Housing and Planning Committee (HPC) Meeting Transcript – 05/31/2022 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 6 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 5/31/2022 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 5/31/2022 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [3:06:53 PM] >> Chair: Housing and planning committee to order here at Austin city hall. 301 west 2nd street on may 31st, 2022, the time is 3:06. I want to be calling for public speakers. I believe we have four people signed up to speak today. Each one will have three minutes. So I want to call the first speaker. His name is Chris. [Indiscernible]. >> Good afternoon, mayor and councilmembers. My name is Chris -- I'm the president of hardwood real [3:07:55 PM] estate group. We're a multifamily real estate developer in Austin. I spent a lot of time looking through the may 17th draft proposal to compatibility and parking and I did a bunch of research on it and I wanted to share some of my research with you. Next slide, please. This is straight from your proposal. This is just the new rules that would go into effect. What I did is I helped my -- I made a map that shows, color codes each of the parcels and if a parcel can achieve with these rules at least five stories I coded in green, three stories or less it's in red. Next slide, please. This is the south Austin major corridor. South first, south congress. There's a lot of green and red parcels. What I want you to consider, a lot of the big green parcels are already redeveloped or can achieve density under the [3:08:55 PM] current rules. Can you go to the next slide, please. Another one Cesar Chavez, kind of the same deal. Most parcels can't even achieve more than three stories. There are a couple big green parcels that are already redeveloped or in the process of being redeveloped and regardless, they could always achieve five stories. So what do we do about that? I mean, in my opinion, I think that this proposal does not go far enough to actually create more density, especially on these corridors. I think that if we actually want to be able to add a significant amount of new housing units that we weren't able to add before, I think we need to take this a step further. So I had one idea that I would like to share real quick with you. Next slide, please. To keep existing compatibility in place or compatibility as amended by this proposal in place. Add a 100-foot exemption, not from the triggering property but from the corridor. [3:09:56 PM] So if you -- 150 foot lot on the larger corridor, this first example, your first 150 -- your first 100 feet from the corridor are not subject to compatibility. Compatibility kicks in after 100 feet. Can you go to the next slide, skip two, if you don't mind. What that does is opens up a lot more green. What you're seeing is parcels go from red to green where the parcels are small. Those are the parcels are generally ripe for redevelopment because they're small, you haven't been able to redevelop them in the past. And we really need, you know, an ordinance in place that will address those smaller parcels. You know, I think about what 100 feet means. It's that 33 yards. I could throw a football that far. If you have a decent arm, I could stand in the corridor, you could stand on your property that's triggering a redevelopment 100 feet away and play a game of catch with you. That's really, really close to the corridor to be affecting compatibility in such a way that really restrict all of these [3:10:56 PM] housing units. So if you've got a deep corridor and there's residential -- residential that backs up to it, compatibility can still kick in. If you're so close to the corridor all you have is 100 feet to work with, you're still close to the corridor anyway, why don't we let five stories. Thank you. >> Chair: Thank you. Next speaker is Greg Anderson. >> Can you send that powerpoint to the council offices. >> Can I ask a question? >> I didn't quite understand. So the analysis that you did, were you doing that based on the proposal in item 66? Okay, thank you. >> Chair: Thank you. Next speaker is Greg Anderson. Stand by. JP Connolly. >> Hey everybody. Thank you, mayor. Thank you councilmembers for being here today. Real excited about this item. [3:11:58 PM] Definitely excited when developers and homebuilders are willing to come in and speak about this. I've been reaching out to homebuilders around Austin. Hey, what's the biggest impediment, some say compatibility, some say parking requirement. It's interesting because a lot don't want to come down here. I'm like, why don't you want to share thoughts? Why don't you share what could make it easier to build the thing we need the most, which is housing and good well located in transit rich areas. The city doesn't allow us to build this here. We'll build it there. There's a reason why Georgetown is the fastest growing city in America. Cities over 50,000 people. There's a reason there's 3,000 housing permits in liberty hill and tens of thousands in Hayes county. Unless we're just okay with continuing to push everybody out and keeping the incredible demand for the existing housing inventory the way it is, we have to figure out ways to allow for more housing to be built and with our rules of compatibility [3:12:59 PM] and with us to simply amend it and keep the worst, most stringent -- in a city desperate for housing, that's probably not going to get us there. I want to remind everyone, while we don't have inclusion errie zoning, we have density bonus. If that's not working, that's on us. The densities bonuses will only produce what we allow them to produce. Compatibility kills how many units. In which how many of those are affordable. Last thing I'd like to share, I really hope we can work with staff to come up with the right Cal baition of it and the affordability requirements. I'm hearing conversations of well let's make it bigger because costs are up so much and we're doing sole so well. Folks are facing cost increases in the last 18 months and they're looking at 1.5% cost increases per month moving forward. They're putting things out for value engineering that coming back 20% higher than when they [3:13:59 PM] started. Have they not known value engineering, they'd be 40% higher. Let's tweak that affordability level up because it feels good, sounds good. There could be big consequences to that. Let's keep that data driven if we can. Thank you all. >> Chair: Go ahead. >> Thank you, chair. >> There's a question for you. >> Mr. Anderson, I have a quick question. I have found in having these conversations about relatively obscure subject matter, for people whom this is -- graphics are very helpful. So when I'm talking to constituents about housing and you start using terminology like floor to area ratio and compatibility and minimum lot sizes and impervious cover, sometimes folks really don't know what the heck you're talking about, in which Casey wonder -- when you say I can't remember how you said it verbatim, but you implied that our compatibility regulations [3:15:01 PM] are a barrier to the production ever housing, you said tens of thousands, it sounds like rhetoric when it's just words. Are there graphics to display that data? >> Thank you for asking. When the consultants were looking at the new land development code, which is 37 years old. Council voted to replace it in 2012, almost ten years ago. They called out compatibility being the single biggist inhibitor to -- recently staff released -- the one thing they didn't release are the cities that don't have compatibility. In which case you hit the property line and it goes 9 O degrees up. It would be great to see those cities as well. They're not suffering as badly as we are in Austin because of our missteps or inaction if you would. >> To circle back, those graphics do exist and those are things that we could be reviewing? >> That's right. Not for all the proposals. Because they're new. [3:16:01 PM] Hopefully we could talk to architects to graph these. I'll talk to them. >> That would be great. Moving forward, we'll be dialing into this conversation. It's one of those things like the winter storm affected everybody. Everybody is cold. Everybody was sitting in the dark. Coronavirus affected everybody. I think in large part conversations around affordability, especially in housing, folks who are housed comfortably don't typically engage in these conversations. Now that affordability, I think the conversations is more broad. So I think as we move into recognizing that more folks will be having this conversation, I think it will be critical to be -- have background and data and visual AIDS as possible. Thank you. >> Love it, love it. Thank you. I also love to remember the fact that compatibility is triggered by our least affordable, least sustainable form of housing. Whatever we can do to allow the corridors to be transit support the corridors, the better. [3:17:02 PM] >> Thank you. >> I believe that the -- is going to make a presentation with some graphics also. >> Thank you. >> Chair: The next speaker is JP Connolly. How about Blair Mckay. You have three minutes. >>. >> Thank you, mayor and councilmembers for being here today. I'm an architect with -- [indiscernible]. And we're with [indiscernible]. [ Feedback ] Is this better? All right. As I was saying, my name is Blair Mckay. I'm an architect with [indiscernible] We work with [3:18:02 PM] heart wood and I'm here to present a case study for 600 Cumberland. A project that we sort of put together a diagram to give you an illustrative example of what the grv zoning by right on these three lots give you and yield of units and parking versus of -- vm u-2 of relaxed compatibility. Next slide, please. So this is the current, current lot that we're designing a project for. There are three lots that are grv, gr and grv again. They're put together in cull maination, ago gaited. We have a neighboring single family neighborhood to the back of us where the red line starts. So there's a 25-foot no structure zone here. This is the resident -- this is the street level residential side. Actually, can you go to the next [3:19:03 PM] slide, please. Sorry. This is the street level that has the parking coming in off of first street. Then we have to be able to park for the number of residential units we have on here. We were only able to get 12 units based on the compatibility setback and so we were only able to go two stories up on first street which is a part of the medium-sized transit corridor and so we were able to park underground, which is quite expensive for development or a project like this to only have 12 units. We're not supposed to talk about cost to the developer. If you have to go underground, it's quite expensive. For 12 units on the first floor -- can you go to the next slide. And some commercial also on the street level. That's sort of like what our yield is. We also have power poles out in front. There are other utilities that we have to consider when building projects like this. There is a three-phase power pole that has a ten-foot radius [3:20:04 PM] around it currently. We have to have sub chapter E planting and sidewalk Zones and minimums for sub chapter E commercial spaces and stuff like that. It really just gives you a snapshot of like what diagrammatically you can get from a lot that's a half of an acre off of a medium-sized transit corridor. So if you go to the next slide. This is the vm u-2 alternative zoning where there's relaxed compatibility to go up to 90 feet on this lot, these three ago gaited lots. We have residential parking but it's above the ground. We also have pedestrian oriented commercial Zones. Leasing office for the 90 units. Back of house stuff. And more commercial -- there's -- can you go to the next slide, please. This is an example of what the unit structure would look like. 400 to 500 square foot units. [3:21:05 PM] Could you go to the next slide please. This is sort of the section breakdown of what this building could be with a vmu-2 and relaxed compatibility. Can you go to the last slide. These are the two side by side to kbif you a snapshot of what you could possibly get yield with a new bonus program. Thank you very much for your time. >> What is the relaxed density? What is the relaxed density, compatibility you were assuming in that scenario? >> Yes, sir. Because of that back lot line within 25 feet, you can't build anything. And then the next 25 feet is only two stories. So that with a very narrow lot, that's only 82 feet. We can't really go above two feet for that pole. Three-lot aggregate. If we have the relaxed compatibility setbacks and there's no compatibility, let's say, or within the first 100 feet there's no compatibility setback that we have to worry about, we can go up to 90 feet, [3:22:05 PM] we can have a 5 over 2 with commercial down below. >> So the relaxed compatibility, you were assuming in that scenario was the ability to go to 90 feet anywhere on the track? >> Yes. >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Go ahead. >> Whoever you want to call on first is fine. >> Councilmember? >> So I'm sorry. I couldn't follow it. How deep is the lot? >> It's about 85 