City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Welcome to the City Council meeting of the City of Louisville, July 28th, 2026. Would you please take a roll call vote? A roll call, not a vote yet.

Councilmember Heffner?

Yes.

Councilmember Kerr? Present. Councilmember Fahey? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Hamlington? Yes. Council Member Cooperman?

Here.

Council Member Dickinson?

Yes.

Mayor Lee?

Here. Oh, it did not pass. I know you wanted me to say yes or no. All right. Please join with me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Can we get a motion for approval of tonight's agenda?

So moved. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Do we have any public comment tonight on items not on the agenda? We're on the consent agenda, right? Seeing none, can we get a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Do we have any council members with informational items to report tonight? Okay, seeing none. city managers reports next nothing to report tonight thank you first item of regular business is ordinance number 1936 series 2026 an ordinance amending title 17 of the Louisville Municipal Code regarding Inclusionary this is housing first reading to set the public hearing tonight We're going to be hearing the staff report on the ordinance. We will not opening the public hearing or taking public comment. Council may ask questions. We're not going to discuss the matter. We can suggest briefly amendments for second reading or we can discuss staff's returning with additional information. Can we get the staff report, Mr. Hurt?

Yes, thank you. So Jeff hurt with community developments. I'm here to present the first reading for targeted updates to the inclusionary housing ordinance. The overarching purpose beings from near term improvements to better ensure that we actually get affordable units built. as part of the ordinance. And as a reminder, this is in advance of the broader development code update that is going to begin very soon, where we'll actually have a housing policy expert on our consultant team that will be fully dissecting the ordinance and making additional improvements as well. So a bit of context. I don't need to get into the affordability issue as much. That's been discussed a lot, but certainly continues to be an issue in terms of the lack of affordability in the community. Happy to dive more into that. As a reminder of what our existing inclusionary housing ordinance framework says, so it essentially says that any new residential development has to set aside 12% of its units for deed-restricted permanently affordable onsite with the option of fee-in-lieu or other alternative compliance options. And of those 12% of the units, the current ordinance says that half of them need to be affordable to households earning less than 60% of area median income. and the other half less than 80% of area median income. That's one of the adjustments we're looking at for tonight related to AMI. A lot of policy contacts and a lot of policy foundations supporting these changes and the specific changes in front of you. Happy to get into that more if you would like. In terms of why update now versus wait for the broader code update, I think there's a few big reasons. First of all, there's been zero units produced in about the five-year history of this ordinance. So obviously something is not working. The other big sort of catalyst is, as you all know, the recently adopted comp plan sort of shifts the land use focus toward supporting more residential. And so we expect to see, and we already are seeing, interest in applications for more residential. So we are bringing something forward in advance of the development code update, which is a year or two out from seeing an actual ordinance. To sort of get ahead of some of that in terms of maximizing our ability to get affordable housing units built So I'm gonna walk through the elements of the proposal here. I know there's other elements that council would like to discuss and we're certainly happy to do that. The first being changes to the area median income ranges. So I'll walk through that. Some of the incentives that are in the proposed ordinance related to density and building heights, reductions in parking requirements, development fee waivers, and then certainly updating the fee in lieu amounts to reflect current market data. So I'll walk through all of that. In terms of the proposed ordinance related to area median income, again, the current ordinance says half of the units have to be less than 60% AMI, the other half less than 80% AMI. This proposal would broaden that and better reflect current market conditions and sort of our peer communities' best practices. You may all know, for example, that in order to afford a home in Louisville, You need about 140% to 150% area median income just to afford a single-family home. So these ranges better reflect sort of current market conditions. The proposal is for 12% of all the rental units to be set aside for households earning 80% or less of AMI. So instead of divvying it up half and half by AMI, this proposal will divvy it up by tenure, so rental versus owner. And the other component related to ownership units, so 12% of those units would need to be set aside to households earning less than 120% area median income. That was a tweak that was made to the ordinance actually today. It previously said between 80 and 120. The modification, which I think was a good suggestion, was just to say simply up to 120%. So we wouldn't preclude someone from coming in at 60% AMI, which would be unlikely, but we didn't want to preclude that. We could get into the analysis, but essentially the overarching goal of this whole ordinance is to help close the gap of feasibility. So this graphic up here, which I know is hard to read, basically says that the market rate that a developer could get for a unit, whether to rent it or sell it, relative to the affordable rate, that's the gap between those two that this ordinance is trying to close that gap in terms of making some of these projects more feasible. And AMI is a big part of that, so are these incentives. Related to density, the proposal, and I should say this tracks with council direction. It's been over a year now, but council did provide direction about a year ago, a little over a year ago now, that is reflected in this ordinance. But the ordinance would allow, and it's a may, may allow explicitly at city council's discretion, a 20% density bonus for projects that provide onsite affordable housing in compliance with the inclusionary housing ordinance. a 20% increase in lot coverage for those same types of projects. The ordinance also has an enhanced density bonus. So if you do 100% onsite affordable at a deeper affordability level, then you get a 30% density bonus. And I'll walk through how that might play out here. The analysis on that front is essentially related to project feasibility again. There's specific policies calling for this change. The enhanced bonus structure actually aligns with current what's called income averaging approaches for like low-income housing tax credit. So the 80% or less, average of 60% AMI is aligned with how CHAFA and low-income housing tax credits currently work. So that's the