City Council - Regular Meeting

So funny. I think you're right. I never met before I knew this back together

really mayor. Please rise as you're able for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Welcome everybody to our March 2nd, 2026 city council meeting. And we begin our city council meetings with our open comment period. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the council on uh issues that we are not holding a separate public hearing on uh uh later this evening. Each uh person has up to two minutes to speak for a total of 20 minutes. I will keep track of time through two methods. One is the stoplight here and in front of me and the second is the red digital clock to the left of me. Uh, so please know I may need to cut you off because of the limited time and we want to also make sure that everybody has an opportunity to speak. I'd also ask that speakers be concise to allow more people to speak and uh encourage you to limit comments generally to topics that are within the scope and jurisdiction of the council's ability to affect policy. uh council members and staff do not respond directly to your comments uh but will instead follow up. If you need uh us to separately and if you have materials to share with the council, please hand them over to our uh city clerk and queso who is uh raising her hand right now. Uh and so you will now be invited up to speak in the order of which you signed up. So we start with Mr. Barry Creel. I mean Barry Barry Skolnick. I saw Barry and John walking in today together. So Mr. Skolnick, go ahead.

Okay. I hope this is on. Anyway, um yeah, I'm speak um coming up to speak about the Rochester Economic Development Authority and the request for TIFF being associated being assigned to the citywalks apartment houses. Um there when you look at the number the total percentage of of apartments that is go is going to people who are of lower income or middle income it's actually going to be less because um the uh the Hefron house which is Mayor Martin Hefron's old house that one used to be excl used to have lower rents and still had lower rents up until when noer signed uh the apartments over to he was the former person who ran for mayor um sent that over to the developer and he he sold it to them. Um so right now um if you look at the total percent of of affordable housing in that unit, it's actually less rather than more. And some people say there's urban blight, but I've looked in in those buildings. I don't see any blight. I don't see any rodents. I don't see any mice. I don't see any deterioration. So, I'm not sure exactly how they're defining urban blight, unless it means they really want to build their project and they want money for it and so whatever is in their way is blight. But in terms of doing something for the city, getting rid of the Hefron House, Mayor Hefren's house, um is a is a shame. He basically uh constructed St. Mary's Hospital and the um Chateau Theater as well as numerous other houses. And um again he he was he served as sort of like as one of the only rooming houses where he was the owner and he also had served meals and things in there. And so it was one of the last ones that was left in Rochester. So while it didn't get on time, it wasn't in a timely way

submitted enough where I could get it landmarked, it still was something again he was a mayor of of Rochester. He was president of the board of alderman. He also served as a uh somebody who was doing anesthesia, a jack of all trades for uh St. Mary's Hospital. And I'm just hoping that not so much for the house itself, which I wish could have been saved, but I know it's not going to be. I'm just concerned about why uh you're actually giving tiff to it. They already got money from the DMC I think through state grants and I'm just very concerned that it it just doesn't deserve to have tiff because again why do we give it to all projects? What separates that out and the two buildings which they say are now on some public role. How do we know that want to stay there anyway? So they so you can't add that to the uh number of affordable housing units. So again please look at it. I don't think it deserves tiff. Um, again, why there's no degradation there whatsoever.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scholic. Uh, next up we have, uh, Mike Schmidt.

Hello, council members. Madame Mayor, uh, I come before you today as the chair of the pedestrian and bicycle commission, also known as PABAC. For those of you who don't know, the PEABACK is a commission of eight people selected by the mayor for having strengths and skills and knowledge regarding alternative modes of transportation focusing spec specifically on biking and walking. Uh among the many statements in our mission are the following. Increased bicycling access to transit is needed to support transportation solutions needed to support the destination medical center initiative and walk and bike friendliness are key economic drivers for the cities for cities of all sizes strengthening the local economy by attracting businesses investment and skilled workers that have the option to locate just about anywhere. Uh I we've had the opportunity to listen to many presentations from the city and from tool design group um iteratively since uh September of 2025 and through that we've heard a lot of different options and uh many multiple options that are available. Uh I come before you today to say that we support 6th Avenue through 4 street not before that. We do not support it going until 2030. But additionally, we also support either first or second avenue as a transit from the north to south and south to north for bikers, walkers and strollers. I do want to draw your attention to to some of the discussion that we had um through our research and study. Bikers and walkers and rollers are commonly known to step to stop, shop, and linger more than a car driving 25 miles per hour down the road and contribute to a stronger economic impact to the businesses. So, thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we have Mr. John Creole.

Madame Madame Chair, uh Mr. President, members of the council, I would first encourage uh all of you not to accept the mayor's um resignation. I think that would be a mistake and I want to thank you for all your years of service to this community. So, I hope it's uh you overwhelmingly will not accept her resignation. Um that said, encourage all of us to take a deep breath. Parking is a big issue uh relative to uh how we're going to route people and bicycles throughout this community. Uh I would support Second Avenue. I want to remind everybody that we gave the Mayo Clinic bold move forward Second, Third, and Fourth Avenue. That created many problems. One of the problems being parking. The clinic owns approximately 32 surface parking lots. Since this bold move forward has has gone forward, uh the parking ramp on at the end of Third Street is stuffed every day along with most of the surface parking. That coupled with behind Time Theater. Um um I can't say uh what the percentage is. As I understand, more than 50% of those spots are leased out to businesses cuz they need to have a place to park for themselves and employees. Um that said, uh I would only hope that the clinic then because of the $150 million that was granted to this community to problem solve the transportation issue is problem solved and does not linger after their construction is over. That said, uh I encourage you and remind you uh and ask you, do you want businesses downtown

or not? It's pretty simple. There are many destination businesses that need parking, attorneys, dentists, so forth, and so give that thought. Thank you all very much.

Thank you, Mr. Creel. Next up, we have Mr. Wes Lond. Thank you for this opportunity to again speak to you and I'd like to share uh Governor Tim Walls's report. I'll be leaving this with uh your records keeper so it can be given into the record and you can all have a copy of it. It's easily available online. This is the report on fraud, waste and abuse of the state of Minnesota. uh for the issue of investigation of fraud to be transmogrified into is that a word to be changed into another matter is quite a different thing. The real victims of fraud in Minnesota are not just the taxpayers. They're actually the kids who don't get autism services because the money that's set out for those people to receive autism services is squandered or spent on non-existent phantom students and non-existent programs while the owners of say daycarees are buying large multi-acre properties in the middle of nowhere in Minnesota or even building mansions back on the Mediterranean and driving high-end cars around Minnesota. So to have that issue of fraud, the real victims are the homeless for which the department of health and human services sets aside monies through the large s of of Americans. Motans built a high trust society where we wanted to provide for those who slipped through the cracks in our social system to deny the real victims the funding that they deserve. We want to fully fund programs that actually service and benefit the citizens of our state. I mean, using TIFF monies to create luxury high-end apartments on average is another issue

involved there. TIFF money should be used just for public access. I mean, HUD homes and things like that, but there's all manner of of abuse going on from from daycare centers through elderly care, through the taxi services that are non-emergency medical taxis that are operating. A lot of these have been found out and I encourage you to think of the real victims in Minnesota.

Thank you, Mr. L. Next, we have uh Jason Bale Bach Bachan. Hello. So along with that, the whole fraud thing. So Rochester Police Department gets $27 million a year to, you know, do their job. So, on February 5th down here at the law enforcement center, I was trying to file a report when I was approached by the sheriff's department who then um assaulted me by pressing his finger into my ear and getting permanent hearing damage. I'm deaf in this ear, have vertigo for life in front of the LEC, mind you. the whole time, not one cop, not one RPD came out to see what was going on or what the problem was, even though I was already there waiting to speak to an officer and then being assaulted by the sheriff's department, which was um in uh what do you want to call it? Uh in instigated by uh the chairman or Congress or uh what's his name? um down at Homemstead County Administration um to trespass me because I've been doing investigations on each department on whether or not they're fraud or not. So, um I would consider that willful obstruction of justice and impeding investigations on everything. And it's been like six months now that I first did my first initial complaint about it. went through every department after getting kicked out of every department because they would not help anything to do with a citizen. You guys only help out the people down here. Why is there no help that goes to the community that has these problems? I always get referred back to um you know, you got to figure this out on your own. So if fraud includes the fact that taxpayer money

goes towards this place being able to help people figure stuff out, doesn't that go to the community as well or is it just to help you know you guys cover your butts and stuff like that? Because every department I went to there was no help whatsoever besides if I worked for the department or anybody down here. Why does taxpayer money pay for your guys' jobs that tax payers don't get no benefit from? because as far as I know in any kind of contract there has to be a benefit to each party. Thank you Mr. Balebakan. Next we have uh Tim Schmidt.

Uh good evening council. Uh thanks for the opportunity to speak. Like to speak on item H3, the downtown corridor. Um, I look there's a four-page thing in the packet, but if I read it right, the community engagement is basically three council meetings and six bike advisory meetings. These are we're talking changes to a built-in area. There are already stakeholders there. I didn't see any engagement with those. I mean, on six, we have Kutsky neighborhood. First, we have RDA. Not only just, you know, RDA is the downtown business, but RDA is Thursdays on First. Uh first avenue is also pres a historic district. I mean are we going to talk to usually at development we talk to a lot of groups you know cute and uh neighborhood associations in this case RDA preservation commission. I would like to see an effort before we do anything with these streets downtown to bring in other stakeholders besides the bicycle community and that way hopefully we can build a project that is uh accommodating and uh best interest of everybody involved. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Lucy Cryel.

Good evening Mayor, president, council. Good to see everybody. Um, I'm here to speak on the North South Downtown Mobility Network Connection and first and foremost really challenging issue and I just want to say um I greatly appreciate all of the um complicated and sincere and respectful dialogue that I've had with the city of Rochester team, with um bike advocates, um with my business neighbors. So many people have been engaged on this issue and they're passionate about it. I don't think there's one right answer. Um, but I trust that you all will think creatively about how to proceed so that we can both celebrate this momentum um that we've built together um from all different avenues of the issue and then also hope that we can sorry I'm looking at my time and I don't know what it is but anyway um

having a little glitch just keep going just keep going. Um, I'm also hoping that whatever iteration is selected, um, that we will consider applying different ways to gather data about how people move around downtown because I think that's what's missing from a lot of the conversations. Where do people go, how long, what do they use it for, why, what is convenient, etc. Because I think this the reason I was interested in first um, was for consistency and predictability, right? I teach kids how to ride bikes. If we want new rollers and new riders to go there, we want it to be inviting and something that is predictable for both cars to understand where we're going and for us to understand what we're doing, right? Um and so that's why I was interested in that. No matter what we do moving forward, I'd like to ensure that we um gather data as we try this these next steps as these experiments so that we can really find out what works, what doesn't work, what really works, what really doesn't work because I think we kind of have to try it on to find out more um before we really figure out the solution. And especially looking at what we were, you all were discussing last week about the new historic district um proposal and iterations. If we're going to try any of those semi more experimental, you know, multimodal streets for Rochester, we're going to need as much data as we can to kind of understand what works and if doesn't. So, just want to reiterate, I want to celebrate the hard work that everyone, they were not, they drew a short straw trying to figure out this project. Um, the city of Rochester and everybody else who's been involved has been really respectful and want to celebrate that. I think we all have the same goal for a vibrant and functional downtown. And then also um let's try to figure out how to get new learners down there by gathering some new metrics and data. So thanks for your time.

Thank you. Next we have Michael Wjack. Greetings council member mayor uh Michael Bojak. I'm the executive director of the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota and also a member of the state's advisory council on traffic safety. and um here with largely positive sentiments towards what you'll be hearing on H2 and H3 this evening. In particular, we'd like to commend Tool Design on the incredible work they did on creating a really vibrant and um nice transition for the Kusky neighborhood on 6th Avenue. We commend them for that work. Uh we do want to point out while we support this, we also acknowledge that the intersections at Civic Center Drive and Second Street are not all ages and abilities, nor is the uh slope uh south of Second Street. So, while this is a fantastic connection, it it does not in and of itself reconnect the network. Um, we understand that um it's a that sixth uh 6th Avenue has always been designated as a secondary route, and we think this is a fantastic execution. We are very concerned about uh replacing the 3rd and Fourth Avenue uh corridor, which was the long approved plan for bicycling downtown. And um we're somewhat agnostic in terms of how we accomplish safe routes through downtown. Whether that be on First Avenue or whether that be on Second Avenue. Either one could work fine. Obviously on Second Avenue, we have to collaborate with the Mayo Clinic on Annenburgg Plaza. On First Avenue, we have to make sure that we're not doing one or two blocks, but we're actually creating a safe bikeway the entire length of the way. We have to decide which direction we're going to go, but one of them will work. The great thing about Second Avenue is it takes almost no additional money. Um what's there already as part of Discovery Walk is pretty fantastic and uh we can work with that. So um we do appreciate this moving forward. It is important that we have something on first or second to truly connect the downtown and um just know

that we enjoy being part of the process and as much as possible we hope that you the city council will be making the important policy decisions and engaging the community and not uh handing those responsibilities off to administrators. So, thank you for your time. Thank you for your service. Mayor especially, thank you for your service. Broke my heart a little bit today, but um you've made our community better. Thank you for that. Thank you. Next we have Aaron me.

Hey council members and uh mayor. Um so I'm also here to talk about the connecting north south bike routes through downtown Rochester. And um following on what Michael said um well I should say I'm also here um as a board member of We Bike Rochester an advocate. Um, and I think broadly everybody um in our our advocacy community thinks very highly of the design that's gone into 6th Avenue, but it doesn't meet the requirements of all ages and abilities considering um Civic Center Drive and going to Soldiers Field. And one of the main things here is that um of course these bike lanes or any safe route through downtown will um benefit people who are already biking. But when we talk about bringing more people in, it's that last mile, these missing links, getting from lower town into downtown, getting from Soldiers Field into downtown that will make people fearful of not riding just because of that one missing link. Um and bike lanes through the heart of the city where all our where um many of our local small businesses are will support people going to them. Again, people on a bike are more like more likely to stop, more likely to linger um go into another shop. Um, and so one of the things that's really important about the um, options that have been presented so far is that what we see on First Avenue is a only one or two blocks of bike lanes, which really does not address this um, missing link issue of people getting into downtown and feeling safe coming through, coming to our businesses, coming and being a part of the vibrant street um, and city that we have here. So, if First Avenue isn't an option all the

way down, we also support Second Avenue, which already is actually a great bike route. Um, just with some uh some calming and modal filtering would be amazing with very very little cost to build. So, thank you all.

Thank you, Mr. Me. Next, we have Marty Cormarmac. Thank you, councel and mayor. Um, I'm Marty Cormack and I'm going to give a perspective of someone who travels by bicycle. Um, I saw the plans on 6th Avenue. Sounds really good. Problem is is the the hill on the south end is not all ages and all abilities. And because it's so far west of where I'm going to be going when I go downtown, um, it's not something that would uh, help me at all. Uh, I want to be able to go to the places mo mostly along uh 1 Avenue and then also uh to the Mayo Clinic. I'm a regular blood donor, so I need to get to to the um Hilton building on Second Avenue. And so I would encourage you to um go ahead with the uh 6th Avenue plans, but also be sure that you uh um help all the folks like me. And um I understand there's hundreds of people who uh park their bikes downtown every day, even in uh uh the winter months. So there's a lot of folks who do travel by bicycle. And so I would I would hope that you keep us in mind and u make sure that we reconnect the north south uh now that it's got um that the mail clinic is uh broken that up with the third and fourth avenue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cormarmac. And that concludes our open comment period. Thank you everybody. Uh we'll move on to uh call to order and the roll call. Good evening. Council member Keane here. Council member Miller here. Council member Wall here. Council member Frederick's here. Council member Palmer here. Council member Doring here. Council President Schub here. Mayor Norton. Thank you. Uh, next we have our city administrators report. Deputy administrator Parish, take it away.

Yeah, President, mayor, members of council, really great to be here tonight. On behalf of Allison, just want to convey a few things here. Um, one, really encouraging residents to provide feedback through a a survey that Experienced Rochester is currently soliciting feedback on on our local tourism planning. And so it's an opportunity really to provide insight into the visitor experience which also is relevant to the resident experience. That'll be wrapping up by March 22. And if folks are interested in participating, they can go to our website at rochestermn.gov. Um it feels like we want to be in uh you know the outdoor farmers market mode, but not quite yet. Um but you still have the opportunity uh to take in the indoor farmers market this Saturday from 9:00 to 12:00 at the fairgrounds. So definitely check that out at Crawford Hall. Um it's still an exciting uh time and really uh forecasting what's coming this spring. Our library always hosting a number of amazing events and if you want also on Saturday after the farmers market you can head over to the library and do puzzles and pretzels and it's for all ages and if you can even design an image of your own mini puzzle to take home. So that's a great uh activity for for many. And then uh you'll probably all be a little bit disappointed because this might conflict with your council meetings, but uh you might be able to get to the Argentine tango on March 9th after the study session for dancing downtown. Um but probably not so much for March 16th on the Walts. But uh the community can enjoy uh dancing downtown Monday night on Peace Plaza from 6:00 to 8. And that concludes my report.

Thank you. And next we have the mayor's report. Mayor Norton, I was a little concerned when I saw acting mayor's report. I thought maybe you didn't want to give up the role. Um, now it's your show for the next 11 months.

For a few months left. Yeah. Um, so I have just a brief report this evening. Um, I'm glad to see that things went relatively well while I was gone and I didn't get too many notices of crisis. So, thank you for covering for me. Um, I do want to uh announce and there's a lot going on this week. So, I know not everyone is available, but on uh Tuesday, tomorrow evening from 6:00 to 7:30 at the Hines Center, um the police department and uh we'll be hosting with me a town hall adv and it's called uh using advanced technology and policing. Primarily, we're going to talk about the use of drones in Rochester. There's also a grant out there for some additional um drone support. Um but to talk about why we use it, what we use it for, how it's used, how the data is saved and collected, that kind of thing. As well as um I've asked uh the police department to talk a little bit about cameras because I've gotten a significant amount of communication this past oh, I'd say six months or so about the use of cameras and data. And we had even some folks here who who testified earlier this year with some confusion thinking that we turn over this data that from cameras on the streets to someone which we do not but um I asked them to maybe talk about the camera use in town when you go to a stop sign and you look around you see a number of technologies and we don't all know what those are. So they'll talk about that too. So I think it should be interesting and I I welcome you all there at the Hind Center uh tomorrow evening. Um also with the police department um it is the community uh police academy which um has been held over the years several times. This is an opportunity for folks um Thursdays March 26 to May 21st. The community can sign up for uh a police academy and they will learn um how the police works um how it does service in the community. They're topics like crime scene processing, traffic safety,

narcotic enforcement, and K-9 demonstrations. So, you do not come out with the skills to be a police officer when you're done, but you will know better um what the police officers do and how they do it. And so, we welcome uh folks to sign up for this nine-week academy. Again, Thursdays starting March 26th at 6:30 p.m. to 900 p.m. So, it'll take uh your Thursday evenings, but I think you'll find it very interesting. Free and open to the public. Um, folks have to be 18 uh to participate and there is a QR code there you can use or get a hold of our office or call the police department for more information. Just quickly um uh I will be gone for the the next meeting so I won't be able to announce this. There we have the National League of Cities uh annual conference uh and a couple of us are going and this is um going to happen on March 18th. It is National Transit Employee Appreciation Day and we want to show appreciation for our uh transit drivers and uh thank all of them for their professionalism and their service. So um I'm not announcing it March 16th. I'm doing it today instead. And lastly, just a reminder, we are coming to the end um of uh enrollment for the uh trip to Germany. It will be June 12th through 22nd as it says on the slide. Um we'll be vetting visiting both of our sister cities. Uh Mooseberg which is um a sister city that was started by Mayor Chakazama many years ago and ending at Müster which has been a sister city for about nine years now. Um linked to sustainability and energy. I see Mity in the audience who was on one of the very first trips. So um it'll be a really uh wonderful experience and um if you want to come there's still time for about two or three more days to sign up. That's all I have.

