Public Amenities Committee - Regular Meeting

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All righty, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Mayor Council. Thank you so much for being here. We will start with introductions. We have a great content today. We have an update on all of our great work happening in Globeville area in Swansea on our community process there. And so we'll get to talk about that for a bit. Then we have a brief executive session, but we get to start first with announcements. How about... The distinguished gentleman to my right to kick us off with introductions, and then we'll go to announcements. No announcements yet, just introductions.

No, I simply announced it that I'm Paul Castro. I represent District 6 on Denver City Council.

Good morning, Amanda Sawyer, District 5. Laura Duprez, Bucky District 7. Good morning, Serena Gonzalez-Cucheras, Council Member at Large. Good morning, Amanda Sanbo, Northwest Denver, District 1.

Good morning, Daryl Watson, Fine District 9. Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

Good morning, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

Now the time is right for announcements. So now that we've gotten that done, who has announcements they would like to share? Councilwoman Sandoval.

I do. So I am hosting my last series of yoga tomorrow at the Old Eulogy Dome. So I have a 38 from Tennyson. It's bilingual, and it's my last one. So it's been so much fun to have a yoga series. Come rain or shine. Because it's a dome, so you can do outdoor yoga in the rain. It's awesome. And then this Friday, I'm having a movie at the park, at Zuni Park, off of 52nd and Zuni. We're showing How to Train Your Dragon. It's a resource fair, and the movie starts around 8 o'clock. So see you on Wednesday and on Friday. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much. I have Councilman Watson and then Council Torres and then Alvidrez. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, President. I want to share some exciting news. I'm the city council member representing Define District 9, but oftentimes I steal from other districts. I'm going to share an amazing announcement from Council District 8. I'd love to share that Northfield High School is the number one rated high school in Colorado by U.S. News.

There we go.

And so I wanted to say to Principal Rodriguez Bracey, it's her fourth year. Congratulations to her, her staff, the students, parents, educators, everyone. What an amazing feat for a Denver public school to be listed in U.S. News and World Report. I don't know if they even call it that anymore. They still do. But U.S. News. So it's fantastic. So congratulations, Northfield, and welcome back to the next school year. I want to share a really important event that's happening in Fine District 9 on Thursday, August 27th from 5.30 to 7 p.m. We will be having the Welton Next Steps virtual meeting. We're going to be discussing the future of multimodal transportation along the Welton Corridor. It's one of several meetings that we've been having as one of the last town halls that we're having before the alternatives that will be presented by the Department of Transportation and the Regional Transportation District for not only the L line, but also the connection to Downing to 38th and Blake. important that community comes out. We'd love to hear your voices. It's a virtual meeting. If you need the link, reach out to my office at any time, but you can also go on the DOTI website to get that link. So once again, the Welton Next Steps meeting, virtual, 5.30 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, August 27th. Thank you so much, Councilman. Council Torres.

Thank you so much. Colorado Dragon Boat Festival is this weekend, so make your way to Sloan's Lake. eat great, see some great entertainment, and watch some boat races. Also wanted to mention and welcome Janet Borgia is here in town from UnidosUS, and I just wanted to welcome her on behalf of all of us. I think she's meeting with different groups, checking Denver out, and I know we have some ambassadors who are on the board of UnidosUS. Marlene de la Rosa, Andrea Barella come to mind. There are probably many others, but thanks for visiting Denver. Thank you, sir. Excited to see you this afternoon.

Councilman Lidros.

Good morning. Just wanted to give a shout out thank you to Director Ford for supporting us in our event this past weekend to save Baker Historic Urban Garden. This is a very important garden that provides food to Baker neighbors and it's at risk of being lost because the current owner of the land who's been letting us use it is deciding to sell. So they are desperately trying to raise funds. Porch Fest, the exciting festival coming to District 7 in October. did a fundraising concert this past weekend, and we were able to shut down part of the street. Really grateful for that. If anyone's interested, look up Baker Historic Garden. We are desperately trying to save it. And I also want to invite people out this Saturday. Athmar Park Neighborhood Association will be having their movie night Saturday at 7.30 p.m. on the west side of Houston Lake. They will be, which is empty. I'm very sad to share, but hopefully one day it will not be empty anymore. They will be showing their favorite movies. Toy Story movie, because there's the new Toy Story, so let's do the throwback, and then you can watch the new one later. Very exciting weekend in District 7. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Madam President.

