County Council - Session - Special Meeting

Welcome, everybody. Can you hear me okay? Okay. Great. Thank you for joining us tonight for our special joint meeting with the Los Alamos County Council on Thursday, 02/26/2026. The meeting is both in person and on Zoom. Agenda item eight will be for public comments for items not on the agenda. Are we doing that? Okay. For public comment.

Item number eight will be for public comment. If you're on Zoom and wishing to make a public comment, please raise your digital hand and keep yourself on mute until called on. If you're in the room, please raise your hand until called on. Comments will be limited to two minutes and are not intended to be a conversation. You may ask the question publicly, but to receive an answer, please also submit the question in an email to the school board or the superintendent.

Chairman Reidy.

So this is Sean Wright. K.

Thank you, president Wyman, for inviting us today and having this joint session special session here at Chimizu Elementary School. It was a pleasure to have a tour earlier. I'd like to call our county council meeting to order and let the record show that we have all seven counselors here in

Thank you. Miss Bell, can I get a roll call for Los Alamos Public Schools?

President Wyman, Vice President Copeland, Secretary Colgan, Member Sarato and Member Hardie.

Thank

you, Ms. Bell. We have a quorum. Could we all stand, if you're able to, for the Pledge of Allegiance?

There's the flag

along the way. Alright. We're on item number five. Could I get a motion to approve the agenda for Los Alamos Public Schools February 26.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Motion passed.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So now we're on to item number six, which is approve the agenda by the Los Amos County Council. We have a councilor interested in making a motion regarding the agenda.

I move approval of the agenda as presented. Second.

I have a motion by councilor Kevin, second by councilor Call. Is there any discussion? K. We can have a show of hands. All those in favor? K. Let the record show the motion passes unanimously.

K. We're

on to seven, presentation, which is an update and discussion of North Mesa Housing Project. Presenters, Dan Oss, Housing Project.

Good evening. My name is Dan Osborne. I'm the housing special project manager for Los Alamos County. With me tonight is Steven Lujan with Wilson and Company. Mhmm. He's the engineer of record on this, and I'll just go ahead and jump right in. The North Mesa housing transportation study was started back next slide, please. I'm gonna sort of start at the bottom and kinda work back a little bit. The transportation study was completed this past August. We initiated this in June 2024 after some meetings some extensive meetings on the North Mesa property.

As we all know, this is a county owned prop or school owned property, about 30 acres, and something back into July 2019. The original idea was to start to develop this for some sort of workforce housing or some sort of housing development, and we we met with the board and started doing developing some concept plans with Decker Parish and Sabatini that showed kind of proof of concept that we could develop somewhere between two hundred and ten and three hundred and sixty houses on the property. That then led to a series of additional public meetings throughout 2020 and ex extending through 2021 and 2022. At that time, once we sort of determined that the space was available and that it could hold the houses, there were enough how you know, enough space for the houses to create the community amenities that were represented during public hearings and the different converse public conversations that we had. We then had a feasibility analysis done by EPS out of Denver, Colorado.

They then further sort of facilitated discussion and made the determination that not only is there a plan in space to do this, but there's also market demand for this type of housing, the mix of housing that was proposed by the Decker Parish plan in 2020. From there, we then engaged Wilson and company to flush out, well, we know we can put houses there. We know we've got enough work, and we know that we got demand. So now we wanted to take a look and see if we actually had infrastructure and the resources available to serve the site. And that's what we're here to talk about tonight are the specifics of the utility and the transportation side of all of the sort of planning work that's happened over the last seven years.

So we sort of started with the conceptual plans in 2019, had the conversations of whether or not we thought that this was appropriate and something that we'd like to see happen in our community. We then sort of flesh that out through community conversations in 2021 and '22. That then led us to the feasibility analysis with EPS and then engaging Wilson and company to make sure that we have the utilities and transportation infrastructure in place to be able to support development on this site. Next slide, please. I wanna get kinda give just a quick overview again of of the work that was done by Decker in 2020, '21, and '22, and then the feasibility flush out in by EPS in 2024 '23 and '24.

Essentially, what what it would do is both the Northwest side and the Southeast side down by the ball fields would become open space. We would have some lower density that would be sort of by the solar fields that would then transition into medium density, that sort of that orange in the middle part with some higher density apartments style development over by the ball fields. So kinda going from the ball fields from the East Side, you have higher density with a medium density in the middle transitioning to a lower density on the West Side with buffers to the neighborhoods on either end with open space. Part of what we were trying to accomplish was to amenitize the property to be able to provide appropriate open space in addition to trails and connections through there. There's actually a cross country trail that was out there, and we wanna preserve that not in its in its exact form.

It's actually a little bit dilapidated these days, but we'd like to, you know, sort of conceptually be able to keep that to where there's sort of that same amenity to the schools, to the neighborhoods, and sort of the community up on North Mesa. We also carved out sort of there's sort of the notch in the lower left hand side. It would be five right around five a little over five acres that would be appropriate for a new school facility. That's not part of this analysis, but we did hold the land back for that future improvements if the school district were looking to still looking to do something along those lines. Next slide, please.

And so the the objectives of the study are essentially to evaluate the infrastructure capacity for the proposed developments, that 210 to 360 units, and then to build on the findings of all of that other work that we've done since 2019. There was a sort of an iterative process where we we started out with this concept, took it to the, you know, to the neighborhood and community, socialized it, and then now we're working down to where we actually have some numbers of what it might cost as far from an infrastructure standpoint that will then hopefully lead to a conversation tonight about moving forward and seeking a development partner and some just general terms of what that might look like if we wanted to develop the property. Next slide. And at this point, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to Steven, and he's gonna kinda walk you through the overall project.

Thank you all. Again, my name is Steven Lujan with Wilson and Company. I'm a transportation engineer, project manager. I had the privilege of managing this project. Wilson and Company has a long standing relationship with Los Alamos County Public Works, and this is an opportunity. Got a a chance to collaborate and come up with some good solutions. So thank you again for the opportunity today. As Dan mentioned, this study, of course, was to to look at our existing infrastructure and see what would be needed to implement the the facilities that the housing plan recommended. So right now, I wanna go through kind of the study area with you. Right here, you see the study area a is what we're calling the North Mesa site.

Of course, that's the 30 acre site adjacent to the Los Alamos Middle School, and that was with the approximate 210 to 360 housing units. In addition to that, we do have the Arbolada subdivision. That is in, like, kind of the pink square there to the bottom right of the figure. That is just over 17 acre site, and that proposed over a 137 single family and multifamily residences. And then last but not least, we have the Ponderosa Estates, which is just over 11 and a half acres of 49 detached single family single family dwelling.

Go to the next slide. So one of the first pieces that we wanted to look at was our transportation analysis. So we wanted to see exactly what our transportation network how it would operate during existing conditions in the future growth year or the future future implementation year in addition to what would happen to the network if these homes are are are built. So 11 intersections were analyzed along Diamond Drive within the study area. Five of these were signalized, five of these were unsignalized, and, of course, the the one roundabout at San Adolfonso and Diamond Drive.

These were analyzed under existing condition and the 20 the estimated 2035 implementation year with a no build option as well. It is important to note that in this analysis of the existing conditions with the implementation implementation year, all the intersections that were analyzed performed at a level of service c or better except for Diamond Drive and North Road. This intersection here, did perform at a level of service d in the AMP. Next slide, please. Some further information regarding the transportation analysis itself.

We did look at crash data along Diamond Drive from 2019 through 2023. There were a total of 94 crashes reported during this period. The highest number of crashes occurred in 2023, and that number was twenty twenty four crashes. The lowest number of crashes occurred in 2020, and that number was 14 crashes occurred in 2020. It is important to note, of course, we all know what happened in 2020 with the pandemic. So I think we can attribute a lot of the behavior and a lot of lockdown behavior to why that number is a little bit low. The most number of crashes occurred at Diamond Drive and Canyon Road. If you can see here on the table, we do have a breakdown of the crash severity. I will kinda quickly run through these. On the very top, we have crash severity k.

