Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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Thank you. Hey, guys. My name is Cale Smith. I'm the city manager from Homewood. And I'm glad so many folks are here. As we've said each time we've met in this room, it's important to have community input and feedback, and we really want to hear from you guys. Brian Wright from TPUDC is here tonight. He is by himself, so he doesn't have anybody to block the darts when you begin to throw them. But I think he's ready to take it. So welcome, Brian, and I'm excited to see what you have to say.

Thank you. So glad to be back once again. Yeah, that last thing that he said you may take note of. He said, I'm excited to see what you're going to say because no one's seen this presentation. Not the city. So as far as transparency goes, this is as transparent as it gets. So hopefully everyone likes it, including the city. Yeah, I feel like I've been sweating all day long. I came down from Nashville. It was actually nearly fall-like weather in the evenings the past couple of days. And then I get here and it's blazing hot. And then this morning I got to move my daughter into Samford. And so then you're moving boxes and then there's stairs and all that. And so, yeah, so hopefully tonight I will... get in the air conditioning in my hotel room. So yeah, so I'm Brian. I'm the principal of Town Planning and Urban Design Collaborative. How many first-time participants do we have? Oh, that's great. Good. So I'm leading a team of people, so I get to stand up here tonight. Lots of people. So we have economists and transportation engineers and urban planners and landscape architects and you know everybody it takes to to think about all the aspects of a city because we're working on the comprehensive plan and as the name implies it is comprehensive so tonight i'm going to do a little bit of just catch up for those of you who are new not it's not very much so you'll want to go and look at what we've done before meetings and discussions have been recorded there's a web page i'll show you at the end but tonight we call this the show and tell so I'm going to show you some things and you're going to tell me how you feel about it and let's see so I'll catch you up real quick so we've done lots of input thus far so we had meetings with staff different departments to kind of determine what the needs of the project were we toured the city I grew up in Vestavia but I didn't tour as a professional urban planner around Homewood, even though my relatives' aunts and other people lived here. So got to see it with fresh eyes. We heard what's working well from the different departments' perspective. We saw with our eyes what seemed to be working well and what we thought as outsiders needed improvement. We interviewed the elected and appointed officials one-on-one to hear their sort of unfiltered take on what's going on, how things are going. And then we started reviewing all the regulatory documents, the zoning, the old plan, other studies that have been done over time. And then we had an ideas exchange in January. So we had different stations, nine different ones, and we had people, you know, had an opportunity to come in and sort of go through each of these stations, covering the different topics that you would, you know, think about in the comp plan. We had a growth choices workshop in May and we had different scenarios and some were sort of one was like the status quo kind of going on as you are. One was sort of moderate growth and the other was a bit more advanced growth but targeted and sort of smart in the way that it was set about. And so people gave us feedback on those specific scenarios. And then we had the Big Ideas Workshop. We had different topical meetings where we talked about transportation, like a roundtable discussion. And we had people who were in different departments with the city. And then people who were just interested in those topics as well, infrastructure, other types of things. And so we got some really good, very specific discussions. from people, but also good ideas. And so each time we go, that tends to be the process. People sort of readily share concerns. That's top of mind. Like, oh, I'm worried about this thing or I'm frustrated with that. And then once we get past that and they say, oh, what if we did this or what about that? And so that's when you can start doing some cool stuff. Let's see. Here we go. So some major themes have kind of come up through the process that are going to be reflected in the plan. So we've talked, we heard about protecting Homewood's charm. You know, we've heard a lot about the neighborhoods that people like. You know, they have the historic character to them and, you know, sort of The different housing types that are here, it's a little bit limited, the housing types you have, but the charm is in abundance. And so we've heard a lot about that. People talked about growing intentionally. And I think that's one of the things that people are really responding to in those different scenarios is that it wasn't just like people putting a star on the idea for growth. It was like, okay, grow intentionally. but it needs to be thoughtful, intentional, and it can't just be sort of like, let's let the developers plan the city one project at a time. And you're mostly, it's okay, no worries, as long as it's not my phone, because I have the same ringer, and I was like, oh no. So if it's my wife, tell her to leave you alone. Yeah, so the idea of growing intentionally, but you're mostly built out here, right? And so I think people are a little bit feeling kind of safe and protected in that regard. And so we've been looking at, well, are you really built out? And so if growth did occur, where would it occur? How would it occur? And what are your needs that need to be met in the growth? It's not just growing for growth sake, but it's meeting your needs as a community. People talked about providing diverse and compatible housing types. And so there's initial discussions about multi-family as being concerns. And we talked about, well, what do you mean about that? And people explained that big suburban apartment complexes are concerning to them. And we kind of boiled it down to the thing about those apartment complexes that really make them nearly universally unloved, wherever we work around the country, is the form of them, the scale, the massiveness, the homogeneity of them. The fact that you have these big buildings that are all the same, that aren't that good looking in the first place, surrounded by a sea of parking, and it's just kind of like, it doesn't fit in with anything else in the character of the community. And so what's to love about them except for if you need a place that fits into that price point at that stage in your life, which, and we've done a show of hands, you know, throughout the process, who here has never lived in an apartment? And there's always like one person who raised their hand, but beyond that, everybody else had. And so we're like, oh yeah, so apartments aren't bad, just sort of innately bad. It's just that we get bad versions of them most of the time. And we looked at some of the examples in some of the surrounding communities. You know, Mountain Brook has this fantastic tradition of these wonderful apartment buildings. They're multifamily, and you don't even think of it like that, because they're just architecturally great, but they're not massive complexes of them. So we talked about that some. And then we talked about also when development is happening in the neighborhood, when a teardown or an expansion occurs on a house, what does that mean for the neighborhood and how do we make sure that even that scale of growth is still sort of compatible with what's going on. We talked about another thing that came up is fostering connections. So we heard about connectivity vehicular-wise, pedestrian-wise. We met one young guy who doesn't have a car and is able to actually make it. here in Homewood. I was surprised by that. I was glad to hear it. I would say he's probably a rarity here. But some of the things that we heard, there would be a desire, I think, for more people to at least have the possibility of that lifestyle, even if they don't choose it. But it means they can walk around more and bike more and have different connections in those ways. And so we're looking at that. And then also connection amongst people. like social connections with going to a place and seeing people that you know or that you don't know. You need to know someone and having those sort of organic interactions that happen. The multimodal network kind of ties into that connectivity. We heard about the desire for some transit. You have some already. And is there a way to help grow that? And so our transportation engineers looking into those aspects as well. And then the idea of investing in your existing assets. So maintaining and enhancing what you already have. Y'all are getting of an age that your infrastructure is probably you know ailing a bit here and there and so you have to kind of think you can't just be fun big ideas all the time sometimes it has to be mundane and you know every now and then you need to get a new roof or a new air conditioner and using an example of your house where you spend money on something and you're like okay well now we're back to where we began yay you know but you had to spend money on it so so we want to think through that as well and some of our teammates are really specialists in that regard So we talked about, from those scenarios, the idea of a growth and conservation framework. Sometimes in the comprehensive plan, people talk about a future land use map. And we like to think about growth and conservation not just future land use because land use is really a crude way of thinking about a city, right? In order to have sort of neat, tidy categories, things have to be separated from one another, right? So residential over here, housing over there. But as you can see, here and in some of the surrounding cities, you have a tradition already of making places that have a mix of uses within them, even if it's some little area just like Edgewood. It's not much of it, but there's some. And imagine if that weren't there. It would be such a different vibe in the neighborhood and usefulness as well. So we put together sort of a framework here, areas to preserve, areas to protect, which would be sort of like the neighborhoods that everybody knows and loves, all the named neighborhoods. So we call that neighborhood conservation sector. We have areas to enhance. So that would be like a neighborhood reinvestment sector. So you've already got some areas like that in West Homewood where you all have been already sort of naturally reinvesting in the community and it's been really cool, so building off of that. Areas to transform.

