City Council Work Session Transcript – 2/21/2023 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 2/21/2023 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 2/21/2023 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. [11:00:36 AM] You're trying to find the ground trying. To understand how open. For the February 21st 2023 council work session. It is, as I just indicated, February 21st 2023. It's 11 o'clock in the morning. We are meeting in the council chambers at the Austin city hall, which is located on second street. We have a quorum present, including one virtually , and that is council member Natasha harper-madison. Thank you for joining us with that we will call the first item on the agenda that we will take up today with which is a presentation of project assessment report for the 200 east Riverside planned unit development. Welcome and thank you. Thank you. Mayor mayor council. I'm joy harden with the housing in planning department. And I am here today to present [11:01:37 AM] this development assessment item and that it's case number C D 2022 0003. This is a briefing on a proposed plane unit development or put located at 200, east Riverside, dry and just as a quick reminder. Some of you have heard development assessments. Some of you have not. So you're wondering why this is a zoning day and why I'm standing in front of you. I am here because the city's land development co. Requires their prior to an applicant submitting apart application, the applicant is required to do what we call a development assessment, which is essentially a dry run of what they are proposing to submit staff offers comments and the comments come from numerous city departments. We give them back to the applicant, and then we give a briefing to the council on some of the overall big picture items. In reference to what the applicant is going to submit in their future put application. At the end. This will be the time that you can provide feedback to this proposal. As I stated. The site is located at 200 east Riverside [11:02:38 AM] drive. The site is 3.955 acres in size and is currently sound L N P like commercial neighborhood planned. The property is located within the south river city citizens neighborhood plan area and its designated mixed use on the future land use maps on the Flum. There's distinctive elopement includes a 51,285 square foot two story bacon office building with surface parking, and that's the former text stop building again. The applicant is proposing put in peace owning the proposed project will include two high rise buildings intended for 1,377,000 square feet of office uses and 29,218 square feet of ground floor commercial retail uses with a maximum height of 410 ft, a mix of below grade and above grade structure. Parking is proposed proposed part will allow for the flexibility to include residential uses. The property is located within the boundaries of the south central [11:03:39 AM] waterfront vision framework plan , but the plant does not set forth additional development of title mints for this site. The existing like commercial L zoning allows for maximum height of 200 ft. However since the property is within the south shore central waterfront overlay the height is restricted to 96 ft. Therefore the puds baseline height will be established as 96 ft and the belt in the developer will be required to pay $8 per gross bonus area. This square footage the extra square footage in fan liu if developed as an office. The property is located along the future blue line, which is a proposed light rail line connecting downtown Austin to the Austin Bergstrom international airport. The applicant is requesting for cone modifications in their major request, as I mentioned earlier is a maximum height of 410 ft, in which, of course, the existing zoning does not allow in exchange for receiving the increased entitlement of 410 ft of height. Some of the things [11:04:41 AM] offered by the applicant or a superiority rs follows. Provide 100% on site water quality treatment not exist today. The proposals to reduce overall impervious cover. 0.87 acres of open space, which will include two public pocket parks. Building will be dull pipe for reclaimed water. And provide a community and in the proposed development will provide a community being space on the ground floor at no cost to the neighborhood association or or the community and again those I'm just outlining some of the what the applicant is proposing . So again. The major request will be the increased height from 96 ft. 2 410 ft. And just know as I mentioned earlier. Once this briefing is complete click, it may submit their actual plan application. It will go through the usual process of review by multiple city departments reboot a review by at a minimum, the environmental commission, the planning commission and finally back to the council, and that includes [11:05:42 AM] this presentation, and please feel free to relate any comments at this time. Remember do you have any questions or comments at this point? All right. Thank you very much appreciate the presentation. Members will now go to item a on the agenda, which were pre selected agenda items. There are three that we're going to take up. Hopefully briefly, one is item 34. The second is item 44 in the third is item 61. The first is item 34. I'll call that up. And ask I see movement. Nope not the movement I thought I was going to see is that this is like an auction. This is like an auction. If you move, you have to talk. Okay all right. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Rosie. True love in the director of the housing and planning department. We have Warner cook here. She's a [11:06:42 AM] planter principle within the housing and planning department to provide some information and a short presentation and answer some questions about R E T O D policy plan. Thank you. Thank you very much. And mayor. Yes Tim getting settled. I just wanted to daylight and council member harper-madison may have some comments on this as well. But we were going to. We have posted a housing and planning and mobility committee joint meeting for the second just to give everyone a little more time and breathing room to have time to digest the toady plants. Smart so council member harper-madison may have some other thoughts, but I wanted to daylight that and say that we would be asking for that postponement. I want to make sure it was you kind of dropped your voice on the last part of that you're you're going to be asking for a postponement to at least the March 9th meeting the ninth even though it's posted for this Thursday, correct would ask me you'll be asking for a postponement until the March 9th [11:07:43 AM] meeting. And part of the reason to do that is so that the committee can take it up. On March 2nd. Yes that's can remember harper-madison. Would you like to add anything before ? I have sort of having comment? No I can wait until after the presentation. I do have some brief comments. Good deal. I'll call on you, then. Thank you. Hello as Rosie said, my name is Warner cook. I'm a principal planner with the housing and planning department and I lead the equitable Todt team on the city side. But as you'll see it's a multi agency effort, in fact, oh, so I wanted to present a little bit of background. Some of you who were on the housing and planning committee probably saw this last November when we gave a presentation. But there's new council members, so let's just go ahead and give a little background here, asked the city Zito D work really started out of a June 2021 resolution. That council passed. Asking staff to contribute actively to cap metro [11:08:46 AM] studies that had already been ongoing and funded at that point , as well as to take the results of those studies and develop city et policy plan. Which would include a lot of different goals and one of those being to update our current T O D, transit oriented development processes and, for the highest priority areas. That resolution, as I mentioned had many goals but was really focused on the idea of equitable outcomes and incorporating the city's anti displacement strategies into R T O D work. This includes both existing and creating new, affordable housing as well as market rate housing. Walkable, connect compact neighborhoods and with a mix of land uses and services for residents and a way to code if I community benefits and categorized T O D S in a context sensitive way. So the council item that's posted for [11:09:46 AM] this Thursday is summarized in this slide. As as you mentioned, it's likely going to be postponed, but what staff is looking for is to accept