Crash severity k is a crash in which a fatality has occurred. Unfortunately, there were two fatalities, one in 2020 and one in 2021. Crash severity a is a a is a crash in which there are injuries, but unfortunately, the individuals are incapacitated and they had to be transported via first responders. However, there were not any fatalities. Unfortunately, there were four of those during this period.

There was one in 2021 I'm sorry, two in 2019, one in 2021, and one in 2022. Crash severity b is is a crash in which injuries are present and visible. There were nine of those, and I'm gonna kinda go a little bit quicker through crash severity c. Crash severity c is where injuries are present, but they're not visible. Maybe something whiplash per se where it's not. There were a number there were fifty nine of those during that time. And then last but not least, there's a crash severity. I think it's we have o there, which is a is a where there's impacted damage, but property damage only. No. No.

No. It's like here is a heat map of that crash data, so you can kinda see here. Your brighter colors are showing a larger density of where those crashes have occurred and, like, some of your softer colors in the green and blue, it shows some of crashes occurred. Go to the next slide, please. So now after we analyze the existing conditions, we wanted to look into some of our future build future growth and build scenarios.

In conjunction with with the county, we we did determine the growth rate to be a 0.5% annual annually growth rate with the horizon year of 2045. It's usually pretty typical to have a horizon year twenty years at the time of your studies. So in 2025 plus plus '20 with 2045. We did also use the ITE. That is the Institute of Transportation Engineers trip generation.

That was used to utilize an estimated traffic generated to and from each housing site location. So what that is, that's a manual traffic engine to assist, and it helps predict and estimate in many years how many movements make may come from a a certain type of site with the housing. So that was used to make the volumes. In addition to those new volumes and turning movements that were added to the system in the horizon year of 2045, all the intersections maintained the level of service c or better except for Diamond Drive and North. Diamond Drive in North Road intersection regressed from a level service d that was in the existing conditions to a level service e in the same AM.

Slide. After traffic, we wanted to look into our water and wastewater infrastructure. So first, we're gonna look at our existing wastewater infrastructure. Right now, for the North Mesa site, there are two sewer pipe drops that drop down from the canyon and eventually make make its way to transport waste to a wastewater facility. You can see here drops a and b were randomized and modeled.

A is on the is the line like, the light green line to the left and sewer pipe drop b. Next slide, please. As part of analyzing the existing wastewater infrastructure, we did hire a sub consultant that specializes in some cameras through the pipes so that we can get a visual representation of how the physical condition of the pipes themselves actually are. You can see in here, it was indicated that in sewer drop e located at Cooper Place, they contained multiple holes that exposed the exterior of the pipe due to corrosion, exposure to the elements. So it varied from small pinholes to some rather large voids that you can kinda see here in these photos.

These are probably the worst photos that we found in highlight. So, of course, that's just a a daylight of the sunlight kinda coming in camera through the pipe. You can go to the next slide, please. So as a result of this, we, of course, did, come up with some sewer pipe drop recommendations to mitigate these concerns with the holes that were were identified. Pipe drop a appeared to be in adequate condition, so there were no recommendations to modify or improve that at this time.

As you saw, pipe drop b's severe deterioration. Rehabilitation was not recommended. It was it was kinda to a to a point where rehabilitation would not be valuable, and so full reconstruction is necessary and recommended. And and then due to the county's successful experience with horizontal directional drilling, this method is recommended to replace pipe drop b. So instead of that pipe being on the outside of the cliff kind of exposed to all the elements, it would be it would maintain a similar alignment, but it would be drilled, you know, kinda underground and be less susceptible less susceptible, excuse me, to the damage from all wheel.

With all that said, we all understand that cost is very important. The preliminary engineers estimate to replace this pipe is approximately 1,350,000.00. In addition to the physical locate or the physical condition rather of the existing wastewater facilities, we wanted to look at the existing wastewater capacity. This production was estimated by applying standard gallon per day of per capita rates in conjunction conjunction with the United States Census Bureau relative to Los Alamos County population. Bentley sewer CAD was used to model the existing capacities, and that's a that's a standard practice best management practice software that that we use as engineers.

The existing demand average wastewater production is approximately 73,000 gallons per day, and that equates to approximately 17.3% of the pipe's capacity. The existing peak wastewater production is approximately 220,000 gallons per day, and that equates to just 30.1% of the existing pipes capacity. In addition to this, the model did focus on the existing infrastructure that conveys pipe drop a and b only on the areas that were conveyed outside these, pipe drops included in the for the next slide. So so here's a map of of kind of reiterating the fact reiterating the point there of kind of what was included and what was not. The areas in green are the areas that were included in the models of sewer pipe a and sewer pipe drop b.

The area in pink there are areas that were that get conveyed to two different to different systems that weren't a big model. Slide, please. So now that we understood the existing capacity and the limits that our existing infrastructure was under, we, of course, wanted to see how these would operate with the future demand loads of potential future housing. So the North Mesa site and Arbolada subdivision sites were analyzed for these productions, what impacts they might they might contribute to pipe a and b. Area a is the this is the proposed air sewer system for area a that's kind of in red there as you see there.

That's kind of in the current vacant property across from the middle school. You can see where the where the red line kinda ties into the existing facilities and would eventually make its way to to be conveyed with sewer pipe drop a. Slide, please. So kinda reiterating some of the previous data, North Mesa's full site build out of 360 housing units were added to calculate the wastewater demand. When you add that many housing units to this area, it increased the daily average of about 88,000 gallons per day of waste and the peak of 263,000 gallons per day.

This did equate to a 48% 48.1% of pipe drop a's capacity and 42.4% of pipe drop b's capacity of the peak demand. When you add in our the lot of subdivisions, full build of a 137 units to North Mesa's full build of 360, That equated to basically where that we kinda treat that in a model as adding those together to a 497 unit full build scenario. The average demand increased by a 122,000 gallons per day. That that that sounds like a large number, and, obviously, it I mean, it is. If you look at the the percentages here, this still equates to just 48.1% of base capacity and 51.1% of pipe drop base capacity during the peak demand.

In in in an effort to implement these improvements, the area to a to is approximately 4.72 to at these improvements. And one thing I just kinda wanted to add as well to this slide is in in working with our water wastewater engineers, the reason that the the capacity, although we're adding a significant number of homes, that the capacity merely gets to half of the existing initiatives because of how steep that pipe actually is. Never really has an opportunity to maximize the pipe because it's to flow is free. We go to the next slide, please. This is a map of showing kind of a conceptual layout of what area be proposed sewer system would look like.

So you can see the red lines in there would be like a conceptual, know, new sewer infrastructure in the neighborhood with the service lines.

Excuse me, Victor. Hold the mic up a little closer. I'm having a hard time.

Sorry. Thank you for

You guys are okay now? Oh, I hear better. I'm okay. Sorry about that. You need me to repeat anything or maybe during the q and a?

Start of about

the the area a's preliminary process at a 4,720,000. I missed what you said after that.

Okay. Yeah. I think, so after this slide, the basically, after this bullet point of the 4,720,000, I just wanted to kind of clarify and explain, why why some folks might might notice that. Although we included or we added a significant number of homes in demand to the system, why the capacity was only why the pipe was only tested to 48% of the capacity, and that's because the existing pipe drops are so steep down the canyon that that gravity is in our favor and that a table to basically convey through the pipes, like, easier. If that was a standard pipe with a much flatter slope, we would have seen these percentages increase significantly and would have we tested the capacity much more than than what it should have.

