Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

We are live. Thank you. Hello everybody. Good afternoon. I'm Maggie Olman and I'd like to welcome you to the May 20th, 2025 planning, economic development, and environment committee meeting. This is a remote meeting and it's our first one back post to lean. So, yay for that off the milestone. All committee members and staff are participating virtually. And to help the audience follow along, I'll update each section of the agenda aloud. We're streaming live on our virtual engagement hub, which is accessible through the virtual engagement hub link on the front page of the city website. We also have an option for the public to listen live by Sloan. For those of you out there today, hello. Uh for today's meeting, we have the option for you to call in and comment live during the meeting. If you would like to do this, use the number 855-9252801, meeting code 8187. Your phone will be muted. You'll hear the meeting live. At this point, speakers need to push star three to enter the speaker queue. Um I'll move on to a roll call. Um, so introduce yourself, come off mute, say hello as I introduce both committee members and staff. Um, so first is Councilwoman Sage Turner. Hello everyone. Sounds good. Thanks, Sage. Councilwoman Kimrone. Good afternoon. Assistant City Manager Ben Woody. Hey everybody, good afternoon. There was a bit of a lag from when your video mouth was moving and when we heard you just as a heads up and also our assistant city attorney Janice Ashley. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome. Welcome to all. All right,

we'll move over to our agenda today. We have four agenda items. Uh the first is approval of the minutes from September 9th, 2024. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. And I second. Great. Motion approved. All those in favor say I. I. I. And there you go. First item done. Moving along. Item number two is looking at the Yes, ma'am. I think somebody was saying because it's virtual, you're supposed to do a roll call vote. So Oh, I did not hear her. And awesome. Thank you. Yeah, the sound is a little funny right now, Sage. And my ears are not great. So roll call vote. That definitely feels more appropriate. So, uh, Councilwoman Rooney, I. Councilwoman Turner. I thank you. Sorry I missed that. And myself. I The motion passes. Thanks everybody. We're getting the depth off our shoulders on this one a little bit. Um agenda item number two is the PED or EPED or petty or whatever we want to call it. committee scope and overview as we're doing with all of our committee meetings coming back after the storm. We're digging into our scope and where we're going from here. And with this, um, our assistant city manager, Ben Woody, I'll pass it to you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Uh, if I am lagging too much with my video, I can mute the video if that's distracting because I'm definitely having some technology struggles at the moment. But um this should be a relatively short agenda item and this is really just an overview to kick off um this council committee. I

hope to have some conversation as we discussed this. We had some earlier today at HCD. I thought that went well. And before I get started, I just want to congratulate you, Councilman Oland, and being the chair of this committee. Want to welcome back Councilman Turner and want to welcome Councilman Rooney to this committee. As far as I know, Councilman Ring, this is your first time on PED. So, we're looking forward to working with you and all three of you in this new role. So, what I'm going to talk about today, and you can go ahead and go to the next slide, Katie. Um, what I'm going to talk about is we'll do a little bit of an overview of your four priority areas and goal statements, which those are what council developed early this year. We're going to talk a little bit about uh peed in particular, about your scope. We've we've drafted new scope for this committee. So, I'd like to get some feedback on that. And then finally, we will talk some about uh work planning and and what the timeline look to really start things up again for this committee. So, key takeaway uh council, as you're aware, you established four priority recovery areas that will serve as the basis or the foundation uh not only for staff's work planning, but also for how we allocate recovery resources. Uh you also re-imagined your council committees. We now have four, one of which is traditionally been called PED, but we've we've added environment to the scope of this committee. So it's now planning, economic development, and environment. Um as we've talked about before, the committee scopes and the work plans and what we choose to do in Flock 26 is typically uh two things. one is it's there's steady state work and things that we do as the body, but this year coming up in particular, there'll be a lot of recovery focused work uh that will connect as as well. And then lastly, as we begin to develop those work plans and what we want to work on

at Flock 26, that'll also allow you to align and provide assignments to advisory board that support topics that are handled by PED. Next slide. and I'll have quest and breaks along the way. So again, we've got four priorities, recovery priorities and goals. People, housing, infrastructure and environment, and economy. I'm going to focus more on infrastructure and environment, economy, but I am going to cover the other two. Next slide, Katie. people is I think council established this as a way to make sure we prioritize our residents and business owners that are recovering from this disaster uh nine months ago almost. Making sure that we communicate well that we help support them at their neighborhood level and making sure that we are paying particular attention to those that had pre-existing vulnerabilities before the storm. Next slide. Housing is another priority uh area and this does connect with TEED at times particularly when it comes to things like zoning reform zoning changes. But the housing priority and goals is helping our residents navigate post- disaster housing challenges which are already difficult enough. They're even more difficult moving forward. uh trying to plan around future displacement events, looking at temporary and permanent housing solutions, and then using our partnerships where we can to leverage and maximize any dollars we put towards housing uh recovery. Next slide. This is our infrastructure and environment goal and the first two really relate to the rebuild associated with uh post Helen recovery. And I think one of the things on this is the idea that we're going to focus on the long-term resilience of our infrastructure even if it means a longer recovery time and of course paying particular attention to the water system

flood management and storm water infrastructure to try to reduce future risk. I think these last two bullet points have a direct connection to PED. Uh one is strengthening the city's ability to prepare for and respond to climate related disasters. I think that is work that was already underway. I think that'll be magnified in the coming years as we work through our environmental policies. And then also prioritizing sustainability and recognizing the impact and role that will have in the recovery of our natural resources. Next slide. And this is our economy recovery priority and goals. And clearly this falls under the the wheelhouse of PED in particular. Uh some of your goals for this is making sure that our impacted businesses have access to resources they need to recover and rebuild. Uh strengthening outreach and supporting our underrepresented businesses, expanding our city's contractor pool. That's going to be really important. There is so much work to be done in this community for the next five years or more. And then finally, another key thing is looking at Ashel's overall economy and strengthening the resilience of that and finding ways to diversify and make our economic base more sustainable. The next slide, I will stop there to see if there any discussion on your council priorities and goals and how those align with PED and the work this committee will do. I'll jump in. So, it sounds like I mean there's so many things that we want to accomplish and there's such a wide range of things that um I'd be really interested from my peers, you know, if we could have some type of prioritization conversation. I don't think that any of those I think all of

