City Council Special Called Meeting Transcript – 10/19/2016 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 10/19/2016 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 10/19/2016 Transcript Generated by Snapstream ================================== [4:10:30 pm] >>Mayor Adler>> I am going ahead and call to order this special called meeting of the austin city council with the land development code advisory group. Today is wednesday, october 19, 2016. We are meeting at 721 barton springs rodad, austin, texas. This time is 4:10 p.m. And this feels Loke we should be deciding peace in europe. [laughter] i want to thank everybody for coming and for participating. We call all pull in, Leslie? You know it gives the affordability and mobility challenge is. That we have in this city. I'm not sure if there are any more Important work that the council and the community is going to undertake than we are with our land development code. I want to begin by Acknowledging this allstar panel of volunteers that have participated on the citizens advisory group, the cag, which has been doing incredible work for the community, and on behalf of the community we're just incredibly appreciative. The work of the cag is to help the staff ensure that we have community involvement, that the sentiments of the community work their way back to the council, and that's real important because we need the community's involvement in this process if we're going to, in fact, get it right. The other part of the charge is to help ensure that the work that we do is in a direction that's consistent with the priorities that are laid out in the strategic plan in imagine austin. [4:12:45 pm] The time that you guys are spending doing this is truly a gift, and i want to make sure that you know it's being recognized. It's also why earlier this year i was councilmembers kitchen and casar and i sat in on a cag meeting, which was real helpful to me, to be part of that conversation in the space. You can watch it on video. It's not the same as actually participating and being in the room. And it was during that conversation that we talked together about actually getting the council together with the cag so that the council had the opportunity to hear directly from from you guys, and they set it up so we would have more than one opportunity if it was appropriate, for us to be able you guys are immersed in this in a way that the council has not been able to do, and we want to be able to take advantage of that. You know, this codenext process isn't just a set of laws that will govern what can be built, where, and how. It really does underlie almost every facet of the community, so this process is critical. It could be our most powerful tool to harness the growth that's taking place in this city in a way that helps us preserve what is special about the spirit and soul of this city, and i think that the stakes are that high. It's going to help us deal with our most vexing challenges, and by that i mean the gamut. I mean the things from affordable housing to flooding to mobility to sustainability in the community. We are we are the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country, and to the chagrin of many people, if you believe what we are looking at with the census numbers that just came out, that's not going to abate over the next 24 years as they do their 2040 projections. And what that means, i think, is that if we fail to adopt a new land development code on the timing that we have all laid out that is consistent with our values, consistent with the expression of those values through the imagine austin plan, that we will lose what it is that's special about about this place. So over the next year and a half, we're going to have a real collaborative process. [4:14:50 pm] The people around this table are going to play a real key role in that. The stakeholders throughout the city that are here participating will be watching, are fundamental to that process, as is the staff and the consultants that are that are all involved. There's going to be a time for us to get into the weeds of transition zones and compatibility and parking requirements and green infrastructure and permitting process and so much more. That's not what this gathering is intended to to be about. More than anything else, it was an opportunity for us all just to for us all just to get together and to hit it at a pretty high level, the agenda that's been handed out to everyone, making sure we know who everybody is, that we can get to meet each other, because not everybody around this table knows everybody else that's sitting around this table, to make just to have a conversation about codenext and to have a shared understanding of what that is, what the process is, to talk about those roles and those expectations, and then to make sure that we have an opportunity for the cag to start sharing with us what they've heard from the community and how they see this being aligned. So all that to say thank you and to kind of lay that out, and then we'll get started. I think, greg, you wanted to say something about the setup in the room? >> yes. Thank you all for coming today. I'm greg guernsey, the planning and zoning director. I wanted to apologize to all those in the audience. Normally we would set up so everyone could see everybody's faces, and in order to accommodate atxn for filming of this, i have the cag members and some of the council members actually with their backs to the audience, so i just wanted to make a quick apology to the audience that came down for the meeting today. And at this time i'd like to turn it over to jim duncan, who is the chair of code advisory group for some introductions. >> mayor adler: and before he gets into that, greg, i just want to say, i think the room looks great. It really does, to get these many people in this space and the way the community is being able to see it. I heard what you said, but i think the room the room looks great. [4:16:30 pm] >> thank you, mayor. >> mayor adler: so, jim, you want to launch us? >> well, let me say, my name is jim duncan. Let me first say i have the honor of having been appointed to this committee by the mayor and elected chair by my colleagues. I want to say parenthetically, some of you i probably worked with more citizens advisory groups than everybody else in this room put together. For 50 years i was a consultant and planner and i have never worked with a better or more diversified group than what this city council has appointed here for austin, and i just i can't overstate that. Now, i would like to go down and introduce each one of them very briefly to keep you from just raise your hand so they'll know who i'm describing. And i have a one liner and i haven't got these approved by the individual, so [laughter] All right. First of all, i'm going to introduce my vice chair, dave sullivan. Dave is a card capmetro user and i think you were 15, 16 years >> 16. A decade, 1.6 decades. [4:18:45 pm] >> i actually categorized this by interest. I'm not going to do that because to profile any of my members i think is a disservice because they really appreciate all areas, so but let me go i think you'll see how diversified this is. Naria zaragoza. Behind me. A central austin resident and current planning commissioner. Kevin weir. North central austin resident, proponent for strong neighborhoods. Pat king. I don't know where pat is. A southeast austin resident and advocate for more grocery stores and fewer alligators. >> mr. Duncan, can you say who appointed the members? >> yeah. Tell you what let me do this, i don't have that noted down and i might make a mistake. When i name you, just say who. That would be easier. He that's good. I do know that my alligator friend over here was elated mr. Garza kevin, you were >> councilmember leslie pool. District 7. >> okay. Nuria? [4:20:30 pm] >> mayor pro tem kathie tovo. >> tovo. Did i miss somebody? >> yeah. I was appointed by the neighborhood and planning subcommittee of the council. >> thank you for that terry mitchell, a developer and austin's mr. Everywhere. >> and terry is in dallas. [laughter] >> everywhere but here. >> who appointed terry? >> terry is the mayor no, the mobility >> he was the mobility committee. >> mobility committee. I can't believe he's not here. Anyhow, guy dudley, a developer with an abiding commitment to faith based humanitarian work. Colby wallace, a construction manager responsible for our acclaimed new seaholm project. >> councilmember troxclair. >> mandy de mayo, a voice for the homeless. >> housing committee development committee. >> liz mueller, a planning professor with expertise and expert in housing policy. >> she is teaching. >> she's teaching. >> she's teaching right now. >> no. [4:22:45 pm] >> no, i'm sorry. Thank you for speaking for me. I'm sorry. >> that's okay. >> okay. Melissa bealer, a city planner who provides housing services for low income families. >> councilmember renteria. >> okay. Ellie mckinney, a landscape architect who doubles as austin's own mother nature. >> councilmember kitchen. Thank you. >> lauren ice, an sos attorney and protecter of austin's springs, streams and lakes. >> [inaudible] >> rich haymond, a socioeconomic lecturer and advocate for the disadvantaged. >> appointed by the opportunity committee. >> this is the first time i've had to meet cesar. He's a new member. We're excited to have you. [4:24:30 pm] All i've got here, which is important enough, a ut planning student and proponent for affordable housing and health care. >> i was appointed by councilmember casar. >> thank you. Susan moffitt, journalist and leading advocate for school children of austin. >> thank you. I was appointed by the joint subcommittee, city, aisd, and travis county. >> jose valera, attorney and provider of mobility sharing options and great tamales. >> he's got a side of never mind, that's an inside is jose here? >> no. >> okay. Roger [inaudible], an attorney and leading local champion for cost efficient government. >> appointed by councilmember sheri gallo. >> let me just say that the entire time is really excited. We know we're approaching one of the key parts of this whole process, and very excited. Thank you. >> mayor adler: thank you. By additional way of introduction, if we could have the consultants also identify themselves and tell us their connection, that would be helpful, too. >> good evening. Is that working? [4:26:45 pm] >> yeah. >> i'm dan parolek, principal of opticos design and we are the lead consultant on the codenext process. >> john mickey with opticos design. >> mayor adler: and then peter and lisa? >> good afternoon, i'm lisa wise, on the consultant team with opticos. >> i'm peter park, also a subconsultant to opticos. >> mayor adler: okay. So we have a relatively short period of time. We're going to work through this, make sure that everybody is able to watch the debate tonight and get to those kinds of gatherings. Greg? [4:28:30 pm] >> thank you, mayor. We're also there are other consultants that are in the staff that are here in the audience and we're also supported by all the other different city departments that have contributed to this effort. What i want to talk a little bit about in this next part is about codenext itself. What is it going to accomplish? When we adapted this as a city, the imagine austin plan in june of 2012, there were several priority programs, and one of those dealt with actually going forward and rewriting the code. The last time the code was really rewritten was back when i was working for this man right here, back in the '80s, the middle '80s, and it was at a time when we worked four years just to adopt the current code. The zoning ordinance at that time, we worked under two different zoning ordinances, but it really has not changed since the mid '80s, all the way up to today. The code