Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the October 23rd, 2025 meeting of the city plan commission. I'm Alfredo Borego. I chair this commission. I call this meeting to order at 1:30 p.m. Commissioner Reyes.

Thank you, Chairman. Statement to the public. The city plan commission has so and final approved authority over subdivision maps which is sutoily limited to a ministerial examination of applications conforming to all application code provisions. The staff report for an agenda item may include conditions, exceptions, or modifications. The commission may approve the item with all staff report conditions, exceptions or modifications, including additional measures regarding the item as imposed by the commission. Otherwise, the staff report with all modifications, exceptions, and conditions is approved, and applicant shall comply with all provisions of the staff report. Commissioners will consider all agenda items other than subdivision items in the form of public meeting. The normal process is as follows. First, the commission will hear a staff report followed by a statement from the applicant. Then members of the public may speak followed by any statement final statement from the applicant. Finally, the matter will be closed for further discussion or a motion among the commission. The commission shall then make a recommendation and will be forwarded to city council.

Thank you, Commissioner Reyes. Mr. Salum. Do we have any changes to the agenda? Oh, well, I always ask the person at the very end of the table, Mr. Siggoia, chairman, CPC, uh, the changes we have is for the major preliminary on the consent agenda. Item number two, the upkin is requesting uh, the item to be postponed for an addition additional four weeks. Other than that, there's no other changes. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion.

Move to approve the changes to the agenda. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the changes to the agenda. Any discussion? Hearing seeing none, all in favor say I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. All right. Now, we're going to move to the call to the public. If there's anybody in the public that would like to address the city plan commission on something that is not on the agenda, this is the time to do it. If you're on the phone, star six to unmute. One more time, call to the public. Star six to unmute. Hearing and seeing none, call to the public is closed and We move to the consent agenda.

Motion to approve. Second. We have a motion to approve the consent agenda. I don't see no discussion. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. Motion carries. Well, that's a quick we move to other business. So now we're going to move to other business and for that we have Anna Zent.

Cool. Thank you. Awesome. Okay. So, good afternoon everybody. My name is Anna Mesa Zent. I am the transportation planning administrator in the capital improvement department. Um, I'm going to be giving a presentation today for three uh amendments to the major thoroughare plan. If we go to the next slide. Perfect. So, there are three requests with this package today. Two of them are in association with each other. It's two deletions and then one new collector. Um all of the requests today are in association with collector streets. I'm going to go through them one by one. So this first one is a deletion of this extension of 9inth street. You can see that in this represented in this dotted blue line here. This is the existing MTP here that you're looking at. And when it once deleted, it will look like this. The requested deletion is in association with commercial development to the west of the outlet shops in El Paso. Um approval of this amendment will align with that master plan and that master plan will optimize connectivity for that proposed built environment. The second which is a package of two amendments. It's a deletion of this dotted blue line right here. This is what it will look like. I know there's a little bit of a shift in perspective here, but this is what it will look like when that deletion is actualized. Um, you'll notice that that proposed segment is already running through proposed development. So, it doesn't quite make sense anymore in general. Probably an outdated street segment as well. And in addition to that, we're proposing that we extend that street Vinmela down to I 10, which will maximize connectivity for this area. Uh, this is an association. This is the Monteo development. If you're not familiar, um, Vinla Roa, there's a roundabout right here that we're looking at. And, um, approval for this amendment

will facilitate the existing development for this area and will maximize the transportation connectivity for Monteo. So, capital improvement has worked with um different internal departments as well as external stakeholders to make these recommendations. We've also evaluated the existing conditions, the built environment, as well as the impacts on traffic. And we are recommending approval for all three of these amendments. Does anybody have any questions?

Questions, commissioners? Everything's hunky dory. I have a few. Um, the one on Canot in the outlet shops. Yes. Yes. That is you said west. So there's proposed building west of the outlet shops commercial stuff, right?

