016 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [8:36:47 AM] [♪Music playing♪] >> [8:52:50 AM] >> Mayor Adler: All right, are we ready? We're going to go ahead and convene the work session. Today is Wednesday, June 15th, 2016. We are in the boards and commissions room here at city hall. We have some briefings today. We also have some pulled items. I think it was suggested to us by staff that we start with the pulled items and then after the break today come back and do the executive sessions and thebriefings. If we can do those. I think that's what was suggested to me. So let's go ahead and start with the pulled items that we have. The first pulled item is item number 16. It's pulled by Ms. Garza. >> Garza: This might be more of an A.P.D. Question than contracts. I'm sorry, I'm not prepared as I probably should be, but the reason we pulled this was I remember we voted on something a couple of weeks ago that addressed the backlog for sexual assault kids. Was that just like -- was that the initial step in like an rfp process and this is actually picking the lab that's going to address that backlog? >> Assistant chief troy gayover the investigations bureau, which falls within the forensics lab. And commander nick Wright is over the forensics lab currently. To answer your question is there are several -- the grant that we received has [8:54:51 AM] several processes in it. The one that you approved a few weeks ago was the actual lab that would conduct the initial analysis. DNA requires after the analysis that there has to be a technical review by a different party. It's the dual awe then thatfication of DNA. And that's what you're agreeing to at this point is the company that will do the technical review after sworenson will do the analysis of the kits. >> Garza: And I asked some questions of Q and a and I haven't been able to follow up and see if they've been answered, but I guess why is there a backlog and how does that compare to other cities of similar size for this?Because -- and the overall question I want to know is we did a little bit of research on sexual assault backlogs, and it can be for different reasons, but one of them is sometimes a police department will put apriority on different crimes and I believe in Harris county the reason for their sexual assault backlog is because there was a priority on property crimes. So does the A.P.D. Have similar priorities? And I'd like to know where sexual assault is in that. >> Yes, sexual assault is a priority for our agency. I think that what we're realizing -- the interesting thing is I just got back from D.C. Last night and -- D.C. Last night and it was on this particular grant. So I was able to hear a lot of testimony over the last few days in regards to the benefits of why we need to go back and test kits that have been sitting in evidence for years. So no, this is not just A.P.D. This is a national initiative. I mean, when you look at our [8:56:52 AM] 3,000 cases, when you look at different cases, whether it be New York, who had 17,000 cases that they were in a book log, several -- it just depends on the state and the situation. Before 2011 is that there was no mandates to test the kits such as if a victim would recant or they would say they did not want to move forward with the prosecution, it was not required to go forth with DNA testing. Now there is mandate since 2011 to have those cases sent to a laboratory within 30 days. So that is currently the practice, but since then we have realized as a community across the country that there is huge benefits to testing all the kits. One of the statistics that we heard yesterday was most of the folks that commit sexual assault when we do get a DNA profile on that, that they commit up to six to 12 additional offenses, and these are violent offenses against our community. So there's huge benefits by moving forth and throughout the country they're doing forklift approaches just like our department is doing, and that is sending our whole backlog to labs to get those tested. And it's more than just a lab. It's a multidisciplinary approach to the lab, our victim services, our investigators, so it's bigger than just the lab itself. >> Garza: So when you say the evidence back logs, you know you mentioned that there's cases where victims say they recant, but are there victims waited for their -- waiting for their case to be heard because they're waiting for evidence to be processed? [8:58:53 AM] >> That's a very complex question but the answer is yes, there will be victims contacted if there's a codus hit that we know who your perpetrator is, that there will be victims who will be contacted. And that is part of the multidisciplinary approach. We have a 10-year statute of limitations so some of those will not be prosecutable, but most of the cases in the past have been cases to where for some reason it did not move forth in the criminal justice system, whether it was not enough evidence, whether it was a recanting, whether -- consensual encounters that the prosecutor did not feel should move forward. So there's a lot of different -- it's a complex answer, but yes, to your answer. >> Garza: Is there any other crime that has backlogs like this? >> Currently the DNA lab itself has about 1500 cases that cross all spectrums ofcrimes right now. And that is something that we're in the process of mitigating in reference to sending them to dps as well as to private labs. >> Garza: So with this contract what do you think the timeline is to get this backlog so it's no longer a backlog? >> The grant is for two years. So we're hoping that it would be within the next year to six months, but unfortunately I think there was -- yesterday I think they said there was about 57,000 rape kits across the country that are trying to be tested. So there's only a couple of labs in the country, and everybody is trying to spin up in reference to having the capacity to test thekits. We're looking at sending them in batches. We've just sent 500. So we anticipate within the [9:00:53 AM] next three months each quarter we will send another 500 or so. So then again it's just based on their work load and their ability to be able to not only handle our contract, but multitudes of other contracts they have. >> Garza: Okay, my last question. Thanks for y'all's patience. I'm sure there's a process in place, but just to be sure, to prioritize people who are getting close to that 10-year statute of limitations, like are they in -- do we put the kits where they've been waiting for a long time closer to the front? >> Correct. For many years now we have made sure that we had cases that we felt were prosecute able cases that we were waiting on the DNA cases. Those DNA have already been test and a profile developed. And even though we may not have a suspect, an indictment for is like John doe type cases is already sitting there, yes, ma'am. >> Garza: Thank you. I appreciate the responses. It's a really -- really a priority to make sure that we get this evidence processed as soon as possible. I can't imagine what's -- the victims of this crime,what they're dealing with. And it's come to the forefront with this Stanford switcher and it's just -- Stanford swimmer and it's just asmalling and it's a shame that these cases aren't prioritized and they're given little punishment for doing an extremely horrible thing. So thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Troxclair: Thanks for asking those questions. I had a lot of those same questions. I think I understood -- I think she asked this question and I'm not sure -- I want to make sure that I understand the answer about how much it would take, like if there's a dollar amount it would take to eliminate the backlog, but sounds likethe work load, even if you said we would need two million dollars to he will our existing backlog, it wouldn't necessarily speed up the process because of the work load of the lab [9:02:54 AM] that we're sending it to. >> Correct. >> Troxclair: Okay. So it's not really -- okay. And how does this item, I guess, interact with the -- what was in the news recently about the A.P.D. Lab? >> This process has always been something that we have requested to do outsourcing for the rape kits. In reference to the DNA and the proactive measure on our department to step back and to really look at our lab. It should not affect any of the ongoing cases. We have relationships with dps and other labs that we're forming now. But in reference to some of the backlog, we're trying to develop a plan today in reference to how we canaddress that, the financial impact to our department, as well as the capacity of labs to be able to handle that and figure out -- putting a dollar amount with a timeline to figure out when we can do the mitigation for our current lab. >> Troxclair: Okay. And you mentioned that there was a mandate to send evidence to lab within 30 days. Are you -- are we meeting that mandate? And then once it's sent, is there a timeline for when it's actually processed or is the mandate just to send it somewhere. >> That is the current mandate, just to get it to the lab. The lab works with the investigator and it all depends on the tiered systemof the priority of that particular case. To give you an example is that the serial rapist case that we have going around currently, we have retrieved DNA on a few of those cases and those have been completed within 30 days by dps. So it really just depends on [9:04:55 AM] the tiered. If we have a case that maybe there's a question of consent or not in a particular case, the case will still be tested. It's just whether or not it will be in 30 days or it will be eight or nine months, it just depends. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I just had one follow-up at this point. I appreciate the questions that you all asked. So councilmember Garza asked you a question about whether the kits would be prioritized if they were coming close to the 10- year mark. And I heard you say that they're prioritized based on prosecutable -- ability to prosecute. So I didn't hear a direct answer about whether ifthey're coming is close to the 10-year mark if they're moved up in the tiering system. >> Yes. Currently all the cases that are going to Sorenson, the first cases are those that are within the statute of limitations.So we're going to go from 2011 and then the ones from 1990, some of our older cases that are outside the statute of limitations, will be the last cases that will be going in. So for our cases that we're doing the forklift approach, absolutely. Cases that we currently have worked throughout the last 10 years, those cases have gone to the lab based on prosecution. So we're not really looking at cases that we felt was very viable for prosecution. These are cases that met the old standard that didn't meet prosecution at the time, but because of the value of sending these kits and the push throughout the nation is that we feel that all kits should be tested ill regard of what the outcome would be. >> Tovo: So I hear that they should be within the statute of limitations to be [9:06:56 AM] sent off, but I'm still not hearing whether or not within that batch that's being sent off whether there's a priority for those that are coming upon that 10-year statute. >> Yes, there is. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you.I appreciate it. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: Thank you. And some of these questions are just -- you answered, but I wanted to make sure I heard right. So first off, so there's two situations, if I'munderstanding correctly. There's clearing up the backlog and then there's sort of going forward. So on the going forward did I hear you right that it can take anywhere from 30 days to eight or nine months to get results back? On lab tests from the rape kits? Depending on the priority of the case. >> Yes. In reference to the backlog cases -- >> Kitchen: I'm not talking about backlog now. >> From a Normal case? >> Kitchen: From this point forward. Not the backlog, but what the practice is now with your resources. >> Correct. It would depend on the priority of the case on the tiered system of when we would get those results back. Ms. Kitchen okay. But is that range right, anywhere from 30 days to eight or nine months or so? >> 30 days is probably the best case scenario. Depending on the priority and other cases, and whether our lab would do it or whether another lab would do it. It's a little hard to judge. I know that we do have cases that are well over a year that have not -- that have been submitted that have not been received back like from dps. Dps has the whole state. We do collect for property crimes, I think someone had mentioned about Harris county. So clearly we look at a priority system in reference to whether it's a violent crime or property crime in reference to the need to expedite those particular cases. >> Kitchen: Okay. Is there some kind of national standard or are [9:08:56 AM] there any standards about what the targets are? You know, for turnaround time on processing the rape kits? >> There are, of course, I think all labs would like to have a - - like a 60-day turnaround. But as I mentioned is that there's only a few private labs. And of course if you don't have the necessary staffing within your current labs, it's a challenge to get that. So clearly there are some best practices that are trying to be developed each and everyday, DNA evolves, each and every year, but I think even with -- working with the department of public safety they would like to have a 60 to 90-day turnaround on violent crimetype cases. >> Kitchen: Okay. And is there -- so in terms of -- I just have a few more questions. In terms of these best practices is there a particular body that sets those? I mean; there like a standard settingorganization or something that kind of speaks to those best practices? >> Good morning, ma'am. There's actually several different agencies. The aclad lab comes out of the -- is our primary lab, the primary organization that gives us our accreditation. And we also have the national scientists institute of technology. We have the Texas -- Texas standards lab. So there's multiple agencies that do try to develop ourstandards. And it's just a matter of deciding which one of those agencies is coming down. Most of them do communicate to each other and do bring out standards, but each standard can be slightly different depending on the state that you're in as well. >> Kitchen: Is there any one in particular that kind of stands out that you try to look to as the standard? >> Acllad and the Texas [9:11:04 AM] forensic. >> Askld/elb and I would not know what the acronym is. >> Kitchen: And the second one is is? >> The Texas science forensics commission. >> Kitchen: I think you -- >> Texas forensic sciencecommission. >> Kitchen: Okay. I think you answered this one, but I want to make sure I understood. Did I hear you say that you guys were thinking that y'all are working on a plan or approach for ongoing cases about how you can get those processed in the best way? Did I hear that right or not? >> Yes, ma'am. So my question to you all then would be I'd like to understand what that plan is once you work through yourprocess and I'd like to understand what resources you need in order to be able to meet these standards, whether that's resources in the internal lab or whether that's additional resources. So do you have a timeline that you guys are working towards to try to figure out what your plan is? A timeline that we could ask you to come back and let us know what you needed in terms of resources? If you needed anything.>> We do hope within the next two to four weeks that we'll have a very good plan of action. >> Kitchen: Okay. And this is the last question then. On the labs is there just -- is this a specialized lab test that there's -- that not every lab can do? Is that part of the issue about the availability of the labs? Or what is the issue that drives that? Can any lab do this? Help me understand what the limit or the resources are in terms of the labs themselves? >> Well, there's clearly is you have -- most states have [9:13:04 AM] a state lab which they handle a lot of their DNA testing. There are really only a handful of private labs that have received the accreditation that they can actually do the DNA testing. >> Kitchen: So it has to do with accreditation standards and have the agreement and have to meet the standards in order to do that. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Kitchen: Thank you very much. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you so much. I just have a quick question. Where are these private labs located? Are they not in the state of Texas? So we're sending them someplace else? And where is that someplace else? >> Yes, ma'am.There are currently labs in Florida and Arizona. The one that we just started sending our stuff to is in Arizona but that doesn't mean that's the only lab that's available. It's just the one that we're currently using at this time that said they can handle the number of our cases, et cetera. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else? Thank you very much. Next item that was pulled was item number 27. That's the transportationbond. I'm not going to talk about that now. Let's come back to that if there's time, let's run through this. Our schedule today, by the way, is we're going to break at 10:00. From 10:00 to 1:00 because we have councilmembers that need to go to the cap metro meeting. So we're going to lose a critical mass. And it's in part so that councilmember Renteria can be sworn in as a new board member. So we're going break from 10:00 to 1:00. We come back at 1:00 and then we'll be able to do executive session first and then come back out for the remaining pulled items and for the briefings. So we'll continue on. Let's go to item number 28. You pulled this, mayor pro tem. [9:15:09 AM] >> Tovo: I really just pulled it to provide a little bit of context and to answer any questions. So councilmember -- this council has passed, I believe, two resolutions related to the sobriety center. The last one created a working group that consists of councilmember kitchen, councilmember Casar, and I representing the city of Austin. Councilmembers Gomez and -- I'm sorry, commissioner Gomez and commissionerDaugherty representing Travis county. And it also includes some of the people who had participated in an earlier working group, study group efforts related to the sobriety center. And we're making greatprogress. I believe that the staff intend to bring forward some -- well, let me back up. The resolution that our council passed asked that working group to go forward and identify a location, a funding arrangement. And the structure that would govern the sobriety center. And I believe those pieces are, I hope, coming forward this month for council approval next week, if they're completed in time. But one of the things that we'll be proposing is the creation of a local government corporation, which will govern the sobriety center, and the way it is currently structured in the draft interlocal agreement, the city willnominate four individuals to that local government corporation, the county will nominate four to that, what I'm going to call the lgc from here on out. And then we'll have one joint appointment. So the measure before us on council on Thursday allows our staff to post an open call for those applications. We've received some great suggestions of individuals to serve on that lgc from people out in the community, from central health and the Dell medical school and various others who are really familiar with the workings of the sobriety, but we are intending or suggesting to council that we post an open call to ask anybody who might be interested in being considered for the lgc to [9:17:10 AM] apply. So that's that measure and I'm happy to answer questions about this piece of it. But really it's just to allow the city clerk -- to direct the city clerk to go ahead and collect those applications so that by thetime we're back in July the working group could get together and make some recommendations to the full council and council would be prepared to approve those nominees at its earliest meeting, one of its earliest meetings in August. >> Mayor Adler: I want to say thank you and to the other members of the council that have shown leadership and taken this issue as something you've been working on for a long time. Is this organizational structure one that is also the organizational structure that our staff recommends to be able to move forward? >> It is. And I would recognize assistant city manager rhea ray Arellano.And we had different meetings where we discussed arrangements that could be contemplated and I believe it was the staff's recommendation as well as the group that the local organization is a structure we're familiar with and other formats and would be the best model in this case. >> Good morning, mayor and council, ray Arellano, assistant city manager. And yes the local corporation is the city's recommendation inpartnership with the county in order to form the entity that would manage the sobriety center. We did look at several other options and we're currently schedule canned to come before council on Tuesday next week to provide a presentation that will talk through that process of coming to the local government corporation as the managing entity, the location, funding model and so forth. So we anticipate that makingthat presentation for you next Tuesday. >> Mayor Adler: Great. Thank you very much. Mr. Renteria? >> Renteria: Yes. And also on behalf of my wife who served on the board and other commissioners there, that I want to really thank you for taking that leadership role. They asked me to personally say thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this? >> Tovo: I'll just say thanks very much. It really is due in largepart to the community members who have been [9:19:11 AM] leading this effort for more than a decade. So I'm really glad that we're moving so close to realizing it. And it was the effort of lots of folks who really aren't here to be thanked, but we'll have that opportunity at some point. >> Mayor Adler: Great. Thank you. Anything else? Next item we have pulled -- thank you. The next item we have pulled is item number 41. We're going to come back and hit items number 5 and 29that were pulled late to be on here, but we'll talk about them. Item 41, restrictive covenants. >> Garza: I believe this is going to be on third reading. For my colleagues, this is going to be on third reading. And I have concerns about the affordability and had asked for it to be closer. Of course I wanted it closer to 25. >> Mayor Adler: Can you get a little closer to the microphone? >> Garza: I'm sorry. I of course would like the affordability factor closer -- as high as we can get. I asked for 10. I had gone down to five and it was my understanding we're still at three, three percent? >> Yes, ma'am. Rebecca giello, communitydevelopment. The developer is still at three percent, that's correct. >> Garza: So I supported this on first and second because I was hoping we could get to five, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. I have other concerns about this development. You know, we talk about sprawl and if we're just -- we hear a lot from the community on what this council is doing and why can't you stop development. In many cases we can't stop certain kinds of development, but there are [9:21:11 AM] some cases that we can. And I just don't feel like this -- I don't think this is a good pud. Currently the site -- I think at site plan there's some lots in a floodplain. I know that that can be fixed, but there are,because of the new FEMA maps, there are sites in the floodplain is my understanding. There's -- this is out in del valle, which is mostly substandard roads, does not have the infrastructure to support a pud of thismagnitude. And I don't think that -- I think we have transportation people here maybe. But I don't think that there is -- is there a plan to fix some of those substandard roads? >> I'm going to defer to Greg Guernsey? Guernsey. >> Okay. >> Councilmember, first let me say that this was a preliminary plan that was filed before coming into the city. So they have the right to move forward with the development of thesubdivisions and per the previous pud agreement. There are references to making certain improvements for roadways. The preliminary plans do allow for connections between some of those sections. And they would be built out over four separate phases. So as those roads come online, the city and the county would be jointly looking at the improvements. I don't have the specific improvements that are being made with the subdivision, but I can get back with you this Thursday or tomorrow because some of those prelims are already in. I'm not aware of the specific county improvements that are being made, but I can try to find out those before our meeting tomorrow. >> Garza: Do the streets -- I have a note here that says streets do not comply with our city standards. Is that true? >> Well, this is a limited purpose. So the roadways would be maintained by Travis county. [9:23:13 AM] And so the streets, as far as I know, they would be meeting our standards through our joint agreement of title 30 between the city and the county. I'm not aware of something being substandard at this time. >> Garza: You're Andy, right? >> Andy linzar, development services. This is one of our projects that is in our limited purpose jurisdiction where we have joint review with Travis county, we have joint development standards. The streets in the preliminary plans, which were executed 10 years ago, before we've kind of revised our policies, are in the preliminaries. We're working with Travis county on a case by case as they bring those in to use a modified street section that works for Travis county and for us that gets us closer to our goals of complete streets compliance and incorporates the bike lanes and facilities. Although it's in our zoning jurisdiction for limited purpose, it is Travis county streets and Travis county maintenance. So it's a challenge that we're working through with them to come up with a standard that works for both of us. >> Garza: And at some point we would likely annex this area. And if they're only meeting Travis county standards, that could mean that we're annexing an area that doesn't have city of Austin standards, is that right? >> Yes, ma'am, that's correct. These are -- they are city standards. I mean, they're jointly adopted by the city of Austin and Travis county. In title 30 it's a single office. We act as one entity when weapprove it. So they are technically city standards and county standards combined. Again, we're working with the the county to get closer to what we would do inside the full purpose jurisdiction where it's purely our control and our standards. It's not quite there, but [9:25:15 AM] it's -- we're getting very close. We work very hard with Travis county staff to -- and the developer to have something that's close to what we would do in the full purpose jurisdiction that meets their maintenanceconcerns. That's usually one of their concerns. >> Garza: I guess I'm confused. So you're saying that they do meet city-travis county standards, but they don't -- if you were in the full purpose they don't meet the standards if you were in the if full purpose. And I guess my point is they could eventually be in the full purpose and they won't have met those standards. >> Yes, ma'am. They could be -- when we annex them when the pud ooze or the muds expire, when the city chooses to annex them, they would not be to our full purpose jurisdiction standards today. >> Garza: Okay. And excuse me if it sounded like I was saying that us not approving this means it's not going to happen. It can happen, it's just my understanding of puds is that they're supposed to be superior agreements that add, you know, some kind of benefits.And it's hard for me to find those benefits in this pud. So yes, this can happen without this pud agreement, but I just think at some point we have to start making them really superior and requiring affordablehousing because, you know, we're -- I think we just continue to make the same mistakes unfortunately that have happened in the past. So I appreciate y'all being here as a resource and also working to try to get to that -- you know, to increase the affordable housing component. I likely will not be able to support this pud. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: What are our choices here? If we -- what are our choices? And what's the difference between the choices? What happens if we approve it or don't approve it? [9:27:16 AM] >> So you always have choices. You have the choice of approving it, approving it with some changes or denial. So those are your three choices. You can take a look at and ask the developer for possibly to do someadditional things, which I know that have been asked with the housing. And we could bring this back this back another day. >> Mayor Adler: I was looking for more a substantive issue. If we approve what they'veoffered to do, if they say this is all we're going to do, we can either approve that, we can ask for change, but what is the difference between the project if we approve what they have now indicated they're willing to do versus what they would do if we just say we're not going to approve? You haven't given us enough so we're not going to approve. What are the differences substantively. >> If council decides not to approve the pud, they can go ahead with the development because they had preliminary plans that were approved and they have a zoning that's on the property of an interim nature. We would lose some of theenvironmental benefits that have been negotiated through the pud. They are doing some better improvements under water quality, environmental regulations. And we would lose those if this pud is not approved.They're highlighted in the background because I think there were some council questions about what was the difference between the pud and the mud? And I think that's probably the primary difference that you would not have if the pud failed. >> Mayor Adler: What about with respect to affordable housing? >> There was an affordable housing piece that was part of the mud requirement. I'll go back in to look. It was not the same exactly as what was proposed. In the mud there was 10% of the occupied units would be at 80% mfi. [9:29:16 AM] At the initial offering of sale, they would provide 10% of the rental units for a period of 40 years and they would make a financial contribution to the affordable housing program equal to two percent of the hard construction costs and reimbursements received by the developer out of bond proceeds up to $1.8 million. >> And sir, I can speak to the affordable housing component being placed in front of you for Thursdaywould be 75 units instead of the initial offering being affordable, they would be affordable in perpetuity at a value of 4.5 million versus the initial 1.8 million. >> Mayor Adler: When you say value, what do you mean? >> The lots are valued around 60,000 per lot, and currently three percent would be around 75 lots. >> Mayor Adler: So the cost to the developer giving up the lots would be 4.8 million? >> That's correct.>> Mayor Adler: The cost to the developer of complying with the muddies how much? >> 1.8. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I think I asked this question at the hearing, at the last hearing, but who did those valuations? Were those done by our real estate staff, or are those Numbers that were provided by the developer based on their assessment of the value of those lots? >> They were provided by thedeveloper. >> Tovo: Has there been any attempt on the part of our staff to vet those Numbers with our real estate staff? >> You know, we can certainly do that prior to Thursday. I'm not aware that we've done that. >> Tovo: Okay. >> But we can certainly do that and I'll make a note of that. >> Tovo: And when they say 60,000, are they talking about the for-sale price or does that really represent their cost of having -- their cost of purchasing that land? I'm sorry, I'm not making myself [9:31:17 AM] clear, but are we talking about like their sale price or their purchase price, is 60,000? What is that based on at this point? >> It's my understanding with our conversation, it's the first sale, and it would be the price that the lot would be valued at, at conveyance to the Austin housing finance corporation. >> Tovo: Okay. If they would sell it on the open market, that's what they would intend to ask as an asking price, 60,000. That does not represent their cost, their real cost of having purchased that -- >> That is what I understand, but we will clarify that as well. >> Tovo: Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Not a problem. >> Mayor Adler: I think it would be really helpful to have our staff look at that independent of their Numbers. So hopefully what I would like to know in that is, what is the cost to the developer under themud, and what is the cost to the developer under the pud. >> Tovo: Just to kind of underscore what I think is a difference here, is that 1.8 was real, as I remember, you know, an actual amount of cash that would be transferred. Here, we're talking about a different measure. It didn't cost them 4.8 million to purchase those tracts. That's really just their sale price. So those are -- you know, it's a bit of -- I mean, we'recomparing those Numbers, but in my mind those are really apples and Oranges. >> Understood. >> Mayor Adler: I think it would be helpful to see both those so we can assess and compare them. That would be helpful. Yes, Mr. Casar. >> Casar: So, councilmember Garza, I understand and support trying to set a high bar on puds to try to get as much affordable housing as possible, but I also, on this one in particular, and on others, I struggle to feel like we can get to one standard because they're so different. You know, when you think about [9:33:18 AM] the taco pud, that was just on one small site, compared to our limited purpose jurisdiction under a mud, I just -- at some level, these are deals where values are exchanged and we get community benefits out of it, and I guess with ones like this, I struggle with figuring out if we can really be getting -- be setting an equal standard across puds when puds seem to be so varied in nature, and the additional value to thedevelopment from getting a pud can be so different from project to project, depending on -- on the deal. So I think that that is just -- it's hard for me to -- you know, I -- of course, I would like more than 3% affordability, but it's hard for me to know whether 3% on this particular deal is really good or really bad, compared to 3% or 10% on something else. And so I'll look more carefully and closely into it, but I justwant to lay that out for folks as to where I'm coming from on this as -- you know, it seems to me that puds are really varied and maybe there needs to -- maybe for council's own sake, we need some help understanding, you know, is this a pud type -- of type a or pud of type B or pud of type C, because they just seem very different, so it's hard for me to apply an equal standard across them to know whether we're getting enough incremental community benefit to make it worth it, because I also don't know - - I'm not quite clear yet on how much better the pud is for the developer than what it is they have under the existing mud. So I know that doesn't provide much by way of answers, but I hope provides some context for those watching as we start figuring out these very different kinds of puds, and my hope is that we can get themost out of this when we can. But I'm also not -- I'm also not closed-minded to the idea of [9:35:18 AM] just not doing it if we need to raise the standard. I understand. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. Where is this property located on our annexation plan? I mean, how soon are we looking to annex either the pud or the mud? >> It won't be for several years until the muddies -- actually their debt is down, so you might be looking at as many as 25 to 30 years before this would start coming into the city of Austin. >> Houston: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Gallo. >> Gallo: You know, I appreciate Greg's comments a little bit earlier because the puds are so very different, the applications.There are puds like this that are more suburban and there are puds that are more urban, and the ability to do things and what things are important, as far as the superiority, I think do vary from location andability and cost of the development. Would you -- would you do me a favor? Also, I think the questions about determining the developer's cost and the affordable housing is important, but what I heard also is that they are doing within the puds some enhanced environmental. Could we also add that? I think if that's an additional cost the developer is incurring with the pud that they would not with the mud? >> Councilmember, in the background material, there's a memo that does a comparison between the mud and the pud. I know that they -- they're offering about ten additional acres of parks and open space land, so we could try to get a dollar value of that, what that might be. >> Gallo: Okay. I think that would be helpful, you know, contractors down the -- across the board, down the list, if we're trying to determine thedifference in the developer's actual cost. >> A lot of these costs I think would be difficult for staff to estimate. They've agreed to increase their water quality capture volume 10% over what's required by currentcode. He they've agreed that they would use tree plantings of native tree stock, and so some [9:37:20 AM] of these, I'm not sure if staff could be able to quantify in one day the differences of those -- those costs, but at best, I think I can perhaps come back and give a general value of the open space land that's -- >> Gallo: Okay. I think that would be great. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: I think that would be helpful, and again, with that as well, take a look at what the actual cost is to the developer, as well as what the lost revenue is, so that we have both of those Numbers as we talked about it a second ago, with the mayor pro tem. And I think that that question will probably come up on all of these things. So probably anticipate that, to have our real estate -- in a situation like this, where we're trying to get involved into the economics of a deal, to have our staff take a look at it I think would be really, really helpful. Ms. Pool. >> Pool: So there are some standards, right, in a pud. You have your tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3. >> Uh-huh. >> Pool: And staff in the review of a pud determines whether tier 1 elements have been met, and then whether, in staff's estimation, there's some superiority in the tier 2. Can you just real quick run through how that works one more time for everybody? >> Well, a tier 1, these are mandatory requirements that they're obligated to follow, and then beyond that, there are tier 2, which are more of discretionary items. And so they have listed various things -- you'll find in the backup material things dealing for environmental, and as I said before they're using more native trees, additional water quality. They're also directing stormwater from impervious cover [9:39:20 AM] services in commercial and multifamily areas through landscaped areas. They're agreeing to do certain green building standards, public facilities. They are dedicating to school sites. Also providing future sites forems, and also reserving a site for future purchase of a ten-acre capital metro or transit center. So there are things that deal with public facilities, transportation, and Andy briefly talked about some of the thingsdealing with connectivity. These were found in the mud, but they're also part of the pud, so there are transportation elements that are involved. Also, we negotiated having public places that were both in the mud and the pud. One thing in particular, there's subdivisions would expire at a sooner rate than what was negotiated in the mud, so there's little change there. Also, commercial design standards were a main part ofthis, and in addition to the affordable housing. So all those different elements were brought in. In most of the suburban puds that we have, the environmental issues are ones that we try to go after because those are things that usually a developer is able to do easily in a green field. Affordable housing becomes a little more difficult when we're dealing with limited purpose because it's not full purpose jurisdiction, but we did negotiate those things and, as we said, we've been continuing to try to negotiate them. >> Pool: And then to councilmember Casar's point about the -- if the box is checked to indicate that staff's opinion is that something is considered superior, there really isn't any gradation of that. We don't have the ability to score how superior, like are you moving from a B project to a B [9:41:22 AM] plus? Are you moving from an F failing project to just passing, D minus, kind of thing. So I think to your point, I think that is key to understanding when you unpack the puds, just exactly what is really beingoffered. And then further to that point, we don't have a natural mechanism really that's also transparent or available for public viewing to track the building-out of the puds over time and making sure thateverything that was promised is actually delivered in the way that we understood it, or staff understood it at the time. So -- and we've talked about trying to establish a mechanism. Who knows what the internet will look like in ten years, but for those of us who may still be working online, we can go to a site with the city and find that information and be able to track it. So I think these things haven't really been -- that hasn't been developed to the level that I'm thinking about it, and that is the intricacy of the pud. Is there a part, for example, offered in sun chase, and what size would that be? >> Right. And puds do vary greatly. In this particular case, they're speaking to parkland 602 acres in the pud, there's 600 in the mud, but puds in general, it varies. >> Pool: And what size is the park that's offered in this -- in this case? >> It's 602, public park and open space, in this particular case. >> Pool: And the size of the pud is 1500? >> The size of the actual pud -- I want to say it's about -- it's over 1500. I've got that right in front of me. [9:43:25 AM] >> Pool: And while he's looking that up, there's a metric with our parks & rec department that they're looking to get -- the check box on tier 1 is a percentage of the total number of units, right, that goes into the parkland? >> And the area of the pud it 1,600 acres. And as I said, puds differ because some puds may ask for very little. Other puds may ask for a lot of changes to our code. Some are more environmental innature, so we've had instances of puds in southwest Austin that are only looking to modify some of the environmental standards. And so it takes a more environmental emphasis. Ones that we might have in amore urban setting where affordable housing is a concern, that might be the precedent and we might have other puds where there's no transportation at work, there's no infrastructure, so they might be bringing to the table of bringing in and expanding the infrastructure and extending it further, so that might be the emphasis, so -- >> Pool: Then just to the one point -- thank you, Mr. Guernsey, on the park there's also things that count toward pk and count toward open space and that kind of thing, so there's a lot of detail. So I wanted to ask one last question, and it goes to the infrastructure that Andy was talking -- Mr. Munsheisen was talking about. We had in district 7, bordering on Travis county, a new development in the city of Austin and it was going to put some roads connecting up with existing county roads, and we had the same issue that councilmember Garza is explaining in this case where the county roads are substandard. Is the difference -- then we were trying to manage the concern that with roads built to standard in a new development on [9:45:26 AM] the city's side, connecting up with narrower, substandard county roads, and there wouldn't be any ability for the city to enforce a widening of the county roads or making them -- requiring them to come up to city standards. Does that mean then when, in this case, we annex this site, if the roads are substandard, will the city be required to go in there and move the infrastructure up to city standards? >> In this instance, the county standards, the roads are bigger than what the city would propose. The county is very auto centric and the city is looking for more sidewalks and trees -- >> Pool: So how wide are the city roads connecting up with? It was the opposite in the case in the northern part of the county. >> Absolutely, in that case it was different. In this one, the infrastructure inside the pud itself, they will be building at their own expense through finance through the muds. That's one of the reasons -- they'll be public infrastructure. The surrounding pieces are wolf lane and Pearce lane where the county executed a phasing agreement as part of the preliminary plans years ago, and have identified what improvements will be made to those streets. The city has looked at that and determined it is wonderful proportional, and those are major contributions. They also emphasize the extension of sun chase parkway as a major, you know, transportation arterial that the developer would fund and construct. So the internal private -- not private, but internalsubdivision streets will be public streets built to county standards. In this instance, in title 30, they're a little wider than what we as the city would build. Again, they're more auto centric. We've worked with the county to come up with some alternative standards that we can use, that the developer is okay with, that try to get a little bit wider sidewalks, put a few trees in, [9:47:28 AM] but, you know, the main arterials, the main streets, the county is still more focused on, you know, auto capacity than what the city would be. And that's really where the differences are between those, but it wouldn't be a situation where, you know, 25 years from now, we annex it and we say, well, these streets just don't work, they're substandard. Our real challenge is they might be too big and we might come back and have concerns about speeding, that type of thing. That's what's happened when we've annexed some suburb puds and suburban area, that's what we did in the '80s and '90s, that was our standard. We've evolved we're urban. The county, of course, is suburban, their standards, and we're working through those issues with them. We don't have a complete answer. So I think if your concern is we're going to have a 15- foot county street that we're suddenly taking over, I would not be worried about that. They will build, you know, completely adequate and acceptable streets. They just wouldn't be what we would, as a city, want to do inside our full purpose. >> Pool: Just one last question on this. You described the county's roads as wider, but wouldn't they have been building under the standards of -- they're essentially farms and ranches in this part of the county. Wouldn't they have had to build them so that the tractors and the larger vehicles that are typically used on a farm or a ranch would be able to pass? >> If they were buildinginfrastructure as in, you know, arterial level streets, the standards are not that different. You know, in this case, the internal streets would be built to single-family standards -- >> Pool: I wasn't talking about the internal ones, I was just only talking about the county streets. If they were built wider, would that have been under some standard that the county would have had that the kinds of vehicles that drive on thoseroads would be wider -- wider breadth? >> I'm not sure why their standards would be that way, but [9:49:28 AM] that certainly could be a reasonable explanation. >> Pool: Okay. >> They're more focused on auto through-put in a complete section than what the city is. One of our goals is to have complete street sections andenhanced mobility for all modes. The county is more auto centric because you're driving further in the county, so Pearce lane, wolf lane, those streets, when they get improved, it would be to a section that is to the county, and it would be totally acceptable, it just might be a little wider than what the city would propose. >> Pool: And do you all have a work group with the county to have these kinds of conversations when we come up with the roads -- the existing infrastructure with the county? >> It's a very small work group of typically myself, Anna Bowlin and representatives from H-E-B. But we're having ongoingconversations about can we develop a standard that we could call alternate urban for the county that we can't actually incorporate into title 30, so when we have these cases, so that Travis county could go to the commissioners court and say we're using these alternate urban standards. It's at the edges of the city-county boundary. It's an ongoing discussion but definitely something we want toot. >> Pool: Thank you. >> Tovo: I just have a 30-second request. With past puds where there might have been differences of opinion about whether it was interior, sometimessist staff had prepared a chart showing what would be required.What elements would have been required under conventional zoning and what are being offered under planned unit development zoning? Winder -- I was just looking through my materials. I don't see one of those in our previous backup, but I was just going to ask you if one existed and, if not, if that is -- I know that takes some time. I'm not sure if there's enough time to do it before Thursday. >> We could probably do a pretty quick comparison because they did develop -- >> Tovo: Okay. >> -- Under their conventional zoning probably interim sf45 and [9:51:29 AM] probably interim sf2. We could give you those standards and you just have a better understanding of what they could move forward under. >> Tovo: I would say that might be really useful if it provides us any information about things like the parkland dedication requirements and things of that sort. I hate to ask you to do something that's not going to answer some of the questions that you've heard today, but if it does seem like that would be a helpful measure for determining which of these elements would have been required in any case and are not and should not be factored into our decision about whether or not this really achieves superiority. >> Right. I think most of those things probably would not be required. >> Tovo: Okay. >> Safe -- save and acceptist parkland under the title 30 agreement. >> Tovo: And if you're providing that information through some other means, I'm satisfied with that. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Also, when we're back on Thursday, if you could address the question, we're going from a higher percentage of one-time affordability sales to a permanent affordability issue, my understanding is that's a recommendation of the house folks to move that way on Thursday when we have the public hearing on that, if you would come prepared just so explain why that's better, and the direction you think we should go. Next item we have, councilmember pool, you pulled item number 58. >> Pool: Yeah. I just wanted toadvise everybody, item 58 on Thursday, I'll be asking for a postponement on this item. This is elysium particle park. They've asked for a request and I'd like to honor that request. On Thursday I will ask that thiscase be heard for first reading on August 4, then for second and third readings on August 11. The development is connected to [9:53:29 AM] state tax credits for affordable housing. It's on a tight timeline and we need to meet state requirements for zoning. I think this schedule recognizes the tight timeline and also honors the postponement requestand the state deadlines for the project. So in order to ensure that we're able to consider this case within this tight time frame, I would ask our legal department to prepare the ordinance language for the August 4th meeting. And I will say that again on Thursday. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Zimmerman. >> Zimmerman: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Before we move off item 41, I'm going to ask a quick question,tomorrow, regarding -- it'll be a question for Ms. Spencer. Based on this memo here of may 11th, 2016, on the second page at the bottom, where it says nhcd bases its recommendation for the sun chase pud, the point being that I want to ask a couple of questions about how we've gotten into the business of recommending projects. We were visited by Mr. Richard suttle, very good, educated, professional lobbyist, andobviously he was recommending the pud, but to have our city staff recommending the pud and have the lobbyist recommend the pud, I need to ask a couple of questions about how this affects our ethics reform and and a lobbyist report, if I've had a paid lobbyist and city paid staff recommending, I need to understand that better and make this important point to our council as to our policy for how it is that city staff are making recommendations in agreement with a paid lobbyist. I think they need to be treated the same. If you're recommending a case and you're being paid for it, you need to be registered as a lobby, whether you work for the city or not. I just want to make that point tomorrow. >> Mayor Adler: It's good, tomorrow when you make that point, what I would probably say is I would like our professional staff to give us their recommendation on everything that we consider because they [9:55:31 AM] are professionals and I'd want to know. >> Zimmerman: Okay. Thank you. In which case if it's a case like this where we have a paid lobbyist also telling me that I should recommend it and telling me I should pass it, I'd like to see them both registered add lobbyists and report where their money is coming from. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: All right. >> Casar: Mayor, on the item -- >> Mayor Adler: Yes. Number 58?>> Casar: -- That we're on, I will support that postponement in order to keep with tradition. I think that if we ever wind up in a situation where that tradition could potentially harm, for example, a good project like this one from getting tax credits, then I would be less inclined to do so, but it sounds like we can keep with that tradition and successfully pass the zoning. I would just note that if, for whatever reason, we cannot get this done on second and third reading on the 11th, there is still one more council meeting in August the next week, so if, you know, we get -- all 11 of us have to go get a trophy or whatever, or if -- I don't know, you know, or a big check probably, or if there's a thunderstorm and we can't meet on the 11th or what have you, then I would just say I'm supportive, I would support postponement with the agreement from the group that we can -- that we can take it up on the 18th, which is our last council meeting in August, which would get there to the deadline, but the 18th we will be handling budget issues.But this is so important that I just would want to make sure that in that contingency, we still have those three meetings. And we can talk about that then, but I just -- I see that -- some heads nodding, so I feel okay about it, but we should just check. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Tovo: What is our deadline? >> Casar: End of August. >> Tovo: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: All right. Let's use the last four minutes we have. We have three issues that have been pulled, we have education facilities issue, we have the [9:57:31 AM] waiting period issue, and the -- the policy options for the minimum requirements for developers, which is item number 29. Which one can we handle in three minutes? Any of those? Ms. Pool? >> Pool: I just want to put out there on item 73, which is the -- it's the plan development and charter schools, I just want to request a 7:00 P.M. Time certain on that. I think that may have already been done. >> Tovo: Can I just ask my colleague, why -- why so late? It may have said 6:00. Do we have other time certains, I guess that's another question. >> Pool: I think it's just a matter that they don't all stack up so people know that rather than saying 4 o'clock, for example. >> Tovo: I just had heard through the grapevine it was going to be 6:00. That's all I'm asking. 7:00 it fine. It's more realistic. >> Pool: We can double- check on that.>> Mayor Adler: I don't know that we've set anything for time certain. >> Pool: The one-hour difference is not huge. We can work that out and talk about it this afternoon. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Why don't you go ahead and talk. And post a question on the bulletin board and we can all look at that in the community. >> Pool: What I'd like to do in our work session today is just have an understanding of Thursday so whatever items we want to set -- >> Mayor Adler: That's a good idea. >> Pool: Whatever items we're going to set at time certain, I don't have a preference, but because we have a lot of things on Thursday's agenda, I would just like to understand when we're going to try to do certain things. >> Mayor Adler: When we come back after the conversation, we'll have a conversation about the scheduling. >> Zimmerman: I would support that same 7:00 time certain. >> Mayor Adler: I'll try to put it into context. I'll pull out all the things that I think are going to be large folks testifying so we can talk about them -- [9:59:31 AM] >> Houston: And I think I asked for a 6 o'clock time certain for the item 72. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Do we want to talk about any other -- >> Gallo: I was just going to say as part of the conversation this afternoon could we also get an indication of whether there's other items that are going to be pulled tomorrow? >> Mayor Adler: In the consent agenda? For our conversation about scheduling, if people could takea look at the agenda tomorrow and see if there are things they're going to pull off consent, that would help us inform -- >> Gallo: Because I think if any of those then needed to be set for time certain, then we could have that discussion. >> Mayor Adler: Let's have that. So if everybody would take a look at the agenda for tomorrow. That gets us to 10 o'clock. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Can I just make one comment?Unfortunately I'm unable to come back for this afternoon's work session so I will try to get my items, if there are any that I think I may pull, to the mayor in advance of the afternoon, and I had simply pulled 5 just to point out that we did pass a resolution related to this item last -- last week's council meeting, and so this is the follow-up ordinance, and it's the one that I think one attorney in town affectionately referred to as the penalty box ordinance, the one that would speak to applications for waivers for alcohol -- alcohol waivers -- distance -- waiving the distance requirements for alcohol use. This would impose a waitingperiod for those to come back to council. >> Mayor Adler: Sounds good. Thank you. Mr. Zimmerman. >> Zimmerman: Item -- item 25, we would like to see that maybe around 2:00 P.M. Time certain. Item 25 is on a code compliance resolution, code enforcement resolution. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So when we come back this afternoon, we'll go through the whole agenda and see what things we're going to give times to,and we'll set that up. We'll also have everybody talk about things they're going to pull off consent so that we have at this point what we think is fair notice of that. >> Houston: And I know you said this earlier, I just don't [10:01:33 AM] remember, are we going to try to talk about the bond today? >> Mayor Adler: I have our ability to be able to do that. The things that we have not yet discussed, we just talked about item number 5, so item number 27 and 29 are the two items that we haven't discussed. 73, if people want to discuss that substantively, I don't know if they do or not, but recall that this afternoon we also have two briefings, one on foodaccess and one on home ownership recommendations, and also the budget development process and the homestead exemption, I think staff is talking to us about those. And we have an executive session, which is where we're going to start at 1 o'clock today, with the regulation of lobbyists and the bond election legal deal. So we're going to start at 1 o'clock in executive session. I'll probably come here and convene the meeting, and then recess it to go back, and then after that, we'll come back and handle the briefings and the last items. Okay? >> Garza: Do you need us here at 1:00 for a quorum or no? >> Mayor Adler: I don't have anything else I can convene the meeting and recess it. >> [Off mic] >> Mayor Adler: Let's do that. That makes it easy. I'm going to recess the meeting right now and call us at 1 o'clock back in the executive session room. And at that time -- do I have to call -- okay. I can call it back to order by myself. I'll join you back there at 1:02. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: I was just going to ask, does Kay have lunch for us at 1:00? >> Mayor Adler: I'm sorry? >> Houston: Does Kay have lunch for us at 1:00 or now? >> Mayor Adler: I think that -- >> Houston: I was wondering, just when we come back at 1:00 did see. >> Mayor Adler: If you come back [10:03:33 AM] at 1:00, we'll make sure the lunch is there. If you want to get back earlier than 1:00, you can either -- is that okay? Can you talk to her about that? All right. We stand in recess. [Recess.] [12:07:22 PM] >>> >> >>> >> [12:31:17 PM] >>> >> >>> >> Test test test this is a test of the city council captioning system. >>> >>> >> [1:05:00 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Are you ready? So the city council is going to go into closed session to take up two items, the city council will discuss legal issues related to the following items, E 2 regulation of lobbyists, E 3general obligation bond election. E 1 has been withdrawn. By the way, today is June 15th of 2016 and we are just -- just a few minutes after 1:00. We are in the board and commission room, Austin city hall. So we are going -- we are going into executive session to discuss items E 2 and E 3. Hearing no objection, we will now go into executive session. [3:06:51 PM] >> Mayor adler:all right. We are out of closed session. In closed session we took up legal matters e2 and e3 and we're going to go ahead and start with the briefings. The first briefing is about improving access do food, and then a briefing on homestead exemption. >> Pool: Let's talk about food. >> Mayor Adler: Homeownership and then the homestead exemption. There were four things that were set. With respect to the homestead exemption, what we're look for is staff to be able to talk to us about the parameters, when it has to be put on. That's not a question independent of staff. If staff is not ready to do that discussion with us, we need to figure something out. Okay? >> Okay. Good afternoon. I'm Lucia, chief sustainability officer for the city, joined by Edwin Marty also with the office of sustainability. Edwin has been working withthe office about two years now developing stakeholder, data analysis and policy around local, healthy, sustainable food. The first year that he was with the office there was a lot of focus on developing those community relationships and also on data collection and analysis, and you might recall the state of the food system report that he put together at the end of his first year here. During this second year, the focus has been, I would say, more on kind of drilling down into working with particular communities with food issues [3:08:51 PM] and also now on recommendations for action that we can take going forward, which is the focus of the presentation today. >> What is that background noise? Is someone talking or -- I'm sorry, it's distracting.>> So what we're here to do today is share information with you that's a response to a council-adopted resolution that was adopted back in March. Particular the resolution asked us to come back with this information at a work session, which is what we're doing today, obviously. The major components of the resolution that provided direction to staff were, first of all, to convene a working group, to work with the future office of equity, which we're prepared to do at the appropriate time, of course. To develop recommendations, to improve access to food, and in particular to provide some information on the supplemental nutrition assistance program also known as snap, to provide an update on enrollments efforts and reducing enrollments gaps and report fiscal impact or budget planning. I do want to say quickly, it will become obvious as we go through the recommendations but this information is coming from not just the office of sustainability but in addition to external stakeholders, quite a few other key departments we work with very closely, in particular health and human services and the parks department with their community garden program. So I'm going to go ahead and just quickly give you a sense of where we're going with theagenda. We're going to talk about the process that staff has undertaken. We're going to talk about what we know about food access in Austin and barriers to food access, go through the high-level recommendations with you, and then if we have time the enrollment barriers do snap and then a little bit on next steps. So I'm going to turn the bulk of the presentation over to Edwin Marty. [3:10:52 PM] >> Thanks so much. Edwin Marty, food policy manager, office of sustainability. I'm going to walk you through a little background on the resolution response and then jump into barriers for primary issues that we identified ending with a summary of recommendations. Since March 3 when y'all passed the resolution asking us to look at possible options for improving food access we've met with 47 different individuals representing 3333 different organizations, included six different city of Austin departments. We felt like we've been very inclusive and intentional in reaching out to as many organizations as we possibly can.Organizations that are embedded in various parts of the city that represent broad spectrum of the community and in addition to the specific outreach around this recommendation, we've also been working over the last year on a process called food planning in north central Austin. We've met with about 880 people throughout north central Austin specifically around their perspective on the food system, food accessissues, had numerous focus groups, numerous individual interviews, participated in activities, met with business owners, et cetera. In addition to that food planning process, we've also participated in Austin areaschool garden collaborative where we've talked with numerous schools with school gardens and their related school cafeteria activities. So pretty extensive outreach do develop this set of recommendations that you'll hear in just a minute. So through that outreach process we developed, through community interactions, a list of about 100 different ideas on how we could possibly improve food access and address the snap, what we call the snap gap or the difference in those that are eligible and those that are actually enrolled in snap. [3:12:52 PM] >> Don't worry, we're not going to present a hundred ideas today. >> I'll just talk very quickly. So we developed these 100 ideas, put them into a spreadsheet and developed a criteria for evaluation so that we could use some kind of agreed upon transparent process to come up with what we thought of as the best ideas. In addition to alignment with existing city plans, such as [indiscernible] Generic we looked at community engagement and empowerment, legal, political, financial feasibility and potential return on investment. So out of those hundred ideas we sorted those into our top six ideas, which we'll spend some time talking about. >> One thing I wanted to quickly add, some of the ideas are coming out of research that staff has been doing on best practices in other cities doing work in this area as well. >> Before we go further, just want to summarize. I'm sure you all know and have heard food is insecurity in many different contexts but I want to touch on the fact food insecurity is a phrase that gets defined a lot of different ways. Just for our purposes today we're looking at a very simplistic idea of food insecurity, which is somebody in your community hasn't known where their next meal would come from at pointsome point in the last year they haven't known for sure if they would have enough money to pay their bills and buy the food they and their family need. Essentially this is the main take- away of food insecurity. We know in Austin a lot of people make difficult decisions every day about paying rent, paying for transportation, paying for bills and having something left overbroad to buy food and unfortunately food often falls far on the continuum of those needs and so what we'll spend the rest of this time talking about is that basic idea of the difficult decisions so many people in our community have to make. So what does that mean in terms of the economic impacts? So broadly in the united [3:14:54 PM] States, food insecurity is a tremendous burden on our economy. It costs our health care system $160 billion annually. And then in addition to that, there's roughly $18.8 billion impact on our educationaloutcomes as a result of food insecurity. If you've ever been in a classroom with a child who is hungry you can be certain that child is not performing at their absolute minimum. These are Numbers to keep inmind. We've drilled down into food insecurity rates. We know in the United States the usda, U.S. Department of agriculture tracks food insecurity at about 14%. The way they track this number is house hold annual pesach. They call a statistically relevant percentage of people in the United States and ask them a battery of questions. If those questions come back positive as in you haven't known where your next meal was going to come from then you're considered food insecure. 