as it moves forward isn't really going forward to adopt new policy. The intent of codenext is really to implement imagine austin, and it's not trying to rethink all the codes and all the foundation work that has kind of gone on before going into the code. It is something that is the implementation of imagine austin. It makes recommendations of tools that can be used to address those things that might deal with mobility, with housing, water resources, having plentiful jobs, job creation, our creative community, health. It addresses many different things. [4:30:35 pm] But in the end, it is going forward to adopt imagine austin and those policies that we have in place, and policies in place that would honor those plans that have already gone forward, and i'll note neighborhood plans, tod plans, corridor plans, those will all be looked at as well. So that's i think that's the essence of what i wanted to say. I want to turn it over, actually, to the opticos staff, to dan and john i'm not sure who's going to speak first, but as we've gone through the journey to kind of bring us to where we are today, we've done individual things that have addressed community character and dan and john are going to talk about the code diagnosis, which really looked at our code and the layers and layers and layers and layers and layers and layers and layers that exist to that code as we have it today. >> thank you, greg. For those of you, just for reference, i think it would be a great idea for you to pull out the extract from the code diagnosis that the staff provided in your packet tonight, and what what we were asked to do is to take about ten minutes to give a brief overview of the top ten findings in the code diagnosis document. And this document was actually produced almost a couple years ago, and what it did is it provided a really strong foundation for and sort of spring board for the work since then. And we just thought it would be a really valuable exercise to take ten minutes at the start of this meeting to walk you all through some of the top ten findings in that code diagnosis document. And so let me just get to the right page here. So the first of the top ten findings, pretty straightforward, is just simply ineffective base zoning districts. And if you open up your zoning code, if you can look at the number of zoning districts that you have, there's 33 base zoning districts, and for those of us who are sort of sort of nerdy code types, we realize that that's pretty normal for a city of this size, to have about, you know, approximately 30 zoning districts. But as we look a little bit closer, what we discover is that if you start adding on the combining districts and all the different overlays, that in the different combinations and permeations, you have over 400 possible combinations of those zoning districts and layers added onto that. [4:32:50 pm] So that's where you begin to see in your zoning code the sf 3 co mu, sort of string of letters that might go on for, you know, almost 20 different letters, and that's highly uncommon, and that's a sign to us that we could do better, we could make it clearer to use and to understand. Another statistic that we found out is that only 42% of the geographic area of the city is regulated simply with the base zoning district. The rest of the 58% requires those additional sort of overlays and layers to try to effectively regulate for that that particular context. Once again, that's a sign to us that this system could be easier to use, it could be clearer and we could just make it much more straightforward. The second of the diagnosis issues that we found, and it's you know, these two are rare, very easily combined, it's competing layers of regulations. And if you've seen the presentation that i've given about this, and i actually use this as an example across the country when i'm talking about code diagnoses, is that if you start with your base zoning districts, like an sf 3 or sf 2 or sf 4 or cs zones, you start to see sort of the layers, the combining districts, the neighborhood infill tools, the sort of you have historic districts, and every single one of those layers has really, really good intent. It's just that at the point where you start stacking them on top of each other is when they create a very complicated, very hard to use and very hard to administer system. So one of the real strategies now for us is how can we take the intent of all of those layers, and they're all really good intents, and compress those layers into a new set of zoning districts that will be more effective and more easy to use. The third issue that came out of the code diagnosis was an overcomplicated opt in and opt out system. [4:34:30 pm] And once again, very, very good idea to think very carefully about each neighborhood, kind of what the characteristics are of each of those unique contexts, and make sure the rules and the zoning that you're writing for those areas sort of is responding to those specific contexts, but one example of where this has become really complicated here in austin is with the it's the infill options and design tools, and try to say that really fast five times. And imagine that there's more than a handful of you that probably have not even seen these regulations and standards before because these actually exist outside of the actual zoning code, and they have a series of maps that are a little bit hard to find as well. So it's the idea is that the new zoning and the land development code will create a system that responds to unique characteristics of the neighborhoods, but will do it in a way that's very heavily and carefully integrated into one system. The fourth of the issues is just relating back to, i think, what many of us and you all feel is have highlighted as a really big issue here in terms of trying to achieve affordable housing options, and, you know, i always start off by saying that the new land development code, it's very, very important for us to be thinking about this, but it's also important for you all to understand and everybody to understand that this is just one tool in a larger toolbox that the city needs to put together in terms of achieving its affordable housing goals. But it's a really important one, and it's high on our priority list. But what we're seeing is just, very generally, as we look at your code, is, there's just very few opportunities to provide a range of housing choices, whether it be affordable by design or incentivized to be affordable and provided by a developer or subsidized affordable. [4:36:45 pm] So just as a really basic example is when you're single family zoning districts kind of very quickly jump from allowing, in the sf 3 zone, it allows duplexes and single family homes, then when you jump up to your medium density zones or your rm zones, it immediately jumps up to i can't remember if it's 55 foot tall, like much bigger buildings, and so there are all of these types in the middle that we often called missing middle, the duplex, the fourplex, the series of really small cottages that, you know, exist on one lot, that your zoning code is actually not encouraging and sometimes not allowing anywhere in your entire city. So part of this is, how can we provide an opportunity for a broader pallet of housing types and housing choices to be provided in the appropriate locations. And, you know, one of the things this is another very specific example. I know some of the pre1940s neighborhoods, what we call the walkable neighborhoods, downtown adjacent, like east austin, on the corner lots, historically there was one small house facing one street and then you turn the corner and on either the lot has been divided or just on the back side of the lot there's a second house that fronts the second street. So those sorts of patterns are patterns that we start to recognize and want to reinforce with the new zoning standards. The fifth of the issues is simply that the code the land development code is encourage an auto centric environment. So i often tell communities that the worst possible build out scenario is high density auto dependent development. Right? [4:38:50 pm] I'd almost rather see suburban because that can evolve into something else. The other thing i say is that if you build an environment that provides spaces for cars, the cars will come, the traffic will come, all of the issues that the neighbors are concerned about will come to fruition because you're providing the automobiles. Where imagine austin has defined activity corridors and activity centers, and there's investment being made in mobility choices, whether it be bike share, transit, or other public transportation options, is reinforcing those with a development that is providing the option for those who want to live a lifestyle with less reliance on the automobile. The sixth issue is that the land development code is not always in line with imagine austin, and i just i'll just say very briefly that as we think about all the different priority programs, right, and as greg said, the objective of codenext is to implement imagine austin. Right? That's the primary objective. And so we're very carefully going through each of the priority programs and prioritizing the items and the fixes within the new code that will help implement the policies coming out of imagine austin. Number 7, lack of usability and clarity. I think this is pretty straightforward. I think if any of you have picked the zoning code document up or seen it online, it's just really, really hard to navigate. And there are several reasons for that. Number one, if you actually leave assessed and it's in the larger code diagnosis process if you assess the structure of the document, it actually changes in, like, different in terms of where chapters and divisions, and when there are the structure of a document actually changes, depending on where you are in the document, and that's just simply a result of a code that's 30 plus years old. And so there's been changes made. [4:40:30 pm] They haven't always been consistent. And so the usability becomes really complex, and the code becomes hard to use. And there's even we went through this exercise in our office at the beginning of this process, talking about the number of different ways that the current codes regulates mixed use. And it's actually something that's usually pretty straightforward in a zoning code. Either they have a couple of different zoning districts, but even just the number of different ways that the current land development code attempts to regulate for mixed use is kind of sprinkled all over the document, and it's done in different ways. And so and once again, like the idea is like how can we take that good intent and just create a much more effective, clearer system to achieve that goal. Ineffective digital code, and i know this got updated since we created the code diagnosis document, but right there is you just want the user, whether it be a councilmember, a community member, a cag member, or property owner, to be able to go online and really easily find what they want in the code document and understand what they're sort of the the answer to their question, as whether it be what can i develop on my lot or what is my neighbor allowed to develop on their lot. So i just wanted to emphasize in that point that not only thinking about the hard bound document, but also how the new code is presented online as a really important piece of the discussion. The last two here, the code changes adversely affect department organization, and once again, this was you know, it's always a pleasure to work closely with peter and lisa and their crew. We do this all across the country, and one of the things that they were noticing very early on is that as the code sort of got changed and got more complicated, and the processes were tweaked and got a little bit more