Prison Committee - Regular Meeting

How about we call the meeting to order, and then we do an election, right? I think that the mayor... Yeah, the mayor can call it.

The mayor appointed.

The mayor appointed. The mayor appointed. That's fine.

Sure, whatever you want to do.

Do we want to do that? Yeah. Appoint? Okay. Sure, why not? Mayor, do you want to kick it off then, and then appoint?

Well, first I want to thank Leslie and Stephen for coming in to work with us today. We're super excited about that. And then I'd like to have a show of hands who would like to elect Hugh O'Hare to run the meeting today.

Opposed? Anyone opposed?

Okay, the ayes have it. All right. We just need a formal chairman today.

Yeah. Do we need to do a roll call?

We do need to do a roll call. Okay. Mayor Darcy.

Here.

Councilman Cardenas.

Here.

Ms. Bottomley, she said she'd be running late. Mr. Dorris said he would be absent. Ms. Gruenberg? Present. Ms. Howard? Here. Mr. Martin is running late. Mr. O'Hara? Here. Mr. Parker, not here yet. Mr. Pryor is also likely to run late, he said. He's on his way. He's on his way. Mr. Randich. Mr. Rico.

Here.

Dr. Rouse. Here. Ms. Walker. Here. Mr. Stunich. Here. Chairman Rolfe is absent today. We do have quorum, so we are good to go.

The minutes from the April 1st meeting were attached for your review. Is there a motion to approve? Aye. Is there a motion from Ms. Walker? Second. Second from Mayor Darcy. All those in favor? Do we have to roll call for you, Jane? Yep.

Sure. Okay. Mayor Darcy? Aye. Councilman Cardenas? Aye. Ms. Gruenberg?

Aye.

Ms. Howard? Aye. Mr. O'Hara? Aye. Mr. Randage? Aye. Mr. Rico?

Yes.

Dr. Rouse? Yes. Ms. Walker? Aye. Mr. Stunich? Aye. Okay.

We'll assume that passed.

It passed. All right. I forgot my glasses, everyone. Sorry.

Are there any citizens to be heard on agenda items? Once, twice, three times. All right. Old business. There's none on the agenda. We can move right on to new business, the draft plan for housing strategies. I'm going to assume that's Leslie.

Yeah, so Leslie, and then you would like to introduce Stephen? Yes.

I'll let Stephen introduce himself.

Hello. I am Stephen Karvelis. I am with Converge Architecture, and we are going to be partnering with Leslie on the draft plan. Very excited to be here and to be working with you all.

Great. Yeah, so Leslie and her team are here today to lead us through a discussion of our housing policy framework and our housing strategies moving forward with the draft plan.

Cool.

Take it away. Thank you.

I'm going to stand up for the department. We're going to work together on these apps.

Leslie, can you make sure the mic is? Oh, sure.

Yeah.

How's that? Yeah. Great.

Okay. We're going to cover a lot of ground today. As we move into the creation of the draft plan, we know that housing in neighborhoods is a priority that we've talked about several times throughout this process. And so as we start to develop that plan, we want to make sure that we're speaking the same language when it comes to housing in neighborhoods. Today's roadmap, we have two hours together. We're going to use all of that time to begin to create a shared language around how we think about housing policy. We'll review the existing conditions and vision and goals. You all have been a part of these conversations and have had an opportunity over the last several months to support co-authorship of those documents and review of those documents. We're going to move into beginning to define key housing types and terms. And we have, as a part of your packet today, some national best practices from cities facing similar challenges and who have created innovative solutions to their housing policy. That's in your packet that was sent prior to this meeting. We're going to review those together today. And then it's your turn. We do not want to start defining housing typologies and terms in a box. This process has been collaborative, and so we're excited to work out some of these opportunities with you today. We're going to break up into small groups. There's a worksheet, and we're going to do some consensus building around how we want to talk about housing types and terms, and then we'll wrap up and do next steps. So what do we want to accomplish today? Today, we want to still think about aspirational outcomes for the city, specifically related to housing and neighborhoods. This definition or the beginning of a process to define working definitions for terms and typologies is a really important part of that. All these conversations are going to be grounded in data. And through our conversations together, there have been lots of questions that have bubbled to the top about data sets, about interpretation, We want you to keep asking those questions. This is an opportunity to continue to be curious and continue to have that sense of inquiry and discovery. It's also an open-minded conversation. So we want you to continue to think about what the future of Joliet looks like and how you want to help shape that future. We're going to ask you what housing types are most needed and for who and how much should issues to begin to think about when we write housing policy. We have the vision and goals document. This is moving that one step further. And lastly, we really want to start building consensus on those preliminary housing terms and typologies. And don't worry. This is not the last conversation we're going to have. This is the first focused conversation that we're going to have together. We have quite a bit longer in this process. And so we want to start thinking about how to create that shared language. And today is the first opportunity to do that. Any questions about what we're going to try to do? Cool, let's keep going. So I wanted to refresh your memory about what we covered, the ground that we covered in the existing conditions report. And this is specifically related to housing and neighborhoods, the information that we're going to be talking about today. So this map looks at housing age and household income. There's some key takeaways that I'd like you to sort of pay attention to or focus in on. There is a differentiation between the housing market demand throughout the city. There are some parts of the city, and you've seen this. You brought it to our attention. We've captured that in the vision and goals. We know that the city cannot be looked at as one monolithic place. There is nuance. There is differentiation. And so we want to make sure that our housing policy is reflective of that and that it's responsive to the different opportunities and challenges throughout the city. The majority of Joliet's housing stock is aging, and this is across all neighborhoods. However, the oldest homes are concentrated near the river and in downtown. We know that there's new construction in certain places in the city. Some pockets that are concentrated in new construction are on the far west side of the city. But it's important to understand that of all the housing units in Joliet, the conclusion can be brought that we need to think about what's next. How do we breathe life into aging housing units? What new housing is needed and where should it be? The third bullet point on this slide is really looking at the disparity between lower income areas and older housing stock and higher income areas with newer housing stock. And you can kind of swing your eyes and see that on this map. This is just, it's in the data. It's something we need to talk about a little bit more and understand the nuance. The second map is housing tenure and household income. So this is, again, squint your eyes. The yellow dots represent owner-occupied households. The brown dots represent renter-occupied households. So if you squint your eyes, you can see sort of where the concentrations of these two types of housing tenure are located. Primarily, the brown dots, or rent or occupied housing, are within generally the city center and adjacent legacy neighborhoods. Most of the yellow dots are concentrated, some of them are mixed in, but the concentration of yellow dots is really towards the west side and far west sides of the city. So the second thing to look at here are the pink shaded areas. The light pink areas is a median household income of $60,000 or less. And you can see where that light pink is concentrated. The darker the pink, the higher the income. So the darkest pink color that you're seeing here on the map is median household income above $120,000. And those are sort of on the outside. So it almost is like a concentric circles of income. As you move further out from the core of the city, the incomes generally go up. Joliet, as we know, primarily a majority Home ownership, that's important. As I mentioned, renter households are primarily located in legacy and core neighborhoods closer to the city center. And so as you think about this, the way you interpret it is, how do you envision housing in neighborhoods changing and growing? How are they going to respond to the changing dynamics that are working within the city? For aging housing stock, we want to look at opportunities for investment, adaptive reuse, infill. Those are the data points that we're seeing here. It really presents an opportunity to strengthen neighborhoods and to stabilize neighborhoods where that is needed. For renter and owner housing conditions, we want to look at the assets that the city already has, which is high ownership percentage. And we want to think about, for those that do rent, or choose to rent, or new populations of residents that are moving into Joliet, how we can provide choice if they choose not to own immediately. And what kind of housing are we providing for renters? There are some concerns about affordability, maintenance, and overcrowding of housing units. We're not going to solve this problem today. The way to interpret this challenge is to think about how we want to accommodate Joliet's population in the best way possible. What accommodations should be made or improvements should be made in housing and neighborhoods that are being offered on the market to accommodate all different kinds of populations that want to live in Joliet? Low vacancy and growing cost burdens are contributing to challenges in affordability. the same economy from a generation past, we should be thinking about the future as well. So keeping in mind that aspirational thinking and stretch goals are something that we want to talk about with this group. There's growing demand for certain residents in the city. This may include seniors, first time homebuyers, and working families. Generally, trends across the United States are showing smaller household sizes. And there is a very, very large cohort of seniors in the country as a whole. Joliet is not exempt from these dynamics that are working. And also, we want to be able to respond to what the changing needs of folks in the community are. If we want people to live their entire life cycle in the city of Joliet, it means providing housing that is responsive to those changing needs. So that's something to think about also as we define terms and typologies. There's also, from this group and in our vision and goals, we talked about support for missing middle, mixed-use, and multi-family housing in the right context, right size to the city, in the right location. So we want to think about that and what that means for the regulatory environment within the city. Any questions about what you're seeing, what I've shown from the existing conditions? It should be familiar. Okay, cool. Let's keep going. So now let's look at vision and goals. This was the second deliverable that we submitted to the city for review. You all worked very, very hard on this document, and we incorporated your feedback into this document. I'm not going to review the whole document. I just want to pull out the relevant parts to our conversation today, which are from the economic development chapter. I'll remind you of the vision statement. Joliet will encourage equitable investment in people and places that increases access to housing, jobs, and economic opportunity and celebrates community identity. In the vision and goals document, there were a few different goals that were housing focused and then two goals that were quality of life focused. The first three goals are housing-focused, and they look at strengthening legacy neighborhoods, encouraging new residential development, and encouraging infill where appropriate. The quality of life-focused goals look at increased access to jobs and bolstering downtown Joliet's position. So this is really important to set the stage into where we want to go next. How do we want to turn these vision goals into policy? And that's what we're going to start working on today. Stephen, will you help me pass this out? So if Stephen passes out the worksheets that we're going to be using to guide our discussion today, you're going to see two things. One of your worksheets is housing terms. And there are a few spaces that are filled in just to get us started in the conversation. You may or may not agree with these housing terms. You can cross them out. You can write in your own. You can put a big question mark on it. Or you can circle it. You do not have to agree with what is on this sheet. We just wanted to give you something to respond to. The next box on your worksheet for housing terms is cost. And this is to the owner or renter. Should the type of housing be low cost, medium cost, or high cost? For example, does luxury housing always have to be high cost? Maybe your vision is to make it lower cost so more people have access to luxury housing. And we can talk about how that happens. We don't have to have every answer today. It's a visionary and aspirational exercise. The next column is population. Who should live there? Who is this housing for? We want you to think about when you think about housing terms, Who are you thinking about would thrive in that housing or that you want to attract to your community? And we want you to write that into the box. And lastly, we'd like you to locate that housing by identifying a context. Should the housing be in the suburbs? Should it be infill? Should it be urban? Should it be something I missed? Should we convert our parks into housing? You tell us where you think that particular type of housing should be. That's the housing terms worksheet. And we're going to make a story out of this. So each one of these boxes we will put together into a statement. For the housing types worksheet,

