Master Plan Citizen Oversight Group - 2026 - Regular Meeting

I got your message. I saw it. Have your attention. Did I have everybody's attention? I have both. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I kind of got laryngitis, but I'll get through it. Um, just wanted to welcome everybody to our third meeting. It's the third meeting of our master plan citizen oversight group. really excited about this meeting because we get to review our survey and that survey is going to guide us through the rest of our process. So, can't wait to see those results and can't wait to get started. We like to start the meeting with uh our honorable mayor, but I think he's under the weather today. So, in all ado, we'll move past that and jump right in. At this time, I'd ask Jim if you would please lead us in the pledge of allegiance. So, if you'll please stand if you are able. Join me in the pledge. I pledge of 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. This time we'd like to review the meeting minutes from last month. If there are no changes, I would like to accept a motion to accept those as is or

listen to any changes anybody might want to. Yes, ma'am. Um, I will move that we accept the the as is. But did we need a roll call first before I do that? Yeah. Thank you. Um, Chair Routen here. Uh, Vice Chair Loyal here. Member McCutchen here. Member Rambo here. Member Clark here. Uh, member Conway. Member Avery here. On Zoom. Yes. Uh, member Shyikon here. Member Coleman here. Member Met. Yes. He's unmuted as well. Uh, member Ren here. Member Pic here. Member Bummergel here. Member Baker here. Uh, member Borne. Member Hrey here. Member Conn. Member Clayton here. Member Dubler here. Member Jackson here. Member Rubis here. Member Batty, member Brost, and the mayor is also absent. And we have Corm. And the agenda is accepted as is. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Looking at an opening video from staff. Wow, Mr. Mr. Chair, we have Miss Clark has uh made a motion to approve the minutes and we did not receive a second and second. Thank you.

And then a voice vote on that is just fine. I'll second Mr. Oh, okay. Thank you, Mr. Favor. I Mr. Chair, with your permission, um, I'll introduce the video if you don't mind. Members of the group, welcome tonight. We sure appreciate it. Just want to give a couple of shoutouts. Miss Peek brought some stacks. Something she she does in her business, so we sure appreciate it. She asked me at the end of last month's meeting if she could and certainly we appreciate it very much to forget somebody. Miss Clark, if you see all the baked goods over here, it's from Miss Clark. She is well known at our city council for doing a really good job. Thank you both. As with all uh of our meetings, if you feel like getting up and getting some coffee, some water, or any of the snacks, again, it's informal and just help yourself. Don't feel like you have to sit there for the full two hours. And then to all of you again, just thank you for showing up tonight. I know the weather's less than desirable, but on a bit of a time frame. So in past updates for the most part in 2006 and 2016 the technology we have available to us now wasn't available. Certainly we didn't have the capabilities of Zoom or along those lines. And from the perspective of the

department, we did the best we could to introduce information on each element was done with the benefit of some mapping, some photographs. But for this particular update, the department thought it might be appropriate that before each element, we provide you a video. And the video hopefully will give you an introduction to the element and some of the key points in the in the element relative to goals, objectives, and policies. Certainly, it's something we think would be beneficial to the discussion that will follow here very shortly. I hope you do, too. But as with any of the agenda items over the course of our series of meetings between now and the end of the year, if you feel something that is unappropriated or something that could be done better, that's what we want to hear. Well, so tonight we're going to start with our environmental shorter than the one we did for the incorporation. Three and a half minutes and it was done by Mr. Ward in conjunction with people and Miss Ward raise your hands was our consultant that orchestrated the survey very successful survey and was helping us with preparation of our public. Those are videos if we continue them after the website so people can see them as well as they go follow our progress as a group with an updated 2026 master plan. With that, I'm going to dim the lights and I'm going to ask Mr.

Well, again, the intent was to kind of introduce the element that we're going to be talking about today. It highlights some of our successes from the last 29 plus years. It also sets out some goals, objectives and policies I think need to be discussed by the school of this meeting. With that, Mr. Chair, done our introduction like survey results and introduce Debbie Ward. Thank you very much for coming and we look forward to seeing your presentation. Silver tablet mark. Thank you very much. Um, I have had the pleasure of working with the city of Wildwood on a number of initiatives over the years and I was very happy to be a part of this project as I am also a resident of Wildwood. I've been a resident for 27 years I think now. Um, so this is also very important to me personally. Um we can uh with the help of the city and with their input, I created a survey of 10 questions that we um sent out to residents via several different u methods. We posted it on our social media channels several times. So, it went out on Facebook and on Instagram with links so that it could be completed and the city also put it on the electronic sign in the in town center and then also had some um posters that we put up in Shnooks and Anniversary Park. And through those efforts, we got about 770 responses in a very short period of time. It was about three weeks. Um uh the survey was uh out for about three weeks and so that was a a great response

we felt um for the outreach that we did. I completed a report at the end of that time that is in front of each of you and there's a qualitative analysis and a quantitative analysis. So the last question on the survey asked what is your vision for Wildwood going forward? What what do you think the future of Wildwood should be? And so there were certain themes that emerged throughout those answers. There were over 600 people who answered the open-ended question. And you can see all of those responses at the back of this document. Um each and every one of them is included in this report. The themes that emerged as you can see in the report um the one that was the most prevalent most sustainable development which is not a surprise if you live in the city of Wildlife. We know that that is something that is constantly talked about. So that was the the the uh theme that was the most mentioned. Uh the second was improved infrastructure and transportation. There was concern about uh the traffic um on the roads particularly up on 109 area but also about the condition of roads as well. Uh the third was maintaining a safe familyfriendly community feel. Um and that came up quite a bit and that was often combined with responses that were about sustainability and development. So it was kind of a combined theme of retaining a rural character, retaining a small town feel, retaining a family community type of environment while at the same time being careful about development, being careful about natural resources and and equity honestly. So that uh economic development and job opportunities was the next thing that

was mentioned. There was a number of responses of people that were concerned about um job creation in Wildwood particularly for younger people. Uh there was um concern about the development of Town Center and the number of businesses that have come and gone in Town Center and the number of vacancies in Town Center that was also um mentioned quite a bit. Uh affordable housing was also mentioned. Um this was particularly in terms of younger families and retirees. So people at kind of two ends of the spectrum uh wanting to live in Wildwood but finding that the housing prices were just not affordable. There was a teacher in particular that mentioned that she can't afford to live here even though she works here. Um, a a part of that was also retirement housing and retirement communities for people who don't want to um stay in their their the houses that they have owned for years but would like to stay in. And then after that was enhanced cultural and recreational amenities. Again, this is something that if you live in Wildwood, you know comes up over and over again. A lot of people mentioned wanting a pool, pickle ball courts, tennis courts, and basically recreation areas where they can um meet other families and other community members. And then the last big theme was improved governments and civic engagement. There were mixed reviews on um on that. Some people commented that they thought it was very well done, that the government was run well, that there was a lot of transparency, and then there were people that were unhappy with um and then the last was preservation of character and history. And this kind of

ties in with the rural character um econom or development of um housing developments, keeping the forested areas forested. that was kind of all tied together with preservation of character and history. There were a number of people who mentioned the historic properties in Wildwood, who mentioned Route 66 in Wildwood and their desire to retain those things because they felt that they were important to the character of Wildwood. Um on on the next page, you can see that there's a table of um the prevalence of these themes. So you can see the frequency and the percentage. There were a number of people who mentioned several things. So, you'll see that those don't add up exactly to the number of surveys that of people who had open-ended questions. Um, I will uh note that there were a couple of interesting outlinear comments. One was about art in Wildwood and the desire to have um public displays of art. Um there was another person who commented about creating more industry in wildland in particular technology. Um and then uh I will note that for the qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu qu quantitative analysis I'm sorry the qualitative analysis I did uh use AI to help me with this. I ran these responses through three different models, three different AI models, chat GPT, perplexity and Gemini uh Gemini. And uh all three of them came up with these themes. Um I did not use any personal information when I put that information into AI into those models. So, I stripped out the zip codes. I stripped

out names, emails, and um we didn't have IP addresses. So, all of that was stripped out before I put those responses into the model to get the results. That's important just for a personal personally identifiable information perspective. the uh qualit quantitative questions. You can see a after the qualitative analysis um there's bar charts and then also the numbers of responses for each of the questions. You can see that most of the responses came from the zip code 63040 which is town center. That makes sense because the electronic sign was in town center and that's probably where most people saw it, but it did go out to everybody through social media. So obviously there were there was plenty of opportunity for other people to take the um to take the survey and then I'll just let you look through the rest of it. Uh the bar charts are pretty easy to read. the questions were a rating system of how well how do you feel about this question you know I agree I disagree with levels in between there so you can see those on the on the colored bar charts and overall I think the sentiment was that wild is doing pretty well um of course there's people that are unhappy about certain things and people that are happy about certain things and some people were very happy in the comments and said there was one person that said don't change things and then there were people who wrote a lot about things that they wanted to have changed. So, but overall I think it gives you a good idea of the themes that you'll see and the they are the themes that match the elements that you're going to be talking about as you go through this process.