Well, thank you, mayor, and uh as others have said, we appreciate your service for the last eight years. And uh it's interesting to to watch you. You seem calmer today than and brighter and so look forward to to working with you for the next uh 11 months. But congratulations on your decision today. Uh with that we uh are moving on to the order of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the agenda? Move. Moved by council member Wall, seconded by council member Miller. All in favor say I. I.

Oppose say nay. Motion passes. Moving on to our consent agenda. Council member Wall is pulling item F8 and I. Council President Schub pulling F4. Are there any other items to pull? If not, I'd invite a motion to approve and block items F1 through F3, F5 through F7, and F9 through F15. So move. Moved by council member uh Frederick's. Second. Second by council member Wall. All in favor say I. I.

Post say nay. Motion passes. Moving on to public hearings. We have no public hearings uh on tonight's agenda. Moving on to H reports and recommendations. H1, transit uh Rochester public transit uh spring service changes. And we have uh Miss uh Rachel Fouch to here to give us a presentation. Wonderful. I was waiting on the clicker, but I can go ahead and get started. I move fast. Good evening, council members and mayor. Rachel Fouch, interim director of transit and parking. Oh, the makeup is not on. There you go.

Now we're good. Rachel Fouch, interum director of transit and parking, here to um cover the proposed spring service changes um that we're hoping to implement at the end of April. So the the intention and the purpose of the spring service changes was really to do a variety of things and overall it was to increase wrership um throughout our system or is to increase writership throughout our system and we're doing that by increasing frequency on some of our routes that are um designated within the primary transit network in our comprehensive plan. So increasing some of those uh frequencies to 20 minutes. We're also hoping to look at increasing boardings. And so those are um reflected and we're going to cover that in a couple of the slides, but you'll be able to see what we mean by boardings and increasing that. Also, increasing service reliability by increasing frequency. If you if um if you miss uh your bus, you might have an opportunity to get on another one quicker and so it's going to increase your confidence within the system. We're also increasing collaborations. And so this service change really focused on internal um collaborations, higher collaborations with our our uh transit operator transdev and working with them as we look forward to um the more background scene for our route changes um which is blocks and runs within our system. So those blocks are that section of time that the bus is out on the road and a run is the time that that specific driver is out. So, we want to ensure that the the proposed times that we're proposing that our drivers are capable of doing them. So, there's a there's a big difference between us sitting behind a computer and making a plan and when that plan is actually um enacted. And so, really looking at a heightened level of collaboration to include more of our drivers in this process. Um and and ultimately we're hoping to increase revenue throughout our system.

So we started the whole and community engagement process for this uh at the end of January. We did the last two weeks of January. We had um RPT staff ride uh do ride alongs within our bus system and interact with our riders and and collect that feedback um directly. We also had an online survey available. So if there was too many riders on the bus at any time, we could ask them to scan a QR code and fill out that. But it was also pushed out um through PCOL as well. And so we received nearly 500 respondents on our PCO survey and our ride alongs. Um then we did two virtual information sessions and two inperson engagement sessions. The virtual ones were um recorded and posted on our website and we had a um survey available for those that were in attendance and um those that were not able to attend along with the opportunity to interact via email directly with myself and our transit planner Sandra Nar who's behind us today to really create a a unique experience. So if a rider was unsure if the proposed changes were going to impact them directly, we could provide an answer. Yep. like this stop is going to be slightly shifted, but you'll be able to access it, but it'll be on the other end of the block now, and this is the route that will service you. So, really creating a high level of customer service. Um, and so all of that engagement led us to our proposed service changes. So, currently we have 26 routes throughout our system um that vary in frequency from every 30 to every 60 minutes. Um, some only run during peak. And as a reminder, peak hours are five o'clock, six o'clock, 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock in the morning and then uh followed up with uh evening service starting at 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00. And when we're looking at these routes and their performance, we're looking at standards. And we can't just be making choices without data. Um, so the Met Council recommends that uh 15 rides or

boardings per hour for each one of our our service uh routes and we actually came to that same conclusion on what we need to achieve within our system. Currently none of our routes meet 15 boardings per hour. Our average is eight. So we have some routes that are a little bit closer to 15. Um but we do have around half of our current routes. So 13 routes that are sitting below eight. Um and some of those routes uh uh as a as a foreshadowing here are looking to be discontinued and some of them are being merged um with other routes to hopefully increase our boardings per hour. But we do need to reach around 15 boardings per hour for us to be sustainable as a trans transit system. So really focusing on those underperforming routes and increasing frequency to hopefully increase our boardings per hour along our routes. With our spring service changes, there is a slight modification to this. As I said, we had a substantial amount of public engagement um and leading up to the after the um packet was posted, we did get additional feedback for route 102 um which we did propose to be merged with 116. Um, and there was a lot of feedback to maintain that route. So, I'll go through the steps and the modifications to keep the 102 route. Um, so we're looking at 22 routes, uh, not 21 routes for the spring service changes. And you'll also see a reduction of stops and adding of stops. And a lot of that has to do with shifting a service from a loop service on some of our routes to birectional. So, in one situation, we'd only have one stop on one side of the loop going up and around. In a birectional, we have a stop on each side of the road. Um, so that increases the amount of stops within the system, but it also increases the accessibility for individuals to access one of those stops. And we'll go over each one of these in detail, so I won't um go over them now. So, in the northeast region, this is the

one in which I was referring to the 102. And so, I'll kind of jump a little bit ahead here to kind of cover that. So on the the current service map, you'll see the 102 is that burgundy route and that's the route that we were asked to maintain um with the ridership specifically around that Northern Heights Northern Hills loop that you'll see on the the black route or the 101 that was being removed. And so that was what we were asked to maintain. So the new 102 will only be during peak hours. So, those morning and afternoon hours during the week, and it will go up Broadway, go over um and and do those Northern Heights, Northern Hills loops, and then loop up around Rocky Creek Drive, East Circle Drive, and then come back down um Broadway. And so those routes are still being serviced. That frequency will be every hour. It's currently every hour. And so we're not shifting the frequency on the 102, but it is shifting to more of a by birectional route than a loop service that it was before. So if you're on those Northern Heights, Northern Hills loops, you might be on the bus a little bit longer for us to be able to maintain service to there, but if you're jumping on anywhere on Broadway, you have probably a shorter uh route time. So the um 101 and the 206, this is uh one of the more interesting kind of combinations that we came up with for the spring service changes. And you'll see that black route was pretty expansive and now it's shifting to what you see on the right hand side with the 101 and the 206 combined. This route, if you've noticed, does not go to Central Park. And so this route allows quick access to those that live in the northeast to the southeast. So it travels um from that that top all the way down to um to uh south the southeast area to like south target um and providing service there. And now it's moving to a 20minut frequency. And so it's really providing quick and steady access for our residents in a

birectional service opposed to a loop service. So they don't have to wait for that bus to travel all the way around. They can get on it when it's coming by them at the appropriate time. And that'll be um and then uh yeah, we'll go up ahead. So for the southeast, so you'll notice um there's really minimal changes to the southeast. Um the biggest one is just shifting that frequency to off peak service to being every 60 minutes opposed to every 30 minutes. So that really uh caters to when our riders need to be on the 203, but still provides appropriate access throughout the day. So that is the only shift in the southeast region. So the southwest, so the 306 is the burgundy route that you can kind of see and this is one of our now birectional routes. So if you're an initial look, you might think it doesn't feel or look much different. But if you look on the left map versus the right map, you'll notice we're no longer doing that chunk on um on Broadway there. And so just south of Graham Marina now it's a single birectional route and not doing a loop route service there anymore with frequency at 30 minutes during peak and 60 minutes during um off- peak times. And this really allows connectivity for residents as they move from um the central park down to the south Walmart area. And then for the 307 so that route is blue that you see on the left and on the right. So that is another birectional service. Again on initial look it might not feel like it's looking birectional but you can see it's traveling up with that green route on the lefth hand map and now it's a birectional um birectional route and it runs every 30 minutes during peak and every 60 minutes during off peak. But what is really an asset for this route is its connectivity for those those residents

to um areas like the mall. So now that that bus ride would only be 15 minutes opposed to a much longer ride previous to this shift. So it's really creating more quick access for our residents in that space for the northwest region for the the 90 409 and the 410. So the 409 is that orange route. Um is little bit close to red when you're looking at the map, but it's the more um kind of lower centrally located route. and the um 418, which is the burgundy route that you see. So, those routes are being combined and will now have enhanced frequency. So, they're going to run every instead of every 30 minutes, they'll now be every 20 minutes. And so, that's one of those um routes um dedicated in the comprehensive plan that we've increased frequency for. And then this is really an interesting route. if you're riding in that area, this is providing access to Costco, um, Cub Foods, and Hy all within that area at a high frequency route. So, it's it's a really impressive, uh, shift in my opinion and really provides access to our residents to get to the things that they need to get to. The 411 is the uh, chartreuse, as I've been affectionately calling it, um, color that you see on the right hand side. You can see a pretty substantial shift in this route. it was really kind of centrally located south and now it's pretty expansive as it moves up through the system and this one also no longer needs a transfer um so it's an opportunity for individuals to have quick and easy access without having to transfer at Central Park um and still have service to Walmart North and then um travel throughout that entire system and then the 413 has been and that's the ride route on here has been realigned to serve of IBM during peak times.

Probably the the the only the only real discontinuation of service that we're looking at for the spring service changes is the 505 or sometimes called the shopper route. And so that route is being removed. When we talked about frequency and we talked about boardings per hour, this route received two on average. um and it only ran Tuesdays and Fridays and had really low ridership during those times. However, it is still serviced the those stops are still serviced by eight of our routes with the spring service changes that run Monday through Friday. So, there's still and in two situations on both the 101 and the 409, those are those increased frequency routes. And so, that is an opportunity to have increased frequency and still have access to those locations. Um, but be uh thoughtful in how we're providing service to our to our riders. And then our last modification is for weekend service. And so right now our weekend service runs 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. And this is an area that was specifically um dialed in on those surveys. What would what would it look like if we're reduced down to one day on the weekend? And the resounding as answer was I wouldn't be able to to do what I need to do with one day on the weekend. So one of the things we did look at is just red reducing the amount of time on the weekends. So reducing it from 6 to 7 a.m. And that's really we had very low wrership between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. And 7:00 a.m. 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. are actually kind of our peak on the weekend service. And then it picks back up at around 4:00 in the afternoon. And then that would um instead of servicing until 7 p.m. we would service until 5:00 pm. And just like for clarity on that 5:00 pm that would mean that when that's when the last trip would run for transit for that day. So we'd start at the last trips would run at 5. So really service would go until closer to 6 depending on most of our weekend frequency is around 60 minutes and so that would that trip

would be about 60 minutes long. Everything else on our weekends would stay the same. So ultimately, what does this mean in terms of our ridership and our hopefully our key outcomes? So 99% of our existing boardings would still be within a quarter mile or five minute walk to one of our bus stops. Um the areas in that 1% of reduction were around 55th Street Northeast and 19th Street Northwest. And 20 that's about 26 of our stops now fall outside of that quarter mile. So that five minute walk which on average as indicated here is around 11 boardings that we have a day. What I really want to highlight is that increase on the very bottom one where we're shifting from 3% of our stops are within um a/4 mile of 20 minutes or better service. We're growing that all the way up to 14% with these spring service changes. So, we're really dramatically increasing our service with a 20 minute uh 20 minute or better service. And then that's translated over um to access to jobs. And so that's growing from 29% currently with our our current service to 50% of our of the jobs within the city of Rochester will now be within 20 minutes or greater service within a 5-minute walk. So, um, really thoughtful plans have gone into this and I really want to take a moment and congratulate, um, Sandra Nar, transit planner, because the amount of work and dedication has gone in, um, and the amount of collaboration that we've done, um, internally and externally to to get to this point. Um, the next steps for us will be additional outreach. So if uh there are any the as we move into the final uh version of our spring service changes, we'll be doing additional outreach and that will fairly well mirror what we did in the fall. So we'll do a social media campaign. Uh we had a lot of success

with A-frame signs at Central Park, yard signs um at uh our more popular u stops and our um park and ride locations and then additionally um banners within the buses. And so we we intend on moving forward with all of those. Also excitingly is that Remix, which is the transit planning software that we use, has added a new feature that will allow individuals to interact with the spring service changes to see um exactly what the impacts will be and so they can start kind of tinkering around and have a kind of a more unique experience. And so we'll be uh focusing on pushing that out as well with the the educational component. So I thank you for your time and do we have any questions? question. Well, I'll I'll start. Uh, thank you very much. And I mean, it's uh a lot of work to uh really try to maximize what what we have here. You mentioned uh upfront that uh we have the average uh ride is eight riders and that to be really optimal, we should have 15 riders. with these changes. Uh do you have a sense of where we're going to be a afterwards?

So we uh are what I could use are probably indicators that we had with the fall service changes. And so we did see an increase of about two boardings per hour with our fall service changes. I would anticipate potentially even a little bit more with our spring service changes with those increased frequencies. So our best performing route uh sits at around 11 boardings per hour and that's the 105. So that services our north Broadway park and ride. And then the second best performing route is the 550 which services both the fairgrounds and um the 75th park and ride. Thanks. Any other questions? Yeah. Oh, who's Oh, Council Member Frederick's. Go ahead.

Thank you, President. Uh you said your second route, uh what's the average rides per hour on the second one? on the second route. The fairgrounds. On the fairgrounds route, I I would have to probably lean on Sandra 10. Yeah, she's right. 10 uh Borne per hour right now. 11 on the first, 10 on the second. Okay. And you know, it's like additional reference as I indicated the 505, which is that um shopper route that we're discontinuing is two. And so that's our lower lowest one, and that one's being removed from service.

Council member Keane. Uh yeah, I I appreciate going through this. I tried to kind of study it on my own, but without the guidance, I wasn't exactly sure we're going. It seems like there were some key numbers here with the the MET metric and then also this idea of back and forth, but I I'm still trying to compare what we did in the fall where we really were focused on our expenses and getting them aligned. Can you tell me the motivation for the changes here? Is it is it to meet these metrics or is there an expense or a wrership um goal too? So, I mean, I think ultimately our goal would be 15 boardings per hour. Um, but we're not going to get there overnight. And, you know, the intention of these service changes wasn't to necessarily save money. I don't think you can cut cut costs and cut routes and increase ridership in the same in the same movement. Um, so this really focused on creating a net neutral. So, this doesn't increase our operational costs. Um, but it does provide an increased frequency. And so, that's really what we're after. We're looking to see um how this shifts our rider ridership and hopefully increases them um per hour per boarding.

And I noticed again I it felt like the routes are staying or those stops are staying very much the same. As an average user, how much do you have to understand about what's changing here? The the biggest thing are those routes that are merging into one because they will have new names. Um so that's probably the hardest thing to grasp. Our writers have a very they they remember the routes they have. they remember the routes that were here 10 years ago and they remember all of those names. So the biggest shift in this is to understand um that in a lot of ways hopefully this makes things a little bit easier that you can get on on both sides of the street but those routes will have modified names.

Okay. The the other worry and I'll just share this and see there there's also this idea that stability is better than change with with a with a service like this. Is there a worry that as we go through a fall and then a spring shift and then we look again next year that we're it's it's a we we lack stability.

I could see that that thought process. However, service changes are normal in in transit systems. Um we we do them. It it really depends on the system and and the community that they're in, but in larger in larger metros, these could happen four times a year. Um, so constant and thoughtful service changes that serve the riders in the best way possible and that's what we're aiming to do. Um, kind it feels opposite of what we should anticipate um, in the system. We think consistency helps increase those things. But it's really kind of the opposite within the transit world that we're kind of shifting with the needs of the people and I think that's a really responsible and responsive thing to do.

Very good. Very good. I I'm supportive of what you're trying to do here. really liked that. You know, there's these metrics up front that we're we are using our services ourselves, that we're engaging with the drivers. This isn't that that I most of these things make it sound like we're on the right path. Council member Palmer, thank you. Um I had a curious question. How do you pick a quarter mile away from a a bus stop? Why not a half a mile or a tenth of a mile or how do you pick up a quarter? Yeah. So quarter mile is the FTA standard um that we should be looking at uh for providing service within a route. And then your express hubs, how many express routes do we have? Currently we have two and that's the 105 and the 550.

And how often do they run? Right now they run um depending on peak or off peak service. um on peak peak around 15 minutes uh for the 550 um and the 105 and that starts at 5:00 a.m. Mhm. And so if I miss the 5:00 a.m. I can hit the 515 and and and how full are those um express routes?

It really depends on the time of the day. Um and I can tell you from my experience of doing some of the ride alongs um you know some of our buses are standing room room only um during certain of our peak times. I'd have to look at those specific boardings per hour and I can get that to you for those specific routes, but it does depend on the time of the day. But on the 550, we know that our average boardings per hour is is 11. And so you could extrapolate that, but that would be the whole day's worth of coverage. That wouldn't include during peak times or it does include during peak times, but it won't show. I can't I don't have that metric with me right now. Okay. And and right now, if I remember correctly from your last presentation, we're doing 15% out of your reserves. approximately that. Yeah.

Okay. And how big is are your reserves? Uh it's a it's around 1.7 million. Okay. And so the 15% equals what of one point? I should have grabbed my calculator. No, no, no. If you have a reserve and you already are using 15% of that, what do you

So I think like as we look at those numbers from the study session in January, um those numbers really depend on those are primarily capital projects and not operation costs. Our annual like average for operation costs is around $12 million. These service changes actually are closer to $11 million for operation numbers because our operations grant has a 15% match and our capital improvement projects have a 20% match requirement from us. And so when we look at those projections, we are trying to be thoughtful as well and and present not a best case scenario. We understand that as projects take longer and they go out for bid, there's a potential they're going to be higher. And so we did reduce some of those capital improvement projects. But right now we are at a state in which operations is pretty much covered by our ridership throughout these routes. But it's our capital improvement projects that are dipping into that that ex that that um that fund the transit fund.