So there's some cool things that we can do with that.

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I accidentally hit the button a minute ago, sorry.

Tell everyone at home they just missed the boring part. We're now at the exciting part. Don't touch the bottom, that's the power button. So these aren't proposals. And some of the things that I'm gonna show you could be in multiple locations around the city, but the reason why we picked these spots is based on the mapping exercises you guys did with us, based on the input we've received, based on ideas that we've heard. Some of them are going to be big ideas, and some of them will be small ideas. Yeah, and at the end of this, We're just going to tell me what you think, right? So take notes. All right, so there are five different... I keep pointing with the laser pointer. You can't point the laser pointer at a TV just so you know. Five different study areas that we've looked at. So the first place is what we're calling the Green Springs Retrofit. Now, Green Springs is fully within the red. It seems, for whatever reason, to not be a place where people are just loving the vibe. And I remember even as a kid, you know, like if the Kmart that was on Green Springs didn't have the IC machine in it, like I didn't want to go. There's something about it. I don't even know why. It just didn't feel great over there. And... Yeah, so this is showing retrofit of underutilized property, these giant parking lots around this. And let's see what roads we've got here. So Oxmoor Road is running through the middle, and then Green Springs Highway is going north-south there. And what I'm going to show you is, there we go. So this is starting to look at how you could infill this area with buildings at the edges sort of pulled up to the street. So Green Springs Highway starts to become transformed into a boulevard, right? And so like a place where you might actually want to be. You might walk along a sidewalk with Treeline Street there, not because your car broke down or you had no transportation, so people wouldn't stop and ask you if you needed help. And the parking would remain, and so you've got more of an urban condition. You still got the big box there in the back, and so what you can see is in the darker orange around the edge there is mixed use, and then the brighter orange is more of a multi-family or commercial. Then we've got even what we call gas backwards on the corner. So there's a gas station where they have the pumps in the back. Sometimes you see banks like that where the tellers are in the rear. And so I'll show you an image. So here is the shopping center there. Some floor decor or something like that. Does that sound familiar? Yeah. And then there's two gas stations on the corner. And so, again... If you own any of the buildings there, if it's any of your property, do not be concerned. This is to show you if you wanted to do something with your property, how you might redevelop it, or had you had these ideas years ago, how you could have done it instead of how it was done. So this is what that could look like. And so what you start to see is, you know, as we talked about the need for more housing in the city, We talked about how apartment complexes aren't the way that people want to go for the future if you have some multifamily. And so what you see here in this image is kind of this main, sort of main street that leads up to floor decor or whatever it becomes in the future. Because we know those buildings, those things come and go in those big box buildings. Even the big boxes go away sometimes. They get broken up and turn into other things. But you can see there's multiple floors, multiple stories on these buildings where people could live above. And so you could start having some multifamily. You have some commercial on the ground floor. You still have the gas station on the corner there. You just see the pumps are in the back. We just rearranged the orientation and the same on the gas station on the other corner. And then we've had some conversations about sustainability and energy efficiency and whatnot. As sort of a nod to that, you start to see some green roofs and some solar on the roofs here in the image. As somebody's flipping through the comprehensive plan in the future, we go like, hey, suburban retrofit is a thing. We're also into sustainability. They're like, oh, look, it's sort of showing that. Now, we could have had the same image, and we could have had... six, five, six, seven story, you know, who knows, right? But in this image, it's a bit more modest, just to not blow everyone's mind. Yes, sir. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, really? Oh, how about that? No. No, no one has. This is... Yeah, I'm glad you asked that. Because as much as y'all are doing around here, I'm likely to hit on something where if somebody's doing something, y'all are going to think it's their proposal. So no, this is not. I've not talked to any of the property owners here. I don't have any idea what's going on there. This was picked off the maps and just kind of drawn in a theoretical. We did try to take topo into consideration, though, because it's a bit topographic over there as it kind of comes down. But yeah, so anyway, so you can imagine quite a difference before and after. And this would be quite noteworthy and a place that people might want to be. Let's see, so this one, so that was just kind of like a crust, a lining around the edge of big box, right? So this one, What I wanted to show in this instance is kind of a gateway, but I'm calling it a district. This is a gateway district because there is a lot more land. This is over here. This is Oxmoor Boulevard. There's I-65 there going north-south. And so there's like Jim and Nick's is over there. And we just noticed there's lots and lots of this contiguous parking and buildings that seem like they are a bit... how do you say, yes, and not meant to last for generations, right? And so we said, okay, well, we'll be, and actually some of them are empty, you know, so we thought this would be good. So if you own whatever the car place is there that seems like it's not empty. Again, this is not a proposal, but when you do this type of suburban retrofit, you end up needing to have a certain amount of density to make it financially viable. In this case, again, haven't run any numbers on this or anything, but I'm about to show you some actual concepts that have parking structures in it. And out here, probably property values aren't warranting parking structures, so also there are several blocks that are shown with just surface interior parking as well. So here's what that could look like. I notice it's a bit of a mess there with the intersections when you come off of 65 and it's like, I don't know how that all works and I don't know if you'll have accidents there or what, but we worked over in Carmel, Indiana and Carmel is the roundabout capital of the country. And they've done some wild stuff. If you ever just go on Google sometime on maps and look up Carmel, nearly every single major intersection is a roundabout. Even their highway exits are these weird figure eights, and they figured it out. So I think their traffic fatalities are probably like zero in the city of Carmel as a result. Because what happens when you have a roundabout, for anybody who's scared of a roundabout, they're not great for pedestrian places where you want people really like... lots of people walking around. But here, coming off of 65 and other things like that, it wouldn't be that bad. But if you do have an accident at a roundabout, it's a grazing kind of side swipe. There's no T-bones, right? And side swipes stink because you've got to go to the body shop, but everyone's body is intact, except for the car. So what you see in this case, again, the darker brick color is mixed use kind of coming off the roundabout into the center there. And I really set this up to represent more of a mixed use but a heavier multifamily kind of concept. So you could see like, you could imagine a multifamily or mixed use developer actually accumulating these parcels and doing something. So what's in the middle there, that big civic space, with the bright red building, that's like a clubhouse and a pool and there's beach volleyball courts and community gardens and some amenities that you would have as part of an apartment development. But you still have the mixed use elements out near the edges. We've left a couple of the existing buildings. I've added some some actual townhouses there. So the orange smaller kind of sliced up pieces, those are townhouses. So you see that the idea is that there's a multitude of different building types, even within this, even if it's all for rent. Um, it, so it doesn't just feel like one big mass of the same thing, right? It could, you could really imagine, even if you didn't live there wanting to go there and experience kind of the mixed use and, and all that. So again, some surface parking, some structured parking, um, and some advanced roundaboutage going on there. But who knows? There may not be a market for that. And also, knowing those growth patterns, if you start adding up all the square footages and number of units that I've shown in these images, it's probably years worth of growth in Homewood. So what you would think about is a development like this might happen a block here, a block there over time. And if this happens, maybe the Greenspring stuff down there doesn't happen, or it doesn't happen for another 10 years. There's only a certain finite number of people who are interested in moving into one place. So when I show you multiple places like this, don't think that it's all sort of plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. So here's what that looks like. So this is the view kind of looking over towards 65 there. There's the vacant building in the front top right. There's Jim and Nick's there right at the tree row. And so here's... what that could look like. So you see the townhouses in the foreground here, little townhouse court at the top. There's a six-plex apartment building there. These are obviously much larger multifamily and mixed-use buildings. You can see the roundabouts, and then we talked about in some of the meetings the idea of having public art And so we put a big sort of public art installation in the middle of one of those roundabouts. It would be pretty iconic. Jim and Nick's is still there with this drive-through fully functioning. It just has a rear lane to it. And then there's multiple ways to get off from the roundabouts, off of 65, off of whatever the road is there that runs next to it, whose name I can't recall. And sort of all connected. And then you can even connect on to the road there. It was at Vulcan Drive, I guess. It goes up the way. The idea of connectivity that we've been talking about is represented in these, the idea of mixed use, the idea of dealing with some of the housing concerns and considerations, and then having a multitude of housing types. You can live in this same development at several different stages of your life to meet different preferences you have. This is what I'm calling the Rosedale Gateway. So, you know, several years ago, if any of you recall, there was a plan that concepts were being worked on for Rosedale for ways to look at sort of revitalization and really sort of honoring the history and the legacy there. And so we picked up on some of that. We noticed that it's kind of interesting. You know, you can see there's some reinvestment that's happening there. There's a park that's there. And then there's the bigger park down the way. And then we noticed the brook that runs through that's in like this concrete channel. I don't know if y'all even know there's water back there, but it's like in this trough. And so we started thinking about, you know, is that something? Lots of places are daylighting these streams and sort of bringing them back to their natural condition. And We know that there's stormwater challenges and things, and so we were like, is there a way that we can make this part of a solution for some downtown stormwater? And then we saw that there was a pretty good-sized piece of vacant land there on the other side of the brook, and redevelopment and reinvestment that's been happening, the Cahaba Cycles and those kind of things. And we were just looking at this site on its own, and I was like, oh, wait a minute, this is like the entrance to Rosedale.