Oh, thank you. This Wednesday at 4 p.m. in Rosamond Park, we are opening up a new pickleball court. Super exciting. And for those of you who are pickleball players, if you sign up, Director Joel and Clark and myself will be playing the team. Another team. Oh, my gosh. We're going to get our pickleball. And so, yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. We'll be playing pickleball on Wednesday afternoon. And if pickleball is not your thing, on Saturday, September 19th, we have a concert in the park at Eisenhower. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Anybody else that we missed? Okay, great. We are excited to jump in. Love to welcome up Mike Bouchard from National Western and our friends that are going to join us for our update. Great. Thanks, Mike.

Thank you so much. Mike Bouchard, Executive Director of the Mayor's Office of the National Western Center. And really excited to be here this morning and share with you some updates on the Triangle Community Vision Planning Process. This is an effort that we've been engaged in for almost two and a half years now. So this is a long, very intentional process to engage the Globeville and Learfield-Swansea communities in a substantive and community-driven planning process to help shape the future of the Triangle. go into a lot of detail, but it's been a while since we've been in front of council, so we thought it was a good opportunity. We're at an important inflection point in the process, and so this was a great time to give you all updates and let you know what the next steps are from here.

We've got help. It's immune to your superpowers sometimes. Not to Becky's, though.

Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Sorry. No worries. So today we are gonna cover a handful of items. Just quick background and context of the campus. Talk specifically about the Triangle planning process timeline, the roadmap that's got us to where we are today. Go in in depth on the engagement toolbox that we're using. We're using a wide range of different types of tools to reach folks, and we'll talk in detail about those. Give you some updates on the planning process, what those conversations with community have been, and then outline the next steps from here. So just as a reminder, the campus itself is building out a new campus that can host the Stock Show, as has happened for now 121 years in January, for the two weeks in January, but also be vibrant and active and programmed the rest of the year. It's intended to be a cultural crossroads and an innovation hub focused on how a campus like this can not only physically reconnect the communities of Globeville and Elyria-Swansea while bringing visitors and creating a destination entertainment and education venue, but also how that redevelopment can occur in a way that brings the community along with us that does not create additional displacement pressure and how the benefits of the redevelopment can benefit not only the campus, but the entire neighborhoods that we sit within. As a reminder, the major campus partners include the city, the National Western Center Authority, the National Western Stock Show, and CSU Spur. And I just want to take a minute to acknowledge the folks, the partners who are in the audience here, as well as community members. and other community partners. This has really been a ongoing group effort, a collaboration, and so it's important that everyone is here today as part of this process. A reminder of the history of the campus. This all started back in 2012 when Stock Show was contemplating leaving Denver. Then Mayor Hancock committed to keeping the Stock Show here, but the only way to do that was to reimagine this campus as a year-round, vibrant, dynamic entertainment venue that, as I said, also brings the community, real community benefits to Globeville and Elyria Swansea as we go forward. So I won't spend too much detail here. The next slide is the planning itself really started in earnest back in 2024 when Mayor Johnston came on board and we'll talk about the tour that the coalition led with him and some other important city stakeholders. Through 2025, we went into our community outreach workgroup process, which conveniently abbreviates to CAL. In 2026, we really started the planning process in earnest, and in 2027, we will wrap that up and move on into implementation. So as a reminder of the campus plan, so the dashed area to the lower right is the triangle and it is what's always been referred to as future phases because phases one and two on the upper left are the core of the campus. And we are building out the replacement facilities that will replace the two large buildings in gray and triangle. And only when those replacement facilities are built is the triangle then unlocked for us to build out the vision there. So Livestock Center is now complete. It opened up in January and replaces the Hall of Education. And we are finalizing the development agreement for the Equestrian Center, which will replace the Events Center, thus unlocking Triangle and setting us up for the implementation of this community vision plan. Another really important component of the campus from the beginning was the incorporation of meaningful real community benefits and that at each phase of campus development we continue to raise the bar on the level and volume of community benefits that are being delivered. So that first line there, number one, is the baseline that all campus development needs to provide, and that includes the roundup that goes to the Community Investment Fund, or CIF, as well as additional funding sources to support the CIF, small, minority, and women-owned business participation, and procurements of all city contracts adhering to city ordinances. With the major Project of the Equestrian Center, we added additional community benefits, including a 4,000 square foot community building, additional CIF support through a hotel room night fee and hotel fundraising day, and additional workforce job creation through WorkNow to support the construction of that facility. And then with Triangle, we are taking that even one step further, looking at community ownership opportunities, focusing on affordable housing, not just conceptually affordable housing citywide, but GES-specific affordable housing, additional community amenities and gathering spaces, and small business incubator sites. As I mentioned, all this, the planning efforts really started back in 2024 when Mayor Johnston and team joined the GES community led by the coalition on a tour to look at Triangle to talk about what the community's desires were. And the mayor in that tour committed to a community driven process to explore the potential uses for the Triangle. That really kicked off where we are today. And as a reminder, from the beginning, we've been clear that there are still some additional public assets that need to be constructed as part of the full build out of the campus in Triangle. Those include the 10,000 seat arena, the 1909 arena renovation and reuse, and some additional expo hall space, as well as parking to support those uses. In addition, we need to provide horizontal infrastructure. We will be studying land