the policy plan document, which is in backup as attachment a, including some staff recommended amendments. Attachment B, which are based on the public feedback of boards and commissions and various emails and survey responses we received we'd also like you to initiate E. T O D station area planning for the northeast Austin district area, which is about 26 square miles planning process that's already been authorized by council. To incorporate vetoed into that, to amend. Imagine Austin comprehensive plan to incorporate E T. O D and to initiate some targeted amendments to the land development code to support PTSD and I'll go into each of those at the end of the presentation today. The process so far has really focused on the idea of the policy plan, which, as a reminder is a framework to guide [11:10:47 AM] our future decision making. It's basically a plan for how to plan in the future, but the document itself doesn't necessarily adopt or amend any existing regulations. It's not going to change our patterns of investment until council makes budget decisions to do so. It doesn't approve any specific geographic interventions. So this is really a guiding framework. But not regulatory piece of, work at this point. The focus is really to support residents of all incomes and backgrounds, especially those that have been disproportionately burdened by previous city and other land use and transportation decisions. What is etude? So you've heard me say, transit oriented development. What is the equitable part of this? How are we going to do things differently than in the past? So in the past, we focused on traditional tooty here in Austin as as well as nationwide where we saw a good good outcomes for [11:11:47 AM] sure. But that also, you know, because of the market focused nature of traditional toddy supported transit ridership but didn't necessarily support the existing communities. There didn't improve outcomes for our community members. So since then , we've seen, displacement pressures increase in these kinds of developments. And so we would want to focus on doing no harm and actually preventing displacement. But just keeping people in their homes doesn't actually show that they will have improved outcomes in the future. If they don't have additional community services like education, healthcare, childcare, these kinds of things that really make living in a neighborhood feasible and help people strive to new opportunities, so that's where the equitable outcomes. A portion comes in with the city and our partners looking to create new economic opportunities for residents. The E T O D team, as I mentioned is made up of multiple agencies, including the city of Austin. [11:12:49 AM] Excuse me. So much of this work has really been led by our partners at cap metro. They have been in the driver's seat thus far. If you will of the bus they have received over three million in federal transit administration. Grants to support this effort, and the city has been partnering with them as they've gone through their studies and engagement efforts to date. Ultimately the city has the land use authority to implement some of the recommendations out of their Austin transit partnership has some of the piece of responsibility going forward with the design and construction of the system and cap metro also will have a piece of ownership in this work going forward, but the fourth partner that is really been the backbone, and the most important is the community members, both those that have engaged with us so far. Throughout the process to tell us about what their priorities and what equity in transit or into development means to them, but also there will be nonprofit and other community organizations that themselves will have to lead some of this work going forward. [11:13:52 AM] As I mentioned the engagement process that we've gone through over the last year and a half has been very robust. When we first started out. It was still pretty, necessary to do virtual meetings do the pandemic, but of course, we know that that did not reach everybody and especially not a lot of our intended priority population audiences. So we supplemented, going forward with tabling and intercept surveys. We worked with our community advisory committee working group on nearly a monthly basis to kind of co create deliverables and make sure we were asking the right questions and doing the right kind of analysis to get to what they were looking for. We also had paid focus group participate. Ation. And one of the strategies and engagement that I'm really very excited about was our community connectors program where for 12 trained individuals who conducted their own research and actually reached out to over 200 community members, just on their own 60% of which were bipac and low income community members. So [11:14:55 AM] what's actually in the planned document that staff is asking for council's consideration of the policy plan includes six goals for equitable toady in Austin. A brief snapshot of how we've done over about the last decades since some of our existing totes have come online. It also includes stationary a typology is and planning priorities. And equity based tool kit with success metrics and a work step. A work plan for next steps moving forward. These six E T O D goals that you'll see on the right hand side of your screen come from three major sources that staff has kind of put together in concert with our other agencies. The first was looking at the city council resolution goals from June 2021. We also looked at the nothing about us without us racial equity, anti displacement tool. Report that the racial equity drivers in there and we also looked at our community engagement to help to find these goals. That really are very [11:15:56 AM] holistic. Not the way that we looked at T O D. Previously in things like making sure that we have access to career opportunities. Closing that racial health and wealth gap. The next part of the policy plan includes E T O D. Part typology ease. These these are basically categories that help us understand and help decision makers understand. What is similar about some station areas . Today they will help us tailor policy tools moving forward to get to the equitable outcomes for individuals, stationery but also thinking about its system wide and not just focusing on a single neighborhood. So the indicators on the right hand side the three columns there, look at relative population, displacement, risk and rate of change in the station areas. To arrive at the eight typology is which are the colorful rectangles in the middle. Those words basically give us a starting point for what the priority should be in a station area in the future. They don't [11:16:57 AM] prescribe a certain built form or a certain kind of level of investment or intensity. They really just described the characteristics today that we feel we need to most have at the forefront when we go into future detailed planning. It's also important to note that there's not like one ideal or best typology. It's not a gradient from point a to point B. These we expect might change over time as the rate of growth in a stationary a changes or as the number of residents increases in the future. We also have a planning priority rating component. This is something that council asked for in the resolution from June of 2021 staff can't go do about 100 station areas where the planning all at once, so we needed an idea of where to really start to have the highest impact. The most. The most impact. Quickest so we've come up with a year, one program of station areas which basically leverages the [11:17:59 AM] work either by cat, metro or other city planning processes to infuse Ito T into those ongoing planning processes. And then after that, we have a high, medium and low kind of rating for how much planning services are needed. How quickly. And we would look to combine these continue operated opportunities for collaboration say was school districts or something like that. If they have a priority, you know we would want to hear about that, because that could affect how the city wants to approach planning. The last major section of the policy plan is the policy toolkit. That's a menu of 46 policy tools that were developed to be Austin specific to focus on the equitable outcomes. They cover small business and workforce development, housing, affordability, mobility, land use and urban design and real estate and finance. Each tool says, who's going to be the lead on it? Which agency? Which department what kind of things we're going to need to consider [11:19:00 AM] in the future, going forward as