City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the April 21st, 2026 meeting of the governing body of the city of Topeka. I will call this meeting to order. This evening, the invocation be presented by Council Member Miller. Please rise if you are able.

Thank you, Mayor. And for the final time this month, it is my absolute pleasure to introduce Pastor TD Hicks, the man, the myth, the legend, and also the second best pastor in his family. He leads my church, Antioch Baptist. And I'm proud to say that like Pastor White last week for me, Pastor Hicks is a big reason that my 11-year-old has found his faith. Along with his wife Joan, they have terrible taste in football teams. He being a Broncos fan and she being a Bears fan. But we are honored to share a community with such good people. Pastor Hicks, thank you for being here.

You said I uh have four minutes to speak now, right? Let's pray. Gracious God, we thank you for this opportunity. We thank you for this chance to come and to just be in the midst of each and every person here on today. While we may not all arrived here the same way or may not even came here tonight with the same agenda, we pray tonight that we can agree upon this. That we come together for the better good of our city. We pray tonight that ultimately the decisions that are made in this place will bring glory to you and will impact our city for the better. So I pray tonight that each and every person as they make a decision, as they speak on behalf of a initiative or an agenda that they are a part of that God, you would ultimately reign. You would ultimately rule and you would ultimately have your way. But at the end of the day, Topeka is made the better. So we thank you for this opportunity today and we give your name the praise. We thank you for the sacrifice of each and every council member. Thank you for the people that are here tonight to receive what is being shared. And we ask God that you would have your way. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

Amen. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I didn't see him, but I heard him. Your pops is here. Yep. All right. With that, I'll ask the clerk to take the role. Mayor Duncan here. Council members Hiller here. Valdivia Aqua. Ortiz here. Banks here. Kell here.

Miller here. Bradberry here. McGee here. And Hoer here. Okay, we have nine present with council member council member Validia Aqua being absent. All right, we have two proclamations this evening. First up, I would ask Joe Blue and Ryan Peterson and anyone else who may or may not be well, I guess they can't not be with you, but anyone else who might be with you to come on down or up or whichever way this is from the desk,

just here you go. Stand here around here. read the proclamation and then you have you say some words. All right. Whereas in 1958, President Eisenhower proclaimed Law Day to honor the role of law in the creation of the United States of America. And in 1961, Congress issued a joint resolution declaring May 1st Law Day. And whereas the theme for law day 2026 is the rule of law and the American dream. The idea that no person is above the law is what ensures the rights of the people to live their lives as freely as possible and to pursue their dreams. And whereas the rule of law protects individual rights, promotes equal justice, and guarantees due process for all. And whereas public understanding of the legal system strengthens confidence in our courts and promotes civic responsibility. And whereas the legal profession and judiciary serve a vital role in safeguarding liberty, promoting fairness, and advancing justice within our community. And whereas the Topeka Bar Association works to promote public understanding of the legal system and access to justice through education, outreach, and community service. Now, therefore, I, Spencer L. Duncan, the proud son of a lawyer and mayor of the city of Topeka, Kansas, do proclaim May 1st, 2026 as Law Day and encourage all residents to recognize the importance of the rule of law. Who would like to say something? He's the chair. Hello everybody. My name is Ryan Peterson. Uh mayor, thank you so much for having us out here tonight. Um, you know, this says a lot about Topeka and and their focus on law because whether you know it or not, I'm sure we all know it, but it it permeates through all of our

lives in some way or another. Um, and so I think it's important to kind of take a beat sometimes and take a look at, you know, kind of the great system and the justice system and the protections and liberties that we have here, not just in Topeka, but in Kansas as a whole and the United States. Um, and so we're just honored to be here and have a moment to honor this uh this law day this year. So, thank you Nice to meet you.

All right, next up, Jennifer Gasman. Are you here? And anyone else who may want to come up with you or who you may make come up with you even if they don't really want to. Yeah, I'll make her Thank you for being here. It's all right. Spread out a little. It's okay. There you go.

All right. Whereas the day of April 22nd, 2026 will be designated as National Drug Endangered Children Awareness Day. And whereas the month of April is child abuse prevention month and drug endangered children are at a significantly higher risk for abuse and neglect. And whereas it is estimated that more than 10,000 Shauni County children live in homes where alcohol or other drugs are being abused. And it is estimated that 211 Shauni County infants are born prenatally exposed to a substance every year. And whereas children whose parents or caregivers use drugs are at a higher risk to use drugs themselves. Whereas all parents need to receive information about the effects that drugs and other substances have on their unborn babies and their children and on their judgment and parenting abilities. And whereas the statewide Kansas alliance for drug endangered children along with the Shauni County Alliance for Drug Endangered Children invite all residents of the city of Topeka to participate in drug endangered children awareness day. Now therefore, I Spencer L. Duncan, mayor of Topeka, Kansas, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026 as National Drug Endangered Children Awareness Day in the city of Topeka. who would like to say.

Um, thank you for your support of this cause. Um, the Shauny County Alliance for Drug Endangered Children has been in existence since 2004. Um, our mission is to help, hope, and support families and children affected by substance use. For the month of April, we've been holding a weekly webinar series for the state and across the nation too. Um, with different topics including parents who are in recovery and are parenting their children because of the drug endangered children services that are in this community. And we have a statewide um statewide Kansas alliance for drug children conference next week. But this is a mission. I've been working in this this field for 21 years now. And I just thank you for your support for this cause. All right. Well, thank you very much.

Thank you. All right, with that we will move on. We have one presentation this evening. City clerk A is a Teka as the presentation for the Topeka Sustainability Advisory Board. City Manager. Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. uh Michaela Saunders, the uh president uh of the Topeka Sustainability Advisory Board of Leaders to this discussion.

Hello. Good evening, Micha. Is it okay for me to stand here? Yep, you can stand. You can sit. Okay. I I'm a teacher, so I'd rather be standing. Um right on the table. Okay. Thanks, Dan. Appreciate it.

All right. So, uh first of all, to start, thank you very much for your time. For those of you who are new to the council since last April, um thank you for your service and I look forward to talking with you soon. Um what I have here is 100 statements of support from Topekans for the recommendations that we are going to bring forward to you today. So I'm going to give those to you. Thank you. Um and just to be clear, we called it a statement of support. We did not call it a petition. So I cannot guarantee that every single one of those people is registered to vote in the city of Topeka. I just want you in spirit of transparency to know that. Um we all we know that they care about sustainability in Topeka and that they consider themselves residents of Topeka. That's what we know. The other thing that I would like to say before I get started with the actual presentation is there are several members of the volunteer sustainability advisory board here. And if you wouldn't mind standing so they know who you are. And then if you're wearing green and you care about this, would you also stand if you're able or wave or otherwise let them know that you're here? Thank you very much. Okay. So last year we talked to you about some cities in Topeka who have sustainability coordinators already. This year we have something extra to provide in the again spirit of transparency and the challenge to prove it. Um so um you already know who we are and our charge from the city code and hopefully you're aware that we still have Silven Kohl's until he retires from utilities with us and then Caitlyn Wils from the city manager's

office has been supporting us uh monthly as well. So, um, this is our charge as written in city code. So, you want us to tell you how to support the environment in the community, right? And this was created at least in 2008, maybe before then, right? So, we're doing our best as volunteers once a month to attempt to do that. And for uh most of that time, so we don't have anybody on the board now who's been there the ent since since formation, but for most of that time, we have consistent support from these city departments. And so we want to publicly thank public works, forestry, utilities, and also Shauny County Waste Management for their um continuous communication with us as a board. And new this year is um our membership in an organization called Icky, which the the acronym doesn't ex help explain anything. So, I'll just tell you what they do. Um, it's an international nonprofit that provides resources to communities around the world related to different development pathways focused on sustainability, zero emissions, equity, circularity, nature, and resiliency. And with all of those pieces together, their goal is to create an integrated sustainable urban development process and ecosystem for every community that they work with. So, our board um once this membership was approved for the city um in January um our board split up these different pathways so that there's at least a point person, sometimes two, working on each of these things and trying to make progress with city staff. So, um much of the report that you received details the

way that Icky can help us make progress in each of these areas. Now, you know that we are not city employees. We're volunteers. So, we don't have the same access to data that city employees do. And a lot of these ickly tools require specific input so that you can run a scenario based on the cost of doing nothing um specific to our community, right? So, one of the things that we need is more coordination between departments and us. We don't want to learn about reports that are championing the work that Topeka is doing after the fact. We don't want to learn about um the work that's happening at a stage where our input is not valuable. And that's why we're so u focused on um the sustainability management position in some configuration, right? So, we know um some of these communities we mentioned to you last year. We know that there are other communities in Kansas who have been part of LA for a number of years and you can see them on your screen there. Um we also know that there are a there's a list much longer than this of cities in Kansas with sustainability focused staff. As soon as I'm done speaking, I'm going to send you an email that has an attachment with information specific to Lawrence, Witchah, Douglas County, and Johnson County that um basically shows how much the work that the sustainability staff does in those communities has paid for itself multiple times since those positions were created. So, as soon as I sit back down, I'm going to send you that email. So again, our primary recommendation continues to be sustainability focused staff. Now, we understand that you might not be able to go out and create a new budget position,

like a position, right? But we do know there are um a lot of different ways to get this done. There are um positions that might not be filled through attrition that could be reassigned. There could be folks um sort of responsible for this in a number of different ways, right? But we know and you all know and I don't need to tell you what gets measured gets done, right? And if nobody's responsible for the measurement, we're just volunteers out at sea trying to get our trying to get our work done and and we have very little direction in terms of the city's appetite, right? we are because we're environmentally conscious committed volunteers are thinking far far ahead and and very let's catch up, right? But if that's not the appetite, if that's not where we are, then it doesn't help for us to say let's go let's start there if we need to start here instead, right? And staff can help us change that. So you can see that um way back in 2010 when um the work started around the the board um there were goals set that weren't tracked in terms of energy efficiency, right? So we don't know if we met those goals. We need to be able to reset what those goals are. And as volunteers, without um all the information that that city folks have, we don't have the ability to do that. Sustainability staff, you'll see in the email that I'm going to send you, um saves the the expense of consultants because they can do that work, right? So instead of hiring somebody to come in and do a new study, the staff could actually do that work. And that's what's happening in some of these other communities. Um the other thing is we need to make sure that sustainability is

a consistent conversation throughout decision-m in Topeka and right now it's not. We know that the department heads meet regularly but not to speak about this, right? So in in some kind of way trying to keep that conversation consistent and forward moving, right? And and we want to help. Uh but right now there's not a meeting for us to show up to publicly that's focused on sustainability, right? Um there's not necessarily um coordinated conversation around these topics at all. Right. outside of the departments that know they're doing that work dayto day, right? So, we would love to see a more coordinated regular meeting of department heads focused on sustainability. So, um, you've heard me say all of these things a number of times, uh, because our top three recommendations have been the same for a number of years, and we really want to make progress, and we're so grateful for the ickly tools, and we hope that the report gives you a new way to think about this stuff, and if you have questions, we can use those resources to get answers for you as well. So, we really look forward to um sort of the rest of this year with this membership and continuing to work with um city staff to to try to make some progress on some of these toolkits and some of these data centered tools that we can't do without them. So, um we also invite you to join us every first Friday at 4 in the holiday building first floor conference room. Um, we're we're there every month and we would love for you to join us all the time. So, um, and I would I would stand for any questions. Um, and if you have questions for anybody else that's here, I'm sure that they would also be willing to speak with you.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kell.

So, I'm looking at this, you know, I know the staffing's always it's been an issue for a couple years now. So my thinking is what if we had city employees and tell me if this would work. City employees are almost part of a commit, the committee for you guys to do the work on the city side of things that you're wanting. And maybe how many hours do you think you need? like a half a day or a day a week or one one week a month, one one day a month, one week a quarter, something to gather that info that you're looking for to help you because I'm looking if we can maybe not not just reassign a whole position right now, but then if we can look at that committee and say after we've done it for maybe a year that yeah, this is something we need a full-time person concentrating on or five full-time people concentrating on. But I that's maybe my thought is if if we maybe have it as a committee first of employees that volunteer to go gather that info you're looking for what would you think you know how many hours a person would we need?

So I don't even know how to guess that. I I will say that um there have been several department heads who have been willing to start the work. Right. We've had conversations. we've had um meetings um but it's hard for me to estimate because I don't know what their other priorities are and that's the reason that we keep asking you to make this a priority because right now we are we get a lot of mixed messages right so like I I definitely appreciate what you're saying but we can't be the manager of the sustainability work it has to come from within the city so that it can align with the multi-year plans that the city is working on.

So, I'm I'm looking at just trying to have those staff members, you know, during their work hours be able to be assigned to do that work. And so, I'm I I don't want it to be where we're not assigning enough or too much. I I see your work is, you know, long term you're, like you said, the measurables, right?

Um, you know, I I look at other cities like that south in south end of Kansas with their water issues. You know, I've been saying for a couple years, maybe in 20, 30 years, we're going to have to have a closed loop water system, water system in some cities that goes, you know, from cleaning the water to having to go through the system back to the sewage, cleaning that water, kicking it back to the clean water to clean again, and kind of just not even kicking it out to the river, pulling for the river because there may not be a river to pull from like there is down south here happening. So, those are the things I think we need to be seeing those numbers year after year to year to be able to jump on it early enough to where we're not causing uh we're being proactive instead of reactive on those problems because reactive seems to be more costly than than being proactive.

