City Council - Regular Meeting

THANK YOU, EVERYONE, FOR COMING. I WILL GO AHEAD AND CALL THE JUNE 22ND, SECOND LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR, FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING TO ORDER. RIGHT? YOU'RE RIGHT. THANK YOU. DISSENSION EARLY, GEEZ. SHORTEST NIGHT. YEAH, PLEASANTRIES. FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS IS THE REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF THE APRIL 20TH 2026 FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES. WITHOUT OBJECTION, THEY ARE APPROVED. THE SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS, WHICH IS THE ONLY ONE WHICH, SINCE THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE'VE KIND OF DONE IT THIS WAY, WE'LL SEE WHAT WE CAN GET THROUGH IN AN HOUR. I KNOW HOUSING PLANNING DEVELOPMENT IS NEXT FOR ZONING REFRESH UPDATES, SO WE'LL SEE WHERE WE GET WITHIN AN HOUR OF KIND OF WHAT SOME OF OUR PRIORITIES ARE. NOW, SOME OF THESE, AS WE DISCUSSED ON THE FLOOR ON MONDAY NIGHT, THESE ARE ENCAPSULATED IN THE LETTER FROM PRESIDENT KEPPEL TO THE JUNE 15 DOCKET ABOUT COUNCIL BUDGET PRIORITIES. SOME OF THESE, AS WE GO THROUGH THEM, I KIND OF ENVISIONED THIS MEETING US JUST LITERALLY GOING ONE BY ONE, NOT TRYING TO GO SUPER INTO THE WEEDS WITH EACH ONE, BUT KIND OF EXPLAINING THEM TO OUR COLLEAGUES AND TO THE ADMINISTRATION AND TO THE PUBLIC SHOULD THEY BE LISTENING TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE INTENTION IS BEHIND KIND OF THE IDEA. AND THIS IS WHERE IT'S, YOU KNOW, IT'S KIND OF A KICKOFF TO THE 2027 BUDGET PROCESS, BUT SOME OF THESE, READING THROUGH THEM, I THINK WOULD BE VERY DIFFICULT TO IMPLEMENT IN 2027, BUT I THINK THEY START A LARGER CONVERSATION ABOUT WHAT COUNCIL PRIORITIZES, WHAT WE'D LIKE TO WORK WITH THE ADMINISTRATION ON, WHERE WE HAVE SHARED PRIORITIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. AND THEN ALSO, AS WE'VE TALKED ABOUT OFTEN, YOU KNOW, COUNCIL MEMBERS CAN'T GET IN GROUPS OF PLUS THREE AND TALK ABOUT THESE THINGS. SO I KIND OF ENVISIONED THIS AS A LITTLE BIT MORE OF AN INFORMAL DISCUSSION ABOUT THESE THINGS. WHO MIGHT BE WILLING TO TAKE THE LEAD? WHAT DEPARTMENTS MIGHT BE THE ONES THAT WOULD BE THE ONES THAT KIND OF WE NEED TO FOLLOW UP WITH? WHO WOULD DO THAT FOLLOWING UP? WHO WOULD BE THE PEOPLE THAT WOULD LEAD THE CHARGE? KIND OF WHAT THE HIGH LEVEL POLICY GOALS OR BUDGET GOALS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH IT. DOES THAT HIGH LEVEL MAKE SENSE TO EVERYONE?

YEAH.

OKAY. SO IN NO, NO, I DIDN'T DO THIS, BUT THE ONES THAT I AUTHORED SEEM TO BE FIRST. SO I WILL GO THROUGH THEM QUICKLY. AND ALSO, YOU KNOW, SHOULD THE ADMINISTRATION HAVE ANY INPUT, I KIND OF VIEW THIS AS MORE OF AN OPEN HOUSE. AND, YOU KNOW, I DON'T WANT TO SPEND A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF TIME, YOU KNOW, MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES ON ANY ONE OF THESE. I DO THINK THAT EACH ONE OF THESE DESERVE MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES, SO WE WILL HAVE MORE FOLLOW-UP, WHETHER THAT BE IN A MEETING WITH THE MAYOR AND SOME DEPARTMENT HEADS, OR THAT BE ANOTHER COUNCIL MEETING IN ANOTHER COMMITTEE OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. So the first one I'll just go through as quickly as I can. Mr. Chair? Yes. Real fast.

So thank you for this, first of all. Second of all, in addition to your comments about the list, some of them are non-budgetary. And so presumably we'll touch on those and talk about them in whatever committee they might belong to. Thirdly, I guess my invitation to my colleagues here is that we're in the idea-ation stage. We're in the creative initiative stage. And the point here is not to nitpick the stage and to poke holes and shred a proposal. That'll come later, presuming that we have more deliberation by council. So I guess that should be a question of the chairs. Is this the one and only meeting, or will we be working further in the future?

YEAH, PERHAPS LET ME STEP BACK A LITTLE BIT. I MAYBE JUMP FROM STEP ONE TO STEP SIX. SO THE WAY I ENVISION THIS, AND WE'VE TALKED ABOUT WITH THE ADMINISTRATION THAT, YOU KNOW, BEFORE AUGUST RECESS, IF WE CAN HAVE SOME COALESCING AROUND THE THINGS THAT WE'D LIKE IN THIS BUDGET, THIS 2027 BUDGET, SO I'M WILLING TO AS CHAIR OF THIS COMMITTEE, SCHEDULE AS MANY MEETINGS BETWEEN NOW AND AUGUST RECESS TO GO THROUGH THESE THINGS. I GUESS IF THAT'S YOUR FIRST QUESTION. AND THEN THE WAY I VIEW THAT IS WE KIND OF CAN COALESCE AS A COUNCIL, HAVE SOME INPUT FROM THE ADMINISTRATION THROUGH JUNE AND JULY. AND THEN IF WE NEED TO, WE WON'T HAVE COUNCIL MEETINGS IN AUGUST, BUT THAT'S A PERFECT OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO MEET WITH DEPARTMENT HEADS OR DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS TO KIND OF MORE FULLY FLESH THESE THINGS OUT. WITH SOME LEGISLATION AND FULL BUDGET GOING INTO SEPTEMBER. THAT IS NOT KIND OF LIKE THE ONLY PATHWAY, BUT I THINK THAT'S A HELPFUL FRAMING TO LOOK AT IT. DIRECTOR MAHONEY HAS INDICATED THAT UP AND THROUGH SEPTEMBER, YOU KNOW, WE CAN HAVE KIND OF A REVIEW OF THE REVENUE EXPENSES OF THIS YEAR SO WE CAN KIND OF UNDERSTAND WHERE WE'RE LANDING IN BUDGET YEAR 2026. going into budget year 2027 with some of our projections, understanding what some of the directors, you know, their priorities are, what the mayor's priorities are. Because as the council president said, and I agree, there's no like administration budget and council budget. It's just the city's budget. And so we're going to work as closely as we can to make sure we can get it done. And obviously by the end of the year, we need to pass a budget. So that's the goal. We're six months from the end of the year. So I think we have some time. So does that answer your question?

Yeah, and if I could just resume the short thought, Mr. Chair. So there's kind of two passes for me. One is the first pass, which I envision for tonight, which is let me do some appreciative inquiry, hear from my colleagues. What is the point you're driving at with your proposal? What do you have in mind? Could we do it? Could we do it now? Could we do it sometime in the reasonably near future or not? A second pass would be to ask the tough questions. Can we afford it? Is the operation ready to go? I see those in two stages. The reason for that is what the chair just said. Council members aren't allowed to work as a body outside of a public meeting, so we don't have everything from the jump completely, fully developed and vetted. We're going to have to do that kind of in stages, in my opinion. And so I just, I guess I would request from everybody here, the idea is we're trying to lift new initiatives off the ground or maybe in some cases take an existing program that the city's already doing and enhance it with an additional step or a little bit more budget capacity. There is going to be a time for us to ask or kind of look at our own proposals with some skepticism and narrow them. And it sounds like that would come before June, July 30, right?

YES. THAT'S JUST MY OPINION.

PEOPLE ARE FREE TO DO ANYTHING.

WE'RE GOING TO SPEND A QUARTER OF THIS MEETING ON PROCESS. I WANT TO GET INTO THESE THINGS. THE PROCESS IS WHATEVER WE WANT TO DO. YOU HAVE FOUR VOTES, YOU HAVE PROCESS, I GUESS. That's just what the charter says. But from the standpoint of this, for example, the first item, large tree preservation, this is probably not going to be in the 2020 budget. It's going to be more of a regulatory thing that I'd like to work with building and housing, public works on, see what best practices are. So I could say right now, yeah, if you pull up the, I think the communication is probably best because it gives a high level of each one that was on the docket. AND I'VE BEEN TRYING MY WHOLE TIME ON COUNCIL, AND EVEN THE MAYOR INDICATED WHEN SHE WAS ON COUNCIL, SHE THOUGHT ABOUT A WAY TO DO THIS. AND I THINK THAT THERE'S PROBABLY NOT A PERFECT WAY TO DO IT, BUT IT'S ONE IN WHICH, YOU KNOW, ANYONE THAT HEARS ME TALK UP THERE HERE, SO I'LL GIVE MY SPIEL FOR IT, IS THAT I LIKE PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS. YOU KNOW, YOU SHOULD LARGELY BE ABLE TO DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO ON YOUR PROPERTY AS LONG AS IT FITS WITH ZONING. I DO THINK THAT WHEN A TREE HITS A CERTAIN SIZE, THERE MAY BE SOME COMMUNITY BENEFIT THAT GOES BEYOND YOUR PARCEL THAT WE MAY WANT TO THINK ABOUT THE IMPACT OF THAT TREE AND WHAT IT WOULD DO IF IT CAME DOWN IF IT WAS HEALTHY. AND SO, I'M TRYING, THIS IS MORE OF A POLICY THING. IT WILL HAVE A BUDGETARY IMPACT, BUT PROBABLY MORE LARGER POLICY. SOUTH EUKELID HAS SENT US THEIR DRAFT LEGISLATION, SO WE'VE ALREADY STARTED SOME RESEARCH ON IT. BUT THE IDEA BEING THAT If you have a danger tree and you take it down for health and human safety and public safety, then you take it down. And so there needs to be some process for that. But if it's an otherwise healthy tree, then there needs to be an impact fee is the way I look at it, where I don't know what that fee is. I'm open to other ideas, but it seems to be that that is the process that seems to work the best as an impact fee. And then essentially that impact fee would then go into a fund that would be dedicated to PRIVATE TREE PLANTINGS IN THE CITY. THAT'S KIND OF THE IDEA OF WHAT I'M TRYING TO FORMULATE. WELCOME ANY INPUT FROM MY COLLEAGUES. CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG, ADMINISTRATION, I THINK THAT WOULD BE MORE OF A BUILDING DEPARTMENT THING. I DON'T THINK GORDON WANTS TO TOUCH IT WITH THE 10-FOOT POLE IF IT'S ON PRIVATE PROPERTY. WOULD THAT BE ACCURATE?

Good evening. Yeah, that would be probably building law, probably multiple departments. So I would suggest reaching out to Alex and she can kind of get the department heads to kind of discussing putting some framework together or we can have law perhaps research what other cities do and go from there.

