Housing and Planning Committee (HPC) meeting Transcript – 4/25/2023 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 4/25/2023 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 4/25/2023 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. [2:02:00 PM] Good afternoon. I'm Austin city council member Natasha harper-madison. Chair of the housing and planning committee. We're meeting in Austin city hall chambers in Austin, Texas. It's the 25th of April, which, by the way, I'll take a moment of personal privilege. Today is my baby's 13th birthday. Walkes not. Happy birthday, magnolia. I hope you're having a wonderful day. It is now 2:02 P.M. And I call this meeting to order item number one. We're going to talk about minutes. Our first item is to approve the minutes of the housing and planning committee of the meeting from February 28th, 2023. Is there a motion to pass the minutes? It looks like it's a motion by councilmember alter and seconded by mayor pro [2:03:01 PM] tem Ellis. Do, do do. In which case item number one, we should probably vote. Move by and seconded by. But all in favor, please say aye. Aye so we're all so item number one passes unanimously. Item number two, give me a moment. Okay. Items number two and three. We're talking about new meeting and code changes. So, colleagues, two of our remaining agenda items. Number two and three are connected. So I'll kindly ask staff to allow us to bring them up at the same time. Item number two allows us to set a new meeting for the committee next month. And then item number three states our direction Ann to staff that the meeting include a briefing and recommendations for how we achieve the most with our [2:04:03 PM] previously initiated land development code amendments. Now for the record, let me read those two items as posted Eid. Item number two, set additional meeting dates for 2023. The calendar year and item number three discussion on the status of previously council initiated council amendment codes. I'm sorry, I'm going to go back preview Leslie council initiated code amendments Ralls to housing and land use recommendation burns for priority for prioritizing Singh amendments that are likely to deliver immediate value and next steps moving forward. For background. And this committee agreed at our last meeting that we would like to schedule additional meetings to dig into action oriented topics before adding additional direction to staff's place. Vice chair alter and I. I. Good to see you would like to suggest [2:05:03 PM] that we first review that we have already directed staff to. I'm sorry this has vice chair alter and that is I should be clear we have two alters. Vice chair Ryan alter and I would like to suggest that we first review that we have already directed staff to tackle and consider how they prioritize and approach that work. Staff has provided us as backup an index of all the existing council initiated code amendments as well as a list of the policy direction and existing planning documents they use to guide their work on amendments such as this. It is our hope that we review this existing policy direction and reflect on how these current code amendments either are, could or should address our goals. This would allow us to proactively identify by seek expert input and provide recommendation Ann to the broader council on how we can [2:06:05 PM] improve our entire housing ING continuum. So with that said, I would entertain a motion one. Let's set a meeting of the committee for the afternoon of Tuesday, may 23rd, and to direct staff to brief us on the status of previous council initiated code amendments related to housing and land use recommend prioritizing and adjusting those amendments so that they are likely to deliver immediate value to colleagues. It looks like chair qadri is making the motion a second. It looks like. Vice chair all right. Alter is making that second, can we take a vote? It looks like we're all in. So with that, thank you committee and staff for the commitment to come back together . I think this is the moment where. We are looking for staff [2:07:11 PM] . If you have anything to offer us, okay, well, that was easy item number four is just future items. Certainly there's something we should be discussing. That's it. I think. I think item four is our briefing item four on my list is our future items. So my hope is that there's more to this meeting than that. Good afternoon. I didn't get all dolled up for that. Briseno assistant city manager. Thank you. In regards to the item on code amendments staff is very able to come back in may with a with a plan on how to move forward and certainly appreciate your direction and guidance. Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate that. Colleagues, any questions for our assistant city manager. So I believe we [2:08:15 PM] have a briefing in store. Feel free to introduce yourselves and tell us why you're here and what you're going to talk to us about. I know that the Austin transit partnership is a critical component of us as a municipality, recognizing that we are retrofitting a major metropolitan city right now and that is not an easy task. And so there are folks who are doing it and y'all are a part of that group of folks. So please let us know what you're doing. We are. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you. Members of the committee for having us today. My name is Jennifer pine. I'm with Austin transit partnership. And there I'm the evp for planning and risk management. I'll ask my colleagues to introduce themselves. Good afternoon. My name is John roan. I'm a senior vice president for light rail transit project integration Ann and I'm Nick Brodie. I'm not with Austin transit partnership. I'm with the city of Austin project connect office, [2:09:15 PM] representing the city's role in the tri agency partnership. Also with us today is sharmila Mukherjee, who is here for questions. Should there be any at the end? Who is executive vice president over planning and development at capital metro? So the partnership is here representing and Jen will be doing the briefing today. Thank you. Okay so we have been spending quite a bit of time out in the community talking about the light rail component of the project connect program. And we often start our timeline and our discussion of that with noting the Austin strategic mobility plan, which identifies those mode shift goals, that project connect is contributing to the achievement of and so we're really here to talk about the light rail component of project connect today. Yes, I'm sorry, I'm going to interrupt you briefly. Her mic is super low. I wonder if our folks can hear her this presentation. Well it feels very quiet. Is that any better? [2:10:20 PM] Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay I think probably you're all aware we've been talking about five options that we've developed and have been conversing Singh with the community about that would constitute our core system. The first light rail project out of the gate. So these are the five options we actually weren't going to really step through them in detail in this presentation because we I think we've done that with you all in the past at least once, perhaps. But I will say that the five options, when you look at them, some of the key differences, one is they all have different end points. Another difference is whether they are all on street, which three of them are or if there is any grade separation component Swint which one option has an elevated section and one option has both an elevated and an underground section. Ann and there's a relationship between the end points and those grade factors because Luz the [2:11:21 PM] increased costs of either elevating or putting part of the light rail underground, it's a higher cost. And so that means there's fewer miles overall. That's one of the tradeoffs we've been in conversations about and the other thing I'll note is the maintenance facility location. There are two possibilities throughout these options. One up by north Lamar transit center and one out at the airport. Commerce Wright near 71. And Riverside. So with that, I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the context for the analysis we've done and also weave in a little bit of what we've heard so far coming back from the community. And I'm going to step through just a series of maps with some of the key data points for us. So with this one, population density is a big driver of ridership, which is a key metric for us. And the red is the most dense. And of all the five options, all of [2:12:22 PM] them include most of the red. This core area, zo, that runs more or less from UT through downtown and out to pleasant valley and Riverside. That is included in the core of all of the options. Certainly this is important one and ridership is an important item for us, but ridership is not the only thing either. One thing that people have really been interested in is not just how many people are you serving, but who are they, where are they? So we've been doing some additional analysis along those lines. So this map up here is showing Singh bipoc share of the population. Ann which means what proportion of the different census blocks are represented by residents who are bipoc and so what this tells us is that that there are different neighborhoods with different compositions. And this helps us to think about some of what the jpa and our foundational documents have required us to [2:13:24 PM] do. Consider priority populations. Some of the other things we're looking at are where are our low to moderate income areas located along the options for these are areas that we're hearing it's important to serve for people who might be more reliant on transit. We're also looking at affordable housing. Where is it located? Also, these are places that we want to serve. And this map of displacement risk just identifies size. It just gives you a little bit of context for thinking about the use of the anti-displacement funds, which is a program administered by the city. Let me pass it over to aneka on this one. Yeah, on on the next slide related to the areas of vulnerability map, this is the, the year 2023 through 2026 allocation Ann the housing [2:14:25 PM] department manages the 300 million in anti displacement funds. That is part of project connect and this is how they have planned out their next allocation of funding over the next three years in land acquisition Ann affordable housing development, immediate interventions and operational expenses. So you know, as Jen talks about the map, we are thinking, we are thinking about the programs that are in play with regards to anti displacement as we think through what our as we lead ourselves towards a tri agency recommendation in may and then a discussion with council Kathie Mitchell board and atp board in June. And we have housing staff and displacement staff here. If there are any questions about this after the presentation, colleagues, are there any questions currently or any that you'd like to pose after the presentation? Ann if you want to just be getting those prepared and I'm going to follow in the footsteps of our new mayor and, [2:15:25 PM] and our mayor pro tem. We are getting out of here on time today. We're not messing around. So get your questions together and let's be concise. So we will ask our questions after the presentation. Thank you. So here's an interesting map for you, and this is one that we have been thinking about. And it really is as the public input is coming in and we're processing it and thinking about what it all means and what we're being asked to think about. So what this does is it conflates income and where households, households are located with only 0 or 1 cars. Ann and this is getting to some of the questions burns of kind of who are we serving and what do they need. So in this case, the colors are denoting different combinations of income and car ownership. So in some areas of the corridors you'll have low income and fewer cars, [2:16:27 PM] which clearly those areas which are more blue are areas where people need and are using transit. Presumably but we also have areas that are lower income , but with more cars and so this is an area, you know, these are spots where there might be residents who to have more and better transit options. It's a way to kind of address their overall affordable Katy concerns . Similarly, we have higher, higher income areas with more cars, which you see sorry, higher income with fewer cars, more clustered in the downtown area, which might be folks who again, are choosing to use transit or want to use transit and want those better options. Luz and but it's a choice for them and to pursue to support their desire to kind of live a more sustainable lifestyle. So we kind of thought this was an interesting one and reflects [2:17:28 PM] some of the kind of questions we've been getting about kind of the riders and the trips that that may be served along these corridors. I'm going to ask John to talk a little bit about the maintenance facility in in a little bit more detail. Thank you, Jen. As shown on the map to the left, the green circles that are identified at the top and the bottom indicate the site locations for the maintenance facility. We have identified two sites. This one is located at the north Lamar transit center at the top of the map and at the lower right of the map is the airport commerce site, which is located near the one 8371 split. So what I'd like to talk to you about a little bit first is