complicated, it directly impacted the structure and the function of the organization, sort of the planning department, and, you know, this guy has to manage that on a day to day basis. And so part of this is creating a new structure to the document and rethinking the systems in a way that will also ultimately impact the way that the department functions in a more effective and easier to manage way. Number 10 is just incomplete and complicated administration and procedures. [4:42:45 pm] And i think that's once again, i think that's pretty straightforward, but it's always nice to reinforce. I think one of the, you know, overriding things, whether it be a small developer, a homeowner that wanted to add a deck to their home, or a business owner that wanted to renovate an existing building to move a small local business into, you know, we just kept hearing, it's just really hard, it takes a long time, and it's really expensive. And part of this is, the unfortunate reality of that system is that the bigger developers with the deeper pockets can make it through that system, but it's those small projects, those small businesses that have a harder challenge to get through that system, and part of it's let's level let's clean up the system and let's level the playing field for small as well as big, and make sure you're getting the type of development in the right locations that you want. And so, like i said, this document was done almost two years ago, but we often find ourselves referring back to this and making sure that what was highlighted in this document as the primary issues, which we got really great response from, from, i would say, the greater community, are the issues that we continue to focus on as we're sort of rethinking the structure and the content of the new land development code. >> i think that moves us to item 4, and what i wanted to talk a little bit about, about the roles, in the end, the rewriting of our land development code, codenext, and the accompanying maps, the ultimate decision would be made by the city council. Because they are the ones that established the policies for the city. But before that can happen, the planning commission, and in austin, we actually, unlike most cities, we have what's called land use commissions, and we actually have two. We have the planning commission and we have the zoning and platting commission. Our planning commission is the body that basically reviews zoning changes and subdivision requests, things that are called conditional use permits or site plans approved by the commission. They hear certain waivers, but these are done in areas where our previous council had kind of outlined an area that we would have neighborhood plans. And we've been working on those since about 1997, and we're coming in the final phase of those right now. But if they have an adopted plan or a plan underway, then the planning commission has jurisdiction. [4:44:50 pm] They also have jurisdiction over code amendments, the cip, the capital improvements plan, and they make recommendations on those as well. But we also have the zoning and platting commission, and they have those duties for the areas that are outside of the neighborhood planning areas. They don't have the authority the planning commission has with respect to code amendments. But where there's a change to zoning map, someone wants to change a property from residential to commercial, or vice versa, the zoning and platting commission and the planning commission both hold those duties. Let me move on a little bit to the code advisory group. So the code advisory group is going to make sure that staff, the consultants, council, the commissions, that we have heard from everybody. They are the ones that are going to assist in the process of making sure that there's engagement. They also support, by council resolution, not only engagement, but making sure that we address the priority programs that are in the imagine austin plan. They have a tough task. Actually, it doesn't get any easier for them when the actual code comes out. And i'll bewaring out my tennis shoes, but they'll probably also bewaring out a little bit of their shoe leather and perhaps losing their voice. Hopefully not as much as i am or the consultants team. But then there's everybody else, like everybody in the audience, everybody on staff, because this is everybody's code. So whether you're part of a neighborhood organization, one of the three or four hundred registered with the city, you represent certain stakeholder interests in the city, be it non profit, for profit, big or small, whether it's environmental housing, neighborhoods, transportation issues, those all play a role, whether it's a geographic area, that it's important. Renters, which make up the majority of austin, and property owners, be they individual property owners that own a small home or a large home or live in an apartment complex or condominium or business owners, all all of you play a role in this process. [4:46:30 pm] There's also other jurisdictions. We can't really go forward in the planning of our region and establishing our codes without talking to the surrounding copies. Imagine austin went beyond just the city limits and took in something called the exoterritorial jurisdictions that goes into hays, caldwell, travis county, texas. We discussed this at a council work session, we have a title 30 work agreement that we work with travis county when we approve plats, when we look at drainage or water quality issues, we work with travis county in particular. So as we move forward with codenext, we will approach the county and work with them because we need basically their consent to enforce some of our regulations in travis county. We have a different arrangement with hays and williamson counties, but it is a relationship that we will work with. We also work with the school districts, and i think there are about eight of those, in austin. Austin aisd being the largest, and also the state, because the state owns property interest certainly in the city, whether it be from large university land or to just state land. So other is a big category. But in the end, it comes back to the city council. So the expectation of going through in the end, in order to get this to the council, ultimately i need the planning commission to make a recommendation, and this is set forth in our city charter and by ordinance, and i need the planning commission and the zoning and platting commissions to bring forward recommendations on the maps. And what i mean by the maps, every parcel inside the city of austin, with the exception of maybe some state lands, has zoning on it, and we need to bring forward changes to the state or to the city city properties that are within our jurisdiction, zoning changes, so basically it's a rezoning of the entire city of austin, and those with the code would come to the city council for action. So i think that that addresses that part. Do you have any questions or anything on that? [4:48:50 pm] >> mr. Mayor? >> mayor adler: yes, go ahead. >> kitchen: thank you very much and thank you for the ones that's here and thank you for going over the land development code diagnosis. That helped helped remind me what all we're looking at in terms of our challenges. So my question on the roles, and thank you for laying that out, my question has to do with you know, i have questions about community outreach, but i understand we may talk about that at the next meeting, but i have a question, i'm trying to understand everyone's role with regard to implementing the policies, because, you know, we are following the imagine austin, but imagine austin is at a higher level. You know, we've got here's imagine austin policies, and here we have actual language in the code, so the prescription papers have been very helpful for me to identify some of those policies, but they don't give us language in the code. So i guess what i'm getting to is, just for myself, i would find it helpful and perhaps this is what's intended, is that all of the bodies that you mentioned also weigh in on what they are thinking in terms of how we actually take the policy and interpret it into language. And so i would be curious, of course, you know, what the cag thought about those things, the planning commission, the zap, our consultants. All of that would be helpful. I know we're having some discussions with regard to the prescription paper, but those will become more specific when we actually start talking about language. And so i guess i'm trying to connect the dots between the higher level policy piece that's imagine austin and actually what that turns into, into language, because when we get the language, that's when we'll actually know what we're talking about and what we're voting on in terms of a policy change. Does that make sense for all of these bodies to have a role in actually speaking to what the language looks like? [4:50:30 pm] >> yes. And everyone has certainly a role in giving comments. I think, in particular, as i pointed out, by code and by charter, i need the planning commission and then the city council to bring this forward. And i need in particular, i need the cag to insist in getting and making sure that we're hearing everyone. But as we move forward within the imagine austin piece, when we release the code, the public draft of the code and i'm going to go over this in the next section i'm going to have everyone, basically, the public, the different stakeholder groups, boards, and commissions, they will all be giving their input, and that at some point will then get back to the commission, planning commission, and for the mapping parts, the zoning, platting, and planning commission, and ultimately that will get back to the city council. So perhaps if i went into that next part, that might help. The engagement part, staff is working on that right now, and we working with the cag and helping some of the council. It sounds like there's a desire to maybe have a follow up meeting. In particular, we would talk about probably that engagement plan at a suggested meeting, which we'll probably talk at the end of the agenda. >> kitchen: okay. Before you go on, let me make sure i'm understanding. I think i heard and i'm understanding that the cag, for example, will play a role in telling us what they think about whether a particular policy imagine austin policy has been implemented in the language that we're seeing. Is that right, or >> that's part of the resolution, speaks to making sure that the cag make sure the priority programs are addressed, and i assure that whether it's the cdc bringing housing issues to the cag or the environmental board bringing issues to the cag, that all those groups, i'm looking to the cag, actually, to help, to make sure all those different boards and commissions whose purview might be environment or might be housing or might be, i don't know, mobility, transportation commission, that those are being brought forward. And the stakeholders as well, because there's individual stakeholder groups that have particular interests in different priority programs, be it the arts, through the environment, or water. [4:52:45 pm] >> kitchen: okay. Did you have anything to add, mr. Duncan, to that? >> no. Are we here >> no, we're not there yet. >> what i was just thinking is, we have a part on here, number 5, where some of my cag members are going to talk. >> kitchen: okay. >> that might help a little bit, then we can renew >> kitchen: okay. >> the discussion. >> so let me talk a little bit about the process, and as you know, and it's been said on the radio and newspaper, i said we're going to have a public draft of the code that will come out in january, and when it comes out, i'm sure there will be a lot of folks that will have a lot of sleepless nights reading it and consuming coffee and drinking it all