So, Mr. Chair, with your permission stone to kind of walk us through the questions. Excellent. and then kind of get your all's feedback what you thought would ask Miss Ward about it etc. So we'll start sustainable. Hi everybody. I think I've met most of you or you might remember me from a couple months ago. So I'm Julie Stone. I'm facilitating you through this process. You know, I I do want to say this is our first meeting where we're dealing with a lot of information. And so, we're going to be doing this right over the next few months. And I think tonight is kind of for me our practice run to see how it goes because there's always going to be a better way to parse the information, right? If you have suggestions that you want to provide to staff about, you know, what might work better for you or even to walk up to me afterwards, I'm always happy to have that feedback because there's never going to be a perfect way for the way everybody processes information and expresses information to be able to get this. My goal is at the end of this meeting or at the end of each meeting, we've got a pretty good sense when we go around and do those last words that everybody goes, I feel heard. I think what I said was captured someplace. It was in the minutes, right, for staff to be able to deal with because our goal, and I I know that um Mr. Mr. Vunich will talk about this later in the meeting is that they're going to take all this and reddraft the section that you've read and then show it back to you and say, "Did we get it?" And so just sort of capturing all these sentiments so that they can take that and try to draft something that you get to go, "Yeah, you heard me. That's kind of what we said." I think that Deb said something really important when you're dealing with as many people are in this room from diverse backgrounds and even if you're all from the same community and all of

these incredible comments where it's about building consensus. I just I'm going to constantly remind you that there is never a way that I can see unless you guys are one in a million that we are going to do every single thing on every single point that is going to make everybody in this room happy. So, I want to you'll hear me ask about the heartburn test. You know, you're going to I'm going to ask you, can you live with this? Is it I never I hate good enough because it always it's good enough for government work is not something that works for me as somebody who's worked in government for 30 years. Okay. Hate that. But is it have we reached a place where even if there's some disagreement in this room that everybody can go, "Yeah, I'm okay." Like I know that I don't agree with that 100% and that the next person doesn't either, but I think I'd be okay with that and I think the people that I'm here at this table and I'm going to remind you of that a lot. And it's really I'm not going to lecture you on it, but I do I'm going to remind you of it because we're going to hit I think a couple of points in the next year where we're going to be looking for perfect and it's really hard to get perfect when you're dealing with this much input and this many great perspectives around the table. Does that are there any questions about that or does that make sense to everybody? It's just it's really hard because everybody wants to do this exactly right. Right. And they know how they're feeling and how the people they're here representing feel and sometimes it's just really tough. So I'm always going to ask you the heartburn test and we want to hear if there's heartburn because maybe there's a way around it. Maybe we can come up with something else. Um and we need to know that you're kind of settling a little bit. But when we get to that point where everybody goes, "Yeah, that's okay." Like then we're at a point that these guys can work with effectively, right? So just keep thinking about that in the room. It's about consensus, not complete agreement all the time. And for those of you

who've served on councils, etc., you already know that. But for those of you who introduced yourselves as not having done this kind of thing before, that's probably worth it for you guys to hear is that it's just it's part of that deal to get there. So that said, we want to start with Deb's incredible work. This is an I mean, I've done community engagement. This is quite a response. Not surprised from the kind of community you are, but any city would be happy with a response of this magnitude from this many people. Here's my other nudge reminder. It's a lot of material, right? Um, it's going to be hard for you to be effective overall every time to give feedback if you haven't found or been able to find the time to review it before we get here. I'm kind of allowed to say that. It's hard for staff to say that to you, right? Um, so because I mean I had I mean I had to go through and really had to read this and look at their recommendations and read all these things and there's you know at the the point that you're trying to give feedback doing this right as you're looking at it. Try if you have a few minutes beforehand we really are going to be looking at some of these things in depth. I'm going to be saying how do you feel? What's missing? It's going to be a little bit harder to do that on the fly if you haven't had a time to dive into some of the stuff that staff is giving you beforehand. So, I would really turn around. I think you'll figure that out this meeting and say try to find that half hour or whatever it takes and use your pen, right? Mark, for those of you who haven't done this before, mark stuff up. Use a highlighter. Fold down pages so that when I say what don't you like or what you like, you can you can turn around and go, "Please, Julie, write down on page five, I hated this or I loved this thing or whatever it is." So that we can capture that. Okay. Um, so that said, what I think I'd like to do

on this first of all is based on hopefully what you've taken a look at before we go into breaking it all up, does anybody have questions for Deb about this survey, the information that she collected, the how she broke it up, the things that right, that came up as main themes. Before we go, this is all perfect. you I'd like to have a few minutes if any of you have any comments that you want to kind of share with the group about questions about just this document. Sure. Yeah. A question on how you actually weight the data. Is it strictly numerical? Is it strictly a fraction? In terms of how how I uh which was most important, right? Volume of answers. So the number of people that mention that particular theme the most is first. Okay. People there's no other factors. No just just the number of responses that mention that particular theme. Anybody else questions for Deb on what's in that packet, how she came up with the themes. Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, Mr. Con is online on Zoom and he's not able to stay for the whole meeting, so he's got his hand raised. We can go to him next. Let's do that. Mr. Go ahead. Thank you. Can everybody hear me? Okay, we can. Okay. You know, I've read through the survey and I'm pleased with all the results, but as you look at the answers, you see people that want more retail, they want Target, they want Whole Foods, that they also want less development, they want more woods, more open space, more retail, more restaurants. I mean, these things don't work in concert. It's like saying, "I want to have a lot of

eggs, but chickens aren't allowed." People have to realize that you have to have a little give and take on both sides to accomplish the goals of getting the town center vibrant. They also need to understand certain aspects of the city's finances. Real estate taxes, for example, Wildwood does not participate in any real estate taxes. In addition, sales tax. Wildwood doesn't have a sales tax. They're part of the St. Louis County sales tax pool, and that's where we generate our income. But most importantly, the what people are saying they want and don't want. They can't both happen. So compromise is the one thing I wanted to get across to everyone and how important that is. Thank you. That's all I had to say. Thank you. Um, I actually think that that community engagement in and of itself, forgetting what it's going to tell you as an advisory committee that people are thinking is a is wonderful feedback for staff and for the elected officials as to where the level of understanding or even misunderstanding of gun governance structures, things like property tax. And that is something that that staff and the council can use in a communications piece to you know begin to correct maybe some of those things that people need to understand better for this process. So just remember that this tool that that you've been provided has many more uses than simply just maybe informing this master plan. Um it does give you some sense of where people are kind of sitting. I I couldn't agree more. So do we have any other questions right now? comment that this may not happen until the 2035 uh iteration of this process, but it would have been very handy. I read all

the comments. They were great, but it would have been handy for me as a council person particularly to have them broken down by zip code or even better yet by ward so that we can kind of understand, you know, get a feel for what our ward is thinking versus the other word. Not necessarily, but we can do that. We did talk about that actually. That should be pretty easy. Yes, I can. If you can do that now, that'd be that'd be great for us because we have Yeah, I got a feeling this is going to go into the next step. So, we're by zip code um and then extrapolate into words from there. So we've noted that maybe create a request to create some what they call it cross tabs right to take zip code and look at things and take other things. So that's a great suggestion. Other questions in general by whoever thank you. Um, yes. Uh, as far as the zip code goes, um, I was looking at all of the the, um, responses and where they're all from. And maybe we should consider the next time when we break it down um into maybe even members of the team having it broken down by land mass instead of by wards because we have a lot of wards that are very small in land mass and um they have a lot of responses coming from one small area. And for this element that we're going into environmental for wards one and six on the west side mainly on the west side of 109 there's a lot of land mass that that area I think

needs to be more represented in the environmental areas. I think I understand where you were going with that. Okay. I saw one more. Sorry, Mr. Rubus. Yeah, I was just looking and the thing that jumped out at me was in some of these questions where they're asking how are you feeling? How do you how's that? The biggest response is someone. Yeah. It means I don't it's not a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. And that's the largest response. Deb, how would you how would you understand somewhat? I mean, to me, it just means it's not the highest priority for somebody. Yes. Yeah. It's kind of important, but it's not really something that registers. I would agree. Does that make sense? So, I think that's the way I might read it is if you're seeing that somewhat, think about when you take a survey, if you put somewhat, it's kind of a me. Yeah. I It's not a zero. It's important, but it's not necessarily, you know, coming up as the most important. Well, for example, question eight, how satisfied are you with the decisions that are being made regarding new development, service delivery, infrastructure, planning, park, trail initiatives in Wildwood, and over 50% of response was somewhat. So, are are we saying that that's not important to them? No, I think what we're saying is I would say what we're saying is they're all right. They're they're not you mean they're fine. Sorry, Deb, you wanna Yeah, I I would I also think that for people who don't understand exactly what's going on, that's the answer they choose. So, they're not intimately familiar with exactly the regulations and the impact of those things that are being decided in the government. So, they're putting them somewhat I I don't really know. So, I'm going to do last one on this because I do want to

get to a few of the specifics. Go ahead. just observation that the question a couple of those questions might have been overly broad like it's really hard to say okay um I love what's what you're doing with parks I hate what you're doing with development and um you kind of have to say somewhat so that that's how I would do that I think that that's pretty fair too I think all those things okay I think because this is such a big chunk what I'd like to do is ask you the same question about each section because that'll allow everybody to look at the same thing um that broke it down into several themes. What I'd love to do quickly is I'd like sustainable development obviously ties to this environmental piece pretty big. But each section, can you take a look? Let's look at let's look at sustainable development first and just ask based on our theme, right? And what you've heard and read, do you think as a group, was there something you were surprised by? Was there something you were concerned to hear in this session? And was there something that you thought the citizens missed entirely which happens occasionally that from from different perspectives? So just looking at sustainable development as a grouping are there any comments, concerns, things that you notice? Where are you on here? I'm I'm on the on the on the I'm on the very second page of the of the handout about survey. Page numbers would be wonderful. page numbers would be wonderful. Next would have been a good next suggestion. Okay, second page. Okay, so as far as the sustainable development goes, that kind of ties in with some of the questions and then it ties in with a lot of the comments in the back. Great. So if you just look by this, that's a very just a small part of what you're asking us to have a comment on because when I look at this and I see the development, one of the things that I saw time and time again was the complaint that there's too much

development which I thought was really interesting because there's really not um at least I don't think I mean being on planning and zoning I kind of see a little bit of what goes on with the development and I don't think that we're developing a I mean, would you think so, Mr. Britage? What about the group tell me? Well, I mean, you know, I think that people have this this misconception when they look at downtown the downtown area and they see Bright Leaf and they see that the trees get knocked down, they think that we're that that the city of Wildwood is knocking down all the trees and we're going to plow everything and level it all out and and build it. And that's not what's that's not what we do. And I think that that's a huge misconception. Um, I would feed on that. I think perception becomes reality. It's because of all the all the subdivisions going in and it was in a pre-planned area for the most part and we have a lot of P&Z meetings on that. So, it's just in one area that was designated to grow. You know, I mean, it's no secret. I have friends across the nation that dial in the P&Z. They love it. They love the government and they they have a they have a game every time Well, I'll just say it's a drink game. Every time a bride comes up, they have to take a drink. Okay, that's hilarious. Yes, I know, right? So, I'm I'm sitting here, I come out of that. I'm like, are you guys okay? But anyway, um there's McBride, there's whatever. And so, people see that. So, to your point, you're right. But the perception I'm writing. You're right. I'm right. But the perception is there's a lot because it's happening. Right. Right. It's all in one area. Right. And I just heard also that it's growth that was planned for. Correct. But folks may not necessarily realize that that growth was planned for if they're not as in tune with the master planning process or any of that. So I