Okay. Thank you, Council Member Wall. Thank you. Uh do we still provide paper copies of the routes and stops? Is that a huge undertaking with the these kinds of changes?

It it is. Um but we do we do work with a local graphic designer to put that together. Um we are shifting right now it's in a quadrant system. Um we are shifting back to a booklet and so all of our routes will be contained within one um easy to to use guide. Um we're also really focusing on ensuring that the font size is appropriate within there. I know that's a feedback that we've received on the the previous ones. Um and so but those would be updated. We usually order around 3,000. the library is probably our our biggest user of those, but we've also been in conversations with some of our our local developments that those p those will be included in their welcome packets um with the spring service changes.

Council member Doring,

thanks. I really appreciate the uh the work that goes into optimizing the the system for uh efficacy. Um, and I I was worried about some of the same issues that council member Keane brought up about the frequency of changes to the system. So, I was happy to hear that in larger metro areas, those changes could happen four times a year and and that could uh seem pretty normal. I also heard you say that the main um the main reason for making these changes is for efficacy, but there is a there is a dollar issue attached to that. So I'm wondering uh with these changes uh what will be the impact on the workforce of RPT? Are are are we losing drivers? Are we what does that look like for for our employees?

No, I think that's a great question and these service changes maintain a status quo on the necessary number of drivers. So by consolidating some of the routes, we can still increase frequency and maintain the number of drivers that we have. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Miller. Yeah, just a quick question. uh with these service changes going into effect, how long would you say it takes to understand the impact of those changes on writership?

That's a great question and we actually were able to like start collecting data on the false surface changes within a month. Um so, you know, we don't have a lot of opportunities to to kind of judge and and interpret what human behavior will show, but it's uh fortunate that we have this this planned and we can start collecting data um pretty relatively quickly. Um, additionally, we did kind of bump up where last year we did the fall service changes in November. We intend on doing the fall service changes in October so we can have a little bit quicker turnaround if we need to make additional modifications.

And so when might council expect to hear additional updates on the operating effectiveness on how some of these are changing obviously through written communications, but the RFP process or when might we expect to hear about transit this year? Um, additionally, so the next time I think that we have planned to be up uh in in front of the dis award of bids. So the RFP process is being evaluated right now. We're hoping to have that um selected in um end of May, beginning of June. You'd anticipate us coming back for that. We did receive five um five bid, five um proposals on that.

Okay. Thank you so much. I and I just want to recognize the the work that went into this and I also want to recognize the alignment to our comprehensive plan. I feel like so often we talk about land use planning and transportation planning and I'm really glad to see transportation getting its its moment in the sun so to speak and I do think that as we plan uh around our primary transportation networks those don't self-inforce. So it's exactly these kinds of changes and focus on how we're planning and growing and where we're providing frequent transportation service. And I just want to say I think um to the conversation that we had and our last study session around bolder thinking I think moving routes to birectional routes might feel fairly technical but I would expect uh as a former transit user myself those make the system work. Um, even if you don't have the exact arrival time on an app, it's more intuitive and I think moving to 20-minut service is is quite a lift and I would congratulate you and your team on on making this work in a revenue neutral way and hopefully a revenue building way.

Thank you. Yeah. And I'll just take another moment to just recognize Sandra Nar for the work that she's done on this. So great. Well, thank you and thank you for uh giving us out of the box and innovative creative thinking and we look forward to hearing uh uh progress as as you move forward. Perfect. Thank you. Next up, we have H2, which is uh re-imagining 6th Avenue West from Civic Center Drive to Second Street Southwest. And we have Mr. Mike Collins and Mr. Steve Samson Brown.

All right. Uh good evening, council president, mayor, council members. Uh here to talk about reimagining 6th Avenue West. I'm going to introduce the team that of consultants that are with us tonight to share information with you and then I'll turn it over to Mike. Uh so first is project manager Mike Collins. Uh from the tool design group, we have Mixi Mitsy Alex and Noah Hallback. And online we have uh from Gamble Associates, David Gamble. And I would be remiss before we start to not to acknowledge the effort of our engineering department, community development, and parking and transit in supporting the information that's coming forward to tonight for your consideration. That I'll turn it over to Mike.

Yep. Thanks, Steve. Um, council president and council members, um, let me just find my notes here. Um, do I have the changer? So, the requested action for uh reimagining 6th Avenue is um to adopt a corridor concept plan for 6th Avenue West uh from Civic Center Drive to Second Street Southwest and then ultimately authorizing a pre authorizing uh the preparation of final design plans and bid documents for the reconstruction of 6th Avenue West from Civic Center Drive to uh West Center Street. So um this slide is really just to give the entire council a general idea of the timeline. Um so this project um many of you have probably um participated in some of the public engagement events uh that we've held throughout the year. A lot of that work kicked off really in September. Um it continued through November. Um and we are we've actively been in you know coordinating with adjacent developments. Um there are a lot of developments along the 6th Avenue corridor. Um not to mention the Mayo development, the the private the private work that's happening along that space. Um this also details the number of times we've went back to Peback and um obviously we had that study session with you guys in in November. Um we do expect the design work to run through um kind of winter of 2027. Um we'll come back to city council at that time for approval and advertise of our construction plans. And then construction is expected, at least at this stage, uh to run from kind of spring of 27 through to the end of the construction season that year. Um so that's kind of the timeline we're looking at. Um we did a fair amount of con of uh public engagement for this. Um initially we did have this project combine with the reconnecting the mobility network um

project. So, some of the community engagement statistics above um were us engaging on both of those projects. So, um you'll see a similar slide in in the next one, but we did um do quite a lot. I mean, we did everything from door knocking to site visits to online surveys um to one-on-one meetings with businesses um to open house and neighborhood meetings. Um, so there there was a a great deal of effort put into making sure that the community was informed about this project um and that uh you know that we were able to take their their feedback and incorporate that into our ultimate design. Um this is really um kind of like as we get into the details of what 6th Avenue and and as we reimagine it, what it's going to look like. Um, so this is kind of a a schematic here um that kind of details what a typical section of the roadway is. Um, as you move up and down the roadway, things es and flow a little bit, but this is a typical section. So that's what we wanted to give uh give the council to look at. Um, and that would include an 8oot sidewalk on the west side uh followed by an 8ft boulevard, two 10-ft lanes with a twoft um, uh, gutter gutter pan gutter gutter taper. um a 7ft boulevard on the east side followed by a 12ft bikeway um a two-way bikeway I should add and then um some furnishings um some parkway features and then uh an 8ft sidewalk on the east side as well. Um so that's your typical section although like I said earlier it does kind of eb and flow as as as the street does um as you move up and down that corridor. Um, just as we're kind of getting into the design, what was submitted in the agenda packet was a was essentially a role plot for that would give you guys an idea of the entire corridor. Um, for purpose of kind of uh keeping this a little streamlined, we took a couple snapshots to give a a very good idea for

council so you can understand how this corridor is is planned to look. Um, and so what I'll I'll just kind of start with the uh with the image on the left, which is that um intersection at 6th Avenue and 3rd Street Northwest. Um, that does include that 8ft sidewalk, that 8ft buffer, the two 10-ft lanes, a 7 foot um boulevard, followed by a 12ft cycle track, an 8ft boulevard, and then ultimately an 8ft sidewalk. Um the reason we are um going with this with kind of kind of with this concept design is it it builds a sense of continuity up and down the corridor. It builds a a project um that will make people feel comfortable as they use it. Um and then both whatever mode of transportation and then the 8oot sidewalk is because we we are aware that this is a very medical ccentric area. As you move further south in the in in 6th Avenue, it does jut up against uh the Osman building. And that's an very very important consideration as we consider who's using this space. Um and this is also, you know, obviously a primary uh kind of transportation corridor both for vehicles, cyclists, and people and pedestrians. And so incorporating all of those into kind of a complete street design. Um this is kind of the proposal we've come up with. Um, another thing I should note and that is your image on your right hand side, um, is the intersection controls that we've we've decided upon or there that we're recommending are, uh, signalized intersections at the intersection of, um, West Center and 6th Avenue. And that is the same intersection design at uh, Second Street Northwest and West Center. Um, and the reason for that again is because of the the people using this corridor. So this is juts up against a major medical institution that's undergoing a significant transformation. Um we anticipate that a high number of people using mobility devices um and

people with visual visual impairments will be using this and so we felt that signalized intersections was um the best way to accommodate folks with those with those special requirements um while also achieving the goal of the cycle track um and and uh you know uh accommodating the vehicle traffic and and and all around safety of of the street. Um just as we consider Can you hold Mr. Collins? Uh Council Member Miller. Sure.

Just a quick question while we're on this slide. On the right side, obviously the satellite view still shows the current buildings and at sections where there are added left turn lanes. It looks like some of those boulevards and sidewalks narrow quite significantly. Now on the northwest corner of Center Street and 6th Avenue, it looks nice and green, but how might we expect the coordination with Mayo Clinic and their design to to manage that space? You how far will the setbacks be? How how is that sort of sense maintained even as those public spaces narrow because of the turn lane?

Sure. So, some of that precise work will will go into preliminary design and we'll be able to kind of hone that in. Um, but I and correct me if I'm not getting to your point here. Um, but as we tie into the uh to the cycle track on on West Center, that is just kind of based off the designs that we've seen for that for that space. Um, and some of that is being completed by Mayo, some of that is being completed by other city projects. But I I'm not sure if that's what

I guess really two questions. One, um, you mentioned on the left graphic 8ft sidewalks. Is that the minimum width of the sidewalk even in that space that looks quite narrowed on the adjacent slide on the um 6th Avenue heading north on the west side of the block? Is that also an 8ft sidewalk there or does it narrow on the west side of the block? They're likely to be 5 foot sidewalks. Yep. Because that that's city standard in in in most residential areas. So the enhanced features and kind of the the wider sidewalks would be on the would be on the um east side.

Okay. And so I guess my my then question for perhaps Miss Steinhauser is could you speak to the coordination and work with Mayo and this public realm? Obviously this is the public part of the public realm and the buildings that are being designed. Can you just speak to the principles of how that public space will be elevated particularly in the spaces that are narrowed by an additional turning lane? Yeah, thank you for the question, Council Member Miller. So, um, we are at the table with Mayo in that construction and design coordination, um, every single week, if not every single day to be honest. Okay.

Um, so we where it the interface really happens is between um, let's see, second to first and then first to center. those those two blocks adjacent to the Osman building and dock building. Um the Steinhouser, can you get closer to your mic?

Sure. What's going on there? Um is that better? Yes. Lean in. Okay. So, um the design for those two blocks has been done by Mayo's consultants in consultation with us. um knowing that we were advancing this preferred profile for your consideration and I think as what Mr. Collins was indicating we are at about 20% design. So a lot of your more technical questions would come through the next iteration as we move to 60% 90% and then ultimately 100% coming back to you for your approval before we issue con uh requests for um construction documents bending.

Okay. to bid the project.

That's helpful. I I just really wanted to clarify because this is the first time we've seen these intersections. They were really kind of could be a few things in earlier iterations. And so now I I guess my my question is just seeing a quite expanded road profile with the turn lanes when we've talked about uh elevated urban design and public space. And I just want to make sure and you've reassured me that that that Mayo's coordination is making sure that their new west logistics entrance is not abiding the sidewalk. A and I would just say in terms of your question related to the left turn lane and I I would lean to our um our peers over in public works when we the options for this intersection we were looking at were um controlled intersection uh mini roundabout and I don't recall the third option um but when we collectively landed on a controlled signalized intersection which is better when you think about um particularly for people with some level of impairment ment that that might impact their ability to navigate um a street. Uh traffic signalized intersection is better. Um that then required us to uh introduce the idea of a left turn lane into the design. And I'll just defer to uh public works director Neyer to correct me if I misstated that.

Go ahead, Mr. Neee. Thank you. Sorry, I had hard time getting the microphone on. Uh that's correct. The the turn lanes were advocated for based on um trying to limit queuing um in the from the intersections, especially at peak hours. Um it just keeps things functioning better. Um and are those standard lengths? I mean, it looks like they extend quite a ways. I mean, what what is the queueing capacity of the lane? And is there I guess I don't I don't know the length of them. I'm looking at the same image you are. I'd defer the consultants on a question

and I'm guessing Miss Steinh Hower's answer about moving forward in design will will clarify that. I just it was surprising to me to see quite a bit of um the public space kind of pushed back.

I would uh if I could I would note that to extend um Cindy's comments about uh working with Mayo on the design. Um there's been a lot of conversation about how to maintain the same feel whether you're in the right ofway or um you know getting beyond that into Mayo site and how those things transition and feel throughout the corridor. So it's certainly uh part of the conversation that's ongoing. We just haven't reached that that level of design where we can answer anything specifically. I think

council member Palmer I'm Mr. Miller is making me ask questions here. So on the center street on the right hand side and lefthand side off of 6th Avenue, are we doing any work there with this project? On Center Street, um we will connect to the adjacent project on Center Street just to make sure there's continuity there. What adjacent? So the so the right hand side between the parking ramp and Dan Abram, are we doing work there this this year or next year? Because that road's been rebuilt and I don't see any parking and there's a lot of parking on that road. So when is that going to be rebuilt?

So I I think part of it is under construction with the Mayo work that's happening in in and around that space on you're talking about West Center just on the on the right hand side between the Danny Abram and the parking ramp. Yep. Yep. Um so that is part of that is being uh redone as part of Mayo Clinic's bold forward unbound work. Um that I think it's underground utility work that's happening in that in that space. Um, and then there is this work would essentially pick up where they left off because I think their work boundaries end just prior to 6th Avenue. And so it would make sense for this project to essentially pick up where it left off as as opposed to creating a gap. I think Mr. Neim can help you out there.

Yep. Go ahead. Yeah, I was going to add as well that uh reconstruction of this intersection um was a requirement of the traffic study that came with Mayo's development. So Mayo has an obligation to reconstruct the intersection and we're working on um specifically how that's going to play out, but it is their obligation to make sure that this looks different going into the future. So So again, if you're going down Center Street, you're heading into town between the two buildings we're talking about. Is is mail going to redo that or are we redoing it? And are we losing those parking spots? Miss Steinhauser.

Sure. So, um, great question. Um, Council Member Palmer, I for a second there who was asking it. Um, we are we are designing the intersection. Um, as uh Mr. Nemire indicated, it is Mayo's responsibility what is uh to to uh pay for that and put it back in. uh that is going to come to you in a future agreement that we are currently in um discussions on to lay out the terms of that to your question about will we lose parking spots or not. I I think I'd have to get back to you unless Steve's able to

Mr. Samson Brown. Um so council member Palmer specifically to west center once you hit Fifth Avenue um there's the north arrival city project portion which does some utility work that wraps the uh west center a block of fifth avenue heading north and then uh a block east on the north side of the new north arrival ramp uh on the south side adjacent to the church St. John's. Uh we're going to maintain pulloff parking for approximately three buses. Uh which replicates relatively what's there today. Had a conversation with uh city engineer Don Browski last week. Uh we think it's currently signed uh basically during school time, no parking except for buses. We think we could actually crunch that down to just the standard bus times and allow on street parking on the south side of West Center between Fourth and Fifth Avenue on the north side. that will uh right now by revocable permit there is allowance for the residents in to have pickup and drop off. We are uh relocating that around the corner to the fifth avenue immediately adjacent to their building on both sides. So, we're going to uh that will be shifted and the reason for that is to maintain a similar cross-section uh on West Center as you see at this intersection but uh servicing to the eastbound into the downtown area.

Okay. And I'm just going to follow up on what Mr. Miller was talking about in front of the old lurs. Are we working on an agreement with mail to do this? Because the last I understood, we don't have an agreement that was some future date that they're going to fix that in front of Lords. Am I misunderstanding that? From from 6th Avenue to 7th Avenue, do we have an agreement that that's what this is going to look like or do we are we still up in the air with mail? It looks like Miss Woodward has an answer to this question. Council, that is part of the site development plan for the West Logistics Center. So that envisions um continuing this along the front um between six sixth Avenue to 7th Avenue. So basically it's a done deal.

It is part of the site development plan that has been conditionally approved. Thank you. Okay, we're going back to Mr. Collins and continue.

Sure. So I I think an important part as we think about, you know, the work that's happening on 6th Avenue and some some other streets in in downtown Rochester are the fact that they um 6th Avenue in particular shows up on the mind high injury vulnerable road user network. Um these are frequently traveled roads by pedestrians. Um so what we're proposing here is is actually kind of dual purpose. One of one of the purposes is obviously to to reimagine the the street and and to uh you know kind of develop it in a way that that um you know that that creates a cohesive corridor. But the other side of it is is is very important and that is to improve the saf safety components for pedestrians. Um so what this with what this chart shows us on screen is that this is a is a corridor that's been identified by Mindot as an area where pedestrians where where it is um uh there are higher injuries in this corridor um uh than in other streets downtown. So, um this is just a kind of a still image of of this isn't um a a specific image to 6th Avenue, but kind of just a more of an example of what um kind of a complete street or something like this in in this space can look like um with separated bike lanes um double boulevards um and more of an activated space. Um so that's that. Um and then project budget. Um so this the funding for this was um adopted as uh by city council on the October 6, 2025 uh council meeting um through the DMC uh funding initiative for the downtown development. Um the funding allocated between West Center and Civic Center was 8.75 million. Um and we just wanted to give council a general idea. Some of

these numbers are not finalized yet, but they are they're they're there are um our best estimate at this stage, and that is that the design cost could cover upwards of of just shy of a million. And the con that would leave um 7.7 million for um construction hard cost and construction administration. Um so that's that's generally the budget for for the 6th Avenue piece. The another piece that I will um that I will point out is the area south of West Center to Second Street Southwest. Um that is uh that is part of the Bold Forward Unbound initiative. Um so that's not necessarily included in the budget that's displayed on screen. Um and that really concludes the presentation. Um, just kind of reiterating the requested action of adopting the the uh corridor concept from 6th Avenue West to uh to Civic Center from from Civic Center to Second Street Southwest and authorizing the preparation of final design uh plans and bid documents for the reconstruction of 6th Avenue West from uh Civic Center Drive to uh Center Street.

Thank you, Mr. Collins. Council member Palmer, could you go back to slide 44 for me, please? 4. Oh, sure. Didn't see the numbers. So, I'm looking at the I'm looking at your map and it's 6th Avenue. Runs all the way to the bike trail there to the north. Yeah.