in. But i want to assure you there's going to be time for the boards and commissions to really examine that. We anticipate that there are pieces that will probably require some additional work. So it's not going to be perfection when it comes out in january. We expect that there might be comments that might be made where some of the districts maybe don't precisely match maybe some of the concerns that might be brought back by some constituents or neighborhoods, and a more precise place might be somewhere between this particular zone and that particular zone, there's a zone that might be in between, and we might have to add something to the code to address that. This isn't going to be something that's probably going to be a code that one size fits all. [4:54:50 pm] So that's kind of the problem that we have with our code right now. It doesn't take things into context. It doesn't necessarily consider the character of an area. It doesn't necessarily mean that a tool that might be used in one part of the community is going to fit somewhere else, and that every one is going to look the same or every corridor is going to look the same. So that needs to be taken into consideration. There are areas in the city that have plans, neighborhood plans or corridor plans, and others that don't, so that needs to be considered. We'll consider the topography of the city as well, because there are different parts of the city that have heavily steeped slopes and narrow floodplains and rocky soils, and there's other parts that have wide, expansive floodplains, less slopes, expansive clays. Those would need to be taken into consideration in how we discuss this. So the process, as it goes through, would have the public draft that would come out. We're looking at a process of approximately six months that we would basically be receiving input. [4:56:30 pm] There would be something called the commission draft that would come out, that after all that input is gathered, we would then go to the planning commission and present that. I'm sure there's going to be boards and commissions, departmental boards, cdc, zoning and platting, they all will probably weigh in and provide input to the planning commission and help them to make their recommendation, that would get to that point. Then we would get to the council's first reading draft, that maybe a document that when it comes to the commission, they would make a recommendation and we would bring that to city council. Unlike some ordinances that you might see on a thursday before council that might be approved on three readings by consent or some code amendments that take a little discussion, i don't anticipate that. This is going to be a long time that will need to be discussed probably by the council in forethought. But as we lead up to the commission draft, there will probably be discussions with the planning commission, probably with zap as well, because of the mapping elements, to help prepare them based on what we've heard from the community, from other other stakeholder groups, from neighborhood organizations, appropriate owners, that will help build that commission draft that will ultimately get to the city council. The staff will have a recommendation that will be based on our consultants' work, on staff and other departments. [4:58:45 pm] Staff will have a recommends that will be based on our consultants' work, on staff and other departments. We'll present that to the commission. The commission's recommendation will be also presented then to the city council. That information will then be considered by the city council. I mentioned the mapping part. That's in a nerdy way the exciting part because that's where the rubber hits the road. The code's all fine and dandy, we want to make sure it works well, it's understood, but where is it going to apply. So in the months that are beginning in 2017 there will probably be some basically how the code might work with mapping in certain areas. We would take that then to getting to having a draft map at some point. Again, that has to go to the planning commission, it will have to go to zap. And then we would actually bring that to council most likely with at the time that you will see the code join the mapping, probably closer to its final version at that second reading draft of the code. The zoning and platting commission and the planning commission need to weigh in on the maps, but we would see that kind of coming back to council all at second reading together. Third reading is where we get the grant approval. [5:00:30 pm] It's a very ambitious schedule that we're looking at. Staff is looking at right now and i'll say this because it's an ambition schedule, is that we all do our part and stay on time, might be looking at may or june of 2018. And that's with the map and the code because you really can't have the code without the map and vice versa. So that's the overall process that i see right now. It's going to take a lot of hard work. I'm told by my consultants that i'll probably go through two sets of tennis shoes. Kind of expect it, i guess, but that's the basic process and the expectations that we have that we would suggest going for. >> mayor adler: does anybody have any questions about the process or want to comment? On it? >> we would also probably have a better outline when we come back to you next month. Of trying to give you a timeline. We really want to make sure when we talk about this that i'm trying to commit to having some schedule so everybody can kind of see where we are along the way, when we anticipate something maybe going to the planning commission or to the zoning and platting commission, what council could expect, what timelines we would need to hit. S so i want to try to make sure that that is very open and transparent of how they would get to that date. >> mayor adler: that would be very helpful. >> just to clarify one thing that was said earlier and it might be in the schedule that you mentioned, but six months for the public participation piece. Is that sort of the public review draft will be out for six months before the >> before the comments would be closed and the commission would make a recommendation, the idea is that we would have that time. I know the cag is working on an engagement schedule as well about how to address stakeholder groups, boards and commissions, zoning and platting and staff will certainly be working with the cag on that. As we come back with something next month, that's kind of like the staff piece and i need to work with jim and the cag on the cag piece of engagement and making sure that we're getting to everybody. [5:02:30 pm] >> houston: mayor? >> mayor adler: yes, ms. Houston. >> houston: are you anticipating that the engagement process will start in the first of 2017 or when do you anticipate it? >> we certainly need time for people to look over the code, read the code. So in february we release in january. In february we would start actually having some of those discussions lined up. Like i said, i haven't worked with the consultant and my staff and some of the other departments about how we would go out, but i would imagine that there would be meetings out in the community. I know the cag is having discussions that would allow time for stakeholders and boards and commissions and citizens to take time to look at the code and report back to the cag and give input. So it will be a pretty exhausting process. But it would start in february and then it would go through until we actually get it to the commission. >> houston: and i just want to say that as much lead time as you can give council offices to be able to schedule those and not give us two weeks to do it and expect a lot of people to show up, if we have a schedule and we can push that out to the people in the district, then that would help us get you the kind of information back that you're looking for. >> certainly before we have that public draft come out, the schedule i was talking about, we would like to have that pinned down so everybody is aware of that and the council offices certainly would have that information as well. >> greg, back here. I can't see you back here and i don't know if i missed when you said it. After the first sound check when we had a discussion over the fact that the transects that we were playing with at that time weren't necessarily austin's transects, there was talk of a second sound check when we would get to be able to do the same exercise, but with austin's new site development regulations. >> yes. Staff and the consultant team, we are planning to do that. Most likely it would be before south by southwest, probably the first week in march is what we're looking at now. We don't have a facility, won't be called sound check. It will be called something else. I don't know what we're going to call it right now. But the idea is that we would have days where the community could come in, talk with staff, talk about different parts of the code and we would actually kind of give examples how far the code might interact with property on the ground. These wouldn't necessarily be specifically to that area that it's going to be that when it comes out with the draft maps that are suggested, but then you would be able to see how the code would react with different areas of the city. We would probably go back to some of the same areas that we talked about before and the sound check in november i think 2014, and to show those because those were similar to other areas that were in the city. So people could have some idea of how the code could interact with the map. [5:04:45 pm] >> thank you. >> mayor adler: kevin? >> i foresee regarding the rules, i foresee a potential problem if i heard you correctly, and i would like to offer a potential solution. That might be for the cag to make some sort of recommendation or weigh in too. What i heard you saying was that the cag would make sure that the staff heard from everybody. And believe me, i support freedom of speech. All stakeholders will also have an opportunity to weigh in, but if the cag's input just becomes another data point in a sea of data point Point in a sea of data points , i think that diminishes the work of the cag. It's been purported to represent the city and all the districts and all that. If it's just sort of one input and then we have inputs from all over the city and everywhere else, i think it's it diminishes what's been going on in the cag ultimately. >> it's not my intent to diminish the role of cag whatsoever. Cag is actually one of the most important routes to make sure of outreach. What we did imagine austin it was very much of a challenge to make sure that we heard from everybody.everyday was understood. And when everybody was understood when it came forward. That was certainly not the intent of staff. >> i think we're more of a funnel because there are a lot of people interested in this process. Obviously the planning commission and the zap are the charter mandated advisers to the council on this issue, but i've asked we've got 80 boards and commissions. We've got 950,000 people out there so we're supposed to take that information and funnel it, try to make something in common. This is austin. It's exciting. The real work is coming up. [5:06:30 pm] I have to get this in here. One of my favorite sayings came from a favorite austinite, come let us rest together in the book of isaiah and if you've never received together, now is the most important time to do it is in codenext which is one of the most important documents in the next 25 years. >> mayor adler: and if we get together in the next month we'll have a process to show community engagement and that process and i think that will flesh out some of the issues that you've raised. I'm eager to hear that it's a limited period of time going back to 6:00 then you will get into process next time. I