we create an implement it and how we're going to measure success towards our six goals. They represent represent the direction that Austin wants to take. But each tool would need further refinement to actually created and implemented, and in some council cases, we need specific council direction to go initiate that tool and bring it back and adopted or direct the budget in a direct in a way. So as I mentioned, these are some of the next steps that we are asking for when this resolution is in front of you, one of those being the northeast Austin district stationary, a planning so we already in December council directed staff to work with cap metro on the north Lamar and south congress transit centers and that work is kicking off basically as we speak for public engagement. We want to make sure that the northeast isn't too far behind and so getting in at the beginning of that planning process is it goes out will help be a little bit [11:20:01 AM] more efficient rather than trying to incorporate E T O D. Later on in the process. We're also asking counsel to a initiate some amendments to imagine Austin specifically. What we're thinking about is the growth concept map. When that was last looked at, we didn't know the scope of project connect. We didn't know the exact corridors or station areas and so because the growth concept map is supposed to be where we're focusing growth in housing and jobs and services. It makes a lot of sense for the typology is to be incorporated into that. But the action would just be to initiate those. We would definitely work with the community and stakeholders on what that means and bring that back to council for ultimate consideration of changes. And then the last major step that we're asking counsel to initiate is the land development code changes. Staff considers these kind of as three different phases of work. The first being more administrative, existing [11:21:03 AM] code today includes a list of what is and isn't a T O T about 11 of them are defined. And now staff would like to go back and say okay, well, these are what they eat you dsr and this is the planning process. Just to clean that up and make it very clear. For the second phase is the second sub bullet there. There is also existing initial regulations that apply to designated to Yuri's today, things like preventing surface parking lots, making sure that building setbacks and entrances are pedestrian oriented those kinds of things and so that provides a baseline for development until you can go in and actually have more detailed station area planning and staff is looking to make sure that those are still good initial regulations, especially for going to be applying them to many more station areas, and whether they're reaching our goals we may need to make updates to that section. And then the final section that of code that staff would like to [11:22:04 AM] take a look at his actually to create a new E T O D overlay. This is one of the tools in the policy toolkit. And it would help provide a consistent system wide framework for the city to offer additional entitlements like height. Three waivers, relaxation of site regulations. In exchange for specific community benefits. This goes back to codifying the community benefits part that council asked us for these could be benefits like affordable housing, which is our typical kind of development bonus program in the city, but also affordable commercial or nonprofit space inclusion of specific missing community services, funding of infrastructure. These are all different things that public, private and non profit developers could possibly present to the city in exchange for additional entitlements that reach our goals. The details of all of that have not yet been worked out, and we expect an extensive public engagement process would be necessary in order to craft an overlay like [11:23:05 AM] this, so we would be looking to procure a consultant team to help us with the analysis as well as work with the community to craft and then later map this so again, that would just be council initiating staff to go work on this, but not actually. Creating or changing anybody's zoning right away. This is my last slide. There's more information if community members are council would like to go review the draft policy plan. You can go find it online at public input dot com slash E T O D. You can also send us a message at E. T O. T at Austin, Texas got gov. And if you're looking for more information like on the north Lamar, or south congress transit center station areas, you can go to the umbrella site, which is project connect .com. Slash projects slash E T O D thank you. Thank you members before I go to cast [11:24:05 AM] member harper-madison. I want to see if anybody has any questions or comments. For on the dais. Yes, mayor pro tem. I appreciate that quick run through that presentation. It's really helpful. I know some of us were able to talk about it a couple of weeks ago, but since there's new members on the diocese, I think it's helpful. To do that I did want to just flag that it would be helpful for staff. To prep for the March 2nd joint meeting. If folks have questions or things they want to make sure come back at that point in time, and I have a couple of comments to but would love for council member harper-madison or others to speak first. That's a good comment if you have questions or comments or thoughts that you, I want to see addressed. Give staff the opportunity to prepare by making those known now. Thank you for bringing that up there with him and the slide show that we just saw. It's my understanding that mystery loves [11:25:05 AM] going to put that in the backups that you also have that as you go forward. Customer, Ryan alter. I'm not sure if this is a question for you or question for Rosie, and it's it may not even be a question for you to answer at this moment, but you mentioned hiring outside consultants to help do some of this work. We obviously have a lot of work that is going to be needed and done on this issue, and so I just understanding the challenges that you all have with all the other things that we send your way. To think about. Is this something that we do need to have more third party , you know, take care of if there's a delay in project connect. I don't want it to be because of us. And so if you know, I know we have staffing challenges for a lot of things. So if we want to dedicate our staff time to this and need some third party to do something else we're sending or vice versa. I just I want us to be thinking and cognizant of that, so that when the time comes for this [11:26:07 AM] needing to be done, and us move on to the next step nobody's waiting on us. You and I share that as a priority. And that is something that we definitely will be looking at. We do have some funds that have been set aside for work. And that was anticipated to be contracted services. But I appreciate the sentiment and we will figure out what makes the most sense to ensure that we don't have any unexpected delays. Yes, Mr Baylor. Thank you for the presentation, and I appreciate the extra time to look at it. And you know, we've all had our hands full and in a couple of weeks will be very helpful. Just a quick can comment. Question. There's gonna be a lot of stations. How granular are we going to get on the E T. O D. Because I mean again, I understand that that planning has to be context sensitive. But you know, I don't want to have, [11:27:08 AM] you know 40 different kind of, you know, specific zoning for the 40 different areas. I mean, at its core we're talking about you know, a place where we want to center activity anyway, that's that's that kind of jumped out from the presentation in terms of kind of the context. What do y'all think about that? Yeah thank you. That's that's a good question and agree, context sensitive can go. Down a rabbit hole to where you have 100. Different sets of standards or goals, so we anticipate one that all six E T D goals would be stripped would be the guiding light for all the station areas , so that's something that wouldn't fully kind of tie them all together. The eight U T E T O D type apologies. That's kind of where staff and our community advisory committee and everything we felt like that was a good range. A good number to work with. There's also other factors to consider, of course, like is it going to be a light [11:28:10 AM] rail or commuter rail station versus a bus station? I mean, those are just fundamentally different types of transit service at different frequencies , and so they're going to have different impacts on the neighborhoods. So we're