We definitely agree with you there. So, I I see the the benefits. I just want to make sure because I like I said if we can get people to maybe possibly you know with city manager permission almost make a committee of employees that meet to be able to get you what you want I think is what maybe the the best starting point we can do right now with with when it comes to that staffing issue and and those are also sometimes the people with the the boots on the ground that that know the experience from that rather than just the numbers they the numbers and the knowledge

right so let me let me give you one piece of of data here this spreadsheet that I'm going to send you Lawrence has one full-time sustainability director. Douglas County has two positions, a sustainability impact analyst and a sustainability manager. Um, and Witchah has two positions full-time. Um, one is a special projects coordinator and one is a sustainability and resiliency coordinator. So, just to give you a sense for um how much staffing is adequate, um I wanted to share that and I'll and I'll share this information with you as well in that email. Um, and I think what what you said, Councilman Kell, about being proactive instead of reactive. We are hopefully still in a place where any action we take is proactive, right? But there is there is data that shows that parts of Kansas are going to receive climate refugees, right? We have no we don't have our bearings at all in terms of what that could look like. Right? We already know that the city is having to spend more because of extreme weather. Right? Some of the tools help figure out how those extreme weather events if they keep increasing in numbers would affect a city budget. Right? There's no way between now and the end of our one-year membership that we as volunteers who work full-time jobs are going to be able to get through all of these tools on our own. Right? So, the more people from the city who are involved in that work, the farther we're going to get. That's the best I can say.

Thank you, Council Member Hiller.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Micola. I think um I'm excited about the work that you've done. What you said prompted a couple of thoughts for me. One, and this would be historical, but I was on the council pretty newly on when the Vermont energy study was done and it had some it had sets of community goals and internal city goals that we could work on. Um, we we hit the recession right then, so not a lot happened and a lot of that had to do with our buildings inside the city, right? But at this point, we have done a lot of improvements. And so if there were a staff person, per my colleague, Councilman Kell's idea of picking some tasks and then having but somebody assigned to that, we could check and see what the HVAC changes were. Hopefully they are more energy efficient than they were before. Um how we're doing on the LED light changes because none of them had been changed out then. And um and then on the on the community side, we now have an energy conservation code that we didn't have before. It would probably be possible to see how many permits, for instance, had been issued under that code and and what kind of improvements were made in made in the community. I do think that out of all that, picking a couple of specific things to to target and work on with an an appropriate staff assignment based on who we've got ought to be a possibility and help you from feeling stuck. I really appreciate all that you're doing. You've got a great team.

Thank you. And I want to shout out to the utility staff for building the energy dashboard. Um it launched last year and it means that what the information that you want about what's happening right now is accessible. Um and that wouldn't have been possible without them. They they did that. So props to them. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you very much. Much appreciated. With that, we will move on to the consent agenda. City clerk.

A is a resolution introduced by council member Karen Hiller granting the Celtic Fox an exception to the provisions of the city of Topeka code section 945150 concerning noise prohibitions. B is the resolution introduced by council member Christina Valdivia Aqua granting Sacred Heart St. Joseph Parish an exception to the provisions of the city of Tika code section 945150 concerning noise prohibitions. C is the resolution introduced by council member Karen Hiller approving a special event known as the Tap That Beer Festival. D is the resolution introduced by council member Christina Valdivia Ala approving a special event known as the Sacred Heart St. Joseph Parish German Fest 2026. E is the ordinance introduced by the city manager, Dr. Robert Impere, authorizing initiation of condemnation proceedings to acquire temporary easements for sanitary sewer rehabilitation project on Southeast 10th Street from India to Indiana to Lafayette, project number 291108.08. And then F are the minutes of the regular meeting of April 14th, 2026. And we have no applications. All right, we have a motion to approve from Council Member Hiller, a second from Council Member Bradberry. Kirk will take the vote, please.

Oh, never mind. Never mind. Okay, we have nine. Yes, the motion carries. All right, we will move on to action items. Action item A, city clerk. A is an ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Emperez amending the district map referred to and made part of zoning of the zoning ordinances by section 1850 of the Topeka Municipal Code by providing for certain changes in zoning on 1.14 acres of property located at 2450 Southeast 25th Street from R1 single family dwelling district to M1A limited multi multiple family dwelling district.

City manager. Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Dan Warner, our planning and development director, will lead us through this item.

Thank you, city manager, mayor, governing body. So, the original proposal for this property was to reszone from R1 single family to M2 multiple family. M2 is one of our most dense multif family zoning districts. uh staff's review of the case led to a recommendation for either M1 or M1A and not M2. Um on the slide that follows this, I'll explain the differences between those three zoning districts. So among the key findings by staff is that the neighborhood context includes a mix of multi multiple family and a and the adjoining single family zoning land. uh that subject property is zoned single family but hasn't developed over time which lends some support for less restrictive zoning than R1 such as M1 or M1A. So essentially, you know, again, the land around it hasn't developed too much over time. So the planning commission held a public hearing on this resoning request and made the recommendation for approval for M1A. So again, staff recommended either M1A or M1 instead of M2. Planning commission made that recommendation after a lengthy discussion amongst themselves as they try to work through what ended up being their final recommendation. Uh there was also public um comments at the planning commission at the public hearing both for and against the subject zoning. The applicant did hold a an online information neighborhood information meeting. Uh we require neighborhood information meetings uh for all zoning cases. Um planning division's practice is to have options for either inerson or online meetings. Staff tries to evaluate

uh when to use online meetings based on circumstances of the case. One of the keys for this one being online was that the applicant lives out of state. Going forward, staff will continue to evaluate either having online, hybrid, or in-person public meetings for these neighborhood information meetings on a case-by case basis. I want to also point out that the required public hearing notice went out per state law to properties within 200 feet of the subject property. Um, and as I mentioned already, we did have people attend the public hearing. So, what do the different M zoning districts allow? So, M1 allows duplexes. Uh, it's one per lot. Um, this particular property could support three to four lots possibly. M1A allows up to four units per building. So that's quad up to a quadplex or town homes. Again, one per lot and that allows up to 15 dwelling units to the acre. M2 allows five units or more per building and a higher density there up to 25 dwelling units to the acre. So once again, the planning commission's recommendation was to recommend reszoning this property to M1A. Be happy to try to answer any questions.

All right. Any comments or questions from the governing body? Council member Banks.

You know, uh Dan, thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is in an area where there is not a lot of space. I support the efforts of a duplex system. I think for the public it is needs to be clear as to the differences between M1 A, M1 and M1A. I know that for us we're looking at it, but all they're doing is really hearing it. If they're watching tonight, they're just hearing it. So, if you could expand a little bit on the M1 and the M1A,

Councilman, uh, definitely. So, M1 allows duplexes, so two units per lot. Um, we believe the property can support maybe at least three, maybe four lots. So, again, a duplex per lot. Um, I will say all the single family uses are available in the M districts as well. So, we're talking about what what the M uses are allowed, but single family is allowed throughout all this as well. M1A allows up to four units per building. So, a quadplex, you know, we've been having discussions the last few months about duplexes, tries, and quads and in single family zoning districts. So, a quadplex would be up to four units. Um, you know, it could be a town home or it's attached. So, that's up to 15 dwelling units to the acre. um that dwelling units per acre is is uh is a maximum. You're it's rare you're going to get there on a lot of properties because you have to park cars for instance. So you have to at least have two parking spaces for every unit you're you're building here. So uh the density, you know, it's hard to get to the density. M2 allows five units or more. So we're talking about a garden apartment, something that's that's a bigger property. um up to 25 dwelling units to the acre and again parking and all of that that goes along with that.

Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Bradberry.

Thank you, Mayor. I just um wanted to bring up the letter that uh or a letter that was received tonight prior to the meeting um regarding the applicant um and the letter asserts that the company is not registered to do business in Kansas and raises concerns about the legal capacity um and enforcability. Um I just wanted to make sure that we address this transparently. Um, and I'm requesting that we can um the clerk to include this letter in the um in the record for this agenda item. I believe what was also sent to the clerk as well. Um, and then for the city attorney and planning, can you confirm whether the applicant is registered in Kansas and authorized to transact business here? And if that verification is not available tonight, what are our options to to ensure any decision that we make are uh legally sound?

Staff, excuse me, staff. Yeah, I I didn't quite hear the question in its entirety. Did you say that you would like us to check um to make sure that the LLC is registered in the state of Kansas? Is that what I got out of that? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. And that if that information isn't available tonight, what are our options? Uh I'll go ahead and ask uh Dan right now. Have you made that inquiry yet? No, that we have not asked about that. Okay. Um wouldn't that be process?

Council member Bradberry. Um that would be a step that we would verify through our permitting process in the event that the property is developed. Um and I don't know if Dan can expand on that. Well, so I will also add that we require property owners to sign applications for reszoning and she owns that property. So um you know we accepted that because she owns the property here in Kansas. Um, I believe you're correct about checking with permits. Yeah.

Anything else? Council member Bradberry. All right. So, there's nothing on this tonight other than just the reasoning then of the property. Correct. Tonight's about the reszoning of the property, not the development piece. That was Council Member Kell. That's what I wanted to ask. Sorry. Sorry. Yep. Council member Kell. Now, Dan, you said that you guys decided to do an online meeting just because the the developer was out of state. That was one of the reasons, Councilman, that the property owner was out of state.

And even with that as a situation, they to me, they can they can get online. Sometimes it's hard for for people to get online.

Sure. And even for me to get online sometimes for our meetings when we have our our committee meetings things like that there are issues. So, I I think as as much as possible, you should have the in-person meetings. Uh, and whether the developer property owner is there or not is on them to me. And we should we should work around our citizens, not necessarily around a developer or a uh or a owner of the property. And let let the people be there because sometimes you're more interactive when you're in person than possibly on, you know, via Zoom. It's sometimes a little harder to be interactive with that and and ask some follow-up questions and things like that. So, as much as possible, you should be doing these in person. Okay. Thank you,

Council Member McGee. What What is the uh I guess staff thought process leaprogging from single family residential to the 1A? Why why are we why skipping M1?

So, Councilman McGee, the staff review of the case. I mentioned, you know, with the key findings talk about neighbor context and the fact that that R1 hasn't resone or hasn't developed over time. Um, so just to be clear, staff recommended M1 or M1A. was the planning commission that discussed it after the public hearing and landed on an M1A zoning. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Mayor. Yep. W Mayor Hoer.

Okay. Dan, if you can look at the map, are the PUDs that are to the south and the one larger one to the west? I'm assuming up is north. Um, are those all M2 under their base PD PUB or do you know? I mean, they're fairly dense in some cases, councilwoman, I'm not sure. I believe those are M2, though. Um, they they're fairly large properties, so the amount of units, you know, could still possibly fit um as an M2 use.

Okay. I was looking at the notes from the meeting. Two gentlemen or no, two people spoke, but did we hear from the land owner that has the home to the east or the one to I guess to the west is the church, isn't it? Correct, Councilwoman. I don't believe we heard from the property owner to the to the east. Okay. Because that one to me is probably most affected from the change. I was hoping we'd hear from them. Okay, that's all I have for right now.

Dan, I'm going to circle back to a question off of Council Member Bradberry on their standing because you said the individual owns the property. They're making the request, but that's is that accurate? Because the report says that it's actually Koopy Investments who's making this zoning request, not specific to the individual owner of the property. Now, are they the owner of the property, Council or Mayor? They are the owner of the property. Okay.

Okay. Because I don't find them in good standing in the state of Kansas. And I know that's an easy fix for them. But I got to be honest, we've had this conversation before about whether we're checking this stuff. I know I know this isn't development. I know this isn't moving forward, but this is still an official legal request for us to make a zoning change by a company. And so I gives me a little heartburn, too, to be quite honest with you. Um, so my question is, yes, deputy mayor,

we you can't speak during this. It's a zoning case. So, no public comments allowed under the law. Do do we have to approve make one of the three decisions tonight or can we defer this to the first meeting of May so that we're all comfortable? I don't want to screw up the process. I don't want to mess up what they're trying to do, but it's two weeks.

I I don't know of any reason why you could not defer. Okay. I thought we could, but I know with these zoning cases, I don't want to do anything that gets us in that that's not allowable under the very specific rules that we have. Um, so I'm going to throw that out there. Councilwoman Hiller.

Yeah, I I've got a question back to your legal questions. This is obviously something that Miss Twello has brought up that people have been missing right and left in terms of making sure that LLC's were registered with the state of Kansas. And when I saw the email that came through today, it said foreign. And I thought, well, foreign sounds far away to me, but apparently it's anything outside the state. So, is that something that that the county should be checking before they allow purchasers at tax sales? And and maybe this can't all be answered tonight, but you know, where where's the line between developer and owner? And because you're allowed to own property, I would think

correct, council member, that an LLC that's not registered in Kansas still own property. Uh there is a limitation on what business they can do and I'll be honest I don't know have that answer right in front of me right now to tell you what business activities are allowed and what are not once they're registered but they can own property. Okay. Well, we're we're probably fine for tonight on you know the the right for this owner to be reszoning at all. But it will be interesting for all of us to learn just exactly what all that means. Um for what it's worth I can't remember whether it was in the application documents. I think it was. But the the big owner to the east is the Topeka Housing Authority. Um

to the west.

Yeah. The the parcel that the the rest of the parcel that this this particular parcel is in is owned by THA, Inc. Um and I guess I looked at it and thought about the input even though I guess you're supposed to check with us. We had input at the meeting a couple of weeks ago that wasn't through the planning commission, but people stated some concerns. Um maybe in two weeks if that's what we're going to do, we can look at this again. But the transition from heavily multif family, this is where Highland Park apartments and Colonial Park town homes are and and some of the information that I've heard is that people are concerned that that that really in and so Highland Park High School is there as well. that intense development right there. Not really wanting to have more intense development that way, particularly without a community center. Um, and those those kinds of comments make sense to me. Although if um we could check with Dan further just because M1A would allow at the most 15 units on that parcel given the way they require landscaping and uh parking. I wasn't sure the parcel, this particular parcel would accommodate 15. Um, it'd be good to know, but whether that rest of that develops as single family or as M2, that little spot looks like it would be transitional and kind of help the segue either way. That was just the thoughts that I had looking at it.

