Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting of the Land Use Committee for July 8th, 2026 at 5.30 to order. As is usual and customary, I'm going to introduce myself and ask everyone around the room to introduce themselves as this meeting is taped. I'm Dr. Anita Joshi, Carmel City Council, West District.

I'm Mike Hollibaugh, Director of Community Services for the City of Carmel.

Teresa Ayers, City Council, North Central District.

Tony Green, South Central, City Councilor.

John Eaton, from the Gazebo Concert Series Committee.

Christine, the Fountain Square Committee, Secretary.

Kay Gaither, Resident.

Jessica Komp, Deputy Clerk.

Sir, give your chicken city legal. Ryan log, Carmel City Council, Northwest.

Okay. We only have a couple of things on our agenda this evening. And as I was contacted by some members of the community who are going to leave early tonight, I'm going to allow them to speak first. The first ordinance that we're discussing is ordinance D2795-25, which is an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel. Establishing public areas of City Hall. The synopsis is an ordinance establishing public areas of City Hall. So I'm going to open that conversation up. Really, our interest is in hearing from the public on what their concerns are. And please feel free to, yes, come to the table and join us.

Okay. We're getting a little closer, Christy.

Yep. Okay, you're welcome to come.

We've been part of the Fountain Square Committee for the last 10, 12 years. 13. Or 13, somewhere in there. Anyhow, we have gone from being able to use City Hall, and I think both levels. There was a gentleman named Huey that had been there that was inside, and he just kind of took care of things, and it seemed like there were no problems for forever and ever. They had one issue where apparently some ladies went in after Huey left that gave the new gal a hard time. And then the city decided, okay, no, we can't do this anymore. And so now what the city is doing is renting two portable trailers that have, I think, three units in each of them. And they had to close what was underneath the fountain, which was the only handicap accessible. So they are now bringing in an additional traditional porta potty that's a large size for handicap accessibility. It seems crazy to me. I've never been able to find out exactly what we're paying for the porta-potties. But we've got this facility that was wonderful. I actually talked – we did have one year where they let us back in. And I actually spoke with the police officer that said – that was on duty at that point. And he said, I really kind of enjoyed it because I get to listen to the music and he gets to earn some extra money while he monitors what goes on inside. It seems to me at the time, this was a few years back, he said, oh yeah, he gets paid, I don't know, $125 for that. So right now our city is putting out somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000 to, I don't know, $1,200 each week. And this year we have 16 concerts. So our expenditure is $16,000. And we could probably be doing it for under 250 bucks, figuring we're paying that policeman and we pay somebody to come in and clean it up if we really need to do that.

I would like to add, our concert attendees were, we had a lot fewer back then. Carmel has grown considerably. Our port-a-potties at this time, often by the end of the concert have people waiting for over 30 minutes to go to the bathroom.

And you'll have six lines waiting 30 minutes to use the bathroom.

And that's pretty ridiculous. I don't know... that the city bathrooms could handle this any better than the porta-potties could. However, if we use those porta-potties and we had the city bathrooms, it wouldn't cost the city any more, much more. We could, as a board, probably take on whatever it would cost to pay for the security. have those extra bathrooms that we need. People complain. They come to us and they complain bitterly. I had to wait 30 minutes. That's a long time, especially there's kids. There's little kids and they can't wait.

My invitation would be, and I'm not sure when you wrap up here, stop past we have a concert this evening. Why I asked to be on the agenda first, because I've got to go get that started. And if you come over at, say, 8 o'clock, you can see what the challenge is. Or, as you had invited me to say, hey, have anybody else come that you'd like. Give me an email address, and I will let them send you comments. And you can see what the overwhelming response would be as to, we need more restrooms.

Well, thank you. I appreciate you sharing that perspective with us because I think it is an important piece of this perspective is how we can use city assets to support city's population and citizenry and their desire to attend positive public events in the city.

It is a popular event, unless it's 100 degrees out. Last week, as I told them, because I get to play MC2, and I told them the benefit tonight, plenty of room in the restrooms. It was 100 degrees. We had maybe 500 people all cuddled in the shade versus our typical 3,000, 3,000 somewhere, depending on the band. Sure. But I would invite you to come out this evening. Thank you. Come out and enjoy a concert.