Okay. Yeah, and we have some of that research so I can coordinate with the law department on what at least South Euclid and some of our THE COASTS ARE THE CITIES THAT ARE REALLY DOING THIS OUT, JUST IN PORTLAND, AND THEIR TREE CANOPY IN AN URBAN SETTING IS TREMENDOUS, AND I THINK WE CAN LEARN A LOT FROM THEM. SO I WILL TAKE THE LABOR IN OR ON THAT. COUNCILMAN EVANS?

YEAH, THANK YOU, CHAIR. I'M VERY HAPPY TO SUPPORT THIS AND WORK WITH YOU ON IT. I THINK THIS IS EXTRAORDINARILY TIMELY, GIVEN THE age of the trees in our city. I mean, I've seen block by block us losing huge, large trees, and they're not being replaced. These people don't want to or don't want to outlay the funds. So I think this is a really common sense way to build that fund where we can start to, I think we do a great job of foresting on public property, but that's not going to get us to our goals. So I hardly agree with your stance here, and I'm happy to work with you on this.

Thank you. Yeah, I think there's another way in which maybe it's not an impact fee, but you have to plant two trees in your property to take one down or something. So, Councilman Bixenstein.

Thank you, Vice President Baker. I, too, commend you on this initiative. And I just wanted to add that as part of this, you know, from an education standpoint of residents, I think just helping people understand the difference between a certified arborist making a call on a mature tree and its health versus a tree trimming company that has... self interested in the tree coming down and getting paid. So I think just that basic education is part of this could be really valuable.

Thank you. I'm thinking about two rental properties that I have where weed trees have grown on the property line. And I think location of the tree also needs to be considered in this as well as health of the tree for property damages to other people's garages. Not just a tree in the middle of nowhere that's beautiful and healthy and somebody wants to cut it down. I think that's your intention here, but I think that there's a lot of other variables that we also have to consider. Thank you.

Yeah, it's a sticky issue. I mean, technically, if a tree is on the property line, both people have to, both property owners have to agree to take it down. And then, and the intention here would be start with large. So that's literally DBH's diameter at breast height. And that's what commonly used to classify tree sizes. And like, I would envision starting big and seeing where that is. So you have less trees under that regulatory standard. burden or that regulatory system, and then see where that goes. And then we can think about adjusting the size as we move on. That's the thought. So I mayor, thank you, I will work on that. And I'll probably peel it off the budget discussion for the rest of time, because I don't think it has budget priority on it this year.

If it makes sense, Rowan, I'm going through the editable spreadsheet version of this and noting which ones would have a 2027 impact, budget impact versus which ones don't so we can kind of trim that down and keep a list of policy things we're working on and those that would specifically have a 2027 budget impact.

THE NEXT TWO, AND LIKE I SAID, I DIDN'T PUT THIS LIST TOGETHER. SPEED ENFORCEMENT IN SCHOOL ZONES. I'VE BEEN TALKING UP HERE AND IN GROUPS OF PEOPLE AND WITH THE LAW DEPARTMENT A LITTLE BIT ABOUT SPEED ENFORCEMENT IN SCHOOL ZONES. WE DO HAVE SOME RESEARCH IN THE ADMINISTRATION PUT TOGETHER, THE LAW DEPARTMENT DID, ABOUT KIND OF WHAT YOU CAN DO, WHAT STATE LAW ALLOWS. THERE IS SOME SOME MORE BIRTH THAT A MUNICIPALITY HAS TO DO THIS TYPE OF ENFORCEMENT IN SCHOOL ZONES TO ALLOW FOR CAMERAS TO ENFORCE THAT. THERE ARE SOME RESTRICTIONS AND THINGS YOU HAVE TO SET UP. LESS OF A BUDGET IMPACT, SO THIS PROBABLY FALLS INTO THE SAME CATEGORIES, LARGE TREE PRESERVATION, ALTHOUGH IT DOES HAVE SOME BUDGET IMPACT THAT WE WOULD HAVE TO GO THROUGH. AND FURTHERMORE, ALL WE CAN DO ON COUNCIL IS AUTHORIZE A REGIME WE CAN'T MAKE THE ADMINISTRATION DO ANYTHING. SO THAT'S WHERE THIS WOULD ENTIRELY BE SOMETHING IN THE CODE WHERE WE'D UPDATE AND GIVE THE ADMINISTRATION THE ABILITY TO DO THESE THINGS. NOW, AS I ENVISION IT, YOU KNOW, WE'VE HAD A LARGE COMMUNITY CONVERSATION ABOUT WE'RE A WALKING SCHOOL DISTRICT. ONE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IS BEING REPURPOSED, SO WALK DISTANCES MAY INCREASE FOR STUDENTS. EARLIER IN MY TIME ON COUNCIL, PLANNING DEPARTMENT DID SOME SPEED STUDIES OF PARTICULARLY EMERSON AND HOW FAST PEOPLE GO IN THOSE SCHOOL ZONES DURING SCHOOL HOURS. AND IT WAS QUITE ALARMING WHEN YOU HAVE A FIVE- OR SIX-YEAR-OLD WALKING TO SCHOOL THERE AND HOW FAST PEOPLE GO. SO THE IDEA THERE WOULD BE TO HELP SUPPLEMENT. I KNOW THE POLICE DEPARTMENT DOES A TREMENDOUS JOB. WE HAVE A YOUNG POLICE FORCE. CHIEF FISHER'S TREMENDOUS IN FOCUSING ON KIND OF BREAD AND BUTTER POLICE ISSUES LIKE TRAFFIC STOPS. THAT'S WHERE YOU CAN KIND OF INTERACT WITH PEOPLE EDUCATE, NOT ONLY JUST FIND OR GIVE A TICKET TO THEM, AND YOU CAN ALSO SEE WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE COMMUNITY. BUT I DO THINK THAT THAT'S ALSO THE TIME WHEN POLICE ARE OFTEN PULLED AWAY, SWITCHES OF, YOU KNOW, DIFFERENT, YOU KNOW, TIME SHIFTS. AND SO IT'S ONE OF THOSE THINGS WHERE IT'S, YOU KNOW, THREE HOURS A DAY, BUT IT'S A TREMENDOUSLY IMPORTANT THREE HOURS. AND DRIVER BEHAVIOR HAS JUST CONTINUED TO GO DOWN THE TUBE. THIS, LIKE I SAID, THIS WILL PROBABLY COME OFF THE BUDGETARY ISSUE, BUT I WANTED TO MAKE MY COLLEAGUES AWARE THAT I'M TRYING TO WORK ON IT. YOU KNOW, HAVE NOT SET UP MEETINGS YET WITH THE POLICE DEPARTMENT, WITH CHIEF FISHER TO TALK ABOUT IT, TO SEE THEIR RECEPTIVITY. HAVE TALKED A LITTLE BIT ABOUT IT WITH LAW, BUT JUST MAKING MY COLLEAGUES AWARE THAT THAT'S SOMETHING I INTEND TO KIND OF CONTINUE TO PUSH FORWARD. TO THE EXTENT THERE'S ANY COMMENTS. And the idea being that this is about behavior and not about money because they're proven to deter speeding. And then any funds that were raised would go into traffic calming around schools would be the idea or enhancement of things later like more crossing guards or things like that. The next thing, once again, I'm more policy than budget-based, is traffic calming. I've had some discussions with Assistant Director Boss about the program that this administration put forward. I think it's a good one. It's working. I do think that we're probably far enough into it where it warrants a committee meeting and a review of kind of where we're at, where we come, some successes, some things we might be able to change. Do we want to codify it? Do we want to have it be an administrative policy? So there will be budget impacts, depending on the things that we normally do, like speed humps, other interventions. But I think it's just a ripe conversation that loops into the first one, which is kids are going to be walking further. What are we going to do to make our neighborhoods safer? Welcome. Any comments from the administration or my colleagues? Mr. Chair? Yes.

So I'm mostly going to keep silent, because just in the interest of time, unless we're coming back, because we have 24 items. Both of these are great. I have a lot to say, but I'll hold it for now. But, you know, I'd like to cooperate and work with you on both.

Sorry.

Just real quick, process-wise. So as we're going through these, colleagues, too, I put down on this either people who were marked off on the worksheet that said that they wanted to work on it based on our retreat or have otherwise indicated that they wanted to work on it So and because of the sort of three-person limit so we can only have three people working on any of the time So some of these we are not at three people. So if as we're going through these Like councilmember Evans. I just added you to the large tree preservation because you indicated that so at the the traffic calming review and enhancement we do have I have Baker Evans and Hamilton Steiner head we're on either on the form or indicated previously. So if anybody, as we're going through, if you see things and say either actually take me off of that or can I add on to that, that would be a good time too.

Yes, and I intend likely at a July meeting to put a communication forward to refer to committee on the traffic calming thing to have that discussion and coordinate with the planning department on that.

Just a comment on putting together groups to work on these. Also be careful that you're in finance committees, so don't have a majority of a finance committee on any one group.

YOUTH ATHLETICS, THIS IS VERY EARLY, BUT IT'S SOMETHING I WANTED TO GET IN FRONT OF THE ADMINISTRATION AND MY COLLEAGUES ABOUT WAYS IN WHICH THE CITY AND THE SCHOOLS MAY BE ABLE TO PARTNER BOTH TO RETAIN FAMILIES, RETAIN ENROLLMENT AT THE SCHOOLS, AND BOLSTER THE OFFERINGS, PARTICULARLY ATHLETIC, OF THE LAKEWOOD CITY SCHOOLS. AND THERE ARE SOME DISCUSSIONS ABOUT SOME CHANGES THAT CAN HAPPEN WITH THE LAKEWOOD ATHLETIC BOOSTERS. MAYBE SOME ORGANIZATIONAL REORGANIZATIONS, SOME CHANGES TO THEIR BYLAWS THAT KIND OF OPENS THEM UP A LITTLE BIT. MAYBE HAVE SOME CITY COUNCIL ADMINISTRATION REPRESENTATION, NEXT OFFICIAL ON THEIR BOARD. MAYBE HAVE SOME SCHOOL BOARD AND SCHOOL DISTRICT REPRESENTATION ON THEIR BOARD. AND THEN, finding a way in which maybe they can, you know, if you think about the Lakewood Rec Department, they, if you're a Giga Learn, you go and present to them, they put you in the booklet, they do your registration, but you handle everything, right? The kids come, you teach them. That would be the idea that some version of the Lakewood Athletic Boosters could take over that on the athletic side from all the way from the kids who play rec and t-ball to all the way through up the most competitive kids that play travel. And so the idea behind that is finding a way for the city to partner potentially as some sort of service agreement with the boosters or some name change for the boosters that would be able to support that. This is early. This might have an impact on this year's budget. So it will probably stay in the budget. And I need to meet. Vince has been doing a lot of work with the school board More meetings to come.

I just didn't want to not get this in on the timeline.

So more to come on that. But I think it's really exciting. And I think it can basically create really good outcomes for our community and the schools, which will be good for all of us.

Chair Baker. Yes. I have more questions about this one, but I just wanted to go back to something Ms. Swallow just said. Because in the prior conversation, speed enforcement in school zones is being sponsored by Mr. Baker. Can Mr. Bullock then also be on that committee because they're both in finance? When you say majority of the committee, two of three is a majority, right?