deeper affordability bonus. Also important to note that these density bonuses, we'll talk about potential height bonuses, they certainly don't trump the other requirements in the code. So all things related to neighborhood compatibility, traffic analysis, utilities, this would all still apply and this would be sort of considered on the same wavelength as those. In terms of how the density bonus could apply in an example, so if you look at a project that currently has 100 units entitled by zoning, if they were to provide on-site affordable housing, the unit count would go up to 120, so you'd be allowed 120 units under this scenario. And so you take that amount, and this is where the feasibility comes into play. So if you do the math on a 100-unit project, for example, with that bonus, the city would see three additional affordable housing units The developer would also see about 17 additional market rate units. So that's where it really helps sort of their bottom line and their feasibility. And that's one of the intents of this ordinance, obviously. So in terms of other incentives, so there are parking reductions built into the ordinance as well that go beyond sort of the current and most recent parking minimum sort of waivers that we have in our ordinance. But there's essentially no minimum parking required for projects that have onsite affordable housing. The ordinance also calls for, identifies waiving zoning related development review fees. So that's the fee you pay for like a PUD subdivision rezoning. And again, this is all about trying to improve the feasibility of these projects. In terms of the fee in lieu, this is something that we'll get a deeper dive with the broader development code update, but what we did as staff was just use the exact same methodology that we've used in the past and update the inputs that go into the fee calculation. So updated market data, we have the most recent HUD household income data from this year. That was put into the model as were current market sale prices and rental prices. And so the fee actually, strangely about stays the same with the rental, which we re-ran the number several times to confirm that was the case, but the fee stays pretty flat with rental, but it does jump quite a bit with the owner units. It goes more than double, and we'll sort of walk through the analysis around that. So one of the key discussion points from Council last year was getting a better understanding of how that fee-in-lieu increase impacts overall feasibility in terms of both the affordable units and the market rate units. And so what our analysis has shown, and we'll have housing policy experts with our code update do a deeper dive on this, but essentially, I think the... there's an inclination to think that that fee is just going to automatically be passed down sort of directly 100% to the tenant or on the sale price. That's not the case from our perspective and our analysis. There is some of that, but we could get into this further if you'd like, but the market will only support a certain rent level or housing price level. So as a result of that, things adjust around that. So the developer would look at value sort of adjustments around design, things like that. The land value we found tends to adjust over time to account for these fee changes. There is potential for reduced profits from the developer. So there is a partial pass through, but the impact isn't sort of like one for one as a lot of folks might think. Regarding building height, so staff is proposing for council considerations based on recent council discussions around this very issue. The potential at city council's discretion, again, this is in May, that if a project provides onsite affordable housing in compliance with this ordinance, they could get up to a one story or 15 foot height increase as part of that development proposal. And so again, it would need to be consistent with all the other requirements and policies that we have, but this is one tool and sort of the toolkit that we're putting on the table for consideration and for discussion. And so importantly, it does not as written apply in the, I'll have a map up here, but it does not apply in the old town overlay, for example. So in the residential area and around downtown, No height increases would be allowed. Same thing for the downtown core. And I'll show a map here in a second of what that means. But again, this is about trying to improve the feasibility of these projects, allowing more design flexibility. If a developer can go up, they may be able to get more units, but it's more about being able to address utilities, traffic access, circulation, things like that for more flexibility. And again, this would be at council's discretion on sort of a case-by-case basis. And so this map here shows, just zooming in on downtown, how the building height incentives are written. So essentially, as written, the areas in cross-hatched red, those are called the transition areas of downtown. Those are the areas that would be eligible for a one-story or a 15-foot height increase. So the base height there is two stories. And so this ordinance would enable, at council's discretion still, to go up to three stories for affordable housing projects. And then the area in the middle is where there are no height allowances as part of this ordinance in the core area or height incentive allowances. So again, very consistent with our adopted plans in terms of the ordinance before you tonight. Planning Commission did vote unanimously to recommend approval of the ordinance back in May. One of their comments was that they would like to see more flexibility in the ordinance for us to administratively update the fee in lieu without having to change the ordinance each time. So the fee being baked into the ordinance has created a challenge for us. And so the way it's written, ON THE PROPOSED ORDINANCE, WE WOULD OR THE CITY MANAGER WOULD HAVE THE ABILITY TO UPDATE THE FEE USING THE EXACT SAME METHODOLOGY AND JUST WITH NEW MARKET INPUTS. AND SO THAT WOULD BE A POSSIBILITY UNDER THE ORDINANCE. AND AGAIN, JUST WANTED TO REITERATE, PLANNING COMMISSION DID NOT CONSIDER THE BUILDING HEIGHT INCENTIVE AS PART OF THEIR PACKAGE. AND SO THAT'S SOMETHING THAT WE AS STAFF OPTED TO PUT ON THE TABLE FOR CONSIDERATION BY COUNCIL JUST GIVEN THE RECENT DISCUSSIONS AROUND THIS specific issue recently. There were a few refinements made actually today based on some good input from council members, some clarifications. So I mentioned that previously said that the owner units had to be between 80 and 120 percent AMI. We opted to go just up to 120 percent AMI. Staff agreed with that. And there's some other clarifications just to state that, for example, the way the ordinance was written, one could sort of extrapolate that if you put one affordable housing unit on the site and you get all these bonuses, so there's some sort of tightening up of the language to ensure that any of those incentives would only be available if the project fully complied with the onsite affordable requirement. So staff is recommending approval of the ordinance based on the consistency with adopted plans and from our perspective, improvements related to feasibility. I'm happy to answer any questions that council has.