think that's a great point. Other points on this? The one thing I would add is I know a lot of people put comments in about that and they are in the ward five area that when they first moved here it was not part of the plan for it to be so high density. But the other thing that I will make separate point from that is you know it says sustainable development. I think a lot of people who provided input for this were focusing more on the s sustainable um yes there is development there is opportunity for development in the rest of the city but I think most people are very concerned and hopeful that it will be sustainable just you know creep from town center area out to the you know more rural So, I've got the concern about of citizens that that growth remains sustainable and that we don't end up with and I'm going to call it exactly what you did, development creep. Yeah. Um, I think the perception of the community that I hear from the most is that there's so many developments being put up at once, okay, that it feels like there's too much density, okay? There's too much density in general. There's too much in certain places, okay? Um, if you compare the older neighborhoods on the east side with the new neighborhoods coming in, um, the new neighborhoods are more dense than the older neighborhoods. Now, I know the most of the older neighborhoods were were constructed under St. Louis County. The newer ones of course are constructed by Wildwood, but I think in general, you know, the residents go by all these developments popping up, right? are or if they pay

attention to PNZ or council they hear is talking about what's coming and so it's a lot happening one at once and two the houses are much closer together um and I think I don't know about everybody else but 30 years ago when I moved to Wildwood I was told from that point on it was going to be one house per acre that is of course not what we're doing and was town center ideas and put together constructed that way. I don't think so. And I wasn't here when Town Center was plan was developed, but I think the perception of the public is it it's just too dense and too much at once. I think this is great because whether or not that is reality because I I see nods around the table, right? Going, yeah, maybe, maybe not. To your point, it may be what citizens believe is occurring because of what they're seeing while they're driving and it may explain some of this stuff. Right. So, um, with that, I we're going to allow one more on this and I'm going to move on because I want to watch time. Yeah. So, I want to have everybody look at it from a different perspective. So, as I've announced before, my daughter's 21, she's graduating next year. She has a large group of friends who went to Lafayette High School and their home is in Wildwood. I felt that their input would be just as important because they're coming back home when they're done with college as people who have lived here for 30 years. And when we say perception is reality, I think we need to also consider whose perception. Because somebody who's newer to Wildwood or a younger family moving in isn't going to have the same perception as somebody that's lived in the community for quite a bit longer. And but the issue is for you guys is that everybody becomes all of those perceptions become important. So how do you do that? Uh I'm coming over here. Deb, I just want to say that if you look at the question of how long, excuse me, how long have you lived in Wildwood,

most of the people that answer the question have lived here. Well, and so a lot of my daughter's friends have lived here since birth. So, you know what I mean? Again, that's if somebody says they lived here for 21 years, that doesn't mean they're in their 40s or 50s. Is is just my input. I I think we just need to consider. I think that you and Mayor Gartano, we see you and I'm coming in that direction. I promise. Um I think one of the things you have to recognize is that in a community like the any community like this, there's always going to be sort of I hate I'm going to use a term. It's a little bit old guard versus new guard, right? I mean, there's that tension between I moved here expecting this versus I founded the place. And you know, we'll see that. You know what I mean? We'll see a little bit of that here. So, I think that that's a concern. Mayor Geritano, I see your hand is up because Mr. Routton told me it was. All right. Thank you so much for uh calling on me here. I did just want to chime in uh around the theme of perception because I do feel Wildwood has a perception problem. And when we talk about development, the data completely contradicts the perception. And I will give you the data just now just to analyze for a second because we always talk about subdivisions and the number of homes and my analysis through the data from the department of planning from 2014 to 2016. The city did go through a quite a development explosion during that time. Uh subdivisions were approved. 415 homes were approved during that uh phase and the acreage that was developed was of 149 acres. So averaging out about.36 acres per home.

But in 2016, up until now, the city has only seen, and I'm going to first focus on built 26 homes. That's it. Subdivisionwide, 26 homes, and we're talking about across 10 acres. So when people say there is a development problem, the data is not there because since 2016, those last big subdivisions that were approved in Wildwood were villages of Bright Leaf and Main Street Crossing. Those were all approved around the time I came on to council, 2015, 2016. But even right now, there isn't a single, well, I'll take that back. There is a subdivision now that just recently started the reserve where they started doing work, but up until about a month ago or so. I could have we could have said we have not we don't have any active construction within the town center. There is a subdivision outside of the town center um by u Melrose which I think is about maybe dozen or so homes. But I think we have a responsibility that we have to provide the residents with the proper data so that this perception because it's never going to go away. It will never go away. Um people will believe I've had people tell me there's construction going on right now in the town center like prior to the reserve and I'm like where is it? Take me show me because there isn't. there wasn't at the time. So, I just want to make sure because the perception I think taints a lot of times the data too from the surveys that we get. Um, and so I think Wildwood, we have an

important task in this master plan as elected officials to make sure we're telling the correct story of what's going on in Wildwood. because otherwise in the absence of us going out and telling the story the perception will become reality that thank you mayor just so you know I captured tell the story provide residents with the proper data as part of this process I think that that's great feedback for this engagement section I've got uh it looks like Miss Avery and then I've got Vicki in the room I'm sorry I'm going to do a few first names and last names it's just messing up uh Miss Avery can you go ahead Yeah, I just had a question for Mayor Gotano. Um Joel, are you saying that villages of Bright Leaf, that neighborhood was approved prior to 2015 2016 or that it was built? It was approved January 25th, 2016. And so building obviously takes a period of time. I believe it was uh I will defer to Department of Planning, but I'm going to believe it was like a two or three year process. Okay. So when you say we've only built 26 new homes in a certain time frame, you mean we've only approved the building of 26 new homes? the approval. Yes. Okay. Yes. Because in 2016, I'll just run through it quickly. There's not that many. Oldtown Park subdivision, four homes. Center Avenue had one individual home. That's not even a subdivision. Lindy Lane had one home. Grover Heights had one home. Wesley Park had four. Ashley actually Ashley Grove never got built. 12 homes on my list. And uh another 10 we had three homes. That's all I have on the list. uh at Melrose if you want to count outside of the town center. I think that's perfect. Let's Can we put a cap on it there, guys? Has that answered the question, Hannah? Yes. Perfect. Vicki, I'm coming back to you and then I'm going to put a time on this one and we're going to move on. Okay, this my question is for Mr. Bunach. So, someplace in all of this

conversation, there was a question about the perception of what town downtown Wildwood was supposed to be and when it was supposed to be that. So, I know that we were on the town center update committee a couple years ago. When was downtown Wildwood created? Was it initially with the initial master plan? And how much has this it changed from what it initially was to what it is today? Miss Hellfrey, I started um prior to September 1st, 1995. Um, I met with the principal planner that was to do the master plan, Jonathan Barnett, and the group of incorporators had already come up with the four main land use categories, one of which was Town Center. So, Town Center has been baked in the bread since the oven started, so to speak. In terms of additions, actually when Andreas Dwani, the consultant that did the town center plan, came to town, came to town and did the fiveday cheret, town center was much larger than it is today. In fact, as he left and we took the town center boundary map out, many of the individuals that were on the periphery said, "We don't want to be part of Town Center. We don't know what this new urban is. We don't like the idea of you prezoning property. we just want to be left alone and we honored their request. So from the perspective of where we started and where we ultimately adopted the plan, it's a much smaller area. I think Eric Garatano says it's about 800 acres or a little over a square mile or 68 square miles. In 2018, we added roughly about 50 acres to town center, a portion on the south edge by Grover Crossing, if you're familiar with that on Manchester Road, and we extended the boundary out to Pond

Road uh to include several larger parcels of ground that had development potential because they have availability of sewers. So big to small with a small couple of additions. Thank you. I have something that just hits me. Hang on one sec. To the mayor's point, I think we as a group put together a onepage graphic, which is a metric on how to measure exactly what we're talking about. And anybody can look at that graphic and know within five minutes where we are on the belt. Thank you. The develop development infographic. I think I'm going to feed on what he's saying here and then I'm going to make you the last one until I can go ahead. But I have reread a about 10 times while we're sitting here. Okay. Can anyone tell me what sustainability is? Can anyone tell me what sustainable development is? Do we have a definition for that? I'm going in a board meeting. I'm going into a board meeting in DC next week and it's about fiber optics and how it's sustainable. It's what a social justice wants to hear. It's what a politician wants to hear. But if we we we use this is really a great word, man. Because man, someone reads this man sustainable. What what the heck does that mean here? Can we define what what's you know what it's great, but we're we're the ones making the decision here on the mash plan. Why don't we define what sustainable development is to wildwood? And if you can define that in this, then it tells people what it is. And I think that's probably going to be a very tough task, but I think it's necessary personally. So that's my two cents. What is sustainable development? If someone wants to take a crack at it or we all

want to do it or I don't care, right? But this does I've read it over and over. I don't know what it is, but it's a great point. It's a conversation that has happened regardless of politics for a long time because some people read it as environmental, some people read it as economic, right? Does the building last? Will it still be here? Is it built that way? I mean, so it absolutely is something it could be defined always, right? Yeah, you just made my point. Asbestous is asbestous is very sustainable. It will last forever unless you crack the tile. You're exactly right. Unless you crack the top. Yeah. So they can say as years ago see how sustainable asbesus would have been. We all know we don't want that. So I think I I think that's a great point. Okay. You know what's interesting about this is that what I said at the beginning is we're going to figure out how this plays out. And I think that these comments are all very tied, right? This issue of we're learning that maybe community perception is perception. It's some of it's correct. Some of it's subjective. Some of it needs to be fixed. So, I think it's a very educational process that Deb has given you to hear sort of where people are. And some of them are probably really aligned with what you're thinking and some of them you're like, "Wait a minute, that's not exactly right." Um, I probably am going to want to come back, if it's okay with um these folks. I think we're going to probably revisit this community engagement survey in future meetings. We're not going to parse everything that you've read because you're going to keep reading it and hearing it as we go through each topic. But I do want to um because I can tell right now that if I take you through transportation de hang on one sec. Let me just finish the thought. If I take you through transportation and maintaining families and all those things as to what you're reading into it, we're going to have a lot of really great pages of stuff that you're saying, well, this is what people are thinking and here's what how we need to incorporate it. So, um, Deb, why don't