looking to kind of do planning in both a system wide. So things like the overlay that I mentioned. Kind of way as well as a detailed way as quick as we can, unless they lumping, grouping stations like along a corridor or in a neighborhood like in the north east Austin plan into a single process to kind of understand. What are the similarities there to get to your point of not getting too bogged down and it taking too long. And are we talking about? A T O D, then layered over that and E T O D. In other words, you know how many layers of zoning are we talking about at these locations? Yes so, we do have [11:29:10 AM] three existing T O D. S which are in the zoning string today. We're MM. Okay station plaza salty. Oh and the crestview station area, right? So those did not jump up necessarily to be the top of the planning priority list. Since they are well, we know that there are issues that could be corrected. We also do know that they're fairly transit supportive today already. So at some point in the future. It's likely that you would come back and maybe amend that existing T U T station plan into an E T U T station plan, but that wouldn't be in the short term at all. Since again it wouldn't be the priority. So we wouldn't be layering and E T O D on top of a T O D to your to your question. No, thank you very much. Council member harper-madison. Thank you for the recognition mayor and thank you all for that presentation. I'm gonna very likely duplicate much of what's already been said , but I'll deliver my prepared remarks for the record and for my constituents. Good morning [11:30:10 AM] colleagues. As many of you know , martin, past and present and other teams and has been, highlighted in that presentation . Lots of people have put in lots of time on this project. But the policy frankly, should we get it right. It would create the opportunity for greater diversity for people to live near and use transit. I think the opportunity should we get it right would ensure that project connect our historic transit investment is maximized to its fullest extent, and I think that's why we have to make sure we extract the maximum opportunity. From this policy document, I guess I'm gonna refrain that, though, because I like the way that it was described during the course of the presentation as framework as opposed to policy. I think that offers a little more flexibility . So we have to get this right. That's why the mayor pro tem and I have scheduled a special called meeting between the two, [11:31:10 AM] committees, housing and planning him ability to review and really deliberate on this critical tool. I appreciate the truncated version of that, but also with really hmm. Moving forward. I think the full expectation is that we will collectively dig into more of these details for the framework at the March 2nd joint committee meeting, following that committee meeting . I hope that we hold a final vote on the proposed policy at the March 9th council meeting. I say if you're interested, but just like has been said today. I really encourage folks to go to the message board and really participate in the conversation there and at the joint committee meeting also, to collaborate with the many advocates community advocates. Instead it really have to craft this document. If we get this right now, say it again, we could do so much good for so many generations. If we get it wrong, it will be a great addition to [11:32:13 AM] the mini binders of great plans that respect on our bookshelves as we speak, so I really want to get this one, right? Thanks for your time. Thank you. Council member? Yes, pro tem. And I'll just wrap up my last comments I know. Council member harper-madison team worked very hard on this original resolution that council had passed. I don't even know how long ago years maybe ago just because the work is so important, so I want to give credit where credit is due to council member harper-madison. And I just want to daylight also that you know this is a good collaboration between cat metro is the operators of our public transportation authority. At the same time, the city of asked in. This is where we step up with the zoning regulations and affordable housing dollars. And so this is where we really need to tighten it up, work together and make sure that we're making these these good plans moving forward as a council member harper-madison had so eloquently said. Thank you. That's true love. I was just going to add. [11:33:14 AM] We do look forward to the special called meeting on March 2nd. And if there's any council office that would like to sit down with staff to have a further in depth conversation, either before that meeting or subsequent to that, then we're happy to do that. Just reach out to us. Thank you. Unless there's anything else will move to the next agenda item. Thank you very much for the presentation. And for your eagerness, the way you jumped up at the beginning. No tease, but I appreciate you very much appreciate the presentation will take us to item number. 44 . Which is an item that was pulled by council member of L. A. And I'll recognize councilman Rivera. Thank you, mayor and just kind of lay out the items. I had a slide show that we prepared for a forum that we were going to have that was actually canceled due to the ice storm, and it's just a handful of slides and I just wanted to run through it right quick, just to kind of illustrate some of the concerns that the resolution is getting at. And go ahead and [11:34:15 AM] go to the next slide. And this again just I think it's important to note that this is a once in a generation opportunity. The last time there was major work done on the freeway was 1970. Especially the heart of I 35 was in the 19 seventies. So whatever happens today, you know, it's gonna be with us for, you know, 50 years, 60 years and that's why it's so important that we get it right. Go ahead and go to the next slide. This is an example of a cap that text dot built in Texas . This is in Dallas. It's in downtown Dallas. It's called Clyde Warren park on the I think it's a Woodall Rodgers of freeway. You can see at the bottom of the photo where you know the you can see the kind of the edge of the cap there with the lanes going, in and out there, there's going to be a subsequent slide that shows it before and after photos, but this is before it was just, you [11:35:15 AM] know, a trench really with the freeway right underneath. They built this and it is one of the most popular parks in Dallas today. You can see the features that they have on top people go there and they take you know wedding photos and continue to photos and, you know, have picnics and all this kind of stuff like that. So again, I got to give credit where credit is due great. A work by text dot and the city of Dallas. Go ahead, go to the next slide. This is just. I know people who don't believe this they will do their hearts say that this is absolutely not true. But in 2002 there were about 200,000 vehicles crossing out 35 every day. The projections at the time . Where that in, you know, 2022 , we would have 320,000. Believe it or not, we have the same number of vehicles 200,000 vehicles using I 35 every day I accept. No one will be leave you if you tell them that they'll be like I know the traffic is worse today than it was 15 years ago, [11:36:16 AM] but the as far as the numbers go, the I 35 has has not, is not carrying any more vehicles than it did 20 years ago. And next slide, please. And you can go ahead and go to the next one, too. So this is airport boulevard right? At the border of D four and D nine. Really and I just want to point this out as one of the places where we are not ah, rebuilding in a way that facilitates mobility. Here. If you look at those little blue lines, those lines are going to be the pedestrian crossings through that area. And if you know, just to the to the to the top left hand corner that is the Mueller neighborhood. I'm sorry. That's dellwood actually. But Mueller would just be bright [11:37:17 AM] behind and over that. And then, of course, on the other side of the railroad track on the bottom right corner that's essentially the beginnings of the Hyde park neighborhood right there. The Hancock center is just over there. So you know, you've got two very populated very, thriving, vibrant neighborhoods who, as the crow flies are a short distance from one another. But it impossible. To walk or bike safely between one neighborhood and the other. It's even difficult to drive from, you know, one neighborhood to the other, even though it's a very short distance about, you know, not even a half mile, maybe