City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah, she's in uh the NMA area north. Oh, okay. East. Yeah. Anyway, she loves it. No, you gonna go. Hello. How are you? I'm okay. You need to Okay, everyone. Can we um get started here? Okay, I will call this meeting to order of the Steamboat Spring City Council regular meeting number 2026-12, Tuesday, April 21st, 2026 at 5:00 pm. Julie, could we have roll call, please? Here, Gail Gary

here. John Aosta here. Dave Barnes is absent. Michael Bacino here. Amy Dixon here. And Brian Swintech is up. Okay. Can we rise and do the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. All right. Our first thing on the agenda tonight is we are going to adjourn and reconvene as the liquor license authority. So, could I have a motion to do just that? Second. Second.

Okay. Motion by councelor Pacino, second by councelor Aosta. All those in favor say I. I. I.

Okay. We are now into our liquor license meeting. And we have um Julie, can we let roll call stand for that? Okay. And we have one item on the liquor license authority consent calendar. and that is to set a hearing date and designate a neighborhood for a new hotel and restaurant liquor license for Steamboat Southwest, Inc. doing business as Alta Mesa. So, we can either pull that item or someone can make a motion to acknowledge and accept the application for a new hotel and restaurant liquor license for Steamboat Springs, Inc. doing business as Altamees Mesa to designate the neighborhood as the Highway 40 corridor and to set the public hearing date for June 2nd, 2026.

So moved. Second. Okay, we have a motion by Council Gary, second by Councel Pacino. All those in favor say I. I. I opposed. Okay, motion passes. And now I would like to have a motion to adjurnn and reconvene to our regular council meeting. So moved. Okay. Second motion by councelor Pacino, second by councel Gary. All those in favor say I. I.

I. Opposed. Okay. We are back to our regular meeting agenda and just a couple announcements. Uh we will have public comment. Uh that will be provided after staff reports or after the city manager report or at 6 p.m. whichever comes first. And we will also have public comment regarding individual items on the agenda as they come up. So let's start with city council reports. Who has a report to make this evening? I do not. Okay. Councelor Pacino, you Oh, you don't. Councelor August Augusta, I do not.

All right. Um, no. I I mean a brief thing on RTA. We're basically working, you know, we have a committee subcommittee set up for um defining what the executive director position is and we're making some progress on that and we'll we'll review a first draft of that next meeting um convening which is next Monday. Deal. Thank you. Anyone on this side? I actually do not. Although not although are you all going to provide an update on the meeting with ski and next steps or no I think sure that's in the yeah perfect okay I I I have a couple of other items if that's okay.

Yes.

All right. Um I guess first of all I just wanted to start and say thank you to all of you as well as to staff um for all your support over this last month. I really appreciate each one of you and all your kindness and thoughts and um stepping in to help and um when I couldn't. So again, just really appreciate all of you. So thank you. Uh I wanted to I'll forward to you all I did um and part of well I I'll forward to you all um some FAQs and information on the educa on the ECE early childhood education initiative. I don't know if if you all have heard about that or not. I mean certainly this is an initiative that's being um driven by me franges at first impressions as well as along of a steering committee. We um have a seat on that although I will tell you while I was out I didn't participate and they're moving fast. Um, so folks may or may not know that and maybe have received a poll that is in the field in terms of a survey to get information on what our community would be willing to support in terms of funding potential funding mechanisms. Um, they're looking at a 2 mill property tax um that would ra in the countywide that would raise around 4.5 million, a 0.25% 25% sales tax. That would bring in 3.1 million. But um the other thing they're looking at is potentially dedicating or redirecting asking the voters to redirect 25% of the STR tax to early childhood education. And they're basically looking at kind of three components, capacity, um access, and people. And there they've got a lot of great information out there and we'll they're working on it. Um uh I and they permit it presented to the commission. The poll apparently will get the um topline results this week um full results on Monday of the 27th and then they'll be reporting out to the board of

county commission. they have asked to come to council and I think we decided May the third meeting in May where they'll come to present to council have provided feedback that um there you know certainly I as an individual have concerns about redirecting the short-term rental tax and that you know obviously council this will need to come to to council in terms of having a conversation. So um and kind of trying to put some in provide some input on the FAQs as well. So, I'll get that out to everybody for your um for you all to take a look and so we can provide feedback on that as well. Uh also just forwarded this afternoon the uh meeting minutes from before our last quarterly meeting of the building oversight route county building oversight committee and then councelor Bino and I attended that and we just had our quarterly meeting. So, take a look at those notes and the data from the building office um because it's, you know, it's pretty interesting. We also had coffee with council on Friday. Again, councelor Bino, councelor Augusta, and myself were there. We had probably about 10 people um in addition to ourselves, a few new faces. Uh we

Yeah, right. We did have um the uh PE representatives from the Healthy Kids um uh organization come to talk about um flavored tobacco and I think they're looking at what kind of options they might have in terms of trying to limit the use. Apparently, it's pretty prevalent in the high schools and having an impact on the high school students. So, um they will I would imagine we'll hear from them fairly soon as well. addictive vapes that taste like strawberry pointed right for kids. It's not good.

Yeah. And then and I think they've got some data that shows that the usage in route county particularly among middle school students is higher than what they're seeing on a statewide basis.

So there they've got a lot of good information. We also got questions about RTA kind of overall affordability issues in Steamboat. Um there was one comment that maybe we should look at downtown and close streets to one way. Um you know so so it's you know it's always interesting in terms of kind of the information that we get out of those meetings and hear from the community in terms of issues that are of importance to them. And then lastly I think I met with the postmaster on Friday.

Nice. So, the new interim postmaster and he's definitely interested in helping with the initiative to put in cluster boxes in downtown in Oldtown where we don't have cluster boxes and everyone for the most part has a PO box and and what's happened too is there has been a change in policy that if you know the old postmaster basically if you didn't get a PO box um if you didn't get your mail delivery at home you would get a free PO box otherwise it's like $180. Um, and so he basically waved that fee. But what's happening this year is if you're close to a cluster box, even if you don't get your mail delivered there or you're perceived perceived to be on one of their delivery routes, they're now charging they're recharging or instituting the $180 fee again. So if you if anybody talks to you or um is interested in it, send them my way or take their name and address and anybody who wants to help on it. That looks like we might be able to make some headway on that. open cluster box in your neighborhood, you're going to be you got to give up your PO box and start using that cluster box in your neighborhood,

right? Free up PO box for lots of other people because the capacity of PO boxes is limited, right? Interesting. And and well, it'll help with engagement. Yeah. And it'll help hopefully help with traffic right there at the post office as well. I mean, if we can and that's I mean, he seems to be pretty motivated to to try to make that happen. So, and there's also cluster boxes at UPS as well. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. That's my list. Okay.

One one addition on on con on on coffee council, we did have someone ask about um overlays on the replay. And so when you when you have a YouTube replay or channel 6 replay um right now we we do um do some overlays with basically this is like planning commission or this is you know you know city council what they're looking for is overlay on the subject area. So at this point in time we're talking about you know um at least the item or or the agenda item and it's so they're asking is there you know is there any possibility of doing that video YouTube I has okay that would make sense.

Yeah. So if they come in they they know exactly you know what portion they're looking. God forbid they should have to watch the whole thing.