these goals are our priorities that I think that we could get spread really thin um and make such flight and incremental progress that it would be valuable to me for us to have a discussion as council women of what are our top priorities particularly what do we need peed conversation time for because there's so much work that staff is going to be doing where they need to be giving has updates and there are touches that involve us. But when it comes to program design or execution, that's staff's role, but we have a role when it comes to policy, when it comes to budget, when it comes to priorities that I would be really hopeful that um in this or a future conversation soon, we can talk about really how do we want to use our committee's time that really is exclusive to the the role that council plays. Um cuz I have a feeling that we have some clear priorities and hopefully we overlap in some of them so that it would give staff really clear direction like these are the three things that Kim Sage and Maggie really want to dig into this year and are really specific to council's role. So all right other question I'll chime in Maggie. Thank you. Um, I agree and I think I was in an HCD meeting earlier and I think we're going to probably see some slides about work planning next. So, I was going to kind of save my feedback for then, but um, yeah, I had a similar experience with this morning's HCD, like where when do we have the conversation? I'd love to name priorities and kind of help in that um, as well as work with staff on what they're seeing as our priorities. So, I look forward to that. Thank you. Or go ahead, Councilman

Ronnie. Yeah, I would just um add that if we're front loading this with priorities, it might be harder to see more of where staff sees the intersections. Um but I for one would really like to hear more about what it looks like to have water treatment facility redundancy or something. I think our um team is expecting is not just putting everything in the same place like what's our plan for um backups and resiliency in general for our water system not just the treatment plant and and you'll see this on the timeline I think this kind of addresses or at least responds to some of the comments we will on June 10th we'll have will convene the first policy finance and infrastructure committee which includes all seven council members. So that's a great opportunity to have a broader discussion and as part of that June 10th meeting we are going to bring forward number one is you'll be able to do some additional um discussing and perhaps prioritization of of your priorities and your goals. But I think also at that point staff will be able to bring forward uh organizational work plan projects. So we'll be able to say here are some of the projects uh that we could we could work on or prioritize as a community as a council and some of those will be absolutely you know creating redundancy and resilience in our infrastructure. So there'll be an exercise on June 10th that will allow some of this to happen and I think coming out of that perhaps understand what committees are going to take up um what kind of topics or programmatic areas that come. Another thing that I'm curious about is like with our realignment with our advisory boards. Um, I think something that since we're just coming back, we have a chance to look at this with some fresh eyes. And I am curious what it looks like to have

some more synchronization between our us and our advisory boards um because folks are looking to share this work with us and I think we could do better at um syncing our work plans. Um but I also think we have some community partners and potentially from some disaster recovery um survivor cities that are peer cities that are working through recovery. Um potential for us to um like bring in some people with lived in professional experience to help inform our decisions. Great. Thank you for that. Okay, I'm going to move to the next Sex and Katie. Next slide. We'll talk about council committee that I'm not going to cover the other three committees. I'm going to focus on planning, economic development, environment. And if you can go to the next slide, Katie. So, what you'll see here is a draft scope. So this is kind of the scope of your committee and the things the types of issues or policy areas that you would work on. We took the elements of what's always been the peed scope, but of course we've we've rolled in some environmental um policy areas. We've also tried to update this scope to reflect really what kind of our current reality is and what FY26 is going to look like. So again, this is your scope. review this with you. If there are things that are missing or need to be added or changed, please just let us know. So, we'll start with the first two bullets on this slide, which are kind of the nuts and bolts of peed traditionally, and that's land use and transportation policy as well as our comprehensive planning goals. So, those those are really uh from have always been part of the committee scope and those are things

that you'll see. I would say there'll be certainly storm related touch points for these policy areas, but there's a lot of steady state work that happens on these policy areas as well. Next slide. And so digging a little deeper, one of the things that I think has really changed in the ped scope from previous uh to now is is the economic development sections. And what you see in this scope is not only a focus on what I would say is traditional economic development and economic development strategies, but also trying to tie that into what Helen recovery uh kind of looks like for the next year. And that's with a focus on rebuilding our local economy, prioritizing the infrastructure that services that local economy. uh kind of to your point earlier, Councilman Monron, looking for those partnerships to help uh improve and our economy recover and of course generally just helping our businesses navigate all the challenges they face. In terms of strategies, I think looking at the health, overall health of our local economy and where we're at. And then beyond that, you know, what are some workforce development opportunities that can promote economic mobility amongst residents? And I think another important element is how do we look at our economy and strengthen the resilience and sustainability of that economic base, but also diversify that economic base. So again, very similar to previous scopes of the committee, but I think a little updated and reflective of of where we're at now. Um, and then of course, business out development expansion. That's always been a priority for PED. I think we have an opportunity to make sure that um existing and startup businesses have have the opportunity or the chance to participate, excuse me, uh in the benefits and recovery opportunities that are going to exist for the next few years. Next

slide. And lastly, but certainly importantly, our environmental focus one is is continuing to support our municipal climate action plan goals. um which were already helping to prepare ops for this type of disaster that we recently saw. But looking to strengthen those uh goals and activities and our ability to mitigate, prepare for and adapt to changing climate conditions. And then finally, this is new for this committee is supporting the concept of neighborhoodled resilience efforts and how that can build community capacity to withstand future challenges. And I will pause there and council Romney. Yeah. So just giving a picture of um what I was attempting to articulate earlier. One of the things that was coming up with our CDBGDR plan, which I'm very grateful was recently approved by HUD. Um we have $1.1 billion in need and $225 million to address it. So yes, $225 million is a lot. Um but it's not enough. So that's why it's so important that we um set some priorities. Um but when the community input resulted in a lot of those neighborhood resiliency hubs, infrastructure um conversations, um what does it look like for us to bring in folks lived in professional experience from Maui, a disaster survivor scenario, but also locally if you have folks in the community garden network, for example, that are delivering on some of those resiliency hub infrastructure parts um to talk about what are the policies that the city has that make it hard to do that. um is there anything that we aren't seeing that the folks on the ground are recognizing um so that we could be better informed about what are the