14% in the United States, 17% in Texas, roughly 18% in Austin. So Austin does have a higher food insecurity rate than the rest of the state andsignificantly higher than the rest of the United States according to the usda. While a bleak picture, the research we've done specifically in the last year here in Austin shows that we think the food insecurity rate is significantly higher than what the usda tags at rate at. The central Texas sustainability carrots project is D indicators project is a process of reaching out to communities on a wide variety of issues. We partnered with this project to drill down deeper into food insecurity rates in Austin, working with the university of Texas, lbj public affairs school and we got back data that said at least 25% of our community is food insecurity if not substantially more than that. When we're talking about food insecurity we're talking roughly about 228,000 people in our community. [3:16:54 PM] That does correlate to poverty. We do have a roughly 19% poverty rate in our city so it would make sense that our food insecurity rate would be higher than our poverty rate or at least parallel to our poverty rate.So what we've done, extensive mapping over the last year around food systems and food access in Austin to summarize very quickly we felt like this map in front of you, which is the food assistance calls made to 211 managed by the united Way. The data here represents people in your community picking up the phone to call 211 because they weren't sure where their next meal would come from, weren't sure they they would feed their family. This is not a guesstimate. This is direct data pulled from 211. It is by zip code. In addition to showing a pretty significantly we think accurate picture of food insecurity it also correlateswith other interesting things. It's a pretty good representation of the eastern crescent, correlating directly with poverty in our community. It also in our opinion correlates very well with the spirit of east Austin and the overlay that many in our community, specifically here in the city, are looking at in terms of areas of our community that need the most attention. We think the food insecurity rates correlate pretty wellwith that when reflected through 211 calls. We know food insecurity impacts children, seniors, people without cars. It's important to ren and we -- when we talk about food insecurity we're really talking about people that have challenges getting their daily needs met. While the situation is somewhat bleak currently we know the population is expanding quickly where our current situation is bleakest. So we're very concerned that the situation is dire now, but as we see our population growth, it could get worse. So we've summarized the major challenges for food access in four basic buckets, [3:18:55 PM] availability, affordability, awareness and mobility options. We're going to spend time driving into each one of those barriers and following each one up with a recommendation. Availability is simply adequate supply of fresh, nutritious food. We know that as a result of that challenge that there's some great things we can do. What we heard in our community, outreach effort, is that we can do a better job of supporting a continuum of retail options to ensure that everybody in Austin can access good, fresh, affordable, cultural appropriate food. What we're excited about doing is drilling down, exploring this idea of a healthy foodfinancing program, it's a federal program. Many states adopt this and there's opportunities for cities to get involved and support the development of a pilot healthy food financing program. What we're recommending is three-phase strategy, first develop a grand funded project to support community-based organizations working on farm stands, healthy corner stores, mobile markets or even grocery stores, perhaps a co-op could be lumped into this funding made available to community based groups. In addition we think there's an opportunity to streamline the permitting process for existing food retail interested in expanding healthy food retail and potential new food retail in targeted zip codes. Lastly we want to leverage state and federal resources to develop a healthy food financing program specifically here in the state of Texas there was a bill last year to develop a healthy food financing program program. We'd like to see as much support around next year's administrative program to get a healthy food financing program state developed. We also want to see increased opportunities for growing food locally. We'd like to see the city of Austin step up our current support of the community garden program by streamlining that process, increasing the funding and resources for community gardens. [3:20:56 PM] We know there's numerous community gardens throughout Austin. Unfortunately they're not always represented in an equitable fashion. In addition to the geographical distribution we know it's burdensome currently for low-income communities to have the time and resources to develop community gardens so we think the city of Austin can do an even better job of supporting all communities so that then access the things meed to start community gardens, wherever communities want to see those happen. And lastly we'd like to see utilization of city-owned property for commercial or urban agriculture. We've been working on this for a number of years. We think there's incredible opportunities to allocate city-owned land for commercial urban ago lure. Next barrier is affordability. You all have seen this slide before. Very quickly reiterate rate this statistic for single family of three -- single parent family of three for roughly income of $29,823 is we think representative of many, many, many families, specifically in the eastern crescent where 48% of their income is spent on housing, 26% spent on transportation, which leaves roughly 26% left over for everything else, which would include your bills, medical expenses, child care, and food. So roughly this shakes out to about $150 a week to pay for all of those things. We are very interested in exploring the challenges that this family might face, especially in -- this is the most critical part for us, this family is not eligible for any food assistance benefits. A family of three would need to make $26,000 to be eligible for any snap benefits and so a family that makes $29,000 would not be eligible for any benefits. So this slide summarizes some of those challenges for a low-income family in Austin. We think that the most relevant thing the city can work on in terms of this is that food is expensive, [3:22:58 PM] especially healthy food, less nutritious options are often the less expensive scenario. So we would like to see the city of Austin explore nutritious food incentive programs in targeted zip codes. This would build on asuccessful double dollar incentive programs currently in place for farmers markets and farm stands. We would basically take a similar program and expand it into brick and mortar retail. This is being done nationally, just starting to really catch on. There's interesting pilot programs in places like Wisconsin, and Michigan. We would lining to support -- we would like the support to develop this as a pilot, try to see how to provide incentives for low- income community members being able to narrates their purchasing power to get the kind of food that they and their family needs. Next barrier would be awareness. We know that access to retail locations and affordability are critical. But we also know many families aren't aware of the kind of foods that they need to be eating, how to get those foods and then what kind of foodassistance programs are available, who is eligible for assistance. These are really critical questions that we heard over and over and over again in our outreach and stakeholder outreach process. There are great organizations working on a lot of these things but as our data shows this problem is bigger than we've previously understood. What we're proposing is a coordinated educational campaign where we can bring all of the different great organizations such as central Texas food bank meals on wheels and more, organizations that are already doing great work around these issues, bring those organizations together with other small organizations throughout our community and create one central message that we can then target across the areas that we know need that messaging the most. Lastly, as part of this, we think that the city of Austin can support the hiring of community health care workers to disability that information and be the front line, basically the metaphor to provide -- messenger to [3:24:58 PM] provide the message to communities. We think it's incredibly important that these community health workers come from communities that reflect the values of those communities and that are empowered toprovide specific information to their communities about how we can do a better job of navigating the health care system and food access issues. Last barrier I want to touch on is mobility options. Specifically this is relevant for those community members that do not have cars living far from food retail, being challenged by the use of public transportation to access good, healthy food options, frequency of publictransportation overlaid on top of that makes a challenging environment. The lack of sidewalks, however, lack of bike lanes are critical issues that make it very challenging for our -- many in our community to havethe food insecurity that they need. We think that increasing the sense of security and safety as pedestrians walk to food retail is also a critical issue to address. So what we're proposing essentially is that we thinkthat food access issues need to be incorporated into every level of planning through the city of Austin sidewalk master plan, corridor improvement plans, codenext, community health improvement planning et cetera. We think that there are already great things being done around these master planning efforts, the sidewalk master plan does incorporate grocery stores as a criteria for their matrix for prioritizing where sidewalks can go. For instance, we would like to see an even deeper dive into food retail. We know grocery stores represent one kind of food retail. There are many different kinds of food retail. If the deeper understanding of the complex environment of food retails can be incorporated into food access planning we think that we'll have a chance of improving people's experience in terms [3:26:58 PM] of food access. We also think that we need to leverage our current investments in sidewalks and food retail, basically making sure that wherever there is food retail, sidewalks connect to that food retail, especially around multi-family housing, low- income multi-family housing. Then conversely, wherever there is multi-family housing we need to make sure that our investments in food retail match up those communities. We also think that increasing the security around pedestrian access to food retail is critical, and there's a couple of ways we can look at this. Street lighting is one way, but community policing might be another way.Lastly, and this is a really incredibly important piece in terms of the overall perspective we have moving forward as a city, promote willing affordable dense housing along corridors to make existing bus routes costeffective and useful. It's virtually impossible for our public transportation system to serve a sprawled city and ensure that our low-income populations are able to access food retail. So I'll summarize. >> Just real quick I wanted to say, to drill down more specifically into the snap recommendations, I think about the next four slides deal with that. I know we're very pressed for time today with a number of items you're trying to cover so do you want us to go through those four slides with the detail on snap or we can jump to the end which is the overall recommendations? >> Speaker1: Overall recommendations. >> Ongoing.And we are going ton following up with a written report so you'll have all of that information as well. >> So summary of our recommendations, create a healthy food financing program, expand community garden, urban pilot programs, build awareness around nutritious food, improve transportation infrastructure and safety around food retail and in terms of snap we think we need more research to understand a very complex environment in terms of why there is such a large gap between those that are exponential those that are [3:28:59 PM] enrolled, how to correlate the equally large gap between those that are eligible for things like free and reduced lunches and ensure that our marketing around targeted populations are strategic. So essentially a battery of programs that provide services to our low-income communities that will be comprehensive, reflect our community values and can be rolled out over time. So take a moment for questions. >> Pool: Real quick, I read or heard something, maybe on NPR last week, there was a piece on nutrition and malnutrition and the point they were making was obesity is actually an outcome of bad nutrition. And -- in children.Because they're eating the wrong things so they are actually not getting the nutrition they shun, they're putting on weight. They look like they're well-fed, right, but it's the wrong kind of nutrition. So malnutrition is almost as much of an epidemic currently ais obesity in children. >> You'll certainly notice all of our recommendations are focused on healthy food. We certainly recognize that there are -- hunger does exist in our communities and just as much children eating too much of one food, not enough of another is certainly a problem. We do know, though, at the end of the day this is really a question of affordability, that all parents want their children to eat good food and if they have access to the resources to ensure that their children can eat good food, they will almost always make those choices. There are some things that we can do to supportive those choices. But overall affordability is a critical piece. >> Pool: Then the last question I had, last budget cycle we had the healthy corner stores initiative. Do you have any feedback or report on how that's going? >> Well, the -- unfortunately the rfp process was a fairly ladies and gentlemen process [3:30:59 PM] but we can report back that the $400,000 allocated for improving food access has led to multiple contracts all being signed. So the programs are all started. To healthy corner store program is up and running. Go Austin bamas Austin is developing broader support for healthy corner stores in south and southeast Austin and expanding currently. It hasn't been going for more than a couple months we don't have data but we are very interested in the healthy food financing program providing ongoing support for that program and expansion that have program. We would love to see healthy corner stores expanded all over Austin but specifically the eastern crescent, but we need to move in a fairly slow and method Cal protests to make sure it's done correctly. >> Pool: Right. And they have capacity. >> Correct 37 we have heardoverwhelmingly from food retail locations they are interested in providing healthy food for their clients from corner stores to HEB. There's zero question there's absolute interest from a retail point of view. What I think we have an opportunity do with these recommendations is meet those food retail locations where they are and provide support to make sure everybody can get to those retail locations and afford the quality food they and their family need. >> Pool: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Yes. >> Garza: Thank you for everyone that took part in the stakeholder process. So there's food insecurity and there's food deserts and I know the two can overlap but you can be food insecurity and not be in a food desert, correct? >> Correct. >> Garza: One of the priorities for me in sponsoring this was because that map shows the majority of the food desert areas, those are the calls but if you look at food desert maps the majority are in my district as [3:33:00 PM] well. I'm particularly interested in recommendation number 1. So in the memo that you're going to produce, is there going to be more detail on -- this gives a -- it's great work and gives a lot of information like on existing and community gardens but one of the biggest concerns is how do we get a grocery store out here, more of an economic development, more of a discussion with grocery stores to see what the city can do to incentive it. I see one of them streamlining the permitting process, I think that's a great idea to incentivize that but is the memo going to give more detail specifically on how to bring those resources out to the community, grocery stores, basically? >> Tremendous amount of research on courting grocery stores. >> Garza: Okay. >> The research does not always support cities incentivizing grocery stores. There's some research that does say that it can work but it's a very, very difficult line to walk. >> Garza: Yeah. >> The healthy food financing program, if implemented, provides a battery of options. It's not going to provide a single solution to solving what -- food insecurity but it provides a range of different options. We would love to see that range of options applied in targeted areas such as in your designate where we do know that food insecurity is highest. We want to be very conscious that food insecurity is very significant in plateses like north central Austin where there are numerous grocery stores and simply putting grocery stores in a location does not necessarily address that deeper affordability awareness issue. So our recommendations are based on best practice that we can find from around the country where there needs to be a continuum of options for food retail and it needs to be in conjunction with other strategies to ensure that people can afford that food and people can get to that food. So while there is not a silver bullet to get a grocery store in district 2 there's certainly a financing piece that could support that. The streamlining of the [3:35:01 PM] permitting piece is potentially the easiest piece that have puzzle in terms of what the city is directly in control of. What we would like to see is an expedited permitting process, either a direct person responsible for that or a range of staffing positions that can streamline that process. What we hear from food retailers over and over again, I'd love to expand, have more stores, do more things but the permitting process is so problem mat spick so challenging that I don't have the time and energy to do it and even when do I it's such a cost that I have to pass that directly on to the consumer. So from a food access point of view, the things that the city is in control of, permitting process is an -- expediting, streamlining that process is in any opinion the lowest-hanging fruit. >> Garza: That was my next question. In that memo can you provide a list of this is low-hanging fruit, this is further down the road. I think you did say it was a step approach. Anyway, I along forward to the memo. Thank you for your work. >> The next steps, just to -- I'm sorry, was there another question? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> [Off mic]. >> Houston: Thank you so much for all of the work you've done. You all do a great job. [ Laughter ] Thank you so much. You do a great job in giving us accurate data and if it's not worth it you tell us it's not worth it and I really appreciate all the work. You've documented what most of us in those districts know already, but we now have information that's based upon data to be able to substantiate that. One of the things that I think is important is that if we grow up our children understanding about healthy and nutritious foods, how to grow and compose, so starting in schools I think an excellent way to have families change their behaviors because [3:37:02 PM] it the kids come home and talk about well, I can't eat, you know, fritos today, I need to have a vegetable, parents start listening and the kids teach the parents. So I'm really grateful for all that you've done. One of the things about -- food and food -- food and food access, there's cultural specific foods. As immigrants move to this country, at school they offer what's nutritious but it's not culturally specific for them so they're interested in something that tastes like the kinds of food most of the time it's much healthier than the food we're eating because it's vegetables and it's just the way you prepare it. How did we begin to kind of address some of those different cultural palettes we have in our community so we're not just talking about americanized food. >> I think your -- Austin is an incredibly diverse community and is becoming more diverse in some ways, help we look in places like north central Austin where the refugee and immigrant community is quickly expanding. We're painfully aware we need to be conscious of the 33 languages represented in north central Austin and 33 languages that correlate to 33 different kinds of diet. So I am consistently impressed with Austin independent school district's effort to expand what they currently provide. They're doing some really fascinating and really good work to expand the kind of foods that are provided at every single elementary, middle, high school. And we want to support them in our -- and are working in a couple different ways. Specifically in terms of this recommendation the community health worker model as the messenger for both strategies we've developed to communicate nourishes food options where benefits are available but also directing with communities we've seen as probably the best possibly [3:39:02 PM] strategy to address that specific issue. We would recommend hiring community health workers from inside a community, providing them with whatever training is available. And those could be city of Austin employees that were hired from communities or that could be contracts to nonprofits or other organizations but the key there would be we are hiring from within communities and that those people already havethe trust and those relationships built. The information we can gather and we can -- we can work with organizations already doing a great job of providing some of that navigation, but the key that we've seen is that trust from within the community and making sure that we are consciously bridging some of those gaps. So community health workers are currently being hired by the city. Currently being employed bynumerous other organizations around the city, and we would like do see that expanded exponentially. >> Houston: Thank you so much. That's great. >> Mayor Adler: Any further comments on this? >> Garza:. >> Casar: I'd like to share my thanks for the work you all have done. I wasn't here for all of the presentation but, I mean, there were focus groups done with folks that are homestead in our communities, focusgroups done with people in the refugee community. The amount of work you did and the folks work with has been impressive. I look forward to the recommendations as you bring them forward. I think that community health workers are an important part of it and also finding trusted places where people can come together to do this sort of education and recreation and enrollment and figuring out how we leverage our schools, rec centers, neighborhood center places for community members to come together I think is something of a lot of importance to me and hopefully can provide some help in areas that have some grocery stores and more food options like district 4 and places that [3:41:03 PM] have fewer like district 2. Because I think that our challenges are very similar, even if the situations are diverse and different. And so I really look forward to supporting the work and recommendations y'all bringforward, but I think the snap gap issues and then also how we bring people to a trusted place with trusted people to get the kind of information and resources they need is also something I'm really committed to and I trust that you'll find a council that's really supportive of that here. >> Thank you. >> Really quickly to wrap up, our next steps are to bring back some budget estimates. We already have some preliminary budget Numbers, but we're trying to refine those Numbers further to present as a part of our written report. There will also be fact sheets in the report that provides additional detail about some of the strategies that are a little less familiar, like the financing program. And also we're really focusing on trying to look at partners, both foundations, nonprofits who might be able to partner with us and provide some matching funding for some of these implementations and recommendations so that will be a part of the report as well. The resolution asked for the report back by August 2 but we're really close to being ready with that information so we're going to try to get it back to you sooner than that so I'm hoping in the next couple weeks we'll be able to have a written report that has all this information, fact sheets and the budgetestimates. >> Mayor Adler: Will you also be giving that to the manager so he can see that during his budget preparation? >> Yes. >> Mayor Adler: Would you, please, give it to him? >> Yes, sir. >> Pool: Mayor, one last thing. I wanted to look at page 10 and draw everybody's attention one more time to that, the map where you show this was based on specific data on the total number of calls the United Way received forever people who needed some assistance -- for people who needed some assistance with food. And really very few of our districts are immune from this [3:43:03 PM] and specifically in district 7 we have significant need in district 7. I think there may be some perception district 7 is wealthy and I know it just isn't. It's a very strong working class, middle class area, but I am concerned to see that there's significant red areas in district 7 if which I did not realize. I knew that my constituency was not a wealthy one, but I did not know until I saw there with your graphic care that there are real needs that may not -- that I had not registered and that is the case also into six to a certain extent and elsewhere. So thank you for doing this. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Renteria: Mayor. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Renteria: I also want to thank you forever that, but it's not going to be directed to y'all, but I would like to see the health committee look into our neighborhood centers, the neighborhood centers get funded through the federal block grants and we -- when we -- when they created the neighborhood centers, most of the centers were in the inner core because our option hadn't expanded out. And gentrification hadn't happened at that time. So there was a lot of need in these target communities that the neighborhood centers were created to serve. But as our city now is expanding out and, as you see, the inner core now is changing because of the gentrification, you're seeing where all the low- income people are moving to. And I would like to see that they would look into it, see maybe we can -- because we have so many facilities down in the inner city area, but we should consolidate them, one, and expand our service to -- especially [3:45:06 PM] district 1 -- 4, 7, 2, because there's a big need up there and I think we really need to -- we have these resources and money that comes in, and maybe we should see if we can tap into that and see if we can, you know -- since we don't need the service as much as other areas, we can consolidate just our little area to serve our little need there and then expand the rest of it out to the other regions because all these neighborhood centers give out -- they had food banks, food pantries, they have a kitchen in them, and I just don't see it getting used the way it should be and I think we can really maybe use those resources thatwe have there and expand them out. >> Mayor Adler: That's federal block grant funding. Is that@administered or managed through the city? >> Renteria: Yes. >> Mayor Adler: What department handles those?Do you know? >> Speaker2:. >> Renteria: Health and human services. >> Mayor Adler:. >> Quick note, our research is absolutely uni have Cal on the fact that the safety net for the food system is currentlycentrally located in Austin and we're superrizing poverty and that safety net does not exist outside of the core in the same way and we're going to be challenged significantly in the coming years to provide the same service that we're currently providing to our community as we see this population migrate and it's going to be harder as those communities are less dense to provide the same level of service even that we'recurrently providing, much less the level that we really should be providing. So I -- >> Mayor Adler: Yet another reason for increasing density in the core. And the sidewalks and programs that we're going to be talking about tomorrow as part of the mobility deal. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Council, before we go -- [3:47:07 PM] >> Houston: Mayor, it's also another reason to look to the regional centers and town centers outside of the core because that's where people are and that's where the economic development needs to drive these kinds of things. So that's just not density for the sake of density but density in places where it's appropriate, where people are moving, so they have access. >> Mayor Adler: I agree. I mean, I would say, Ms. Houston, we need both of those. Not everybody is going to live outside in the activity centers but we need to be able to provide mobility for those options as well. I agree with that. >> Houston: And there'scertainly -- they're certainly not going to live out there if we don't have any. >> Mayor Adler: Right. >> Houston: And we don't have any. >> Mayor Adler: Before we start the next presentation -- you can come up, thank you. By way of calendar tomorrow, let's hit that real fast. Ms. Gallo needs to leave here in the next few minutes. It seems to me that there are potentially two items on the consent agenda, other peoplemight want to take a look -- several items. The extent agenda goes up through item number 32. It looks as if the dark money item none four, I think is not ready yet so I anticipate that's going to be postponed.Dark money, number 4. >> Houston: Mayor, once again I've asked you not to use that term. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Houston: That euphemism. >> Mayor Adler: What should I use for that? Direct campaign expense and the cover transaction item is not going to -- I anticipate that's ghost to be postponed and not discussed. Item 10, esd number 9, there's a state representative from that area that has standard for the opportunity to speak to us on that item. He's available to come at 5:00, so that item 10 I would [3:49:09 PM] set for 5:00 to accommodate -- >> Pool: Mayor, if I could, I asked our legal staff about the timing on this because there was some confusion last weaning as to whether if we brought this item banning, this was one of the ones that failed last week because of the absence of three of our members. And there was some question about whether it could get on their ballot if we -- could we bring it back. And Thursday is the last day, I think, that we can act on it for this item to get on a ballot for them. So if it -- we can't talk about it after this Thursday and still have it -- >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Pool: Is that correct? >> That is correct. >> Pool: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: We're going to call that at 5:00. The code compliance issue, number 25, there's been a request that that be set at 2:00 P.M. By Ms. Gallo. >> Gallo: [Off mic] >> Mayor Adler: I'm sorry. >> Gallo: I think earlier councilmember Zimmerman had made that request. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. And item number 26 is the senior tax exemption. That senior tax exemption, what does that do? Does this -- >> Gallo: So what we were doing is we're asking the city manager to evaluate the amount that property tax values have increased from 2015 to 2016 for seniors and disabled. You know, last year we added an amount to the senior and disabled tax exemption to help with limited resources for that part of the population in paying their tax bills. So what we're asking the city manager to do is evaluate the [3:51:11 PM] amount of the increase for that population from last year, so from '15 to '16 and come back do us during the budget process to evaluate what the cost would be if we add an additional exemption to that population to compensate for the increased value so that they are maintain -- being able to maintain the affordability and being able to stay in place. >> Mayor Adler: This item 26 doesn't direct the conclusion,just asks for -- >> Gallo: Asks for the evaluation of what that amount is and what the costs would be. >> Mayor Adler: I wouldn't anticipate that being pulled off extent because it's just asking for information so Idon't think we need to set that at a time when you're here. The next item I had that -- to ask that that be postponed. I don't think that's ready yet. What? We can try one week. And see if we can -- well, I think there's a lot more work on that. >> Mayor? My understanding of reading it is that this would not be voting on any policy change. It would just be having the staff do that work so that we can have a substantivediscussion. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Casar: Right now the draft is -- >> Mayor Adler: Just an information request? So it's not prescriptive in terms -- it doesn't express a value judgment. It just says pleaseinvestigate this. >> Casar: And bring us an option so we don't have a lack of options before us. So that's why -- >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Casar: I feel comfortable with it because it's not -- it sets us up for a substantive debate in the future. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So it wouldn't be a substantive debate now. >> Pool: Right. So one week is what we would be looking for. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Gallo: So, mayor, as part of that conversation it does say policy option when we're looking for the city manager to come back with evaluation evaluations could we make that plural so there may be policy options that he comes banningwith. >> Mayor Adler: I would think [3:53:12 PM] so. We're not asking for substantive stuff. >> Gallo: Perfect. >> Kitchen: Are we saying that could stay on extent? >> Mayor Adler: Let me take another look at that. If it's broad, it's just informational, I don't think there's a need to pull that. >> Tovo: Mayor, I actually have a question about that. I don't know -- I apologize I missed -- I listened to a little but the of y'all but it didn't sound like you had much discussion around this area but I do have a question for staff because -- that I can ask today or pull it from consent and ask on Thursday. That does, I think, direct the filing of an ordinance within the time frame required and it's my understanding that the time frame required is the end of June and that would mean we would have to have an ordinance posted next week for action W we to move forward and take action. That's my understanding from my staff's discussion with Ms. Hart. So, again, I think I absolutely want to have that discussion either today or tomorrow, the homestead exemption. So I was walking through the door as you were talking about the homestead is exemption. I apologize if you moved on. I thought I heard that was remaining on extent. >> Mayor Adler: So this is the -- >> Tovo: I'm sorry, yes, that's the one I have aquestion about. >> Pool: That was what the mayor was saying. >> Mayor Adler: So the senior homestead exemption is not something we have to do by a certain time unlike the homestead exemption. >> Kitchen: It's the amount of an exemption for seniors. That's what the item is. >> Tovo: So there is not a time frame? >> Kitchen: No. >> Tovo: For that? >> Mayor Adler: Ed, can you confirm that? The general homestead exemption requires us to act I think by the end of June but the senior homestead exemption does that require the same kind of timing? >> It does not. >> Tovo: Okay, thank you. >> Can be done as part of budget adoption. >> Mayor Adler: Just asking for Numbers and advice, probably stays on extent. The next thing was the expedited review, and so long as that's just taking a look at and giving us, you know, different kinds of openings on that, I think that could stay also on there to then come [3:55:12 PM] back to us in August. So that one would not have to be pulled. There won't be a substantive conversation about it. The esd number 9, by the way, mayor pro tem, we talked about setting that at 5:00. >> Tovo: I did hear that. I heard that, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Code compliance issue, item 25, coming up on -- at 2:00. Item number 26, senior tax exemption seems it can stay on extent. Item none 29, expedited review, non-prescriptive, not substantive, looks like it can stay on extent. The -- consent. The item I had was item number 52. See what that one was. Ms. Gallo, did you have this one? This one being set at a time certain? >> Gallo: So it's not a consent, so it's passed consent. It's 52. It's a zoning case on champion's track. We've had multiple meetings with enabling and neighborhood associations and there's a recommendation from planning commission that is more than likely the recommendation that will be supported. There was a request from one of the neighborhood associations for a postponement and there's about seven neighborhood associations that surrender this track -- surround this track we've been involved with. There is a request from one of the neighborhood associations for a postponement for August. It's my understanding -- we don't have anyone here. It's my understanding that the applicant would not agree to that but would agree for -- to a week postponement, which I think is probably appropriate. I think most of the questions that that neighborhood has had have been addressed pretty thoroughly by staff, by transportation. So I don't know if there's going to be any discussion, but if so, if we could have it earlier in the day and that's [3:57:13 PM] why I standard for the 11:00, just so that if there are neighbors that have come down, thinking that it may be heard or wanting to participate in the discussion of how long the postponement won, that could be heard early because I think it will be a fairly quick discussion but then they wouldn't have to be here all day. >> Mayor Adler: Has that been set? Is there a time period -- I don't have my Thursday agenda in front of me. It's on the 10:00 zoning? Okay. So if there's not an objection to that we'll call that up at 11:00, as close to that as we can get to. That's item 52. So I have ten at 5:00 P.M., 25 at 2:00 P.M., I have 52 at11:00 P.M. That -- A.M., sorry. 11:00 A.M. Then I have item 72, which is the sidewalk master plan. Empties Houston, you wanted that pulled for time certain? >> Houston: Time certain. >> Mayor Adler: 6:00 in the evening? >> Houston: I think so, yes, six clinic. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. And -- 6:00. You expect folks to come testify about the sidewalk. >> Houston: I want to get them time to get off of work, get through the traffic and get here. >> Mayor Adler:. >> Pool: Item 58. >> Mayor Adler: Hang on one second. I have no problem with that 6:00 P.M. Time certain for the sidewalk plan, item 72. And then the other one that I had here was item none 73, which is the school conditional use. Set at 7:00. Anticipate that there will be a lot of people to testify on that. If we're going to consider limiting that testimony to something other than our standard rule in this case, which is three minutes, now won the time for someone to suggest that or discuss that if there was a desire to do [3:59:15 PM] that. This is not something that has gone to -- not -- I mean, I guess they had some discussion in committee, but I understand it was fairly abbreviated in the committee discussion. Was that true? >> Kitchen: Was this heard in committee? It would have been planning committee. >> Houston: I know they heard it at the planning commission. >> Mayor Adler: It was the planning commission that had the review. That's probably right. This has not been heard then. >> Tovo: Message, it seems as if -- it seems as if we talked about it when the code amendment was nished. I don't remember if we actually -- initiated. >> Casar: The public charter schools issue? It was discussed briefly in the code amendment initiation stage at our committee, but the -- but in -- the planning commission had already initiated the amendment and so we just supported the planning commission's already initiated code amendment and since the ordinance has been drafted it has not come back do council committee because it's just gone through planningcommission. >> Kitchen: Let's have >> Let's have -- if we can set some expectations now, that would be helpful. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to speak for two minutes. >> I don't think it'sunreasonable to ask them to speak for 30 minutes each side. >> We went 30 minutes aside, two minutes each, is this something that we're generally doing on this kind of thing that would show up with a lot of people? >> Because it's a zoning man eyou have to let everybody to speak. You can reduce the time but everybody has a chance to speak. [4:01:18 PM] >> Mayor Adler: We can't do the 30 minutes on the zoning matter? Is that -- no. >> Tovo: I don't want to make it overly complicated but I wonder if maybe one way to handle it would be to say two minutes and one minute after a certain number of people, you get one minute so that everybody has an opportunity to speak but after we run through about say five to 10 people, the time is reduced from 10 minutes down to1 minute? >> Mayor Adler: And are we doing this as a general rule when we have a zoning case that we anticipate a lot of people on? Are we saying that on zoning cases where we anticipate a lot of people, if it looks like we have more than an hour of testimony on a zoning case? So -- >> Kitchen: Some of the changes that we made to testimony and the council. >> Mayor Adler: We didn't cover the situation where it hasn't gone to a committee. So our standing rule is -- is three minutes a person. I'm fine with us saying if it looks like it will be more than an hour of testimony that we run two minutes for the first 30 minutes.And then a minute for, you foe, there after. But I wanted to make sure we're not deciding the limitations based on the substances of the case as opposed to the case. And if I'm comfortable with that? >> We did it for two minutes and then at a certain point one minute. I can't remember which one where the zoning was just public comment. >> Mayor Adler: What I want to do is make it limited to two minutes a side, basically 30 minutes each side, an hour of testimony, and then there after, it's going to be one minute a speaker. And generally speaking, this is what we're thinking about doing with respect to the zoning caseswhere there's more than an hour [4:03:18 PM] of apparent testimony. Okay? >> Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> I may have misheard you. But I believe in the ordinance we passed in nonzoning cases was not in the minutes at committee and at council just as a standard practice so people have a more clear expectation. So whether it went to committee or not and whether it's a committee hearing or not, we set 90 minutes as our -- I believe that's sitting in the ordinance. >> Mayor Adler: That had gone to committee or we're not a committee but we can limit to the number of times this is a zoning case? >> That's right, I understand it's a different category. I may have just misheard you. >> Tovo: I might be misremembering this, but we had language that said we might reduce the time below three minutes if it were necessary below a certain number of singers so this policyaccommodates this. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> Houston: I have a question on 45 and 46? They don't give you the agenda on plan 26 on the zoning. >> Mayor Adler: Yes? >> I will find it out beforetomorrow. I guess they're going to be planned and postponed but I don't know that for sure. They're scheduled to go with, I don't know -->> Mayor Adler: Thank you for pointing it out to us. I will anticipate it will get postponed. >> Please anticipate I'll ask for a postponement tomorrow until the planning commit has a way to review it. >> It could be we need to bring it up and then postpone which we'll do. I had 58 we talked about earlier [4:05:21 PM] this morning. 58, I'll have stuff to read. But we'll postpone it and I'll have staff to prepare the ordinance to August 4. >> Mayor Adler: 58 postponed to August 4. What I'm showing is item 10 and 5, item 25 at 2:00. Item 52 at 11:00. Item 72 at 6:00, 73 at 7:00, and we anticipate the -- the public debate as we discussed? >> Yes. >> I'm pretty sure that the neighborhood is going to waive the consent of that 43 and 44 will probably be postponed again. >> Mayor Adler: 23 and 24. >> 44. >> Mayor Adler: That it will be -- >> It will be postponed. >> Mayor Adler: Both sides asking for postponement. So we'll find out tomorrow. I'm pretty sure. Sounds good. That gives us kind of our order tomorrow. >> I have a question. So what does that mean in terms of -- of -- some of these other ifcs. So as well as the mobilitycommittee item related to bonds? What are we thinking in terms of the timeline for that? >> I anticipate the mobility bonds, that now has gone to a committee meeting. So we could certainly limit debate. I went to council and had a chance to discuss that. We're reading in a little bichlt. >> Or the time. >> Mayor Adler: A time certain [4:07:22 PM] for that. >> So we'd have some -- we'd have some limited testimony that makes sense, since we had -->> Mayor Adler: Since we're not going take action on that. If we set a time, I'd like to set it in earlier in theafternoon because we can take the testimony and then kind of lay it aside. We can have opened it up for the limited additional debate to happen later. No need to keep staff. What you think? >> Yeah, I don't have a preference. I just don't understand how folks will want to address that. >> Mayor Adler: I'd say no sooner than 2:00. >> Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Staff doesn't need to come there all morning. Staff can come there at 2:00 and answer questions relative to their responses. >> Okay. Roip we can see how many people are present that want to talk at that point. And then maybe if we wanted to, we could give sometime in the evening in some people showed up to talk. Or we can could limb the debate. It's gone to committee, that's right so -- >> It's gone to committee so -->> Mayor Adler: Get that debate as well. It's a big issue. But it will be coming up on the following week and the next week, it might actually be more clarity with respect to what's really something for people to discuss. I would be in favor of the debate strictly tomorrow. People can talk all at the council offices. Let's set it for the same two. Recognizing that we don't really have a real clarity on the proposal yet. And that will be discussed on the 23rd when we actually vote. We can decide then to open it up more largely if we want to. >> Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. All right. >> Talking about the mobility bonds. >> Mayor Adler: My intent was to call them both up together. Because my understanding is -- and we're not going to vote on anything tomorrow. We're going to further discuss the issues. >> Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Okay? >> Tovo: Mayor? [4:09:23 PM] Asking about other ifcs and again based on what I heard when I was coming back, I don't think there's been a discussion of 28 and 30 and it's my intent to have those be taken up in the morning and that's what I've communicated to people that have expressed an interest in being present for those items. >> Mayor Adler: I didn't hear from anybody it would be pulled off on consent. >> Tovo: 28 or 30? >> Mayor Adler: If it is, I imagine it will get discussed quickly. >> So what's the wrapup of the time certains that we set? >> Mayor Adler: The time certains I have. I have item 10 coming up at 5:00. 25 coming up at 2:00. The two mobility items coming up also at 2:00. One of those mobility items is number 27. And then the other one is -- >> 34. >> Mayor Adler: 34, 27 and 34 coming up at 2:00 P.M. No sooner than 2:00 P.M. Then I have item number -- I said 25 at 2:00. I have 72 at 6:00. I have 73 at 7:00. I have 52 at 11:00. Okay? That's our deal. Thank you. >> I'm wondering if there's a -- I mean, we discussed it last week at the work session and didn't pull it today. But the housing committee and recommendations, I don't know if there's a feeling about in those will fall. So at this point with many time [4:11:23 PM] certains, it's almost impossible. >> That's kind of the -- yeah, 33. Yeah, 33. >> Mayor Adler: No, I'm sorry. 50 that is. >> That is 35. >> Mayor Adler: 35. >> Mayor Adler: Is that something you expect testimony coming in or making sure with talk about it. >> I don't think we heard it quite a bit from both committees. >> It should be limited because it's come through two committees so. >> We in the evening sometimes. >> Mayor Adler: We got a couple lining up. I take it up early. I'd say also at 2:00. It's been through the discussions and mostly for us to discuss it. No? >> Why don't I just pitch back. Mayor pro tem tovo's resignation, some folks might be more interest in housing issues that are here early. Just take it for the money. So let me just -- let me just get the staff. >> Mayor Adler: See what time they would show up. The problem with the time in tevining, a gap in the day we could take it. We wouldn't be able to take it. Because we set it. Oh, yeah? All right. Then, we'll move on. Thank you. We're ready now, sorry. >> Good afternoon mayor, council. I'm with the neighborhood helping the community in office and here with me is -- >> David potter, program manager. Cooper house. The presentation today directs the city manager to valid recommendations relating to a [4:13:27 PM] whole host of projects for that income. That range is 52,000 to 78,000 per year. In addition, we were asked to provide recommendations for incorporating permanent homeowner opportunities in future bond actives. So as we all know quite well, median wages in the city have been fairly flat over the last approximately six years while housing prices have been rising fairly dramatically. So there is a need to consider how much housing is available to families at this income range. The process that we went through related to this resolution was to research practices that approaches us in other cities to get input from stakeholdersabout the most effective approaches in the usability and impact. And the strategies fall into three main categories. That is creating income restricted ownership units through basically some sort of funding mechanism. The second category is creating income restricted and market rate but more aboardable homeownership options through regulatory and zoning tools such as through codenets and the other category is maintaining ownership for existing owners. The one thing I want to be very clear about from the beginning is these recommendations should be considered in the context of both the draft strategic housing [4:15:29 PM] plan, which is available for review at present as well as in context of codenext. In terms of the first category for creating income-restricted units through various financing tools. There are a range of financing tools that could be considered for this income category. I won't read them all, but basically it's exploring new mechanisms to have funding diesz housing. Research found the 2013 bonds could not be used for thisincome level before the income levels need to be seek input from bond council relating to whether future bonds could be used for this income category and they basically said that they could assuming that the language is written in that way and that the Texas office of the attorney general concurred with that analysis. The second category is changes through -- through regulatory and zoning tools to create both income -- income limited housing and/or just more affordable market rate housing. We have a number of programs [4:17:30 PM] that are in existence right now that do create income restricted units and those are things like the city's smart housing programs, the bonus programs, etc. The one thing that I would say is that if -- some people will argue that we fight not want to go to our higher income level because it could potentially be removing options for people who are more in need. I would say that really about all of these tools which is actually why I think it needs to be considered in in terms of the city's overall strategy for affordable housing. There are possibilities to create a broader range of housing types through code changes. I think everyone has probably heard about missing middle housing at this point, but basically it's housing types between single family and large apartment complexes and those do provide more possibilities for homeownership than our very ready accessible and available through our existing code. Then the other category I did want to highlight in terms of what we heard is how can we continue to ensure affordability for an existing homeowners. And so some of the possible strategies to explore here include something that we haven't always encouraged as a city, but potentially allowing owners to