a third of them while this design here is not going to facilitate mobility and engagement between the two neighborhoods. Again. This is just an example of where we need to do better if you look at [11:38:17 AM] those blue lines there. That's a very long and round. About what ? That I don't think anybody except those who absolutely need who have no other option really will will take. And if you look on airport boulevard airport boulevards in the green right there, that kind of curves through I 35 there's a little Orange little dash on the green . There that's connecting the two thirds of the blue there's actually the plan right now is for an underground walkway through underneath airport boulevard. Basically from one side to the other on airport boulevard, you know and again. I just think that's discourages pedestrians. I just can't imagine a lot of people wanting to kind of, you know, cross airport boulevard through a tunnel, you know, at night. Again, we have to do better in terms of mobility, especially looking at at at pedestrian and, and bicycle mobility and go ahead next night. Woodland [11:39:20 AM] avenue again on the border of D nine and D three. This is where prior to the or the current state of affairs is that there is a road woodland that you can see there where it's kind of, you know, butting out of the of the highway on both sides. They're currently you go right under. It's an underpass, relatively straightforward, simple and easy. Ah there is also people walk again just that very short distance there to across the highway from one side to the other. Hmm this is going to be replaced. The street is going to be cut off there so you will not be able to cross the highway on woodland avenue, and it will be replaced with a pedestrian crossing, which again? Probably three times, maybe four times the number of steps it will take to instead of just simply cross under the highway, the same, you know, distance that you're walking, you're gonna have to go. It's [11:40:21 AM] going to be one of those kinds of bridges over the highway that that you know, we see a different locations I think about there's one on like about airport and like, was that 12th a little bit right around there between like I'm okay in in in in 12th airport, Springdale. In my experience and from the transit professional that I've talked to about it. You know these kinds of looping, you know, long. Pedestrian and bicycle pathways over corridors are rarely used. You know they're they're built but very, very few people actually use them because they make the trip so long and so difficult next line. This just an illustration of the caps and again got to give credit where credit is due . The downtown section from Cesar Chavez to about eighth street looks great. There are going to be caps that are going to connect both the east and the [11:41:21 AM] west side. There's just an illustration of the plan with the camps and the plan without the caps. I think that that could very well be transformative of downtown. It opens up a lot of space. And one. I think very critical issue that has been a little bit under the radar. Is how strong the caps are going to be or how strong the foundations the support for the caps are going to be. The for example in the in the Clyde Warren park in Dallas . They retrofitted that onto the highway. There was never a plan to cap it or anything they and they can only build very, you know, small buildings. One story two story. There's some kind of party type buildings there. I'm not saying that we're gonna do this, but I think it's extremely important that we build those caps as strong as we possibly can. So that a city council 40 years from now, 50 years from now, maybe they do want to put a [11:42:22 AM] four story building a six story building. You know, maybe they do want to add on to those you know where the caps are. I just think it's important to kind of plan for the future, and even though we may not intend to build something on that right away, we want to facilitate that for, you know, future Austin that has different needs, particularly in its downtown core area. Next line. Again got to give credit where credit is due that the shade there the shaded areas on the top slide that is from Cesar Chavez to where the shade stops. There is about a street, the eighth street crossing is going to be removed. The and then on the bottom are the caps that you T is planning with text dot and those will be going from you see the Irwin center down in the you know, bottom, right? Photo that those caps are going to be going [11:43:23 AM] from 15th street to Dean Keaton and honestly. The caps that the university of Texas is planning to put it is working with text to put in are going to be a tremendous asset. It's gonna connect the east and west sides of the university. You know, you have your baseball stadium, your football stadium basketball stadium, the moody center tennis courts. This is really has the potential to become, you know, just one of the premier. Almost a little olympic village there, you know if you T in text that can get this, right. I was joking around that gonna see some of the best tailgating in the country is going to be taking place on top of those caps there at the university of Texas so again, perhaps to the university and text dot for working together. This was not in the plan. This was a recent addition to the plan. And so you can see that the plan is still evolving, as a mayor said in his evolving for the better. It's improved from where it started, and it's gotten better as we've moved forward. Next slide. [11:44:26 AM] There's a before and after the cloud Warren park again, it just . A picture is worth 1000 words . You have a very kind of dismal freeway environment on one side. In the after is a beautiful, vibrant place. And to that point the. I don't know what the real estate values are Dallas around this park, but I can tell you that they probably increased after the park was built. And I think that's going to be a key part of financing. The caps is, you know, once we cap the land on the freeway, the frontage to those caps is going to be so much more valuable than it was. Before that we do have the opportunity to create a towers or but the tiff something like that that will capture the land value increases and hopefully we can use that to pay for some of the caps. And again. There's [11:45:27 AM] just some some data on there. I believe that this was also I think I don't think taxes are paid for any of this. I believe that the city of Dallas paid for it, but I'm not 100% sure about the financing of that project and next slide. A big part of it was that dude named Clyde Warren. We're gonna we're gonna need a well. I'm happy to name things after people for and again some of the benefits and you know a lot of my constituents live right around. I mean, 35 literally goes through the middle of district four. Ah ah and I tell folks that you know from my house, which is maybe a half mile or so from the freeway. When I was in private practice, and you know, getting up at at and getting on the road at you know five A.M. For a hearing down in south Texas or something like that. I could see the lights from my 35 from my house. I could hear the vehicles rolling on 35 a late at night like that, and honestly, I was probably breathing in the [11:46:28 AM] fumes and the tire dust and all that kind of stuff from the vehicles as well. So that's a common sentiment. I think in the neighborhoods that surround I 35 is that they want to deal with the noise pollution, the light pollution, the air pollution, they want to bury. I mean, once you have described, you know what we could do in terms of bearing and capping the freeway that runs close to their neighborhood runs close to their house. I mean, people just are like, wow, let's do it. That's such a great idea that we really want to do it. And again that the capital also enable those east west connectivity that we so badly need the next slide. David just a couple of slides to illustrate a point. This is the number of east west crossings in the in the central portion of the text dot plan. You can see like in the downtown area, I would say all the way up to about airport. You have good connectivity. I mean downtown. [11:47:29 AM] You know, you've got six street. You've got seventh street. You've got a street, you know sets are Chavez just down the way and then 11th and 12. There's plenty of ways to get east and west. As you move farther north, the less but there's still you know, substantial connectivity 32nd street. You know Dean Keaton 38th street. You have the 41st street crossing