policy changes or land use changes that we need to make um so that our community can share the work together and I think that could be informed by um folks locally and um folks who have dealt with other disasters um folks that have dealt with flooding disasters would be important to have in that conversation. So in that role, we could be like a convenor of the conversation um to bring it to the public's before it has to go to the council for sort of like that last touch of information um budget analysis and a vote. Um but this is where we can in my mind get into some of the nitty-gritty and include more people in the conversation. I agree. Council member Ald trying to just say a statement. I'm just trying to be like is this is this a shared idea. The best example I can give is that when we had the equity engagement committee meetings of the past, we invited our advisory boards that were underneath us to bring forward reports, but then it just kind of like dead ends there. It's like here's the report on our work plan that we came up with ourselves and it's kind of plops on us. Um, and if we're synchronizing our work plans better, it'd be like, "All right, where is, you know, neighborhood advisory committee? Let's grab a couple local resilience hubs. Let's get a disaster survivor city." Um, and then we leave with a recommendation about what is resiliency hub look like it for Asheville and what are the policies or land use issues um that we have that need to change so we can get it done. I'm into having those kinds of conversations. It may make our meeting a little longer. So, I would hope that we might be open to some flexibility around what that looks like. I also acknowledge that I'm just one member and that might not be the plan. Ben, are we going to be doing a work

plan? Is that the slides coming up? Yeah. Okay. Because I I agree with Kim and I think there's room somewhere in there for that. And you know, with Maggie's earlier comments about like what should we be prioritizing just because I was in another meeting earlier, I know we're getting to this part, but um I think maybe the work planning is the best place to target some of this stuff, guys. Um yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say I think it I think it is Councilman Turner. I think that's you know, again, we're gonna We're going to have a we're going to have a meeting on June 10th where you'll get to see really the organizational work plan items that the kind of the city staff's proposing with that hopefully implement your priorities. But when we're back in June as a committee, I think that's where you really need to spend the time developing your work plan. And so I I do think Councilman Ron that you can kind of within your recovery framework try to prioritize what you believe to be important and what you want to work on. But I also think it's a great opportunity to try to crosswalk those priorities not only with DR funds, right? That's out there, but also crosswalk those priorities with partnerships and your advisory board because there may be other entities that know a lot about resilience hubs and it maybe there's a community-based way to move that forward that doesn't require so much staff time. But I think council kind of prioritizing that of making sure we can manage that is the way to be successful. But yeah, I mean I think that's the kind of conversations we're going to have in June when we get into this. And just one more thought on this. I do know that um Thrive is convening a lot of those conversations. They're actually bringing folks down from Vermont who had flood experiences I think June 2nd and 3rd. And so to what

you were saying Ben, of like where is the place for us to have the community conversation? Maybe it's this committee, maybe it's community leaders. I think that at the end of the day, we can't do this alone is the bottom line. And I I completely agree with you, Kim. We need to figure out what the structures are for us to be out in the community, where community is taking lead. Um and and where is the conversation where it's about policy, which is really our distinct role, and how do we inform our policym with community needs and wisdom. Yeah, I'll chime in. And I mean we learned through Helen the community is going to rise up in the ways that they need. So if they're not like partnering in this process of helping build them in the ways that makes everyone safer then it won't work. So somewhere in there is a symbiotic relationship that I have a feeling will deal with subcommittee or council not council committees the other boards and commissions coming back on so on. Um, you know, another example, and I guess I just mentioned this in the June meeting is that I want to talk about economic development in light of like, you know, what is happening in the river arts districts and if it isn't building back or if all these properties are going to go through the FEMA buyout and transition and uses, where are we compensating for in the city? Like the CBB discussion, is this the place to have it? Um, should the central business district be looked at for increased boundaries and so on? You know, just I don't know where those things live. I assumed this committee and if I if they're not on a work plan or under some note, I don't know how they get, you know, light. So maybe June and we talk about those kind of things. Is that how you want us to work on this, Ben? Yes, I think so. Councilman Turner, of course, we all have the I think we have one thing in common is we we haven't been a part of a recovery of a disaster of this magnitude in the roles we're currently in. So, but yes, I I agree. I think it we're going to really spend a

lot of time in June trying to what city council want what's important to city council which is generally a reflection of what's important to the community and then I think staff making sure that we are moving projects forward that align with that but I think all that said is the just as the city government I think we've got to make sure that we don't overextend ourselves and we use our time which is and financial resources widely. Again, that's where I think partnerships present a wonderful opportunity to get more done together. It It's hard to put it all together, council. You have to start kind of crosswalking different things and see how they connect and make sure that we're all working on things concurrently, but but not in a way that's duplicative of one another. I don't We're going to figure it out. Hey Ben, does the county have a planning board like we do that isn't so much just a you know review process for projects, but do they have a board similar to this? Like a committee like a count like a commissioner's committee? I'm not aware actually. Does maybe Councilman or Ron? I don't think so. Okay. Curious. Kim or Kim, excuse me. Katie, next slide I believe. One more slide. One more slide. Uh, you know, again, if anything on the SC jumps out at you, happy to have that feedback back from the committee. So, one of the things we had some conversation on this morning at HCD and and I think this is probably more operational in a sense, but the question is how how do we get things onto a