Okay. Um I have a couple things. uh met with um Winter Sports Club and um you know we're working on the new operating agreement there. But we also are working on looking out uh over the course of the next three to five years around um you know what are the projects, what are the priorities, what are the costs, how are things going to get funded um from a capital project perspective and um uh we have a group working on that and we're going to get back together on June 17th to um dig deeper into that. Um secondly, we're just starting Thursday the Y amp Valley Housing Authority ED search. So that gets underway um Thursday of this week. Um Councelor Swintech and I went on the Mount Warner Tour. I know Councelor Aosta, you've been on that, but I urge everybody if you haven't been on that, it's really um an exciting and uh informative tour to tour Mount Warner water. So, and they are Frank is very open to doing that anytime. Um, I sent had Teresa send out a note about the farmers market uh that opens up June 6th. I see you and I are on the first one. So, I will share with you how to set it up. So, uh, again, there's spots for two people, but you know, it's okay to have more than two people show up at this because it is, um, public meeting and, um, there will not be one on July 4th because July 4th is on a Saturday this year. So, that will have to be closed off. And I also sent out a note to uh I think um the the people who are working on um both the fire district as well as the RTA about trying to use these farmers markets and communicate uh in a very impactful way some of the things we want to get in front of the public and educate them on like the fire district consolidation like the RTA. So, if we

can, you know, um I know Brad used some really big boards to communicate when he was doing the community survey and whatnot. So, if we can look at how we can really maximize that, I think it would be a good idea. So, I sent it to both of you guys, I think. Um what else? Oh, um on the um Bill Pass made a suggestion. I just want to throw it in in front of everyone to see what you think of this. Um around executive sessions and he suggested that we take public comment before going into executive sessions. Um Dan and I talked a little bit about that. There's no issue with doing that at all. He just thought there might be some subjects um whether they're employee evaluations or whatnot that people might want to make a public public comment. So um does anybody have any feeling one way or the other? Do you support that of just asking the question before we go into executive session if anybody wants to make a public comment regarding the topic of the executive session?

I I well I would ask the topic is super vague. Not vague but there's not a lot of details. I'm not sure how public comment would help inform. I'm not against public comment. Please know I I love it. I just I just don't know how that will be helpful because we don't have a lot of information. And what do other cities do around public comment before executive session? Do we know?

I can't answer that, but I I could tell you the other side of it was that if we can expand a little bit on what the executive session is about, that would be helpful. So, we're going to try to at least give a little better context around it than we have in the past, which should help. I would agree though there probably will be some topics where it would be it will be difficult but I think there are others if we expand on some and others that are more um easy to understand. Um so that would be the intent.

So so my opinion on that is I definitely believe we should provide more um descriptive of what we're going into executive counsel that you know that is to me is very clear. Um it's unclear to me it you know outside of hey we're going to do an evaluation of our you know um uh city manager how much public comment would would be able to you know be useful with the limited information we provide but in summary I would like to see a little more description.

Councelor Pino um I I really to me Yeah, I don't have a I don't have a problem with with it because frankly, um, Bill brings up a good point of having a little bit of public comment prior to going in there. If there's someone that knows something personal that wants to have some input, I don't have a problem with it. But again, I just want to be cautious about the employee things. But even that, I I we're we're public entities, so I have no problem if we do a little public comment before it on just the topic that we're going to talk about. That's all it is. Yeah. on the topic of the executive session which we can

be a little bit more as John says descriptive and um as much as we can. So and and the challenge I think we're going to find in that is that we're going to get public comment on something that's not related to it because we're just getting information and it's pretty private. So you know there's going to be a lot of assumptions in these public comments but I still think it's worth listening to and we could try it and see how it goes. Yeah. Yep.

Is everybody okay with that? Yeah, thumbs up, thumbs down. Okay, the last thing I want to mention is we did have, as Councelor Dixon said, a meeting with Ski Core around paid parking. Um, you can, if you viewed it, great. If you haven't, you can. Um, and we have another meeting set up um in May on May 11th to talk about from both perspectives. they're going back to thinking about it and so are we about what mitigation strategies um we could put in place and what options we have. So that next meeting will be be on May 11th. And um I want to throw out there the fact I'm sure somebody's thinking well is it a public meeting or is it a private meeting? We've had discussions about that and there are, you know, a lot a lot of pros and cons and challenges with this because we want to get to the point here where we can um negotiate and have a discussion where maybe some confidential information may be shared and uh we want to make sure it's an effective meeting. So, and councelor Gary, you you can chime in here too. So I think from a standpoint of having the most effective meeting, if if we can hold it to be more of a private meeting, but come out of that meeting with a written summary of the meeting that immediately goes to everyone saying uh you know taking out anything that might be confidential or whatever privileged information. So I think that's kind of where we were leaning on this. Yeah, I think I mean I think we certainly discussed that but subject to input, right? In the sense of how do you find that balance between the um ability to negotiate but also to be transparent and accountable.

Yeah. So, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Well, I mean I I mean I agree with what you're saying. I think we're used to um being on the mic and um for other folks um it can stifle conversation um and that's a concern wondering if we will get um the best outcome if people feel like they can't be totally forthcoming. Um, so I could go either way if you while you were there and I watched it. Um, if you feel like we get better outcome by not having it um, posted live and you all come back and report out, I would support that.

Okay. Yeah. I I would I would expect that with the meeting that you guys already had that was uh resumed publicly, right?

We had um clearly everyone kind of saw it and we got the the link, but if there was a lot of people that were in the citizens that happened to watch it that wanted to do a follow-up email, I didn't see a whole lot. And so, I mean, I think it's good to keep things open. Um, and we want to, especially that first meeting was we really need to kind of get the air out some grievances publicly so people knew we're doing it. But if there is something that has to want to go through it, I think publicly we should have meetings as often as we can, but working with this on this parking kind of if we get down to the nuts and bolts of it, we may need to hear some propri proprietary business aspects from Skiore. Anything on our side, I'd rather have it open and public, but I think it's a wait and see. Okay.

Open public. Public. Okay. So, what I'm hearing is that um the majority of you are okay if we hold this privately as long as we share this as quickly and immediately afterward and in the most transparent way possible. Is that a thumbs up by the majority here? I'll do four. Okay. And you're a thumbs down? Yeah, I I would love to have it more open. Okay. And I think we didn't we talk about potentially carving out some time on our first meeting in May to have a discussion and get input from council members in terms of Yeah. Yeah. Right. So thoughts. So thinking so set that.

Yeah. So we have your thoughts and that we want input right in terms of potential questions, other you know mitigation strategies. Yeah. The gamut. Yeah. It's perfect. So, so we'll carve out time on the first meeting in May. Okay.

Can I ask you a quick question? And this is for Tom as well. Um, your update on um, and we received an email. I forget who sent it about the um, first impressions potential ballot question. um for the meeting that Meg will be here in May. I'm wondering be helpful if we had Kim Tom. I'll look at you if we had Kim um provide an update on um where we where we're planning on allocating STR funds. We have the Campbell property and so I think that might be helpful as well. Um, and does first impressions that the council have our housing strategy? Do you know?

You know, I No, I think your point is is right on um on target because that's exactly kind of what the point was that I made during the meeting was that, you know, even that we've got a lot of potential projects in the pipeline that we don't have enough money for. Yeah.

Right. So I think so trying to get that message across that yes we can divert short-term rental monies and in the FAQ right now it says at no cost to the community and it's like well no there is a cost right I mean it's not going to maybe come directly out of our pocket like a sales tax or a property tax would but there is a cost in terms of monies being diverted away from providing housing for our workforce and and they have an argument I mean they certainly there's a le there's a nexus and so it's you know it's just it's a conversation but I think to your point we need to do better as a comm city in terms of we've got Campbell, we have um you know potential hilltop, right? I mean there's uh you know the the no the new um kind of down payment assistance plan with the deed restrictions. I mean there's a whole host of potential projects out there that are and you know when we talk about Slate Creek in a neighborhood and aka Brown Ranch, there's a lot of needs for those monies

and I think that look at it from STR standpoint. I would love the presentation because I think if I'm on city council, which I am clearly, and uh would like to give

if we had this extra STR money to do something with and we're giving it all 100% to housing in one way or the other, we still have to consider the um the people the retention of our families that live here and how hard it is for child care and what can we do. But the Campbell property if it had a component with child care and that was where we were going to provide our best use of our funds to proide provide a 60 or 70 you know head nursing or childcare facility that would be enormous for this right so let's kind of hear the conversation together uh the one thing I'm always uh worried about when it comes to these funding mechanisms like that is that right now it's set up as a oneandone

it's not like we're going to give you a million dollars every year and you're going to budget for it every year this may only be this year and you may not get anything next year. So, it's really hard. It's good for capital projects but not necessarily for budgeting operations. And just to level set, I mean, I think and again, we'll get the data to you, but they indicate that they're at least $8 million short on an annual basis. Wow. And we know that there's like a $10 million impact to the community from an economic development perspective. So, yeah, we really need to keep child care in the forefront of our goals.