Correct. Two is the majority because it's a three-member committee. Yes. So it would have to be somebody other than in the finance committee because all of these items are currently pending in the finance committee.

Okay. So any of the three of us, right, the finance committee, the three of us right here, there should not be any that both of us are on. Correct. Two of three. Correct. Okay. Thank you very much.

Even the ones that aren't going to stay in finance and are more policy-based?

I mean, if they're policy-based, I would refer them out so that they're no longer in finance committee. Does that make sense?

Yeah, but I think the idea is there's not really a fully-fledged referral at this point, at least on the three that I just indicated on, other than... So I think let's go through our process, and then we can refine this a little bit more and maybe have some offline discussions on each one with the law department. I don't want to take 30 minutes of the meeting talking about process. But thank you, and we will be mindful of that, and we will connect with you before we get the brass tacks on all these things. Who drafted affordability and property tax relief? I got through mine pretty quick. Matt, you want to go ahead? Oh. Well, boom. So there we go.

Thank you, Vice President Baker. So property tax relief, this initiative was born out of hearing from constituents and hearing from constituents speaking to the struggle with with increased property taxes and with, particularly from our most vulnerable residents, meaning low to moderate income residents and fixed income seniors. And when I have that conversation with residents, the first part is education. It's explained to them that the vast majority of property taxes do, in fact, not go to the city. And that's usually eye-opening to them. So part of it's education. But I kind of see this as a two-pronged approach. The most basic level would be, can we explore offering tax consulting services for residents? For instance, I had a couple residents reach out recently who said something along the lines of, my property tax, my home evaluation appeal is tomorrow. Can you advise me on this? And I think having more of a process in place to help residents in that circumstance through some sort of... consulting or education offering would be useful. The second level, which I realize is more ambitious, would be is there a way to offer targeted relief for some of our most vulnerable residents, whether that comes from better promotion or expansion of the homestead exemption or seeking out other means. But that's sort of the meat and potatoes of this particular initiative. Councilman Evans.

Thank you, Chair.

And just want to say this is kind of a crossover with one of mine. I think property tax relief is on affordability or go hand in hand with affordable housing overall. So I'm actually already working with Councilman Bixenstein having the county do a workshop with residents for housing. with having their, you know, tax issues, they can get you in a program to help you, you know, just trying to coach you through the different avenues if you're struggling with your property taxes. So hopefully that happens sometime this fall, but very glad to be a partner with you on that.

Thank you. Yeah, so this sounds a little blended between policy and budget. I do think that there are, they're like volunteer tax associates or VTAs, and I don't know if Director Mahoney's ever heard of it, but they like help low-income people with income taxes. I don't know if they also like preparing their tax returns for free. People donate their time. I don't know if there's something similar for property taxes. So I guess we could try to connect people with resources as well.

Yeah, I'm unaware of private or volunteer groups, but I think Councilman Evans has the right thing going to Cuyahoga County directly. They can provide the best help. We cannot provide tax help. I cannot to a resident. So I think that's the best method is just to partner with the county.

I often get legal seeking advice from residents, and I can't help them. So I understand. Council President?

I just have a quick question. If we're envisioning, obviously, if we were to help targeted folks lower property taxes, it does have a budgetary impact. But it's not necessarily a line item that we're looking to put in the 2027 budget. So just in terms of timeline of working on this and the scope, it's kind of broad, the proposals. And I recognize that we were all rushing to get these in so that we could... We just finished last year's budget and everything else we have to work on and then trying to get these in. So they're not... That's why they're drafts. But I'm just wondering whether we want to... If this is more... Something that we envision having a 2027 budget impact or more of looking at policy in 2027 just in terms of how to categorize it. Do you have thoughts about that?

I'm very much open to whatever we think is the best approach. Certainly that stands to reason that could make sense for its policy in 2027 and then look at budget beyond that.

Councilman Bullock.

We don't have time to get heavily into this, but there's a couple issues being conflated, I think. So one would be tax advice. I don't know if that's the proposal. What I see here is tax relief, which is a budgetary thing. To Councilwoman Keppel's point, through, well, it might be through direct expenditure, but it might also be through a tax rebate, which is complex and we have fewer tools than we might wish for if we did want to go that route. It's also a pretty significant and far-reaching issue. so we'd have to think about that. The tax budget, we've already adopted a month and a half, or in the last six weeks or eight weeks, we did that separately. So the income side, it's all good discussion. I'm just trying to add a little more context. So we do the income side of our budget kind of early, late May, late spring, early summer traditionally, and then we do the expenditure side towards the end of the year. BOTH OF THOSE ARE VALID WAYS TO GET AT THIS PROBLEM. THIS IS A BIG ONE, SO PROBABLY WE'LL NEED TO REALLY BE THOUGHTFUL HERE. I CERTAINLY SHARE THE INTEREST.

THANKS. NEXT ONE IS SAFER STREETS TOGETHER CAMPAIGN.

Yes, this was born out of discussions with constituents and recognizing that, you know, this is more of a policy one, of course, but having a campaign that targets all the different ways people get around our cities and our shared responsibility. and promoting the ways that pedestrians, what pedestrians could do as safety practices, but also motorists, of course, what motorists could do safety-wise, and then, of course, cyclists and scooter riders, and we can get into electric bikes as well, but the idea is I think that people of all different types of commuting are not necessarily practicing safe behavior as much as they could be. And in some cases, it's not education, but in some cases it is. It's not being aware of proper protocols. So the idea here is simply, you know, if we're going to be renowned for our active transportation, let's embrace this shared responsibility to try to make our streets safer for everyone.

So then I guess the question I have is, do you envision this being something that the city outlays resources for, or something more you work with the department to work with case and figure out, I guess? How do you envision, from a budgetary standpoint, is this policy or budget?

I think primarily this is policy. But I'm open to either of the routes you outline, Vice President Baker.

Chairman. Yes.

Whichever one of you decided will go first.

I'm going to start. Thank you. I'm happy to join you on this. And I do believe that there are some budgeting issues with this one or implications with this one too. Thank you. Because I think that when you're looking at an education campaign, It may include mailing directly to residents. I think that that's probably going to be a piece of this. So I would like to see some kind of budgeting numbers here for mail postage.

So then I would suggest, and I'll get to Council President Hamilton-Senator, is that if you do want to have a budget piece, then I think we have about 30 or 45 days to meet with directors and think about what that cost would be, right, if you think there's a budgetary impact. Council President Hamilton-Senator. Okay.

Thanks, Chair Baker. I do agree that there is and does need to be a designated budgeting allocated to the specific, I guess, project. And it's not going to be a lot. And it could also be in line with things that perhaps we're already doing. So it could already be in line with current marketing or you know, communications, tactics, and things like that. So it could actually, we could get a jump start if there's dollars that have not been used in the 2026 budget, not to throw all that off, but certainly looking at how we're budgeting for marketing, advertising, you know, all of those types of metrics and putting, including that in 27 and just being mindful of this priority in 27. I don't imagine it being a lot, so. I mean, a couple thousand perhaps at tops perhaps.

Well, I'd encourage you guys to. I think this would be planning and police maybe and then the mayor's office for communications.

Sounds good. Thank you.

I know we have certain, you know, we've already done a decent job. I see our social media pages, you know, so we've done some of it. I think you're looking for an enhancement on that. That is correct.

Okay. You don't want to leave out Public Works because they have a big part of street safety, truly. And also, Mr. Gordon's always game.

I see the new billboard for recycling over by West Clifton. It's pretty awesome. We can get one of those for how to use an e-bike or whatever. It would be great. Chris doesn't want us. He's trying to keep his head down. The next one is styrofoam recycling.

Yes. So this one, Edgewater Surfers, they used to have a setup shop in Rocky River, recently moved to West 117th Street in Ward 4. Jeff McNaught, the owner, he does processing of styrofoam, of foam, EPS foam in-house. And it's something that, you know, he uses a small amount to actually make surfboards, which I think is really, really cool. But most of it gets sent off to a partner. or to be converted into new foam insulation. And I know that Mr. McNaught recently went through a partnership with another municipality, Cleveland Heights, to take on recycling for them. And I see real opportunity for us and, of course, much easier with the proximity because the plan that you've discussed with Mr. McNaught would be for if residents could have recycling drop-off at the, excuse me, styrofoam drop-off at the Lakewood Recycling Center, then Mr. McNaught and Edgewater Surf, would arrange for biweekly pickups. The fact that his place of business is just on the street from the recycling center is useful here. And adjusting the frequency of his pickups based on the resident demand. He's laid out a budget where I believe the total ask was around $4,000. I built in a little bit extra just in case the needs change. But it seems like a potential for a partnership with a local business to offer something beneficial to our residents and the environment.

Director Gordon.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Councilman Bixenstein. That is correct that Cleveland Heights did receive a grant from the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District to basically pirate or pilot, a styrofoam recycling program. I would advise to allow this program to run its full course before we jump in, just to see how it's going. because we're not quite sure if there's going to be additional transportation costs. We're not sure of the volume that's going to be coming in. I had a very good conversation with the solid waste district specifically about this program and I was. pretty much told that they're going to allow it to play out and then see what happens from there because they're not quite sure how high the volume is going to be, potentially, if there's going to be any additional costs and things like that. So understanding that Cleveland Heights is piloting this, I feel that it would be best to wait, see how this pilot program pans out, see if there's any issues, see if there's any positivity, negativity, and then take it from there.

Yeah, I would advise you get together with him and talk about that and figure it out. Yeah, I'm happy to talk about that. Sorry, Director Swallow.

I was just also going to say, I think the law department would probably have to look at this as well. I mean, without knowing more about this, it almost sounds like the city collecting and providing raw materials to a private business on city property. And without going out to bid for that, just...

Mr. Chair, I'm sure though this is directors while there's a way to make it work right so we could structure it correctly so that we don't run afoul of any

I'm suggesting that we, that Councilman Vickson. Yeah, I heard that.

And, you know, Councilman Vickson, I'll be happy to work with you, too. Like, I think we should talk to the countywide districts that are involved in these kind of things. So it's a good discussion. But I think, I guess that's what I was saying before is, like, let's not poke holes in the concept because the mechanics of something may not be right in the initial draft proposal. It's a valid point to learn from others. On the other hand, if we have – there's arguments I can think of about moving it forward. So I'll leave it with Councilman Bix's side. I'll be happy to play back, you know, a wingman role to help flush it out. Thanks.

Thank you. And I'll be sure to follow up with Director Gordon and Director Swallow to make sure we're doing this the right way and both the timing and the legality. Thank you both.

Ward 4 engagement, voter turnout.

All right. This is the last one for me. Ward 4 has lagged behind historically in voter turnout for decades at this point. And the idea of this initiative is to formulate a comprehensive nonpartisan plan to reduce this gap and improve voter turnout in Ward 4, both the amount of registered voters and the amount of voters who actually go to the poll. And so I did talk to the law department this past week, and we talked through how in order to do this the right way, it would have to be non-partisan, of course. It would have to be non-campaigning, of course, and it would have to be approached without any sort of particular issue in mind. So the idea would be to partner with local non-partisan organizations like the League of Women Voters in hopes of... First, doing data collection and eventually formulating a comprehensive plan to how can we get Ward 4 to not lag behind other wards as far as voter turnout.