Or any Wednesday. Or any Wednesday. I always love those concerts. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you for letting us join you.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Now off to finish the other work and get a concert ready.

Yes, there we go. Stay cool out there.

Very light shirt.

Another one of the people who contacted me and as we know very well who comes to these meetings all the time was Jack. He is looking at colleges tonight and he took the time to submit his written comments and asked if I would be kind enough to read them. So I'm going to be kind enough to read them. And this is Jack Feldman, who has come to numerous city council meetings. Quote, citizen involvement in government is one of the most integral functions of a successful government. A government is required to hold public meetings because it is the right of people to be informed on the actions their government will take and the deliberation that goes into each and every choice that affects just That affects just those citizens. I believe this legislation was introduced to combat an impending problem of pressure for meeting times to be made earlier in our city for one reason or another. A citizen may attend a meeting to see the results of an important issue facing their neighborhood and community, such as the style of new buildings near them, their tax rates and the increasing or decreasing thereof, or even larger issues such as drainage issues, which we have seen a lot of recently in our public meetings. Our representatives, our city councilors, are first and foremost elected to serve their constituents, and if the citizen cannot be present while their elected officials deliberate important issues, freedom may be impringed upon. A citizen could attend a meeting even to decide whether or not a representative is serving their desires, using performance in a meeting to decide how they vote. Though many vote on policy alone, monitoring how well a public official represents someone is also a factor in how one's ballot is cast. It is my understanding that some meetings have already been asked to move either away from City Hall or to earlier hours in the day. I believe this is unjust and many of our current meeting times are purposely placed late in the day in order to ensure that workers with normal working hours can attend these meetings. This preserves the ease of access to express their right to attend. These meetings are also almost all held at City Hall, a centrally located building that was built with taxpayer dollars, is located at the center of our city and I believe is still on the official city seal and for all general purposes belongs to the people of Carmel. It is crucial that this building is preserved as a place for and of the people and public comment is also something that could be compromised if City Hall were to be closed to the public with less ease of access. A citizen at every common council meeting has the right to express himself taking a short amount of time to share a position on a topic to the council, educate council members on views of the public in order to help them take position themselves as servants of the people. Earlier meeting times, especially those during work hours, will eliminate this right for many if we obscure the right of people to simply observe government functions or humbly express their views to the same government that is meant to serve the people's best interest. We have made a government that fails for the people. For all of these reasons, I am in great support of the ordinance to preserve public areas of City Hall. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to submit this comment in writing. Okay, so that was Jack.

Anyone? I WAS SURPRISED WHEN THIS FIRST CAME UP, HOW MANY MONTHS AGO, CITY HALL BELONGED TO THE PUBLIC AND WE ALLOW YOU TO WORK THERE. I THINK THE WAY OUR CITY HALL WAS DESIGNED, THAT'S WHAT THEY HAD IN MIND. And you can be in that central space, you can be in the council room, or you can be back in those back rooms where I've been to meetings where they're deciding things about HOAs or it felt to me like that's what it was built for. And if you're going to go upstairs and be part of the office space, if that's a concern, it would be not too hard to put a gate there to close off the area that is office space so that the public can't get there. But I come to a lot of meetings. I've done that all of my life. I think 6 o'clock is early to have a city council meeting. I think it makes it difficult for people who live in Indianapolis and need to get home in time to be able to attend. those meetings. And if you made it earlier, if the meetings were scheduled earlier in the day, it would be even more difficult to be a part of those. It looks from the outside sometimes like the people that you want to hear from, you want to pick instead of listening to the people who just show up. And so I think the other thing, it was kind of a deja vu moment in the incredible heat, they opened that building for a cooling station. That's what it's for. It's our building. It's our city hall. And the people who work in there are elected by us, or they're an employee of the city. That's their workplace. But the first floor and the other two See, is it the south side of it? Is it the north side of it? Where the city council chambers are. That is, in my estimation, for public use.