Yes. Correct. Were the people below brought into this conversation? the the residents that live further down because we've had them uh when there's been some sites here that we've um gone through and some of them not all but some have opposed that.

So they were brought into this discussion. Yes, I believe so. Um this is actually a second amendment in association with this development. So the first one was for one of these streets to the left. I believe it was maybe Alio and La Mesa. Um, so this is a part of a longer process, a longer planning process and I do believe that the community has been engaged with that master plan as well as staff already.

Okay. And uh on the Monteio one. Yes. That's going to connect to that um exit entrance to you to the freeway. Yes. Yes, sir. Okay. Because right now it doesn't connect to anything. Yes. Right. In other words, another bridge to nowhere.

Yeah. But Okay. All right. Any other questions, commissioners? Thank you for your presentation. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion. Uh, Mr. Smith, were you going to say something?

No. We uh I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve item number four as discussed. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say I.

I. All opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you. We have number five and we have for that we have Miss Casey. Last time I said it was Miss Cassie, but she said it's Casey. Staff M. Mr. Chair, if you don't mind, um, can we flip those the last two items? Um, I will message her right now.

Have her come in and present. Okay. Commissioners, you don't have a problem with that? No. Okay. Let's move on. Number six. For that, we have Mr. Chav. I know he's here. Okay. Kevin Smith with planning inspections. I'll cover the first few slides but the majority of the presentation will be by our own Mr. Chvira. Um so what becomes before you many times is request and reduction of setbacks with a number of uh of items. Uh I'll go over some of the history of what um why we have setbacks. But then what uh Danny will be covering is from the building code perspective and some of the the safeguards that are in place to uh protect abuing developments if there reduced setbacks. So going back um a while this is you know roughly a hundred years ago you know it was much different times obviously the living conditions were very much different. There was problems with with health with um sanitation um and there was generally a lot of development was just right on top of each other especially the large major cities. Um you know as you can see a lot of the buildings were were close and you know for a lot of them too it's um like in this instance lack of egress points as well. So it really created some difficult situations and um it really created some caused some problems with a number of cities throughout the the years. Um there's been fires in some of the major cities uh throughout the world such as London, such as Paris, uh Boston, Chicago that really got devastated because of fire in the proximity of law of development close to each other. Um over the past number of years though, I would say the past um hundred years or so, we've learned as a civilization how to mitigate some of those efforts. So, um I'm going to pass

it over to Danny to talk about what is there on the building code side. Um what is done so that um at the end of the day we have a safe uh environment, safe uh community because at the end of day that's what we need um to have is a safe community. So with that I'll turn over to Danny.

Good afternoon everybody. Daniel Chave with planning and inspections and uh Mr. Smith here gave some examples of why some of the building codes were adopted. Unfortunately, some of these are reactive and uh I won't make this many more sad, but Mr. Smith already provided some examples. So again, we know why exterior wall fire protection is is needed and and required. And the adopted building cone uses two criteria to determine how much of how much protection is required. One of those is using type of construction and the other uh like Mr. Smith mentioned is the location of building which is regulated by setbacks and in some cases uh through boards like this one special conditions are are are granted and a reduction of setback is is provided. So that's going to affect the way the building is constructed. So first is going to be the type of construction. There's a lot of information on some of these slides, but I'm just going to briefly describe what each one of them uh means. Again, this is all code related. The first one is types of construction which goes from type one to type five with one being the most restrictive using non-combustible material concrete, steel, metal. Two, uh, well, that's going to be your type one and type two construction. And then type three is a combination of both where all your exterior building components use non-combustible material and your interior component use combustible material. Combustible material typically translates to your standard wood construction. Type four is heavy timber construction. We rarely rarely see that here in our community. I don't think I've seen one