what is a maintenance facility? This maintenance facility is what will be utilized essentially to store Shaw the vehicles and perform maintenance for the light rail vehicles as well. We will have our operations and maintenance staff report from [2:18:29 PM] this location and the train control center, which is responsible for all of the operations for the train system, will be located and housed at this site. You will have different departments and operations burns from there, staff of operators to the field supervisors, supervisors for the operators, as well as management staff that leads and manages those departments as well. You have the maintenance facilities that are responsible for the right of way and the maintenance of way of equipment out, such as the signaling system, the radio and communication systems, the traction power where the vehicles are able to get their power from the substations and the overhead catenary system, as well as the track and the right of way responsibilities. All of the special equipment and vehicles that are needed to maintain the light rail system are also located in this area. So initially we looked for [2:19:29 PM] approximately 60 to 80 acres that would be needed and required to accommodate approximately 100 vehicles. This is where we started. And as we paused back in July of last year, we started to look at instead of having such a large site that was a combined maintenance facility for both bus and rail. We would find a site that would only require 30 to 40 acres to accommodate the light rail only. And at that time we went back and reassessed different areas in locations along the alignments in which we could accommodate a maintenance facility. So we looked at approximately 21 sites that allowed for us to evaluate eight different types of criteria to narrow down to the two locations that you see currently on the slide. Some of those selection criteria I want to share with you that we evaluated are one, just the topography of the site [2:20:29 PM] and the layout of the land. We're looking primarily for areas that are flat. We're looking for areas that one that are compatible with the area as far as adjacent properties, we're looking for industrial areas, commercial areas that are identified, Eid. And these two sites, I will note both are zoned for commercial and the airport commerce site is actually zoned as commercial and industrial. The other areas that we looked for are associated with the cost of the real estate for the properties, the amount of parcels that must be acquired in order to achieve the footprint that's needed for the maintenance facility and then we're looking for ways to minimize any impacts to properties. I would share with you that these two sites that are identified for north Lamar transit center and airport commerce do not displace any single family homes and that both have locations of [2:21:32 PM] neighborhoods that are close to in proximity. The maintenance facility. But they are not within the actual property limits. And so we look for ways as well to mitigate any environmental condition. Burns and when I say that I'm speaking to any type of drainage Paige creeks, wetlands, any types of springs or a river that that may be impacted and one of the primary things that I'd like to have you take away is the importance of the maintenance facility and where this maintenance facility is located . Eid plays a large role in the alignment that will be initially implemented. And one of the differences between the two sites is our coordination and communication with texdot. I will tell you that the north Lamar transit center requires [2:22:32 PM] approval and coordination Ann in regard to the alignment and 183 and the Lamar boulevard as well as as the airport commerce does have coordination and communication for the alignment portion that would go to the airport. The big difference is in take aways. I would share with you in that regard to those is while we have worked very closely and well with texdot at a regional level, that it does require state approval for the alignment at north Lamar transit center as well as the alignment going to the airport. The differences between those two is that in the case, if that was not approved, we would stop short as far as going east to yellow jacket, the former metro center station, and then we would continue to work with texdot in regard to the interface with with 71, what I [2:23:35 PM] would share with you for north Lamar transit center as a difference and a takeaway in regard to texdot and the state owned right of way is that we would not be able to continue to extend to north Lamar transit center until we worked out and received approval in regard to the impacts that the alignment would have to 183 and Lamar. So those are those are some of the takeaways with with the city. We continue to coordinate as shown in regard to the Austin energy transmission line project and one of the differences for airport commerce in comparison to north Lamar transit centers, that it does not allow for any residential or land use for north Lamar transit center. We would be able to coordinate and communicate with capmetro and the city in regard to equitable transit oriented development at north Lamar transit center. So I'll pass it over to Jen before Jen goes to the next slide and [2:24:37 PM] before we come off the operations and maintenance facility, I wanted to say that our estimation of job creation for these for these two sites is around 300 jobs in a in a clean energy industry in that these facilities are all electric. The vehicles are all electric. And so from personal experience, we just took a trip to phenix and saw the operations and maintenance facility for valley metro that supports their electric light rail, very clean, very compatible, as John pointed out, at this facility is allowed in zoning, and that was clarified with an ordinance that was passed last November by council to allow a light rail maintenance facility and differentiate it from a typical rail yard, which is a use in our current code. So we created a new use and it was after review appropriate and CSS zoning as John mentioned, passing it back to Jen. Thanks thank you. We're [2:25:42 PM] going to switch topics for just a second before we wrap it up and I just wanted to say say a few words about the federal funding component of the light rail project. But as you know, we're looking for federal participation on the capital costs on the order of about half. And we do know how we'll be evaluate Eid in that. And among the evaluation criteria are existing land use and also economic development or future land use. So we just wanted to spend a minute on this to let you know what will be considered . And some of the things are quantitative, some of them