Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the October 16th meeting of the De Moines City Planning and Zoning Commission. I will start by reading our rules and procedures. The plan and zoning commission is generally an advisory body to the city council. Council will hold a public hearing and make the final decision on all matters before the commission other than site plans and subdivision flats unless denials or conditional approvals thereof are appealed. The applicant will be given 10 minutes to present the request. Proponents and then opponents from the public are then allowed to speak in that order with each speaker allowed a maximum of 5 minutes. The applicant is then allowed 5 minutes for a rebuttal. The hearing will then be closed and the commission will discuss and vote on the issue. All comments are to be germanine to the item under consideration and speakers are to maintain a courteous manner. Items listed on the consent portion of the agenda will not be individually discussed and will be considered for approval in accordance with the recommendation in the staff report unless an individual present or a member of the commission requests that the item be removed from the consent agenda and considered separate separately under the public hearing agenda. Um to start, could we have a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting?

I'll make a motion. Thank you, Rick. All in favor, please raise your right hand. Any passes? And is anyone calling in? No. Okay.

Okay. We will move to the consent agenda. Item number one is a request from Terrace Place Building for review and approval of a public hearing site plan Terrace Place site plan update for property located at 2600 Grand Avenue and for a type 2 design alternative in accordance with city code to allow an accessory building type not otherwise permitted per city code. Is anyone in the audience here tonight to discuss this item? Would anyone on the commission like this pulled from consent? Item one will stay on consent. Item number two is a request from QSA LLC for review and approval of a public hearing site plan Southwest 9th laundromat for property located at 2923 Southwest 9th Street and for a type 2 design alternative in accordance with city code to wave public sidewalk installation along Broad Street per city code. Would anyone in the audience tonight like this item move to the public hearing agenda and discussed? Anyone on the commission? Okay. Item two will also stand on consent. Item number three is a request from John Beard for designation of the WW Whitmer House at 2900 Grand Avenue as a local landmark. Would anyone in the audience tonight like this item move the public hearing agenda and discuss and the commission? Item number three stays on consent. Item number four is a request from Lucas and Heather Groin for review and approval of a public hearing site plan for property located at 5315 Welfare Avenue and for a type 2 design alternative in accordance with city code to allow construction of an accessory

structure in the front yard where accessory structures are only allowed in the side or rear yard per code. Um, would anyone in the audience tonight like this item or move to a public hearing and discussed? How about the commissioners? Item number four also stays on consent. Item number five is a request from Fernando Veliz for review and approval of a public hearing site plan auto repair for property located at 1444 Wayne Street and for type 2 design alternatives in accordance with city code for the following. A allow surface parking in the front yard where required to be in a rear or interior sideyard per code. B. Allow garage entrance on front facade where required to be on a rear or interior side facade per code. C. Wave occupied space requirements where a minimum of 20 foot depth on ground story of a primary frontage shall be office per city code. And D wave minimum transparency per each story in any half story including blank wall limitations where 15% transparency is required per code. Um, would anyone in the audience tonight like this item moved to the public hearing agenda and discussed?

Yes. I'm sorry. I'll speak into the mic better. Are you here to discuss item five? Yes. Okay. That item will move to public hearing. So, consent agenda includes items one through four. Could we have a motion to move the consent agenda? I'll move.

Thanks, Emily. All in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion passes and we'll start public hearing with item number five and Jasmine will present. Let us know if you can't hear Jasmine very well in the back.

All right. Good evening, Jasmine Kamani, planning staff. Today we're here to review design alternatives for 1444 Wayne Street. This is located west of Union Pacific Railroad, north of Easton Boulevard and south of East Washington Avenue. The property is zone EX. Here is a visual of from Wayne Street looking to the west. Zoom in on this so you can see a little bit better. Okay. So, the proposed site plan allows construction of a new auto repair shop building about 25 ft wide by 44t deep um for the site to be feasible for the business to operate. They proposed parking in the front yard as well as a overhead door on the front facade. And then they've also proposed office a little bit of office space in this kind of red area designated here um with two bay service bays here. And they have also requested for a design alternative for the transparency requirements. So as you see here uh they have proposed a transom window above the entrance door and some windows on the overhead door here. Um so they are asking for that waiver for the transparency requirements as well. Staff let me go back to the site actually.