Yeah. No problem. My apologies for the lack of audio there. Yeah. We'll look here at this map here. This is Area B's proposed sewer system. So as I was mentioning earlier and perhaps you probably did

not

hear, the red lines there are kind of a conceptual layout of what that proposed, you know, new sewer line would look like with, you know, kind of sewer main in the middle of the streets of the new proposed Arpelada subdivision, and then all of your service lines tying into it. This proposed system would tie into a pipe drop b with the existing infrastructure that's a pipe drop b and make its way down down the mountain rather. Next slide. So the combination of the single family homes in the duplex and triplex units were analyzed for the proposed demands that were calculated. The average demand increase for Pipe Drop B was 34,000 gallons per day, and the peak demand increased by a 100 a 103,000 gallons per day.

And similar to a, this equated to 40.1% of Pipe Drop B's capacity during the peak demand. Separate from a, Area B's preliminary construction estimate is is approximately $2,790,000. So with that, we did go a step further and, of course, develop some recommendations. The build out of 360 units in Area A and the 137 and b can be supported on the existing systems. However, at 50% capacity, the upgrades should be considered to keep this capacity reasonable.

It is recommended to replace and reconstruct pipe drop b, of course, due to the physical deterioration that was encountered during the the analysis. Go to the next slide. So after we analyze the the wastewater, we wanted to look at our actual potable water system. A full evaluation of the existing water system's velocity flows and pressure conditions were was performed from 2019 to 2024 water meter data. The improvements were recommended to correct high velocity segments and address segments that did not meet the minimum fire flow requirements that were identified during this analysis.

The proposed water systems for area A and B were developed to serve the water demand for the future housing for the future housing units. Slide, please. So so here's a here's a map of the existing infrastructure that was analyzed and modeled. The purple line that is on the far left, that indicates the the segments where the low pressure the low pressure water pipes were were found. Can you kinda see those two purple segments in there?

And the red line indicated where high velocity water pipes were found or analyzed, I guess. If you go to the next slide. So here's a proposed water infrastructure system that mitigates some of the concerns that we noted before in addition to adding the demand of what the new housing units would require. So the purple line on the far left, that is proposed to upsize to the two twelve inches to help with some of those pressure issues that we saw before. The orange line is the North Mesa Road only, and that is proposed the the North Mesa line portion of it only, the top the top line or the top area of that orange polygon proposed to increase that to a 10 inch to a 10 inch main.

And then the pink line on the right is proposed to upsize that to a 14 inch.

We can go to the next slide, please.

So now looking at the in in addition to kinda making the improvements to the existing can due to the existing infrastructure, we have some preliminary cost estimates for area a and b. So area a, the preliminary construction cost estimate is approximately $2,390,000. This does include the off-site improvements that we just discussed to make sure that that system It's kind of a prerequisite for that to work correctly. Area b does not require any of existing infrastructure modifications, but that estimated cost is approximately $987,000, just shy of 1,000,000. You can go to the next slide, please.

In addition to the transportation and water wastewater analysis, we also did conduct a phase one environmental sites assessment, otherwise known as an USA. This did focus on the North Mesa property only. So as a part of that, we reviewed environmental data resources known as EDR databases, historical aerial photographs, topographic maps, records. The intent of this ESA is to identify any recognized environmental conditions. Those are known as RECs and historic RECs and any controlled RECs.

In our field review and our topo survey, stockpiles were present that contained paint cans, drums, portable classrooms from previous construction projects, and that were removed in September 2021. Visual inspection did not indicate any leaching or indicate any staining. However, the source of the stockpiles was determined to be unknown, and we're unable to visually assess the needed surface. So they were considered an REC, but it's relatively low stakes REC. Next slide, please.

And then last but not least, we also did perform an Alta survey. So the Alta survey also did focus on the North Mesa property only. An Alta survey, we did find out, or at least I learned, that this could not be certified without the receipt of a land title commitment. So land title commitments are usually certified for an individual or an entity, purse pursuing purchase. Since there was not, like, a developer or anyone who is looking to pursue a purchase of this property at this time, a true Walter survey cannot be cannot be issued.

So this serves as a preliminary research to potential private developers and kinda do a lot of the legwork for a developer who would ultimately have to do a survey like this and and get a commitment. As a part of the Alta survey, all everything was field surveyed as all visual and above ground features and any evidence of any easements. There was one known utility easement in addition to the radio tower structure and the solar farm.

You can go

to the next slide, please. This may be a little hard to see here, but we did put together a summary or kind of a table of the preliminary construction cost estimate summary. So we do have it kind of broken out into area a and area b. Area a, of course, is like the North Mesa school school site and area b is the Arbolada the Arbolada subdivision site. The off-site, I can kind of run through line by line for sewer for kind of the top half is what we anticipate would be kind of CIP project costs like funded.

You can see there. So we, area a, we estimated approximately $1,000,000 improvements for water. We did estimate the 1.35, $4,000,000 improvements to sewer. That is the estimate of the pipe drop b replacement due to the deterioration of the pipe. There is a 20% contingency and future cost escalation added to this because it is a preliminary preliminary estimate, and more design would be needed to sharpen the pencil on those numbers.

So including those with the contingency, it's roughly $2,822,000 on the CIP project project costs. We did separate that onto, like, the lower half of the table there if you wanna scroll down just to here. The on-site subdivision development cost, so these are broken up into what would be needed to actually actually build the build the homes, the the water lines, the sewer lines, and all the all the existing or all the all the utility connections that are necessary. In short, total with contingency of the area a, the North Mesa site would be approximately $7,300,000, and the area the Arbolada site would be approximately $4,300,000 totaling an on-site development cost of $11,880,000. That added up with the CIP project cost and above.

We're looking at approximately $14,700,000 to implement something like this. One caveat, if you wanna pan over to the right if possible, is that these costs do include planning level engineering and design fee estimates, construction administration services, and estimates, and they also estimate include estimated GRTs, but they are planning level. And so with that said, I will hand it back over to Dan. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Steven. I know that's a lot of data and a lot of information on the site. It's been a long time coming as we've worked on this over the last few years. Ultimately, why does this study matter? It matters because it answers key key questions for developers.

We now have all of the information that we would need to get this out to the development community to see if we could solicit a partner on this to develop housing. It also guides future infrastructure, whether that's for the county or for the school district in whatever manner the project the property were to develop, we have some better base data on the property. And finally, you know, sort of the whole purpose of this entire exercise going back to 2019 is it does lay the groundwork for potentially developing homes on the North Mesa site on this 30 acre school owned site, And it identifies the essential infrastructure needed to make that a reality. Next slide, please. And sort of the through all of the analysis, the conclusions that we've drawn is that the North Mesa site would alleviate local housing shortages by adding significant inventory for the public schools as well as the county employees and the local missing middle workforce.

A potential land sale or lease of the property would direct generate direct financial proceeds for the school district, and our professional analysis has confirmed that the North Mesa site is physically and operationally viable residential development. And a partnership with the county and a private developer could facilitate that development and creation and maintenance of workforce housing long term. Next slide, please. Kind of the next steps are we're just here to continue the conversation for the school board and the county council to discuss desired outcomes, formalizing commitments, just sort of talk through those objectives for the site if they remain the same, in housing targets, in defined commitments, and leveraged previous planning efforts that we've done on the site to just facilitate that conversation. And with that, I'll stand for questions.

Any questions? County council?

Do you want the county to go first or the school board?

How about we open it

up for

all of us?

Okay.

Would that be okay?

Yeah. Okay.

Sorry. Yeah. So you you said this growth of point 5% per year in growth of what? What is exactly growing?

That that's the traffic kind of demand growth and population growth. And then so so when working with our traffic engineers, as you all know, a lot of the kind of usable land up here on the town site is is pretty much all used up. There's really not any additional topography that could be developed to add more population that that could eventually add more population. So when we do traffic projections, we do our best to apply a growth rate to the applied area and we take into account several factors that make that growth rate.

But you're taking into account new developments, Right? Yeah. Absolutely. Nothing else?