Oh, that's so cool.

what if we actually did something really cool here and that started to get people kind of over there more, sort of resurrecting the idea of this plan and sort of getting Rosedale going. And then we started researching, did Rosedale originally have like a mixed-use center? And I realized that it did, and that's now what's kind of on the main road there. There's a few of the old buildings that are left over before they did the big cut through. So and then, again, I'm going to show you something very specific in this image. It was an idea that we got directly from a few people who came in. I don't know if it has legs or not, but it was cool. And it kind of helped illustrate the point of doing something unique and special in this area, in this open space. They came in and they were bike enthusiasts. You have a lot of them. And they said, you know what would be really cool is if we had a pump track. And I said, what? What's a pump track? I don't even know what that means. So I'm like looking it up. And I was like, oh, okay. And I was like, that's kind of neat. It's sort of like a... I don't know the best way I can describe it is like a little, a small, I'll show you some pictures actually. First I'll show you the plan. So I started looking at ways we could do some little interventions here, improve the experience, because it's a bit industrial feeling over there right now. There's like a dance studio and stuff and like old metal buildings. streetscapes where it's like sidewalk just jammed right up against the street and power poles and parking lot next to that sidewalk and there aren't really street trees and things and so so here's what we've come up with and what we're showing is at 27th there and I guess Central Avenue those buildings that are kind of on the corner there sort of holding that and representing the gateway moment because There were buildings in that area, and there aren't anymore. And then you'll see this pump track, this sort of squirmy, squirrely, spaghetti-looking thing over there. And then what you'll see in front of that, to the right, is us kind of de-channelizing the brook. And there's a pretty good amount of space over there, and so you could grade it so that there's areas where it's suitable for flooding and stormwater treatment and those sorts of things and becomes part of a of an open space um right now there's already been some streetscape improvements along there it looks like i just went over there last night i was like oh wow there's like a sidewalk and lights and stuff and i love it when we just build on ideas that people are already doing things you know and um and so you know this idea would kind of enhance that even more um and then here's uh a pump track. So this is, and this is actually, I took this pump track because it happened to fit right in that space that we had, but you had a few trees that were there. And so I worked the, you know, these like grassy areas around the trees. And so the, you know, kind of go around there and you've got the, There's already sort of a bike vibe going on. And again, this could be over anywhere, right? The first place that somebody suggested was on the Board of Education site, that big triangle. And so there's an idea where you could put it there. But I thought it would be really unique to do something like this in your downtown area, if you will. There we go. So this is what it looks like now. There's your beautiful brook. There's no concrete in that part, at least. I don't know if that's better or worse. There's these big trees over there. You have lots of kudzu, which is edible, if you didn't know. Kudzu flower is highly, highly valuable in Japan. There's an opportunity for that. This is what that could look like. So here's your brook turned into this wonderful stormwater feature. And for all the engineers in the room who are going like, come on, man, what are you doing here? This has not been engineered. This is to illustrate the idea. And there at the top, the building with the big porch on it, is a restaurant where they could serve kudzu related food in the kudzu patch. But you see some outdoor restrooms and some pavilions and the pump track and the learn to ride your bike spot here in the front. Little buildings that have been added along your walkway that you currently have. to kind of give an edge to this park, and then that's a multi-family building there. There's a patch next to some single-family houses, so we've added a little fourplex there, and there's a little park area that's over the top, and then you can see we've actually done a little Rosedale kind of archway sign. It kind of leads you into the neighborhood there. So yeah, so this is like an oddly specific concept to have in a comprehensive plan if you've not looked at lots of comprehensive plans. But really what we're trying to get across is do something cool with your brook. Do something to sort of emphasize and get people kind of addressing Rosedale. Continue on your sort of network of civic spaces that you have. You've got one park in Rosedale and one at the other end already. And then here's how you can infill with a little multi-family building next to single family houses that still feels good. And you know, so you're starting to get the idea here. Like it's not about the thing that I'm showing, it's about the ideas that are contained within it.

What else do I have for you here? I don't even remember.

Okay. So this is what I call the downtown retrofit. So I, during one of the meetings, was talking about your downtown. And I said, you have this lovely city hall. You all spent all this time and effort and resources building. And you've got this giant plaza. And I'm just looking at it. And it's great. And it's the envy of cities near and wide. And then you turn around. And I was like, and then there's Jax. And I was like, oh my gosh, Jax, what? And I'm like, wait a minute, wait, hold on now. And then I learned the original Jax, right? And so I was like, okay, I get it. That's not the original Jax, but that's the spot for it. Here lies where Jax used to be, right? And it's new. I understand it's been recently remodeled and is lovely and it's heavily patronized because all the drive-through traffic comes out on the road there in the mornings and things. And And so I made sure I had a biscuit, you know, and some tea from there. And so I'm now jackified. And so I couldn't resist, though, right? I still wanted to make my point and show you all something here. Now, again, I could have picked any block in the downtown because once you kind of get past the curve and the little main street there and all that, it's kind of like, you know, it's got the shape and, like, the square blocks of what a downtown would be. it's pretty suburban like something happened right and and you you know kind of left the pattern of development that people love the most right so when you show people your downtown you probably don't take them over there and here's our tour of drive-thrus right and uh so um so here's what i what we're showing right so there's already a giant parking garage there And so that's what you see. And we've taken a few liberties. We left Jack's where it is, but we turned it. We turned it 90 degrees, and we reoriented where the drive-through is. We left the drive-through on the two banks, even though, I don't know, have you all heard of, not ETM, but ITM now? interactive teller or something whatever it's like you pull up and instead of like the glass and there's a person behind it and they give you know it's uh it's a screen and there's a person in tulsa or something talking to you and they're like oh hi mrs johnson yes what do you need and then they can do all the stuff and who knows where they are um and so I don't know when the last time I went to a bank was, or you all, but their need for drive, but I didn't want to, I wanted to be realistic, so I left them there. So what you start to see is the idea of a rear network of streets there that's consolidated. You've got a bunch of little fragments of parking lots that are super inefficient, And if they could be consolidated into one bigger thing, then you could much more easily park many more cars. And then we've kind of got a loop around, and you're able to still do the drive-throughs and all this stuff. And so Demetri's moved up to the corner in his prominent position and whatever. So I know y'all aren't going to do this, but the idea is, you know, it's going to be stickier now that I did it with this block, right? Y'all are going to pay more attention because I'm talking about it. So just so you know, this is what a jacks look like, right? It's not all the fancy stone and all that stuff. This is jacks. So I walked out there, and I said, let's do a view that shows both sides of the street, the side I was bragging about and the side I was bagging about. And drumroll. area now what you'll notice is you see the jacks right there the glass with the pit slanted roof and all that i'd like brought back the sort of the the you know, the heritage of what the Jack's was. I've just added a second story to it. I even have the sign up on the edge. It says Jack's there. And the drive-thru's in the rear. We've got sustainable stormwater flow-through planters here along the street. You don't need all the turn lanes and stuff because... No, theoretically, right? You may need them if you do a traffic study. You may still need them. But the way that we've organized it with all this sort of rear circulation and all that, you don't need all of that that's going on there. And so now you have, you know, you don't have a sidewalk on that side of the street, right? Now you do. You have street trees even. um here we've shown some trees in the plaza there's probably implanters because there's a parking garage underneath um you can see in the distance there's a big sculpture in the plaza i said that's a plaza that big you got to have something going on in there so i suggested that'd be a great spot for some of this public art we talked about and then there's also a mural on the side of the building next to jack's there there's beautiful magnolias you can't see it but it's pretty cool um and uh We got pervious pavers there on your little, what used to be the drive-through area there where you could drive past City Hall. And complete transformation. Again, illustrating all kinds of ideas. Pick any block. You could do all these things, none of these things, some of these things elsewhere. But you still will have jacks, even in this grand vision. And then this is a very, very small intervention. So we were talking, and luckily, even though we had many, many seniors that participated, which was great. I don't mean seniors in high school or college. And it was awesome, and they represented all kinds of different ideas. But we luckily had some moms that came in and some dads who had middle school-age kids. And they said, man, our kids just love to hang out at the BP.