are qualitative with regard to existing land use. Those are some of the more quantitative they're looking specifically at densities. They're looking at employment numbers. We're looking at parking costs and specific numbers on affordable housing. And in the fta's guidance, they identify certain break points for what constitutes good or, you know, they rank it medium, medium, high, high, low. So that's all [2:26:43 PM] laid out. What those metrics are on the future land use piece of it, it is a little bit more qualitative. It's looking at what plans and policy is either are in place or are being developed and will be in place that support the developed Swint of transit, supportive land uses in the corridor and also supports the development of affordable housing. So this next slide just gives you an idea of where the land use and economic development pieces fit within the overall consideration. Ann by the fta of the project, you know about half of what they're thinking about is the nature and quality of the local financial commitment. And the other half are these project justification criteria of which the land use items are two out of six. So so it's an area that does matter as far as as the how attractive our project is for federal funding. [2:27:44 PM] And I would also offer that it's an area where there's actually some, you know, ability to control your destiny a little bit. I mean, you as far as looking at plans, policies in place, these are these are things that are locally developed, whereas some of these other things are more their calculations that that you do them as you have to do them. So I believe that concludes our well, actually, I'm sorry this is our last slide. This is you know, we are still in the public comment period and we are asking for all comments to come in by may 2nd in order to be sure to be considered as part of the development of the staff recommendation that will emerge in may and so these are all the ways you know, that people can contact us. And we've been going out meetings every day. I mean, there's probably like 5 to 7 today, and that's from what we're doing here. But also going to neighborhood meetings and the like. We've also been going to [2:28:44 PM] bus stops and doing outreach to riders every day throughout this period. So with that, we'll conclude our presentation. But of course, we're happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much for the presentation. It was very helpful and really conclusive. I'd like to offer my colleagues the opportunity to pose any questions. Looks like if shelter has some questions, just a couple on the some of the earlier slides where we have all the your your income zero income or the cars, the displacement risk that the circle that's drawn around the stations is that half mile. Yes, it's a half mile around each station. Okay. Ann and when we talk about the. The shoot I'm sorry, scrolling up and down here are the state, the service facility, the maintenance facility. [2:29:44 PM] Maintenance facility. Thank you. I scrolled right past the maintenance facility slide. It's an important one. I know one of the issues when we look at the going all the way to north Lamar transit center is not only be the right of way question, but the how we cross the red line question is there any Shea alternative of to that proposal where if we decide we don't have the funds to get across the red line, does that just completely eliminate that possibility? Because the maintenance facility is north of the red line? Or how do we think about that need Eid as it relates to the red line. What I would say in response to that is that the location of the maintenance facility, it needs to be as close as possible to [2:30:46 PM] the mainline. And yes, it would eliminate that that opportunity for us to go forward with an option that would extend to north Lamar transit center if we could not extend Eid beyond north of crestview. Okay and then my last questions are on the when we talk about existing land use versus future land use , what are the time periods in there? What what is existing like when our tod plan, for instance, will that if should we pass that this year or will that be existing or you talked about specific number of units that are already affordability restricted. How do we think about where we draw the line and existing versus future? So that's a good question. Ann and it is prescribed Eid some of the data that we need to provide Eid with regard to, say, existing population density, but also forecast future population [2:31:47 PM] density. And so I think where the significt piece of sort of policies related to itod are in the qualitative assessment of the work that's being done locally to, you know, prepare the corridor for this investment to be a successful as possible. Okay okay. Yes. Would you like me to add to that? Yes, I would like to add to that to sharmila . You know, part of part of the future land use is a is a qualitative of narrative. And demonstrated results from more recently past policies. So, for example, you know, we're not going to have census data that's going to show, for instance, results of the compatibility ordinance that the council passed recently. Wright it's too soon for that. We'll have to wait for new data to come out that will show the results of that or that we can infer. So that's going to be that's going to be us looking at maps, looking at development permit [2:32:48 PM] activity and telling that story at the time. Atp is putting that grant application together and looking to demonstrate as much as we can. And we feel confident about what has been passed recently policy and regulation wise, and then what demonstrated outcomes do we think we can attribute to that? And that's going to be a locally done planning analysis. And so it will become part of the existing , I would think. But sharmila is more of the expert on that. So I'm going to have her answer for. So that is all true. All of those are true to building off of that. What I to build off of that, I would say that existing also changes over time. The project is in project development phase and through a capital investment grant review process. So if the project stays there for say, 7 or 8 years as upon entry, existing land use [2:33:50 PM] would be reviewed and readjust it through different times. So each time you have Progressive land use or additional affordable housing or planned and proposed development that are added to your baseline existing land, use your your bonus points for existing land use would go up and then future would be projected off of that of a better baseline. So it is a pretty Progressive way of looking at it. And I think all of those are sort of they build off of each other. Shaw okay. And as we think about being medium versus