committee agenda? And I'm going to start at the bottom bottom two slides. Obviously, one way that the council committee works is based on agreed upon work plans, agreed upon council priorities. because some of that I think some of the things that this committee will work on will hopefully get decided or at least the discussions will advance on June 10th when you sit at the body and talk about that. The other way that things can get onto this uh committee is these are functions or creations of the mayor. So obviously the mayor can assign the committee to work on something. um the city manager's office. We bring things to the committee that are part of our organizational work plan, things that we want to see kind of a touch point with the committee before it goes to full account for just for general updates. The other thing we talked about this morning is how did the committee itself put things on your agenda and I think after some discussion where I believe we landed perhaps and council Turner you were part of this is the idea that if the committee wants to initiate an agenda item it would be two members of the committee that would agree to that and add it to the agenda. So these aren't policies or rules these are just guidelines. It sounds like there's been some variation between committees in the past. So, we're just trying to get a consistent format for how things come to and move through the committee structure. I see Janice is unmuted. So, I will pause there and see if there's any discussion on these guidelines for getting work items onto the council committee. Well, the question came up at HCD. Um, I think that the chair thought can't uh can't the chair always put an item on the agenda or maybe it was Sage that raised that question and um as a general rule on committees that is usually what the chair can do. The chair can add an item but these these

guidelines um probably are more geared towards having the chair and another committee member uh decide, not just have one person decide. But that's really up to you. As Ben had said in the other meeting, if you if this committee feels that that you want the uh committee chair to have the authority to just add something to the agenda without another committee member green, then that's fine, too. It's a discussion point. I got the follow-up question for the second bullet. It says the mayor city manager can request. Are they who are they requesting to then to the chair? That's because otherwise then one person in those situations so the mayor or the city manager can request to the chair to have something added. Yes. And that usually as you know Councilman Alman we just met and you probably did this for environment and safety. Typically the chair and the staff meet a couple weeks before the meeting and try to settle or satisfy the agenda. And as you know we we have a document where we keep everything that's requested we store on the document so that anything you ask we'll put on the document. It's just the process by which things get onto the agenda. But I think that ends up being ultimately discussion between the chair and the staff that lays to the committee. Yeah. Um, back to the point that you guys were talking about and you know I'm the chair and I think I'd say this even if I wasn't that the or tell me where the rationale for this new idea of two members of a committee can add or approve an agenda item versus the chair being able to do that on their own. This seems new and not the practice that I've experienced in any of our committees. So

why now and where did this idea originate? I think the reason this is here is to try to get some consistency across committees about how work happens scheduled and moves through so it can be flex. It can reflect what city council wants ultimately. I think we just would like to see consistency across the committees. I think it's been different based on the committee chair in the past. I think there's different variations of that. I think the purpose of the why is to try to get some consensus or some cross member communication on moving items forward. The the thing that's coming up for me though is like um we also have the rule that a majority of a committee isn't supposed to be talking outside of committee meetings. So that means two of us are not supposed to be discussing committee items or issues outside a committee meeting. So I I feel like this needs to be workshops through some more of how we navigate that because I can't I'm not sure how that would work then um if we're expected. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. What I've done in the past for when um I needed something on or I wanted to suggest something for let's say policy, finance, and HR when I was on that previous committee, I would send an email to the group saying for information, this is what I'm seeking. Um usually that could just go to the chair, but it helps to inform the group and we are allowed to do that within means as long as we're not deliberating. Um, so I get that there's a need to workshop, but it does seem to me that this could also be a benefit to the community that if something's on the agenda, then you know that um it's been fleshed out enough to get support and then we're not running staff around for

things that might die in committee. Um, so there's probably some pros and cons, but it would definitely help to have some legal framework for how we're meant to reach out about something that's premium that we're not allowed to talk about in a majority. Yeah, to your point exactly, like how do you flush out an idea if you're not allowed to talk about it in order to get it on me? I just I I think I think this needs to be thought through a little bit more before I' I'd be like, "Yes, I'm ready to say yes." I just I feel like I might get caught in some I want to do the right thing. I want it to be consistent. I want this to be transparent. I want this to be fair. And um I don't know that this gives enough guidance yet for me. Paige, you have a hand up. Yeah, just a few things to share. I'm similar and now that this is my second meeting of the day, I've had some more thoughts about it. And um I guess if we're going to we're essentially defining process. It's not clear to me if some of these or all of these board committees or council committees have existing language or charters. I know some some do. So, if there is like a red line or marked up version of what we're actually changing, is that going to come to us at council? Is this like a consent item all these changes? Because I I feel like I need to see what we're really if we're omitting like I don't know what we're doing here. And um I there's other parts of the process like so now two members of a committee have an item on an agenda. Let's say it doesn't actually get through the committee. Are we saying that it will kill it? That there's not an avenue to the entire council if a committee kills an item because that's been buried in the past too. So if we're going to define process that might need to be in there. Is that what we're doing? We're trying to redefine all these committees and how they'll operate. Really, that's essentially this is all new language. It'll come to us at council. Yeah, we I had I went with the worked to

the clerk's office prior to these meetings to see if there if there was some sort of formal policy or document that outlined kind of how committees operate. we weren't able to. That's not to say there haven't been over over the years and different there's not there's not one thing there's not one document that I can reference. So, I think what I'm hearing today is that if we're going to have guidelines for the function of these committees, we need to think on that a little more, probably put something in in writing and bring that back to some probably full counsel or at least give council an opportunity to look at that and make sure we agree on the way in which we're going to maybe maybe it doesn't all need to go to council. I don't really want to overstep. It's just I'm getting a little lost and I can see how these things have come up and as a chair in the past I've done both what Kim referenced in emailing but you know and then Maggie and I were on the phone earlier talking we realized we were talking about this meeting and then we're like oh shoot we can't do that and now I don't know how things get to council anymore so so maybe just some clarity I maybe it's a document I don't know if it has to go all the way up through all the ranks to counselor or not or committees can define it sounds like we don't really know well work plans will help. Putting things on future agendas, which we can do right now, will help. Um, if anything, we're probably going to have too much work to do and not not enough. But what I also am um curious about is if staff is is it potentially finding a way to give a more definitive no. Sometimes the way that we as an organizational culture are perceived as saying no is by ignoring it till it goes away. And so having a way to be like, we don't have enough committee support to bring this to an agenda is a way to formalize a no. We don't we're not going to pick that up right now. Um for the public and I'm curious if that's like an actual goal, then I'm intrigued. Um if

