City Council - Regular Meeting

Call the meeting to order. Welcome everybody to the Monday, May 18th work session. Thank you to all our guests for joining us. Uh I guess we'll do separate roll calls. We'll start with council and then move on to our other bodies here as well. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Aen here. Miss Connelly here. Miss DS here. Miss Flynn here, Mr. Schneider here, Miss Mayor Hardy here, and I think we were anticipating possibly Miss Underh Hill for virtual. She said she'll text me when she's joining. Okay. I said if you join, you mean? Yes. Well, keep us posted because then we can coordinate the virtual motion as needed. Uh for the planning commission chair commont planning commission chair here. Yes. Mr. Duncan here. Miss Freellander. Mr. Kraner. Mr. Krainski here. Here. Mr. Pollinski. Mr. Stevens here. And for economic development authority, Mr. Bregman here. Mr. Coyle, Mr. Coyle, Miss Curts, Mr. Quinn, Mr. Williams, and I believe the housing commission wasn't able to join. Yeah, they sent their regrets. So, I'm their leazison and I think they sent a letter this evening. They're also down to three members and so two of the three members sent a letter. Is that everybody? Thank you, mayor. Okay. Well, thank everyone for joining us. I know there was a big meeting packet, so hopefully everyone did their homework and did lots of reading. So, thank you for all that prep work. Look forward to great discussion tonight. Wyatt. Thank you, Mayor Hardy, members of

council, members of the planning commission, uh, economic development authority and housing commission, and general public. Um so tonight um as we have planned for several months now, we want to um discuss both uh the outcome of our community meetings and the direction that we've heard from community that ultimately will turn into updates to our area plans for the Virginia Village area and uh potentially amendments following the updates to our planning documents to zoning uh text to implement an updated vision for Virginia Village. Um, and so that initiating res resolution for zoning text uh uh considerations is uh item one that is before the council tonight. And then item two is a draft request for proposals which we call the big RFP relative to the small RFP um to get some um commercial real estate advisory expertise. The big RFP is to actually go out to the market and to solicit a partner who ultimately would take ownership of the Virginia Village Quadplexes that the city uh in partnership with economic development authority has been acquiring since 2008 and more uh actively since 2000. uh to the extent that we now have uh nine of the 20 properties in the Virginia Village area in the ownership of the Economic Development Authority. Um and so we'll talk about both. Um and we'll start off with a report from uh Jack Trainer on the zoning text amendments, our lead planner on this case. And uh let me ask our planning director, Matt Matusk, if you have any introductory comments that you'd like to make. Sure. Good evening everyone. Um just briefly I think if you've participated

or watched uh the joint meeting joint work session between the planning commission and housing commission you'll see some similar themes about how we are reconciling a lot of the feedback into initially more general uh updates to the small area plans but also the more detailed feedback which uh simultaneously is going into the request for proposals that is going to be item number two uh on the agenda but also being embedded into the zone zoning language so that we can be very clear about more recent feedback we've heard because it is more detailed than the small area plan uh level of information and detail. So with that um I think Jack and Zoe are going to walk you through what that looks like and again a lot of the text is very similar to the last few weeks if not months of information we've been sharing. I think we're trying to be very transparent and walk everyone through uh some aspects are evolving and I think when we get to the second item we'll try to highlight what those are. Uh but that's really based on all the feedback and conversations we've been having since uh March of this year. So with that, I'll hand it over to Jack. Okay. Thanks, Matt. Good evening, council. I'm Jack Trainer. I'm senior planner with the city and um I'm here with my colleague uh Zoe Lariv, planner with the city. Uh and we're uh both going to be handling this presentation and and um any questions and discussion that follows. Uh so the item before you tonight um starting off is a work session on an initiating resolution uh to initiate consideration for uh zoning amendments uh related to um related small area plan proposed changes. Uh and then also reviewing the scope um of those amendments to the small area plans uh which will be um informing the um uh any proposed zoning amendments that would um come um following uh uh an initiating resolution.

So uh how we got here um staff has been engaging um a pretty robust public engagement schedule to date. Um we uh began in March uh having two visioning uh sessions uh related to the Virginia village area and collecting um thoughts on what the uh existing guidance for redevelopment was in the South Washington Street and downtown small area plans. Um gauging how that uh guidance uh fits with um current priorities for the site. Uh and then moving into April, uh staff began kind of synthesizing the feedback we got and identifying buckets for uh where possible kind of targeted uh updates to those small area plans um could take place. Uh and then into May and July um those updates to the small area plans will be going to boards and commissions and city council for consideration. uh and while in the meantime um any proposed zoning ordin uh updates would kind of follow behind. So the the SAP amendments will directly inform um any zoning updates that that follow. Um but tonight would be asking for u just a work session to initiate um that uh consideration process for zoning ordinance amendments. On the next slide, this kind of shows the um scope of kind of cascading influence between the comprehensive plan, small area plans, and the zoning authority. Uh so beginning with the comprehensive plan, that's sort of the the north star uh for all of the city in terms of uh guiding development and investment. Uh so any reasonzoning has to kind of point to goals stated in the comprehensive plan uh and show that um a zoning uh amendment is forwarding those those um goals as a policy document. Um but the small area plans inform the

approach that the goals in the comprehensive plan um lay out. And so if you think about it in terms of um specificity and kind of locality, the comprehensive plan is the most general in stating the goals um and uh again kind of blankets the city. The small area plans relate to really specific kind of neighborhood scale parts of the city and describes uh kind of specific strategies for implementing goals in the comprehensive plan. Um but then the zoning ordinance is the tool that kind of gets into numbers and uh is the most specific in achieving the comprehensive plan goals uh through the approach described in those small area plans. Uh and so this next slide describes the existing uh zoning context for the Virginia Village site which is outlined in yellow. Uh you've seen this graphic before. Um the current zoning uh districts that uh regulate the Virginia village area is RM multif family uh the B2 central business district which is uh that pink color RM is the brown and then the uh entire site is within the mixeduse residential overlay um option one. Uh and so the the current issue is that the zoning tools uh largely consider um redevelopment occurring on a on a larger scale. Uh you can see that the MUR overlay actually also covers the Pearson Square and Tax Analyst site just to the west of Virginia Village. And so the these these zoning tools have things like minimum lot areas and um kind of prescriptic uh prescriptive um uh use ratios that really envision a larger kind of scale redevelopment to to use these tools uh in order for uh to to

kind of react to the goals stated in the comprehensive plan which envisions a a mixeduse um area that's on the uh future land use map. Uh and then also thinking of um various housing typologies um that could exist here. Um and so those are some of the issues that the current zoning um presents and um so any um again future uh zoning amendments would would address these uh along with the specific feedback um that will be implemented into the small area plans in terms of height and kind of more of those details on what those different housing typologies could be uh and what should be permitted in the zoning And uh so we go to the next slide. If I could interject with a quick question. I think the MUR was before most of our time on council. Maybe Dave I guess was on council. What does MUR allow already? So MUR stands for mixeduse residential. Uh and there's three different options. It's uh it's kind of an additional uh overlay that introduces a mixeduse redevelopment option. Um but the MUR ordinance similarly prescribes I think two and a half acre minimum site area which is um about half the the total size of Virginia Village if not more. Uh would have to be contiguous site also. So you couldn't do a kind of split or scattered site. Um and also has um this is sort of what we're describing when we talk about really prescriptive uses. There's specific ratios to minimum commercial areas depending on how much residential you have things that you really do require a larger site in order to comply with the MUR. So it's it's um it introduces a buy mixeduse option if you can meet all the really specific requirements in it.

Threshold being kind of the minimum acreage is probably too high these days given assemblage is always hard. I'm pulling up the zoning ordinance now. Thought it was interesting that the maximum building height in MUR is actually 75 ft tall and that overlay has been on there 20 years if not longer. That's correct. Thank you. Um so um in reviewing the sort of scope of the small area plan updates that will um influence any zoning ordinance amendments. Um these again are informed um by the conversations staff had with the community in the spring of this year uh across four different uh community meetings held at Oak Street Elementary and Columbia Baptist as well as uh more targeted meetings with um folks that live in the uh Virginia Village community now as well as the Tinder Hill uh foundation in in Winter Hill community meetings. Um and so all that feedback we found kind of fit into these four buckets. Um building scale and density transitions, housing and affordability, open space and connectivity, and then complimentary uses. And uh complimentary uses we framed as um things complimentary specifically to housing. Um and so we'll get into um some more details um if we go to the next slide. Uh so beginning with um building scale and density transitions um just just quickly and I won't spend too much time on these. There's the a more specific breakdown of this table uh included as uh an attachment. The planning commission ha had a work session where um these buckets were were kind of um broken down into more specificity but um for the sake of um kind of moving this meeting along. uh we

we kind of grouped those into generally, you know, kind of um similar um concerns that we heard uh within each section. So um beginning with uh you know, height and intensity transitions that are respectful to nearby neighborhoods. So, making sure that we have language addressing buffering and screening and and setbacks and um things that um if redevelopment should happen in Virginia Village um is is mindful of the folks that already live there. Um and you know takes into consideration um those surrounding uses. Um and so yeah, if we go to the next slide, housing and affordability. Uh obviously affordable housing is um the the main driver here. Um and so we heard you know obviously concern for protecting the the renters that live there right now but ma by maintaining existing level of of affordability um not just temporarily or with a uh you know sunset clause but in perpetuity um of any redevelopment. Um and then also um there's there's a need and a want to have a a diverse mix of housing typologies um including bedroom counts um and um so being supportive for a variety of household sizes and kind of life stages. So uh we heard some uh desiraability for you know um firsttime homeowners uh and what would that look like there. We've actually heard that a lot you know across the city across different initiatives. So, it's no surprise that we're hearing this again uh here, too. But also, uh folks that are downsizing um and everything in between um family size, single bedroomedroom um across the board. So, um uh introducing, you know, some sort of uh zoning that would would permit these type of housing typologies.

And the third one's open space and connectivity. Um Big Chimneys Park is a huge amenity to the neighborhood. Uh there's there's desire to um kind of make its profile I think um known a little bit more and so ex extending um wayfinding signage directing people to the park. Um but also exploring opportunities for its expansion and integration into Virginia Village a little bit more. Um there's there's you know some angst that any redevelopment would uh you know not consider that um that it would take up the whole site or something. So, um, what we heard is that Big Jimny should be, you know, um, a consideration for any type of zoning, um, and redevelopment that that happens here. Uh, and again, strengthening connections to the park. Uh, making sure that it's not overshadowed, that the sunlight, uh, is still able to reach it, uh, as well as neighbors that live in the Winter Hill area. Uh, and then also ensuring that there's adequate parking on the site with any redevelopment. We heard um that parking today is can be a challenge um for folks that live there. Uh and and so that's that's another important consideration. Then lastly, complimentary uses. What are what are the uses other than affordable housing? Even though affordable housing will be the main main focus, are there any other opportunities um that that would kind of supplant that that would um be beneficial to have here? Um and so we heard child care, uh adult supportive services, uh different kind of civic and historical uses particularly um around the Tinder Hill area in name. Um and then also if there is any kind of um retail or commercial uses here that they be smaller kind of more neighborhood focused and and not something that's um really reflective in other parts of the city particularly in kind of larger scale redevelopment where

you have kind of larger commercial bays um and rest restaurants. Um, and so I'll just uh touch again on the public engagement schedule. um going into uh you know May and July the next couple months um we're getting work sessions scheduled uh with the planning commission uh and different boards and commissions um on these very considerations uh being the small area plan amendments and um any zoning amendments that would follow uh with anticipated city council adoption um of both happening in July. And so the next immediate steps would be again board and commission review um looking for planning commission dates in June and July uh with a public hearing scheduled for July 15th tenatively uh and then July 27th uh would be a target council date. Um obviously all future dates are subject to change but this is what we've mapped out for right now. And uh so I'll end the presentation there and um Zoe and I are happy to take any questions. Great. Thank you, Jack. I appreciate the matrix. Uh it's been condensed since we saw it in the planning commission, housing commission meeting. Sorry you guys got the very dense version of it. Okay, questions or comments for staff? And we're trying to limit this to the zoning amendments and the small area plan changes and then we'll save the RFP for the second half. Start with planning question. Thanks. Yeah, probably save a lot of the detailed stuff until we have a work session with the planning commission. But a couple things I thought I would

just ask for tonight. One is um seems like the possible risk of a overlay that applies to just Virginia Village could be that it's spot zoning. And I know a lot of times that kind of gets reaction. Is that something you'll address uh in the document uh to kind of make sure that people who may feel that that's a risk that uh that you thought about it and maybe given it uh some examples of why it's not. Uh the other question Sure. Go ahead. So we don't So there's an overlay zone on on Virginia Village now. Um it's it's not clear uh exactly what the zoning product might be best. Um it it could be a new overlay um on the site, but staff isn't proposing anything yet. Right now it's just the kind of exploratory phase to see what zoning products be it um a new zoning district underlying or um something like a new overlay. Um so we'd be doing that sort of investigative work to see to avoid questions like that like it spot zoning. Um it of course go through all the kind of legal review and parameters to make sure that we're we're operating in in the way that we need to legally. Uh the other question I had is looks like you were uh I was going to see if I understood this properly. Looked like you were looking at a 25 foot setback next to Winter Hill. Is that is that accurate under the under option C? I think so. the language there. I wasn't quite sure if that's Yeah. We talk about setbacks and that's what you're actually thinking about. So, that would be an increase over what's in the RM uh zone today. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, in in terms of the the zoning ordinance and and all the numbers, there's there's definitely nothing like set in stone. Um uh so, yeah. So, we'd be looking a little more

closely at what the the current setbacks are now. Um and uh again in in consideration with um any any other things we need to in terms of what the zoning will will permit in terms of height and typology um a setback will you know will be subject to to best yeah address that. Yeah, I guess while we're on the comment of setback, just an idea. I think having learned from kind of where we've evolved with accessory dwellings, like thinking of setback by itself doesn't make sense, right? Because setback is always tied to the height of a building. So be able to think of the interplay of the two, I think, makes sense. Like if you're only a one-story building, you probably don't need a 25 foot setback because that's the height of a shed. If you're thinking a three-story building, then the setback might need to be different. So, um I don't know if that's along along the lines of what you guys are thinking of. Yeah. Changes those or making sure we have the interplay between the two versus a hard and fast number. And I think some of that will become evident when we get into the second item for tonight where I think we prepared some more beneficial educational graphics that kind of speak to that relationship. Um, and I think it will highlight the theme of what you'll probably hear me discuss, which is kind of marrying of these two processes together and how the RFP actually helps the code amendments and the code amendments help the RFP. And that relationship, this two-way street is actually possible as opposed to one having to conclude before the second one can get going or conclude. So, in the second presentation we have, we'll get into some of that. Beth, pretend we're you done. Okay. So, this is just a a quick question related to something that Mr. Turner just said, which is we're not quite sure where we're going to end up here, right? There's a lot of zoning tools available. There's a lot of options. We've heard things from the community. We know what's already there. So, this is going to take a while to get through this process to come up with what the zoning actually is. My question is, and it relates to the second one, too. How is

it like thinking as a developer, which I'm not, how does a developer put forth a proposal if they don't know what the zoning is going to be? How how do we how do you envision that happening? Like it it reminds just there's so much unknown. How could you put together a whole proposal without knowing what the zoning will be? So the design criteria that are embedded in the RFP, I believe that's section three or four, um provide a pretty high level but pretty detailed um assessment of where the code changes are going to end up. So it covers heights, setbacks, land uses. So the guts of what the code changes will be are there. There's if if you're trying to find out what it's going to be, if you're a developer trying to find that guidance, it's there. The debate that Jack was just highlighting is simply as we look at the current code and the various divisions and sections. We're simply just kind of playing around with what are the options available to us so that we are introducing another option for this property as opposed to trying to remove something or complicate the rest of the ordinance. So, it's more of an administrative exercise with the help of our zoning administrator about changes that inform design criteria for future development or renovation or bumpouts, whatever might happen. Where is their best location in the ordinance? So, I I think we're getting to a pretty good place on the design criteria and they've made their way into the RFP so everybody can follow along and the development community can help react to that. the location of where that guidance will live in the ordinance. That's what the next two or three weeks will highlight and when we come back in June, we'll have that information. I I guess what's confusing me is you're talking about the RFP driving the strategy and the specifications for the city including the new the the private owners, the properties that the private