medium high versus I don't know what the best category is for high, you know, we've had discussions before about what does that actually achieve you more in terms of a federal match or is it just getting through the door? You know, this this is the gate and you must be medium. And once you've crossed medium, then we look at something else. Whether [2:34:51 PM] we decide it's 40, 50, how how should we think about the marginal benefit of any of these levers here? So I would say, I mean, to achieve an overall medium on the rating is a minimum condition Ann and so anything better than that will serve to make the project more competitive as across the country. Okay. So did you add anything? Oh, no. That is that is the baseline. And then as of Ann makes and some of it is quantitative or other aspects are qualitative. So as Austin makes great strides in equitable transit oriented development and we sort of have that reputation and reflected in land use changes that we see on the ground. I think there's a great opportunity here to go to the next level. So we could easily be high, medium, medium, high and down the road. So I totally see that prospect that we start [2:35:52 PM] at a medium because which is the which is what we need. And then we can move forward on that. All right. Thank you very much. We're shooting for high, medium, high all the way. Any other colleagues have questions? Mayor pro tem Ellis? Yes. I noticed something new on one of these slides. It appears that the five potential options is now have dotted lines on them. Could you talk a little bit about what that difference means. Oh, sure. These are the dotted lines. Yeah, that are showing kind of the potential knell. It's kind of comparing. Let's see. Comparing the core system to the lengths that you see across all of the options. So yeah, we added the full vision Ann that [2:36:52 PM] was voted in, in November 2020. In comparison to the core system that we are recommending ending to build at this time. Because of budget constraints. But the full vision is there and will be completed. We're committed to that. It's just we, because of funding constraints, as we've talked about extensively over the past year, we are building a core system as an initial investment. I appreciate that because I know we've had some folks along the way try to compare these five options with with the original entire plan, which includes Micah station, it includes metro rapid, it includes neighborhood circulator tirz. And so I've been trying to remind people that just because we're talking about a first phase investment does not mean we're not doing all of the other pieces of the puzzle. So I'm really excited to see this being a part of the larger picture that this is only phase one and that in the future there would [2:37:55 PM] be more investments to extend these lines all the way into implementing the entire map. So I'm really excited to see that being a part of this picture. Yeah, I might still like to see some of the purple lines and things like that in there too. But I think along the way we'll be able to build out that picture entirely. I did have a couple questions on the data maps about ridership, which are really helpful to see. Is there a way to zoom out a little bit on them? I'm curious about folks that might be further than the half mile radius that potentially might want to tap into the lines at this point, whether they're a north, south or east or I think about the oltorf line because it's the one that's closest to southwest Austin and trying to understand what does ridership look like a little bit further south or in a larger radius of that half mile? Does that does that make sense? Yes, I believe so. I'm hearing you say, look at Fauci farther out than a half mile, but also [2:38:55 PM] go to farther extents. So sorry I'm having such a hard time hearing you. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I'll speak more into the mic. So you're saying, look farther out than just a half mile around each station, but also looking at ridership potential farther south as well. Right. And I think as far as the dots that you've pinpointed a half mile makes sense because that's probably a very strategic walking distance or biking distance that folks might be able to get onto the rail lines . But I'm curious, you know, for instance, the north Lamar transit center, what's just beyond that and how many people might have access to it that might drive to a park and ride, for instance, just so we can get a clearer picture. And I wouldn't need the circles to be readjusted. But just understand the scope of the map a little bit better about who might be outside that half mile that if I were three quarters of a mile from a stop, I would feel like, oh, I can make a behavioral change pattern. I can I can now see myself in that map. So I [2:39:55 PM] don't know if that's possible. Yes it's certainly possible. We can we can look at we have the data for the whole region so we can look at that and just kind of an interesting observation based on what you're saying, kind of just in the in the field. We've been talking about , half mile has always been a fairly typical steady area or a radius to look at. But with increasing use of micromobility , like using scooters, would people actually go a little bit farther? Yeah, we just increased the e-bike rebates, things like that. And I'm thinking further south of oltorf, there's got to be some more folks down there that are currently early riders of capmetro and would certainly like more options. And on that note, I made a note about jobs centers. So is one of these maps related to not just where people are living, but where people are working and kind of trying to understand those commute patterns because people oftentimes are going to the grocery store or to work or to [2:40:56 PM] whatever third place they find in their lives that is not home and not work. Mok yes, we do have maps of employment density and also of other destinations. They're just not included in this presentation that we have here today. But we do have that. It's part of our analysis and that information is available online in our virtual open house . Okay that sounds great. And I know council member Vila, who serves with me on the capmetro board, had talked about some of the data and just trying to make sure it's as available to the public as possible. I'm not sure if that's information. Once it's gathered, can be shared publicly or what the current plan is for people being able to get into these numbers and toy with them a bit themselves. As you know, austinites would love to do. Yes. We are actually working on a couple of releases of information Ann, including related to ridership, to respond to some of the questions we have. And so we're hoping