Okay. So seeing no one else here from the public who wants to comment, I'm going to open it to us to have a discussion about this and to talk about salient points of why or why not this is really an ordinance that we need to address and kind of bring forward and see where we want to take this. There are two sort of separate issues that have been brought up tonight. One is the issue of the use of the building at times when the heat is oppressive even during a normal time when the building would be closed by any state government statute July 4th was that day that is a government holiday that building would not be open on a government holiday and yet we really did need the building to help with not only the public but even our police officers and other people being able to rotate in was actually helpful to people to cool them off on that at that time from a health standpoint there's also We heard the Gazebo concert series, which is a regularly occurring concert series. There are regular events that are scheduled around the Gazebo that are already slated into the calendar that we know happen every year now, and there are more events that are coming up around the Gazebo. It seems to me that There is a restriction at times for people who can attend these events. The port-a-potty menu is very generous about talking about the port-a-potties. I'll tell you, I know elderly people who have limited mobility issues who would love to come to concerts like this who cannot do it simply because There is no access to a toilet that would take them a lot more time to get in and out of the toilet and a porta potty and having 20 people in a line and being embarrassed by having that is not something that someone wants to undergo or foist on someone else being a good member of the public. And for little kids and moms who have to deal with little children's issues that come up very quickly and don't give you a lot of time, a 30 minute line is not doable. And sometimes just having a space indoors gives them a little bit of respite and relief for a young baby who's overheating or who is incredibly cold in the colder months and to be able to get warmed up. So for both reasons. So I think there's sort of two competing kind of issues here. One is the meeting times and making sure that City Hall is accessible to meeting times. And the other is, you know, what parts of the building, if any, should we be conscious of as a council to help shape policy to try to keep open out of compassion and concern for people's health and well-being. That's how I would frame this conversation.

You framed it well.

Kind of want to hear from whatever everyone else thinks.

I'd like to get more information on the bathroom thing. Cost, you know, so I don't know who has that cost of the port-a-potties. And then also the history, it sounds like. You know, the history of the fountain bathroom. Yeah. What was it like when it was open? Why was it closed? What's the cost of that? Because it sounds like there's a, that might be a compromise potentially. And it's ADA accessible. So that helps a lot of different things. Yeah, how we find out the cost, who manages it, you know, and why they shut it down. Right.

What was the shift? Because it is interesting to hear that, you know, City Hall was open and usable to the public, and now it's not.

You know, for some reason I thought, I knew there were, you know, I knew there was a door there, and... like downtown Indianapolis, you know, on the circle. You know, I'm like a museum, and I thought maybe that was like an old something in Carmel, but I've never seen anybody access it.

And I actually, for transparency there, I drove by it on my way here just to check, because I didn't know that bathroom was there either. It's on the... west side of the fountain there's a gate it's actually locked tonight there is a concert getting set up the porta potties are the two trailers and they're set up right next to where that is and then you've got the one standalone um 88 compliant porta potty there next to it um i'll say i think the The key to this being 2 issues, and I've got a lot of questions, maybe for you, Sergey, and would love your input from a legal perspective, because the way this ordinance is formatted. It's more of like recitals to be merged into somewhere in code. And I wonder if, you know, where. In city code, things like this would live. And then, as I look at the draft that we have before us today. Really, we're only addressing the one issue of the meetings, hearings, and events scheduled or determined by the council to have or its committees or those duly authorized by a board, commissioner, or department to have the building open. So I think if we, as we talk about it, And we try to coalesce around the distinction between external events like the concerts on the gazebo, Eid Fest, the 4th of July celebration, other things like that that are coming that might be more transient in nature but showing up. And then things like actual meetings of the government in City Hall. That becomes an important distinction and maybe something we'll be able to hone in on what actually makes sense from an ordinance perspective and what makes sense from a policy perspective to figure out from a financial and or use issue of what we're doing and why. And then I do would love your feedback and it doesn't have to be tonight, but if you've got, like, thoughts or we talk about it, like, the idea of the public building in the public space. Obviously, it used to have a courthouse. It was a different kind of building. We had armed guards there, and then all the things kind of on the second floor. A lot of it has shifted. All of the work spaces are now behind access-controlled doors. But wondering from, like, a public forum conversation, what are we actually talking about? What are the rules we're trying to reshift? And is there a way for us to be protective of the space for the official purposes, but leaving it open for those other things to happen? Because I do remember, even throughout our time here, there are nights where City Hall was used for Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops to come in and learn about city government. So there is still a public element to the space. that can be used, was used after hours. I wonder if we turned that off entirely during this conversation or even if we haven't turned it off, where are we actually delineating between the things that we're talking about? So I do from a historical perspective, the way that I saw it, what happened It was a two-issue discussion. It was one that there were issues with the gazebo concerts and there was not enough human power in the building to ensure that there was coverage. And we had a night janitor who was not well-equipped with managing people and shouldn't be. It's not their job. who was managing the space on that timeframe. And then secondarily, it pivoted to the conversation about closing city hall for official meetings, business from an austerity measure to save money to put them during the day, which fully understand that staff that has to come to these meetings after hours are asked to do extra things, but that's every government in the history of government. So I think that I would love to know more about that. I would love really, again, this is the first time we've talked about it in committee. So I think we've got a very good kind of base of what it is and what the two directions are. But if we could kind of hash out what ultimately it looks like, I think that becomes very helpful because I do think there might be some middle ground there might be some mitigation of the issue as it stands because on both ends that idea of closing it for austerity to me appears to not have happened across the board um so maybe even a distinction between what we did turn off and what we didn't i know the plan commission voted I don't know if redevelopment commission voted in their capacity, but they both voted to leave it open. We didn't move anything. CRC moved.