you go ahead, but I think I'm not going to take this one by one only because I think there's more to say here, right? And I'm going to figure out a way to do it. Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to note that sustainable development is the is the topic of the theme. The question, one of the questions was how well do you think Wildwood has balanced maintaining its natural environment while allowing for growth and development? So that is the question that's reflected in that theme of sustainable development. I think that's a little bit of what we're looking for in terms of a definition. It's question five. Thank you. So the sustainable piece comes from balancing the environment with growth. Growth and development. I mean I put that under uh you know the theme but the question is more clear I think. Okay. Okay. I want to ask for an extra few minutes just to put a cap on this. I promise I I Yeah, go ahead. Just from the perspective of the department, I don't know if Miss Ward's going to be available for the next sections or responses to the questions and I had advised you all that we didn't get to the environment element or we just got to part of it, you start with that at the next meeting. When I talked to Jonathan Barnett before we formed this group, he basically sent me one question. You got to know what people like, you got to know what people don't, and that's the survey. So, contrary to the facilitator, I would like to continue forward and at least finish off the survey while Miss Ward's here to help us understand it. I'm great with that if you guys are. I mean, I'm you don't have to be contrary to me. I'm here to help you. So, if we could go to the next one. Improve infrastructure. I'm great. So, you're happy with what's what you're hearing is definitely helpful for you guys. I think so. I would defer to my colleagues, but good. I mean, again,

that's what I'm here to do, right? Um, okay. Let's talk and and you may not have as many comments, right? Because some of these are general to a lot of things. So, looking at improved transportation and infrastructure feedback, we'll keep going. I like that. I'll give you a minute. This really seems to highlight traffic congestion, um, accessible and reliable public transportation options and bikeability and walkability. Those were the three kind of big things I saw. How do we balance state roads with city roads? So, Mr. Chair, why don't you tell me what I'm thinking about the sustainability question. How do you mean balance? Because state roads are state roads and city roads are city roads. So, how they have to interact and they have to blend. Okay. So it's much more of that that interaction of integration thereof other folks I don't expect every people to answer I want your questions your concerns what's missing I would also just add as part of that item B they do talk about improving internet and cell service in the underserved areas of wildwood with right it's infrastructure too major it was a major initiative of the city for many many years okay and we still have certain households that don't have

despite our best efforts I will say I've got need for reliable internet still exists other things concerns on infrastructure transportation public transit biking from the public persp perspective. Remember, we're really dealing with this from the perspective of what you see in the survey. Becky, go ahead. Are you looking for specific requests? I'm just looking for your feedback and and reactions to what you're seeing here. So, I saw in here someplace that someone felt like the college road was needed to be addressed where we have the college and we have the YMCA and all those things. That is a that's a big quagmire there. Um and then uh what I hear time and time again is the intersection of Highway 100 and Highway T. What? Yeah. Well, those are the two that I hear all the time and I know for a fact I saw the one on College Station in here somewhere. Um Oh, and I would like to just plug Wildwood. If you go on Strucker Road, you go towards Kurs Mill, Wildwood Repaired Potholes, and then at Chesterfield's Boundary, the mess. So, there you go. Well done. That was a pat on the back. I We like add a boy and girls. Uh, okay. Perceptions and comments about what you read about this topic. Yes. I What I'm I'm finding that it seems like it's um missed throughout and especially here is um accessibility. um we we try to meet ADA requirements but um sometimes we miss um actually making things acceptable. So to add that into most everything that we I mean even for sustainability it would be important. But what I what you know when I when I read through all of these these

um comments, one thing that keeps coming up in my mind is we haven't educated we haven't done much to educate our our our residents so that they know why there's not um maybe they wanted more development or they wanted less development or why it is the way it is. And um I mean if you sat down with Mr. Bunich or Mr. Newberry um or any of the the people in the departments, they could explain to you so well why it is the way it is and why we make these um policies and ordinances are passed. So maybe we have uh a goal that goes along with each one of our um elements that includes education. Interesting. Now I will tell you that sometimes when cities do that they'll get the folks like you who are the most engaged and need it the least that'll come to those education sections. but sometimes they'll get new people and every new people educates other new people. So, it's a it's definitely a cool idea and a cool ad. So, thank you. Um because you're say there's a lot of stuff here about how do we correct perception. So, citizen education is a great one. It's just making sure that everybody partakes because it's not necessarily the top of their list. What else do we have on transportation, bikes, it I think perception is the problem too with the roads. I don't think a lot of people understand the difference between the state roads and maybe that's something that could be addressed in the uh the uh gazette like what educating people what is the

difference who does what. Yeah, I think they don't a lot of people don't understand that. Got it. I like that. What else? Anything else on this or should we close this one out? It's not come over there and Hannah you've got one. the folks are keeping me honest about who's on screen because my back is a little bit to the screen. Thank you. I do want to say I think education is a choice, right? Like we can't force this information down people's throat throats, unfortunately. But as a mom, I have a four and a six-year-old. I look at 109. I do look at these concerns, these genuine safety concerns that we can address. And to me, that would be more important than educating somebody who just wants to hate on the city government or doesn't want to see further development, right? Like there's things we can control and there's things we can't. And I think safety is another theme we see throughout this and that's where my priority personally would lie and that's where I think a lot of parents would lie too. So I just captured since you can't see it genuine safety concerns must be prioritized. Yes. Anybody else on this one or am I moving to the next one for a moment? We can always come back, right? I mean maybe not with Deb here, but if somebody comes up next week and goes, "Hey, I had a thought." We'll always capture that. Okay. Uh, next one on the list is maintain safe, familyfriendly community feel. I'm guessing there may not be too much discussion on this one that everybody might agree, but why don't you take a look at it and tell me if you had any thoughts about missing concerns, questions, additions to what people are say your people are saying. Want to hear somebody say that's not an important thing here. I kind of doubt it. got anybody up there? Okay. I had a feeling that might not be too controversial. I'm gonna keep going. Um, okay. Economic development and job opportunities. Now, I want to point out, you've covered a little bit of that in this town center growth conversation. Um, job opportunities and there's a whole conversation last night in a

course that I'm teaching about keeping jobs in the community, right? Everybody goes somewhere else to work. Um, and I think that's where job opportunities tends to come from in communities like, you know, Wildwood. Um, and so how do you feel about that, Heather? I just have a question. Has there been an exit interview of sorts when businesses do end up leaving? There has been. And do you find that there's a if they if they are willing to speak with the city? Is that not a lot of the times they are, but if they leave and they don't show up, we try to make contact. What do you feel are the common? Typically, it's foot traffic u visibility. They want to be closer to a highway. It's usually the feedback we get, but a lot of the times it's more so external factors we can't control as in, you know, hey, people are to shop more on Amazon. Um, I don't have the type of retail product is going to make sense for paying really the overhead triple net at a at a spot here in town center. Quick question. So, you just hired somebody to work as our EDC, correct? So is is that person's responsibility more about retention or is it more about bringing new business and opportunities to what what is what is their function? What are they focusing on? Um I would say the focus is sorry uh the economic development committee helps kind of guide some more of the major priorities but I would say retention is a key focus because what we have there's usually a lot of mom and pop shops um and they do need assistance. They need the the they will benefit more from the marketing campaign that we're doing right now where we're giving everything sticker, the Wildwood Proud business sticker. Um we're going to be doing some social media campaigns with that to bring together like if you shop here, it's got the sticker, take a picture. Um that type of thing, recruitment, it we just don't have quite frankly when you break down the statistics and we were talking to developers um that would not necessarily developers but big chains, they're not

really looking at wow because we don't have the traffic counts. Uh so I think we just needed we can definitely do that. We want to have a very targeted approach of what type of business we want to see in Wildwood. We can go after it full swing. I just think we need to be measured in the sense that a lot of the times with these like I know it's mentioned here, you know, fast food, more edible, uh more options for moms or driving home from work and they want to pick up something for the kids. Most fast food restaurants, the large chains, if you're not at 40,000 cars per day, they're not even going to look at the space. So what's the what's the what's the vacancy rate over in town center now? Currently we're it's about 92% occupied so it's not as bad as some people might think and it's pretty on par with the rest of the West County area. Go ahead. Regarding the the traffic, I have to believe that Highway 100 and 109 have a track but people aren't getting off those. Yes. So, so conceivably if there is a way to capture those that volume perhaps that's where an effort could be made is to get them off of 100 into Wildwood for the business purposes. I think that's a very good point and there's there is opportunity along 109 specifically and quite frankly 100 I know has been a little bit more but 109 there's a couple opportunities that we could talk about for different stop off locations that would be drive-through but right now taxes with your turn yeah sorry I'm writing and he was talking um I think you said that because your hand was up and then I'll come over here well Okay. So, here's Thank you, Mayor Geritano. I got two in the room and then I'm coming to you. So, first of all, on 109, um I I don't know anything about that, but I will say on Old Manchester, um people don't know what's there on

today on Facebook, the lucky uh Yeah. said, "We need help." Because there there's not a clear defined description of what they do. Right. there's not. And so if people other than they're not on planning and zoning or they're not in work for the city, they might not know what they do. It's not out there. The other thing is we need drive-throughs. Um they don't have to look like the bright yellow McDonald's drive-thru. You know, we have a great zoning process in the city of Wildwood where we could say you can have a drive-thru, but it has to meet our conditions. And I think that that would open up um retail a little bit more. So it's an interesting point. I'm guessing if I asked that question broadly, I'd have um not even in this room, just in general, half the people would love that idea and half the people would hate it because it's just one, right? That's pretty much it. But I think when you say drive-thru, people have it in their head that they want that it's McDonald's, the double drive-thru, neon lights. And I think that you can absolutely do it not that way. It's a good thought. I'm going to come over here and then I'm going to the mayor. I'm just saying what was our we we share taxes with three cities. No, I thought that's how we got our revenue pool tax, but it's 92 different uh 94 different municipalities mostly coming from Chesterfield. They're employed city pool and that's who we pull from and and we get a certain percentage and per capita. Do we also contribute taxes to that conglomerate? Yep. So if we say, "Oh, well, if they go down the road to Chesterfield, we're still getting our cut where they open up in Chesterfield or here, right?" That is true. So if our residents, even though they're traveling outside of our city, if they purchase something in Chesterfield, that is going towards So that McDonald's in Chesterfield, we're still getting our cut and we don't have the golden arches here. Danny Boo Boo, I'm coming over. Mayor Joe, Mayor Joe,