And then it runs past Second Street. Why would we not want to do this to that whole entire section so I can come off the bike trail on the north and ride my bike all the way down into um and past Second Street? So, we're actually going to talk about that in the reconnecting the mobility network piece. Um and that you know the main reason that that that falls under that project at this particular stage is is because of the funding matrix. Um so what's funded between the pulled forward unbound uh project boundaries and the project boundaries defined by the DMC funding that was allotted in in October 6th um really just handles from second street uh southwest all the way up to Civic Center. Um, so that section that's a little bit further south we are going to talk about, but it it'll just be in the next presentation.

Okay. And and and I'm still going back to my bike trail and coming off of Cascade Bike Trail. Now I'm going to come down that road. I'm going to cross seventh street when I don't have the the the same elements and then I'm going to hit Civic Center Drive until I hit the the the cycle track. And so that's confusing to me. And I don't know how you transition from like Civic Center Drive onto the onto the cycle track. I mean, do I cross to a How do I do that?

Sure. So, uh the intersection at um Civic Center Drive and 6th Avenue is part of the project. Um so, we will be looking just north of that intersection um to to how to see how we can best create that connectivity. Um, our project limits do not go further north into the into the neighborhood to to the north. U, but we do just go beyond that. Uh, so construction wise, you're talking about finishing at the end of 27. We have the BRT, I think, is going to be July of 27, August of 27. 27.

Um, why wouldn't you want to have most of this done before that date? Um because right now we've got sec we've got 6th Avenue torn up from second street to center street. I'm assuming they're going to put that back I think I heard by June of this year and then they're going to dig up along lursards and head that direction. Um why wouldn't you want to do that section now as a rebuilding it and then go down into civic civic center drive as everything's already for l of back lack of a better way of saying blown up already.

Uh council member Palmer I'll take that. Um I think what's not super clear on any of our maps is just the sequencing of the series of bold on forward unbound projects. Uh so for instance the UPUI individual breakout which is uh the underground utility projects goes north on 6th Avenue uh for a couple of blocks past the old Lord's high school and then we'll start to uh head east. So it's a matter of and myself and many of our team and public works meet to talk through this on a weekly basis. It's sequencing the work that we can accomplish under the funded city projects in combination with the schedule needs of the bull forward unbound projects in combination with what roads are under construction. We still need to get traffic inbound to the clinic on a daily basis. So, for instance, when 6th Avenue is not available because it's under construction, we've made a concerted effort to make sure Fourth Avenue inbound from Civic Center will be available. And for the southern two blocks connecting the link uh which opens in August 26, the Osman building will be under construction uh through 2029 and possibly into 2030. And for that whole block adjacent to the Osman building uh behind the curb, none of that real estate will be available because it will be supporting building construction. Therefore, we won't be able to get a continuous route in until the Osman building uh adjacent work in the public rideway that permits uh sunset and then we'll we're planning to come in and uh who's ever responsible at that time will come in and uh finish the bike trail segment. So,

Mr. Near. Yeah, thank you, Council President. I was just going to add to what Steve was saying. Um, and add more context around north of Civic Center Drive. There's not really anything saying that that couldn't become a future CIP project. Um, you know, if that becomes a priority connection at some point. And I'll also note that right now we're contemplating some planning efforts on Civic Center Drive as well. Um, that may inform um that potential future connection further. So, we have to start and stop these projects somewhere. in right now. It's it is a function of the activity that's going on downtown and the funding sources that we have signed up for it. It doesn't uh preclude us from pursuing that work down the road if it does become a priority. Miss Steinhauser.

Yes. Thank you, Council President Schub. Um I would also just um comment that next week's study session which is a supporting transformation update we intend to go specifically to this topic of what projects are be con constructed in what year between now and 2030 to give the council a sense of what is under construction how we intend to sequence that and it's driven by all of the things that Mr. Neim Mr. Samson Brown said in terms of construction coordination um in alignment with our get in there dig once um approach to this work to try and minimize the disruption to the best extent possible. Council member Palmer.

So if I understand you correctly in 2030 the the next the Osman building that's when that bike trail will be completed and that road will be completed. Otherwise it's going to be under construction till 2030. So the the road pavement will not behind the curb uh will be either under construction or will be being utilized by the Osman building. Now we haven't got to the uh site plan needs of the Osman building post 2028. So perhaps towards the second half of 28 or 29 uh they may be able to make that real estate back available for the bike completion of the bike trail. Uh there is four tower cranes that are going to be utilized to construct the Osman building. one on the east, west, north, and south sides. And the biggest thing is the safety concern. As trucks come in with heavy beams or steel or whatever it might be, windows, uh we're not picking from the public right away where the truck is and swinging it over live uh pedestrian, bicycle, car access. So, uh some of these are safe zones in terms of just construction real estate needed to make sure in case there's an accident, just whatever falls falls on the ground. So, um, we're still working through with the Bull Ford Unbound team to confirm when will the West tower crane roll off that site, which will then allow us to plan in, uh, several years out, but we have some time to work through that with them.

And Steve, can you just clarify? It's the remaining two blocks, the blocks north of center would be constructed and completed at the completion of the 6th Avenue project by the end of 27. It's those last two blocks. So, a bike cycle track does connect to West Center. It's just those remaining two blocks. Is that correct?

I think there's a subset. So, the the northern two or three blocks are definitely feasible by the end of 27. How West Logistics needs to tie into the utilities out in the public right away. We we have not received that information. So, there's the underground tunnel and uh uh utilities that are going through the corridor. And then there's also how the building comes out and connects to the public utilities. So, there's two factors influencing when we will be able to get in, but the design will be done and the month that it's available, we'll be ready to go out to bid and award a project to come in behind that. So, and council president, I have to correct myself. It's one block, not two blocks. It's one block. Thank you.

Any further uh questions? Seeing none, is there a motion on this item? Sure. I'll make a motion adopting the corridor concept plan on 6th Avenue West from Civic Center Drive to Second Street Southwest and authorizing the preparation of final design plans and bid documents for the reconstruction of 6th Avenue West from Civic Center Drive to West Center Street. Project number J8908. Second. Motion made by Council Member Miller and seconded by Council Member Keane. Council member Miller, you have the floor.

Yeah, thank you. I I think that the presentation has been helpful and obviously we've had good discussion through answering questions. I obviously still have some concerns about how this moves to final design um particularly about the balance of the public right ofway and the um the elevated experience. Uh but it sounds like we'll have a few more opportunities to review that and I I trust that staff have heard our feedback. Any other discussion? Seeing none. All in favor say I. I.

Oppose say nay. Motion passes. Moving on to H3 which is uh no uh H yeah H3 which is project update reconnecting the downtown mobility network. And uh this is Mr. Collins and Mr. Samson Brown again. Uh good evening again council president, council members. Uh Steve Samson Brown, director of construction. All right, we're going to have the same same team uh presenting uh to support uh questions and answers and information related to this topic. And I'll turn it over to project manager Mike Collins.

Sure. Um thank you, Council President, council members. Um so what we're requesting here is is um direction from council on a preferred option to advance the reestablishment of the north south connection of the downtown mobility network. Um so so that's our that's our request for for this presentation. Um and now we'll kind of just dive right in. Um this is a very this is the same slide because as I said this is one of the first times we're talking about these projects in as two different projects. So the public engagement period um that that occurred in September and again in November th these projects were one project. Um, so the statistics you're seeing on screen are are um engagement events as as they pertain to both of those projects. Um, but like I said previously, we have done a number of different things such as openhouse site site visits, door knockings, one-on-one, uh, meetings with business owners, surveys, um, and neighborhood meetings. Um, and we've gotten good good feedback from from the community community.

Can you hold there, Mr. Collins? Uh, Council Member Miller, just a quick question about engagement. Uh last Monday we heard an update on the historic district plan which showed some road profiles and had a transportation element. Can you clarify how those two processes interact for engagement?

Sure. We've had a number of calls between the historic district and and this project. Um we wanted to make sure that that we were in general alignment. I mean, um, we're still I my understanding about the historic district project is is it's not 100% finalized and what we're bringing to you today is we're seeking direction. So, this is not 100% finalized. So, there's there's still further collaboration that needs to happen to make sure that both of these projects are are cohesive. Um, but what what you'll see here is um very much reflective of of of what what you've seen in in in the previous presentation. Yeah. Continue. Yep. Uh, Council Member Palmer,

I'm going to kind of go off of what he um what Mr. Miller was saying. So, did did you when you're looking at this use the 2010 um report, the the downtown report?

We've looked at a number of of different reports. Um, so that being one, um, but we've also looked at uh the 2018 city loop plan. We've looked at the 2022 um active active transportation plan. Um, and we've looked at the the 2015 I want to call it comprehensive plan, but I have the I have the exact name in my in my notes here. Um, so when we looked at this, we did look at a at a at a at a number of of plans that were adopted by the city. Um, and so yeah, that informed some of the decision-m um, it informed at least the direction in which we were going. Um, but recognizing some of those plans, in fact, I think all of them predated uh pulled forward Unbound and it predated the vacation of Third and Fourth Avenue, which is really what spurred upon this plan to to begin with. So, the reason I reason I bring that up is the historic district one. Um, and the quote that's in their in their um information is that the downtown master plan remains a um fundamental or foundational I should say remains a found foundational policy document for the historic district. So, they looked at that as as that's the base that they're using. And there's at least I think you're describing at least 10 different plans that are out there that that don't always align with everything. So that's that's what I want to So we've looked at that in in Okay.

Yep. Yep. continue.

Okay. Thanks. Um so first I'll just kind of walk you through the ledger here just to clear up some confusion. So the green and yellow um dotted areas are the areas of study that we've we've studied to reconnect the downtown mobility network. Um the blue line is uh the reimagining 6th Avenue project which I've I've just given a presentation on. Um and so the we did study four corridors. Um it was initially three but we've came back on study session and we we did hear a desire to study second. Um but the corridors that we did we did study were Broadway Avenue, 1st Avenue, 2nd Avenue and 6th Avenue. Um, and I will say, you know, part of 6th Avenue falls under that reimagining 6th Avenue project and and the uh southern half falls under uh the reconnecting the mobility network project.

Um, so this Mr. um Collins, can you go just go back? Can you uh uh let us know why the uh reconnecting uh the network go back one more slide. Sure. I should have mentioned. So why do why does the reconnecting the mobility network and at 4th Street Southwest uh why doesn't it like for example on Second Avenue Southwest go into uh up down to six or Soldiers Field? What is the thinking behind ending it at 4th?

Yeah. So I I think the primary goal of this project was to to reconnect the network and and and the way that was thought upon was we have the east west connection on on uh on the south side of downtown and that's at 4th Street Southwest. Um the east west connection on the north side of downtown is at West Center. And by vacating Second and Third Avenue, we lost that connection between those two east west court, those two east east west routes. So what this ultimately is trying to achieve is is giving people an option to get from the north from the south side of downtown to the north side of downtown to another protected bike lane. Now, in terms of where that takes you from there, like in in, you know, north north, if you want to go further north, for example, or if you want to go further south, um, third and fourth do still exist as painted bike lanes, um, if you choose to go further south, and, uh, third and fourth do exist as as painted bike lanes, at least at this interim, at at least at this junction, if you choose to go further north. So, it's it's about connectivity, um, is is really the short answer.

Thank you.

Yep. Yep. Um so really what what this is what what we hope to achieve with with this slide is to um kind of find some collective agreement around um you know some of the goals we have for this project. And so I I think there's some some very positive things that we've gotten out of this project. um both from a public engagement perspective um from enga engaging with council members both at at at the study session um you know people interest groups all the rest of it um that we do hope to see um you know really a vibrant downtown and so we've kept that at the heart of what we're trying to achieve here um I'm not going to go through and read every every word on this slide it's it's quite a wordy slide um but I I I think I just want to ground everybody in the fact that there are a lot of very common themes that this this project um hopes to achieve. And so as we think about some of these difficult decisions, as we as you know, as we get through the various options that we're going to talk about, I think it's very important to know that um you know that that we've we've brought forward proposals that that we thought um were representative of the feedback we've gotten and of and of some of these common themes that um you know you know that we we hope the community at large um can kind of agree upon. So, um that's really kind kind of kind of the purpose of this. And then my next slide is going to um get into some of the data that would help us kind of um provide a little bit of clarity of where where you know where where some of these themes uh came from. Um so again just to explain the ledger here um this um this this graphic this map of downtown um we have uh proposed residential developments identified future residential developments and um

recently completed developments. Um we identify the um reimagining 6th Avenue West corridor um on the screen. We also um identify a a possible um reconnecting of the downtown mobility network on there and the existing bike lanes. Um but ultimately what we've done here is we've identified the center of downtown just for purposes of this explanation as peace plaza. Um, and so we want to demonstrate that the volume of developments happening in and around downtown within the walkshed and the uh bike shed of downtown is expanding immensely. Um, what's not included in here, which should be noted, is the existing um, housing units that that are downtown. These are really just the new developments. There's 22 of them. of the ones that we know there, how many units or or at least have an estimate of number of units in those individual um buildings that are displayed on screen, there's over 2,000 of the ones we know about. So, I think when we look at this map, we are really looking at a downtown that is becoming more uh more reliable on both pedestrian and bicycle facilities for people to get to and from work, to and from the grocery store. Um, and so that I think just kind of emphasizes, you know, that downtown is changing from a predominantly car centric area to to a to to an area where people use a variety of modes modes of transportation to get downtown. Um and so I I I thought this was just a very important um graphic to show everybody that that you know downtown is developing at a rapid rate and um in order to accommodate that we we you know the goal is to kind of meet the moment and um and and provide safe and uh effective places for the for these folks to uh get to and from work and and the grocery store and wherever else they may

go. Um this is the same map that you've seen in the previous presentation. Um but I did want to just re kind of reiterate here as we are looking at a different maybe segment but um some of the roadways are the same. Um 6th Avenue obviously it you know as from the previous presentation is on the um vulnerable road users network. Um first avenue is also on the pro vulnerable road users network as well as Broadway and those were all three streets studied as part of our project. Um, and one thing this does in ind indicate is that these are they're not just um roadways that are kind of uh high injury networks for for vulnerable road users. They are frequently traveled and priority areas for pedestrians. So, as we look at that in the context, these are where a lot of pedestrians congregate. This is where they shop. This is where they go to for their entertainment. and it's been identified by Mandot as as an area that can use safety improvements. And so this project can be a caveat or you know can be an avenue to achieve those safety improvements. Um as we look at some of the proposals that we'll get into here in a minute. Um another kind of more just context letting setting slide. Um I think as we think about reconnecting the downtown mobility network, we keep talking about the vacation of third and fourth. um you know because those were the previous north south connections. I think we also need to talk about the magnitude of all of the development happening downtown. So this slide represents a large number of of of the current or future construction projects in the downtown area. Um and the reason I bring this up is because um you know as we think about this there's not always going to be an easy choice. Um so that so that makes things a little bit difficult because you know you might find a a good

corridor but there there could be construction delays. Um and that's my other point is that as we talk about some of these options when we talk about delays or delayed implementation there's a reason for that and that's because there's significant developments happening downtown. Um and so this I just more of a level setting side slide um to to make everybody aware that there are there are challenges uh to reconnecting the network um especially accommodating the number of development sites that are that are um both from private and public uh that that are occurring in the downtown space. Um now we're getting into the options. Um I'm going to start off Oh, sorry. Uh I'm going to start off um walking everyone through the First Avenue options. Um so I'm going to start off with First Avenue, what we're calling option A. Um and option A just to again to kind of uh walk you through what the what the indications on the map mean. So a solid line means a separated and protected bikeway. A dotted line means a a bikeway where you where you ride with traffic um or or you know sort of paint on the side of the road. Um and then this circled blue is the reimagining 6th Avenue project that we we talked about here just in the previous item. Um so as we look at option A, it achieves the um reconnecting the mobility network goal of connecting the east west route on the south to the east west route on the north. Um as we look at this, it is a separated and protected bikeway from fourth street southwest to second street southwest. Um and then once you get into the uh Peace Plaza area, that is a ride with traffic. The traffic volumes are so are slow enough in that space um that it's comfortable for a shared road with bicyclists and and uh vehicles. Um there is no we are proposing no alter alterations to Peace Plaza as part of

this plan. Um we're proposing uh no curb adjustments. This is primarily a restriping project. Um, and so it can be quickly deployed, it's affordable. Um, and this provides a north south option on the east side of downtown. Um, so that's important because as you've heard from public comment, um, PBAC would like to see a um, an option on the west side of downtown and on the east side of downtown. So I want to just make sure that everyone understands that this is one of the east side of downtown options we're we're discussing. This does have parking implications.

Can I stop you, uh, Mr. Collins? So, is this considered an interim uh option during construction? I see kind of further down you're talking about interim. So, with uh quick is this considered a temporary solution?

Sure. So, it we're we're calling it an interim solution because we don't know how temporary it's going to be. Um you know, some of the construction happening downtown could last upwards of 2030. you know, I mean, um, so that's why we're calling it an interim as opposed to a temporary, but, um, you're correct. It's it's primarily restriping. This this is not a permanent installation. Um, at least not at this particular stage and and each of the next uh series of options that you're going to give us are interim options or potential interim options on First Avenue. Um, they are all they would all be considered interim options. when we get to Second Avenue and 6th Avenue, um those will be a little bit different and we'll explain those. Okay.

Yep. Um so I I left off there will be parking implications to this to this um to this option and delayed we do uh put here delayed timeline due to adjacent projects. There are a number of construction projects. Council member Frederick's

uh just for a little more clarity has parking implications. How many parking spots would we net lose on this option? Sure. I've got that written down here. So, um, existing in that in that corridor, we have 74 on street parking stalls. Um, with option A, this would reduce to 41, which is a reduction a reduction of 33. Um, I will say when I get down into the um when I kind of get down into into the mockup of this area, um, we did manage to get 11 stalls back from, uh, what we brought to you in November. Um, and I'll explain that as we get a little bit further along.

Still at 41 though, with the additional 11, are you saying you bump it up to 52? 41 stalls would remain, but the reduction is 33 stalls. Okay. Yep. Yep. Can you just add that information as you go through each option? Sure. The the parking implications. Yep. I'm happy to.