owners are the half that we don't own. RFP is just for the property we own. So, I'm very uncomfortable with the RFP driving the city and the zoning and the small area plans. When early on at the at the beginning of this process, it was very clear the strategy, the small area plans came ahead of the RFP and those feed into the RFP. Putting them in simultaneously, sure, makes sense. doing them in parallel. I'm strong proponent for that. But the one thing we were not on board with and I was not on board with was having the RFP drive the strategy. And that sounds like what is happening here is you're putting the the standards, these setbacks, these design criteria. design criteria is a little different, but by putting them into the RFP, the RFP is driving this the city strategy. And that's a reverse that I'm very uncomfortable with. So, I think two-part response for that. The first one is that the RFP is not driving it the way I think framed it is holistically. Uh I think we have three to four months of public engagement that is fed into what the RFP will be. So there's in this 25page document a lot of information we collected from the community setting up I think what we always mention is that the community feedback will inform what our expectations where our guard rails are for this site. So that's already in there. The testing environment of did we get it right? That's the part that's ahead of us where the development community when they respond will help test whether or not any of that is feasible. And to paint the fuller picture right now, uh, and I'm going to keep explaining this two-way

relationship, once the RFP goes out, currently on schedule for late May, and we continue on uh on schedule with the code changes, there is a time once we get to the first reading of those code changes that if we discover something else or they evolve enough, we can issue an addendum to the RFP to signal the new direction or whatever those tweaks weeks may be. So this is how the code changes will continue to impact the RFP. The reverse relationship of that is once we get to late June, early July and we get those bids back, we have not adopted the code changes at that point. If in the review of those proposals we learn something really interesting, something creative, something we never thought of, we can simply pause the code changes, go back one or two steps and see if we can incorporate those smart ideas we're getting free of charge from the development community into a much better code amendment. And that's by design. That's not an accident. It's a feature. It's not a bug. And I understand that and I'm glad to hear you say that the code changes wouldn't be locked in. Although the schedule in the report shows a second reading and vote in the end of July, which to me that's when they get locked in. So, um, and I appreciate getting the feedback before they're locked in, but to not even have a first reading before they're public and they're set in stone in in a document and sent out, I think is getting ahead of ourselves. uh I think the bare minimum should be uh a first reading so we can see we can discuss we can review today's meeting we are not talking about the specifics of the setback should it be you know the current buildings are 45 ft back from this line I don't have a problem with 35 but 25 gets very tight you're not necessarily going to have one story at that distance um

it's it we're getting ahead head of of that the code changes too much and I'm the the one who earlier this year when we started this was like yes go parallel do it fast push it but I also said if we get farther along and we discover that we're getting ahead of it or we're not quite right we can always adjust and I think going parallel and doing having these aggressive schedules probably has us 6 to 12 months ahead of where we would have been if we had not done that. And if it takes one more month or six weeks to do it right, we're still way ahead. I'd say the whole process has been a win. So what what I would like to say to that is one, I don't think we should fool ourselves that an additional month, six months is going to somehow get everybody on board. I can tell you that now there's going to be a small group of the population that just not going to agree with our direction. That group is voicing very different feedback than what the majority of the uh crowd was at a lot of our public meetings in March and April. Uh some have submitted letters. A lot of them are not here tonight. Um but I do want to kind of pro provide some context about what we're actually hearing and how people feel about the direction this is heading into. I think the debate we're going to have tonight does include setbacks and height restrictions and we're going to have a lot of visuals that accomplish the same thing even though we're speaking about one thing informing the other. So, as we get into the second item, I do want people to just kind of keep an open mind in terms of are we getting to a right place? Are we getting the type of conversation about what is the right number? Uh, and I think the visuals be in my opinion at least quite powerful in setting that expectation. Well, I look forward to that. the um

but the RFP is only for our properties. So we almost need to make sure we are covering all the properties so that after we move forward with the RFP the existing prop the other property owners know what could they do what could they maybe take on which direction they could go and our zoning needs to enco encompass that as well the RFP doesn't so the the zoning decisions really are greater than the RFP decisions which is why I'm having why I'm being uncomfortable without having some picture of what the full zoning is. What's in the RFP discussion is just for our properties. Before we lose that point, I guess set a little differently. Um, so keeping the conversation to the zoning and the small area plan, what do we I guess how do we craft the zoning changes in a way that gets us what we want and informs the RFP process and the two-way street that you talked about, but also for the non city-owned parcels for either a future redevelopment should they choose to sell to the city or future should they sell to the developer if we have one um or should they just keep it permanent? Like what are the implications for the non cityowned parcels as we think about the zoning changes? If I were to summarize all the conversations that have been happening so far, the way that the new district would read uh would simply say that whatever we are creating is going to be very form driven and it's not going to have uh some of the restrictions that I think have prevented uh that overlay district being utilized as effectively as it could have been throughout the city. the entry into that new district to have access to what we consider to be more flexible language but more form driven in capturing all the 2026 guidance we're collecting from the community there has to be I think an exchange and

a return to what we've heard as objectives for this site so what the RFP and our own properties are informing in that an analysis is that in exchange for affordable housing this design flexibility this additional tool to help you redevelop might be eligible. You might be eligible for subsequent efforts to utilize that district once we maybe through our initial phase address the affordability issue could be open space. So access and entry into that new district would only be through creating public parks for example and that could be something that we could set for those private property owners kind of an option. you can basically for every unit you remove from this site, you would owe us x amount of additional affordable units or x square feet of open space. Those are kind of very typical formulas that you can establish as a point of entry into a new district that is much more feasible uh and development uh friendly. Erin, so I'll just I'll jump in on purely the sequencing point. Um, and the I'm going to ask three questions and I think they're easy questions, so hopefully they're like 10-second answers and then I can actually comment on sort of the sequencing issue. So, um, is tonight the first time that we're all hearing about the zoning ordinance change? Like the staff report for the first time is really talking about a new zoning ordinance? We've talked about small area plan amendments. We've talked about an RFP, but this third piece of it is the first time we're talking about the zoning ordinance change. I think in the last few meetings, what we've discussed is based on the feedback we're going to receive, we're going to assess where it belongs. And I think as it became general in nature, uh we highlighted where it impacts small area plans. As it became more detailed, you've indicated that's more suitable for the code or the RFP. And I think what we're showing now and have I guess

for the last several weeks is those more detailed parameters, the guardrails, they should be in the RFP and they should be in the code language. Okay. And then the public meetings, they were focused on the small area plan plan amendments and didn't cover zoning changes. They were focused more on how do we reconcile the affordable housing priorities uh based on what's currently there. So in our background slides, we did cover zoning and we did cover small area plans and the comp plan. So everybody had everything in front of them and then I think we entered into kind of broad questions and and that made sense to me because in looking at the small area plans, I remember very early on, right, saying, I understand the inconsistencies in small area plans. We have small area plans that talk about a park in a community center and we have small area plans that talk about affordable housing. And so you needed to go through a small area plan amendment process in order to make sure you had small area plans that talked primarily about affordable housing so that if any developer came in at the end of an RFP process or anything else, they would have a small area plan that was incorporated into sort of a comp plan to be on the right track to be proposing an affordable housing development and not a park, right? like we needed to kind of reconcile the inconsistencies in what those like um whatever you call them Sim City images looked like in the old small area plans. I guess where my concern is and um I guess I'll just ask another question because I wanted to make sure that I understood this correctly. the RFPs when they come back, the selection committee sees the proposals or the submissions, but they're not public in any sort of way apart from whatever the selection committee puts forward as its selection like are the are the submissions themselves

going to be public? I believe aspects of them could be foyable. uh there may be some information that's proprietary particularly the financial assessments and and models um but we can get back to you in terms of which portions of them um are public but I think that element of it as well as our ability to secure real estate consultants that are already working with staff those are all the filters that help inform the code changes so if we're having a debate about what leads what those filters are really helpful in kind of framing the conversation and making sure that whatever does get codified and continues to live on this property. Um, if there's a push to move those out further into July or even August, um, I think that's more than doable and we have alternative plans we can highlight. And then the zoning issues really like aren't a surprise. Like the RM issue, the myrr issue, the, you know, special exception issue, the affordable housing district issue, like I mean I read, we talked about this in November, right? like in terms of the code is going to restrict what you can do. Is the RM sort of the the guard rail on this? Is the myrr? Do we do this through a special exception that allows 75% affordable housing component? Do you do this through affordable housing ordinance that allows density bonuses? So like the zoning issue, I just I guess I'm a little frustrated with the sequencing because it's it seemed there have been three issues that need to be resolved for this to move forward. And we've focused on two of them which is the timing of the RFP because of the litec housing kind of credit timeline and the small area plan amendment issue to reconcile the like vision and we always knew the zoning issues were there but like now we're a week out from issuing an RFP and we are now like incorporating

prescribed numbers like 25 feet and 15 feet into an RFP without ever having a conversation about that or the zoning changes. And so to me like that gets to Art's concern about is it the RFP that ultimately drives the zoning change and is this not a what you know what could people come back with and how would we want to sort of facilitate that versus we've now told whoever is responding to this RFP in like pretty no uncertain terms as I read the RFP that we've done this to smooth your path on the small area plan amendments and we are basically like in route to a zoning ordinance change that would be the parameters in which you should think about your development. And to me that like is kind of out of order sequencing wise. It's out of order process-wise. It's out of order in terms of having people have buyin into this community. And when I when I think about the comments, like I don't read the comments as people saying I'm not, you know, uh in, you know, looking to help uh what is currently affordable housing remain affordable housing or expand into more affordable housing. I hear people talking about things that are general planning concepts regardless of whether they ever submitted a letter or not. Are there EDA. Yeah, just a um question relative to the direction that's being proposed to be taken right now. Um because I too have concerns about the timing and having spoken, I can't anymore because I'm not a developer anymore. But if I were a developer, one of the worst things you can do is give a developer a document and ask them to respond to it. And it's not clear exactly what they are

responding to. And that's the sense that I've gotten from the fact that we do not have the appropriate zoning in place in order to give them a clear message of what is possible, what is not possible. The other issue or concern I've got is I heard the word spot zone come up. Um what other districts or property in the city would this overlay apply to? Because if it's only this specific piece of property, we have a problem. And I I don't understand why we would put on the table a problematic issue for getting to an end point if we know that there there are, you know, jurymandering is a bad word right now, but I kind of get a feeling about jurymandering in terms of this particular site. We shouldn't be there. We just simply should not be there. And I can't separate this action with the RFP because I want to make a point about the RFP. My sense when we talked about and and why it raised it this evening, the little RFP and the big RFP, the little RFP was associated with bringing in real estate consultants who could help us draft a big RFP. My assumption for the big RFP, and maybe I was wrong, maybe I was asleep, is that we would be looking for ideas for what could be done with this property with with respect to affordable housing. When I read this RFP, and I know that's the second conversation we're going to have, this essentially gives the developer the right to develop that property. That's not where I thought we were. I don't think the community thought we were there. And I think we just need to slow down, fix the zoning issue, and then come back and deal with the RFP process because you can't finish zoning. and you've got an RFP that's out on the street and the developers are putting together what they're going to respond to and then you come back and tell them, "Oh, by the

way, we're changing this, that's what gets them upset and that's what gets them to say, I don't know. I want to deal with with this kind of proposal. So, if it's clear going into it, everybody understands what's going on, you don't have the kind of problems I think we are setting ourselves up for now." And I'll make the same comments for the second conversation because I think I I think there are three good ideas in here maybe. But that's all I want back. Tell me if this idea works, that idea works, or that idea works. But I'm not giving you that deal because if once I know the idea that works, then I go back to the development community and say make your proposal on this particular proposal. So, I guess because none of us are real estate consultants, I'm kind of curious what JLL thinks about where we are with the process and this phase of the RFP and whether we think the zoning needs to be completely buttoned up or whether the design criteria that's in the RFP um is enough to inform the community and get interest. So, I'll start with the second part and then I'll come back to the last two or three points. Some of the benefit of having JL our real estate consultants at the table is that they're able to make sure that of the three scenarios that we have right so full renovation bumpouts or low infield low scale infield development and the more moderate infield development that all three I think have as much information available for the development community to have more adequate and comprehensive responses or at least detailed enough where they can develop a kind of a financial model off of that that doesn't mean everything has to be spelled out. Um, but what we've done is kind of beefed up the renovation side by being more explicit about what the status of these units are. So, if you look at that initial scenario A kind of building by building, we went through of what our reports phase one analysis, environmental, and site inspections have covered. So, you can see more or less

what you're getting into. And as part of the RFP, we highlighted that in addition to a pre-conference meeting we would have, we'd actually meet folks on site and kind of do a site tour so you can really see in person what everything looks like. All optional, not required, but available. Um, with respect to the infill scenarios, um, what JL indicated is that we should be as explicit as possible so we get very similar responses. the less detail, the more broad-ranging uh development proposals we can see. With that in mind, we've highlighted everything we've been hearing from the community. Uh so those two pages of development guide guidance or criteria if you want to call it that. Um kind of walk you through the last three months of work and word for word capture what we've been hearing. So I think there's a lot of consistency in there. I do want to kind of push back on the premise that until we finalize the code changes, the RFP can't go out. The development community and I've worked with a lot in different scales and in different areas. They have more than enough to respond to this. That's just a fact. The only thing that tweaks to the height restrictions, tweaks to the setbacks, all they're going to do is add disclaimers that say if this changes by a couple of feet, I may lose this many this percentage of my units. That's all it is. Or they might put some additional disclaimer that if the height restrictions change by more than 30 feet, then we have a problem. That's all great feedback. That's actually something we want to know because I'd hate to go through the code changes first as a lot of you are alluding to only to get to a product that can't be built. Wouldn't we want to know that first? This is where the free advice is coming in. And this is where we can always pause or go back one or two steps once we get to July and August and learn from the developers about how realistic

are these changes that we're proposing. So if one has to lead the other, again, there's some redundancy here, but I think the RFP actually allows us to gain a lot of education to make the best code changes possible as opposed to us pretending like we have it all figured out, getting the code changes in place, and then being surprised why nobody's building it as has been the case with the MUR district. There's very few examples of that being utilized. Never. We didn't get that. We didn't get that feedback from the development community. So likewise accessory dwelling units, we debated setbacks and heights for a long time and to date it's been a year since we passed that ordinance and I think we have zero submitted and permitted. So I think getting market feedback is realistic. Now, you know, all the comments about the right sequencing are fair, but the sound bite that I want to make sure is corrected though is having been to all four of those community sessions. I think staff actually did a really good job capturing all that feedback and that is what is driving the proposed changes in the small area plan, potential code changes in zoning ordinance and the RFP. I think it'd be unfair to say that one is driving the other because I think having been through all four and I tried to circulate the tables, I think kudos to Matt and your team because I do think that a lot of feedback that was heard is actually really distilled and summarized accurately. So, thank you for that. And and the last thing I'll just mention real quick, we're not receiving specific proposals with this process. The the RFP is very specific in section 4. This is what you need to provide us with schematic conceptual site layout of what do you think actually fits here. We're not looking at architecture. We're not looking at your sim engineering plans. It's a very high level of based on what you gave me, this is what I think could work with, I'm sure several disclaimers we're going to see and based on the limited information I have, here's how I think this could might maybe work out financially in terms of how we're going to be able to get financing and everything else to pull this off. So, this there will still

be a whole separate review process for a project later on, but we do need to know if there's something there there. And part of what's in the RFP is they might come back and say, "You need at least three more lots. We don't have enough here." That would be great to know because that really does inform some of the other work we're doing. Was there another comment from the EDA or question? A little bit because right next to me, you know that, right? Yeah. Just checking. Um, when I look at this, I see the overlay proposal as something that's been very successful across the country. I mean, Arlington, Fairfax have multiple overlay districts. Um, so I don't have any concern about that. I like the idea of getting feedback because then as you said we would not make a mistake in what kind of coding we would put in there. Obviously the devil's in the details in any of this. We'll set the parameters but then there's going to be a lot of negotiation about everything everybody's talking about. Planning commission is going to have to do a lot of work on that. So overall I'm in agreement with the approach. I do appreciate Allen's input and because he's been there and I hope we look at what he said seriously and decide is the process the process we want to continue to use. That's how I would look at it. Can I ask a question about submissions which is just so is the concern because I always looked at this RFP like the actual RFP and I was like this is really bizarre like what you know why would someone spend time responding to this RFP or spend money responding to this RFP like for your free advice like why are

well who's out there giving you free advice right like and so and so that and so and so to me right like It's not the, oh, let's let's just see and everyone's going to draw things for us and they're going to submit it and it's all goodwill because we all want to do things for affordable housing. And so it seems to me, right, that the that the zoning piece had to be in there in order to elicit responses, right? Like am I misunderstanding the market that the market just does things for free out of like goodwill and like that the RFP you were going to get these? It's I think it's called marketing, but it it's it's no different than when consultants like the ones we just partnered with free of charge prepare a lot of information to be in the running to help us with this process. They they didn't send us an invoice for the proposal they put together, for the meeting they had with us, for the revisions, for everything else. I'm sure that costs money, but it's part of their business model where sometimes, yes, you do have to review some things free of charge to be able to get business. I I actually don't want to I can't underscore how many eyes are on this particular site and the interest that's out there to be the first fully affordable project in the city. A lot of people, a lot of firms would love to have the rights to that, be able to market themselves as being the first in false church. There's a high demand to to be the one that gets in the door and works with us. So that again, I don't want to underscore that, but that's already out there. We also now have six months worth of advertising ourselves since November when we laid out this aggressive schedule. People are watching. There's media coverage. There's a lot of additional debates that are having. Our community meetings are elevating this. So, there's a lot of people asking for us. I was just at a housing conference last week. I didn't have to open our mouth. People were approaching us. When are you going to