go ahead. All right. Yeah, I'm ready. You ready for me? Okay. So just to kind of continue on what Commissioner Jackson said, yes, uh we are part of the pool. So therefore, um what we put into it and other cities put into it, uh we get our share based on population. Uh we get more back than what we put into the pool. So we are uh beneficiary of that. Another thing just just to be aware of city in case you didn't know, we do not collect any real estate tax in Wildwood. So whether uh there there are 50 homes uh 10,000 homes, we have about 12,000 households in the city. Uh we we do not collect any real estate tax. So for anyone who uh for those people that have those perceptions that we build or we don't really build, but they accuse us of being builders, uh that we build uh homes. um we don't get any benefit out of it because you know whether they build 50 homes or a developer builds 200 homes we don't see an extra dime. The only benefit is the extra population. But back to uh economic development. U I've got a lot of thoughts around that. I do want to share it and I know that you're going to want to keep me moving here so you can keep the meeting on track. So I'll be try to be quick and brief. Uh I think one of the major issues that we have as a city is is that we have a pipeline of Wildwood residents that leaves the city in the morning and comes back at night. Uh because the jobs mostly they're not in Wildwood. We do not have the office parks like they have in Chesterfield or other places throughout the county. And so the people that leave in the morning, whether they go to work, whether it's at a school, at an office building, a retail business, they're going to spend their day wherever it is. And that means they go

to lunch, wherever it is. They stop at the dry cleaner on the way home, wherever it is. They stop to pick up a cup of coffee, wherever it is. So, we are at a disadvantage already because we don't have the daytime population. And we've heard that from the restaurants here in Wildwood that one of the biggest struggles they have have had is having a lunch crowd because we just don't have as many people as you would uh let's say a Chesterfield in the valley. So that's one issue that I see that pipeline of Wildwood dollars leaving the city in the morning and being spent elsewhere. Um, it would be great if we could find a way to retain that money in Wildwood to be spent in Wildwood. And again, the pool tax proves to us that it doesn't matter, right? It could be spent Wildwood, it could be elsewhere. We're going to get still our share. But it is the ability to let these businesses thrive in Wildwood, right? Because the more they have that foot traffic, like Tom said, the more we have activity. And I think the the challenge that we have is we have to build an economic ecosystem where you give people multiple reasons to want to stay and shop in Wildwood so that um you know you go by the dry cleaner, drop off your clothes, stop in for an ice cream cone uh in Wildwood, stop by the Deerbergs, do your multiple things all in one place. The problem is that today it's too easy. If someone wants to go to Target in Chesterfield Valley, well then they'll go get lunch in Chesterfield Valley. And while they're down there, they might stop in in a couple of other stores. So then again, that shopping that could have been done in Wildwood wasn't done here in Wildwood. And so I I think that we have the ability to create that ecosystem. We've seen it work. Uh in

Wildwood, uh we had um three French we have three French hens. We had the porch at one time. We had IMA jeans. All businesses that probably competed for the same types of customers, but that ecosystem actually brought more people in because when they would go from one, they'd go to the next and then to the other. So, I think if we give people more reasons to want to stay in shop in Wildwood, that will benefit our city as well. And there are other things around economic development. But I think one thing, and I hope you all saw this in the Gazette because I rave about it all the time, but Tom put together something in the Gazette that shows you the um you know, how Wildwood compares with some of our neighbor cities. And I mean, earlier discussion, we talked about density and all. I mean, we're the lowest in density compared to any neighbor that we have. So that might be a great thing for some people. For businesses, it may not be a great thing. But one of the things I want to highlight with economic development is look at our sales tax rate. We're the lowest around. So if you do your Deerberg shopping trip here at the Wildwood Deerbergs, you're going to pay less than going to the Deerbergs over on Clayton Road that's in Ellisville. Or if you buy your cup of coffee at the Starbucks in Wildwood, it's less than buying the cup down the road. And I'll finish up with just a quick couple little stories around economic development. And Tom could elaborate more. We uh when word got out that the uh the uh luxury apartments were being built next door to the movie theater, we had uh heard there were inquiries from some big restaurants that heard that was happening and that they wanted to come to Wildwood. and we had uh think of it

as like almost like a salt and smoke. Uh they wanted they heard about it, they wanted to come and they wanted to be I think part of that development. They had set up a meeting with Tom and again it's not specifically Salt and Smoke, but to set up a meeting with Tom for a Thursday and the guy that wanted to open up the restaurant called Tom like on the Tuesday and said, "You know, we're not going to have the meeting." And Tom said, "Why?" and he said, 'Well, I came in on a Monday morning just to kind of check out things in Wildwood and I went to your local Panera there and it was empty and I can't open a business here. Um, we had Culver's that wanted to come to Wildwood. Well, they pitched their idea, but they needed a drive-thru. They couldn't get it. A short while after a Culver's opened up in Ellisville. We had Dunkin Donuts that wanted to come to Wildwood. They presented at an economic development meeting and then after the meeting they basically kind of walked the other way. They didn't like what they heard. So I think there are things that we could do better in our control. Again it all depends on what we want for our city. But the opportunity is there and you know either got to take try to take advantage of those good opportunities when they're there because otherwise once they pitch and they try then they're not going to come back and try again and then you're kind of left with a dwindling number of businesses that are going to come back. So that's all I got to say and hopefully that makes sense. I think that might be the final word on just this topic for public engagement. Is that okay? Go or not. Actually, Vince, go ahead. You know, I know that you brought up about the drive-throughs as the mayor did as well. Are there any other obstacles that 20 years ago seemed like good idea, applicable rules, regulations, whatever. But perhaps as time has gone by, we

we're hearing from developers that this is something we're banging up that we should identify and say, "Hey, we need to take a closer look at this something that we don't allow or you know, types of businesses with within reason. I mean, uh historically haven't we haven't thought of being here that perhaps we need to examine and say, "Hey, we need to take a second look at this." Just I would say yes. Okay. And and we don't need to identify them all now, but that might be something we look at like, hey, do we need to change the way we're looking at things? What don't we allow that gets in the way? Yeah. Right. Spend the next 45 minutes getting through the next four items. I You want to keep going is what you're telling me. I heard you. You can say anything you want. I heard you. Well, when they're saying it meets community needs and contributes to the quality of life, I me in my head that doesn't mean businesses and bringing businesses into the city. That means what what do the residents prefer? What what would enhance their quality of life? We don't really have a definition of that, but if you go through the whole thing, um you hear things like a library, um a recreation center, um those kinds of things. While they're somewhat a business, their services and um that's more of what they're interested maybe than a McDonald's or whatever. They want family-friendly restaurants. So, it's not like a business that I don't know. It's it's not it's not a developer. It's not um so much a grocery store, even though you need grocery stores. It's more the things that are personally important to them and what they believe would expand their quality of life. We talked about a a a library for a long

time. Tom and I did. We can't get it because we don't have enough people. Um we even talked about a smaller library and that would maybe attract people. But if you had something like a building like a recreation center where you could have a senior citizens events there, where you could have early childhood events there, where you could have some sort of library type resource, those kinds of things that people are really wanting and needing, especially if you have a family with young kids, then I think those kinds of things would bring people into town center and then maybe you could expand on the the ice cream store that's already left us are are those things that families want. You know, Bern when Benadetals was here, it was way too expensive to take a family to to that restaurant. So I think you need to really think when you say bring business in what is that quality that families are looking for not so much what developers are looking for or investors are looking for but and you know that's an investment but what is it that's really important to families that live here especially young families that live here. So what I just heard which I think is interesting tying to the jobs and and and and issue of economic development is something that you said at the end. You said if you create that service to your point, you create the foot traffic in a certain place that starts to feed the ecosystem that the mayor is discussing because you get that that those people that those businesses are not seeing. you're you've come up with a creative idea to say how do I get the bodies in this space that then businesses can start to benefit from. It's a it's an interesting idea and that's exactly the kind of thing we want to capture. Who else was there? I definitely think that's what families are looking for.

They're looking for involvement and that also takes care of the familyfriendly community because they're there more often doing fun things more than going out for fast food or something. is involved with Deb. Do you think from what you're hearing in this conversation that it's reflecting some of what you your read was as you were going through this process? I do and I think it's also in the um cultural and recreation section that this is kind of that tie together. Same thing. Interesting. Okay. Other comments on this section? I just want to give kudos to Becky. She's done such a good job of bringing awareness to our local businesses. I I personally appreciate her. She goes all out in putting in site visits to different places and I think especially as a business owner and I'm sure April would agree that we appreciate you. That's awesome. Thank you. But that marketing of local businesses, right? Buy local or use local or how do you stop when you're on your way home versus when you've just left the office. That's just that's an intentional awareness kind of piece of the puzzle certainly. But I I'm teaching an economic development course now and everything that you're talking about retention has to be first. If you're losing businesses, it's hard to gain new ones. Understanding what those you have to you do have to understand what those developers are looking for because if you don't, they're not coming no matter how good it is. So understanding what they need to do business, which I know your guys do um all the time, and understanding why you're not getting those businesses. That's a piece of that whole if we want to change that. There's a reckoning though like when that developer or whatever says in order to do what you want to do, I'm making this up. You have to have an industrial court that adds x amount of jobs and you go that's not who we are. There's your tension and your tradeoff that you were talking about, Dan, right? It's like,

okay, which one which wildwood are we going to be now? Uh Hannah, your hand is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sorry, I'm so chatty. I just wanted to piggyback off of what um I don't remember who made the comment about a recreation center. I have said that so many times going into town center and I know I'm going to get skewered for this on like next door, but I I've said like I do have a young family. I love Wildwood where I don't want to go during the summer. I don't want to go to Ellisville Edge. I don't want to drive to Ballin Point. I want to stay in my community without impinging on the people that are on bigger lots that are west of 109. But if we had some sort of, you know, Eureka, the Timbers there is a much smaller wreck facility and a much smaller pool than something like Ball or Ellisville has, there was a way we could capture that on a smaller scale, but keep that area, you know, populated with families th flowing through it year round. It could drive up a lot of revenue and a lot of interest, and it's a long-term solution instead of a short-term like, hey, let's get one business in here for a year or two weeks. And that's all I have to say on that. But I think that would be a wonderful idea. And yes, that is what young families are looking for. We're going to get to this, by the way, when we get to that section of the plan. So, that's kind of awesome that you're bringing that up as an idea. Now, go I'm going to go back here because I think you're leaving shortly. I do have to leave. Sorry. But when everybody's talking about recreation, the first thing I come to, we have a recreation facility here in Wildwood and that's our YMCA. They have amazing, incredible programs. You know, Jod has her community garden. You know, Jen is working really hard on the memberships. I pop in there every once in a while and there's just it's just amazing all the different programs and sometimes half the battle is just making sure people are aware of what is offered and the Y offers a lot for very reasonable and they help families that can't afford to be able to do things. I'm not going to I can't insert a lot of personal anything but I do want to give you an example of something that you may or may not be aware of. In the city of St. Louis, there are two rec major

