Mobility Committee Meeting Transcript – 4/4/2019 Title: City of Austin Description: 24/7 Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 4/4/2019 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 4/4/2019 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [1:04:54 PM] >> Kitchen: Good afternoon, everyone. We're gonna call to order the meeting of the mobility committee. It's 10:5. And so our first order of business is approval of the minutes. So councilmember Flannigan moves. And councilmember Ellis seconds. Officer all those in favor. It's unanimous. The minutes are adopted. Now we're going to move to the citizen communication. So the first person we have is Stewart Hirsch. Stewart? >> Chair, members of the committee, Stewart Hirsch from district 2 -- oh, mic. >> There you go. >> Test? Stewart Harry Hirsch from district 2. The attached draft affordable housing goals chart I'm having distributed to you Scholl's William canyon drive having greater housing production goals than any other corridor. Since I live in district 21 block north of William cannon my observations are based on driving from Mckinney false parkway to mopac or southwest parkway and there are some vacant lots adjacent to will canyon but some have duplexes or single family detached. The cost of building new housing will include expensive land costs, value of improvements that already exist and drainage improvements that are challenging in some cases because William cannon is at a higher elevation and drains towards the lots to the north. The good news is there are three lanes of traffic heading east, additional three lanes of traffic heading west and protected left turns and traffic signals. I ask that you remember the district 2 is 55% homeowner in a city that is majority [1:06:56 PM] renter. Our median income is $35,000 below the citywide average, and our average home sale prices is $120,000 below the citywide average so planning for final district goals for housing affordability and transportation improvements which I know is your topic must take into account a lower income district that has a higher percentage of-pageship and that the city has purchased many lots in our district to mitigate gentrification so the actual supply as a result of the floodplain buyout is less in district 2 than it was before the 2013 floods one additional piece of information is the latest information from housing works on the demographics of district 2 and the income levels, and you'll see that we continue to be -- have a median home price way below the city average, continue to have income way below the city average, and so the challenge of doing both the transportation improvements along William cannon and achieving the strategic housing goals along William cannon will be unique because I think we're the widest in terms of number of lanes of traffic of any of the east-west corridors that are in the master planning process. So I just wanted to show up today. I've shared this with the planning commission. I shared this with city staff lat Saturday at the open house. At the library over on William cannon. And I think you have to take all of these context issues into account in trying to set reasonable goals. So thank you very much for your service and your time. I hope to visit with you in the future. >> Kitchen: Thank you, Stewart. >> Thanks. >> Kitchen: Next we have Mike burnet. >> I'll pass if that's all right -- fast and try to try and hit the high points. >> Kitchen: All right. We've moving into -- we'll go ahead and move into our agenda. So our first is the -- what we have on the agenda today [1:08:57 PM] is the corridor construction program update, and then after that the housing and transportation planning which involves corridor construction, but those are two different presentations, as I understand it. And then we have the dockless after that. So do you want to go ahead and proceed? >> Okay. I may just ask you to move the slides. Okay. Good afternoon, I'm Mike ,I'll give you a brief update where we're at with the corridor construction program. Yeah, you want to move to the next slide? So bear with us. I think we have the clicker so I'm going to keep on saying turn to the next slide. Just to kind of reacclimate you with where we're at with the corridor construction program, this is a program as part of the 2016 bond program in addition to the bond election ordinance council passed a resolution we called a contract with voters which established key outcomes and priorities for us to try to achieve with the corridor program improvements, and they included mobility priorities as well as other community considerations that we factored into the development of the corridor construction program as we move forward. And then also the resolution established an eight-year goal for us to implement these improvements for the entire 2016 bond program. You can go to the next. Just to kind of reacclimate you to what council approved last April. As you recall, council took action to approve the corridor construction program, April 26th, I believe, 2018. And that included packages for cridor-wide improvements for every corridor, so every part of all the nine corridors would receive corridor improvements and those include things like intersection improvements, improved signalization, filling in sidewalk and [1:10:59 PM] bikeway gaps, again, to helping mobility transit supportive improvements to support improvements for all of the modes. Then in addition -- and that's shown in Orange up on the slide. What's shown in black is segments that were put forward into full design that we'd be looking for additional funding for, so teeing up projects for additional funding. And that included moving forward what we call enhanced multimodal improvements, which is the full depth reconstruction, the ultimate configuration of the roadway coming out of of the corridor studies done for those corridors. That included segments along airport boulevard, William cannon drive and north Lamar boulevard as well. Then we also have some -- on Riverside, as part of the corridor construction program, we do have some segments that were contemplated for full construction of the enhanced multimodal improvements, the blue segments you see you in the middle that go from shore district drive over to montopolis, includes the pleasant valley intersection. Also we have a couple grants we received from campo and that includes mopac over to Brodie onslaughter and that's that dotted blue line, the southern-most line and almost William cannon from running water over to Mckinney falls parkway. Again, based on the package we brought to council last year we have hoping to achieve an anticipated 25% reduction in delay time across all the corridors. And then an average 15% reduction in crash rates. We are improving 11 of the top crash intersections. Vision zero program has made a lot of progress with the 2016 bond program and we'll be addressing some of those top crash intersections as well. We have a pretty robust package of transit supportive improvements, improving accessibility to transit stops and helping with supporting signalization as well. And then also completion of [1:13:00 PM] our bike and Ada compliant sidewalk networks as well. Okay. So, again, what we did right after council approved the corridor construction program, we moved quickly into preliminary engineering phase, and we took a shotgun approach. We had nine consultant teams, nine project teams launch on all nine corridors, and that's what we've been kind of heads-down doing for the last nine, ten months or so. And so the point of this phase of work is to really true-up what's out there on the corridors and to get a realistic puff of where the right-of-way lines are, what the topography looks like, soil conditions are like and it really helps us to identify what are the true conditions and constraints out there on the corridors which also helps us to refine the risk profiles for each corridor and cost estimates. So really important work to happen before we move into and finish design and then start on construction. One of the keys here is turning a lot of those unknowns into knowns. The more we can do that, we can then quantify those costs and then ultimately save costs and time as we move further towards construction. So the more that we know now, the less time hopefully that we'll be out there having to figure out what those unknowns are as we're tearing up the street. So we definitely want to make sure we're minimizing and mitigating those impacts. So just a little bit more about preliminary engineering phase. I mentioned a lot of the technical analysis that's happening. That included drainage analysis. It included some initial looking at work packaging and sequencing. And, again, we have a lot of work that's scheduled to happen over just a few areas, so we're doing our best to see how to sequence that and minimizing impacts on businesses and the community. And, again, looking at signals and kind of where pbs are located, warrant studies, working with our transportation department to do those studies and we've also created project teams for each corridor. The reason I mention this is we felt it was important to partner up a communications lead with our project manager and our consultant [1:15:00 PM] teams, and so they are a joint team that is available to work with residents and businesses along the corridor, and that's gone really well. We've seen a lot of benefit from that, just being able to be out there and have conversations and quickly share information between those folks doing the technical work and those folks reaching out and receiving input from the community. And on that note we've done a lot of engagement and tried to take a multi pronged approach all the way from survey and online reviews of schematic information about what's happening on the corridors and what's pld, all the way to open houses and receiving input face to face. And so really -- I'm really proud of the job our communications team along with our technical team has done. We received over 4500 points of public input and one of the things that we really tried to do is integrate our communication staff with our technical team so we could all review these comments together and see what types of adjustments, refinements should be addressed based on some of the comments we're receiving. We also have posted all of the public comments out online. If anybody wants to see those, we're happy to opponent you to where those comments are. As part of our process, we are accelerating processes. I know we've talked about this before. Ever since November 9, 2010. So we continue that. I just want to give a real shout out to some of our key partner departments, transportation and public works who helps with project management. Smbr, small minority business resources on the mbe, WBE outreaching as than amazing to work with and I want to recognize them for all of their efforts. That's been where we've seen a lot of benefits, but also we're working on accelerate [1:17:00 PM] permitting processes, working with development services. We're going to continue to work on accelerating procurement processes. Also we're focusing a team on utility coordination. As many of you know, utilities both public and private can take some time to address whether it's relocations, adjustments needed so we're working to -- very closely with them and getting out there early to have these conversations about where plan improvements are supposed to go. We're also trying to use any tools we can to streamline reviews. For example, a blue beam techlogy so everybody can get into a schematic, review and comments. We've seen a lot of benefit from that. We're going to continue to work on streamlining work flows. Anything we can pass back to the organization, we're looking at capital delivery overall, we're happen to do so and established that coordination back with FSD, public works and others as well. So one of the big efforts that's been a part of this as well, one of the big directions for the contracts was to see what we could do to leverage through partnership, grants, other things. Again, proud to say we've returned $24 million to the program with our campo grants that we've received. We've had really good coordination with txdot and so I'm anticipating that we'll see some additional partnership opportunities there. We're also partnering with private development. We currently, for example, have 11 developments that are currently in the pipeline that we're reviewing and we are already seeing contributions made to put