would really like to hear back from the cag. I would like to hear back from the work groups that were working on the prescription papers. So with the issues it would be really helpful to us on the council. >> so we want to move on to number 5. Number 5 on the agenda. >> mayor adler: please. >> we have as greg indicated not only do we have the documents that the consultant prepared but we have the full prescription papers we've been working on the last two years. And we've had working group from our cag who have actually focused on these areas. And i've asked if one member of that would give us a very brief five minute maybe summary of some of what you've covered. Let's start with the natural and built environment. Ellie, lauren? >> thank you. So myself, ellie and [indiscernible] were the members of the environment the environment working group so we pored over the first prescription paper that was on that very broad subject on the environment. I think it covers pretty much everything. And it was released back in march. We collected from our colleagues and from the community and put out a report and [indiscernible]. I think something that everyone on the cag did agree with is the topics that were covered in that first paper were very broad. There was a desire for more details and agreement that we would probably revisit a lot of those topics that were in the first paper as we move through the other papers. So transportation, mobility came up again, affordability, infill incentives, that sort of thing. Those came up in the other papers. I thought what i would do is briefly touch on the three big the first big issues that we recognized needed more information and needed a little more discussion moving forward and sort of what we look like to see more focus on from here. So i guess i would say that i think everybody another thing we did talk a lot about and something that everybody really did agree with is we have a great opportunity with green fill development to preserve open space, trees, parkland and to make sure that as we are building a green filed that we are giving everyone access to those amenities. Some of the topics that we recognize as needing more attention, our current concern are compatibility standards, functional green and market capacity. [5:08:50 pm] We started to touch on compatibility standards. We understood that [indiscernible], but the framework wasn't really outlined yet. And i think we all know that it's an important topic. It's an area that could change as we have the housing and there's room for improvement as we do that, but the discussion seems futile at the moment because it was a hot issue, it could become an emotional issue. Is my mic on. Is that better? I can hear that now. So on compatibility standards, something that we want to talk about more, and i know it's been put on a future cag agenda i think december 7th is when we're going to be talking about compatibility standards on the cag. A concern that we have, and i think a concern that permeates these three issues is that we're not sure how they're going to inform the code writing at this point because we're not going to have this discussion on the cag until december 7th, then we're going to undoubtedly receive feedback from the community and from each other and then how we'll incorporate that feedback into the code. So that's i guess a concern that we have and something that we hope can be explained or addressed. The second piece is the functional green piece which we noticed from the contract, the consultant's contract is going to be in the code. That's great news. We feel very positive about that. But we also see that that piece is not going to be completed until march so we do want to make sure that the public has the opportunity to see that, except on that. And the water analysis, it's my understanding that that is underway right now. That watershed protection is doing some storm water drainage modeling in different watersheds. I'm not sure when that will be done, but obviously that is really important for forming the code and the mapping. So again our overarching concern is just to make sure that those three issues that i think deserve additional information and additional conversation make it into the code moving forward. Is that good enough, chair? >> thank you, lauren. [5:10:30 pm] The next prescription paper was housing affordability.mandy, who was on that, liz? >> liz mueller, who is not here tonight. She's teaching at ut. Terri mitchell, who is not here tonight, and [indiscernible]. So there were four of us who worked on this. And two of us are here tonight. I'm happy to take any questions.we started the prescription paper, was released may second. We worked with staff on the drafting of the prescription paper, although staff took the lead obviously. On may 23rd we had a public event which i think was our most well attended public event if i recall correctly we had over 100 people. It was liz mueller and some of her students organized it, so it was really interesting, organized a little different than a lot of our other public events. On june 20th we had the joint meeting that the mayor mentioned where we had the mayor and councilmembers kitchen and casar attended and we discussed a bit of the household affordability prescription paper. And then on the 21st we had a work session where with council where we delved in and covered the household affordability prescription paper. And then in july we had an actual in depth cag discussion. I should say there's been an enormous amount obviously this is a really important topic and there's a lot of interest in it as with all of the topics, but we had an enormous amount of community input on the prescription paper, including a walk in the zilker neighborhood, we had the public event that i mentioned. We had speak up and reddit for those of you who are more technologically inclined. And within our own group we provided feedback via a google document. We are in the process of writing up our i'm looking at noria because we've come up with an internal deadline of writing up kind of our cag response, which will go to the full cag and get review and approval. And what we discovered, there's a whole range of opinions on household affordability. [5:12:50 pm] I wouldn't say there's any easy consensus, but there was five major themes that emerged from all of the i think any of the input that we got from the public could fall into one of these five buckets. So i'll just cover those really quickly. The first was fair housing. And the question we're grappling with is how might we affirmatively further fair housing goals through our development patterns. And how do we ensure broad housing choice in all types of neighborhoods. It's something we're struggling with. The second bucket or theme is increased entitlements and unintended consequences, something we're all concerned about. How do we balance development pressure and neighborhood context? The third is density and affordability. This is a major issue, particularly when we're talking about our density bonus programs, and that is how might we increase affordability in concert with increased density? [5:14:30 pm] The fourth, and lauren touched on green field as an opportunity and i think it's also an opportunity for affordability, and that's green fill and infill development, the two different opportunities, but how might we calibrate growth and density in both green field and intill areas. And then the fifth and final one, which really tied nicely to the fiscal health prescription paper was density and infrastructure. And that major attention was how can we ensure our infrastructure supports increased density. So again, those are the five major themes that emerged from all of our discussions, whether it's cag or the public through a variety of venues. And we're in the process of organizing all of that input and then making our final recommendations. >> thank you. The next is mobility. Dave, you were key on that. I think terri. Who else>> sorry. It was terry mitchell who serves on the board of capital metro. Lisa mueller, myself and then an attorney who works with a ride share company. Do you want to take this, melissa? >> you can go ahead. [5:16:50 pm] >> all right. Similar to the other prescription papers, we had meetings where we had the citizens come in and talk to us so that we could get their ideas after the prescription paper gets released. We had meeting that was rolled out to the cag. The second meeting was an outreach meeting and then finally it came back to the cag again. One thing that was different from ours is that melissa put together an online survey where she took the prescriptions and then the cag members were able to weigh in on what they supported, what they supported with conditions, what they needed more information on and what they did not support. And so that was a tool that we could use when we had our discussion and we've had since then we've had another discussion about applying that same technique to the previous prescriptions so that we could bring in some analytics. And then we did it also for the fiscal health one later. Basically with regard to mobility, mobility is address the both in 25 in the code, but also in section 12, which has to do with parking and other rules, so there is some overlap outside of the land development code. But one of the major issues is trying to create more choices for people in travel. So part of what we talked about in the mobility paper is increasing density, the number of housing units along the activity corridors, the idea being that that would put more people within the ride shed for mass transit, and also make people closer to their destinations for walking to retail that's along those activity corridors. [5:18:30 pm] So one of the first prescriptions has to do with making austin more multimodal in terms of increasing the density. Another point too is the same time that this work is going on, the city staff and the transportation department is working on the strategic mobility plan which will have more information about the technical issues, about the width of streets and the profile for streets with sidewalks and the different the different jobs for arterials versus connector streets, versus neighborhood streets. So part of what another prescription has to do with trying to match up the code to these strategic mobility plan. Another element has to do with greater connectivity within the city, both in terms of streets and sidewalks. In imagine austin we talked about complete streets, which doesn't necessarily mean that every street would carry pedestrians, bikes and buses, but that you would have a street network that could handle all of those different modes. And then there's an issue about dealing with congestion. So there's a method used in transportation planning called transportation or travel demand management in which there's a set of tools for making it easier for people to use alternative transportation where an employer provides the employees with bus passes or makes it easy for them to use their bikes or walk to work, and i use for examples the university neighborhood overlay that we have in west campus in which there's an additional cost for you if you want to rent space to park your car. The tradition, in most places in america, is you rent an apartment and you get a parking space at the same time. On the west campus, if you want a parking space, you pay for that parking space separately than the rent on your apartment. So that creates an incentive for somebody to not bring their card to school or it also rewards the people who don't have a car and helps them save money so that they can use the bus or save for to become a homeowner later, for example. So anyway, there's a list of different travel demand management tools, and another prescription has to do with