we're gonna take questions I want to just in light of some information that's been exchanged this week around the first reading. I'm going to bear down on not talking about the substance, because we really can't do that without a public hearing. And I want to be real careful of not doing that, especially tonight. There are ways that we can adjust that, but not tonight, because it's on the agenda that there will be no public comment. With that in mind, what questions do council members have to ask? None? There's one here.

Council Member Cooperman. Thank you for the presentation. Could you remind us, so there's the downtown core, but then there's also the Old Town overlay. So what exactly, I'm just not remembering exactly where the Old Town overlay covers.

Yeah, and apologies, I don't have a map teed up here, but the Old Town overlay covers basically all the residential areas surrounding the core commercial area.

Okay, that was what I thought. Okay. And then one little clarification. So on the dots on the east side of the railroad tracks, is that sort of slanting line... like a well-defined, or is it sort of just meant to capture the break between where there are houses and where there are not?

I believe, and to confirm, I believe that's the boundary of downtown Louisville codified, and so it would be part of the core area, quote, unquote, of what you're referring to, yeah.

Okay. Let's see, one other clarification. So right now our parking requirements, could you just remind us, so I thought for multifamily, we do not have any requirements currently, but for other types of housing, we do still have some, is that correct?

Yeah, I believe, and I'd have to confirm this to you, but I believe the recent ordinance, it was a state law compliance thing that we kind of went further on it. I believe it was four projects with more than half affordable are exempt from requiring parking. The state law said it had to be within transit areas, and I believe council decided to expand it citywide. This would go further than that in that it would be for anything that requires on-site units. It could be 12%. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Okay, thank you. And so another question. So our current ordinance, it has, well, I guess it just has AMI sort of maximum, right? It says you have to build 6% of units for 60% or below and 6% for 80% or below. So we're not trying to do any averaging sort of within a range. And I guess with the changes that we've made for tonight, we're not trying to do any averaging in a range of AMIs, is that correct? Or enforce some kind of averaging for what gets built?

Yeah, I don't know if we ever sort of administered as averaging the current. It's just sort of half and half, which I guess you could get to an average from that, of course. But the proposed ordinance would not have averaging as far as the baseline compliance, but there would be, if you wanted to do the enhanced density bonus, there would be an averaging with that. That's actually what, yeah.

Okay, no, that's fine. Okay, a couple other questions. So right now, I guess the ordinance says we could either grant an extra story or 15 feet extra height. Do you think there is room in that 15 feet to sort of abuse the idea of adding one more story? You know, could you get that extra 15 feet and then shrink the other ones and get more? I don't know. Just kind of curious about that.

It's fair for sure. I believe it's written whichever is less. So we would have the ability to look at how we define a story versus the 15 feet. And if someone was trying to squeeze in two stories, I think there would be a conflict with the way the ordinance is written. You could clearly point to. But we could check on that. That's helpful. Make sure it's cleaned up.

Okay. And then maybe one more for now. I forget if, did we talk at all about sort of codifying an accelerated timeline for review if they're going to include on-site affordable housing?

Yeah, so we didn't propose that as part of this, but that is something we're working as part of a Proposition 123 actually compliance thing. We have the fast track compliance thing. So that's on a separate track, but it would align with this, yeah.

Okay, thank you very much.

Other questions? Yes. Council Member Heffner.

First of all, thanks for all the edits in the draft. I think they're really good. The question I have is about the fee calculation on the rental units and 60 versus 80. Yes. And so I was looking at the table in the fee calculation And it looks like, and you tell me if this is wrong, we calculated the fee in lieu based on production of a 60% AMI rental unit, and that's how we got $4.73. But if we calculate the fee based on an 80% AMI unit, which is what we're actually requiring, the fee flips negative, and theoretically only we would owe them $9 per square foot.

Yeah, that's right. So it's something I should have called more attention to in the presentation. So that's a couple things there. One, that's what the model says, and we sort of confirmed that. And it basically says the market has changed to where 80% AMI and market rate are getting more closely aligned in terms of the rental rates currently. And so our proposal is to keep it tied to 60%. because that's, well, one, that's the only way there would be an actual fee, but also it addresses that deeper affordability metric. So from a sort of a policy perspective, staff's recommendation is to keep it tied to 60, even though the model, you know, and we need to look at that model as part of the broader code update to refine it, but using the existing methodology, it illuminates that 80% and market rate are fairly aligned right now, which is interesting, yeah.

