Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and uh welcome to Balt Town Council. We have a work session today and if you notice there's a lot more people around the table. Um so we're excited to be hosting uh the Eagle County Board of County Commissioners this evening as well as uh some staff in attendance. We've got a great agenda with uh wildland urban interface, childcare district, land uh use code updates from each jurisdiction and housing updates from each of our jurisdictions. And what's really exciting about a lot of these work sessions um I mean Eagle County and Basalt by virtue of not just being in the same uh kind of overlaying land and uh and jurisdictions that we're in it unique position geographically as well, right? We we're in the middle of the valley. We're kind of the fulcrum together. And what one group does matters a whole heck of a lot to another group. And that's uh you know any any county government, you know, as municipality, you want to partner with them. But I think we have an important and very special relationship with these folks. And I'm excited that everybody's here tonight. and uh I've been excited to be working with you on uh RAFTA and Matt on CC4CA and kind of continuing now you're the board chair Tom here and uh

that's what they tell me. that's what they tell you and uh keep working on those but also you know striving for the same outcomes and the same types of advances in housing and what we do as far as managing growth [clears throat] and you just working together in a collaborative transparent partnership to get things done. So really excited for tonight and uh Tom I'll let you make a few remarks.

Yeah. No, thank you so much uh Mr. Mayor and yeah, my name is Tom Boyd and as of 10 this morning, I'm the chair. So, you know, this will be, I guess, the second meeting that I've been able to um have the honor of just saying a few words and and I think probably hopefully all of us are kind of coming from the same place. You know, I was only sworn in a year ago, but um recording in progress.

There we go. Now, it's really on the record. So, um, one of the things I learned, well, really just from growing up in the area, but also from campaigning is, you know, you can walk into Picking County and you can walk into Row County and then you can be in the town of Balt and you can be in the in the county of Eagle and and it's really not even that far up to Gunnison County either. Um, and that creates a special set of challenges. Um and certainly I heard from a lot of constituents here and and and people um who are in leadership positions that that creates some challenges. But the other thing it does is it really encourages collaboration. And so what has started I think as a challenge and over over the decades been a challenge. town of Basal has done an excellent job of turning into a strength which is to uh to be at the to be at the table for so many collaborative meetings and all the different organizations that you mentioned and the different collaborations that we have in the region um as we take on these challenges that really ultimately are pretty similar whether you're in the Eagle River Valley, Roaring Fork Valley or beyond. So I look forward to this meeting. I think we have a great agenda ahead and um I think we should get started and and thanks for hosting us. thanks for bringing uh you know arranging the food and everything else. Thanks to the staff and everybody who's helped make this happen cuz it's hard to get this many people to get all together in a room schedules and everything else. So,

especially with road closures and some of the challenges I know you all face today. It's actually I'm glad you rather it's worth making a point that it was a a a scary and difficult day uh in in the Eagle River Valley today. Uh and um I want to salute our our sheriff um uh James Vanvique um Burch who we're going to hear from in a minute and our emergency services coordinator um our manager Jeff Schroll and everybody uh in law enforcement who helped deal with a really troublesome situation um along I70 today and we're glad that we are all here and safe for sure. Definitely. Thanks for reminding me of that. Yeah.

All right. Well, we have a wildland urban interface up first, but before uh I'm not sure who's going to start that presentation, but before we get started, I just would like to make sure that, you know, let's keep this collaborative if it's all right with the presenters. Like, let's ask questions as we go. Let's make this a real work session and kind of a foundation for further work that we want to do together. So, uh in the coming year. So, who's who's up for the WOOI discussion? Yeah, I was going to before we do that real quick, does everyone know each other pretty well and could we do could we just do a real quick round table? Um or or even for the folks that I'm I'm sure we have a ton of viewers. Maybe we can just

um just go around real quick and and maybe Jeie uh or I I really would I'm happy to start the introductions because I have not officially met Gloria. So, Jeannie McQueeny, Eagle County Commissioner, Deer Schindler, Bassalt Council. Rick Stevens, Balt, Ael Dup, Butchard, Basalt. You already met me. Tom Boyd, Eagle County Commissioner. And David Knight, Basalt Mayor. Uh, Ryan Slack, town of Salt. Matt, Eagle County Commissioner. Hannah Berman, Basalt. Uh, Glory Koshberger, town manager, Basalt. Jeff Conlin, town attorney. Michelle Thibo, planning director, town of Balt. Jeff Shirley Eagle County Manager

Doug and then Doug Patterson advance director Balt thanks thanks for doing that. Yeah, super. All right, wildland urban interface updates. I'll kick it off by kicking [clears throat] it off. I'm going to introduce people that are way smarter than me um to kind of give the update on that. Behind me is Birch Baron. That's our emergency [clears throat] management director. Um has an office two doors down from mine so I can keep track of all the emergencies going on in Eagle County. And uh I'll let him take the lead. And I think there's some other agencies that are here. This is definitely a much more uh collaborative uh process that's it's not just an Eagle County. This is has a multi-jurisdictional [clears throat]

um aspect to it. You know, much like our in the Eagle River Valley, we have that [clears throat] same coalition. Um there's a very active and um and great coalition over here in the Roaring Park Valley as well. So, I'll turn that over to Bur.

Great. Um good evening everyone. I'm Bur Baron. I'm the emergency management director for Eagle County. uh we are here to present some highle slides but as mentioned I would love it to be collaborative so don't feel like you need to hold questions until the end um and then I've brought some very very uh expert partners behind me who I'll introduce here in a moment so um if you go to the next slide for me please um when when we started focusing on our our counties role in reducing wildfire risk, especially when the commissioners came to our team and said, "Hey, this is our community's priority. How can we invest as a county in reducing wildfire risk?" We're organized around the three tenants of the cohesive strategy, national tenets, but these are also our goals. So, when we talk about our programs, usually we're putting them into three buckets. One is wildfire resilient landscapes. So doing projects on the landscape that help us have the opportunity to slow and stop fires before they impact people, homes, infrastructure, things at risk. The second is fire adapted communities. So supporting home hardening, defensible space, chipping programs, programs that make individual homes less likely to be casualties in emergencies. And then supporting of course a safe and effective response which means making sure that all of our partners have systems in place so that if we do have a wildfire and it does impact people that we are able to not only put out that fire quickly but make sure everybody gets out of that fire safely. So those are the three tenants we're organized. If you go to the next slide please. Uh but we don't do this alone right? So this is important. Um over here on the Roaring Fork side we coordinate under an entity an umbrella nonprofit called the Roaring Fork Wildfire Collaborative. and

I have Angie Davlin who's CEO executive director of the Roaring Fork Wildfire Collaborative right here. Um, this is coming out of a recognition that not only can one agency not do it alone, but we have so many jurisdictions which if not used properly could be a liability, but in our case it's really a strength. um not just the three counties, your forest lands, your uh local fire district here, but we've got all of these partners who are invested in some way in wildfire mitigation who come together as part of this collaborative, not just to share what they're working on individually, but to jointly come up with pri projects, gaps, needs for, you know, these fires that unfortunately don't really respect these jurisdictional boundaries that somebody drew on a map 150 years ago. Um, so I want to introduce a couple partners that are here with me today. Um, just so you know, they're here if we have questions. Um, we have fire chief uh, Scott Thompson and Fire Marshall Bourke Sto from Roying Fork Fire and Rescue. Ring for Fire and Rescue is a fire district that covers this area in the town of Assault. We have Jennifer Scher [snorts] who's acting um, acting

district ranger for the White River National Forest. Aspen Holy Cross.

Aspen Sus Ranger. Aspen, Soprus, Ranger District, Holy Cross Eagles the other side. Um, we've got two in Eagle County and then Angie Davlin of course with the Wildfire Collaborative Roaring Fork Valley and then Eric Loveren who works in my department as the community mitigation manager. Um, so the experts here, the experts have helped me put together some information so I get to look smart, but really a lot of the work is being done in the seats behind me. Um, next slide please. when the commissioners came to me probably about five years ago um to Eric and I and said, "Hey, we really need to be investing more in wildfire. Where can we make a difference as a county?" Right? Organizing around these three tenants. Um it started with a couple hundred,000 to support a local wildland mitigation team. Um and that's bloomed into what for 2026 will be $2 million in funds both from general funds and lodging tax. about 600,000 plus going into supporting projects on the landscape. So to reduce fuels, pile burns, prescribed fires, mastication projects that reduce the fuel load in those areas that protect our communities on the landscape. Uh we've got about uh 550 540,000 going into projects that help support our communities. That's the real fire program, which our free home assessment program as a county will come in, help um community members understand how they can protect their homes, give them very simple, clear steps they can take to make their homes more wildfire resilient, and then give them access to cost share funding to support that that work. If they do that work, we'll meet them 50/50 um with cost share to do work that helps protect their property, supporting the wildfire collaboratives and the work those collaboratives do. and um chipping programs planning for future programs all fall under that bucket. And then you know you can see almost 860,000

of funds going towards a safe and effective response. We can dive in a little bit more on the next slide looking first at those landscape projects um in the 24 to 2025 period which is not when we started this but that's just the most recent goal setting period um for the commissioners. We now have over 8,000 acres of fuel projects including a good number of projects over here. Um Eric just took me on a tour right before coming down here of some of the new projects with the state forest service just on in the community north of Basalt there. Um as well as projects in Spring Lake and or Spring Park and Blue Lake and up Rudy Shores. Again, we know that those are not in the town boundaries of Basalt, but unfortunately, fires that start there will also come here. And so, we're we're really invested in finding those strategic areas where we can stop fires before they impact people. And then, next slide, please. Looking at those fire adapted communities, over 5,000 residences served by that real fire program. So those are either individual home and property owners or neighborhood associations or condos that come to us and say, "Help us understand how we can protect our structures and our property." And then um of those 532 of them in the here in the Roaring Fork Valley, $260,000 in cost share assistance for people that participate in that program to help them get that work done. Uh over $100,000 of that awarded here in the Roaring Fork Valley. um progress towards a unified WOOI code. The state legislation two years ago u mandated a statewide that everyone has to have some sort of wildland urban interface code in place that meets a certain standard by I believe April of this year is the the bumped deadline. Um, our teams are working very closely with the municipalities to get as close as we can to a consistent code

countywide for what that looks like in a way both that reduces our wildfire risk but also creates a reasonable burden on the people who are involved in actually setting and implementing those codes. And then um community chipping and slash removal. We've had tremendous success over on the I7 corridor side of the county um investing in a program [cough] monthly during the summer months. If people remove fuel load, take down dead trees, take down shrubs, put it on the side of the road, we'll come by, drive by and pick them up. And we've got money allotted from the commissioners from this most recent lodging tax that our hope is to talk to you very soon in the future about how to implement that here in the Roaring Fork Valley as well. And then next slide please. When we look at a a safe and effective response, there's a lot of things we do, but just generally assuming that not everyone knows what emergency management does or what the county's role in emergency management does, every response is led by your local fire law enforcement and EMS agencies depending on the incident. But we in many cases during blue sky days are that coordination entity. So, anytime we're here in blue sky days and nothing's happening, my job is to work with those partners and say, "Where do you feel challenged? Where do you think if you had what type of incident would push you to the limits? Where would our systems break?" And then help coordinate around those systems. And then during those big incidents, um, we oversee the emergency management and emergency operations center structure. So that coordination entity where we all come together so law can do their job, fire can do their job, EMS can do their job, but we can also support people are displaced from their housing from fires or other emergencies or traffic disruptions like earlier today. Make sure the community is getting the information they need not just to keep themselves safe, but also to be resilient and recover well if we