I was like, what?

what's with the BP, you know? And then I remember, you know, growing up in Vestavia, it was like, we had the Taco Bell, right? And it's like, okay. And so we started theorizing, this may be the only BP in the country that makes more money off of its snacks than it does off the gas, right? Because it's not easy to get gas over there. It's kind of a pain, right? And you've got this great little walkable streetscape there in Edgewood, and and kind of like the gas station on the corner and it doesn't really, isn't it a great gateway? So I'm calling this the Edgewood Neighborhood Center. So here's what we did. So we just left the convenience store building where it is and I put the gas pumps on the side and where the gas pumps were Now there's a little plaza and a little green space budding up to the wall that has a mural on the side of it there. Lots of places for the kids to hang out and eat their little debbies and whatever they're getting and drink their Powerades. And so now it's sort of a proper gateway into this wonderful, charming little spot you've got there. And It was funny because I couldn't quite find an image that showed the mural because there's a gas pumps and awning in front of it, but we got AI to help us fake this view. There you go. There's your BP on the ground floor of your convenience store. We're calling it Edgewood Local. or Edgewood Social, whatever you want to call it. I don't know. But you get all your snacks and sundries there. The gas pumps are on the side with a nice, more Homewood-looking awning and canopy instead of the big corporate-looking one. But the logos are there. You'll see we even got their logos and colors. You can see a little public art there in the green space on the corner, a fountain, the mural is there. We added a second floor on the building next to it as well for some residential to go above. Plenty of places for the kids to lean on and things and benches and all that and when you because you have such a civilized space we're also showing grown-ups walking through there too you know because the kids are going to be well behaved in a space like this and you know so you can imagine this is quite an addition to the neighborhood center that you got already So those are the big things we've been thinking about amongst others. But just as a sort of close out here and then we'll do Q&A. Here's where we are, community vision show and tell. We've been working on the draft, starting to create the actual document itself. And so that'll be the staff draft will be coming out in the fall. They'll bless it and make sure we haven't left anything out or done anything goofy in there and then the public draft will come out probably winter and then we'll have a kind of an open house kick off of hey it's now available for public review in December January and then once you guys have 30 days or something to give public comments then we'll take the input that you've given and finalize the draft and then after all the things that have come up to it it'll start the official adoption process and which you'll have other opportunities to stand up and you know, have your three minutes or however long you get around here to tell what you think. And so it's a very robust and interactive process thus far and into the future. I mentioned earlier the webpage, if you haven't gone on it or this is your first time, connecthomewood.com. And so there's a lot of the things that we've already done, exercises and things. We're online, but enough time has passed and we've kind of moved to the next stage that you can't go do them online. But the information is available, presentations, those sorts of things. So if you want to catch up on it, and then all these things that we've just shown will be popping up on there before too long as well. So let's chat. Hopes, dreams, fears, aspirations, concerns. What do you love? What do we get wrong? Yes. Yes. Um, not at this point. Um, you know, I drove past Brookwood today and so it looks like somebody has quite some plans for it. Um, and you know, it's uh, certainly a good spot for something to happen. And um, we're still kind of evaluating that. Um, sometimes it's tricky for me once bulldozers start moving around. Um, and that like I, want to say here's an idea and then feel like yes and then it's like but it's already approved for something totally different and this is like a frustration for the community so I'm often hesitant to do that sometimes we'll talk to the developer though and you know say like hey just so you know like we're hearing from the community, they would actually love something even more than what you've thought of, you know, like really, I thought we had to, you know, whatever. So sometimes we can be influential in that way and just inspiring them. But yeah, there's some other places we've been looking at as well that we haven't drawn plans for yet, but will be kind of talked about because we've heard people mention some of these locations as well. So, yes, sir.

Yeah.

Yes, so for those at home, I'm just going to repeat. The question is, how does the public and private investment work when you're thinking about some of these big ideas? And it depends, right? It depends on where we are, kind of what resources the community has. In Carmel, I'd draw a roundabout and it happens. No problem. Other places, if you're like, oh my gosh, a roundabout, are you kidding me? Ruined everything.

We're not England.

Whatever. But when you've got a crazy intersection like that, when you draw something like that and you make it city goes, hmm, interesting. Something we should look into when you're doing something in that intersection anyway. Then you go at the same time you know or even before developer goes like oh wow look what the city says in their compliment they want to have over here I'm going to symbol that land I'm going to do whatever and now they've got to do a bunch of off-site improvements right because they're going to have a traffic in I don't know if you'll do off-site improvements here for developers but. You know, it's a lot of times we're doing smaller things here and there, but a lot of places you'll, developer comes in, you'll do a traffic impact analysis, and if they, you have an impact, you're causing impacts, you've got to fix it, you know, as part of your development, you know, what you pay as a developer to do. And so then you could then work with the city and say, we're going to work on that intersection anyway. We had one to do roundabout. But some of these things are probably state routes and all that. And so that's a whole other layer of complexity. But without kind of having it out there. Certainly doesn't happen. Take roundabout off the table for a second. One of the things that's good about the way that we approach this is a lot of places are like, well, who's gonna pay for that? Well, to your point, most of what we've shown is on private property, and so it would be a developer would be developing it. You, through this comprehensive plan process, were looking at connectivity and various concerns that you have already as a community, now through development by having the forethought the developer can start solving some of those problems so for instance um we're working on a project right now and there's some you know wildlife considerations in that place right and so um one of the things that we're doing is making sure that our development has um contiguous habitat right uh and we're where it's not we're adding habitat so now there's corridors for the wildlife where we've got you know animals that are likely cross a road you know we're putting little animal underpasses and those sorts of things and so now through development we can solve problems that the community already has and you're able to I don't know so often people just think development always a net negative but when you're when you when the development is implementing the community's vision instead of just the developer's vision, it can be a net positive. And so the beauty of a comp plan and getting into these types of more specific explorations allows us and future developers in the city to start to put all these pieces together in a way that can facilitate things happening. So in the back there and then come to you, sorry. Yes, in all these examples, it's been mixed use. Yes.