So I'm not suggesting this, but would it be one possible reasonable conclusion that the market is producing affordable housing at least at the 80% level for rentals and maybe we don't necessarily need this program for rentals if 80% is our goal?

Yeah, I mean, it's a big statement and a fair statement that, you know, the market is changing, the rental market in particular. And I think doing this analysis has highlighted that. But, I mean, the fact remains that at 60% AMI, there's still a significant gap and the fee reflects that. But from our perspective, you know, there's a lot of work that could be done to this ordinance to better calibrate it to the market. But the 80%, you know, having that as the rental max AMI and having the market getting closer to alignment would help make projects a lot more feasible for a developer if they can say that they can deed restrict that at a rate that is pretty closely aligned to the market so that gap is smaller, if that makes sense.

Yeah, so let me just put that a different way, which is we would expect, based on market conditions, pretty much any project to come in and do on site because at 80% they're already meeting on site. All they have to do is add the deed restriction and they get all these additional benefits.

It's a big hypothetical. I mean, it completely depends on the unit types and what, you know, speaking in generalities, 80% is getting pretty closely aligned, we learned through this analysis. But as we all know, there's a huge range of unit types of all kinds of price points. So it's a big hypothetical and an unknown.

But assuming somebody came in with units that sort of match the assumptions in the chart, it would be a benefit to them to get the additional density and height and what have you. And all they would have to do is deed restrict something that, it wouldn't change our economics that much to deed restrict it.

I think it's important to know that we're talking about a point in time too. So to deed restrict something at 80% AMI, we don't know if a year from now or five years from now, the market could change and there could be more of a disparity. So that's a point in time analysis too to keep in consideration.

Okay, that's really helpful.

Others? Questions? Yes, Council Member Kern.

Thanks. So one of the things that I did not see brought up in this, and I was curious if you had given any thought or work into it at all and just didn't include it, is about changing the like-for-like requirements that are part of our inclusionary housing, which seems like a pretty substantial reason based on what that have come before us in the past is the reason for something not being feasible. It's not around Hyatt or other things. And I was curious if that was something that we had looked into, because I think that might make a sooner, a more immediate change.

Yeah, and we're open to council direction on this. I think first and foremost, just to reiterate, this is intended to be really targeted, just about seeing if we could facilitate more units. That was not a deliberate omission. That wasn't something we looked at and said, we analyzed this, we as staff decided it's not a good idea. And also a reminder that the broader code update is coming. There'll be an opportunity to revisit this. You know, I think there's a few things in there that are valuable. So if you're talking about amenities and access to amenities, like those provisions, we're talking about design and materials specifically. So I think from staff's perspective, we're open to alternate ways to get to the same sort of objective if we wanted to look at that language. But it wasn't a deliberate omission, certainly. We know it's an issue and there's a lot of things that could be fixed with this. And the last thing I'll say is, You know, we look back pretty closely on the council feedback provided. It was over a year ago now, but in terms of the decision point of what the framework direction was from council, and it may be something I missed personally, but that was not as part of that specific framework, although I know it's been discussed since then.

And the other question is, the height allowance, is that something that is already—it's rhetorical in a way, but that is already an option for council? If we're saying that this is not going to be a guarantee portion of the policy, like you meet the low-income housing requirements, you're guaranteed to get more height, more density, but instead it's just an option, is that currently an option that can come to the council anyway they can ask for?

Yeah, I mean, there are, as we know, there's waivers to a lot of our standards. So building heights, density, these are all waivers that can be requested. This is more about being more explicit about what the toolkit is and calling attention to it, that that is an explicit tool. So technically, I believe you're correct. That option already exists, but it's about being more direct about it, I think, with the ordinance, sort of signaling that these are the tools available.

And how would that relate to areas where we have zoned, where we're very carefully limiting this to two stories other than the downtown Louisville?

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it comes back to the comp plan, for example. And so that's where we really had a lot of community discussion and a lot of focused analysis and discussion around what specific heights are appropriate for what areas of the community. We wanted to make sure that was explicit in the comp plan. That's our touchstone and what everything would sort of pivot back to. So if something is... If someone has on-site affordable and they're requesting a building height increase and it's inconsistent with the comp plan, then that is the foundational sort of way for us to say, no, this is not appropriate. Okay.

And is that sort of how the density works as well? Because we've sort of laid out in the comp plan ideas for density in specific areas. So let's say that the maximum density is 100... Actually, what would it be, like 30 units an acre or something? Yeah, something like that, yeah. So if we allowed for the greater density, is there... So there's two ways for them to get greater density, allowing more lot coverage or allowing more height. Those would be the only two ways to allow for more density or are there other options that?

You could get, so the 20% would be additional units. So lot coverage is like how big your building footprint could be. You can go up by 20%. Building height obviously can go up. And then there's the density bonus for the units themselves. You can get 20% more units than like your base zoning would allow.