So without these waivers essentially their only alternative is to access from the rear um through the public alley which as you see in in the photo is has some existing landscaping back there. Um so that's kind of the reason for their request to approve those waivers but staff agrees and recommends approval with subject to compliance with administrative comments. But I'm here for any questions and I believe the applicant is here with us as well. Any questions for Jasmine? Thank you.

Is the applicant present? If you'd like, you have 10 minutes to present. Please do state your name and address for a record and sign in on that white paper when you're done. Hi, I'm Jeff Nesvik. I'm the civil engineer for CDA on this project uh representing the applicant. Um I don't have anything else additional to add as far as Jasmine said there, but I'm just here for any questions that you may have as well um or any that the public may have. Okay. Any questions for civil? Question. I have a question. Um, the parking lot here in the front of the building, I assume that's going to be concrete. Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct. All right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. We'll now move to audience input. Is anyone in the audience here to speak in favor of this proposal? Please come forward. Um, please state your name and address for the record and also sign in on that white sheet when you're done. You have uh up to 5 minutes.

Ernestine Farley, 1633 Oakland Avenue. Um I don't understand but um I'm not in don't want to do the zoning and um I when they sent me the papers and I looked at it it looks like they're I'm at 1502 Wayne the property right next to 1444 and that that is already somewhat on my land. So you own the lot to the north, just to clarify.

Yes. 1502. Well, could um Steph could you go back to the like one of the site plan and and this might be maybe the applicant rep when he come uh under rebuttal can come back and just talk about doing you know survey work just and ensuring that the property is you know that they're build constructing on the applicant's property not on the neighbor's property. Is that is that the main concern is just the possible encroachment. Yes.

If they follow the drawing, they should be completely on their property assuming that the fundamentals of the drawing are correct. But we can have the engineer talk about that a little bit um when when he gets a chance. But we want to make sure you have if you have any other questions or concerns. No, cuz I went down there and looked and it looked like he's already on my line on my property, but that's my concern. Okay. Right past the uh fire hydrant. Jasmine is So, this photograph is both the applicant's lot and and this lady's lot, you think, or

approximately where that white Ju just for those that can't since she's Jasmine doesn't have a microphone that thought is that some of that grassy area in this picture to the right maybe where that light colored pole is somewhere in there might be where the property line is. Okay. Thank you.

Is anyone else in the audience here to speak on this item? Either in favor Okay. Anyone anyone else in the audience here to speak on this item? Okay. Applicant, you do have five minutes if you need it for a rebuttal.

Sure. Thank you for bringing that concern up. Um, we did go out and do a survey of the property and everything prior to and found property pins, did everything uh that we typically do when we create the boundary through here and did our research. um when we do the construction of the property, we'll go out, we'll set construction limits, we'll make sure that no no uh improvements encroach on the adjacent properties or anything of that nature. So, what we do have here is what the actual physical property limits are and we are maintaining our uh improvements within the lot. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, I'll close the public hearing and leave it to the commissioners for discussion and motions.

I I don't have any concerns that the folks from CDA and their team will uh build this on the neighbor's property. No concerns here. So, if there's any discussion or there isn't, I would move staff.

Thank you. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion passes. Thank you. And we will move to item number six. Item six is a request from JAPA for the following regarding multiple parcels located in the vicinity of 251 Mory Street that are owned by the city of De Moine and the Wastewater Reclamation Authority. Um, a determination as to whether the requested reszoning is in conformance with plan DSM. B, amend plan DSM to revise the future land use classification of the property from business park, semi uh, excuse me, business park, public, semi-public and parks and open space. Two, low, medium density residential. C, reszone property from EX mixeduse district. E2 public civic and institutional district and I1 industrial district to RX1 mixeduse district to allow a future development that includes permanent and temporary houses and associate uses and Srioshi is going to present for us. Thank you madam chair Sri Chakraarti planning staff. Um, I'm going to present item six, which is a request from JAPA for uh multiple parcels located in the vicinity of 251 Mory Street. This is a subject property. It's approximately a little over 10 acres and uh it's just to the south of uh Mory Street and to the uh west of Southeast 25th Court. The uh request for the reszoning is from Japa. However, I do want to point out that the the land that you are seeing here that is being proposed to be reszoned currently is