Um First Avenue option B. Um this is um somewhat similar, but I I'll kind of walk through the differences. Um the um the the layout on the map is is really the same. The solid green lines represent um you know separated and protected on on the on the north and south side of downtown. Um and the dotted line represents riding riding with traffic and the solid line represents um a separated and protected bike lane. Um so this is a separated and protected uh bike lane. Um or sorry this this option would start off on Second Avenue Southwest. Uh yeah, Second Avenue Southwest with a jog over underneath the Third Street ramp and then reconnect to First Avenue and then take First Avenue North. So the only area that would um require restriping um is that area between Third Street Southwest and uh Second Street Southwest. The area beneath the third street ramp would require some minor curb work, which is why that third bullet point does does indicate minor curb adjustments. Um, but it is primarily restriping beyond that. Um, similar to the previous one, no alter alterations between PE uh through Peace Plaza. Um, provides a north south option on the east side of downtown. Has parking implications and and for the request the current day, same as before. um 74 on street parking um stalls uh on 1 Avenue. This would um have 58 stalls which would be a reduction of 16. Um so just to compare that option A had a reduction of 33, option B had a reduction of 16. Um and then cyclists uh could connect from Second Avenue to 1st Avenue and to Third Street Southwest. Council member Pal Palmer,

I'm I'm troubled with your idea that that West Center to Second Street, the traffic is slow, but it all of a sudden speeds up for that block. Um, do have you done traffic study? What how do we know that the traffic speeds up in that area? Are you talking about the area through Peace Plaza? I'm talking about the area what you're talking speedy is from Second Street to Third Street on this Second Street. So, you mean Second Avenue? Second Street Southwest. We're on First Avenue. Yep. I'm heading south. You're telling me that that's a speedy area, but it's not speedy to the to the north of that. I'm sorry, I'm not entirely following.

Yeah. Council member, can you clarify what you're asking? Are you speaking of north of Center Street? I think Sorry to jump in. So, I'm Can you identify yourself, please? Yeah. Thank you. Uh, council members and uh, Mayor Noah Halbach with Tool Design.

Okay. Thank you. consultant supporting the city on this project. And I think you're referring to why is there the shared lane riding from Center Street to Second Street and then we go to the separated bikeways south of there. And that there's two reasons there. One, just because of the redevelopment for Peace Plaza. We don't want to touch that. You know that there was a lot of investment put into that section of the of the corridor. Um, and the way that street was redesigned, it was narrowed. Um, there's there's less vehicles traveling through there at slower speeds. So, we think through that segment, the shared lane riding is appropriate for all ages and abilities. As you travel south of there, there's just higher vehicle volumes. There's more turnover with the parking in the area. And so, that's where we think it's beneficial to have the separation of the bicyclist from the motorist on the roadway. But but he he was saying it was speed

and and and being in that area quite a bit heading from Second Street Southwest, it's not a speedy spot. I I don't I'm I'm not following your speed. Yeah, I think the two metrics speed and volume contribute to the the comfort level for bicyclists and I'd agree with you. It doesn't seem like a higher speed segment. Um, but just with the volume of turnover of vehicles, we think the separation is going to be beneficial through that area. We do have more space through that area, too. With the conversion that we're proposing um kind of the curb to curb width, there's more room to work with through that area. And now you're not showing anything north of Center Street on First Avenue. Are we leaving that the same? Yeah.

With this option, that would be the same. Yeah. Okay. So, that that has diagonal parking on both sides once the construction's done. So, I'm going to come down and I I don't get the advantage for one block. Um, okay. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Samson Brown.

Council member Palmer. So, uh, Mike was correct when he originally described the project limits. Um, however, as we started in talking to people and we all understand the value of a connected network, a natural part of the conversation was, uh, people from lowertown neighborhoods saying, "I ride my bike. how am I going to get down there? So, uh, working in partnership with the engineering department, we didn't waste the opportunity to consider how might this network be able to grow over time. Uh, director Nemire talked about we have a constrained budget on this particular segment, but there's always opportunities to submit cap future capital project requests. So, with all that in mind, we did look at First Avenue up to Civic Center. uh we feel that with paint and delineators and an intram build using the existing uh budget that we have.

It's actually that one. Yes. So we have option C. So we did look at there is an ability to make that connection if there's a desire to go all the way to west center. It would be more with paint and delineators, but we could create the separation. It's a solid line. That means you're not riding with traffic. However, we're not we don't have the budget to move curbs and do the nicer things that uh uh perhaps like we're going to see uh at the end of the summer on East Center Street uh when that project comes to fruition. Uh we have Council Member Miller and then Council Member Doring. And just for clarification on this, is that section not possible with option B's configuration? We only see it on the First Avenue continuous.

Can you just clarify? Is is there an option D with the north addendum? So, I think two things. Um, there is a city mayo agreement to uh that has a line set of $480,000 to replace the bike lanes. I'd have to refer to uh help from uh Deputy City Administrator Steinhauser or Neimire. I'm not sure the Mayo city agreement allows us to go beyond those uh limits with that funding or not. That's I I'm not aware that it does unless

So, um thank you. Uh the the um 480,000 that's was um part of the agreement as a result of the street vacation um is not prescriptive. It is for us to use for re-establishing the network. So, I think your question is is there could option B have shown north of West Center? Yes. The short answer is yes. Whether it's done under that 480,000 we have or a future CIP, we could have just as easily added that segment to option B. Yes.

And thank you. And and as a followup, could someone clarify the timeline for that those blocks north of West Center because particularly now there's still active construction at the Jacobson building. Central Park is being used as a transit terminal. So when would those become available? So, it's I will defer to other teammates, but my understanding is it's opens back up in September. I don't recall when the buses are You can You need to go to the mic. To the mic, please. To the mic, please.

Okay. So, I'd also ask for director Neyer. There's the sanitary sewer line that has to run up to Goose Egg Park, and I'm I'm not certain over that route. Um, so the So I think there's two thing there's am I correct in that? It does not run on that route. No, that's not a conflict with that. Okay. No.

So yeah. So the um once link BRT I'll answer the question for Mike or finish his thought. Uh once leak BRT um is done with construction of the uh platforms at Second Avenue and at 6th Avenue uh Second Street uh is fully open and available unimpeded. our goal which will be in the second half of 2026. At that point, uh the downtown transfer is available to move back and be uninterrupted by relocating to its original position on Second Street near 1st Avenue. later in 26. Council member Doring,

um I'm wondering if I can be provided the data or we could be provided the data that uh the block, the piece plaza block on uh 1 Avenue is safe. Um as a user of that block and cycling on that block during peak operating hours, I would argue that it is completely unsafe for a cyclist. So, I'm wondering what metrics were used to determine that that was a safe um safe commuting block with shared traffic.

Uh I'll uh ask Noah to uh come up and speak to that a little bit. Um city engineer uh Dylan Dumbrski has shared that the original design, which I was before my time here, uh envisioned a slow street. I think the characteristics we see are the narrow lane WS. Um he did reference uh speeds had been looked at previously. I don't have that data with me tonight um to show that you know speeds are traveling below 25 miles an hour. Um but I'll let my colleague from tool design kind of speak to what makes a safe street.

Hey. Um yeah. So, we look at the average daily volume on the street. And so, maybe that's why you're seeing some discrepancy between peak hours versus off- peak hours. Um, and so we're looking at total volume throughout the day as a measurement of generally how stressful it is for a cyclist to use the street. So, what I hear you saying then is that during those on peak hours when we're encouraging people to use multimodal transportation to get to downtown, um those on- peak hours are the unsafest hours to ride your bike on that shared lane street based on yeah

based on on volume and and speed. You could see a reduction in speed with a increase in volume. we could see a reduction in speed and it could help balance out. But yeah. Okay. All right. That's looking at those two metrics together. It's important. Council President Schub, Miss Go ahead, Miss Steinhauser.

I just want to correct a statement. I And Noah Steve, you can um verify this, but I believe the reason uh the miles per hour on that segment is actually under 20 miles hour, not 25. It's under 20 miles per hour. So operating at a slower speed that's why it's consider the criteria why it's considered acceptable to be a shared path for bikes and motors. And how have we sorry I didn't mean to interrupt. No sorry how have we studied volume on that that block because I understand speed with cyclists is an issue but also volume of traffic uh during those peak hours. I've made note of that. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. uh who is going to take the rest of this um presentation. Uh what I'm going to do is I'm going to let you finish your presentation. Council members, you can ask questions if you'd like. We are at the 2hour mark. After the presentation, I would propose that we take a a break and then return back for further questions and uh and motions. Does that work for folks? Looks like it. Yes. Go ahead, Mr. Collins. Collins.

Thanks. So, um I can kind of we I've already talked to um this option as it as it pertains to south of center. It's it's very similar to what what option A was. Um option, you know, the option C really just adds that northern piece that can be can come at a later time. Um and and so yeah, that I'll I'll just kind of move on to the next uh to the next slide here. I think I think Mike, would you please give the parking deduct for under this?

Oh, sure. Yes. So, parking C um existing and and this is actually this is a little different. So, I appreciate the I appreciate the um bringing that up, Cindy. Um this is a little different because we've included the parking north. Um so, the existing number of parking stalls on the on the northern or throughout the entire corridor from north all the way to Fourth Street Southwest is 139. Um, and then the the proposed after this is implemented is 90 and that would be a reduction of 49 stalls. Um, uh, Council Member Miller, go ahead. Could you just clarify when the last time that many stalls was available in the stretch?

Um, before the Anderson building. Uh, but I I don't have a date, but yeah, it was a while ago. Yeah. Yep. So, just to clarify, option C is option A adding north of Center Street. Correct. So, all of those additional uh parking spaces are north of Center up to uh Civic Center Drive. That's right. Got it.

Yep. Um Oh, am I going the wrong way? I am. Um Okay. So, as we talk about that segment of uh First Street between uh Fourth Street Southwest and Second Street, sorry, First Avenue between Fourth Street Southwest and Second uh Second Street Southwest. Um this is the proposal we've come up with and it is a little different than what we brought to you in November. Um I'm actually going to start off on the right side of the screen, which is the one that starts at 4th Street Southwest and we'll move our way north. Um this area we would have we've tried to maintain parallel parking based on feedback on the west side of the uh of the street um where it applies. There are areas you'll you'll see parking the parallel parking in that space. A two-way cycle track on the east side or sorry on the west side of the road. Um and then as you get to third we'll transition over to the other image. Um, and that will um that will also have a two-way cycle track that is a 10 foot wide cycle track. Um, and that will have parallel parking on the west side of the street with angled parking on the east side of the street. Um and that is the proposal for like even if you chose option B for example which has that jog under under the bridge, the northern part that um that that would it would connect to would would be um that image on your uh left hand of your screen there. Can I have you go back to that just so so where you're adding uh the parallel parking looks like five six spots. Is there angled parking there now? Is that where I I'm talking about the the right-hand photo from Third Street Southwest to Fourth Street Southwest.

Third Street Southwest to Fourth Street Southwest. I believe there is angled parking in that in that in that space and there's no parking on on on the um the west side on the west side. No, not that I recall. Okay. No, I don't believe so. So, I guess my question is why do you have to take those angled parking out if the the bike lane is in uh is proposed in an area where there are is no parking. Now,

I think it's it's space. Um, so the the bike lane in that area, it's 12 feet wide. Um, and that might not be enough room to or at least it wasn't when we looked at this when we've we've when when Tool Design has come up with this. Um, that there wasn't enough room to do uh angled parking in that space. That's why those are parallel spots um kind of just shy of Third Street Southwest there. Yeah. Yep. Does that answer your question? Yeah, you can keep you can keep going. Okay, sure.

Um, so this again, I've I've already said this, but I did want to reiterate uh through Peace Plaza, we are not we are not proposing any changes. Um, so that's that's really all this slide uh encompasses here is is that it it will look exactly like it is today. Um, second avenue option. Um, I'm going to hand it over to my colleague Noah Halbeck from tool design.

Give Mike a little break here. But, um, yeah, so we were asked during the last council work session to consider Second Avenue as an alternative option. And that requires there's a few segments to make the of the of the street to make that work. Um, traveling from up from Fourth Street Southwest at the southern point where we have the existing two-way bikeway. We're proposing, let's see if this helps me at all. We're proposing shared lane riding through um Discovery Walk area, the newly constructed Discovery Walk. So that's a similar approach to through as we would take through Peace Plaza. Um the feedback we've heard is that that's a very comfortable current um segment for bicyclists to use. Um again, there's lower volumes, lower speeds through that section. So there would be shared lane riding through there. you would travel north up to second street southwest. That's where you run into the the existing Annburgg Plaza and that's where there would require some coronation between the city and Mayo. This is um an existing Mayo property with a a pedestrian easement through it. Um one option could be to look at uh getting an easement to allow cyclists to use the same the same space. And so the the high level concept that our team has taken through here just looked at segment segmenting this out into different um areas through that plaza area. So you would still have um a primary pedestrian route on the face of the buildings on the east side allowing access to those buildings. The bikeway would run through the middle. Um that would be a a totally separated facility. there be a detectable edge on either side to um really discourage pedestrian crossing of that facility um in the middle of the block. The crossing would be encouraged to happen kind of where you see that blue teal area and really where we see that as a priority east

west pedestrian connection between the Mayo building and plumber building. Um, and and then the green space that you see, that's really where there could be the the more raised plaza elements, the seating, the planters, the more areas you would expect in a in a public uh realm area. And then the pink area to the left, that would be required for um emergency vehicle safety access. So, that's an area where you wouldn't be allowed to have the vertical elements because vehicles would need to travel through there. Um, that's that's a concept to Council Member Miller. I guess a question for Mr. Spinler. Craig, could you clarify? Is there a separate thing in Minnesota state law that is a bicycle easement versus a pedestrian easement?

Thank you, Council Member. Council, uh, Mayor Norton. Um, there is not a there's not a separate concept and this, uh, this matter has been, uh, discussed in a few different spaces. The the current arrangement is for pedestrian only. does not contemplate uh bicycle. So uh that would need to be a significant point of conversation. Okay.

Can I clarify a little bit more on uh council member Miller's point? So is I guess the the question is how I heard it was in state statute is a pedestrian easement is there a separate a separate easement for bicyclists or is a pedestrian easement also somebody who is on a bicycle? I'll try to answer your question even though I'm somewhat surprised by by the question. So, I'm not sure which statutory provision you're referencing. Um, I would certainly take take a closer look at it. The conversation to date has been the language used in the Annenburgg Plaza uh um provision specifically um not referencing uh state statute.

Okay. Thank you, Council Member Palmer. So, we have an ordinance that you can't ride your bike on a sidewalk. Is that what we do downtown? That an ordinance? Uh, that is true. So, would this be a sidewalk? No, the sidewalks to the right. It would not if we're otherwise uh defining it differently.

Okay, continue. I believe this would be private property. Um again uh priority pedestrian east west crossing it would be prioritized towards the north at the peace plaza kind of terminus there and then the connection point would be to the new valley drop off the the roundabout turnaround from there north the bike the cyclist would uh resume shared lane riding in that newly constructed street segment connecting at center street west to a future east west bikeway off streetet east west bikeway that future bikeway would not be part of this project this connection there are existing bikeway the existing bike lanes on center street that we connect to um we talked about the interims option for first avenue this option would be kind of a more of a midterm option that would require uh further coordination with Mayo through the plaza space we see this aslight slightly longer term option and so looking at connecting to those longer term cycle tracks on Center Street West um that would take you over to the bike lanes on third and fourth street if you want to continue north 34th Avenue

uh council member Miller so I guess let me ask this uh away you've mentioned interim and midterm options if there were an interim option on the first avenue whatever configuration Is it possible to shift that then to the midterm option on Second Avenue? Could this be a stage two out of an interim solution on First Avenue? We haven't talked about that internally, but yeah, in my opinion, yeah, you could there are the kind of lower effort that First Avenue requires, you could shift that to a parallel quarter in the future.

So, if we gave direction to work on better coordination with Mayo to figure this out, that doesn't preclude the use of First Avenue as an interim condition. Correct. I believe that's correct. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I I can take that, too. Yeah. Yeah, that that's correct. Um I I just want to kind of point out that the um the Peace Plaza is currently being turned into a one-way southbound um road. And so um we would have to wait until the shuttles are have gone away. So So there's Yeah, there there's a few things that would need need to be navigated, but I don't I don't see a reason why not. Council President Schubin. Uh go ahead, Miss Steinhauser.

Yeah, thank you. I I want to just bring up a couple of things that were not shared in this inter in this um option that was studied by tool which we would not advance as a recommendation and a lot of it has to do with all the inherent conflicts that exist. Um you're seeing the proposed um route. Um it conflicts with um uh fire lane um building code egress out of buildings. Um when you get to the north section where it shows valet drop off uh both the Kaylor Hotel and uh Mayo east entrances will have valet drop off. Uh the numbers that we're hearing are upwards of 300 pedestrians an hour. So there is a lot of intense um pedestrian activity which has been Mayo's concern all along in terms of the conflict between people and as we think about Mayo's um and I'm just kind of repeating their input to us about um this is a desired route or not a desired route is the complex care will continue to grow and with complex care it is not necessarily an able-bodied person or um a person with you know maybe um a minor assisted device. It is people with very complex care coming out of these entrances. Um and the inherent conflict of cyclists is what brings um a great reticence to have this be an option. And quite honestly for us when we think about the value of um a bike lane, it is about getting people um through spaces and through those spaces where um there is business that presents an opportunity for um more people to have exposure businesses to have exposure to people. this is a lower

priority because it is an institution and it's the Kaylor Hotel as compared to the um for example 1 Avenue or Broadway which were the other two that were um leaning towards.

Okay, thank you Miss Steinhauser. We do want to get through this presentation but just to the point it is in our list of options. Go ahead. And I I'll just note quickly that one trade-off with this option too is that it does terminate at Center Street whereas the Sixth Avenue, First Avenue, Broadway options all continue north and south further north and center. So that brings us back to uh our third set of options and that's looking at the continuation of 6th Avenue further south um further south than second street southwest where we had shown in the re in the reimagining six project. So our team really looked at it all the way from Civic Center Drive all the way to Fourth Street Southwest um as a continuous corridor. In terms of the reimagining portion, that would complete and finish at Second Street Southwest. But we do see there being a lot of value in continuing that bikeway further south, just making that network network connection down to the existing bikeways on Second Street south or Fourth Street Southwest, excuse me. And so that option is what we're showing here in a in a concept. So that would be a continuation of that two-way bikeway on the east side of the street. Um what's different for this as shown in this segment is that we're proposing a reconstruction of just the east side of the street. And so this is again it's not necessarily a a quick build interim because based on the constraints of the curb to curb width. We're not able to do it with just kind of paint and flex posts to get the sufficient width for the bike way. We need to reconstruct and move out that eastern curb a little bit to get the extra width necessary. So that' be a two-way bikeway 10 foot on the east side continuing down to Fourth Street Southwest

preservation of all our parking on the west side. Finally, I'll touch on the Broadway Avenue option. And so this is something that we again feel has merit in kind of the long term in looking at connections uh north and south along Broadway. there's an existing bike way um north of Civic Center that this would be able to tie into. Um however, our team felt that there is not a short-term or kind of a near-term uh option to to reconnecting the mobility network along Broadway. And so we think further study would be needed to really assess the kind of merit in incorporating bikeway as part of an overall street design for Broadway. We know there's a lot of competing interest on Broadway for multiple different users and turning that into a complete street.