Do you envision this as a 2027 budget issue or more 2027 as a plan year? So I think we can just keep it as a question mark. And you can meet and we can, you know, folks that want to work with you, like Councilman Halstenstein, and figure out what it might be. Sounds good.

Chair Baker.

So thank you, Chair Baker, and thank you, Councilman Bixenstein, for bringing this forward. I'm glad that you reached out to law department to clarify what we can do as far as involving and getting voters engaged in the language and making sure that we're nonpartisan. But truly, I also saw the opportunity That this is to increase overall community engagement for Ward 4 and get them out, getting them to come out to, you know, council meetings, getting them to get involved, having more Ward 4 residents represented in our boards and commissions. I think it's also bigger. It's not just voter turnout, but it's also voter turnout and community engagement as well. So we can sort of talk through that. Some of that and then just clarify because I believe directors follow you said that no we couldn't use public funds For this initiative, correct? Okay, so it would be really policy in engagement types of activities and it might be an opportunity to Partner with Community Relations Melissa Garrett, so perhaps we could reach out to Melissa Garrett and see WHAT OPPORTUNITIES THAT EXIST AND WE COULD GET SOME SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES AND SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES OUT THERE AND WORK FOR AROUND THIS.

SOUNDS GREAT. THANK YOU.

THE NEXT ONE IS CAPITAL BUDGETING REFORM. I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S POLICY. IT SOUNDS MORE POLICY-BASED, BUT I WANTED TO HEAR.

YEAH, THANKS, MR. CHAIR. WE'LL KEEP THIS REAL FAST. I THINK IT IS POLICY-BASED. THE CONCEPT HERE JUST TO SHARE WITH THE ADMINISTRATION WOULD BE RIGHT NOW, MY IMPRESSION IS THAT THE VAST MAJORITY OF CAPITAL BUDGETING IS, AS WE CURRENTLY PRACTICE IT, IS DRIVEN BY THE ADMINISTRATION AND THAT CITY COUNCIL PLAYS A MINOR ROLE IN THAT. I THINK THAT NEEDS TO BE MORE BALANCED. THAT'S MY OPINION AS OPPOSED TO It's the beginning of a discussion. So I don't have right this moment a concrete proposal, but I want to be thoughtful and work towards it. Right now, as I understand it, the administration draws up the appendix to the budget binder. That's a guidance policy as opposed to something in law. Typically, city council would not try to edit directly the budget binder, again, which is an advisory document that or an administrative document. So for city council to add or subtract or make changes, we would have to do it through legislation. We've only done that very, very rarely. And so what we have is pretty healthy and robust capital budgeting process, but is really driven by the administration and council is not involved to the degree that, in my opinion, we should be. That's the concept there. More discussion to come. Promise to engage the administration.

Yeah, and I would, Director Vargo and I work really closely on kind of the board of control level. That's why we get the reports now for under 75 on the council docket. So it's, you pulled a string and a string over there comes out. And so, you know, I think I'm willing to work with you on it, but I think it's a law department finance. Would that be people? Okay.

Yeah, and Board of Control is an oversight of appropriate expenditure of dollars once a budgeting decision is made.

Yeah, no, I was only using it as an example.

Okay, so that's a piece of a good process, but I'm trying to extend the budgeting process to the beginning, to what goes on the capital budget list in the first place, when something comes off, why does it come off, when it gets pushed back, actually kind of the shuffling around between year one, two, three is probably a good administrative function because, you know, road project delays and so forth. But there are examples that are on or not on the capital budget right now that typically city council has not been very directly engaged with. So anyway, enough said on that.

So this sounds policy-based for 27? For sure.

Okay. Yeah, so it's not, I don't envision this as something that would affect the proposals for budget year 27. Maybe it would be something we discuss, and if there's consensus, including working in good faith with the administration, it would affect budget 28. Right. Crossing Guard is the next thing. Could we scroll down on the... I don't know. Who's got the big screen? Okay, so Crossing Guard coverage expands, and this is a possibility, a potential. Very well aware of the staffing bottlenecks. And the whole intent here would be to possibly find a way to be successful without either unrealistically running up against the staffing bottlenecks or to increase the disruption when full-time city personnel have to be substitutes. Because that happens with parking enforcement, patrol officers. And Mr. Gordon shared with me, often it's not public works. And let me be clear, I think that really shouldn't be how it plays out.

The reality is more challenging because of the nature of this position.

So actually, Mr. Chair, you had a concept that I picked up on here, which would be potentially we could explore a contract with the Lakewood City Schools and their personnel. They have temporary employees in the form of substitute teachers in similar positions. They're paraprofessionals. They're paraprofessionals and others. that by the nature of those positions are on call. And if possible and feasible and affordable and desirable, we could potentially engage with them and then find a new source of crossing guards. And then that would then allow us to get into how many and where we might want to expand. is a whole separate thoughtful discussion. We have a good working group, thanks to the planning department convening. Police and police have been really engaged. Public works has been engaged. So we've got a good working group. The schools are also engaged. So there's a number of hoops to jump through here. But this proposal is to begin a discussion to see whether we might be able to somehow expand personnel. So it's a maybe. The budget number here is me estimating the same cost of our current program, just simple arithmetic multiplied by what's described here.

So that wouldn't be additional budget, or it would be the entire budget, which we already appropriated?

That's additional. So for example, if Council thought, or if after the discussion, whomever thinks, let's scale that back, YOU'D SCALE IT BACK PROPORTIONALLY. SO IT'S ESTIMATED 8,000 EACH. SO WHAT I'M PROPOSING HERE WAS PLUS ONE EACH FOR THE SIX ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, PLUS FOR EACH OF THE TWO MIDDLE SCHOOLS, PLUS FOR THE HIGH SCHOOLS. CURRENTLY, OUR MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOLS ARE NOT COVERED BY CROSSING GUARDS. SO THAT'S THE SIMPLE ARITHMETIC. THOSE ARE STARTING NUMBERS. WE COULD ALL DISCUSS AND ADJUST THAT.

GREAT. AND I THINK We have about 11 minutes left, but we're almost through half.

So that's good. Short-term rental regulation we don't need to talk about now.

Well, this bathroom is next.

OK. Bathrooms is what it says right there. So thank you, Director Gordon, communicated kind of our current practices with where we have bathrooms, the dates of their access, and the times of their access.

And that's in an email that I shared with council members.

What's proposed here would be to take that baseline and expand it a little bit. So to add port-a-johns for two new parks. Well, let me start at the beginning. So add electronic locks. We've talked about that for many years. That was also discussed when the mayor was a council member and even predates that. I really hope that we can figure out a way to make use of electronic locks to ease access at Cove and Edwards at a minimum. INSTALL PORTAGEONS, AND THOSE ACTUALLY TURN OUT TO BE THE MOST EXPENSIVE PART OF THIS PROPOSAL BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO NOT ONLY RENT THEM BUT SERVICE THEM ON A WEEKLY BASIS, SO THAT'S NOT EXPENSIVE, BUT IT'S IMPORTANT. AND THEN I WOULD LIKE TO PUT ON THE TABLE INSTALLING A NEW PERMANENT BATHROOM FOR WAGER PARK. I'VE ALSO HEARD INFORMALLY YOU COULD PRETENSE TO PROPOSE THAT FOR WEBB PARK. THAT WON'T BE CONSTRUCTION FOR BUDGET YEAR 2027, BUT IF THERE WAS SOME CONSENSUS AROUND, HEY, WE SHOULD DO THAT WITHIN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS, WE COULD POTENTIALLY ALLOCATE DESIGN FUNDS FOR 2027 TO GIVE THE ADMINISTRATION SOME WHEREWITHAL TO START WORKING THAT OUT. I FULLY UNDERSTAND THAT PARKS PERMANENT BATHROOMS ARE EXPENSIVE, BUT I THINK THAT'S KIND OF THE VALUE OF CITY COUNCIL SIGNALING IT'S A PRIORITY IF INDEED COUNCIL AGREES IT'S A PRIORITY. WHETHER IT'S RIGHT AWAY OR IN THREE YEARS OR FIVE YEARS, THERE'S HUGE VALUE TO It really multiplies the sunk costs we've already committed to our parks in terms of equipment, trees, playgrounds, ball fields, and all the maintenance and the ambassadors. All of that multiplies in value if you have bathroom access. And I also think it'd be wonderful if we used Councilwoman Striebig's old standard of gender neutral family bathrooms. We could show our values right out of the gate by adding that at one or more parks. So that's longer than I expected to speak.

Yeah, I would encourage you to work with Public Works. And if you can't, it's not a 2027 budget item, then, you know. But the other thing, you might want to pull this out, too, and get the locks.

There's some that is 27, but some that would be longer.

I'd say think about that in the next 30, 40 days.

Yeah, and I'll just volunteer to do so. This is Councilman Bullock and I elements of this because we had had meetings before about electronic locks and things like that. So there's there's multiple parts to this. I also think we began the conversation the last council meeting about the master plans for the smaller parks. So if we're contemplating A MORE PERMANENT RESTROOM THAT WOULD KIND OF BE PART OF THAT CONVERSATION TOO. SO MAYBE WE CAN TALK ABOUT THIS INTO A COUPLE DIFFERENT PIECES AND THEN TALK ABOUT THOSE PIECES WITH THE APPROPRIATE FOLKS.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just need one clarification. Yeah, I think it would be best for us to meet. I have a lot to talk about with this one, particularly. I just need to know, is anything that you're proposing right now, you're looking to get done in 2027?

Yes, the electronic locks and the port-a-johns.

Okay, then we need to meet about that sooner than later. Okay. Thanks.

That's not a done deal. That's the proposal, right? I understand. We have a goal of July 30 being a decision.

Unfortunately, you're not giving me much turnaround time here on these types of things, at least for this situation.

Not for 2026, 27, right?

Yeah, I understand, but I have to have things ready coming up here in the fall. So, yeah, if we can meet sooner than later, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you. STRs, I think you want to talk about that.

Yeah, I've got a draft grant proposal to share with colleagues. The proposal here is that the Safe Routes to Schools function, which is a three-legged stool between parents, the schools, and the city, is tricky because we have to coordinate between all of those, and then we have to do a lot of public education, which actually I think Councilman Bixenstein alluded to earlier, and Councilwoman Striebig and Hamilton Steiner talked about. So getting all of that done is right now done in a volunteer basis, and that only works so well so long and so the proposal here is to provide financial capacity for a portion of a six to nine to 12 month FTE that if council were to support this, I would volunteer or join with others on council to volunteer to go propose match from other funders such as community foundations and also the schools so you'd have $25,000 matched twice to fund a new position, probably not to be with the city, maybe a 1099 contractor. in the first year, maybe somewhere else. This is to be explored. But then what you would do is you'd build on the significant progress we've been making over the last, call it, two academic school years. Thank you truly to the planning department, the police, and the public works on this. But there's just so much more to do. And this would provide some full-time or part-time capacity to actually do all of that work.

And then you're going to work on the short-term rental regulations? Oh, you're going to have something in July?