use, which includes affordable housing, mixed use opportunities, other potential retail and neighborhood serving retail opportunities. Community spaces, parks, plazas, looking at resiliency and sustainability systems. Community ownership, which we'll talk more about, and then overarching as an umbrella, how do we continue to ensure that this redevelopment is delivering real and meaningful community benefits to the GES neighborhoods? So we, and we presented this to council last year, we spent about nine months with a group of 14 individuals from the neighborhoods that led our community outreach work group. We really went in depth with this team and they developed for us a set of guidelines as to how we should approach this community-driven planning process. Specifically, how are we making sure that our outreach efforts are reaching every resident in GES, every household. So they wrote up a lengthy set of guidelines that we took and incorporated into the planning process that we are now implementing. So right now we are here in August of 2026. The community outreach work group wrapped up last fall. We took their guidelines and crafted a process to meet the goals that they had outlined for us. One, actually go to the next slide real quick. Those goals are here on the lower left, that the process be collaborative and empowering, that it support a thriving, connected, and resilient community, that there are mechanisms and structures for community voice and shared decision making, and that it is transparent and two-way communications. So these were really our guiding principles that drove our entire outreach strategy. The three buckets at the top really outline the different types or different areas of focus. So in terms of outreach, we brought in block captains and community connectors and community organizations. For engagement, we were using a series of community meetings, workshops, pop-up events, and online surveys. And then the planning itself, the planning work on the technical side, including the data analysis, technical refinement, and site plan alternatives. If you go to the next slide. Thank you, Becky. Oh, other way. There we go. This is our planning process. There's three phases. The first phase was initial outreach setup, getting our block captains on board, our community organizations, identifying visions and goals, and doing an initial survey as a baseline That will inform all of the planning to come. So that wrapped up earlier this spring. We are currently in phase two, which is really looking at the technical side, diving into the specifics through a series of workshops on all the different layers, and then ultimately leading to a series of scenarios that will be prepared and socialized with the neighborhood. And then finally, phase three, which we'll head into early next year, we'll be taking the preferred plan that comes from all of that community feedback and finalizing it into the final community vision plan that will guide implementation from here on out. Okay, that's a quick overview of where we've been and the time we've spent over the past two and a half years. I wanted to take the opportunity, go to the next slide, Becky, to go in a little more depth about our engagement toolbox. And I'll take a moment here to say that we have a unique opportunity here at National Western to really push the envelope on how we approach outreach and engagement for the Triangle. We are trying a lot of different tools and techniques and really analyzing how successful those are. And what we are doing in the end is really creating kind of a case study on how we can raise the bar on outreach and engagement, working closely with Millie and her outreach team to use this as a testing ground for a lot of different types of methods. One of those, or two of those rather, that are crucial are block captains and community connectors. So one of the guiding principles from the community outreach work group was to build capacity in the community itself. So block captains and connectors and neighborhood organizations are all paid positions that the outreach effort is supporting. to have the engagement coming from folks who live in the neighborhood. For Block Captains and Connectors, their responsibilities are really to participate in paid leadership and safety trainings, support community meetings and pop-ups, conduct door-to-door and network-based outreach, and promote and track participation through the three community surveys that we'll have throughout the process. What they actually do on a day-to-day basis is go door-to-door and knock and talk to their neighbors. They go to community events. They table. They hand out flyers. They talk about the program. They get people interested. They direct people to the survey. So they're a really crucial part. They're our sort of frontline folks, boots on the ground. And not only are they helping us get that message out, but we are helping build capacity with them to go on to do other things that they want to do in terms of neighborhood organizing. interacting with their neighbors. Next slide. So quick summary, we have 19 active block captains at the moment. We have four community connectors and they, this number fluctuates a little bit. We have some folks coming in and leaving, but it's a robust group and they are critical to the work that we are doing. The next level is community organizations. So these are key community partners and community groups also compensated for their efforts in supporting the planning. They do direct engagement by hosting and facilitating meetings. They do digital outreach to their networks by sharing meetings, posting links and materials. They distribute printed materials and they participate in the guidance team. If you go to the next slide, this is our list of community organizations. I won't read them all. Several of them are here in the room. I thank them for being here. But they are that next level. We've got individuals out there talking to neighbors. We've got organizations that are helping us make sure that our outreach is getting to every resident in the neighborhood. And all of these groups come together at our guidance team meeting. So this is a monthly meeting that we have that brings block captains, community connectors, community organizations, and our city and campus partners in a forum to discuss How are we doing? How is the outreach going? We talk about surveys and survey creation. That's been a big topic. We get feedback from folks on how effective the different tools in our engagement toolbox have been. And we talk about what is the process moving forward? How is the information that we're hearing being directed into the planning process? So this is a very important, critical monthly meeting that helps guide all of the outreach efforts that we do. Thanks so much. Quick by the numbers, I won't run through all these, but we want to make sure that we capture the work that's being done. We've knocked on 3,200 doors, and actually that all happened in just about six weeks, so that's a pretty significant level of effort led by our block captains. We've sent 10,000 mailers. We've distributed 2,800 flyers. The level of effort, and it's not just one