in the 17 years I've I've been here. And then we go to the last construction type, which is type five. Again, that's combustible material, and that's your standard wood. If you want an example of a type five construction, it's going to be your typical uh residence here in El Paso, your wood frame, wood joist, and so on. [snorts] So, what this does, what one of the items it affects is the size of the building. So you have your rating component, your fire rating component along with your size and your type of construction. So as you can see here on the top end, you have your type one construction. Again, non-combustible material. Fire protection is going to include all your structural loadbearing frame. All of that is going to have a fire rating protection. So, what that's going to do as a result of this, you're going to end up with a larger building in area and height. Uh, but again, you're going to have to provide a lot more fire protection. There we go. Uh, let me go back one, go forward one. Okay. And then we go to the bottom uh side of the spectrum here again to type five construction where any type of material is used for the construction and rarely very little or none no fire protection is needed or required. The result of that is going to be much smaller building in area and height. uh but again with less fire protection which also translate to less money being used to construct these uh these uh buildings.

So this table being shown here is from the international building code chapter 6. This one regulates your rating required for your construction elements. Here we're just going to highlight the exterior wall requirements on your bearing and non-bearing walls. So again, I'm going to go back to the same uh item I covered before, which is related to your type of construction. Bearing walls on the exterior, as you can see, for type one buildings, it's going to be three hours required on your type 1A. And just briefly, your A and B mentioned there on the table are mostly related to the allowable area. So type A with the most protection provided is going to allow you again a larger much larger building than a type 1B and so on on the other types of constructions. Now when you go to the nonloadadbearing walls or partitions, it's going to send you to a separate table in chapter 7. And that table is going to cover the distance limitations for the fire rating required. So, separation distance, that's going to be measured either to the property line or if you're next to the rideway, you can take that distance from the building to the middle of the street or alley or or the rideway and also to another building that could be in the same uh that's going to be in the same property. Another item that's going to guide what's required is going to be your type of occupancy. So, we already kind of covered the type of construction. Now, we go into the type of occupancy with the top one being the most hazardous or most dangerous and the bottom one being the the least dangerous. Top one includes your hazardous use types of

buildings followed by uh moderate hazard factory, your retail buildings and your moderate hazard warehouses types of use. Then we move on to your assembly uses which is your bars, restaurants and and so on. Your business offices, your schools, your instit institutional buildings and your residential buildings including hotels, apartments and single family dwellings. And in the least hazardous category, we have the lowhazard factory use, lowhazard warehouse use, and your utility buildings. That table on the bottom is from the existing uh building code and it's kind of related to the next table I'm going to show. So here we're going to cover the distance requirements. So even in the previous table I showed in table in chapter six where the type of construction would not require fire rating. Let's say it's a type five building that's uh that's not closer than 5T to the property line. That table says zero uh fire protection is required. But then we go on to table seven, which again is going to rule the distance requirements. So now if that same building is closer than five feet to the property line, then you're going to require a oneh hour fire rating. So, there's two factors that are going to come in play here to determine how much rating is required. And that's when a board like yours uh approves a setback uh reduction is going to affect the construction of the building. And uh not only does the code regulate uh the firing required for the walls, it it also regulates the openings uh allowed or provided. And again, it's going to follow the same rules. The

closer you are to the property line or or the rideway or another building in the same property, the and and also uh in this case, the sprinkler system is going to apply. So, if you have an un unsprinkled building closer than uh three feet, uh or in some cases five feet to the property line or another building, you're not going to be allowed any openings on that wall at all. And that's to protect the buildings adjacent to the one you are you are constructing. And the farther away you you get or the more uh fire protection you provide then the more openings you're allowed. So as you can see the decisions that are made here or by the designer is also going to impact how much fire rating is required on those exterior walls and how many openings can be provided or the percentage of openings that can be provided. So with that if you have any questions

commissioners questions commissioner turn your mic on please speak to the mic. Good afternoon. So my question is now that Senate bill uh what is the number 15 I believe that pass uh and we have this smaller lots. What what what kind of construction is going to be allowed on on those properties since There's barely space for setbacks, right?