to roll those out starting in short order. So. Okay, sounds good. I [2:41:56 PM] think that does it for me. Chair colleagues, any other questions ? I have a few, so let me flip my Paige so when we talk about the riders. So I was listening to KSEE yesterday. Rey and I was listening to these folks calling in and they were talking explicitly about our transit system and the fact that none of y'all were there, that you weren't calling in, you weren't present as guest. This is not a criticism. What I'm saying is I think this is a part of the disconnect, correct. So I was listening to some of the folks who were calling in and some of the things they said. I was like, that's not even accurate. Wright. I think there's a distinct disconnect. Wright and if when I'm listening to my morning kazi as I'm taking the babies to school and we're [2:42:57 PM] jamming out listening to Stacey Shea getting it in and there are people calling in saying things that I know are not accurate, and there are people who are presenting themselves as experts saying things that are not accurate and we have a capmetro person who's KSEE affiliate. If there's the kind of problem where what we're talking about is retrofitting essentially Wright, a major metropolitan city that took too long to get themselves together around major transit Wright, in which case, if we're talking about that, having folks calling into this radio station where this is where a lot of folks get their information. Ann I'm just a little concerned about I hear y'all talk about community outreach, yelling on that station. I'm just a little concerned that that we're not maybe making the necessary touch points. I'd like to put that on [2:43:57 PM] your radar. Sure. No, I appreciate that. Thank you. The maintenance facility Katy light rail thing with the 40 acres and the option Luz. I have some questions around Eid. So as you know, one of the things that I've been trying to do is really get us to get fleet out of neighborhoods. We have fleet and maintenance facilities in the center of neighborhoods for no reason. We need to get them out of neighborhoods and use that space for housing in which case if fleet is actively working with Austin resource recovery to find a space where they can co-locate, I just wonder if maybe we need to have a bigger, broader idea around integrated fleet management. Swint and if they're looking at a ton of acreage and y'all are looking at 40 acres, I just wonder if there might be some opportunity for us to co-locate. I just a question . Ann you don't have to answer [2:44:57 PM] it now. Just a question, especially once you recognize, you know, when you leave your maintenance facility. We have to do all this reconciliation Ann around the, you know, the. Oil in the dirt, you know, and so I just wonder if there's an opportunity there. Then the other question I have is you said something about Tapia ography, which I'm curious about , but I'm curious if flood plain designated lands are appropriate for this sort of maintenance facility. Thank you. I would I would say that they typically are not just because of the cost that would be associated with essentially making that area not a flood plain. The drainage is very, very important. Want to maintaining the infrastructure [2:45:59 PM] and more specifically the track infrastructure there. And so for that reason, you know, I would I would say that flood plain area would not be ideal for thank you. I appreciate that. Because one of the things that I think a lot about is like remediation that's going to cost money for us to repurpose all these fleet services sites. But if we have so for example, east of 183, I have a lot of land that's flood plain designated that we could use for something. And if this is not one of those things, it's good to know right now that we can't repurpose it. So thank you. I appreciate that. I think two of my last questions would be so with the text issue. Don't smile at me any. My question is , given our limited capacity as a municipality, how can we possibly help with that. I'll [2:47:07 PM] I'll start it off and I would I would say, continue to work with those very closely as as the city has been. And understanding the risk associated with the interfaces with those areas for tech stunt and supporting us in in that communication and coordination with texdot again it's a risk. And so I don't want it to be taken lightly. And that's why I emphasized it. And wanted to stress, you know, what happens if we don't get that approval? So again, to reiterate the regional team has been very great to work with and supportive, but it still has to go through an approval process. And so for what it's worth, some of my colleagues and I, you know, we're on the various transport Ann bodies, but I got to tell you, north Lamar and airport 183 and Lamar, those spaces you talked about the 71 interface, those are not coming [2:48:08 PM] up at my campo meetings. I mean , did you hear something? I mean, I'm a little concerned that if I haven't heard anything about it, that it's not on the appropriate people's radar, in which case I'd like very much for y'all to take advantage of the fact that there are some of the members of the body who are on the various transport Ann bodies, statewide bodies, regional bodies. Let us know what we need to be bringing as future items for consideration. Thank you. Thank you. I'd appreciate that. And then my very last question. You said something about a transmission line project, right? Correct Wright Austin energy transmission line project along north Lamar. I'm just not familiar enough. I wish you could expand on that for us. So they're a little bit there are transmission lines that are being relocated as part of a project that they are leading and the alignment and station [2:49:09 PM] platform are in close proximity of that. Essentially, it's near to where the existing parking lot area is for the north Lamar transit center. The bus, which is right there at the corner, 183 and Lamar. Yes, yeah, yeah. So it's just to continue close coordination with them to ensure there's no impact. And then as part of the light rail alignment, the position and location of the station and the coordination as far as access for the community to cross over or from one side of north, because that's a tricky intersection. Yes. For pedestrians. So my hope is that as you continue your conversations with the community , let's not make any assumptions about people understanding. When you say things about transmission lines, how would they know what you're talking about? You know, let's not make assumptions. Let's make sure we're being real clear. What we're saying is when we're talking about infrastructure, people get it. If you break it down and my hope is that we just [2:50:10 PM] keep