Yeah. And I think that for you know uh some of you who didn't attend uh when we went to uh Frraasier and saw the St. Louis project which is a lot of affordable housing but on the four first floor of one of the buildings the entire first floor is child care and so there's four stories above that of all affordable housing and um so that's a nice model to see where you can marry affordable housing and child care and we should try to maximize that obviously. Yeah, this is the first I mean actually I guess this week is the first I've heard about the first impressions and and wanting to you know they're exploring revenue um aspects. First thing I had for me is it's unclear what they are trying to do and how it's and how does it complement what we're thinking about doing and you know um councelor Matina you know I concur with what we saw you know the St. for this project was incredible and it's like this is this is what we want to be. Um and it it was a it was a nice you know large building. It was a huge child care center. Um and then on the first floor and then the next three four stories was all apartments and you know beautiful apartments. So I want to understand how they how they would complement you know our directions and make sure we're doing you know complimentary things. They have a pretty thorough Thrive by Five um document and I think it's being finalized. So once it's finalized or I can even send it out and just know that it's draft form. So that that'll answer a lot of I think the questions in terms of the intentions.

Okay, good. Um the next under uh city council reports was the city council housing subcommittee meeting summary memo. You all should have a copy of that. Um, we don't need to run through that entire memo unless there are questions that anyone has. I just had a question about number two. Does that change in terms of the request in terms of the base camp road town homes um with the change in ownership? Well, this didn't this is not part of that. That wasn't No. And okay, this is this is different.

The row town homes weren't okay. No, this is um if you read in here, it says per unit city subsidy should be aligned with value restrictions and maximum sales prices established. These units uh if we got into them are far different, far more expensive that are we're looking at subsidies of 300 plus. Okay. So the the request would be to use SDR monies to buy down the price so that they could be eligible for our the city's new deed restriction pro program. Well, yes, in some ways. Yes. But it's um it's a lot.

It it's a well if if you're $350,000 off or $400,000 off, $150,000 or 250 doesn't quite get you there. So, okay. Thanks for that clarification.

Um, all right, let's go on to agenda review. On May 5th, uh, we have our SS meeting where we're going to get an update on the 2026 project activity plan and we'll also get a resolution for a supplemental budget appropriation at that point in time. And then we'll follow up with our regular meeting agenda on May 5th. And you can see there it's uh uh archaeology and historic preservation month. So I would ask um anybody interested in reading that pro proclamation.

I'll read it since everyone's staring at me and I will not say whereas each time which I just learned. You but you can you can though. Okay. you know, it's okay. All right. Thank you for that.

Um, and then if you look through there, you'll see we have uh Kim's going to give us a fiscal sustainability community report at that point in time talking a lot about the expense side of the equation. And then you can see um we have some under the consent calendar we have liftup will be coming to us with their expansion plans and the land landscape code amendment um and some an easement and a resoning request that um is going to be postponed till that date and time and then some second readings as well. Any questions on May 5th? Anybody? Okay, May 12th, we have a work session. We have three topics. Uh Jonathan's going to give us an update on winter service options for next winter. I'm sure everybody's ready to talk about winter. And then we're going to also talk about the marijuana local production requirement, which sunsets, and see where we stand on that. And we're also going to have a discussion about the local marketing district potential for expanding the district. all on May 12th. Any questions? Okay.

Um, yes. Sorry. Uh, go ahead. I'm looking Maybe it's in the next agenda. The fiscal sustainability conversation. Is that the next That was the last one. That was on May um 5th. Oh, May 5th. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Expenses. That's next meeting. Got it. Okay.

Did you have a question on that or No. Okay. Okay. And then we're on to um after the work session on May 12th, we have May 19th. U that's our joint meeting with the route county commissioners. Um we have on there right now the community plan strategic growth um element, the urban growth boundary piece. Um and we're still uh we're going to be meeting on that because there's a couple of other subjects that have come up um that we might want to talk about as well. Um, and we're going to kind of have a meeting on that and then bring it back to all of you to see what you think before that meeting. You okay with that? And then we have a number of um second readings and um also a resolution around the air program between Ski Corps and the LMD on that meeting, but it's relatively light meeting. And then on June 2nd, we have two community reports. The annual education fund board will be giving their report and we'll also get a summer fall preview from uh the chamber at that point in time. And then you can see we have um first reading of an ordinance and a couple resolutions. And again, that one isn't too uh time consuming at all at this point in time. And then we have your work session calendar. Any questions on any of that?

We good? Good. Good.

Okay. Then we'll move on to city manager report. Okay. Thank you, President Montine. Um city manager report, as I've said before, can be found on the city's uh website, steamospr.net. just go to um city manager tab and you can find uh tonight's report as all as well as all the other previous uh reports. Um and just a reminder, we did change the format of our city manager report. It is now formatted um and organized by our strategic plans outcome areas uh which are the kind of the end results that we're all trying to achieve as a community and it describes uh what those outcome areas are. So, we'll start off with thriving community. Um, and a couple updates on there. The Ample River Botanic Park opened to the public this year. The earliest it's ever opened. We're That's sort of a trend now. Um, the earliest opening uh in the Botanic Park's history was on April 7th this year. So, um, as we know, things are warm and drying out quickly out there. Um the trails are opening uh again on a lot of our our trails out on a house and open spaces. Um staff will be out there cleaning up trails, removing falling trees uh in the coming weeks. We will remind try to remind the public to please be patient. Um you know with changing conditions, those trails will get wet and muddy quickly. So please stay off those trails if we get some moisture, which we are supposed to at the end of this week. I know we're all anxious to get out there, but please uh protect our trails. Uh summer camp registration open to all non-residents on April 10th. The overall enrollment uh at least when this was written was currently at about 60%. Capacity across all programs uh with many of the theme camps already full and maintaining active weight lists. So, summer camps are fully staffed and programming is well positioned for another good summer season. So, uh, way to get the, um,

staff up and running on that one. Um, a little bit of a, uh just an update on what, uh, President Montine said. Um, the area plan coordinating committee, the APCC did meet in March to start to talk about, uh, the strategic growth element of the uh, Steamboat Springs Community Plan. If you recall, this was the one of the new elements that the state required as part of the state legislation. Um and when they met in March, they advised that the city should work with Dola to determine if the adopted community plan does in fact meet the requirements for our strategic growth elements. And we did find out that it does in fact meet our strategic the strategic growth elements. So the pressure is a little bit off to kind of develop that whole new element since we already meet those uh requirements. Um and to President Montene's point, um so that takes a little bit of the pressure off to have that conversation with the county. We will still be having a conversation with the county on the UGB. I did talk to Jay Harrington today. Um but there's not the sort of the um the need to to move that expeditiously uh to meet the state requirements for this year. Uh some information on all of the planning department's efforts uh for evaluating the requests for the STR tax fund in there. There's lots of there's three or four um descriptions of various uh proposals that they're looking at. And the housing authority board reviewed a draft administration uh a draft administration and services agreement related to the housing authorities's role as our program administrator for our pilot pilot purchase of deed restriction program. Um the board supported that draft agreement and directed the housing authority staff to finalize the agreement and to initiate development of the pilot programs administrative procedure. So we're glad to see that moving forward and we hope that program will be launched in early June. Uh there are two more uh upcoming sessions of the of the Slate Creek