specific person, approach. Like we have a multi-pronged way to try to get the message out and get feedback back in. So really robust and systematic way to try to reach everybody out there. In addition to that, I wanted to just share, no one can really read this, but most of you are probably familiar with minivan. We've employed this for our block captains so when they are going out and talking to their neighbors, they're able to track door-to-door who they've talked to, where they've left a flyer, conversations they've had. So this represents that door-to-door engagement, not necessarily every household that's received a flyer, because it's a different way to track that. But I thought it's helpful just to illustrate the level of effort and systematic approach that we're engaging. And then finally, the last tool in the toolbox is Civic Trust, which is our survey tool. If you're familiar with the participatory budgeting process, this is the same tool that's used there. We have done one survey so far. We've got, I believe, 430 responses on that. We are in the process of developing survey number two. But it's one of the critical tools that we can use to get feedback, analyze that data, and have it inform how our planning process proceeds. Also has the ability for individuals to submit their own ideas on a map with pictures and, you know, I would love a grocery store here or a plaza here. So we've gotten some really good feedback through that method also. Okay, before I dive into the planning process, just want to maybe close out on the engagement toolbox. We, as I mentioned, we are, you know, I was going to say unique. Yes, we're unique. We have a unique opportunity with Triangle and through the structure of the program to try a lot of different techniques and methods in our efforts. We're not necessarily suggesting that this should be a new precedent, that every project should do this, but what we do hope is that the case study that we're providing here and the data that we will have behind each of these tools and how effective it's been can then be used as a database for other projects in the city and help inform improving outreach and engagement citywide moving forward. Okay. The planning process itself, this is our lovely planning sandwich. This gets a lot of mileage because it's effective. It's funny, and I can hear my partners laughing. They've seen it a lot. But really, what it tries to do is identify that there's a lot of different layers to this planning cover. It's not just where we would like to see housing. It's the site itself. how the site is, how it drains, where the utilities are. It's the infrastructure that's required to stitch it back together, where the roads need to go. It's the community priorities and public assets, housing and neighborhood stability, community benefits and priorities, and finally funding and financing. How is any of this Any of this able to be implemented after we have our vision plan set. So this is the sandwich we've been working our way through from bottom to top. Right now, as we head into August or round out August and into September, we are focused on community benefits. We will wrap up with funding and then we will move into scenario creation. We've done a several different series of workshops so far. The first series really focusing on the first couple layers of that sandwich, site characteristics, infrastructure, community priorities, and public assets. And you can see just some of the ways that we've been working to engage. These are clipboards with laminated maps and we actually had each individual community member drawing and making notes taking all this back and consolidating it into the next slide, which is just a quick overview of some of the initial community priorities that we've heard. Identifying the connections across Brighton, what types of development make sense to happen along Brighton, the relationships between the 1909 building and the area south of the interstate in the Coliseum, So really trying to compile what we've heard into an evolving base map as we move through the process. The second set of workshops has been focused on housing and neighborhood stability. really not just providing new affordable housing options on Triangle, but how do we make sure that we can keep existing folks who live outside the Triangle in the neighborhoods in their homes? And how can we ensure that the redevelopment does not further increase displacement pressures on these neighborhoods that we know have already received a disproportional amount of the brunt of that over time? But we looked at diverse housing needs and desires, talking about environmental remediation that does need to happen on the site and how that informs some of the land use decisions, talking about how future development wants to look and feel, what is the character of the neighborhood that we want to create. talking about different community ownership models, including community land trusts, neighbor investment trusts, and other alternative models that give long-term permanent affordability and also can help build wealth within the community. Next slide. Also listening to what is the look and feel, like what are those really critical components of this neighborhood that will make it feel like an extension of GES and make it feel like home? And then finally, overall, some of the themes that are coming out to date through this process is the need for diverse housing options for young families, for seniors, multi-bedroom units, and generational housing opportunities, both rental and ownership opportunities. There's concern about large volumes of rental units and the impacts that that might have on the neighborhood. There's been a lot of talk that the development should fit. It should feel like an extension. There should be a seamless connection across Brighton and an integration of the campus with the neighborhood. We've heard also about food access and the desire for neighborhood serving retail that can benefit from something like the arena and the visitors that that brings in every year. So that's just a quick summary of where we are in the conversations to date on the planning side. One more, Becky, if you don't mind. So the three-month look ahead from here is in August we are wrapping up our or initiating our community benefits conversations. That meeting actually happens on Thursday of this week. In September, we are having ongoing workshops around community benefits. And then in October we really roll up our sleeves and start to create the scenarios. We will have worked through all the layers of the sandwich and we will then be starting to put the layers back together and looking at different models and what the pros and cons are of each of those. Ultimately leading to survey number two in November. where we will have, at that point, scenarios created, a survey that supports feedback around those scenarios, and that will take us through the end of the year and we will regroup after stock show in early January to analyze all of that feedback and work into the final phase of working towards a preferred final plan. And with that, I will stop. and see if there are any questions. Thank you so much.