That's it for me. All right. Are we uh Council Member Palmer on on Broadway? You're talking about it's it's um was uh built in 1989, had a 40-year lifespan, so we're at 36 years. Um wouldn't this be the time to design Broadway now? in in in four years get it up and running. Um, so if I can I can start and Cindy, you can actually. Yep. Can we take up Council Member Palmer's uh question at the beginning of the discussion since this is your last slide and we all can see what the next uh is. So, we're going to take a 10-minute break. Sounds good. Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks for telling me, Sean.

So, when we last left this topic, Council Member Palmer was ready to dive into questions, but I'm going to have Mr. Samson Brown just very quickly go through the options very, very quickly and then we'll go into questions. So, I'll just go back to slide. Oh, there we go. Okay. So, actually I'm going to ask colleague uh Mitzy from uh tool design to do the quick recap.

Thank you. Um thanks for your time tonight. There's a lot here to consider. Uh, this slide I think does a good job of summarizing the main corridors we've been looking at. And I know you've looked at a bit of detail, but here you can kind of step back and take a look at the options. It's Broadway, First Avenue, Second Avenue, and then there is that segment of 6th Avenue connecting from Second Street to Fourth Street. Um, we're here to to help facilitate the conver conversation and answer any questions that you might have. Broadway really does present um a little bit of a challenge for a shorter term or interim connection to reconnect the network because it is not currently in a condition that would allow for a lower cost or quicker um implementation that would would require a reconstruction. First Avenue does present an opportunity for something to be reconnected in a shorter term with a lower cost that would be closer to the budget that's been allocated. Second Avenue, the biggest challenge there probably is working with a private property and then also having to share the street right in front of the Kaylor Hotel uh between the Gonda building and the Kaylor. Bikes would have to be in the travel lanes. um there isn't enough space there to separate uh bicycles in that space. So that's very high level, but we'll try to answer any questions that you might have.

All right, Council Member Palmer. Thank you. And so my my question was on the Broadway um and that in three years it it should be rebuilt. Um why wouldn't we want to get that design going right now and include Broadway since that's would connect it with a lot of other our cycle tracks?

Sure. I think council member Palmer the biggest challenge is funding availability. That's probably a million dollar plus design. Uh that budget there's not that line item is not in the budget. Also uh the city is in the process of submitting a build grant application which would cover uh civic center and the missing section of Broadway starting at four street southwest. Uh that's what we call our south Broadway uh grant that we build grant that we've received. We are in the process as staff negotiating through Mandot and Federal Highways on the final grant agreement. We think we're in a matter of weeks to a month to be able to bring that forward to you for approval. That would start the design and really that goes from Ninth Street Southwest um and goes north to Fourth Street. And that I think really sets the table in combination with the work that community development is doing on the historic district plan uh to really get as we move north on Broadway, how might this revitalize uh downtown, but that's just a major initiative uh cost and it's we just didn't see that feasible under the budget we were provided.

Okay. Uh questions. Uh Mayor Norton. Yeah, I'm I was going to ask a similar question to council member Palmer and and it is bringing up the question that um two questions I have. One um if we count it out now, does this mean that it will not be dealt with as you we hear complete streets, but is it going to have protected bike lanes at some point? And secondly, we have access to DMC monies and this board, this city council can choose to spend DMC monies in a particular way. And Broadway seems to me to be a priority um for the community. So, I guess I'm I'm wanting to not just like quickly toss that away because I think that in the long run, Broadway should be bike friendly and we should be talking about it now. So, I'll stop talking.

May, Council President Schub, maybe if I could just build off of the Broadway Absolutely. The Broadway strategy. So, we have the build grant for South Broadway.

We have applied for a build grant for from fourth up to center um as well as Civic Center Drive. Uh we have also identified it as um a request to our federal legislators for potential earmark. So, um, if we were just plot this out, say we're successful in getting the build grant, um, we will know by the middle of summer on the build grant, it would likely take us through the end of the year to, uh, and into 27 to get an agreement. Then we would have to go out for bid for design services. So, now we're through 27, maybe into the beginning of 28. um we would then um recommend applying for that same build program for construction and again there would be a local match that be would be required for the construction piece. So it's defin I would I would say not selecting it tonight does not mean that it drops off. We're it's very much on our radar as um a future capital project that we are actively pursuing state and federal dollars for. It's just it is not as um both Mity and Steve indicated not something that could be implemented in the next year or two which I think is what we heard as part of this process that we are trying to seek to do.

Council member Palmer.

Thank you. So I'm going to go back to 6th Avenue and running it from Cascade down to Soldiers Field as a as a cycle track. So, when would the when would it be in the CIP to do that or or how much do you think that would cost estimate wise? I I wouldn't be able to give you a sense of um a cost estimate, but in terms of putting it into the city budget, um unless you directed us to do it as part of the supplemental budget, it would come uh the soonest it would come would be in the 2829 uh bianual budget process which starts in a year.

Okay. So, one one other question, and this is kind of a safety one. I've looked at a lot of the bike safety and read a lot of different things on this in the last couple six months. Um, if we dropped in the in the in the in the city core, if we dropped our speed limits at 20 miles an hour and we had no rights on and red turns, would that be safer for all the bikes in all the roads? I would certainly say as a biker uh no rights on reds uh would be a safety improvement as a standard. Uh I can't speak to the uh traffic metrics uh in terms of uh traffic signal productivity at an intersection, but many bikers sometimes get hit, vehicles looking to the left, turn right, biker or pedestrian on the right side. That's that's a known conflict that's to occur to happen. uh in terms of speed limit reduction without parallel uh changing of the street character typically and I would say uh four street southeast is a good example you know we have four open lanes relatively low congestion not much on street parking and people tend to drive at their own pace they're comfortable which is north of 30 m hour so an arbitrary uh change to the speed limit without parallel uh changes to traffic calming measures to be implemented probably isn't going to result in the result that we want to And we're talking the downtown core, not Fourth Street Southeast. Um, and kind of going what the the the mayor was getting at with Broadway, the big advantage to me is the pedestrian part because right now, if you stand on the corner of Second Street and in Broadway, it's it's a cavern and and it does not help businesses on the other side either way. So, you know, I I think that we need to pursue this a little bit more. And I believe that she was saying DMC funding. I'm not particularly sure where the money comes from that I really care. I just want to see that that that Broadway get get taken care of sooner than later. Um, so those are kind of my ideas right now.

Council member Miller, it sounds like Council Member Palmer would like to go to the tax levy to expedite Broadway. I'm joking. Well, we can use DMC money. I'm joking. Uh, I I have a question for the team about a different element of this that came up in open comment which was about data collection. Do we currently have budget or equipment to do the required data collection independent of what design we we try to advance? Uh, council member Miller, are you speaking to parking data collection, vehicles, uh, pedestrians? Answer that all those components. Yeah,

sure. Uh, so we have some resources. Uh, let's speak to vehicles first. So, uh, the city currently has access to two softwares. One's called Urban SDK and one is called Street Lights. uh urban STK uh again works off autonomous vehicle data get that gets put out that people may not realize if they have a newer car or cell phone data uh that is responsive in about a 72-hour update. So that's why we prefer that we find uh street light as a software provides data about um about 30 days late coming in. The challenge with using the that data set is we're having major changes to the downtown street patterns in a more frequent cycle. So to really collect a data set on vehicles is hard to apply to a long-term solution based on what streets are closed and there's major street closures currently.

And for data collection on bikes, pedestrians, lime I would suspect has some more robust data s set on we do have some data set online. So, uh, ride reports the software they provide and, uh, we're wrapping up the 2025 annual report and we'll be, uh, bringing that to you shortly, uh, as a council item. So, we do have, uh, heat maps generally, uh, from 6th Avenue to about, um, 1st Avenue, east to west, uh, within 2nd Street, a few blocks. That's the primary, that's where the most rides occur for e scooters under lime.

And does that just give us a sense of where they're most frequent or how many there are? uh we can get both out of that. So, um referring to me, uh pedestrians, we don't really have a data set. We'd have to do that by counting. Um which is something we can do. Uh we're bringing on some active transportation interns uh this summer on our team. So, that that's a great work for them. Uh bikes, same thing. The city does have some counting devices. We're in the process of procuring more. We'll have better better capability to collect data sets um in the coming months. We just don't have anything downtown. And I'm missing a mode. Uh bikes data. Oh, parking. Uh so we don't have uh same thing meter parking. We don't have great reports. When you pay with your credit card, we really can't track that transaction at a meter or pay with uh if you use the park mobile app. Yes, we can track that. Um and we have some really good the 101 system that was uh recently installed in the parking ramps provides some robust data sets that we're uh just starting to work with our parking uh team to uh get access to those that information.

Okay. So how how might we expect to receive a more robust unified data set on some of these travel modes? And and the reason I ask is because I I I Council Member Palmer has brought up quite a few times the uh census data on commutes and mode splits by commutes. And I I agree that's important. It it feels incomplete to some of these discussions. And I'm curious how we get to a place where we have a a real seasonal discussion about how many people are walking, how many people are biking, how many people are driving, how many people are taking transit. so that we have a real sense of the local context and not statistically modified commuter data which is a part of people's travel patterns on a given day.

Sure. In terms of uh monitoring over time, I'm probably not the best person to answer that. I'm more for a project. Uh active transportation quarter Matt Lynch is in the audience. Perhaps you'd be willing to come up and speak to that strategic plan or somebody else. I'm going to take a shot at addressing this because I think I think what it comes down to is you have a have a counting program where you're regularly identifying where you're going to count, what you're going to count, and how you're going to report on it. And uh now that you have a active transportation coordinate coordinator, a mode shift coordinator, um I think you're well positioned to develop that program and come back with a a conversation

on that topic specifically. Okay. And I'm going to take this chance to bring you back to the map. Yeah. And um maybe one of the burning questions here is does the council want to be in a position to to reconnect the network for bicyclists within the next maybe 18 months. I'm going to go to council member Fredericks. He's next on our list.

Thank you, President. Does extending the 6th Avenue Northwest project just two blocks accomplish the goal of the north north and south connectivity and then in return buy us some time to come up with a good plan for the Broadway project in however many years. Um then you have basically two sides that are connected on the north and south and to me you'd have a good product not running through all the congestion on first so on and so forth. Does does that extension two block extension accomplish the goal?

I think it depends on who you ask because um not everyone agrees that that connection from Second Street to Fourth Street Southwest meets the goal of an all ages and abilities network. Do we have a policy for all ages and abilities? There's no single straightforward design that works because it's very contextsensitive. Grades, speeds, volumes, widths, all have uh a contribution to that decision. It's it's a nuanced decision. So, we don't have a policy.

So, Council President Schub Steinhauser, I would say in short answer is yes. And then you layer in all of the things that I'm Yes, we do have a policy.

Um, does it No, to your question of does it solve for it, the answer is yes, but then you layer in the other things. We do also have um by virtue of adoption of the active transportation plan embedded in that plan is a definition of all ages and abilities. bicycle trails and on street lanes designed to be comfortable to a range of bicyclists including children, seniors, women, people with disabilities, people moving goods or cargo, people of color, and low-income riders. That is your definition of all ages and abilities that's adopted in the um active transportation plan. Okay. Mr. Neemire wanted to add something to that.

Yeah, thank you. I'm just going to add briefly that we have a complete streets policy. The active transportation plan expands on that and talks about um all ages and abilities as a concept within that plan and lays out the corridors where that could or should be achieved. Council member Keane. Yeah. Um couple things. First, um I was really interested in this discussion on counting or data because um I and and I like the way you put it that we're well positioned to try to do that when we talk about interim solutions or things like that. Has anyone considered that as part of an interim we would start collecting data like that?

Yes, I think we absolutely would. Council member Keane, uh, because we're not moving curbs and making permanent changes. That gives us an ability to adjust the design. I'd even say that's a national best practice. Cities put things out, see what works. A lot of it works, pieces don't. That gets refined, and then we spend money on concrete and things like that are that are much more expensive.

Okay. I I think underneath this we've been having a combination of a public safety discussion um a lot of but like but really it's a lot about how do we use this like precious thing of our rightway and how best to use it and and and is there trade-offs between safety for one group of users compared to potential business impacts to others. And that's sort of how I've been watching this discussion going. And with that, I again I'm going to make a motion to adopt option B from the presentation as the preferred option to advance for reestablishing the north south connection in the downtown mobility network.

Motion has been made by council member Keen. Is there a second? Uh I will second that. Go ahead. Thank you, Council Member Keane.

Yeah, I'll just try to make a couple points here. One is I do accept the city's defined project of reconnecting between the east and west routes of Fourth Street and Center Street. Um I again, you almost have to define these things somehow to to get started. Um I actually cringed a little bit because I thought no, we got to get to Second Street because we didn't vacate Third and Fourth Avenue past Second Street Southwest, but I think there's an unspoken thing here that we don't want bikes on Second Street. And that that drives us to Fourth Street. So, I accept that as a as a starting point for this. Um, uh, on the discussion of First Avenue Northwest running, uh, north of Center Street, again, good discussion. I hope someday we do that, but just scoping it down to what we're dealing with today on reconnecting. I I think I'll leave that for another day. Um, but I again, I I am this is a good time now after that's been, you know, not been used, you know, under construction for the last couple years. How do we reestablish it? uh when the part when the bus things go away I it's not a matter of pulling an existing asset out it's like how should we be using this and I do consider close to that downtown core um I um we we are using words like interim but these are four and five and six years things so I I I don't want to call them temporary um and I do appreciate that a lot of the solutions we're talking about are uh I I don't I hate using this it almost sounds like oversimplified paint but we're We're redefining what we're using our right ofway for. Um this trade-off when we talked about how many parking spots there are and how many would they be after this that's important here. Uh this is something that um we've established as an important uh asset for some of these businesses. But we've also haven't got the data on that either. We heard emphatically last week that you can't cheat this system and then Friday we got an update that said yeah you can and they're doing it all the time. And I

don't know if that's one of these 74 spaces or 37 of these spaces. I don't know. I only get antidotal data from people who say it's certainly happening. Um so that idea of having data to make decisions would sure be helpful. Um one of the valuable arguments against option B that residents have made to me is it's complicated and it's not direct there. And can way finding solve this? And I I don't think so. And will I mean will the bike people and the bike community ask at this? But the novice user where how does he know where we've tried to establish these protections from them and they will they get to use it. And my take is a lot when you're using this downtown stuff, you're not talking to the average novice. You're talking about people who will use these things uh and will find them. And um to that end, I I've been a little bit frustrated that I've got people telling me that they use First Avenue all the way through Goose Egg Park because it's much better than being on that cycle track on Center Street. And it's sort of like what are we doing here? Um and I think underneath it, we have we're trying to make our streets safer for all modes of transportation, but we also have people who are going to make their own decisions and what's safest for them. Um, and with that, I was kind of looking at those trade-offs, and I think option B, uh, seems to address what this council asked for almost a year ago to say, how do we reconnect?

Thank you, council member. I, as a seconder, I will, uh, uh, take on to that. This option one, I I really look at this as an interim option uh, and a and temporary option. that temporary maybe 3 4 years. Uh from my perspective, this uh it has the the least amount of impact on the current uh commercial district. We're losing 16 parking spots. I also I think this one has the best potential for connecting to the historic district which is to the east of there. Uh uh we heard last week that Third Street Southwest uh could be a connection uh to the river from uh from 1 Avenue southwest. Uh and uh and so that element of connecting uh connecting the uh the east of 1 Avenue to to uh the the primary uh uh clinic area. I think is important. I want to emphasize though that I look at this as a interim temporary solution. My preferred option is Second Avenue Southwest. It is low traffic. It is almost designed as a cycle track. Um, and I wasn't here when it was designed, but I wonder why it wasn't designed as a cycle track. I also look at Annenburgg Plaza and I know there are issues to Annenburgg Plaza and there may be uh some right-of-way issues there but we're in an interesting position right now where Annenburgg Plaza and uh second north second north of second is

currently being uh constructed for a temporary it may be 3 years it may be uh four years a uh a vehic vehicular traffic for the clinic in that area. So now is is really the optimum time to have that discussion with our major employer that is there a way that we can uh bring pedestrians and cyclists together in this space to to go forward. I do hear Miss Steinhauser that you're that there may be some hesitation to push that. I think this council is really ready to have that discussion and and uh want to have some transparency with that discussion with our major employer. But I think we're in a good spot to let them know what we're interested in uh in seeing uh for a uh a permanent solution down the down the road. But back to the motion, uh I think uh uh this uh option B really helps us reduce uh reduce the impact and it also and from my standpoint and I mentioned this last week and I may be becoming the angle parking guy, but I really do not like to lose the that angle parking this as a uh I respect that you you put some of that back. I do believe and uh council member Palmer cited the the 2010 report that talks about angled parking and its uh its impact as a barrier as a as traffic calming. I I got your point earlier, council member Palmer, that it isn't a speedway because of angle parking uh

south of second on first. So, with that, I I uh I seconded this this motion. Council member Palmer is next.

Miss Case, could you put that map up for me, please? And and as she's doing that, um public works does have the information on um surveys on every corner downtown, the number of bikes, and the number of pedestrians. And I have that in my file at home, but I know public works has it and they can make that available to us. Um that's been done, and that's a local one that's been done. Um the map that I'm asking to be put up here is from 2010 and this is the um uh downtown report and it called First Avenue um the the the main street for for for us downtown. And so they did not envision this to becoming um a bike trail. Um but if you look at at the way that this is laid out, it it it took a lot of effort and if you haven't read the report, it's about 160 pages. um they sent out um requests to people uh by mail doing a scientific survey. They had 1,800 responses to it. This is what people talked about about Main Street being your main street is where businesses are. What you're forgetting is that if you take this option B um that you're talking about, you're going to lose the parking in front of these businesses and as businesses are struggling right now. And I think if you take it a step back and think about this, in 18 months, we're going to have the the the BRT up and running. And if you're going to ride your bike, you could ride your bike to the to the ends of the of the um BRT and bring it into town. We're going to have a new parking ramp in north part of town that you can take the express bus down. So, you don't really have to come to downtown. and everything is changing so much downtown by taking those businesses away, taking that parking away just doesn't make any sense to me. You know, I'm I offer the suggestion that we go to 20 mph throughout the downtown core, get rid of right-hand turns on right um on red. That would make it easier and better for bikes um and safer. So, in in saying all of that, I'm going to um wait to have that re request done as far as as getting that information from public

works in having them look at my suggestion of 20 mph and no right and no right-hand turns on red. So, I'm going to make a motion to um table this matter. Motion has been made to table this item. Is there a second? I'll second it. Seconded by uh Council Member uh Frederick's. Uh a motion to table is not debat debatable. Is it uh clerk quasil attorney spindler Craig? That's correct. So uh so do we take a a immediate vote? That is correct. Okay. Uh call the role. Council member Keane. Nay. Council member Miller. Nay.