issue the RFP? There's firms dedicating staff just to this one site because they're ready and have probably already started to evaluate what's possible. Um and I think the dividends will pay off if and when somebody actually has a chance to work with us. So apart from the litec timeline, what is the downside of sort of what Allan had talked about in terms of the RFP like soliciting this feedback or eliciting this these ideas and then saying okay we understand what these look like now. They give us a sense of what we might be able to do and we're gonna perfect what the zoning is like and then go out and kind of do this for real with you know a zoning kind of code or ordinance conversation that we've had to then select what is actually a partner as opposed to taking the pieces and you know putting them together now in the document that basically says come back to us and we're going to like smooth out the zoning issue for do in the meantime. I think if you're asking about what gets paused, potentially delayed so the other item can get to a certain milestone. Um, if that's the question, then I think the RFP should continue as currently planned. Um, and the code changes maybe get pushed back by several weeks in the event, and that's a big if, right? We're all presuming that there's going to be something that that's going to surprise us. But in the event that I think we feel like we need to take a step back or re-evaluate some new ideas and creativity that's come in, then we have that space to do that. So, we would not be finalizing the last one or two bullets in our schedule for July to finish the code changes until we've made that assessment and our consultants advise us to do that. I guess what I'm most concerned is about the like we're picking you at this point in time and we haven't had like any conversation about

a zoning ordinance change or like how this doesn't fit in like five kind of pieces of our ordinance that are trying to do this thing right now and aren't working for different reasons maybe suggest we haven't given the staff for I think it' be useful to do that in terms process back in October when we met we did talk about this process and reason updated and then you go out market sorry about that um the difficulty with that is you have this long lag time you have intense public engagement over the the the document ments and then you know several months pass and then the community comes back in because there's the RFP is out there and it may be for feasibility purposes we have to change what we just adopted. That's the experience that many local governments have and I think that's an experience that Arlington has had. And so that was the argument for this parallel process and we also anticipated back in October that when the RFP is before us is going to be the crux of the matter. That's going to be a really important time when we're kind of launching this. Do we have the document right? And so, um, I would suggest we shift our focus to the RFP. What the opportunity is is to discuss the wording of the RFP. Do we have it phrased right? And sort of focus first on that granular level and then we can step back and say now having worked on it together, do we still agree that this parallel process is the right process? I think that sounds good to me. Well, I want to comment the the parallel process I'm totally on board with. I

think even when we started it, we knew down the road there might have to be some tweaks to it. And what I'm talking about at this point, cuz at the point at that early point, we didn't know what how great the zoning changes would be, if there would even be any. Um it's that piece of it is like it I think in my mind we've reached that point where we need to look at it and say do we need to tweak how in parallel and not how the fact that we're just now initiating the zoning is what's really that I'm concerned with and it really feels like the RFP is going to drive zoning versus having them work in parallel. and have them work together because we're talking about moving on in this meeting to the RFP to talk about the zoning for the site instead of talking about the zoning for the site as part of the zoning. That's what we're kind of doing here. I think the thing, if I could interject, I think the thing we're getting lost by is arguing over whether we're changing zoning or small area plan or what an RFP when really I think based on the comments we're hearing is people want to make sure the community feedback is incorporated into all the above, right? Like that's the point is that if we're worried about moving too fast, I think the thing that we want to make sure we keep in mind is is the community feedback as well as the policy goals that we're trying to accomplish being noted in all these documents rather than does it live in the zoning? Does it live in the small area plan? Does it live in the RFP? Because ultimately that's what the past several months have been is to make sure we did a good job hearing the community and make sure all those things were put in the right place so they can inform each other. We can continue debating whether it's the right parallel process, whether it's in zoning or whether it's zoning right now or doing smaller plan now or whether we're doing RFP. But ultimately, I think our job is to make sure that we are reflecting the community input and the policy objectives and what we're trying to

accomplish with this project and figure out which document it goes in. And if we are trying to be ambitious and shoot for a timeline, what is the staff recommendation on how to get there? I think staff is laying out a process for us. Um I guess why do you think it would be helpful to move to the RFP process? Ideally, there's language in the RFP. If there are things that people think are too prescriptive, getting ahead of zoning, okay, let's talk about those words on the page and how they could be modified or conversely too vague. Maybe we'll be more precise. I think that's what we'd like to be able to have the opportunity be more productive and continuing to beat this dead horse. Can can I ask uh one question not specifically to the RFP but um you know I know when we started this process we knew it was going to be tight the timeline and I know the driver was the tax credits I believe was March um when we could submit to get some tax. Now uh we talked about solar recently when we knew those tax credits are going to go away. Now, this is something that's not going to go away, right? So, if we miss if we do miss it, we can re we can reapply the following year. That's right. Okay. I just want to make sure that's clear because that's different from the solar discussion we had, which is that's that tax credit. We believe that's true. There's a lot that changes in this world. We believe that changing LITC financing would be a massive change for things beyond solar. So, it's not going to happen. Quick question. Um there there's a lot of discussion about whether zoning, small area plan changes or whatever may need to take place in order to allow for development to happen on this site. The first two scenarios under this RFP don't require any zoning change at all. So the only thing that's pushing that discussion is scenario C, which is effectively a redevelopment of a number of the properties, presumably the adjoining properties on the site. That's the whole thing that's driving this discussion.

I think scenario B also had some bumpouts that would need some adjustments, but that that's not zoning. If you put an addition on on a on a comp a building that we're talking about, that's not a major change because you get into lot coverage areas and the like, you could add a couple of bedrooms on those units and it would not be a problem. C is the one that causes the need to have to look at a zoning change. So, if there was no zoning change made, you wouldn't be able to do this. So I think as you'll see in our presentation, scenario B actually does trigger a lot of that because of how the site is structured. A typical quadplex uh and I think part of what we're hearing about setbacks actually does conflict with bumpouts, any kind of horizontal expansion we want to see. So I would say B and C are triggering the changes. Yeah, I I would I'd like to sit down and review that with you because I would argue that you could get away with doing additions to those buildings and not have to go through a zoning change. Let's jump into the RFP then. Sounds like people are ready for that. All right. So, if we can go to slide two. There we go. Um, helpful reminder in terms of why we're doing this in the first place. Um and I I think it is helpful to reor reorient ourselves to where portions of the property are in our control and that we're really focusing the RFP um guidance and requirements to uh and also highlight how the uh real estate consultants are helping us with this process. Uh they're on board. They've provided a lot of helpful feedback uh as we met with them and uh rewrote the uh second version of the RFP. So diving right in, if you go two slides later, um the document itself uh has approximately six sections. Uh the latter ones are really governed by purchasing rules, so we're not going to speak too much to that. Um the first two are really just factual background

information. So kind of where are we? What's our housing situation like? It's really three and four that I wanted to focus on and I think we're going to continue to have a healthy debate about. And that is what are we requiring of the site? What are the expectations? What have we heard from the community that has been directly embedded into this document? And then once we receive that information, how are we going to prioritize? How are we going to sign points? What is the evaluation process look like? Uh so this is where I think uh the benefit of these type of conversations um including the one we had a couple weeks ago with the planning and housing commission is really helpful. So if we go to the next slide um focusing on that first section uh we alluded to the fact that there are three scenarios uh and the way we highlighting them are scenario one is if somebody were to purely do renovation and rehab to the existing structures um we've had the benefit of incorporating a lot of analysis from reports and uh inspections. So I think building by building you can kind of see what you might be getting into and we hope that that level of detail will help uh have more prescriptive and detailed proposals and financial evaluations associated with them. Scenario B um is a evolution of what I think we originally had. We've gotten some feedback and that could this second scenario represent bumpouts perhaps a third floor added if we wanted to increase bedroom sizes if we wanted to add additional floor here and there. But could maybe some of those units be demolished in place for lowcale uh infill development? So this will be a kind of a distinguishing factor between the final scenario which is more moderate infill. But I think we wanted to kind of highlight that the scale of what we're trying to achieve with scenario B is similar depending on whether you renovate and do bumpouts or just simply uh redevelop but at a smaller scale. Uh the RFP also has uh options for hybrid responses. or folks really get creative and see an

opportunity based on what we own. Um they could kind of pick and choose. Uh they could also come back and say none of those really work. There's just no way to finance it. Uh so either we continue to be patient, acquire additional lots or uh proceed in a very different direction. We have a lot of language throughout the RFP that encourages that. Um, so that table you see on the bottom kind of gives you a sense of uh kind of a applesto apples comparison across those three scenarios. Uh, I know there's been a lot of discussion about heights um and how many units we might yield. Uh, we have reduced the minimum unit expectation in scenario C. uh because even though it's lower than the kind of a sweet spot for financing that we've heard, which is generally around 120 units, I think setting a lower minimum does open up creativity. And I think what we're hearing is that uh it might provide more options for us to consider. So, um that's something that we're factoring into the code changes where we talked about for every unit potentially removed from the site, maybe two and a half to three, maybe it's five. what is that ratio like to make sure that we are growing affordability on this property. All right. Uh next slide gets into the selection process. Uh we kept talking about a selection committee of the last few meetings. Um, currently where we are is, uh, looking at a five person roster, if you will, uh, kind having a citywide representation between the various commissions, the EDA, obviously, city council, uh, and staff to work with our real estate consultants and kind of be as prepared as possible for the bids that might come in, uh, review and make recommendations about who might be the top uh, bidder in that process. And then finally, the criteria for evaluation. um the latter parts of the RFP discuss based on everything we've asked for and what we're hearing that the community wants to see here. Um here's how we are prioritizing the creativity that the

development community might bring to this. Uh the two biggest buckets if you will are the program concept obviously uh you know what range of units what housing typologies how creative can someone uh interpret what what's currently on the site but then also the budget and financing where we've broken it down into not just how you know feasible your proposal might be but how are you helping minimize our subsidy moving forward into this uh project particularly with respect to gap financing. Um there are some other categories that looking at other RFP documents and surrounding jurisdictions I think we found very helpful and our consultant agreed would really make for a better uh process. So you you'll see those there obviously qualifications um and kind of the schedule that develop developers are proposing uh when it comes to financing and construction. Moving on to the next series of slides. So, this is I'm going to spend a little bit more time on each one of these because this really gets into the meat of the first issue, which is what's really feasible here. We wanted to highlight what a typical quadplex looks like on this property. Uh most of them are about 70 ft wide, 110 ft long. When you look at the typical lot, you can see there in the white font the various side, front and rear setbacks. Uh and then most of the buildings themselves are about 40 by 40 feet. Uh so this is kind of the starting point. Um and what we wanted to highlight is that if we're looking at scenario B, uh and this is a lot of feedback we collected from the community that if we don't do larger infill, perhaps bumpouts could help us get to some of these goals. Uh we're already at 15t on the side. So bumpouts are just not feasible in that direction. The front yard is 30 feet. Uh we might be able to get another five feet, maybe 10. uh into that area, but pretty quickly we're gonna start making these uh non-conforming. So the real opportunity that the really only

opportunity that we see in terms of a horizontal expansion is into the rear. So if we are serious about making sure we are getting proposals that address bumpouts and focus more on the lower scale development, we have to be able to have a conversation about the rear setback of 40 ft. maintaining that or increasing it as we've heard from some is just not realistic for either scenario B or scenario C. So this is a really interesting starting point I wanted to highlight. There's a few others I want to also point to in the next few slides but this really sets the stage for the rest of the conversation. So if we go in the next slide the focus here is how are we looking at those impacts. So, we start to look at the numbers. The staff report and the RFP have specific setback dimensions and height restrictions. Let's look at the southern end uh which is the focus area one closer to tax analyst building and the northern end closer to big chimneys which is focus area two. And what would a cross-section look like if we were to compare what's there today and what the RFP is currently recommending in terms of height and setback guidance. So, these are the two areas we're going to go through for the next three or four slides, but I wanted to introduce what that looks like now that we know what a typical quadplex property uh is providing. So, in the next slide, uh we highlight really the topography changes that occur between the two uh properties of Virginia Village and Winter Hill. And this is a very delicate and critical aspect because they are not level. So, when we look at a two-story option on one side, it is not two stories on the other. If you walk the site, and staff has several times. We've been there with our urban designers, with our arborist, we've taken an inventory of the trees. Uh there's a lot of vegetation that needs to be replaced. Uh but there aren't any critical root zones along that edge that require a significant setback. That is what consideration that we've applied to here. What you will

see, and this is really true for that entire edge, is that what is typically a first floor of a typical Winter Hill condominium is actually the second floor of the Virginia Village quadlex. That's how the grade works. There's a approximately four to 5 ft of elevation change on the Virginia Village side. So, if you look at the image on the right, there's a small hill that most of the lots have before a privacy fence gets introduced. And then you can see just above the privacy fence the entry doors into those Winter Hill units and the top two floors above that. So the point we're trying to make with this slide is just in the existing conditions, what we're really modeling Virginia for are threestory structures that are currently in Winter Hill. Even though they're technically two, their elevation treats them as three. And that's an important existing condition that we need to be mindful of. So with that in mind, if you look at the next slide, what we tried to do is look at all the feedback we received and the sensitivity that obviously was highlighted was along Winter Hill and big chimneys. So the red line that you see edging the property is where those sensitive setbacks and height restrictions have been applied. What we've also heard is that the other edges, B America, Tax Analyst, and Maple Avenue don't have those same issues. So we can be a little bit more fluid and flexible as it relates to those setbacks and height restrictions. So when you see the RFP and those numbers jump out to you, that was the approach we took. Uh and again, both numbers can continue to evolve based on feedback we received, but this is why you see two different sets of numbers. We're not treating the whole site with the same condition. And the final two slides on this topic uh deal with the existing condition and then what our RFP guidance which is modeling the code changes. What would what that would do? So focus area one is the southern end of the property. So now

we are I'm sorry this is actually on the northern end closer to the big chimneys with the elevation changes we just highlighted. Okay. You can see on the upper right what the current conditions look like where Winter Hill basically is an extra story above Virginia Village. In our proposal, we would not only cap heights at three stories as we get towards that 25 foot setback from the lot line, but then make sure that if any additional floors are added, they are pushed back and recessed so that we achieve a 45 degree uh angle. This will allow light and air to reach uh the uh zone of setbacks and the adjacent properties. This is a pretty common approach to not just prescribing height limits and setbacks, but making sure as people consider creativity in a development program, they recognize that upper floors have additional guidance as well. And again, if the feedback is we need to tweak some of those, if something has to be pushed back or the angle has to be adjusted, we're happy to have that conversation. That's why we're here. But I think we do need to start with something and based on the current conditions, we felt that this was something appropriate and I'm happy to get feedback on that. The second focus area uh has a slightly different situation because here instead of having the Winter Hill buildings closer to the property line, they're actually 20t away from that fence. So the combined effect is really 45 ft between the two buildings. So that same approach of a three-story restriction, 45 degree angle uh for any um bulk plane uh before upper stories begin gives you an even greater separation uh and access for light and air to reach the adjacent properties. So this is kind of the level of graphics we're still working through and kind of utilizing to inform the guidance that we've heard uh because to really ensure we have properly vegetated setbacks and incorporating for topography changes between the two sites. We felt like this

was actually appropriate uh and if the debate allows us to evolve that even further, we can come back next week with slightly modified numbers. Um but we believe this is a great starting point. And then the last thing I'll mention is the process which uh looking backwards does engage a significant amount of stakeholder groups. We've been very heavy with the staff uh team both in housing and planning to work closely with the current residents. Uh we actually have a third meeting just for them coming up in early June. Um we've also met with the Winter Hill community several times. Uh the Ter Hill Foundation continues to have uh regular updates and we continue to communicate in addition to the web presence. We've had the flyers uh and additional uh notifications including the focus. So the last two slides in this presentation kind of get us to the planning scenario. So I've tried to break this slide up into two where we look at where are we now, what additional meetings are in front of us. Per tonight's conversation, this is still fluid and again things that might happen on the RFP site might inform the schedule. Um, but if you go to the next slide, we bring in the RFP and kind of signal how in late May, we like to get to a point where we issue it and then in late August be able to receive and recommend a uh top development team. So, I believe that should be everything unless we have one more. Is that it? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Um that was really helpful to understand kind of the thought that went behind the setbacks especially not just the relationship as we were talking about between height and setback but also current topography and how that feels in the current condition. So thank you for sharing that. Uh questions or comments on the RFP? I'm going to ask the planning commission because you guys have been quiet since Tim.