under the ownership of city of De Moine and the wastewater reclamation authority. The um subject property area is currently zoned into multiple districts. So you can see here it's currently EX part of it is EX uh P2 and then some of it is also I1. Um concurrently the land use designation is also multiple. There is parks and open space business park um as well as public. So the request is to reszone it to RX1 and to lowdensity residential designation which would allow JAPA to um to propose a project that includes a mix of housing products as well as associated services on the property. Um currently the subject property is mostly vacant as you can see but uh to the northern portion there is an existing building structure uh which uh was a former school building. It is proposed to retain that building structure to use it as a community service um building. And then there is a greenhouse um structure to the south right here which is proposed to be demolished. And then there is some surface pave surface parking which is also to be retained and used for the future project. The remainder of the area is uh vacant. The applicant has broken out the the project into a couple phases. The fa the area to the north of Vale Street is considered as phase one and then to the south um this area is phase two and uh right now phase two is long-term. So we do not have the details of that and I'll be primarily talking about phase one. Um this is a large-scale development plan that uh the applicant uh submitted

which is required for any property that is large over 5 acres and has a multi-phaseed um development to have um a large um broad overview of of the street network connectivity uh open space and just how the development basically flows. So we like to see that um when a property this size is proposed for development. As I mentioned right now the um the details that have been presented to staff in the large scale development plan is phase one which is this area that's um reddish shaded reddish in color. And uh you can see um it it's a again it's a conceptual layout. It's not a site plan, but it's it's a little bit more detailed than what you would see in a typical resoning sketch. So, you can see here, this is the existing uh community building that is to be retained and uh used for um a few different proposed uses that have been outlined here under the uh principal uses. So there could be um a visitor check-in, offices, a common meal area, classroom spaces, uh health clinics, arts and craft type spaces. So there's a few different things that have been proposed here. Additionally, uh you can see that under the principal uses there are permanent homes and temporary homes. The permanent homes are a variety of housing products. They can they can be uh single units. They can be byattached triplex and they're proposed in a variety of different square footage um various sizes. Uh additionally there's also a few temporary homes proposed. Um they are marked right here. The the temporary

homes are what they what the applicant um um proposes them as guest cottages and are to be used by the volunteers. Additionally, there are also some accessory uses that are proposed um in in the area. The details are not quite fleshed out, but it includes u things like open space, parks, community gardens, laundry facility, trash u area, a worship space, and that kind of thing. But um that's um that's primarily what's there in the large scale development plan. Currently there uh there is uh of course an access off of Mari Street. the applicant is going to need a secondary access into the site as well because of the uh proposed number of units. Okay. Um I will move on to some site photographs just to provide an overview of what the existing site looks like. So this is um this is the existing building on the site. This is the driveway off of Mory Street. This is another view. This is looking uh west on Mory Street. This is looking east. To the east um there's to the north and east primarily are lower density single family housing. But as you go further south and to the west um the land uses more industrial in nature. This is a closeup of the existing building that is proposed as a community service building. And uh here's the surface parking lot looking further south into the undeveloped area that is currently um just open space with trees and vegetation.

And here's a picture of the the existing greenhouse that is proposed to be demolished. And another view looking north to the property from the driveway off of Marsh. I do want to point out that there is some um zoning history to this uh this uh proposal. You have seen it before when the applicant had proposed um the project in a different location that was at 1661 County Line Road and it came before the commission. The commission did recommend approval, but it uh did not go before city council for a final action. Since then, the applicant has, as you can see, uh selected a new location in the vicinity of Mar Street and uh intends to withdraw the previous resoning application on County Line Road. Staff does um support this resoning request. Um um staff believes that the housing product that is being proposed with this uh with this particular project is something that uh is not currently available in De Moine and does add to the diversity of housing options for the community. Um the location has access to infrastructure and amenities. So um the project as proposed is something that staff does support so long as um the development is done in accordance with the uses and the layout that's proposed in the large scale development plan as well as meeting the standard requirements of uh building and fire planning and design ordinance um storm water management etc. So staff does uh recommend um support of the resoning request subject to the condition that any principal uses on the property shall be limited to and be in

accordance with those described in the approved large-scale development plan to the satisfaction of the planning and urban design administrator. And uh the I I when I was walking through the large scale development plan, I listed out the principal uses and those would be the uses that apply. The applicant conducted a a neighborhood meeting with um as required for any reasonzoning. City staff was also in attendance at this neighborhood meeting because this is a slightly unique um um situation in which the city is the owner of the land, but the city was there to provide more of an overview of the process. The applicant um talked to the neighbors and provided them um information about what they're proposing as is outlined in their summary. There's some additional information as well um including sign-in sheet and design details that were shared during the meeting. I will let the applicant go into further details and talk about the information that was shared with the with the neighbors during their present. And with that, we uh haven't received any comment cards from the from the neighbors within the notification boundary of this resoning. This is the consent map. And uh if you have any questions, I'll be happy. I have a question. Um just because I noticed the water near there. I don't know if it's a lake or if it's a retention pond or what that is, but I'm I'm wondering if there's any analysis of flooding or any requirements of um emergency preparedness in in that event.