Yeah. So, so what we expect there typically, it's going to be the type five construction on these smaller lots with the smaller homes and uh I don't believe the setback reduction is going to apply here and and Mr. Smith can speak about that a little bit more, but as long as you're at least 5t away from the property line or we can also place a restriction of being 10t away from the adjacent residence, then no fire no additional fire rating would be required on these on these structures.

And then if I could just add to that, I'm pulling up the uh the red lines, but from my understanding, there will still be setbacks required on those small lots too. So the minimum um at least five feet that's the smallest is five. There's a five foot setback from the side. Um they're larger for the front and rear. So that at least a five foot setback will be retained for those ones.

And I want to add to that real quick that projections are also required to be fire protected. The building community is very used to that because most homes are built to that five foot setback requirement. But you have your eaves or overhangs and they always provide the one hour protection on those.

Other questions commissioners? Commissioner Reyes? No question. Commissioner Massud, Mr. Chira, I know now that the Senate Bill 15 was passed and it allows for much smaller lots and I know it still says 5 foot setback, but what about when you come in with the concepts of doing still fe simple but attached with one hour wall? We can still do that and still call them separate homes, right?

You can. So there is a provision in the code. It's separate from this. You guys like I can come back again and give you a five hour presentation on that. But uh there's a what's it's what's called a party wall and and that's going to be in the example you're asking about is going to be either a firewall or a fire barrier. Firewall technically divides these buildings. So they can be considered two separate buildings. It doesn't have it's not going to be considered one. But as you can imagine that wall is going to be very restricted.

It's going to be considered single family homes. Yep. separated by that fire by that firewall or fire barrier. And in some instances, that firewall needs to go 30 in past the top of the roof and 19 in past the exterior wall of the of the structure. That's one of the options. There's other options. Like I say, this could be a very, very long presentation, but

indeed, there are options to have joined single family dwellings separated by a party wall firewall or fire barrier. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions, commissioners? Mr. Chvida, the setbacks on the newer part of the city, I'm going to say 30 years, maybe even 40 years are already set. But in the central part where I live, where I move around, the setbacks are zero. So let's say for instance um my house I want to build add to my house I only have two feet between my property line and my uh house I want to build to the end. What happens there?

Okay so in most cases in the older neighborhoods of the city is not that the setbacks are currently zero or three. They're typically still five feet. But what happened in your in in your example is that this home was constructed before those setbacks were were implemented. So what we do in those cases is we register the structure as legal non-conforming. So it can remain as is and we won't intervene. The building code doesn't allow us to take action unless there's construction being done. So, the only portion of the building that's going to have to comply with the building code and the fire rating requirements is the new portion that's going to be added to the building or modified. If the existing wall is going to be modified, moved closer, removed, then you have to comply with the existing building code and the setbacks.

And the reason I'm asking is because some of these older places, the width of the property is not that wide, right? and uh to comply and to have actual room to build something. Well, you know, you're going to have to maintain what's there than the exist existing structure. The reason I ask is because it happened to me

years before also um in certain areas of the city, we have buildings that touch themselves and that's what you were referring to right now. Right. Right. So, if it's a residential area, um, most of those are going to have to be registered if they're not already registered legal non-conforming. So, they can remain asis on your commercial properties. Yes. Especially your higher density commercial like where we're at right now. Yes. Zero setbacks are a reality and very common, but that's when the fire protection kicks in.