breaking it down and make sure that we keep the people part of the conversation. I said that was my last question. I'm sorry. I lied to you today. I have one more. So my other question is, you said something about 300 clean energy jobs, you know, economic development, economic opportunity. That's my jam. Talk to me more about that. And then who are we working with and how can we, like, make sure we have an integrated system where everybody's working together? I know council member Velasquez, council member vela. I mean, there's a lot of us who are actively trying to help people transcend cyclical poverty. So if this is an opportunity and I think it is, then tell us where it's at and who do we need to connect you with and how fast can we do it. Hi there, Courtney Chavez. I'm svp of equity and community partnerships at atp. To give you an idea, we've signed initial ideas with workforce solutions [2:51:11 PM] as our first step in creating an industry sector partnership. So our goal is to actually create a regional market for economic and workforce development. This year is our planning year essentially. So we're heading into research understanding what jobs are coming, who's doing what, understanding the gaps in all the training that's happening, what we need to build. So that coming out of the year, planning around March of next year, we can create an implementation plan. So that's our big picture vision. Ann so I would say rey as we are approaching Singh, I mean, I really don't think a lot of folks even recognize how much covid really hit us hard. And some of the other things that we've gone through in the last three years. I think we're figuring out brand new stuff at this point. I don't think we're fixing anything. In a lot of ways. I think we're rebuilding it in which case, if this is an opportunity to rebuild the workforce, let's be thinking about from the ground up exactly how we get people into these entry level, but like be [2:52:14 PM] thinking through the phases, like how do we get them advanced? What training do they need? What do we need to provide for that? Is it high school, is it junior high? Like where do we start? How do we finish? I really just want to I'd love very much to just stay in communication with you all about that part. That's very important to me. Absolutely. And that is our goal, to see it from essentially kindergarten all the way through to upskilling. So we're we're I call it cradle to college. Thank you. I appreciate that. Colleagues, any other questions? I think I think, oh, okay. So zo. I don't know who was first, so I'm going to go with who's on the dais. So councilmember qadri rey, I appreciate that. Chair Shaw I will make my questions quick. I just have a question to staff. Are there any updates on the timeline of the overlay and engagement on that? And I ask this question because there's a lot of momentum right now to learn from uno's success and room for improvement. And [2:53:15 PM] judging from the affordable housing map in the presentation, west campus is contributing, contributing a lot to the affordable units along the rail line. And I just want to, you know, forever signal my support for itod. And I want to thank the council members work on that and just to see how we can maximize affordable housing development along these light rail corridors. Yeah hi there. Steve Greathouse with the housing or sorry, Steve Greathouse of the planning department. I'm joining you to answer the question about itod. So we are in the process of developing a memo that will come back to council next month in may, per the direction from the resolution providing kind of an interim update on everything. And then we'll be bringing an implementation plan back in September for per the direction of the resolution. But for the overlay, we are already sort of working to gear up and be ready to work with the community. Hopefully later this year. We're we're our goal is really to be [2:54:17 PM] able to start working in partnership with the community by the end of this year to develop an overlay that would then come back to council for adoption as an amendment to the Austin land development code in 2024. Great. And then what is that engagement outreach going to look like with the community ? So the goal really is to provide continuity with the engagement and outreach that we have been doing with the tod policy plan as a whole in partnership with capital metro and their consulting team. So our goal would be to continue to partner Shaw with community based organizations is to provide to continue to partner with the project connect community advisory committee and to continue to do a range of engagement activities, including everything from individual meetings with existing organizations to hosting virtual pool and in-person engagement opportunities around the tool. And we're also hoping to continue to do some of the kind of paid community engagement [2:55:17 PM] work that we have been doing or that capital metro has been doing for the tod policy plan, development and study, which included paid participation focus groups as well as working with community connectors to provide those connections into the community. So our hope with that, with the development of the tod overlay is that we would really provide as robust an engagement process as we have done so far on the policy plan and then layer in the additional engagement of the folks that are more sort of focused and interested in land use policy in the city right now. I really appreciate that. I had asked a similar question. I forgot it was days ago or weeks ago. It's all all a blur now to another group about engagement. And you know, I'm sure you did a lot of work to do that outreach. But when I asked them how many people had shown up, I think they said something like 4 or 5, which doesn't speak to the diversity of us as a city. You know, the different districts and the people and the [2:56:18 PM] backgrounds that that make up the city. So I'm glad y'all are trying to reach as many people as possible. Thank you, councilmember. It looks like councilmember Allison alter had a question and then I'll recognize council member vela. Thank you. I wanted to go back to the slide with the income and zero one car household as possible, if it's possible to put that up. I just want to really try to understand what this slide is telling us. As we look at the five different proposals. Well, I can that's an excellent question because I know that that's kind of an interesting map. You had to spend a little time with it. A good way to think about it is mode shift. Think about how we can get people to decide to move from their car and take transit [2:57:19 PM] or active transportation to wherever it is they're going. People are going to have different