Do you all have any further comments or questions? Uh maybe you could talk a little bit about option A and why we are including it in the RFP. The sort of rehabilitation only no additional units. What's the value of having it in there? I think it's representative of feedback we've heard at various conversations both community um and here where we don't want to pres just make the leap that development is the only solution here uh and understanding or having greater clarity about how much money would it take to just renovate and preserve what's there today. So if we have control over uh half the site, so 10 buildings, that's 40 units. How much would it take overall to renovate those buildings just to preserve 40 units? Right? So kind of like a dollar figure per unit, if you will, and of that dollar figure, how much of it is coming from us versus maybe other sources? a process that I think is going to highlight the limited venue of how many funding streams are available for those type of efforts as opposed to perhaps infield development. But I think to allow everyone not just the transparency but to also come along for this conversation, we do need to ask that question because maybe we're missing something. Maybe there is a magical solution and maybe preserving what's there today, even if it only gets us 40 units right back is maybe the best we can hope for. Um, part of that I think informs the other end of the spectrum, which is scenario C, that if we're not ready for that level of development, because maybe we need to consolidate and get additional lots, what do we do in the meantime? Because it may be another five, 10, 20 years before any one of the remaining property owners is willing to sell to us. We've had conversations over the winter. I

think this is it for now. So, if we are currently property owners and a lot of these units, as we've now made it clear, require a lot of investment, a lot of renovation, who's going to pay for that? Uh, and that's a question I think we all need to have a better grasp on once we come out of the summer. So, what we're hoping to get from this for option A is uh ideas from the development community about funding streams that we could have to complete those renovations. I mean, do we know the dollar amount for what those renovations might cost if we done that kind of analysis? I mean, you have a good inventory here of what the needs are, but um I guess why are we going to the development community for that information? Is it because we think that they can also tell us how what funding streams we might be able to tap to complete that or that they don't exist? I mean, so far I think we've made strategic and surgical investments in terms of replacing a roof, some appliances, um some kind of critical elements. Uh every month additional ones come up. These are 80 plus year old units. So we're going to get surprised uh every year, every month. So the costs are kind of already embedded into the process as we speak. But part of what I think we really need to hear, maybe perhaps a tiebreaker is having the development community kind of help us all clarify between these three options, what's really realistic and what is kind of fiscally responsible of a city uh in terms of the return on that investment. So if we come if they come back and tell us infill development is preferred because it's just hard to justify expanding so much resource and and money into just receiving the same amount of units and during the process uh kind of having folks live somewhere else because this construction is not something you can live through. Um is that something we really should be pursuing? Uh and I think there's a lot of question marks about now that these are ours, what do we do? Um, so I think we wanted to pose the question however unlikely that outcome might be just to kind of get a

clarification and confirmation. Okay. Um, we may agree to disagree on the value of proposing the question to the development community, but that's fine. Um, I trust your professional judgment. I want to ask about scenario B because you said earlier that um, uh, the advice you got from the development community is to be very explicit. So you get similar proposals, but now it sounds like scenario B is kind of a pretty broad range of potential things that could happen, including renovation with a bumpout, renovation with additional story, or maybe we're taking down some of the structures and putting in like a two to three to four STO. I mean, those are that's like a pretty wide range of potential outcomes. So are you concerned that now scenario B is a little bit mushy because it's sort of like a wider range? uh or do you think it still kind of meets the best practice that the development community advised you on? I think it falls more cleanly in the scale of change which I think was a common theme. I think a theme everybody can really relate to status quo interior finishes nobody's going to notice. um three to four story, two to four story scale of development uh either through bumpouts or uh minor infill or something that's closer to three to seven stories. Um in that uh I think part of the challenge is that we don't want to end up with too many scenarios and that has consequences. Is there a reason that three is the best practice number of scenarios? The the thing I will probably remind everybody because this will apply to a lot of questions is that if you look at the schedule that's in the RFP, there is a question deadline. So folks when they receive this, they have two weeks to think it over. They can send us questions. We'll be very responsive. We will have a pre-conference meeting, additional opportunity to clarify if we're vague or confusing, conflicting, uh, and we can issue an addendum. So that's three different opportunities to

clarify based on the reactions we get. uh and I think a lot of times it's very difficult to see how this is going to be received but I think our consultants are helping us with that. Uh thank you. Uh first let me uh just add on to uh what Andrea was uh talking about with the uh scenario B. First of all, thanks for changing the scenario based on our feedback from the planning commission. It looks like you added some of uh you you modified scenario B to include uh low-rise residential development, which is which is uh which is good. It gives the community some options. Um but it does seem as though uh for the scenario B, it is a little muddled. It might be cleaner to take the preservation that includes bumpouts and add uh B1, which is full renovation plus bumpouts to the first scenario. And that way you have essentially three separate scenarios. You have a preservation scenario. You have a um demolition and lowrise residential development scenario. And then you have a demolition and higher development scenario. It gives you essentially three things to look at. Uh it it just seems like right now B has a lot of different options from tearing things down to, you know, bumping out uh the existing quads and stuff like that. I just think

you would you'd be a little cleaner if you structured it. preservation that includes bumpouts, demolition, and low-rise development, three to four stories, and then uh the more aggressive uh infill uh in the higher density. It's just a suggestion. And my the other comment that I wanted to make was I'm a little concerned that when you get into the source selection, the selection committee that's all very close hold. So what happens? How do you get that community feedback? What if one proposal comes in as preservation and one proposal comes in as high-rise development? How do you make that source selection without that community feedback? Obviously, once you're in the source the selection process, you're pretty close hold. I guess there's some foyable pieces to it, but you can't necessarily talk to the community about, but somebody's going to make a decision that we want low-rise development, high-rise development, preservation based on the proposals that you get, and you're not you're going to do that without community feedback, it seems. Is that correct? So part of what you're describing and back to your first point, if I combine the two, it might actually be easier just to extract what I think you called B1 into its fourth scenario rather than I think uh complicating the renovation site because I think a lot of feedback we've heard is to have a very clean renovation scenario. So I I would be uh going backwards on a you know

commitment we made to that group. Uh so I think the cleanest way to address I think those last two comments is to extract the three to four story infill scenario make its own think we're still in single digits so it's okay. Um the larger point though RFP selection has first of all purchasing rules. So selection committees once they're established yeah it is kind of like a closed door situation. What I would argue is that the representation that's on that roster I think is representative. So I think we were very mindful of who we are uh inviting or having a conversation with. But the selection criteria, there's like three pages of this in the document that speak to what's really important to us. How will we prioritize? How will we assign points? So that's all spelled out for and that's really something where currently anybody can weigh in on. Uh, and I think that guidance on how we will evaluate proposals is how I view the public feedback informing the process as opposed to every single resident being at the table on every single decision because that's just that's not feasible. No, I appreciate that. I I just think you have assuming the preservation is perhaps a throwaway. It may it may or may not be a a viable option. Uh then you have essentially low-rise development which might have a lot of community support and uh or more high-rise development. And somewhere along the way, you're going to have to have community feedback to say which of those two options is in uh the most important for you or or is the best option. So I think expanding it so instead of three scenarios we have four tackles some of that. We also have a clause in there where hybrid options are also encouraged. Uh so it's really a

kind of a full menu. Uh we're not being really restrictive and we want creativity. Um again I think there needs to be some level of trust in selection committee to do their job but we're basically spelling out their instructions for us in this document. So the point assignments if we need to reconfigure that uh if there's a separate category we feel is missing that we need to add so that we are expressing what their evaluation should be that's something that I think we still have time to do um and staff is willing to kind of take that feedback I appreciate that thanks yeah I was going to ask you a question about the scenario C and the selection of 100 units as a minimum I was just wondering if you could elaborate on that as to how got to that number of 100. And does that drive any particular renovation in your mind as far as the you know type typology of of renovation that might occur with that number? Part of what I think is interesting in that we don't have you know half the entire property consolidated. So we we have control over the two ends and that could be a limitation but it's also an opportunity for creativity. Um as I look at the site as others have so far I think one site one edge of the site could help the other. Uh and I think creative teams will have a f we'll have a way to make sure that we are fully utilizing what's currently available to us as it relates to the 100 unit count. the feedback we've gotten, and I think we've been very clear about this in our conversations this past winter when we've sat down with several development teams. Uh I think in our January staff report, I think we've expressed a lot of the feedback we received. Um almost everyone that deals with low-income housing tax credits highlights that there was a sweet spot

where if you don't have enough units, you're just not competitive enough. Other projects will win out that year. If you have too many, that also becomes a problem in addition to parking and everything else. So this kind of a sweet spot uh that continues to be the range we want to target is something we're keeping an eye on, but we don't want to be too prescriptive where if we set too high of a minimum and somebody with all the restrictions and guardrails we're putting on this site is not able to meet it, then we have another problem. So I think lowering that was a strategic move because of the height restrictions and the setbacks which are eating further and further into the site and therefore based on what's left, how much can you actually fit? But that's kind of the question ahead of us is can you actually get to 100? Uh maybe they can. Phil on the planning commission looks like you have trying to get to everyone who has not spoken. Um sticking with that number discussion. Um the uh 120 number that you cited earlier is uh one of the sweet spots for financeability. Is it possible to design a scenario that uses essentially the ends of the property, the city- owned buildings to the north and to the other side by the bowling alley and overlooking tax analysts to create uh height and density and numbers that get you above 100, maybe 120, while preserving a central core of current owners who can decide to do at some point in the future what they want to do. Is that

a scenario that the market could nibble at? I mean, I I'm personally not charmed with that. But I I would like to see us aim for a number closer to the number of affordable units that we're, you know, going to be losing in the next four to five years. And I think that number is about 160. Um, I would I would trade density and height uh for 160 units if I had the whole site uh and increase the setbacks around the edges of the property by having five stories on maple stepping down to four to I think where you were in your graphic representations. At any rate, are are either or both of those scenarios still in play based on what you are proposing that we put out to the development community? I think as I understood your question and comment uh they are part of what and I understand there were some comments that came in uh in the last few days to make sure we have full flexibility. We are prescribing the form that we believe needs to be respected on this site by accounting for setbacks not just from winter hill but big chimneys. So I think if you go back to kind of the red boundary the delicate edge conditions that's driving and depressing the buildable area because the buildings do need to step down based on the relationship of Virginia Village to Winter Hill to big chimneys southern exposure. we do have to factor that in. And I think inevitably to do it right, which is the objective here, that is going to lower the unit counts. So I I think going above a certain floor count is just simply not realistic. Uh plus even if you did, you probably right on the edge of concrete construction versus

woodframe, that's going to have its own challenges. Um, what we thought was really important, there's one or two bullets in the RFP that stipulate this, is to be very creative with our own right ofway. Uh, the right of way is what separates some of the lots that we currently assembled. Maybe there's some creativity and opportunities in that. Uh, particularly since we have access to both ends of the property. Uh so I think within that uh and given the heights that we have um we should have a path to get to 100 units hopefully more uh on the scenario that's number three. The second one what might become number four that's more of a question mark because that middle housing typology is it a townhouse is a garden apartment what does that look like? Um, and again, the economics of tearing down a quadplex with four units just to bring back something very similar, you don't have to be a developer to understand that that's not really the best course of action. And when you say a 100 units, right now we have 80 units there. They're all onebedrooms. Would your 100 unit building include a mix of bedroom types? One, two, and perhaps even three. So this is where a we keep using the 40 number because we only have access to half the site and the remaining half the central portion could stay the way it is for decades to come. Uh so we are not anticipating change happening there although at some point when we codify uh the changes opportunities for either affordable housing or open space could be embedded in that as it relates to um the the ratio that we are generating right now. If you look at 40 units on the city control portions and us being able to potentially achieve a 100 units, that's a factor of two and a half. And that's closer to what most developers would tell you. If I'm going to remove something, I need to come back with three times as much density for it to

actually pencil out. Those are just facts. That's not even an opinion. So, let's use that. Right? If we know, and this hasn't changed, if anything, it may have gone up. Maybe it's four or five now given the market conditions, but it usually was you got to give me at least three times more if I'm going to take down a building. Uh so what does that look like for this piece? If we're going to be only impacting what we have access to, uh we can't control what happens on the inside of the property. Do you think that they would present options for multi-bedroom units or would they see it as, you know, basically what it is now, which is onebedroom apartment? be it'll be challenging but more achievable with scenario C the larger infill uh structure because if if you look at the current quadplexes as they are structured today and you simply try to reintroduce a similar scale of development but suddenly instead of just replacing one bedrooms with one bedrooms we've asking you for more two bedrooms or three bedrooms you're going to lose unit counts because you have larger units. So now we're going backwards. is if we're achieving one goal, we're sacrificing another. Uh so that is another factor we have to consider and the evaluation criteria I think gets us there. Which of these helps us get to the larger citywide objective for affordability um and it includes both the unit count but also the bedroom sizes and the mi levels. Okay. Thank you. Is there anyone else who has not spoken yet before I go back around for a second round? Mary Beth, Dave, Laura, Dave? Sure. Um I don't want to preclude anything though that our boards and commissions wanted to say. I do have some comments, but let me reserve that. Um Allan, will you was there something you wanted to? No, I had just a question quick

question. Um JLL is your your little RFP consultant. Did they run proforms for you guys? Part of what their next phase while the RFP is issued is they'll be conducting very similar exercises of what if they were the developer what in their opinion would make the most sense. So the five to six weeks we are giving everyone else. They're going to be busy using that time to create a baseline for the evaluation committee to look and utilize once the bids come back. So they've helped us review and they're going to continue to help us refine the RFP and then for the month of June July they'll be conducting that analysis for the various scenarios and with that at hand we'll be in a very good position to review the bids that come back in July. So so did they were their recommendations behind these scenarios? Correct. And they didn't provide any performers with these recommendations on these scenarios. Part of that is they're waiting for the developers to give that to us. Good. So before I cut back to Dave, um I think for council, we have a letter from the chair and vice chair of the housing commission given that they couldn't be here, they want to make sure we point out the affordable living policy goals. And so to Phil's questions about kind of unit sizes and bedroom counts and AMI levels, they were reminding us what we adopted in our 2025 affordable living policy and the commitments we made. So, I'd ask that council go back to that letter that we got this evening and thank the housing commission for joining you all in work session before. Dave, did you have other things now? Sure. Thank Thanks a lot, Madame Mayor. Um, and I would um just also second uh the importance of reviewing the uh letter from the Village Preservation and Improvement Society. and we've all received I think I don't know 30 or 40 emails just in the last two days on this project. Um and there's been some useful

clarification tonight, but um I'm really concerned about starting down a road uh on a project like this that could potentially cost $10 million or more um of taxpayer money without without the kind of consensus that I think we really need to have. And so I think the sequence here is relevant and entirely important and I think the details of the RFP are also um important. So um the first is the um the 100 affordable units really drives toward option three and I'm concerned about that that that drive. Um the um the second issue I have is this 20 foot building uh free zone along the Winter Hill area. Uh if we're going to go three stories or more, I think we need to preserve the 40 foot and not reduce to the 25 foot. It's a whole other matter. If we go with option A and those remain twotory buildings, then I think you can look at that potentially. Um the um the next issue I have um is the site transition. I don't think we're clear enough in um that we're expecting significant uh transition uh as it um gets close to Winter Hill as opposed to the bowling alley area. And I I've read this and I I don't see it um listed there enough. Uh, one notable absence is the failure to have a a shadow study, which I think will truly help inform uh what people are actually going to be living with and where they're going to be living with it uh after this, whether it be in the park or whether it be uh near uh Winter Hill and open space

issues remain um less than specific. I want to talk, John. The term RFP, at least in my experience, um is a bit premature here. I think um planning director, you refer to it as just a way to get information. If that were it, then it would be a request for information. And this is not just linguistics. This is clearly setting down the road to a decision, including a selection committee, that um I I think this isn't quite ready for prime time, either the zoning issue or or the um or the RFP. We've had now two hours of very fruitful discussion. And believe me, I want a project to go forward. I want affordable housing to be maintained there at the very minimum, made more livable, and then if we can get more units and we can fit in to the needs uh of the existing tenants and the surrounding area, then it becomes a win-win for everybody. But right now, there is not the view in community that this is a win-win. There's a view in the community that this is a win-lose and that's not a good way to start a major project. Um, we were very careful, for example, in the school project to lay things out very carefully and then we we did a referendum. I don't know at this point whether this qualifies for that, but we were very careful. The first thing we did was a was look at all the options and the RFP does make an effort to do that. Um, but uh we received a lot of community input that I don't think is so far adequately addressed here or explained. Although I think the explanations tonight were extremely helpful in moving in that direction, but our community has not seen that. Our community has not seen a lot of the