Questions? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much, President Romero-Campbell. Michael, thanks for sharing. I don't have any questions. I just want to make a few quick points, and I look forward to hearing from my colleagues questions that they have since we've been fully engaged in this process for about um three years i want to thank the cow um the folks who and and um invested their time energy um ideas of this process really building the architecture building the architecture for what i believe is one of the most robust community informed process um took time um it was not something that was top down it was done by community for community elevated that process up to even the RFPs that were sent out for building structures throughout the triangle. And so I want to thank each of the members that participated in the COW. I want to thank the organizing groups that are now part of the stakeholder group that's providing the scenarios. UCAN, GS Coalition, GS First, Focus Points, and the CIF. Once again, each of these organizations have unique responsibilities, opportunities throughout the communities that they serve, and they chose to come together to work collaboratively for outcomes. A few props to the National Western team to Rico Mon from CSU spur that's provided some overarching support There's a lot of new leadership within National Western. I want to call their names out I just folks understand that there has been some rooting of the institutional knowledge But there's also some new folks that are involved in this process. So Katie I always destroy your last name. Welcome as a new CEO for National Western. Wes Allison is kind of newish still for National Western Stock Show. Enrico Mon, who we've all known in many different roles throughout the city, he's now leading CSU Spurns, a vice president on a Metro Denver engagement. As you all heard from Michael Bouchard, an intensive communication process, door knocking, flyers, all of the things that aren't easy to do has been done here. I look forward to hear from my colleagues on their thoughts and questions, and I thank everyone that's been participating in this process and looking forward to the community benefit agreement step, which is an essential step of this work. Thanks so much. Council Torres.