City attorney, city attorney, and then I'm going to make a motion. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to clarify a few things. I'm I'm kind of doing this research on the fly, but they are this entity is registered in currently in the state of Florida. Like I said, they can own property in Kansas. And according to at least what I'm finding in the statute, and I found some case law, um a property owner has standing to seek reszoning. they don't necessarily have to be registered in the state of Kansas to seek reszoning as long as they own property, which they do and they are in good standing in their home state. Um, that being said, if you would like to defer it and I can verify that to you, um, that's fine by me, but that's what I'm finding right now.

And that's fair. I think what we have learned, at least we've been here a while now, is that once we make this decision, this project doesn't come back to us. So it's and we trust planning and we respect their process and we know they do their due diligence, but as a governing body, this is kind of our only bite at this apple. And so I think the the sense I get is that we want to make sure we checked our boxes before we hand it off and then let staff do their good work. So I think for that reason, just so we can make sure we all feel better, I'm going to make a motion to defer this to the May 5th, 2026 governing body meeting. I'll second that.

Second from Council Member Miller. Okay.

I think she meant to second Okay. Okay. All right. Sorry. Just one moment here. Technical technical here. We're fixing it. We're fixing it.

Everyone's wondering what we're contemplating. It's computers. Where is he going?

Sorry guys not showing up when I am adding this item in there. So uh no me. Yeah, sorry. If you need to just take a voice vote, it's okay. Yep, that sounds like a plan. I apologize, guys. Just a reminder, the motion and second is to defer to the May 5th, 2026 meeting. And mayor, you've made the motion, correct? Do who made the second? Uh,

council member Miller. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sorry guys. Thank you for your patience. I appreciate it. Okay. Mayor Duncan, yes. Council members Hiller, yes. Ortiz, yes. Banks, yes. Kell, yes. Miller, yes. Bradberry, yes. McGee, yes. And Hoer, yes. Okay, we have nine yes. The motion carries.

All right, we'll move on to action item B. City clerk.

All right. B is a resolution introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Imp Perez providing notice that the city is considering reestablishing a reinvestment housing incentive district for the Winward Estates development adopting a plan for the development of housing and public facilities in the proposed RHID and establishing the date and time of a public hearing. City manager. Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Leah Bowling, our director of economic development, will lead us through this item.

All right. Thank you, Leah. Thank you. Good evening. Tonight I'm presenting the beginning of step two for the Winward Estates RHID. So for overview of the district in a recap, the city adopted resolution 9721 in October of 2025 allowing staff to send the request to the state, the Department of Commerce for them to review. They did approve based on state statute and that the location meets the need. City reviewed the application and the housing plan that was received from the developer and the financial adviser conducted the financial analysis and the but four test. The RHID review team reviewed that financial analysis. It did meet the traditional but four test and the RHID review team recommended moving forward with negotiating a development agreement and requesting the public hearing. So, as an overview, the project location again is at the southwest corner of 45th in California. Uh the area there in the on the screen is represented with yellow. The project is estimated to be 9.8 million. It will consist of 40 units in total, 20 duplexes with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a twocar garage. These will be market rate rental housing units across 20 buildings. Staff are requesting the governing body adopt the resolution to set the public hearing for June 2nd, at which time the public hearing would be conducted. Staff would present the development agreement that's been negotiated with the

developer and the project plan for approval. With that, I kindly request that you approve the resolution and I'll stand for any questions. All right. Are there any questions or comments? Council member Banks. Thank you, ma'am. Leah, do you know what market rate would be? Sorry, Dan. Yeah, so the question was um

what market rate would be. I have reached out to the developer to confirm the the approximate rental rates, but from our records on the applications, it looks like it's going to be between 1,500 and 1750 a month. Thank you, Leah. Thanks, man. Yep. Any other questions or comments for staff?

All right. Uh, Council Member Hiller. So, um, if I can ask because I'm still trying to wrap myself around the need for incentives for market rate. What would what's the difference and this might be an estimate today between what you just quoted as the actual rates for families to what it might be without the incentive is the reason we're doing the incentive to get the rates down. So Braxton do you

so the analysis that we did on the that that we use is we looked at what is the market rate of return for the developer and so we look at the total project costs. We look at their revenue versus their expenses. And so the question is not how much would you have to charge if we don't offer you any. The question is on the but for test but for the incentive that you have asked for would this project happen and so we use the cap rate as a surrogate in terms of what is that incentivized rate of return I don't happen to have in front of me the financial analysis we can go into that at the public hearing in terms of what the incentivized rate of return is on this uh but it it did pencil out in terms of the developer are needing the incentive to be able to do this. And the $1,700 on a four bedroomedroom, two bath, twocar, that is truly that's workforce housing, right? That's not that's not high upper end. I mean, this is this is something where a working family would be able to afford $1,700 and and have those bedrooms, right? So this one we I believe that our limitation on this was also limiting the developer in terms of if and when he goes to sell these properties because he recognizes that these are going to be rental at first with an opportunity for down the road to to sell. So all all of that came into consideration and it did pencil out for us on on our financial analysis and we can go into that greater detail. Had I known you wanted to answer dive into that at this, we would have had that information. But truly, we're we're at stage one governing body. We would like to set a public hearing to have the opportunity for the developer to be here to go into the analysis of it at that public hearing in terms of is

this something you guys are willing to incentivize? And by the way, we also have worked through all the terms of a of a developer agreement for you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Banks. Thank you, Mayor Braxton.

Braxton, thank you for that information. Uh, I think that as a governing body, we need to be realistic about these types of developments. There's no way that a person that's a moderate single person, mostly in our cities, probably going to be a female. Even though they are working, they are not going to be able to afford $1,500, $1,700 for rent in these places. even if the options are good down the road to purchase or whatever, we need to be realistic with our community and we need to let let developers know when they come into our city if they're if they're looking to develop something at about 700 800 a,000 maybe that's that's more than my house payment and I'm a two family person well I'm not a two family person but I'm a two family house So, I know how difficult that would be that would be even though we need affordable housing. I think that's a little bit out of our range.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Banks. Uh, I'll follow up on that a little bit in that to their credit, they're not pitching this as affordable housing. They they've said it's market rate. I think the thing I always go back and forth on these is the balance between if you want incentives and tax dollars, then absolutely we have a right to ask what those rent rates are going to be like, how that's going to impact their marketplace in our city, and if we believe that that's an investment we should make. Um, I also encourage everybody to make sure you've at least, and this isn't directly, it's just because I've had to do some of this. Make sure you have talked to people in the marketplace to understand what that should be instead of the number you want it to be. Cuz I know what the numbers I want it to be and they're way lower than most people building will tell you. They can even make it cash flow even with incentives to some degree because of the cost of building. And so, so that's one of the things we're trying to balance is what does the market look like because of the current economy and and what rates are on building costs and if we're at least making realistic asks of those folks and what that number would be dependent on the development. So, if we're going to set these standards, which I think are fair, we're at least in the realm of the right area of those standards as opposed to looking or being unreasonable. So, and that's a difficult balance and I will tell you again that that's something I'm trying to have those conversations with people now so I we can all be a little more educated. So, it's uh it's these are these are tough these are tough on things. So, council member Kell.

So, just by by happen stance, I I've been penciling the numbers for my daughter for an apartment. She makes over $20 an hour and can barely by the time you take deductions and all that out of a $20 an hour check, you can barely afford a 1,200 a month apartment. So, uh, when you add in, you know, your gas and electric and all that and your renters's insurance and things like that. So, now you're now let's say you fourbedroom, okay, that not unreasonable, let's say, on rent, but now you're feeding that many miles. You're you're trying to do all that stuff for that many people and it just it adds up so quickly that um to some people that may not seem like a bunch. You know, I I would have figured 1,200 wouldn't be that bad, but looking at what my daughter makes to what she's looking for an apartment, what she can pay, and it's like 1,200 a month on $20 an hour. And how many $20 an hour jobs we have around Topeka? How many, you know, how many people are working two $10 an hour jobs or husband and wife are working two $10 $15. So now you're having to work two jobs afford. Uh, I understand the more rentals we have will not nec it will help somewhat lower overall rent because there's not going to be that competitive market for it. But at the same point, when are we going to let the rich keep on getting richer? And also the aspect of I I kind of want to see some clawbacks on some of these things we're doing because I mean we can help someone incentivize building or re revamping an apartment complex but if they don't touch it for the next 20 years to do any improvements upkeep or anything like that cuz their mindset is a rental someone's going to tear up anyways. We need to look at like, okay, you you need to have some benchmarks after 5 10 years to be able to in essence say a part of of what you're doing and and possibly have

clawbacks if they're not willing to to upkeep these properties. Uh because uh there are landlords out there that just they build it and until it's condemned, they're not doing anything to it. and uh to kind of force people to the way the market is right now, forcing people to rent. And you could be paying $1,500 a month in rent right now and not qualify for $1,000 a month mortgage and and you can do that for 5 years and all a sudden I I the math is not mathing out there in this world. And so having higher and higher and higher rents out there just is not helping our citizens and and allowing, you know, I understand these programs are out there for a reason, but to keep on allowing these these developers to go middle to high end on stuff doesn't help our community. Thank you,

Council Member Hiller.

Um, just wanted to kind of piggyback on some of those comments and and appreciate them. Um just if this is full market rate uh I assume that the intent is we we had a housing market study done a couple of years ago. we've been fulfilling those goals, you know, to kind of see where we are. That study identified that we had needs at all levels, market rate, workforce, and affordable, I think, is how they divided it. But, um, certainly one of the reasons to have this new housing as rental or homeowner at this rate is to attract people that otherwise might not have who are working in Topeka but don't live here to come live here as well. But if people can come next time when we have the public hearing and be prepared to talk about that demand at that level, I think that'll help all of us see where we are. Thank you,

Council Member McGee. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this resolution sets the hearing and provides us the opportunity to have the developers here so we can have that dialogue with them, right, about rates. I think this is our opportunity to have the developers here and have a direct dialogue. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? A motion for me to approve. Second from Council Member Bradberry. Other comments or questions? All right, clerk will take the vote, please. And um Council Member Bradberry. Oh, yours is already in. Never mind. Council member Bates. Is it working? Yeah. Okay. Oh, you're still deciding. It's working. Okay. I'm just wanted to make sure.

Okay. We have nine. Yes. The motion carries. All right. We'll move on to action item C. City clerk. Sorry. C is a public hearing for the purpose of receiving public comment on the proposed Capital City Town Homes redevelopment tax increment financing district and the adoption of the plan as well as the ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Imperez establishing a t tax increment financing district for the capital city town homes redevelopment district and adopting a district plan for the redevelopment project.

All right, just a reminder this will be a public hearing. So after we hear from staff, I will open up the public hearing. Give anyone who is here wants to speak an opportunity. Once I close it, then everyone on the governing body will have an opportunity to ask their questions and comments. So with that, city manager. Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Braxton Coffee, deputy city manager, who lead us through this item.

Good evening, governing body. Uh tonight we're here to talk about the Cap City Town Homes project. Um, as a reminder, back in um, March, we came before you and asked for the public hearing. Tonight's the public hearing. There are three items that will be in front of you. The first is the public hearing and the consideration of establishment of the tiff district. The second item will be the neighborhood revitalization plan and the specific ask, which is the plus 20 or a 20-year um, uh, time frame under the under the neighborhood revitalization plan. And then the third and final item is the developer agreement. I have a PowerPoint presentation that will relate to all three of these items. After I complete the um my PowerPoint presentation, uh Tony Kresnik, who is the developer, is present and has a brief presentation as well as a um uh ren uh artist rendering of what one of the uh fully redeveloped uh town homes will look like. So, as a reminder, this particular development is located at the northeast corner of 21st and Topeka. This was originally developed back in 2006, 2007 by Pioneer Homes in 2024. This developer um inherited these homes through a foreclosure receiverhip process. Uh so, he has only been operating this since 2024. He's made an application for tax credits to help with the financing and the uh very much needed rehabilitation of this particular property. So the project overview will be there are 11 buildings total of 47 rental town home units uh looking at a rolling rehab 12 to 14month period. Uh there will be nine

market rate units and 34 38 affordable units that will have their rents restricted to 60% of the area median income, otherwise known as AMI. That rent restriction will be in place through a land use restriction agreement between the developer and the Kansas Housing Resources Center as a condition of getting the lowincome housing tax credits on that property. uh the developer needs a 20-year NRP to be able to meet the underwriting requirements. Given the fact that even with a few market rate properties with those restricted rents, uh these are very difficult to cash flow to be able to make the revenue cover the expenses of operating it. Um, we are going to talk a little bit about the tiff and blight, but what the developer wants to do ultimately is get the NRP plus 20. The only way to do that is the property has to be under our neighborhood revitalization plan. The property has to be located within a tax increment financing or a tiff district to be eligible for that plus 20. He does not plan to utilize the tiff. plans to utilize the NRP. TIFF is capturing the tax increment to be able to pay for eligible costs. The NRP is you pay your taxes and then you get a certain percentage of those rebated back to you uh and then you can use those funds for uh uh costs related to the development. Okay. So tiff, you get the taxes um the tax increment paid back to you. Tax rebate, you pay the taxes and just get a rebate and it's only the increment above what the current assessed