in some of the behind the curve and other transportation improvements that are related to the corridor program,s well as addressing those transportation needs working with atd. We've seen a lot of benefit already and I anticipate that's only going to be more robust as we move forward. [1:19:05 PM] Got the clicker. [Laughter] And again, corridor program office, in conjunction with our sponsor, transportation department, we're coordinating closely with agencies such as capital metro, txdot, we're also working with the university of Texas, particularly as we've been looking at new studies along mlk and the corridor program along the drag, Guadalupe. Also Texas facilities commission and the school districts as well. So again, coordination has been going very well. We meet pretty much every week right now with capital metro, and thank you, Dave, from cap metro for being here in show of support for the work we're doing. And speaking of cap metro, I did want to talk a little bit, and I talked about this some at the joint work session with the cap metro board about a month ago, but I want to talk about it a little more in that we do have areas of overlap between the corridor construction project and project connect, notably with the construction program and the Orange and blue line as contemplated on north Lamar, Guadalupe, which is the drag segment and east Riverside drive. Also some of the brt light corridors in the long-term vision plan for cap metro, segments along airport boulevard, burnet road and south Lamar. So we've been doing a lot of work with them in coordination and we know they are just starting, particularly on the dedicated pathways to do some preliminary engineering work. We want to take a phased approach particularly with the dedicated pathways. The first phase of what we're proposing to do is out of our corridor packages is to really focus on designing and implementing in the near term some critical and safety mobility improvements. Again, get improvements on the ground that provide some immediate, critical relief to the corridors, but that also do not preclude or substantially overlap with any of the work that's contemplated with project connect. And so that's going to be [1:21:05 PM] our focus for the next year to two years, and that will also give us time to do some additional coordination. So as those dedicated pathways and the Orange and blue lines develop, we'll be able to align and integrate the design of the multimodal contemplated for the program with what's CING out of the dedicated pathways. For the brt light corridors, we feel better about moving forward with our program. What we would look to do is make adjents for priority treatments that cap metro would seek to implement along the brt light corridors. We already have improvements, this is more about making sure what we're putting in place supports that you are brt light as contemplated for the brt light corridors. We're going to continue coordination and step it up a notch as we move past April into coming months. So a little about what we've learned. So we did exactly what we set out to do in this phase. We've established a good working footprint based on the realities of the conditions and constraints on the corridors. We have a much better idea of what we're dealing with drainage and utility types of issues. We're verifying that the survey lines, I think we have a better idea of what our right-of- way implications and impacts are, but we need to continue to work that through. It really has given us a realistic starting point to continue to work those items and issues through with our partner departments. Again, we're going to keep focus on some of these key areas of risk and constraints to minimize those impacts and minimize costs and try to get as much as we can done moving forward. At this point I think we still feel good about the package of improvements council approved, about being able to move forward, but we have a lot of work to do just to kind of minimize risks and try to get as much value on the ground as possible as part of this program. So the implementation approach. [1:23:06 PM] We're going to work again, manage mitigate key areas of risk and impact. Then build upon the effective coordination mechanisms we already have. We meet every week with cap metro, every week with txdot, we're Gooding to continue that and then some and pursue early out opportunities. We have identified key opportunities along the corridors. I'll talk more about those as we have some of our one on one discussions for specific corridors, but we feel good about some of the opportunities to move quickly over the next nine to 18 months to get some things on the ground. And we have our first early out opportunity immediately coming up in the coming weeks, and that is contraflow lane to get the buses better aligned as they are coming off of lavaca over to the drag. Instead of doing that long arching turn in that intersection on mlk, what they will do is cut over from 18th street over to Guadalupe and start heading north that way. That will help their transit operations, it will help overall mobility and safety at that intersection. So really a big kudos to the transportation department and cap metro for all of their hard work. We're happy to be a partner in funding and I think we can claim this as a good early out that's going to support multiple modes of transportation. Again, we're looking at moving that in the coming weeks. Pretty much soon after council approves this, we'll look to move quickly in getting this in place. And then one of our big strategies is to, again, minimize construction impacts on neighborhoods and businesses as we move forward. We know that's a huge concern. So we are definitely going to be working with the communities, working with the businesses with our corridor project teams that have been formed and we're going to do our best to form a good construction impact and mitigation strategy for each corridor. We look to form that over the coming months. A little bit more about on our implementation approach. We talked about some of the benefits that we had already told council that we were going to be seeking with our corridor construction [1:25:06 PM] program. We're going to look to build on that and we've had some betterments we've been working with. Transportation department, public works and others. So we're going to see what betterments could help us to even improve on those outcomes if possible or improve safety. So those types of improvements we're looking for. We're going to continue to work on our coordination or our partnerships. I think there are more leveraging partnerships from a funding perspective as we move forward as well. We'll be bringing back to council, we plan to come back on April 25th, we're planning to bring back an enhanced communications and oversight strategy. I'm proposing wee brief the mobility committee every quarter as we move forward because a lot of going to be going on and I want to make sure council feels engaged and informed about the progress we're making on the corridor construction project. This is just a mockup of the planned improvements for that contraflow lane. Again, it just kind of shows that the movements that I was talking about where the buses in that Orange lane are moving and that should be facing that way. It's oriented differently. But moving north on lavaca and take that left turn on to 18th street and get aligned to go further north on Guadalupe. Which again, we think collectively that will help overall mobility and safety of that corridor for all modes, particularly transit. So what's next? So this is a time line of where we're at right now. Again, we're planning to come to council on April 25th. Before that we are scheduling some one on one meetings with each of the councilmembers and the mayor to just let you know kind of more specifically where we're at and if you have any questions about any particular corridors in your districts. We're happy to answer those questions. We will be providing additional backup before the 25th as well. And then after that we will quickly, just like we did after last year, we'll quickly move into the next phases of design and construction. Again with a focus on getting some early out, first out projects on the ground over the next nine to [1:27:12 PM] 18 months. I'm sorry. >> Kitchen: Go ahead and finish. >> I'm almost done. Just a little more about what's next. I mentioned about pursuing first out projects as we wrap up 2019 and into 2020. And again, we're going to stay very engaged with the neighborhoods and businesses through our project teams. Working on each corridor. We're also working on a robust place-making strategy as well. We actually got our consultant teams to identify key areas along the corridor that might be potential place-making opportunities. And we're going to be developing a whole strategy to work closer with the community and businesses along the corridors to realize some of the benefits of place-making opportunities. Again, I look forward to keeping council updated as well. If you have any questions about particularly any corridors in your district, I'm happy to talk about those as we move forward as well. That's pretty much it. >> Kitchen: Okay. We have one speaker. We'll go ahead and take the speaker before we have questions, and that is Janice rungkin. Did I say that right? Is this the one unit to comment on or a later one? >> Both. >> Kitchen: Pardon? >> The mobility and the [inaudible] >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Thank you. >> Kitchen: We're focusing on the mobility right now. I guess you can give us both if you want. >> I can try to [inaudible] >> Kitchen: I think it's okay for you to make all your comments for us in terms of our questions, we'll focus on our questions to you on the corridor specifically and then we're going to go straight into the connection between transportation and housing anyway. So go ahead and make all of your comments, that will be fine. >> Thank you very much. I wanted to just -- >> Push the button. >> Is that working? Okay. I'm not hearing any [1:29:14 PM] resolution. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I didn't know I would be able to. I want to ask you, first up, to consider a recommendation to the council to postpone the hearing on second and third readings of the asmp and not do that on the 11th. That is so quick because the changes that are being made and the recommendations of the different commissions are being incorporated, and so to be able to get up to speed on that for the public to be able to digest that for you and your staff to be able to digest it, if there's some way that that could be postponed by two weeks or something, I think that would be advisable for Austin and for you as well. You can be the judge on that. But I would like to invite you to consider that. One of the things that concerns me about the strategic mobility plan, and you've probably heard me say this at the council meeting last week, it is so closely tied with land use. And I have concerns about that in future thinking. If you have a transportation contract, the bids have been let, the contract is in motion, construction is in motion, less reputable folks than you in T future might be of a mode to say there's this developer wants an earnest money contract on this one-half stretch side of the corridor. And they are having a little trouble negotiating that earnest money contract. Could you slow up, could you go into slow Mo? I don't think you would do that, but we don't know who is going to be serving at the time when all of these projects are going to be carrying out. For that reason I'm urging you to disassociate the land use for the corridor policies because I think they need to be kept separate and distinct. The land use policy goes through a different pipeline, but the transportation should be going through what serves the public and how do we [1:31:15 PM] deal with better transit modes and faster transit times and things for the public without having to try to drive that train, if you will, through change of land use. I have some issues with the one-half mile distinction in terms of where there would be potential upzoning and change of use within the corridor stretch. And in our area, in Allen Dale and crestview and brentwood and all of those areas, the concern is that that would dramatically change the character of the neighborhoods. And not for the better. We just passed a billion dollar bond issue for the schools, and so to try to start changing land use and school parameters and school populations and how kids get to school and how moms drop them off and pick them up at school, all of those are issues that we think need to be considered, but that doesn't really have to do with trying to deal with the corridors and the transportation and how people move along those corridors. So I'd like to ask you again to think about dis associating those matters in future consideration. Another point that I would like to ask you to look at is what is the justification for that half-mile distance? I've heard it said and I've been to the planning commission, I was at your meeting last week -- [buzzer sounding] -- What is the real resource? Is that a guesstimate or is there factual basis for that and what would be the outcomes for that? Thank you very much. >> Kitchen: Thank you for coming and talking with us. We appreciate that. >> I appreciate you being here. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Okay, so -- so before we go on to housing and transportation, does anyone have any questions specific to the corridor construction program that he just spoke to us about? [1:33:15 PM] >> Flannigan: I just want to give you an opportunity or you can pass to say whether or not the other departments at the city specifically permitting or dsd are going to be a challenge to meeting your time lines. Because I know it's not entirely up to your office on how quickly these projects roll out, and I want to make sure that the council is as aware as possible to know where additional help may be needed in order to meet the objective we set for you. >> I'm happy to speak to that. Again, our coordination and partnership with dsd has been very good, development services, and we feel very confident we're going to get in a process. And for starting with just the process and review times, we feel very confident we're going to get a good streamlined process in place based on our conversation with them. I definitely need to give them props for that. Again, that's gone really, really well and we feel good about that. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have put it on the slide. [Laughter] >> Kitchen: Other questions? >> Garza: This was in Mr. Hirsch's -- did this come from y'all's office? It's the different corridors. It has the same branding. >> That may be in our housing backup. >> Garza: Just because you are here, is there a way to also add a column that shows the mileage? Because I heard Mr. Hirsch loud and clear, but this does not -- all this housing is not expected in the district 2 portion of William cannon. William cannon goes from mckiny falls to 290 past mow back. >> I think 1825. >> Garza: My assumption, that's one of the longer corridors. I guess I don't want to alarm people when they see numbers like -- because it does look like a significant -- the highest number is going on William cannon, but my assumption that's one of the longest in [1:35:16 PM] terms of mileage. >> It is one of the longer corridors. I believe William cannon is about ten miles long, versus some of the other corridors. >> Kitchen: We need to talk a lot about the housing part, but could we defer that to the -- that's the next agenda item. >> Garza: I don't want to talk about housing. I just want a column that has the -- >> The length of the corridor. >> Garza: Yes. >> With the housing goals, that's a slide we produced and we'll make sure to add that to the next iteration of that. >> Garza: Thank you. >> Kitchen: I think, councilmember Garza, I think it may be labeling slaughter and William cannon wrong. >> Garza: You are right. >> Kitchen: You need to switch it out. It's got William cannon further south. It's got them labeled wrong. >> Okay. That's too small for me to read. >> Kitchen: Other questions? I have one for you -- wait, did you want to go ahead. >> You can go first. >> Kitchen: Okay. You mentioned place-making opportunities. Can you -- people use that term differently. So can you give us an example so we can understand how broadly you might be thinking of it, or is it just open for conversation -- I mean I just want to understand if you have anything particular in mind or if it's just a broad enough conversation that we can have any kind of conversation. >> I might ask Susan Daniels, deputy director, but overall when we're talking about place making, in this phase we worked with our consultant teams to say are there areas on the corridor where there's either -- we're really talking about the character, maintaining some of the character and vibrancy of the corridors. So those types of amenities, and they could be even a part of the improvements. For example, we could be talking about, you know, art on signal boxes, you know, at intersections. It could be an actual location where there might [1:37:16 PM] be an opportunity to do aipp project, it could be all of that. Susan, I don't know if you want to speak more to that. >> I think that's a really good starting place. Place making, like you said, has a lot of different meanings to a lot of different people. There's a couple of things we're trying to achieve with it. One, each of these corridors have a very different identity, have different stakeholders and a different culture behind them. We want to make sure that we're bringing out the essence of the people who use these corridors. And so we're looking at what I like to call both place making and place keeping. So kind of going back to what makes these corridors special or unique or different from another one. A lot of times place making can be looked through the lens of, you know, a corridor would have certain nodes of activities. Certain districts that might develop. Some might even have very district gateways into a particular part of the corridor or part of town. And then place-making improvements from run the gamut from something very small, and the city has a lot of programs that deal with these type of improvements. For example, the transportation department has the street banner program, the creative crosswalk program, and so that's a type of an example. But it could be everything to a much larger type of infrastructure project that would help allow certain things to happen that the community might bring to the corridor. We're wanting to both be supportive of activities that can happen by supporting and bringing infrastructure to that area as well as creating the actual art or place-making elements that would be on the ground. >> And I just want to mention as part of this, this isn't something where the city is saying we've identified these areas, we're going to do something. This is a very organic process working with the community. I think it provides a lot of really good opportunity to work with the community to figure out what is -- what [1:39:18 PM] are some of the key characteristics of these corridors that can maintain the character and vibrancy of the corridor, but what additional opportunities exist to bring some amenities in as well. >> I'll add one more thing to that. Place making and place keeping is really most successful when it's a bit of a grass roots effort. So we really want to work with the communities to understand what they would like to see on these corridors and how they would like to use these corridors that are really supportive of our mobility priorities and our community considerations. I think a lot of these different improvements that we can do can very much support the contract with voters in that regard. >> Kitchen: Okay. Other questions? Go ahead. >> Alter: Thank you. I'm wondering if you can create a map of where you anticipate the construction happening over time. So I don't have any corridors that you are constructing on in my district, but I know there's particular timing for spicewood springs and 360 and we have to get all of these timings right, but as we look and we talk about those things, there is a fear that I have that we're going to have the whole city under instruction at the same time and we'll -- construction at the same time and be completely paralyzed. I'm going to need something that convinces me that we have that thing checked off, and I'm sure you do, but I think it would be helpful for us to have that information so we can see the sequencing when we get to the construction part so we don't, you know, have all of our north corridors closed at the same time and our east-west and whatnot. If you could prepare something like that, that would convey that information. I'm not wed on what that looks like, but that's broadly the question I'm trying to understand. >> Actually I'm glad you brought that up. Between the transportation department, our office and public works, we've already had some of those [1:41:19 PM] conversations about how can we get some good information, better information out about when construction is happening, particularly on our roadways. And our corridors. We are looking other opportunities to use technologies like applications, ways or things like that that we can do a good job getting information -- out about where lanes are closed, construction is happening, and again, have all information on routing as well. And so we are -- we've already had those conversations, we are going to be working on that as we move forward. >> Alter: Thank you. And I appreciate the introduction of place making into this conversation. I think it's good if we can hit multiple goals with these corridor projects. One thing I would be curious about, my office has been trying to understand how we can enhance our broadband infrastructure. And so I'd like to understand how you are incorporating the laying of cable as we are building out these streets into that process so that we don't have to dig them up and put them in again or that we can jump start our broadband infrastructure at the same time. >> That is one of the components that we're looking at. We're looking at both where cable is going and where it exists now, where it needs to go, being efficient about that, but also like small cell, for example, and what that looks like on the corridors. We're working with our telecommunications office on that as well. So we are working on those issues and that is a part of what we're looking at. >> Alter: Maybe we can have a deeper conversation when you come -- thank you. >> Flannigan: I'm interested in the place-making stuff too. My office is working on a place-making guide for neorhood streets as alternative to the neighborhood traffic -- yeah, the latm and different things and give neighborhoods an opportunity to look at place making through the lens of traffic calming. I'm also concerned about construction traffic, but kind of on the other side of it. I don't want us to be in a place where we are reducing our ability to get these [1:43:20 PM] improvements built and prioritizing some short-term headaches versus long-term solutions. So it's a balance. Obviously you wouldn't want to close every single street and that wouldn't work, and I don't think you guys would do that anyway, but I want to make sure we're maximizing and getting these out quickly. I find myself frustrated when folks complain about construction on a road project they begged me to get through. This is what happens if we're going to improve the roads, they have to be under construction for a little bit. Thanks. >> Kitchen: Why don't we move on to the next item, which is the housing and transportation. Is that okay with everyone? Okay. All right. I don't know what order y'all are going in, but I know -- you're first. Okay. >> Good afternoon. Ressi truelove. Neighborhood Housen and development. The order is going to go housing and corridor is going to speak and transportation, then we'll open up for questions. >> Kitchen: That's fine. >> So we're here today to talk about the coordination that's happening between implementation of the housing bonds from 2018 and the mobility bonds. The first slide that we have kind of demonstrates the time line that we're working with respect to deployment of the affordable housing bonds. Passed in 2018. Which is, you know, kind of considered the preliminary engineering phase for the corridor construction program up into 2019. In 2019 through 2024 is when we're deploying our affordable housing bonds. When the corridor construction program will be in final design phase. And the bulk of the corridor construction program will be [1:45:22 PM] the tail end of 2020 into 2024. As was noted earlier, these are the goals that we currently have up for discussion that will ultimately be seeking to be passed by city council for the affordable housing goals by corridor. The