Yes. That and then and and then yes. Yeah. The the point five is is slightly conservative as as a higher number than what the two developments would bring.

So point five over but you said through 2045. So for twenty years?

Yes. Through the horizon year. Correct.

Okay. So that's percent growth or something total.

Yes. So that's the yes.

Yeah. Yeah. And how do those numbers work out? That's like 10% is you have about 500 units coming online and out of thousands. Is that what you're saying?

Yes. Maybe not that exact number. I I don't know if it's the point 5% year over year compounded to equal to 10. I don't think it's a point five added over time. I think it's a point 5%, like, kinda overall.

Well, how how many is Arbolada? Because I don't remember that number. Arbolada was And nor and then then the project we're talking about is 300. Right? Three twenty?

Yeah. So as as we made the assumptions for the project, we we know what has recently been approved by planning commission for Arbolada. It's a 137 units comprised of a 100 and a 114 sort of triplex, duplex units in addition to 14 single family lots. So we we we have a known number there, and then we use the high end projection on the conceptual plans that went through the Decker Parish concept planning and the EPS feasibility study. And the high end of that is 360. So it was the combined total of the the three sixty, the the Arbolada numbers. And then we also considered a couple of other properties, which would be Pinyon Pinyon Estates.

So

I'm sorry. Ponderosa Ponderosa Estates just so we caught those other little developments that were sort of

Yeah. There's a little bit oh, there could be something at Ponderosa.

Yeah. There's a there's a I think it was 44 lots. I I don't remember off the top of head right now. I I believe it's 44 lots.

49.

49. 49 lots. So we we tried to capture all of those as well as we did the numbers for transportation and some of those others, water and sewer. Those would not have affected those are the growth rates for the water and sewer. But for the transportation, it would have, and then we backtrack that all the way back out to Diamond and Trinity.

And what what's the distinguishing thing between water and sewer and roads? I mean, if you had a person, it's the same or how does that If you had a new family, they add to the traffic and they add to the sewer load and so forth. Why is it why are you saying they're different numbers? You're just are you not distinguishing? I've what did Dan just say about just the difference?

So the numbers that you base for transportation calculations are going to be slightly different than those that you use for water and sewer calculations. We use the overall same number of units and then apply each different factor, whether it's transportation, whether it's water, or whether it's sewer. So we know the total number of units, the actual sort of math to that you use to make the projections is different for each of those different disciplines.

So you expect basically a 20% growth over or 10% growth over twenty years for for the Diamond Drive traffic. Is that is that what I'm understanding?

No. I don't believe we're expecting a 10% growth over twenty years. I think the growth rate of a point 5% I I don't believe the point 5% over the twenty year horizon reflects a ten percent in, like, overall population growth. I can I I can dive in with our traffic engineers to to kind of better clarify exactly what that point 5% growth rate in addition to the projected trips that the additional housings would would estimate? But I don't believe it is a a flat 10% number on the existing population. I don't believe it's exactly that number.

You're saying it's like compounding. So is that the problem?

Yeah. I I I think that the sort of the takeaway from the studies at at sort of the layman's level is that in, you know, twenty years out in 2045, we really don't have a loss of level of service except for the one intersection. So we're not gonna be adding so much traffic that is going to cause, you know, new issues to our transportation system. It's really not going to affect the transportation system as it stands today as sort of the takeaway from the project.

Okay. So that that's the real point you're getting to. Yeah. We could absorb all of that into that system.

I believe so.

Okay. Thank you.

I have a follow-up from councillor Rieger. Thank you. I have a follow-up from councillor Rieger's questioning. Just to clarify, the half percent growth projection in population, that's a half percent of Los Alamos County's total population, or is it a half percent of the North Mesa population?

That's a great question. I think we had access to the entire Los Alamos County's population. So as you point out, that is a conservative number relative to the town site itself.

So we're talking about growth in pop a half percent. So so it's not like you'd be adding a half percent or potentially up to 10% over twenty years to Diamond Drive's traffic situation because it it's a percentage of the entire 19,000 people, 20,000 people who live in the whole county, Los Alamos and White Rock included.

Correct. Yes.

The level of can I add another question? Does that mean the level of service stuff you were talking about, You said the the one point the one intersection that might go down in service was North Road in Diamond. Did you mean North Road or North Mesa Road?

I believe North Road.

Okay. So over there by Urban Park. And pub across from Pueblo School. Well, it used to be a public school. Pueblo Complex. Yes. Sorry. My age. Okay. And then can you the levels of service, I I missed what you said in the beginning if if if one of you explained it. Does it go a b c d e f, like school grades and, like, a is the best and f is the worst? So c is just in the middle?

Yes. Exactly. A a is the a is the best, you know, b b is the second best. C c is what most most deem as a as a acceptable level, a level of service, and that's basically an operational value of how that intersection works in the level of delay. And so, yes, c is in a lot of municipalities and a lot of design standards is the is the least acceptable or is the that's that's the threshold in which is deemed acceptable. Anything c or better. So c, b, or a is acceptable. So as we mentioned in in existing conditions now, all of them performed at a level c or better. And then, of course, there was the intersection that we just discussed that in in existing conditions now is a level service d. And then with the future build out, that would regress even worse from a d to e.

Yeah. And and it's probably at that level, like, during the commute hours. Right? Like, eight when school's in session, probably.

And and

Other times of the day and during the summer, not so bad.

Yep. Exactly. And in this particular case, though, it was indicated that the AM peak hour for both the existing conditions and for the Horizon duality or the AM peak hour, like you mentioned, that that that morning rush hour is gonna be when it regresses from the d to the e.

Okay. Thank you.

Randy?

Monica?

I'm gonna pull on something that both of them said. Regarding the traffic on Diamond as well as North Road, if we know that they're I don't wanna say problematic because that's a little too much, but what are we going to do about that if we already know that that's an area that causes issues? How are we addressing that?

Yeah, so if I understand the question correctly, if in the future build out if we know it's an issue now, well how are we going to address that in the future?

Precisely.

That would require some more detailed design engineering, more so than just, you know, just the the planning level study that we have now. So that would design or that would that would facilitate more of a traffic analysis with more with more localized traffic counts and turning movement calculations and potential signal warrant analyses and countermeasures to see if there's anything that that can be done to that existing intersection itself and over half the corridor if it affects the corridor. So so, yeah, future design studies and analysis will be needed to to address what could be done to improve it.

Okay. Thank you. And then regarding the solicitation of potential partners, do you already have a list of people or have people approached you?

We we do the answer is yes. We we do have a list of, you know, potential development partners. We would put this out, you know, sort of like we have done with the AAARSL and some other parcels. We would put this out on a national level, and we would solicit any takers. So although that we have sort of a local list and some folks that we're aware of or even regional partners and folks in kind of the the four corners area, we would open it up broadly to any developer that would be willing to submit on a solicitation.

Okay. Thank you. And I think I have one more. And I'm not sure if this is applicable, but I'm gonna throw it out there anyway. If we're looking at I think the total will be about 300 houses.

Correct? 360 houses would be the upper end of what we have estimated is developable Mhmm. On the site, and that is only for the North Mesa 30 acres.

Okay. So if we incorporate that many families, how is that gonna impact the schools? Because right now, we only have we have the middle school that's there, and that may be a question for the school board, but how is that gonna impact?

I I would defer that to the schools. I would say that, you know, we have sort of contemplated carving out that five acre site for, you know, future school improvements or, you know, what whatever that might be in the future, but I would have to defer to the schools what those additional units would how they would be absorbed into the system.

Thank you.

I'm happy to address that. We believe at the middle school, we already have plans that were part of the original design to add a six a wing for sixth graders. So in completing that design with our next bond cycle and moving the sixth graders to the middle school, we would have enough to accommodate middle school. Our high school has enough room to accommodate the growth. We would eventually need an elementary school in that area, which is the reason we had requested that they reserve this space. Thank

you.