Yeah, my hope is July 1 to submit something for the July 6 docket. And thank you. And the mayor is also communicating with me. So I'll have my decks cleared later this week and top of the next week to draft something, which would be a starting point for all of us to consider, not a done deal at all.

Just because I want to finish the second page before we adjourn this meeting and you're chairing the next one, do you want to go into your affordable housing idea and kind of where it's at?

Yes, thank you chair. So I think we're off to actually a good start in this one Thanks to the playing department for a good meeting a few weeks ago bringing this to the top of the Everybody's mind once again. I do have a line by the budget item in here To for potentially a strategic housing plan for 2027 that would help us better. I REALIZE OUR AFFORDABLE HOUSING GOALS. I KNOW WE DO HAVE SOME INFORMATION IN THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT. I'M NOT CONVINCED IT'S 100% RELEVANT TO LAKEWOOD. SO I THINK WE DO NEED TO HAVE SOME PURPOSE-DRIVEN RESEARCH DONE HERE. SO I THINK THAT'S THE GOAL. BUT WE'LL BE WORKING THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER. IAN ANDRES HAS BEEN GREAT SETTING US UP WITH FOLKS FROM other communities to talk about the efforts they're doing, and that'll craft our vision moving forward. But I do think this is a realistic budget item for next year that will guide investment in affordable housing over the next five to ten years.

I guess let's dig into block clubs, too, because we've got two or three minutes left. And I think that we can carry over in the next meeting if we have to do that.

Yeah, so block clubs, so we budgeted $100,000 for this year, which I think we can allocate, and I'm hoping to sustain that amount for at least a couple years so we can get this program up and running the way we want to. There's a lot of great things my colleagues and I have been talking about, and this, I think the really amazing thing about this is it speaks to so many of these other issues that we're talking about because this becomes an absolute priority. CRITICAL COMMUNICATION TOOL BETWEEN OURSELVES, COUNCIL, AND OUR CONSTITUENTS, A BETTER WAY TO COMMUNICATE WITH THEM AND GIVE THEM THE SUPPORT THEY NEED FOR ALL THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF THINGS THEY'RE DOING IN THEIR MICRO COMMUNITIES. SO I'M REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS ONE. $100,000 AGAIN FOR THIS YEAR IS REASONABLE BUDGET, AND I THINK WE CAN KEEP THAT MOVING FORWARD. AND I JUST WANT TO SAY I'M THANKFUL TO THE ADMINISTRATION. WE'RE ACTUALLY MEETING ON WEDNESDAY. to talk about transitioning this program from living with the administration to living with council, which I think is a big step. I think this is where it belongs because, like, there's the folks that we're talking to most often. So I'm really happy that we're going to make this transition. This is going to be great. I'm excited about it. I know my colleagues are as well, clerk's office as well. REALLY GOOD COLLABORATIVE EFFORT AND LOOKING FORWARD TO WORKING WITH ALL OF YOU ON THIS MOVING FORWARD BECAUSE, AGAIN, I THINK THIS HAS TENTACLES INTO EVERY LAST THING WE DO.

SO I LOVE STRENGTHENING BLOCK CLUBS. I WOULD BE INTERESTED AS WE MOVE FORWARD, LIKE, WHAT THE $100,000 DOES. I EXPECT, YOU KNOW...

YES, AND WE CAN, I MEAN, WHEN WE'RE READY TO PULL THIS ONE BACK INTO, WE CAN ABSOLUTELY TALK ABOUT IT. COUNCIL, PRESIDENT KEPPEL.

Just to clarify, are you the 100,000, are you referring to the 2026 budget?

Both. I think we're going to use the allocation that we talked about, but I want to keep that moving forward for at least two to three years, that investment for 2027 and 2028.

Okay, so you were saying you want for 2027. Correct.

Yeah, I think, so I don't want to go over time. BUT I WANT TO THANK THE ADMINISTRATION FOR SHOWING UP. AND I DO THINK I'LL WORK WITH THE CLERK. WE HAD A MEETING OFF EARLIER IN JUNE, AND I KNOW WE PROBABLY DON'T WANT TO MEET ON THE 29th, BUT I THINK WE SHOULD. SO I'D LIKE TO SCHEDULE SOME TIME, HOUR, HOUR AND A HALF, WHERE WE CAN GET THROUGH THIS LIST AND THEN KIND OF BLOCK AND TACKLE FROM THERE. BECAUSE THE EARLIER, THE BETTER. AND AS DIRECTOR GORDON SAYS, HE'S RIGHT. YOU KNOW, SOME OF THESE CAPITAL THINGS, YOU KNOW, WERE ALREADY TOO LATE. SO WE'RE GOING TO WORK ON IT. see if we can't get into the next year, at least get it into their mind, get it into their plans. Because like I said, it's not council's budget. It's not the administration's budget. It's not a department's budget. It's the city's budget. So we want to make sure we do it well. So thank you to everyone from the administration for listening to us make sausage up here. Probably wasn't always the most organized thing, but I think we're funneling now down into some more concrete things. So appreciate everyone's time. Without objection, we are adjourned, and the next committee can start.

I will give everybody just a couple minutes if you need to take a quick break, and then we will move on to housing plan development. Give everybody just another minute to get back. But I think we have the committee here, but I'm sure.

laughter

I'm going to call the meeting of the June 22nd, 2026 housing planning and development meeting to order. There are three items on the agenda. The third item we're actually not going to see today that didn't work out, unfortunately, but we'll work to get them docketed as soon as possible is germane to this conversation. But first item up for discussion is the approval of the minutes from April 27th, 2026 meeting of this committee. I'll make a motion to approve.

Second.

It's been made and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. All right. So what we're here today, mainly to hear is from, um, uh, director boss regarding the, um, zoning refresh project. Um, this is the, uh, probably second or third time. I think we've, we've heard as we, as we move through, um, this very intense project was required a lot of work from the planning department, which we're very appreciative for, but this is, um, timely and, uh, a long needed, uh, update to our zoning code. So, um, appreciate that. And with, uh, If there are no other opening comments, I'll turn it over to Assistant Director Paz.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, members of council. I appreciate the time to provide this update following the fifth meeting of the Zoning Policy Advisory Committee that happened earlier in May. Hopefully, I'm not going to, I don't plan to talk very long. I'm going to cover kind of the highlights of these. These are the last four chapters of the refreshed code itself. General provisions, obviously, I'm not going to cover all these, but general provisions, non-conformities. The big one is the review, decision-making, and enforcement procedures, and then kind of a wrap-up of all the definitions. And so, I think if I go... Where we are right now, they're at task six. You know, we're almost there, but frankly, I believe we're kind of getting to the hardest part, which is when we actually go back through all the chapters again and get them formatted and ready for final law review, final ZPAC review in August, and then submit them to, and we do plan to do a joint We're trying to arrange a joint planning commission and council hearing so that you guys can see them at the same time, allow for more discussion, more time, without it being this sequential process that may result in some recycling or miscommunications.

Just quickly, will we have the full draft before that meeting so we have time to kind of digest it?

Yes. Our intent is to have kind of those final drafts in August. Great. Thank you. And so we'll provide them in advance of all that.

Great. And speaking about the budget, you'll have the final drafts in August. When do you anticipate – submitting them to the docket? And then two, when would you, when would be the administration's preference on passage?

I think our intent is to get them to the docket in early September. So I know council has its planned recess. That's when we were planning to do the law review and the ZPAC review and then have kind of those two steps completed by the time council comes back in September to have it on the docket and ready to go with the final versions and hopefully the accompanying legislation and everything that kind of wraps it all together and then can start its process, the final review process.

So a passage this year is what you're thinking?

That's the goal by the end of the year.

Do you have a law clerk to help with that, or are you guys?

That's why I've been going to all the meetings. I also have Andy Fleck, who staffs our Board of Zoning Appeals. He is getting this in real time as well, so that we're reviewing this as ongoing.

Sorry.

Please. Thank you. If we were to, let's say by December 31, enact the new set of zoning standards, codes, et cetera, what's the effective date? And then conceptually, I know some of my colleagues probably know this better by their profession than I do, So if we implement new standards, you've got a bunch of, you've got the whole city that's been permitted under the existing zoning code. So two questions. When do the new standards take effect? I guess it'd be the standard time that any ordinance takes effect. But then how do you actually, practical terms, implement that?

I think that's kind of a concurrent effort in that September to December time frame is the education and kind of the initial rollout of some of those things in anticipation of passage and adoption. But I'm sure that there's probably been several ways that cities have rolled out code, you know, concurrent or following adoption. And we can certainly look at those things and kind of maybe have a recommendation or direction to go. Yeah, if it's a phased implementation upon adoption or however, but we can bring that to you.

Yeah, and also I'll note just to, and I'm sure Director Boss will make it there, but most of this actually brings more of our lots into compliance. So it's actually, we're freeing up property rights in a lot of ways for folks because we're looking at what's existing And we're having the code more closely match that to have fewer non-conforming lots. So it's actually, but that's a part of the education. So we'll get there.

I think to your point, Councilman, through the chair, I think it's kind of the what's changed. I mean, this is intended to be a refresh. We're not throwing out everything. But, yeah, so I think that's probably going to be the orientation in terms of, you know, what's changed. And like you said, a lot more of the lots will be conforming. And so, yeah, at the end of the day, those tweaks and really what I'm going to cover tonight is actually one of the biggest pieces of it is what we are intending to be a more streamlined process for development from everything from a front porch to a planned development. And so it's really, it's our own internal processes that are changing the most for folks. Outside of some of the zoning map tweaks with, if we get to like the different zoning classifications that allow maybe a little bit more density or something like that, nothing else is, it's not going to change anything overnight, but it may allow different types of development in those specific areas. So, but that is a key part of that education and as part of, you know, this is one of the, the major changes that have occurred or are being considered towards adoption.

Okay, Mr. Chair, just one last point. So if somebody is newly non-conforming, they're protected as grandfather until a change is made or until non-conforming use is a portion of law?

I wouldn't anticipate that the code's going to create a whole bunch of new nonconformities. Yes, but those people would be covered by the nonconformities chapter that we'll cover tonight, which is a pretty standard treatment of nonconformities that protects property owners and structures that exist as of the adoption of the code. And so it's no different than with the multiple nonconformities that we have right now.

And once a final draft proposal is introduced, we're going to get more public input, I hope.

So that's the plan. We have to set a date, and we'll plan for a final kind of an open house, just like we did at the beginning of the process. We'll do another public open house. And then a lot of it, we're going to have to be just creative in terms of how we communicate and send out, whether it's I don't know, via newsletters or what in terms of that, like kind of maybe pick different themes or something of things that have changed. Conduct a CLE. Yeah.

You know, for real, conduct a legal training, right, or something, you know. But so repeat, repeat, repeat. But what I really want to ask is once you've got it set, is it 100% done or is it 95% or 99% done? And if somebody comes from the public with a – useful insight will still have the opportunity to consider what they're saying and improve the proposal, right?