convert some of their existing interior residential [4:19:30 PM] space into a rental apartment making a remodelling process easier for existing owners. Supporting increased wages for low-income and many of these would require more investigation, some of them we need to talk with law about -- about the legal feasibility. But there are a number of possibilities that we should think about in terms of, you know, how can we help people stay in their homes. So in summary, we wanted to bring these options forward but we really feel that they need to be considered in the context of -- of how the city wants to think about its affordable housing needs and where our resources should be -- should be used. So we -- we will provide more detail about these in the form of a memo. But we would like them to be considered as part of the housing plan that we plan to be bringing back to city council this fall. So some of the long-term potential strategies would be potentially including those higher income limits in the future general obligation bonds. Or always an option is exploring other new funding sources for this income category. Any questions? >> Mayor Adler: What's the context for having the conversation that you suggest we have? We should consider this in the context oh it was overall [4:21:31 PM] discussion of what the strategy is? What's the context for that conversation? >> I guess I would say that the context would be the context of adopting a citywide strategic housing plan. There is a draft alreadyavailable and then we'd be -- we'll be bringing that back to the housing committee probably September. And them we will be asking for actual council adoption this fall or winter. >> Mayor Adler: Ma's alreadyhappened. >> Yes, we already had a couple of discussions in the committee. It's making good progress. >> Mayor Adler: You weren't suggesting we needed a different or additional conversation, okay? Okay. Sni questions about this? Yes, Daya? >> Have other cities used geo bonds for this level of income -- the 80 to 120? >> I need to go back and look specifically, but I -- >> I'm not aware of any -- >> I'm not aware of any. That doesn't mean it's not out there. >> I know that you can't get any subsidized housing if you're over 80 for federal programs. Are there any - - is that just because the constraints that the fed set? They could easily set it to 100 if they don't -- we as a city if we. >>Er using Joe you bonds, we can decide what extent we want to use them. >> That's what we understand. >> Okay. >> Expand on that, mayor? The context of the housing plan, but also in the context of code next because the housing plan is directly related to our land use rules. >> Absolutely. And there are - - there are -- [4:23:31 PM] there have been at least one other resolution related to fair housing and code next and ensuring that the code provides as many options as possible for low-income austinites. So there are multiple relatedinitiatives and staff has been working very closely together. But as these initiatives come to council, I think there needs to be some sort of consensus of we know what the goals are in terms of, you know, does the community want to focus on housing for very low income people or middle income people? Or what should that balance be? >> And I appreciate the point, the concern of others that, you know, doing a different range of 80 to 100, 120 could take away from lower income. You're right. It's not about the priorities that are set. And in my opinion, we need to be more diverse in what we offer because the interesting dynamicthat it's not just families in poverty that are having a hard time, it's middle-class families too. So -- thank you for this work. >> Okay. Anything else? I would -- I would add to -- oh, sorry. I piggy backed you. I might say what you're going to say. I heard a lot of information which was very, very important. I appreciate the housing department elevating that gap to us. I'm interested in continued conversations in council member sugar. [4:25:34 PM] The housing plan speaks to all different kinds of people whether they're in a subsidized unit or not. Less interesting if they're subsidized and more interesting to me we have a diverse people who can't afford to live in an area regardless of what kind of unit they're living in. So I think a conversation that I want to have with a housing department as we get closer to getting -- having that plan, is how can we show that we are indeed trying to serve people at all of these different income levels and integrate neighborhoods of people of all different levels can live there. Deep subsidy for somebody at 30% but also might mean somenecessary land use and permitting changes so somebody at 120% can buy a home in that neighborhood maybe with a little bit of subsidy or with none or maybe on a shared piece of land that the city acquired that has lots of different people and different incomes on it. I just -- I want to push people to show people that this work. That we can make a plan that works for all different kinds of people. I appreciate that we need be able to get folks anchored into a community that's 100% and are long term too. So I appreciate you bringing it forward. I think it will be a fruitful conversation this year. >> I agree with everything thatwas said. Hess torically, you know, we've always had these homeownership programs where we went out there and created these homes and sold them out to the -- the 80%. And -- but now with the -- with the high increase in property taxes, that's where we need to take advantage of the community land trust. Because I have seen what Guadalupe did over in the street in the homeownership. We didn't have a tool back then. We lost a lot of homes we had, we sold. [4:27:36 PM] People are saying, hey, you can't afford the taxes anymore. So I'm real excited about this opportunity that we're going to -- getting to. Because there are people out there that, you know, we're families that do -- they do want to live and be able to own their own home. You know? So that's a great opportunity that we can create the community land trust at being able to sell people and be able to live in their own home.>> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Next issue is the general homestead exemption. Here? >> Good afternoon, mayor, mayor pro tem, I'm CEO and budget officer for the city. I have a briefing on the general homestead exemption. As you might recall, last year offered a general homestead exemption to homeowners at the level of 6:00%. So we're providing some information about what it takes to change that amount and ran a few different scenarios to look at how that would affect city tax revenues and the savings that would be realized by homeowners. So the provision for general homestead exempting is laid out in Texas tax code section 1.13. I won't read all of that to you but you can see the relevant points that it only applies to a resident's homestead. You have to live in the home for which you're seeking the exemption.It does not apply for the rental properties. Must be established as a percentage of appraised value. And the minimum exemption needed to be at least $5,000. The maximum exemption in terms [4:29:36 PM] of percentages 20%. There's no maximum in terms of the dollar amount. But 20% is the cap. And relevant for given that we're here in mid June, it needs to be approved prior to July 1. Whatever level of exemption you're going to establish for fiscal year 17 would need to be approved prior to July 1. It's currently at 6:00%. So that 6% would stay in place unless this body took prior actions. What other do we do, this is the senior disabled exemption and other exemptions. I'll just rattle down the general homestead exemption quickly. That's what the topic is. The city of Austin, 6% exemption. Travis and health care district both due a 20% exemption. The community college has the effect of triggering the $5,000 fixed exemption for all for all homes in Austin. If you a high-value home, you're more than that. Most homes get the exemption for the community college and the school district has a state mandated $25,000 exemption that was increase in the last legislative exception. It's a fixed exemption. They're allowed to have theexemption and municipalities are not. What does it look like in regards to other large Texas cities. City of Antone does not offer a homestead extension. Houston, Dras, ft. Worth, all at the full 20%. We ran some Numbers, currently at 6%. We showed scenarios of increasing at 1% increments. 1% increase would be a total of seven. The 1% increase we project at current tax rates would result in a revenue reduction of $1.9million. Have a savings to somebody who owns a $250,000 taxable value home of $11.47. We, of course, know not everybody owns that home, so we also gave a savings per $100,000 of taxable value. [4:31:37 PM] So that gives it a way to scale it to a particular home value. That's a linear function. So I don't need to go through all of these Numbers, but a 2% exemption increase would double those amounts. A 6% increase would multiply them by six. So it's a linear funk. But those are the different scenarios. You could go all the way up to 20% and back on our tax and utility rate discussion we had with you back in may. We did show some scenarios for a 14% increase that would take you all the way to the full 20%. But our understanding was that you were interested in seeing the 1% increments. That's what we did for you. And that's it. >> Let me ask a question. The -- we looked at the homestead exemption a year ago, we were able to do it in a revenue-neutral way. By that, I mean we set a budget. There's room between where the budget was set and the 8% rollback rate. How much of the 8% rollback rate would be spoke up for with the 1% exemption? >> Well, you may recall at the time of our financial forecast, we were projecting significantbuilt-in cost drivers the cost of doing business from 16 to 17. They were going to be significant. I believe, $57 million is the number I remember. >> Mayor Adler: So if the 8% was reflected at 57 million, it would be -- >> This is at our -->> Mayor Adler: 1/25th of that. I'm trying to figure out, of the 8%, they were allowed shy of the rollback rate, how much of that in percentages or portions of percentages, how much would be taken up with each 1% of homestead. >> I have to go back and check my Numbers. I think at the rollback rate, we [4:33:38 PM] were projecting somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 million additional revenue. So I guess if you're looking at it that way, every 1% above effective is getting you maybe $4 million to $5 million. We're projecting the city would be near the rollback rate to keep our budget in balance given the magnitude that the cost drivers were projecting from the budget the council adopted. >> If we were to do 1%, how much could we go up above the effective rate? What would be the percentage in the effective rate? I'm city trying to get a feel of that capacity. Of the 8% capacity above the effective rate, how much is taken up by a $1.9 million general fund rev impact? >> I think, again, going back to the time of the forecast, these Numbers change. At the time of the forecast, we were projecting about $2 million of extra revenue at the rollback rate beyond what we would need to balance our budget. So -->> Mayor Adler: I'm not asking the question clearly. >> I may not know the answer. >> Mayor Adler: Not asking what we spent or what the budget is or not. Or what we anticipate it to be. It's an important question too. I'm trying to figure out if we elected to do 1% by the end of down -- >> Mm-hmm. >> Mayor Adler: What per sen taj could we go above the effective rate and not trigger the rollback if we have already decided to use part of the 8% for 1%. How is that? I'm trying to get a feel for the -- there's a certain capacity we have. It's 8% above the effective rate. If we do a 1% homestead exemption, we no longer have 8% we can use. Because we've spoken for some of it. Do we know how much we have left. [4:35:38 PM] 50 not in dollar terms but in dollar and percentage terms. But percentage is what I'm more interested in. Is it 7.5%? Do we use up .5% of the 8% to do 1%. >> I don't think it would be that high. >> 7.7% or 7. %. >> Mayor Adler: 7.2% or 7.3% of the 8% is what you're thinking. Yes? >> Part of the discussion we had last year was given the cost drivers of our forecast, how much gap there was above the cost drivers below the rollback. Our projection this year is $2 million. >> At the time of the forecast, it's $2 million. There was not much gap. >> So there is -- the gap in its entirety and the gap with cost drivers and so the gap with cost drivers this year our best guess is what would accommodate 1%? >> That's my understandening as well. -- Understanding as well. >> Mayor Adler: Further discussion? >> Tovo: I have a questionabout A.C.C. So the first city of Austin exemption is the one they did is equating to 500,000 per home in the ACC. When did ACC adopt a similar mechanism? >> I don't know when they adopted that? But it was well before us. They've had that -- >> Tovo: That's interesting. I didn't realize that. Thank you. >> For clarification, the councilmember Casar, it's been a long day. The question was with all of the cost drivers, it would come dais 1%? [4:37:39 PM] >> At the time of the forecast, we were projecting at the rollback rate we were projecting $2 million in revenue more than what we needed to balance our budget, according to our calculations here. An increase in the exemption of 1% would lower the revenues. We could accommodate 1.7% increase in the exemption. >> That scenario assumes all cost drivers are include and we don't spend anything else on anything? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on this? >>. >> Casar: The reason I asked that question is my understanding of last year, how we arrived at the 6% was making those sorts of assumptions and this year please wear the entire year. There's only room for 1% making cuts into something else. >> Mayor Adler: Which is the question I was inarticulately asking. >> Casar: Been a long day. >> Tovo: It sounds like there's about a $100,000 gap. Things -- >> I wouldn't want to pretend there's that level of precision from the time we did the forecast back in April to today. There are definitely going to be Numbers to change new information to come to bear. >> Tovo: And the sobriety center and other things that had a more limited dollar figure attached to them in the previous budget and might have had an increase. I mean, if it's going to move forward, it would need an increase in the next year's fiscal budget would be impossible if we raised the homestead exemption and don't cut somewhere else in the budget? >> Casar: I think so. >> Tovo: Thank you. >> Houston: May I ask a question about do you kind of keep up with all of the things that are [4:39:39 PM] already added to next year's budget, like the $438,000. Not sure of the aquatics. Do you additional things to the -- >> We have. The aquatics changed. Now applying a living wage to summertime life guards.We've increased the park's budget in fy-1. The budget we would account for that. There was an action earl inner in the year where council approved additional overtime dollars for the south-by-southwest springfestival. So, yes, ma'am, we do. >> Okay. Okay. >> When you add in the budget, the one-time money that we spent last year, can you tell me how much where it's at, the amount. That we didn't add on for thefour years or the -- >> Just the one- time dollars? I don't have it off of the top of my head, but we can certainly get that for you. >> We try to refinance these programs. >> You recall, we said we created that four-year mid year fund. The programs that got lumped into the last year's budget moneys that have not been rolled into the ongoing budget yet. >> If you could give me those programs that were just fundedfrom one time. >> Sure. >> And the amounts? >> Yep, absolutely. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else. >> Yes. >> Mayor Adler: We'd like to see that too. All right, thank you very much. [4:41:53 PM] The other thing was the discussion budget development process. I haven't looked at that since we had that. So I just had that down and carry it over to the next work session. Anything else have anything elsepulled they want to discuss? >> Tovo: With regard to the affordable housing trust fund, I wanted to call your attention to slight wording changes that were made. I think it will appear in the backup, the revised backup. And they really just kind of add to the language that I had added before. But it just further emphasizes that it's always the council's discretion to redirect those funds to other count si priorities. There were community members who continued to have lingering concerns about that and we tried to address that with additional language. >> Mayor Adler: Okay, thank you. Anyone else? On the budget process? I think we only have a few more meetings to have that discussion. That's one of those that we have to have in June. I think next Tuesday works but let's make sure we put it up high on the priority list. Because it's -- unless there's another opportunity that I'm not thinking of. But next Tuesday might be the last one? Is that right? Roip Tuesday we have to have it. There's only a couple of things we have to decide. There were only like two questions on -- as I say that, I can't remember what the questions were. >> That's fine. I just want to make sure that we don't lose it, that's all. >> Mayor Adler: No. No. >> Mayor, I don't feel bad now. >> Mayor Adler: The whole purpose is get that decided by June so everybody know what is the game plan is going to be. That's all. The time is 4:43. And we stand adjourned.