So is the thought that the third way is just encouraging them to make smaller units to make more of them and smaller within the same square footage? Because I'm thinking the only two ways to get more square footage is to either have more ground taken up or go higher, unless you make each unit smaller. That's the only third way that I can think of that you can add more units and greater density.

Yeah. It's sort of like all the tools that we can think of from a zoning perspective that would have that flexibility. So yeah. Unit size, all that is case-by-case and variable, but you're right, yeah.

The reason I'm asking is we specifically call out the density and the height and the lot coverage, implying those are different things. So, I mean, and I'm thinking they could, I mean... I guess I'm just thinking that just the density itself would allow for height and lot coverage because, and you're saying you can get more lot coverage and more height even if you don't increase density.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's like if you look at it as three tools, you can use all three. You can use one, two, as of May, of course.

And this was specifically to help, because a lot of it reads like it's helping with the 100% affordable units, but this was specifically this program to be targeted around encouraging the 12% minimum inclusionary affordable into the properties and neighborhoods, is that correct?

In terms of the incentives and the framework?

Yeah, the entire inclusionary housing program. Was it more targeted toward getting what we haven't been able to, which is the 12% or more in a development that's market rate?

Yeah, that's my understanding is a policy decision that we want to encourage unit production with the fee in lieu as an option only at city council's discretion, but on-site affordable units being built, yes, the preference, of course.

Thank you.

Councilmember Dickinson.

Yeah, I appreciate those questions comes over current. I think that Clarifies it most for me, you know keeping it in in question form, you know, I think Right. So what I'm understanding is because we haven't had units built on site we're not changing, we're just trying to incentivize the onsite instead of fee-in-lieu. So the fee-in-lieu for purchase is going up, and the incentives for building onsite are going up, and one of them being density, so you could just build more units, smaller units, on the same footprint, same height, but you might want to go up Or you might want to go out in order to accomplish more density. And as you said, potentially all three. And then you only get 30% density if the entire project is affordable, but not 100% AMI. It's 100% affordable units. You can get a 30%, but they have to be... So I'm reading all units are 80% or lower, and the average is less than 60%, and that's the only way you get a 30%?

Yeah, yeah. So really be looking at like 30%, 40%, 50% AMI units, maybe some up to 80%.

Yeah. Curious, why do they all have to be under 80%? If the average is under 60%, certainly not. many of them will be very, very affordable. Why are we limiting, like, why can't it be 30 to 120 as long as the average is safe? I feel like it should be one or the other, either all under 80 or the average is 60, but I don't know that I see what's the purpose of both of those.

Yeah, it's fair, and to be clear, the purpose is to align, again, with sort of the funding criteria and structures for low-income housing tax credits, which is exactly what's in there. You know, if we look to sort of the housing experts being CHFA and all that, they've decided that that's a good enhanced sort of deep affordability metric. And so that was the alignment with that. In terms of your question about whether or not it could go above 80, like a project could go above 80, it just wouldn't qualify for those types of funding mechanisms. But I mean, it's something we would be open to.

Well, in ours, it wouldn't qualify for the 30% density because they had some that went over 80. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Unless it changed, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I'd be interested maybe in... in coming back with one that strikes the all units unless they, I get that they might have to do that for other reasons, but I don't know if we might have an appetite for, you know, having average, well, I'm asking for something to potentially come back Right. So I'm asking for an option potentially to strike all units less than 80 because I feel like an average less than 60 would potentially be enough, but that would be a pretty simple edit when it comes back to us.

Is that a question? Are you asking a question?

I was asking if that could come back that way, yes.

All right.

Direction.

Other questions?

Yep. I'll just say I'm interested in the same thing. I had posed it in my written comments as doing the opposite of making it all under 80 and getting rid of the 60 average, but I don't know that I have a, I think your argument is equally valid and they probably get to a similar place. But both does feel maybe like overkill. Councilmember Kern.

Thanks. So what I'm trying to understand that since this is opposed to the intention of the inclusionary housing policy is to assist with the inclusion in market rate housing of non-market rate, right? So if a building is 100% affordable, there's no inclusionary because there's no market rate. It's just affordable. So is it meant to be that it would be like that building would need to meet the needs of a 12% inclusionary for a different project affiliated with that same builder so that it is part of that? Like what's already being proposed for us?

I'm not sure I 100% understand the question.

So the way that I look at it is normally we have 100 units. 12% of them need to be affordable, need to be less than 80% for rental or less than 120 if it's going to be ownership. And so that would be inclusionary. We're including market rate and below market rate housing. And we're asking them to do this. If it's 100%, below 80% AMI for rental, then it's 100% affordable. There's no market rate, so it's not an inclusionary. It's its own separate low-income affordable housing complex or unit. It's not part of our 12%, unless that separate unit that's at 100% is part of counting as the 12% inclusionary for a different project. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I think the first thought is that, like, that's where that provision lives is with our inclusionary housing ordinance. It, you know, ultimately it exceeds the requirement just because it's parked in there. Maybe there's some confusion, but it probably still is the best place to park it because As we've seen, there is the opportunity through alternative agreements and off-site agreements where you could find a way to have those units count toward. So it's probably in the right home for that purpose. But to your question, yeah, it goes beyond including being inclusionary. It fully exceeds the requirement. So it's a little confusing. Yeah, yeah.