It's similar.

We started you out with a bunch of different housing types. You can agree with it. You can disagree with it. You can write in your own. I'm positive there's housing types that we missed. This, again, is just to get the conversation started. Similar to the housing terms worksheet, there's three other boxes that we'd like you to provide some input into. One of them is cost. And remember, this is cost to the owner or to the renter. And we just used you know, one to three dollar signs. If you have a specific dollar amount or you think we should be looking at cost a different way, percentage of AMI or household, you know, whatever it is, please feel free to add that input into the spreadsheet. Similar to the housing terms, there's a box for population. Who should this, who Who do you want to attract to that type of housing? Who's best suited for the types of housing that we're going to think about today? We want you to give it a shot. Who do you think should live there? And lastly, the context. Where does that type of housing belong? Where would you like to see it? Is it in the neighborhood? Is it in the suburbs? You can write in specific neighborhoods. You can write in cardinal directions of the city. Any way you want to define it, we give you some examples at the top of this worksheet just to get you started. But remember, this is for you and by you. This is co-authorship. You are creating this pathway. And so the words that you use to describe housing terms and housing types are the right words. We just gave you a hint, okay? Before we get started on the worksheet together, we wanted to set the stage with a few best practices. This is also on the sheet in front of you. There's several pages that you can review if you so choose. We looked at national precedent. This was something that the group asked about in our last meeting together. What are other cities doing? Is there some precedent that we can be looking at? Who's been successful? So we picked a variety of cities that are not exactly the same as Joliet, but have certain things in common. They're facing housing challenges all differently. Shortage is too expensive. There's not enough of one type. We can only attract certain people. Another challenge is the city size. So we looked at a few cities that are maybe a little bit bigger than Joliet, but whose challenges and complexity can be related to the city. And so there's something to learn from here. We didn't look at every housing issue. We just wanted to pull out a few different challenges that we were hearing from this group and through our public engagement to make sure that we had some ideas of what other cities were doing to help guide our discussion. So the first city is New York, and as you can imagine, With several million people living in the city, the housing challenges are huge, right? Affordability throughout the entirety of all the boroughs is a challenge. And so that is something that we looked at from the city of New York. We thought, wow, they must have come up with some innovative solutions. They have defined specific terminology that is on the memo in front of you and also on the slide. They specifically defined what affordable housing is. And in this case, it's anyone who spends over 54% of their income on rent. It can also be measured as 30% or less AMI based on income eligibility for certain housing typologies. I think defining what we mean when we say affordable housing is a really important part of this exercise. They also identify specific terminology for income eligible housing. similar with public housing, and similarly with subsidized housing. These are all different categories that the city of New York has defined. And this is part of our exercise today. What are the terms that we really want to use to talk about housing and neighborhoods in Joliet? So with their housing policy, they have some very, very successful outcomes by creating definitions of what types of housing they really want to focus on, They have been successful in creating over 30,000 affordable housing units citywide. This is quite a bit. Chicago, I think, has developed less than 1,000 in the last year of any type of housing unit. So this is a really, really big deal. They did some changes to the regulatory environment and changes to their approvals environment to make development easier. They are creating reforms away from AMI. So they're finding ways to provide housing for a majority of their population without using income restrictions. That's really important, too. So everyone has an opportunity for housing. to have the housing that they're looking for. And then they looked at zoning and housing distribution. So they identified areas in the city where they wanted housing starts to happen and focused development in those areas first. So they had prioritized where development happened. And then you can see the numbers at the bottom. They have some projections about how many units of housing they want to continue providing. the city of New York itself. The city of New York provided a framework. This is private development or public-private partnerships to develop these housing units. It's not necessarily the city subsidizing all housing. The second city that we'll look at is Los Angeles. So the city of Los Angeles also is in the newspapers. I mean, LA has an affordability issue. They have all kinds of social stuff that they're trying to deal with. And so we thought this would be a good example, sort of at the extreme, of how is LA actually handling its housing policy? This is a big, hairy problem. They did a few similar things to New York. They defined the terminology that they wanted to talk about housing. It's always important to start with a baseline. We need a shared language so we all know what we're talking about. And they focused on a few different types of housing, income restricted, rent restricted, and affordable housing. And affordable is they defined it at a lower AMI than New York did in this particular example that we're showing. This is not an exhaustive list of LA's housing policy. These are just a few that we pulled out. I can also say that from the income restricted housing ownership in LA, they have a whole different bucket for AMIs that are above 120%. So they're really trying to expand their housing policy to capture folks that are really struggling to afford homes in the city of LA. And they want to make sure that missing middle, middle class folks, and new residents who are moving into the city also have opportunity to own or rent homes. They have also been very successful in creating new housing units. They have doubled down on protecting tenants from usurious landlords. And they are also creating an investment fund to help subsidize or underwrite down payment assistance, rental assistance, and more. And finally, on the entitlements and regulatory side, They're also doing some work internally to the city to make sure that they are developer friendly. And for those developers that want to build new housing, renovate housing in their community, that they have strong partnerships with the city itself. Nashville, Tennessee is another city that we looked at. This is a third tier city that experienced an enormous amount of growth, particularly during and after COVID. A lot of folks moved from first tier cities that were either too expensive or didn't have the quality of life amenities that cities like Nashville have. And because a lot of us started working from home or had a hybrid environment, it was easy to move to cities that were more affordable. In the city of Nashville, they looked at, because of this explosive growth, it forced them to look at their community and better understand how they could continue to provide housing support for folks that are there. They created a lot of different avenues to being able to do that, and not all of them were focused on subsidy, and not all of them were focused on low income. This is, again, the city's attempt to provide housing for a majority of the folks who wanted to live there. The outcomes are really important. The city started buying land to make sure that their housing policy could be implemented. This is a big, big investment. But it also meant that there was a greater chance that vacant lots could be built on because the city was now marketing them and providing both regulatory support as well as entitlement and approvals review process support. They did increase development of workforce housing units, and they defined workforce housing is moderate income. So this is AMI 60 to 120%. In Cook and Will County, The average AMI for the county is around $80,000. So you can think of what 120% is like a little over $100,000, and 60% looks too early for math. But you get it. They reduced the permit processing time for diverse housing types, multi-generational housing, senior housing. young adults, folks that didn't have a ton of credit, didn't have great credit. So they were trying to reduce the barriers for people moving into the community. And lastly, they really focused on a mix of owner and renter housing so that there was opportunities as lifestyle changes happen to be able to take advantage of both. So Grand Rapids, we looked at similar. Grand Rapids is a very, very diverse community with a growing immigrant population. And so different types of housing was really important for Grand Rapids to begin to develop. And they started looking at ways that they could do this, that the city could create a regulatory environment and incentivize different types of housing to be built. They've done a pretty great job at it. These programs are relatively new within the last 10 years. So in Grand Rapids, we're waiting to see sort of what happens from this program. But you can see from the outcomes that they were able to develop thousands of housing units based on changes to the regulatory entitlements and approvals process efficiency. And lastly, Charlotte, North Carolina. Different region, a little bit bigger population than Joliet, but similar complexity of what do we do with our population that is moving into the cities. They're growing. They have a lot of economic drivers, including education and industry. And they're looking at how to create more diverse housing units to accommodate the population that is moving into Charlotte. They are thinking towards the future. They are forward thinking. And they're aspirational in their thinking around housing specifically. They really focus on protection in addition to creation of housing units. And they also want people to stay. And so their attraction and retention strategy for residents is very, very strong and built into their housing policy. So what do we have to learn from these cities? It's important to understand that each one of these cities have clearly defined outcomes that can be measured and evaluated. When we're writing this comprehensive plan, we want to be able to look back on it in two, three, five, 10 years and say we did that and not only check the box, but also be able to quantify the impact that it had on the quality of life in the city of Joliet. Each one of these cities have consistent terms and types, and they're defined. It's completely subjective so we get to do that for the city of Joliet We don't have to use what you've seen and we don't have to use somebody else's definition Unless it's hopeful and unless we want to there's a lot of incentives and subsidies Housing policy can be very very creative and so we're looking at you to be those creators and of thinking about what's the right fit for Joliet. And these policies are all tailored. They're place-based. They're not taken from somewhere else. There's no one size fit all. This is something that is right for Joliet for now and thinking about the future. And lastly, housing policy doesn't exist in a box. It's not like we're just thinking about one house. We're thinking about how housing can support all the other things that we want to do in the city. We want to grow the population. We want to celebrate cultural diversity. We want to attract a workforce. We want people to have educational opportunities. We want our youth to be able to stay in Joliet and contribute to the city. So housing is an important part of that ecosystem that we're trying to create as a part of this comprehensive plan. OK, now it's your turn. We have, I think we'll do groups of four. So we're going to do three groups of four. I think there's going to be an odd, there's going to be an odd group.