feet deep. >> So it's an 85-foot deep between the corridor and where the house lot line? >> The back of the furthest depth of the three lots put together. So from the street property line to the back rear. >> So you said it was 82 feet? 82? >> About 85. [3:23:07 PM] I'm ballparking. >> So effectively, you've got 60 feet that you can build on, right? If you count that 25. >> If I take out 25, yeah. >> Yeah. >> So 60 feet, I could do two stories, by right. >> I thought it was more. Anyway. Okay. That's what I was trying to figure out. >> Chair? >> One more -- couple more questions. >> What's the address for this property? >> It's 600 Cumberland, which is the side street that is at the corner. It's the three lots that are off of south first street. It would be -- it would probably be addressed 2600 -- 2612 and 2610. >> I think that's correct. >> You know that vmu-2 raises the affordability requirement to the 15% of the units would have to be affordable. What do you think about -- in terms of building and how [3:24:07 PM] projects -- how do you feel about that? >> Compared to 12 units, right, which would be market rate or very expensive versus 90 total units, 15% of those would be affordable for -- we could probably pencil out, there's still some level of I guess profit to the builder or the developer. But it's still going to have the same amenities as a market rate unit. >> In other words, assuming the relaxed, some kind of relaxed compatibility standards, you can deal with a 15% affordable requirement? >> Yes, sir, that's correct. >> What about left -- question, what about parking in terms of that project? Again, being ignoring the requirements, stuff right now, if you're building a 90 unit project, what would you want to put in, in a perfect world, pure market kind of demand situation, [3:25:08 PM] how much would you park that project? >> So we've -- the way that we looked at this was with the regular vmu-1 parking incentives and so we had a reduction in parking. There's 66 parking spots that we've created. If we had to go full, you know, lot park, I believe it's somewhere over 100. If I did one per bed room, ballcay. Past two bedrooms, it's like a half. But it's on a transit corridor. I feel like the people that are going to live there are going to be using buses and hopefully the rails are walking to work or something like that. Biking. I feel like with a 40% reduction, it's very helpful to still be able to park if you're like a one-car family that you'd want to live downtown. Maybe you have a kid that you take to school so you have to take them to school and then you carpool to work. I think you could work very eager to see this type of product out there. >> Thank you very much. [3:26:17 PM] >> All right. Are there any other questions? No questions. Okay. >> Chair: Are there any speakers out there that I didn't call or signed up a little too late? We're going to call item 1. Approval of the minutes from the April 12, 2022. Do I have a motion? Councilmember Madison? Second by the mayor. All those in favor, say aye or raise your hand. Any opposed? That takes care of that. We're going to call item 2. Discussion and possible action regarding proposed changes in amendments to the regulation applicable to the vertical mixed use buildings. [3:27:20 PM] Is the staff ready? Ann? >> Kitchen: Yes. For purposes of getting us started for discussion, I'd like to make a motion. So we've got a motion to consider the vmu sub suit that I passed out to everyone and it's in our backup to send on to the full council with recommendation. I understand we need to have some conversation. I just want to put a motion out there to get us started. I think that councilmember vela may have an amendment to me which is acceptable to me if he wants to do that >> Vela: . Thank you, councilmember kitchen. Did y'all get a paper copy of the motion? Yeah. I believe the clerk has it to throw up on the screen, too, for the public. But my motion would essentially [3:28:24 PM] limit compatibility to 100 feet only along the light rail corridors which would be the Orange and blue line and then it would also provide additional parking reductions, I believe, to 25% of the current required in comparison to the current vmu reductions which are 60%. Again, this would be with only for properties that touch the Orange and blue lines with the idea that these are going to have very strong transit network backing them up. And also, with the idea that we're going to be going to the fence and asking for a bunch of money to build those light rail lines and I want to make sure that we send a message to the federal government that we're [3:29:25 PM] serious about this plan, we're serious about housing along our light rail corridors and hopefully that will get our scores up for the plan a little bit more and we'll be able to bring in additional funding for the project as it moves forward. >> Kitchen: So I accept that as a friendly amendment for the same reasons. I think that it's important for us to be increasing our density along those light rail corridors and relaxing compatibility in the way that councilmember vela has proposed is a good way to do that. I also think that it's really important that we maximize as much as we can that potential matching dollars from the federal government on the light rail lines and taking immediate action now on the vmu ordinance would be a way to do that. And so I thank you for that amendment. >> Thank you, councilmember [3:30:30 PM] kitchen. >> Chair: Only because there's been a little bit of discussion to foreshadow -- councilmember kitchen's motion passes. Rich says you can only get vm u-2 by making it a different zoning classification, which would allow for petition rights and the like. One thing to consider is whether a significant relaxing of compatibility makes it more or less likely that someone could ever prevail past a petition. But I'm certainly will to consider it in that context because I think it's not going to happen very often. But because I will strongly believe that we need to have increased density in units along the corridors to help with transit, probably not supporting the making it a different zoning classification, but making it so it's by right, but recognizing that if we're going to make it [3:31:30 PM] by right, we can't do as significant a change in compatibility as we might otherwise like to do or we'll lose the votes to make it something that happens by right. So it seems as if the choice ultimately is going do you let vmu-2 happen by right with more limiting of relaxing of compatibility because it happens by right, or do you make it a separate zoning classification, which means that potentially there's a challenge to all of them that any three councilmembers can stop and I think we're all trying to figure out which is the one that's going to have the greatest impact on new units and that's what I'll be listening and trying to hear for. Which ever one maximizes the [3:32:32 PM] additional units. >> Kitchen: Could I -- >> Let me ask the staff. Do you have a briefing that y'all want to make before -- I'm wondering if we can make that decision afterwards. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Good afternoon. My name is Sam Tedford. I'm with the city of Austin housing and planning department. We have a briefing for you related to this. What we hope to cover today is a bit of the housing strategy and how this density program fits into the bigger picture. Some of the basics of what the vertical mixed use program is today and covering the vmu-related direction we've received to date and our staff recommendation. There's also a long list of slides at the end that I will be covering in this presentation that you can use for reference with additional research and images of mixed use buildings in our community today. So I start with this slide to [3:33:32 PM] say that this is not a solution looking for a problem. We know that we have our Austin housing blueprint that directed us to create 135,000 new housing units by 2025 to keep up with our current population growth and we also know that the market is not providing adequate housing for low income and moderate income people. We also Noah fordable housing is not equitably distributed throughout the city. Finally, the costs to close the gap, at least in 2017 was estimated at over $11 billion. This is not a problem we have the financial resources to fully subsidize. So that's what leads us to other tools in our toolkit which is somewhat limited in Texas. That's why we rely on this second tier or additional tier of incentivizing housing, both affordable and market rate through density bonuses, through [indiscernible] And regulations. This is how density bonuses are [3:34:33 PM] highlighted. This is how it fits into how we plan to achieve the 135,000 units in ten years. We use these density bonus programs really to try and target 30% mfi households up to 80% mfi households and use federal and local funding to get lower and deeper affordability for the households and up to over 120% of the median family income, generally the market is providing those units. And so I'm not going to linger on this slide. But this is to present sort of the overall picture of we have a variety of developer incentives throughout the city of Austin. Many of them are geographically specific, though. So you might know the downtown density bonus program has specific boundaries that only apply in downtown. We have the east Riverside corridor regulating plan, north Burnett regulating plan, the transit oriented regulating district, they're limit ds to very specific parts of our city. [3:35:36 PM] Vertical mixed use is shown in red. It lines up and down most of our major corridors in the central city. The only programs that are applicable citywide at this point are affordability unlocked and smart housing, which is a fee waiver program and doesn't actually offer additional entitlements. Can I get the next slide? So this is zoom in on what the affordable housing incentive programs have produced without any public subsidies. We know that the most prolific programs to date are the university neighborhood overlay and the vertical mixed use program, which is what we're going to be discussing today. Could I get next slide? So to cover some basics of what is this program today? We know that vmu is a voluntary density bonus program designed [3:36:36 PM] to generate community benefits through the use of development incentives. This program was adopted back in 2012. Had a fairly unique one-time opt in, opt out process by which neighborhood associations and contact teams were able to decide where they thought vmu properties should be eligible in their areas. They were allowed to weigh in on what the appropriate affordability levels should be in their neighborhood. These -- this zoning was applicable along core transit corridors which were put into the code before -- I think it was 2005. But they reflect the corridors before that time in Austin's history but because of thin hernt -- the development incentives offered by vertical mixed use is improved flexibility Forsythe development which we'll get to in a moment. Some of the community benefits that we get are creating an enhanced environment, regulating [3:37:37 PM] affordability and supporting a more sustained development pattern. Could I get next slide. This is a lot of information. But this is trying to break down how vmu is actually applied. It's considered a combining district, which is layered on top of the base zoning on a piece of property. Austin has many different combining districts. So it's possible you can have a zoning string or a zoning text that looks something like this. Csmu, V, co -- it's an alphabet soup there. This is where vertical mixed use fits into a program like that. This is a table that shows how many of the properties have other combining districts applicable as well. Next slide, please. So those site development standards that do apply for vmu sites, there's sometimes been confusion but the program today does not offer additional building height. [3:38:37 PM] So the height is actually regulated by the base zoning district. So if you're a cs or commercial services zone, the base zoning height maximum is 60 feet. However, as has been the subject of discussion, compatibility standards can supersede the height of any property that has been used zoning and the base zoning under liechlingt impervious cover is not at all -- is not at all changed by vmu standards. They will be the same as the base zoning impervious cover. However, vmu does offer incentives in terms of reduced setbacks. So you can build buildings closer together than you would otherwise except for compatibility standards can supersede here. No floor to area ratio limit. This is a bonus in the vmu program. However, we know that height and impervious cover still provide site controls on these sites. There is a site error here on the reduced parking requirement. [3:39:37 PM] The reduction is up to 40% reduction. So you can get 60% of what would otherwise be required parking on a vmu site. That is the parking -- or parking reduction offered by the program. Vmu also offers a broader range of allowable uses. Vmu is most often applied on what would otherwise solely be commercial or office Zones where you wouldn't be able to build housing. Because of the combining district, you can build residential uses with participation in the bonus program. But it also starts to allow commercial uses in what would have otherwise been office only Zones. You could have for example a grocery store, whereas before it could have only been offices. The other element of the vmu site development standards I'll highlight here it requires a mix of uses. Ths a requirement for a first four -- oriented commercial space and minimum of one floor of residential use required. [3:40:38 PM] Could I get next slide. So this is what the affordability policy looks like today. It's a 10% set aside for rental and for sale developments. And that set aside is 10% of the total number of housing units and it has to be set aside and income restricted for those households earning not more than in the case of rental development, 60% of the median family income or 80% of the median family income and that varies by neighborhood depending on that initial opt in, opt out process. And for for sale developments, it is a 5% at each affordability level. 