making it harder to get variances so that you can ensure connectivity. [5:20:50 pm] And then lastly, the other two big issues are parking. We're going to look at our parking requirements, make them more context sensitive. And the mayor had asked us about what kind of things would be controversial and i predict that that's going to be one of the more controversial things. But we're probably going to have different rules say out in the suburbs where almost everybody has to drive versus in our activity centers where we expect to have more people living near restaurants, near schools, near parks, and so parking won't be as important. And then safety. The review for safety within subdivision plans and site plans will be increased and there will be special we will be looking at the vision zero recommendations to see how they can be applied within the code to make transportation safer. >> thank you. Dave. Our last prescription paper was fiscal health, colby and roger. Sure. So on our team we had dave and rich heyman, colby and guy dudley. And this was our obviously our last most recent we're actually still accepting comment on this one because it was just came out in the last 45 days or so. We have had one public engagement session, which was unfortunately fairly nightly attended because it was the night of the first presidential debate, so we didn't have too many folks there, but what we're looking at here is a little different than the other prescription papers in that we're not looking at the code section so much as we are all of the infrastructure decisions and things that go along with it. Such as roadways and utilities and water, wastewater and connectivity and how all of those decisions affect city services such as police, fire, e.m.s. protection, those kinds of things, and trying to figure out how to do the code in the most efficient way so that the fiscal health, which is what the name of this prescription paper is, is less impacted. So some of the issues that we looked at, of course, were building sustainable infrastructure. It's very easy to see when you're doing a green fill development that the developer comes in, pays for everything upfront. That's fine. But then after whatever the life span is of that infrastructure, whether it be the streets or the waste, wastewater or the electric, somebody has to come in and continue to pay for that and how does that fit in with the city's overall new capital improvement plan, so that gets into the maintenance of the existing and future infrastructure and who pays for that over the long term. And we looked at such ideas, particularly in the central core in terms of redevelopment as perhaps looking at drainage districts and those kinds of things to pay for redevelopment where it might not otherwise happen because of the cost involved in essentially rebuilding infrastructure, whether it has been little or no investment in, say, 20 or 30 years in the central core of the city. We also looked at efficiently issues such as maintaining consistent requirements for the development and buildout of streets so that you have connectivity in the street grids and you have the new parts of the city connecting in the connect way with the correct way with the old part so we don't have a lot of dead ends. Obviously we have to look at topography and things like that. We don't want to be building multiple bridges over creeks as they've brought up several times. But on the other hand we do need a connected street grid to make particularly the provision of fire, e.m.s., those sorts of things, more efficient. [5:22:30 pm] We also looked at the ideas of leveraging public and private partnerships to perhaps fund some of these things. And again this prescription paper is a little more amorphous in the sense that it doesn't go directly to certain sections of the code, although we do want to see the suburban development, the new suburban development. It seemed like there was some consensus to be along the lines of the imagine austin plan and not necessarily just the kind of suburban development we've had in the past. So there seemed to be a general consensus on that. Again, we did actually do the survey, except for that piece, not a lot of consensus items except for i think the connectivity of the street grids, i think everybody pretty much agreed that that was something that was important to look at going into the future. >> thank you, roger. Are there any other members that would like to add anything briefly? Susan? >> hi. I just have a request. I was appointed to represent public schools, and the one of the biggest issues, as i'm sure you all know for our public school system, is the loss of family friendly housing in austin. And i know mandy's group really looked carefully at that. Right now according to the city, the list was actually back in 2014, so it's probably worse now, we were at least 48,000 housing units short for our lower income households. And you know, 60% of aisd students come from lower income households, so this is really a big deal. But it's also a challenge for all kinds of people that we need to keep our community healthy, school bus drivers, teachers, academic drivers, service day care, drivers, service workers. The majority of the city of austin's affordable housing right now is privately owned, unsubsidized market rate housing. And this is something that dr. Mueller, who couldn't be here today, has spent a lot of her professional research time looking at. According to a 2014 housing works report, and shout out to you, mandy, within apartment properties of 50 units or more, there were slightly more than 25,000 units affordable to households of 50% mfi or below. And if we go to 60% it's even worse. [5:24:50 pm] So we've all seen tear downs of existing affordability, multi family over the last couple of years and riverside in particular is a cautionary tale. And we don't want to go into the process inadvertently incentivizing the tear downs of our existing affordable market rate multi family because we really, really need this. So my request, because we're just an advisory group, council needs to direct, is in the envision tomorrow tool that we're using to look at the different scenarios and the trade offs, could we please plug in a line for demolition of existing affordable housing so that we don't end up inadvertently further behind than we are right now. And i think we can't track everything. We can't track, for instance, the apartment complexes. I mean, there's one i drive by everyday that was really ratty and cheap and my friends had sons who lived there. And then it got a new owner and they bleached it out and painted it and put in palm trees and granite counter tops and tripled the rent. They didn't tear it down so we can't track that, but for the things that we are actually issuing demo permits for and we can track, i would like us to track that and i would like for us to count that in a trade off. If we're looking at an affordable complex on a corridor and we're thinking of adding entitlements, we need to be careful about that. That's my ask for council if you could please offer some direction because you're allowed to, to really try to track our existing affordable and be careful of the demolition and the trade offs. >> thank you, susan. [5:26:30 pm] I think councilmembers casar and renteria, that was one of your platforms on your recent affordable housing is strengthen the existing stock and keeping it. >> may i ask a question? >> i'll turn it back over to greg. >> mayor adler: mayor pro tem? >> tovo: before we move on from that, what is necessary before our that the envision tool will be used measure the impact to some of these code changes on demolition. I think the point that you've raised, ms. Moffett, is really important, and we need to understand well what the code changes could do in terms of incentivizing demolition of existing structures. >> well, i >> tovo: so if it's necessary to have council direction to do so, then certainly i think that's something we should consider. If it's something you can just take as guidance from the cag, i think you've gotten that guidance. >> i'm alex joyce with the associates that are part of the consulting team. And with me is alex, my technical backup. He's the one sitting at the steering wheel of envision tomorrow. We've been working closely with elizabeth mueller and we have the databases to track that, we have track the potential impacts to it. I will say from a policy point of view there needs to also be public engagement to make sure that they're preserved long term. [5:28:50 pm] That's part of a larger discussion, but from a technical discussion we will definitely are tracking that. >> yes, mr. Casar? >> casar: thank you for having brought that up. I think in our brief discussions before this meeting we really wanted to hear y'all out, so i've been trying not to interject too much and eating my lasagna here quietly. But i would say that it is a high priority for the council and even though you rightly said that it is harder to track the upfilterring of apartments, it is also a housing capacity issue that often times drives that as well. So all the work that you can do to help track the loss of affordable housing by demolition, but also by upfelting because of the housing capacity issues, i think those are both really critical. While i've been trying not to chime in because this is about you informing us, i think it rises to the level of importance where i think we should assure everyone that that's high on our priority list and i'm interested in continuing with what we're left in the meeting hearing y'all as broad of your thoughts on this and the other prescription papers. Sorry for butting in. >> kitchen: mr. Mayor? >> mayor adler: yes, ann. >> kitchen: along those lines, i also would just like to make a note, there was part of the environmental prescription paper, there was a note, a question about the watershed capacity analysis and also about functional green and how those would be the timing and how they might be reflected in the code. So don't have to answer it now. As councilmember casar mentioned, i want to hear from the cag, but i don't want to lose that point because i would like to know the answer to that too. How are those two items going to feed into the code and impact the code? >> mayor adler: while we're all butting in and before we go too far, i want to be sure and in the process, greg, that the ability to do the modeling, to be able to see what we're doing is impacting supply, and with current and also our ability to be able to deliver supply, is that in addition to the envision austin tool that we have. Are we also funding the ability to be able to use the modeling and the tools that the fragnaci and other groups have. [5:30:30 pm] >> yes. >> yes. >> mayor adler: kevin and then we'll go back over there, leslie. >> just to tag on to something that susan said, i know this is important to everyone at this table, but just a friendly reminder that we need to bear in mind keeping austin affordable for families and also older folks who are on fixed income through obviously increasing taxes. I've been told stories and i've also seen personal stories of you know, i've lost friends and neighbors, young families and also older folks due to rising taxes, so i think that's something to bear in mind too. And finally on the wise household affordability group pointed out on this point about older housing stock about a lot of the older housing stock, multi family is along the corridor. So there's a little tension there. So just want to point that out too. >> good evening, just to clarify since we have access to mr. I didn't catch your last name? >> joyce. >> so when you say envision tomorrow can track, can it also be a variable in your calibration of entitlements to address the first piece that we are not encouraging