right by the Hancock center hb. Then once you get out of that core, though, between airport and 51st, I think is about 0.6. Miles. It says on there. I just can't read it from here. Between 51st and 2 90, which is district four. It's about 40.8 miles, where there is not a crossing and between airport and 2 90 in that northern section of this project . I think we've had five or six people killed trying to cross the freeway at not at a crossing but actually trying to make a run across an active freeway. Ah which just really illustrates [11:48:29 AM] the need for better east west crossings so people can get across again. Text art is planning to put in a crossing one of those kind of like elevated walkways with the kind of looping ramp up to the crossing. I think that's a subpar. Connection I don't know how. How how much that's going to help next, lad. Just one more after this. This is the north and again. You can see just huge distances. I think the average is well over a mile between 23 run berg. I think we're talking about 1.8 miles without any east west crossing. You know again, this may have been appropriate when the freeway was built in the in the seventies. These were largely kind of, you know, rural and you know, outside of the city limits, but huge neighborhoods, vibrant neighborhoods have sprung up around the highway, and that's just too far to go. It's again it's going to be virtually [11:49:31 AM] impossible to walk or bike across, especially if you're not living like close to one of those crossings. And to drive. You know if you wanna drive from one side of the freeway to the other again, what might be a half mile, you know, as a crow flies distance is going to turn into like a three mile loop by the time you cross and then do a U turn and then back and so on and so forth, and then there's the last line. One more south. So south probably has the worst north is pretty bad in terms of the distances between, crossings but the south I believe that the one between slaughter and is it? William cannon? Is 1.9. Miles is about two miles or so between east west crossings. And as I'm sure, you know, most folks have noticed. There's a lot of apartment buildings being built along. I 35 both along the northern stretch and along the [11:50:31 AM] southern stretch. And you know so someone you know, going to the corner store for you know, a gallon of milk might have to do a, you know, a four mile loop to get to the corner store and come back. Just this is not facilitating the kind of compact and connected, city that that we want to live in. Ah and so, anyway, I just wanted to point some of these out just as this is some of the issues that are driving the resolution, and I just wanted to kind of you know , illustrate some of the you know you just visually looking at some of these documents that show folks exactly what we're thinking about it and in the kind of improvements that that we would like to see from the project council member. Yes, councilor apprentice. Thank you. Thank you, captain marbella for bringing this forward. I really appreciate your leadership and enjoy the presentation. Welcome many more presentations. If you like to give more [11:52:24 AM] the community will that is already there for us to have greater connectivity. So I appreciate you having this presentation and then lastly, just wanted to comment on the south Austin portion that you just pointed out 1.2 miles between the William cannon and slaughter crossing if you are ever in south Austin and my neck of the woods and counselor alters neck of the woods, you will see there's a lot of growth happening down there and we have to ensure that we have more connections in south Austin. So I appreciate that this resolution all also draws attention to the need for those connections. Pro Tim. Thank you, mayor. I appreciate this. I hope the expectation is not that we're all going to bring our own presentations when we pull items from here on out, but the graphics about the distance for bike and pedestrian crossings is really eye opening. You know, a mile in a car is very different than a mile on foot or a mile using a walker. You know, that is something that's just not surmountable. So I appreciate [11:53:25 AM] having that information. Spelled out so clearly. I hope there will be opportunity for more of those crossings because I think that building bike and pedestrian infrastructure is more cost effective than building bridges for cars. And so that's something I'm interested in. And I'm also reminded that we had had a conversation on the dais. Previously, I believe it was council member tovo had brought up the discussion of speed limits on the frontage roads and really trying to make sure that that is a very walkable, pedestrian oriented type of environment, and so I haven't worked out any language or I would have put it on the message board sooner, but may offer us a swipe a slight addition into that language to really say that we as a city would love to see the speed limits lowered on the frontage roads to help with that pedestrian safety, but that that is all my notes, but I appreciate the work on these comments and still reviewing them in their entirety, but appreciate your work and with your collaborators who are also affected by I 35 construction. I think it's a really good move. I [11:54:28 AM] recognize you too close and just a couple of quick you know, the more connections we have, the better traffic is at those individual connections when you only have one connection and let's say like a mile and a half area. Everybody has to crowd into that connection to get east and west along. I 35 where you have more connections there is, you know the trafficking kind of diffuse itself a little bit and flow better. So it helps vehicles to I don't want to. You know, I so important to talk about pedestrians and bicyclists . But the reality is also that you know, the majority of folks drive they also need better connections. Drivers need a better connections as well. And I just also wanted to point out that we are not the first city to do this. If you look globally, there's probably been a dozen cities or so that have taken steps in this direction. If you look at the rose Kennedy greenway in Boston, where they [11:55:30 AM] buried, I can't remember if it's interstate 93 or 95. On underneath it as it goes through Boston and for anybody that's been to Boston. The transformation is just remarkable. If you look at, you know Boston when they had the big green monsters, they would call it the elevated metal freeway that they had for years and afterwards and look at it today. It's phenomenal. Seattle is also bearing its alaskan highway. Which runs through downtown. They're in the process of doing that right now. So again. It's an enormous I'm not an engineer. I'm not even gonna comment on how difficult and complex those tasks are, but it's not impossible. It can be done and I look forward to continuing the conversation with tech start to get the best possible highway rebuild. We can thank you, councilor. Thank you. Council will now go to item number 61. I don't number 61 was pulled by council member Fuentes and I'll recognize council member Fuentes for her presentation. No oh, sorry. [11:56:31 AM] Sorry fellas. Set the standard so high now I'm presentation. I you know, colleagues. I know we've had many community conversations on the topic of police negotiate contract negotiations, and so I wanted to pull this item recognizing. The resolution that council member alter brought forward and recognizing the moment that we're in. We're all here. Committed to the safety of our city. And I think that you know, talking about safety and also asking for oversight or not two separate things, and then we can be a city that has both. And so, having this resolution, that preserves pay and benefits as well as you know, initiates a the office of oversight and an investigator. Process for complaints regarding police misconduct is the right way forward, given the situation that we're in of course, would love it if our Austin Police Association [11:57:32 AM] Return to the bargaining table so that we can continue conversations but ultimately recognizing that we have to ballot propositions on the ballot in a few months that are Regarding oversight. This is you know the pathway forward for us. So the question I have Mayor in the message board post that you posted a few days ago you talked about An amendment that you would be bringing forward regarding pay. And so I was going to ask you if you could share a little bit more details about what that amendment Might that the amendment would likely have three