it's just consistency and that's it, um then that is a new way to move forward and we could try it because we haven't tried it. Um, and the lack of consistency has been really hard. When folks reach out to me, I'm like, "Oh, well, it depends on which group you're reaching out to on how they handle things." Yeah. And I think the I think getting to the goal of allowing us to have focus and therefore staff saying no is very important because we're going to get overloaded with our steadystate work and all the new recovery work. And I think the way I've seen that done in other organizations is through like effective prioritization processes so that the work plan isn't just a like does this look good staff will bring you staff stuff. It's really what does what does this body the three of us want to work on? Um so that the work plan really reflects that and that that discussion that discernment is done in a committee meeting in the public so that we can really hash that out and that there's less surprise lastm minute agenda items. It's more like this is what we want to work on this year. Let's move towards that. I think that that might get us where we want to go and mitigate the concern about one person commandeering an agenda. It also kind of signals to staff that there's um momentum to move something forward to council at the committee level. If we're like like I put some things out there that I expected I would like to see on a work plan today. I'm putting it out there because I'd love to see it on a future agenda item list and that ends up on a future agenda and I know we're not necessarily at that place right now, but I am trying to model that. Um, but I do think that it helps with clarity once again when we're talking about that um advisory board realignment. If folks were like, gosh, I don't see um finishing the urban master plan for tree canopy, urban forestry master plan

anywhere on a future agenda. Who's the group to do that? Oh, it would be this one. So, um is this group going to do it? So, they know who to reach out to that there needs to be at least two council members to get on a future agenda. And then if it's like we still don't have that things have piled up so quickly, we don't we are not going to make a recommendation to council. um then they can go take that heat to council and be like y'all better send this over to that committee to get it done. So it just it can create a better path to yes, it can also create a clearer path to no which we can improve on. Great thought on that topic. I feel like we stress our staff out. Um, so I mean we're regrouping here. So I'm keeping a lot of like grace grace for the whole process, right? We're just getting our feedback under us in this process. And now we've got fewer committees doing more things. We've got to identify work plans or our staff are going to lose their minds trying to keep up with our ever changing posts. Um, so I I support this. I I apologize for the way we're having to go through this and figure it out together, y'all. I feel like it could really create stresses unneeded. We're probably going to get a smooth process as we get through June and work plan and stuff. So, just a little um reinforcement that I I do think we're on the right path, but there's some tweaks. Don't feel so bad, stab. Okay. I don't I don't at all. I Okay, good. a great conversation and I I like the I like hearing this discussed and I think it helps us a lot to try to set this up in a way that ultimately works for city council or committee structure. So, I think this is fantastic and I think we've already gotten several takeaways from two committee meeting two committee meetings today. Good. Well, know that I'm watching out for how we um load things onto staff's plate during

such an already challenging time when I know like exhaustion's at a high and we're just now I mean work plans can be really stressful and so I'm kind of you know hopefully we'll hear from staff if it's just like a this is too much you know and from a legal perspective I'm glad you're all remembering the communicating together and that could be deliberating and I'm going to talk to Brent about it and I think because I'm not quite sure that how much deliberation goes into deciding something goes on the agenda or not. It could just be an email. I want to put this on the agenda and will anybody else support me? Yes or no? Or you you may you know that might not be realistic. It it sounds like there is more that goes into it than that. I don't think I don't know. I mean, for the spirit of collaboration, I don't know that I always start with an idea that's full. I really value talking to my peers for their ideas to shape and frame and grow. And so, I don't know that it's realistic to be like, here's my whole idea, yes or no. So I think that kind of inhibits the collaborative policym where it's like well what's your flavor of perspective you know and so for me that discussion element and I do that with staffs all the time I do that with peers so that's where I I see this could get into a challenge like I there are times that it's easy a yes or no but um there's a lot of gray in the world and that's where collaboration is really meaningful. So yeah some more feedback on that um for this rule so that I just want to I want to do the right thing. I want to do what's transparent. I want to um make sure that we're productive. And I think to me getting some prioritization that we can discuss and have a work plan that we stick to is like the ideal outcome. Janice, can you do we know if it's our rule? Is it a state rule? Whose rule is it?

No, that's what I asked this morning. And I you know all boards and commissions have rules and procedures. And so I was wondering do the the council committees have rules and procedures. Council has rules of procedure but Ben said they looked for it and they couldn't find these kinds of rules of procedure for the council subcommittee. So but we could just say that we could just omit this whole two members talking to each other and it could just become allowable by default if it's not documents we adopt. Janice, I'm curious where the school of government fits on this because when I've reached out in the past, um, this is still a public meeting, so it still has to follow open meetings policy. The majority of two members, correct? That's something. You mean but but I think what Sage was saying is if you if Right now you're all saying, we don't we don't think this rule is what we want to do. We want to do what we've always done which is allow I guess the committee chair could put anything on the agenda and then um or maybe it was how did it work that anybody on the committee could suggest an agenda or was it just the chair right now talking about the two people communicating off a public meeting? So the chair always in my history as a chair of so many years I was always able to add something on the agenda but I get that we're changing that now collaboration no problem but I'm wondering about if you know if this is our opportunity to adopt rules can we can we do away with this two of three can't communicate can't you can't can the open meetings pause that's what I'm saying so is it a state rule is it our rule it would be through the school of government is the guidance that I would be seeking but it would obviously help if Jesus we had some clear guidance and some links that we can point folks to. Oh, I'm sorry, Kim. I would like to hear from our legal attorney. You're right. You're not going to have ever get rid of the if you're