Thank you. 4 o'clock? CRC is the only board of commission that changed its schedule. In fact, VCA and plan commissions finalize the schedule for the year, and there's no change in foreseeable future.

I mean, at regular time. When you're acquiring information, how much What is the cost? What would the cost be of paying for a couple of police officers or guards or whatever on the nights of the concerts, as opposed to what it costs to have the porta-potties, which are not environmentally sound?

And I can address some of your questions now, if you like, or I can provide more at a later date as well. So I know a little bit of history with... why the building closed. I don't think it was a correct representation of one person. The building decided to be closed for concert series is because, A, there was a lot of mess generated in the bathrooms. There were drug paraphernalia that was routinely found there. There was constant theft of items in the bathrooms and staffing issue. Staffing issue is we pay, I believe, don't quote me on that, but I believe we pay about $50 an hour to staff the building with usually ex-police officers, so you can do the math, how many hours. So that would be the cost of that. But there's also... costs and concerns associated with the use of buffers in the space that is the very next day used by city employees and visitors of the city. So that's, as far as I understand, that were the primary reasons for closing and deciding to close it during concerts and utilizing a port-a-potty route.

I know that, I mean, there was couple of incidents too that really stood out one of them and you know as the the concert series has gotten more larger and more popular and maybe you know the wine and beer consumption is increased a little bit too I mean it's become a real kind of a weekly thing there was As they tried to keep the use on the first floor, some people didn't want to be constrained to the first floor, and so they kind of just blew off the instructions and went upstairs and used the upper bathrooms. And then there was one incident where feces was, you know, it was like... And Sergey's right about the drug paraphernalia, but the mess and just the respect on the building wasn't there.

And so I think that was it. As far as the bathrooms underneath the fountain, they are in need of restoration, essentially. not good to use for public use at the time and it's it's not it's not cheap so again that's a that's a reason for going the route of parties as far as concerns about public forum or forum in general in this i have plenty i think this is As it's written right now, it's so broad that it essentially creates a public forum in its traditional sense inside the building that is used for public business. So as it's written right now, there can be a demonstration of whatever nature during your meetings, during council meetings, that you won't be able to stop because of your decorum rules, because public forum will trump those.

So is there a difference between a public forum and a limited? Don't we have now a limited public forum?

There are several public forums. And what restraints you can put on First Amendment differs depending on the public forum in place. Traditional public forum is the broadest. So the need of the people, the people's house, all of that would probably be a traditional public forum. Your examples of that would be sidewalks and public squares, the bigger ones. So you can have a person with a board of fetuses pictures on the sidewalk standing. That's perfectly fine on the First Amendment. So that's kind of the hardest to regulate. It's a strict constitutional law, we have to meet very, very hard standards to regulate. And there are very few exceptions to that, fighting wards, inciting violence, et cetera. So again, very hard to regulate. Then there's a limited public forum, and that is limited to a certain purpose. So in fact, our city hall during meetings is a limited public forum. It's limited to conducting of public business, which whether it's a meeting by council or any board of commission, any advisory board of commission, et cetera. So the public is invited to participate in its limited capacity. And then there is a designated public forum, and that is a little more amorphous one. It's designated for a very specific purpose and a lot of times for a very specific time. So that would be probably something that you were discussing as far as opening up the bathroom for a specific purpose during concerts or events, et cetera, and during specific time. So that would be designated public forum.