We're in a new spot. Thank you.

Yes, so we have our economists. There's a housing study, all sorts of things that have been done. And what it's showing is that you have a shortage of housing, and you also have an affordability issue. Some people would say, oh, that sounds great. Everything's so expensive. That's good. But we've also met one of the benefits of all the seniors that have been participating is many, many people who have gone, I live in my single family house that I've been in forever, and I raised my kids there and whatnot, but I'm kind of done with that stage of my life, and I want to live somewhere different. I want to downsize. I don't want to just go be in some apartment complex or some senior citizen center or whatever. I want to be in a place where there's activity and vitality. It helps me stay young longer and keep mobile longer, because people can walk like 20 years longer than they ought to be driving, is what studies show. And so right now, you have apartments. but yes but the apartments the apartments that you have though aren't apartments that people are clamoring for right yes but like the the board of education property whether it was an apartment complex it's now torn down right it's not that common that somebody just takes an apartment complex and just wipes it out like that. It's like, oh, we're going to fix it up. We're going to put solid surface countertops in the kitchen now, whatever. And so now you've still got these sort of placeless apartment complexes that no one likes that are a bit nicer inside, but you haven't done it. So just to more directly answer the question though, it's been based on the feedback we've been getting because we did at the very beginning of this process hear people saying, yeah, multifamily is not something that we're comfortable with. through the process of understanding the numbers and the issues and the potential opportunities and solutions, that it doesn't have to just be suburban apartment complexes. That's kind of what led us to it. Now, again, ultimately, as we go through this process, you guys may go like, okay, it kind of sounded okay when you first talked about it, but now that I see it, ugh, no, I'm not into that. And that's okay. These are not proposals. These are just sort of illustrations. Oh, hold on.

Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, ultimately that's how you would do it. So if there's a concern about multifamily, just in general, what you would say is, okay, we're only accepting new multifamily if it is in the form that we've all agreed upon is suitable, right? What that does is... you may not notice that you may notice that there aren't tons of people doing these types of places it's because it's not a standard business model for a multi-family developer right they they're going to go to places that want to just do let them do suburban apartments and crank them out same place and whatever yeah yes all you've got to do is put the pumps in the back right and go like well that's weird but Then you look around in places where there's not an unlimited supply of land, like historic places, they do that already. If people think they can treat you like a suburban destination, they will treat you that way. If your regulations allow them to, they will do that. Ultimately, part of the comprehensive plan is to determine what your principles and values are as a community, what your vision is. And then it says in the comp plan, here's what that is. And then the next step would be to codify that in zoning. So in the back, and then to you, and then to you. Exactly. It could be condos.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you think about what you've done in Soho, right? What does a condo in Soho cost? Right? Right? So it's a great point. I'm saying multifamily because to elicit those kind of, that feedback, just so I'm not like, oh, just so, because a lot of times developers are like, oh, we're going to make it all for sale and whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah. Could be, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. Nope. Yeah.

They do it in Carmel. They do it in Carmel.

Yeah. Yeah.

yeah yeah sure those are all fair points so for instance our transportation engineers probably not going to say we recommend you put a roundabout as a solution right here you know whatever it's like he may say you know further back to your point there's a to consolidate all that kind of crazy intersection going on make that safer and easier to access but yeah that was that was not vetted with a with the transportation engineer

I mean, one other question is that setting up all the molding, which looks great.

Thanks.

The question is, have y'all surveyed or figured out what would be the addition population would add to the .

Maybe going to go from 26,000 to 32,000.

Have y'all taken into consideration how many of these potentially will go to the high school, to the school system, Yes.

Right. Yes, yes. So the scenario planning that we did earlier took into consideration what the population increases would be. These concepts that I'm showing here, like you could theoretically, you know, come up with a number of units that is shown in here, but it could be, if you add another story, that number's off. If you have a story here, whatever. So we don't sort of look at those and count them. Yes, yes. And to your Edgewood comment too, the only places where I'm showing two-story is on that corner. Right now that's all still one story down the way, so it's kind of like that gateway, because there isn't much parking there. There may be a solution. It sounds like y'all are already doing shared parking with all the churches because they've got massive amounts of parking there, which if you're not, you should be. And the development that you see in there stayed within the lot of the gas station currently, so that road is still in front of the houses there as well. Okay. But yeah, there's that sort of reality check that has to go with all of this stuff. But it's, again, the comp plan isn't intended to be a proposal. It's about what do you want to be? If you're going to have development, how's it going to happen? All of those things. So did you have something? Yes. Yes, you. Yes. Yeah, that will be in there. So the transportation engineer has been looking at some, you know, starting by looking at, you know, disconnected sidewalks and those kind of things, and there will be a chapter, you know, related to transportation, multimodal, and connectivity. Time to get out of here, apparently. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and we'll have some principles about how to do, like, oh, yes, you should when you can have shade. You guys have the blessing and the curse of narrow street and right-of-ways and stuff, and also there's the curse of these overhead lines all over the place, you know? And so it's like, yeah, I mean, it's hard, you know? And even in places where it's easy to put it underground, it's still a big expense, and then you've got to prioritize. So, like, in Franklin, where I live, it's, like, started with Main Street, thank goodness you know that may have made a huge difference but then some of this you know side streets and you kind of do it as you can also when development comes in you can put those lines underground and that's a big help but so it'll have to be more principle based I think there will be some specific recommendations about certain areas where we can do stuff but like when I was working on the pump track site or whatever looking at like how to make a streetscape in front of Cahaba cycles there and then the you know i found some space and i think you can actually get a proper sidewalk and a planting strip and whatnot there but you know there's not room for buildings to line it which you would want there's still a parking lot next to it so um it's tricky a tricky place but overall it's a good a good place you know and that's the thing that's so nice about it it's like we're just kind of sprucing up the edges or you know solving you know the housing thing and and so far as you guys want to try to solve it you know so or at least work on it yes Yeah, and I'm hesitant to say yes explicitly, just because I know that people are like, I don't know about that formula, like you just said. And so there is a... Let's use different nomenclature. A character-based approach that will deal with form and all of those aspects that create. The end result can only be a place, a walkable district of whatever scale that's determined. And so any of the downsides of whatever people perceive with the current form-based code can be dealt with. But the good things that give you what you want, have buildings placed where they want, parking where it's supposed to be, all of those things, that would be the sort of best practice in how to get that result. And especially because that whole area, while it's, you know, it seems like it's probably only a few owners over there. They're kind of bigger parcels and it's clearly struggling with vacant buildings and things. And so it wouldn't be all that difficult to do it, but is the market here ready to support such an investment in that? And so it likely happens sort of parcel by parcel, in which case without an overarching zoning strategy, that had an intended outcome not one plan per se could be an infinite number of plans but each parcel is going to do its part to create those bits and pieces that in the end will yield a place which is impossible with current regular suburban style zoning in most cases it actually makes you disconnect from the parcel next to you you've got all you gotta have your own parking lot and you can't connect to that one and there's a buffer even all the so yes there's a short answer to what you just said so did y'all have your hand up yes yes there there is no average um it's it's very peculiar you know this is our 21st anniversary of tp udc and so you think i'll be like oh yes here's the what you would expect the percentage of the population to show up and without that percentage it's an invalid process but you know, we'll work in a community of 2,000 people and we'll get 200 people to participate. And it's like, wow, that's a lot, right? We'll work in other places with 50,000 people. We'll have 200 people participate with the same level of sort of outreach and all of that stuff. And so over the years, I've just sort of become numb to it. It's nice to have the dashboard. For instance, Ward 1 that we noticed was kind of, anybody in Ward 1 here, has not had the same level of representation as other wards. And so we're actually sending out a little, hey, Ward 1, Come on, where you been? And so we are honoring that. What we said we would do at the beginning is use that dashboard as a tool to help us target. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