We have another person about to come in too.

Okay, perfect. Me and Steve and Jane, can you help facilitate this worksheet? Sure. Okay. We would like you to first just start with the housing terms worksheet. That's the one that we're going to work on first. We're going to take about 15 minutes to work together. The first part of that 15 minutes should be you thinking about your worksheet, filling it in. The last part of the 15 minutes is, and I'll let you know when we're going to switch, is sharing out with your group. And then each group is going to report out their top three terms. That's all we're looking for today. And these are terms that you want to prioritize that we create terms for. First, we're going to count off by four. So, Doug, you're one.

Number one.

Two.

Three.

Four. One.

Two.

Three.

Four. One.

Two. Three. Four.

Okay. Please move into your groups. I THINK YOU COULD JUST, LIKE, SHIFT OR, YOU KNOW, MAYBE MOVE THE CHAIRS. I THINK YOU NEED TO SWITCH PLACES AROUND THE TABLE. ALL RIGHT.

HOW ABOUT WE DO THE CORNERS? SO, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, AND MAN THE CORNERS. TODAY IS MY FEMINIST MANIFESTO DAY.

Yes, exactly. All right.

So I'm sitting in your seat. He's not a whore. So he's out of here. Oh, he's out of here. Okay. Yeah.

I think we're solid over here. We can't get that much trust.

Hello, ma'am.

Here, you take this middle seat because I got all my stuff here anyway. So we're starting with the housing terms.

I think we're starting in this one. Yeah, housing terms. So affordable luxury workforce, market rate attainable. So only two people in four? Yeah, they started with affordable because that's when it's going to be in four. Beautiful, because what does that mean? GOVERNMENT TERMS?

I THINK WE'RE MET TO FILL OUT THE HOUSING TERMS ON OUR OWN FOR A FEW MINUTES.

OKAY. MAYOR, THAT'S A GOOD ONE FOR YOU. THANK YOU. I APPRECIATE IT.

STARTING WITH THE AMI IS HEARTFUL. THEY SAY THAT, YOU KNOW, SPENDING MORE THAN 30% ON HOUSING. I'M JUST HERE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS. TWO MINUTES.

TO THE ENTIRE HEARING. SO IF YOU WANT TO SPEND THE FIRST COUPLE MINUTES JUST THINKING ABOUT YOUR OWN CHARTS, AND THEN ONCE YOU CAN BUILD UP YOUR OWN CHARTS, THEN IF YOU WANT TO TALK AMONGST YOURSELVES, SHARE WHAT YOU'RE COMING UP WITH, AND THEN THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE SAYING. AND WE'RE JUST DOING TERMS RIGHT NOW. OKAY. ANY QUESTIONS? I'LL BE BACK AROUND.

INFIL is built back in areas around development. So when we're looking at affordable here, I'd go right to the end.

But it doesn't have to be that. It's going to be small. That's perfect.

However you want to define it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right. First, INFIL.

Okay. We can do the math.

Okay.

Or you can just draw the dollar sign, and then we'll ask you what you need.

Okay. And then you can say, you know, however you want.

And that varies because, of course, household size, right?

So if there's, you know, underpopulation, like if you say 30% or high, and then you can say 4.2 or a family of four.

Okay, got it. Do you feel, in terms of...

Is this anonymous or do we like that it's broken down?

I'm running 15 minutes on the clause.

After 15 minutes, we're going to take three terms. You're talking to me. You're going to report that note for everyone. So I would take two minutes now to just

Thank you. You're only doing 1,000 times right now.

I wish they would just .

Yeah, OK. Anyone can get it.

But even when you work into that space, that's kind of another way people try to say the same thing.

Don't lose them, though.

LISTEN, IT'S NOT THAT INTUITIVE BECAUSE WHEN YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT

If you're looking at those, you've got seniors, you've got young folks.

You know what I mean? That's the kind of, that's exactly. I don't know.

we can also include this in glossary just so everyone understands that's a great idea join us so if you want to look at your housing term sheet we're going to go through this so we're going to spend about 15 minutes on this so if you want to spend a few minutes just collecting thoughts around affordability this is kind of what the government does to determine when they're you know if you want to just determine what's important i just feel like the word is kind of just So you can, like, drag your head around this, and then spend the last part of the 15-ish minutes talking to Mr. Roof. And we're going to come up with three terms that you're going to report out to everyone. Top three. affordable luxury housing it doesn't mean that the other ones aren't great it just means that and then we're trying to figure out what does that mean for the cost of the owner what does that mean for the different types of populations and the context but the first thing she wants us to do is pick

for housing. Just to be an absolute smartass, I'm going to put the workforce population in the workforce housing.