I think you always have that opportunity with any code. It's not going to be perfect, I'll tell you that right now. But it does do, our intent is that this provides a fairly significant cleanup of the 1996 code and the myriad of alterations and changes that have occurred since that point. Primarily from an organizational standpoint and a process standpoint are probably two of the biggest advances that you're going to see with this code. Okay, all right, thanks. So the first chapter is just your general provisions. It's really no major changes from what we have now. It basically points you towards the purpose applicability, where the zoning map lives, the building line map, kind of those main things. So this is kind of a no change. It's your prologue, introduction, chapter. The nonconformities piece. again, it is not a great lot of changes that we're implementing from what we have right now that protects existing nonconformities, but in balance with provisions that will over time hopefully bring nonconformities into conformity. I mean, lawful nonconformities can exist into perpetuity, but there are regulations that you want to have to protect the city, and if people are going to modify those so that nonconformities don't proliferate, they don't expand, and then if people make significant changes to them, that they are required over time to bring them closer to conformity. So I think that's some of the things I just talked through there. I think from one of the biggest things that House Sale Levine is approaching, looking at our current code and how to put it, is just the usability and the readability of it. A nonconformities chapter has several sections that treat like every different type. They try to just make it more user-friendly and easier to read. But there are still elements like our current code. If your nonconformity is damaged more than 50%, you are required to rebuild in conformance with the code. That is a big thing that we have to reinforce with folks. That's how zoning code works. That's how you bring things into conformity. So this is the big one, and I'll try to step through just the basics of it.

So we really don't have a chapter like this right now that outlines.

We have pieces and parts. We have a mixed-use overlay chapter. We have a planned development chapter. a section of another chapter on variances. But there really isn't anything that if someone says they want to, like, I'm interested in doing X, where do I go in the zoning code? It is primarily you're going to start with this chapter. And so if you looked at the actual draft of the chapter itself, I mean, one of the first things in here is this table. is your procedures overview or general procedures table. I mean, this tells you if you just walk down kind of the left column, what you're looking to do from a sign permit to porch approvals or an adjustment, a variance, a plan development, it gives you the reference section and it tells you kind of who the deciding authority is as you walk your way across there so that you generally know who's required to say yes or no, One of the other big pieces with this is our current code, for whatever reason, was designed to make the building commissioner the holder of the predominant authority in the zoning code, which is kind of unusual when you have a director of planning and development that is also charged with administering the zoning code. So we've cleaned that up. We've retained the authority for the building commissioner where we believed it was It was appropriate and really where the building commissioner exerts authority now and has kind of been narrowed down, and I'll cover some of those things. But really you're vesting the predominance of that authority for the zoning code with the director of planning and development, which is a big shift from our current code. Even though that's how we do it in practice, that's not how the zoning code is currently written right now because it just doesn't work that way. This is an example of how House L. Levine has in the past structured. So each section, so if you went to looking at a plan development subsection within this chapter, or even like a front porch renovation or approval, it should have its own page with kind of just the basic details of how you approach that process to include flow charts. This is how they found success in the past with these more visual kind of flowcharts and authorities as you move through in steps. And so this is just an example of how they're looking to format kind of our final chapter. What they did here for the ZPAC was just to try to provide kind of a more simple kind of flowchart. who approves it, and then how the process is supposed to play out. And they get more complicated as you go along. But these are your administrative approvals. So if you remember, recall in some of the past updates that I provided have been more of the development standards and the district standards and those things that we worked hard to try to quantify objective standards. And a lot of it is especially the design standards and things that we've worked over the last couple of years to create objective standards and put them in place for ABR. Those will be pulled into this code, whether it's material standards and opacity and glazing percentages and all these types of things that we'll work through and you will see them again. Those were also very hard chapters to develop, but as you go through this, generally, if someone is able to meet those objective standards, The approval is vested with the director of planning development. They shouldn't need to go to a board or commission if they're meeting the standards that are in the law. That alone should help kind of declutter our boards and commissions so that ABR is not seeing 400 applications a year and Planning Commission is not looking at parking plan reviews for every single thing. This is something that we've very consciously kind of gone to this. And so the administrative kind of things are listed here, whether they're small adjustments. I think that talks about, like, your variances and things that are already, the building commissioner already decides on variances, I believe, that are less than 10%. Those are administrative adjustments. Porch approvals, porches that meet the objective standards, the certificate of appropriateness for historic changes or alterations to a historic structure, and sign permits, things that meet the objective standards. Those will go through, prove and deny. What this is also, I think it's mentioned in one of these other things, one of this also allows you to have an appeal that goes, instead of the common pleas, the appeal goes to the board for an administrative decision. So it kind of allows a little internal appeal that we don't have currently today. So this is a residential porch approval pathway. So we'll have the objective standards in the code. If somebody, those plans meet the objective standards, the plans right now do come into the billing department, so the billing commissioner will look at them. We'll forward them to the planning director, say, hey, these look like they meet the standards. Could your ABR secretary look at these and confirm that? We'll confirm it. If they do, then the planning director will approve that. If they don't meet those standards, that same process plays out. But just like it happens today, the secretary of ABR will then send an email to the person and say, hey, you've got to go through ABR because your porch renovation doesn't follow the objective standards. If they want to bring it into standard, they can do that and change their plans and then avoid the board. Otherwise, it goes to ABR and ABR does what it does, reviews it, and provides a decision. So this just clarifies, it clears up the docket and really focuses ABR's efforts and talents on those things that don't meet our objective standards and where you need that additional assistance in order to ensure the harmonious development that is in our code.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Mr. Boss, this sounds good to me. In fact, very sound to me in terms of the process and decluttering and so forth. Now, that said, I label myself as a learning layperson, not an expert like some of my colleagues, it seems to me that defining the objective standard is going to be important to get that correct. I can think of, especially on commercial signs and commercial awnings, some gray zone areas where the objective standards designed then we're going to have the store inventory on every awning in town, for example, which to me is not what we're going for. For porches, for residential porches, it might be a materials choice, for example. So I confess I'm not – I don't know those – standards as they're currently drafted or the proposed change off the top of my head. But could you speak to that? If the standard is defined well, then the planning director, I'm gesturing to Director Byington here, can kind of efficiently move the process forward and then also efficiently refer to ABR those gray areas. But if not, then you might have a more ambiguous or controversial outcome.

So the intent is to capture those objective standards in this refresh so that it's in the code, it's in the law. What we've had really for the last 15 years is a collection of, I will call them pamphlets, like pamphlets and design standards that may or may not have generally been captured by the code under which is captured. Those types of standards are captured very I don't even, like, generally, by our local building code, chapter 13, 1325, which is the chapter that talks about architectural border review, doesn't even live in our zoning code. It makes reference to, like, general architecture, you know, the board will use general architecture standards and and any other standards as adopted by the board, it is extremely bland. And there's nothing in it that says what is the current standard. So your point is that today we have close to zero objective standards in the law. We have them. They're just not adopted by counsel or captured objectively in code. We have, we've had, the city's had front porch, a front porch pamphlet, standard pamphlet since 2011. It's been updated every now and then. But it's something that, you know, we provide. It's not something that somebody can go to our development section in the zoning code and say like, oh, this is what they mean by a front porch. They have to like reach out to somebody in the building department or something and say, hey, do you guys have standards for your front porches? And depending on who they talk to, it's yes, no, like, so.

Right, I think there was a predecessor to Director Byington who preferred maximum discretion. I am very keen to be, you know, I think I'm persuaded, but again, I'd be curious as my colleagues, you know, and again, whatever gets codified, there's some art to wording that correctly.

Yeah, I have comments on this too, but Councilman Keppelman.

Thank you. I just wanted to, real quick, there's so much detail in all of this, and I really appreciate Assistant Director Boss leading us through, but part of this is having things in, I appreciate the flexibility, and I think trying to find the right level of flexibility with right level of objectivity that is codified so that a lot of folks don't know that they need to do this so if you're just refinishing your porch and that you could actually go into the codified ordinances and see like this is what these standards are and these sorts of things that it is helpful to have that and also to have some of these things streamlined with those defined standards and of course anything we

codify we can always change uh through our legislative process as well yeah i i think my concern i'll go to council baker in a second like um having said you know architectural border review um i saw any number of signs that met like so many objectives you know it was this right size the right color right everything else that were horrible So it's like, well, where's that line drawn between, yes, I met the objectives and something that's a really, truly awful design and when like, because like part of what I think ABR does that is really helpful is kind of nudge people along, especially people who don't, aren't, like immersed in the design world. And it's helpful to them to go through the process just for their own good because they don't so know. So that would be my concern where that line is absolutely drawn. Sorry, Councilman Baker, your comments.

No, thank you. And I think about certainty and just construction, right? Like we want people to maintain our beautiful century homes here in Lakewood. But if soft costs, design costs, and design revisions take up, YOU KNOW, 30, 40% OF YOUR BUDGET, THAT'S LESS MONEY YOU'RE PUTTING INTO YOUR HOME. SO I THINK WHATEVER OBJECTIVE STANDARDS WE CAN PROVIDE WOULD BE GOOD, AND WHATEVER PEOPLE CAN KIND OF FIGURE OUT ON THEIR OWN. SO PART OF THIS IS, LIKE, THE CODE IS GOING TO SAY ONE THING, AND I REALLY WANT TO WORK WITH THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT TO MAKE SURE THAT THERE'S, LIKE, FAQs OR, LIKE, THINGS, LIKE, WE CAN POINT THEM TO SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE CODE, RIGHT? Because I think that what it's going to do is it's going to give people kind of a DIY. People can look up the code. People can look up things on their own. We have a new website. Because the point would be is like time is money in construction and revisions is money as well in design. So if you can do anything to point them in the right direction early, then you're good. And then those refinements you're talking about are important, but I think they can still happen at the planning director level. The question I have... Another process thing, because this is the second time I've lived through this presentation, which is helpful. Are you intending to refer these to Planning Commission and ABR as well when the whole batch comes out?

So we've sent the, we can. So Planning Commission will see everything in conjunction with Council. ABR, they had the opportunity to review the development standards chapters back in May. And so a lot of those comments that were captured have been provided to Halcyon Levine. And I have no issue with sending them to them again when we see the final chapters. It just helps to get more eyes on those standards and the people that are going to have to you know, in most cases have to refer to them or, you know, when someone, because someone's going to come to them and be outside those standards or whatever to try to help kind of get them closer, as close as possible to those standards. So, but yeah, we can send them. Thank you, because I think that, you know,

We're doing joint meetings a lot. I actually think it's an effective way to do things. It might work for planning commission when we really dig in. Because I've seen these in chunks. But it's like one of those paintings where you see a blotch and then you've got to stand back and look at all of it. So while we're doing the budget, we're also going to be digging into the zoning code. It's going to be fun. Maybe I'll see my kids after the first of the year. But I do think that just referring the design standards to ABR, having them do it on their own, and then maybe a joint planning commission meeting would be most efficient use of our time, but defer to the administration. But I think that's probably how we could get it done most efficiently.