neighborhood formerly known as Brown Ranch Governance Group. Uh they're scheduled for Thursday, April 30th and Friday, May 1st. Both of those meetings will be held in the Vector Bank conference room and the group will be continuing their dialogue on key milestones and important questions as well as endeavoring to finalize the group's description of the desired end state. So um those are two meetings backtoback um and hopefully be making some progress and we'll give you a quick update on that um after that meeting. in connected and engaged community. Um we the city is seeking community feedback on a conceptual project proposed by the Steamboat Springs Wonder Sports Club to develop their youth sports center. The proposed facility would be located at Hollison Hill and is intended to support uh the club's long-standing commitment to youth athletics and recreation. You can find more information on this on the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club youth sports banner on the Engaged Steamboat site. And the open participation survey was mailed out on April 8th and the city's survey contractor Poco will close data collection tomorrow and then a draft report will be ready by May 20th. So, we'll get that information out on the results of that survey. Um there's a lot of uh information on the various historic preservation activities uh including the intensive uh level cultural resource survey for the Fairview and Riverside neighborhoods. We did submit for a grant for that. So hopefully we'll um get that grant and be able to move forward with those important um cultural resource surveys for those for those two neighborhoods. um as well as a new designation at 104 Logan Avenue as a historic resource to the Steamboat Springs uh register of historic places. And then they're beginning conversations with with the rodeo ski and rodeo staff and Caitlyn PL and the historic preservation planner Caitlyn Buruby Smith um to talk about perhaps um historic designation of the

rodeo and all the benefits that are associated with that. So obviously that has a lot of cultural significance to this community and uh there are a lot of benefits for um designating that as a historic um site. So hopefully that will move forward in healthy environment. Uh the planning staff has finalized and and drafted the landscaping standards which will be coming to you on May 5th. Um this is for commercial and multif family residential development to help improve water efficiency, strengthen wildfire resilience and modernize uh outdated requirements. So, you will be reviewing those on May 5th and May 19th, and we're glad to see that. That's been a long project and u moving forward. So, glad to see that coming to city council. Uh utility division staff is evaluating a self-service customer portal that would allow customers to view their real-time water use. We believe this tool would help customers detect plumbing leaks sooner and monitor their water conservation. The IT department is reviewing the platform to ensure it meets uh current accessibility requirements. So glad to see another tool out there for folks to um to monitor their own water conservation efforts. In high performing government, uh the third year of STR license renewals began in March. So uh the STR staff is working hard on that. The renewal window opens 60 days prior to the expiration date of a license. And as you recall, per year request, um, in addition to the automated renewal email that is sent to that 60 days prior to the expiration, staff is manually sending renewal notices to STR business owners who have not completed the renewal applications at 30 days and again at 15 days. And then if a license expires, staff will also manually send an expiration notice. So to date, all 118 renewals due in March have been processed. So glad to see that process was improved. Um and um lots of notification about the potential expiration of those licenses.

Um an early start to the golf season created unexpected pressure on the golf maintenance department. Um the HR department stepped in quickly by implementing a group orientation and onboarding event at Haymaker Golf Course. HR enabled the maintenance department to assemble a capable workforce in time to meet the demands of the early season, ensuring the course will be in excellent condition for the opening day, which already happened. But just kudos to them for stepping up and making sure that those folks got the staff that they needed. So, thank you for that. In safe community, um the parks and recck land management division and police uh briefed the parks and recck commission on an enforcement and communication efforts following the February 5th, 2026 dog bite incident on Blackmere at Hollison Hill. Um and met and meet met um with Steamboat Digs dogs. Um, the police department developed and implemented an enhanced enforcement program, increasing patrols, issuing citations without warnings, and using both community service officers and drone support. That continues to be a problem with dogs off leash. Um, we are taking that very seriously and have amped up um a significant amount of enforcement on that. So, we will continue to meet with Steamboat Digs Dogs, continue to get the um outreach efforts out there so people are aware. It has significant effects on wildlife um and just um people's ability to enjoy that trail safely. Um staff will conduct an afteraction review of the enforcement plan with the steamboat digs dogs to identify opportunities for additional communication and future management strategies. So thanks for the team for taking a proactive step on that after that unfortunate event in February in reliable and resilient infrastructure. uh Hen Hill pump house improvement projects construction uh will begin the first week of May. This is the mechanical phase of the project and will be heavy with electrical upgrades to the primary electrical delivery in the pump house control systems and the new high service pump and process piping will greatly increase the future pumping

capacity of that facility. So glad to see that move forward. Parks and rec staff also began um the Emerald uh playground project um that began this week. Duckles Construction was the general um contractor chosen for that site and the civil site improvements portion of that project uh will begin May 4th. Um the new playground equipment is ordered and installation is scheduled for August 3rd. Um with a new playground anticipated to open to the public in September. So just again patience to the community. Um they're working hard to get that and that's going to be a great addition to that uh that important regional park. Um, spring fire hydrant flushing by the utility division began in March and will continue uh until the entire system is complete. Um, flushing keeps the drinking water system clean, safe, and reliable reliable by moving fresh water through the pipes, cleaning up material um, and mineral buildup and sediment, improving water quality, and just confirming that those hydrants works. I bring this up because it might look like we're just spewing water out on the street and wasting water, but flushing is a really important maintenance step that helps protect public health and maintains the systems reliability. So, we just wanted to mention that. Um, we did receive two bids for the US 40 trail west project. Um, and we're they were both uh within the city's budget. The C dot approved uh pro C dot approved the award as well to Duckles construction and that notice of award was issued in early May and construction is anticipated to begin um in early May and will continue through 27. So I know that is of interest uh to the community and we're glad to see that moving forward. Um let's see, you probably seen some construction right over here uh 1010 Yampa Street uh with a private construction project. Um they were issued a rightaway permit to connect utilities and we should expect impacts

through April to include closure of the six on street parking spaces along 10th Street um fronting that property. So there are stream there are signs up there. That street is currently closed. So um please be aware of that um detour. And then just a special thanks to the Steamboat Springs Transit uh to the 60 Transit Division employees who worked throughout the entire winter to provide local and regional bus service. It was um another great season in transit. And uh a special thanks to all those employees that made that possible. So, thank you. And then you've got all your dates of the upcoming meetings. Um and that concludes my report and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Thank you, Tom. And it's exciting to see all these spring and summer programs filling up. so fast and looks like we may have to add some more. Yeah, it's warming up quickly. Yeah, it really is. And it's also great to see the STR process working so well, too. Anybody have any questions or comments for Tom? Oh, um I do not council Pino.

Yeah, I made a note on one thing. um on the housing authority board when it comes to the uh purchase the deed restriction program that you're working with them and trying to agree with that. Do you know if we've published the uh rules of engagements the criteria for that program for the general public? I'm assuming this is just them to implement it, but do we have it kind of written in a form that the public can get? I've been asked. This is just the administrative um aspect of of uh the deed restrictions. In terms of um outreach and public, I don't I don't know that we've done a full outreach on that. I don't know Brad if you want to come down and mention kind of um what we have done and what our next steps are to let the public know about that dedistriction program.

Yeah. And and I appreciate it because more it's it's just um we've talked a lot about the program. I think I fully understand the program, but until it's put in print, I don't really want to tell more citizens about it because I could be wrong.