the demolition. So not only being able to track we might lose 300 units along this stretch of lamar, but also if we do the entitlements, i don't know, maybe increase f.a.r. by a ratio of one instead of two, then we might not encourage that demolition. Is that something it's got the capacity to do? >> envision is set up to explore a whole bunch of different policy options, but we need sort of clear direction on what those are, what the levers we're pulling on are. But yeah, the machinery is there to explore a bunch of different policy options. [5:32:50 pm] >> okay, thank you. >> leslie? >> pool: am i on? This is really helpful and especially i was looking on the summary of key findings that you were talking about, the number one ineffective based zoning districts, austin base zoning districts are ineffective because they apply the same development regulations to vastly different types of places. And i wanted to say a little bit. Yesterday in work session when we heard about the fiscal health, there was some discussion about sidewalks and architect activity and cul de sacs were mentioned in a slide. And the point was made, i think councilmember kitchen first made it, but a number of us weighed in on this topic in support, and mr. Guernsey was there, that because of geography and topography and because of some of the ways that developers plat, they are looking at having cul de sacs and that's not inherently evil, it's just a style. So to especially in older parts of town when we have challenges with infrastructure and connectedness, where we do have cul de sacs it may be that we leave them be. So that was the piece here kineticking up what we talked about yesterday and what was listed in here as a summary of key findings. I really want to emphasize for myself and for the public that is says here that austin's base zoning districts are not effective because they apply the same development regulations to vastly different types of places. And my thinking is we're probably applying some philosophy and policy decisions as well. So i would just like to highlight that and it looks like you're going to say something. And then i had a piece that i wanted to ask a question on. But go ahead, mr. Duncan. [5:34:30 pm] >> i was just going to say that you've hit a point. We're going to be moving from a one size fits all to a context sensitive mode and we can talk about that with parking, we can talk about housing. So you're right on top. That's all i'm going to say. >> and i think the more that we talk about that publicly and loudly so that our community understands that that is in fact its direction that we're intending to go in because that's not the message they're hearing. So they're very, very concerned, and we don't want to have angry citizens in january or whenever in 2017 really pushing back on this because we haven't adequately and sufficiently verbalized what the intentions are. So that's great. So maybe we can all start talking about that. And then the question that i have for our staff and for the citizens advisory group going forward, i've talked a number of times at work session and at council and privately and with my staff the issue of affordable housing and the fact that we've been trying to incentivize development and building of affordable housing units. Do we have a robust and accurate and easily communicated mechanism to keep track of all those promises, watch where they are put on the ground and track whether they are indeed affordable? In other words, are the promises that were made, are they kept? Because that is trust is a really important issue for our community. And of course it is. And if we are approving development that has x percentage of affordable units and then 10 years later it's finally on the ground and it's opening, the council that made those decisions and maybe even the staff that followed them for a time may no longer be in place. So what are our legacy mechanisms to ensure that the promises that we give the public can follow the development far into the future and no matter what the internet looks like, because that changes fairly frequently as well? So what platform do we have to capture that information, make it publicly available and easily accessible far down the road into the future? [5:36:50 pm] >> jim? >> [inaudible]. >> that's the problem when you get old. You have hit another needle on the head that you could adopt the best code in the world, all right? The perfect code, which we're all trying to achieve. But if you don't implement it, you don't enforce it, you don't monitor it, you're not going to achieve it. And we all know and we don't need to give examples of things we've done and we've done a good job of doing the plan and doing the code, but we haven't followed up. And that's important. That's all i've got to say. And we've got to keep on top of it.>> mayor adler: that's good. Sorry. >> pool: the question is for staff then, what mechanisms do we have in order to track it? >> i don't want to get into specifics, but we had an audit of the housing program and there wasn't a lot of funding so we dropped the ball on a lot of those things. If it means something to it we have to follow through with it. >> pool: and mr. Guernsey, do you have anything to add to it? >> the idea is that we would be able to when we go forward in codenext to make it easier to track those unit types. We have i think like eight different density bonus programs, so each one of those might come out with a different result. So if we can basically make the density bonus programs such that the density bonus programs may be in different areas, would have different tools that are implemented with them, it might actually get easier to track the units because at least we're talking about the same type of program and inserting different tools within those programs, but they would be simpler to track through time. And ultimately that's what neighbor housing needs and hopefully then the units would get on the ground quicker because the dsd staff would be able to review them easier and people would know what's going up. >> mayor adler: let's bookmark. I think it's an important issue and i don't want to lose that. We have 15 or 16 minutes left and i want to make sure that we use that time to be able for the members of the cag to be able to address the council and let us know things that we should be hearing or things that we should be saying since you have us. Yes? [5:38:30 pm] >> thank you. I wanted to address some of the things susan was saying about preservation of affordable housing along corridors, unsubsidized affordable housing along corridors. I've lived in two of those units that we studied in two of the properties that we studied when i was in professor liz mueller's class a couple of years ago looking at how we can preserve unsubsidized affordable rentals. And i do think it's very important and the types of neighbors i've had, i probably have been the only one that's had kind of maybe a more professional job in my non profit service, but these people servers, bartenders, have been single moms, have been young married couples, have been grad students, and i'm concerned that our cag conversations have been a little bit more slanted to preserving you know, preserving developments along corridors for this sake. And are not necessarily thinking about the other virtues of density along corridors for people. So i'm really concerned that maybe we're only thinking about preservation of affordable housing, of unsubsidized affordable rentals in this manner that i think should be addressed more so in affordable housing policy rather than trying to use the code as a tool to preserve the unsubsidized affordable rentals on these corridors. So i would really urge thinking about a balance when we're thinking about affordability. The code is a part of that, but it's not all of it. And i would really press you guys to think about getting that preservation fund up and running so that the properties that i've lived in can be preserved on the corridors, but also allowing for opening up some, you know, other density bonuses along these corridors for other people to live in and that are more walkable and bike friendly so that we can actually achieve the vision that we're trying to create. Also, i want to just say one more thing on demolitions. I'm sorry i'm going to leave, so it's okay. [5:40:50 pm] So in the demolitions now i live in a single family house as a renter and it's been really, really fun to get the homework demolition permits notices in the mail because i never received those when i was living in multi family properties. So i wonder if we could change that so that renters could be more involved in the changing of our neighborhoods. But i've also noticed that we're receiving demolitions on just single family properties, especially in my gentrified holly neighborhood. And we're losing units actually out of that too. So we see like two unit properties and front house and a back house, and, you know, it seems like we have no way of ensuring that we get two units out of the next house when you demolish it, so i would hope that that could be a housing policy that we could also think of that could be a fairly simple ordinance that would not necessarily have to wait for the code to be adopted to ensure that we're not losing more units in our neighborhoods. >> mayor adler: okay. Thank you. Mandy? >> yeah. I wanted to build on some of what melissa said about about preservation because i think it's incredibly important to remember that a lot of the tools we have that were highlighted in i think it was page 59. There was a whole page of additional tools outside the code. [5:42:30 pm] And i think it's important for us to recognize that the challenge with privately owned, unsubsidized affordable housing is we have very little ability to control what happens with that property. And so i really encourage us to broaden the policy discussion when we're talking about affordable housing. It's not just the code, it's the code and. And that's where some of the tools like the community land trust and the preservation fund and all those things that we talked about in reports forever. And my second point was to build on the discussion about compliance and monitoring. It's kind of fortuitous because i just had a meeting today with some of the staff at neighbor housing and community development. And while it is not user friendly and i think that jim duncan can attest to this, on the city's open data portal there is a complete, although not totally up to date, they're in the process of updating it and it should be updated in the next two weeks, list of every property that has either received city subsidy or been the recipient of any sort of density bonus or development incentive program. So you can actually go in there, download. It's exportable via excel spreadsheet and it will tell you how many units total, the address, contact information, what the mfi or median family income level is, the beginning date of the affordability period and the end date of the affordability period and the program. So if you are specifically interested in vertical mixed use, you can sort it based on vmu and you can see all 400 of our vmu affordable units. [5:44:50 pm] It's not completely user friendly. I totally get that, but that data is there. It is available and it's in the process of being updated. >> mayor adler: ann? >> kitchen: i have a process question. I can wait until the end, but i'm wanting to speak to what we're doing going forward. Would you rather wait until the end on that? >> mayor adler: let's hold that and get back to that. I want to give this opportunity. Yes. >> speaking of items outside the code, i'm concerned about the lack of open space along the corridors. The council had a resolution, the previous council had a resolution of parkland