do have damage to homes, infrastructure, and property. Um, and then some of the highlights I wanted to call out just again food for thought. I put a ton of links on the last slide. So if you guys have questions, want to dive in deeper anywhere. Um, you know, funding the through the Roaring Fork Wildfire Collaborative, Pano AI early wildfire detection cameras, which Roaring Fork Fire is a big advocate for here in the Roaring Fork Valley to get on those fires quick. Uh, emergency alerts. Um we all use different systems for our emergency alerts as three counties, Eagle, Garfield, and Pikkin. But um we partnered with Reachwell, all three counties so that our communities who are very interconnected can sign up for any one of those three counties alerts or all three of those counties alerts through one system and know not just when there's a road closure and they need change plans for the day, but also if they need to get out quickly, we know we can reach them in the way they've said is best for them. um and in 130 plus languages and in with no sharing of information with us required. And then evacuation planning was another highlight. We've invested in the last year in a system called Genesis EVAC, Genesis Protect, which has helped us take what we've done on the rest of the county and expanded over here, which is really breaking our communities into pre-planned zones so that your public safety teams and your town police has been really, really involved in this together with our sheriffs and the fire teams. Um, really thinking ahead of time, what are those areas if we did an evacuation, how would we manage that effectively? We're in the mountains. We know there's no new magic evacuation routes that are going to be created. How do we use the infrastructure that we have to get people safely and quickly out of their homes and to a safe location in an emergency? Um, with that, you can go to the next slide, but I do want to turn it over to any questions and I would welcome some of our partners who have joined us here in the room to

jump in if you have anything to add as well. Thanks, Bur. Anyone have questions? [clears throat and cough] Not a question, but I appreciate you expanding the chipping uh program to this side. I remember you talking about it during the emergency meeting and I was a little bit jealous. So, that's going to be a great addition for us. Absolutely. I know we talked about the cost of it. It is not a cheap program. Um but one of the directions we got with the lodging tax dollars, the commissioners were very clear. We want this to go directly to programs that our community will see and know that those dollars are going to good use. Awesome. Well, thank you very much.

All right. Anything for [clears throat] Eric, Chief Thompson, Angie, Jennifer, anything to add? Any corrections you want to throw me under the bus for anything I said? Yeah, I'd like to start working with the town almost immediately to get the chipping program up and running somewhere in place to uh start making that happen in early June. [cough] like a curbside program like we're running on the other side with minimal involvement uh or from this from staff at least we've been talking to some contractors already that feel capable of taking it on. So I'll circle back with the staff here immediately.

Great. Rick, did you have something? Yeah, I was just going to give a little shout out to the um training that's about to happen to become a community ambassador that's sponsored by the state of Colorado and and Angie's group. [clears throat] I took part in that a year or so ago with a couple of homeowners from Up Valley. Um and I've been doing this stuff for a while. I think one of the things that I that is really got to happen is this WOOI ordinance because we have HOA rules and we have other rules that make sense um in terms of housekeeping and land use reviews but we don't have anything really [clears throat] has any teeth. We did uh take advantage of the free shipping program between couple hundred homes that we have uh in the districts I manage. we had about 10% uh you know involvement which I think is pretty low and it's a hit and miss kind of a thing. Uh the hardest part is getting people to understand what they need to do on the properties to put that stuff out to the curb. So if we can work on that level um that would be great. And you know I think the funding is key. Uh we looked at the other thing that's happening is these high-end sales, real estate sales that are going on up in the terrain that's fireprone even down in the repairarian. Um during the transactions, they're they're having to clean up their properties and the cost on a average home up there in a area like Meadowwood or up on Red Mountain is running about 20 to $25,000 to get to a defensible space. So there's there's been some real reality checks lately um through going through these processes to get people to either take the challenge of cleaning up their property on or you know after they look at it accepting the fact that it's going to be beneficial. So, it's it's uh if we

get more people educated and boots on the ground, I know a couple folks up on Basalt were Basalt Mountain were part of the initiative that um we led up there with the Forest Service and those are the kinds of things that pay off. So, but thanks for coming in. We get that WOOI passed. And before we move off that, I'll just add that [clears throat] for the town's part on the wildfire resiliency code, that is something staff's been working on and been in a lot of meetings with a lot of people in the the audience here today and it'll be coming to council. Um, you know, bringing forward that model code with some local amendments with a effort to make it as consistent as possible with our neighboring jurisdictions. There's been a lot of effort on that and I think everyone's still trying to figure it out and um making progress on it.

Yeah, sounds [clears throat] like a good example of the collaboration. I would just add the clock's ticking on that to make a April 1 adoption date. We'll probably need to come back to this group in like the next few weeks. County commissioners, you'll we'll talk to you on the 3rd of February. Um and then both collaboratives are available to bring the subject matter expertise [clears throat] to bear. And as mentioned, you know, we've been kind of working on this since early 2024. So there is a a good collaborative plan in place. Sounds great. I could also add I don't know if you need me to. Yeah, why don't you come up to the podium so we can get you on the mic.

Yeah, sure. [clears throat] Hi there everybody. Jennifer Schuler with the Forest Service. Um, just want to acknowledge the great work that we've done through the collaborative with Eagle County, with Angie's Group, with Roaring Fork Fire. Um, one of the things that Forest Service is doing is really leaning into um, fuels reduction on a landscape scale. And we have had a number of successful burns in prescribed burns in the Eagle County area, including those that were up the frying pan, some of the ones that were up um, the Lime Park area. So we really want to look at some additional NEPA planning to compound upon the planning that we already have in place. Right now all of our environmental reviews or NEPA analyses are around um those areas that really focus in on wildlife habitat improvement and we see benefit in the future and looking towards a more broad environmental analysis. So something that we're taking a look at now um that we'll be working with with the collaborative but wanted to bring that to you as well so that you're aware of some of the areas that we're leaning into. Um that can be a you know multi-year process to go through the planning but it's a priority for our agency to focus on these hazardous fuels reduction areas and wanted to make you aware of that.

Thank you.

30 seconds on that one. Um Scott's group here was really strong about the repairerian corridors that we have and we have in designation of environmentally sensitive area along the frying pan and roaring fork within the town of assault. So building setbacks and things like that are significant from but based on high water not based on vegetation or any fuel mitigation. So, um, we were looked at, we looked at a couple spots that, uh, we did some work in the repairarian to improve that. We learned from some California fires that the repairarian habitats can be like a channel for a conduit for flame to go from a lower to a higher elevation. So, that's another piece of the and that ESA requires permitting, an evaluation from staff here to see what you have on your property and a whole process of technical review and some other things that that you know are kind of something we could look at when it comes in front of us to we can maybe make some exceptions if people are in those areas and zones to be able to go ahead and do work. Um but that that's a sort of we're focused on the confluence of our rivers is basically our community of course the high country but that's another piece of it as well. So

thank Well, I think um you know as as we've talked about the the money that you spend and thank you the money that we spend preparing is going to down the road if you think about it just f from a financial perspective it's going to [clears throat] save us 4:1 conservatively or as high as 400 to one in terms of the dollar spent on mitigation versus um if and when we have a very dry season which could be right around the corner. So I'm glad that all this work is being done. Let's keep these conversations and collaborations going. And I think next on our agenda, if Jeie had one thing first. Did you have something?

I just wanted to comment that I'm so excited to see this shipping program get started over here. And I think the way that the program um works, it amplifies every year. It it just grows so quickly. You see your neighbors do it. Um it you miss a month and you go, "Oh, but it's coming the next month." And so there's time in between each um pickup to like recommunicate with folks. And I think we'll be sitting here in three years time and go, "Wow, that that was just tremendous that we had nothing and now we have this." And um I just I I live in Eric's neighborhood, which is not why we do such a good job as a neighborhood for the shipping program, but you can just see the neighbors. They just sort of it just catches on like wildfire. [laughter]

There you It does. Yeah, it will be popular and it's there's a education component to that because everyone who participates in it, you know, it starts the conversation with the neighbors. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. I appreciate it and looking forward to that program as well. Um, I think next up we have the child care district uh topic on the agenda. I'll let Jeanie kick this off. I think I think we just had a general we just kind of wanted a general feel from [snorts] town of assault on your district got passed and [clears throat] want to hear from you. How do you guys felt about it? what your role is.

He's he's picking on me because I've worked in the child care field for a long time. [laughter] And this is the first time that um there's money like there's actual money to spend to help improve and to lower the costs. And it's it's just fascinating. But I do think that what we have to struggle with is that we as [clears throat] a county have um a goal and and um have funded child care for a long time and with our new uh lodging tax dollars. Hope to um address the tuition for the parents, you know, because we sort of stabilized the workforce with the stipen. But you know parents are struggling. The uh cost of of child care is really astronomical. So we have spent that that's a goal of ours but it's also a goal of the district. And so I'm just curious who's going to who's going to grab that family and whose dollars get spent first if we both have a goal. And the Basalt Town Council has for for years also funded child care assistance um tuition for families. And so I'm just curious [clears throat] how you guys are picturing it. What's going to happen? Um we have a problem like we all three have money to spend to try and address this as a goal. And so I'm just trying to to figure out what are we thinking in terms of of whose dollars get spent first, second, third.

Yeah. I think I was part of the CC coalition which helped get the service plan designed, helped do the public outreach and data review and then spin up the campaign that passed. And so as written and it's really up to the board to decide. We'd want to make sure that it could kind of blend braid and stack with CCAP with Kids First dollars in Aspen with Aspen Skiing Company's possible subsidy program. Um, even though it would raise 10 to 12 million in this district, that doesn't get the average family down to 7% which is kind of the goal of what the federal government says you should be spending um on child care per kid. And so I think being able to talk to the district once they have a director in place, they're thinking of getting an interim consultant because um they don't have any of the money yet even though it's been starting to acrue. It's probably won't come to us till March and probably won't start going out into the community until June. Um, but I think being able to make sure that our child care service district [clears throat] director is in touch with Eagle County and Kids First, Sko, and others, I think is important to say like whose money should come first and and what percentage should each of those districts take on, but it's a nice problem to have. I'm excited because I I see an opportunity for have somebody kind of like West Mountain does help do a little bit of air traffic control and quarterbacking of of what we're doing, but also find helping um us all find another gear for how do we help families? How do we help the providers is a new pot of money? I mean it's in and it of itself it's not going to do everything but I think it's it's uh it's definitely should help us get further along uh with tackling the problem. So I mean it's early days but it'll be exciting to see once things get stood

up. Yeah. And I think as discussed the service plan for our district too would have maybe a wider runway of who could apply or be eligible for funds. If you look at who's [clears throat] eligible for CCAP, it's a pretty low income threshold when you compare that to the average or median income in a mountain town. Um, so just like APCHA's goes [clears throat] far beyond federal standards for poverty, I think the service district would also have a higher runway. I assume Eagle has kind of a longer runway as well um to make sure that even if you're not qualifying for these kind of poverty level programs, you can get some sort of assistance.