valuation of that is. Um already covered the change in ownership in 2024. Um, this is from their tenant relocation plan which is attached to the agenda item uh that's required by KHRC and and specifically required under federal law if you're relocating tenants uh to be able to do the rehab. uh will tell you when I was a developer we did rolling rehabs and these are it's like moving um it's a huge jigsaw puzzle or chess match in terms of trying to move people into vacant units to rehab their units and then move them move them back in. The key points of this are um use either on-site, so if you've got a vacant unit on site or an affiliated unit at one of your other properties or if you need to move someone in for a short hotel stay till you can get a hotel unit to get one of your vacant units open for them. Those are part of that strategy. uh landlord plans to cover all of the costs including moving costs, no cleaning requirement, no out-of- pocket expenses for the tenant in terms of moving them from point A and then back to point B. Uh there is uh ample requirements under federal law relative to the notice that you have to give prior to um any relocation. uh the TIFF district. Um not not the first rodeo for any of you. For tiff, you have to meet the statutory one of the four statutory rubrics to be able to create a uh benefit district, right? And in this case, um the uh developer engaged the consultant and did a uh blight study. And in that uh blight study they looked at the statutory factors and in this case um under KSA 12170 the factors that it met were substantial

number of deteriorated or deteriorating structures inadequate street layout unsanitary or unsafe conditions deteriorated site conditions obsolete platting or planning conditions which endanger life uh and property as well as conditions creating economic obsolescence. So it meets the vast majority of those statutory factors to be able for the governing body to make a finding that this is a blighted property or blighted area to allow for the creation of the tiff district. So, at the end of the day, we recommend creation of the TIFF district to allow for the property to qualify for the 20-year um NRP and approve the development agreement. And with that, Tony Krnik, uh, the developer is here, does have his artist rendering of a the revitalized property and would like to talk to you about the need and his excitement for this particular project. Tony,

if anyone has questions for Tony, go ahead and hit your button and I'll let you ask him questions before we open the hearing. And just a clarification, this this property is a 21st in Adams, correct? I think he actually said Topeka, but it was a slip. You're good. My apologies. Just clarifying. 21st and Adams. Y.

Welcome. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Should be green light means it's on. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yep. City city council. Uh Braxton, thank you as well. Braxton, can you share this artist rendering? Is there a way to put it on the big screen? It's on our view.

Thank you. I'll I'll give you a brief introduction. I I talk too much sometimes, so I'll try to shut up here in a second, but um my name's Tony Kresnik. I'm the founder of Flint Hills Holdings Group. We are based in Perry Village, Kansas, and we specialize in affordable housing and historic tax credit preservation. I believe some of you are aware and have been to the work that I've done in Lawrence, Kansas, in the warehouse arts district. I'm also the state chair for the Kansas Housing Association and a member of the 2024 Leadership Kansas class. As Braxton mentioned, while while we're here today is we're doing a $13 million renovation of the dilapidated Pioneer Adams Town Homes and rebranding them as Capitol City Town Homes, giving it a fresh breath of life and a new name. We're keeping the apartments affordable in the same rentrestricted program that they have been in since their inception. We've agreed to extend this restriction for an additional three 30 years beyond the original commitment uh from the original developers with the Kansas Housing Resource Corporation. The measures tonight would ensure the property taxes do not significantly increase, which would render the project and economics even worse than they were before the renovation. what the finished product will be. Solid surface countertops, stainless steel appliances, luxury vinyl tile flooring, high-end finishes that won't break or have to be replaced constantly, as we saw with the the last group. Um, all this while rents remain affordable. We're also increasing security at the property, multiplying the amount of cameras and adding additional exterior lighting. Upon this approval, we will also be securing the various buildings with fencing, reducing unwanted foot traffic throughout the property, which we've uh had constantly and worked with your fine police department on, but there's only so much that they can do in the current situation. Not only will this improve the security, but also make make it safer for the children, and we have

many. The request tonight would ensure a quality affordable community uh housing project for the city of Topeka for uh decades to come. And again, I I thank you for this consideration and are happy to answer any questions. Council member Kell, so I know you're new to this owner owning this property here. Thank you. I know you're new to owning this property here. So, anything you know, you're trying to improve it, which you know, love to hear that, but what is the rent cost right now on those 11 units that aren't AMI? Let me pull that up. Can you repeat the question one more time?

What What is the rent cost of those 11 units that aren't AMI? The 60% AMI. You have 38 that are out of the 47 are AMI. What What's the cost on the on the the Yeah, they're 11. the rent on the 38 units on the market. No, on the nine on the the ones that aren't AMI on the on the nine the 11 or nine, sorry, nine. Yes, you're right. I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah. What we have approved with the state, we have one onebedroom. That market rate rent is $700 a month. No, I'm talking about the ones that aren't the the ones that you control that you don't not not the AMI ones. That's that's what I'm that's what I just told.

Let him finish. Council member Kell and then you can ask follow.

Um the uh we we have one market rate rent one market rate unit uh under the one onebedroom category that rent is approved at $700 per month. We have one twobedroom unit uh that is at $900 per month. We have six threebedroom units. Those are 950 per month. And we have one fourbedroom at a,000 and those represent the nine market rate units. Are there plans once you get all this improved and all that to raise those rents at at all? I I know you're going to have to recoup some of your costs, but I I look at something like this where those other ones are kind of open for grabs to now and so so much time, you know, 5 10 years, double those up just because you're trying to recoup your investment. So that's my only fear is looking at something like that and seeing those rates just jumping. Well, all rents, including marker rate and rent restricted, have to increase over time or else you lose the property. Like this one was almost lost. And and I appreciate Braxton's comments. This was not in foreclosure yet, but it was well on its way. Um, but from an underwriting standpoint, we use the same standard under underwriting where you increase the revenues or the rents by 2%, the expenses by 3%, which unfortunately doesn't outrun inflation very often. Um, but but the technical answer is yes, all of these rents will be increased, but from an underwriting standpoint, we use the standard 23 from the revenue to offex. So, okay, you said two to three off revenue. I'm like, so that $700 a month, what are you playing if you were to open that 700 totally revamp tomorrow, how much more do you think that rent would be?

Uh, after the first tenant moves out. Well, I Yeah, if you were to open it up tomorrow, no one's in there, you were going to rent it out tomorrow after after the remodel's done. Let's just say you you finished your remodel, you're ready to move someone in tomorrow. What do you think you would charge on something like that? These are the postreodeling costs. This is this is what's improve approved by the state, right? Perhaps you can explain Yeah. why these have to stay within a certain rate because of the program that they're under. I think maybe there's a misunderstanding. Yeah. Well, well, the the the nine market rate units, which is the only question I was asked, they don't have to at all.

Right. Right. That's what I'm trying to figure out is are those going to jump because, you know, I don't want to incentivize project that now takes people that could live there and says, "Oh, no, you can't live there anymore." And so, in essence, take something, make it nice, and then not tell people, "Well, sorry, you can't afford this. You're out." Yeah. Uh, so that's where, you know, or someone someone that could been living there for 5 years already. You're doing the remodel, moving back in because they already had that lease there and now also now they can't afford it because the rent has jumped because of the improvements that have been done. That's what I'm trying to figure out is I don't want people to get priced out of the market because we're going with market rate uh because it's been revamped.

Uh, Councilman Kell, I I I think um I think I understand your concern and and I would share that concern as well. I I think I think maybe at least in my mind you asked the question um maybe a better way of asking the question would be not on the market rate unrestricted units but maybe asking what the affordable units that are restricted for the next 30 years would be. KHRC nobody involved in affordable housing cares what the market rate rents are. But but to your point the affordable rents I think that this would if you don't mind I' I'd like to tell you what those rents are as well. I just wasn't asked that previously, Mr. Mayor.

Um, the affordable units, there's three of them, three onebedrooms. Uh, those are restricted at only 6 those are being listed only $650 per month. Uh, in the two-bedroom end, we only only have three of those. Those rents are set at $850 per month. The threebedrooms, we have 31 units. Those are restrict those are set at $925 per month. And then the affordable fourbedroom, we only have one of those and that's $950 per month. Specific to those, unlike market rate, those are those are rent restricted. Um, and we cannot charge above what the public uh the published maximums are set forth uh by default by the state of Kansas, but it's also based upon the census data that's inevitably put forth and adopted by HUD. And what I can tell you is that currently under the 60% AMI max, we are at 77% of that max for our onebs, 83 for our twos, 79 for our threes, and we're at 74 for our four. So, we went out of our way to try to find a way to keep this as affordable as possible um and make and and make it sustainable. So the the reason that we're before you today is even though a lot of assessor specifically county assessors they do judge a property by from the income approach right down the street we have a couple of them had we not asked for this we would have been bankrupted in exchange for making a $13 million investment because the property taxes uh alone many times exceed the cash flows especially with as high as interest rates are today. So, I'm not sure if that answers your question, but but the but the vast majority of them, not the market rate, excuse me, but the affordable tenants that were there

before and will be there, you know, upon reopening, they are protected um by the specifically the land use restriction agreement that we reentered u for a period of 30 years. Great. So, thank you for that, Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you. Um, this is in my district. Um, and when I was out campaigning last year, I did notice a lot of the blight. I did notice that there's um the address numbering on the apartments that that really needs to be addressed. um as I'm looking for people. But not only that, um it's an eye openener like if there is some type of an emergency um for the people, the residents that live there. It's it's it's hard. It's very hard to figure out. Um also, you talked about um rehabbing it. So, you're basically talking about gutting it from the inside out, right? are from on the inside, right? Um Braxton, didn't you help work on that first time go around? Wasn't that a part of you? So, I I went in there the first time and and I I liked what I seen, but I understand more everybody wants more modern, but um I just never understood why we don't have any front screen doors on those places.

Front screen doors.

Mhm. I've got a lot of answers, but that is not one of them. I have not thought about that. Um, but that but that is that is really good feedback. I, you know, with us fencing in the entire property. We have uh we've included screen doors on the back. Right now, um, Councilwoman, as you know, you can just kind of walk through the entire property. There's no fencing really. As you know better than anybody, we we have constant problems there. Pretty large police presence. And so one of the things that we're doing is essentially fencing off the back so that between you know we have 11 buildings there so that each building even though they won't each have their private fence at least you know a forplex would and so we think that that'll go a long way and therefore really activate the backyard patio which is why we are doing screens there but I I can't commit to it tonight but we can definitely look into to screens on on the front as well. Um, I I I will tell you that uh we are doing one building at a time and we're not going for some crazy modern finish, but the finishes are so poor in many of these units. The first four that we started with, all four were vacant and they were unlivable. And so what we're doing is one building at a time, moving tenants, one building at a time, two buildings at a time, three buildings at a time, not all at once at least, and then moving tenants into the buildings as they as they are replaced. Um, as you can tell in this rendering and and I'm sure something that you've noticed,

virtually all of the garage doors have been damaged over the years andor gutters have been damaged. Not only are we we doing all of the inside, this isn't a pretty rendering as much as this is what we're ordering. We're doing brand new garage doors, brand new windows, brand new siding, new roofs, new gutters, um, as as well. So, um, and by the way, a lot of the things that I'm talking about doing here were not things that we knew we had to do as little as two months ago. As you can imagine, we're peeling the onion back day over day over day and we're going out of our way to to to do it right. you know, and the the the last thing I'll say to your to your point is a lot of a lot of guys and gals can build something pretty. Um, but a lot of times it falls apart after 9 10 11 years, which is what we experienced with the portfolio that we purchased. Uh, part of which was Pioneer Adams Town Homes, Motive Power, as well as Pioneer Adams 2 directly across the street. But if you don't get the economics right up front, you're forced to jack rents up or you're forced to cut things like security budgets, landscaping budgets, and that's why uh we feel very strongly about the economic package that we're requesting from you all this evening.

Have you had a tenants meeting to talk to the people? Um have we had a the formal tenants meeting yet? The the the not the notices have uh have gone out. what's going on. But I I'm not sure if the third party property management company has pulled everybody together yet. And again, in part because we're so early in the process, we were rehabbing vacant blighted units that were already vacant blighted.

And and the reason why I'm asking is a young lady was walking up with me in and I'm like, "What are you doing here tonight?" And she's like, "I'm trying to see what's going on, you know, with my apartment." And I can understand that when you're a single parent and you've lived there, you know. Um, so I you know that's so important that communication with the tenants. So, um, they can find other housing if they don't like what you're going to do or or they can know what's going on instead of not knowing what's going on, especially when you have kids.

The the notice that you've received has gone out, a formal tenant meeting in person. We requested that on our on our weekly call with Van Benuren who's the third party property management company last Tuesday and I too have not seen that on the schedule. I personally attend anytime I can. Um and I believe Troy's been to a couple of those as well. So when that meeting takes place um we we will we will let you you know as well as the tenants and again I I often times am personally there myself. Well, that would be wonderful because that eliminates some calls to me about what's going on and what they're going to do and it also alleviates their fears that they have with this going on. Sure.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member McGee.

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the improvements you've described, especially security improvements. That's important. Um, I'm also going to support the use of the NRP as it exists today with the 20-year rebate, but we'll note that I have spoke with staff from Department of Commerce. As far as we have found, we're the only city that offers 20 years rebate. And in our next NRP, I will push for a 10-year, which is the standard across the state. But we're operating under our current NRP, and it it does provide 20 years rebate.