It's funny that that's the center square of the... No, what terms would we like?

What three terms would we like the best?

Well, we haven't. Honestly, I feel like the term affordable creates a reaction in people that even if you're not talking about government definition, subsidized, or anything like that, as soon as you say affordable, people freak out. But if you say workforce housing, they should always think of attainable housing as a convenience. Those, I definitely have those two. Workforce market rates.

I like the way you're saying affordable.

I think that's especially, yes. I think market rate is good, too, because it's kind of a neutral term, and that can encompass everything. It makes sense to a lot of people. It does. It does. It's, you know, that's market demanding, and that will also encompass your affordable and your luxury housing, right? And then, of course, attainable. That could be different for everybody, and it's...

I just want to write all of them.

That's what I've mixed around everywhere.

I want that to be affordable for everybody. Already going to be turning certain people off to the country. So feel free to, if this matrix is not working, you can just write them.

Because we want to know all those kinds of things. If we want everything, we need to know that. Okay, please, you know, yes.

But I will say this, though.

Let me just push back on that a little. Devil's Advocate. I hate Devil's Advocate, so I hate myself. But if we're able to afford or if we're able to define in this document what affordable housing means, both from the AMI so that people understand, say affordable housing, you just need to understand more. Would that be unattainable, too? I think it would. I think it would. So I mean, basically, it's a marketing thing, and you know. So definitely please capture this in a way that's affordable and luxury.

And also the cost. If there shouldn't be a high-rise on the west side, it should be low and medium. Please include that level of nuance.

So we just determined, Steve, that in identifying the terms, they want us to have free terms. We decided that affordable or luxury would probably not be digestible.

I think you just get such a knee-jerk reaction at what either of those mean.

So we're going to focus on the workforce market rate attainable cost to the owner and the renter. I mean, I think workforce can and should probably be low to medium, right? So one to two. Market rate could be any of those. Yeah, that's right. AND ATTAINABLE, SAME THING. I MEAN, WHAT I CAN ATTAIN IS DIFFERENT THAN WHAT YOU CAN ATTAIN. ARE THERE HOUSING CHOICES AVAILABLE?

SO JUST A REMINDER AT YOUR GROUP THINK, WE'RE GOING TO REPORT OUT. SO JUST ONE PERSON NEEDS TO REPORT OUT THREE TIMES.

So theoretically, if we were doing new jobs, right, as humanity, we would eliminate seniors from it.

So whether you're a professional or you're in the middle class.

I think we should include idea generation.

This is that term that's like income is not age based. Absolutely.

And that is, ideally, for a young professional, that it's not like there's going to be downsizing. And so, like, it's... I would say that Irving would probably have density.

And amenities, like walkability to amenities. Every new apartment complex is built as a luxury. It could. Because it kind of has parks right there. Access to amenities. You can walk it. Shopping right there. Train right there. Multi-use buildings. Yes. So you have a mix of residential things. So where is like Naperville, I think, more suburban?

They do, yes, obviously. No, no. It's really mostly just commercial, so...

But they do have that downtown. So urban has a downtown, but it doesn't necessarily have a downtown. Like neighborhoods in the city don't really have a downtown, but they probably have the access to, you know, like Lincoln Park.

It's urban.

You feel like you're your own city. So workforce housing, I think, probably, I mean, probably all of the above.

And I think that, like, the influx, especially, like, when you look at vacant lots or, you know, large lots that could be subdivided into, like, your duplexes, triplexes, small-scale multifamily, that would be kind of the ideal place for workforce.

I wrote downtown. Yeah, I wrote downtown.

I don't know.

What have we got on the affordable side? It's just terrible to see how that development, how it does. Absolutely.

I know, like, I know someone's son who dances. And they, um, I'm not higher, but they all seem high to me because the last time I went to him.

You know how old I am.

Well, no, I'm about your age, but you made nice comments.

I was thinking that, too. I was like, OK, we have the amenities. It's the amenities.

But what about just the application? That's true. I mean, yeah.

Well, but entry level is not a bad time. But then you could also think about renter and owner.

Entry level is that dog owner, person coming into the community, existing resident, and then renting or owning. Or is it dog owner?

No, it's true. Dog owner. Yeah.

Like, school kid graduates, comes back home to Juliet, and then I think that's good for the community.

This population can be everywhere. It doesn't have to be. One of these four. So I wrote this as all on the internet. Years ago, people were trying to find out. But I do think that one of the reasons that we socially pointed ourselves in this morning, you know, like,

If there are multiple budgets that need to be . But that's national. That's national choice.

I just, the reality does not .

I'll show you my daughter. All of these things when it's like the reality doesn't match with .

I think that's true.

For every age group, you know.

Well, you know what I'm finding here is, you know, even with some family members, is that, you know, some of them, maybe the nieces don't want to try to stay home. It could be a single family. That's not the case. You know what?

I want to advocate so much. They are both working. They're both working. My son just informed me. He has a conversation that he can go to college.

So that's a problem. It was a question. What's the window? I guess the boat is the official square.

You guys have about five more minutes.

You just wanted us to, I mean, does this kind of look like what you're looking for? Yeah. Okay. Super good. They really want to tell different rights considering what we know.

Exactly. Exactly. What were your top three? I think one of the four is marketable. Too much togetherness. Marketable and affordable are one and the same. Marketable and affordable are one and the same. I also think about amenity, especially in this example. I just, it kind of creates an interesting conversation. And Dr. Rouse's point, like, so $2, right?

She's got a point. All right, Boomer. This would be, like, probably, you know, kids are...

I'm just hoping to facilitate. This is our 10th year. I'm like six years away.

I'll be like, sorry, son. So my husband is like affordable. I would still define him.

And then I was like, you're like stalking me.

You're like, listen, I have a really good surgeon. I'm 72.

Even that is still a shirt. That's why I like the technical. I love it. It's nice in there. We're right on you, of course, too. There's a pack. You've got the nice clubhouse there.

I'll pay you a visit.

to talk to their parents and stuff like that. So you would, yeah. And I had a friend that lives in one of the town halls. She backs up to like, and where she was at. I think if one was, she doesn't look at anything.

Yeah, there's a few of those. He's just like, he's doing what he was told to do.

I would

The most affordable

The goose that they dress for the season.

That's actually, that's an interesting. Are we about ready to report out?

And it looks fantastic. I like it. Everyone else is going to start getting it.

Technically, that's a market rate buy home if it's up right now. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Right. We think of all of these umbrellas can be placed. Okay. Yeah.

Sue is the sister. Oh, okay. And Lou is the brother. I think we ran into you at Fritz's when I was with most of the people who live in these homes.

They're not business owners, probably. There's a lot of that going on right now. They're working. That's crowded. They might. You might have to go for dinner. You have to go at like 4.30 or something.

It's like the after-work crowd. Yeah. So in the context of suburban, I think that's a safe time one day.

I actually like market rate over workforce.

I think we're ready to report out.

Anybody else? Everybody have their three? Okay, we're going to go ahead and do our report out here for a few minutes. I think we'll start with – are you guys ready? Should I go to a different – We're good. Okay. So we'll go to this first group in this corner because I forgot who's in –

We're two. Number two. One goes first.

Okay, one.

Okay. Number one, Doug.

Caesar, for real.

Group one goes first. Did you watch the political people just bat the ball to you?

So, group one, what are your top three thoughts that you thought about, bubbled to the top in your group?