Uh, hi, Brad Calbert, planning department, and you're exactly where I am. Uh, and Tom mentioned this. Uh, we haven't done a lot of like full press promotion. Uh I'm a very big believer in you don't do full press promotion until you know a phone number and email address exactly who they contact to intake uh to to qualify uh individuals for the program and that's the type of thing that gets worked out uh in administrative procedures. With that said the highlevel sort of policy framework those items were adopted by council back in February. So that's the affordable housing guidelines and the actual deed restrictions themselves. Th those are for all intents and purposes the primary sort of thrust of the program and really what what the administrative procedures do is lay out the process a little bit about the math uh those sorts of things. So we anticipate uh that once we're fully have the administrative procedures ready to go we will start uh that promotion. I will say there's already a lot of word of mouth uh type things uh happening right now which is great and we we'll continue to do that as well. and they're like, I just I want to, you know, keep a fire burning because we did put in there an October deadline for employers to take that money if the locals haven't done that yet. So, we want to make sure we open up enough time for the locals, citizens, individuals to use that money before it goes.

So, so a as currently structured, the idea is that you've got June, July, August, and September sort of the traditional sort of summer buying season for uh that that first priority set of buyers to take advantage. Perfect. Thank you. That's it. Thank you, Brad.

All right. I had a quick question about the uh youth sports center that's being proposed at Allison Hill and the poll. I thought the last time we talked about that that I know that there was going to be a period where it was um limited to the folks who received the postcard or got some sort of no notice. But I thought we talked about having it there would would be a time period when it would be kind of open to the general public. And I know we do that have done that historically for community surveys right from the perspective of limiting it but then opening it up and you are able to do those cross tabs. So what changed? I'll let Angela Cosby, parks and recck director answer that. Okay, great. Thank you.

Good evening. Angela Cosby, your parks and recreation director. I'll need to double check with our staff team that's running that survey to give you the best response. I know there was back and forth on it, so I want to give you an accurate answer. I'll follow up via email if that works for council. Okay, I think that works. And I I can't remember and and you might have even been out. Um I'm trying to remember. I know we ask at at a council meeting and if I remember the date, I'll let you know. But if you can find that out, that'd be great. Thank you. And I I did copy the uh QR code and send it to some other people who were able to use it that didn't get a postcard. They just and the QR code allowed anyone to kind of respond, but that's what wasn't marketed is that tidbit.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks for that pointing that out. Well, I wouldn't go far. I have a question on emerald. I will refer to Tom first and then we I'm done. Yep. Okay.

Okay. Um the Emerald Park um the expansion of the Botanic Park. Um, love it. Great. Um, at a prior council meeting a month or so ago, I asked about um, how, excuse me, how do we get more parking spaces emerald with the whole remodel that we're doing there. And so when I read this, it talked about you're going to have to like relook at the parking and the burm. So I don't know if things have changed um, since our last conversation around this. Thought it was already agreed. Yeah.

Um, nothing has changed since our last conversation around this. The plan is for both the BMS toward the burm towards the botanic park and the burm towards the playground to be removed this fall. Timing is looking like October. Um, from there a sidewalk would go in and the parking lot would be expanded slightly that direction. And the majority of the parking spaces will be able to be added cuz they're oversized currently. So it would be restriped to smaller sized parking spaces equivalent to this campus and many around town. Okay. Does that answer your question?

It does. The way I read this was that this change happened after all the work that you've already done. That's how I read it, but it doesn't sound like it. Sounds like you were planning on this um the whole time or not the whole time, but we've been planning on this since probably late winter. Okay. Um, and we are still working with the Botanic Park Board on getting some cost estimates and ensuring they're still okay funding that, but that seems to be the solution that we're working with right now. Perfect. Okay. Thank you.

You care if I ask a follow-up question. And and again, kind of staying on this same topic because I know there were back and forth conversations with the soccer association about the fields being closed. And I know, right, we it was originally going to be this summer, right, and it was postponed to 2027. And I I think I see in here that the park is going to be closed for the entire year or summer, right? So, was there some alternative figured out and determined for the the other folks that use those fields?

Easiest answer is to say yes, the solution's in the works. From those discussions, we've set up an Emerald Park users group meeting, which we actually met last week, and we were discussing that as well. So far, over 80% of the practices we are able to squeeze in at other sites. Um, that schedule hasn't been released yet because we're talking about something 16 months out. Um, but we are proactively working on it with all Emerald Park users. And although Emerald Park will be closed, um, say the sport fields for the 2027 season, there will still be access to the playground and access to the botanic park. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions or comments for Tom? One comment. Um, thank you to Caitlyn for putting in the flyer and the picture of the house that was designated. Um, yeah, I appreciate that. So, thank you to Caitlyn. Pass that on. Yeah.

Okay. With that, we'll move on to general public comment and city council will make no decision nor take action except to direct the city manager. Those addressing city council are requested to identify themselves by name and address and all comments should exceed should not exceed three minutes. Is there anybody in attendance tonight who would like to make a public comment on something that's not on the agenda? Come on down. Provide your name and address, please. And you have three minutes. Can you hear me, Eric? Yeah. Uh, good evening, council members and city staff. My name is Harry Sandler. Um, I have volunteered with Rock County Search and Rescue since 2015. Currently serving as our facilities lead on our board of directors and as one of our eight on call incident commanders. Uh, I'm speaking tonight on behalf of our board and our team of 38 volunteer rescuers. They are all at a weekly training right now, otherwise uh, more will be available to be here tonight. Uh we recently met with Mr. Leon to provide an update on our team, but we're here tonight to formally request the opportunity to present a full community report to council. Our team has made significant strides in recent years by incorporating the latest technologies, investing in modern equipment, undertaking advanced training, strengthening collaborate and strengthening collaboration with our partner agencies. We want to bring the visibility to want to bring visibility to the important work our team does deep in the back country. Work that often happens far from the public eye. So what does that look like in a nutshell? Uh since 2018, we have helped save over a 100 lives. In the past 5 years, 55% of our calls for service have occurred within the Steamboat Fire Response Area,

which includes city- funded trails like Spring Creek, Emerald, and Buffalo Pass. And last year alone, our volunteers put in over 6,300 hours combined of incident response, training, public education, and administration. We are more than just a nonprofit public safety agency. RCSR is a critical safety net to the local economy. The backcountry splendor that inspires residents to get out and adventure is also what brings visitors and tourists here. People enjoying Steamboats, thriving outdoor recreation opportunities support the city's bottom line, and we stand ready to support those who might need a little help while out exploring our beautiful backyard. It is a privilege to serve our the residents and visitors of this community and an honor to do so alongside such a professional team of volunteer first responders. We would welcome the opportunity to formally present our successes, discusses the challenges we face, and show you exactly how we use our skills, experience, and equipment to save lives while supporting a vital part of what makes Steamboat Steamboat. Thank you for your time and for your continued support of our mission.

Thank you. We appreciate everything your team does. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome. And when we're done with public comment here, um, don't leave quite yet because we will discuss your request. Okay. Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to make a public comment on something not on the agenda tonight? Seeing none, we'll turn to online. If there's anybody online who'd like to make a public comment, please raise your hand. Seeing none, we'll close public comment and bring it back to discuss um how you feel about a community report for search and rescue. I think it's a good idea. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. So, overlooked to you, but you haven't asked, so thank you for asking. Yeah. And we'll be in touch and and work out a time that works. Yeah. Thanks again. Okay. Thank you. We will move on to community reports. City council discussion topics. Uh items on the community report. City council discussion calendar may be commented on in the same manner as consent calendar and public hearing items. Written community comments are encouraged and accepted in email on any topic. And our topic tonight is Slate Creek Neighborhood Governance Group update. Brad.