Yes. Thank Thank you, Councilman. I I I would I would say this. I too am involved in that at the state level. Uh I'm the corporate lobbyist for the tax credits as I mentioned before. Uh I I will say two things. One, you're you're correct. In other in other uh communities that we work in, we do not need to form a tiff district to to take advantage and and and and use the the tax rebate. Uh that is 15 years, which is the max. Unfortunately, when you're asked to sign up and keep something affordable for 30 years, it's a shame that other communities aren't doing the 20 that you're doing. In fact, only specific to affordable housing if a development is supposed to remain in good standing, quality, affordable, keeping the lights on, continuing to have the lawn mode. I don't have any idea how somebody can do it after the property taxes go from, let's say, $30,000 a year to $100,000 a year. And the and and due to that, that is why you're seeing some of this portfolio that I mentioned fall to the wayside so drastically after 10 years. And so we're on a market rate development. I completely appreciate what you're saying. Just so you know, we're actively pushing to try to get the 20 and beyond specifically for affordable housing.

Yeah. It will not affect this project, but I'm going to push as as we go forward in the future for a 10 year with clawbacks. Um, but again, that won't affect this project. Uh, and like I said, I appreciate the improvements, especially security improvements. Um, and I encourage you to communicate with your residents. Oh, thank you. Council member Kell, so you said you're based out of P F P F P F P F P F P F P F P F P F P F P Village, correct? Correct.

So, what are your plans for your contractors, subcontractors? Are are those to bring people you already know in your area or to try to use local um subcontractors and things like that?

Um, great question. I don't know who all the subs that have been selected for the project are off the top of my head. I know that several are uh from Topeka. I know that one of the asphalt companies either they're out of Topeka or maybe they do all of the Topeka work because I had a recommendation that was um that uh that they said they already had a company but the the from a subcontracting standpoint, the name of the company that we hired is out of Lawrence. They're called Marland Construction. Um outstanding 30 plus year old company. Uh, but I can um but I can't answer your question exactly how many subs are being used specifically from Topeka, but I know that obviously it's in their best interest to use an equality subs as close to the job site as possible.

Yeah, I look at that. Not only are those subs here, but they're buying materials here. So, that has a a a longgoing effect by having more people here. and and I I I think it's best that when we have a project like this, we use as much as we we have local um to try to try to take care of these. Thank you.

Uh thank you. I'm going to let you guys go sit back down. You might be called back up, but I'm going to open up the public hearing here in just a minute and then there are further comments, questions for everybody, we'll we'll return to that. So at this time I will open the public hearing and ask if there is anyone present who would like to speak to this matter and this matter is specifically the allocation of designating this area as a tiff district. You're more than welcome to come up and speak at this time. If there's anyone here to speak to this matter please come on to the podium. Welcome. When you get up here identify yourself. You have up to four minutes if you'd like to use it. It'll beep once at you, but that just means you got one more minute and the timer will keep telling you how much time is left and it'll beep at you again. So,

hi, I'm Khalila Coven. Um, I stay in the apartments and my concern would be is uh it wasn't clear if the rent was going to stay the same, if it was going to go up. Um, if we were We didn't get no information. We just said that they sent out a letter saying we are to make the check payable to Cap City Town Homes. So, we don't even know uh how long we have to if we choose to stay. We don't have we don't know um how long we have to do so. We don't know uh if we choose to if we do choose to come back. We don't I mean we don't have none of that information. And I got it me and my girls and struggling as is. So it would be helpful if we knew that information. Sure.

Thank you. No, thank you very much. Welcome. Oh, sorry.

Hello. My name is Georgia Kushenberry. Um, I've been living there ever since 2016. I love it. Things been going on. We didn't told the the management that needed that definitely needs to be gone from the area. But anywhere you go, you can't stop shootings. Nothing. I'm on section 8. I would love one day to get off. All of us, as you see, we we we live by each other, protect each other, help each other. I can't afford to go nowhere. And just like um Brett with the money, if we get a job, you say 20, we make 10. We can't we still can't. We got light bills and everything. Um always loved living in an apartment because I can't afford no house with water, gas, and all that. Now, I never ever ever in my life stood up in front of a lot of people. I did when I had to represent myself in court for unemployment. That that was little. I have a disabled granddaughter. And I loved always loved in my apartments is um carpet. She can't walk, she can't talk. She's four years old and we do therapy with her. Put her on the ground and work with her. We got a hardwood floor. You can't got to put a lot of blankets. I would love

to stay in my place. I even called the city about the trash can where we we can dump most of our trash even though we got our own to cut the trees down on 21st and Adams. All right there. Uh clean up where we used to see the Family Dollar that they had build over there. All of that they need to clean it up. as I got told that I had to call the city to cut down the trees and do this and um yes, there is kids that be all out there playing trying to ride their little bike, you know, but we love where we are. But we can't afford for no rent to go up. I I I can't and moving our stuff out. Okay. I I I'll try to, you know, hotel stays. I was reading that up there as they was talking. Um but I would love to stay there. I mean, I know it ain't about me. It's about whatever. I don't know. But we love where we are. if they can get Riff Ruff out of there, which I'm quite sure where they heard as he said the police or there's another guy that says something about the police stuff that we love it where we are. So I just I ask please and um don't think because I'm a cushionberry that you gota everybody know cushionberries but if we can please get some help and understanding that with the capital city that we got to

send our um our money orders or whatever drop them off at the Vance Binsburg and associate the office that we was paying them but now we got to pay the capital city and drop it off there but we don't know who the capital city people is. Is it them? We don't know. So, I ask please um I don't know what what's going to happen, but I just say please help. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else here who'd like to speak to this matter? I didn't want to speak, but my daughter forced me to come up here and speak. I moved in in 2008. And when I moved in, I moved in on Pennsylvania. It was only four units on there. No grass, no nothing. When I moved, the rest of the apartments weren't even built yet. They were still building the inside of the other apartments. So, I was one of the first people who moved out there and I am I'm still there. for them to tell me now that I have to move out of my apartment and then move somewhere else and and then for them to go in and fix my apartment and renovate and do all this kind of stuff and then for me to move back. No, when I move, I'm moving. I'm not coming back. I've been there since 2008 and I haven't went anywhere. When I moved there, my daughter who was back there, she was in she was in middle school when I moved there. My grandkids, I have a granddaughter that lives with me now. She's about to be 17. They used to play on a park. They can't even play on the park now cuz people who live out there have dogs. They have pets. They go out there. They let them poop all over. They can't even go back out there. They can't they can't go out

there and play. I don't allow them to go out there cuz I don't want them dragging that stuff in to my home. Um, every modification that has been made to my home, I've done it. I put new tile down. I haven't done anything every year when I went to them and I signed a new lease. The only thing they did for me was clean my carpet. That's it. I have rips in my carpet. I have all that they haven't and and I went to a rental um lawyer attorney and everything and they said after every 5 years that's supposed to be replaced. It's never been replaced since I've been there in two since 2008. It's never been replaced. It's been cleaned, but they've never had to replace it because I don't tear up nothing. My kids don't tear up nothing. No, I don't allow that type of stuff. I like my stuff clean. I like my area clean. You go to my apartment and I guarantee you, I don't care what anybody else says, but if you go in my apartment today, it'll look like somebody just moved in. And that's because I keep it clean. I keep it up. I make sure my grandkids keep it up and everything. I do not allow them to tear anything up in the front. You look outside or whatever in the front of my home. You can go past my

address. I'll give it to you. You can go past there. It'll look like across the street. And they asked me, "Do you want to move across?" No. When I move, I'm moving. I'm not coming back. This time last year, I was about to buy my home, but I had changed one of my jobs. And because I changed that job, I could not uh show them the income that I needed to show my bank in order for me to move at that time. Can I do it now? Yes. Do I like where I am?

Do you need Do you need more time? Your time is up. Do you need more time? Well, if y'all through listening to me, I'm done.

But what I'm saying another minute? We can give you another minute. But all I'm saying, all I'm saying is is, you know, you can come to my home and you can see what I'm talking about and you can see that it's for real. It looks like somebody just moved there. that if you go in somebody's home that has just moved there within the last couple of years, you wouldn't believe it. You would think that I you would think that, you know, I just moved. That's all I'm going to say. And I'm going to leave it at that. Thank you very much. Excuse me. Is there anyone else here who'd like to speak to this matter? Your honor, I'm all in favor of this. Uh I think that the the people that are concerned about their tenency will find out that the uh the developer has to comply with state law and they won't be they'll be treated uh very appropriately. I like his rendering. And um I actually sold that land to your uh deputy city manager's father-in-law at the time. It was a rundown trailer park and I tore it out, got the land shovel ready. and uh that development. It's kind of a shame that it's, you know, to me that was yesterday, but to have it um blight in that short of time, the the um screen doors are ripped off due to the people that live there not acting

appropriately, and that's a shame. But one thing that I think you're missing the boat on is not expanding the tiff district a little further out into the neighborhoods. The whole idea of projects like this and tiff is that um you fix the window there and then the guys around it start fixing. But um I hope you all vote this in. Thanks. Is there anyone else here who'd like to speak to this matter? All right, last call. Anyone here who would like to speak to this matter?

Can I speak again? If not, I wasn't done cuz I've never had a screen on my door. Then I will announce that this this public hearing never had a screen on my door. We're aware, ma'am. I've had screens on my windows and they're still there. My blinds are still there. Everything is still intact. Yep. All right. With that, this public hearing is now closed. Are there additional comments or questions from the governing body at this time? Council member Hiller.

Just something brief. I think up here we've got a better view than the gentlemen who are the new owners in the back. I just am really excited to see how many people from the con complex came. Would you raise your hands? Those of you who live there, everybody. Good for you. And stay together and y'all can talk to each other in the lobby and say hello at least on your way out and and get this started. We're all neighbors. I understood. No, I meant you if you haven't met the owners yet and had the meeting, say hi.

Get that going. Also, just for clarification, one of the um people mentioned being on section 8, just so the council understands, if those section 8 certificates are on top of whatever those market rents are, that's making those units much more affordable to folks. Um whether people are interested in knowing how many of the units have section 8 as well, we could ask. Deputy Mayor Hoer, can I ask the uh property owner a couple questions?

Yep. Tony, you can come back up here, please. If I may, for clarification, my name is Troy Smith. I am not one of the property owners. Um, I'm a consultant and work with Mr. Chrisnik. So, he is the the property owner. I'm not a property owner. Just for clarification. Thank you for that.

My questions are more to do with what kind of occupancy do you currently have? Is it like 75% are filled or half are filled?

Let me answer the question two different ways and I'm I'm going to get close but I don't have that data in front of me. um at our I I believe we bought this property 18 months ago and I was trying to look it up on our phone, but but but it appears we purchased this property as well as some of the others that u members of your staff and I have talked about in um uh June of 24. Um, we I believe when we purchased it and some of our tenants would literally know better than than I would on the on the occupancy at purchase, but I believe it was around 65%. When Van Bins Spurgeon came in, I think that either at this property or the property across the street, we got up to 91 or 92 just to hanging on for dear life, not knowing if we're going to receive this competitive allocation of tax credits from KHRC. Once we received it and we had somebody move out or get evicted, we intentionally did not fill that. At the time of the closing of this partnership roughly four weeks ago, I believe we were just under 80% somewhere in that in that range.

Okay. My next question has to do with um the apartments. You said you're going to start with the ones that are empty. That's right. And you're going to just systematically move through. Oh, 48 units. But are you going to work with the um occupants to minimize their time away from their apartment or help them move or move them to another one if they requested? I'm just trying to get a sense of how much you're willing to work with the tenants.

We're doing all of the above and we're paying for all of the above. I now with that with that being said, not everybody's going to be happy. Change is difficult and I I appreciate that. But as we stand today, we've essentially mobilized on the four units that were vacant. We're 6 8 weeks away from hopefully being able to turn those. Is that right? So immediately we'll have four available and those will be the first four offered. Um, the reason that the notices haven't gone out yet is because we're not within that window. Um, that is required by the state. But to be honest with you, if regardless of what has been sent out, if there wasn't a public meeting called, that's unacceptable. Um, and regardless of, you know, me not being the property manager, it all flows to me and I take responsibility for that. We should have done better and we will do better. in regards to the comment about section 8. Um, first of all, I can't uh I I can't appreciate those comments enough, but I did want to make mention that we are committed and I believe even in our land use restriction agreement that will be recorded with the county and has already been recorded with the state, we will continue to receive uh section 8 vouchers for all of our affordable units. So, that will not change in that instance either. And although Moving is a pain to say the least. I I believe and hope that when people move back into their new units that they're going to look back at this is a is a gift and not a burden. At least that's what we've experienced in other communities that we've worked in.

That's all I have. Mayor Council Member Hiller.

No, I'm sorry. I was done. Uh, I'll just make one comment and then we have a motion from Council Member Bradberry and a second from Council Member McGee. Um, you know, the problem with these situations is we are all here trying to atone for what the previous owner created. No one in this room created that situation. Not one of us. And yet, so so we're now put in that tough position of trying to figure out how do we elevate these properties with the least amount of disruption possible. so that we are continue to make them affordable and livable for the folks who are there. So that we are improving on improving the properties themselves for the next 30 plus years so that we're increasing safety as as discussed and and reducing that blight. So it's great to hear that. I do think the overriding message which you've made clear you've heard tonight was the lack of communication has created a lot of anxiety in folks that probably should have and could have been avoided. And so what I hear you saying tonight is you hear that and now you know there's a lot of eyes on you moving forward. So so we are watching and and you know we will be following up with these folks to make sure that they get the information they need and the asurances they need as you move through this process. And so I I hope that is what happens and and we have heard very loud and clear the concerns tonight of the people who have been here. So with that, I will ask the clerk to take a role to take the vote.