recreation centers that are wise. So they are conglomerations of the Y and the recre and the city recreation center where there is a partnership where the Y is kind of running the city stuff. And so that I'm not saying that happens because you've already got a Y. They built those to be that way. But there's I I'm giving you the example that there are certainly examples in the region of the why kind of creating a joint identity with a city um to become both of those things. And so that could be an interesting question for you if you've already got that. That's the most I will go into personal experience on that. Madam yes I just maybe a segue into the the housing be my guest. um the um when I was on the council and speaking with a lot of the businesses and not being a business owner myself um I'm not sure that this is common throughout the businesses but um some of them said that they were closing because they couldn't keep help. They couldn't have dependable workers because they had to pay a minimum wage. People that made Winon wage couldn't live in Wildwood. they had to live outside but couldn't afford to drive here so they would start and and leave um very often so they had a big turnover and um and also they had minimum wage they were usually um young people who were in school or had other things to do that they couldn't keep regular hours. So maybe, you know, if we're going to have businesses that require low wages, we need to have someplace for these people to live. So now you're getting into like to your point, you're getting into the affordable housing piece. And what is affordable housing? And by the way, talk about language that triggers people,

right? I mean, I've had that discussion. affordable these days. I'm going to give you the reality check of what we discuss all the time. Affordable housing is your kids that are getting out of college. It's probably a nurse that's just starting out, right? It's it's somebody that's at the beginning of their profession because right now nothing is affordable. So we tend to think generationally, a lot of us, of affordable housing becomes poverty housing, section 8 housing, affordable, the affordable housing conversation is becoming about people that are making what we would have considered a workingclass income, you know, who are working hard 40 hours a week and they can't afford to buy a house. So, I just want you to remember that there's some language around affordable that has some really strong connotations that bring up things that may not be what it's really about anymore. So, there's an interesting we haven't kept up with the the times. Um, what else on we can go to a we can do that, but we I think we're at that jobs thing. I think we've sort of we've we've heard what you think you've read. You've come up with some really interesting creative kind of cool I'm not going to say solutions, but concepts that could be thought about in a long range place. Um, let's do I guess affordable housing is actually the next one. So, building on what Miss Teresa said, are there any other comments about housing? Not dens. I'm going to take density. This whole density conversation, we've we've hit that one already. So, give me something new if you've got it. Well, unfortunately, when you build a house, you have to build it on land. And the land in Wildwood is not cheap, right? So that's the major portion of the price of the home, right? Land is expensive. Now you guys I'm going to ask

I'm going to throw the thing. You guys as part of your plan because I know it have lots of different types of housing. I mean you have in town I know there are people living in condos and apartments and can walk to town center and there are people living on five and 10 acres here so or more actually. So I mean what how does that look to you guys? So obviously this is my topic to talk about but right now we have a client who's purchasing a property at Victoria's Crossing for around $170,000 and we are listing one around $180,000. So I do think it's relative. Are you wanting to move into a beautiful We have homes $2 million plus, but we also do have some affordable housing and housing in St. Louis in general just isn't affordable. It really isn't anywhere anymore because of many factors. So, um I do again perspective just letting people know 180,000 and also their um association fees are not outrageous compared to many other places. But again, I'm gonna I'm not pushing back. Please don't hear it that way. I think that goes back to what does as a group what is affordable because I can tell you I mean these guys can tell you the chances are think about your kids coming out of college. They're probably not buying $185,000 home if they don't want to rent, right? If they want I want my first home, right? That first home for a lot of them is 95 to $110,000, right? So that doesn't exist here. And that the question for me just becomes do you want it to? It's not that it should, it's do you want it to. Here comes Robin. I'd also like to say there's plenty of people who just can't afford to purchase a home period. And so rent very are astronomical too at this point. It's not just housing like purchasing the rent prices are I'm gonna put rentals up here as well. So that's a

great one. Yeah, that's what I was going to build with with the the development that's going next door. That will be a great bellweather to a lot of developers about how that is received. Uh that will be the first, you know, great experiment with rental development with apartments. Mhm. And I I I think those are I I have no idea where the price range is going to be, but that might be where that nurse maybe not the one that just graduated from nursing school, but maybe has been the profession single and and doesn't necessarily want all the obligations of owning a home. Average average rent is 1400. Ellisville Balling in and what's available here. The new one that they're putting up. Yeah, the new one they're putting up next to the Starbucks starts at 1500. So if you think that's affordable, where's that in the new where the Starbucks is coming? That's on the edge there. Start at 1,500 and go up to 2,700. This is a really hard topic. Like that's not affordable. I mean, if you're making $40,000 a year, if you can afford 1,400 for rent plus utilities, you might This is the question the affordability or the availability. We have no control over the cost if you will. But yes, we do afford. No, I mean, but we have two major apartment complexes in the city on the east eastern end of the city, right? We have and then there's probably a sprinkling of rental housing throughout. I don't I don't know that from the affordability standpoint that I think we can have some do something about the availability, but I don't know about the affordability. Got it. I got it. Mayor Joe, I see you, but I'm gonna do Teresa first. Okay,

hang on a sec. I'm good. You're good. Okay, Mayor, go ahead and then we'll get to Miss Clark. Yeah, I think I'm just going to finish what Vince was just saying. And uh I think a lot of people fail to realize uh or forget that they're even there, but we have two major apartment complexes in Wildwood that I believe puts about 300 apartments or so because I know one of them has 150. And there are 20 buildings comprised of these apartment complexes because Carriage Place, the one in Lake Chesterfield, you count about 10 and about another 10 or so sets of buildings over on the other side of 100 in Rockwood Springs. So I I think sometimes it kind of gets lost because they're almost a little hidden out of the way. I mean, you can't miss them when you're on 100, but they uh they're part of Wildwood. Great. Thank you. Okay, hang on. I'm going to do some order because there's lots of people waiting. I'm coming here, I'm going there, and then I'm going there. Fair. Go ahead. Just a a point about having the apartments and looking at maybe um approving more of that type of housing in Wildwood is might be something that we should concentrate on because like my son graduated um colleges in engineering three years ago and all of his friends that graduated and now are engineers a nautical engineers most of them they are they all want apartments. They don't want to buy a house. And so I'm if if they're all if all of the people that age in their late 20s are the same as this group, then we're, you know, we're growing out of the the housing that we all wanted, all of our houses and our dishes and all of this stuff that they

don't want anything to do with. And um so maybe looking at um the developments that come in with a different light, a different eye as than again I shouldn't say density because we pass that but the dense areas in the town center to put more in right where they go is it is really important that we look at we are going to need this for the future instead of um I guess that's the balance embracing it between versus protecting against it. That's what was going on. I promised I'm coming there next. Jim's point the cost of land affordable housing is going to be attached multi-story apartment and that's what we have to grapple with. Yeah. How many multi-story attached apartment buildings do we want and where would we want them? Yep. I'm going uh I'm going to go staff first. Uh I just want to say that I don't necessarily think that we have to have multi-story attached apartment buildings. Uh communities all over the country are experimenting with all kinds of things like uh accessory dwelling units. Uh in the city of Wildwood, uh we have a lot of restrictions because we don't want renters to live in other law units. However, if we were looking at increasing housing affordability, that might be one area to look at and maybe not all over the city, but in certain areas, it might be realistic to allow people to have a secondary dwelling unit for, you know, someone who wants to live, you know, out in Wildwood but can't afford, you know, a home yet. Um, so I think that's a possibility. uh

communities are experience uh experimenting with things like missing middle housing which is smaller scale multifamily duplexes uh courtyard apartments of that nature and there's different ways and mechanisms to achieve that goal as well. So I think that there are possibilities to explore that aren't necessarily towers of apartments which I'm not sure is really in what you are anyway I don't think yeah it wouldn't it wouldn't happen. I think the point that you're hearing though is this is what is your community going to be right in the next 10 years. That's the whole point of the master plan. But also re recognizing that there's a lot of really cool stuff out there product out there that may fit what you could be looking for that you're not necessarily aware of. I keep going back to the question somebody asked over here which is do any it was Vince that said are we doing things that are getting in the way because we're holding on to something and the answer here may be yes too if you ask your planning folks right like there may be a few restrictions that could loosen up or some ideas that you could see or be you know recognized Rob I'm coming to you now sure okay um right now Dan and Robin I agree with everything that They said, "I think we need lowerc cost affordable housing. It doesn't Yeah. Everybody's not not going to buy a a home." Um but um the only point remaining to be said is that eastern appointments apartments at the eastern end of Wildwood do nothing for Town Center and Town Center is really the the the key to this whole uh puzzle. It's that density, people walking and getting those Exactly. Right. making a walkable community. That was the vision 30 years ago, etc. If you put that that some density of population, forget the density of apartments, then you get the rec center, the apartment, the whatever, and I'm here. Correct. That's what you're telling us, right? Great. Um, go ahead, Cindy. I'll just add one more

thing. I mean, being on planning and zoning for a few years, there's been a a number of developments that have been brought up that had more affordable housing and there tons of comments by the our community that they didn't want it. They didn't want it, you know. So, we have to balance, you know, the the people who would be most affected by those kinds of developments and the necessity of having it. So, we need to be, you know, pretty tension. Yeah. Right. And the understanding of how it impacts your economy. Right. Going back to um coming over there. He's helping. He's my he's my co-f facilitator. And as as far as housing is concerned, that's one aspect of it. But we need to look at workers in the town center area to increase foot traffic for our restaurants and our other businesses. Well, I just keep thinking right now about when Joe gave you the history the town center and I'm not don't take it as advocating, right? But the town center wasn't originally supposed to be larger, right? And the footprint got smaller. Um, and people I know that there are people who here have talked about it in that we don't want more town center or we want more town center. I think as you guys and as staff comes to that how to resolve that conflict there's going to have to be like you said or the may a lot of data around it right this is the why this is what it produces these are all the consequences this is the effect it's not just about building housing it's about jobs and walkability and workers and all these other things because most people are not I mean average people that are not doing this the way you are are not thinking about it that way not most say this whole discussion has been about it's a socioeconomical scale is what it