That wasn't clarifying. And then is there an option similar if it's not for rent, it's for purchase, and all of them would be affordable, so for people earning below 120% AMI, indeed restricted?

Sorry, say that again?

So this would apply the scale of the rental, right? And that's usually like a lot of the LIHTC funding works for that. I understand the 80 and the 60 because that's the exact language that's in a lot of the federal funding. What if this was not a rental 100% affordable? What if it was ownership? So let's say it was all like small homes or townhouses or maybe we can fix the condo issues and we can get some ownership instead of just rental. So if it was an ownership and we're changing our internal policies to allow for ownership of below 120 versus just 80%, is it... Would it be possible or have we thought about adding something that would be available for 100% affordable ownership, and therefore it goes up to 120 AMI, and maybe it's just changing the language to rental at 80 and below, as already recommended, and then 120 and below if it's ownership at 100% affordable?

in terms of getting that like enhanced density bonus yeah i mean that that um it's not in there currently it's only for rental i mean that's something that we would be open to evaluating um and looking at any potential changes but um yeah the short answer is it's not in there i mean it would comply with the inclusionary housing ordinance and you could look at ways for that again for that to count off site if you wanted to but it it's not eligible currently for the 30 bonus I think we were more targeting rental units just because of the deeper affordability considerations there. But, yeah, we're open to that, certainly.

That's what I was wondering, too. Like, if you guys had looked into finding ways to make ownership more affordable versus just a lot of this focus seems to be around the rental units versus the ownership. And I just wasn't sure if that was something that could come back to us, too, some a little bit more thought in how we incentivize the building of the less expensive owned properties?

I think the biggest sort of lever in here related to owner units is the broadening of the AMI. So that is where there is a big gap currently. So if you're a household earning 100% of AMI, 120% of AMI, you're currently not in this ordinance or as part of this. And so yet you cannot afford a house in Louisville. That's the lever to address owner affordability and the density bonus and all of that. But we didn't target the enhanced We just focus more on rental. But I think there's always room for improvement in the ordinance, certainly.

Thank you.

Council Member Heftim. I just wanted to briefly on your point about inclusionary. I've always understood it to be in contrast to exclusionary zoning, like the zoning we have that makes it hard. for low income and minority residents to live here. And I've always understood the idea of inclusionary as like inclusionary to the community. Like we're not willing to fix our zoning, but we will give you this sort of program to let you live here even though we want to keep our exclusionary zoning.

Other questions? Yes, Council Member Cooperman.

So I'm wondering, do you think that the 30% density bonus is a sufficient incentive to actually get people to do 100% affordable projects?

I don't know. I mean, I think it's always about striking a balance between a level that is not so high that it could potentially be inconsistent with neighborhood character. You know, we have all these density metrics within our zoning code and our comp plan fairly closely calibrated. And so I don't think there's a magic number. I think it's just providing a little bit more opportunity, but not going so far. And again, this is a policy decision from council, but staff's recommendation is, and in looking at other ordinances and sort of common practice, not that that makes it right, but 20 to 30% is a pretty typical metric. Once you get into 40, 50%, I think, it's just that, you know, a doubling of the density in the neighborhood is substantial enough to where that would be a concern potentially. But again, council decision, obviously.

Okay. And then, you know, the city is party to this lofty goal of trying to get 12% of units across the county to be affordable by 2035. You know, given that we only have, like, 3% of our units currently affordable, a 12% requirement is not going to get us there. And so the only thing that would help, at least in this ordinance, is this, right, 30% bonus to try to incentivize 100% affordable. So I was wondering, I think last time we discussed this, I made a suggestion about having sort of tiers where you get a little bit more incentive if you go beyond the 12%. And I'm wondering if staff discussed that option or not.

We did. Yeah. And I think, you know, for the purposes of, of moving this forward and keeping it targeted, that's probably one example of something that, you know, um, you know, we would recommend looking at more broadly as part of the broader code update, but, um, and to try to keep it as simple as possible for this near term purpose. But, um, so we looked at it, but did not propose it. No.

Yeah. Okay. Uh, so then I think one more question, um, We reviewed the Dr. Cogg housing study in order to come into compliance for some state requirement. And one thing that stood out in that report was that the most need is for people who make less than 50% of AMI. And our Again, as sort of aside from the 30% density bonus for an average of 60, we don't really try to address that where the most need is. I'm just wondering if staff had any thoughts on that particular point.

Yeah, the enhanced density bonus was the one sort of lever to get at that specific issue, recognizing that if you're doing an averaging at 60, for example, then you're going to have to go into that deeper affordability level, but not getting to the point of certainly not requiring it just because of the feasibility gap becomes so great. But there certainly could be other opportunities to further incentivize the deeper affordability. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? I've got some. Is the bottom line with these changes that we're really to test them against this sort of standard, which is does it make it more likely the developer builds affordable units on the site rather than doing fee-in-lieu?