Make sure I get this close enough so you can hear me. So thank you, president Wyman. So I wanted to get back to, I think, what people kind of expected. So I think the point 5% growth rate is a more general number just for saying there's more traffic overall. But so if we have 500 more dwelling units in North Mesa, that's much more than 10% of the existing dwelling unit. I think it's roughly, like, 2,000. Do you have those numbers? Is that in the report? So because I think people might be expecting and that's one of the questions that came up. We're adding 500 dwelling units.

What's happening to the traffic on the Mesa? It's great to be looking regionally at Diamond Drive too, and I imagine that has to do with queuing way down the road because that's what you see in the morning sometimes if the traffic gets way backed up. Some people get backed up on North North Road trying to come into Diamond. So do you have the numbers just on, like, how many dwelling units do we have on North Mesa for vehicles currently, and how many more are we gonna have if we have 500 more dwelling units?

Yeah. I I don't know if the report it lists exactly how many existing dwelling units are on the North Mesa itself. When it comes to the actual the future traffic projections, that's kind of where the IT trip generation guidance and manual comes from. So as you mentioned a good point, you know, the 500 dwelling units, that doesn't exactly equate to, like, you know, so many trips. Right? There's kind of a an estimate involved with that trip generation. I I can confirm with the report if we do have the exact number of existing going units and how that 500, you know, relates to it. As you mentioned, that that is a good point to consider.

Then I I was so I've

been I'm the one that's

been here since 2019. Everyone else is newer than that. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or bad thing. But so I I was also kinda curious about the infrastructure. So I'm just gonna round it off. $15,000,000 total. Right? So does the $15,000,000 include the new, you know, the sewer drop? Was it b is the one that's got the gigantic hole in it? Does it include that? So that's something that we need to do anyway. Right? Isn't that correct?

Yes. So we actually well, I I can just talk through it. So of all of the cost, so $15,000,000, much of that is actually going to be the actual on-site costs for the development to build. We do have the number then for those other drops. I know that the public work our DPU has looked is projecting. I believe it's in their '27 or '28 budget to fix that soon drop b. They recognize that that's an issue, and that's something that they're working on through the budget this year to be able to get that corrected regardless of what happens with

Right.

Any development up on North Mesa.

Okay. And then I I wasn't clear from, like, the waterline perspective since we're is the waterline being upgraded also anyway or not?

I don't believe that's a current CIP project. No.

Okay.

But That would be something that would need to be done as part of the development to bring water.

It was not necessary with the current demand. Is that is that what you're saying?

Correct. Okay. The upsizing that's been you know, the the upsizing that is part of the study would certainly benefit everybody up there regardless of any development. So it's something that may or may not happen at some point. Okay. But it it certainly would that being done, it would preclude any additional development on the North Mesa site.

Okay. Yeah. It has to be done for the development, but I I had understood that maybe it needed to be done. It wasn't like the hole in the water and the sewer drop, but it was something that was undersized.

Yeah. Ultimately, it upsizes the pipes. It reduces some pressure issues, and it also finalizes the loop of the system.

So the other so there are other things in the recommendations like protected bike lanes. Mhmm. So that's not on your table.

No. I think that those are just you know, those are sort of best practices that we work in

Okay.

These types of developments. You know, the

Okay.

Development of North Mesa doesn't equate we have to have protected bike lanes. But we do feel that anytime that we do these types of studies, we should put best practices for that overall road infrastructure in there, and that's why those recommendations carry

So when we're looking at the so we have, I guess, three and twelve million dollars in the two different pots. Right? Rounding off again to millions. Mhmm. So in that $12,000,000, that's like the on-site development improvements. And what is this what is the practice for those for new development? Is that built into the the cost of development, or are we looking at trying to mitigate those costs to make it more affordable?

That is a great question. Traditionally, those would be costs that would be borne by the developer, and they would be part rolled into the price of a market rate house that would then be sold on the market. In support of affordable housing, if we were to go that route, that is something that would be eligible under our affordable housing plan and the state affordable housing act for the county to participate directly in subsidizing or paying for some of those improvements to support that affordable housing. And that that would be my recommendation if we were to move forward with an affordable housing project that we would somehow roll those costs in as county participation.

Okay. And so is the Arbolada project market rate or affordable?

It is market rate, and we are not participating

in So the the numbers are a little bit alarming, I think, to people when they see the total of the bottom line number. Yeah. So if there's a way of segregating them into, like, this is a development cost. This is a development subsidized when we're presenting this information. So it it just seems like it might be there might be a little bit different way to present that. Sure. Okay. So thank you.

Neil?

Somebody else go. What what

why don't you

Okay. Go.

Alright. Can we go back to the map? You had the red, the green, the the yellow, and the orange.

Sure. I can walk you through that a little bit more.

Yeah. Yeah.

I believe it's the I think page 30, or if we go to maybe page three, it's a little bigger.

Three was it might have been it was early on, I think, was the biggest map.

Yeah. I think if we go to

them to That's not very helpful. The other one. Yeah. It color coded and green.

Yeah. Go go to the third slide.

And that's a picture of yeah. That's the b system, No. That's not that's not it.

Oh, maybe it's six. Six here. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

So now the red, when you say high density, you mean, like, townhomes? Is that it?

Yeah. So we've what we've done is we've we've kind of so the existing ball fields, we've got some mature open space that we would maintain here. And then wrapping around, we would have a higher density. This would be about five and a half acres, and this would be something along the lines of medium scale apartments. So, like, Canyon Walk, the Bluffs, something along those

So that's apartment development. Apartment development.

This would be apartments. Yeah. Higher density typically would be an apartment would be apartments is what we would imagine there. Part of this middle section here

Are those the townhouses then?

Would be townhouses, rowhouses, bods, things like that. And then trans transitioning into the low density, that would just be a standard single family lot, 10 to 12,000 square feet, something along those lines, maybe a little higher than that. So it's essentially gonna be five acres, five acres, five or four acres, and then another five acres in an open space, open space, and then sort of a colonnade down to the middle with some additional open space. And then we the we have another iteration of this that then shows how, you know, sort of the through those green spaces and then through those neighborhoods, the trail system sort of connects through. So kind of imagine a crusher find or perhaps a tarmac asphalt trail going through there, sort of like we have a little further down on North Mesa.

That would just sort of be

a But I've seen developments around New Mexico where you have, you know, like, townhouses that are built without owning the land. You lease the land, and people will still buy the townhouse. But I think when you get to single family homes, that's like Hawaii or someplace. I don't think that happens here.

That that's a a little less common.

Why are you even trying for that? Why doesn't that just, like, phase three undetermined that you're not because it doesn't add enough housing to matter, and it's you know, why have a low density plan at all for any part of it? It's just a vacant space for future years Mhmm. Kept temporarily undeveloped.

This piece here?

Why does it yeah.

This yeah. I mean, the the single family came out of request for needs from the community. It's also supported as a a housing typology that's needed under the affordable housing plan. We know that we need more rentals. We also know that we need more ownership. The ownership model does get a little bit more complex. Yeah. These plans were

It doesn't involve ownership. Yeah.

Yeah. When when these plans were developed, I don't know that we had a good handle on sort of what the needs were. So there is some you know, this is not set in stone. There could be some additional conversation about what what the appropriate typology would be, what the appropriate density would be. I'm an advocate and a fan of density. If we did some additional, you know, townhouses, duplexes, quads, you know, that kind of unit, I I think that that's a conversation we could have.

Wasn't that what the public needs? And then, also, that's something you know you can actually find a developer for. Right? Because there are there's some of those in Albuquerque.

I mean Yeah. I think we have developers that would be interested in building all phases of this. But

I think the last time we put this up for bid, we did not get an an offer. Right?

That that I don't know. I'm not aware that this is ever

here then. That was 20. It's not on your timeline, but we went through this before. Off of this map, didn't have much interest in it.