So, assuming that this is designed to sort of inform the language in the plan to some extent and with the knowledge that all of these can apply to all of the housing types to a large extent. We selected attainable because I think, let's be honest, to some extent that's a euphemism for affordable, but it also has sort of a wider range of housing stock that fits that terminology. We created a new combined term, and that's cheating, but we don't care. Market rate workforce. We kind of combine those two because they do arc toward the same thing, right? I think a lot of us in housing use market rate to define a type of multifamily development, but that doesn't necessarily need to be that. It can fit. A broad range of unsubsidized housing that is inclusive of both multifamily and what we call regular houses. We were lamenting the regular house that was missing, right? Just, you know, 2200 square foot single family home that gets built all over town, right? And then the third one is luxury. And we were discussing the reality that luxury means different things to different people and Dr. Rouse called out it's really about square footage, right? If you build a multifamily luxury project with amenities downtown that, you know, has You know, an 800-square-foot multifamily property can absolutely be luxury if it has the right amenities, right locations, and right fit. And it can also be a 5,000-square-foot house somewhere in town, right? And so I think it's really important to be – or a townhome for downsizing that's really nice, right, if we have some of those in town. And so I think that's an important thing to include in this as well.

Did you have locations identified for any of those three terms?

Yes. I'd just go back the other direction. Like luxury, again, downtown, but using this terminology, also suburban I think is a good fit for that. Market rate, workforce, it's literally everywhere. Like I wrote down all four things that you had. And attainable, similarly, it's kind of literally everywhere, right? Good for infill, good for downtown, urban, suburban, all of the above.

Great. So you said for market rate, no, luxury, you said suburban and downtown?

Correct. Great, thank you. Okay, now group two.

Are you changing your work?

I'm just leaving lots of notes, because I got off track.

So we'll leave lots of notes. I think we were looking at the three terms that I agreed us all to was workforce, market rate, and attainable. I feel that attainable is something that we should be focused on, and market rate that my eyes would cover today is luxury, because when you look at some of the prices of houses today, anything in the market rate range is semi-luxury. But I understand where you're talking about luxury can mean a lot of different things. But looking at our current situation today, market rate is pretty high right now, so it feels that. And then workforce. YOU KNOW, BEING THE NEXT ONE IS WHERE WE HAVE TO GET HOUSING FOR THE CURRENT WORKFORCE THAT WE HAVE IN JOLIET, RIGHT? WHERE IT CAN MEAN A LOT OF THINGS, BUT WE GOT TO LOOK AT WHAT WORKFORCE MEANS IN JOLIET. AND I WOULD SAY THE POPULATION, I WOULDN'T JUMP FROM THE CAUSE, BUT THE POPULATION THAT, YOU KNOW, YOU GOT WORKFORCE, I WOULD SAY IT ATTAINS TO WORKFORCE AND YOUNG ADULTS, RIGHT? BUT THEN WE ALSO TALKED ABOUT SENIORS, BECAUSE THERE'S STILL A LOT OF SENIORS THAT ARE IN THE CURRENT WORKFORCE, RIGHT? And then I look at market rate currently today, if I looked at it, I would say it's multi-generational and seniors that can afford market rate, right? Because either you're coming in from you inherited a house and you sold it and now you're buying another one, so it's multi-generational. Or you're a senior in a good position, you can afford the market rate. Otherwise, I don't know if you can afford market rate today. And I feel like that's the problem that we're having everywhere. AND THEN ATTAINABLE WOULD BE WE NEED TO HAVE MORE ATTAINABLE HOUSING FOR OUR WORKFORCE, FOR OUR SENIORS AND OUR YOUNG ADULTS, BECAUSE OUR YOUNG ADULTS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF SCHOOL, NEWLY MARRIED OR WHATNOT, just can't find anything attainable or slash affordable, right? So in that context of where that stuff would go, yeah, I think attainable housing, you know, looking at downtown and literally everywhere, right? It would be throughout the city, Joliet would be a good spot for that. Market rate, I think all three realistically, it is all over Joliet. It's just going to have to be strategic how and where you do it.

Okay. Thank you. All right, our third group.

Is that? We're four, right?

We combined. They combined. Where were you, clever sod? There's just three groups now. Okay.

Shall I? Yes, please. So due to the scrapping that has been done over the term affordable, we've decided to swap that out with attainable because attainable really is subjective. It encompasses... all of these different terms and attainable is subjective so it would really apply to all the costs all the populations and all the contacts with housing diversity at every price point we can accommodate everyone's needs so attainable workforce we selected that one too and we are looking at the cost as low to medium The population of course would include workforce multi-generational because many families are living together and of course young adults and We believe that the context could be all of the above whether it's urban downtown suburban or infill housing with market rate that's obviously it's a kind of a general term that doesn't create you know a knee-jerk reactions and that can encompass all of the different cost levels because again that's attainable housing what kind of housing are you hoping to attain and what can you afford so that includes all of the above as well so really workforce market rate and attainable housing are the three terms that we feel would probably best encompass the needs um and the you know that's that's the direction we thought we'd go but we do i like your uh workforce Market rate workforce.

It is trademarked.

You will get your royalties. Make sure everybody knows. You will get your royalties.

So thank you all for participating in this. I just want to reiterate a couple things or repeat back to you what I'm hearing you say. Everybody said attainable housing. That was a term that every group agreed on. And as I was walking around and listening to the conversation, you're all saying very similar things about who it's for, where it should be, how much it should cost. Workforce. Everyone said workforce. So it's with the recognition that there is a large workforce in Joliet that needs housing. And all of you recognize this particular housing need. for this population um the market rate piece all of you said that except for group one who wanted to be special and call it market rate workforce but that is also important so all of you are saying that you believe there needs to be housing diversity at a variety of price points for everyone in joliet And so these three terms are really important to creating housing policy for us to understand your perspective, who you're talking about, where you're talking about housing happening. And there's a lot of consensus here. So thank you for going through that exercise. Before we move on to types, are there any last comments that anyone would like to share as you're going through this exercise or your experience? Can you capture it?

I think I want to make a comment about what Group 1 said about the downtown. I think we really have to keep a focus on the halo down here. You know, we're one of two cities that has the best transportation in the state of Illinois, and I think that has to stay strong in our mind. You know, I think, like Doug said, there are people living in the two Rialto building, lawyers that retired and living down here. Beth Beatty loved living down here for the eight months she was here. We kind of have to keep a focus on that. And how do we get that moving forward? I really think that that has to stay in our focus as well as everything else. But to me, that's where we can grow our population and create a city center for people to live in.

Thank you, Mayor. Awesome. All right, let's go on to the second part of this. We're going to look at housing rights. I saw some of you taking notes on housing types during the terms exercise. It's fantastic. There were also a couple questions about this. ADU is Accessory Dwelling Unit. So think of in-law unit. Think of coach house. that is on your same lot, but is not primary. That's an accessory dwelling unit. Some of these types can be combined. You can have a mixed-use multifamily. We recognize that these housing types do not necessarily live individually, that you can combine some of these. You can have senior housing that also is multifamily. Please make sure that you add notes if you believe this to be true or this is the type of housing that you think should be developed in the city. Similar to the previous worksheet, we're asking you for cost to the owner or renter. We're asking you for the population. Who do you think should live there? Who would you like to live there? And then we're asking you for a context that these housing typologies will be located in. A couple other ideas that are not on this sheet. Housing can also be located in commercial corridors. It can be located in specific neighborhoods. It can be located in areas that currently don't have a lot of residential now as the city grows. So be thinking about where ideally these typologies should and could go. And you can think out of the box. If there are additional typologies that are not identified on this worksheet or you think there are typologies that should be combined, please include those in your notes. And if we're missing anything else similar to the housing terms worksheet, feel free to create your own housing typologies or cost structure or populations that are not on this sheet that we want to make sure and accommodate through this exercise. So I'm going to set the timer for 20 minutes, similar to the previous exercise. Please spend the first couple of minutes thinking on your own, figuring out which typologies are important to you, and filling out your own worksheet. And then we'll work together for about 12 or 15 minutes. And then similar to the other worksheet, we will report out by group your top three housing typologies. Any questions about this worksheet?