communicating unless we can say limit the communication so it's not a deliberation, which it sounds like there's a debate. Sometimes it's easy to say yes and no, and sometimes there is a discussion. So, I thought I'm sorry, Sage. I thought you were saying just get rid of this bullet one and just say any committee member or maybe just the chair can add an agenda item and that it doesn't require two members to agree. That's where I thought you were going with that. Yeah, that was but yeah, I'm just kind of curious about it all now. But if we didn't have any rules before, we have at least some statutory obligations somewhere. Can we get some more information on what how the open meetings um policy from the state applies to our committees? Yeah, we can do that. But it's the same. It it's you are correct, Kim, that it doesn't distinguish between types of committees. It's the majority of a committee. If if they're commun deliberating, it's a public meeting. So, you would have to do that in public. Yeah. It might just it might help to have some links and it would certainly I would appreciate being able to compare it to my notes. Yeah, we'll we'll work on a document. We'll incorporate that, Council Moni. So, we will um and we'll have to bring it back to full council because again had a similar conversation at HCD this morning. So, we'll we'll pull the policy framework together for council committees and um if ever we were going to establish that, this is a great time to do it as we kind of reset everything. So, we we'll get that pulled together and bring it back to full council. Okay, that was great discussion. Not making staff feel stressed at all. These are the kind of

things we want to kind of sort out on the front end. Um, next slide. We only have two to go, I think. So, the these are So, what we'll begin to do is come up with a work plan for this committee. I want to piggyback on something Councilman Olman said. I think every everything in your priority priorities and goals, all that's important without a doubt. Everything in the action plan, the CDBGDR plan important. all the steady state stuffs and all the just the ops everything is absolutely important. So I think the challenge becomes sometimes is how do you just can't do it all and I think that is one of and maybe you know that's why the prioritization or that's why the exercise is so important is how do we do what we can be successful at and sometimes that mean not that something's not important it just means that it may have to get done or started at a little bit later date. for some of work planning the benefits is trying to come up with what we can do in FY26 and what we can deliver to this community and that probably isn't everything at once. So that's part of what this process is. Um I think as y'all have referenced earlier a lot of time other sources of funds you know other uh community partners who can provide like people resources or other ways to kind of leverage what we want to do and accomplish that. We have to be just very strategic in that way. So with that said these are just this is just a mix this is really high level. This is a mix of things that what I would consider to be steady state some things we were already doing. um some things that we we just do as an organization, but also the beginnings of the framework of maybe what are some of

the recovery things that we'll want to tackle in FY26. I think as we move into June, we refined this a little more and one thing for example is we had a lot of discussion on the concept of resilient hub. I don't have this on the tenative list. Doesn't mean it's not a priority. It's just I you know when I put it together I just didn't necessarily add it. That's an example of something we want to think through. But what you can see is, you know, we have we're going to be doing a long-term recovery plan with Bunkham County. Clearly, that's something uh that needs to be considered somewhere in the council committee process. We have existing plans uh that were already important. I would argue they're more important now because they they're extremely relevant based on what our current conditions are. One for example being the urban forestry master plan. Um in terms of programmatic things we have there is in the DR action plan there is a specific allocation to economic recovery. Clearly that crosswalks and aligns very closely to what this committee uh would do and and have input into. Uh UDO updates comprehensive plan updates things we're already working on that we want to continue to work on. I won't read the whole list, but you can see other things in there that were underway or things city real estate program and property disposition always been important, but it's going to be critical as we move to the HMGP process and perhaps again to acquire additional land assets throughout the city. Um, and then just periodic updates. There's this thing I think one of the first things we want to bring back to this committee is the micromobility ordinance. Uh, you probably remember working on that. It's been a while, but that that was probably going to come to our October meeting for discussion. So, we're going to bring that back. And and all that to say, when it really works well, I think when we figure out what we're working on for FY26 or what we're prioritizing, I think

that's where we can really connect in those advisory boards and use their skill set to help advance those priorities. So, I'm going to stop there. Any conversation on work plan topics or what that look like looks like or what you envision for for this committee to be working on or does that feel okay to everybody? [Music] Um, I'm just trying to scan my memory because as I look at each of the like sub bullets, there's so much within many of them, you know, like municipal climate action plan has a lot. And so, as you mentioned, resilience hubs isn't necessarily called out here, although I would say there was such large council support at the retreat for that one that it might warrant its own bullet. Um or like on the DR economic recovery, there was you know this segment of that economic recovery bucket that's for business grants, but there was also that big segment for revitalization and commercial corridors. And so I could see a priority that I hear from the community is how are we going to be balancing environmental safety and priorities and economic recovery in our river areas and what does riverfront revitalization look like? I can assume that that lives in the willike m river day way plan update but um maybe right and so I I guess I think as we get into sounds like our June conversation as a committee um we'll really get into the more granularity and detail of each of these sub bullets of kind of which parts are we really going to dig into. I do think that this is a lot of work and a lot of work that needs to get

done and it really ticks off a lot of the things that feel appropriate within um this committee scope at first look. Councilman Rainy, help me understand where it fits in like the Thrive long-term recovery group on construction which I'm at that table. if they identify an issue with a housing solution and it fits under our UDO and it's like, "Oh, the UDO is getting in the way of this solution." Um, and we want to see it on a work plan. Um, is it already on here somewhere? Is that fitting underneath the recovery projects and programs or do we need to get specific about wanting to see how our UDO helps or is a barrier to our recovery goals? Yeah. Does that fit into the updates to the UDO and comprehensive plan? Because that could mean a lot of things and like you're pointing to Kim, I think that's an important one, but I feel like for us to have a clear work plan and for staff and council to stay aligned, I don't know if updates to the UDO is our sign ordinance, which I would say is not a top priority. And so I think a little bit maybe some other layers within these buckets to ensure that the feedback loop from us connecting with community gets into these so that there's specificity could be nice. So interestingly I was thoughts as you were Kim at the same time and what I was kind of brainstorming around a potential item on the list could be identifying partnerled goals or something. Um because like the Thrive is a great example, but I also wonder as we learn more and more about business losses on Wall Street, you know, are there should