Yeah. Go. You know, Genie, you were probably involved in the cradle to career initiatives and roundts. we all were. But um Gloria included an email from Maggie in on the desk here that speaks to a bullet point down there that [clears throat] the board's revisiting the grant request from Aspen Community Foundation to be able to hire an interim consultant or team of consultants to manage the district's startup operations. And you know, as I read through this, I thought the same as Hannah that and you that um you know, there's these entities up and down from here to parachute and from here to bail. Uh Mountain Youth is one I like over there in your side. And I think that it would be good to [snorts] create some sort of a matrix or something that that identifies who's who, where they are, what kind of funds come into their pipelines, and see if there isn't a lot of,

you know, how typically there's a lot of duplication of effort and and redundancy, shared applications, shared applications, and

you know, whole nine yards. And um we experimented with that a little bit and as those individuals came in, we tried to identify how many of them were like-minded and then we told that like-minded group to go back and come in with a joint application and they got more money. And I think that's probably a process that um that could come from some place to help this bullet point uh move along, you know, and maybe if anyone says if anybody has any thoughts or suggestions send them to general conflence district but I don't know how and it's the same thing David's mentioning is the opportunity to really understand what the landscape looks like in child care because it's confusing and and I think there are parents that don't access the uh asset because it's challenging and you know we've got to make it a

simple easier climb in the first place. I also think if you guys have a software, I don't know how you run Eagle subsidies, but like the entities in the Roaring Fork Valley have been talking about which software they've been using to see if we could actually get a universal application. Um, and I'll be at least on the same software even if people have additional questions that

or information they need to solicit. One thing I would encourage that we look at is, [clears throat] you know, the infant toddler care is kind of a loss leader on all these businesses. And that's that's what I saw sitting on the child care commission, you know, years ago is the real cramp is in infant toddler care because there's so many restrictions on how many how little kids you can have and how many uh teachers you have to have for those little kids and and you know facilities need it because it creates the you know client basically clients. But I if we could somehow expand that and and create maybe a subsidized infant toddler care facility um that then would fe be a feeder for all everyone um and it doesn't just put the burden on these on the current daycare centers. Um so people always shoot it down but I think it's something to definitely look at.

It continues to be the long pole in the tent trying to get

Yeah. you can't you can only fit so many, you know, babies in. And you and you start to see like it's easier as the kids get older to get into different facilities or swap facilities or and so yes, we have a child care issue, but at at what age are we really looking at? And you know, I think there's also some long duplications on, you know, how are we really monitoring our weight lists and are we going through and checking them constantly because you can talk to one facility that says they have 400 people and another one's like, well, I have 30 and I actually have three open spots and you know, so just kind of continuing that communication with all these people and making sure that everyone can find what they need.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Like one of the things that would be really nice to come out of the taxing district is to have a universal weight list because so many people don't call other facilities to get off once their kid gets in somewhere. That that way you could have one place that would say like, "Hey, you're 40 here, but 20 of the people above you are on four other wait lists." So you have a better gauge of when you might get care, things like that. Kind of that navigator concept and a little more integration. just to connect people more efficiently with centers.

Yeah, great great example of the collaboration that we talked about at the beginning, right? Like all these issues, but this one um at least as Commissioner McQueen pointed out, there's a lot of good news here, but as Hannah um or should I say, Council Person Burman pointed out um the not that formal here.

I figured, right? Um but there's you know that there's still a gap. Um and so you [clears throat] know for for the general public to understand um you know I it there is a tendency say you know Eagle County passed a lodging tax and and there's a new um childcare district in the Roaring Fork Valley. Problem solved. You know no right um what it means is we have more tools in the tool chest. uh we have more funding but um yeah I'm very curious as well uh to to find out you know how how do we organize this and I think it's an opportunity to show the people that we serve that we can put something together that's clear that's like concise that's easy easy to work with I mean a universal application and um so I hope that you know it looks like the action's underway to to get some folks that are good at creating these kinds of systems in place we can figure out how to do this and do it right. Um I'm sure it'll be a little bit tricky and maybe a bit of a bumpy road, but um yeah, hopefully if you're a person seeking um some support or tuition support, uh you don't want to have that feeling that you know, we we had this morning a different conversation about insurance. It just it just made you feel bedazzled by the complexity um of of how tricky it can be uh to to make the right application and to try and get the insurance that you need um for our childcare providers. We don't want that overwhelming feeling to come on on the parents that already have you know toddlers and youth should [cough] be as as [clears throat] easy as possible. Um you know um and it should be pretty clear. So, there's some work to do the oldtimes.

It seems like it, right? Um

I I think it's it's just lovely to hear all of the the synergy in the room and and there isn't this feeling of well that passed so we're not going to use our funds for that anymore. So, I hope that's I hope I'm not putting words into the council's um into your mouths. But, you know, when when we first passed our the lodging tax, we had already been spending a million dollars in child care in in that the system of child care. Um, we still do even though the the lodging tax passed and it's because we know that there's $22 million in gap for for quality and uh affordability. So I just want I I think I was hearing there was there was some sentiment from the council here um to continue whatever and I don't know what it was. I just know you know there's always been something from the general fund that goes towards child care and so appreciate that that uh collaboration that synergy we have. So

yeah definitely incremental we just what it's already happening it needs to be you know and and aligning. I mean, I think that's the biggest thing that was saying, we got to there's so many parts and to help people make it easier to interact with it and disconnect providers and and uh parents, kids. Can I just ask who's going to carry this forward to the is that is that are you on the confluence committee as still because I just heard some really good ideas about a shared application uh priority given to infants toddlers um and weight list consolid you know that can be me

okay I just you know there's a there's a email here and I don't want to you know 12 [clears throat] emails going to them but if you'll carry that forward and and sort of talk about yeah the executive committee for the child care coalition was like myself, Rob Stein, and two others. And so we've been going out to all the board meetings and kind of helping carry the baton. So they're getting from final vote to first dollar as gracefully as possible. Sweet. Great. All right. Anything else on that topic? Doing all right on time. I think we'll do okay. Uh land use code updates uh from each of our jurisdictions. cuz I don't want to. Do you guys like to lead off?

Yeah, I'll do that. And I I do want to take a little bit time just not very much time just to introduce the rest of the county staff that's here with me. Beth Oliver is our county attorney. She'll be doing the land use uh update on where we're at. Place at the this is little kids table. [laughter] Um I'm Justin Patrick. He's a U county communications director. He actually lives over here in Regina O'Brien is our deputy county manager. She's the smarter, better version of me. Um Tori Franks, you'll hear from her in just a little bit. She's our sustainability uh director um and all things housing. And then Bill Gibson is online and he's our community development director. So he's just listening in today, but I just want to introduce everybody. And so

and we neglected to say in the introductions, I believe Angela Anderson, one other one of our counselors, she's online there. Okay. She didn't introduce herself. I think she's she's muted and everything, but uh just wanted to point that out. And fun fact, I actually got my graduate degree with Pam Schilling 30 plus years ago. 35 years ago. So yeah.

All right. Yeah. So I what I thought I'd do is provide you with kind of a general overview of how we're approaching our new code and then highlight some of the policy positions, policy discussions we're having and then kind of finish with our schedule going forward. Um but feel free to interrupt with questions. Um, Bill, as uh Jeff said, on the line. He can jump in with uh anything maybe I leave out. Um, Tori is going to follow me with some discussion about our existing housing guidelines. So, I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail with that. Um, but but essentially, we are so our land use regulations were adopted originally in 1964. Uh, 1991 there was a large amendment that went through the process, but but really since 91, we've only had somewhat peacemail amendments. We haven't done an overall rewrite. and it started to show I don't know four or five six years ago um that we needed to really do a rewrite. Um we started to try to play with some smaller amendments and then realized that there were some areas that uh I don't want to say they conflicted but they they were amended at different times so they weren't quite as consistent as they could be. Um, we also wanted to streamline our process, kind of modernize our land use tables, um, our definitions, uh, and then provide more consistency and clarity in our process. So, those were some of the bigger goals. Um, and I've I've listed some of the policy or some of the purposes of the code um, on the first slide there.

You want to share your slides? Oh, Jeff, I sent them to you today. Did you get them? Oh, I thought you had the emergency managers. Oh, I sent Yeah. Let me see if I can Oh, okay. You sent another You're looking at them, but we're not. Oh, all right. I thought they were up on the screen. Sorry. That would be super helpful if we could connect those. Let's see.

She had the wildfire one. Just now. If there's something to for me to connect to, I can do that, too. If there's a If you go to the first page of our agenda, it's on the Okay. Talk amongst yourselves. [laughter] Can I ask a question while we're surfing? Sure.

Go for it. I [clears throat] spent a couple years now on the Pik County Growth Advisory Committee and they have a very distinct boundary for their discussions as far as what they're planning on for their 2050 goals and land use policies and so on. And [clears throat] I found it interesting that um there was very little dialogue about what's going on in Eagle County. So I think that's a missing piece of our puzzle is how these translate. I just want to copy it and put it up. So I you know just to encourage you to I found it. Look at that. They are looking at five different zones for housing to be developed and including resort area. I thought

the outline urban growth boundary area the maybe rural remort and then maybe rural rural and in this linear valley it's really been an interesting conversation so it's just something to put on the back burner what was the name of that committee or was the picky county community growth advisory growth advisory committee county growth advisory committee and um they just came out with their latest update on that a couple weeks ago Okay.

And they have some decent data, too, on how how home size and home intensity, like if it has a commercial use, like being a short-term rental impacts traffic, impacts number of jobs created and things like that. Okay. gave it to me. Wonder if there's something I can connect I do like what we have [laughter]

those things. What's that? Not sure has basalt. That's all those old man. Those are out of touch. Like our new fancy old sleeping dinosaur. [snorts] I should have checked before I

It's [laughter] call the sleeping dinosaur. Sure. Rick knows all about them. Rick was probably there when they drew it. I think actually the guy I could share it from my computer if I can. [cough and clears throat] I can also keep talking for a bit to to fill in the time. I apologize for that. I thought you guys had the we had the slides up. What was his name?