And what was that?

Designated public forum. Yeah. But again, designated public forum can be conservatively broader. It can be conservatively less broad. Similar to limited public forum, slightly different. Our ability to regulate speech, behavior, really differs depending on what forum we're dealing with. This ordinance, as it sees right now, it's very close to creating a traditional public forum in some areas. of the city hall, which is very problematic because there is public business conducted there, employees that work there every day. And the way that it's structured as well, there's a lot of inconsistencies within the ordinance. What constitutes people's needs, for example? is so subjective and so broad that it's almost impossible to regulate and say, well, that's my need to do X. And you can imagine what you can do as long as it's not fighting words and citing violence and a couple of other examples. And good luck kicking anybody out for whatever reason. There is very few limitations as to how administration or people on the ground can limit access. to the building. Let's say there's a pipe burst or something, or what have you. It usually requires a council approval, which you guys don't meet every day. You don't have regular hours, et cetera. And et cetera. I can go on and on and on for every single point. But as of right now, if you're thinking about opening it up for specific reasons, or do during specific times. This does not do that. It is a lot broader. Also, as far as concerns that we received in the email here, that people should have opportunity to speak during public meetings, they already have that. That is covered by open door law. It is a very settled area of the law. As well as this meeting, this is a great example, a couple of comments here. We cannot preclude that from happening. Those activities are already protected by First Amendment framework and our own ordinances. So if we're trying to achieve some sort of codification of that, it's already been done. So it's unnecessary from that standpoint. And open door is an ever-evolving area, of course, but it's very comprehensive in the state of Indiana, what we can do, how we can discuss things, et cetera. You guys know as well that if it's quorum, you had a meeting yesterday here, it was publicly noticed because more than four of you appeared at that meeting, even though it wasn't in the public, in one of the public buildings that we control, the city controls. So we're taking it very seriously every time there is a possibility for a violation of an open door law. So these are just some of my concerns. I have more, and I can go into more constitutional analysis if you please. But I would greatly encourage you to reconsider this ordinance as written. I think it's a dangerous one. I think there are a lot of unintended consequences that perhaps are not being considered right now. I think it will be incredibly hard to implement and enforce it. And again, it can create very dangerous situations, not only for the people who work there every day, almost every day, but also for yourselves and everybody who conducts business there.

So a couple of quick questions. And again, this doesn't have a code side. How are we regulating? The space is a public forum, a limited public forum presently. Is that in code somewhere?

It is not. It is all Supreme Court of the United States jurisprudence. First Amendment right is our constitutional amendment. It's a federal law that applies to the states and local municipalities. So a vast majority of it, except for the First Amendment itself, which is, of course, the Constitution of the United States, most of the rules relating to First Amendment are in Supreme Court jurisprudence. Some of it is in state codes. Some of it are in our ordinance as well. So that's the framework. That's why it makes it analysis very complicated and it's constantly shifting because there's constantly case law coming out on First Amendment almost in every session of Supreme Court. So it is an evolving area.