parts to it. One and I have a moment I apologize. Council member Alter. Should not giving a speech? But since it's yours, but we had talked about as part of [11:58:31 AM] this ordinance so that we can as a council demonstrate our commitment to the police our commitment to the ability for the police to make decisions and for us to be in a situation. Where we can attract and retain police officers. And as I pointed out in the message board because I got distracted with some other things, I was very pleased that council member alter Ryan alter picked that up and put together that very well crafted ordinance. The amendment would increase base wages and currently, the thought processes this number one it would increase base wages, and currently, the thought is that it will increase based wages by 4. That all ought to be discussed, but that is to increase the base wages. So that wages go up the police officers that were supporting know that it goes up and we can move [11:59:00 AM] forward on that. The second thing is it would it will include a new increase to the base wage. Where it creates, hopefully an incentive. For certain benchmarks to be achieved. You'll recall that the proposal we had in front of us the other night. At the last minute had had, and they had an addition put in there that the addition was that on recruitment if a cadet class had. 200 or more 200 people or more than what would occur is there would be an increase in the space wage for everybody. In the police department in a P D, and there was concern expressed that that created a counterintuitive incentive because if you stayed at 1 98 or 1 99. Then there was a pay increase. So what this would do is it would include include a new increase to the [12:00:01 PM] base wage of in the current thinking is half a percent for every benchmark achieved. At the sworn officer levels. Now this is not. I mean, we're still working and trying to figure this out. But I want you all to hear this, particularly since the council members asked this question because your input would be helpful. But for example, if you set a standard and I'm just gonna use round numbers of 1500 in in your sworn staffing. And you say if we are at 1700 again. This is to be worked out 1700. Then everybody gets an increase of a half a percent. Then what you've done is you have incentivized people to not retire. People to encourage people to not retire. You've also encouraged people to help recruit people. And that could go up to a certain amount if you'll recall it the way it [12:01:03 PM] had been done in the previous proposal. Was it would go up to 1.5% I think was what the pay it increasing based wages was was 1.5. What I would envision here is that you would stagger that. Or cascaded or whatever the right word. So that and again I'm making up numbers here, so please. When I read the newspaper tomorrow, I'm this is a proposal of a thought process you would have let's say 1700. It would be an increase of a half a percent. 1900 another half a percent. Yeah and we can come up with those numbers that we think would be appropriate and in consultation with the manager, finance director and others, please, chief and others we can come up with what we think is the right way to do that. So that we incentivize, so that'd be the second part of that. The third part. And by the [12:02:08 PM] way, the other thing I wanted to say is we need to have those benchmarks. Makes sense, right? They can't be too low. But yet they can't be so high that they're not useful, right? They don't they need to be meaningful. The third thing that I would see putting into this amendment is to include a time limit, and we've talked about that in that quick today, when I walked on the diet that it would include a time limit of some period of time, and I'm thinking, probably a 12 month time limit to the original ordinance by council member Ryan alter. I would see that that would be the way I see it is a council can always revisit that ordinance but setting a sunset time where we can look at it again, but I want to be in a position to make sure both sides of the coin so to speak or met. People know they've got this for a period of time. And people [12:03:08 PM] know that, there may be some limitation on it so that it's not something in perpetuity. If we're not if it's not otherwise working or meeting our needs. I will say one thing about that. And then cans Monroe. Come on, good counselor. Ryan altered and I'll come to you. The one other thing I would suggest is that. And I've said this to others, although I've not said it, you know, standing up here sitting here with you all and that is that when we talk about a one year contract, and we start talking about time limits on things, a one year contract is not that is we've said it over and over again, although some people don't want to hear it. But that is that there's an election in may that dope the principles of allowing the public to have its voice are intertwined, and it is the context in which we're making decisions, and we have to pay attention to that. Having said that? That is the reason for one [12:04:11 PM] year and why we can't we talk about an extension of one year. There may be things we can do financially. But don't relate to that election and oversight that could go for more years. If people would come back to the table. And discuss those things. When we talk in terms of one year, people need to pay attention about what it is we're talking about, and that is to pay respect to the people of this city when there's a vote coming up in may as it applies to oversight. Since I'm talking about money, I thought I just mentioned that we might be able to look at things probably would be willing to look at things beyond one year when it came to money. If we had people at a table council member all drive apologize. I should have called on you first. Not at all. I appreciate you kicking off the conversation both a few weeks ago with your amendment and [12:05:11 PM] continuing here today, I was glad to pick it up and move forward. You all have. Touched on a lot of what I want to say, but I just want to be very clear. You know this this ordinance is about two things. Creating as much stability as possible. Given that many of our police officers are now faced with a lot of uncertainty. They have a lot of questions about what's going to happen next. And so to the degree that we can create some stability. I think it is important and incumbent upon us to do that. It's also really important to maintain and create robust oversight. As councilor, Wente said. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. They can work together and that is what this ordinance would do so this is not a substitute for a contract . Everyone benefits from us being under a contract, and I hope that we can do that whether it's coming back to the table [12:06:12 PM] and reaching one year deal or after may reaching a four year deal with everybody stands to gain. From an agreement, but. Today you know our our job. Is to make sure that. We make Austin better tomorrow than it is today. But with the prospect of falling out of contract. I believe we face the real possibility of going backwards. And that's just not something we can do. We can't go backwards when it comes to recruiting and retaining officers. We can't go backwards when it comes to oversight, and we can't go backwards when it comes to equity promotion. Some of the stuff you mentioned that we can do on a long term basis. We need to have those conversations today. So. That is what my ordinance attempts to address. I think we're gonna have some conversations around the compensation side around the [12:07:12 PM] time limit. I'll tell you my thinking on the time limit. I get both sides as I mentioned at the beginning, my one of my top priorities here is to create stability. And. If we do put a time limit in, I want to be absolutely certain that it is not creating future instability that we would address it with enough. Enough in advance. That our officers are able to properly plan and hopefully properly motivated to continue serving our community. So I look forward to continuing the conversation and that's what I have for now. Thank you. And if I wasn't clear, I completely agree that when we consider the time limit. We're considering both sides of that coin. But since this is about stability, we cannot I can't overstate that. I'm glad you bring that up council member qadri, and then I'll go to council room. Alright appreciate it, mayor. You know, I want to thank the comments from council member Fuentes [12:08:13 PM] altar and the mayor on all this and kind