corridor housing preservation analysis tool helps to incorporate affordable housing and community and economic development housing and transportation planning efforts. The tool provides a way to analyze the stock of affordable rental housing units that contract to the the -- supply. How much transit access to jobs does the corridor provide to low-income residents. Two, how many affordable rental units are vulnerable to redevelopment. And how against is development pressure. Based on the analysis, the strategic housing blueprint implementation has defined goals for producing and preserving affordable units at 80% mfi and below within a half a mile of the 2016 mobility bond corridors, the goals that you see on the slide. These corridors constitute 31% of the total length of imagine Austin corridors. Production goals were defined by prioritizing areas with low development pressure where the cost of land is feasible to purchase while preservation goals were defined by pry or tigers areas with high development pressure. Adjustments made for the length of each corridor and feasibility checked on the number of developable acres and vulnerable affordable units near each corridor. Whether we look at how affordable housing is produced, we're looking at three basic ways. First is the subsidized affordable housing. The -- we subsidize affordable housing through easterly a local subsidy or state subsidy. The local is usually has been typically bonds or other funding sources. And the subsidy is awarded [1:47:22 PM] based on locally determined criteria including proximity to transit, imagine Austin centers and corridors, and the mobility bond corridors. The state subsidy, which is the low-income housing tax credits, which are governed by the Texas department of housing and community affairs, a leverage based on state criteria which change every year. And for which is city has little influence. Although we do lobby as we can. Those through the state's definition of high opportunity areas, which sometimes excuse suburban. It may or may not include points for proximity to transit. We also can produce affordable housing through our regulatory incentives or our density bonuses. Density bonuses incentivize affordable housing housing within developments. There's the potential to expand to new areas as well as recalibrate existing programs to align with the housing blueprint and imagine Austin. The graphic shows where some of our density bonuses are located right now. The last way that we have affordable housing being produced is what we call naturally occurring. That's housing that's built by private developers, it is affordable without a subsidy due to location, age, quality or level of maintenance that's been applied to it. And this can be preserved with subsidy through an application for local funds, through state funds or by an entity such as affordable central Texas, the strike fund that we have in Austin. Some of the actions that we have underway to preserve housing on corridors, first is undertaking strategic land banking for affordable housing including the long corridors. That's planned to be implemented with the affordable housing bond. We look to strengthen scoring criteria near current and future transit services. That's completed and underway and, of course, gets tweaked as we need it [1:49:24 PM] to be tweaked. We have factored that into our current slate for rental housing assistance and ownership housing development assistance. The development of a private strike fund to acquire and preserve market rate affordable developments. That's affordable central Texas. Improving and implementing density bonus programs for centers and corridors, that's planned. We are working on the process of recalibration and look to what might happen through the land development code changes to broaden that. Tracking affordable properties at risk of losing affordability to try to extend their affordability periods is underway. Leveraging partnerships through shared sd23 economic opportunity and affordability outcome group. Coordinating is underway and adopting those mobility corridor affordability housing goals, which are feed up and will be -- Teed up and will be taken up by council hopefully early this summer. The housing piece, I will turn it over to Mike. >> Thank you, Rosie. Okay. Just a little bit about the corridor program. We talked about some of the outcomes and priorities that were in the contract with voters that council approved. A couple of those key outcomes included preservation of affordable housing and creation of new affordable housing. So we had gathered some initial data and information working with a hcd and U.T. For that matter looking at vulnerability areas along the corridor as well as what development opportunities were along the corridor as well to get additional units that could be partnered with density bonus or other programs. That's what some of the information we used to form the corridor construction program that we brought to you last year. We're continuing to look at those metrics and working with a hcd to see how we can incorporate that into our performance management plan. Some of the strategies Rosie talked about, we're also looking at how can we work with them and collaborate in [1:51:24 PM] kind of a strategy looking at the corridors. As they are looking at whether it's land banking other programs to incentivize strategically located affordable housing or preserve it along the corridors, are we providing accessibility, good connectivity particularly to whether it's stores or other key connectors along the corridors as well. I want to make sure we're supporting where we're strategically looking at creating new affordable housing, supporting that through the infrastructure that we're putting in place. I know that they've been working with cap metro to look at station locations and the like, we're obviously trying to support them. Capital metro in accessibility and connectivity to those stations and safe crossings at streets, for example. We're going to continue to work this through and the best opportunity is as we pivot into this final design phase. We have some opportunities to, again, make any adjustments we see should be made as we're looking at strategic opportunities to move forward. With that, that goes to you, I think. >> Thanks, Mike. Transportation department. So I'm going to focus a bit on -- first on the mobility outcome that was just completed and the cross-departmental collaboration that is baked into strategy 9 and strategy 10 in particular that, you know, calls out the need to align transportation investments with the goals established in both the strategic mobility plan as it's making its way through council adoption and then with the Austin strategic housing blueprint. Then 10, to work early and collaboratively with our community to assess impacts, maximize impacts and address potential Reper discussions to housing and affordability caused by transportation projects. That was purposely worded through work sessions with you all and staff to really highlight the need for that cross- department at [1:53:25 PM] collaboration in order to meet our goals in service to imagine Austin which recognized upon its adoption that we not only need to work with each other but also the community in partnerships in order to meet her goals. So that is a collaboration related to mobility and housing there in the mobility outcomes. Specific to the asmp, we have six policies, six indicators, and over 11 actions that relate to that nexus between land use, transportation and housing. That's so important. So in the supporting our community chapter, we have subchapters, as you all know, on equity and affordability. These are the six policies that we've Teed up with relation to the importance of transportation in reaching our equity goals and our affordability goals. Not to read through them, but number 2 under equity is to take steps to mitigate unintended consequences, which is really important when it comes to preserving housing, and then under affordability, proactively assess displacement impacts of transportation projects. We're teeing up that policy for you all to consider in the adoption to really strengthen the ability of staff to work through those programs and those very specific tradeoffs that need to happen in project development. Construction needs to happen, as councilmember be Flannigan pointed out and all need to be weighed as we go into implementation. Specifically on indicators, we are in deep coordination all the time, all the departments in the development of the asmp. We did many workshops with housing, with planning, with the corridor program to come up with not only the policies and the narrative behind the policies, but also the indicators, which you'll see here, which -- and also, you know, we made some amendments as we went [1:55:26 PM] through boards and commissions. So the community development commission was instrumental in wanting to add indicators that really looked at the spectrum of affordability from 30% mfi you'll the way through 80. You will see that as indicators on the asmp. We get into more specific transportation indicators we would like to track, for example, two-car households transitioning to one-car households. This is also a metric in the mobility outcome discussed as well. We'll be doing that through survey as far as the@and really trying to drill down with drop downs as to why people are transitioning, which is important for us to understand. How are the investments we're making helping people transition because as we know from imagine Austin data that car ownership in Austin averages about $12,000 a year. So it's a significant amount of household affordability. Then, of course, decreasing the cost of transportation as a percentage of household budget. These are all things that we are teeing up in the asmp. Not meant for you to read this, but this is a spectrum of all of the action items. There's over 200 action items in the asmp. Specific to affordability and the coordination with housing. I'll bring attention to action item 198 as it currently is in the plan to look at affordable housing near transportation infrastructure. So that is something that we are -- sorry about that. I want to start dancing. So the cross- departmental team that really helped us in the workshops with the asmp, we want to keep that momentum going. And, you know, we met yesterday to just look at how can we, you know, we have funding for affordable housing, we have funding for corridors, we have policies [1:57:26 PM] in place. How can we maximize matching up those goals to optimize the mission and the goals of all departments and to the outcomes in sd23, most importantly. With that, we'll be able to take any questions you may have. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Okay. So who would like to start in? Go ahead. >> Flannigan: Just specifically about mobility as relates to this question, the -- I've seen data and research that shows the density of jobs and housing on a transit corridor relates directly to effectiveness of that transit corridor. And the numbers I've roughly seen is 17 jobs or people per acre for a bus line, 54 jobs or people per acre for a high capacity if not train, line. The metrics that I see kind of laid out as we contemplate this seem to speak specifically to low-income housing, but if we're talking about metrics on the mobility side, just generally the density of jobs and housing on the corridor will dictate the successor failure. But my question, to the extent there's an answer, is does -- I mean that's the hard part. Does the nature of the jobs and people have a different impact on the effectiveness on the transit line? Meaning putting more low-income folks, low-income housing on the transit line means more people will use it or is just the presence of jobs and housing sufficient? It's fuzzy enough it actually doesn't matter what you're putting on the transit line, if we're just talking about the mobility goal, right? The affordable housing goal is separate in terms of units. But the well functioning system goal. >> >> I believe that's a get back to you question, however, I will say that director spillar and I were talking about this prior in [1:59:27 PM] preparation that the half mile goal of what you're talking about, the densities that are needed generally of people and jobs is what you look at. And it's different for local commuter service versus high capacity transit as you've pointed out. The mix we can certainly look into. I don't know off the top of my head what sources we would have there, but certainly what you're citing is analogous with the fta guidelines for transit supported densities generally, but we'd have to look at how you can segment that and is there any specific data on the types of jobs or et cetera that help. That's something we can certainly get back to you and I think rob would like to add to that. >> Rob spillar, direct of transportation. We've made the argument that we have to go from a four percent city to a 50/50 city, people on transit. Quite honestly it means people of all spectrums need to be on transit, not just the lower income employees and residents. Everybody needs to start thinking about how we can use other modes than the single occupant vehicle. Other cities have quite the full income spectrum riding transit, and it's very healthy. I think if we're going to reach our 50/50 goal, everyone needs to start thinking about riding an alternative mode if we can. >> Flannigan: And for me it's that we don't end up in a place where we're only valuing one type of way to get to that 17 or 54. Understanding that getting to the 17 or 54 regardless of the path you get there solves the mobility problem. It may not solve the housing problem, but it solves the mobility problem. >> Kitchen: Okay. Other questions? Councilmember alter? >> Alter: I wanted to point out the indicators given to us in here were specific to housing. I think there are other indicators that are are not specific as well as we look [2:01:34 PM] there. Ditches I have one question. So I wanted to understand -- >> Kitchen:, I have one question. So I wanted to understand -- this relates to the snap in housing. And there may not be, but I'm trying to think through this. The asmp is a precursor that we have to do and there's information in it that relates to later activities around the street impact fee or transportation impact fee. And I'm just curious is there anything about implementation of the street impact fee along the corridors that could impact the ability to preserve or build affordable housing? I'm just trying to understand if there's a connection. And the reason that that comes to mind for me, and I have that question both regard to the street impact fee implementation and with regard to other factors that are in the asmp. And the reason I ask that is because I understand the relationship between the asmp and transit, in other words, with regard to the right-of-way, preserving right-of-way, and that's one factor in the asmp that impacts our ability to do transit later. So my question is is there some factor that I'm not thinking about or I don't know about that impacts our ability to work with affordable housing later? >> Yeah, I'll try to answer that question. The impact fee as we further develop the policy later this year is a pretty straightforward floor plan, as you all know, of the capacity projects that are going to be -- that would be adopted in the mobility plan and then the forecasted growth, and you come up with -- it's a simple mathematic formula and you come up with a maximum fee per unit charge for development. It's predictable, it's transparent, it's equitable. [2:03:34 PM] That's what we're moving towards. That maximum allowable fee is what you all on would consider as you set the policy for the street impact fee. So to the degree that you wanted to incentivize affordable housing -- I'm kind of answering it from an angle that I think makes sense. So to the extent that a development -- you have the ability as council to craft the policy around the fee. For example, other cities in the metroplex that have impact fees have said -- I've used this example before that if you're a certain type of use you don't pay a fee because they're trying to -- like a movie theater. They would try to encourage that use to come. So the same way with affordable housing. You could play with that fee around incentivizing affordable housing. So that's the closest relationship I can give you to the impact fee. The street impact fee cannot be spent on affordable housing. It's specific to roadway capacity per the local government code and the status. >> Kitchen: Okay. So is the way that we are -- so adjusting the amount of the fee is not -- our ability to adjust the amount of fee later as a policy matter as we think about it, what we put in the asmp right now is not going to limit our ability to do that in the future. In other words, do we have to be careful what actually write into the asmp in order to have that flexibility in the future? >> No, no. >> To be clear, you maintain that flexibility to change policy in the future. >> Kitchen: So this is for the housing side. In terms of any kind of design or any -- not design. Any kind of factors that -- I can't think of anything, but I'm just asking the question. Any kind of factors that might relate to the ability [2:05:38 PM] to have affordability -- to have affordable housing. That's not a right-of-way question, no. It's not a are you going to have a -- well, you might want to prioritize where your sidewalks are. I don't know that it impacts the -- okay. Anyway, I just asked you all to think through that -- to think through that and just spend a little bit of time thinking about that. I'm just trying to make sure that all of our planning aligns at this point in time. Okay. Other questions? Did you have a question? >> Garza: I don't have a question, just more of a comment. Because I've heard this comment several times, in addition to the citizen communication earlier today about the -- asking to separate housing and this corridor planning. And I just want to give anecdotal example of why we cannot do that and why it's so important that we talk about these two together. And councilmember kitchen might be aware of this issue too. Slaughter east of 35 has seen significant growth. I mean, houses going up as we speak. And I'm constantly hearing from constituents anguli saying why did you allow this, why did you allow growth without providing the appropriate infrastructure? And that's such a nuanced answer because there's very little we can do when it comes to a private developer doing something with the property that they own. Many times council's response to a zoning request is simply -- probably making the development better probably making it environmentally better, but that's the perfect example of what's happening in my district where we hadn't -- these things haven't happened together. We haven't had the infrastructure issue. We're seeing it even further southeast from slaughter. In del valle there's significant growth going on, houses going up as we speak and not the infrastructure to support it. I know we'll have plenty of time to discuss it again as we approve the asmp, but I [2:07:41 PM] wanted to make my comments now because there will be a lot of amendments on Thursday and I don't know if I will have the opportunity there. I also wanted to speak briefly to the half mile because that comes up often as well. And maybe staff can comment on that, but I know one of them is that's considered the distance that people will walk to a grocery store, will walk to high capacity transit, again anecdotally, I walk about a half mile to the high capacity transit nearest me. So maybe can further talk about the half mile and why that is used as a metric. >> That's exactly right, councilmember Garza -- mayor pro tem Garza. The walking distance over time in the transportation industry has grown from a quarter mile to a half mile for a lot of different reasons. A lot of the times connectivity to a corridor, if you draw a buffer from the edge of curb into the neighborhood, actually the quarter mile may not work for some folks in that quarter mile because of connectivity in the corridor. I know that's true on south Lamar somewhat. And also because the ability to ride a bike and/or in cities where we have a low median age, which is in Austin our median age is in the 30s. More people are able to walk that longer distance. So the fta has also responded to that in that they look at the half mile. But you're correct, it's the walkability to the transit corridor that's important. And in my example if I take the 803 it's a .4 of a mile and that seems like a perfectly fine walk to the bus stop. >> Garza: And I also just want to add that I appreciate you giving the median age, and I absolute understand valid concerns from those in our community who can't walk a half mile and won't walk a half mile, but there are many in our community that will and are walking that, and they wish they could walk a half mile to high capacity transit. [2:09:43 PM] Thank you for your work and continuing to help us through this asmp. >> Thank you. >> Kitchen: I think half mile is important. I think of it more from the -- I'm thinking of it from the perspective of a range because for -- depending on the population. And some of that relates to our affordability goals. If we put everything -- I know we're not saying this, but if we put everything in a half mile, then we're not considering populations like older people, for example, that are just not going to walk that far. And so I'm wanting us to think in terms of measuring at a quarter mile and a half mile, which is what I think we walked it and what we ended up doing. Because I agree with councilmember Garza that the a half mile does work for many people and we want to be able to have that option. I think when we drill down and look at whatever our affordable housing goals are, for example, that we want to pay attention to how we're doing that because I would not want us to just have all of our housing at a half mile and think that we had met the needs of all the population. Not that we're going do that, but I'm wanting more subtlety or some more drill-down in our goals. Did you have something? >> Ellis: I had a quick question. When we talk about the strategic housing blueprint, land banking for affordable housing including along corridors that that is planned, is there a direction where y'all are going to create some sort of map, maybe what's historically been purchased, what's planned to be purchased? Just so we can kind of get a better idea of the overlays between the housing and corridors and asmp and what [2:11:44 PM] those might look like on a granular level as people are looking at their neighborhoods or between neighborhoods. Does anything like that exist right now? >> We don't have anything that exists right now because we have not purchased anything yet. We have identified our criteria for land acquisition, and that was presented to the housing and planning committee at their February meeting. I'm happy to recirculate that to the mobility committee if that's helpful. But it does factor in the aspects associated with proximity to corridors as well as a number of other things. It's intended to kind of encompass our overarching land acquisition strategy. >> Ellis: That would be great, thanks. >> Alter: I had a follow-up question. As you're thinking about land banking on the corridor, can you speak a little bit -- for those instances where it's not a city-owned land or not a school or something where we have a first right of refusal, what determines the cost of that land for our affordable housing development or for us to purchase it? And that may be a question that Alex may have -- >> I'm going to ask is Alex to come up and respond to that because he's going to be able to speak far more knowledgebly about that than I will. Thank you, Alex. >> Alex, interim director for the office of real estate services. If I understand the question, what determines the cost of the land? So we would be needing to pay fair market value for the property. >> Alter: Okay. And what determines the fair market value of it on the corridor? >> Typically the way we would approach it is having an appraisal, a third-party appraisal done for the party for that appraiser to determine for us what the market value is and make that offer to the private landowner. >> Alter: To what extent [2:13:45 PM] does the cost of the property depend on the entitlements that that property is given by right? >> The entitlements are taken into consideration as part of that appraisal. So all those things, including the -- of course the topography, but the entitlements as well would be included in determining what the handled value is. >> Alter: So the entitlements we give along the corridor by right might affect your ability to achieve our affordability goals of placing people in affordable housing that is subsidized on the corridors? >> Correct. Those things that we might be placing