Hi everyone. Again, Brad Calbert. I'm in the planning department uh managing the project uh that I'll talk to you about tonight. Uh I will use Slate Creek Neighborhood, Brown Ranch interchangeably. I I am working on that. You all should just know that. Uh but I'll do my best uh going forward. Um so in short, uh really tonight's presentation like it it's it's it's shown on your communication form as information and direction and that's exactly what it is. But I'll make maybe one slight uh caveat on that. Really, it's direction to President Pro Tim Gary, councelor Barnes and Tom who who are sitting on the governance group. This was a request made of the of the membership of the group when they met in March of they've started working on some pretty detailed items. They wanted all boards and commissions that are that are the three members of the governance group to weigh in as well. So that that's really what uh tonight's conversation uh is about. Uh the other caveat that I want to mention is I'm going to be sharing uh things with you uh that the group worked on in March. Uh I would describe those as like interim work product brainstorming type things. These are not drafts that we're bringing for you for this is very much like sausage is still being made uh sort of stuff. But they're going to continue that conversation at the two meetings that Tom mentioned on April 30th and May 1. And so it just felt like a good uh check-in in between meetings to get uh council's uh feedback on those topics so far. So just want a couple of uh caveats on that. Um, this is obviously a priority for council as identified uh in your council goals uh to continue and complete the Brown Ranch community solutions project. And you all have specifically noted uh the importance of pursuing scenario analysis and support of the project and you'll see that reflected uh on some of the slides I'm going to share here in a second.

Uh I tend to refer to this phase of the project as phase two. Uh so for just a little bit of background for anyone that's tuning in, there have been obviously been if you're at phase two, there probably been phases before that. I tend to refer to them as phase zero and phase one. Uh phase zero was really in the immediate aftermath of of the election to to engage community builders to perform what we call the situation assessment to ti try to diagnose uh what transpired uh really as as uh the community considered uh the annexation proposal. uh last year was really that phase one uh project. The obviously we engaged a fair number of members of the community but specifically the thing that gets the most attention is the uh the formation of the deliberation and stewardship team uh to really arrive at shared uh understanding and direction to answer the question I I is uh the Brown Ranch property a viable solution to continue to pursue uh as as the city and the the entire sort of regional community thinks about affordable housing solutions. They obviously answered that that question in the affirmative and you all had a a similar conversation about that in September of last year. And I also just want to make sure and plug for anyone that's tuning in. Uh this project is fully uh uh uh all all the resources for the project are are hosted on engaged steamboat. Easy to find uh the project when you're there. Every meeting that has been livereamed is recorded. Every meeting summary is there. every project uh report or summary or meeting summary is there. So for instance uh the the governance group met on March 26th I would say within 48 hours the summary was up as as was the recording. Uh so this is really a natural place for people to go if they're looking to uh to catch up uh on the project. Um so in in in broad strokes really this governance group is is trying to do uh a couple of of key things and they really

started uh this work in March and that's to sort of understand the types of decisions uh they should be making begin to describe the end state of the process. Tom Tom mentioned that and then really outline what are the steps that are sort of in the middle but they also are doing what I would call formational pieces. So their two meetings in February were what I would call formation meetings. Uh so that was establishing their membership uh which they have done. You see that on the lefth hand side of the slide. Those are organizational seats. Individuals are selected by each organization and then assigned uh to the seat. So I sort of alluded to uh the city seats already. President Proim Gary uh city manager Leon and Councelor Barnes are the three members for the city. uh the others have have been a little bit of a a moving uh set of pictures here but I think as of the next meeting all all that will be uh finally settled. Uh the group spent some time in February just dialing in their purpose statement. Uh you can see that on the slide. Uh similarly uh they spent some time in February uh coming up with kind of what are the objectives what are the key things that they need to accomplish uh during their time uh meeting and working towards that that purpose. uh obviously this is about creating a collaborative environment for these three organizations to come come to come together and make decisions in collaboration uh with each other. So the things with the green check marks they've already done uh they feel they've made decisions uh related to membership and how they actually make decisions. They use a consensus based model uh using the fistto five method. I won't go into the details but you have summaries that describe all that. They've started a little bit uh of a conversation around community engagement and communications. That's been at the very high level sort of values uh altitude. They're going to continue that conversation uh in May and we'll talk about that here in a second. The primary things that they started in March are the two things that I'm coming back uh with for you all this evening to just to

describe is again defining that end goal uh for a future annexation proposal or or in state uh and then outline that annexation roadmap. That's one of the primary deliverables that this group is is is working towards is what does what does that entire road map look like to arrive uh at an annexation proposal. Um so here's kind of where uh the the timeline is again mostly for this group. Think of the governance group. This is not to get us all the way through annexation and development at Brown Ranch. This is really thinking about uh really what that group is very specifically charged uh to work on. most notably establishing a governance structure, drafting the annexation timeline, and then finalizing it. That that is really what's happening during the six-month period. They're about halfway through uh that work. A couple more sessions uh coming up over the next few months, but but hopefully the group is is is really kind of done with a annexation roadmap uh as proposed by the group in the sort of midsummer uh time frame. Uh so I I caveed this already. This is very much brainstorm and I'm going to give you just really what the group came up with uh during their their March 26th uh meeting uh by sort of the topics uh milestones questions uh being the first two uh slides that you will see. They went through kind of a sticky note exercise. This is a visual trying to replicate uh that importantly the size of the box means nothing. Don't worry about that. That is me trying to create a halfway decent PowerPoint slide. The thing that does matter is where it sits on the slide. The notion was the further to the left you are the more immediate the issue is uh the further the are you are to the right the the longer uh the view is on that that that's happen going to happen later in the process. So you're looking at this really the first things the first important milestones are clarifying priorities establishing priority objectives very specifically for the development itself going into

scenario analysis and feasibility analysis and scenario work all the way to the very end of of of a vote uh of the electorate and then and then finalizing entitlements uh should the project uh be approved or the property annexed uh into the city. So this is again very much interum work product. Um your job tonight is to maybe talk about additions, omissions, things that maybe you don't quite agree with or areas that you want to seek clarity around that may be more of a conversation that happens at in the governance table, but tonight is to really surface those. Um so that's that one. And I would just mention a lot of these are at a relatively high level. The consultant team is drilling into all of this. um they're taking the raw material that gets created in the in the in in the room and we'll share back even more details uh with the group next week. So similar content uh this this was a series of qu questions around questions uh really what are the types of questions that need to be answered throughout the process uh to really arrive at a at a final decision. So s same uh format format applies here. Further to the left means the sooner the question needs to be asked and answered. The further you move to the right the later uh in the process uh that can happen. Uh so for instance the very the upper right hand sort of sticky note on this is exactly the conversation you're having this evening is that group wants to feel comfortable understanding the authority related to the decisions they can make in that room. uh versus conversation or dialogue that they they can have in the room, but the decisions need to be made by the membership body. Like the the example I I always give for city council is I presume you would not want this group making appropriation commitments on behalf of the city of the city of Steamboat Springs. I I presume the housing authority uh would not want a decision made that's about uh pursuing

uh market rate product um in the first phase or commercial non-residential uses that feels like something their board should probably weigh in on. So just very real sort of threshold items that really need to be made um with the group that's vested vested with that decision uh making authority. And so you can see again all all the types of questions that were identified. Hopefully you maybe have some questions uh on your mind as well that you can again um surface tonight and for for full discussion uh at the governance table uh next week and and then finally uh they did they have as I mentioned have started some high level uh conversations around community uh engagement. Uh I would describe what this list is is it's it's there's some values here and some principles. there's a little bit about about strategies, but this will be a real focus of the conversation uh next Friday. Uh but again, if you have uh sort of feedback that you want to surface tonight, um I'm I'm sure the folks that will be engaged in that conversation uh would love to hear that. And then as mentioned, uh the groups have spent some time just generally trying to describe what is the end state uh that they're working towards. Uh you you've probably seen this in the in the meeting summary, the the the the text that's in the box, those are sort of individual uh contributions for members of the group. Again, very much a brainstorm. Uh the items that are bulleted on the right hand side of the slide. The group spent a little bit more time trying to arrive at like what words uh were really uh most critical. They'll continue uh much like the other ones, they will continue uh to work on these uh at their upcoming sessions. So really, I've got uh a couple of questions that I'm posing to council tonight again to largely inform uh those that are seated on on the governance group. The first one is really that decision-making guard rails. What what are uh what what authority do you delegate to call it something to the