Okay. All right. We have nine. Yes. The motion carries. All right. With that, we will move on to action item D. City clerk. D is a resolution introduc introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Impere approving a neighborhood revitalization plan project and authorizing a property tax rebate for certain improvements for this Capital City Town Homes property located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Southeast Adam Street and Southeast 21st Street and west of Southeast Pennsylvania Avenue. City Manager.

Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Braxton CPPley, deputy city manager or leaders of this item. Thank you, governing body. The last item, the motion was to approve the formation of the T tip district. This item is to approve the adoption of the plus 20. Uh so it basically be a 20-year property tax rebate 955. The city and county would retain the 5% for the cost of administering the program and the 95% would be rebated back to the to the developer. So, we'd ask for a motion to approve. Any questions or comments from the governing body? Council member Hiller,

I do have one. You mentioned something about what happens when you've been had the rebate for in this case 20 years and then the rebate ends and you need to pay those we get to keep the taxes after that. What do you anticipate happening with the complex at the 20th year? I because I don't know what you're going to do with that money and and whether it's

paying back bills or in your pocket. The the reason I smirked is I I don't frankly know how this works when um you know a property just to use an example cash flows, you know, $50,000 a year after it's paid net $25,000 a year in property taxes and then all of a sudden those property taxes go up to 175,000. Um, I'll tell you, not to get into the weeds, one thing that I do even during the 955 period is I fight to keep that assessment as low as possible. So that even really doing the work up front so that year 2021 isn't such a sting. My my friendly competitors that don't come in here, I don't even know how they get past 10 years, yet alone 15 or 20. So I I don't have a very clear message for you at that at at this time other to say that we very well very well might be revisit having another conversation with KHRC and and and you all if we can't get that exit value as low as possible when that rebate rolls off. Um because the one thing that's definitely not fair to the tenants is to, you know, keep rents affordable as long as possible for 20 years and then overnight say, "Hey, by the way, we should have been raising, you know, the the rents a little bit more than we have been. Now it goes up 20 20%, not you know, 2 to 5% per year and you're left with an empty building and a ton of people upset." So, I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but that's a very truthful answer. I'm not I'm not sure how people mitigate that. I I will tell you that we have reserve accounts that's equal to 6 months of debt service as well as 6 months of operating expenses, but that doesn't cover the fiasco that we're

talking about for many years. So, um so it's something we're we're we're actively looking into how to how to mitigate. Well, I appreciate you bringing it up and it did get my attention. Um, we're trying to work on our policies and make sure that, you know, we're not making mistakes so that we end up in a 20-year cycle on everything we've helped or that that things go downhill again. So, appreciate your cander and yeah, hang on to that property value. Thanks. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? If not, I would entertain a motion. Motion to approve from council member Banks, second from council member Kell. There's no other comments or questions. I will ask the clerk to take the vote, please.

We have nine yes. The motion carries. We'll now move on to action item E. City Clerk. E is the development agreement between Capital City Town Homes LLC, a Kansas limited liability company, and the city of Topeka for the Capital City Town Homes neighborhood revitalization program. City Manager.

Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Braxton CPY, deputy city manager. Lead us to this item. governing body. This is the contract between the city and the developer relating to the terms of the of the NRP. Uh, Council Member Kell, in response to the comments and questions that you made at the initial uh, hearing back in March when we had the resolution relative to CL clawback, I will tell you that there are provisions in here that are not clawback, but they are events of default that would allow for us to terminate this agreement or to stop the payment of the rebate until the event of default was um, remedied. And I will tell you that the the two big ones in here are if they fail to pay their property taxes because we have had that issue come up on other properties that are subject to the NRP, the property owner doesn't pay the property taxes. They wait till year three when the county is threatening to put them on the tax foreclosure sale at which point they then find the money, pay the taxes, knowing that within 45 to 60 days they're going to get a rebate of a portion of that. So this says if you don't pay your taxes that becomes an event of default for which we can withhold any future payments. The other very significant item that we have in here is under section 60 9 and that is relative to their maintenance obligations. And that basically says during the term of the agreement, the developer shall maintain the project to a quality standard substantially consistent with the level of quality achieved at the initial construction of the project and consistent with comparable projects of similar type and age as determined by the city and its reasonable discretion. If they are in violation of that provision, they're in breach of contract. If they don't remedy that breach, then that becomes an event of default, which would allow us to again stop the payment of the of the rebate.

So, while they're not a clawback, and because I'll let the city attorney talk about how difficult it is to try to claw back from a lowinccome property the amount that had been rebated in previous years to try to get a judgment against them on that and try to get that money out of there. Well, it's not a rebate. It absolutely is a legitimate measure in terms of having a hammer to require compliance both in terms of payment of taxes as well as maintaining the condition of that property. So with that, we would ask for your approval of the development agreement and gladly stand for any questions that you have.

Council member McGee. Um, in in regard to again I'm going to go back to NRP and that provision in there that if they're delinquent on their tax under the program under the NRP, they can they no long they're no longer qualified. I've asked the question I've asked the question for legal opinion on whether this could also be done for properties under the same ownership outside of the NRP and so I'm still waiting a reply on that. So to clarify your question, which we don't get an answer tonight, legal is working on it, but is if they have one project that has an NRP and they're behind on that, then any other project that's not in an NRP that they own and that has any sort of incentive would also also end if they can't stay current or or whatever that look whatever that penalty is

within the NRP. If they're delinquent, they no longer qualify. Gotcha. for the NRP. My question is for a legal opinion on if they're they own other properties that are not under NRP and they're delinquent. Oh, BNRP can be pulled. All right, so the reverse. Okay, that's actually a great question and I too will look for that memo from legal.

Any other comments or questions? If not, I would entertain a motion. Motion to approve from council member Bradberry. Have a second from council member Banks. If there's no other comments or questions, I will ask the clerk to take the vote, please. We have nine. Yes. The motion carries. All right, with that, that's the end of our action items. We will move on to our non-action items.

City clerk. City of city.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry, didn't hear you. A is a discussion on the proposed 2027 to 2036 capital improvement plan and 2027 to 2029 capital improvement budget. City manager. Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Uh Jason Trion, director of public works and Josh McCannney, uh deputy director of finance. Lead us through this item.

Uh thank you, city manager. Um good evening, governing body. Tonight we're doing another round of CIP presentation. But first, um since we have a little bit more time tonight, Dan's going to play a video showing what our past CIP dollars that you guys have approved of as a governing body have got us um improvements in as infrastructure through the city. So Dan, you want to play that video? The city of Topeka completed nearly 100 capital improvement plan projects in 2025. As improvements continued to Southwest Topeka Boulevard, crews completely reconstructed the 21st Street intersection. The utilities and public works departments work together to make improvements to water line, storm sewer, and sanitary sewer in the area before completing a total pavement reconstruction at the intersection. Southeast 29th Street from Adams to California underwent extensive work including sanitary sewer, storm sewer, and waterline improvements as well as pavement patching and a millon overlay. Work also continued in the High Crest neighborhood for phase two of improvements that included waterline replacement, storm sewer work, and a mill overlay for many neighborhood streets. The Somerfield neighborhood also saw the completion of extensive storm sewer repairs and replacement as well as mill and overlay to the streets with full deck patching as needed. Select curb replacements and select sidewalk ramp replacements or modernizations. Crews replaced water line and completed pavement reconstruction on Northwest Curtis Street from the Kansas Avenue Bridge flyoff east to the grain elevator. In response to flooding events, the utilities department upsized approximately 2200 ft of storm sewer along Southeast 23rd and Market Streets just east of California. Utilities also officially completed a comprehensive overhaul to the water treatment plant west plant basin. enhancements that are poised to significantly extend that plant's operational lifespan and ensure its continued efficiency. In total, the city of Topeka resurfaced 37 lane miles of pavement in 2025, fully reconstructed nearly 5 1/2 lane miles of pavement, and

milled and overlaid 24 lane miles. Throughout the city, 23,732 linear feet of sidewalk was constructed or replaced. 58,448 linear feet of curb and gutter was replaced. In 2025, the city replaced or rehabilitated 6,75 linear feet of storm sewer system, more than 625 linear feet of sanitary sewer collection system, and $22,75 linear feet of water manes. Breaking down the costs, more than $42 million of the CIP budget was spent on storm water, wastewater collection or treatment, and drinking water treatment and distribution systems. $17.5 million went toward repairing or replacing streets, traffic signals, and sidewalks. and $29 million of the CIP budget enabled repair and vital updates to city-owned facilities and building structures, including renovation of a new light duty fleet building, as well as renovations and a much anticipated ADA ramp at the Topeka Performing Arts Center. In total, 99 capital projects were completed in 2025, representing around 129.6 million budgeted dollars invested into our community assets and infrastructure. So, we thought that'd be a good video to show what you're actually approving and how it actually translate into the city, the city as a whole. So, tonight we'll be going over um non citywide halfs and sales tax funding sources that the public works department uses to fund their projects. Um you want so go the first one we'll cover is the the countywide halfs and sales tax or JTO. So, city has a 9.35% tax rate. of that tax rate, a half a percent is dedicated strictly towards the countywide. So, um, the way that works is it was voted on about a little over a decade ago for specific projects. Think 12th Street, think the Hon Street, um, think 15th to 21st on Topeka Boulevard. And, um, as projects in the resolution and the way that funding works is, um, sales tax is

collected, 5 million a year goes to go Topeka and then the 48% goes to the city and then 52% goes to the county. And those projects are all bound by resolution. Um so we we can't change we can't really change them um all too easily like we can with the citywide houseet sales tax projects. Um and so um this is a project schedule um in your book of the remaining um JTO projects. So the ones um that are going to be up coming soon are the gauge the Harrison project and then the I470 McVicker projects which Jason will get into a little bit more. Um but ones that were completed in the past were um example is a 12 street. And then finally right now the countywide sales tax has a high fund balance which is pretty typical. We we pushed back um one of the 17th street projects because the budget was deemed too high at the time. We replaced that with 15 to 21st. So there was a couple years 18 months where we didn't spend any of the JATO funds. So that built up a fund balance to where we're going to be spending it down on projects over the coming years. But eventually there's more um construction expenses than what revenue is going into the JATO fund. So eventually we're going to have to make the decision. Do we want to reduce project scope? Do we want to subsidize funding from another funding source? Or do we want to get rid of one project or two altogether? That's a policy decision for the governing body, but that gives you an idea of what the future kind of holds. So, just go over a few of the major projects uh that we have coming up. Obviously, a large one that's been a a big topic of discussion is the Hunton Street project gauge to Harrison. You're seeing some dirt moving out there right now. Uh that's some utility relocations that are taking place. So, this is a major project that's going to span all the way from uh Gage to Harrison. It will mirror a lot of the improvements that were made on 12 Street. Um, and so you'll see uh both a reconstruction of the pavement, a reduction to one lane, a

lot of intersection improvements, storm water reconstruction, a lot of water line replacements. Uh, and that'll all be happening uh between 2027 and 2029. Just a reminder on that project, we're starting on the east side and moving west. So, you'll see the construction starting on Harrison. And if anybody hasn't uh seen the plans of that, absolutely reach out to the public works department to understand when that phase is going to occur. That project is broken up into a lot of different phases. So depending on where you live along that street, it's going to make a big difference as to what the construction schedule is going to look like. So, another major project that we have coming up, this was originally slated to uh be constructed in 2023 and 2025, but as Josh mentioned that was pushed back, is 17th Street from I 470 to McVicker. Um, so along this entire uh stretch, we have planned for full base patching, milling overlay, reconstruction. We have some utility replacements that are happening along this stretch of road. We'll also be adding additional lighting, um, some shared use paths, sidewalks, and possibly bike lanes. Um, and that these are all going to be questions that are come up when we come up with the final project design. As I said, this was designed once. We plan to construct this in 23 to 25. Um, but based on the cost, as we got into the project estimates, we pushed this back and now we are expecting 2028 to 2030 construction. So, some of the other capital improvement programs and projects, I'll let Josh talk about the funding sources. So, when we don't use the citywide house and sales tax or any of the the countywide sales tax for those specific projects, we have a couple other funding sources at our disposal to use. So, we can either issue bonds um to fund projects such as we do for traffic signals. Um we get money from the state via the federal fund exchange. Talked a little bit about that last week. That's a we get about $1.6 million. That's for basic infrastructure like sidewalks, um bridges, traffic signals as well. And

then we can always use a general fund transfer to fund the projects when there's cash on hand. Um so going to that and we wanted to talk a little bit about bonding information because we use the CIP to inform the budget process for the current year because we have if we want to let's say we want to save up money and bond for a facility in 3 years we have to save money today to eventually make those debt service payments down the line. So it's easy to do all these say we want to do all these projects but we have to have a plan to pay for them and we have to save money for it. So a little bit information on hypothetically if we were to follow the plan that's outlined in the CIP um on on the bonding part. So state statute in Kansas is 30% of our assessed value. That's the max um of what we can have up to in terms of outstanding debt for um general obligation bonds. So currently we're a little below 10% which is well below the state statute. But the one thing to keep in mind is just cuz we're well well below the state statute we still have to have cash on hand to make the debt service payments each year. So if we were to um bond what's currently in the CIP that get out of our debt service fund, this is what that does to our debt service fund balance. So we'd be doing a gradual spin down. But just as a reminder, our fund ba balance policy out of the debt service fund is a minimum of 10% and we're still in the next five years pretty much well above that. But we are doing a gradual spin down um based on the projects we have outlined in CIP. Obviously, if you you would add if you add to add projects, that number is going to go down. If we remove things, that number is going to go up. Um, and then just finally, this just shows if we were to bond, what's outlined over the next 5 years in the CIP, what those next subsequent years of debt service payments would look like and our principal balance. Um, and then what it does and how we would comply to our debt to assessed value ratios we reviewed previously. Caps 30%, but we'd still be well below that, which is good. But again, what matters is do we have

money to make that those in the debt service fund to make those payments in the first place. So this is a list of uh some of the programs that are funded out of these sources. Uh we'll talk about each of these in a little bit more detail. Um so starting with our traffic signal replacement program. So currently we have 183 traffic signals within the city of Topeka. Those obviously wear out uh over the course of time. Uh with this funding program, we replace four signals a year. Uh so that gets us replacing signals uh once on a 46-year replacement cycle. Uh the funding level for 2027 is $2.5 million. And the projects we have lined up uh 25th in Waker, uh Northwest Lyman and Topeka Boulevard, Pontoon and Fairlon, 6th and Quincy uh Southeast 6 in Quincy, excuse me, and Southwest 29th in Arrowhead. So this also goes to fund our firm program. That's our facilities improvement um program replacement and maintenance involves planning, design, repairing and constructing administrative operations, fire and other facilities. So, this is really the primary source that we use when we're upgrading facilities when we have key components, large assets that are needing replacement. Uh this is the funding source that we largely do uh use for those funds. Some of the 2027 projects we have lined up, we know we have a lot of improvements we need to make at the LEC garage. Uh we need to redo some of the HAC balancing and refresh at Holiday. Uh and we also have a lot of ongoing work at fire stations that continues to need to be addressed. So our bridge maintenance program, we have 101 city bridges uh throughout the city. These funds are used to do a lot of the upkeep on those, the inspections that go on. $750,000 a year is nowhere near the amount of uh investment that you need to make in your bridges to keep them all current. Um, so a couple of the projects that we have in the CIP right now, uh, that are using these funds are the Northeast Kansas Avenue bridge repairs and the Southeast 21st over BNSF and Southeast Butcher Creek. Uh, but as