Yeah, so I guess my question gets back to how are we describing and defining it as a limited public forum presently? Because under that jurisprudence, which is all stare decisis, all set up by case law, if we don't have some format the idea of reasonable time-place-panel restrictions are hard to navigate. And my struggle here, and this is me as a lawyer, which I've been told not to act as a lawyer on city council, but like... I do you. Thank you. The premise of we made determinations in the past for things that made sense. And I would say like the elimination of criminal activity in a building seems to be a reasonable time-place-panel restriction on the use of that building. That being said, we do not have a specific framework for that application and or to tie it to presently, it seems, which puts us in a position that any decision we make comes to an arbitrary or capricious decision-making question unless we can put it under some premise. And I will say again, the rationale and the reasoning for us being here, and again, we've waited, I think, 15 or 18 readings to kind of bring it up here. This discussion is exactly what I think we need to have about this, and to get kind of that understanding, the interpretation, if there is something in the merit of this that puts us in a better position to meet the civic needs, use the space for public good, but also protect the things that we have to protect and maybe building a framework for building a better understanding of that limitation on the public forum, that would be a good outcome Ultimately, if we get to the end of it and we say it's just not worth even codifying because that pivots too much, I could be comfortable with that too. Other than knowing full well that our input then becomes a request and or fiscal determination of whether or not it makes sense to pay for two armed police officers at $50 an hour for a night at five hours, $500 to sit in that building and stop. people from doing bad stuff, as opposed to $1,000 or whatever we're paying for port-a-potty. So there comes a determination on that side. I do hear you, but I struggle without there being some subset. I do think that, I mean, this is a lot. If we were going to add all this as a new section, we're going to have a lot more stuff. But is there... Is there a code? And I was trying to find it as I'm sitting here, which is what I was typing about. I know that there's a code somewhere that talks about city property and who manages city property. And I want to say it's...

Yeah, I can look into that.

It might be the CS director under your building. BPW.

BPW manages city assets. And I don't remember exactly where it is, but I'm pretty certain that that's the case and it's written. One thing that, actually, one more thing that I might add, and it ties into your comment, Brian, very nicely, is... A lot of municipalities define kind of how they limit the public forum is that the public is welcome in a particular building for the public. for conducting public business that that building is designed for. And I'm a big fan of those. We don't have that. And if I were to advise council, I would advise to go in that direction. And this way, if we do have disruptors of public business, they can be removed, because right now it's a little bit hard to do. So if you're familiar with First Amendment auditors, for example, we've had a couple of those as well. It's one of those things that it's a lot easier to see for yourself and me explaining what they do because they have a couple of different variations of them. And so they can be incredibly disrupting to conducting public business in particular buildings. And so a lot of municipalities started adopting those ordinances that, well, to find it better. So there's a lot of business conduct in that particular building. There are multiple departments there. There are public meetings by our legislative body. There are meetings by our planning and zoning bodies, planning commission and BZA. There are meetings of advisory committees and commissions. Frankly, I don't even know how many of those we have, but quite a few. I think more than a dozen. So there is a lot of public business conducted in that building constantly. Almost every day from 8 o'clock, sometimes earlier, till, well, sometimes. Till 10 o'clock. So it's, and, you know, those, we've been, I think we've been fairly lucky that we have a population that is very, generally very respectful of. our facilities, although with some exceptions, but unfortunately just human nature. But we are growing, and those instances are growing with them. And so I think we do need to adjust to that. So it's not to say that ordinances like this are are not welcome, I think they are. But I will greatly caution you on the scope and breadth of this ordinance, and as of right now, this ordinance is just simply too broad.

Can I make another request? Do you move quick?

No, please. Yeah.

My request to you, Sergei, Gene's lawyer of the city government, would be if you can and have the authority or can receive the kind of permission from the city executive branch to let you undertake a premise of what it could or should look like, I would love to see what we're doing. Because worst-case scenario here is this comes off, and then we're back in a situation where we're picking winners and losers for spaces that are public spaces time and time again. And really, that's the underlying current of a lot of this, where... the idea of which committees are allowed to be in the building at times or who has the authority to vote on their own or be there who if you have a event on the green are given access because it is hot on the fourth of july but others are not because it was not top of mind or not something that they had the right political acumen to ask to open How do we ensure that we create a system where our public spaces are protected the way they should be? And maybe this is just a modernization of the legal theory around our public spaces, which puts us all in a position, executive branch, people using the space, public, commissions, committees who are making those determinations on their own, to best utilize those. Um, and at the end of it, I say that like, I think the information on the financial, like, what are we spending? What are we looking at? Did this have an impact? Um, was it something that was stated? that then we immediately backed out of and didn't end up doing because of the process working, as the public heard about it and said, that's not what we want to do. So we didn't end up making those determinations. I think there's a lot that goes under it, but all of it because we're missing or lacking a framework. And when I think of law like this, The idea of restricting the use of something is the thing that feels like it should be put into law. Whereas what we did here was we had no law, and we were restricting the use through action. Or that we have the law, but it's in a very different form.