I will say, I mean, most of the standards Kelsey Levine and our, you know, we had access and provided them access through all of those, the downtown commercial design guidelines that were done 15 years ago, the front porch standards, and then the residential standards. and the updated objective standards that were done about two years ago that ABR now references. So those are all kind of informed a lot of the work that went into these things. My hope is when you go through most of those objective standards should make sense or you should identify with a lot of them. The ones that are kind of off should stand out. It'd be easier to highlight things that you're like, that doesn't sound right. Or that like when we went through those design standards when you're talking about Just a totally new concept that we don't really work through right now is like fence opacity. But you actually have to think about it and be like, okay, is it something that we really want to regulate or not? I mean, we may just decide to strike that whole section or like the amount of glazing on a building or something like that. Yeah, but they really pulled from, I mean, they pulled from our own standards and then they went regional and national examples as well of kind of the, you know, the wide menu of things that you can regulate with objective design standards and to try to get it down to what we really wanted, you know, because you do want to be as permissive as possible, but within the bounds of what you believe reasonably to be Lakewood, or whatever Lakewood looks like to people. So I'm just going to run through a couple more of these. And I will say, towards the signs and some of the other questions, I think vesting that authority in the director of planning and development always gives them the option of saying, I don't know about this. I'm going to send this to SIREN review. Like, I don't feel comfortable. Like, that option is always present for that, which could be good, could be bad, depending on who sits in that seat. So, sign permit. So, I mean, most of these follow that same kind of logic and path. So, if the sign meets the objective sign standards, which they have been cleaned up from what we have currently. And again, in our local building code, 1329 is the sign code, pulling that into the zoning code in the same section, the chapter of its own. So if you meet the standards, it stays in-house. If you don't, it goes to the sort of the sign review board, the Board of Building Standards, ABR. Temporary signs, this is one area where the building commissioner is going to retain the authority that he has now. Temporary signs is going to stay in the building department because that's how it works best now, where people apply for a temporary sign permit. It still has to adhere to the same sign standards, or it should. that are in the signed standards that we will now have in place. But the building commissioners is in a better position to kind of administer those permits, those regulations, those limitations with their property maintenance inspectors to make sure that they're not up past the 90 days and they get a renewal and all those things. So we left that as an example of that authority. So BZA. With variances, kind of see how this stuff plays out. This is very much how it plays out now. It's just going to be, I would just say, better and more clearly illustrated in the code for folks. BZA is use your dimensional standards. And then if there are any, you could technically get a referral on a dimensional standard from a subdivision review by planning commission. That basically, it plays out as an application is filed, the public notice goes out, we prepare a staff report, and then the public hearing for BZA is held, and then they decide. And then for those administrative adjustments for those small appeals, or the small adjustments, somebody could technically appeal that, and so that also would go to BZA. That's kind of the right column there. So then there are certain cases that go to Planning Commission, and then there are cases that also go to Planning Commission and then City Council. And so how those things play out. So those things that need just Planning Commission decision, usually it's a use interpretation, which under our current code, that's the similar use determination. You need lot adjustments like lot splits and consolidations and then conditional use permits. Those things that would need to go through Planning Commission and then go to city council for ultimate decision is your subdivisions, your plan developments, any kind of a text amendment with the zoning code because you're changing the law, and any zoning map adjustments because you're, again, changing the underlying zoning on a parcel. So those things all go through council after they are reviewed by Planning Commission. So the PC decisions are on the left column. And then the Planning Commission recommendation to City Council decisions on the right column. I believe one of the things that we'll, and you'll see this when it comes up in subdivisions, whether or not we even have a minor or major subdivision. There's some of those things as we dug into the older code that The nuance between minor and major is so small that sometimes just for clarity's sake and ease of understanding, it might be worth just kind of combining those together. So that's an example of one of those. PD was another one. I don't know if that's the next one. We kind of went round and around on do we need to define, would it be more efficient for people or could we design a more efficient process if we designed a minor plan development versus a major plan development? Because right now, under our current code, you're probably aware there are preliminary review stages where the project goes through everybody, and then a final review where it's got to go back through everybody all again, which is unbelievably inefficient with a project. And so we first attacked this with, well, could we make a more streamlined process for a minor PD? What's a minor PD? And how does that really differentiate from a lot of other projects when you're talking about Our current code standard is 10,000 square feet, which is not enormous, probably for a reason based on Lakewood's parceled out. So what we ended up kind of settling on was it's probably better and more efficient just to streamline a single PT process that still has updated standards, but it generally follows the same, like, qualification standards for something to become a plan development. You just have a more streamlined process. Now, with that streamlined process, you're not – there's no preliminary and no final process. But knowing that, I think the review at each stage will be just as detailed as it is now. It'll just be more predictable for developers in terms of their timing. And as they move through the process, there's a lot less uncertainty, you know, as they, well, we just passed ABR now, but what's ABR going to say in six months or whatever, whenever we get back to them. It is one straight process to manage through, which should be easier. Again, this is another example. You're going to meet the objective code, the objective standards that stays in-house. Could be subject to administrative adjustment. And when I say administrative adjustment in this, what we're talking about is the parking plans where someone may not meet the minimum standards, but they do meet the stated exceptions that are on our code. Our current parking code lists exceptions for residential, exceptions for commercial. So in order technically to get that approved, they have to go through the whole process with Planning Commission, which I think in 100% of cases that I've seen, Planning Commission has approved it. Most of the time, they understand the exception. It's well thought out. It's well developed. And so that's just something that we thought could be handled administratively. If someone is clearly going to meet one of the stated exceptions that's in the law, that they don't necessarily have to go to planning commission. Now, if you're not going to meet those standards, you're not going to meet those exceptions, it's just like anything else. You have to go to see the commission to get your parking plan approved. This last one is an example, and we're not going to follow this. We're still developing the process on the new, and I don't even know if, I can't remember where we landed, if we were going to even call it a municipal district or something else. It might be city services or public services or something. Because we did talk about expanding this to include the libraries and some of those other public entities that are out there. This is important. It's important to designate this and have a specific zoning district for your public services properties so that the underlying zoning is not C4 or R2 or something that then becomes an issue that requires council approval for you to do anything. And so what we're trying to have, and how this came into the process discussion for approvals, is how a property becomes part of the municipal district, or whatever we're going to call it. If a school purchases a property, or the city purchases a property, what's that process? Because it does involve rezoning, it is a process inherently going to have to go to city council for approval. And so then the other side of the coin is that now what's the process for divesting a municipally zoned district, whether it's a school that is looking to sell properties or the city that is looking to divest a, you know, you name it, a site that's been used for a municipal function. What's the process that you go through to divest that and how is the new underlying zoning determined or recommended and then approved by council? And so this was a slide for ZPAC to kind of generate some discussion on that process to hopefully help kind of refine it. Because we don't have a municipal district right now. It's an important thing based on some lessons we've learned with some cases in the last couple of years. And so it's an important thing to have. And so with a new district, you've got to have clear procedures on how something becomes that and how something is divested. Definitions is the last update. So this was kind of our existing definitions. New definitions within ORC and some of the kind of, I'll just call them topics of interest. I believe we're going to have a definition for a smoke shop, which is something new. But there's also other national and regional definitions that are common kind of terms of practice within zoning that have been pulled in that they were just absent. Some of those are like how you, going back to objective standards, having a single reference where someone can figure out how you determine building height and certain things so that you know how those things are determined for those standards. The other thing is that the organization of the definitions will be in alphabetical order. It's a novel concept, but our current zoning definitions are not. And then sometimes it's just when you don't consciously do that, it makes it harder and people miss things when they're not, when they're just kind of added. The way that they've organized this, leave space and procedures for how you insert new definitions and removal definitions so that you don't end up with that kind of piecemeal definition section like we have now with the numbering, because that's how you kind of get yourself in trouble where you'd notice, especially in like the bike code amendment thing, if you've looked at it, I just keep adding digits to the end of things because that's how you keep them in order in the order that you want, but it's not necessarily the best. So this should be pretty straightforward. But they're big on illustrations. And so they do intend on it. It's not just going to be written definitions for a lot of these things. There should be some pretty, hopefully some pretty clear illustrations on, especially zoning terms of practice and standards for building height and all those types of things is the one example that's up here.

Mr. Chair.

Councilman Bullock.

For illustrations, those are Can you tell us more? Are those binding illustrations, or are they just examples to literally illustrate a legal concept that's defined in?

Yeah, so I'm trying to think. There's one right there.

I would just throw out the example in the legislation that was submitted for front yard plantings. It would be similar to that, just an illustration to show what we're talking about as far as the side yard, the front yard. driveway and the different angles that that would create.

Yards for corner lots, things like that so that you know when you're talking about side yard dimensions and setbacks and all those things. Fence locations, even in some of the standards talk about new development and visibility triangles on intersections and so that you don't have a building that's built up to its setback on a corner so a car at a stop bar can't see anything. And so while we love our dense development, there are those types of balance of considerations so that it's at least acknowledged and built in.

And if I could just add, I think the idea more so than anything for the illustrations is just so that the plain reader of the code can understand What they're reading, right? Because a lot of times it's a property owner. They don't put up fences for a living, but they should be able to go to the code and reasonably read and understand what the expectation is.

Thank you.

So I think that's the last section. I talked a little bit about this up front. But so for our final task, task seven, so that the full draft code, which they're now turning on the updated chapters so that we will have that to the law department, hopefully within the next, in July, by mid-July, so that the law department will have four to six weeks to do that review. We are going to meet with the ZPAC again. I think now we're shooting for the 11th of August, which was the alternate date that I had sent out last week, just based on people and availability. And then we will probably shoot for a pre-adoption open house at some point in early September, late August. That's going to be a topic here at probably our next meeting with House El-Levine, is getting that on the calendar. And then we will look at developing a schedule, probably in consultation with at the ZPAC meeting and with council clerks and the planning commission to try to align those dates so that we can get some dates on the calendar, just so everybody's aware of those. And then we can break down the chapters and everything into those reviews. So hopefully we can have a good back plan and have enough time for everybody to get through everything in that kind of September to December time frame.

Thanks, Assistant Director Boss. I'll open up my colleagues, and I know we have some members of the public here to speak. I'm encouraged by quite a bit of this. The objective standards, I think, are important to streamline these processes. I will reiterate some of my concerns about where that stops and where that line between what goes to ABR. Again, I think that process can be helpful to make Project's even better for the people that didn't even know they could make it better than it was. If they can meet the objectives, but that advice sometimes still ends up in a better project. So I'll leave that there. And I'm really encouraged to see kind of like these flows, these, and I'm hoping we take the opportunity to break some of those out into some bite-sized PDFs and things for folks. Because like, I mean, what percent of our people who are coming for permits and things don't usually do this. And so to have this broken down to the most visual basic thing, just so they can get an immediate understanding of what that process looks like, I think is really important. People who do do this a lot, oftentimes pretend they don't know what the process is.

So that's another way we can make sure that they're...

So anyway, I think some of those visuals are gonna be really great and I hope we can highlight those and encourage more development here and just try to peel away some of those layers that makes it seem more complicated than it is, and honestly more complicated because it has been based on where we've been in the past. So thank you again for all that hard work. I'll open it up to my colleagues on the committee or on council if you have any questions or comments in this time. Councilman Bullock.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. There was a dialogue between you and Mr. Baker and the administration kind of implicitly on the objective standard, drafting those successfully. And that is the tradeoff would be if you reduce the amount of opportunity for the boards and commissions to see, to have eyes on, you might be foregoing scenario that Mr. Evans was talking about where just for the aesthetics and something close to aesthetics that I can't think of a word for right now, they could be improved and that's where ABR, for example, would be useful to have. So could you address that a little more? I think Mr. Baker was saying planning director would have discretion potentially to refer something anyway, unless you can define in the objective standards it shall be beautiful and seemly and comely in appearance, which is difficult to describe as objective. You're going to have that issue.