5% of the total units must be set aside as households earning no more than 80% of the median income and to 5% at 100% of the median family income and I've provided charts on the side to look at that what that looks [3:41:40 PM] like by number of people in your household and to get a sense. These are average numbers of what the affordable rents would be in these projects. And I don't have the number in front of me. I think the average market rate unit that we pulled that would be comparable was over 18 or $1900. You start to see the difference in these income restricted units. Next slide, please. And we included the slides so that we can be really clear about what the median income looks like when we -- by race. Austin has historically and continues to have a substantial gap between incomes of folks who are white and Asian and folks who are black and Latino or hispanic. And so the median might run somewhere along the middle. White house holds are typically making over $15,000 more than the median and black and Latino households are making as much as $20,000 less than that median. [3:42:40 PM] Next slide, please. So this is a -- our overall summary of what the vertical mixed use program can do for us today. Some of the opportunities look like our ability to create income restricted affordable housing without creating direct subsidy. It increases the bonus market rate housing. It can improve transportation choice by locating housing and other services near transit and it can support climate equity goals for lane use and transportation. However, given its voluntary nature and is it has to be Cree ited -- it works through incentive-based approach and high market demand. We'll talk about this later in the presentation. We know there are barriers to securing long-term affordable home ownership housing units through this program. We know that feasibility can be reduced by competing regulations in our code that can inhibit design and construction. We know that this program was not necessarily created with racial equity at the forefront [3:43:41 PM] at the time. So why we're here today is because we received direction from both the planning commission and from this council related to the vertical mixed use program. The amendments from the planning commission were related to the a affordability requirements in the vmu program today. And so they were hoping to standardize those kind of variable affordability requirements that exist in the program today. And lower them to 60% mfi for rental units and 80% mfi for home ownership units. The city council direction from November 2021 directed the expansion of the vmu approximate program to the creation of a tier with a height bonus. I will discuss the staff recommendation related to these two pieces of direction. So the staff recommendation for the set aside percentages and affordability levels are highlighted in blue here. So the amendments to the current [3:44:42 PM] program are -- were directed by the planning commission. They show that as I mentioned standardizing the affordability levels in the vmu tier 1 today to be just for households earning no more than 60%. Whereas there's variability depending on neighborhoods. For for sale developments, the planning commission recommended standardizing those affordability levels to 80% of the median family income. This or clause that says fee equivalent to 10% of total units is the staff recommendation. We'll talk about that in a moment. As for the vmu-2. This is the new tier with the height bonus. Staff recommends maintaining a 10% set aside and lowering the depth of affordability to 50% of the median family income or increasing the set aside rate to 12% and keeping the median family income cap at 60% for for sale developments, we recommend going to 12% set aside to [3:45:45 PM] households earning no more than 80% mfi or again having a fee equivalent, which I'll discuss next up. The reason why staff is recommending a fee -- for condominium developments due to what we've seen in programs where we're -- we're creating home ownership units for low income homeowners in predominantly condominium market rate developments -- families faced barriers to securing the long- term affordability and stability that these programs are supposed to create for them through rising home ownership association fees which exist beyond the city of Austin zone of control, we cannot regulate homeowner association fees and property tax assessment have been inconsistent and sometimes increasing at a rate that makes them unaffordable to the low income folks that we're putting into the units. These are not issues that are only facing folks in income restricted housing but because [3:46:46 PM] we know that this is happening in these programs, we would like to be able to direct those funds towards long-term affordable home ownership projects such as community land trusts which is where staff would recommend directing these fees instead because that's a program that there's plenty of council direction at this time about the preference policy that can be applied through those units but the city has a lot more control over those units and can better guarantee the afford ability for the homeowners. I have a table that shows the example of the proposed fees. These are no the -- these are pulled from the development code revision. You can get a sense of how we would like to move forward with this type of fee if council wanted to go in that direction. Staff is also recommending a series of additional provisions that would help to affirmatively fair housing. Staff does recommend that these [3:47:46 PM] requirements would apply much more uniformly in all voluntary density bonus programs within the land development code. [Indiscernible] Staff drafted these amendments so that they would apply to the vmu program and we think that these had types of provisions can help affirmatively fair housing and help to create more inclusive equitable outcomes for our community. And a couple of those I would highlight here. Source of income protections which would ensure that these developments, new vmu or vmu-2 developments would not be able to discriminate. Specifically that looks like housing voucher holders and so by Texas state law, they are able to be denied housing at this point if you're a housing voucher holder. This would provide some degree of protection for those folks and the other one I would highlight here is requiring proportional bedroom mix. This does not exist in the program today and so we have consistently received studio and [3:48:48 PM] one bedroom units in these developments. Having a proportional development might get us more multibedroom units in these types of developments. I bring this up here. This would be staff recommends that we get some additional direction to set a nonresidential bonus area fee. There is a provision in the code today that says there will be a bonus area fee for upper level nonresidential space within vmu building. This is was never set by council. We've gotten a couple of -- we think especially considering the pea tension for the height bonus, this could become a more pressing issue in developments where you could have substantially more office space above the first floor in these types of developments. We want to probably have that fee set in place soon. Additionally, it might be worth thinking about if council would like to give additional [3:49:48 PM] direction related to the amount of residential use required in the buildings today. One floor is the requirement and so you could see project that is are six floors of commercial and one floor of residential. If that is [indiscernible] Of council. That might be what we see. Considering there could be potential for greater height in these programs, it might be something to think about. This last section is going to provide what you were just asking about, councilmember harper-madison about visuals related to compatibility standards. I've pulled in an assortment of visuals of some of which are from past work and some more recent mockups. I hope to walk you through compatibility standards today and how they apply to the vertical mixed use program. Overall, we get a lot of questions asking, why do we have compatibility standards. The purpose was to provide a transition between single family homes or certain civic uses and more intense land uses. We also know that Austin's [3:50:50 PM] compatibility standards are some of the most restrictive in the country. Compatibility standards can apply to sites within 540 feet of the property line of an sf 5 zone or more restrictive zoning district or on properties adjacent to a lot in which a use, a land use permitted in an sf-5 or more restrictive zoning [indiscernible]. Compatibility standards will be touching on the height and setback limit takes and visualizing those. Screening requirements and other design regulation. We have images here showing what compatibility standards look like in other cities. In Austin, this is a chart that you may have seen before. This particular chart only extends to 420 feet from the property line of a compatibility triggering property and that's because for the intents and purposes of the vertical mixed use 2 proposal that could only [3:51:51 PM] go up to 90 feet in height. The applicable distance is 420 feet from that single family zoned property or single family use. So you'll see that there's a 25-foot no structure zone. It can be smaller for sites that are also smaller. And it steps back after 50 feet, 100 feet, 200 feet at different rates. We're going to visualize this in a couple different ways. But before we get there, you may have already seen this research that staff conducted. But we know that 41% of vmu-zoned sites could build to their base height. That is their base height entitlement after compatibility standards are applied and only 34% of the vmu zoned sites can build to the bonus height with vmu-2 height bonus -- after compatibility standards are applied. Less than half of our vmu zoned sites can even reach the base [3:52:51 PM] height entitlement because of compatibility standards. So this graphic, the numbers are not really going to be applicable to anything we're discussing here today. This was to sort of frame the difference in the approach that [indiscernible] In the land development code revision. There had been a lot of talk about the transition areas. That would include a more median density or missing middle type of housing between our single family neighborhoods and the corridor. You can see on the top how you're kind of stepping up across multiple parcels. Across multiple properties to a height like the one on the top left on our corridors. The image on the bottom is, again, not pertaining to anything in particular. The numbers aren't applicable here. But it does show what happens when we're putting the transition directly on the corridor facing parcel. [3:53:51 PM] You're cutting into how much is on the parcel. The another setback is fully borne on the corridor facing parcel. I have one example to show to you all today. There's a link at the end of this presentation to interactive mapping tool that we created to help visualize the impact of compatibility on vertical mixed use projects or vertical mixed use zoned sites. I have an example here today of some vmu zoning that is located at Koenig and allendale and Burnett road. This is in -- central west Austin. I believe it's district 5 and this is -- it's served by the 803 metro rapid. You'll see the blackout lines on the parcels indicates that they have vmu zoning. Their base zoning is most all of these are cs base Zones. The lot depth here range from [3:54:52 PM] 180 feet, this top right parcel that's highlighted 180 feet is a CVS or Walgreens today. The bottom right is 330 feet deep. It's kind of an angled property. And then this large site on the top left is 500 feet deep. That is today an HEB shopping center. So I'm walking you through turning on different layers in the map tool