Yeah, put even more simply is to try to make it better. We're not gonna make it perfect, we're just trying to make it better.

Do you think that increasing the speed which was asked about in the previous question would make a material difference in how much affordable housing gets built or whether that would make it more likely that a developer builds. Sorry, I may have missed that. The speed of the approval? Speed of the approvals, yeah.

Of the process? Yeah, I mean, it definitely would. I mean, that's obviously a big hurdle toward feasibility. Time is money. But, you know, I think through, you know, we recently have adopted some new codes that allow more expedited reviews. We have an expedited PUD review process now, for example, that allows expedited you know, cuts down from four public hearings to two. Um, and so we've tried to do that a little bit. Um, but I think from our perspective, the, the bones might be there currently in our procedures to move things through pretty quickly. Um, it's just a matter of, um, you know, there's so many things that happen in the development review process, the quality of the submittal, the responsiveness of the applicant. But, um, and again, with prop 123, um, we'll be bringing information to you soon about that in terms of how, what we need to do for fast track compliance so that you'll, you'll be seeing additional through a proposed resolution and potentially some targeted code amendments to further, um, fast track quote unquote projects like this. Yeah.

And I appreciate that. I, that's a good reminder. Um, a couple of other thoughts. Um, One of the things that I didn't see in that peer community review, which was pretty comprehensive, and I do appreciate all the effort that went into that, is how successful those communities have been in getting affordable housing actually built. How hard is that? Is that very hard to come up with? You know, it'd be nice to know the effect of each one of these various tools, which is, you know, that's everybody's guess, right? But do you have a sense of how hard it would be to get that information?

It would be, we have a really good partnership with our peer communities in Boulder County, and we've actually got some pretty good data sources that we share in terms of all of our percentages. So I think we could get the numbers by community of how many affordable units percentage-wise. The challenge would be like, Can you tie that directly to the inclusionary ordinance certainly versus other factors? But you could certainly look into getting that data and how we compare percentage-wise.

I do know that there's apples to apples problems all over the place because other communities have approved a whole bunch of affordable units and they're not getting built. I know that that's true of Broomfield. It's just financing. They're waiting for that kind of stuff. So I'd be interested, though, just to see, because it would be, I mean, maybe independent of all that, it would be nice to see which communities are actually making the biggest strides and then to work backwards and maybe ask why we think that's happening. One of the things that occurred to me, too, is just to ask that you maybe provide a kind of visual, a map or a table on the height piece about how that looks in, you know, how that would look based on the part of the, you know, the parcels and zones that we're looking at.

Yeah, we have a, it's, So room entry, I have it as a hidden slide here. It's almost not helpful because it's easy to map where the residential medium zone districts are. That's straightforward. But the challenge is with general development plans, so the way the ordinance is written, the general development plan allows residential then it could be eligible for the height increase. So we can do a map of all the general development plan areas, but to figure out which ones specifically allow residential gets kind of messy, and that's why that map didn't make it into your packet. So a lot of the areas around Centennial Valley, for example, are general development plan, but there's really only pockets that actually allow residential currently. And so it's just a map we haven't prepared yet. I apologize.

Okay. Other questions?

Yes, council member. I just think you brought up a good point, Mayor, and that would be a helpful tool, Jeff, is to have that come to us, and I think it would be helpful to the public to see something like that where that is in comparison to the comprehensive plan and what we're thinking, like where it is residential. I think you make a good point. That would be great. Thank you.

I mean, I could show you just so you can see. I think I have it as a hidden slide here. You could see that I was physically going in and trying to X out the areas that don't allow residential currently. So with a grain of salt, if you look at this map, the RM areas and the orange are easy to map. That's areas that would be eligible. The green cross-hatched area, that's the Old Town overlay. And then this is the downtown area, obviously. But all these other areas and sort of the teal color are general development plan areas. And so we need to sift through and figure out which ones currently allow residential. The red X is the areas that definitely don't allow residential. So it's reluctant to even share this, but it's something we are working on. It's fair that we need that information to evaluate the decision.

Thank you. That's helpful. Do we have a motion that perhaps incorporates any suggestions that have been kind of made through the question period?

Yes, go ahead. I move that ordinance number 1936 series 2026 pass on first reading and the public hearing be set for Tuesday, August 18, 2026 at 6 p.m.

Second. Any discussion?

Mayor, may I clarify? Council Member Heffner, is your motion to approve the version that was revised and provided?

The revised version that we have printed out.

Great, thank you.

Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Opposed, no.

Great. So motion carries. Our next item is an executive session on personnel matter. This is performance review of officials appointed by the City Council. Louisville Charter section 5 2 B and CRS section 24 6 4 0 2 4 F. The mayor is requesting City Council convene an executive session for the purpose of discussion of the annual performance evaluations of the City Manager and the City Attorney.