That's multifamily. And the reason it's multifamily is it could be a two-unit or it could be 200 units. That's true. So I would say I would look at multifamily as larger than like six units, right? Or could it just be multifamily? It's a general term. We have duplexes, triplexes, over mixed units. COMMERCIAL ON THE BOTTOM. RIGHT. RIGHT. SO WHEN I LOOK AT THAT, IT'S A GENERAL TOWN, BUT WHEN I SEE IT ON A LIST LIKE THIS, I LOOK AT THAT AS A LARGER SCALE, LIKE SIX FEET OR MORE PROBABLY.

THAT'S HOW SENSE IS DEFINED.

YEAH, LIKE THINK LIKE VERTICAL, THINK LIKE DENSITY. THAT COULD BE LIKE A HIGH RISE. IT WOULD BE IDEAL FOR A TOWN AREA, RIGHT? LIKE CITY OF JOLIET WOULD REALLY BENEFIT FROM some, you know, more verticality. And what's a triplex? That's like a duplex but with three. So, like, you know, it's what I like about duplexes and triplexes is, to me, those are really good for, like, where you have different where you can kind of gently increase density. You know, where housing people in, you know, giant multifamily units. You know, I feel like IN A COMMUNITY LIKE JOLIETTE, LARGE-SCALE MULTIFAMILY, YOU KIND OF HAVE TO BE REALLY STRATEGIC ABOUT WHERE YOU PUT IT, BECAUSE THAT'S WHEN THE INGREDIENTS COME OUT AND FREAK OUT AND SAY, OH, WE DON'T WANT THAT. WAREHOUSING PEOPLE CERTAINLY DOESN'T HAVE GOOD OUTCOMES. BUT IN A HIGH-RISE TYPE SITUATION WHERE YOU WANT TO CREATE A MORE URBAN ENVIRONMENT, IT'S IDEAL. SO WHEN I LOOK AT MULTIFAMILY, I WOULD DEFINITELY THINK MORE Yeah, absolutely.

And so, I mean, I guess, should we steal their idea and go buy it?

But, like, in this context, are we narrowing this down to three? Yeah, okay. It is. It is hard. I would do the same U.S. Steel project. Always. How do you get people?

Yeah, because, again, multifamily, I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean large scale in this context, right?

So if you want to add it,

So you're not including single-family

Not in multifamily. Single family is just your... But like in your town. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we have to. You did. We really have to. You can't take it away from that.

The reason why I say that multifamily is a mixed-use kind of like... It's some kind of incentive. Some kind of incentive. Would you see that's the trend?

But it doesn't work in every market. Like, this is where you need your walkability and your density in order to make those commercial units work.

There's going to be 39 units. They figure they can only get 34 now. They're going to buy both units if they can get the deal worked out.

No, no, no. That's why we see them kind of flop sometimes when there's not enough foot travel.

They're a million six away. Now they're a few short on a unit six. So that's what I would add in.

That's a subsidy that makes that a deal.

Think about where the urban endowment is. Right? That's why I mentioned the cost of money when I began doing it.

FOR SENIORS. YES, AND ADAPTIVE USE. You should bring your own ideas.

Like my best example. Component is senior housing. And one of the floors is dedicated to multi-generation.

So it's a senior school. It's a building. It's for sale, right? And I sit there. Where's info? There's really no law. Excuse. Excuse.

Excuse. Excuse.

Excuse. Excuse. So everything is here. McDonough? Okay. Got it now.

The only reason that I would perhaps eliminate single to senior housing in this list is because it could be single family.

Like, Grand Haven is a single family development, right?

IT COULD BE, YOU KNOW, MULTI-FAMILY. WELL, THEN LET'S MAYBE ADD SINGLE FAMILY SLASH SENIOR. SURE. IF WE'RE GOING TO COMBINE MULTI-FAMILY AND MIXED USE.

SENIORS COULD BE THE POPULATION FOR SINGLE FAMILY. THERE YOU GO. FOR ONE OF THE PEOPLE. YEAH.

I THINK THAT, LIKE, IF WE'RE GOING TO BUILD SINGLE FAMILY, I THINK THERE'S A LOT OF INDIVIDUALS. SO WE CAN SAY THAT. You can't change a lot of neighbors everywhere. They do also have 55 and older communities for degrees.

So do we keep senior housing? Single family stays, multi-family home, common size, duplex, townhouse, triplex, so we can just incorporate that.

Mixed use is also included in multi-family housing. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

So we say that two-plex could be considered multifamily or no?

I think you need that commercial in the unit, and it could be considered mixed-use, though. So I think you have to have, like, a... Right. It has to be commercial and residential.

You're saying that could include detached single-family.

But to your point, it doesn't necessarily need to be large-scale either. I mean, it could be, like, a classic downtown... I always thought it would be so great to move out of our . I'm sure that there are limitations to that . Okay, so we have single-family, multi-family, because it encompasses all of these others, except for single-family. Keep senior housing. Okay. That's important.

What's important? The beauty of senior housing.

Again, diversity of typology and price points that is equally what we're going to get out of this rate. We need housing that is accessible to everyone.

So, I mean, I'll get both. Oh, is that right? Oh, yeah. I'm talking about the school properties. Well, we can make them into a multi-family townhouse.

And senior housing. We're going to be doing our seniors.

The beauty of all of this, it's not a burden to us.

Are we going to throw in adaptive reuse? No, we're the greatest. So, are you going to have single family? I feel like except senior family.

WE'RE SPECIFYING IN FIELD.

YEAH, I COULD MAKE THAT.

BECAUSE YOU'RE RIGHT, WE DON'T NEED IT.

I MEAN, PEOPLE HAVE BEEN CONSERVATIVELY MOVED INTO CONSERVATIVE CHURCHES.

I'M NOT READY TO SAY WE DON'T NEED MORE. I MEAN, LIKE, I THINK THAT THE ADVANCEMENT USE FITS TO ALL OF THAT. IT DOES.

IT DOES, ABSOLUTELY. SO WHEN WE PRESENT Suburban And really, all of them. All of them. Right. Right. You can put single families anywhere. But I do think that specifically focusing on the suburban, the greenfield development is probably the way to go with single family. Today, we're leading the state. Yeah. 20% of all single families.

We all see that there's like a specially valued, and not specifically downtown, but like think about.

When you think about it. That first frame around. There's still that.

DOWNTOWN WHERE IT'S LIKE THAT FIRST TRICK, LIKE A SINGLE FAMILY HALL.

AND YOU'VE GOT YOUR BIG VICTORIANS AND YOUR LITTLE COLLEGES.

I DON'T LIKE TO THINK SINGLE FAMILIES DO INFLUENCE THE STREET THAT WE'VE BEEN DOING FOR FIVE YEARS. AND IT'S LIKE A WORLD IN PARTICULAR.

I LIKE THAT STILL.

I FEEL LIKE THAT'S GOING TO A LOT OF INFLUENCE OPPORTUNITIES. REALLY DO. IT'S JUST INFLUENCE. IT'S JUST INFLUENCE. NOT AS MORE INFLUENCE. NOT AS MORE INFLUENCE.

AND YOU'VE GOT THESE LARGE VICTORIANS.

like single-family or not? Well, it is, but if it's done for single-family, urban, suburban, infill, multi-family, urban, downtown. You could put infill for those as well.

I think urban and downtown is the best for multi-family.

in your house

All of the above. I think all of you, my apologies, should be available. What development over the past two years have we had?

You know, I think if you were a single family, you might not have the big advantage that you dream of, but, you know, if you can afford a nice single, like Doug was saying, just a regular house. Reunit NOT NECESSARILY A TYPOLOGY. IT'S MORE OF LIKE A METHOD. YEAH.

I THINK THAT'S ONE OF THE THINGS I WANT TO ADD.

SO IT'S A DUPEX OF TWO UNITS.

YEAH, THOSE WERE EXISTING. THEY'VE BEEN HERE FOR THE PAST 20 YEARS.

I THOUGHT THOSE WERE INTERSTRICTED.

I THINK THEY ARE.