information or heard a lot of the information that we're getting tonight. and to then expect that we're going to take final action on this having received very very strong com uh comments on both sides of the issue but especially um on on the negative side raising these issues that's fundamentally important to me and finally um this is one of the areas of the most affordable housing we have in the city not only Virginia Village and Winter Hell And we have to be very careful that we do not degrade the um the current um living um and and um uh situation for those who live here now in the hopes of adding more for people that don't live here. So, I'm out for a win-win. I don't think we're there yet, but I think we've made some major progress. And I think with some of the changes that I've suggested, we can maybe get there. But I do urge more community discussion so that they can hear what we've discussed tonight. They can deliberate on it and hopefully some of the questions that have been raised and some of the negative uh comments we've got can be responded to. But right now, we're facing a divided community, which is a really bad idea to move forward on a project like that. That's just my best advice. And I am committed to trying to make something work. Also though, the comments of the people that live there were particularly um clear. Um one of the um one of the commenters said, you know, there's all this talk about missing middle. We are the missing middle in the city of false church. We are the people who live there. So, if we go with a major development, um, some development will

require some some movement, some short-term movement, but if you're talking about a major building, you're talking about two years. You're going to be moving people out, having them live someplace else out with the public responsible for the Delta, and then moving back. If you did more of a rehab, yes, it would take um weeks or months, if you will. uh but it's a different kind of um of of uh disruption. So that's in listening to the debate tonight and I've tried to be very careful to listen to it. I think there's questions about sequence that aren't resolved yet and I think there are some elements of the detail that I've heard some good things about but I think some questions remain. Anyway, that's that's u my view. I don't think this is quite yet ready for prime time with the kind of action that potentially being asked of us and our community next week. Thanks. Other comments or input for staff? Um it it definitely reminds me of our high school project or where we were we didn't know we had so many options. We went through all these different iterations. We had unsolicited bids. Uh, right. We went through this whole process to try to figure out what we're going to end up with. And it took a ton of community engagement, a ton of thinking and rethinking. And we did an RFP. We did a um a feasibility study and that was one that wasn't even in our plan, but we had our interim superintendent who was here, do you remember? and he was like, "Why aren't you people doing a feasibility study? What's wrong with you?" And so we popped that in and that really turned the tide because people could see what was feasible and what

wasn't. I don't know if that was something that was considered here, feasibility study. But that could be something that helps us all feel a little more comfortable with that. If you want to respond to that, I have a couple other questions. I think the broader message is that that's what the RFP is for. And I know we're just going to agree to dis disagree on that. But the feasibility analysis that has been conducted on this site to date and there's been several conveniently assume that we would have access to the entire site and that's just never going to happen. Right? So we are asking some fresh questions that haven't been posed yet and quite honestly it's not going to be college students that going to solve this for us. It's just not going to happen. Um it's a helpful collaboration at times. It helps them out a little bit. Every now and then we get some fresh ideas, but that's that's not how we solve this. We do need the development community to weigh in on this. Um I don't think it's also too aggressive in that we are simply through this next process highlighting who we think is creative enough, has the experience and thinks there's a financial way to make this to make this work. They would still have additional steps, many of them after this process. We're simply picking who would we want to work with given their portfolio, given their approach to this site, uh, and their experience solving challenging sites like this in the past. Um, so I want to keep highlighting that additional steps are in front of us. Whether you look back, however many years we've been working on this, whether you look ahead, there's so much engagement that has happened and simply adding a few extra months is not going to get to the fact that some people just don't want to have change happen here. You know, I want that's just reality. I don't think that's I don't think that's the denigrates our citizens. Excuse me. I think open space I think what I'm trying to say is open space preferences for this site which have been expressed in other documents continue

continue to be expressed in terms of what people would prefer and that would be much softer transition to that edge. Introducing housing contra contrary to that opinion. So we're we're fighting kind of the two opposing views of what the site could accommodate. And if you look back at the two small area plans, there's a push and pull on that quite frequently. So we are now at a point where we need to pick one and the fact that we've become part owners of the half the property gives us a very different perspective on that. To give people some comfort on both the speed as well as the sequencing, could you talk more or Wyatt talk more about the process? Let's say we do get responses then there's a selection committee that chooses one and then what like we still have to enter a comprehensive agreement there's still negoti like talk more about that process. Yeah so they uh you know the selection process would be accompanied with an interim agreement that would sort of lay out a term sheet of of uh what the business arrangement would be with the uh with the entity and then also uh the number of units and uh and other criteria like that. Uh but then from there uh you go through a site plan process and all the steps that go to a final closing which includes getting financing. So there would be steps post selection uh still where there's you know really important decisions still to be made. I might back up just, you know, on on the parallel to the Westf falls. Uh the feasibility study was really focused on the school, like where what do the school requirements have to be and where do we want the school to be? And once that was clarified with the feasibility study, then kind of that's what allowed everything to go. The city was quite open about what the zoning ultimately was going to be, what the rules were going to be for the 10acre site. In the RFP, it basically said, you

know, up to 15 stories, and didn't provide much more than that. It um it did provide, I'm sorry, it did provide guidance on uses, but not so much on on height and density and things like that, so that the market could come in and sort of inform what ultimately that would be. Right. So, one more just followup. Are we obligated to pick one if we don't like any of them? No. That when you issue the RFP, there is a you know, you you preserve your rights not to select anyone. Okay. Yeah. Madam Mayor, if I might, this has been describ This now this RFP has been described in two different ways. Oh, it's just a request for information. It's really much more than that. You have a selection committee. You're going to pick one. There's going to be intense pressure to go with that one. And that's what I say about the confusion of process here. If you wanted to get information, there are lots of ways you could put out an RFI. And this is not just linguistic. you're literally saying to people, but here you're saying you're being pretty precise about a number of the details, not precise about others, which which creates issues. And then you're creating a selection committee that reads like this is the final stage of the process rather than an information gathering process. So we are trying to get proposals. we are not obligated to pick any of the proposals and then if we do pick a proposal we then enter further negotiations with developers. So I'm hearing actually that it's we are getting information we're getting feedback from the market. Um we have a choice not to pick any of them if none of them meet our expectations or they're too expensive or whatever the issue may be and then there's further negotiations. I I feel like the expect what I'm

hearing are some expectations of what we're going to get back or what the developers are thinking that I feel are unrealistic that when this goes out there the developer you're looking for the developer to come back with some feasibility some concepts some soft stuff and they're going to be coming back with their starting point for the full proposal. The we'll pick who we want to move forward to. It might even be two to say, "Okay, tell us more. Show us more." It is the first step. If it's an RFP, it is the first step to them. It is the first step in a big business deal. And we need to make sure that what's in here is enough for them to take that first step, not to give us some feasibility. And I had actually written down feasibility study before Mary Beth even mentioned it because that's what I was hearing expectations. But this is the first step in a to them a big business deal and the information in the RFP it's getting there. It's on the right track. It's not there yet. I mean some basic stuff is missing such as the zoning. What are the rules around combining properties? Um, if you show the the slide with the buffers around the a single building, you're talking about currently 15 ft on each side of each building within the property. Even option B, can they combine two of those? And you can see another building right to the right there. There's 30 feet between those two buildings. and we have side by side buildings. If option B could be um bring those two together, put on

another floor and I'm talking about major re expansion here which I think option B should encompass and now you're up to nine unit nine unit or no sorry my math was off across those two goes from eight to 15 units easily and and probably even more if we dealt with the side setbacks and dropped those off to 10 ft instead of 15. None of that is in here. None of that concept is in the RFP right now or the ability to do that. Um I think it's just not there yet because we haven't done the zoning the initial take of the zoning yet. And I think by focusing including these things in the RFP, it's getting muddied a little bit and by putting it into a zoning ordinance and just doing the work of taking that items and put it into the zoning ordinance the first pass, you're going to find, oh, we forgot this, we forgot this, we forgot this. And I think that has to happen before this can go out. And then you take that and you put it into the RFP and the information is there. If I were a developer and I had no information about can I merge these, that's a basic question, I'm gonna lose all faith in in this and if we get back a bunch of responses that say there wasn't enough information and we decide not to select any of them and then we go out again, we will have lost the interest of these develop some of these developers and it may be the best ones again just like how just like how Wyatt reminds me not to play transportation and engineer. I'll remind us that we're not developers and which is why we have JLL and that's kind of why I want feedback. I'm like, does JL think that we need more zoning details in the RFP? Right? Because essentially we're debating like how much detail how do we make sure we put our best foot forward in the RFP? We need that zoning stuff figured out. Mayor Hardy, I'd like his response. And then

before before that answer though, I'm sorry, but before that answer because I had raised JLL and and the performer earlier for a reason. Okay, JLLL is one of the preeminent real estate and development companies in the world, not just this nation. The things that we're asking for here, and I agree with David,formational. I agree with with art feasibility. You've got an expert already under contract who could provide you with the answers you're looking for. You don't need to go through an RFP process to get those answers. You've got them. So, put them to work and have them look at these scenarios and do the performance to determine what the heck you could build here. I think I heard Matt that's all you need to do. So, first and then put out your RFP after you've done your zoning. Thank you. Yeah, I think I heard Matt say that that was the plan. That is in their scope and I agree with a lot of what you guys are saying. This is a generational decision. We are all taking it extremely seriously. The benefit is not just working with one consultant but having their benefit at our side them advising us so that we can receive other additional creativity other proposals and have the best decision that we can make here on this very important site. So rather than just reaching out to one entity one group and get their thoughts which once those come in we're going to have a separate debate of whether or not we trust them. It it always happens like that. If we can get additional views and perhaps a pattern or theme starts to emerge, we're going to feel much more confident about what what direction we're moving forward to. The one piece I did want to come back to though is I think your last comment does straggle the sequencing of RFP versus code changes, but I think the scenario outlining where potential lots could be combined that is in the RFP today. So, uh, we talked about that one scenario. Yeah, I'm not seeing that at all in there. Um, and as somebody who has written RFPs, who has

gotten the responses, even though they're not developers, it's I do have that experience of how do you respond to an RFP? How do you write an RFP? And I would not send it out with this. If it was something that I were doing, I would I would not be comfortable sending it out. And if I got it, I would not I would be not comfortable with it. And I think we're we're on the right path. I think we're close. We're just not there yet. I do have some other some specifics of here. But I think this whole issue with the the zoning versus the RFP, I think we need to have that exercise of saying what would the zoning look like for those other three that are in between the two on the back. Um, one big concern I have right now is it doesn't have a limit on height for the back or if so you gave the um the angle which by the way this the change in elevation information. Fantastic. I think that needs to be out there much more broadly to say hey look a second floor on on these is the first floor in Winter Hill. I think that's a huge thing um that I had not heard before. the but it's exactly right there. But it's the the the other piece that I'm concerned with is when I was knocking door to door in the campaign over the summer. Um and one of the things that goes on is you're always working on your messaging and what works, what doesn't, which is great. You get to refine it. Um, and one thing that that really worked and I then I continued to use it was one story less. And people were very clear they don't

want to be a Tyson's or a Boston. the they're very there's huge issues with losing our character that we're becoming a Tyson that some people were like we're already there and I think part of that is developers will maximize whatever we give them. So if we put in stuff that's to the maximum they will go to that. If we say five to seven stories that means 100% seven stories to them. If you say three to four stories, 100% four stories that we've seen that over and over again. So if we want to retain that small town feel, that small town character that's in the comp plan and which by the way is not mentioned in the RFP and needs to be. We need to be saying, well, we're not going to go to the maximum. And so with the 45° and the angle that is important because that shows a great maximum, but we probably shouldn't be doing that. We probably should be backing off a little bit. It's like when you open a faucet and they you open it up and they you go all the way open, next thing they tell you is back it off a little bit. One story less. A little bit less. Um, I don't think we need to have the buildings 45t back from the property line as they are now. Um, 35 ft. Sure. And we can figure out how to do it from there. But so there's All right. You said you had other specifics. I I do make sure we use our time well because I actually do think those specifics are helpful to staff to inform the draft of the RFP. All right. The the other one I want to talk about the um the 100 units. If we're looking to see what's possible, we should be I don't think we should be specifying a minimum. If you're saying 120 is where

the point is, let them tell us. Let them come to us. Um let them and we specify other things. Maybe we're saying 100% affordable that we want 100% of the units to be affordable. They should tell us what's what's marketable, what's reasonable. Let them tell us and make it and the number of units make it a selection criteria. So you give us more units, you're more likely to get the the gig. Um the So that's one. I mentioned the residential design phrasing. I think we need to be much more clear that it's small town residential design. Um, it goes back to small town character in an urban setting, which is straight out of the comp plan. And we need to just be clear because this what we get back will be their starting position for the process. And we don't want to be we want to have something that really looks and follows our character to start with and work from there. Um the let's see the other one that I did not see is the road configuration being on the table right now. We have it coming in on on one on um on Gibson and then it's Shirley the we yeah we heard from some of the community feedback I don't remember which one it was somebody brought up the concept of at 3 10 Maple bringing Shirley through that actually resonates with me and I'd like to make sure it's explicitly stated that these things are o that we're open to these Because first thing there's an implicit assumption that oh we can't change the roads but if you open that up all of a sudden the intersection of Gibson Shirley can be open space and parkland and it's it does interesting things. It gives the

developers the respondents interesting opportunities. I think there's certain inherent assumptions that we need to make sure are in there. Um then all right that one's fine. The um let's see uh minimum units assume I mentioned that scenario scenario B should include the ability to combine lots. So like 312 310 keep the buildings but combine them into one is a very viable option. We should make it clear that that is on the table. Um, the other thing on heights, we need to just make sure some of the details that when you talk about a height, you're including fences and decks and everything else. It's not just the hard pieces. So, I've seen that with some of the T-zones. It's like, okay, it meets the criteria, but then somebody puts a tree on the deck and all of a sudden it's taller. And this is where the maximum causes runs into problems. Um and then that was really it. Uh those were my my items. Do people have other specifics on the RFP? So again, in this for the sake of using our time well to give staff good feedback, Erin. So um yes. So I wanted to respond to a few things. I ditto a lot of what you've heard getting back to where Andrea and Bob started on the scenarios A, B, and C. Um, you know, if we zoom really far back, right, are really high out. I do want to acknowledge, right, that we're in a good place because we have 40 units that were not city committed affordable housing that are committed affordable housing, right? We took 40 units off the market and they're in our portfolio in a way that we can protect 40 ADUs that we

were not previously able to protect 40 ADUs. In my mind, the reason that scenario A, right, is potentially in this RFP is that we don't want to like lose those units into disrepair, right? So if you have people come back and they're like, "Well, scenario C isn't an option for five or 10 years until you actually assemble enough to do something, we get the benefit of people who may be interested in rehabbing units, putting a floor on a unit. Like there are people who are hoping to live in these units, even though, you know, we describe them in such a way that you would think they're on the verge of like being condemned um that are living there now and are hoping to stay there. and we need to do something potentially over the next decade in order to make sure that those 40 units stay in a portfolio of like habitable ADUs. And so when I look at the scenarios, it's like yes, there's the preservation option. And I think it's important for it to be there for like a wholesome conversation and the sort of feasibility issues and what does the market respond to. But I think it's important to be there just to recognize that like there may not be redevelopment. And I think we want this to have the benefit of hearing from those nonprofit providers or those foundations or those whoever else may be out there seeking to keep people in the homes in the communities in which they're currently living in that may otherwise be getting priced out of their like actual homes. In terms of scenarios A and B, when I looked at it, I did not quite understand separating like no build from additions and bumpouts. And I think as we talk about the zoning conversation in my mind like what could be helpful is if you have scenarios A and B together in terms of these are currently situated

quadplexes. They are under this zoning. The zoning allows for this. You could rehab them and we would be interested in anyone interested in that option explaining it to us and the benefit of its relative to others. But you could also go up a floor by right. Right. And you do one and a half times of what's currently there. If art is correct, and Alan was getting at this too, and I had the question also reading the RFP, if under current zoning, if you are the current owner of those parcels that are now contiguous and they're under RM and you could originally come in and put up a three-story building by Wright, kind of with the outer perimeter, but removing the inner pieces in terms of all the setbacks that Art was pointing out on that slide. I think if you were to put scenarios A and B together and say, you know, current zoning allows for rehabilitating these as quadplexes, making them into six plexes, making them into garden style apartments. It's a way to present that information in a balanced way relative to then what you include as scenario whatever it is B like the redevelopment option that requires zoning changes that isn't necessarily as clear as what might be there but in the parameters of and we would entertain creative development that respects these planning concepts that we're telling you are important to us in terms of adjacent uses buffering like the setbacks whatever they are and that it's divided that way as opposed to sort of like a bunch of options but when you look at the document it's so heavily weighted too what is option four or option C or

option D that it's like a pretty evident thumb on the scale of what it is we want to get out of this like it feels like A B and C are kind of AB B are currently there to like the well, they're here because we have to include them here, but like we really want it to be C as opposed to A and B potentially being here's what you could currently do in a much more straightforward process under zoning rules that currently exist while helping us achieve affordable increased affordable housing than what we currently have there and helping people remain where they are. and here's sort of like the redevelopment option within the general parameters of what we're willing to entertain. So anyway, that's a potential for consideration, right? In terms of just you're acting you're asking for reactions to the actual document. So that's a reaction to how the scenarios are presented. No, and I appreciate that. Can you give me an example of where the RFP currently seems to be prioritizing or emphasizing the larger development scenario? Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's written in a way that, you know, I don't remember if like all of the information, so what I would imagine is that it would say Virginia Village consists of like the whatever it is, the 20 properties, 10 of them are ones we own. Within our portfolio, we have X, Y, and Z buildings that are currently in this condition that is in the like here's what we have and what you should understand. anyone seeking to redevelop this property should both attend, you know, we encourage you to come to the conference, right, and to do the site, you know, site walkthrough. I don't think that the RFP is currently drafted, should be saying like particularly for people who are seeking to rehab, you should come to the walkthrough. I think anyone who seeks to do anything on this property, whether it's seven stories or rehabbing a building, should ideally set foot in the property so that they understand

more than an image like what's actually there, right? Um in terms of uh wait, so you said oh yeah and so then it it kind of goes through like oh they're in horrible condition like why would you ever want to try to rehab these buildings at all? And then it gets to scenario C, which is the project is responsive to the goals, objectives, and policies identified in downtown small area plan, you know, South Washington's small area plan, all of these things we want, you would do these things with it. And so like it very clearly is is saying if you're going to submit an RFP and you want us to tell tell us what why this is preferred, we're very much telling you in an RFP what's preferred and you would need a really good reason to choose options A or B. I mean that was like plainly evident when I read the document. So I think we have again the intent behind what you're reading is I believe it's page 14 depending on the formatting. The mandatory requirement section I think provides a consistent introduction to how opportunities on the site could help us reach and achieve some of the goals that we've set for ourselves. Beyond that, the reason why you're seeing some more details on the last option is a it's not really spelled out anywhere else and the bulk of the feedback we received from the community was on that scenario beyond renovation and walking in the site. All we could provide is the status of the current building because that's what renovation would entail. So I I think we try to beef up that section so that balancing it out and not expressing like we have a preference on one scenario versus the other. Um, but that's why I think like if you were to put scenario A and B and actually tether it to the like current zoning code and make clear whether it garden style infill development in the way that we have I mean Park Towers is an RM building that was conditional use apparently probably to get six stories.