within a quarter mile of every residence. And yet we have park deserts and many of them are long corridors, for instance, burnet road. So i am concerned about the fact that we don't have that parkland in the urban core, along the corridors, and yet we're talking about making it more dense. So one of the ways to do that is to have aggressive acquisition of parkland or to work with private developers on their open space and have that be available to the public all within that corridor context. So the idea of moving forward with greater density before we've even solved the problem that we have now seems a little backwards. And i think that we need to really have a plan for acquiring that open space that's already within the council resolution to do so. And how does that tie in with perhaps mapping, right, or how density might come online. Maybe the mapping is not all at once. Maybe it's it's set in place, but not all at once so that that acquisition of open space can happen concurrently. And that everyone gets the open space they deserve. [5:46:50 pm] >> mayor adler: thank you. Susan and then guy. >> sorry. I just wanted to really underscore mandy and melissa's comments. I don't want the council or any of our decision makers to be under any illusion about what we can get to, vis a vis affordability on code changes alone. And the consultants have been very straightforward about this. You cannot use the code to get yourself to deeply affordable family friendly housing. It just isn't going to be that magic bullet. So i just want to make sure that we're all dealing in reality and that we're not, you know, engaging in wishful thinking about what we can get to the code because you do need to look at the housing policies and the joint subs passed a resolution about doing a pilot project on public land. And if you look at the numbers that the developers are up against, the only way that you can really at this point with land prices in austin and our current insane market conditions, which really don't show much sign of abating, the only way you can get to deeply affordable housing for families from here on in i really think is going to be on public land. So i believe the council already passed its little piece of that, so now we just have to get through the school board and the county. But really please don't be under illusions about what you can get under the code and please be really thinking strongly about additional housing policies and moving forward. Thank you. [5:48:30 pm] >> mayor adler: guy? >> i'll make this real quick, mayor, councilmembers. One of the things that we need to talk about and i don't know if it's one of the elephants in the room, but susan just brought it up. Everything that we add and all the things that we want to do to make this great and change how we want to do things may increase cost. Cost to the developers, cost to the city, which is not going to do anything with our affordability. So that's going to be a very fine balancing act for the council. And i don't really envy y'all at all for trying to deal through that. But coming through and how we want to change with our connectivity or how we do with the open spaces or how we do with density or what we do with our infrastructure is all going to cost more, if it costs more. That's just going to get passed down to the citizens, to the developers and to the city, which goes on to all the people. So that's just one of the things that you will have to balance and i want to make sure that got put out there. [5:50:50 pm] >> mayor adler: thank you. >> just a last comment. And i want to sincerely thank the council and you, mayor, for being here today, because i feel like we've gotten so much done. I really do. We meet often and this was a great meeting for me. I want to make sure that we've gotten as far as i thought we've gotten with the issues of demolitions and both tracking them and ensuring that they're part of the calibration when we are coming up with entitlements. And i understand you to say it's possible, but it's a policy decision. And i just i feel like there's not a bow on this yet. It sounds like there's going to have to be some direction to the consultants, if i understood it correctly, that this is something that you want to be part of the equation when they look at the different transects and the different entitle meants, that they look at potential demolitions. And i don't know if i understood it correctly, but if that is the case, i do hope that the council can help us, those of us who believe in that with providing that direction to the staff and consultants. [5:52:30 pm] >> mayor adler: thank you. Kevin? >> i wanted to share a larger concern, water, water supply use, water savings. Before we got our big rain a year ago i was watching a local weather man who was saying under normal weather conditions it would take 10 years to refill the lakes. We dodged a bullet and got this crazy rain, but i know there's a lot of people in austin that haven't been here long and don't understand the water needs or issues in central texas. And i just think that's something that we need to bear in mind too as we're planning going forward. >> mayor adler: ann, do you want to address and also if you have any concluding remarks too? >> kitchen: okay. I would just say that i think that this has been a very helpful discussion. And under next steps it appears to me that we're going to have additional meetings, which i think is a good idea. And i would suggest that from my perspective that at some point we include additional meetings to actually get in to the details of some of these key policy decisions that and the language that will go in the code. [5:54:50 pm] And i mean, some of those have been highlighted already in terms of what the hot button issues are. And thank you, mr. Sullivan, for coming to the mobility committee where we talked about some of the hot button transportation issues. So i would like to build into a future meeting the opportunity to discuss one or more of those because i want to hear from the cag members what they think we should be doing and i want to in addition and i would also like to hear from our consultants on some of these hot button issues. So i'm just asking for that opportunity in the future that we set up these meetings like this where we have the ability to hear directly from our cag members, hear directly from the consultants as we get into the really not every issue, but just a couple of the really hot issues. >> mayor adler: greg, do you want to give us some concluding remarks? [5:56:30 pm] >> casar: well, i just want to say thank y'all. You know, when i came by the cag meeting i was really genuine in my hope that i would be able to that we would be able to pull this off before the end of the year and i'm really glad that we were able to do it i think as a starting place for our continued conversation because as i said then, and it becomes even more and more apparent to me everyday, codenext is not a sort of yes vote or no vote type thing. We can't just raise our hand through one part or another. It's a really complicated, but critical conversation for us to have. So i look forward to our future meetings and future conversations about some of the nitty gritty that we started getting into today, but i would urge that a big part of why we need the cag is to do that public outreach and i know that when y'all talked to people about any given issue, you hear many opinions, sometimes multiple, conflicting opinions from the same person. [laughter] [5:58:50 pm] Sometimes i feel that way just within one day thinking about one part of the code. So if y'all can help bring to light in those conversations not just your own concerns, which i do want to hear, but also all those conflicting concerns you hear from the community members that you're tied to, i think that would provide us the best preparation that we urgently need to be able to get this job done the best we can. So that means the tension between adding housing supply in the corridors, which can impact existing housing supply, some of which is affordable, which is something that we're trying to pay for and preserve, while at the same time how lack of housing capacity can lead to filtering of rents in other parts of the city. That tension you're hearing and probably feeling within yourself we're going to be it feeling within ourselves as we try to get through codenext. [6:00:45 pm] How are we going to have sufficient parkland for all of the people living on a corridor. But at the same time if that anticipated growth is going to be sprawling growth and then how how do we deal with the parkland needs for those folks, who are also expensive. So i think just those those pulls that are really genuine, genuinely felt, i think, are really important. But as the chairman mentioned, all of y'all have i have gotten to know, i apologize for those of you that i haven't had a chance to sit down with individually, i think have the good hearts searching for the best balance of all of those and we need y'all to export that to us because ultimately it is going to fall on the council, potentially as early as 2018. Thank you for your boldness in putting a timeline out there to us. We are going to have to be making some of those calls, the more of that you can help us think through in that complicated way, it would be very appreciated. >> mayor adler: we especially need the good heart. Jim, do you want to say >> houston: could i make a short comment, mayor. First of all, i want to thank the members of the code advisory group for all of the hard group that you have been doing over lo these many years and the staff as well because you have been right there supporting their work. I want to thank mr. Wier personally because he nobody ever mentions people aging in place. He was finally somebody to talk about everybody is going to grow old unless you die young. [laughter]. So you cannot build a city for young people, because you're going to have to live in that city at some point. Thank you so much for mentioning the elderly. [6:02:15 pm] >> the only thing on behalf of the cag, i think we're all ecstatic for this meeting. Looking forward to the next one. I just want to emphasize earlier, everybody got this. If you have time, look at some of these documents, especially the diagnosis only 92 pages. [laughter], i think you'll find it interesting. Over the next several months before we get the printed document in january, i think that will really help a lot. I'm not talking just the council, i'm talking about everybody sitting in the audience as well, thank you very much, we appreciate it. >> let me add my thanks do you have something? >> i'm just i think those of us on the cag in various disciplines have been thinking about specific solutions. Right? So i'm not just here's the tension, here's the conflict. We might even have solutions to put out there. And propose. That might be helpful to you. >> that would be real nice. >> mayor adler: so we have tentatively marked november 16th as a potential available date for us to get back. I think it's real important for us to begin that meeting by talking about the community engagement process and the process in greater detail because i think there's a lot of questions about that. I think that will order a lot of the process kinds of questions that we talked about here. But between now and then, let's get together and huddle in terms of of augmenting that topic. Jim, let's talk about that, too. This is really helpful for us and, quite frankly, it's real apparent over the next 18 months, it's going to be critical for us to hear from you in lots of different ways. Including actually sitting across the table from you as you as you help teach us and help us learn. So with that said, i will adjourn this special meeting, thank you. [meeting adjourned]. [6:04:45 pm]