Thank you. Thank you so much Mike and thanks for giving me a chance to see some of this in an earlier briefing as well. I really appreciate and want to I think challenge us in the city of how we memorialize what your what the community is talking about in terms of anti-displacement. It isn't just National Western as a catalyzing kind of factor. I think there are other things that are going to be happening in the city like unlocking housing choices that stand to also be catalytic pieces that For everywhere that is zoned, single unit and two unit, which is all of the rest of the residential location in Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea, we need to know where we stand and what tools we've got to fight displacement. So the conversation you're not having is important. that's happening for you is not happening in a vacuum. It isn't just what affects or would be useful for GES. Probably your tools that would be useful in West Denver. And I really want, I've had a, An initial conversation with Cole at host and with a deep Dito But we need a platform for the city. We need to be able to say we've done a displacement Analysis of this that has not been done for unlocking housing choices we know what the risks are and here are the things that we can put in place to help mitigate those things some of them are created and I think the expansion of the, um, uh, the renter rebate for property taxes is I think of a big piece of what might be available for folks, but not everybody's a homeowner and not everybody qualifies, um, in those income brackets. So what else are we doing? So I, I, I would like for those conversations, which you've put so much energy into, which community is dedicated so much time to, um, to be like, um, bigger and to be applied bigger because I think it could speak to things other communities like mine might be facing. So I just want us to take what you're learning and put it to good use citywide. So thank you. Great feedback.