I don't know how it came about. Merryill House is six stories. It's an RM building, right? Like it was three, it got six somehow. So people come in under RM and they start at three and they seemingly are buildings. They're not limited to quadplexes. And so what I'm just trying to say is like in terms of feedback, I think it could help if you're trying to send this out whether it's a request for information or a request for proposal. And I tend to think this is sounding like it may be better going out as a request for information even though I know why we have been talking about it as a request for proposal in terms of the timing, but that you might just want to tie A and B to the zoning and make clearer whether you can actually like fill in between the quadlexes under the current RM or if you're stuck with like the quadplexes as they are apart from going up a floor under the current zoning. So I guess to make that actionable before we lose that before you go on your next one. Um is that something that we could incorporate in the RFP to confirm whether the current zoning would allow for that kind of horizontal addition? We can do that and we can create a fourth scenario or combine one or two. That's that's definitely that doesn't take a lot of time. We've been for this version to come out. We've been playing with very, you know, uh, wide ranging options on how do we get like it gets to Art's point of adding clarity, right? Because you're like, A and B, this is what we're potentially trying to do. We're trying to make these better habitable like apartments for people. We're maintaining our affordable housing. We're potentially expanding it. And you could possibly do this under the current zoning. And then when you get into option whatever it is, option C is sort of the like redevelopment option that's going to require code changes. And people should be aware that like those are not a given because we actually

haven't had any community conversation about code changes even though you did a small area plan conversation that will help inform maybe needing to do updates to be able to allow something bigger than what like the RM currently allows. In terms of other specific feedback, I think the massing I personally think seven's too high like saying that we would go to seven. I think you know looking at buildings like Park Towers and Merrill House, they're at six. So if you think about putting something with seven like where the bowling alley is, citing it there, it feels large and it feels large next to a quadplex that doesn't have any current plan of redeveloping. I know this came up in the planning commission conversation. Chair Komont brought it up in terms of what is the relationship of redevelopment to like the quadplexes that things aren't happening with. Um, you know, I agree. I I don't understand. Maybe you can help explain why the shadow studies were in the document and then got removed from the document. The, you know, 45 degree plane I think is helpful. I think it underscores again that that would be beneficial for a community conversation and that you may have things in your mind as to why we're doing things or why it makes sense or why it's 25 and 15 in a document, but like people in the community haven't heard that at all, right? So, they react to it in a way that doesn't even have, you know, the the the aid of any explanation for how you got to that number. Um, and then I think you know the the other piece in terms of the selection committee um, and criteria. I'm still sort of uncomfortable with the idea of issuing an RFP and we haven't had the conversation about like who's on the selection committee. I know there are

criteria here, but like how are we standing that up? And from what I could tell of just, you know, you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, like best practices is that oftentimes they say like try to stand up a selection committee before you actually issue an RFP so that you don't run into issues again with the ideas or the notions of well that you know this got baked because it went out and then the selection committee was chosen afterwards or it went out and then the zoning was you know solidified afterwards that there are things to do in an order to help bring people along as opposed to like help, you know, to drive a wedge that we're trying to smooth out as opposed to continue to kind of deepen. Um, oh, and then yeah, very quickly, I thought it wasn't clear until we were in like the criteria table that um, and I think Mr. Kraner brought this up in the planning commission meeting about the whether this needed to have like commercial uses or retail uses, whether we were entertaining residential only buildings, whether the community spaces had to exist. It isn't until like the table in the criteria where there's that sentence about, you know, you could get points because creative ideas could be making this residential only to help with financing which would allow you to come down a story. like there's a sentence about that somewhere, but I think it's buried the same way that um you know some of what Art was talking about is buried in places and that it you know it would help to like go through this again and say what are you trying to communicate? How can we get rid of things that are redundant? And how can we like make clearer things that may be buried in parts that shouldn't be

on page like 18 versus page six, but I I mean I know a lot of work went into it and I saw you at the community conversations and I appreciate what planning staff has done, but like we have to be comfortable with where this is at and whether it's ready to go. Uh, so I don't know whether you noticed, but uh, Justine is with us. Congrats to the new mom. She's been monitoring the first new mom on city council. Uh, Justine, do you want us to read you in or are you just listening? I if I if I could talk for like I can just share my thoughts quickly. I've been listening, but I would love to be able to just jump in like for three minutes and then and then head off. I strongly recommend reading her in. Okay. Um Okay. Okay. Uh, can you identify your remote location and reasoning for part participation by electronic means? Justine? Um, I am in false church, Virginia, and I'm participating remotely for medical reasons. Okay. I move that the city council approve electronic decision by council member Underh Hill in this meeting for medical reasons pursuant to the city council's adopted policy. Is there a second? Second. DS on the second. Aen, yes. Connelly, yes. DS, yes. Flynn, yes. Snider, yes. Hardy, yes. Okay, you're in. Congrats. Great. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. I'll I'll quickly hopefully you guys can hear me. Okay. I'll just quickly share my thoughts and then I'm going to have to pop off and I might have to pop off very suddenly if if um something happens. Um but uh I guess um yeah just listening to this conversation um I would really like to find a way to be able to you know it's almost like this this process has been going we we invested in all these Virginia Village properties for a reason. Um, and so I really would like to see this process

um, move forward. And um I guess the the one thing on in my mind is I don't want to restrict ourselves or contain ourselves too much in this process because I'm really curious like what would come back and can we like almost not limiting a lot of our options right now because you know maybe there's something that we haven't thought of that actually the you know a affordable housing developer has done in another part of the country or some or another part ort of the state that actually works really well and and we haven't even considered and so you know saying it it you know putting all these parameters on it I I don't want to limit sort of ideas that can come and just because an idea comes back or a developer comes back and says this is feasible doesn't mean we have to go forward with it and so in my head this is not like shutting shutting down the process um I don't want to shut down the process too early I think is is the main thing in my Um, and so given that we've been working on this for so long, I I would like to find a way that we can move forward um and and and find some way uh to create like meaningful public input as as we go on um through the through the RFP process. Um, and so I guess my final my final point is uh after after you know having a little girl and thinking about I want her to be able to live in false church. I want to see more affordable housing in the city. And so how can we do that? Um, and and how can we make false church a place where people can uh come back to live, where kids who graduated from our schools can come back, where where people who want to be able to work here can live here. Um, and so I, you know, I don't want this to take another 18 years before we'll get

there. I I would really like to see us um do something meaningful and move forward right now. Um, so with that, whatever whatever we can do to be able to keep our options open, um, and to be able to move forward is something that I would like to see, but still, you know, we can still engage the community. We're still representatives of the community. And so I don't I just don't want to, um, cut ourselves off before we even begin this process. And that's that's all I have to say. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Wish you the best. Thank you. Hi, Dana. Good evening. I was just going to um throw something out there and it just, you know, the need because I think Justine talked about the real need that we have for affordable housing. I mean, right now we have two ADUs available and we have a waiting list with like over 700 people. We're not taking anybody from priority three. That's outside. I heard somebody say something about people I think I heard someone say who would live there or would it be people outside of the city? We're not even allowing people that live outside the city to participate right now because we don't have any units. We're only taking one and two, which is, you know, seniors or disabled persons who live or work in the city. So, I mean, it's really critical right now. The people that live over there, um, we've talked to them. I mean, we have some really low incomes. We have from zero to over 100%. I mean, it's a really range, but we have people living over there, some who are city employees, um, that have no income. And so, you know, this is one of the only areas where that affordability is. And I just I just wanted to throw out that we really have got to do something on the Sooner side. Um, not just the units that we're

losing, but like I said, there we have two units. People are calling every day and we don't have anything for them. We don't have any more city committed affordable units. We don't have the budget for that um to have those units. So, you know, I just wanted to throw out there that it's really critical. We see the people that come in the office all the time and it's just like, you know, Justine said, I mean, we we really have got to do something on the sooner side. Thank you for that. Mayor May, sorry, Mary Beth was sorry, you got interrupted earlier, says. Yes. And then I listened to everything, but I really want to make sure I say what is on my mind here. I had sent Mr. Shields earlier this morning a bunch of little cleanups, typos, and other things. But, um, part of what's I kind of think this RFP is still not quite ready to be issued and voted on next week. And part of it is, as I read through, there just seems to be Some of the wording doesn't actually describe what the community is. Um, some of the descriptions of what we want are like so vague that and I know we're we're relying on developers. I've heard all that tonight, but it still just seems so intentionally vague that it doesn't convey the policy that we are trying. And and I agree with Dana. We need to do something. We need to do something, but Um, and then the other thing that is also challenging to me is I don't think it's a yes or no that people don't want affordable housing or they do want affordable housing. And it's not a black and white, good, bad. It's a there's a lot of nuance here, right? And and I think that also has to be reflected in this RFP. And I just don't think we're quite there to be able to do that. So, we're on these two parallel paths. and you know, maybe we just need to put on the brakes a little bit and think it

through as we do the zoning to be able to really get our hands around what this means before we issue the RFP. So, that is sort of where I'm coming from right now. Um, and I think I I don't think that means wait a year and maybe as we've said earlier, if we wait two months, then that does mean waiting a year. But if we take two months to really really work it through and talk about it in the context of the zoning, then we're going to get better proposals in the end because we will have really fleshed out what we would like the zoning to say. So that is kind of where I am right now. Are there specific things in the again to make it useful for staff like specific things in the zoning amendments that you think need to be clearer so we can give them direction? I mean, like one of the things was it says in there several times Virginia Village is the city's lone garden style apartment complex, but but it's not. So, so we have like those little things of of fact that are just a little bit off. And it seems like they all need it like there are a lot of other garden style apartment complexes. There's not any that are individually owned like that one. So that so that that kind of little thing it just needs to be correct as we're putting it out. Um like one of the sentences talks about the best thing about starts with the blend of restaurants and highly rated school system is that the description of false church and that's not the description either. I mean it's important but but our description of what we're looking for and who we are needs to be more than just the blend of restaurants as the first thing. Um, so those are that's not necessarily zoning, but it does go to what kind what we're looking for in the neighborhood. And then as I think about, you know, I hadn't even thought about putting two units together and creating a third or fourth unit there. But what works in that

neighborhood are there are the Winter Hill town houses. Like they're so successful. People are people are like, "Can we put more Winter Hill town houses on this site and allow uh the individual owners then to put in town houses?" And I don't know how many would fit. I mean, you showed the the size. I don't know how many of those kind of town houses would fit on that site, but could we do that to be able to say we're going to have some home ownership units. We're going to have some rental units. that was called out in there, like being able to have some starter home ownership opportunities, but specifically Winter Hill, like not the T-zone town houses. We went like the very simple basic Winter Hill town houses. That's not in there as a thing, but that's like I don't know that you can put that in there, but that that's what works. We know that works in that neighborhood. We know people want to move into those kind of those size of town houses. Um I I do like the the plane. I think that really makes sense to be able to say, you know, we can go up a few stories if we're in or out on the um the setbacks. So, that's where I am. I I just think we need to we're close, but we're not quite there yet for me to be comfortable issuing the RFP. Can I comment on the starter home piece? Um, we we use the term starter homes a lot and I think we need to maybe take a step down because one of the problems we have in the city is anytime a starter home comes on the market, it gets snatched up and get becomes a big big home. We're really talking about the entry point into home ownership and that could be a garden condo, garden style condo or something. There are other options and I think we want to be embracing all of those. Um can we narrow it down in the RFP on what sort of just the term but to the language of it says um the city's interested in approaches at mix housing within the same building. However, the city will

consider a proposal locate affordable units and market rate units in separate buildings if such an approach supports realistic financing expert. I mean I I agree. I think it would be nice to have and this is one of the things I said when I was on the campaign trail is that we hadn't had condos built in 20 years and then the ones at the high school the oak were built and those are very high-end. I think the least expensive one 600 I think they go up to over 400. Um but up to a million. But my point being is that is that you know the sort of the no frills home ownership opportunities that don't come with a lot of amenities that tend to jack those prices up. I think would be terrific. And I I'll just say, you know, listening to everyone, um I just feel I know that this council supports affordable housing and I Dana's point like it's we need it sooner rather than later. I definitely get that. But I also don't I am worried about um I would love to see this council be unanimous, you know, behind um an RFP because I think it sends the wrong message if we're not. And I know why, you know, if this were to go to a vote next week, we wouldn't, I don't think. And so it just to me that seems unfortunate because I know we all do support it. Um, but clearly listening to everyone tonight that there are, you know, people have different concerns. So I just wonder if we um, you know, whether it's another work session, you know, I think I would be fine doing it every, you know, week, you know, until, you know, we do a work session next week. Even it's an action meeting, we tag on another work session. I and Matt, let me just say or Mr. Matusk, sorry, and Mr. Trainer, um, you guys have done I I echo the mayor's um her point about I think you really captured the community feedback. You put it in there. I think it it was it was spot on. I think um it's just, you know, obviously you see the council coming at it from different perspectives, which is it's hard when there's seven of us, right?