members uh of the city uh team that is participating in this such that they can make decisions uh in the room versus kind of the opposite of that? what are the types of things that absolute positively in your mind come back uh to council. Uh the note that's included on the slide is just sort of a a note that the group has mentioned in their conversations is to make it very clear they are at a high level planning altitude uh right now. Those are the types of decisions that they're making uh in the room. So just just for them to be as expedient and as efficient as possible, some latitude uh to make decisions uh in that room are certainly appreciated. And then I can I can go back to the slides that that this is referencing, but but really interested in understanding or having you sort of describe um you know other elements that you think should be included uh in that decision-making timeline. Again, the group has generally been working around this sort of notion of what's a milestone, what's a key decision or action that has to be taken, uh what's a question that has to be asked and answered somewhere in the process so that it can inform a final decision. And then really what are the engagement opportunities uh that we that we see or you see uh specifically as it relates to engagement that you would do prior to uh arriving at a milestone. the things that you can do where you're mostly most informing, involving or engaging uh the public uh in these decisions. Uh so I've as mentioned uh the group is going to spend um a fair amount of time on Friday, May 1st, uh talking about communication and engagement uh principles. I'm very much considering this like the bonus feedback uh question because I don't have a whole lot to share other than what's on this slide. uh at their first couple meetings, the group identified some highlevel values that were important to them. You can see those on the right hand side of the slide. And they're really going to be

asked to begin to describe what what does that look like in practice. That is not to define tactics and strategies. We have an engagement team that will do that. It is is mostly just to like drop down one more line of of detail so the group knows uh what we're aiming for. uh particularly as we think about what that means on that spectrum that you see on the slide in terms of the various ways that you can engage uh the public. Is this more information or is it really empowering or somewhere uh in the middle? uh and we really want to be able to have a sense of where the various engagement and communication methods fall on that spectrum because it's important to also communicate that to that to who you're engaging so they actually understand what their role is in the process if they are given some amount of decision-m or advising advisory authority that you can communicate that on the front end. So that that's why you want to sort of lay all this out uh and generally understand your full strategy but also again the various uh levels of authority that are associated uh with that engagement. So the rest of resource slides um happy to be a resource uh admittedly a lot of this is for uh uh president proim Gary and Tom. So whatever you need to help sort of squeeze out of the group to call it something. Uh this is this is really to help you out. So anything you want to add, you should obviously do that now. Uh but other other than that, I'll happy for the conversation uh to go in whatever direction it should go. And again, I can flip back and forth to slides if it's helpful to see uh the content a little bit as you provide uh feedback. So thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Brad. Appreciate it. Okay. Well, I'll start. Um, thank you for giving this presentation today and thank you guys for doing this. You know, when I I was sitting here thinking about the um overall authority and and to try to move this differently than the B committee and it was always having to come back to clarify some things with us and it was really negotiation and first of all I I'm feeling that this process is a little bit more collaborative uh working with this. I think that when we get I have a lot of comfort in your group right now because I know that the annexation is going to come to us seven that decision will not be made by this group and that's clearly outlined in there. So there's a lot of um in the weeds that I know you guys and the county commissioners and uh the housing authority board will be working through. And I I'm kind of asking I mean I have no problem with you guys speaking on our behalf for the most part cuz I know when it comes back to the annexation agreement that's when if I didn't like something it would come out right. Um but I want to avoid that by these reports and giving you guys feedback along the way. But anything that I can see that would help expedite the process in giving you authority moving forward. How would that work? How I mean you were part of that last year. So

yes. Well and I think just to add on I mean this I do see I think we see this certainly as an iterative process right and the whole goal really is to get into a cadence where this we report out during council meetings and to the extent possible right we get input from council um in terms of what we will be discussed during the upcoming meeting. But I do think right are what are the outliers and I think um Brad mentioned one of those right so to the extent from the finance perspective right I mean and that um I think certainly becomes you know part of it in terms of you know what to the extent that we get there right about how is it going to be funded what's going to be the impact of the city you know various things like that so I think it's really looking for input from you all in terms of you know are there what guardrails do think um you'd like to see right now and and again knowing that this is it's an iterative process and to your point we absolutely are viewing this as a collaborative process. It is not a negotiation.

Other thoughts?

May I? Um, okay. I'll chime in because actually that was one of my um thoughts around uh infrastructure and I know this is super high level so we don't have to get into the weeds but for me um bringing back what is I guess the threshold of units before we need to place significant investment in city resources um and the water issue is huge. So knowing that early on so we don't come to a situation where oh we have a plan are we going to annex and now we're talking about the water the cost for maybe additional fire police whatever that looks like. So I think that's an important piece for us to um know. Well, I think and part of that and I'd like to know how it does fit into your the meeting is constraint analysis

because really a constraint analysis will help define what we can build with current infrastructure and if we decide to increase it X then it's going to cost this much more. those specific details I trust you guys on finding, but I think Amy and I are both agreeing. It's like we kind of want to know that sooner rather than later so we don't go just skipping stones down the route. Yeah, that currently working on that um internally with with our leadership team. That's kind of a parallel process. So good.

Um all the departments have gone through an analysis and made that determination. The next step is sort of to consolidate that into a single report which I'll share with city council and then share with the with the governance group as well. So we should have that information soon. Okay.

Yeah. Um my last comment um I I trust um you being on um and councelor Barnes especially you Gal since you were part of this process um and went through it the first time around and you heard the feed we all heard the feedback from the residents on what they want to see and what they don't want to see. So, um, and I just want to say, um, thank you for putting together the slide deck and not saying workforce housing that we're actually building a community that will contribute and work in our city, but this is a community. I think that's the main message for me that has to come across. And so that to me is really really important. I feel like there we stigmatize it when we start just saying, "Oh, it's, you know, it's for our workers to come in and work in the restaurants." Well, no, we're building a community first and foremost. So, thank you for having that in here.

Yeah. And we spent a lot of time talking about that, right, from the perspective of wanting it to be, you know, a n, you know, look at it more as a neighborhood. And so I think if we go back to the one slide, right, we talk about it being scaled, we talk about it being phased and and you know, instead of getting really myopically focused on, okay, what does that look like in terms of a grocery store or ret, you know, um retail various, it's what is needed to support a neighborhood. Okay. Goa.

Yeah. The only comment I have is I, you know, I look through this and I'm nodding my head. I find myself nodding my head. I like the process you're going through on one side and the other side my head is spinning in terms of how do we what's the design of this community? How do we get to what our propo different proposals are for this community? And I'm I am struggling with how we get to that aspect because then once we have some kind of design then you can talk talk about where the con you know what are some of the other constraints associated with you know that are this community specific um and the impact studies and things like that. Um, so I'm I'm struggling getting my head wrapped around the the design of the community.

Do you want to address that or and we go back I don't know if we go back to like the question slide too. Um, but yeah, go ahead and talk. Um, address that from here.

I hear you. I I understand like your your mind operates like mine. Like there's a lot here that like is logical to me, but I also understand there's a lot of questions that haven't been answered yet. So like it's hard to like not spin on that a little bit. Um this group is design is designed to provide structure to that like that that that is the thing that they when they when they are done and let's call it July of of this year. It's that they have done their best possible job to lay out that roadmap that gets us all the way to where there is not a development plan that's going through like city entitlements but but gets us to the where there's a concept that allows uh the public to consider not only that concept but whatever annexation agreement is associated with with with that concept. So that that is their job to your point council Augusta is to like name all those things that sit in between where we are today and that. So for instance, as as described in your your council has a goal that really emphasizes the scenarios uh conversation. So I suspect that is something the group will spend some time on next week as to what what would it mean? Are we ready to get started? Can we actually start doing that? U I think there is a project dependency there is I think you need the constraints analysis before you can really start the scenario work. But there is a sequence there that that's lining up that allows that to happen. And that's when it will start to feel a little more tactile and real because we're thinking about a piece of ground. We're thinking about how it can be programmed and we're evaluating at the highest level uh how that development program meets uh the various pieces that we saw in a previous slide about sort of what that end state looks like and what we're trying to accomplish.