that is publicly available and I'm going to walk you through what it looks like as the compatibility standards a pliechlt these black and brown parcels now or colors on the screen correspond to where there's a property that triggers compatibility. These are single family zoned sites or single family uses around this particular corridor. Next to that, you would have this 25-foot no structure zone. You start to see that's the red where you could not have any structures on those particular [3:55:53 PM] sites. This pink now is showing that area that is up to 50 feet away from the compatibility triggering properties. And so it's highlighting in pink and that this whole area can build to 30 feet maximum height. Building on that, you get to 100 feet away from the compatibility triggering property. You can build 40 feet across this entire area. Finally, you have -- there's a much larger jump from the 100 feet to 200 feet from a compatibility triggering property. So now the area in blue here showing where you could reach 10 additional feet above that, which is 50 feet in maximum height. Bear in mind, this is not the maximum height per code for the base zoning district of cs. That's 60 feet. Blue here showing where you could reach 50 feet in height. Finally, this green area showing you where you could reach the base maximum height, which is 60 feet. Only the HEB parking lot area [3:56:53 PM] could reach 60 feet because it is up to 400 -- apologies. -- From a compatibility triggering property. So, again, there's our lot depth. In this particular example. You can see how that corresponds to the different heights that they might be allowed to build with compatibility standards today. And there's a couple things I'll point out here. You can see where we're kind of seeing it can be confusing. We wanted to break this down how you're seeing heights as a particular color. We usually think of compatibility as a tis dance from property. I'm trying to show different distances from the compatibility triggering properties. Something you'll even notice here is the way that there's compatibility on the other side of Burnett on the east side of Burnett road triggering a height stepback on to the HEB property on the west side of Burnett. It's crossing over the corridor and triggering compatibility to limit the height further. [3:57:54 PM] In this particular example, there's only one project that has actually redeveloped since 2010, when the vmu program was adopted. It did not develop as a vmu project. It developed as a large storage facility. Convenience storage. So it's three feet in height, not three feet. Three stories in height. This is the only property in that area that's developed in that since 2010. Showed that the link is to the interactive tool, where the public can look at where vmu-zoned sites are located, which projects have developed as vmu projects or other, if they developed but they did not participate in vmu, you can view that on this map as well. And I will leave it there. That is all for our presentation today. Thank you. [3:58:57 PM] >> Thank you so much. This is very helpful. I appreciate it. I have one or two questions. Do you have available -- I want to understand, the vmu program has been successful and we're talking about making it much more successful. And I think what you're showing us around compatibility shows what the possibilities are. Do you have that slide available that shows the number of units that have been built under vmu? I think it's helpful to see th that. I just want to point out to my colleagues that the vmu program can be much more successful and that's what we're working on now, because if we relax compatibility in the way that councilmember vela is suggesting, but, relaxing it [3:59:58 PM] that way will get us some more, as well as allowing the 90-foot height will allow more, too. But this is what we've been able to do so far under the existing program because it's a program that's used. So, the possible combined impact and the caveat of that, of course, is that some of these are under construction and in planning. So, bear that in mind. But so far we've had the potential for 73 projects, 15,700 units of which 1800 -- more than 1800 are affordable housing. So, the reason I wanted to point this out to folks is we're not talking about enhancing a program that hasn't worked. We're talking about taking a program that's been successful and shown us that it can be successful and making it that much more successful. I think that's important, because if it was a program that no one was using, then it [4:00:58 PM] wouldn't be the right vehicle to build on. But because it has been successful I think it's a good vehicle to build on. So -- >> May I offer one more data point that we didn't include in this particular slide, but of all the development that has happened on vmu-zoned parcels since 2010, 34% of that development has actually been through the vmu program. So about a third of all development on vmu-zoned sites since 2010 has participated in the vertical mixed use program. >> Kitchen: I think that's pretty good, don't you? >> It is higher than some of our other regulating plan areas specifically, but it is pretty low compared to, for example, university neighborhood overlay or downtown density bonus program. >> Kitchen: You did show another slide that showed the two programs that were the highest in terms of being useful and vmu was one of those. So I think it's just important for us all to acknowledge that we're building off a useful program, a successful program. [4:02:00 PM] I don't disagree, I don't think anybody disagrees what we need to do is take this program and make it more useful by relaxing compatibility and by allowing more height. So the other question that I had for you was, the staff recommendation -- my substitute does have one important difference from the staff's recommendation that I want to talk about. And that is the level of affordability. So, the staff recommendation was 10% at 50% mfi and 12% at 60% mfi and I am proposing more. And the reason I'm proposing more is because I really think it's important for us to get affordable housing. And I'm thinking that when we combine -- you know, this vmu document was never intended to change compatibility. That was going to happen in [4:03:01 PM] another document. Item 66 is being brought forward. I agree with councilmember vela that if we make some of the compatibility changes in this ordinance we can get them going right away. It's not an either/or. We'll also be considering item 66. But the point is -- my thought is that we should push the envelope a bit more in terms of getting as much affordability as we can and so what I'm suggesting is 15% at 60% mfi as opposed to the staff recommendation of 12 at 60% and then I'm proposing 12 at 50% as opposed to the staff's recommendation of 10. So the difference is the staff is recommending ten, I'm recommending 12. Staff recommends 12, I recommend 15. At the time you were thinking about what to recommend we weren't talking about changing compatibility. So now that we are talking about [4:04:02 PM] changing compatibility, I'm hoping that that is something that the staff might consider as a reason for pushing the envelope a little bit more. I think councilmember vela just asked one of our speakers, you know, if we were to reduce compatibility, can you see pushing the envelope a bit more. I think it's important that we do that, because affordability is so important. So, anyway, I know that you all really thought hard about the recommendations y'all made in terms of affordability, but I also know that that was not considering compatibility, so. So, thank you. >> I have my hand up, chair. >> Kitchen: Chair, that's all the questions I have. >> Renteria: Councilmember harper-madison, do you have a question? >> Harper-madison: I do. Thank you, chair. I appreciate it. So, listening along and watching [4:05:03 PM] the presentation, it makes sense to me that relaxed compatibility and parking requirements are a good trade for higher affordability requirements. But I think what I heard was -- is it true, rather -- that the proposal raises the affordability requirement for all vmu two projects, but only relaxes compatibility and parking requirements -- regulations -- along the Orange and blue lines? And if that is the case, can you talk to me about the rationale for that? >> Staff has not presented compatibility recommendations. I'm not sure which proposal you're referencing. >> Kitchen: Councilmember vela's proposal. >> Vela: And I am also [4:06:04 PM] concerned with where we're going to hopefully immediately put some limits on compatibility and some additional parking reductions on the Orange and blue lines, and I think that will offset the increased affordability requirements for those areas, but there is a gap between -- assuming it passes the way it is, 12% and 15%, then the rest of the city is not going to have today relaxed compatibility standards to help offset those. I am hopeful that the working group proposal will alleviate that mismatch where we're cranking up the affordability requirements without giving them anything in return, but I think [4:07:05 PM] we are looking at a little bit of a gap. And I don't know what the calibration is. And that's my only concern in terms of we've gotten a lot of return on the 10% affordability requirements. How does an increase without the compatibility -- that's an open question right now, you know. I think if we roll some compatibility limits in there, I'm less concerned about it. >> Harper-madison: Chair, if I may, my continued question there then would be -- I believe this is for you, councilmember vela -- I worry that this could disincentivize the use of the vmu two to develop outside of the rail corridors, especially if we require properties to go through a rezoning to have to receive that vmu two designation and I wonder if we've talked to anybody in the building community, and maybe some of the folks that are here today, to [4:08:06 PM] get a sense of whether there would be substantial interest in opting for vmu two over mf6 if a complicated rezoning case is on the table no matter what. >> Vela: Those are the discussions that we've been having with folks. That was an excellent presentation. I really appreciate it. There are substantial reasons to go with vmu beyond -- like for example, setback, the far limits, there's a lot of good stuff in vmu. If people are given the choice between vmu and mf6 I think they go with vmu just about every time. But those are legitimate concerns. [4:09:07 PM] And to follow up on that, I'm not totally sure the map of vmu properties, because I know that although there was a lot of opt in, for example in district 6, I think the vast majority of my neighborhoods opted in in district 4. But outside of that I don't think there are a lot of vmu-zoned properties ready to go. So while I am concerned about that, I feel like the vast majority of properties are going to have to ask for the vmu zoning in the first place. There's so few properties zoned vmu that I think -- and I don't know the data on this, but my sense is that might be more of an academic discussion. In reality, I think most people are going to have to come back to council and ask for that vmu zoning. >> Kitchen: Could I speak to that? >> Renteria: I know that councilmember Ellis was next. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Renteria: Go ahead, unless . . . >> Ellis: Thank you. I appreciate that, care. [4:10:07 PM] Chair. I know it's hard to see when there's presentation on the screen that we're here. Councilmember tovo has also joined us. The initial conversation today had begun in regard to whether the properties that already have the zoning would be participating in a bonus program versus an entire rezoning process. Give than the council direction that was approved previously did actually spell out that it was supposed to be an administrative approval and any tract that didn't have zoning already would have to come back through the full rezoning. I know some of the questions that I just have are first of all, I think there was a motion made -- I'm not prepared to second that today because I think this is a good conversation for us to have as an entire dais and I know we'll be having this conversation shortly as an entire dais. But I probably want to ask some questions about what is the added cost and timeline between [4:11:07 PM] these two different choices, because one can be administratively approved, the other is an entire rezoning. Do we have any estimates on what it costs to do a rezoning to try to ask for a vmu two, if that's how the council decides to go? Is anyone there? >> Good morning, Rosie, we don't have an estimate on that. We can certainly see if that's a piece of information we can collect, but I don't have a number to share with you today. >> Ellis: That would be helpful. I know you've got good team members that can help us track down that information. As we look through our zoning cases every two weeks for the council dais to approve, sometimes it's surprising to me that we have these cases that can take months or years even after a first vote for something to be approved. I want to be mindful that the clock is ticking for housing and there's people who are just seeing their rents go up. [4:12:08 PM] Every time they see that renewal come through, it's getting to a point of pricing people out of even small apartments and I don't want to put us in a position like that. >> Kitchen: Chair. >> Renteria: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: So, a couple of things. I want to make sure that we've got a couple of -- that's what makes this complex is we've got a couple of different issues that all intertwine, you know. There's the compatibility, there's the level of affordability. Those are different issues than the approval process. So I hear what you're asking, councilmember Ellis. I think that's a good question. I think it's important to point out, though, also, that if a property is not zoned V right now at all, which most of the city is not, then it's a zoning case. So whether it's v1 or v2, under existing law -- under the [4:13:11 PM] existing code, that's going to be a zoning case. There are relatively few number of properties that would go from v1 to v2 that you'd be treating -- you might potentially be treating in a different way. So that's one thing to remember. There's no by right for V at all. And so going from v1 to v2 the only thing we're talking about here is existing properties, which as councilmember vela pointed out is not that many of them and they're just in the central city. So there's that. The other thing is what I was trying to solve for by just saying it's a zoning case. I'm happy to listen to other solutions if folks want to propose other solutions, but what I'm trying to solve for is we have a requirement under the Acuna case to do notification of protest rights at some point in the process. And so my thought is that what [4:14:13 PM] we're doing right now is we're just making textual changes so we don't have to worry about that right now, but we do have to consider it at some point in the process. So it seemed to me the simplest way is just treat vmu2 the same way we treat V now if you don't have V. But if there's another way to address that, I'm certainly open to listening to what that approach might be. It's just that we don't have any choice. We have to address it at some point in the process. And it didn't make sense to me to try to address it now. It made sense, let's do a textual change. And just treat the vmu2 just like we treat any property now that's not zoned for V. So that's just the thinking behind it. I think you're asking good questions. I'm open to listening to other ways to do it, but the reason I put it in the substitute that way is because that's the only -- seemed to be the cleanest way. But, again, if people want to [4:15:13 PM] suggest something else, I'm open to listening. >> Renteria: Any other questions? >> Tovo: Chair, I had a question about the presentation. I don't want to distract us from the particular conversation going on right now, but I do have a question for our staff. >> Renteria: Go ahead, councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Thank you. I appreciate it. On the part of the presentation, I think it is page -- slide 16, recommending the fee in lieu for condominium developments, let me set out some concerns about this, because we want to be encouraging affordable homeownership as well. That's a goal of the housing department that we all share. I want to talk about these obstacles, the proposed -- the identified barriers. And I want to talk about the second one first. When this became an issue over [4:16:13 PM] at Mueller for the affordable units, many of us worked and lobbied and advocated for a different solution from the Travis central appraisal district. And they were able to come up with one. And I can't quite remember what that solution was, but it acknowledged that those affordable units, that there was -- I think it had to do with the way in which those ownership unit agreements were structured and there was just a certain amount of increased equity that a homeowner could obtain from those units. So I guess I completely understand why it would be listed as a barrier, but we've got a great example here in the city of Austin where there was a fix that allowed for people to purchase those units over in Mueller development that has created homeownership opportunities and some reasonable return on investment [4:17:14 PM] of equity. And I would think we would want to encourage that through other density bonus programs. So there's that. And then homeowners association fees is something that is another conundrum, but it seems like there would be ways to navigate around that. When we've had conversations before I've suggested what about coming up with what would be reasonable assessment for those affordable units and dividing up the additional cost among the other owners in that. And I understand that would mean different owners are paying different amounts, but if we want -- the benefit is -- the benefit of having economically diverse communities is for those in the affordable and non-affordable units. And so I think that's one alternative. I do know that when we reached out, we had some interest from the law school here, from a particular professor to look at this issue more closely. Can you all hear me? I seem to be frozen in a very -- [4:18:16 PM] >> I can hear you, I just can't see you. >> Tovo: Okay. That's probably better, because on my screen I'm frozen in this really kooky-looking position. I'm back, I think. There was some interest from a law professor at U.T. Law to help us look at different alternatives for homeowners association fees, but I would think there are some other kinds of efforts we might consider. I don't want those to be barriers. We want to encourage those. I open that up to the staff to respond to, particularly with regard to whether they looked at our units over at Mueller as a possible path forward to navigate around this property tax assessment obstacle. >> Good afternoon, councilmembers. So, I'm not certain that we specifically looked at Mueller, but I am familiar with the property tax assessment issues there. And I would say that that is the lesser of our concerns. [4:19:18 PM] I think the larger one is the homeowners association fees and our understanding at present is that those fees could not be divided amongst the other property owners unless we learn something further. So, our understanding is that we as the city can't really control the amount of those fees over time and can't necessarily have those fees be split up amongst other owners. >> Tovo: When you say we can't and they can't, is this because it's -- there's some state laws related to homeowners association that are regulating here? >> We have looked. I can't cite anything. We'd need to go back and look at that, but we have discussed it with legal, yes. >> Tovo: So I think that this would be worthy of a conversation that we all have in executive session maybe. I wonder if -- one of the things [4:20:19 PM] that we're regulating is the overall cost of those units. It has to be -- it has to meet the city's regulations for what is considered affordable for them to be in compliance with the city program they voluntarily participated in. And so I would think then maybe we just need to restructure how we describe what costs go into that number so that homeowners association costs have to be part of that overall cost to the owner. Does that make sense? If I'm in an affordable unit, the city is already regulate how much I can pay for that unit per month for this development to be in communication. -- Compliance. If that number has to include homeowner fees as well, that controls and makes sure that my homeowner fees will not put me above that number that's an affordable number. >> Councilmember, we do at this [4:21:20 PM] point incorporate an assumption of the homeowners association fees at the onset that is baked into what will become the affordable sales price for those units. However, that is an assumption at the onset, but we can't control what those fees do at year two or year five or year twenty in this long-term affordable program. And so that's the point. We can bake in an assumption on the front end but can't control it in the long term. As the costs rise, as the homeowners association agreements change over time, that's where the city loses our ability to protect and provide that stability for the homeowners that end up in those units, because that can change over time and we no longer have that control. >> Tovo: I know there are a lot of other topics that this committee is undertaking today. Let me highlight this is an area where we can both look to other cities and potentially look back to Mueller for some potential fixes on a couple of these. [4:22:21 PM] We have an offer of some potential assistance from a great clinic here in Austin. And I hope that we can figure out some solutions here, because I'd hate to just turn our back on the opportunity to get some ownership units. But I don't want to divert us any longer from this topic. I know there's other stuff on the committee agenda. Thank you. >> Mr. Chair, deputy director Mandy Demayo did want to add something on that subject. >> Renteria: Okay. >> I hope -- this is Mandy with the housing and planning department. Councilmember tovo, thank you for bringing all of these issues up. We are very committed to affordable homeownership. It is more complicated than affordable rental. We do have the mechanisms to secure the long-term affordability through a restrictive covenant, which is recognized by Travis central appraisal district. We worked in partnership with our friends over at [4:23:24 PM] miller/mueller as they aligned their restrictive covenant with our restrictive covenant. The Miller scenario is a little bit -- I'm not going to say easier, but they have a consolidated portfolio and so they were able to shepherd all of their homeowners, or are in the process of shepherding their homeowners through the tax process, ensuring the reduced property tax assessment reflective of the long-term affordability. With scattered site long-term affordability and incentive programs, we have less of an ability to hold all of those homeowners and guide them through that process, but as Sam mentioned, the larger question really is around the homeowner association, not just the hoa fees, but really what we see with condominium ownership in [4:24:24 PM] the long term are those special assessments. And the special assessments down the road create, frankly, an uneven burden for our low- and moderate-income owners. And we've been in those situations many different times where they are unable to absorb that increased cost. As Eric mentioned, there were also some complications and we'd be happy to bring law in, but complications with how the hoa fees are set per state law, but also with respect to when the condominium was initially financed. All of that is set long before we get to selling the homes or determining -- before we get into the picture. So, it is complicated. It is worthy of trying to unravel. But because of the vmu program, there's such a small current [4:25:26 PM] focus on ownership, I think it's about 5% of the units right now, or 5% of the projects are ownership. Most of them are rental. We just felt like we could better invest the fee in lieu through our community. >> Tovo: Thank you for that extended information. That's very, very valuable. I appreciate it. That makes me wonder whether we would be better off -- I guess this is a question you've thought about, whether it would be better just having all rental in vmu or whether we get enough fee in lieu to really invest it wisely in other places. I'd be interested in the cost/benefit there, but thank you so much. Thanks, Mandy. That was really useful. >> Renteria: Thank you. Mayor. >> Mayor Adler: Yeah staff, you said I think that one-third of all vmu-zoned tracts participating in the vmu program, there was a statistic like that? [4:26:28 PM] >> Sorry, Sam tipford. I think you might be referring to a statistic when we looked at all projects that had developed -- like redeveloped since vmu was adopted in 2010. So, of all the sites that have vmu zoning, a small percentage of those have actually redeveloped since 2010. 34% of those that redeveloped actually participated in vmu. And the remainder, you know, developed under some -- either their base entitlement. I think the number was about 6% actually participated in a different affordability program, so affordability unlocked could potentially be on those sites, and the rest developed under their base zoning entitlements, so that's how we got to a 34% participation rate. >> Mayor Adler: Of vmu tracts that have developed, about a third that have had the opportunity to go after the vmu bonus have opted not to. [4:27:28 PM] >> Yes. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. >> Two-thirds opted not to. >> Mayor Adler: Only one-third did. >> Kitchen: Mayor, I can give you an example of that. Go ahead. >> Mayor Adler: That would be great later, thank you. So, thank you for that. I just wanted to understand that better. You know, I think we're all trying to figure out how to get the most out of this. And I really am looking forward to the conversation on how to get that. And I'm clear now. On the conversation we were just having about on- site affordability, I think Kathie -- councilmember tovo raises a good point. Maybe what we do is to consider making it all rental, because I'm concerned about people not choosing the homeownership because that is so hard. And certainly if we have people [4:28:29 PM] that could help us work through how to make that easier, at the law school or something like that, I'd be the first one to want to implement that. But in the absence of that, if we're trying to get it on-site, maybe it's better to have it all rental. And then if we also set the rate at the right amount, I'm not sure -- I wouldn't oppose the fee in lieu if it's not as it's been historically where it's become an inexpensive way to buy out of the affordability program. I don't want that. So we shouldn't be incentivizing people to not put it on-site because there's a cheaper option. So if there's a way for us to calibrate it where the developer is indifferent and maybe it's a choice that the staff makes and puts to the staff to decide whether in that particular location it makes sense to have it on-site or whether that particular location or the number of units if there's only [4:29:30 PM] one or it's too few it would be better to get the fee in lieu if the fee in lieu was set at the appropriate amount. Maybe it ought to be an option that the city makes, where the property owner would be indifferent because the cost to the property owner would be the same. But if it's unworkable to do it and it just seems like it is right now, I hate for us to double down on that until we could figure that out. I'm a little uncomfortable when we start choosing 10-12 or 12-15 because we're not calibrating those numbers. I would say we ought to be hiring somebody on staff who's designated on staff with a long background in underwriting projects who's the person that we would trust that the community would trust rather than hiring consultants on the outside. That has always been a [4:30:31 PM] difficulty for us and we have so many things that require that work now. I would urge the manager to put in his budget the dollars to actually create that position full-time to help us with calibration issues. On the amendment issue, you know, I'm still with the question -- and I heard what you said, councilmember vela, with respect to whether you ask for a zoning case. When we originally did this back in fall of last year we said we wanted vmu to be able to get to vmu two by right, just administrative. If you're willing to give more affordability you can get more height to that. So the concept of saying well, let's make it into a zoning case where you now have to go through a zoning case was different than what we had originally tasked staff to do last fall. [4:31:34 PM] And I'm concerned about having a zoning case, because I think it provides a barrier and will involve giving people -- vmu is used so infrequently now anyhow, only a third of the time. And even at that it's one of our best programs, but still used much less frequently than we would like to have it be used. I think we have a better chance of making it used if it's stuff that happens by right. I understand the issue with respect to that doesn't help us get to vmu tracts that don't have vmu. And maybe it ought to be that if you have vmu already you can get vmu two by right but with a more relaxed compatibility. Or if you want to get involved in a potential petition process, you can do that whether you have [4:32:35 PM] V or not. And you have the option at that point of getting increased relaxed compatibility. And that way someone who doesn't have V who's getting in a zoning case anyhow is already subject to getting a new vote. Someone who already has V and would be willing to do it as a matter of right has the option of whether to turn it into a zoning case or not might be a way to deal with that. But I would like to see, on the blue and the Orange line especially increased units and the like. So I don't know if maybe that might be a sweet spot that's kind of a combination of both what we had asked for in November and what councilmember kitchen is asking for, and your [4:33:38 PM] amendment might be a place that might work. I don't know. >> Kitchen: I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting. It sounded like it might have some possibility, but the problem that I'm trying to solve -- so, possibility in the sense that -- so, mayor, I think what I heard you say was that perhaps vmu two is available by right except that if you want greater compatibility you might have to go through a zoning case. That might be something you could do, but I don't know that that's even necessary. But it doesn't solve for the problem that I was trying to solve for. I agree we started down this road saying just administratively you could get the v2. And the problem that I was trying to solve for was not what the developer wants to do, but [4:34:38 PM] to respond to what was required of us in the Acuna case. So, if you have another way to solve for that, I'm certainly interested in hearing it, you know. I was just putting the zoning case on it because that would solve for it. But remember, we have to at -- under Acuna, at some point in the process there has to be notification rights and protest rights. And if we're not going to do it up front, which I don't think we should, I think we should just make text changes without doing that and then just do that when we're affecting a piece of property. That's what I was thinking, but I'm not arguing that that's the only way. If there's another way to do it, I'm certainly open to listening P. But we have no choice. We have to respond to the Acuna case. So that's what I'm trying to solve for. It's not -- that's the only thing I'm trying to solve for. It's not anything other than [4:35:39 PM] that. And so I don't want to get the issue of compatibility confused with the issue of whether it's by right or not, because I think the compatibility that councilmember vela is proposing is really important to do and it's immediate. And I think we should do it. And I don't think that that has anything to do with whether or not this is administrative or by right or whether it requires zoning. I don't want to confuse those two things because there's different things we're trying to solve for. >> Renteria: Colleagues, we do have this room until 5:00. >> Kitchen: Sorry. >> Renteria: It's 4:36 and there's still a couple more briefings, so. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Renteria: I suggest that if y'all want to take action on this item, it's been made and seconded. Then we can do it, unless someone really has a question on the issue itself that we're [4:36:42 PM] discussing. I would ask if we can go ahead and either postpone the vote or make the vote, but it has been seconded. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you, chair. We could probably talk all day on this. So I just made a motion in case there was consensus on the committee. So I don't know how my colleagues feel about it. >> Renteria: Do you feel comfortable taking a vote? >> Vela: Chair, I do. I understand the concerns with the by right versus -- and honestly, the participation rate that I was not aware of, that raises some concerns. But I think that it will be going before regardless, it will be going before the full council and we can talk about all those issues. But I think as an overall approach, I do support it. And I would be happy to send it to the full council with [4:37:45 PM] hopefully unanimous support. >> Chair, who seconded it? I wanted to make sure my comments weren't construed as seconding. >> Renteria: Councilmember vela seconded. >> Councilmember vela, okay. I'll be abstaining. >> Renteria: Amendment, also. >> Kitchen: I accepted. >> Harper-madison: I continue to have concerns, most especially as it pertains to zoning in particular, in which case I would prefer that we hold off on taking action and discuss it further, but I understand if my colleagues would like to move forward with the vote. >> Renteria: Okay. We're going to go ahead and vote. You can vote. Let's take the vote. All those in favor of the amendment to -- related to the vertical mixed use, which we call v2, raise your hand if you [4:38:49 PM] approve. Okay. That's three -- councilmember vela, councilmember kitchen, and the chair. Those that are against or want to abstain? >> Ellis: I will abstain, chair. >> Renteria: Okay. We have two abstaining. Councilmember Ellis and councilmember harper-madison. So it moves on forward to the council, full council next week. Before we leave -- I mean, before we go on to the next briefing, I want to make a correction here. The minutes were seconded by the mayor. I'm bringing up the minutes again. Do I have a motion for approval? Councilmember vela second. Councilmember kitchen. [4:39:49 PM] All those in favor, raise your hand. It's unanimous on the dais. Thank you. And now, the next briefing, which is item 4 -- no, item 3, a briefing on etod study, timeline, and community engagement process. Staff. >> Good afternoon again, my name is Eric, development officer with the housing and planning department. And I'm joined by Anna from capital metro. The city of Austin housing and planning department has been partnering with capital metro on equitable transit-oriented development planning, partially from direction from city [4:40:52 PM] council, also in response to a grant from the federal transit administration. So, Anna will be providing the presentation and then I'll be available to answer questions. >> Thank you, Erica. Good afternoon, councilmembers, mayor Adler. My name is Anna, a principal planner at cap metro. Next slide, please. We'll be going over a couple items, an update about the project as well as the engagement and, of course, showing you some of the early deliverables of the project. Next slide, please. The equitable transit-oriented development really started when we won two back-to-back grants, with a total of $1.65 million. This covers 21 stations on the Orange and blue light rail line [4:41:52 PM] and cap metro is leading this project, working closely with our partners the city and atp. Recently we expanded our project scope for consistency. On top of the station area plans, we will expand some of our analysis to the systemwide level. This project does not propose changes to zoning or the Orange and blue line design process. Next slide, please. The shift from traditional tod oetod was a decision made by capital metro because we want to do more than just reducing or preventing displacement, which is some of the byproduct of traditional tods. So true equitable tod is really about reversing the traditional inequalities and creating the new economic opportunities for residents along the transit corridors. For us, this means creating the [4:42:53 PM] new housing opportunities while prioritizing the underserved communities. Next slide, please. This is an etod diagram done by our marketing department, but it encapsulates our project vision. This is an area we see as distinctly Austin. It's multimode Dahl. Modal with electric buses, light rail, metro bikes, a mix of housing types for renters and homeowners. This picture doesn't spell it out, but it's implied the apartments are affordable to a range of incomes and the place feels welcoming to the existing and new residents alike. So you can also see that we have small commercial spaces used by local businesses and community serving uses such as libraries or community centers and a very strong public realm with a nod to Austin's music culture. [4:43:53 PM] This is a neighborhood accessible for all abilities. Next slide, please. For an etod, we have a total of five deliverables from task two through seven. Task two is looking at some of the projects worked on by other cities in the country for etod. Task four is on existing conditions analysis for our study corridor. Task five is policy recommendations or toolbox of etod recommendations. Task six updates the existing capital metro priority tool which was started prior to project connect. And task seven is the station area vision plans for selected stations. As you can see here, the task five and task six form the bulk of the council-directed etod policy plan that we will hand over to the city. Next slide. [4:44:55 PM] This is our project timeline. A lot going on here. So I'll walk everyone through. The project kicked off last November, 2021, and will continue until the spring of 2023. The deliverables are all coordinated with the city of Austin team, as well as the Orange and blue line Nepa process and the fta capital investment grant ratings process. There are three major stages of engagement. We just completed the first engagement in April. And the first stage engagement was looking at high-level feedback regarding priorities and key concerns. So right now we are just at the beginning of the second stage of engagement which centers around task five, the policy framework. And in this engagement session we will be talking about grassroots, small businesses, and affordable