yes yes so here's the way i've kind of summed it up over the years is if i can get at least 10 people to participate who didn't all carpool or don't live in the same building house it's actually shocking how much you can really get a sense of the community. And so when we do these kind of exercises where people present their mapping around the table, and by the time you get to the third group, people are like, oh, well, they pretty much said all the stuff we were gonna say, and here's one new idea. i think we need a space needle or something you know whatever but the the things that aren't outliers are wildly consistent um and so we just have gotten really good at listening um and then sort of challenging like you just pointed out it's like okay well if we have people if you know and it always is skewed age-wise to older folks because they have more time and and they understand why it's important for them to speak up and where young people are distracted and haven't realized that it's important yet, you know. And so, you know, when we get the wisdom of ages in the room, I say, okay, now channel your inner 30 years old self or think, you know, tell me what your kids or grandkids would like. And so we, you know, but, yeah. Yeah. No, especially in a place like this. Again, because y'all are like, Homewood's a good place. You don't have major problems, and people are like, oh my gosh, what's going on? Who's running this town? Whatever. It's like, yeah, I like my neighborhood. I like this. I like Jack's. I like that. Yeah, so the online dashboard has the participation from the in-person as well as the online. oh yeah that's different yeah we didn't do a survey no yeah yeah i'm always scared of surveys because like it's so hard to ask the right question in the right way without any context and without any like i can't hear someone's tone yeah Yes, yes. And that's one of the things that's tricky about doing a presentation like this. We're just showing all these fanciful images and big ideas and stuff. It's like the comprehensive plan will be... more than a hundred page document right and it'll have this stuff in it but it'll also have just recommendations for things and how to approach things and you know struggles from the past and and ways to move forward with the future and like we were just talking about with the zoning dealing with you know as a way to get these things sorted out and and and also have some recommendations based on this process for if there is a process for the downtown in the future, like what are the core values that it needs to kind of embody, right, as opposed to just, you know, whatever. There'll also probably be in there a bit of a discussion about like, not all of downtown is so great, right? And even your little main street here going down, it's like, one side's really good. It's like, God, it's a one-sided thing. Like, what's going on here? Like, you got savages over here and all this, and then you turn around, and it's like, whoa. know like what's going on this parking lot out in front of the buildings and it's too small for our cars and you know all that um but good thing for it it's next to the other side of the street and so everybody kind of loves it all similarly you know i guess but so yeah so we'll address all those things too yes yeah so so like the scenario planning stuff that matt was was presenting and working on will is part of this right and it's it's not going to be tied to that necessarily because like for instance i actually cropped the green springs plan to just zoom in on basically that one shopping center But if I didn't crop it, I actually show how you could redevelop a much greater distance. But it was just like, what is this, 100 years of growth for Homewood? So let's not, right? And how many units, to y'all's point, are we talking about here? And so while the general principles and ideas are there, it isn't necessarily just everywhere needs to fill in. So even though we've got a big area of red for transformation, and let's assume for a minute that transformation can look like some of the things that I showed, Would you want it all to transform like that? Probably not, right? Because then you'd beat Gulf Shores. But do you want it to all just stay like big box and dead old K-marts and stuff and, you know, whatever? I mean, it makes great spots for food truck courts and things, you know, but maybe there's more to it than that. So, yeah, so we'll get into that. And as you can tell, That's more of a Matt thing than a me thing. So if he were here, he would have lots to say about it. Yes?

Do you imagine that those get redeveloped over time into something else like the form and shape and may not have 100 units but instead may have 600 with some other stuff involved? Do you consider that?

Yeah, I mean, it's those are shown in the red. Also, they're included in the transform area because even if they transform or even if they become more multifamily based on from what I've heard from the community, it shouldn't look like it looks now. It should become something much better. And so I think, you know, ultimately the. redeveloping in the underutilized flat properties is probably easier than these hillside terrace apartments that you have especially if you're requiring people to do sort of a place-based approach where it's becoming something greater than just you know stair steps of apartment buildings up the hill so that answer yes if she hasn't gone yet let's go with her first

I'm just looking at your goals for each of the, not just the redevelopment, but accountability issues, and shortage of housing, and affordability issues. But I guess, did you hear from the people that participated that there was a shortage of housing, and that that shortage was in multi-family, not single families?

Yes.

Yes. Yeah.

Yes, so for instance, if you just did, well, like one form of mixed use might be commercial ground floor and office above, but office market's not so what it once was. Yes, yeah, yeah, let's just say for the purposes of discussion, multifamily hasn't been mentioned tonight. It's just mixed use, and it's housing above, right? And so ultimately, market will start to determine you know what that is what the need is there are some people who do want to own and some people who don't want them you know there's this whole thing that's like a generational thing of like renting by choice like not because they can't afford to buy it's like i don't want to buy something i want to i want to rent because i want to travel i want this and that i'll just be able to do my thing you know and it's not for everybody um but a lot of people now there are plenty of people who would love to have more single-family homes here, right? Where would they go, right? And so the options, we see where they're going. They're going in the single-family neighborhoods, right? And they're tearing down the existing houses and putting in new single-family homes. Let's just say, for instance, we said, okay, well, on Green Springs, we're gonna make that a new single-family subdivision there, or even a walkable single-family neighborhood. How many houses, how many housing units, dwelling units could we actually get in there? Not very many, right? And so the impact on our housing shortage, our housing needs is minuscule, right? And so the tricky thing is when you do something besides sort of subpar suburban apartment complexes and you take this place-based approach, as multifamily goes it tends to be more expensive than another apartment because they're just so desirable like if you your choice is a apartment complex or district i'm going to take the district most people take the district well it's more expensive because at least when the first one is built but then when the second place is built it's not quite now you've got competition right and so we're increasing the number of units available so just supply and demand starts to bring it down but I think ultimately, you know, can you build non-residential areas in the same form? Yes. So, like, I mean, Edgewood, you know, Edgewood Center is an example. It's one story, just commercial. But there's so much land in those areas, you could do some of that. But ultimately, too, if you didn't have all the residential around Edgewood, it wouldn't be... as vibrant as it is, right? So you count on those people kind of filtering in from the neighborhoods or like you have in downtown, people filtering from above and around and all of that stuff. So there's ways you can do it. And ultimately, I mean, it's like we heard somebody saying they'd like to have a tiny house development, you know, some place to downsize. but not being multifamily and so you know there are opportunities for those kind of things as well but again they're just spatially you know they just aren't as efficient but it's you know again it doesn't have to be as dense as what I've shown here there are different sort of iterations of that but we definitely heard that people are interested in non single-family options for sure and not apartment complexes Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. Well, and that's a great point. I mean, you always hear this concern, like, well, what about the schools? What about our water? What about... Well, when this era was first settled, didn't have a school they didn't have water they didn't have all these things right and so as the community grew the infrastructure grew now the one thing that i would say if i'm you is that we're super fortunate in that we have neighborhood schools here that most places don't have most places can grow their schools no problem there's no one here no one there whatever you guys have these great neighborhood schools and they're confined spatially And so that is different. You can't just, oh, we'll just upsize it. You can make new ones. And it's funny, because I was actually thinking about it, anticipating this question. I was thinking, instead of that sort of clubhouse area and all that in the middle of that district, making that a school site. Now, if our economists were here, he would tell you, and our housing specialist would say that the number of students that are generated from a multifamily or mixed-use development like this is minuscule. Like, it's not what you think. Like, no one's trying to, in Homewood, like in Manhattan, maybe, but in Homewood, no one's like, oh, let's raise our four kids in the, above the, you know, cafe. You know, it just doesn't happen, you know, so. Yes.