Thank you so much. Councilwoman Gonzalez, could you hear us?

No, I'm up already. Okay. I wasn't expecting that. I was trying to look through the slides again here, and thank you so much for getting those out to us as well, Becky. No, thank you for all of the engagement, and I would agree with Councilwoman Torres. It's great that the engagement is happening. I'm very curious of what then that outcome will be, what those outputs will be, right? So we can stay here all day and say we had hundreds and hundreds of meetings, but I think the reality is then what do you do with the information that you learn and how do you apply it, right? And so I think that's incredibly important. I know that on the site map, do you all have... already thoughts around like how much acreage will go towards the arena, how much is going towards the, for purposes other than the campus master plan, like do you have any of those things laid out already of the three I think things that you identified that would be part of the campus and then it sounds like the remaining is the pieces that you're working with the community on developing what will go there?

Yeah, so of the 92 acres that constitutes the triangle, the public assets and infrastructure we anticipate is a little more than half. So probably in the realm of 50, 55, which leaves the remaining acreage available for these other uses. So for the mixed use, affordable housing, retail, other commercial uses.

And do you know where in the, like, do you have locations or points that you can point to where the things that have been identified, part of the campus, where they will go in the triangle?

So we are working through that right now, actually on request of the community as we head into the scenario creation process. We've been very intentional not to come with a fully baked, completed plan. But now is the inflection point I mentioned earlier on. Now is that point where we transition from talking in generalities about the opportunities here into more of the specifics. So we will be at that point here by early October.

Okay. I think one thing just to note that will be helpful and in all of the conversation is where the financing will come from for the arena. That will just be helpful knowing going forward. As far as the community benefits portion, do we know how those are going to be codified? Like how, you know, all these... Right now, it doesn't sound like we're talking about a CBA situation. You are gathering information from community, you're working with them, but then how is it going to be actually come to fruition, and is it going to be documented, is it going to be binding, and what will that look like?

Great question. I appreciate that. So yes, it won't be a traditional CBA, just given the nature of the city being in the role of developer. However, it will look very similar to what a CBA has, many of the same components. And the final community vision plan will be... Not a detailed site plan with each building identified, but it will identify the general transportation framework, the roadway network, and identify sort of a detailed bubble diagram approach. The different areas, densities, what the uses are, is there first floor retail? So there'll be a planned component of it. And then there will also be the community benefits commitments that you mentioned. We're still working through with the city attorney's office what that looks like. Is that an MOU? What we can say is whatever those community benefits are that are committed to will flow down through any future RFP or contract as we move into the implementation phase.

Okay. Yeah, it'll be helpful to know if we can get an update on that, of what that mechanism will be. And just to know how it's going to be codified. I have lots of other questions around revenue. Obviously, we've gone round and round before around the Community Investment Fund and wanting to make sure that that fund is being filled because I know there's been delays in the past. And then I also know there is the framework agreement. we've also talked about in previous meetings and It's just something that I want to just keep an eye on and and you know Whether or not I know we've talked about this in the past of what would constitute that agreement being opened back up With all the development that's happening And so if you if you know what that is or perhaps the any of the attorneys that might be here What would allow for that framework agreement to be opened up again if it needed to be? based on the things that are going to be happening with this development?

I think it would really depend on what the specifics of the community vision plan really indicate. I think, well, to answer your first question, though, about the community investment fund, certainly all of the additional public assets that will be created will be subject to Roundup and all of the parameters of the framework agreement. But beyond that is the conversation we continue to have with the community, and pending the outcome of that, we can evaluate what that means for the framework agreement.

Do you know if the framework agreement has been met thus far when it comes to the Community Investment Fund? They received the funds that they should be receiving?

I believe so. I could circle back with you on that and talk with the authority and get you an update on that. But to my understanding, yes.

That would be helpful. I'll stop there, Mr. Mayor. I think the only thing I'll say is last time when we had an update, it was, I think, really helpful and beneficial to hear from the community members that have been a part of this work as well. And I know last time we had a presentation, it was in committee. And there was a loud time, and they had slides that were part of the entire slide deck where they were able to also present on the work that they had been doing from their perspective as well. Because I think there could be some disjointed perspectives, and I want to make sure that we're bringing those all to the table and being transparent about it.

Thank you. I have two more folks in queue. I do want to remind you, we have one settlement still to do today, and I know you have a committee, and so we'll try to move quickly. Councilwoman Sandoval, then I'll be addressed.