Um, essentially, um, in terms of the purpose of the new code, um, as I mentioned, we're really trying to modernize the regulations, the the land use tables and the definitions, provide some clarity and consistency in our review process, also streamline our review process, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute about how we're approaching that. Uh, we also want to um include or adopt some additional or new regulations relating to protection of natural resources. Uh, and then modernize our site development standards. Um, and by that that I mean really the focus is on our parking regulations and some of our other um regulations that'll help make the the process a little bit easier. Um, we started this process uh back in 2023. We engaged um a consultant out of Denver and we held uh about six work sessions with the board to talk about higher policy issues. We wanted to higher level policy issues. We wanted to get feedback before we really started drafting on some of these issues that we hadn't had a chance to talk to the board about. So that was 2023. In 2024, we uh engaged with the board on a more detailed level. Uh the board appointed an advisory committee in April of uh 24. And uh we then had a bunch of work sessions with our planning commission and our advisory committee about eight or so sessions for each of those different boards to get feedback on again some of the bigger policy issues as well as some of the actual Oh, there we go. as well as some of the actual um text. And then last year we really dove into um the the first couple of chapters. So we've got uh chapters one through four written right now. We're working on chapter five which we'll be talking to the board about on Tuesday of next week uh to focus a little bit more on some of our housing regulations. Um but uh to to dig into well let me let me back up if you're interested in because I wanted to highlight these kind of in the beginning. if you wanna is uh are you doing

I'll be

Oh, okay. [laughter] If you could go forward to slide five. Um one of the things we've done so that we can en ensure that we're bringing the public into the process is we put together two different websites. Um one is through our Eagle County website and it's our uh it's our rewrite uh platform and if anyone's interested or if the public's interested, you can go to that website and watch the videos of each of the meetings that we had. There's also white papers that our consultant prepared that those are all loaded on there as well. Um, and then we have all our public comment on there. So, work sessions for advisory committee, planning commission, and the board that go back to uh 2023. And then we engaged a company called Encode out of Texas who put together a really cool platform, software platform for us. And so, our current regulations are in this platform, but there's also a portal. There you go. There's also um a portal where the public can go to see the draft of the new code and uh we've also handled public comment that way. We we have over a thousand comments at this point from the public and from staff that are in the portal and uh our consultant and myself we can go through and actually respond to the public comment through that portal which has been it's it's been a really good tool because people can see the comments as they're or the responses as they not immediately but you know in response to their comments and it's a great uh platform to have everything all in one place. So if you're interested in seeing that as well, um that end code platform is a great place to to start in terms of the new code. Um and then I'll highlight some of the bigger um topic areas uh that we focused on and some of the policy approaches for those and uh and then happy to answer some questions about those. But our some of our bigger policy goals involved our zone districts uh and our land use and then again our land use tables and use specific standards uh our definitions natural

resources site design of course our housing uh guidelines and then admin administration development and review. Um with regard to our zone districts and our land use uh we really wanted to develop some strategies to simplify and and consolidate some similar zone districts. We have 85 PUDs in the county right now and that's made it it really difficult to staff to administer uh and enforce 85 different PUB guides. Um and so we've also developed two mixeduse zone districts. One is a little bit more focused on more um I would say more simple uses. Um there's a a larger mixeduse zone district that involve more kind of more complex uses. The hope is to potentially encourage or incentivize existing PUDS to maybe convert to one of those straight mixeduse zone districts and then in the future to possibly avoid having more PUDs in the future, have developers who are coming through take advantage of one of those new mixeduse zone districts. Um so we we've developed those. That's been a big will be a big change. And then another big change will be development of a new zone district map. Uh we have changed the terminology of our zone districts. Um they're similar in use and scope, but we have new names for them. Um some are more focused uh urban focused, some are more rural focused. We will be developing or in the process of developing a zone district map and that's going to be rolled out in June. Um we plan to have some workshops over on this side of the valley and over uh on the Eagle Riverside. um several during the month of June so we can walk through those specific changes with property owners um and just let them know what those zone districts will entail. They're very similar. We've tried to keep them very similar but but modernize modernize some of the uses particularly in the land use table. Uh and then next slide. Um, so our land use table and use specific standards, our table, we found

that we ran into issues with uses that developers would want to come in and uh develop, but they either weren't listed in the table or our table was not specific enough. We have a catch-all uh use called a resort recreational facility. And we found that that was being applied to every use that would come in that was a wedding facility, for example, or a um a guide uh group or something that didn't fit within another box. And then we have youth specific standards that didn't quite fit as well that talked about how many beds you could have and how many people could come and what the traffic counts uh traffic uh impacts were [cough] and they just started to uh we ran into situations where we just didn't have specific uses that we needed in that table or the flexibility to apply them. So we've updated and kind of modernized the uses in that table. Uh and then in conjunction with that we're updating the use specific standards that we would use to evaluate some of those uh more impactful uses. Uh and then next slide. So our definitions um the definitions are kind of funny. We have a lot of words that are defined that aren't used in the code and then we have words that we use all the time that aren't defined. Um we also have a lot of definitions that include standards embedded in the definitions which always cause problems as well. So, we're cleaning up the definitions, making sure we have definitions for terms we use a lot. Uh, and then removing standards. For example, um, you know, there's, uh, there's a definition, I think, for our for a, um, recreational or, uh, RV park, and it lists in right in the definition that you can't stay in one place for more than two weeks. That should be in a standard, not, you know, not in the definition. Um, so cleaning up those things. Um and then next slide I think is uh natural resources. Uh we're we're revamping our standards for natural resources as well. Um focusing on identification of a wildlife habitat and

then looking at appropriate avoidance minimization and mitigation strategies for those habitats. Uh and we're also focusing on high priority habitats that have been identified by CPW. uh and and then asking or requesting the appropriate mitigation for development in those areas. Uh we're also including new standards for protection of aquatic resources. Uh one of the big kind of policy issues for us is to focus on changes to our stream setbacks. Those have changed over the years. Currently, we have a 75 foot stream setback. Uh we're looking at the possibility of reducing that to 50 feet in certain zone districts, keeping it at 75 and others. um also considering what would be allowed within that setback um based on uh different impacts. We're also looking at reforms to um the scope and application of our EIR reports. So environmental impact reports um and application requirements for those. Uh and then in terms of site design. So next slide. Uh one of the big changes will be updating our parking regulations. Uh I think one of the reasons we have so many PUDs is that we have so many requests for variances to our parking standards. I think we overp park and have for a long time. Um so we are looking at that. We will be back in front of the board uh probably [clears throat] next week with some additional recommendations for some changes just based on discussions with staff. Um but we are we are going to be reducing I think we'll be reducing the requirements. Um and of course we're we're going to be focusing on those reductions with consideration of uh transit orient oriented developments and mixeduse development. Um another issue that's come up with us in the past is um we have a standard that requires two access points to subdivisions. Uh and we're looking at whether that should be revised to uh conform with the international fire code. Uh and that standard for dual access that will be coming back or coming to the board

probably in the next month or so. So, we'll be talking to you about that as well. Uh, and then next slide is housing. Um, our current housing policy is in our housing guidelines and we're looking at uh incorporating those guidelines into our code in the form of inclusionary zoning uh zoning requirements. Uh, so Tori is going to talk a little bit about what our current policy looks like. Uh, and we're talking to the board on Tuesday, so I don't want to spoil the spoil the discussion. Yeah, spill the beans. Um, but we we'll be talking about what those inclusionary requirements look like, what the percentages um might be. Um, and then what those requirements, you know, how those requirements would be implemented. So, that's that'll be a big discussion next week. Uh, we also in our housing guidelines, we have a number of incentives to encourage developers to provide additional affordable housing, but we haven't had the standards built into our code to help us implement those incentives. So we're now creating uh standards for those. So some of those include an expedited review process for um certain projects that meet a certain AMI threshold or a certain number of deed restrictions. Um there's also density bonuses um and a number of other items that we haven't been able to really implement, but they've they've been in our guidelines. Um we're also considering appropriate locations for various housing types. Uh we in our commercial zone district right now um a person if if you wanted develop to develop housing, you'd have to do a special use permit. Uh so we're looking at whether we should take that out. Maybe that's limited review. Maybe it's a use by right. Uh we're also looking at uh where and how uh and whether ADUs are permitted. Um and then one one issue that's been really big for the county is um non-conforming lots and ADUs. We have a lot of non-conforming resource parcels. Our current code requires a special use permit for approval of an ADU on those parcels. So, the board sees

a lot of public hearings on a simple ADU. Um, we're looking at changing that perhaps to limited review to make it easier for people to to build ADUs on those types of lots. Um, next slide, um, is our administration and development re and review. This is a big uh this is a big chapter and we've actually devoted two work sessions with the board on this particular issue. The these are all our development standards and all our deadlines for review of applications and files. We're really looking to try to streamline not only the application requirements. So um we have a a sketch plan and a preliminary plan for PUD and for subdivision. They right now look very much the same. So we require almost the same thing for sketch that we do for preliminary. We're looking at changing that to put kind of sketch back into sketch. So, it really is a concept review uh and include standards for waiver of certain application requirements and then perhaps uh delay submittal of certain uh application materials. We're also looking at uh additional administrative approvals uh for certain types of files like subdivision exemption, plat SAS. A lot of those now go to the board. So, if we can streamline that process by having staff approval that would have a call up to the board, um that should streamline a lot of our processes as well. Uh we're also looking at our public benefit standard. We have a public benefit standard with our zone change applications. Uh in the past, first we're looking at whether we should retain that standard, but if we do, we're looking at whether we should make it more detailed. In the past, we've gotten a lot of push back from developers who say that it's too nebulous. they don't know what to provide. This usually comes up with PUDS. Uh so we're looking at whether we're going to keep it and then whether we should make that a little bit more detailed. Uh we're also looking at an expedited review process both for Prop 123 uh housing but also for other

housing that may qualify uh based on AMI thresholds and deed restrictions. Uh and then again simplifying the review process, cutting down on some of the deadlines uh in our we have a several phases of review right now and we're trying to analyze whether we could cut back on those. Maybe have I think right now we have at least three phases. Maybe we only have two in the future. Um the other thing we're trying to simplify is our PUD amendment process as well as our special use process. Possibly make that administrative in certain situations. uh those can involve lengthy public hearings and it'd be nice to find a way to make that more streamlined as well. Um the other thing that will be new for us is we're developing a special uh expedited process for disaster recovery. Um and that's something we're we'll look into. We'll be in front of the board I think in a in uh March uh February and March on this chapter. So we'll have that in front of you. I want to get Burch's input on that as well.

We we actually could have used that during Lake Christine. we had [clears throat] kind of some lengthy subdivision building permit reviews for a few people that had lost their homes in Lake Christine fire or something.

Um and then in terms of schedule moving forward um so next slide please. So we have several meetings uh scheduled with the board from January all the way through July. Our proposed adoption date is July um of this year. And so coming up, in case anyone's interested, our our uh next topic will be uh impact mitigation, including a big discussion, policy discussion on our housing requirements. And then February and March, we'll focus on administration and development review. April, we're going to do kind of a review of the entire code. And I think we'll probably be circling back on some of the um policy issues that have come up. Um parking in particular, perhaps even stream setbacks. We may come back to you with some refinements on those. Uh and then the next slide is just the rest of the schedule. We've got meetings uh in uh May, June, and July. June again is when we'll present the new zone district map uh to both sides of the valley. And then July will be our uh adoption date. And then just to mention kind of in big picture again with this project, we're also looking at um a comp plan rewrite uh in 2026 or at least getting started on that. Our comp plan is relatively old. It's from 2005. Um, and we chose to uh rewrite our laneous regulations first and then and then work into a a redevelopment of our comp plan and some of our area plans. Uh, so we'll be doing that as well. And then one other thing we've done with this new code is we've pulled out all all of the technical requirements relating to engineering standards and developed a separate engineering manual which has made will make the process I think smoother as well. that will be um amended and adopted adopted and amended by the board um which will help with the review process. Um and uh we will be incorporating our housing guidelines into our code. So I think that'll streamline things as well. And it Tori I think will mention a little bit of this, but with our housing guidelines and our housing regulations, we're hoping to simplify the process somewhat there. We

have some somewhat complicated formulas in our that we use in our analysis now and we're hoping to get away from some of that. Um, so I know I talked a lot. I'm happy to answer any questions. We're super excited about this. It's been a long time coming. Um, but I feel like we're moving forward at a pretty good pace right now and have a lot of exciting stuff on the horizon. Thanks, Beth. It looks a lot of similar um things I think we're trying to do as far as kind of refactoring re, you know, streamlining, making it easier for the public to understand, making it easier for people who have to use the code to to understand it. And uh yeah, just good stuff. Rick,

you're tracking really well with County. It's the same conversation in the same timeline, frankly, it looks like. Um, you know, one of the things I learned that I wasn't aware of was that close to 90% of the land in picking county is federal or state or open space. And so it's really limited as to where anybody can go to do anything. Um, which puts a lot of pressure on the mid valley. And there's been a lot of discussions about how mid valley growth has really been the responsible party for the traffic congestion on Highway 82. And I have a hard time dealing with that personally because I understand a little bit differently where the pressure comes from to service, you know, a large resort at the end of a narrow linear valley. Um, so infrastructure and public benefit is really important to me personally and I want to acknowledge Mr. Durox back there is here as a person who's worked on Crown Mountain for a couple of decades at least. And that is our resort. That is our Mid Valley community asset that is irreplaceable and is going to be impacted at some level by what we're seeing in the El County portion of of the valley and further down valley too for that matter. And we've been talking to them informally or I have for a long time about how their struggle is is not about taking care of what they have but taking care of what could come in terms of demand for that space. And you know I've been all over the west to different places for different activities. And I haven't found a better place yet that that offers the variety of experience that Crown Mountain does. And I just really want to make sure that we include

that in the planning and in the public benefit area that it's a top priority to keep that place operational, provide maybe some small facility for it or some all we've got an ordinance later about turf uh coming up. And I always think when I hear that word that we could use some multi-purpose fields down there and things like that. And I think it's one of the things that'll that'll relieve uh some of the pressure that comes from having to live here and work here and grow a family here because that's the resort is the resort. Our resort is Crown Mountain 365 days a year and it's you can go walk in there for free and uh I just think it's probably 130 acres of the most precious land we have around us and it's adjacent to significant open space. So just as a plug for those guys um hopefully we can include that in any discussions we have with PUD amendments or you know, other developments.