along the corridors would affect possibly what we might have to pay for that property. >> Alter: Okay, thank you. >> Kitchen: Okay. I have a follow-up question. I'm just looking for lights. So if y'all want to ask a question, let me know. If you look at slide 5, this is kind of related to what we're talking about. So I'm wanting to understand, slide 5 is the one you laid out to us how affordable housing is produced, the department ways. So my question really relates to, let's see -- I'm noting for example, if I look at slaughter that we don't have any of these colored items along -- huh? >> It's behind you now so it might be easier to see behind you. >> If you look at slaughter, there's nothing along slaughter. >> We don't have any density bonuses along slaughter. >> Kitchen: We don't have anything along William caon. I'm reacting to the second bullet you have. So what do we do about areas like that? Is to help produce affordable housing. So particularly I'm looking at your second bullet about the potential to expand density bonuses, is that one of the things you're thinking about? Or have you thought about what kind of mechanisms the [2:15:46 PM] council may need to put in place in order to help produce affordable housing along corridors like slaughter and William cannon. >> Erica leak, acting assistant director of neighborhood housing. We have certainly thought about this extensively, potentially as part of the old land development code rewrite process. But in thinking about entitlements that land has, if we can keep base entitlements and maybe Greg should be up here too, but from the perspective of how to create more affordable housing, keeping base entitlements fairly consistent with where they are at present and then only allowing increased entitlements with the provision of some type of community benefit I think is one of our best tools. And truthly in Texas we have so few tools available to create income-restricted housing that -- I would say that this is one of the few other than actually subsidizing the affordable housing. So that's probably the best tool and I do think the land development code will be -- revisions will be a good opportunity to continue that discussion. >> Kitchen: I have a related question unless others -- if you go to slide 3 I'm wondering -- we've got proposed targets for these corridors. I'm wondering where you all are at in terms of drilling down. In other words, if we're proposing a certain amount along a certain corridor do we know where? Have we looked in enough [2:17:46 PM] detail to have some in terms of where we could possibly get that many? And one reason I ask that is because we've talked in terms of tools like the land banking that councilmember Ellis brought up. So I guess I'm thinking that a next step if we're not there yet is to actually look at these corridors and say, well, on this corridor we've got these parcels that may potentially at some point be parcels that can be used for affordable housing in order for us to meet these goals and perhaps we need to pay some of them now or we need to do this or that. So I'm just wondering if that level -- are we at that level of planning yet and do we have a path to that level of planning? Or what is y'all's thinking about that? >> Go ahead. >> So the consultants who helped develop the goals, they were looking at feasibility along the corridor, so that was external part of what they were looking at because the UT tool, that's one of the things that it takes into consideration. And actually in terms of trying to figure out, okay, which of these parcels along these corridors we should purchase, I think that really is the next step for us to work with office of real estate, make sure that we're coordinating with ready cord -- corridor planning office in order to find their sequencing in order to find the best opportunities. >> Kitchen: I certainly understand that this is not a hard science or anything in terms of we're going to get exactly this number. These are general targets. But my thinking is if we set a target and we don't take the next steps to get us there, then we're just kind of hoping. And because we've got a range of tools that we can use like the land banking, like some other things, I'm just wanting to make sure that we have a path or a [2:19:47 PM] process to as much as is possible given the fact that we can't control all of this, but as much as is possible that we put those things in place. So my question is going to be when we get to the point that this comes to us for us to adopt, that's going to be my question. What is the path and what are the tools that will best help us get to that? >> And to be clear, we are on that path right now because we do have the corridor goals Teed up. We have identified our land acquisition criteria, we are working closely with the corridor construction program. We're on the path, we're just not to that point on the path yet. I think getting the consensus around the corridor goals is an important first step so that we know what we're working towards. Thin we'll be able to start to continue on. But we can work on kind of articulating what the next steps would be on that. >> Kitchen: And you feel like the criteria you've set for purchasing land is aligned with what might be available to us to purchase? Because if we find on some of these corridors that the nature of what we need -- I just want to make sure that the criteria we're setting is aligned with what we might need to do in order to actually reach our targets. >> And I can actually pull up the criteria in a separate presentation that's on the computer if the committee wants us to, but the location criteria do speak to specifically proximity to transit, imagine Austin centers and corridors, mobility corridors, council district goals, high emerging areas, gentrifying areas, opportunity Zones, access to amenities and then the qualified allocation plan for the low income housing tax credits, which is the tdhca process for awarding their state subsidy. So we do have that in the land acquisition criteria. Had we taken the step of starting to analyze the actual corridors yet? We have not. But that is one of the next things that we'll do as we [2:21:47 PM] start to move beyond getting the actual goals adopted. >> Kitchen: Okay. All right. Did you have a question? >> Flannigan: I would just add the fuzzy math on units on corridors, also let's got forget when we got the presentation about units per district, I don't have any corridors, at least part of this mobility plan my corridors are in the regional mobility side, but I was still slated for the most units by district, which' we're very excited about, but it's probably a factor that I have the most acres of any district. So this is pretty fuzzy math. Just for the community to understand, this is not necessarily a thousand units are going to go on your corner of William cannon like the mayor pro tem was saying. >> Kitchen: And I agree. We need to both balance the understanding that these are targets, but we also need to recognize we're never going to reach targets -- we're just kind of guessing if we don't try to -- so are there other questions or are you ready to move on to the next? >> Mayor Adler: Just real fast. When you talk about land acquisition, is that projects that are brought to the city to invest in? >> They could be. They could be things that we go on out and seek ourselves. I anticipate the whole spectrum. >> Kitchen: Okay. I think we had one more person hospitalled to speak on this. Are -- who wanted to speak on this. Are there more questions people have? One more speaker and we'll move on to the next you item. Thank you very much. This is vy helpful. Debra Femat. Did you want to speak on this? I'll get to you next. Go ahead. >> Mine is more a quick comment than a long speech. Way back in the 70s, Christopher Alexander wrote a book called pattern language and he investigated [2:23:47 PM] small towns, cities, and made determinations about walkable distance and other issues related to the towns where people most like to live. And in his book he specified three blocks as a walking -- as a desirable walking dimension. And I used to live in new Orleans for 22 years, which is a very pedestrian friendly city. And most of their major transit is walkable within about three blocks in either direction. So just bringing that up is something to think about because Christopher Alexander's book is very well- known and just wanted to toss that in. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Thank you. Mr. Burnette? >> A couple of quick things. One of the concerns I have, and I brought it up in the public forums, was that the area along William cannon or slaughter as it comes across manchaca, which has been targeted as a high density area for affordable housing use, is kind of a disaster. They threw one development in as well as two other housing developments on the corner, which is catty-corner to the fire station there. And significantly and negatively impacted the public safety for the entire area. And so primary concern is that as you go through the process of delegating or relegating affordable housing of the district, especially along manchaca road, that appropriate additional public safety measures are put in place to handle that. So I've heard a lot of discussion today on hitting these goals, but there are really two issues, the first being beyond public safety. If I were to have caught the bus down here this afternoon, I was looking at between a 60 and 90-minute ride, which effectively means that if we continue on that trajectory, none of your goals have any meaning at all. [2:25:50 PM] Effectively at that point, there are sufficient jobs along the corridors, along slaughter and William cannon, to facilitate 3,000 additional units of affordable housing and absorb those individuals into the workforce. So the question becomes a simple one. When you're going to mandate two, three, four-hour commute on mass transit, and workday on top of that, and their children on top of that, I'm kind of looking for a strategy where you're going to show me how you're going to address that. I mean, I realize that metro has been out stumping for additional funds. I've heard what the chief financial officer has said in terms of projections on forward earnings and increase in earnings and what they can do in terms of deployment, and none of this is starting to come together and none of it is arting to jibe. So I'm looking for input and additional information coming along to see how you're going to handle some of these disconnects that I see within the current system. I mean, as I say, it's always interesting when you take someone who is actually using a service and put them in a room with people that are talking about lofty goals and lofty -- you know, -- you know, lofty solutions. And where there's a huge disconnect in between the two. So at this point like I say, one of the primary concerns I have is how are you going to get those people on, off, around and to places of employment, especially if you're going to hit your housing goals more over, how you're going to have the additional pressures on the streets, especially on some of the extremely busy corners where we've already negatively impacted public safety as a result of development in the area. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. Let's move on to the last item, which is the dockless scooters. >> Robert spillar, director [2:27:53 PM] of transportation and I'm with Jason Redfern who is in charge of scooter management. We're here today because you asked us to come back to the mobility committee because you know we were headed to council with a new rider ordinance, rider safety ordinance, and on our way to council we certainly were listening to the various groups that we had been talking to and knew that there were concerns. So staff elected to ask for a postponement until we could go back through a series of listening opportunities, and certainly talk to you. As we talk about what the next steps, we had tentatively put together a list of next steps and just want to show you the schedule that we're on and clear up one area of confusion. We continue to collaborate with Austin police to make sure they're all on board. We want to make sure whatever we do is certainly enforceable, but appropriate in terms of other community concerns. We've heard concerns about -- would this give police the opportunity to overenforce in certain neighborhoods and I don't think that's the intent, but we want to make sure that we understand that concern thoroughly. We also want to outreach to various stakeholders. And I've listed the two groups that have bikes in their names, but as we were directed, we are certainly on our way back to urban transportation commission as well as the pedestrian advisory commission. And so we know that some of the concern coming from the bike community is that are we creating some unintentional concerns by streamlining the ordinance. We actually think we're simplifying it and making it more in line with state ordinance and keeping in line with the authority the city traffic engineer, and we'll talk about that here in a second. And then also show you the process that we're going to be going through to do this revision. We do plan it run it through our equity tool that we have for the transportation department before we come back. [2:29:54 PM] But we'll be finalizing the ordinance over the next month and a half or so to get back to council. Given the schedules and we'll talk about this, I know you asked for us to come back to you as soon as possible. We do have another series of specifically scooter and shared mobility ordinances comi near the end of may. But given the organizations that we think we need to get back to, we think that we will be back to you sometime in may. It will probably line up with those other ordinances, we are trying to do it faster. But just given the schedules of the urban transportation commission and some of the other organizations, it probably will be may before we get back to you at the end of may. Jason, do you want to run them through the other items here. >> Sure. I'm Jason Redfern, Austin transportation. Our approach to sidewalk mobility management, we're recognizing that streets should support all modes of transportation per the city of Austin complete streets policy. And our goal is to protect the most vulnerable road users, preserve sidewalk safety for pedestrians. So -- so we recognize that people choose to use sidewalks to -- to get around because they don't necessarily feel safe in the street. Because we don't have adequate infrastructure there like bike lanes in all areas, so we recognize that. And until the environment with support the different modes of transportation, we need to manage sidewalk mobility as best as we can with the existing infrastructure in place. So this is our evaluation criteria that we've talked about internally. In the department. And so what we're going to do is this is pertaining to the dismount Zones or the special use Zones that can be authorized by the city's traffic engineer. And -- >> On this, let me just say, as your city traffic engineer, I believe that I already have the statutory authority to designate dismount Zones or slow [2:31:55 PM] Zones, so we're just surfacing this to make it easier. Our current ordinance, just so that you know, lists, I believe, six arterials where thou shalt not walk on the street. If you ask anyone on the street they will name six different arterials. Certainly as we see more and more visitors to our community using devices like scooters or even bikes, it's hard for me to understand how those visitors to our community would understand those six arterials. The intent is to go to a process to go to a simpler way to notify riders where they shouldn't based on safety issues of the sidewalk. >> So we'll potentially transmit those special use Zones using pavement markings. Just so that when people are riding in the built environment, they will actually see those different special Zones and uses. So we're going to use physical observation in the field to determine when those Zones should be implemented and we will, of course, take note of what time of day it was. We'll look at it from a peak hour perspective. We will look at it from a non-peak hour as well. And we'll just look at the physical environment and we'll see if there are -- if there are existing bicycle facilities that are present in the environment. We'll consider the speed of the motor vehicles, the speed of the roadway and is it going to be safe to put somebody who is on a scooter or bike out in the street if we implement a dismount zone? So some of the tools that we're going to be using to manage sidewalk mobility is we're looking at slow shared zone signage, as one of our first attempts at addressing those sidewalk interactions that have friction to them. We're going to also implement educational enforcement programs. There are potentials that if there are too many scooters in the area, that we could request that the providers reduce the number of units [2:33:55 PM] that are in the specific area. Then last, we would go to a dismount zone. As the final tool to managing that friction in the sidewalk area. We really want to use that dismount zone sparingly because we think there will be more effective if there's not dismount Zones everywhere downtown. >> Right. And so -- if council approves this ordinance, we would like to go back and look at those six sacred arterials that I like to talk about to see if there really is a safety issue. One of those arterials happens to be parts of east sixth street. It was probably designated because of the number of pedestrians and the surface of the sidewalks and the characteristics of the sidewalks. That's probably appropriate to think about as a dismount zone. But we know that there are certainly other streets where the sidewalks have stairs and very constrained Ada ramps. So those might be appropriate safety conditions in which we might want to -- to approve a dismount zone. But the idea behind dismount Zones is to use this sparingly, other cities have used them very effectively to create safer environments. But really fall back on the safety. And this would be a very similar use of the city traffic engineer's authority to when we designate transit priority lanes in town. As you know, I have notified the prior -- to be implementing those major projects where there is going to be potential controversy and as council you have always the authority to weigh in on policy level to -- to dissuade the city traffic engineer from making a designation. I'm going to treat this the same way, I think. >> So you have a schedule of our next steps that we're going to be taking to -- to bring this back to council on may 23rd, so April 16th we'll -- we're going to go to a listening session with the bicycle advisory council. That's where a lot of the friction was -- we heard a [2:35:56 PM] lot of comments from the BAC councilmembers. We will then take it to the pedestrian advisory council. And introduce any kind of changes or new ideas to the revisions to 12-2. Most certainly we will be taking the revisions to the urban transportation commission. For their consideration. And -- and hopefully they will support the changes that we're going to propose. May 21st is another opportunity to go back to the bicycle advisory council after our listening session, it would be nice to go back and have another conversation with them just to -- to relate to them what the -- what the potential changes are. And then may 23rd, we're proposing to come back to mayor and council. We recognize may 21st we will probably come to a work session to come speak with council first as well. So ... That's it. >> Kitchen: Questions anyone? Go ahead. >> Thank you. Mr. Spillar, can you speak a little bit more about the process for getting to the point of a dismount zone? I understood besides those six corridors if you were doing it similar you would go through a stepped process. I understand that you have the authority as the city's traffic engineer to make that designation. Part of what I'm hearing is concerns about not being able to provide input in particular cases. And concern about that designation just being made administratively with no sort of input. So can you explain how you are thinking about providing those opportunities so that you have the most information when you are making your decision, but that the community has -- has an opportunity to voice those concerns? >> Sure. I think the transportation department has developed a pretty good reputation of what we designate for instance transit lanes or even bike lanes of reaching [2:37:57 PM] out to the public. We have really tried to -- to hone that process. I think it's my perspective that the city traffic engineer right now has the authority to designate lanes within the right-of-way and this in a sense is designating a use of a lane, although we haven't often thought about the sidewalk as a lane. So I don't want to con fab that to be a lane. Our process is sort of developing right now and that's part of the listening to go out and so I don't want to say that we've got a hard and fast process. I think that there are certain designations of dismount Zones that would not be questioned. For instance, I mentioned the sidewalks where there's stairs. We try to be surgical in our application. We don't want bikes or things going downstairs, so we probably put dismount Zones as -- if an issue were to become detected. Probably less public outreach on things like that than if we are really taking a whole block and saying, you know, we have too many pedestrians on this block to make it comfortable or too many sidewalk activities. For instance, if there's sidewalk cafes and other furniture on a thing. I think I would be more obligated to go out to the public and through a process, public process of identify an issue, a need for change in the -- in the designation, explain that to the affected population, notice council before I did it so that you would have a chance to say hang on, I want to talk to you all about it. I would recommend that's a good process. And has been used effectively by me and my predecessors and would suggest to continue using that process. But I don't want you to think we've got a hard, fast checklist put together yet. That's part of going back and listening to see how we can -- we can -- allay the concerns that some of the community have. >> I mostly wanted to flag [2:39:58 PM] that as that was the chief concern. I think that's a concern that we can address in a variety of different ways and I anticipate you will through that process. >> And councilmember, if I could just say, you know, in fact my goal is to when we come with this new ordinance, it will eliminate the current prohibition on the six streets and then we would immediately look at those six streets. I would think some of those six streets would not necessarily come back to you as hey I'm going to do a dismount zone on there. >> One of the reasons that we have to talk about the dismount Zones is that we don't have the bike infrastructure fully built out. But we do have some streets that do have the bike infrastructure which the dockless and other vehicles could use. Is -- are you contemplating having dismount Zones if you have those protected areas where you can go so that the pedestrians don't have to have that conflict in their space? >> Again, I think, councilmember, that would be a case by case study. I don't want to say yes or no to that. There are some streets, portions of south Lamar where we have bike lanes, but I notice a lot of people feel much more comfortable on the sidewalks, still, on south Lamar. So I would still suggest that where we contemplate it, certainly we would take into account, if there were a bike facility. But I don't know that that would be the driving factor that would drive us to put a dismount zone in that location. My first concern would still be what is the safety of the users of the sidewalk, all of the safety and so -- >> Alter: Then I have a last question, I think more for legal. >> Okay. Look at that. >> Alter: Hi there. We've had a number of conversations about the liability issues. I'm not totally understanding how this ordinance addresses those [2:41:58 PM] issues. Can you speak to that? >> The way that we addressed it is in this case, at least, the portion that says if you are in an accident or a crash, that you have to stop and give your information and that kind of thing. When we do the franchise, we're going to have the liability piece for the -- for the companies themselves. The problem is in this type of structure, I can't legislate, we can't legislate who is at fault or not fault. So that wasn't something that we were able to put in here. But the hope was, by establishing that it would be a crime in this case not to stop and identify yourself, not to render aid, that would assist in the investigation of who was in fact liable for that. Again, that's for this part. When we do the franchise, we're going to have specific