of echo a lot of the comments that already been made that you know, this is not a substitute for a contract. You know, one year is still preferred. And I'm hopeful that after hearing from the voters, kamei were able to move forward and get something longer on the books, with the police. I also just wanted to highlight our office is also working on an amendment kind of similar to the mayor had mentioned on his relating to a time limit. I think the big difference, though , that what we're doing versus what your office has worked on? Is that ours does not bring bring in financial incentives, so it's just mainly focused on a on a tight woman. Councilor pool . Thanks so much. Mayor and two council member Ryan alter, thanks for bringing this additional resolution. I've support the direction that the ordinance would take. In terms [12:09:14 PM] of extending the pay and benefits to police officers while we pursue the contract, the stability of our workforce is paramount. And I appreciate shifting away from incentivizing people's retirement. Two incentivizing them to remain, so I very much like that. That pivot and I would like to ask, the sponsor if he would include me as a co sponsor on this item. Absolutely thank you so much. Thank you. Councilor Alison alter. Thank you, I, too share the desire for us to be under contract. I want to understand a little bit better. What you're proposing. Mayor I think part of where the community is struggling right now, is that there's a sense that we should be decoupling oversight from pay. But we are still stuck in that. System and so some of the things that you're proposing create complications if we are [12:10:14 PM] still in an environment where we are not going to just assume that we deserve to have transparency, accountability. And oversight and that's not something we're going to pay for it something we're going to assume at the same time that you're putting forward sort of both of those things on two different time tracks is problematic in the current environment. Where the contract is set up where we have to pay to get the additional oversight , so just something that we need to think through. Of course. What I said was that those things might be considered. If people would come back to the table. They would not be considered as part of this ordinance or as part of the amendment. So let's not conflate potential negotiation. With what this ordinance does. Okay I might have misunderstood the different time frames that you were talking about whether you were talking about them in the ordinance. The orders does not make it doesn't mention any time [12:11:17 PM] frames right now and if the proposed amendment would set a time frame and, it would also allow for certain incentive a little bit different than what counselor qadri. I wanted to understand a little more what he's saying. But what I was suggesting is that if we could get past this idea of total rejection of talking to the city anymore, that that we're seeing from the police association, and if they were to come to the table, there might be ways to address stability over time and still recognize the value of the voters being allowed. To state their opinion. Thank you. I just would be. I would be concerned in that scenario. Of setting up the financial track to be different than the oversight. If we can't if we can't get moving forward, so of course your your concern is really premature [12:12:18 PM] since we don't have any. We don't even have a table anymore. So I'm aware of that. I, also want to, just point out because some of this gets lost lost in the discussion over the vote, which is focused on oversight. There were some really good things that were negotiated in this contract that are to the benefit. Of our officers and the benefit of our city. I'll point , particularly to the articles on promotion. Which create a system that the a P a very much supported and asked for so that when folks get promoted, they have a probationary period. They have to do assessments and they have to do leadership training. Which is really important, for the future. Of a P D and the success of our police force. So I would hope that you know when we go back to the table that we can we can think about some of those things that were in the contract. That we are all in [12:13:20 PM] agreement on that do provide benefits, and see whether there's ways to move those things forward where we agree, you know, in in an earlier time , I will also just point out an email that we received from veneno. About the deadlines for, the retirement payouts. I know. The chief sent out a message earlier this morning to officers , was able to work with the mayor. Thank you and the new city manager? When I pointed out, this was a mechanical deadline, not illegal deadline, and they were able to make that change happen, working together with our partners at empowered to give us a little bit more time before people have to start making decisions. Which hopefully creates a little bit more space. As we move away from the vote last week for us to come back to the table and have the conversations that we need to have for the public safety of our city and for the success and [12:14:21 PM] livelihood of our officers. Thank you. That's a very good point. Just and thank you. Council member altar for pointing out a week week and a half ago that issue with regard to the retirement deadline that was being set in stone, when in fact it wasn't really set in stone. We were it was being reported to us as being set in stone, but it wasn't really set in stone and I want to emphasize what you just said about how the new city manager immediately went to work on that working with our finance director, Mr veneno. And today, the chief has sent a note out to the force. And I appreciate that. We all appreciate that as well. So thank you for pointing that out. Yes, councilor Maura Kelly. Thank you for the recognition. So I appreciate that my colleagues want to bring forward amendments to the draft [12:15:22 PM] ordinance that we have before us. I've spent quite a bit of time doing research and getting questions answered related to what we have proposed in front of us. So we just ask that if there were any other amendments to prove brought forward that we would have ample time to be able to look into them and fully vet them before having them in front of us. One of the biggest challenges that I see when I'm here is that intended consequences of not fully thinking through and talking to the appropriate parties without making decisions, and I know that we are all under a tight timetable to get this done, so I appreciate that, but thank you for your consideration with that request, sure, and I've got folks working on it right now that I'll make sure you have language. I'm glad we had this opportunity for me to verbally express it in that. Of course, I put it up on the message board that, by the way, is something that we probably ought to be thinking about. Not just on this. Although this is a this is a more time sensitive, but but the desire to put things on the agenda. As rapidly as we can. And then having all the work [12:16:23 PM] that goes into yellow sheets hitting, you know, things could probably take another two weeks in most instances with just one deep breath and we're on the time we have time frames on this one, but that we that's not probably not bad advice on going forward on everything. Is anybody want to say anything else about this? Item. The only thing I'll say is that those? Yes, of course. Sorry. I meant to add that I do support the as some kind of deadline. Good. Thank you. You support the deadline. You support the ordinance with some kind of data cosponsor on the ordinance. Very I would support, adding just want to make sure we haven't changed that. No I was still I was simply trying to understand what what you're proposing. Anything else on this item. Okay there is no other business to come before us at this work session with maybe there is more pool. Item [12:18:17 PM] no good job and thank you. Yes not to skip subjects. But we did present a proclamation to interstellar barbecue from district six outside earlier today, the barbecue samples already as of noon. So if anybody's at or around city hall and wants to try it out, they've got the pit on the east side. Thanks remember qadri this really quick. Just wanted to put it on record that I won't be a part of the pecan street incorporated, it's not something that council members are now or on now. Good. Thank you. Anything else? There being no further business to come before us on the agenda. We are adjourned. Thank you all very much.