They they could definitely be, you know, they could benefit from some of the changes to the code uh in the sense of our, you know, PUD amendment process that that is, as you know, part of a large PUD, but if we could simplify the PUD amendment process, that could potentially help, you know, that that park in terms of new uses or proposed uses. Yeah. Yeah. I know it's linked to the intersection improvement, which is the other piece of infrastructure that's pretty big deal around here too right now. I've been hearing from so village guys too that what's happening you know they don't quite get it yet but it' be great. I appreciate you guys. Thanks Rick. Michelle were you gonna

do you want to have Tori do the housing? Sure. Yep. Yeah. I can pass pass to for housing. Okay. Ours works that way too. Okay. Hi. Can you all hear me? Yes. Yep. Hi, Tori.

Hi, guys. Um, so Jeff, you asked me to provide or just do a quick summary, and I'm so glad Michelle is there. Um, sort of comparing Eagle County's um house current housing policy with um uh our with Basalt's current housing policy. And I think I did an okay job. I'm just trying to find um maybe I can just talk through it rather than show you just like a word document that I developed. But um and Michelle, you can check me. Um I would say the application piece of our housing policy is quite similar. It looks like town of the basults uh starts to apply on residential development with two or more lots. Eagle counties is three or more. So pretty close there. Um and then on the commercial side or non-residential side is that it it it looks like all of the commercial development um in Basalt triggers their housing guidelines and Eagle counties is after three jobs are generated. Um the mitigation rate is where we'll we start to see a little bit of a difference. In the town of Basalt, it's uh 25% of the net residential square footage and 20% of the total residential units. And then on the nonresidential side, it's uh 15% of new employees. for Eagle County. Um, currently we sort of the base math is on

the residential side is 25% of units. But where we get into um a lot of our sort of where we've landed in our complicated application of this is that we then weight certain deed restriction types um depending on what they're providing. So if a developer is choosing to provide price capped uh deed restrictions then um we give that that value of the deed restriction is 2:1. So essentially the mitigation rate um there would be 12 a.5% if a developer is choosing to mitigate using what we call resident occupied for sale units. So this is a deed restriction type that um restricts residency and occupancy of people who live and work in Eagle County or in the Roaring Fork Valley. like we we set the boundary of the Roaring Fork Valley essentially. Um on the for sale side of resident occupied, that's a one one. So you're providing 25% of units. And then on the resident occupied rental, if you are if you're choosing to provide that, then it's sort of half to one. So you're providing basically 50% mitigation rate. Um on the n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n non-residential side for Eagle County, we have that same waiting for those different deed restricted types and um we apply our mitigation rate to uh 45% of new employees generated by the project. So um that's where we have a I

think a touch more. Our mitigation rate is a little bit higher than basalts. And then um the definitions I think is where we start to see um some um some variability. Um I think Town of Assault you all it looks at least from my read um follow similar to like what Apta does which is uh categories income categories. So zero up to five. So you go, you know, under 50% all the way up to 200% AMI sort of and it great and it goes up on a ladder. Eagle County um says price capped rental is 80 to 100% AMI. Um price kept for sale is 100 to 140. And then again back to this resident occupied um concept, it resident residency and occupancy restrictions but no price caps. Um I would also say that another key piece for EO County is that when we price cap units, whether they be for sale or rental, we do not verify income, if that makes sense. So we we price cap based on a level of affordability based on AMI but we are not verifying income which I think is a is a difference between our two entities. Um and if I so I guess my my headline takeaways are the differences between the two entities and housing policy is um one Eagle County allows for resident occupied um deed restrictions

um our definition. So basalt is based on income and income qualification I believe. Um and we do not have that. Um I would say um to sort of best led into this um with sort of having the opportunity to think through our housing policy and potentially bring it sort of inside the um Eagle County land use regulations. We're really hoping to find a housing policy that is more more simple to understand um from the public and a developer, but also for me to be able to explain and verify that um these developments are meeting our policy. Um, and the other piece that I think has been really important, um, that we're really trying to drive at is again there's there's a nice long page of incentives in our housing guidelines that we have not been able to really apply or utilize um because as Beth said, we just didn't have the criteria to say, okay, what would qualify a development for priority permitting or uh you know partnership with the housing authority. Um so to me that's that's one of the bigger opportunities is um to try to build in our incentives um so that hopefully we are assisting development in providing housing that um we know we need. I feel like that was a lot of information that I just walked through, but let me know if you have questions or want to revisit any concepts or

I just want to premise too that you know in the past there there's been some loggerheads about, you know, developments we might approve approve an unincorporated Eagle County and they don't meet Balt's requirements and so that we get referral comments on that. You know, I think we look at it a little bit differently. We have our our housing guidelines are, you know, different than all seven municipalities in Eagle County. Um, and we don't look at them as right or wrong. We don't look at a single municipality's housing requirements and go, why' they do that? That's no, we actually applaud everything that each town is doing because they feel like that's what's right for their community. We absolutely applaud that. We know where our deficiencies are. I think Beth, you know, was talk talked through some of that and Tori, we've got some more uh uh work sessions coming up at the board of county commissioners to try to, you know, make ours, you know, we think more modernized. Um will they always will we match Veils or Eagles or Avons? Probably not. Um but we're trying to get it into a much better place. And so we recognize the differences if you know from our side of the fence and we actually celebrate what you're doing on your side of the fence. And um as you know it's difficult you know we don't have a a a uniformed Eagle County municipal housing guideline from you know from the top of Veil Pass over here to Basalt um up to Redcliffe. It's you know each jurisdiction kind of does their own thing and and we recognize that we're trying to you know honor that autonomy that each of the jurisdiction has. So I just premise that like you know I look at your housing rags and go I I think they're great. You know they're you know we you know if that's what serves your community we support that. So, I just wanted to premises that that's that's always been a loggerhead uh in years past and um for a variety of reasons, but I, you know, I think at the end of the day, we're, you know, um I knew, you know, early on when, you know, when Ryan and I used to walk through this stuff that I could, you know, I really feel like Basalt's got a a good uh head on their shoulders in terms of getting in the game for affordable housing, particularly in the Roaring Fork Valley,

where I would probably argue your your costs of land and prices are probably a little rough. than you know most of the Eagle River Valley. Yeah. And I think the a lot of the codes particularly these days as we've all gone through time and had applications testing out our code. So we tweak those and then we see what everybody else is doing and then we tweak them based on those things too. So do we get that document to you guys because we can get this uh Ann is looking at it right now. I just emailed it to group.

Okay. Um, but as you'll see looking at that and as Tori went through tier, you'll see mostly a similar structure and uh criteria. Um, so they're really not that different. Um, but I think they always to point will be and we'll always tweak uh based on each others and all of our experiences.

Appreciate that. I mean, I guess my question would be, um, you we're trying to move the the problem is getting work, right? Um, we're trying to look for ways to drive more affordable housing. Are you guys looking at as part of your code updates the is the ADU use by right potentially? And what else is there anything else that you guys would want to share as far as outcomes that you're trying to go for? cuz like I I Tom and I talked about this earlier, you know, like there's Yeah. like seven plus you guys, you know, there's and vendors pick Kim too for us and Garfield, right? So, um it's nothing you can't make it so they're all exactly the same. I think what we need to be trying to strive for is a couple things. One is trying to solve what are effectively regional problems, but also trying to discourage jurisdiction shopping. You know, absolutely. you know, those are the kind of the two things that [cough] um I see is the you know, what makes the most sense. So that way when you have um your urban growth boundaries and the plans that all these different groups have that sometimes overlap, sometimes don't that people, you can hold to those as best you can. We can support each other to that end.

I think that definitely would be, you know, a goal. I think we, you know, both and and Tori or Beth, please jump back in. you know, we, you know, we our codes that are 30 years old, the presentation that Beth just went through, turns out they're our own worst enemies, quite frankly, because developers look at that stuff and go, why would I do an affordable housing project in Eagle County? And so we are trying to look at you know how can we incentivize in a much more uh you know stable and uh a way that you know folks can rely on um you know what you're trying to do is what you're going to you know get if we can have standards that are based around that and I think to the details of that answer I don't think we're there yet. I think we have more discussions to have with the board of county commissioners in in additional work sessions as we work through these land use rags. Um and by the way you're all Eagle County residents. get online and share those comments with us. I mean, you know, submit them however you would like to.

I think it's important to I could hit a rock for a while. I feel like a resident in both counties two homes. I'm authentic.

If you're in picking county, sorry we can't help you, but um no, we you know, those are things that we can continue to talk about. And I think, you know, one of the things that I mentioned to Gloria in an email earlier this week is, you know, I think there are areas that we probably just need to talk more. You know, we haven't had good discussions on, you know, you know, I think attorneys in the room are always going to go. [cough] Uh, we [clears throat] got your referral comments, but, you know, we can't abdicate our land use authority. You can't give it to us and we can't give it to you. We have to kind of live within the boundaries of our own land use regulations. But that doesn't mean that we can't talk and we can't have certain conversations. you know, there's, you know, the infrastructure to how to make Crown Mountain a better thing. That's why we're spending $3.5 million going out to bid later this week on the Valley Road improvements. Um, tweaking our PUD amendments, so whatever they want to do in the future, it's much easier, much more streamlined. They want to build a rec center, if they want to expand more stuff on the property, quite frankly, we encourage that and don't want to be in the way. Um, and then, you know, I think have better conversations with where where are where is lowhanging fruit in terms of affordable housing, whether it's in your boundaries or just outside your boundaries that we can partner on. You know, we're constantly looking for [clears throat] that's the name of the game for us in the in the Eagle River Valley is partnerships on affordable housing. um you know the stuff behind uh the Basalt High School is a good example with the Habitat human homes and I know there's some other things that are happening that you know um out there that you know we we look at and you know we want to hear you know what is what's the town's uh take on that knowing that you know there's it's a two-edged sword. You know we want affordable housing. We want teachers to not drive from parachute. We want your employees like my road and bridge folks that drive from rifle every day. Uh except for today. Um you know, and those are classic examples of why what we've been doing by shipping our employees down valley when you've got you guys had rock closures on 82 yesterday. We had a

murderer on I7 today and it you know there's we've had fires in the canyon, mudslides in the canyon, mudslides over on 82. We can't get our people here to to operate. How do we fix that knowing full well that it it it's taxes the infrastructure that's in the Mid Valley already? And so those are conversations I think we can we're stronger by talking together more about those. And I I think sometimes we we don't talk until oh my gosh, one of us has a huge land use file and you know the public's up in arms about something and you know we I think it behooves us to have that open dialogue sooner than later. Hi Rick.