Council member Wall. Nay. Council member Frederick's. Yes. Council member Palmer, nay. Council member Doring, nay. Council President Schubang, nay. Motion fails two to five. Uh, council member Frederick's.

So, I'm in agreeance with President Schub on the second uh option, the uh second avenue option. I don't understand why we don't just pursue that right out of the gate. Is it is it just for speed to to have a have a connection sooner on first? Uh cuz there's no parking implications. I don't see any like red flags for businesses on that. You said it's already designed to to operate as that. Why don't we just have that conversation and pursue that option then? Can you can you speak to Second Avenue? Uh council president

Frederick's I think the primary concern understanding uh Mayo's multiple pickup and drop off points during construction. They plan to use Second Avenue to run shuttle campus shuttles until through 2030. So, um, outside of a legal process where we attain rights sooner, it's really going to put a crimp in their long long-term plan over the bull forward unbound construction phase to um the way they get to plan to get people in and out of the clinic. So, and this this also plays into like Westg uh drop off is uh going to be no longer available. Uh there different points they're used to using come and go as streets uh become available. So really second avenue is that one corridor that remains open for business. They've been valeting on the south side of the Mayo Clinic building on uh Second Avenue. uh when Link BRT starts to run in 2027, those are the red uh business access trans uh transit lanes, they can't run uh valet off of Second Street anymore.

I heard you just say it ain't quick enough. So, yeah, I think uh we would need to wait unless it would cause major disruption to the construction and the arrival of patients and the movement of people around the Mayo Clinic during the construction. Uh Council Member Wall,

thank you. Uh, I agree with President Schub and with Andy. I think Second Street is the better route and instead of uh uh uh considering roadblocks, I'd like to work toward how can we get to yes rather than just say here's why we can't do it. Here's why we can't do it. How can we get to it? uh other cities, particularly European cities, have uh found their way around uh uh trams and trains and and cars and pedestrians and bikes and they have a lot more people than we do. I we we can do it. We can do it. I I will uh vote against the motion. It's better uh B is better than A. Uh I will vote against it uh uh primarily because of parking and supporting downtown businesses. I reached out to uh a business leader uh today and uh she was kind to write back and said, "Business owners rely on those spaces. Graband-go sandwiches, bank lobby, restaurants, all need the perception of easy access, even if even if it's not easy. Not one business owner supports losing parking spaces." I'm not sure that's entirely right. I think I got a an email today from a business owner that does support that. Um it's not so much bike lanes, it's the loss of parking. So um I think second uh avenue is uh the better option and I would like to use that uh and then hopefully work on Broadway uh so that uh we can take the uh highway 63 uh moniker and look off of it and make it look more like a a city street that has been uh brought back to us like we have done on North Broadway. So, I I would love to uh uh use long range planning to, you know, if it's five years, seven years, my gosh, we've got projects longer than that.

Council member Miller.

Yeah, thank you. I'll just echo what several of our colleagues have brought up. I will support the motion because I think it is an interim solution to being able to work towards Second Avenue. And I would just condition my comments as I think in many ways we're choosing between two interests downtown and and who gets to decide whether First or Avenue, First Avenue or Second Avenue is used and I would like to see how we move towards Second Avenue. But in the um situation where that is completely impossible, I think we need an interim connection in this 18-month period time frame. I think we need to monitor the data. I'll just mention when I was in Portland, Oregon, there was a a a bike pedestrian transit bridge and every time you walked over it or biked over it, it ticked up one and it displayed it and it said crossings today, crossings year to date. And so there was never any question of how many people were utilizing that. And I'll just note the the elephant in the room is the size of a vehicle versus the size of a person. And when we only see private property stored in the public rightway, it does feel overwhelming. And I would love to say that every one of those cars parked on the curb is getting a sandwich or going to the bank or using those exact businesses that we want to support. And I just suspect that's not true. I would like us to study that data as well, perhaps working with our partners at RDA to better answer that question of who is on the street, who's parked on the curb. And I also think that we have the capability to work with our non- mayo downtown businesses on programs that appropriately manage the supply at the curb and also access for customers and employees because we have a civic center south lot that's quite cheap for daily parking much cheaper than the ramp much cheaper than the street paying at the meter. And I don't know that that's well

known and advertised to downtown business owners and employees that that is accessible because I see Mayo employees walking from the southeast lots every day into downtown and walking in the evenings. And if that's a possible distance for downtown employees to travel, I wonder why it's not more utilized for Civic Center South to get into downtown along the trail. Roughly the same distance, the same time, a similar employee profile. So I would like us to learn how and this goes well beyond the motion. But I I think these are topics that we can talk about the supply, we can talk about the infrastructure, we have to talk about the programming that helps people uh navigate in all ways that infrastructure. So I would like to see how we work on that issue. There was a rate study a couple years ago that rep prioritized the use of the street and the ramps and reset the rates. And I wonder if that's not the time to bring an update on that and think about how we advance that work again to better manage this precious public space. And um and I I just think that as we've gone through all these stakeholder processes, we have an established stakeholder set of groups, set of interests. We know who's downtown. And I would really want to prioritize the non- Mayo stakeholders in understanding this use of our downtown. And I I the comment also came up that the third street ramp is quite full. I've seen that too. It's more full than normal. I'd like to see how we get that access back so that we're not negotiating over 16 or 20 spaces on the street, but we really understand where the parking is, how it is appropriately allocated to the users, and we're managing the curb. And I'll I'll just say too, I support council members uh Palmer's comments about right turn on red and lowering the speed limit, but I recognize that that requires enforcement. And I don't suspect we have a a staffing model to enforce that appropriately. And I again, I will support this tonight, but I think we need to continue this conversation and additional study sessions and additional work. I would

like to see how we go north of West Center Street and access the Soldiersfield Park to the south as well, but I recognize that that's beyond what we're being asked to do tonight.

Council member Doring. Yeah, despite the flaws I see in the uh First Avenue option B, I will be supporting it tonight as well. But I'm wondering uh and really debating if I put a time limit on that support whether we indicate this as a council uh that this is an interim use policy that's set in place for 18 months and really give a time frame for the to press negotiations uh with the private property owner um downtown uh to give us access to Allenberg Plaza and see if that is a possibility. Uh, council member, do you want to put that in a a amendment? Yes,

that is your option. I I I don't know. I'm debating it. Mr. Samson Brown, did you have something to add? While council members,

if I may add some context just in terms of when's the right time to make a decision, three major milestones I think are coming up in about the next 18 months. First one, uh, by the end of 2026, four new Mayo parking ramps will come online. None are open today. That is going to change the way people park downtown. Exactly how we'll we'll need to measure that as it was suggested, but that's something that can't start until November 26. Um, in November, December 26, uh, the the downtown transfer for, uh, RPT will move back downtown. That's over 1,200 riders a day, 1,200 potential customers. So again, we'll see that'll be happening a block north of here. So we'll see how that foot traffic does everyone just jump on a bus or do they wander down 1 Avenue? That will give us some guidance on pedestrian footage. And then of course um August of 2027 link uh BRT starts running 11,000 riders projected on day one. to me after those three ma major milestones are achieved we'll have a general idea and the downtown major east west streets second street will all be open yes there'll be work uh to the north and kusky neighborhood but to me by August the 27 we can really start getting a sense of what does the new downtown Rochester function like in terms of active transportation where do people want to go because there'll be enough streets open they can actually get to many of the places not all where they'd like to go and that would be a good time to really start measuring in earnest with a real data set that's more predictable and reliable moving into the future. So, just want to add that.

Council member Dory. Yeah, I'll plan to not amend the motion on the floor and support this motion, but I would encourage us not to wait until 2027 to gather those data points. I would like to see a before and after of all the things that you have just described. Uh, clerk queso, can you call the role? Council member Keane, I. Council member Miller, I. Council member Wall, nay. Council member Frederick's, nay. Council member Palmer, nay. Council member Doring, I. Council President Schubang, I. Motion passes four to three.

Other discussion points on this agenda item? I know we had uh several other pieces. There was the uh the 6th Avenue south of 2nd Street. Uh we did have uh some discussion on Broadway. Any further discussion on any of those pieces? Council members, Council Member Miller, I guess a question for staff. Are there grant opportunities to pursue for connection of those pieces, particularly the Sixth Avenue one in the timeline of construction? I believe that was a medium-term possibility. And forgive me, you uh council member Mill, you're talking about the section on 6th Avenue, South Street to Fourth Street,

Fourth Street, Southwest.

Um I think first we have to what I failed to mention when we talked about it before is but I think you're all aware there's a slope there. So we'd have to understand what that means in terms of constructibility um design and constructibility. And yeah, I if there's a funding opportunity, we will pursue it. Um it could also be something that if we don't spend the entire $480,000 on First Avenue and you direct us to um put some of those dollars towards that, like we can develop a um list of talking points for you to consider related to that. So would that come back to us with further refinement of this design of the motion that just passed as as costs go in and we understand the the amount being used. Would that be an appropriate point to discuss remainders?

Sure. We can bring other funding sources. Absolutely. We can bring an update.

Council member Keane. Uh yeah, just on that same discussion, the uh again I just asked staff to reassess the whole um ma the the agreement made on the vac vacating Third and Fourth Avenue was to reconnect the thing and I think the way the dollar amount was worked out was we had vacated two city streets two blocks long and did some math on that. But as we go through these discussions, we're finding that we're actually needing to replace four city streets in two directions. um and maybe the funding doesn't quite cover that. So, just something to consider with our negotiates with Mayo. I know Mayo turned over the money based on the city is the one who defines streets and how they should run. And I agree with that, but I I think it's worth reassessing if the dollar amount was correct considering that we weren't ending at Second Street because we don't travel on Second Street, we are going to Fourth Street. So, it's a bigger it's a bigger relocate than I think we're funded for. Okay, thank you team. Great job. Uh, next on our agenda is H4, which is updates to the council rules and of procedure and code of conduct conduct. And, uh, this is an item from our consent agenda that I pulled and I pulled it primarily for the section on how we deal with council initiated actions. I I didn't feel the language changes really clarified the uh the uh how we use CIA. I uh and so I I I wanted I asked uh Deputy Administrator Parish to to really look at the language so that it's clear because I think CIA's were initially developed as a way for council members to bring

things forward to their colleagues and then ask staff to devote time and resources into researching and preparing ing an item to come back to the council. Uh but we know in the last uh actually two months, we've had uh a few resolutions that came through CIA where uh the council was ready to uh make a decision on that CIA that evening. So, I I wanted to make sure that that we had flexibility as a council to be able to take those resolutions and items where we as a body can make a decision that evening, but also uh ensure that we're also able to use the CIA's uh for the purpose of uh devoting staff and resources to further study. So, Mr. Parish, did you want to um present what you uh drafted to to um tighten that language up or Yeah, your honor. Uh there's there's three options and Ann, if or Heather, if you could pull those up on the screen. Um option one really just um refineses the language slightly. um but then says if you do want to take action on an item uh you have the ability to do that by suspending your rules which is really the case with most things with the rules but uh that does require a five out of seven vote so there's a little bit of a higher standard if you wish to uh bring that forward for action that particular evening um when we initiated council initiated actions a while back you know the focus really was it was to provide research bring back a recommendation that the council then could adopt at a subsequent meeting um But as you acknowledge, council president, there are times where, you know, things certainly are more contemporary and in

need of consideration. So then the second option um would really um kind of soften that a little bit and say it's just it is not anticipated that council action will be taken on an item um and that the CIA is is really directed um to direct staff time. So it doesn't mean you can't, it's just not anticipated. So, it softens it a little bit, but still orients you in the direction of it being a two-step process, but doesn't preclude it in this particular case. I mean, if you'll note, we tried to walk both of these changes with this evolution of mayor initiated action requests. So, the process is in essence the same. Um, and these are, you know, just modifications to existing language. Uh, and then last is you could certainly approve any of these other two rule changes that are included this evening with regard to remote participation. Um and um well I think it's really that one. Um and you could ask us to bring back some language you know based on your feedback and conversation tonight for consideration at a different date. So if you have a particular one you want to make a motion around option one two or three we're certainly happy to answer any questions and did I catch everything do you think? Okay.

So, we're going to start with the discussion. Council member Wall, I am going to straight just a little bit from that to go to uh the mayor initiated action. Um that's novel uh nomenclature to me. Uh I I don't recall hearing those words when we were talking about council rules. uh and I thought that these that what was coming back to us was a reflection of what we uh had talked about as a council. So I I when I was reading through this I wondered where uh the MIA uh came from.

Yeah. And um an unfortunate acronym probably. Um so certainly I could go through all the funny acronyms. None of us were here when this was discussed and uh we are all MIA. Go ahead. Sorry.

I am um maybe city attorney Keg wants to throw me a lifeline here, but I I think the goal here was to align the CIA and MIA process together. Um there is a little bit of difference with the mayor's current uh ability to add actions to the agenda. Um in essence, there there isn't like you all have to find a friend um to do this. In her case, that's not the case. She has the ability to put things on the agenda. I think it was really just an effort to provide clarity and alignment between the two processes. But with that, I'll defer to city attorney Spindler Craig if I missed it. And I'm going to go to first Mayor Norton since this impacts her most directly.

Well, this took me by surprise to say the least. Um I'm not a council member and so when we keep trying to align and we've been doing this a number of times, I I don't have the privileges of voting for things like you do. There are differences. I'm the CEO of the city. I'm not a council member. And so for me, when I see something like this, it is a demeaning action toward the office of the mayor. And I'm very concerned when this hadn't come up and now we have this kind of language. And I will say a couple things that are um difficult to to understand the thought process here. Currently, our office and historically our office does RCA for boards and commissions. We don't do Cas. We don't do MAS. We do RCAs. My staff puts together the RCA for boards and commissions that come to the meeting that these guys vote on. We do RCAs for travel permission. We put together the RCA. It goes in the packet through Allison through the county administ or the city administrator. And I think there have maybe been two other times that something that an RCA was used that wasn't on one of these standard topics. It's rare. Um I was takenback by this language and it does not allow me to do my job and the current roles that I'm doing it by putting these these rules and regulations. And in fact, if you because it was tried to be paralleled with the council, it says it would have to it could not come for a vote that I would put together a CIA for board and commission members that would come to you that you would say, "Oh, okay. It's okay for you to put together a an RCA for a board and commission appointee." I mean, I do there are hundred and some board and commission

members. I don't do a hundred a year, but I do probably 40 or 50 a year. And so it just doesn't make sense. And so I would please ask that this be removed and leave the initial language as it is. Um not treating me like a council member, but treating me like the mayor of the city with the responsibilities that has historically been with this office. Uh

thank you. Uh mayor any I I just want to add also I and I agree with the mayor. I I would support not including 2.03C which I think is the changes to 2.03 C. I also so I also uh think the added language to 2.03B 03B is unnecessary because we uh and and it puts further restrictions on us as a council that we uh that we didn't have a month ago. It uh we passed uh passed two resolutions without suspending the rules. So, so I I'm really concerned with uh language and I don't know that we discussed this at length um during our study session, but I'm really concerned with putting in language that uh that puts added shackles on our council. I think we've done in my tenure in the last year a good job of distinguishing between CIA that need research and staff time and CIA that we uh know that are our um public want us to uh make a decision on quickly. So, I I think actually I would uh make a motion to uh to remove Well, I don't know what the I know we're we're looking at the entire the the entire rules and uh and guidelines, but I would remove both the the changes to 2.03b and 2.03 03C.

And so maybe your honor, if I don't want to for you here, but maybe you'd want to make a mo motion to approve removing the proposed changes in those two sections. Second you on that. Uh yes, that motion and second by by council member Frederick's. Uh council member Keane. Yeah, I I was just going to add some context here, but do you guys want to speak first since it's your motion? I think I did speak to to my motion.

Yeah. Again, I I do remember we had some discussion on the uh 2.03b in our in our discussion and part of it was the old history and this is something that, you know, it's hard to keep up with, but the history with council initiated actions was to get staff time. It wasn't the way we've been using them lately. And I know there's some concern with that that um and on both sides of concern. Obviously on the council side this says no, we need to do something this week as opposed to bring something in. Um but I think there is the worry um from a from a staff perspective that um we'll end up with something in the council initiated actions and all of a sudden the other council members are voting on something that they didn't expect to. And I think that's what I read this language to be protecting from. it was to go back towards more of the idea of um on a normal council initiated action. It would be for the council to discern whether staff time should be spent on that. Um and the exception being um and that's suspending the rules. The exception being is no, we're going to take action right now. Um and I so I I'm not so much weighing in one side or the other, but giving that sort of background to it. And I think that's where it came from. As far as adding the mayor stuff, I I don't remember the disc I don't think we had a discussion on it. Um I don't think it necessarily belongs in here, but at the same time, it is a way of saying it's it's a collection of here are the different things that can get on the agenda. Um, and I think that I thought the the idea was and this is the old going back to 2015 before my day be before council member Palmer where it was who had control of the agenda and who and did council have the ability to say I need this on the agenda and that was debated back in those days and changed and I think now we're talking about like no we want more control of it. Um, and that's something that I'm

trying to get comfortable with. further discussion on this. So, oh, go ahead. Uh, city attorney spindler Craig.

Thank you. I would echo um some of council member Keen's comments there about what the discussion was that we heard from you um as we discussed the rules. And I do want to be clear with the body that we weren't attempting to make something up here. We thought we were reflecting what you discussed, not only what you discussed that night, but the discussions that we had on a number of prior occasions related to CIA. And um there was a theme that developed of each of you um at times were putting your colleagues into tough spots because you were bringing CIAs and ready to vote on them. And we heard um from various angles that some of you felt that these had been sprung upon you that you didn't have time to review them and suddenly you're rushed to a vote. Okay. Um so I do I do want to be clear with the body that we were attempting to reflect what we thought we were hearing from you that you generally don't want to be doing that to each other. Okay? Recognizing that for each of you when it's your CIA sometimes you wanted to move forward quickly, right? So you kind of do it to each other, but it seemed that your conversation was you kind of wanted to put a little bit more of a hurdle in front of that process, right? So that was part of what we were trying to reflect. Here's the other challenge that that is created by that dynamic is the whole point of the CIA is that staff is trying to hear from the body that you want us to spend time on this topic. And what we end up with instead at times is if if the hard push is coming to us and we know that the CIA authors want to

vote right away, right? They want action. they want to spend money, they want to pass a resolution, they want to do something like that, then we're already in a position where we need to spend a bunch of time on that topic, right? Because if we see that you have a resolution, a draft resolution that you want the body to vote on right away, we need to try to get that into a form where we think the body can digest it, consider it, give it thought, and vote on it that night. So, it really has the effect of putting staff in a position where we're needing to dig in and spend a bunch of time on it, even though it's still just a CIA and the body hasn't really directed us to do that. I think you've seen that play out on some of your recent CIAs. Maybe you're okay with that. Maybe you want it to continue that way. But I thought that the discussion that you had was in part an attempt to avoid some of those situations.