Okay. Good. Any other questions, commissioners? Thank you, Mr. Chvita. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Thank you all. All right, we now move to number five that we I saw Miss Casey come in. Thank you. Sorry about that. Um

Oh, well, what? Excuse me. Y we have a speaker for item number six. The one before that we have Mr. Deu. Oh, sorry. I thought you were going backwards already. No, I know. Sorry about that. I'm sorry about that, sir. It's okay. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, commissioners, city staff. I'll be very brief. So for the record, Richard Du Thunderbird Management Consulting and I we don't have a single problem with anything that's been presented by city staff at all. But I'm here representing at least a few clients and one of whom is Texas Gas. and their only concern is that as we go forward and these developments begin to occur is that we pay very special attention to the underground easements. Many of these older homes you mentioned, for example, in Current Place and Rim Road and other areas, they've been there for so very long, many people don't know what is underground. As I'm speaking of gas in particular, since it can, you know, if you happen to break a gas line, it can cause a lot of problems. And so all they're concerned about is that there is the necessary due diligence to ensure that whoever is doing the development, whoever's building is following the code to the letter of the law to avoid any possible safety risks. That's it. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. And uh Mr. Mr. Chita, we we can agree that that happens when you get permits for any construction, any building, any demolition, a new uh commercial that they make sure that the lines being gas, water, sewer or even electricity are taken care of. Right.

Absolutely. Part of the review is checking the location of the building along with the eastment restrictions. So right now, no structures are permitted to be done in any ement even if that easement is going across a buildable area which is allowed by right to to be built upon inside of the setbacks. But if there's an easement going across there, no structure can be built on top of that without either vacating the building. Well, I'm going to say that's the only option. You would have to vacate vacate the ement through the utilities that that have the rights to use it. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Yeah, if I could just add on, that's one of the reasons why we encourage people and require people to come and get a building permit because it could be really detrimental to their property and to their pocketbook if they have to at the end of the day potentially demolish the uh the structure because of underlying easements or potentially relocate those lines. So, it just needs to be done the proper way. come come see us, get the proper permits so that it's built appropriately so that the utility companies can service their property.

And in the last two years, we've had maybe three or four that come before us of building on an easement and approved. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chvita. Thank you. All right, Miss Casey, you're on again. Sorry about that.

Sorry, I was just so excited. Let's see. Um so I'm Casey Schnel. Um I'm presenting today on the future land use map which is part of the comprehensive plan um update envision El Paso. So this is an informational presentation. So uh as I just mentioned, Envision El Paso is our comprehensive plan update to the 2012 plan El Paso and our mission is to really guide fair and sustainable growth and development and land investment to increase opportunity for all El Pasoans. We have five overarching themes um that are guiding the plan. Um these were identified through our community engagement efforts last year. Uh their housing affordability, mobility choice, sustainable living, economic development, and fiscal responsibility. So essentially increasing choice and options around housing and how you get around town through mobility choice, being um responsible stewards of our natural environment and resources through sustainable living, increasing opportunity um you know retaining talents, attracting talent and ensuring that we are uh guiding sustainable land development patterns um to improve delivery of services and maintain that fiscal responsibility. So our project process so far we have completed a vision and goals framework and a community priorities framework as part of 2024. Um in 2025 we are at the phase of the future land use map. We have done engagement which I'll go through. Um and we're continuing to do that. Um we'll presenting to a work session on Monday to get more guidance. We have an infrastructure management plan and an economic development and housing strategy which will be presented at work session later this year. Um and all of these elements essentially all of these reports and plans come together to create our comprehensive plan update in vision El Paso. So what is a flume? You all are very familiar with it but when we go out and we present we want to ensure that people

understand what this is and so we really reinforce that it is guided by a community's vision to how they want their city to grow and develop. And it's the overarching land use policy to help guide what kinds of development we want to see and where we want to see them. Uh it's different than zoning uh where zoning is regulating that sight specific that parcel specific detail right you're just talking about setbacks densities heights things of that nature. So our flume is the overarching policy and the zoning is sight specific. Our flume helps us to guide decision-m and land use updates and and policies. Um it helps us to be consistent in that decision-making process. It helps us to inform the zoning updates that should uh be occurring. It helps us to understand where we should be investing in our infrastructure and again we want to ensure that it's guided through the community's vision for growth and development. What kind of city we want to live in as a community. So um the city of El Paso is required to follow um the Texas local government code once once you update your comprehensive plan. It then follows uh the Texas local government code. Chapter 213 regulates comp. Uh so these are the types of changes or applications development applications that you see on a regular basis likely that then trigger that response. And so when we have a change to the land use such as through a zoning change or a special permit staff will oftent times well will need to reference the flume to ensure that the land use change is compatible with what we have decided for that future growth and development. Um same similarly to subdivision and plot reviews. We want to ensure that not only is that land use congruent but um is there strong connectivity. Is there is it aligning with the criteria that we set forth in their flume. Um and similarly to annexation requests you know around connectivity land uses congruency. Are we uh guiding the growth that we through our community engagement um decided