It's not codified.

Yeah, that's right. So it just feels like maybe what we're actually looking for is the correct framework to ensure that we're making the right decisions related to those tie downs. And maybe from there it allows us to kind of give a stronger framework and know what we're talking about. I mean, the idea that we've got a bathroom under a fountain that nobody knew about, I didn't know about until today, lived here for 40 years.

Yeah, I didn't know about it. Although you said it's expensive, Can we get a price on that? I think it would be important to know. I agree.

I don't know what it is. I don't know what the condition is. I just know that it's in need of renovation and that's why it's not open.

Would that be engineering? That was your choice. Yeah, one second. I think with weekly meeting or weekly concerts over the summer The fourth of July a lot goes on down there.

I think it would be And I don't know how long they've been closed actually I don't know either I can I can find out for you because I just I don't have enough information on that particular location I know that in the past They were being requested to be used as a facility use. So in the past I know they've been utilized. I don't know if they are not utilized at all at this point or only on as requested. And approved, I just don't know.

Yeah, that'd be interesting to find out.

I will say the sign in front of it right now, it's a cone with a police stick with the thing for closing out parking or use that says close from July 2nd to July 4th. And they might have just left it out. But I think it's a, again, I had no idea it was there until tonight. It's kind of hard to see, too.

Yeah.

I mean, I had no idea. I'm glad you knew. I had no idea that those bathrooms were there until someone told me that they were there. But I can find out.

That's a good question.

I mean, it doesn't have to be something fancy. It can be industrial tech, like, you know.

Something that's ADA compliant, like we talked about, I think is very reasonable, and if we can find out what that would be, and would that be engineering that would be, or who would have the right answer?

I'm not sure who would ask for a quote, but one of those two, or... Maybe facility maintenance. I'll find out longer if you ever.

How long has City Wall been closed for public events? I know it was closed last year on the 4th of July, and I think it was... I think it was closed the previous year.

It's closed for public holidays. So the ones that we observe, it's closed period. It's not closed any time. Unless there's a request to reopen it for heat-related event or something like that, which has been done in the past. And most recently, this one. I wasn't aware of it and I've been with the city for five years so it's probably around that time.

I mean, and I guess for the, like who uses it and who doesn't, I know historically HOAs have tried to have meetings on it, and I don't know if those are still an option, but there were often times where city business wanted to be conducted and the Civil War Reenactment Society had a lockdown on the space, or the Daylily Society had a lockdown on the space and it made it, challenging, you know, to have meeting times. And since now, too, we've added all these other commissions, you know, who gets to use the space? You know, who can reserve it? It's going to be an important thing to figure out.

And we do have, obviously, facility use requests that, you know, if you're interested, BPW, 10 o'clock on Wednesday, every other Wednesday. where there's a section where it addresses the use request. Our population, our residents, are incredibly active. We approve probably more than 300, more, I don't even know, I don't wanna, but in the hundreds, several hundreds events requests a year. Every meeting there will be several requests and you will be amazed how many different events and variety of events BPW approves. It rarely disapproves an event. It's very, very rare. Unless there are some concerns from police or fire or other departments of engineering sometimes. The size of events are growing every year as well. So we obviously receive a lot of information and promotion, big events, 4th of July, now Diwali is very popular, Pride, et cetera. But on smaller events, we don't really hear about them. But trust me, there are hundreds of them throughout the city that utilize the city property for it. And occasionally we do receive requests for the city hall as well. It's utilized rarely, admittedly, but we recently had an event there as well. So it's done, but not nearly as much as Gazebo is probably the most popular one. Midtown Plaza is almost, I don't want to say every day, but almost several times a week there's an event going somewhere, either on different times of day, anything from yoga in the morning World Cup washing party at night. And that is probably the most utilized, one single most utilized space in the entire city. Carter Green, of course, for much bigger events. The list goes on and on and on. Japanese gardens utilized quite frequently. The area in front of Palladium for weddings, that's utilized especially in summer almost every day. And again, the list goes on and on and on. So we do have, what I'm trying to say, sorry, that's a very kind of long-winded sentence. What I'm trying to say is there is a mechanism that the city utilizes for utilization of city property that is well established and is very actively used. If you don't believe me, any BPW agenda, you will find all of those events. Just out of curiosity, you would be amazed how many diverse events this city has. I mean, it's amazing.