elements that would -- that would put responsibility on to the franchise for similar identification and participation in accident resolution and investigations. >> On that note, if I could, our intent is to be parallel or similar to state law with regards to another vehicle. I understand from at least one comment that I have seen is that we might have added a different word. We will check that in terms of stopping and rendering aid or stopping and checking to make sure. We will make sure on that, that we're consistent. >> Alter: My understanding is that currently, because they are not considered a vehicle, they are not responsible for rendering aid. So this rectifies that by making it the law that they have to render aid obviously when -- >> Exactly. >> Alter: That was the piece that -- >> Exactly. >> Alter: That we were trying to solve. >> You are right. Under state law they weren't obligated to do any of that. That's why we created as a condition of being a micromobility device, under Austin's criminal code law basically, yes, you are obligated to do so. If you do not do so, then you will be ticketed appropriately. >> Alter: Just to make sure that I have this straight, we're establishing [2:44:00 PM] that obligation under the law for the rider to render aid in similar to the state, and in the other ordinance we're going to be putting obligations on the companies to provide information and other things that allow us to -- to address the liability issues. >> Absolutely. >> Alter: Should they arise from accidents. >> Absolutely. >> Right. One of the challenges, I asked one of the providers why they couldn't just add a fee on as an issue policy, just like when you were in a car. Their response was there is no policy mechanism to do that. Insurance -- there's not insurance instrument to allow them to do that, but that they were working on that atmosphere an industry. So ... >> Okay. Thank you. >> Councilmember Ellis. >> Ellis: I have just a couple of questions. I snowed where it talks about parking, a person shall not park or may park a micromobility device. Is there any discussion of how we would handle if someone takes a device that they never used and throws it in a creek or something of that nature. I know that's an environmental concern and, you know, it's damage to property and I didn't know if some of this or other ordinances moving forward were going to try to address how to try to prevent that? >> Well, trying to prevent it I'm not sure if -- [multiple voices] >> Discourage. >> [Laughter]. Discourage it. Maybe already that is a crime, it's a vandalism crime. Already on the books. The only thing that would change is when we do the franchise part and we have obligations on to the company, we would be in a better position to find them if they were the rider. If they weren't the rider and it was the Rando that shows up and vandalizes, we would sort of be in the same position that we are. [2:46:01 PM] Again, it is already destruction of property, vandalism, that's on the books. So we would need more public engagement, I guess, as far as people identifying that or if -- reporting who that was or having the authorities come and observe it happening. So that's sort of the position that we're in. >> Okay. >> Councilmember, one other thing. Vandalism of private property requires the owner of that private property, if I'm correct, to file a complaint. And so we are in constant conversation with the providers, if they have information that they can file that type of complaint, we encourage them to do that. And -- and, for instance, if they know that people are hoarding these in their garage for whatever reason, that's theft of property. But they really need to bring that complaint forward. >> Okay. >> Right? And so, yes, we will continue to work with the vendors to encourage them, when they know that there's a crime having been committed. To bring that complaint. >> Okay. I've got just one more question. If you could talk a little more about the equity tool process. I just wanted to know more about it. >> Okay. So working with the equity office, our department was one of the first departments to develop a specific equity tool for policy and programs. And so what it does, it's -- it's a series of questions. We've only been through it once or twice, so we're going to apply it to this set of policy change, to make sure that the policy decisions we're recommending do not create an undue burden on one -- on a particular sector of the population, so that we understand that what might look benign might have an undue impact on another community. For instance, I think during council meeting we proposed to double the fines for -- for violation of ordinance, thank you. We were concerned that might create an undue burden on [2:48:01 PM] low income individuals. So we want to run that through so that we have a I don't want to say unbiased, but statistical way to say is this likely to create an undue burden or not and then we will make our recommendation based on that. >> Ellis: That would be great, thank you. >> Kitchen: Councilmember Flannigan franchise remind me, how is the BAC and the pac comprised? >> Councilmember, they are an affiliated organization, be so they self elect their members. I treat them as an affinity group, so they are just an advisory group to us. They provide valuable feedback. Utc, as you know, is the organization where you all appoint members to and we take -- you know, that input from utc very seriously. The input from the bicycle and the pedestrian advisory group, again, I don't want to discount what they bring, but they are affinity groups and they certainly spend a lot of time in those particular modal areas and provide us that information .>> Flannigan: I'm glad to see the urban transportation group on the list. I think there are a lot of affinity groups that have very strong opinions about this ordinance and the devices that it regulates. So, you know, public input is often a slippery slope for us, at what point do you go to the 51st organization or the 75th organization on the list. But I hope that we can get through this process very quickly. >> Yes. >> Flannigan: I'm glad to hear your longer explanation on what the dismount Zones are going to be, how they are going to be implemented because that's basically how we do all of the things, nice concerted process. >> We try not to do things [2:50:01 PM] reactionary and spur of the moment. We try. >> Kitchen: I have a question related to the fines. I'm trying to think through the relationship between -- between these kinds of fines for the various activities that are laid out what happens if you are in a motor vehicle. I just don't know this area. So if you run a red light in a car versus running a red light on a scooter, how do these fines relate? Or do they? Because they could be the -- the ordinance, if I remember remembering it correctly, they have to follow the various traffic rules, too. So -- so would this -- they would be subject to that, also, right? I'm trying to figure out how they work together. >> So, councilmember. The state is currently deliberating a change in state law right now where I think they begin to define scooters more like a vehicle, so I think we would have to bring back analysis of that when it happens. Right now they are not defined as a vehicle, so I think they might get treated more like a pedestrian. Jaywalking, for better -- for lack of a better definition. I think that the fine in running a red light in a car is probably more significant than what we are proposing right now. The goal behind the fines were simply to use that as a deterrent. You know, we hear it from both sides of the equation. About -- about, you know, bikes and similar devices not behaving following traffic control devices, some will say, well, you know, the -- the only injury is to the -- to the bicycle or whatever. But the other side to that [2:52:01 PM] is, you know, well, the group using those devices don't ever obey the law. But I think it's actually what's good for the car in terms of stopping at stop signs and stop lights is good for the pedestrian is good for the scooter. We just had a very unfortunate tragic crash in the university district where both the scooter and looks like to me from the video on the news the car ran the stop sign quite honestly. Unfortunately the headline was, you know, scooters should be wearing helmets. That's not the issue. It was they both ran the device is my concern. So ... >> Kitchen: I'm just trying to remember what is that difference, the vehicle difference. Is it bicycles subject to those kinds of laws, too? >> Yes, they are considered a vehicle. >> Kitchen: Okay. So they are subject to fines if they speed -- not speed, [laughter], but -- [multiple voices] >> If they run a stop sign or a signal, yes, they are subject to running a stop sign or a signal. That's my understanding. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> I will say when I was a university student at UT, I once got a ticket for riding a bike through a stop sign. So it can happen. >> Yes it does. Yes, it does. >> Kitchen: Do you have another question? >> Alter: So in that case what happens to the dockless now and what happens after the -- ordinance? >> When they are on the road, we are asking them to follow the rules of the road. That's our ordinance. And so they would be required to stop at the stop sign, I stop at the stop sign when I'm on a scooter or bike or stop at the signal. To make it clear they are not pedestrians. When they are on the sidewalk, they need to operate like the pedestrians. But, you know, crossing symbols at cross walks, that's an extension of the sidewalk, they turn red and walk sign comes up at appropriate times as well. >> What will the fines be if [2:54:01 PM] they -- >> The proposal in our current ordinance was, what? If they fail to -- to follow the ordinance. I think that's a place of discussion that -- that -- councilmembers we had proposed doubling the cost to I want to say -- >> Kitchen: I think 40 and 80. >> Yeah, 40 and 80. >> The penalties [indiscernible]. >> Alter: When we are considering it, can you make sure that we have a comparison of what that would be. >> Yes. >> Alter: For other vehicles. While we're talking on dockless, I just wanted to understand better about the coordination with A.P.D. For enforcement, particularly on the trails. We are hearing, you know, additional complaints about dockless on the trails. That they are not allowed to be on. >> Councilmember, I don't know if I have the information to answer today, but I will certainly get back to you. With regards to coordination on this ordinance is that we actually asked both A.P.D. And the prosecutor's office to advise us as we put this together, because we wanted to make sure it was usable by them to -- to be able to enforce. >> Alter: And are you coordinating with A.P.D. So that they have coding that allows them to mark it as dockless. >> That will certainly be the next step. >> Alter: Ems and fire as well, I don't think that has to be an ordinance but that would be a coordination at the staff level that would need to happen for us to ultimately track the consequences of this. >> Absolutely. As you know, one of the things that we struggled with, when these first came out, is everything from a Vespa to a moped to these were being coded as scooters. So it's logical. That's why what we called a moped was a scooter. >> Do we have the final results of the CDC study. >> We are within a couple of weeks of having those final [2:56:03 PM] results. >> Alter: Okay. We should have them before we are considering the ordinance? >> Yes, I believe so, yes. >> Councilmember, I wanted to add as far as A.P.D. Is concerned, when we were drafting this, atd had meetings with APD and the prosecutor's office to make sure that it was a document that APD felt comfortable they would be able to enforce, that it was understandable, that there wasn't any more ambiguity, so we are confident that this is a tool that APD will be able to use. According to them, it is, too. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you all. >> Thank you. >> Kitchen: Appreciate your time. So the last agenda item, as we always have, is -- if anyone has an item they want to identify for future meetings, you can also do that off line. But if anyone has anything. Anybody have anything else they want to say? Okay. I -- I would like to note that we are -- we are finishing early. [Laughter]. By about 3 minutes maybe. So -- so all right. Mobility committee meeting is adjourned. [End of meeting].