that's what we want to see in that area. So kind of mentioned already but why do we need a new plan? We adopted uh the last comprehensive plan in 2012, plan El Paso. Um essentially everything was kind of wrapped up at the end of 2011 and then adopted in 2012. And so what we're seeing or what you may have been seeing now is um more amendments to the flume. And so we think that when you're starting to see more amendments to the flume, then there's might be a bit of a mismatch to the types of development we want to see in that area versus what the flume was priorly guiding. Uh so this is an example in one of our more common situations in the mission valley where it was previously designated as agriculture. Um some of the adjacent land uses were around industrial and so there was that guidance to well maybe we should amend that flume because we have some uh land uses nearby that uh allow for that type of use. Um, so again, it's not a good decision or a bad decision, but it's just to understand how we make those decisions. And, um, the other thing we're seeing is like instead of making one-off changes is, you know, it's time to do like a holistic review and understand like how we want our our city to grow. And so that's where we're at at this point. So, we would been working with PNI over the past year and a half to really understand like what works really well with the current flume, where is there room for improvement? And so as a team and then in conjunction with our community engagement, we've identified some goals that we want to help guide these updates and plans. Uh some of those are really diversifying our land uses. So we don't, you know, want to encourage single land use. We want to make sure that there is some change and we know change is hard, but we want to make sure that even the change that we're allowing can be incremental and keeping in tune with character. Uh we want to enhance um connection to public open space. um increase options of housing to uh make it more attainable, more affordable, and

make sure that there's strong connectivity between neighborhoods. So, what we're doing is in our current flume, they're called land use designations, and we're leading with the terminology of a place type. And so, really, people lean into that sense of place, what makes their neighborhood feel a certain way. Um, and again, kind of speaking back to change is sometimes uncomfortable. And so how do we make sure that we guide these changes without completely deteriorating the sense of place for somebody? And so we've we've created a set of criteria that looks at, you know, overarching characters. So the overarching vision for that neighborhood of how it could grow and develop um street types and connectivity. So again going back to how we get around um whether that's by bike, walking, by car um connection to public open space or even just like our infrastructure, widening of sidewalks and trails and things like that. Our adjacencies and transition. So we don't want necessarily to encourage a 20s story building next to a two-story building, but ensure that we're allowing for that gradual gradation of change. um ensuring there's compatible land uses in and around those areas and that the built form intensity and sighting are congruent with each other and it's not like one area one building has a 5-ft setback and the next one has a 30- foot setback or something like that. So all of it maintaining with this character um we essentially are proposing 11 place types. Um they can be categorized in these six categories. So we have our neighborhoods where our complete neighborhood is our lowest density place type. Um we are encouraging uh one to four units in in those neighborhoods. Um we have our corridors. So we have our uh you know major commercial arterials. And essentially over all of these place types what we want to do is encourage what's already occurring but also amplify it, make it make it so it has a more diverse use of the space that it's already in. Um so overwhelmingly we