we be doing economic recovery on Wall Street by making it the walkable street, pedestrian only street we've talked about for 20 years? You know, is this that time? And how does anything like that get light? Is there too much on the table? Or is there a group, a partner-led group that could bring us some ideas? you know, I don't want us to tax ourselves while we're so overworked, but I also don't want us to lose opportunities. So maybe there's just some cohesion and partnerled efforts in the community and we try and sync up and see if there's ways we can support and that's something on the work plan as opposed to just like trying to brainstorm around things and add them to agendas with two people and stuff. So, Ben, is that where staff is already seeing like, oh, we're already flagging that there may be policy changes that need to happen around the UDO and that's it's already reflected there, or is it like, no, y'all are going to have to get more in the weeds if it's going to be in the mix? I think I think we've got to be a little more granular. Got to drop down a level. Um, because that was a good example is undoubtedly nobody's talking about the signed ordinance when they say UDO updates. But I do I do think like part of what the work planning what's important for council is we think about housing and housing does overlap HCD and this committee a lot actually. Um but there's things like there's things like repair programs that we can get off the ground and you know kind of help maintain our existing housing stock. I would say if we if we want to continue to do housing related regulatory reform, um that's where I think we need to really specifically identify that as a housing priority, make sure we have the bandwidth to actually do that. And that may mean that one of the other housing priorities may have to step back just a bit. I think those are conversations we have to have, council only, but I would say based on the last time we tried housing regulatory reform, it ended up taking a lot longer and a lot more effort than

we expected. And that's because I don't think we went into it in agreement with what that project was or what the expected outcomes were. That's really helpful. So, I think that um if we're if you're needing us to get more granular about something that's so big, um it's like if we're like, "Let's go out to lunch and 10 people are very sure that means we're going out for barbecue and the other 10 are very short that it's not," then you might want to be like, "We're going to barbecue for lunch" or something like that, you need something that's very specific. So, another example of that for me is maybe it's on here, maybe it isn't. But one of the things that I learned today from a contractor that's been applying for the jobs in recovery is that um connecting to the issue that our local contracting um average age of a contracting worker is like getting close to 52. We need to bring more people into the recovery effort and that means more local jobs and that is a means that the the people who live and work here will benefit from rebuilding our city. But when we were talking about with the CBD CDBDR level, we were saying like, "Oh, we know who the partners are." And this person was like, "Uh-uh, I'm sending all of my staff to get trained here." And I was like, "Uh oh, we're sending the money to the wrong place potentially." So that's where I'm like when it comes down to that the economic part of our work, whether it's small business grant recovery or better understanding where we need to make some recommendations for funding. Um is job training and connecting local workers with employers. Is that in our scope of work right now? I think it we might need it to be. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great example of like in the DR money there is the workforce development bucket and that is

in the economic recovery bucket. So I'm like is that one it it there's just so many sub bullets with each of these and which ones do we want to focus on? Because I agree I think that um workforce development is something the city there's a lot of really strong community partners working on that and it's not been this big robust effort the city has done in the past. And so where does that sit in? Where are we gathering the information? How are we connecting into that? And you know, if each of these sub bullet each of these bullets has three or four below it, I think getting a little more focused on that project level at least where council wants to weigh in because there's so many things that staff is going to do awesome work collaborating with great partners, but it might not bubble up to a policy level conversation where I think is where that's our unique contribution, right? staff isn't making policy. That's our function. And so, which of these have policy overlaps that need to dig into in order for us to move forward? That's where I keep coming back to that role function. And I think and I would say not just policy, but budget plans and policy is if staff is like, we're seeing that more as a policy, finance, and budget like conversation. It needs to be at a different table. That's why it's not on your plan. That's helpful to know. Um, if we're talking about workforce development, then I would say and workplace development. Are the places that are hiring right now ready for our workers? So, that would be helpful to know from staff is like, is that our bucket of work or is that a different committee bucket of work? Good conversation. I I'm hearing loud and clear that we need to make sure we develop projects or having discussion having touch points and making sure we're thinking about

potential community partners loud loud and clear on that and taking advantage of those partners where we can. Not taking advantage of but taking advantage of the partnership where we can. Um and then the I appreciate what you said, Councilman Olman. you know, we're we we kind of do the nut the bolts. We're the doer, the staff. We're we're trying to get council to give us policy guidance. Um so yeah, when we say revi rebuild commercial corridors, that probably means two or three different three two or three different things that are still at the policy level. So that's where I think we're rebuilding commercial corridors can be supportive infrastructure, it can be business grants, it could be loans, it could be a number of things. So, I think that's where from a policy perspective, council can hopefully help us make sure we're headed in the right direction with the projects and and the operational things that we do. Um, I'm going to go to the next slide if that's okay with everybody. It was a great discussion, I think. So, kind of a timeline trying to tie all this together. Um, we are in the midst of reviewing department work plans and proposed projects. You know, again, those those have been kind of waiting those based on how they align with council's recovery priorities. Uh is kind of internal. We're going to hopefully finalize our organizational work plan early June. We will be uh to PFI or full council in June 10th. That'll be facilitated by Fountain Works. You'll have a chance to see the city's organizational work plan items. um also have a chance to think about how our work aligns with different committees or policy or recovery priority areas. Um on the week of June 16th, I don't think we have the date finalized yet, but that third week, it'll be after your meeting on June

10th, we'll have that follow-up workshop with boards and commission's chairs and co-chair also facilitated by Fountain Works. You know, hopefully when we go to that that follow-up workshop, we have a pretty good idea of what city council's priorities and recovery goals are for the upcoming fiscal year. And then we're going to be back on June 17th. We may have a few normal items on that committee meeting for PED E, but we'll need to work on this work plan and what that looks like. So ideally when we hit July, the beginning of the new fiscal year, the new budget, uh we really understand and agree on what we're working on for the next fiscal year and start to bring those advisory boards on. Go ahead, Councilman Rolley. I have an idea and I realize it may be too soon, but if we put micromobility policy recommendation on our June 17th, we could get it off our work plan real fast and get it sent to council. And I would support that. I would support that, too. Public deliberation. Oo, I'm in. Yeah. I mean, like, let's get a win and something done. Great. I love nothing feels better, almost nothing, than marking something off the work plan. It's a great feeling. So, yeah, I like that. I think our next slide is key takeaways again. So, I don't I don't have anything else uh today. I appreciate your time and conversation. It was very again, we'll be back have many touch points with you in the coming month to make sure we get this right working together. I'll turn it back over to you, council little. All right. Thank you very much. Going back to our agenda, which is somewhere on my screen.