And Mayor, prior to entertaining any motion, the City Clerk will read a statement required by the City Code.

It is the policy of the city to conduct public business and meetings open to the public. While in executive session, it is inappropriate to take straw votes, keep minutes, or to make any final decisions. It is the duty of each member to ensure that executive sessions are conducted in strict compliance with this ordinance, state and federal law, and any applicable provisions of the state and federal constitutions. If at any time the scope, nature, or parameter of this executive session goes beyond the publicly stated topic, it is the responsibility of the Council to terminate and cease any further deliberation within the executive session in return to the public meeting. Only those topics described in city ordinances may be discussed in an executive session. Those topics are summarized as follows. One, where federal or state law requires that the information being discussed remain confidential. Two, certain personnel matters involving only employees directly appointed by the council and other personnel matters upon request of the city manager or mayor. Three, consideration of water rates and real property acquisitions and dispositions, but only as to appraisals, value estimates, and strategy. Four, legal consultation with an attorney representing the city with respect to pending litigation.

Regarding the authority for the executive session, Section 5-2B of the Home Rule Charter authorizes an executive session for the purpose of reviewing the performance of employees directly appointed by the City Council. An executive session for this purpose is also authorized by the Open Meetings Law, Section 2464024F of the Colorado Revised Statutes. The request involves evaluations for the City Manager and City Attorney, both of whom are directly appointed by the City Council. With that, Mayor, you may entertain a motion to go into executive session for consideration of performance reviews and evaluations.

Thank you. I move to go into executive session for the purpose of consideration of performance review of employees directly appointed by the City Council and that the executive session include Heidi Brinkman with Brinkman Consulting and City Attorney Kathleen Kelly except for the portion regarding the performance review of the City Attorney. Can we get a second? Any discussion? Can we get a roll call?

Councilmember Cooperman?

Yes.

Councilmember Fahey? Yes. Councilmember Heffner?

Yes.

Councilmember Dickinson?

Yes.

Councilmember Kern? Yes. Mayor Lay?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Hamilton? Yes.

Council will adjourn to executive session. There will be a post on the screen during that time, and we will return at the end for a report. by the city attorney and close to our meeting. So thank you very much. We are back on and I think maybe I need to give the report or do you? You can give the report that you know of, what you know of it.

Yeah, if you want to start with your statement.

Yeah, the council met to discuss personnel evaluations of two folks who are directly appointed by council that is the city manager and the city attorney and The evaluations were very, very, very positive all the way around. Staff and council members pretty much in agreement, generally speaking, and we're just delighted and wanted to share that with you right away in no uncertain terms, and the unvarnished truth if any other council members has anything to add applause isn't there a script we need to

I'm just confused on the order of things.

I'm giving a report on part of it and then Kathleen can do whatever.

I think it's awkward because I usually give the report from the executive session, but since I wasn't present during most of it, I'll just say that the executive session was for the evaluation and performance review of the city manager and city attorney who are officials appointed by the city council. and the council did discuss these annual performance reviews, and that's the city attorney's report from the executive session that she did not attend most of.

One final thing from council's perspective is that Heidi Brinkman is going to— Yes. Going to contact each of you, the city manager and city attorney, to provide additional information. And I guess we probably ought to have a vote on that. I'm going to move that we do that, that we have Heidi be the person who's delivering that. Second. Any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? All right, good. Upcoming agenda items and identification of future agenda items. Does anyone want to?

I just want to briefly note so we all remember that we're going to follow up on the city manager's contract subsequent to this discussion and delivery of the performance review. And that should be a future agenda item for us.

I agree. Also there were some there was some discussion tonight about items that may not be coming back to us specifically about the inclusive housing ordinance and I don't know whether I'm thinking in part about the portion of the ordinance that talks about the quality, relative quality of the...

The like-for-like standards?

Yeah, the like-for-like standards, and certainly we don't have to deal with that in the context of this next iteration of the ordinance, but I would be interested in, at some point in the future, discussing that. as an issue. There may be other issues relating to that as well.

I would actually agree, but I think it should come next week. I think there should be more conversation about that.

I think we sent on for first, well, I'll leave it to staff to cover what they want to on the...

With Director Zuccaro not being here tonight, we would like to talk to him and discuss the comments that were and feedback that was provided tonight by council and see the direction that he would recommend that we move forward with this ordinance. And so we would like to talk to he and Jeff and then make a recommendation to council.

That's fair. I think another part of that was sort of the question of speed of permitting and so forth. That's something that we didn't necessarily cite as an amendment. You can deal with it in the same way if you like, have a discussion with Rob. But that's something for a future meeting, regardless of whether it's the second reading or otherwise that I'd like to put on the table for consideration.

Yeah, my understanding that's going to come to you as part of the Prop 123 process and so that is being covered under an item. I don't know the time frame for that.

Can you let us know?

Yes.

Okay, right. Do we have anything else? Yeah. Oh, I guess we, yeah. Do we have any senior attorneys report?

I have no report, but thank you.

Sorry, we just flipped those. Thank you, Deb. Do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, and good night.