Yes, that's a um that's a lake. Um it's a so you're talking about this water feature right here. Yeah. And it is it is within um a levy protected area, so there is less chances of um flooding. However, the applicant in the as as you might have seen in the large scale development plan, they have not utilized this um this space and left it as as open space with the probably the caveat of being airing on the side of caution and not getting too close to

Well, definitely encourage like disaster planning just because we know that folks would have a hard time evacuating should some unintended weather event occur. Any other questions for Srioshi? Thank you. I do have a question. Um, Chesterfield is the name of the neighborhood as well. Uh, and I don't know 10 or 15 years ago there was interest in some kind of or another about the school itself in terms of the building. Did anything ever come of that?

Not that I'm aware of. Um I don't know maybe Bert or Jason could speak to that. Yeah. No, I mean I think the city's own the building. It's been a community center um over the years has had different functions. The parks department is you know uses the property the greenhouse space or has built new. But I I I don't I don't recall anything recently as far as like any discussion about any neighborhood driven efforts to see something of the building. It was something to do with the preservation of the building. Well, I think it's the utility of the building and I'm glad to see that it's here and being going to be used for, you know, a good

Yeah, I think I think it's been long recognized the um historic historic nature of of the building, particularly the the original um part of it on the the west end and the value that brings um trying to provide a reuse for it. So I that's still in the cards as far as trying to find a way to preserve it. So I I think probably we're working towards the things that you've heard about maybe 10 years ago about people wanting to see something done with it. This provided a way to use it. Thank you.

Thank you. Is the applicant present? If you'd like, please come forward, state your name and address for our record and sign in on the white sheet when you are done. And you have up to 10 minutes.

Good evening. Jim and I are here. Excited to be here again this um this time. And uh so Joe Stevens, Japa, 2326 Uklid Avenue in De Moines 50310. And Jim's address would be the same. Jim Hag Jim Hagber. I'm the project director for the project. I'm also a board member of JAPA and I'm also a professional engineer. So Joe, did you want to open up with Sure. Yeah.

Like I said, we're excited to be here again. We have a 17ear history. I think most of you know that Japa helps homeless people survive, find housing, and rebuild their lives. And so, uh, for 17 years, we've been going out to where people live under bridges and tents and in vehicles and developing relationships with them and helping them get into housing. So, to date, we've helped, uh, over 750 people, that's actually above 764, as you see on your screen, people get into housing in our 17 years of existence. And we have a 83% track record of keeping them in housing because of um, programs like our afterare and and circle of friends programs that stay with people after they're off the streets. And so we did that through a scattered site model working with our partners here in the city. Um all the people that do homeless services, Veterans Administration, Primary Healthcare, Central Iowa Shelter, Iowa homeless youth, on and on. So in working with those other organizations, we've been able to help uh more than a sing, you know, more than one person get off the streets every week. Last year we helped 91 individuals. This year we've helped uh over I think it's 84 as of today here to date. So, we know how to help people get off the streets and stay off the streets. And this is a chance to get people together in a in a single village environment. I would like to share though that what we do and have done for 17 years is not what's going to happen at this site. This site is a permanent village and there will not be a camping allowed nearby. Um and uh and so uh we're just excited about building, as you call it, this kind of housing product for people that are chronically homeless. And that of course means they have a disability and they've been on the streets for a very long time. And so these are people that no other program has reached and we're going to be able to do this with no at no taxpayer expense. So we're excited to continue on with that. And I'm going to let Jim take.