Thank you. That's enough on that topic. Thank you for your uh very clear clarification.

Just the other the other piece of the the the mayor's piece, I would also just say like um yes to um Mr. parish's point, those provisions read in parallel previously. Like that isn't the the concept isn't new, right? Th those provisions were meant to be parallel and read in parallel previously. Um so to the extent that we were putting that concept editing the language for the CIA and what the expectations were um we thought that it made sense to make it parallel with the mayor's language as well. But you should understand that the concept of the mayor bringing um a similar action something similar to the CIA isn't new. Those were your prior rules. Yeah. And I did see that as as naming it. It was prior to that a request. Uh other council members want to be heard on this item. Council member Miller.

So I guess I also I appreciate council member Keen bringing up the context. I I do remember that discussion about um how we bring the CIA potentially as a point of discussion that's likely to receive action at a future meeting. The the point that I think starts to build up though is having a review period of 15 business days only then to have it on a council discussion. It feels like it extends the process quite long up to 5 weeks. And I wonder if there's a point of understanding that if if it's just well two council members fill out a form and put it on the next agenda. If it doesn't start with staff review, I think that that's a different process. But I think this does both as as written as proposed. It it puts that three-week review period and it puts it on to the following council meeting which I think is is the push back I'm feeling like it's it's limiting council's ability and obviously we could suspend the rules but I I suspect this is going a little bit further in in the discussion that I heard. I I think that would be my concern is the five weeks of potential time between a form being filled out and actually council action. It's quite a long glide path.

Okay. So, um Council Member Dory, um thank you, Council Member Miller. I agree with that. Um I'm wondering uh we have a mechanism now to uh not take action on a CIA at any meeting by tableabling a CIA. Um which is also in our purview and doesn't require a change of the rules. Um I'm also wondering what the difference is and I I heard you speak about this uh city attorney and I appreciate the the time and effort. Um, I'm taken aback a little bit uh by the idea uh that reviewing a CIA and being prepared to make a decision on it is any different than any other item on our agenda when is which is published again the Wednesday before a meeting when we have no clear indication what every single item is on the agenda and a review period for those items as well. we are asking simply the same thing to take action with four days of review as we do for every other item of on our agenda. So, it's a little troubling to me um to hear uh the feedback that we need more time to make a decision when we haven't really adopted any rule to have other items on placed on our agenda. uh uh have a a longer glide path to use the language that Council President Schub uses a lot to make informed decisions. I think we're making a a distinct separation. Um and I I again I think it limits our ability to um listen to our constituents and and and be the spokespeople for those who we were elected to serve in this community. So that's my my my opinion about this. Okay, see no others no others to speak.

We have a motion on the table to accept the rules and guidelines with uh except for the changes to 2.03B and 2.03 C. All in favor say I. I. Oppose say nay. Nay. Motion passes five to two. Moving on to uh H5 uh Minnesota Office of Justice Programs 2026 2028 crisis response grant. This was pulled by Council Member Wall. Mr. Wall,

thank you. Uh I pulled it for uh two reasons. Uh, one is, uh, I think it's a a really good demonstration of the Rochester public uh, department, uh, Rochester Police Department's uh, uh, recognizing needs of the community in terms of mental health and would love to uh, have them talk a little bit about that uh, so that we and the public are even better informed as to our response to people in need of those services. And then also uh that the council uh I'm sure is very well aware that perhaps after 23 or 24 months if this is something that is very wellreceived uh that it could uh come back to us as a responsibility for funding going into the future.

Thank you. Uh Captain Hodgejman, do you would you like to

Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you very much uh Council Member Wall for that. Uh the police department is currently seeking approval to apply for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety crisis response grant. Uh this is in order to sustain and to strengthen a service model that we are currently demonstrating with measurable results. As council will recall last March we entered into a contract with Terry Dose who is acting as our persons experiencing homelessness navigator. That position was funded through the one-time public safety funds and that those dollars will be ending at the end of this year. This role has allowed us to really create a true proof of concept here in Rochester. Uh through our focused outreach, our coordinated engagement and persistent follow-up, we are moving individuals from repeated crisis contacts into stabilization and to services while we're strengthening the coordination between law enforcement, community partners, and social services. If awarded this grant, um, this would this would fund this position for the next two years. It does not obligate the city long term. It is an opportunity for us to pursue the external funding to continue to model this model that is working and to thoughtfully evaluate the sustainability before we enter into anything that is more long-term.

Thank you. Uh, any questions? Is there a motion on this item? If I had it up, I would make the motion to approve. Uh I'll move to authorize the police department to apply for the 2026 2028 Department of Public Safety U. Minnesota Office of Justice Programs Crisis Response Grant. Second. A motion made by Council Member Keane and seconded by Council Member Frederick's. Anything to add, Council Member Wall? I love stories. Can you just give us one story that says here's how we have used this uh to the benefit of the public?

Absolutely. Thank you. So Terry is one of the things that she does is provides us with a lot of of stories about her contacts that she's had. And there's a lot of people without giving you names, faces that I know that you would very easily recognize from just being in the downtown area. And these are people who based on their current situation have not been able to get into housing for months or get into treatment for months. And Terry alongside with our CAT team going out there and being persistent with them, getting them into those those spots where maybe they feel like today's the day. we've been able to place a lot of people um into services that are either here in Rochester in our housing options or getting them out to treatment maybe outstate um where they come back to Rochester and they're living productive lives as citizens in our community.

Thank you, Council Member Miller.

Yeah, thank you. I I appreciate Council Member Wall pulling this item and also Captain Hodgejman you're coming tonight. I remember the last time we had a discussion about some of the challenges downtown. I asked Chief Franklin, "How do we scale this up? if it's working so well, how do we move it up? So, I'm glad to see this attempt to scale up our our ability to provide service for people in a difficult time in their lives. And I also appreciate council member Wall u bringing up the the nature of grants and and how we build in sustainable programs. And I I just wonder if um how we think about an overall operational analysis of of some of our public safety services. Um I mean it it is uh nearly 60% of our general fund which is significant and important but just how we understand the the the needs that we want to see rather than there's a grant application so we could add it in and and I just want to understand how we're thinking about grants and are we being driven to change our operations based on available grants or are we proactively seeking grants that meet our strategic goals?

Uh administrator Parish. Uh your honor, I and Council Member Miller, I think it's yes and all that. I mean, so we're in a process of continually evaluating, you know, how do we maximize and optimize our response in in many areas. Um our teams are obviously, you know, going through some continuous improvement efforts on an ongoing basis. Um we have had conversations in the past about you know is there opportunity to do larger evaluation of you know core services and we've done program reviews and things like fleet and you know name the name the city service um and so we could talk as a staff again and and see what options might exist

um police fire etc. I mean obviously fire's got a lot of transformation happening too and as you're looking at adding another station um you know these public safety evaluations do take place we've had some conversation maybe it wasn't quite with the current council but in the past I know the police chief reported out on some benchmarking and metrics that um you know they had completed with we'll call peer agencies and so we can think about how we best bring forward some ideas for you all in that space.

Okay. Thank you council member Doring. Just for my colleagues at our next study session, I'll be presenting a little bit about the Any Path Home Initiative and uh Terry's work with with the service providers um here in this community for those experiencing uh homelessness has been um I can't speak highly enough of of of the stories they share about uh her involvement uh with those individuals and they uh her involvement has part been part of the the success metrics of that initiative that I'll be happy to share with you at our next study session as well.

Thank you, council member. Uh seeing no other uh anyone else who wants to be recognized. All in favor say I. Oppose say nay. Motion passes. Moving on to our council initiated act. We have no council initiated action actions. Um and moving on to ordinance first readings. Go ahead Mr. Spindler Craig.

Thank you Mr. President. Item J1, an ordinance reszoning approximately 2.71 acres of land located south of Highway 52 Southeast and east of Highway 62 63 South at 77 Wood Lake Drive Southeast from LI Lightn to MXG Mixeduse General and amending ordinance number 4478 known as the Unified Development Code of the City of Rochester, Minnesota. Moving on to item J2, an ordinance reszoning approximately 1.2 acres of land located northwest of the intersection of 7th Avenue Southwest and Center Street West from R2X, lowdensity residential infill to R3, medium density residential, and amending ordinance number 4478, known as the Unified Development Code of the City of Rochester, Minnesota. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. Next up, we have other business. First item on our other business is we will be we are now recessing to the Rochester Economic Development Authority meeting and I will call the meeting to order and uh first item is our consent agenda. We have the minutes of the February 2nd 2026 meeting on our consent agenda. Is there a motion to pass the consent agenda? Moved by Council Member Frederick's. Second

seconded by council member Miller. All in favor say I. I. Oppose say nay. Motion passes. We have no public hearings. We have one uh report and recommendation which is the development assistance agreement relating to the citywalk apartments for tax increment financing district numbers 85-1. Mr. Johnson.

Thank you. Council president, mayor, council members, and I guess in this case EDA members. Uh tonight, uh as President Schub said, we're requesting approval for the development assistance agreement for the citywalk project, TIFF number TIFF district number 85. Uh you may you may re uh may recall that about this time last year, May, we were uh here for the Citywalk where we established the TIF plan. Since then, the Citywalk team has been working on getting their financing in order and working on um um connecting with an equity investor. um they've accomplished both of those uh both of those items along with many many other uh um conversations and meetings that we've had over the last year. Um so now we're in an expedited period where uh if tonight the DAA gets approved. Um they're looking at closing on the site in April and then start construction in June. We're looking at about a 25-month construction period. So, um, uh, even even so, the development assistance agreement requires the project to be completed by December 31st of 2028. Um, not much has changed with the development, so I'm going to be pretty brief tonight. Um, but it is a 13-story residential building. Uh, 342 total units. Um, the the project consists or the project total investment cost is just shy of $140 million. Um, to put that into scale, that is the largest multif family development that Rochester's ever seen. Um, not not accounting for inflation, the the Burkeman uh when that was built cost $15 million. So, if it weren't built today, of course, it would it would be much more, but uh this is the largest private investment for multif family project we've seen. Um, a couple of the other amenities that I I just want to mention because we had a robust conversation about Sixth Avenue is this site does feature uh bike parking garage right off of Sixth Avenue. We'll take advantage of that uh bicycle track. So, the the site transformation itself um as I mentioned with the the private

investment, why that matters is the current uh estimated market value for the site is 3.1 million. The minimum assessment agreement that we um agreed with the state county on is 86 million. So that's roughly a 2,600% increase in property tax value growth. Uh that's a heck of a return on on investment. Um the other the other element there just to put it into context is the the owner of this site also developed the river the riverwalk apartments just across the river there. Very nice about 152 units. that uh apartment's currently valued at $24 million. So this project the minimum assessment will be three and a half times what Riverwalk is currently valued at. Um so just to put that into scale and also this site is actually smaller than the riverfront site. So we're talking a lot about a lot of density and a high employment sector with uh public transportation right across the street. Um the other things that I wanted to mention is the site was considered blighted. Um, whenever we're doing a redevelopment district, the statutory requirement is that it needs to pass the blight test. So, here in the city of Rochester, we we put the onus on the developer to actually work with a certified engineer or certified architect to create an independent blight analysis or blight study. Um, which in this case they did. Um, and that blight study has to meet very specific criteria per state legislation for redevelopment tiff districts. Um, the other things that I just want to highlight too are as part of the construction of this project, they're going to be improving the turning movement from uh, Second Street turning south on 6th Avenue. Uh, where right now you sort of have this odd, you know, quick quick turn lane turning right onto that section. Uh, they're going to realign that street so it's more of a 90° angle. It'll be safer for traffic, safer for pedestrians, and really help align the vision for that 6th Avenue corridor. um that that also gives us the

opportunity to create a larger public realm space on that corner. Um here you see in the picture, it's not going to look exactly like this, but one of the elements is going to be a functional storm water uh management uh feature um that will look good and and provide the storm some storm water management for the site. Um, one I think unique and creative thing. Uh, I don't think it gets gets enough credit, but we are actually because of the owner, current owner of the site owns the adjacent apartment complex to the west and to the south. Uh, we are requiring that owner per agreement to go into a 20-year agreement. So, you can only do 10-year increments with the county's 4D program, but putting it into two um rotations for the 10-year 4D housing, which preserves 100% of those units at 60% AMI or less for a minimum of 20 years. Um, you know, this with mails forward and bound with the citywalk development, it's only going to put more and more economic pressure on on on this area. Land values are going are getting higher. Um, redevelopment is becoming more attractive. So in order to you know maintain our naturally occurring affordable housing which is a priority in our housing spectrum uh our housing e ecosystem um and really the only way that that's achievable or attainable is direct assistance. In this case we're providing direct assistance to the citywalk department but also getting the benefit of these being put into the 4D uh program.

Mr. Johnson, can I ask a question about those? Are there so they own those two properties? They're preserving the 67 units, which that's the number of units that are there now. Are they doing anything to renovate those properties?

Yes, thanks, Council President. So, the um the building to the south was in better condition. They have done uh some improvements just in terms of paint, carpeting, um lobby. The apartment complex to the west, which is 39 units, was in a bit more disrepair when when it was acquired by the current developer. Um, or the current owner, I should say. They did put in about $300,000 to do painting all the doors, painted the walls, the carpet. Um, they worked on the kitchen kitchens including cabinet refreshes, new lighting, new carpet, you know, new amenities. So the actual owner of those is is also the developer of the Riverwalk, also developer of the Red 44 apartments. They also own a project management company which is going to manage those properties as well as this property. Um and they take a lot of pride in, you know, not only the condition of the units, but also the customer customer service of the tenants of those units. So um it's not going to be a passive ownership by any means.

Thank you. Uh council council member uh Wall Uh we had a speaker uh right at the beginning who said that uh he has been through the buildings and didn't find blight. How how do we define blight and what what was the blight in these buildings?

Yeah. So blight is actually in in you know just to go high level. So 50% of the buildings on the site uh have to be considered um substandard or structurally substandard. Uh and in order to to ident to prove that uh they have to look at what portions of the building don't meet current building code. And if the buildings can be brought into compliance um to state building code for less than 15% of the cost to construct a similar building of similar materials, then it meets the blight assessment test. So it's basically like what does it cost to renovate it, build it, put it bring it back to a current building code, and if that cost is more than 15% uh of just building a new building, then it meets the flight test among some other things. But that's kind of the general test.

So it kind of sounds like an older building that it's just a little rundown. All of them are going to be blighted to a degree. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um because other buildings uh will be uh raised, what will the reduction in affordable housing be in terms of units once once uh this is complete? Yeah. So the Hefron house currently I believe has 10 units. Okay. So if we look at you know the citywalk site as well as the adjacent apartment complexes we're at 77 units.

Uh if the hein house gets raised demolished then we're at you know 57 net uh naturally occurring affordable housing you know affordable housing units but we're also gaining 342 Mercury units. Yep. Yeah. Um I don't think I I read what the length of the tiff is. Um the length of the tiff, you know, it's always an either or test. So it's a 25-y year tiff term. Okay. Unless the total principal gets paid off before reaching that 25-year term, then the district can be either descertified or used for other

Mhm. um althical or um um suitable purposes and it's currently uh a 3.1 million evaluation. Uh what would that bring in in annual taxes? Um I wouldn't be able to do the math on site and there's a mixture of commercial and multif family. So there's going to be a different tax classification rate for those uses. Um, you could probably just take two and a half percent or 2% I should say and you're going to get relatively close. Um, and I'm not gonna do that math in my head. Well, that's $60,000. So, so we'll continue to get that for the next 20 25 years. Exactly. That that value is frozen for the next 25 years.

But then after that, that's the 86 million valuation depending upon um inflation and all that great stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And like I say, 86 is the minimum. So, um, if you if you tracked what the Burkman did, that paid itself off significantly faster than we originally anticipated. Um, but yeah, that's when you see your windfall is is once it gets back in the tax records. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Palmer. We've spent a little bit of time today on 6th Avenue uh in the road. Is is this going to be um designed to to match the cycle track that we currently have? Um, so I you know, it's on the other side of the road, isn't it? Yes, it is. That's the answer.

That's the answer. And then um I have a a problem with people using naturally occurring um housing. Um to me that means they don't have any federal or any state or any city money into it. So you you're just saying that we don't have any money in those two out out lots. Is that what you're saying? No direct funding into those two. Okay. And then the third one, and I'm going to follow up on what Mr. um Wall said. We had an expert this this afternoon who's talked about this being blighted. And now you have an expert. So you go off of the expert that actually did the results and looked at it.

Yeah. So in this case, Woods Seth uh engineering is the expert and we also have our TIFF attorney review the the blight assessments just to make sure that everything is legally, you know, compliant with state statute. Good. I just want to check on that. Thanks. Any other uh council member Keane? Yeah, I I'm kind of confused too by council member Palmer's with you use naturally occurring affordable housing, but then you say it's in the 4D program. I thought the 4D program was a program where the uh landlord will get the rent differential. Uh no, the 4D program is really just a tax just tax treatment of the of the property itself.

Well, again, if you get in that tax treatment, I I don't know why you say it's naturally occurring. Um well they they have to the rents are capped of course. So but for them putting those properties into the 4D program which um requires them to meet the requirements of the county's program the the alternative would be I mean you could put in some granite countertops, you could put on some new paint, you could charge market rate or workforce housing for it. I I I guess I'm still trying to I mean if it's in the 4D program there is government assistance by not charging taxes. I don't know why you would then also call it naturally occurring affordable housing. Oh yeah, I guess we'll just call it affordable housing. Remaining affordable housing. Remaining affordable housing.

President Schubber, if if I may. Go ahead, Mr. Yeter. I think the the distinction there is what they're saying is that it's currently naturally occurring affordable housing. Currently, it's not in the 4D program. It's currently naturally occurring affordable housing and those units are being preserved. Okay. So, you're right. after after this program, you could make an argument that it's no longer naturally, but in the in the moment, it's naturally occurring and but for this assistance, it may not be affordable housing anymore. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Is there a motion on this item? I'll make a motion to approve. Uh motion made by council member Palmer. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by council member Frederick's. All in favor say I.

I. Oppose say nay. Motion passes. Is there a motion to adjurnn the EDA? So moved. Moved by council member Miller, seconded by council member Keen. All in favor say I. Oppose say nay. Uh moving back to our city council uh agenda. We are on other business. Is there a motion to adopt the findings of the Rochester uh EDA? So moved. Second. Moved by council member uh Keen and seconded by council member Miller. All in favor say I. I. Oppose say nay. Is there any other other business? Seeing none. Is there seeing none, is there a motion to adjourn? Second.

Moved by council member Miller. Seconded by council member Doring. All in favor say I. Oppose say nay. We're adjourned.

Have a good evening. I had to stick it to bury.