I mentioned, this is nowhere near enough. So those fund those projects have multiple funding sources. This is only one of the funding sources. So our city will citywide infill sidewalk program. Uh so this program is really designed to build new sidewalks and restore existing ones. So we have a pedestrian master plan that was completed in 2025. What that plan did is looked all across the city and identified where are the locations where we are currently lacking sidewalks and where we don't have neighborhood connections. This program allows us to go into those locations and strategically place sidewalks in areas that improve connectivity throughout the city. It has a $600,000 budget. Um, currently some of the uh locations that we're looking at for 2027, Southwest 19th to Southwest 23rd between Brunett and Seabbrook and then also Southeast 31st to Southeast 35th between California and Indiana. So, this also uh funds our fleet replacement program. This is primarily for the street department. So these are the big assets, the large trucks that you see, dump trucks, uh wheel loaders, uh grapple trucks, all the things used by the street and forestry departments, uh that are out working on our infrastructure. Um so in 2027, we have planned to replace two dump trucks, a heavy wheel loader, an asphalt sipper. That's a piece of equipment that helps us uh remove asphalt pavement in order to put down fresh pavement. Uh two brush chippers our forestry department uses to clear up brush and uh trees throughout the city. and then a truck a chipper truck as well. So, also with these funds, we have uh the project Northwest Lyman Road from Bale Avenue to Tyler. So, the sidewalk construction is something that's going to happen on this stretch of road starting within the next month. We have an some additional improvements to the street uh that will be planned to start in 2029, including adding curb and gutter and enclosed storm sewer. Another project that we have is

Southeast Adams 37th to 45th Street. So, this will be looking at possibly converting that from a two-lane rural section to a three-lane urban configuration. That would be enclosing the storm sewer as well. Uh, and putting a fully enclosed storm drainage system. Uh, the final design is scheduled for completion in 2027 and we'll make the determination at that time whether a two or three lane roadway will be appropriate. Uh, we do estimate the construction will begin in 2029. Before anyone asks, yes, we are aware the county is planning a roundabout at 45th and Adams. Our construction schedule is designed to accommodate that and make sure our design ties in well with their construction. So, another project that's uh using this funding source is the fire station replacement program. So, this is a a program a project uh that we know for a long period of time we have not uh made an investment in constructing a new fire station. Uh we currently operate 12 fire stations throughout the city. Uh ideally you'd like to replace them every 75 years. Uh we have not built a new fire station since 1996. So uh we are overdue for a new one. We'd like to uh keep making repairs and improvements to our existing fire stations as long as possible, but at a certain point you do have to acknowledge when they've served a useful life and that a new station is necessary. So this uh this project would fund the construction of a new fire station. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Council member Miller. Um, I don't have any questions. I just want to say that the 2 minutes and 45 seconds that we spent watching that video was enjoyable. Um, shout out to the works department and the marketing department putting that together because that was pretty impressive and it's a good visual to allow people to really understand what's happening with with the margin the work that they're paying for that we're all paying for. So, I appreciate you doing that. Thank you, Council Member McGee. Um, thank you, Mayor. My question is uh do we tell you understand do we have outside bond council? Yes,

we do now. Yeah, we have for a while. Okay. Just for my information. Yeah. And do we currently part participate in the safe routes to school program? City manager. Yes, we do. Okay. Thank you. So, I want to go back to the fire station. I don't know who wants to answer this question, but what year is that currently in the CIP? 2028. 11.26 million. 2048. 2028. Okay.

It's uh 11.3 million or 11.26 million. Uh, and there's actually $100,000 planned in the 26 CIP CIB uh for design or conceptual planning.

What is the timeline for us getting a presentation on what that overall plan is? So, we've been finalizing uh some recommendations uh with Chief Long Staff uh based upon the 2025 recommendation, the 2021 uh fire commission recommendations, 2016 recommendations. And so, um we've been trying to basically come up with a plan on, uh what we would do, uh with with that with relocating or replacing. Um, I will tell you the 2025 and the 2025 recommendations and the 2021 fire commission recommendations all included the addition the first edition of fire station 13 which is in northwest Topeka and that's where uh the identified uh 4-minute coverage gap the highest uh 4-minute coverage gap does not exist uh in the northwest peak area. we're looking at 7 minutes plus in some some cases. And so, um, again, just looking at that, uh, looking at not just if we build out fire station 13, uh, and I'll tell you some of the previous studies had talked about adding a fire company, um, with that. And we know that the addition of a fire company right now with our budget constraints is is a challenge. And so we're trying to look at a plan that would uh not just build out a fire station, but look at potential phasing of future fire station relocations as well within uh using our existing resources without adding staff. And so to your question, I would say the next 30 to 60 days, we'll be ready to discuss it. And the reason I bring that up is, and this isn't necessarily the only project, is holding these projects in our CIP before we have made any sort of policy decisions comes with a cost to our

budget. Correct, Josh? I mean, because we have to hold those funds. Yeah. So, basically to use the example for for let's say we bond 10 million. Let's say we were to bond $10 million in the future. we have to hold that money to make since we bought it over 15 years. We have to hold that money today to in the fund to pay it. So if we didn't do it, we could not put as much into the fund and do other things with it. But yes, we have to hold money today to make future payments.

Okay. I appreciate that. Cuz let me be clear. I'm not saying I'm opposed to the plan that we may or may see. I just think it's important for us to have those timelines on some of these projects because as we're having to make tough budget decisions, while that's as a placeholder for 2028 or 2027 design and 2020, I mean, after we have that presentation, if we make adjustments to that, that could also have a budgetary impact. And so, I just want to make everyone aware of those. I think it's important we start making some of these policy decisions because of the impact it has on our on our cash basis as we're looking at other tough decisions with the budget. So, I just that that's the reason I asked that question. C. Oh, sorry. Council member Kell.

So, you mentioned uh some of the people you're talking about a possible future firehouse and things like that. Have the fire the firefighters been active in that discussion because this and this is going to be mainly occupied by them and these are the men and women that are going to live there and you know I I spent a lot of time at 10 and you know I know their philosophy is give us a nice brick box you know make it liveable that's all they're looking for but you know they're looking for a few different changes the way things are set up and I know things have changed over time but those are the people going to be living there and just also like the relocation talking to the drivers cuz they may sit there and say, "Yeah, this is if we go here, us trying to drive this is here's here's where I see a problem because there, like I said, these are the people that are going to be on on doing that job." And sometimes when you have all these recommendations from all these other people, it's best to get the recommendation from the people that are going to be living there and also the people that are going to be having to navigate those situations.

So, and I can answer that. So whenever we get that presentation, which the chief will give us in conversations I've had with him, I can tell you the answer is yes to all of those. Okay? It's not being made in a vacuum. It's being made with conversations and will continue to made with conversations from our fire department, from our firefighters, from the community before before those recommendations. So yes, all that is being taken into account by the chief as he kind of figures this out for us. Council member Hiller,

thank you. Um, as you know, I usually have a string of comments. I didn't even bring them with me per se, but I just for for everybody and to kind of refresh our thought processes, I was a little dismayed to see that when we had the different categories of how we would fund things in the capital budget this time, there were no boxes for cash or for grants. And I do think even if we're not sure which grants we'd be able to go after, that for all of us to focus on the fact that we can do some of these things with cash out of the operating budget, which we've talked about before, but also that we we do want to make it a priority to get grants or even in some cases plan way ahead that we're not going to pay for it, that we need to be really working with the state or with our congressional delegation. um because it takes at least 5 years to get that to for that to happen if that's where you you think it's it's possible to get the money. So, I'm hoping that as we as we comb back through this and make some final decisions that we we really do look at where the funding source could be

um or clarify what what it says in the book. And just one point of clarification, if you look in your CIP book, you'll see some grant funded projects starting on page 65. So, we did not cover those projects tonight, but we do have a number of projects uh that are listed as grant funded uh that uh I would encourage everyone to review as well.

Thank you. Um because I could I could find it in some of the descriptions, but when it had just the pages with the general categories of this is what to look for, this is what we do, neither were mentioned. And I I just think it's important for all of us to keep it in mind as we're thinking about what we can do and how we would do it. Um, everybody knows I'm concerned about bonding and debt service. I would point out that one of the reasons that the chart that was on there shows a decline in the first couple years and then starts to pick back up is that very intentionally we slowed down how much borrowing and some things are paying off. And we really hoped we would be at this point where we if we could keep it level, then we wouldn't be spending that that kind of we wouldn't start it creeping back up each time we borrow more um or even the same in a in a consecutive year when we've been lower. It it starts to layer up and and add more. Um, an example just to pull it out might be if we really are ready to go ahead with station 13, something we've talked about a little bit anyway, if you just take that and and it's an 11.3 million project. If we um if we bond it, it will cost the taxpayers an extra $6.5 million in interest payments um to borrow money for that 11.3 million garage. If on the other hand, we passed a sales tax for a tenth of a cent for three years. our design um any advanced work and the construction would all be done with cash and it would be over. So thinking about those possibilities as we look at not

only whether we think we can do projects but how we would do them. And the beauty of this sales tax stuff is generally that we we spend three years on a capital project anyway. there's a final design year in year one, then there's a site preparation in year two and then we actually build it in year three. It just talks to me in terms of that kind of especially a one-off. Um, and not putting that extra sec $6.5 million of interest on our grandkids. Um, something else I would encourage looking at, I've asked for a a master stat status report of where we are with the streets just so we have some perspective of what's been done in the last 10 years and where we're at. Um, we've gone back and forth on it a little bit. Maybe it needs to be combination of, you know, pink is is the is the 10 to five years hints and it's got a year number of what we actually did and then it's got the PCI rating. I realize that you all are concerned that not everything needs it right away. On the other hand, we are really good and we heard it tonight with the examples in parody in terms of geographically dispersing our water, our utility projects as well as our street projects. But I have found it along the real helpful to see a chart that showed what we've done. And right now too, we are we are in the windown phase of our second 10-year halfsent sales tax um program. And so being able to see which major streets we've gotten done and which ones are still remaining and be able to at least ask the question if they're not in this CIP, you know, when when we're going to get to them. Um, one of the things we've done with Fleet before with the examples that were there that that has, as far as I know, been

pretty successful in the public works department is to budget for X amount of winter snowstorms. And if we have that kind of storm, we're prepared. And if we don't, that's when we get that extra truck bought with the with the the operating money in cash rather than bonding. So, I just wanted to refresh that. That's a lens to look at the fleet information. It was interesting to hear the project discussed this evening of was it South California 37th to 45th. Um excuse Adams

Adams I I knew I knew I didn't have it right. You know, our sustainability people were here today in the last five to 10 years, whereas we always spent a lot of money um installing storm sewers underground and having to mow on top of them and maintain them inside um going with with open drainage, leaving the proverbial ditches um is pretty low maintenance, allows it to percolate and so on. So, I don't know if we've been considering that for any of our projects, but whereas that was the way it used to be and we tried to change it out all the way, there's certainly been a trend to go back to leaving that open runoff. We're we're requiring swailes instead of concrete and runoff in our parking lots of big buildings that people are are creating and so on. So, I just wanted to mention that. Um, also on our streets, um, I happen to be the district that has the most brick streets. Um, this might sound kind of minor, but our city staff, we have a brick streets and sidewalks policy that that in looks to the maintenance and and and sustaining our brick streets and sidewalks. talks about being able to harvest the city harvest bricks if they ever bring up take up a street or a sidewalk so that those bricks are available if we need to repair or or replace something. Uh that kind of got stalled and the staff has been declining for instance to allow somebody to use bricks in a 50-50 sidewalk program. There's been discouragement of saving the brick streets. When we set that policy, the public works director at the time sat down and I may I may name name these numbers a little bit wrong. Y'all can help me. But

the the general lifespan of an asphalt surface is considered to be 10 to 25 years. Am I right? For a new construction with no maintenance, you'd expect 20 to 25 years if you perform no maintenance on that asphalt street. Okay. Concrete is more like 50 to 75. Again, with no maintenance, I'd expect 50.