So we're and if you recall 9 months precisely 9 months ago we were before you all uh seeking reszoning of a different prop property. After that, city officials came to us and proposed we develop the Chesterfield Scott Elementary School, former uh elementary school and adjoining property. So, we investigated, discussed it, and decided, yeah, this is a better location for us. And uh August uh the city council voted to have the city manager uh develop a lease purchase agreement with us for the land and that will go to vote with at the city council on Monday. So uh we've got I believe is is Malcolm on the line. Okay. Uh Malcolm had got run into travel troubles, but Malcolm the assistant Malcolm Henkins the assistant uh city manager is on the phone with us just which is unusual but just uh here to demonstrate the city's support for the project. So and also relatedly the city uh county supervisors voted to award us 1.28 28 million for its development of the project. Uh this Shrioshi went over the large scale development plan. If any questions come up about that, Tim West with Snyder Engineering is is here to answer any questions y'all might have. This is the draft city plan uh on phase city plan for on the city property. Uh and you can see in this there's a total of 59 units including five of the temporary guest cottages which are for people who would be uh volunteers that

would come for a weekend or a week or two to work amongst this population. The uh we've got four different sizes for uh for the residents to live in. Uh it ranges from 192 square ft, 192 square ft, 240 square ft, 312 and 384 square ft. They all have full functioning bathrooms, heating, cooling, water, sewer. uh and the this they very much the quality of them they're all designed by BSB design which is a nationwide uh architectural firm headquartered in Urbandale uh very tastefully designed and and uh will be completed also professionally.

We actually built that on the screen that's in Cheetum Park. So, uh, Joe, do you want to hit the community bill? Oh, sure.

So, um, this, you know, there's a lot to there's a lot to the village. We're we're official replicators of Community First Village in Austin, Texas. And the reason it's called Community First is because community is actually the missing piece. Um most uh most housing uh projects have you know the home you've got to have the roof over your head and they have programs of course but what they're missing is that is that sense of community and that involvement of the community and that's what makes it so um successful but in addition to that we will have a lot of infrastructure on the um on the site that will facilitate community such as the community building. So, the community building initially we're looking at repurposing the school site and having a commercial kitchen, having service rooms where folks like Primary Healthcare and Central Iowa shelter and others can come in, Veterans Administration provide services just like they do it at a shelter like they do at shelters nationwide uh where local service providers come in and there'll be gathering spaces and um storage and there'll be a storm shelter and and meeting rooms and and etc. And then eventually um our goal is to build an even larger community center in the center of the village assuming we're successful through these phases and we and the city and we want to expand it further and um and so just uh there'll be other infrastructure there's a garden there's a lot of things that facilitate community so it's not just homes and I don't know if we've mentioned yet in addition to the 50 formerly homeless maybe we did um there will be uh four people living on site that are um that are uh not formerly homeless. So, we'll have staff a staff person and three volunteers or volunteer families living on site amongst those that are homeless. We will have a transportation plan. This was an item that uh people were quite interested in at our other location, but about 20% of residents own their own transportation. We'll provide uh parking. We've got a passenger van that

can shuttle people to appointments and grocery stores, etc. Uh there's a dart bus stop three three blocks west of it. Us and uh each resident will have a monthly bath uh bus pass. So using the benefits of this village using the city's own cost of homelessness. So lifting 50 chronically homeless people into permanent homes saves nearly $3 million a year. And that's that's each year getting 50 people off the street is $3 million a year according to the city's own uh research on that. And this is accomplished with zero city funding. This will help 50 people that nobody no other program has reached uh or been able to reach. Uh it will give recognition to the city in the Chesterfield neighborhood uh as providing something innovative. Uh, I think it it wouldn't take much research whatsoever to find out all the positive press that that community first village has gotten in Austin. And as Joe said, we're a certified replicator of that plan. So, we plan to invest heavily in the Chesterfield community and some of the services that we offer in the village to residents will be made available to Chesterfield neighborhood residents as well. Uh in conclusion, we hope you agree with JAPA and city staff and and you know the city management really the city council uh has has encouraged us to take this project on uh and we've got the capability of doing that. So because of increased homelessness and de mo benefits of to the city of us developing the property and the city and staff

support and county support of the project u positive input received at the neighborhood meeting and city's lack of affordable homes. We're hoping y'all will vote positively for Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions from the commissioners? May I I'd like to ask a question, please. Um, help me out. Um, my understanding is that the school, the building, the Chesterfield, you know, a couple story brick building is going to be a community building, but then I thought I heard that later on down the road there's a plan for another community building. Is that correct?