is and to Vince's point we can't control the pricing unless it is a lowincome housing and that is controlled by our government right and yet people on the PNZ Cindy's point they don't want lower income housing as an example just down the street here if I'm pointing the right way at the roundabout. Uh those are technically condominiums, but they're essentially apartments. And I know for a fact that people were buying them up with low interest rates and renting them out, and the police were down there nonstop. And they finally the um the trustees voted and said, "You cannot rent anymore. Once it's sold, it's it's a condom and only you and you can live in that." And um that's it. And there's some there's like five down there that are still grandfathered in that they can lease out. But again, those are some of the things that you come up with. The city trump an HOA because the city has in their ordinance that it has to be immediate family members and so on so forth. It's is that not correct? No, they have it in their indentures. When somebody purchases that home, they're signing off on those indentures. You're practically entering in that agreement. So the city can't force you. Your indentures are like you almost would start with the dentures. If the indentures goes against directly what the city says, then yeah, those are null and void. But same goes with us when we're reviewing state statute and federal law. Yeah. Because I was the president of the HOA for Hickory Manor in those intentions were done in 99 and they're so outdated and it states nothing in there about rental and we have people doing it and then they complain it has to go to the city and the city sends a letter saying it has to be X Y and Z. And when dentures are done, they are submitted to the city and then our our attorneys I'm going to stop that one because that's a pretty technical conversation and I'm going to come over to you. It's the hard subject, but the question really is do we need

customers or do we need workers right now? We need customers. We don't need workers. We need customers. Is that fair? I think we do need workers. I think you need both. I'm guessing you need both. workers. We need to support the customer base we have today. I think when the people are driving now I'm getting opinions. Yeah. Don't do that today. That's not yours. It's hard to do. Yep. Well, I keep saying it's not really Okay, this what I'm going to do. I'm going to do Heather and then I got to be honest. I'm watching. This has been an incredible conversation that we didn't actually plan on. So, this is going to happen. And Joe, we all talked about that, you know, how we wanted to be flexible to get some of this feedback. Um, I'm going to come there and then I'm going to see if we can't do something general about the last couple because again I think there might be some agreement on some of it and if we have to we'll come back to it. But I do want to go back to Deb and ask her for her. I'm going to come back to you to just ask about your thoughts about how this conversation aligns with sort of everything that you I think it aligns really well with the survey data and what what all the comments you're you're sort of it's all right there. Okay, Heather, go forth. I just want to address what Robin said and she talked about ADUs which a lot of people general people are unfamiliar with and one of the reasons is because to my knowledge the central west end is the only municipality that really allows ADUs and it really could be a solution. What are they? So um I'll use the central west end as an example. They have carriage houses there and they're able to rent them out. So, um they're an additional dwelling unit on a property that's owned. So, um California does a lot of them. Um there's some really neat innovative things that um people are proposing. I read an entire I could give a long dissertation, but I won't. So, I don't know where we need to start and

trying to uh look at that, but that could be a solution without even having to build more. Obviously, we were doing missing middle and accessory dwelling units uh in St. Pete when I was a planner there. It was one of our major initiatives. Um and so that was definitely something we were exploring and there's a lot of research and analysis that has to go into it. Um you know, any anything like anything you do like that, but um but I think they've been seeing some good results. and you put the um control within the homeowners, you know, they they get to choose who is going to live on their property, so they have a greater say. Yeah. Thank you. So, I'm gonna short change a little and just say on enhanced cultural and recreational amenities. We've heard the comment about rec centers, small rec centers, centrallylo libraries, all those kinds of ideas that feed all this other stuff. So, I'm going to say I don't probably need to capture that again. And I think we've covered that, but are there anything other quick comments that anybody has? And again, I'm not short changing, but I think we've covered some of this already on the recreational slash uh cultural stuff. Go for it. Well, the only thing I would say is that I noticed time and time and time and time and time and time again that they want pools pool. came over and I know that we offer a discount with some of the neighboring neighborhoods or town towns, but once this this park gets done next door, I hope that maybe that will answer some of this familyfriendly stuff and we'll get more people coming to use that park and then maybe walk more because that's the only that would be really like the only park in downtown, right? So hopefully, you know, if you build it, they will come kind of a deal. And then, you know, maybe keep in in the back of our minds a pool. Pools are very, very, very expensive. That's what

these guys are going to tell you. They're fabulous and they're Yeah, I think I already heard that. Kind of kick back to what you said about maybe, you know, in conjunction with the YMCA or something else. But, you know, just in the back of your minds because it's requested over and over and over again. So, right. Okay. No, I'm just telling you pools are the bane of a lot of cities existence. Uh I'm gonna go up there to Hannah first because Hannah, go ahead. I'm gonna die on the pool hill. I'm so sorry. The YMCA, my family is a member. They do not have an outdoor pool. They do not have a splash pad. That is not what young families are looking for. We want an outdoor pool. We have wonderful parks. Yes, I agree. But it's people when they say pool, they don't mean an indoor pool at the Y. They want an outdoor pool. Mayor, thank you for the clarification. coming back to Teresa. I'm coming over to April. So, as far as the cultural now, I I just want to point out what um Miss Keef does and and with the cultural um focus on our Native Wildwood residents or residents of this land and she's done an amazing job with bringing together Native Americans and the black community. And so that is really um if we can put more focus on that, we can show that we really are um focused on our cultural improvements. And if you if you don't know about what she's done with that, please look into it because it's amazing all of the research she's put into it. But my question is for the department, well maybe for Thomas um um Mr. leave. What um how much how much do we depend on the pool tax? And is it a viable um resource that we should put all of our focus in and say, "Oh, well, we've got the pool tax and we can bit we can, you know, we can

lean on that. That's our crutch." But should we have like a a plan B in case like Chesterfield pulls out and that's a major amount of money that's out of that? So, do we have a plan B? Plan B is cutting services. It's makes up about 50% of your operating budget. I mean, it pays I look at it like this. We're paying our entire police services contract with the pool tax. But they isn't that statemandated? I mean, it is. It would have to go. The way I look at it, they can't just pull it. They they could that would be chaos and they would be their their constituents our constituents would be out um with torches. Uh that said they could do if they were going to do something it would be something that kind of turns it off slowly. It'd be not all at once but it would probably be like a fiveyear path. And in that case what we've calculated is that at least five years. So you would be able to go out and unfortunately at that point we would have to get either close down parks, close down services or then or offer another revenue source. So we could do an entire we could do an entire class and we don't have time in the next 10 minutes between pool and and point of sale. I will just tell you that if there was an issue with the pool versus the point of sale that Chesterfield or anybody else did, the entire region would shift and there would be a very large regional discussion, not just here. Right? that's not just going to affect here. My point is that we should become independent with our budget and not have to depend on this in case something happens. So our focus is try to try to build these up. I know that we want to do what um you know the majority of people want in the city but sometimes I know it's a hard hard decisions to make but sometimes we have to make decisions that is not the majority of the people what they want. So it's f to

to your point Teresa it's about finding a way if possible to focus on moving away from dependence whether it's on the pool I mean we talk about sales tax dependence all the time here so those kind of but I will tell you and I'm just going to sort of put that hat on for a second that you do not there was somewhere here that said you do not have a property tax right and cities that don't have that that don't have that retail tax tend to need that property tax and I'm guessing That would be a very hard discussion as well. So, just food for thought about what that looks like, Rob. And then I'm coming here. There's nobody up there. And then it's 21. I'm going to do this in three minutes because I want to go around the table once very quickly. Oh, I'm sorry, April. No, hang on a second. I totally spaced April. It's okay. I Well, I'm so overstimulated because you guys have had just so much a lot a lot of just great information and ideas. And in full transparency, I don't know how I did not get this or see it. I don't know if it's my junk. I got the itinerary. I got some things. I did not see that. I've been looking forward to reading this and so I can't wait to plenty of weeks. So, yes. So, that being said, and this is my first time doing this, so listening to all you guys talk is just I'm going to be up for days thinking about things and my brain's going to be going down. But, I mean, even started the meeting with different perspectives from age groups. We moved here eight years ago when my family was younger and I have no history of Wildwood. And um my my brain is squirly so follow with me here. Um I really thought wild all of Wildwood was still everybody had threeacre lots and it was country and rural and parks and whatever. And then we moved here and the summer after we moved here the villages of Bright Leaf, is that right? Started I mean like all the trees are gone. Well, whoa. Okay, things are happening. This is before I owned a business here. Um my kids were younger. So to the point earlier again I'm bouncing all around. Is it Teresa or Vicki? Teresa. Teresa. Teresa. industry the yellow sweater. Okay. So you had pointed out the college

the young adults looking for places to live and need I I think that is that is awesome because they are a the next generation of Wildwood St. Louis County etc. They don't do a lot of cooking necess or my my young adult 20some things don't um they order out so to have them to have housing for them is great. Also having I mean town center is such a cool place that if we could when we visit other cities and towns that have that walkability whether you're in a hotel or you know have the mixeduse commercial residential it's so cool because they are my my 16-year-old doesn't have anywhere to work. He is working at the Culver's Nellisville. So when I found out there could have been a culver and wildwood I was like oh a I have not been as actively involved as I should have been doing and I really want to watch some of these zoning planning things to know what's happening and not happening now that I'm hearing all of this but since a lot of this is families to your point about the family families families that one of the points and I'm not disagreeing with that at all um at one point Mayor Joe said that only one-third of households in Wildwood have kids less than younger than 18 That's not a big group of people when you look at the overall majority. So I don't know if the rest of our people are more senior citizen citizens, but are we are we my age and enough? Are we are we getting toward retirement? And when those people move out, is it the young professionals? It's our next. So I don't know who to focus on. I don't know the answers. But the other thing I wanted to bring up as far as the recre I'm love the raised my kids at the pool in Ellisville because that's and and I lived in Franklin County at the time. Um, but of cool is from May to September. It's still not a year- round thing, right? The Y is a fabulous resource. But the other thing is what about those kids in the middle? I had four kids. They were all actively involved in sports. And just my youngest son is the only one I still have in school here. But all of his friends, I mean, and anybody in this room that has