housing developers to look at specific [4:45:56 PM] strategies here. So we are hoping to complete the policy framework and priority tool by August so that it's ready to hand over to the city of Austin team in September and we're hoping to introduce the task seven station area plans, which is aimed for April of 2023. Next slide, please. There are six defined goals for the etod projects and these goals came about from three different sources. First it's collectively defined from a combination of the 30 individual goals identified by the council in the etod resolution from 2021. It's also from the nothing about us without us racial equity tool. And finally from the feedback we received from the first round of public engagement. So these goals include the safe and sustainable multimodal transportation. We want to help close the racial health and wealth gaps in the neighborhoods and preserve and [4:46:57 PM] grow affordable housing. Next slide, please. The goals further goes on, to expand access to high-quality jobs and to make sure that the neighborhoods have the amen cities to support the needs of the -- amenities to support the needs of residents, and sustain and grow small businesses along the transit corridors. Next slide, please. Task five, this is the current task we're working on. And this is really the meat of the project I would like to think. Task five really allows cap metro and the city of Austin to best utilize tools according to needs of each station area. The strategies are divided into the five categories -- land use and urban design, real estate, mobility, housing affordability and business and workforce development. Each of these will contain a spectrum of policy tools and recommendations that range from easy wins to setting up a [4:47:57 PM] long-term policy foundation. So when combined with the typologies and the task six prioritization tool, the hope is that you'll be able to assess the most effective strategies based on station-specific and geographic needs along the corridor. Next slide, please. We are very aware of coordinating this project with the Nepa process, so as to not disrupt it in any way. We're working closely with the atp team to coordinate delivery. And the important note is such as introducing the station area plans until after the finalization of the Nepa documents and the fta record of decision which is around March 2023. And we plan to introduce the station plans after that in April 2023. Next slide, please. This is a slide that I'm very [4:48:58 PM] excited to introduce to the council. We have spent a lot of efforts for etod to kind of go above and beyond in our traditional engagement process. We acknowledge that the traditional engagement methods limit the audience and we often miss out on the black, latinx, other minority, or underrepresented groups such as the elderly, access community, and those facing housing insecurity. So, we really thought about ways to reach deeper into different communities and we targeted the engagement methods to bring out the voices in variety of ways. We worked with the cac on a monthly basis through working group and we also hold smaller, more targeted outreach to the at-risk communities and those most impacted through company programs [4:49:59 PM] similar to the Austin walk, bike, roll program. These compensated conversations really help us gain a better understanding of the needs and concerns of the community through a peer-to-peer outreach format and have so far brought us spectacular feedback. Next slide, please. So I'd like to introduce some of these engagement methods. The community connectors was really through an open recruitment process citywide. We had over 150 applicants and 12 were selected from different backgrounds. So we have a combination of native austinites. We have those who have been in the city for only a few years. We have a few retirees. We have students. And all have some sort of community activism background. So the community connectors are paid $25 an hour and our goal is for them to reach about 30-50 people per connector. They also host a lot of the [4:51:00 PM] community engagement events. In the three months that they've been active, we've locked over 26 events with over 40 hours of engagement and also with 104 folks engaged from the connectors alone. And for the community advisory group we hold monthly working group meetings. The goal is to really not just to present and inform the cac but really help ask them to work with us and help shape policy decisions along the way. In the last month alone we have held three different workshops with the cac group. Two of the workshops are a combination of the cac and the community connectors. Next slide, please. So, for the focus group, which is ongoing right now, we are holding smaller discussions with groups about three to five -- sometimes a little bit more if we have more cohosts in a room with different groups. [4:52:01 PM] So we're speaking with grassroots, grasstops, small businesses, and developers with emphasis on affordable housing developers. For these focus groups, it's also compensated conversation about an hour divided into the four categories. So far we have completed 22 focus groups to date, including several in spanish-only sessions with over 120 participants so far. These engagement groups are hybrid mix, sometimes they are virtual, sometimes we go in person as part of the event. For example, last Friday we were invited to the Austin area urban league where we had the opportunity to engage over 11 individuals who are either facing housing insecurities or who have had in the past. Just as a number to date, we have compensated over $6,000 for these focus group discussions [4:53:03 PM] alone. Next slide, please. The etod project is moving on a very rapid pace and timeline, so in order to keep track of the progress, we created a website that's nested within project connect. The project website is a place -- it's a one stop shop where you can take a lock at all the engagement information, links to take surveys, be able to access our data set. And you'll see the case study summary. And also if you would you like to interact with our community connectors, it's all on one page. Next slide, please. This is my concluding slide and I'd like to share with the council the existing conditions dashboard that we created. So the purpose of this is task four, which looks at the existing conditions along our [4:54:04 PM] study corridors. Usually what happens in these planning studies is you get a in static PDF sitting on the shelf, outdated in 3-5 years, but we have created this to be an online publicly accessible dashboard where you're able to look at a variety of information based on either the corridor level or station level. So you'll have full public access to population data, displacement data, jobs, urban fabric, real estate, or mobility. This is up and running, live at the link above. So for example, for the multifamily inventory, you'll be able to kind of look at the inventory at station level. You'll be able to look at the inventory, the number of units available, the vacancy level, current and future predicted inventory, rent for the stations, as well as the change in rent from 2011 to 2021. [4:55:07 PM] The station -- the website also offers station tours, aerials of each of these stations. So the idea is that this tool will not only be useful for capital metro and the city of Austin, but for future community workshops, discussions. This is something that you can just pull up rather than accessing five or six different websites, our team has pulled it all in one interactive website. And this is something that will continuously update. This is only covering the station area along Orange and blue, but as stated, we are expanding our analysis to systemwide. So in about a month or two's time, please come back to this website and you'll be able to see analysis on a much more greater level covering 98 stations. So that concludes my presentation. Erica and I will be very happy to take any questions that you have. Thank you. >> Renteria: Councilmember harper-madison. [4:56:07 PM] >> Harper-madison: Thank you, chair, I appreciate it. I'll try to keep my comments brief, but I am excited to see progress on this. And I can't wait for future developments. When my team and I brought forward the resolution directing staff to do this work, I saw it as an opportunity -- an opportunity to maximize taxpayer-approved transit investments. And while ensuring that people who needed the bus, who depend on buses and trains will still have opportunities to use them. We've had some opportunities as councilmembers to visit other cities that have gone through this transit-oriented development process and recognizing what they did right, what they did wrong. I think we are going to be trend-setters. We're pioneers in the way that we are focusing so much time and intention and frankly, our dollars towards getting behind not allowing for typical transit-oriented development to do what it does, which is displace people. So I appreciate that stance. I think housing and shops are [4:57:08 PM] really great, but I'm very happy to see that we are intentionally talking to our residents about what they want to see. I think that's a critical component. And I'm happy to see that we're doing that. That's how we get those complete communities that we talk about, envisioned in imagine Austin, where everyone's daily needs are just a short trip away. I don't know about anybody else, but that's my goal. So it's absolutely imperative that we make sure as many of our residents as possible have access to that kind of city life. And I see this etod work as a big step in that direction. I'm happy to have had the presentation. It looks like a lot of thought and effort has gone into bringing the presentation forward. I really appreciate it. I only have one question. Do we have an inventory list of city-owned properties in proximity to future project connect transit lines? [4:58:09 PM] >> We do. That's part of the dashboard. If you go to -- I think there is a tab under real estate, you'll be able to see the link of all city-owned inventory within a half mile of the transit line. >> Harper-madison: Thank you very much. >> Thank you for your support. Thank you. >> Renteria: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: Yes, I'm excited about this, too. I was pleased to be able to help councilmember harper- madison on her resolution. And I have one question for you. It sounded to me like -- I think you said August or so that y'all were going to complete the work on the policy, if I heard you right, policy recommendations and that would come over to the city. And so if I heard that right, my question is, is that something that we can get a copy of when [4:59:13 PM] that stage of the project is completed? The reason I'm asking is we had originally envisioned in your resolution that there would be an interim report back to the council, thinking that maybe there were some interim policy changes we could initiate. So, I'm really anxious to see what those recommendations might be and hoping that we can get some of those before spring of 2023. >> Thank you. I think that's a question that Erica can answer better than me. >> Sure. So, as Anna mentioned, part of the policy plan is actually the tool that she just demonstrated. So that's part of it. But then the policy recommendations are the other part. I think we will have something that is ready to be shared publicly, so I don't see any problem with that. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> I wanted to make sure that councilmembers are aware that we [5:00:15 PM] just sent an etod update memo today, so there's information in that memo as well. >> Kitchen: That's great. I'm really looking to see if there's any policy recommendations that it makes sense to act on sooner rather than later. It may be that you have to finish everything before there's anything we could act on, but I know a number of us might be interested in acting on some things this fall, so. >> Renteria: I want to thank the staff for that report and thank you. We're going to -- if there's no more questions, we're going to go into our last item, item 4. Staff? [5:02:01 PM] >> Brett Lloyd, dsd. Thank you for hearing this item. We're going to provide a brief background on kind of where we're at with council's proposal of considering the use of preapproved plans for accessory dwelling units and I know we're going over time, so I'll try to breeze through it. Councilmembers may have some questions about some of the challenges that are presented by trying to use preapproved plans. So just by way of background . . . I always have this problem. Here we go. So, some history. We're going to talk a little bit about prior direction that council has provided on this topic, touch on the aduniverse program that the city of Seattle uses, and then we'll touch on as well the staff recommendation which we provided you in February of this year. [5:03:08 PM] So the initial direction that council provided was in April of 2020, and it was basically to explore the possibility of using preapproved plans for accessory dwelling units and look at potential partnerships with the community and ways that we could develop a menu of preapproved models that would be used to help streamline the permitting process and make it easier for homeowners to build ads. We outlined several steps and several considerations in a memo that was provided I believe last year and specifically the need to engage the community with emphasis on low- and moderate-income homeowners and renters as well as design professionals to develop what the criteria would be for selecting what plans are going to be preapproved, issue a call -- a public call for Adu plans from local design professionals or organizations to get a set of proposed plans [5:04:10 PM] and then review them under the criteria -- the publicly developed criteria. Potentially also partner with select design professionals or organizations to establish preapproved Adu guidelines for use and processes to complete design modifications and permitting and use affirmative marketing to inform eligible homeowners facing displacement pressures about the options for using preapproved plans. Direction number 2 came in last year in December, and that was basically to estimate the amount of staff time and resources required to implement the steps I just outlined, the steps that we've determined based on looking at other cities and looking at our own procedures would be necessary to make preapproved plans viable. In February of this year, we [5:05:17 PM] provided another memo that went through the amount of work that would be required and the steps to make preapproved plans happen. And specifically, based on looking at Seattle and other cities that have tried to adopt this kind of a program we determined it would require creating criteria for Adu plans based on technical code requirements and public feedback. And this is important because if Adu plans are going to be preapproved, and that is then going to be a predominant model of Adu construction in a community, people are going to want input on that. People are going to want to know what are these going to look like, what is the character of the structure going to be, and there's always a lot of interest in that. So we determined in looking at other cities that that was a really important part of the process. Again, releasing an open call for plans to be submitted, creating a selection committee for review of up to 160 [5:06:20 PM] submissions and selecting ten plans to be made available to homeowners for a flat fee, developing a streamlined permitting process for projects to use the preapproved plans. And we provided in our memo, I believe it was February of this year, issued by dsd and HPD a breakdown of the time and the resources that would be required for that. So we also looked at per council's direction the effectiveness of the aduniverse program, which is the city of Seattle's program for the use of preapproved plans. And approximately since 2020, 500 ads have been built in Seattle and roughly half of Seattle's Adu production consist of attached ads which are not eligible for their program. 36 were built using the aduniverse program between 2020 [5:07:22 PM] and 2021. A breakdown of the work that would be involved, solicit community feedback for the creation of design criteria. We estimate that that would take three to six months and roughly 650 hours. Submission of plans, roughly six months and 315 hours. Review plan submissions, six to ten months, 320 hours. Implementation and launch, another seven to nine months and roughly 678 hours. And then ongoing maintenance yearly after at option would be 50 hours. And I know those numbers seem high, but we -- the staff that have worked on public engagement procedures and these types of initiatives, we think these numbers are fairly conservative and consistent with the efforts that other cities have had to put into their pre-approved [5:08:26 PM] programs as well. So I want to talk about some challenges to Adu preapproved plans. So, preapproved plans can be used to sort of at the front end determine that a structure is going to meet certain technical code requirements, certain basic construction code requirements that will ensure that if you submit a preapproved plan, we can be sure it will meet certain technical codes. But there are requirements that simply cannot be evaluated without a level of site-specific review that are going to vary per lot, and specifically I think some of the main examples are going to be subchapter F, sometimes referred to as the mcmansion ordinance. That is an ordinance that requires determining whether a structure fits within a tent that's based on the geometry of the site. It's not a simple height calculation. It also involves floor-to-area [5:09:28 PM] ratio, which is not simply just adding up the gross floor area of structures. It requires really getting into how the structures are designed and what the massing is on the site. And that is -- can be a complex level of review. Additionally, there is always going to be a level of foundation review required and that's going to have to be based on the soil features and topography of the site. And that is something where the city would look to require engineered plans to be submitted and sealed by the applicant's engineer. But I guess the point I want to make is that even if Adu plans are designated "Preapproved," unless council would be prepared to potentially waive or modify some of the site-specific regulations with regard to mcmansion, it would be quite [5:10:30 PM] likely that in many cases, an applicant would come forward with preapproved plans and they ultimately couldn't be approved. Because when you add up all the floor-to-area ratio and all those requirements, it may be that it's simply not going to comply, because our residential review staff, in working and applying subchapter F frequently have to require revisions, changes. And with floor-to-area ratio's going to depend on how large, how much floor area is already consumed by the principal structure in terms of how much is left over for your Adu. So we do have concerns that there would be some significant limitations to how useful preapproved plans would be without modification to some of those regulations. [5:11:37 PM] So, that's our briefing and I'm available to answer questions and we also have the city's -- dsd's chief plans examiner, Susan Barr here as well. So, if council has any questions, we're available. >> Renteria: Councilmember vela. >> Vela: One other issue that comes to mind is the new 15-foot setback requirement that Austin energy just added. I understand where staff is coming from where we have a very small window within which to maneuver and it's going to be very difficult to have some kind of preapproved plans that can just sail through the process. I guess that's the reality of our current code, it's an extremely complex and difficult to navigate situation. [5:12:41 PM] Let me ask, on this item, is the juice worth the squeeze in terms of the amount of staff time and amount of effort that's going to be put in? Because conceptually I love the love the idea. In reality I'm not sure I want staff putting a thousand hours in so that of the 36, I'm not sure it's not worth the that much staff time to facilitate a dozen Adu applications. >> Well, councilmember, we appreciate your question and we've given this topic a lot of thought and internal review. Whether it is worth it or not is a policy question for you all. But we do want to be as candid as we can be about what some of the challenges are. I want to make one additional point. There are many zoning regulations, many of the simple zoning regulations that are part of the base districts, like [5:13:44 PM] setback, height, building coverage, that are easy to review for. If an applicant was considering submitting a preapproved plan, that could be determined fairly quickly. It is the more context sensitive regulations like subchapter F that would -- we fear -- present situations where an applicant would have every hope that they would get an approval only to have those hopes dashed when we started to apply subchapter F. >> Vela: From thinking as a councilmember, I don't want to offer a process to my constituents and then have them rejected -- offer a preapproved path and have them rejected and have them come back and be like, what just happened. So I definitely don't want to overpromise and under- deliver with regard to the res residents ofaustin on this one. [5:14:46 PM] >> Renteria: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: Can you just give us an example of the subchapter F regulations you're referring to? >> In particular, Susan may want to -- may be available to elaborate, but you have to determine with subchapter F whether the massing -- the structures on the site are within .4 floor-to-area ratio. And that requires doing fairly involved calculations of the gross floor area of the principal structure as well as the Adu. And it's not simply looking at the basic floor space. You have all these exemptioned based on architectural features and how the structures are designed, so there's a fairly detailed level of review. Also, for ads, they would have to meet the .4 overall site [5:15:46 PM] F.A.R. As well as a .15 F.A.R. That's specific to ads. So as soon as we start having to apply those regulations, it becomes something that's very difficult to determine at the front end without a fairly involved review process. Again, I want to emphasize though that things like setbacks, impervious cover, those regulations are fairly straightforward and can be determined in an expedited way at the front end. Those would not be an obstacle to making preapproved plans something that would be useful. But some of our other regulations would be. Susan, do you want to add? >> Sure. Acting chief plans examiner. In regards to subchapter F there's a tent, site-specific with the topography. That's where the Adu has to fit within the tent. There's trees the designers have to be cognizant of, also. [5:16:48 PM] >> Renteria: Councilmember tovo, I saw you had your hand up. You have a question? >> Tovo: Sure. Super quickly, councilmember vela, I think you asked an important question. I did this resolution. When I saw the response back and had an opportunity to sit with Mr. Lloyd I came to the conclusion that probably this was not necessarily going to be our most impactful change we could make and it may not be worth it based on the experiences our staff cited from other areas. I know Mr. Lloyd is working on -- and others are working on some of the code amendments that were prompted by that same resolution. I think those will probably prove to be more useful. Those are coming back in the fall, as I understand it. And so we can have more of a conversation about this next week, because I'm trying to understand how councilmember Kelly's resolution fits into that. But the code amendments that we -- with regard to the Adu are going to be more impactful than [5:17:49 PM] the premade plans. It was an interesting idea, but I came to the conclusion it was not at this moment -- didn't seem like it was going to be a good expenditure of staff time and resources and that of the community. >> Renteria: My question is, you know, basically a lot of the cost is also associated with utility connections, the requirement of parking. Did y'all look into that issue also? >> I think those are regulations that would have to be applied. In terms of looking at whether preapproved plans would add value to the applicant, I think those particular regulations would not be the stumbling blocks because you can determine those regulations at the front end. So conceivably if that was all [5:18:51 PM] you had to worry about, you could use preapproved plans and it would help the process. But it is mcmansion and some of the other regulations that are going to be very tied to unique characteristics of the site that would make it really hard to be sure that your preapproved plans are going to get approved. But we are definitely -- councilmember Renteria, as part of the larger set of Adu reform regulations that councilmember tovo mentioned, we are definitely consistent with council's prior direction looking at all those regulations and it's our hope that we will be bringing forward a set of changes -- of proposed code changes that holistically look at all the obstacles, including ones that you have brought up in connection with your own situation and with your constituents as well. >> Renteria: Thank you. Any other questions, colleagues? [5:19:51 PM] Well, thank you. >> Sure. >> Renteria: I'm looking forward to your next report. Colleagues -- >> Chair. >> Renteria: Yes. >> Just before you adjourn this, I wanted to say a quick thank you to all of the presenters today. That was a lot of good level of detail and I know those took a lot of time to put together and I really appreciate the information that was presented. >> Renteria: And colleagues, if you have any items that you want to discuss on our next meeting, just let the chair know -- my staff know, and we'll post it. Seeing nothing else on the agenda, without objection I will adjourn this meeting. And the time is 5:20, so, staff, thank you all. . We'll see you next month. Night, everyone.