Um so that was a robust discussion. Additional agenda items to be the third item was are there any additional items to be determined or any other discussions that we want to have amongst ourselves council now before we move on to public comment. All right. Um Katie, do we have anyone dialing in for public comment today? Yes, we do. Just one moment, please. Great. And a reminder to our caller, we do three minutes of public comment and Katie will help navigate you and give you the queue when when we're ready. Caller ending in 5476, your line is now open and you'll have three minutes to speak. [Music] I hear like the saintest whisper of someone maybe talking to us, but if you're trying check your mute or speak directly into the microphone, please. Let me see. Just one moment. Let me check something. Thanks. Okay. Caller ending in 5476. Could you try again, please? Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Thank you so much. Sorry about that. Welcome. Hello. My name is Puzziac. I'm commenting as a member of the Sunrise Movement. I'm pleased with the enthusiasm that city officials have been showing for the idea of resilience hubs to protect our neighbors in times of need such as heat waves, winter storms, floods, and wildfires. Sadly, we know that we have not done enough soon enough

as a global community to head off all of the effects of humaninduced climate change. And so, adaptation to our changing climate, our resilience and sustainability at the same time. While solar panels and battery storage are an up an expensive upfront investment, the use of these technologies and resilience hubs would be more reliable and sustainable for generating electricity during natural disasters than the use of fossil fuel generators. Fossil fuel generators require the storage of dangerous materials at the site and delivery of more fuel periodically. We saw in the days after hurricane Helen that delivering supplies can be exceedingly difficult at the height of a crisis, especially with our isolated geography. Solar panels and storage have the additional benefit of expanding the capacity of the grid to integrate renewable energy production. In other words, solar panels and batteries not only produce environmentally responsible electricity 365 days a year for the resilience hub, they also reduce the barrier for neighboring buildings to use solar energy as well. Resilience hubs are most useful when equity and responsible urban planning are included in their implementation. Prioritizing resilience hubs in dense neighborhoods with many community members who are especially vulnerable such as communities uh with disproportionately impoverished, racialized and disabled residents will ensure that our neighbors who are most in need of these resources will have access to them. Having robust p robust public transit transportation survey and resilience hubs would make them more acceptable especially for our elderly and disabled neighbors. Our more rural neighbors also deserve access to resources in times of crisis and approving mixed use zoning further from urban cords would make it possible to implement resilience hubs even outside of our already dense neighborhood. We have a unique opportunity right now to build back from the aftermath of Hurricane Helen in a way that ensured

justice for the environment and our most vulnerable neighbors and resilience in the face of the next disaster. That's all. Thank you so much, Katie. Any other callers? Yes. Um caller ending in 520, your line is now open. You will have three minutes. Hi there. Can y'all hear me? Yes, we can. Oh, good. Okay. Hi. Um, my name is Rachel and I'm also a member of the local Sunrise Hub and first I just want to voice our sincere excitement that this committee is up and running. Really, really looking forward to the work of addressing the climate emergency and building back more sustainably and equitably from Hen. Um, and we really are thinking of this time as as like a time of big opportunity even though it's a very challenging time as well. Um, so we get to reimagine what kind of Asheville that we want to live in. And I and I hope we can focus on a few things as we do that. Um, number one would be being really bold about climate change mitigation as we also invest in adaptation. Um, so we should acknowledge that it's going to take big transformations for us to reach our goals of 100% renewable energy for city operations in just five short years and for the whole community by 2042. So means we need to get serious about stuff like getting private gas powered cars off the road by expanding public transit and building out EV charging infrastructure. And I think we need to be really aggressive about greening the grid, not just for city operation, but for more of the community. That was number one, bold about climate change mitigation. Number

two is spurring economic development that is equitable and environmentally sustainable. Um, so for me, when I hear a lot of the economic development speak, a lot of it is focused on business owners. Um, and we don't always talk as much about consumers and workers who are really the majority of our participants in our economy. Um, so I just want to make sure that we have a continued focus on supporting a living wage so that people who work here can also afford to live here. um focus on diversifying our economy and in particular investing in green jobs so that really we can prepare for the stages of the economy that are relying on renewable energy. Um and three the last thing um I just wanting to highlight continued community engagement and all the work of this committee and the recovery in general. I'm like really excited to hear you all talking about how boards and commissions are going to be said like more into these discussions as well as other community groups who are doing work on the ground because it really does take all of us obviously you know obviously you all can't do all these things alone and also it just works better when we're all involved and have a say. Um, and a good the point I wanted to make about that is making sure we do inreach into community and not just waiting for community to come to government because you know not everyone can be here on a one o'clock on a Tuesday. Um, so those are the main things I wanted to share and I just wanted to thank you for Thank you so much. I hate the hook at three minutes but it's a rule for a good reason. So thank you so much. Uh Katie, do we have anyone else? That was it. But let me reload and

triple check. We don't have any last minute callers. No, Madam Chair, those were all of our callers. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Appreciate your contributions. Um with that, that was the last agenda item. And uh without any other topics, we are adjourned. I look forward to collaborating with both of you council women and staff. Looking forward to sounds like what will be a really exciting conversation in June where we get into some more details and expectations and priorities so that we have a real clear sense of what we're digging into this year. Excited about it and thankful. Take care of