Oh, I just think uh that's the position we've come to after 30, 40 years of living together over here and that's a great position. Um, I was joking with Tom about a dinner we had with the commissioners when Willlets was being discussed and Leroy was there and the term cherry-picking came up a couple times and Basalt was cherrypicking the Mid Valley and so at the end of that it was Bud Gates and Janette Phillips and uh Tom James Johnson.

Yeah. and James was upset and at the end of the work session we served cherry pie for dessert and that started us down a little bit different path but then the tree farm came along and that was a nine or 10 year you know argument but I think your point I read a quote today from a person who was commenting on what's going on in the world today and that divisiveness doesn't lead to compromise and I think that's what we're trying to do here is find good middle ground on all these policies. And I I I would like to ask, you know, us to think about what what is the area that gets negotiated the most. What part of the code gets negotiated the most and why is it negotiated the most? Picking County's approach to their advisory committee was to try to start off the conversation with shared values and the character of the existing envir and all those things. And it that was creating significant divisiveness. Everybody had a different idea of what quality of life was. So after 18 or 24 months, they put that aside and just said you guys have to focus on a bigger picture and we have to have 26 to zero votes on the recommendations that are now being implemented into the the master plan. And I think that to your point you just made is that you know we can continue to jurisdictional shop and we can continue to do these things but it's not really solving the problem you know and I I think people are ready to set aside some of their personal ambition to create a overall better arena here to play in. So

and my how the world has changed and my commissioners have heard me say this before. Please cherrypick, annex everything that'll stand still for you if you would like because I think that's in the best interest of Basalt so you can control more of your own destiny over here. I you will not find the county opposing annexation stuff that comes through your doors. We would Hallelujah. Go for it. But yeah, we will buy you all the cherry pie [laughter]

that you'd like. But and and we all face this together. But you know that I was really excited about the land use rewrite which some of my friends looked at me strangely when I'd say that out loud but and I said it you know this is the most important thing I think that that we're doing at Eagle County. I really believe that. And of course then I see all the other things we're doing and realize those are important too. But um we face two major big macro pressures. I mean, Leroy, I think you can speak to this better than anybody. You and your family have been here a long long long time. I know uh Rick has. Uh my fellow commissioners and I, we've we've been in all of us have been here for a long, long time and seen changes. So, history is the first thing that we're up against. And that this morning at the start of our U meeting, I read a letter uh asking for the county commissioners to please control and limit growth. um that letter was from 1986. I was 11 years old at the time. And that the the point I was trying to make is the same point I'm making here, which is, you know, we we all have been working on this for a long long time. But the way that each of our valleys have grown in parallel is part of the thing that we now I boy I wish we'd go back in the time machine in 1986 and say hey as we develop this large single family home area that at the time we thought there's uh just land of plenty and we can just do a we should have maybe done that a little differently. Um, and so now it's hard. You can't go back in time. And so we're trying to retroactively handle a situation where all of those homes now are more or less folks that probably don't work in the service industry. My father worked in the service industry and we lived in a single family home with an ADU. Um, that's that's pretty rare these days, right? Um, it's just a different time. So that's one of the big challenges we face. And the other is the big

macroeconomic forces that are on our essentially on our real estate market. I'm not telling anybody in this room anything they haven't heard before. But what I do think what [clears throat] Beth has shown us here today and what we're going through in our land use rags is we are rewriting a code to be simpler, cleaner, clearer and to set the table for the kind of development that we do want to see. And ultimately h how can I characterize that? It's redevelopment in the urban cores to try and roll out the red carpet for the kind of redevelopment and infill development that that we think our community generally needs. Um, and also then to preserve some of our rural outline areas a little bit. And that's an oversimplification. Um, but [clears throat] Beth is not waving to me from the back of the room saying shush. So I must have gotten it somewhat right. Um, and I I really I think um, Manager Schro said spoke very well just here a minute ago in terms of um, the relationship we want to have with you all as we kind of come together in a regional capacity to to take on these issues because they are they are quite similar. Um, our our valleys do mirror each other um, in different ways and yet at the same time we face such different challenges over here. So, um, even though we may not have exactly the same housing strategies and housing, um, uh, incentives and we may not have exactly the same code, hopefully what we're coming to today and and in the future is that the spirit of of all those documents and all all of those regulations are are aligned. And that's what you and I were talking about a little bit earlier. We're all heading in the same general direction, even if there's a little bit of detail. um that's not perfectly aligned.

I would just want to make sure that y'all get to see Beth's slideshow. Um mostly because she referenced how to get to end code and it's a place to give comments and even if you have no comments, go and see endode because it is so cool the way that it can compile these comments and it might be something you want to think about if you ever have to do something like this because it is really quite a tool. and um but get on there and leave us some comments and or just see what a cool place it is.

It's really powerful. And one other thing I'll mention is the map will be um a major component of this is that that's rolled out. I think it's worth highlighting that that's one to pay attention to.

I know we're we're a little over time, but I do want to give Michelle a chance for some updates as well. This really good discussion. Make sure we cover everything. Well, thank you. I'm gonna make sure that my um counterpart James Lint um assistant planning director gets introduced here as well. Um he is the brains in the operation and the the history here. Um the great news is I can basically say ditto to Beth's um presentation. So, thanks. We are undergoing basically the same thing for all of the same reasons. We are really much in parallel. We're just about four to six months behind your schedule. Um on a much smaller realm of course because we're just basalt and not the county. Um but certainly a similar thing where we've done peace meal amendments since our code was adopted as well. So we're sharing that um the pinch points there and trying to work on those. Um our process started in Q3 of last year and we hope to have that um finished by the end of this year. Um, we don't have end code, but I'm sure it's really awesome. But we do have an amazing citizen group that is our working group that's helping us make sure that our code is following the values of um, the master plan. And we haven't gotten to outlaying the schedule for our council yet about when you get to look at the things, but it's coming. Um, and it's really just all the same things. Upgrading our development review process, our annexation process, um, streamlining a lot of our processes, updating, we have standards in our definitions as well.

There's just a lot of things that need to get updated there. Um, what we were going to highlight tonight is that our council adopted a suite of five different affordable housing strategies last year. And so we're really working to put those strategies into land use code applications. So, um, a quick example of that so that we don't eat up your time is that we are moving from, um, basically, um, a zoning code that doesn't allow that barely allows ADUs anywhere to allowing ADUs everywhere. So, it's kind of our first lowhanging fruit item, if you will. Um, and then beyond that, we are we are updating our mitigation rates. Um, so Tori was right. She mentioned that our commercial mitigation rate for affordable housing is 15%, we're going up to 30. Um, we've learned through a recent housing study that our um, inclus inclusionary housing um, rates are gaining us the most affordable housing in the valley um, for mitigation rates. So, we're really happy with that. Um, and then just some simplification. So, our mixed use mitigation is really complicated between two different um calculations and so we're picking one. Um that's the quick and dirty of the items. Um a fun thing for you guys tonight um that you may not know. Um but we are participating in a good deeds by um hopefully tonight will get authorized um in partnership with Eagle County. So excited about that. Bringing all of the worlds together. Um, but that's kind of the the the quick and dirty. We're we're really early in our process here.

Um, I was just reminded, you know, maybe as a as a closing, uh, what a great win the Ego County and the town of Basalt had and that's the the preservation of the Mountain Valley and aspen Balta mobile home park. And a huge thank you to Jeff Conklin. We know that you did a ton of the heavy lifting on getting that thing across the go line. And so I think that's a, you know, that was a great regional collaboration, but we're proud to be your partners with that one. [clears throat] Yeah. And I got to work with Tori a lot on that. And there were, you know, a lot of great collaboration and was really pleased to see it get across the finish line.

And that was that was one of the most Yeah. gamechanging meaningful things that happened. We everybody did that together. And that's I think what's exciting about seeing not just our two organizations, but what everybody do together. We're all rowing in the same direction, even if we're all a little different. And you know, I think that's uh that's the important part. Yeah, that's a great call out. [clears throat] All right. Well, thank you all for for making the drive over. Thank you for the pizza. Um we should do this again sooner rather than later. I know we'll have a new council uh coming on board and I say new council uh at least a couple new members in April. So, uh, yeah, looking forward to that and getting together with you guys again sometime uh, in the not too distant future,

but seeing you all at the places that we always see you. Yep. Ski day. Thank you all. Ski day. When the ski day coming up, don't miss that. I think it's March 13th, Snow Mass. Yeah, that's a it's a good plug. If the public's watching and public show up there as well, that's I mean, kind of everybody's welcome. It's a really great informal way to talk with uh people from all kinds of jurisdictions and municipalities and counties. So, uh it's a lot of fun. We had our first one. No injuries. Where else can you get a council person for for six to eight minutes and they can't leave you?

On the lift. On the lift. It's really great to meet with y'all. [laughter] Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you, David. Appreciate it. Nice to meet you. I don't know that we ever I am going to go to basketball your name Are you listening?

Good evening and welcome to our regular uh town council meeting. Uh today is Tuesday, January 13, 2026. First meeting of the year. Uh we started a little late here. We just finished up a work session with the Eagle County Board of County Commissioners. So now we're getting into our regular meeting. Before I call the meeting to order, just a reminder, you can join the Zoom uh uh the Zoom meeting on uh basalt.net. Just go to the agendas and meetings tab, find today's date, and you'll see the link and all the information to join there if you'd like. So, with that, I will call the meeting to order. And Pam, will you please call the role? Yes. Are we ready? Okay. Uh let's start with Angela Anderson. She is.

Yes. Oh, here it is. Thanks, Angela. Thank you. David Knight here. Angel Duprey Buchart here. Deer Schindler here. Rick Stevens here. Anna Berman here. And Ryan Slack if he's in. He was going to try and call in. Ryan, is that you? Ryan down here. There he is. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. Okay. Well, all the aces are here, just not in their places. All right, [laughter] it's got a good ring to it, Pam. Yeah,

next up. Well played.