Well, yeah. What what y'all saw 9 months ago that what we wanted for community services required a bigger building than is there right now. So, we can imagine needing another uh a second building later on. In in that case, we would repurpose the community building to really provide those front those services for the neighborhood and and for our staff and for meetings for people to come in since it's so convenient right there off of Mari whereas the main community center for the residents that live there would be in the center of the village. And that's presuming that we build more than someday, right?

That was my concern. Yeah. I I because the building itself is iconic for the neighborhood and also it will be for Japa as well. Yeah. You know, and so I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you. Yeah. Is there anyone in the audience tonight who would like to speak in favor of this item? Please state your name and address for our records and sign in when you're done. And you have up to five minutes.

Hi, my name is Kevin Williamson and I live at 7:30 Southeast 27th Court. Um, also a founder of De Mo How Can We Help You group uh Facebook group that uh was developed during uh CO just to help the community. Um, you know, I I'm absolutely in favor of this project. Um, I was reached out with uh Joe, got in contact with me, invited me down to Japa to see what was going on and and uh what he was doing. And I got to say, I was completely impressed with the project. Um, you know, this is a a self-funded program that uh actually does help people step up out of homelessness. Um it it gives them an opportunity to have some pride in the ownership of their own property, their own living quarters, and you know, all that is uh a real positive thing in my eyes. Um, I'm glad C uh council member or said something about that Chesterfield sign and that uh really making that a keystone for this project because uh I lived there since uh 2007 and uh brought my family there to to live in that neighborhood and it's just been a blessing. This is before even ML King came through. Nobody really even knew anything about ML King when I bought the property. Um but because of some connections with the school district um I was able to find that information out and watching this uh community in this whole area grow with brand new houses developing and uh giving the opportunity for people to uh really afford some uh reasonable housing. Um, I'm pretty passionate about homelessness. Um, and to see a program step up and to uh uh create a program that allows people to come up and out of

that uh devastation, whatever their reasons are, but also to be uh something that's uh um that's got some foundation to it. It's not just we're giving you some money and and here we go, here's some food and going out the door. it actually gives you a program that helps you succeed, backs him up for that. So, um, you know, that's really what I want to say. I was really impressed and I want to thank Joe and his crew for inviting me out to Japa to see what they're doing. So, cuz I wouldn't even have known. Um, I knew about JAPA, but uh, you know, you know JAPA by a name, but to see what they're really doing. If anybody hasn't been out to see that program and see what they're doing out there, I strongly encourage you go out and visit it because it's a it's a good thing going on. So, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Are you here to speak in favor of this item? Please come forward. That's all right. Please also state your name and address and um sign in when you're done. And you also have up to five minutes.

My name is Ryan Andrini and I have a shop down here at 2550 Mari. I have a few rental properties down here. Um I agree with what you guys are doing. This is a good thing. I've been uh involved with mental illness and drug addiction for years. I've dealt with housing, been on the board, a big donor for them. Um, but there's just a lot of questions I have, a lot of concerns like, uh, when you get this many people with mental illness, I'm not sure much mental, there's it's always an explosion. They don't get along. I'm sorry, but when you get a lot of people in the same area that have mental illness, it's going to be a big there's going to be a lot of problems. And I don't know if they have a backup plan for that other than four volunteers. Um, you know, they just clean this area up. They just build a dozen homes right down here. I've had a lot of problems with homelessness, but I'm for this what they're doing. I just hope there's that they have a lot of uh enforcement on helping when there's a problem because there's going to be a problem. They cannot live that close together. I've been around this for years. Um there will be problems and I hope they have a backup plan. That's all. Um but they have cleaned up this area down here. I mean, my place has been gone through a few times from homelessness and drug addiction and stuff. I have videos of people smoking crack outside my building. Um but I do think it's a good thing. I just hope that, you know, everything's Are you going to have like city certificates on this like inspections and whatnot and short-term leases? I don't I don't understand.

We can have the the applicant respond to some of those things during their rebuttal time. What's that? I'm sorry. They'll they're going to have an opportunity for rebuttal, so we'll let them address some of those things. Okay. Um, but that's all I had. Just some concerns about that. I think it's a good thing. I just hope they uh I hope they can just be just like that. They cleaned up this whole area down here pretty well with these new homes and uh just I just hope the best for all this. I hope it goes well. Guess that's all I got to say. Thanks for your thoughts. Thank you.