So, you know, I'm just wondering, do we um not I I worry that if we're pushing this and we don't have the whole council along, um again, it's just um it's going to send the wrong message PE and so is it better to take I don't know what the time frame would be, but take a little bit more time, a couple more work sessions, work through it so that everyone feels good and we get that, you know, to me the unanimous vote it it is a sign that this is something that our and I know we all support that. Um, so I just would hate for it to go down next week or or you know, you know, a three four vote or something because that's that's just not who we are. No, we also we all support post because one of my biggest concerns is around the zoning and being ahead of it. And I I would support bring this back at the same time as the first reading for the zoning to say, hey, look, now we can look at them both the same time. They're in sync. Okay, now be more comfortable. My only concern is I will be out for the work session. But it's I think that sort of time frame. We're just talking about a month. We're not talking push this off a year or whatever. To Justine's perspect point, we want to get this done. We we want it. We're all on board on that. It's let's just a little bit more. And we've got we're spending a bunch of money on the consultants. Let them really attack it. Uh fully aligned. Uh I think one one thing we can do is proceed with our current schedule for the code changes which would have us visit the planning commission I believe on June 3rd for a work session where some of that gets socialized a little bit more. We come back I think it's mid June for a work session on the first reading that gives us another three or four weeks. Um what does that do to the RFP schedule by not issuing it in June? it does push things out and puts more pressure on the second half of the year. Again, that the thinking is once we identify a development partner. Uh they would then

have several months to figure out their financing uh release their design team to provide a much more detailed proposal that we would then have to review uh and get all that done before the March tax credit deadline. So again, it wouldn't be the first time um aggressive schedules were contemplated like that. Uh, but I think what you just highlighted is not unreasonable. I mean, we can try to work with that. So, I actually had two questions or comments before everyone's jumped in with their speeches about things. If I could get mine. Um, so along the lines of kind of being curious about the market response and I think in there we talked about like hybrid options like if you could do parts of A and parts of B. Um, could we also ask whether people would join up and so whether there'd be nonprofit and for-profit entities interested in working together? Is that restricted right now that it would only be people who seek LITC deals? No, I we can go back, but I think there's language in there that opens the door to partnerships and having uh kind of like subdevelopers, if you will. Uh part of that is the theme of previous conversations and what's already in the RFP does discuss how if portions of the site could go market rate to help subsidize the affordabil affordable housing options and thereby reducing our further commitment to the gap financing. That is something that we would entertain and actually support. It's likely that folks that are prioritizing affordable housing are not market rate developers. So in order to pull that concept off, they would have to partner with someone. But we can go back and make sure it's emphasized. Yeah. But again, given like the uniqueness of the site and how we want to taper to the neighborhood, like it just lends itself to kind of those creative thinking of like maybe you need to bring in a market rate town home starter home developer, right, to work with an affordable housing developer. And I just want to both plant the seed but also not like completely close the door to different options. Um so I think it's that balance between being curious about flexibility but not being too prescriptive. So that was one. Uh second comment. So having

read through I think most of the emails um I think the majority again to my point earlier I know that we're debating a lot about sequencing and should this be an SAP or should this be in the zoning or should this be in the RFP. The end of the day I think our job is to reflect the community input. The input comes in three areas. Setback heights and then the concerns about shadows. I think the height and setback you've explained pretty well and I think I'm pretty comfortable with the explanation and the thoughtfulness that went behind it. Um, I think it'd be helpful for council to see examples of what 25 and 15 foot setbacks are. So, when this comes back around, either we could go on a walking tour. You could say, "Hey, here's an example of a 25 foot setback building with this kind of height. Go walk it or run it yourself and see what it feels like." Um, that would give us a good sense of, you know, how it might feel for the community. I think real life examples are always better than looking at pictures on paper. So, that might be um helpful to get our heads wrapped around it. Uh the third is um I had heard or read in the comments that people in Winterh Hill were like surprised and didn't know and so I think I want to continue staff to continue reiterating like the community input that you've done especially I think you've gone to several Winterhill meetings and engaged with that community. So maybe the board hasn't shared with the west rest of Winter Hill, but um I want to make sure that the community for anyone who's watching at 10:00 at night hears that actually staff has actually gone to both Tinder Hill, Winter Hill, uh engaged the residents of Virginia Village multiple times. Uh and so just because people were not aware in Winterhill does not mean that that engagement has not happened. We're all busy with our regular lives and probably don't have attent time to pay attention to every city meeting. So I want to make sure that you all got recognition for that and whatever public comment we got where people said they were surprised by this, it was not because of a lack of effort on your part. So um overall I think given the really substantive discussion on where we are, I think you've heard the feedback. Um I would prefer that I mean hearing the sentiment that we all support affordable housing and making progress on this given that this is six

years in the making now. um to the extent that we can keep the schedule like tight I still think it is good for us to be ambitious because we don't know where the second half of the year where we might erode more time right and so I would say give us an aggressive schedule still incorporating the feedback of how can we bring some of these zoning questions earlier on or parallel path them but don't essentially take up so much time that essentially puts next March completely out of the question because if we really are serious about meeting our affordable housing goals and building housing before Justine's baby goes to kindergarten Um, we should get going. So, thank you. Thank you staff for joining us and all the work that went into this. Since we're two and a half hours in, do we want to take a quick break before we move to the next items? Uh, one thing before Jim leaves. Um there was a um Arlington now article that about the mechanical bull about at the civic jam that I don't know the I understand there's going to be a mechanical bull. I think Dan you Dave you were quoted too. New to me. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, the good thing was you did not volunteer any of us to write it and I was going to volunteer to as the to to write it, but it sounds like now all of a sudden I'm wondering about this news article. So, all right, that was it. A little something a little bit more humorous and lighter. Thank you. We come back at 10:15. Five minutes. Well, according according to the press, it's done. A done deal.

resuming and thank you David for joining us at past 10 o'clock. I think the next thing we have is a budget amendment, but before we get to that, Mary Beth wants to read her disclosure. The city council is discussing tonight the city's proposed FY2027 budget. I'm an employee of the Foster City School Board, which will be affected by the proposed budget amendment. Because I'm only one employee among many who may realize a reasonably foreseeable director and direct benefit from the proposed ordinance, I'm allowed to participate as a council member in this matter under the conflict of interest act. After consideration, I am electing to participate in this transaction because I am confident in my ability to participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. You I'll just do a quick introduction. It is common practice that in May of each fiscal year, we ask for a final budget amendment to reflect new grants or new uh receipts that have come in, but also importantly to um move money between departments uh due to under spending in certain departments and to meet needs elsewhere in the city. And this budget amendment also would u would deploy the remainder of the council contingency. So, uh, David, thank you for your work on this. I'll turn it over to you. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Shields. Uh, good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and members of the council. Uh tonight we are presenting this budget amendment ordinance to26-14 to utilize FY2026 contingency funds previously appropriated in the FY2026 budget transfer appropriation between departments and appropriate new revenues received during FY2026. And so, uh, for the new, uh, revenues, the general fund increase is a total increase of $31,364. Um, and all the details are outlined within the amendment, as well as all of the appropriations um, listed in here as

well. So, I'm happy to take any questions from the council. Thank you, David. Questions or council? from council. Maybe we'll just highlight the council did talk um about police fleet during the budget process and so we are using some of the underspending to provide additional vehicles uh for the police department and happy to answer any questions about that but we're pleased to be able to take this opportunity to do that. One comment on the police fleet. Um I was able to attend the police uh the um public community forum on last Thursday and one of the things that came up was um more visibility for the police. So, I'd just like to say probably don't want any more of having one black on black car for the police. We have one for the police, we have one for the sheriff. I think it would be beneficial to to not paint our cars all black. And for those new at this, we'll do another budget amendment for FY26 in September, October when we close out the fiscal year. Um, I had a question just because this is in here as Aurora House donations and maybe, you know, I probably should have submitted it as a council request and so David, I'm putting this on your radar more than anything else. Um, it's come up several times at our citizens advisory committee meetings that the committee and I guess staff is not clear on what donations can come directly to the city similar to how the wreck and parks, you know, guide always had the you can make a donation to the city

language in it. like what can come directly to the city for the purpose of like supporting uh recreational programs for the girls at Aurora House or like summer programming for the girls that's separate and apart from the scholarship fund which can't presumably be used for that reason and isn't as cumbersome as like the friends of Aurora house and friends of Argus house like 501c3 three route that people might otherwise be donating to. And so in this Aurora House donations um language, it just again uh kind of prompted me to ask about that in terms of when can people make donations directly to the city for a specific purpose? Um and can that be a conversation that we can take up to better understand that? Um like you know because it comes up with the different events and like are people able do they have to make in kind in kind donations like can they just make cash donations directly to the city for that purpose? Um because it's been hard to sometimes figure out the best way to do fundraising or like where to tell people to go to donate even if they're trying to actually um meet certain needs that we know exist. So, separate from this, but I just want I just want to finally get it out there in a way that So, uh, Dave, do you have a sort of a concise answer on it? Because I'm going to give a little bit of a vague answer on it unless you have a better one. You You did, M. Go ahead. It does come up and I think it is a little bit confusing. So, we might need to write down our policy. No, that's fine. But I just yeah I it's come up enough times in our conversations and I think you know we on the citizens advisory committee have said okay can staff link up with finance and try to figure out like are we able

to do this can we not do this why do we see it in certain places and not in others are there thresholds are there this that and so I think it would be helpful for just us to understand what we can or can't do or what the policy is so that so that we separately can figure out a path forward and what it should Yeah. Other questions or comments? Just one. The um the founders row incentives I think it said that they were not budgeted for in FY26. Um that's why we have to to do it here. Um were they budgeted for in FY27? I don't remember. Yes. They were budgeted in FY27. And the reason why they weren't budgeted in FY26 was I believe they came they came online uh in June of 25. So we didn't have a good baseline to determine how much to put into and I believe the budget was already um approved. So uh we are covered for 27 and onwards. I had two. Um, one the insurance reimbursement which is small but is that for the mast arms and the light poles that keep getting knocked down or there other things that we're getting re insurance on? um one is for the um light poles at north at North Washington and Park and the second one is um reimbursement for water damage at war at Aurora House. Okay. Um the big Washington and Broad um main intersections from those two end accidents were already in the budget in the CIP. Uh I got asked again by uh residents on Park Avenue about the polls that the three or four that are succession um right behind the spectrum that have been knocked down now for two years longer longer longer we just have orange cones on them

and I know that ideal placement would not have them so close to the street and the ideal would be you know per new street safe standards we'd have them closer in and have anyway it's not but is there plans to replace them at any point? Do we get insurance money for them? Um, public works has been looking at alternative solutions because it's those plus there's one at the corner of the library going into the um parking lot drive by that gets knocked down too. So, they're actually looking at a solution that can provide lighting and not have the um constant knockdown because it's just the trucks parked too close and they take them down every time. So using the insurance proceeds without a good solution, okay, was not prudent. So it's still on hold. And then while we're on lights, I actually got an email uh over the weekend about those street lights on broad. So I know that we had issues with wiring kind of in the thousand block or so further up closest to the west end. But now the ones in the downtown are dim or off altogether like in front of Mr. Brown's Park. Like that whole the 200 block of park of Broad Street are all out. It just made me think of street lights while we're all talking about it. So, I don't know whether it's the same signal wiring issues, but that block being dark is unusual. Normally, it's very brightly lit. That's where we probably have a lot more pedestrians at night, too. Uh and then the HR issue for 30,000 is that and we don't need to be briefed on the details of the HR issue, but is that a normal or atypical thing that we have since it needed budget amendment? It was under the city attorney. Um what line number is that? I'm sorry. 147.

Right. Um so this is uh and working with kind of our new policy whereby when there is a uh complaint about an employee that we have a process of bringing in an outside entity to look at that complaint just to gather all the facts. And so uh we are doing that and there are costs associated with that. So with the working with the city attorney's office kind of depending on what the nature of the complaint is uh there are times when it is beneficial to have the investigation done by an attorney as opposed to by a non- attorney uh for just a you know a good risk assessment of uh of the complaint. And um and so that's what that that uh budget amount is for. Okay. I'm glad I think that was a improvement and process change we had made. So it sounds like it's in place. So okay, any other questions or comments on the budget amendment? Okay, I think we're good. Thanks, David. All right. Thank you, council. David, we should let you go first. He wanted to go first. I'm going first with budget. Yeah, right. All righty. Have a good night. Thank you. Thanks, David. Consent. And so the big one on consent that uh we wanted to just so Jenny is here to answer any questions on it, but we're excited to be moving forward with a contract with a firm of ESI to assist the city in considering the future of our uh enterprise resource planning process. And so Jenny was going to give a briefing for the council on that contract and what we hope to accomplish with it.

So I do have a couple of slides uh that speak to this particular contract. This is a contract to amend our existing contract with Enterprise uh solutions incorporated also known as ESI. And so um we are using utilizing consulting services uh to bring expertise. They have specific knowledge around the RFP process but al and also um in uh specific expertise around our enterprise resource planning system also known as our city financial systems. That's how I um that's the term I used when I presented on April 13th. And so they have a specific knowledge about those two things along with vendor knowledge um and a library of requirements um of an enterprise resource planning system. Um we're looking at um a consultant because it would also accelerate our timeline. Um and uh also within um the staff report we did build in buffers for time and cost. Uh so I think the total is for 293. Um, and for the specific um ERP um I'm sorry, for the specific RFP part, it would be uh roughly $235,000. Um um so to the next slide is just uh a refresher from the April 13th of the 3 to 5year time plan. Um the city financial system is in that first block on the lower section. So it's basically taking that that section is what we're talking about right now and in the next slide tea um breaking that out into our timeline. So looking it out looking at and you can also see this in the um table that's on page two looking at uh starting the process now and then it

would continue through uh June of next year. uh ideally uh I within the staff report we did talk about FY26 through FY28 so building in that buffer as I spoke to earlier um when it comes to the timeline so the first section would be the procurement plan development uh the next phase is developing developing the procurement package and those are two separate um phases uh and along with developing the procurement package we would also will look to finalize any of the requirements. We've made quite a bit of progress with that in just in doing the assessment um of the system uh which I think I spoke to on April 13th as well. Uh then in August through November we would do the solicitation and issuance of the RFP and then finally move into evaluation and review and ultimately um working on the contract itself both the negotiation and then finally awarding the contract. Um in the next slide um this is exactly what's in your um staff report. That is the table of each of the tasks along with um the cost and the hours. These are estimated costs and hours. Um and so ideally uh the total right there is 232875. Um for the cost, however, since this is an estimated cost, um what was in the staff report was uh an amount of $235,000 um which was also highlighted in the budget amendment as well. So, $100,000 coming from uh the general fund with the budget amendment and then the remainder of the 135 would come from under

spending that is currently in the IT budget and it would just be utilized for professional services um instead of the um two positions that were allotted for um within the IT budget. Um and then the final slide is uh this was a slide that we I had in the presentation from April 13th. So this is overall in terms of costs for meeting that vision of the R of the enterprise resource planning system or the city financial system. Um and so we would be in FY27. Um it does state um that it the 150,000 is unfunded. Uh however uh with the budget amendment and with this staff report um I think we would be funding um the whole amount and so we would not be coming back uh in FY27 for additional funds. We would complete the RFP process with um what we have both in underspending and with um the underspending through the general fund. And with that, if you have any questions, I guess the part that where the lead is kind of buried is the $2 million cost that are unfunded in the next two years after that. Yes. So, it's good that we can hopefully have a budget amendment to take care of this now, but I know that we're outside of budget season, but that's what we're staring at, I think, in Yes. FY28 and 29. Yes. Okay. Questions or comments for staff? Dave? Um, so could you review again for the public's benefit what what is this project? Um, so the city financial system is the underpinning or the foundation for all of the city business processes. And so

the things that have been most visible, I think, to the public and to council and that council has been most concerned with are the permits process and the payments process. And so in order to achieve uh the vision and the goals that we'd like to have with our permits and our payments process, part of that is really looking at our enterprise resource planning system, also known as the city financial system and really and also making some changes to that system. uh we know that changes need to be made to that system and utilizing the RFP process I think will not only provide us uh additional information from vendors it will also give us a best product um for what we're looking for to solve some of those issues with our permitting system and our payment system. So, the un un I think a council member used this I I'm always reluctant to use this word. The unsexy side of our city financial planning system is all that foundational stuff. Um our data, our you know internal processes um and um that's the behind the scenes the the 90% of the iceberg that you all don't see. Um so the fun part or the sexy side of the um uh city financial system are things like the permitting system and the payment system where um we're looking to have a portal where people can easily access their information that it's very transparent. Um and so in order to get there um our assessment right now is that we need to go through this process and really look at everything and get a better product. And that's not just my opinion. That has been the assessment from consultants and also um of other staff who interact with the system as well. So the parallel that we just given that we just talked RFP for two and a half

hours, this is the little RFP to bring in ESI and then eventually we will have a big RFP for the $2 million MUN future MUNS. Yes. Okay. So that helps. little RFP, big RFP, and and we have strategically chosen not to fund some of our FTEEs that the council has approved so that we can have this money for contractual support so we can bring in some outside expertise to help us through that process. So, can I just continue just finish that train of thought? So, just like how we don't have real estate experience and want a JLL to help us in the little RFP, correct? We don't feel like we have in-house experience to kind of vet what the right IT tool and platform is. And that's why we need ESI for $100,000. I would say the right expertise. Um some of us may have experience in different vendors or um different technology. I think this particular um an enterprise resource planning system is large enough and needs specific expertise and that's what we're contracting with um the ESI for. I don't want to downplay anybody's experience that they've had because I know David's had experience with um uh different planning systems. um I know that other of our IT staff have um so I don't want to downplay that experience. Um I think the expertise and the depth of expertise that we're looking for is really with a consultant. So I'm trying to get to my point. I do have a point. Sure. Uh so just like how we don't know enough about real estate and we want to bring in someone with an expert to help us navigate the process. I hear you and not having an expertise here. Um in terms of the outcome we want though knowing that the enterprise the ERP world has started consolidating majority of people seem to

use Tyler or an add-on to Tyler which is what is the the company behind Munis. Do we think that going through an extensive RFP we're essentially going to end up with Tyler again but just a more modern version and therefore do we really need a $100,000 consultant to get us that answer? I believe that we do um we could so I think in the assessment that I've done the and um the conversations that I have I don't know that most people use one vendor um I think there are certainly organizations that utilize um multiple vendors and do like a bestin class of of different um Tyler calls them modules but of of different functions. So they may get a permitting um function through one vendor and their payments through another vendor and then their financial system through another vendor. Um there are also um organizations who contract with um a vendor who will build it the way that an organization wants it to look like. So that's SAP. Am I saying that right, David? Um so a company like SAP. Um Tyler has I think um made a lot of changes um since we invested with them. I think over 20 years ago, 2002, three um and so I think going through this process and and competing it, it's time to do that. And I think also having um the consultant assistant is essential to that to get a good product whether it's staying with Tyler um and having a a much more robust contract or if it's we do discover that there's something out there that better suits our needs. Do we