We have item two, which is our consent agenda. We have a few items [clears throat] on here, so if anybody wants to pull anything off, speak up, uh, I go through it. Um, item 2 A is the minutes from December 9th, 2025. Item 2 B is the minutes from November 11th, 2025. Item 2 C is resolution number one, series of 2026, resolution of the town council of Basalt, Colorado, designating the places for posting of public meeting notices. Item 2D is resolution number two, series of 2026, resolution to the town council of Basalt, Colorado, authorizing and appointing Gloria Cosberger as the town's exeicio representative to the airport advisory board. And then last item 2E, which is 2026 uh discretionary grant recommendations. Uh Jeff, since it's a discretionary grant recommendation, does that necessitate a roll call for um consent agenda? I know we normally wouldn't for um

No, because it's the money is already appropriated. This is the actual just spending within the fund. Great. Unless anyone would like to pull any of those items off to discuss. I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented. Mayor, I move that the town council approve the consent agenda items as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. I. [clears throat]

Thank you all. Uh next up, we have our uh item three, which is the call to the public. Um limit your comments to three minutes, and you can address your comments directly to me. uh identify yourself by name and address and make sure you sign in in the back of the room if I don't see anybody in here but if there were someone here um I always ask you be courteous civil and constructive and town council will make no decision nor take action except to direct the town manager does anyone want to make public comments I don't see anyone online [cough and clears throat] or in the room so uh I will go ahead and close that part of the meeting and we'll move on to item four which is Our mayor and council reports, comments, anything there? Anybody have anything? Sounds like it's a no. And I don't really see have anything either. Not for this week. Yeah. Um, so we'll just move right along and get a little closer to being caught up and go to item five, which is our manager manager report. Gloria. Uh, the only pressing thing I have is that Friday I'll be doing a meet and greet at Starbucks at 9:00 am over in Willlets. Um, and I hope people can join us there and also to subscribe to our newsletter as we are putting more content townwide content in our newsletter. Um, David and I also talked about uh performance review for myself happening uh at the end of March. Um, so before the new council is set, that would be like a kind of a six-month mark. Yeah.

Already. Wow. Six months. Time flies at that point with this council. Yeah. And we're probably we're going to align the the cycle to be more along annual with the council versus annual with the calendar when you have sometimes situations where people are weren't there for the whole year, you know, doesn't make as much sense. So

great. Thanks, Gloria. Next up, we have um our council actions. So, item 6A is a public hearing and second reading ordinance number 22 series of 2025, an ordinance of the town council of the town of Basalt, Colorado, amending town code section 16-18 to regulation the use to regulate the use of non-functional turf, non-functional artificial turf, and invasive plant species as landscape elements for development and redevelopment projects within the town of Basalt. Carlton, you're up to bat and all ready to go.

Good evening, council. Um, I am here, as uh the mayor just mentioned, to bring forward a public hearing and second reading of ordinance number 2022, series of 2025, seek seeking to bring the town of Basalt into compliance with state regulation related to non-functional turf grass, non-functional artificial turf, and invasive plant species. Um just to um bring you guys back up to speed on this, um the planning and zoning commission reviewed the application or the um the ordinance uh on November 18th, 2025 and recommended approval of ordinance number 2022 um to establish this local regulation uh in accordance with the state regulation. Um, town council reviewed and passed this ordinance on first reading uh 7 to zero back in December. Uh, and no changes were suggested. Um, with that being said, I'm happy to answer any questions about the ordinance that you guys may have um or if anything has come up in the meantime.

Thanks, Carlton. This is a public hearing, so I will go ahead and open the [clears throat] public hearing. And it's and you've got the time there for it. and uh 6:34. Thank you. Oh, there's I'll call. Yeah, I don't see anybody coming up and I don't see anybody online. So, I will close the public hearing and uh open it up for questions or comments. Otherwise, I'd entertain a motion. Mayor, I move that the town council adopt ordinance number 22 series of 2025 on second reading. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Pam, will you please call the role? Yes, I will. Let's begin with Angel Prabuchart. Yes. Deer Schindler. Yes. Rick Stevens.

Yes. Hannah Berman. Yes. Ryan Slack. Yes. Thank you, Ryan. Angela Anderson, yes. And David Knight, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you all. Thanks, Carlton. Next up is item 6B. is a public hearing and second reading ordinance number 23 series of 2025 an ordinance of the town council of the town of Basalt Colorado approving an easement agreement related to a water line at 135 East Homestead Drive you're up

thank you good evening mayor and councel I'm here tonight for the public hearing and second reading of ordinance number 23 approving a waterline easement with the property owner at 135 East Homestead Drive for an existing town water man. The town's water man is located just east of the 135 East Homestead Drive property and runs in a north south direction. When utilities are located outside of the public rightway, it's standard practice to protect public infrastructure and ensure safe and reliable service by enter entering into uh an easement agreement such as the one presented in your packet. Uh the property owner has agreed to grant the easement. Um, there's been no changes since first reading, so I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

This is Thank you for that. This is a public hearing, so I will open the public hearing at 6:36. And, uh, if anybody would like to come up or speak online, there's nobody coming up here in the room or speaking online. So, I will close the public hearing and open up for questions or comments from fellow counselors. or entertain a motion. Mayor, I move that the town council adopt ordinance number 23 series of 2025 on second reading. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Pamel, you please call the [clears throat] role. Absolutely. Let's begin with Rick Stevens. Yes. Hannah Berman. Yes. Ryan Slack.

Yes. Hey, thank you, Ryan. Angela Anderson, yes. Thank you, Angela. David Knight, yes. Angel Duprey Buchart, yes. And deer Schindler, yes. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Next up is item 6 C which is the first reading of ordinance number one series of 2026 ordinance of the town council of the town of assault Colorado amending to town code sections 111 and 1178 to license permit and [cough and clears throat] regulate the use of town rights of way sidewalks or other town property within the town of assault and Carlton you have this one

back again um as the mayor just introduced. I'm here to uh introduce it and present on first reading uh ordinance number one series of 2025 uh seeking to approve code amendments to town code. Um some background on this one guys uh with the completion of the Midland Avenue streetscape uh and you know I'm sorry 2026. Um with the completion of the Midland Avenue streetscape project and um you know increased commercial activity in the town of Basalt, staff is seeking to establish a standard process for use of public property and the activation of town rights of way. Um this proposed code amendment aims to provide a standardized process for use of town property um such as sidewalks by commercial, private, institutional and other non-public users. The purpose of this uh new section is to encourage the appropriate use of sidewalks and activation of streetscapes within the town of BALT for commercial and other public facing uses while ensuring that sidewalk connections are maintained between building entries and public sidewalks. provisions are included uh related to the establishment of outdoor seating areas for restaurants,formational kiosks, commercial displays, art installations, and other methods of creating positive activity uh on our sidewalks. In addition to the requirements of this section, use of private or public sidewalks must be consistent with the permitted uses allowed in the zone district. Uh the use of public rightway must be approved through an encroachment license. Additionally, uh, in section 1.3 of the basalt home rule charter, uh, in layman's terms, we're looking to provide, uh, a a standard process for folks who, you know, again, want to use, uh, our our public rightway, our public sidewalks, uh, and and help encourage

more activity um, in our commercial districts. Uh currently, uh people who are looking to do that come forward for an encroachment license. We're also just creating an internal staff process uh that makes that um makes the process clear to to folks who want to come forward and and use those spaces. Um that's what I have.

Thank you very much. this we're not in a public hearing this week, but um and that's the those encroachment licenses are for um not for like a a temporary thing like a light in the tree or whatever. If somebody wants to do that, it's these are more for long-term tables outside, things like that. Or is it both?

So, particularly lighting a tree, we we do allow um temporary lighting uh from November 15th to February 15th. Yeah, approximately. Um but the the idea is for um more permanent uses would be the the encroachment license. Um and then additionally establishing standards for use of private property that uh acts as a public thoroughare as well. Um so people who are looking to make more permanent changes to their site plan uh in what would otherwise be like publicly accessed space.

Yeah. just I I think to what you're saying um as we have restaurants wanting to put tables and chairs on our new awesome space on Midland um we just need to formalize the process for that. That makes sense. So um and potentially in Willis as well. Okay. But not like if somebody's coming out just for one night before we light the tree that's you know like a oneoff they wouldn't need to do it. Okay. No. Or if you if you have um clothing racks outside your store and you bring them in at night, things like that. Yeah, that's a good clarification. Anybody else have questions or comments? Is it necessarily changing what has been allowed in the past or it's just formalizing the process?

It's just formalizing it. This is this is one of these policies that um it just hasn't been documented well.

So, it's the same as what's existed. It's just formalizing it. It kind of goes back to our discussion earlier about the land use code needing to be generically overhauled. This is a missing item there. And I'll I'll add on to that where um you know, previously uh folks come in for an encroachment license and there weren't necessarily established use requirements. You'll see in section D of the um ordinance, there are a number of criteria that folks just need to meet. And so we're able to then fall back on that to have a standard um that's, you know, equally and equitably uh kept for folks. Any other questions? Makes sense to me.

Mayor, I move that the town council approve ordinance number one series [clears throat] of 2026 on first reading and set the public hearing in second reading for January 27th, 2026. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Pam, will you please call the role? Sure. Let's begin with uh Angela Anderson. Yes. Thank you. David Knight, yes. Angel Duprey Buchart. Yes. Deer Schindler, yes. Rick Stevens, yes. Hannah Burman, [clears throat] yes. And Ryan Slack, yes. Thank you, Ryan. Mo motion can carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you all. Thanks, Carlton. Michelle.

All right. Um, next up is item 6D, first reading ordinance [clears throat] number two, series of 2026. It's an ordinance of the town council of the town of Basalt, Colorado, approving amen amendments to Basalt Municipal Code, article 8, use of town parks and other town property to add a new section 11-179 parks and facilities reservations and adoption of a fee schedule for reservation of public space within the town of Baltt. And Michelle and Carlton, you have this as well.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um I'm here to present first reading of ordinance number two series of 2026 as was just introduced relating to parks and public facilities reservations. Uh with the continued improvement of the parks open space and facilities infrastructure within the town of assault staff is seeking to improve the efficiency of processes to apply for events on town property. Currently, information differentiating a parks reservation from a special events activity permit are in different locations, actually in different buildings as well. One reviewed at town hall and one reviewed with the planning department. Um, and the associated fees uh have also been identified by town council as uh needing review as they're seriously outdated. With the creation of the river park and establishment of a capital planning process in the last several years, um parks, trails, and open space within the town of Basalt h uh have required a return to these um processes and the fee schedule as well. The proposed ordinance number two would create clarity, consistency, and fairness of use for public property. would also bring those fees as I mentioned back um like up into um language is escaping me [laughter]

to to uh an appropriate level of our current investment in our parks and facilities.

Correct. Thank you. Um the proposed ordinance amends town code and establishes a fee schedule uh for special events and reservations on public property. Um and the code amendment language in draft in the draft ordinance also establishes standards for events on town property including but not limited to waste management security and insurance similar to the previous ordinance uh that was presented. A number of these things have been informally uh enforced and this code amendment seeks to put these standards into uh a standard process and into our code giving staff a a way to u manage and equitably review applications uh for events and reservations within the town. Um the goal here is to also create a little bit of a differentiation between your birthday parties in town parks and your uh desire to hold large events um which have a significant impact on our infrastructure. Um those require different things from staff. Uh and and the goal here is to to capture um what requires staff time and how much time and energy is required for those small reservations and what's required for those larger special events. And then also uh what events might have a townwide impact through closure of things like streets or through the closure um or usage of the river park. Um, so with that, I will open it up to any questions or defer.

I have one. Um, does this apply to nonprofits, w programs, clubs, uh, organizations that aren't there to create a an event, but there to serve their population, whether it's a softball game or a lacrosse game or a rugby game or whatever it is. And I don't I I looked at this and um I didn't see the Willlets field on there on the list. Is that on there somewhere? I saw all the rest of them. But mentioning the rugby field. Yeah. Willlets I see Willlets rugby in the in the fee schedule. Yeah.