Anyone else who would like to speak in favor? Neutral or opposed? Okay. applicant, you've got up to five minutes to respond to some of those concerns.

First off, let me mention we intend to fence the entire perimeter and also have gated entry, restricted entry along with a lot of security cameras and uh license plate recognition for any vehicles coming in. And um that that's one of the physical security. But Joe, go ahead. I just described a little bit.

Oh, yeah. And I didn't actually probably better say it again because I'm not sure that you got a chance to hear that. We we will have a lot of security there. There's going to be a fence around the whole uh place. Um uh a very nice fence, you know, a metal fence that's, you know, black with the metal uh aluminum type thing. Um and um and it will be high enough that people can't easily get over it. will have cameras everywhere on pools. This is what they do down in Austin. They also have a credit card or credit card, sorry, license plate, camera, reader at the entrance. And so, uh, anybody that's been flagged and what they do down there, they're right outside the city limits. Um, so their partner is the sheriff. Our partner will be DMPD. And um so we're proposing that just as they do when a when a license plate's flagged and it comes on the site immediately a text goes to the sheriff and they're on their way as soon as they can be before you know anybody even has to it's all automatic. That's our intention as well is to have a text go to the police department. We'll have to work all those things out. We did have an initial meeting with our um latest police chief and so um there will be people living on site and that's one of the key pieces that's magical. We will have a staff as well as volunteers on site living amongst those down in Austin. They have um about one in every 18 people is a is a is a volunteer and then also they have staff even the CEO lives on site. So um and there's families with children living on site. So certainly when you gather people together in an environment that you are creating tension, you're creating some tension and there's no question about that. We've been working with this population for 17 years and there will be issues and we will have to work to solve them and we're looking forward to working with you to make sure that that works. We want to lift the neighborhood up. We want to invest in the neighborhood. We want the neighborhood to be happy with this project and I think they will they will you'll find that they'll be engaging and volunteering that there'll be a lot of uh excitement coming out of this and in 5 years you're going to hear really great things from the neighborhood. Um so anyway, that's that's what I have to

say. Thank you. I have one more question. I forgot to ask earlier. I was thinking about it and maybe I missed it. Um, is this free for the people living there completely or is there any kind of investment later?

Yeah, thank you for asking. So, one of the things that does make it magic and actually addresses the concern that that you brought up um is that the people do pay rent and that's one of the requirements and so you're able to pick the size of your home um and the amenities based on how much you want to pay. Now, you do not have to have a source of income, though, to come into the village. Most people that have been chronically homeless do not have a good source or sustainable source, and they can't hold a 40hour a week job. So, what we're doing again is modeling what Community First has pioneered, and that is a dignified work program with 2-hour work contracts. So, someone can take on a 2-hour work contract, do it in an hour, still get paid for 2 hours, do it in 5 hours if they want to take longer, do three of them a day, take a week off, take a mental health day. They know at the end of the month they need to pay rent. And the beauty of paying rent is it gives you personal dignity and gives you that sense of ownership. This is my place. Nobody can take it away from me as long as I continue to pay my rent and don't, you know, don't disturb the peace. And um and it just gives you that pride of ownership. And then you don't want any criminal activity or crazy stuff going on and you're the first person to call the police, which we would encourage. Call 911 if you see anything, just like in your neighborhood. So yeah, definitely people do pay rent, but they don't have to have a source of income to come into the village. Thank you. That exactly the reason you stated was why I asked because I think that is in fact true as well. So,

and I I want to reiterate something Joe said just at the beginning. This is not a homeless resource center. We've got a homeless resource center on Uklid. These are permanent homes for permanent residents. These people are not homeless. They're permanent residents in a permanent home in a subdivision, just a smaller home. And we won't be providing any services for just homeless people out of this site. That will all still be continue to happen out of Uklid, as as Jim said, and out of our outreach where we go out to where people live every single week.

Um, I have a comment. I'm glad to hear that. And when I saw the the the phrase temporary home or temporary house, I can't read it from here. I thought so temporary house. So this is built out of, you know, plaster board or something like this is not a temporary house. I think maybe you a word that doesn't convey, you know, something that's here today, gone tomorrow would be a good idea. You know, it's a permanent building.