The only, I guess, in response, Councilman, that I would say is that I was Secretary for ABR for about four or five years. I can't remember how many. There were, at times, peak building season, especially like the spring, where sometimes a docket would have a dozen or more front porches on them. We had the front porch guidelines and the pamphlets that the building department has copies of. They provide it to people when they come in. So there came a point where the dockets were 30, 40 items deep. And I remember coming to the law department with a building commissioner and trying to figure out if we had the authority just to administratively approve some of these because the docket was so long.

And because some of them were pretty straightforward, is that the idea?

They were. And so what, so we ended up, you know, our current code does, again, it provides a lot of authority to the building commissioner. And the building commissioner, ABR is really the building commissioner's board to approve those things. And so I wasn't trying to do an end-to-run around ABR or anything, but But we did get an agreement kind of with certain things like solar panels, front porches, that even the board, ABR, was like, if they meet these standards, the standards, we don't need to see them. And so it just became kind of this is a personification or a codification of that process that was already happening to say, You're proposing X, and I can clearly see it in the plans that you've submitted to the building department, which is not always the case. It meets the objective standards for it has, you know, lattice skirt. It's got these elements. It's got balusters. It's got the, you know, I used to know all the different, like the guardrails, the top rail, like these. It's got all these elements. If it didn't, you could have that conversation with the person that submitted the plans and say, if you just add a guard under the top rail to this, it will meet the standards and you won't have to go to ABR. And 99% of the time, someone will just submit you a new drawing and they will do it. And so you get those things. And so in effect, we were That's how this process should play out, is that it's just that those front porch standards should be codified in the development standards, not in some pamphlet that I had in my desk where the billing department ran out of copies this month. And so, hey, do you have an electronic copy of that? Could you send it to them? And so part of that, for me, was building the website I built for ABR with all the references on it, just to try to put those all in one place that you could direct someone And so now part of the intent of this is to put them in that chapter for objective standards, so someone can look at the section on front porches and say, I've got to meet these six things or whatever, and so.

Right, yeah, so you're creating clarity, you're removing ambiguity, you're facilitating the removal from the docket of a significant number of straightforward rulings. That all makes very good sense, and it's supportive of what my colleague has been saying about the clarity and the understandability. So maybe we're kind of getting us into the edge cases here. But if there are edge cases, do you agree with what Councilman Baker said, that the administration could have enough discretion to refer it to the board and commission or commission when needed?

I think that's always the case. It has been the case. It's just trying to reserve. ABR is always the board that has the most applications just based on the code and what they're supposed to review. So you're trying to guard their time so that they're not there till midnight every single month looking at, yeah, 12 porches that all meet the guidelines. And then everybody's exhausted by 930 when the new build residential construction comes in. And everyone's just like, OK, I don't want to have an argument with you on your foundation exterior material right now. And so you're saving their time for those things that I would just say are more important or don't meet the objective standards. Because there are people who propose a lot of interesting things. And so you want to reserve their time to have that discussion, that respectful discussion through things to bring people into. Building code changes all the time. We're going to start seeing container homes and all kinds of interesting things when Ohio Building Code catches up with a lot of kind of national trends on on other building things. Instead of having those cases that are not covered by our code, those are perfect examples to go to AVR. And that's how you bring those new things into harmonious or as harmonious development as you can until our code can catch up.

Thank you. I'm glad to hear Ohio is catching up with the national standards.

And for the record, I think I 100% agree on the porches. I think we can dial that in through code enough that we don't have to be seeing everywhere. I guess I'm more of a stickler on the signage. Yeah. No, signs are . But yeah, I think porches, absolutely, that will take a big heavy lift off a lot of folks' plates. Any other comments from my colleagues before I turn it over?

Ralph, Mary, whoever .

Just make sure to hit the button. Make sure it's green. You guys, I think, know the drill.

Thanks. Do you want the spelling of our names? There's no form or anything. I think we can track you down for the record. Ralph Puno.

Mary Puno. He's doing the talking. I'm just moral support.

Yeah, 122-23 Madison. We come here tonight asking with the housing changes to consider possibly supporting more residential options with existing commercial properties. I apologize it's just late in the process, but it just came to personal life for us in the last two weeks. Everyone agrees there's a housing shortage in Lake, but if you look down Detroit, Madison that there's a lot of commercial storefronts who've been empty for years I mean I went by three of them on the way here today and they've been five eight years I've seen going there and if you look at the zoning map the online ones all of Madison is zoned as commercial including the houses that are on there and every everything is commercial on there and Detroit's about the same way And some of the things, I think this is just an updating, and I don't know how often it happens, but if you look at the areas between Ridgewood and Newman in Detroit, it shows as proposed developments there. And those condos have been there for eight years or something like that. So I don't know how often that happens. We have a personal interest in getting the zoning changes. As most of you know, we live in a commercial building, the Madison Mosaic House, that was given a live use overlay in 2000. Live work. Or live work overlay in 2016 that allows us to be there. And it's called the Madison Mosaic House, if you aren't aware. That building was changed from storefront properties to what it looks like now, the facade, in the late 60s or early 70s. The glass windows are basically no insulation on the glass and no insulation on the wood that was put in any of that. The 60-year-old wood is showing very much signs of decay now. We proposed to ABR a few weeks ago to replace all the windows, upgrade the facade, and we're turned down. That's sort of what I wanted to talk about, possibly reevaluating the process because according to the current guidelines, if I do anything of pulling out a window, doing any of the facade, I have to go back to creating a storefront. So just the large glass storefronts, which for a private, Those large glass windows wouldn't do well. We have two office spaces, a workout room and a bedroom in the front of the building there that if we did we'd have those open to the public and obviously our privacy would be gone using those properties. And we've been putting a huge amount of investment into the home. Yeah, and like I said, the one was a bedroom that we just would show the public as a storefront. And this is going to be highly unlikely because we couldn't make that work to try to live into it like that. Yeah.

So part of the reasoning given to us was that someone in the future might want to turn it into storefronts. For those of you who have been to our home, that's not really likely that somebody's going to turn that into storefronts.

The cost of the windows to put it in would be the minor cost compared to backing out everything we put into the building. Using that logic, I'm wondering, and I'm not wishing it on anything, Birdtown Brewery on Quail right now is zoned residential. If that had to close for something like that, does that mean the only thing they could put back in there is a house that has to go back to a house in a church? It's just consistent.

Same thing for Amazonia.

Yeah, like that. We chose our property because it's single-story living. Because of our age, we're getting older, we wanted that. We think that opportunity to be other people who would want to use it for the property, we hope to stay there for another 20 years. If we're lucky.

We think the city should actually expand converting storefronts into residential housing. Not only so that people who want to can age in Lakewood, also people with disabilities. You know, we've got single story living. It's been great for this. You know, it's, you know, and I don't think we're the only ones.

Oh, we're done? Yep. Okay. Well, thank you for the time and consider it. Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much for your comments and for your investment in Lakewood. I mean, you certainly have a very, very unique, very cool living situation and property. I've had the, I was privileged enough to be inside, so. I won't get into the weeds directly with your, I think the personal feedback is very important to this process. Won't get into addressing your specific nature of your concerns right now, but I will say that, you know, on behalf of the applying department, it is a big balance trying when you're doing this zoning code review, like between what you're, Saying you can do and what you can't do, but I feel strongly that the zoning code update has more of a feel of how can I do this rather than you can't do that. So I think we're moving to that, to more of a document that's living in a way that makes things easier to do rather than just telling you what you're not allowed to do. But certainly appreciate your feedback. So thank you. And Councilman Baker.

Yeah, no, and thank you. I'll echo everything you said to the thank you for your investment. But I will say it's where the combination of use and exterior appearance and kind of feel, so it's like ABR and use meet, and it's a really tough area. I will say that, you know, from a high level, I think the zoning code update, what we've done, what we'll see is going to allow for a lot more flexible use, and that's one of the points. So allowing commercial spaces to be overlaid or allowed for residential uses, maybe higher density residential uses or whatever, right? So like it's kind of moving us towards making sure that the physical structure kind of still looks the same, but the use inside might change. And as long as it's not way more intense, then we'll kind of work with it more. So I think it unlocks, this is the second or third time I've used property rights up here, but like it's given property owners more flexibility of how to use their property. as long as they're not going far outside of kind of like what would disturb the neighbors. So I think your points are well taken. It is where use meets appearance, which is a tough confluence of factors. And there are always going to be tough decisions made. But I think that generally speaking, the process we're going through is accomplishing some of the goals you're talking about, which is opening up properties to new uses.

Councilman Bullard. So maybe some of this we could discuss after the meeting or alongside the meeting. But I guess I confess I could be better informed. Does the city have a policy? I'm not saying a law, but a policy or a point of view towards adaptive reuse of commercial properties for residential? Maybe the answer is no, or it's case by case, which would be a perfectly fine answer. But I guess I'm uninformed on that, and therefore, If we did have a policy, how would that inform this zoning code redraft process? I think I'm hearing from my colleagues that you believe that the proposed changes are where they should be and that this specific use case is appropriately handled by a referral to ABR or to Planning Commissioner or both. But I guess I'd love to learn a little bit more about that. Because if as a matter of policy, I think the PM has brought up a good point. Like if as a matter of policy, we're looking for the potential for creative reuse, adaptive reuse of various properties in Lakewood, you'd want then not to have these discrepancies or these aha or gotcha moments in a negative manner. I'M NOT CLEAR IF THAT'S WHERE WE ARE, ALTHOUGH IT SOUNDS LIKE THE PROPERTY OWNERS DID EXPERIENCE THAT TO A CERTAIN DEGREE.

YEAH, I WILL SAY THAT THE CODE INTRODUCES THE CONCEPT OF AN ADAPTIVE HISTORIC REUSE OVERLAY OR SOMETHING. AM I BUTCHERING THE WORDS? THIS IS DIRECTOR BOSS. BUT ESSENTIALLY, IT ALLOWS YOU, HEY, THIS BUILDING'S IMPORTANT. IT'S STRUCTURALLY HERE. WE'LL ALLOW YOU TO BE WAY MORE CREATIVE ABOUT HOW YOU USE THE INSIDE OF IT. AND THAT'S A WHOLE PROCESS YOU CAN USE TO KIND OF DO WHAT RALPH AND MARY DID, BUT JUST have a bigger process for other than just mixed-use overlay, which I think is what it is. But they're also talking about where the design part of it meets the use part of it, and those are always going to kind of have a little bit of attention.

So your point is the exterior is different than the interior.

So we are over time. I want to be cognizant of our staff's time and our clerk's time. We're over, bud. I invite everybody on council to, if you want to submit questions to me, I'm happy to about this process as we did last time, like the affordable housing. I'm happy to collect those and share them at one time with planning departments so they can answer them more efficiently. So let me know about that. But otherwise, thank you, Assistant Director Boss and the entire planning department team. I know this is a huge project, several years, and I'm very encouraged by it. So I appreciate all your work. With no other business before this committee, I'll call it closed. And thank you, everybody. Good night.