So in the past, I think we had a arrangement for nonprofits as long as they met all the criteria, you know, with trash and everything else that there wasn't necessarily a fee. And if they're if it's going to change, then I think some of those users maybe should get a a notice that they have an opportunity to weigh in. I don't think it's a big deal. I just think it's Yeah, that's

we have so um in the instance of um an organized lacrosse event for example. So, there'd be a difference between reserving the park for weekly practice, which would fall under park reservation, which there's no fee for

um versus having um a tournament, which has different. So, um but we can't say based on that. We don't know how many people are in the tournament, if we're asking to close parking, all those things. So, that's what this um there are thresholds in here that hopefully people can see all in one place because they have been in different spots. Um I do believe we have an exemption for nonprofits in here. However, we still require that if it's a special event activity permit, if someone is having their annual fundraiser in one of our parks and they're going to have hopefully a a large number of attendees, 200 plus attendees, there's a fee for us going through the process um because we have all of our agencies involved there. And we take deposits as well, which we're always happy to refund and that's the goal. um as long as there's no damage and everybody is a you know abides by what the conditions were for approval there. Um the main one of the reasons besides putting all of this information in one spot here is um as we talked about uh I think it was early last year um post talked about this as well is protecting our asset really in the Balt River Park and maintaining that to be open for the public use and kind of resisting having private events take that over and not be open to the public. So, that's part of streamlining this this information and really trying to clarify what constitutes a special event activity permit when you have to close parking or a street is one of the biggest thresholds. Um, versus reserving a park for your birthday party.

That makes sense. And that being said, um, just to be really clear here, having a special event activity special Yep. a special event in any of the parks is pretty standardized. If something is going to happen or someone requests to have it in the Basalt River Park specifically, it will come to you for approval no matter what just because that is a really unique asset for our town.

Makes sense. I I remember having a cut scaff at Arbony and went through this process and I don't think we had to pay anything for that, but I can imagine something else that's not like that, not non nonprofit would and and the and I was just check comparing rates from also doing scout stuff over at Crown and they're in the same ballpark, you know, for comparing size. So, it felt it felt right.

Thanks for doing that. Just so I'm understanding, if somebody wants to have a birthday party, because I, this is the example I'm using because it's what I see all the time. Um, at the Arbony Park shelter, they would pay a $50 fee to use that shelter and a $200 deposit that would then be refunded to them. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And has it always been that way, those amounts? No. No, these are new. This is specifically new. And so also that so let's say it's a 10 person birthday party. We're not going to charge the $200 deposit.

Yeah. I guess that I guess that's my somewhat concern is I feel like $250 to kind of put up front for a kids birthday party is is pretty steep. and knowing obviously that you're, you know, going to get that 200 back, but that's still, you know, you're still out of pocket that money for a certain amount of time. Yeah, it's really um we have a lot of annual returning events that are just park reservations. Yeah. Um the 200 is really more about um unfortunately sometimes we have less responsible people who will overflow the trash,

right? and now we have overflowing trash for the weekend because we're a small organization and we don't have staff that goes to the parks every weekend. So, it's to deter that. And then also if if um there are impactful events um a bounce house, you know, we just want to make sure that we're protecting the asset from that. So, um but certainly if we get a reservation for 10 or less, it's something we can work with. We just kind of want to guide that out there for if um a company is having their annual picnic there, also awesome, right?

But if they're going to have a hundred people there, we want to make sure that they pack out and we're not having our public works foot the bill for somebody else's party there. Yeah. I feel you'd be remiss to miss the accountability piece on that. And that's I mean 250 bucks does seem steep, but you know repair to the park is probably steeper. What about people?

Oh, sorry. What about the reoccurring practices that happen at Willlets? There's I think it's Monday through Thursday nights in the spring with rowing fork lacrosse. Would they have a seasonal fee? You know, we usually provide certificate of insurance and things like that with the application and a timeline and we always understand that there might be some other use that's being planned [cough] to try to work around each other's groups. So, how would that on a seasonal basis, how would that because we don't leave pretty any footprint there at all really, but it is a parking thing and there's a bunch of other stuff that goes on. Sure. That that would be a onetime application. Okay. Yeah. with the onetime fee. onetime fee.

Okay. And if people aren't reserving it, they're just bringing eight kids over setting up a party, right? There's no feno application. Exactly. Exactly. And and the idea with the list here that you'll see in exhibit B is for those specific facilities and it's for use of, you know, it's for reserved use of those things. So, park, shelter, stage, things of that nature. You bring your own tent and it's your own folding chairs and table out on a field. You're good to go. Correct. The one thing I will note you stake it. Yeah.

Yeah. You got to put st [laughter] I'm not sure howable that'll be, but [laughter] use your sandbags. Yeah. That's come Go ahead. Questions. One more quick question. So, this I don't see like the actual field or the tennis courts. That's a separate thing than park shelters and special event permits. Right. Right. Okay. And will we have the application in Spanish, too? Yes. Amazing.

Um, mayor, I move that the town council approve ordinance number two series of 2026 on first reading and set the public hearing in second reading for January 27th, 2026. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Pam, will you please call the role? Absolutely. Let's begin with David Knight. Yes. Angel Dup preart. Yes. Deer Schindler. Yes. Rick Stevens. Yes. Hannah Berman. Yes. Ryan Slack. Yes. Thank you. And wow, [laughter] what an entrance. See that hustle? [laughter] and Angel while you're at it.

I was like, "Wow, the audio got really realistic." That's for later. Thank you, Angela. Appreciate it. Motion [laughter] carries unanimously. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Appreciate it. Uh, next up we have item 6E which is resolution number three series of 2026 resolution of the town council of BAL Colorado approving a deed restriction framework pursuant to the Basalt deed restriction incentive program framework. Michelle. All right.

Um, so I'm excited to bring this resolution tonight. Um, in 2025, town council approved a suite of affordable housing policies and programs um that staff is continuing to work out um and formalize in our building code or in our land use code. Um, this request and uh resolution um follows that framework for our deed restriction incentive program that was adopted um and is in partnership with Eagle County. Eagle County has an existing program referred to as the Good Deeds program, where they partner with municipalities within Eagle County to put deed restrictions on free market homes to ensure um long-term affordability of new units without construction in um our communities. So, we've been presented with an opportunity to partner with them on a unit. Um, the standard procedure in the Eagle County good deeds program is that Eagle County um participates with 15% of the purchase price and the partner municipality uh matches the 15%. So, that lowers the free market price by 30%. Um, so that's the request here today. the unit um in consideration is within the Basalt town limits which was how our framework for the program that we discussed last year was outlined. Um so this is requesting that we match um Eagle County.

I did put the number in here. Oh, I might have Oh, I didn't

90 Oh, right. $97,200 um to complete this purchase and add a unit in. No, I'll just say the resolution appro uh approves the form of the deed restriction that will then encumber the property which is kind of jointly held by the town and Eagle County. Um to the ex we've kind of started this draft I guess at the end of the year. So there is some authority for me to make any um additional changes that might be needed to it. But uh that's part of this resolution is to approve the form of that deed restriction.

Can you clarify on the full-time employment? Is that verification just when that person buys the house or if they were to buy the house and then start working remote? Do they keep the house? So for for Tiana Basalt, it is that you continue to work full-time. Mhm. So, um because this is in partnership with Eagle County, there's a little bit more flexibility in that aspect of the deed restriction, but we will require that um for this initial purchase, it's full-time employment um and verified. And typically, we um request reverification every one to two years. Great.

Yeah. And then presumably after couple decades you can retire and stay in that home or what's the exit plan? Um you know what that's a small detail that I haven't gotten familiar with in the good deeds but I think that you I'm I'm not going to say because it changes with each one but someone has thought about this I have to read Yeah. I'm not 100% sure either, but I think I've read that there's some provision for that in there.

There usually is. And in the the Basalt town guide, um in our housing guidelines, once you retire, if you volunteer for a pretty low threshold, you can maintain your housing unit. So, um that would be the default if Eagle County hasn't addressed it in here. Mhm. And this so this this uh resolution sets that framework for this initial house but also subsequent houses that we partner with uh with Eagle County good deeds. Right.

Yes. Exactly. And I had um Angel and I had the opportunity to introduce Gloria to this program and at the morning of I said you know when these opportunities come up because it just depends on when the buyer's offer gets accepted it's kind of a quick firestorm of making it all happen which which happens to be the case here tonight. So, um, luckily you adopted the framework last year, and so there'll just be some massaging of some of the the legal details, um, before the buyer goes under full contract.

From a budgetary standpoint, then, um, I know Doug, you and I can talk about this in the fall at some point. There was, uh, you know, we had had, I'm going to play this back to make sure I've got it right. We had uh budgeted 100,000 from the basalt forward 2030 bond funds which is you know restricted to be used within the basalt town limits. I don't believe we ever used that $100,000 last year. So that's correct. We're going to do e a supplemental appropriation I guess of that money this year to cover that 972. Um just wanted to make sure I had that straight. Yeah, we could do that. We could also use some of the um increase in lodging tax that we'd be having.

We could also use the short-term uh rental ordinance fee. So, there's a number of different levers we can pull. I can tell you uh from a revenue standpoint, we didn't budget any incremental revenue for all of those increases in taxes, nor did we uh budget any sort of offset for these opportunities that present themselves. So I think I think it depends on on really optically what we want to actually show how the money was spent. Sure.

So I think we have some optionality. Now I don't my view was that we don't have to decide that today. One consideration is this is um that basalt forward money has to be used in the town limits where some of the other money the ballot language doesn't stipulate that where this um is in town limits so maybe use that you know yeah use it can yeah because you can use it in there where other money we can you know there's partnership opportunities with west mountain etc. to just this is this is the first opportunity that's presented themselves. There'll be other there'll be other I think other things that present themselves throughout the year to see then really what is it we really want to um accomplish.

Yeah. Because it will ultimately be a finite supply of money. Yeah. And it's great that we can make the impact with a h 100,000. I mean that's a great you know that's a win for sure. Yeah. strikes me as like a developmentneutral way to keep local people in local homes which is a win for the town. Cool. Well, thank you. I have one [clears throat] um what the 3% cap is that calculated on price before they're bought down or the price is if it was 15 and it went to one two because we put in 13 whatever it is 3% cap on the 13 or the 15.

It's 3% on the discount on the discount price. Okay. So there's no chance of somebody recovering that 200k down the road with a No, because they're not recovering it, right? We we've paid it, so it's stabilizing it at that lower. It'll always be on the discount cost, right? I think this is a great idea. Mayor, I move that the town council adopt resolution number three series of 2026. Second moved and seconded. Will you please call the role? Absolutely. Let's begin with Deer Schindler. Yes. Rick Stevens, yes. Hannah Berman, yes. Ryan Slack,

yes. Angela Anderson, yes. David Knight, yes. Angel Dupra Buchart, yes. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. So, next up, we have an exec session. Um, so I would entertain the motion written there. Someone wants to make that. that the town council enter executive session for the purpose of a com a conference with our attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice on specific legal questions in accordance with CRS 246424B specifically to discuss the Shosonyi water court case [cough] second. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor please signify by saying I. I.

All right. Well, thank you. This is going to go ahead and end the regular portion of our meeting. Um we're going to go into exact session. Once that's done, the meeting will be adjourned. So have a great evening for those watching on TV and uh we'll catch you later. I wanted to like I know we Hey,