Planning and Neighborhoods Committee Meeting Transcript – 12/12/2016 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 12/12/2016 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 12/12/2016 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [4:09:30 PM] >> We're calling this meeting to order for Monday, December 12th. Our first item on our agenda is approving the minutes for the May 24th meeting. Can I get a motion to do that? Moved by Councilmember Renteria. A second from the Mayor Pro Tem. All in favor, say aye. That passes unanimously. Our second item is citizens communication. I don't have the sign up sheet here in front of me so if anybody wants to speak, I imagine it's our resident homeowner, Mr. Hirsch. [lost audio] [4:11:45 PM] >> [Mr. Hirsch]....Here to talk to you about a topic. We'll take up the draft code when the next document is available, and that is the provisions relating to certificates of occupancy that are currently in the Land Development Code that we've tried to talk with both citizens advisory group and the codes and ordinances joint committee of the planning commission and the zoning and platting commission since 2013, but we haven't got a hearing on it yet at the planning commission. When we wrote the Land Development Code, as some of us were sequestered at the brown building back in 1987, we wrote for the first time an amnesty certificate of occupancy provision into city regulations. And that's because we recognized that there were a whole bunch of properties, owner occupied, rental properties, commercial properties, even public buildings that didn't have their certificate of occupancy and couldn't find it. Some is because they were built before it was a requirement in the law. Some were built outside the city limits. Some in a great number of cases is because electric utilities were turned down without a C.O. being in place in the old days. So we decided not to make all those people criminals and get, under certain circumstances, them to have an ability to have a certificate of occupancy if they would just do a couple of things. One is verify that their use was in place at a certain point in time and get the staff to verify that that was lawful under zoning that was in place at that point in time; comply with the property maintenance codes that were in place, and then in those days, we had they had to be in have that use established for two years, so we established a date of March 1st, 1986. Well, it's been 30 years since we've considered it, and after talking to staffers about what would make more sense, my current proposal is that the use had to exist for at least ten years, and so that we don't have a specific date that we have to keep modifying in the future, and that that particular use wasn't governed either by McMansion or commercial design standards, both of which were adopted back in 2006. And my dream is that this will all be addressed in the draft CodeNEXT, but my expectation is that it won't, so I thought I would let you know sooner rather than later as I will at the full planning commission tonight. Thank you for your patience all year long. [4:13:50 PM] >> Casar: Thank you for bringing that up. Please let us know from our folks if that's not going on. Our third item after citizens communication is discussion and possible action regarding the appointment we have to make to the visitor impact task force. We've received a few applications. My preference would be to for somebody to make the motion to appoint Jonathan Mahone from the community into this position. >> Renteria: I move. >> Casar: That's moved by Councilmember Renteria and I'll second it. Is there any discussion on that point? [4:15:30 PM] >> Tovo: I appreciate very much your willingness to serve, and certainly I think you'll add a lot to have the community and serving in that capacity and to the committee. I don't have a comment about this appointee that we're considering. I do have a comment generally in looking over the membership. It's not clear to me what direction exactly the visitors impact committee is going to go in. We've given a couple of different charges, and one of them is to really assess the situation as it is, and also to make changes moving forward. And in looking at the composition of the committee, I do notice that there are it is it is composed largely of individuals who are currently involved in that discussion or are involved in the industry in some way, and I just want to note to my colleagues that that gives me some pause because part of the other elements of the charge are to consider new directions and to really consider out of the box ideas. And so as that committee gets started and I'm so glad that you're here today to hear to hear these brief comments, I will just say as one Councilmember who supported that item, that it really is my intent to see the visitor impact task force look to new directions, look to other ideas other communities are doing, and not be routed in the way we've always done it and the way we've always allocated the funding and use of funding. I would encourage you to consider that and I'm going to encourage that committee more generally to do that as well, because, again, in looking over the committee, there are largely it is largely composed of people who are individually already involved in that conversation, or through their organizations have been involved in that conversation for a long time. So thank you again for your willingness to serve on this. [4:17:50 PM] >> Casar: And thanks for those comments because that's a similar reason why I think we put I supported putting the task force together, is not to keep doing more of the same, but to think of new ideas. And I think we took some important steps during the budget setting process to start doing things a little differently, and I feel confident that Mr. Mahone is anything but inside the box. So I think that we're I think we're headed in the right direction for some of those goals. And I appreciate also that a lot of the existing composition is folks currently working on the industry level and I think having the voices of a community member and working folks is important as part of why I think Councilmember Garza wanted this committee to appoint someone. So I appreciate that you fit that bill, so thanks for volunteering. >> All those in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Casar: And that passes unanimously as well. And our last item on the agenda is setting up our calendar for 2017. The other committees that I sit on have put out about five or six dates, and so if there's a motion to do so, I would put out the calendar as it's printed here, except to remove the March dates because it's nearby the spring break, and I know some folks like that time for themselves. And June and August meetings are around when we're in budget deliberations, so preemptively, I think moving those makes sense. That's five days. If we don't have business to take up, we can have a meeting. [4:19:30 PM] If there's urgent business, we can organize an ad hoc meeting. I think the Mayor Pro Tem has expressed a desire to have it at 3:00 p.m., and I don't see any conflicts there unless any of our staff have concerns with it meeting at 3:00 p.m. as opposed to 4:00 p.m. Our staff that's indicated there's no issue there and might actually be happy to get home before 5:00 p.m. some of these days, so this one's for you too. So if there's a motion, I would approve ask for the committee to consider approving the dates listed without March, June, and August and set a time. Moved by Councilmember Renteria. Seconded by the Mayor Pro Tem. You've got >> Tovo: Just the caveat that I hope, and I believe it's the intention of the council to take up the discussion of committees more generally and whether there ought to be considerations of consolidation. I'm happy as a council to look at our committees and really consider some consolidations. >> Casar: We took a first hack at that process a couple months ago, and I think it deserves a second or third look. So I agree entirely. All those in favor say aye. That's done unanimously, too. An all unanimous day. As long as people are okay with unanimously adjourning here at 4:19 p.m. Good? All right. Thank you all so very much for your time today. [4:21:15 PM]