Okay. The brick streets last 100 years or more. And so for us to fail to support that, um, we have both rebuilt them, but most of the ones that are brick are still installed the way they were in the beginning on layers of sand and dirt. I would encourage you all to go out and drive down Southwest 7th Street. Start at Topeka Boulevard, head down Seventh Street. Taylor is one that's been stripped. Fillmore is one that's been redone. Clay was done uh actually torn up all the way and they put concrete under it and bricks on top. Otherwise, if you go to Buchanan, you go all the way down to 13th Street near near Central Park. When they started when Bettis went in and started clearing for the the rebuild in on Clay Street, they discovered and reported to the city how easy it was to send somebody out with a Bobcat and just pop that asphalt off and clean up those streets. I really think we need to make sure that we are affirmatively supporting the brick streets because they're lasting longer than anything else. And as we I don't know that it's an issue on any of the particular streets this time, but just to keep it in mind as we look big picture. Um looked like on the street lights, you're now talking about a a 46year turnaround.

That's correct. And is that a an an a good ideal lifespan for the street lights? Ideally, you'd want a 25-y year replacement schedule. Okay. something to keep in mind. Also, I think we we've been decommissioning some of them. I think we've got I don't know which ones are on the list, but there's some others that we could decommission from.

So, we decommissioned Seventh and Quincy recently. Um, we have also looked at the possibility of decommissioning 9inth and Quincy, and there's been some additional work done under review. uh if there are additional locations that are no longer warranted or could benefit from having you know a different type of intersection whether that be just um four-way stop or adding some additional traffic calming in lie of the signal. Yeah, you pulled the one at Jackson and 12th as well a couple years ago.

That's correct. through the YW and I've always felt like the one at at although we kept it when the last project was done there is no signal at 8 in Washburn but there is one at 8 and Lane. Um, so just throwing those sorts of things out. We're those extra eyes to look at at the we see it through the budget usually, but those project descriptions are there for every one of the projects. And so we're really wanting to get everything done but with less money. And this this is one place. It's kind of makes your head spin sometimes, but it's one place we can do it. Thank you. And thank you guys. I know it's hard.

These are questions or comments for staff. Going once. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Yes. Member Ortiz. Sorry. Sorry. On the Jetto, is that existing? That sales tax, is that existing? No, that's the citywide. Okay, that's that's what we talked about. I just get the two mixed up. Just always make sure you put existing in there. No problem.

All right, with that, we will move on to public comment. We have one individual signed up this evening, Mr. Henry Mccclure. Henry Mccclure, Topeka, Kansas. I'm here to encourage the citizens of Topeka to rise up and uh get rid of the but for test. This is an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that's not needed. We've already determined I saw you on the news the other day, your honor. Housing, housing, housing looking sharp on WIBW. So now that housing is your priority, well, why don't we just streamline state law? Why don't we just make it to where if you follow state law, your RHID will uh sail through. Why don't we change the policy to get rid of the butt for test? The uh Jeff White at Columbia, he just making he's just uh it's graph to him. It's very easy to uh take to Kansas and present a housing project. All you have to do is take the housing plan that you already did and tailor make your project to suit that plan. the whole I mean it passed the butt for

test when uh the Senate bill u 17 and then later signed by Laura Kelly to bring in a rural you know this originally was for rural America rural Kansas to incentivize people to go live in rural towns and our housing is so bad and rott Patton that we've got a rule program here. So we don't need a but for test. We just need to decide well we're going to do more housing in the town and as long as they follow state law that should be enough. A lobbyist would know that. So, if you go back and look, I I presented this to you guys as part of my public comment. Um, there's really no um indication, and I haven't been able to do a lot of homework, you know, that uh certain cities that use it prosper more. It's more about economic development and um jobs and the prosperity of the community. But we've identified that housing is our Achilles heel. So, let's just make it to where it's easier where we don't have to come in here and beg for our grill. So, with that said, I think I made my point. Um, when you're out there looking at these uh brick streets, go down uh Adams from 5th to 7th and look at that mess. So, I want to I get to touch on a few other things, but tonight it's interesting. Um,

what how much of tonight was real estate related? The poor lady from Florida, you know, if she just deeds it to herself and comes back in, she get could get it approved. Just a simple mistake. It's nothing more than a guy that makes a presentation comment and he doesn't even know what street it is. It's It's not 21st in Topek, it's 21st in Adams. We all make mistakes. Thanks for your time. Thank you. All right. With that, we move on to announcements. City clerk.

Okay. Uh just a quick overview of the May 5th agenda. We will have two meril proclamations, two presentations. Um we will have two special event resolutations and two noise exceptions on the consent agenda. Uh we will also on the consent agenda have three uh policy or public infrastructure committee items coming out of there. And then for the action items we will have two fee waiverss. One for DW development LLC and Peaks of Topeka LLC. And then we will also have an amendment to charter ordinance number 125 levying the transient guest tax for the city of Topeka as well as the ordinance for the 2026 utility leans. And then on non-action items, we'll have continued discussion for the 20 the CIP and CIB. And that is all I have. Thank you,

city manager.

Thank you, mayor. Um, in the spirit of uh, Earth Day, which is tomorrow, I wanted to announce here um, as we've been sharing in our monthly updates on our strategic goals, uh, one of the goals since last year has been to implement a an electric vehicle pilot program. Uh, team's been working on on that. Um, and uh, for as far as the program, we're looking to implement six six vehicles, six EVs in our fleet. Uh we actually received our first one a couple weeks ago. Um and so uh I want to name it Michael Volton. Um but that's just me. Um and uh but yeah, I just wanted to make the announcement as far as in the spirit of Earth Day uh us getting that EV uh pilot uh going and look forward to further implementation throughout the rest of the year on the other five. Uh the first one should be operational in the next 30 days or so as we put in the EV charger at holiday. Um and so uh so yeah, so it's just one of the initiatives within our sustainability uh portfolio that I wanted to share with y'all. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, real quick, I wanted to address uh a an event we had, the policy and finance committee had uh with Council Member Bradbury and Council Member Banks. Um when we uh went to the library and had a meeting uh to discuss the duplex, triplex and qulex presentation, um the meeting was very wellreceived uh for how it was conducted and there was a lot of thanks thrown my way but I was not I I was just a small part of it uh without the team without the city staff setting up over the library wouldn't have been able to make that happen. Um and I think Tanya did a wonderful job of putting everything together and keeping everything in line. Uh, so I just want to give a shout out to the city staff for how they conducted that because that was that was that was wellreceived by the public. Um, and that's all I have. Thank you very much,

Council Member Bradberry.

Sorry, I have nothing tonight. Thank you, Council Member McGee. I have nothing to add. Deputy Mayor Hoer,

I have a couple things. Um, seems how it was our week for our zoo board meeting. I wanted to let y'all know um this weekend, this Saturday is Roar Poor at the zoo. They have I think they said about they had couple hundred tickets for general admission still available and actually a couple or a dozen or so available for VIP. So if any of you have not been before, it's an excellent event and you'll have a great time. Also, as part of Earth Day celebrations, they're going to do their annual plant sale. Their online sales start on the 30th of the month and run till May 8th and then on 59 they will have an on-site sale. This is a big fundraiser for the zoo. Um it also helps it mainly helps with their conservation program. So, any of you looking to get plants for the spring, um it'd be a great fundraiser to help them, um so go to the zoo website and the information to um explain what they have and when you can buy in all that they have going on uh is there. And it looks like I believe the um mural on the outside of the concessions building is done. And they have I believe it's five animals that are part of it. And it's pretty incredible looking. And the same man who did that work is also going to do one on the new Tiger Trails in Den Academy. So we're going to spiff up the zoo a bit. And that's all I have. Thank you, Council Member Hiller.

Couple things. One, uh, hats off to Councilman Miller and the, uh, policy and finance committee on the quote upzoning, uh, meeting at the library. A hot tip. Apparently, it was inadvertent, but it worked really well. People thought they were signing in at the signin, but that was actually intended to be a sign up sheet for people who wanted to speak. not knowing that Councilman Miller or Chair Miller called on all of them and probably half of them that weren't intending to speak went ahead and stood up and spoke. It was very fresh. It was very inclusive and uh people did think it went really well. Uh related to that, unbeknownst to people as this was largely unbeknownst to people as this process that the city planning commission had in initiated was going about changing what they call upzoning for duplexes in single family um zoning districts. Um, the state passed Senate Bill 418, which has redefined single family housing as including single family homes and duplexes. Um, and then it goes on and on and on for pages of fine print about some things. And I would respectfully ask that maybe we could get a briefing on exactly what Senate Bill 418 says and what it means for us sometime soon. um to the point where people were wondering whether we should continue at all with the the overall upzoning thing that we've worked so or that other people have worked so hard on because that really kind of blows it up. Um the other thing on behalf um at at the request of a block group in in the Ward me neighborhood, I am very proud to announce that they are doing a big block cleanup this weekend and that you all are invited. I have been given some text

to share which I will. In coordination with the new Habitat for Humanity House, which is going to be built at Fifth and Taylor Street, the alley between Taylor and Western Cleanup has been scheduled for Saturday, April 25th, 2026 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Um, the people on people on that block have bonded together to take care of their own houses and each other really strongly in the last couple years. It's it's I'm really proud of them. They have volunteers from Westside Baptist Church um and First Presbyterian Church and Topeka Habitat for Humanity as well as the neighborhood members who are going to be participating. Funding it for a dumpster has been provided by Central National Bank. Habitat for Humanity tool bus will be on site as well. The city of Topeka um through our OIC group I think has offered to provide pizza, cookies, and fluid. Um, everyone's invited if you'd like to bring some gloves, wear appropriate footwear. They would be happy to see you join them for as much time as you would choose to spend in that alley cleanup this coming Saturday from 10 to 2. That's it. Thank you,

Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, just wanted to say that Southeast Golden is closed. It is permanently closed right now and to please slow down when you're coming through my neighborhood. Um, we're going to have to get some speed traps out there cuz people are just flying through the neighborhood. Also, Southeast um, Sixth Street from Six and Golden to Rice Road is is down to one lane. We've got a lot of construction. Please be patient. Please slow down as you come through the neighborhoods. Um, it would be much appreciated. I heard one of the engineers said it is a mess out there and it is a mess out there. So, thank you,

Council Member Banks. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Deputy Mayor and I attended a ribbing uh cutting today at Garden Hilton Garden Hotel in Wow, look at that. Look at that handsome guy. What? Imagine that. Brett, you want some of that, Brett? Think about it.

See, I I've known that man for years. The guy was talking to me about dunking the basketball and you could tell he's really nice guy. Wayne Simeon, a KU guy. He doesn't like talk about basketball very much, but I do. It was kind of interesting. Uh the hotel is changing uh ownership and it was really nice to be there to hear their vision about what they want to do in our city. I was excited. and I was really excited that I had a colleague there uh to share in their vision. So, it was really good event today. Thank you, Mayor.

Council member Kell. All right, I'm going to channel my inner uh Councilwoman Ortiz. You all know I love my firefighters. Where's Chief at? Okay, there he is. All right, so I'm going to talk about the drier fires. I this weekend my dryer wasn't acting right. I couldn't figure out what was going on. I I pulled my my dryer vent out. I had 4 ft worth of grass and sticks in there. And so please check your your dryer vents. Clean your your uh your uh vent trap. Vent trap.

Vent trap. Uh, according to the National Fire Protection Association, there's 13 to 16 drier fires a year that equate equate to 13 to uh 7 to 13 deaths and over $200 million in property damage. The biggest are your lint trap and your vent hose being clogged. So, please take the time, especially this time of year with birds flying stuff in, cuz that's what it was in my in my hose was a a bird's nest. Take the time and then take the precautions afterwards. I put a new new uh outlet on there where it has a little cage on it that keeps the birds out. So uh but please take the time uh you know 10 minutes worth of work can save your house, can save your family, and it save some firefighters. Thank you.

I think uh I'm dead now after Councilman. No smoke alarm. Don't forget to get your smoke alarm.

Get him a smoke alarm. I I just have one thing tonight. Um yesterday was the annual um state of Kansas Holocaust commemoration. Um I've been going to that for many years. LA yesterday was the first opportunity where I had the privilege of being a part of that ceremony and lighting lighting. They asked me to light one of the candles uh in honor of those who died during the Holocaust. So I just want to thank them for the invite. It's always a a fascinating event in general and an important one. And there aren't there are not many survivors left, but one of them lives over in Kansas City area and she was there yesterday to tell her story. Um there were a lot of students, kids from across the state of Kansas there. So that was obviously very important for them also to hear that story, especially first-person account of someone someone who made it out of one of those camps. So just want to remind everybody that event happens every year and so look for it again next year if you're interested in in participating in it. With that, we have a need for one executive session. City attorney.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The motion would be to recess into executive session for a time not to exceed 45 minutes to discuss non-elected personnel matters involving individual employees as allowed under KSA75-4319B1. The open meeting will resume in this room in the city council chambers. The following individuals will be necessary to aid the governing body in its discussion. the governing body, the director of human resources, the deputy director of finance, and any other staff members as directed. All right, I will move to go into executive session. Do I have a second? Second from Council Member Kell. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

With that, we will take a 10-minute break. Be back here at 9:06 and we will start. Hopefully, you're in here, but I'm starting. If you're not, you won't be here. All right, the governing body has come out of executive session. No action has been taken. This meeting is journed. Better better.