No, they're not. They're not. When I was looking for a house, I was looking for one. So they had to open it up because most of the people had no way to get in. Yeah, we could go off by a car. Okay. What about the old building, old Catholic house? So you're saying? When was that? I think your idea. Because that was a conversion specifically for senior housing. Is that what that is? We already have that conversation.

So in the past 10 years... Now, granted, it's owned by University of St. Francis, and they don't want to sell it, but... Because it's easy for the developers to... That's easy. They don't want to have those difficult... If you can incentivize the difficult, it's less of a cost burden to the city. So it's...

So now, if I'm traveling down 30 miles a highway, I'm going to stay down in the country yet. And you're right.

I could be there.

I'm like, that opportunity helps me. That's where I'm calling me now. Yeah, this is right.

This is fine.

There's a lot of some of these that I've realized recently. If you didn't make any sure, that's part of your system, right?

Yes, I agree with you.

It's done right, though. And like you said, it's the social borders where there's going to be a demand for these things, not, you know, for mixed-use, urban downtown, for the family, urban downtown, and to some degree, urban info, if we're talking.

Definitely info. But suburban, if you start contacts like duplexes, a duplex here or there, there are town hall developments in suburban areas. That's the problem.

It's such a... Let me ask this question. When I see the word... It's seniors. I think all the families... I have a shared problem.

Right. Because it is, technically.

What we were having with the supportive housing is that they want to make sure that those kids that are in their buildings are going to walk through.

So supportive housing. It does.

But when you break it down like this and you have...

So some of you are making sure that... And then... Because I'm seeing a lot of... Or at least... I would say... So you may have a group where there's a senior in line and a single mother in the dance, but they're building in ways that are supported by... I have seniors. owner-occupied rental space where he can buy his complex and rent out the space next door to a single buyer.

Right. I never...

Yeah, we're splitting hairs here.

And I like it. Because, again, ADU, Duke class, townhouse tribe, those are very specific terms.

for assisted living. Some seniors need to be in a place where, but I think supportive encompasses it all, especially when you talk about seniors.

I just hope supportiveness is a period of things.

I think you're defining it. I agree. That's what you think it means. That's the definition. It's amazing to make sure that we're all, like when you say it's supportive housing, everyone knows that it's that type of housing.

Because if I'm a senior and I'm paying $5,000 a month in a senior living facility, you know, we've had like 50. Yeah, there's specific dollars and specific services that are allocated to supportive services. So it will have to be kind of defined. And it's different than assisted living.

Cooper's Heart. Correct. No, that's Plainfield. It is Plainfield.

IT'S KIND OF LIKE THAT.

YEAH.

YEAH, BECAUSE THE PERMIT CAME THROUGH HERE.

I'M PRETTY SURE THE COOPER'S FOCUSED ON JOLIA. BECAUSE WE'RE THAT. THOSE TWO PROPERTIES ARE RIGHT NOW. I'M ALONE. YEAH. MAYBE THERE'S TOWERS.

AND SO WE'RE IN THE DIFFERENT TOWERS.

THERE'S CHILDREN IN A SPECIFIC TOWER.

IT'S NOT TOUGH.

You're good?

You have your top three? I'm not sure we do.

I MEAN, RENTERS AND BUYERS.

Are we ready to report out? One more minute? You guys are good.

SO WE CHEATED AND ADDED A FOURTH. SO WE HAD SINGLE FAMILY, DUPEX TOWNHOUSE, MULTIFAMILY, AND MIXED USE.

One of the things that we really discussed was that we shouldn't be doing any more greenfield housing in Joliet. It should be focused on infill development. Where utility appropriate, we should put more density on the on those lots. We think that that will obviously help with a lot of things.

On existing lots?

On existing lots. There is a lot of open space on the east side where houses have been torn down. where developments, industrial developments have left, some of which could be buildable, a lot of which is not. But we should also focus on infill around the mall area. We all know at some point it will not be a mall, and so we need to be prepared for that.

What?

It's shocking, right? I know, we're all stunned. But the mixed use in that area would make sense because somehow there are stores in that mall that have held on all this time and will need somewhere to go. So mixed use development would make sense there. And then the city should consider incentivizing residential development like it does industrial commercial development and look at what the positive outcomes financially from a redevelopment are so that they can set an appropriate incentive to bring those developments to fruition.

Great. Thank you.

I know you're stunned.

SO FOR US, WE KIND OF COMBINE THINGS INTO THREE CATEGORIES, JUST BECAUSE AS WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HOUSING TYPES, I THINK IT'S EASY TO SEE HOW SOME OF THESE FIT INTO EVERYTHING ELSE. AND AS WE'RE MAKING RECOMMENDATIONS AND THINKING big picture about the plan, we want to make sure that it's large-scale recommendations that you're able to take and individually customize where it makes sense. So with that in mind, as well as a context of theories of infill development and adaptive reuse, we talked a lot about single family, with that covering all costs, covering all populations. Context for that, again, suburban, greenfield, and then urban if it's a good fit and a good idea, right? When you think about your key downtowns or you picture an ideal city, you have your density downtown and as you start going out, you have that first ring of, you know, your single family home. So talking about the value that that plays. We talked a lot about multifamily and what that really means to all of us. So we kind of landed on multifamily is mixed use. It is a triplex. It's a duplex and townhouse. It can include an ADU. Cost for that, again, all. Population types, all. Our context for that really is urban and downtown. AS WELL AS POTENTIAL INFILL AND ADAPTIVE REUSE, BUT ALSO TALKING ABOUT SOME OF OUR KEY CORRIDORS AND KEY OPPORTUNITY SITES. SO WE TALKED ABOUT THE MALL. WE TALKED ABOUT, I SPECIFICALLY BROUGHT UP, YOU KNOW, I THINK ABOUT ROUTE 30. I THINK ABOUT SOME OF THE LARGE-SCALE PARKING LOTS THAT EXIST ON ROUTE 30 AND THE OPPORTUNITIES THAT EXIST THERE FOR POTENTIAL MULTI-FAMILY AND MIXED USE. AND THEN WE ALSO TALKED ABOUT SENIOR HOUSING. AND I THINK SENIOR HOUSING KIND OF FALLS INTO ALL OF THESE AS WELL, RIGHT? IT'S ALL COSTS. IT'S OUR SENIOR POPULATIONS, AND CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING, BECAUSE SENIORS, THEY'RE US. WE WILL BE SENIORS OR WE ARE SENIORS, AND WE WANT TO LIVE EVERYWHERE. AND WE TALKED ABOUT THE VALUE OF DESIGNATED SENIOR LIVING SPACES, BUT ALSO, YOU KNOW, SENIORS THAT WANT TO LIVE IN MULTI-FAMILY OR SINGLE-FAMILY. I think that fully encompasses everything. Great. Thank you.

yeah so lots of overlap with some of these conversations here and i will start by saying we had a kind of similar collapsing of the categories right multi-family does encompass mixed use um you know however you want to define attached single family versus multi for you know large separate units within a given building but ultimately identified, you know, single, multi, and senior, but within each of those, there's a broad spectrum of things. I will note that the Vice Chair held off on single family because it was like, well, y'all are going to do it anyway. We don't need to identify it. And I do want to point something out on just the rejection of Greenfield single family. I think that there is still opportunity for that. I just want to give a little bit of context. A lot of you have heard me say this before, but Willow County is the number one single-family home builder in Illinois. The last two years we've built roughly 20% of all the single-family housing in Illinois. We're about 5.5% of the population, just to put that into context. That said, if you go back in time 20 years, mid-'90s to mid-2000s, as a county, we were building roughly 8,500 homes a year. We were number one then, too, but at 8,500 homes a year. We've been building roughly 1,500 since then, okay, and in these last few years while leading the state. And so, you know, we can make this argument that, like, ah, we've built a lot of single-family, we've built a lot of greenfields. Fair. It's expensive. You know, it's expensive on infrastructure. I get that. But I do think, like, all of the above still matters. And I... wouldn't move to just ban that outright. That's my take, not the group's, but yeah. Beyond that, I do want to call out, you know, we had some good discussion here with respect to sort of addendums to these in terms of like supportive housing, whether that is around seniors, whether that's around multigenerational, housing or specific needs like that is an important thing that needs to be considered as well. And also multifamily, not just renters, owners, condo opportunities, whatever that ultimately looks like. I don't know if there's anything else in this. We covered a lot of ground on this one.