motivations or requirements and so what this was thinking about was what some of those different motivations and requirements, what are they and how do they kind of conflate together? How does it look on the ground? Okay okay. But if I was trying to like, use this to tell me something about the five different what would be the most valuable? I mean, because are we are you saying then we want to target the low income in more cars or do we want to target the people who are low income and don't have cars? You know, and I think we want to target everybody. You know, we want to make have this work result in a project that's going to be valued by as many people as possible. And so that they, you know, they like it and they want more. So this this particular map and analysis is just a way for us to think about kind of the composition of kind of [2:58:19 PM] what's happening along the different corridors where you do have differences in income, car ownership type. And this is trying to get at how do those overlay so it's really I think it's just trying to understand the different kind of trip patterns and potential for mode shift associated with different parts of each option. Okay. So if I wanted to maximize the mode shift, which of the which of the five proposals based on on looking at this chart would be maximizing the mode shift? I think it's one way that we would be maximizing mode shift is by looking at for folks who if they are lower income but they still own a couple of cars, they might be more likely to use robust [2:59:21 PM] transit options that are close to where they live. And that kind of alleviates the expense of having a car as well. That might be one thing. The other thing I got to say with mode shift to a lot of it does come down to kind of the quality of the transit product that we're putting out there and where it connects to as well. So it is tied together with the destiny burns and employment as well. So it's one thing to look at where people are living, but we are also looking at what they where they need to go and where we're connecting to and are we giving them a good option to driving the car. Thank you. As we move forward to the, you know, the June meeting and we have more of these discussions burns what is the best way to get some of those comparisons for the for the different routes? Well we're happy to respond to any requests through any or capmetro. And so [3:00:24 PM] happy to speak with whoever we need to provide contact information. Ann okay. Thank you so much. Councilmember vela. Thank you, chair, for the slideshow. I didn't see it in the backup. Is it posted anywhere. I'm sorry, can you repeat that question? Yes, about the slide show. He said I found it in the backup though. You did too, right? Yeah. I think it might be on the site, but it got emailed out to all of our land use and housing aides, so it may need to get forwarded to you. Okay, great. Thank you. And with regard to and I appreciate the mayor pro tem question about the release of the data, because when is the public comment period ending on may 2nd? So I'm concerned with that because the data, the stops data and any kind of cost data has not been released. And I'm not sure when [3:01:25 PM] it's going to be released. I mean, I'm hoping like tomorrow or something to that effect. But you know, to release the data and then close the comment period, strikes me as not the right way to approach this, so I guess I just wanted to, to give you all a heads up that if we're releasing the data, this late, I think we should extend the comment period so that the public has a chance to look at the cost information and the ridership information and do a more kind of sophisticated Eid analysis and make more educated comments, really. So again, I would just urge you all to release that data as soon as possible. No, I hear that. I appreciate that. And we're working to release information as quickly as we can. Do you have a date or do you have a timeline? We are trying to get some information Ann out this week, but I don't have a date. We're just trying to finalize it [3:02:25 PM] as quickly as we can. But thank you. That's all I've got. Schiera. I appreciate your candor. I know it's hard to give people definitive information when it's like a moving target, but. But the truth of the matter is, what we're talking about. I mean, I've said it already explicitly. We are retrofitting major transit infrastructure and the 11th largest city in the nation. Ann this is a big deal. So folks want to be able to follow along. Ann and they need good data in order to be able to participate in the conversation . And so I think what council member Vella is saying is as soon as you're able to his district and for mine and one is in three, you know, councilwoman Fuentes and two are people need good data around transit. If for no other reason. I mean I think one of the things that you all addressed very explicitly is like you said, where do they live and where are they going? I [3:03:26 PM] mean, that was really poignant for me. If for no other reason. We have 365,000 people who work in our hospitality industry in this city. Where do the people who work at the Hilton Ann or the W, where do they live? You don't want to know. And that's a part of the problem. I mean, it's problematic and so many ways. I mean, not having good transit is problematic in ways that really affects people's lives directly. They're out here riding with no inspection. Ann you know, I'm famous for talking about riding dirty, but they're out here riding with no inspection because they have to. They have a car because they have to. They just spent their whole income tax return on a car because they had to. All these things have direct impacts on people's lives. And I want to make sure that we're being real clear as a community that this is a collective concern and so thank you for being really [3:04:27 PM] candid. And frankly, I would rather you say I don't know, then give us a date and then we'd go and tell our people the date and the date doesn't shake out. So thank you for that. I appreciate it. Colleagues, any other questions. Maybe just a quick shout out to where to provide your comment. If you go to project connect.com and click on get involved and you'll see there's a virtual open house and they are collecting comments. As well with that. Thank you. Committee thank you. Staff thank you everybody who's been providing the information today for our constituents. It's very much appreciated. With that, though, I think colleagues, would anyone like to share any additional future items that they'd like to discuss. All right. Well, if there are no, no [3:05:28 PM] other future items to consider and there's no objection, I believe at 305, we are adjourned . Thank you, everybody.