knows or has teenagers or young adults, I mean, all everybody is in club ball, soccer, baseball, whatever. And none of those complexes are here, nor do we have the space, nor is it probably planned. I we have spent we spent five to six months of our year driving to Crevecore or Chesterfield or St. Charles for the soccer complexes. My my boys play soccer. I know we have Pond Athletic or is I calling it right, the baseball field, but that's not in town center. That's not, you know, when people leave pond, they're probably going to Chesterfield. When we were in Creed Core, we're going to the nearest place because my son's dying to eat. So the city actually that's that's really embraced that aside from Chesterfield here right with the sports complexes along the isalon Illinois they've actually gone and built beautiful but they by the way that was a master plan thing they said we are going to create economic development around sports things. Okay I'm going to stop you April because it's 8:26 and I'm gonna get in trouble. Um I'm getting I'm getting faces. So here's what I'd like to do. Good faces not bad faces. Um we got to job opportunities. Um, we got to enhance cultural recreational. We got to um we did not get to governance, but we did get to some civic engagement stuff on all this education kind of piece just so you can see it that way. And I know that we're going to have a whole week that's dealing with the whole preservation of character and history. So, I'm sure I'm so covered with stuff. I'm sure we're going to go back to that. So, I'm not worried about it. What I'd like to do really quickly is I'd like to just go to to Deb for any last words about this. This has been was completely unplanned. It wasn't supposed to go this way. I could get fired for this, but you guys did great bringing up all of these things based on what you read and brought out a lot of issues that we certainly were seeing in these comments and what the problem the tension is between them. Deb, what do you think in terms of the takeaway for this group on

this discussion? I think it's accurate. I think everything that everybody brought up is very accurate and representative of what came through in the survey, but also as a resident, what I've heard living here for 20 years. That's awesome. It's it's very reflective and even, you know, we didn't talk about government civic engagement specifically, but that is all tied into everything that we've talked about and the tension between what people want and what they think is happening. And I think Victoria Teresa that and and to what that we can do, right? And the reality of what we can do. Um I'm gonna stop. I'm not gonna I'm cutting comment unless you guys want to stay another half hour, which I'm get in trouble for. So here's what I'd like to do next if that's okay. Uh Joe, the two or three things we need to cover rather quickly are if there's any public comment um to see if there is and I think that's up to you and um the chair and then next steps which is going to obviously be to come back to the environmental piece but Mr. Chair public is there anybody on Zoom that would like to speak we have none in attendance that aren't on Zoom that aren't uh uh on the com the group or staff? No. Yeah. Correct. Okay. Thank you, Mr. So, are we allowed to call for you guys purposes public comment open and closed because there's no one outside the group here to make a public comment. Is that okay with you? It's all right. So, that will that'll be reflected in the minutes. Joe, I you know, I I want to turn around to you before we go back and just say this was not exactly where we were thinking we would go. I love the fact that your staff looked at me and your chair looked at me and said, "Let's pivot." That's exactly what we want to do so everybody feels heard. Um, where do you what do you want next steps to be? I think um in terms of what you're thinking and what you heard tonight. Well, first and foremost on the agenda, the next meeting is Tuesday, May 13th,

but if you haven't marked it down in your calendars, if you will, please be much appreciated. This has been mentioned we didn't get to the environmental elements. So we'll start there with our discussion meeting that remains Mr. Chair is the last word just going around the table to make sure we didn't and guys that's I wanted we had a discussion about this. I really wanted you to understand that the reason we want to do this is some of you are quieter than others and we just want to make sure that anything that you were thinking you do get a chance to say. So remember you can pass if you want you're past. Okay. I you know we started review of your information with a risk perception that the comments were were overdeveloping or not maintaining the rural and we're trying to overcome that perception but I think when the luxury apartments start in town center when the reserve starts and when the corner there by Brightling starts even those have already been approved people are going to say what do you we're going to go through this all again it's g because it's going to be visible at that point you know just you got a little inkling of it along Manchester Road west of 109 right now. Just some cutouts. But when they start if they start the luxury apartments and that then we're going to really get hit with that. Oh, you're overdeveloping and this is stuff that you know it's going to be difficult for us to overcome the fact that we're not doing that. This is planned. But we'll face that as we go through this. Thank you Cindy. We're going to go keep going. Okay. Yeah. I I think this is a really important point. Um at every opportunity and to in every appropriate forum I evangelize about the reality of our tax of our revenue streams and the the the um utilities taxes are drying up. Pool tax, Chesterfield keeps trying to yank it. We don't have a sales tax and we don't have

a an a a real estate tax. We need to to the extent possible document our plan B, our revenue plan B in the master plan. It seems appropriate to me. We we've got to take some steps and start laying the groundwork now for a a parks and and and um uh erosion sales tax of some kind and all those other things. So, I'd like everybody to think about that because I think we need to brainstorm about that specific point before this is all said and done. So, perfect. Okay, I'm gonna keep going. And I'm going to let you self just one to the other. I talked a lot. I'll pass. Pass. Cool. Is the perception versus reality thing. Is it a huge issue? Uh I talk with people all the time who have incorrect perception. And to the degree that we can, maybe we should use the gazette to try to demonstrate that. Even if we did nothing else but show a 30-year development trend. I I think that would be a dramatic statement if we could show a graph of that, you know, 30 years ago there was ungodly amount of lots being approved and you know what we're approving now is is minuscule in comparison. Well, I'm in agreement with that. I think that's a great idea. Um I have to think about all these ideas that were brought forth tonight. There were a lot of things I hadn't even considered. So, I need to do a lot quicker thinking. Cool. I That's the whole point. Need to have, nice to have. Needs versus wants. We talked about this for several hours in a class last night. Needs versus wants. A great point. And who thinks what's a need and who's what's a want? Pass. Clark. I'm good with having

an extra half hour in the meeting. It seems that Wow, that's a compliment. That means this was not a waste of time. Like it's not a waste of time. That I mean that you felt like it was well used. I think it was well used and it it it engages us as a as committee members in the actual working of this. And since it's a working meeting, it's and not a workshop, it's something that we can do. And um now we can go home and make our list of all of the things that we didn't say. And with those, do you want us to to send to to you to Joe or is it overwhelming to get all of those? So that's a really interesting question. What to do? If somebody has thoughts between meetings and wants to share them, what's the best way for them to do that to sort of put them in the file? Email them to me and then we'll circulate them with the group here. make sure that they're part of the product you get for the next piece. That's pretty cool. Survey they can submit so it could all be just pulled up. We'll talk about that after we'll figure out a way to do it. But I I love that idea, right? But it shouldn't just be you shouldn't be circulating. You should be going to one point so that then it can be shared with everybody. That's really important, right? That it's not just one-on-one. I'm coming to Mr. Jackson. You all know I've talked too much the last two meetings other than we'll let April know the next PNZ is next Monday. That's a good announcement. That keep going. I think we need to keep our minds open for new ideas. I've learned something tonight about adus. I hadn't even thought about it. I see it on television all all the time, but let's let's just not dismiss anything. Let's just consider anything we can. That's an amaz congratulations. That's an amazing amazing thing for a group to get to right from where you started. So, I just want I mean I do this a lot. That's a big deal. Can I ask a question?

Yeah. I'm gonna He's gonna pass. Sorry, you're not a he, but he's gonna pass. I mean, I I usually use a nanny. It's not that you're not a he. Out rough. Yeah. I I just as far as data goes, Joe, how many um subdivisions have been developed in the last 30 years? What does that cost? Depends. Many of them were approved by St. Louis County, but hadn't started. And there's those that the city has approved, but I'd have to do a little research to tell you. I only be guessing. Okay. Because the um statistics that were given earlier, I'm not sure it includes the the developments that are in progress. Um so I'm I'd really like to know how many subdivisions has Wildwood allowed in the last 30 years. I think we've got a lot of question cool questions around the table about this concept of what does the data look like? You've got a couple of really good examples. I'm going to keep going. We heard you. I'm not going to I we're going to do staff, but I'm going to do you guys last. John Mets, if you'd like to turn on your microphone and let us know because you guys have been pretty quiet. Is there anything you have to add? Not really. It's been it's been very very very interesting. Good. Glad you thought so. Hannah. Yeah, I think it's been a great meeting. Super informative. And, you know, just going forward, I think there's obviously we have to focus on needs versus wants and maybe long-term revenue versus uh, you know, long-term solutions versus short-term solutions. For sure. Uh, Mayor Joe. Yeah. I I first I want to thank you for your work facilitating. Uh, extremely beneficial having you in this role. uh you are able to extract the information out of everyone here and have a very fruitful uh productive conversation. So just my final thoughts

here. I I think we're reaching a pivotal point in this history uh the history of this city here. Um that you know we we either have to you know get uh get things happening around our city that bring to life a lot of the things we heard from our residents in the survey. And you know I think that we do need to rely on data. Um there is a perception problem but we can control the narrative. It is up to us to rewrite that narrative that it so that it is the truth and and like the expression is in order to get the message across we we can't just even just put it in the gazette. That's just not enough. uh you have to say it seven times seven different ways in order to get the message. And we all have to play a part that in that and then in our conversations if if someone brings up something that's wrong, we we have to steer them in the correct direction and give them the right information and so forth. And I think that's when we can finally pivot this narrative where we bring excitement to our city. We bring energy and buzz so that people are excited and look forward to things and we can get away from from any of the negativity or the resistance uh to fulfilling the vision of Wildwood. So that's all I've had to say. Thanks, Mayor. Um, so what we're going to do is we'd usually include staff, but tonight you've heard from several of them and we're going to skip that for time because you have heard from staff a little bit this evening. Say, yes, absolutely. If staff would like to say a less word, right? I just wanted to say wearing my planning cap. Um, that I don't know if anyone else noticed, but every single topic we

talked about this evening was interrelated with every other topic. So, as we go through our master planning process, you know, we talked about economic development, but then we started talking about housing before we even got to the housing. Um, cultural heritage preservation all the way back here. Um, you know, we talked about accessory dwelling units. Another way um another way to preserve some of our historic structures in the city of Wildwood could potentially be accessory dwelling units because instead of tearing down what's there they keep it as that secondary unit. Um sustainable development that kind of feeds right into that as well. So just remember as we go from element to element to element all of these things are interrelated and some of them you know are actually a solution for one might be a solution for another. So we connect those dots. Last word comes to me about the incredible work your staff did about what you asked for which was this summary. So I'm going to give you the homework now which is because we now know what we're doing next time, right? Is make sure you've really looked at this summary. Make sure you've looked at the detail in your book about this summary because the homework is going to be what we're going to be doing is sort of going through the goals, objectives, priorities stuff and saying, "Okay, we're just you've got five retains and I want I'm going to do that same general discussion. What bothered you? What was a concern? What do you think's missing?" And so I want you to use this and make notes and come with those because that's exactly where the discussion is going to go. That's your big hint. Okay. Uh are we good? I the chair needs to call for adjournment. Yep. First of all, I want to thank everybody a great meeting and especially Debbie for Oh, yeah. that we'd like to hold a

motion. Jim, you need a second. Vicki seconds. All I got it. Any opposes but kind of the whole thing. Travis.