have a good view of what the landscape is like who all our neighboring jurisdictions use or what combinations of tools they use? Because if we find that 75% actually uses Tyler, are we really going to go through an RFP process, end up at the same place with just updated modules? Like would the money be better spent on the upgrades and not an RFP process to get us essentially that same answer? I don't know that that's any different than what I just said. I don't know that my answer would be any different than than what I just said. I I think one of the factors we have to keep in mind and why I I think we do need a consultant on this is that enterprise software is rife with change right now. I mean this is an area that AI is just transforming. It's not an evolutionary change. There's a transformative change going on right now. And I, you know, Tyler might be best right now, but a year from now, they may be the one holding back. Even something as well, I was going to say simple, but boy, would that have been wrong. Um, the data migration piece um that we're going to have to deal with is just it's scary. And yet, that's an area that AI has is transforming it. It's like so different. So, I I mean, I don't know. I think enterprise software overall is in this difficult is in an incredible place right now and if you're going to change it's it's scary to try and keep up with it. So we need we need help. And I guess I think what I would add to you know it's not just a simple matter of buying another module or getting a new module. Um it's really looking at our whole entire system and is it serving whether with we're with Tyler or not. um whether it's serving our needs

and if it's functioning well. And so I think having the consultant, they've gotten us this far. Um I think having that consultant input and their expertise about what they're seeing out um you know in the world of enterprise resource planning systems is important. Um I don't think I don't think we can just go out and buy more modules and it's going to solve the problem. I think having this expertise um to guide us through the process um and having the feedback from vendors to then evaluate and I don't know if we'll land on Tyler again or if there's something better out there. I have certainly seen other vendors where I'm like, "Okay, there are some things that I think we would want to consider." Um so before I guess before it comes back next week, I asked to know kind of who what everyone uses just to know what the landscape is. Um so Fairfax uses SAP. Um City of Fairfax uses um Tyler. Um and I would have to look up Alexandria and maybe Louden or Arlington and Arlington. We don't need to answer now, but just before I think it'd be helpful to know what the landscape looks like. I think the bigger organizations use those bigger companies that will they build it for them. So, Oracle, SAP, um, and then as you get smaller in size, I think it's a combination between probably Tyler, I think it's Open Gov, and then doing best-in-class and picking, you know, Tyler does their potentially their financial piece and then other vendors use um, you know, another company to do payments and permits. But I can get Mary Beth was next before I jumped in. I

I just want to make sure is I think the schools use Tyler as well. Yes. Are they part of this process? Yes. Okay. And then Tom Clinton is here, the commissioner's office and the treasurer's office. They're all involved in the Yep. the process. Yes. Because it does touch every single office, the assessor and um there's a lot of people involved in that. Thanks, Dave. Does this include uh cyber security? So the enterprise resource planning system does not include cyber security. I mean I cyber's on everything. I was going to say cyber security is on everything. Um if you're speaking to um is this is part of this contract reviewing protecting the data that's used in our that's used in our financial systems like we collect a lot of personal information on people when they pay their various bills is that included in this I think it would be it could it be I don't know I think it's part of any enterprise is enterprise resource planning system. I think what you may be referring to is um when we had talked during about during budget season was our SISO so our cyber information security officer um and that we are contracting out and that's currently um being looked at under another RFP process. Yeah, Cindy, could you? Yeah, I was just going to add in working with purchasing, every contract that we do issue out has terms and conditions for the cyber security and the control of the data and whether it's housed on the cloud or on prem to make sure that

that PII is protected. And so I have no doubt that'll be part of the assessment as well as a future RFP. And then parallel to that, your next consent agenda. We obviously carry cyber security insurance as an overlay to the vendor's responsibility. Okay. Because it it really needs to cut across all areas with a special focus though on where we're collecting personal information. That is true. and also with all our other vendors that interface because we have, you know, Rex and Park Recracks and we've got personal information there that then feeds into this. So, it's a holistic focus for sure and law enforcement and all the all we collect a surprising amount of personal information. We sure do and and enterprise transformation as Mr. said the AI is definitely adding to cyber security. Okay. And just piggy backing on what Art said a minute ago. Um this is all moving very quickly. Um the um I deal with some of these issues on my day job. So, um, are we looking at where AI can improve our system as well as, um, avoiding the obvious vulnerabilities that AI is bringing with it? Is that part of what we're looking at? I think when it comes to vendors if the vendors are using AI so whether it's with data migration or implementation um that becomes part of the the package that they would present to us are we independently using AI?

No, not at this point. We're not implementing our own um I always want to call it a multi-level marketing plan but it's a language model language LML yeah which is just one part of it the I guess the fundamental question is is ESI bringing as part of this contract cyber and AI expertise to help us evaluate the cyber security the AI flexibility, the all these different things that are constantly changing and to the extent of the best way you protect customers data is you don't actually have it in your systems and there's other ways having gone through a credit card migration scary and just today I was speaking with the purchasing team um as I'm working on another RFP and there's a lot of stuff that we were building we we're now building into the RFP to ask are they using it disclose it how are you using it how are you protecting it are using our data to train on so there's a whole um suite of questions that are going into the regular RFP process that we're now going to implement in addition to your point of what does this vendor do to help us assess those points that part I'll defer to them okay other questions or comments Okay. Thank you, Jenny. And then the other half of consent is the Versa. You have any thing to note or That's a generally kind of an annual thing and I don't think there's anything too new about that. Glad to answer questions. There were some mid-year amendments where we enhanced some land use uh claim

coverage and fiduciary oversight insurance for retirement board trustees as well as staff implementing the programs. People have questions or comments on that one. Okay, I think that's it for work session. It's 11 so I'm not sure we want to really do council schedule. We should probably we should because no we have to rethink the our I was going to suggest maybe on Wednesday why do you have a revised schedule based on the zoning timeline that Matt laid out when I think I Laura had a good idea of like maybe we just use next week to continue the discussion. Um especially if we're not it'd be nice if we staff can you know kind of like a comment matrix like we normally do for other things to say here's everything we heard here's where it's either reflected or not reflected here are changes we're making at least then it's a good like recap two hours of discussion and then there may be more or we may feel pretty good and then we're like here's the schedule then if we feel pretty good and the benefit of doing that is I hate to push because it's still fresh in everyone's minds too like that's I don't want to lose the momentum right So yeah. So based on that input on Wednesday, if you could show us a schedule of like, okay, we'll do another tag on work session on Monday night on the RFP and the initiating res. I guess the question is, are we comfortable initiating the resolution for the zoning changes because that just lets staff start the work, right? So that still can stay on the schedule. The only thing people have discomfort with is releasing the RFP. And so if we have a second work session on the RFP then based on all the feedback we heard a good like recap of what we heard what staff's doing about it and then we talk about a revised timeline then yeah we'll uh we'll have a schedule for

trying to work the RFP to get it to you know like what's a good process for us to get to the point where there is consensus that we've got it in the right spot. So we want to give a little bit more thought about that. Um, you know, one idea was target first reading for the for the zoning. Have that be the target to have the RFP in a good shape to to release. But let let's let us think that schedule through a little bit more. The other task is how to engage effectively with uh key people to make sure that you know we'll kind of work in the issues. But we we'll have a good plan. Okay. Guess we'll come back Wednesday then. Is there anything else for tonight? Maybe just one last thing on so the selection committee itself and I don't mean to open up a big can of worms here with the West Falls project. The selection committee was a city manager appointed group and that was at the recommendation of the procurement team. They're like you know procurements are just they are kind of confidential administrative functions. Now, they just give an advice ultimately the city council makes the decision on it. So, that's what I'm proposing is that the selection committee would be um city manager would organize it with the representation that Matt showed on the slide. Is the council okay with that or do we need to talk a little bit more about that? So, to clarify because during discussion there was some concern that the selection committee is choosing the winning proposal ultimately that still vests with us. That's right. I'm not sure who heard that. Right. Right. So there's closed sessions where if it's proprietary information held within those proposals, council sits in on hears from the selection committee. This is why we picked B. These are the other options. And then we get to go over and talk about it all and decide if we agree with B or we want A.

So we're not outsourcing that decision to the selection committee. No, I'm sure people heard that. For West Falls, there was a thing that procurement people hated it, but we forced them to do it, which was that there was a public meeting where the two kind of finalists were gave presentations so the public could could see that. That we're in the community center, right? Uh, and so I'm curious about doing you something like that to to make it a bit more transparent, but an RFP process is sort of structurally under Virginia law is generally a not a super open process. And I I didn't I wasn't under a misimpression that they choose like that they choose the partner like I understand that they winnowed like whittle down submissions and then they victim and this is what yeah this is what we thought makes sense and here's who we have chosen as the selection committee to put before you as the council as the partner we would recommend and the council can look at all of them and can can do a denovo review but you would have this group with broader representation do that work for the council and then yeah my point was the timing that I had understood and often times It makes sense to like set up selection committees, set up hiring panels, like set up what that looks like before you're actually receiving submissions in your hand and then assigning the people to things you've already been able to look at. I think there's merit in that having that uh laid out well in advance, too. So, we're going to get cracking on that. Um, and I think as part of the schedule, we'll sort we'll lay that out as well. How do people feel about being a city manager appointed selection committee with obviously us being the final

decider? What what's this what's what's the selection committee going to do again? So they will um is it analytical? Yeah, they will take the proposals, they will review them, they'll score them, and then they'll share their scoring with the city council. Okay. So it's the selection committee is not making a selection. What they're doing is analyzing the now they well they have uh they typically would make a recommendation. So here's their analysis and we're recommending based on that analysis this this group and and they don't ne I mean I to me that's valuable to have them sort of go ahead and give a recommendation. They could say we recommend these two finalists you all make the final decision. They could do something like that. Is there uh part of the process I know there's a part of the process where the vendors come back with questions for us and we respond is after they send their proposal in is there a Q&A session with the selection committee so that any of these gaps and so forth get filled in before they come to the council they so in my experience uh a selection committee can meet with as many of them as they want to. And uh they said if you get 15 proposals, you might not meet with all 15, but you would meet with you perhaps five of them and they would give you a big dog and pony show as well as what's on the on paper. Yeah. And and that also enables us to have um you know community feedback because you've got boards and commissions on there which the mayor you

know I was whispering to ours do we need to have a community member on this but there will be community members because those are our board members community members. Right. Right. So that way that also enables us to say we did take in you know we did have representatives from the community on as part of this process. And then are you going so then how does that work with boards and commissions? Do you say to you know planning commission planning commission can you choose who you would want to put onto this committee or do you reach out and say ex planning commissioner would you like to be on selection? Very good question. So with West Falls uh we had been doing the the thing that you proposed which is that selection committee had actually been meeting for a while already even before the RFP was issued. So it was sort of a group and so it continued on for the selection process. Um how they got picked I think probably like the planning commission said we you know we sent two people. Yeah. So that's what bottom line is. Uh if council's comfortable with that approach, I would send a note out to the planning commission, the EDA, and the housing commission and ask them to u provide their person they'd like to be on the selection comm. We're going to have a representative from Winter Hill. The reason why I'm being specific about that is unlike the school project where we really weren't developing or thinking about developing in some way something right at a neighborhood. But I think it is really helpful if in this case you had someone. So I'm recommending not doing that. Um yeah, this is the issue that I have with a selection committee. Yeah. So, we were making the final call and out of the 198 units in Winter Hill,

there's the handful that it and obviously they're the most impacted. Right. And so, I want to make sure we keep that broader context in mind. Is that right? Like, and I think there's going to be people that are probably just as far as some of the people in Winter Hill that aren't going to be part of, you know, represented. Right. Well, if the council does, you know, I want this group to this group is serving the city council. I'm kind of administering it. And so I would like it to be done. Council's like, I like the way that this is set up. So, for example, the residents at West Broad arguably are just as close as some of the farthest neighbors in Winter Hill, but we're not saying, "Hey, you should have representative on this." Right. I think Yeah. The issue is though this is a unique fairly unique project that you really it's dropping it right in an area that I think needs to have some kind of representation on this if if unless the selection committee is literally going to do an objective matrix here's what it is kind of an analysis I think it would beneficial that's what they're supposed to yeah I think it would be beneficial is if if there's somebody who's on one of the current boards and commissions who does live in Winter Hill that I think would be beneficial if we looked at that to see if there was somebody like that because what concerns me is that we have some people from Winter Hill with very strong opinions that are not necessarily going to be putting the city as a whole. Um, I I don't want to see the selection committee just becoming a giant fight behind the scenes and it's uh it would be worse if it's like and nobody listened to me and everybody just ignored me. So, need to be a little careful with that. But along the same lines, I mean, are you going to have a resident of Virginia Village on the selection committee?

Arguably, they're even more affected than Winter Hill is. Yeah. So, um kind of one other challenge with those is like who and like who picks that person and um uh so maybe we think about that a little bit more but on when we do get together on the 26 I'll lay I'll flesh this out a little bit more and get some more reaction to it but it is it's an important group um and you know it needs to be operating with the full support of Dave's concern though I think that's why we're laying out the criteria with the scoring like they are supposed to be very objective we're laying out the criteria of how you're going to be evaluated here's how you get awarded points they are bringing a lens of being a planning commissioner an EDA person and housing person but other than that like we're telling them here's how people should get scored so I feel pretty comfortable if we are the ones making that call and asking five people to make that decision. I do that initial homework for us. I think it would be beneficial if we had them identified in these first meeting of them before we issue the RFP so that they as the selection committee can chime in on the RFP and make sure there isn't something they're like, "Oh, wait a minute. How are we going to grade it if it's doesn't have this?" Yeah, that's right. I mean that could be one other function of the selection committee is that the council could ask that selection committee do the final scrub of the RFP to make uh you don't want to outsource that did we adjourn 10 minutes ago we did we had final we had final discuss so I did open up a can of worms but uh we we'll have some more

I I just have one thing that is a council request more than anything else. Many intersections have been No. Yeah. That that that all is that the final part? No, the speed bumps are the final part. Speed speed humps are Yes, you're right. The extensions are great. Extensions, but some of the stop signs are still in their original spot. Yeah, they they'll get moved. Oh, they get the new stop bars and everything. I think I'm sure you saw it went to everyone, um, Kathleen's response to the budget and finance calendar for June 26th. And so, um, I will touch base, I guess, with Wyatt and David to get kind of a reaction as to, you know, it's on for the 26, but Kathleen had responded about how do we have that conversation? You know, does it need to be phased, you know, staged, like what, how are we doing that? So, it will make sense for me to touch base with you and David, other people. If you have thoughts, get in contact with me, let me know. I'll touch base with Art and Laura indivi I guess I can't do that individually but um we'll figure it out in terms of let me know what you think but we'll talk it's fine for you to talk yeah yeah yeah but it's more about like they were saying yeah the process and having the whole school board doesn't need to be a joint meet like a joint meeting that's not a budget and finance meeting but it really seems like it's a beginning conversation time dedicated to revenue sharing getting the benefit of sort of your instit institutional knowledge about some of this and how we've approached things certain ways or why we've approached things certain ways or open questions that still exist and kind of doing a debrief coming out of the budget

cycle and then what comes into No, it won't be but we it needs to be part of that meeting and then we need to figure out next steps from it. most of us ring in Kieran Ba and Kristen Michael. So just so anyway I just you know it so if you have thoughts I guess quick thought is that I presume based on the fact we all brought it up during budget is that we as a council we prefer budget and finance taking a first crack at it knowing that we're going to have to have more discussions and majority of us show up to budget and finance anyway. So it's not like we feel like we're not represented but that's my point of view. like the school board is limited to the chair and vice chair. They can show up and be part of the initial conversation and then we'll have plenty of follow-up conversations. We're going to need to work through this going into any budget guidance obviously. So yeah. Okay. I don't feel the need to immediate plan massive joint meeting if we have it on the calendar and people are welcome to join that one. And for I would I'm planning to do a sit down and maybe a couple sitdowns with uh Terry Dade and Alicia Prince before the budget and finance to see if we can come to some shared views on things that we could share with the committee. Be helpful if there was a staff recommendation coming into it. One last quick thing. Um if you could if you can keep us in hear anything about the next era Dominion Energy merger. H obviously it's been all over the news today. All over the news and clean energy and another big talk to them today if we want. So next era energy are merging. It's going to take 18 months but big deal and our and we use Dominion. So yeah I had a quick conversation with Dominion today and everything local will still say Dominion Energy. We'll have our same staff. We'll have the same trucks but it will be a big merger. Still has to have approval. of 12 to 18 months. So the initial intent is

operations will look and feel the same how it impacts rates and all that to be unfolding. We're not going to get anything for 12 months. Nope. 12 to 18 months then. Who knows? That's I'm signed up. Okay. I think we're tracking it, Mr.