Great. Some connections here. MULTIFAMILY AND MIXED USE SEEM TO HAVE COME UP IN EVERY GROUP. I HEARD SPECIFIC AREAS WHERE HOUSING SHOULD BE DEVELOPED, EAST SIDE, MALL AREA, ROUTE 30, CORRIDORS, KEY SITES LIKE THE MALL, DOWNTOWN. THOSE ARE REALLY IMPORTANT TO IDENTIFY, WHERE YOU THINK THIS SORT OF NODE SHOULD BE, AS THE MAYOR TALKED ABOUT DOWNTOWN, AND THEN WHAT HAPPENS as you have success and where do we want these different typologies to exist. Density, I heard several times. Where is the right amount of density? Where should it go? I heard infill may be a part of that strategy. The greenfield, no greenfield, this is something that we'll come back to. There are some unincorporated parts of Joliet that we haven't gotten to in our conversations yet. We need a strategy around what we're going to do in the future here. So we will revisit that. I thought that was a really important point to make. And supportive housing, this is a new one. And I overheard some of the conversation with this group. I think having an understanding of the needs of people that are moving into housing and how housing policy and strategy can be responsive and reflective of our community's needs is an important thing to talk about. So turning that in your mind, what is the right definition? Is it a housing typology or is it a service? Do we want to pull that apart or do we want to put it together? That's something that we can also think about. I love that everyone talked about the multi-generational housing in a variety of ways. Not all seniors want to be in single-family homes. Not all seniors want to be close to their grandkids. Some seniors want to be where the action is. Some of them want to live alone. These are all really important aspects of creating a housing policy that is inclusive. And that addresses all of these opportunities. Everyone should have a choice, right? And I've heard every group say that. In many worksheets under population, it says all. All of you want everyone to have all the choices, which I think is, you know, that's consensus with this group. And that's a really important place to start when we start actually putting words on paper for the draft housing strategies. Thank you all for participation in this. Are there any other comments about housing terms that we want to capture before we start to think about next steps?

Not about terms, but just something that keeps coming to mind for me from the education side of the fence. As we add housing, as we develop housing, as we create these pockets of housing, the realities of what we don't have currently utility-wise to support the families living in these areas. We have pockets in Joliet where there is zero cell phone signal. And so therefore, when it comes to any kind of online access to things for educational purposes for students, it becomes an extreme challenge. So the notion of policy and what might be a requirement in policy for developers as they're creating these areas, that there be a cell tower or there be wireless access or there be something that could, that helps with that piece. I mean, we should, the internet should be ubiquitous at this point. We should all have easy access to it, but we don't. And even here in Joliet, we don't. We have families who struggle.

with any kind of access in that regard so as we add housing i think there are things we have to think about utility-wise that we don't have now that we need to make certain we consider moving forward absolutely and that is captured in the vision and goals and will be carried through into the draft plan and with the urban three report that's coming out it is also that's another opportunity to reinforce that connection as well thank you

I had one, maybe this was said or I'm being redundant, but something, some type that speaks to barrier-free accessible housing or universal design.

Going back once again to the Village of Bolingbroke, they have their visitability ordinance that was enacted in I think 2003 and all new construction is required to have certain standards of accessibility. And their community development director recently spoke about it and said that it really did not add cost to development, and the outcomes were very positive.

Visitability?

That's what they call it, visitability.

That's clever.

Wow.

I like that.

Cool.

Great. Well, thank you all.

Ready to break? I'm going to trademark that phrase.

So we'll just go through the next steps in this process. We are starting to write the draft plan. And it will be a reflection of your input on the housing types and terms were written in the document. The appendix of the draft document will have a glossary that includes definitions. That's another reason why we wanted your help today to start thinking about what we mean when we say certain things and to be really clear on that and provide some context for folks that are less familiar with the content of the comprehensive plan to make sure that by the time they're done reading it, they have a very good understanding of what those terms mean. The draft plan will be iterative. We are writing it. You will see it. You will have lots of time to review it, to provide comment. You will not have one time. You will have multiple times. So again, this is the beginning of a conversation to build consensus and mutual understanding around creating a shared language on these particular topics. The draft comprehensive plan, as you've seen from the previous documents that we've created, is comprehensive.

It has a lot of information on it.

A lot of that information is intersectional. You can't do housing without broadband access and utilities and economic development. You can't attract people to the city without having jobs and without having housing. So you'll see that in the draft plan, how these different topics come together. and how mutually dependent they are on each other for creating success in the future in Joliet. We will align the housing vision and goals with the draft plan. So you're not going to see much that should be a surprise. It is development of the ideas that we have already created. And it will look different only in that it will be policy and it will give you the how. How are we going to accomplish this? The final plan will have an implementation plan. That's where we ask you who are the great partners that can help support actually getting this work done. That's actually when the hard work happens in this comprehensive planning process. And then we want to talk to you again. We have these meetings on a regular basis. So this is not the last time. If you have questions in the interim, feel free to email Jane. and she can get answers for you. But we want to keep you updated through this part of the process because this is where the real magic happens, where you've seen each one of these documents sort of be created in isolation. This is where everything comes together. And so we really just want to say thank you for your continued partnership. It's been over a year now that we've been working on this together. And I think that we've done really great work. So thank you again. I do want to collect your worksheets. Don't hide those from me. It's going to be important for us to refer back to those when we start writing this document. So we'll collect those after this meeting. That's all we have for today. Is there any other conversation, discussion? Did we miss anything that you want to share or comments that you might have before we close? How did you like this exercise? Was it helpful? Yeah. Okay. Great. Awesome. Well, thank you all. Thank you.

All right.

WE HAVE A MOTION TO ADJOURN. NO, WE HAVE PUBLIC COMMENT.

NO, WE HAVE STAFF REPORTS. VERY QUICK. I JUST WANT TO, THIS IS PUBLIC TODAY, AND SOME OF YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT WE HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH URBAN THREE CONSULTING FIRM TO ANALYZE OUR ECONOMIC POSITION IN THE CITY FOR OVER A YEAR NOW. THE PRINCIPAL, JOE MINNECOZI, IS COMING ON JUNE 17TH. THERE ARE TWO OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE PUBLIC TO LEARN FROM THE FINDINGS FROM HIS ANALYSIS FOR THE CITY OF JULIETTE. AND THE FIRST ONE IS A CHAMBER OF COMMERCE LUNCHEON. SO THANKS TO THE CHAMBER FOR SPONSORING THAT. THAT WILL BE AT HERA'S AT 1130 A.M. THAT DAY. AND THEN THERE WILL BE Another public presentation opportunity which will be held at Bicentennial Park That evening and that will start at 7 with the doors opening at 630. That is a free event both events are open to the public chamber is a Registration with a lunch included though with burfi so you will be getting those flyers emailed to you and hopefully you will disseminate them and promote that to the general public and And otherwise, we're just continuing to work with our steering committees and other community partners on the other land use plans, such as the ETOD, the IAD Disciplines River Bridge, as well as Choice Neighborhoods program. So those are all still moving forward. Any questions for Dustin or I? OK.

IS THIS THE PORTION WHERE JIM WOULD INSERT, LIKE, A NEW ACRONYM OR...

PROBABLY, YEAH.

IT'S ALL THE INSPIRED QUOTE. ALL RIGHT, IS THERE ANY MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC WHO WISH TO COMMENT ON AGENDA ITEMS? GREAT. MOTION TO ADJOURN.

SO MOVED.

SECOND. SECOND, DR. RAUS.

DR. RAUS IS SECOND?

YEP.

OKAY.

DO WE NEED TO CALL THE ROLL?

ALL THOSE IN FAVOR? NO, ALL THOSE IN FAVOR? OKAY, MEETING ADJOURNED.