Counselor Rieger, no. We we have not gotten to that point in this process. There was just a steering group that was working to discuss how to

move forward,

but, no, we've never

We put out a call for proposals. So Dan wasn't here then, but we sure did. And we had that map. And except there was a little less green. There was more yellow, but it was the three or four year ago map. Now that's a well, I'll go through the old records, but I've we've seen this ball before, and we couldn't get people to bid on that development.

I don't wanna put chair right in the book. He was around too. I I don't recall that. I remember presentation from the working group on their progress. I don't I I don't believe we did any kind of soliciting.

So I don't remember the specific of a going out to bid then because I think my recollection is that we haven't had the so if it's if one of the members has been here a while too, almost, you know, since the beginning. Right?

We did have other other maps way back in the day. I think somehow this has become standard model for your presentation, but there were other maps That's

Yeah.

They were just sort of brainstorming probably. Somehow, this map is the So

there yeah. There were so so, you know, kinda going back to when we started back in 2019, we went into that concept planning through 2021 and '22. And those community meetings that we had, there were probably a half dozen different concepts that were put together. We they sort of just literally started out with an aerial photo and said, hey, folks. What do you think we should put out here?

Put a bunch of sticky sticky notes on it. And then based on those concept those comments, they came back with three or four different concepts. Some of the concepts had more single family. Some of them had more higher densities of, you know, less yellow, more red, and, you know, less red, more yellow. And then through that process and the EPS study, that's where this plan came from is sort of the preferred concept out of all of those iterations. This is the one that felt most agreeable to the community through those conversation. And that's why we have been using sort of this one is the model is this was sort of the preferred concept from those conversations.

Yeah. No. I don't

And it is I don't believe any of the MOAs that we have had in place have fully committed the county to create going through a full solicitation process.

Yeah. I think, yeah, I think we haven't actually gotten to the point of the school board affirmatively saying, yes. We would like to go

That wasn't that far.

To the next step and actually do something like this. Let's get a solicitation. Let's see what what revenue this would generate with an actual developer. But I think we don't know and we know conceptually, and but we don't know for certain what income might be generated. One of the things that and I don't wanna speak for the school board. That's my recollection as one of the criteria. And all the discussions was was the revenues in addition to the housing. And then, of course, there's the the neighbors. And and I I think that I'm not sure if everybody was on board with that density in that one.

It's the way I remember it.

I I I believe that there was kind of an issue. So with so it could be reconfigured, but still would you would have that same number, I think, of dwelling units, that range of 200 to 350 or so dwelling units in this area. So that that's that's what I recall. And and I think we're just this this this study has been done since last year, and so that's why there were questions about, you know, why we're meeting here. We're meeting it with the school board is kind enough to have us here tonight and take some time to go through this and have everybody officially see it. So I think we're just waiting to see what the what the next steps can be.

When you say medium density, you're talking 20 units per acre? Is that what you mean?

I think that we would be for the medium, I think that

that would be a

little bit lower than 20 units an acre. Probably 10 to twelve, ten to 15, then 15 to 20 for the higher density. I mean, it's it's always sort of a range in a spectrum on those things. You know, with there are a number of other things that we would have to do to sort of queue this up for development, and that would include currently from the future land use map, this is an institutional prop. So going to our comprehensive land use plan, the future land use, which sort of is that guide to tell us what we think we want to do with property down the road or with land down the road.

It's currently in an institutional designation. That institutional designation supports schools, hospitals, like that. It is also zoned institutional. So this would require a comprehensive plan amendment in addition to a rezoning. And then that's at the time that we would sort of start narrowing down specifically what those densities would be, specifically the number of units per acre and, you know, sort of, you know, starting at the highest level, which is sort of this, the concepts to see that we have some general agreement, then we would have some land use processes that we would need to go through to continue to refine that and engage the community to make sure that what we're proposing is headed in the right direction.

Yeah. And I and I think with with what we gathered when we had that subcommittee that met a few times, I think, about five years ago, is when we did this, and everybody was questioning what on earth who would come into the low density area? And everything we can think of is higher density. So red to orange would be the whole development, and parts would just be saved for later. You know?

Yeah. There's nothing to say that we couldn't do this in in phased approach. It you know, that is a possibility. Test the market, see if anybody's interested in doing that level of density. I can say that this is Arbolada is, I think, 27 17 acres, 20 acres.

They are doing both low density housing and then more of the medium density housing. So they're they're incorporating both of those land uses and are fairly confident that they will have the sales on those single family lots. But, again, if this, you know, depend this is a little bit different that, you know, we're not sure what underlying land deal will be yet, whether that's a sale or a lease.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

No?

Any question? Thank

you. I have quite a few. So you'll have to forgive me since most of us were not here this started. I'm wondering how much the wastewater and water infrastructure would be would have affected by us adding the sixth grade wing and by adding another elementary school on that site. Because those weren't don't seem like they were taken into account.

That's correct, that those were not taken into account as additional, you know, facilities in addition to the future housing. You know, we would have to be confirmed with the analysis with those values, you know, kind of plugging the same methodologies that we did. I can't imagine it really being kind of a showstopper, if you will, that kinda breaks the system, if you will. But it they would have to be confirmed with those with those estimates of that future sixth grade the sixth grade when you mentioned. Mhmm. They would have to be confirmed. Excuse me.

Yeah. And why was with the how with the transportation, the road study, the traffic study, I'm far more concerned about traffic between North Mesa and Barranca than I am Diamond, because we already have quite the backup getting to Barranca Elementary and getting to the middle school. And this is going to seriously impact that, but that wasn't I don't think that was part of the study at all.

Is Barranca on the North Side of of the Mesa on the other? Okay. I can confirm with our traffic folks if that was, you know, included. Included. I think that the entire corridor that was included for the volumes. But as far as the kinda hotspot intersections, they were the ones that we, of course, highlighted, as I mentioned, they're with the Long The

roundabout is where it really backs up trying to get everyone from North Mesa to Barranca Elementary and from everywhere to the middle school. That's already a bottleneck. Gonna make it a lot worse. So I think we would need to plan for how that

though. If if I may, I believe the the roundabout was included, though, in in that. The roundabout by the golf course, is that where are we just discussing the correct one? Sunny Delfonso and and Diamond Drive?

Yes. But That that was included. The the three roads going into that Yes. Were not included. And that's the side that we're gonna have problem.

Okay. I

That makes sense?

I I believe I believe I believe I understand. Yes. I I I think those three legs of the roundabout were included in the analysis. Those three legs, you know, join at that roundabout. Of course, I can confirm in the report of in itself and, of course, with our traffic team who did the work.

Yes. All of the actual accounts that we got were you know, we we put a counter out on the road. Those counts you know, count the trap the traffic coming to and from, so those would have included and caught the traffic coming off of the Mesa into the roundabout and then down Diamond Drive through that corridor.

Right. But that's not the area I'm concerned about. I'm concerned about from North Mesa to Barranca. Does not go on Diamond 5.

Right.

Okay. Because we have to get all of our North Mesa student Yeah. Barranca Elementary.

Yep. I live up on North Mesa, and we'll definitely I understand what you're asking.

We'll Okay. And then another thing with the transportation, I don't was part of this. This will also impact the schools and the county bus system, and whether or not we have the capacity absorb that. We all know we all have problems getting bus drivers to start with. And adding another element adding all of these housing, is there gonna we should make sure that we have a point busing as well.

I don't know.

You want to speak to that?

Certainly. I I can speak to the schools tentatively. Our the number of buses we get that are funded from the state and our transportation dollars are based on student population.

So if

our population increases, our eligibility for more buses and our funding increase at the same rate. So, essentially, at the same rate we're at.

Yeah. This the drivers.