So I think this was very helpful because I don't think, having never actually discussed it, I think we've uncovered a few different issues that we want answers to some questions that have been posed. And Tony, anything you want to add to this? No, I'm good. Okay. So.

You just stated that we start in one place and we go to all of their places as we're speaking. My comments had to do with originally there was discussion of closing that building at five o'clock. When there are things happening there after five o'clock, that our city business, I don't think we can do that. I don't think we can leave it unlocked for people to come in abuse, no, no.

I think it's a point well taken, and I think our boards and commission heard it loud and clear, and they voted against it. They voted, except for CRC. CRC is a different entity, but it's not hardly anybody attends those meetings. But Planning Commission, BZA, they will remain at their original time in the foreseeable future.

The other thing is when something deteriorates, it's because it's not getting the attention it's supposed to have to be cleaned and to be modernized. So a choice has been made.

And I have a couple questions to come back to you as well.

So perhaps we can get those questions answered maybe to Ryan's request. Can we frame something that's not this? We can move this forward in its present form and do procedurally what we need to do with this. This is fine. But I think if we can come back. WITH THIS FRAMEWORK ONE LAST TIME AND SEE IF WE CAN COME UP WITH SOMETHING THAT SEEMS REASONABLE TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES THAT YOU'VE BROUGHT UP AND THAT I THINK NEED TO BE ADDRESSED TO THE PUBLIC. I THINK THAT WOULD BE A GOOD OUTCOME OF THIS EXERCISE. That was one thing on the agenda. I know we have just a couple of minutes left, but I want to give Sergei a chance to give us a generalized overview on the UDO and what amendments or things may be coming our way or conversations may be coming our way, and then we will still be able to end at 6.30.

Sure. Adrian is here, too, and Michael is here. As you know, we're still discussing the things that we need to do up to 1001 became law. as you know there's a mayor's housing commission still hasn't conducted its business it's i hear that they're very close and internally we kind of decided that we would rather before we propose our own proposals to council we would like to hear what they have to say because they obviously are a big part of the analysis and they do a lot of leg work which we're very grateful for. So stay tuned for that. Again, I talked to Shannon Munar, she's a representative counsel that sits on that commission. She's very involved and she wants to move that process forward as, you know, as fast as possible, but she tells me that they're very close to having some sort of recommendations.

They're meeting tomorrow morning. Oh, tomorrow morning. Maybe at 9. I don't know that we'll have recommendations coming out of tomorrow's meeting, but yes.

So that's kind of one piece in that puzzle, but we also have been meeting internally. Adrian and I, we meet every Monday. to discuss planning and zoning issues in general, UDO specifically. So we have been outlining generally what we would like to pitch to council to both satisfy 1001, but also the points that we've been discussing way before that and they're not necessarily related to 1001, but we'll kill two birds with one stone, essentially. There are some things that we've been wanting to modify for some time, and we had some productive discussions on overlay districts, on some development standards, some on ADUs. We don't know exactly what form it will take, but there have been discussions on that as well. We also decided to have a more formal session, if you will, all department representatives that might be affected by it. So we're going to have that as well. But we would want to have a public hearing scheduled probably in front of the Planning Commission because they're a more appropriate body to handle this initial public hearing. Um, not later than September. So we have enough time. Ideally, even earlier than that, I think we will be ready to get it earlier than that. But, um, at the latest in September, so we have enough time to finalize the front of council as well as that report to the state. So this is where we stand again. We. We have some ideas, but I think we will satisfy both the state requirements and our own needs or wants, depending on how you look at it. And so we will present something to you in fairly shortly.

Yeah, and part of that timing, I think, is if the plan commission is working through some things, we know that you'll be busy with budget things this fall. So hopefully the plan commission can be working on that simultaneously, and then we'll be, when you're magically done with budget.

Magically.

Magically done with budget, then you can turn your attention to.

All right.

Well, I'm all for a little magic, and it's 623, which means we're done early, if that's okay. So meeting adjourned.