heard that people want to be connected to things to do, have more amenities nearby. So this these are the some of ways some of the ways we can get there. So centers again being your neighborhood centers, urban centers. So neighborhood centers being adjacent to your neighborhoods, having those neighborhoods serving commercial um urban centers being a little bit more dense, not as dense as downtown, but you're you have a little bit more activity, a little bit higher building, taller buildings, higher density. Um then we have our downtown. We have our employment area. are innovation like manufacturing, logistics, your maker spaces. Um you can incorporate where can we incorporate those types of uses but also incorporate maybe like workforce housing. Um and then we have heavy industry which we always want to ensure that that's you know safely um aligned or located in the city. We have civic uh civic campuses so to say. So civic and institutional activity centers. So our medical campuses are uh educational institutional campuses. So what we've heard overwhelmingly too is what kinds of different land uses can we have there so people can when they get there they can access different amenities and uses within walking distance. Um and then open space or a natural and uh an open spaces environments or natural environments. So this is an example of a packet that we have created right now for our place types. And the intention behind it is that we have you know a projected imagery sort of a future imagery of what that place type could look like. This is an example for a regional corridor. Um and then we have some photos of maybe like potential areas in and around the city. And then we have the criteria all the criteria that I just listed a couple slides past and what it means. So it talks about what is the character? what is that vision for that area? What are the heights that we're allowing in that area? What are the kind of land uses that we're allowing in that area? And the intention is is that we want to make sure that it's um digestible for someone who may not be have a developer background, a planning background, an

engineering background, may not be as familiar with this. So, how do we get here? We've been doing a lot of engagement. We had our workshops last year um a workshop per district. And the idea was that we wanted to uh you know educate people on what this was um start to identify um what kinds of development they wanted to see in and around the places that they live, work and play um and gather that input which helped us to inform those place types and the criteria within those place types. So we had a mapping activity. We had some sort of like scenario activities and drawing activities and really just leading with what do you want to see? What kind of growth and development are you excited about or would like to encourage where you live? Um we have mapped all of those. So that helped us to understand where there's support for things and where there's not. Um overwhelmingly again people just want to have cool things to do nearby. Like what a concept. Um they want to be near, you know, physical the like physical activity like rec centers, go out to eat with a friend, have some entertainment, gathering spaces, markets, things like that. Uh they want to have improved walkability. So not just in like connectivity, but also in the um like I wanted to say health, but in in the um sorry quality of the infrastructure or the maintenance of the infrastructure. um and they definitely wanted to encourage mixeduse developments. And so this helped us to start to identify what these place types look like and what the criteria within them is. So recently we had additional workshops, eight, one per district and then three additional that were open um to the public, one with a developer focus group and really understanding where do you imagine these changes taking place? And so when we asked that, we got their comments. They had a mapping activity literally plopping on a map where they thought an urban center would be, a neighborhood center would be and sorry I do have a legend but I didn't get it on this one before I sent it. Um where um all these

different place types would take place. So the idea is before we go to the community with an actual map is we want to ensure that we're exhausting our community engagement efforts and that we are transposing those comments onto the areas where they can imagine seeing that change so that we can show where their input was um incorporated and if their input was not incorporated why we will have a response to that. So over archingly this year we've had 11 workshops 175 participants not you know we have 700,000 people so in our city so there's room for improvement there um and then we've had some additional discussions uh across you know our departments across with the developers that you see on the page here. So what we're doing now is we're going to work session on Monday and we've been having briefings and the intent there is to really understand, you know, we have uh eight council representatives. They have regularly scheduled meetings. Are there opportunities to then couple up with them and really engage uh their residents, their communities so they can be a part of this process as for informing these updates and uh before we come back out to present a draft map. And the real intention there too is that um you know there's always a lot of support or not support when there's a specific zoning change but we want to also ensure that their community understands how this is a tool that happens before that zoning change. So how that they could be a part of that process and understand what kind of growth and development is being encouraged around that the areas that they feel very connected to that they would either want to support or not support in the future. So this is essentially again just the project process and indicating where we are. Um and then coming up so we have our work session on Monday. Coming up we have a district 3 community meeting. So we've already starting to schedule these community meetings with our district reps. And then we'll actually have a

housing needs assessment. Not yet the strategy but a needs assessment that'll come to work session in November on November 17. [laughter] Is that it? That's it. Yeah. Thank you. [laughter]