I was going to say, I don't know if you covered it before, but the city council has to address the school problem before we can address the health problem. Because I think the school...

yeah i think that it has to be presumed that if we're going to grow there has to be a plan for the schools to grow alongside or you know if you're if you're already in a deficit then that's a catch up and then you go you know just as necessary for sure so yes

That's one issue. Going back to affordable housing, if you give a developer a chance, any developer, tell you right now, they would much rather build apartments than they would condos, because there's a lot more money in apartments than there is buildings. And you're talking about taking, say, 1,200 units, if you use that, and you wanted to build 600 units. Well, nobody in their right mind who owns that property, getting to win for the extra 600 units, is going to knock it down to build a 600 unit.

You mean the existing complexes? Yeah. Yeah, and that's in some ways why we focus on these sort of underutilized, defunct shopping centers and stuff because they're always struggling.

Like, oh, we're going to turn the old Walmart into a skating rink?

I don't know. It's like, yes.

Thank you. Yes.

Yes. Yes. All of those things will be discussed. So there will be a section, like we had a meeting. The meeting topics we had are kind of a good indication. And so we had one about housing and growth. And then we had one about conservation and open space. We had one about transportation and infrastructure. the arts and culture, so those are kind of like, maybe some others, those are kind of like the topical elements that we'll be getting into, and some in a great degree of detail and some in less, just because it's impossible to, it wouldn't be a good idea to make very detailed recommendations for things that, you know, would require its own study. So some of the recommendations in comp plan might be like do a parks and open space master plan if you didn't have one, or do a complete streets master plan if you didn't have one. And so there's some of those kind of things that would be part of it, and there would be follow-ups of what happened as a result of it. But I always joke around. It's like when I do these presentations, so a lot of places that we work are there's like a very strong no growth contingency which i haven't seen so much here i mean there's there's concern about growth and a bit of fear about it but it's like oh yeah you know it's we're gonna grow and you know whatever um and when we show these images it you if you just popped in and saw those images and i'm talking about and you left You think like, oh my gosh, what's going on here? It's like all this development happening. When it comes to neighborhood preservation, I could have shown you a rendering, but it's like before and before, like and after, but it's the same, right? And when it comes to conservation, same thing when it's like green space and green space, you know? The things that are slide worthy are the transformations, but that's part of why the pump track was in there, you know, and you consider, like, what a little thing, little things we did there compared to Green Springs, right? And so it kind of... is there as an illustration to you that it isn't all about like, oh, let's build the heck out of this place. Some things are more specific and nuanced and low-key. But that's why these are more, like there is a before and after of each of these. But we'll get into all those aspects in the company.

Yeah.

right that's right absolutely yeah and you know it's interesting too one of the things that we always do is try to identify what are the areas that you actually have preserved because often there are green spaces that people just sort of think are okay but they're not preserved truly preserved and so we've been looking at that kind of stuff as well so you all have a better sense of that so yes None of these things will be set in stone. The comprehensive plan will be voted on and adopted, right? And it'll have specific goals, policies, recommendations within it. Again, some high level, some more detailed. These images or images similar to these will be in there and it'll talk about as an example, but it's not making any of these things happen. Yeah, that's normal. You're fine. You do the old V cut so the line can go through. Yeah. Yeah, and so the comp plan, this is an example of how it would get into, like, okay, there's this idea of these visual corridors. It's important for the image of the city, for the property values, et cetera, to make sure that, you know, if anything looks great, it's those corridors look great. And here are some of the things that are problematic with, you know, what doesn't look great, and here's how you would solve that. Now, it... if you say you must do this by this time or whatever, that can be tricky because you just can't anticipate the city's finances and whatever. But you say whenever you can, or insofar as when there's development, and then development would, you know, all new developments would put the lines underground. When the city does a streetscape project, evaluate whether or not there's an opportunity to do it in a way that doesn't bust the budget and, you know, exactly. yes exactly yes Well, and in Franklin, actually, I'm glad you said that because I think what we did, because we've got stone pretty shallow, and I think we actually moved them off of Main Street behind the building. So they're still there, which is obviously much less expensive. And so there's some things you can do along those lines. So, for instance, if you were... doing the redevelopment around the edge of the parking lot. Now you can just put them back there. So there's ways. But again, I'm always a bit apprehensive to, because it isn't zoning. Zoning is much more specific. We're covering all of these topics. It's comprehensive. And so certain things do require their own specific study with specialists and time, budget, and all of that. And so we can't cover everything. And so we try to make sure we're not being too prescriptive. Because a lot of times I'll see a comprehensive plan where they got carried away and started basically writing half a zoning code in it. And they're like, oh, a building should be this tall, whatever. And then you get hired to do the zoning code. And we come in and we're like, Like, where'd you come up with that? And this totally screws everything up. Now we have to either amend the comp plan or stick with what it said and, you know, just like not fully thought out. It made sense during the, you know, 12 months that they were working on the comp plan and they were thinking about zoning and economics and conservation and schools and, you know, whatever. So, yeah, we'll get there. Yes? Yeah. Yeah, working and working with dealing with any D of T is not easy in every state. Some of them are more. Cooperative than others and but it isn't that they just do only what they want to do, right? But I always tell people is. You want to get ahead? of any thinking that they're going to be doing, right? You want to say, here's what we as a community who this impacts would like to see, and when it comes time for them to do something, you kind of realize like, okay, you know, it's not exactly what we were thinking, but it'd be, they've already said they want it like this, it'll be easier to deal with, let's go ahead and cooperate and do it that way. You know, you just think about how many little towns, great little charming downtowns, their main street is actually a state route, right? And they didn't just totally screw it up, even though they may have wanted to, but they left it alone. And it's like that happened because they... stuck to their guns, if you will. And so a lot of this stuff, it's a challenge. I mean, we were doing a project with the University of the South, and they were trying to do a road diet. It was like a five-lane road that went right through their village, where students were trying to cross and all that. And it was so over-engineered. The traffic counts didn't warrant five lanes. We showed how, you know, we had a transportation engineer look at it. You could do two lanes with a turn lane. Massively made it much more narrow. Do sidewalks, street trees, all of that stuff. And it ultimately did, it took a, a state senator attending the meetings with us, her coming to our Tennessee Department of Transportation meeting saying, I'm so glad y'all are helping make everyone's dreams a reality. This is great. And they're much more cooperative than it was just us and the university. So it's possible, but it's a challenge. So you just gotta get ahead of it. Now, that said, if you change the context of where a thoroughfare is going through, they tend to change the way they think about it. So for instance, if a road is running through just a suburban big box wasteland, they treat the road like that it's zoned for something else and the comp plan says something else and they say well it looks like the suburban thing and it's okay we can just move cars as fast as we want all the time uh... but actually before too long, it'll start turning into a place that wants to be walkable. And so we have to start thinking of it different. And actually, the Department of Transportation has what's called context-sensitive thoroughfare design criteria. Some states are more attuned to it than others. And believe it or not, people always chuckle when I say this, most Department of Transportations have a pedestrian and biking coordinator in the Department of Transportation. I don't know what they do, if they put them in the room closet or whatever, but they do have them. So find that person and invite them to the meetings, too. You have an internal advocate. Okay, who wants dinner? Yes, you. Jax, right? I'm not. It's great. I'm a convert. Exactly. Exactly. Trust me. Oh, I know. I say it aloft there. Exactly. Thank goodness. Not increasing the population. I would say providing housing for people who are likely to come. Well, the population wouldn't increase because of the building. The building would only occur if the population was coming, right? Like a developer's not going to build this if you've not got people wanting to come here, right? Most developers are not willing to do that, yes. Yes, it presumes that your population is increasing. Yes.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, in some ways, if you think about Wildwood, it's sort of like the next generation of what you have on Green Springs, right? It's sort of like they were able to go a bit bigger, a bit, you know, bigger box, bigger packages of toilet paper, bigger parking lot, you know, so that's all there. So the same principles of transformation that would work on Green Springs could work there. The truth of the matter is, though, again, you only have so much growth that's going to occur here. So many people in a given period of time that want to move here, so many businesses that want to move here. And so while you can set it up and allow for those things to happen or require that if development, redevelopment happens, They were putting in some little out parcel there in Wildwood not too long ago, and I heard people like, oh, is it going to be, what's that chicken place everybody likes? Yeah, is it going to be Raising Cane's? Oh my gosh, it was like a coffee thing or something, I don't know what. And yeah, but it was just like another little out parcel, right? And so they're already kind of like putting the crust around the edge in front of the shopping centers that are there, but What if they did it in a different form that was more enticing and beautification? Yeah, Lane Park. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. It does. I mean, you can certainly attract people from other communities to come in and spend money and then leave and not, you know, but, you know, in all of those scenarios, we've added additional commercial in addition to the residential. I'm not sure, I mean, if our economists were here tonight, he could tell me, you know, if you get any, if there's any positive, you know, economic benefit for residential here, or some places there is, some places there isn't, but... Ultimately, though, thinking about how we can transform these places and what they can become, looking at Lane Park as an example, that was underutilized property. They didn't put any residential. I guess there is a little bit behind it. The first place I lived when I got married was those apartments at the Summit. I sure wish... that those apartments had been above the shops at the summit, and I could have just walked down to go eat. That was back, though, in a time when they were still, and the zoning probably required it to be separate. Residential over here, commercial over there, but how much cooler would it be if it were vertical mixed use instead of horizontal mixed use? Because I didn't one time walk over there, and when On the Border was there, or when P.F. Chang was brand new with their giant horses, and I got in the car and drove over there, and I would have way rather walked Yeah. Yeah. That's okay, no, tax is not required for these meetings. Right. Well, like I said, those will be in the plan. A lot of that stuff will be addressed in the plan. It's just not, you know, slide worthy at this point. So it will deal with the sort of the utilitarian things, the mundane, as well as the extraordinary, you know, all in one document.