Thank you. Thank you for all the work and thank you to the community members who showed up. I was doing some research and I think according to Google, so don't quote me, but I think the last time the city and county of Denver did a gentrification study was in 2017, which will be 10 years next year. And so if we have all of these processes coming to fruition, unlocking housing choices, all these neighborhood planning initiatives, the triangle, and how are we, if we haven't done a point of time count since for 10 years, how are we supposed to even be able to measure if this plan or any of our plans, including unlocking housing choices, are working? So I would just ask that as we're developing the 2027 budget that we put in, like we have to have a new update because as I'm looking at this update from 2017, one of the key set planning portions in an anti-gentrification study It says, planning is about place and people, and too often, planners and designers forget about the people and focus on place. If you don't take people into account, equitable outcomes are difficult to achieve. We wrote that in 2017, and I'm concerned that if we are not living by that, by not having another gentrification study, we are not going to be able to understand the impacts of what we're doing. The impacts of what we're doing, and I'll also add other things. The stadium, getting the new stadium. If we do get the new stadium, there's no benchmarking. And the best way that you can actually help is by benchmarking. We all know that. So I would just ask that as you're building out the 2027, if you could look at this gentrification study from 2017. and figure out pieces that maybe it doesn't have to be as targeted, maybe it has to, we could do a different layer. But in there, one of the key points also talks about the needs that we have. It talks about create a robust permanent funding source for affordable housing. And we don't even have that yet. 10 years later. And we attempted to go to the ballot with that. And it's probably because we didn't have correct data. We were going from Dr. Cog data. But if we do our own data and we own that data and we marry it with all these other plans that are collecting the data, I don't think that we would have to be as hard because now we have neighborhood planning initiatives. We have this initiative. We have unlocking housing of choice initiatives. We have the Burnham Yard Initiative. I mean, you name it, we have them. And so how can we use all of that information to help us inform it? Because if not, I don't want the neighborhood, I don't want your time to have been wasted. And I really want the city to take an opportunity. I don't know another time besides the current Mile High Stadium, that's right next to my council district, that's in council district three, that we'll get this many acres. Really, this is a really pivotal moment and it could be epic. if we do that in a way where we're using all of these factors to inform us. So thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I would just ask, I hope we see that in the 2027 budget as we come to budget hearings, because Councilwoman Torres has done it. And if you look at, if you ask CPD and Brad, key cities that are doing this planning and gentrification, they have initiatives like this, but it's all based on data. So I think Councilwoman Torres has been talking about this for a while. You know I've been harping on it. Yeah. for all my terms. Thank you for the recommendation. So thank you all.

Yeah, I will ask about that.

Yeah, and I look forward to having a briefing.

Great. Councilwoman Biedros.

I'll be very brief. I definitely appreciate the questions from my colleagues and I think part of that data source could be the housing needs assessment that we're working on because I think part of the reason also that People don't understand what affordable housing is and they don't know if they want to, like, do I qualify for that? Does my son, does my grandma qualify for that? Is that the housing I want to live in? And so I'm really hopeful that the housing needs assessment will help us figure out that key piece as we talk about the rest. So thank you.

Well, thank you for all the questions. Mostly thank you so much to Mike. Thank you to Millie and the team who together have done a fantastic job on this outreach. I do think this effort has been unprecedented. We're almost two years into a fantastic community process. We have another six months or so to go to make sure we get all the input right. Thank you to all the community members who've been at the table from the beginning to make sure their voices are heard, giving us lots of great feedback. And I agree with Councilman Sandoval. This is a really once in a generation chance, once in a lifetime chance to be able to shape the future of a neighborhood that is one of the most rich and diverse places in the city. And we're excited to make it a place that Folks that have been there for generations feel home and protected and supported, and folks that have never been there will want to come visit for great events that happen throughout the year. And so I'm really grateful for all you've done to make this possible. I look forward to hearing more on the road ahead. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you all for being here. We do have one more item in executive session, so I will now... entertain a motion to move us to an executive session pursuant to DRMC 234A, sections 3, 6, and 7, for the purpose of discussing pending litigation and legal advice related thereto. So moved. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. Thank you so much to all our community members who joined us. Have a fantastic Tuesday. We appreciate you being here.