There was

a lot of talk, particularly with the Alta survey, about how it would need a developer to purchase sounded like. I thought a a recurring tools. So if we're doing any sort of thing, they'll get that

designation.

I'm trying to go back and forth between many thing. It was the the land title commitment. How does that work if we're not selling the land?

I think that anytime that we go into a transaction of any type, whether it's a sale or a lease, then we would be able to get to the full altititle commitment. Just for the purchase of this, we didn't have any sort of deal that we were tying it through. It's unusual, and so they wouldn't certify the the commitment. They wouldn't provide that to us. I think that's just a well, I I think we both sort of learned. We're just not far along enough in the process that they would issue that kind of

a Okay. Thank you. And then with the you know, it says that we don't have the elementary school blocked off on here. So where would that go?

It goes where the yellow

And that

So the existing middle school is here. Hawk Drive, I mean, Inn is just here. The solar farm is here. We've sort of blocked off all of the solar farm down across and then down into Hawk Drive. So the inter you know, the intersection with and you enter the site there.

Okay. And the sixth grade wing, where would that The sixth of

course, you know, we can revisit it, but the sixth grade wing's already designed to be on part of the middle school, kind of at the north end where the playfield there is. I'm just connecting there off that end.

Thank you. I'm trying to visualize all of this. There's been talk about using this for, portable housing, particularly for county employee, full employees. Is that part of this plan currently? It doesn't sound like it. And how would a how would that be a a continuous revenue stream for the district?

So so that's a great question, and I will just be completely frank. That is the hardest piece of this entire deal. We are currently the county is currently engaging with Servitas, their developer of a a county owned property. We are looking at entering into a lease with them for the development of the property. During the time of the lease, most of that revenue is going to go back into the development to pay off the debt, to pay off the bonds, pay operating costs.

Once the debt is paid for, you know, thirty five minutes, then any additional revenue after the debt is paid comes back to the county. That's kind of what we would anticipate is the best case scenario for development of this property. That would mean that these would be all rental. I don't really see a very strict path to getting home ownership on this. I think that these would be all rental units under the scenario that we're talking if we're looking at a lease with long term revenue back to the school district. The the revenue to the school district is very unlikely to start on day one of the lease.

Other question, global led members? Well, based on that question, based on

that recent question, how do we have an estimated, like, time frame in which the loan, right, to the developer or or, you know, where that expense gets paid before it starts becoming revenue for the schools? What is that projected time line? Do you know what that would look like?

So, again, it it it's all tied to the financing. So it costs a lot of money to develop these in the case of the counties. You know, just using an example that we're familiar with them. It's about a $200,000,000 project. Then so we're they will be bonding and taking debt essentially to build this development, and then all of the revenues that are collected as rents then go back to pay that obligation. So it's not dissimilar from pay paying mortgage. Right? You're paying the mortgage until the debt comes down. Once the debt is paid off, either through it's being paid off or you refinance out of it, that is obligated then to you know, those rents are obligated to pay for that debt that you use to build the development. Once that debt is paid off, typical term is about thirty years, between thirty and forty years.

If we get better interest rates, we can usually refi out of that, maybe do it in '25. At that point, then all of that revenue then comes back to the county or to the school district. In the case of of the deal that we're looking at, that's tens of millions of dollars, but it's not something that you get until later in the process once the project debt is paid.

And I I just wanna add to that a little bit. We don't know what the terms might be for this scenario. If we were to solicit for a developer, what's important is that there are some identified goals and objectives for this development that need to be met, and then we get proposals to evaluate. So there could be some sort of baseline lease rate for the land that starts as occupancy happens or something to that regard, if that's what's important. But part of this process, we will need to suss out what the goals are of the school district that would make this a good project for for you all.

You have a question? Could this model be similar to what we have going on with the Smith? Current Smith's model. I don't know all the details, but I know that it's lucrative for us.

Right. That's what I have in mind is that, you know, that is some sort of land lease that's you get payment every year, and it's a long term lease. And it's just a matter of figuring out with a developer how to make

that work for you all. Any other questions?

Board?

Thank you. My question goes back to the traffic again. You mentioned in the study that all of these three housing intersection, spot of Road, Diamond Road. The peak hours can go all the way to a level e. Super bad. If this happens, we thought about how we can correct that already. We have a bottleneck there in the morning. I always worry because that's right around the high school. Lots of inexperienced drivers. Start to see that continue through a few more levels.

What can we possibly do to that? I would like to see that possibility. Hate to get in that spot and not be able to do anything.

I see it a little differently in terms of sequencing. We can analyze any intersection and look at making improvements to improve flows. A good example of that would be our engineers worked with the DOT in the lab to make improvements to the flow of the East Jamez State Route 4 intersection. And, the flow has greatly improved, to get traffic through that intersection. So it really isn't really sequential.

It wouldn't be something necessarily that we'd have to do before any of this, but it would be something that we can start looking at and start planning and be ready to implement something. It would just be a little bit of a different process, and our public works department would look at that. We have monies to kind of evaluate road safety issues where we have issue. But most of our issues that we have from a safety concern, if you look at the heat map, is around that Canyon Diamond Intersection. And that one's really limited on land and really limited on improvements we can make. But that is the area where if we had more land and we're able to do something to improve safety, that that would be the intersection where we have the most incidents.

All of our intersections are short on land. That's why I wonder, you know, create all of this extra traffic. What are the possibilities?

So the safety issue is really about the conflicts of turning movements and things that happen at intersections. You have crossings. You have pedestrians. You have different sequences. That's what creates the safety issue. And some of the peak AM, peak PM issues, it's if it's only a level e for a a moment of time, is really not necessarily a safety issue. It's more of an annoyance. But but there are but it again, there are things we can do to improve on that. It'd probably be around probably some sort of evaluating if it warrants a signal or not.

Has the county done any kind of oh.

Oh, no. You go ahead, son. Okay. You go ahead. You go ahead, president Wyman.

Has the county done any kind of appraisal on the property there?

No. I don't believe we have a current appraisal on the property.

Thank you. Yes. Thank you, president Weiman. It in kind of in response to the conversation about traffic and transportation and levels of service and planning ahead, you know, being proactive even for today's current environment, regardless of one, two, or three of these developments come to fruition, it it seems, from my perspective, that one solution is public transportation. You know?

So we have a great free to the public ACT system. And I think if people get to a tipping point, they'll maybe use it more. It's a great service, and we have school buses. And I'll just add my since this is a work session for discussion, I'm just stunned by the percentage of students who are driven to school by parents. It it's just shocking to me as someone who grew up here and went to school and walked and someone who had kids here who who took buses or walked or skateboarded.

So I don't know. To me to me, I I would hate for that concern to be an obstacle or an impediment to achieving other goals and aspirations for our broader community, schools and residents and county as a whole, because I think we have solutions. We just need to be we just need to decide as a community that we're going to leverage those and utilize those.

Add something to that. The first thing that that makes me think of is we should probably understand why parents are not inclined to let their kids walk or take the bus. I think that there's important information

That's fair.

That that we probably need to know. Yeah. Because there's different reasons. Where we are, it it's a safety thing because I'm in Mirador, so, like, my kid's crossing. Right? So that's different. Right? Yeah. But that might not be the reason for everybody. So I think that, that's something that we can look into to get a sense of like why are like, so for example, we have the two days a year when we have the have as many students ride the bus, right, because we know that, that's part of where our revenue comes from for the school buses. And that's important. I would be on those days, I'm always thinking, there's information behind why more students are not

on the bus. And I think

that that actually will help in multiple different ways, but particularly when it comes to thinking about the long term planning when it comes to transportation.

You.

Questions or comment? Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Just I really appreciate all the all the comments and questions we're getting today. And, you know, so this has been going on a long time. So seven years, I guess, is how long we've been doing it. And I know that, you know, if we had done something seven years ago, would may not be built yet either. But I know you get revenues you know, solar panels and the radio and the tower. And I think this yeah. I think the idea was this is something like that. And I think, you know, the concept of yeah. The it looks like a lot when you say it's 03/1960 or February even.