Interesting.

Yeah, and our economists have been looking at that because one of the things, like I said, is that what we're showing isn't to necessarily entice growth. Maybe some places we work, they want to entice growth, right? But in some places, they don't. But we've not worked in one place yet that no matter how wealthy they are could say, We are done growing. We're done. We're just, just raise our taxes, right? Because the cost of services increases over time. So you have to have some influx. And so it's either growth or new, new taxes to, you know, that's, uh, sort of boiling it down so much. And that's out of my depth. I'm not the economist. So, um, but, uh, general you it's up to you all to decide you know kind of where you want to go if you're comfortable growing but we have heard just time and again through this process that there's a housing shortage there's a affordability issue all that stuff and single-family solution is not that really viable sure yeah no so there's a couple of things the way that and we have a Venn diagram that we talked about so public input is just one part of this process The other part is the analysis that all the consultants are doing, they're looking at. And then there's the elected officials and everybody to decide how that goes. So it isn't just, because like I said, pump track. I had to look up what a pump track was. And then it shows up in a rendering. Well, I'm listening. quite carefully to certain things but i know that only a certain number of people want to do that i i showed it i thought it was worthy of showing not because i thought a pump track was just what homewood needed but the idea of like doing something at the gateway there was and having a pump track would be noteworthy you would draw people in from elsewhere to come spend their money because they would come the kids would go do the pump track and maybe run up to Moms and dads would go and patronize the shops while the kids were doing that. We added that restaurant there and a little thing next to it, so you have the tax base to go along with it. It's all going into the hopper, but again, like I said, ultimately, you can't make people participate. And so we listen, but also don't want it just to be our plan, right? Like I'm not from here. I don't have to live with the ramifications of it. So that's why we've got elected officials and staff and everybody else kind of vetting what we're doing to make sure that even if we're hearing something, it's worthy of showing.

And I will say this.

Well, it's funny, because I didn't know any of that. I only knew that three people told me we should have a pump track. And so then staff just confirmed, and the mayor, you know, so that's kind of like a thing.

Yeah.

It only went towards the vacant lot. So the oil change place is there. We don't control any of the places that we showed in these renderings.

Definitely not.

That was not the intention.

Yeah.

I mean, I'll have to go back and look at it, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't take out any buildings to do that. It was only the vacant land.

So... Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, pump track, not, who knows, open space, Jefferson County, I don't know, so we talk about, do we do some swap, do we do whatever, or nothing, but the idea of something happening there, because right now, it's just kind of like, industrial a bit, but people have already had the idea of doing something better there. That's why you see all the reinvestment that's happened along those areas. If you go on Google Street View and you look at Cahaba Cycles, you can go back in time on Street View. It was a dump, right? And now it's super cool. Same building. Same building. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yes.

We've seen a lot, too, even here in Alabama.

yeah for sure

Sure.

Well, just...

exactly well that's the thing

The key is to, and I know it's hard because y'all are so familiar with everything. Some planners would never dream of drawing an idea on a specific piece of property. because it's hard to extract yourself from the specifics of that piece of property, right? And so, like, you say, like, oh, well, there's this theoretical piece of land, and you just take the map and you turn it upside down and flip it and mirror it, and so you can't recognize that it's actually in your city or whatever. And so, yeah, it's a great point, like, take pump track out of the equation. How it all started was I was like, oh my gosh, there's Griffin Brook or whatever it's called back there. That's so sad. Like, what is this concrete channel? Wouldn't that be cool if you lived next to that and it was something that was scenic and something beautiful? And then I'll... following it down. And then I was like, oh, look at that. They've done a park up in Rosedale already. And then there's, oh, there's a space where it gets wider. Because I was like, could there be some actual stormwater benefit? And then I was like, OK, well, this area, it opens up. There's this vacant land there. Oh, there's an opportunity for some sort of a civic space there. And then somebody said, you know what we should do? We should have a pump track outside of that. And they pointed at that spot. And so I'm like, OK, that's interesting. And so I said, OK, I'm going to show that in the rendering. But like I said during the presentation, it could just as well be on the Board of Education site. I've got a huge park plan that we drew for the Board of Education site. With a pump track shown over there. I just didn't show it tonight. You know, there's mountain bike trails in it and pump track all in that big triangle, you know. But that triangle could just as well have been development or park and development, you know. So like a lot of places, we see a big opposition to trails. People are freaking out.

I don't want a trail.

My God, you're going to put a trail behind my house? What in the world? There's going to be weirdos that are coming and looking at my... Okay, and so then they freak out. And if they stay there... they put a gate in the back of their fence so they can access the trail and then if they sell their house they sell it for much more because it's on the trail and and so there are there are these things that people kind of get upset about initially and they but they do have a positive impact but again there's not a proposal for a pump track no pump track in the proposal there's no proposals Yes. With the streetlights? Yeah, with the streetlights.

Yeah.

All right, so we've gotten so specific. I think that it's time for dinner. Because we're at a comp plan level. We gotta zoom way out here. And so just as an example, just to kind of wrap it up, it would say in a comp plan typically, if an idea survived, it would say something like, enhance Griffith Brook. Find opportunities for stormwater to be dealt with artfully and beautifully. and look for opportunities for open space. In the rendering to the right, it's shown a pump track as one idea. Doesn't have to be a pump track. It's just saying have something happening there as a way to spur something else better to happen. So that's kind of how a comp plan would typically work. So y'all may never get a pump track, but you might. It would be sad if you didn't get it. I guess the point is maybe it's the wrong spot for one.

I don't know.

That's the thing that's amazing about a pump track, apparently, is that you don't have to pedal, but you can keep going, and it doesn't take electricity. You just go, and you pump, and you go up and down the hill as well. All right, well, thank you all. I know we've been here for a long time. I appreciate you all's patience and indulgence, and stay tuned for the public draft.

Good night.

Yes, it'll be online.

That's why I waited so long.