Did you want more? Uh, commissioners, questions, concerns? No, everything's hunky dory again. Oh my goodness. I have some. Sure. Had a few. And I'm going to speak specifically of uh South Central El Paso

along the Alama corridor and of Baisana corridor going up towards I 10. Okay. Obviously, you haven't looked at that area because there are a lot of car lots and more are coming and every uh commercial lot available becomes a car lot. Okay. Now, most of the car lots are great. Some aren't. They say they're car lots, but in reality, they're just junkyards

where no cars and we need help there. We've been trying to get some help in that area for the last 25 years before the 2012 uh plan El Paso and uh we try to address that but we've never been able to address that. So is that something that could be addressed? Yeah, I mean I think in the flume, not only around the designation, but a lot of the things and discussions that I hear is like it seems a lot easier to build a car lot or a car wash because that's a comment that we hear often versus how do we enable those sort of development processes for other things. Um so not only through our flume can we update those designations, but also when we're going through a review of what are our development codes that need to be updated as part of an implementation of that. um you know that could be a way to help alleviate and or encourage the other uses that that could be

well car washes are not a problem. Car lots are not a problem if [laughter] uh they operate as a car lot and I'll give you some examples. Um they buy land. They put cars in front for sale in the middle of their business.

It's a junkyard. They're selling parts which are not supposed to. and they're taking the residents parking with unregistered cars. Now, I've talked to uh code enforcement and for some reason or the other, the owners give them some type of uh answer and they're fine with it. And it's not I mean, we have a lot, especially in that area, South Central El Paso, where they just bring in cars and just park them on residential streets, not registered and It's a problem.

Um, the car haulers are parked on the residential streets, you know, and it's been like that for the last 20 25 years. We've complained, we've helped, and maybe now through this uh endeavor that you're doing, we can maybe help out.

Yeah. I don't know specifically how to answer that. I don't know if you have any thoughts, but that my initial answer would be I mean because [laughter] because some parts of the city are great and I see them, they're great, but this has been forever born for a long time that has not been addressed.

Yeah. I mean, some things that I tend to think about are the neighborhood specific plans that start to identify sight specific policy. Um, but that goes into a whole other endeavor and plan. But again, if this is if the current f the future land use map that we bring forward uh starts to support, you know, the the character the development that you want to see in that neighborhood. Um that could be a way a next step to then get there for implementation. But I don't know if you have anything else to add.

Yeah, I I'll I'll say a couple things real quick. So for me, the future land use map, the comprehensive plan is the vision. The development codes are the vehicle to get to that vision. And right now the development codes do not are not aligned with the the vision. So one thing is that the development codes need to be um updated. Um the uh zoning code itself is about 20 years old. A lot of advances have come across throughout um the development community except our codes haven't been updated yet. So that is one thing. Second, I think to your point is with code enforcement. code enforcement needs to go out there, hold the folks accountable, and then when it comes before the judges, judges also need to hold hold the uh the uh the property owners accountable because again, I think a lot of it is how we demand what what we expect of our community. You know, I would hope that we want to do better. I think El Paso is great. I've told a couple of you, a number of you, El Paso is great, but it could be better. And it's these little instances each of us on our own individual sphere of influence can really help change that. Um it's just we need to all be on the same page and make that change. But I think to your point, Mr. Chair, I think code enforcement is is a key on a lot of these ones here to make sure they're they are keeping within their footprint and doing so in appropriate manner.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. Any other questions, concerns? No. Thank you, Casey. Thank you. I'll entertain one more motion to Whoa, that was quick. [laughter]

Second. We have a motion and a second to adjurnn. I don't think there should be any discussion there. All in favor say I. All oppose. Motion.