But Mhmm. It can be implemented as a phase. You could you could see what interest there is. And until you know what interest there is, you can't know what parameters you might have on on revenues. And I think a lot of the other issues we should be addressing as we heard, I think, there's issues we need to address right now regardless of this happening or not. And I I guess we're hoping that a lot is gonna happen. Right? So there there's a number of other housing projects in town that are gonna that aren't accounted for. I think I think this might be more than point 5%, you know, over over twenty years with already what's kind of in the pipe, but it's not on North Mesa. We're trying to build other facilities.

I was just looking at this map here. It shows the ball fields, like, as part of the area, right, because that's adjacent, but that's not, yeah. So as we've talked about, we just have a plan for rearranging all the ball fields. Right? So that's not in here.

So there's so many different things to try to coordinate. But if there's some interests, then, you know, we can explore what, you know, what their what the benefits are. There'll be certainly pros and cons, I think, to anything, you know, you decide you wanna explore, but I think we just need to know, is there some interest in in looking at the I'm sure there'll be some public comments tonight, and I know there are people interested in this. And and we've had a lot of public comment in the past, so I don't wanna say anything else. I appreciate the opportunity for the, you know, the joint session.

Okay.

Now we have comments from the public. Okay. I'll call on you, and if you could go up to the podium. You. Thank you for the presentation very much. I think that's it. Okay. First, on public comment, if you'll go up to the podium and use the microphone so we can get it on the recording.

Peter,

you don't have two minutes.

Really fast.

The surgery is scheduled. Hello.

Lisa Reeder. 3217 Woodland Road. Long time no see. I want to say thank you, that was a very beneficial study. I would like to look at this at a higher level. The school board has received my letter that I sent and Randall Reidy would probably be the only one that would actually remember this as well because I sent this out when we first started all those discussions however many years ago. I believe the school board has an obligation to maximize the use of its assets for the educational benefit of the student body.

My name is Sherry. I need to come on hold. Admit it.

You use a mic, please?

Although I think he turned it off.

I'm sorry. Didn't send something.

Baby. Okay.

I live at 4007 Sycamore Street right down there by North And Diamond. North Road and Diamond. So we have a lot of traffic right there. And there's concerns even beyond just the daily traffic. Because I was here during all of the other big buyers in this town. And I'm wondering, are they trying to look at the potential? Because I don't know how long these things are going to take

to get

the roads ready, to get the sewer lines in, to get the water lines in, and all that stuff. How is that gonna affect potential evacuation? And I just wanna put that in everybody's head because there are you know, we've got horses out on North Mesa. We're putting more people out there. And how quickly can we get those people out of there if we have to?

And I think that's a real serious thing to think about. And especially down there with North Road going into Dime, that's very tight in there. And I just wanted to put that in everybody's head. We get we get excited about, you know, building out, making everything better and everything, but we've got to think about that long term

issue as well.

We're not gonna get much more land use than we have right now. And the roundabout down there at between Bronco And North Mesa and Diamond And North Mesa Drive coming up along there. They're already, like, within within the last few months. They've had a bicyclist get hit out there on the on the roundabout. There was a motorcyclist killed. My husband, when he was coming oops. Sorry. Yeah.

Sorry to interrupt, president Wyman, but I I got a I I thought the the Zoom might have dropped. Is it back up? Okay. Great. But they were off for about ten minutes. Mhmm.

I wanna thank you for the presentation. Many of the council members and school board members really touched on some of my concern and topics I wanted to talk about. So let let me just do a couple of high level thoughts. Besides the I don't know if this project really makes sense in the sense of cost and from the sense of how it's going to affect our transportation and issues regarding traffic backup. One of the things, though, of concern, have you thought about the idea of actually Los Alamos losing population?

I don't know if that's ever been thought about, and I know this is a French topic, but we have the rise of artificial intelligence replacing workers. I don't know how that's going to affect the population of the county, people working at the lab, or at the county. And that should be something that when you think about long term, five, ten years down the line, do we need a lot more houses? I don't know if the growth of point 5% can continue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Carmichael. Okay. Steven Lujan? Oh.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Minutes. Oh, yeah.

Okay. David Hampton.

And you guys are moving on staff with the presentation. That's fantastic. I've watched this thing for years. I'm really excited about it. I think that the land was always intended to be, for housing that would generate a permanent income for schools. So I look forward to seeing how it progresses, and I hope it helps solve some of the problems for the schools as well as providing housing.

Yeah. You, mister or mister Hampton. Sorry. Hey. That's it for public comments in the public comments in the room. That's all I have signed up. One online? K.

Mr. Zepian, can you call out who that is so we can recognize them? Philip Gursky.

Okay. If you could unmute yourself.

You can hear me?

Yes. I can hear you.

Sorry. Hello?

Yes.

Thank you. I my name is Phil Gursky. I just had a couple of things. I was historically I was the chairman of the steering committee, the North Mesa one. I think just for clarity's sake, the map design that we have there was from 2019.

There was no further iterative process or review of the actual site design. That was what was gonna go what was gonna be done. I think, historically, I I think now that we've reached the area where I think it's very effective to begin the process, what kind of development would be useful? I just suggest in there and you're looking at you going forward in the future that the schools have a very different approval process. And I think the school's interest in what they wanna do should dictate that the schools should, by themselves, undertake the actual submission and and approval because, essentially, the county is their is the approval agency, and the schools are the landowners.

I think it would be most effective if that were done by the schools with their attorneys, with their PED, and and state board of finance approval requirements. But I think that the process they have now, I I think, think, is is is well along the way, and we're I'm pleased to see that they were done. I would say the only other thing I would say in response to councilor Rieger's concerns is there was a bid for the development design engineering stuff that be done. And the Decker Paris Group did submit a bid, but it was above our budget allowance. And that's why they went to the EPS system and and subsequent the EPS feasibility one and then subsequently the the Wilson ones.

So that process, I think there still needs to be public comment because it has not really been covered at all in public comment for the last six or seven years. So thank you.

Thank you, mister Gursky. Alright. Are there any final comments? Oh, one more online. Mister Warnicki, you could unmute yourself. You have too many.

Okay. Can you hear me okay, chair and board?

Yes.

So just looking at these parcels, somebody asked about, like, revenue and appraisals. I did I did, like, take a quick look at the assessor's current appraisal on the on the land. Right now, it's it's priced at a dollar 38 a square foot. I'm pretty sure that's very low. I I would be surprised if it wasn't more like five to 10 a square foot.

That alone is gonna bring in, by my math, about 20,000 in tax revenue for the county. And then if you're looking at another, like, five to 8% cap rate on land leases, to the to the schools or or whoever's going to be getting the the lease money on that, that's, like, another 700,000 a year. It's it's a great opportunity to bring in some extra revenue. The land will still be owned by the school board, so I I really support this idea of leasing the land. And as far as the residents' concerns about traffic, I wanna point out that the traffic is already here.

We have 12,000 commuters coming in to to town every day. They're dropping their kids off at the middle school, so they have to go two directions. If they're already living here, they're not gonna have to drive as much. They'll be able to use the buses. When we get more bus usage, buses will become more viable. And if you want more bus drivers, you need places for them to live. So, you know, it it makes sense to build more housing up here. The the concerns about traffic, I believe, are overblown. And if you're really that worried about evacuating, then

you need to leave a

few days ahead. It's it's, you know, last time a couple years ago, we had a near scare. I did that with my family, it was fine. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Warnicki. Thanks. Are there any other line? Okay. No. Any final comments from the board? Hey. Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. Very well presented and received. I love all the discussion. I think at this point, appreciate all the public comments. We are on to. This work session. So think the county

Start with that.

We'll we'll adjourn first since we so if there's no objections, we are adjourned.