I was just going to see if I could show that picture again. That's okay. I'm not finding it immediat Well, you can see in the bottom. It's kind of small here, but that's a home we actually built, Bill, in in Chetm Park. And so that's a 380 ft home designed by BSB Design. It's got 6-in walls, so it's very quiet. It's a it's got, you know, 6-in mullions, vated ceilings, ceiling fans. It's um pocket doors, you know, some really cool kind of architectural features. And so this is very much dignified. The temporary home you're speaking about is one of the original tiny homes we built back in the day years ago when we were planning, in fact, a um STEM classes at several high schools in De Moines built those. And so we want to move them to the property, but we are not going to use them for formerly homeless people. These will only be used for, as as Jim said, volunteers, youth groups, things like that that want to come to the village and they want to stay on site. And this is what they do in in Austin. They have it actually have a BNB there. You can literally, we're not planning this, but you can literally go on Airbnb and you can book a tiny home inside Community Village, which I highly recommend if any of you are in Austin, but that's not what we're doing. We're going to use them for youth groups and things, but we do want to move those tiny homes and those are the only temporary homes that we're envisioning, you know, that we're planning. This is all permanent housing for the residents.

My only suggestion, my only suggestion was perhaps you could come up with a phrase that is more positive in terms of the permanence of the building itself rather than temporary. It sounds like, you know, here to anyway. Yeah. No, and we call our homes like this one here that we're building for residents cottage homes. So, they are very much not temporary. the the home you're referring it to is just those five tiny homes that we're going to bring over or six I think that we're going to bring over for for the temporary and and also it's for temporary people to stay temporarily. It's not these are not those are not for permanent residents. There will be no temporary housing for permanent people on site at all. It's all short-term housing. Well, yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's I was thinking short-term rental.

I get it. You're trying to help us with that. Thank you. you. And I'm sorry I called you Bill. I thought I thought I read Bill, but I see that you're will. Sorry about that. Hey, just a quick question. I'm assuming you guys will have some type of a drug alcohol ban or policy to ensure neighbors have uh some comfort.

Yeah. So, that is really interesting. Down at Community First, they actually do not have any such rules. And so, their rules are really you must pay rent and you must not disturb the peace. You can't and you have to follow the law. So, basically, it's just like you're in my neighborhood. And if you in every about every neighborhood in De Moine and any suburb, there's going to be drug use and probably some dealing going on in that neighborhood somewhere, right? And so what you do when you see something going on is you call the police. And that's what we encourage all our residents and volunteers and staff to do as well. Um and uh so you know, if you're we're these are adults and if they want to have a beer in their home, you know, then then that's not something we preclude. If they are outside their home and they are inebriated or causing problems or carrying around open alcohol or smoking a joint, that kind of stuff, that's not going to be tolerated at all. They have to follow the law and they cannot disturb the peace or have, you know, have civil dis unrest and the peace of the people living next door, which is just like what we're talking about here. So, we'll very much make sure that this does not turn into that kind of a thing. And down in Austin, they have 500 formerly chronically homeless people living in relative harmony. and there are issues, but they're partnered with the sheriff and people next door will out you if you're if you're not following the program. And uh and so they're they've been so successful, they're expanding from 500 homes on 50 acres to um 1,800 homes on 200 acres. And Joe, one thing, this came up in the our previous presentation to y'all, but it in community first, there's been no crime where residents of Community First Village have caused crime outside of the village, but there been 13 or 15 incidences of people outside the village creating crime inside the village. So mo mostly kids stealing bikes like you know teenagers coming over and stealing a bike from the village. Nothing like major but yeah that's it is an interesting statistic. Also the a property we get this about

property values. People are always concerned about their property values. And in Austin it's surrounded by homes just like but just like it will be in Chesterfield. In this case some of those homes are from the 70s and then there's some you know million there's some three to $600,000 homes and some million dollar homes you know right next door. And uh all of those property values have tripled since they started this thing 10 year, you know, just over 10 years ago. So it's uh property values do not go down.

Any other questions? Thank you. Okay, I'll close the public hearing then and let's open it up for discussion and motions. Um I'll move staff. I think this is a great project and I'm really in support of it. Thanks Emily. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor, please raise your right hand. Okay, motion passes. Yeah, get Chris. How do you vote?

Yeah, sorry. Thank you very much. I again I echo I think this is an awesome project. Thank you for letting me have a chance to show support for this and yes, I vote for it, too. I'm in favor. Thank you. Okay, motion carried. Are there any committee or district reports tonight? Uh, no. No thanks. All right, thanks everyone. [Music]