And I think if you go back actually it's the milestone page, right? So if you go back to kind of the milestone that's that's that's a little bit of you know the start of the framework right in terms of Brad just talked about scenar you know scenario planning obviously capacity and I certainly think that you know it will come back to council those two kind of pieces coming together to say okay is this a phased you is this a phased approach is you know is it a scaled approach I think one of the decisions council will probably need to make too and this group will need to advise on is do you just annex in a small portion of the property. Do you annex in the entire Right. So there there's going to be a questions like that that need to be, you know, answered or at least discussed.

Yeah, I just had a couple of things. Um, one is, uh, I think the constraint analysis, which is going to happen fairly quickly, is going to give put everybody on the same ground, same foundation around where things stand. And I hope when we have the constraint analysis, I know it's not going to be down to the, you know, 100% accurate here. There's going to be some ranges and risks and everything else associated with that stuff. But the the closer we can zero in on it, the better that the two other things. One is, and I've I come back to this because I've said this before around um engagement, not only the community, but I really do think, and the housing authority feels the same way on this, that we need to get a developer into this process sooner versus later. I keep harping on that, but not the developer who's going to develop the property, so to speak. It's just the developer who can help us say why or why not or this is a good idea or a bad idea or whatever. So, I've said that a few times. The other thing about guardrails to me is most of the guardrails come down the road. Um, I think appropriation of funds, that's an obvious one. I think annexation agreements is an obvious one. I mean, if there's zoning and land use issues that come up, that that might be a one. And way down the pike, there's probably the IG just around maintenance and managing the property. So, you know, right now I feel pretty good about the group and and what you're doing and keeping it transparent and everything. Those bigger issues though will come those bigger guard rails will probably come down the road, I think. So

well and and to your point about a developer, I mean I think one of the things is is it is it like a an advisory group of developers, right? We get, you know, in terms of one but get two or three and I um a potential folks to have input and I think that was one of your takeaways from the St. Louis landing visit, right?

They got the developer in early in the process. Now, this developer they got in was invol was the one that worked on the project, but I'm not suggesting that here because we don't really have a project at this point in time. So, one one other thing he did say is that developer they chose was a local develop local developer who really understood the characteristics of the land and of the culture, you know, of the area. So, he felt that they felt that that was very important. Any other feedback for Brad or councelor Gary or manager Leon as they move back? When is that? Next Thursday, Thursday, Friday.

Thursday, Friday. Yeah. And so certainly this is not one and done. It to the extent that if you think about things, send an email. um you know, particularly as it relates to questions that you think we need to have answered or as we look at milestones if you think that there's something that's missing. And we're going to be talking about community engagement as well and how do we make sure that we are getting engagement by the community and we're bringing everyone along. Yeah. And starting and telling the story each time so that it doesn't matter when you kind of engage, you're going to get the whole story in terms of what happened, how we got here, and and where we're going. So, and and that's hard. Yeah.

Yeah. And I'll not really formally part of the presentation, but I I'll use that as an entry point. Um the the the communications and engagement so far have really just been based on the value of transparency. Like we're we're not at a place where like there is a way to like directly engage the community and a way that they can inform a decision. But like I think the scenario analysis where is where some of that starts to happen. So really we just been leaning into transparency, making sure we bl like you all have conversations about this project, you know, probably once a month at minimum. The housing authority board has these conversations. My sense is the county commissioners discuss this multiple times a month. So we're we're doing sort of multiple ways of making sure that whatever uh body a member of the public uh maybe pays the closest attention to they will realize that this project is happening and again that's where we use the engaged steamboat site to just make sure if you want to understand this project from beginning to end everything is there you can watch nine hours of governance group meetings if you want uh you can also just read summaries uh and we will do everything we can just to make sure people understand the opportunities that are coming up to to to council Gary ious comment particularly when we start like that direct engagement that's particularly to inform them about next phases of projects uh you know general sort of understanding of uh scale and scope of development uh those sorts of things

okay thank you Brad um let's open open it up to public comment if anybody wants to make a public comment in the audience regarding this topic you can come on down okay seeing none if there's Anybody online who'd like to make a public comment, please raise your hand. Being none, we'll close off public comment and we'll move on to our consent calendar. Motions, resolutions, and ordinances. Items on the consent calendar may be reviewed and commented upon in the same manner as other agenda items. Any member of the council or the public may request withdrawal of any item from the consent calendar for further discussion at any time prior to approval. If items are not removed, they may be approved within a single motion. On the consent calendar tonight, we have four items. I will read those items off and then I will ask anybody in council wants to pull any of those items or anybody in the audience or online who would like to do that. First item is item five. It's a first reading of an ordinance ordinance reszoning property located within Hilltop Resort condominiums parcel one city of Steamboat Springs County of route state of Colorado for multifamily residential to a custom planned unit development zone district described and depicted in exhibit A for the hilltop Resort PUD PL20250398 that um has been requested to be postponed to May 5th 2026 agenda. So if we leave it on the consent calendar, it will be postponed to the May 5th agenda. Item number six is a resolution denying a development plan conditional use major variance PL 202503000 Eddie Line Town Homes. Item number seven is the first reading of an ordinance amending chapter 26 of the Steamboat Springs Revised Municipal Code by amending articles 1 through8 to update

references for the recently adopted community plan and adjust language for the expedited review process to maintain eligibility for Prop 123 funding to support development of affordable housing. PL 202600037. And item number eight is the first reading of an ordinance vacating a snow storage easement located on Mountain Ventures 2, lot one, PL202 60032. I will first ask from councel if you would like to pull any of those items. You can pull six and seven. Councelor Aosta wants to pull items six and seven. Anyone else? Okay. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to pull any other item besides six and seven? Come on down and state your name and address.

H Cruz 996 Captain Jack Drive. I'm asking you pull item two line. I think it's item six. Yes, that's item six. So that has been six then. Sorry about that. Okay. No, that's fine. Thank you. Is there anyone else? Is there anyone online? Please raise your hand. Okay. If not, we will pull items six and seven. And I would ask for a motion to leave on the consent calendar items number five and eight. So moved. Second. We have a motion by councelor Gary, second by councelor Dixon. All those in favor say I.

I. Opposed. Okay. Okay, we will leave items five and 8 on the consent calendar and we will move to item number five or excuse me six. A resolution denying a development plan conditional use major variance PL 20250300 Eddie Line Town Homes. Jeremy, do you want to come on down? Um, I think why don't you present first and then we will go to the the process we will use is you will present. If we have questions for you, we'll ask questions. We'll have the applicant present. We'll ask questions. We'll have public comment and then we'll bring it back to council.

Perfect. Uh, Jeremy Brown, uh, city planning staff. So the application before you as you are likely familiar is for 24 24 town home style units. Uh they are situated in the commercial services zone district over there by the gymnastics facility. Um obviously we spent a great deal of time last year looking at this site. This is the residual vacant piece of that parcel. Um it's kind of a triangle. It's between the core trail. Um and the live workindustrial now reszoned again is CS. Um we have before you today essentially we're going to look at two conditional uses. One for multiple family in the commercial services zone district and one for workforce housing. Um the reason the workforce housing goes into conditional use is because we have residential down in the pedestrian active building frontage which will adjust. There are also two variances. Um the reason you see it before you today obviously our um conditional uses would otherwise just be planning commission. These two variances for consideration are ground story height major variance and major variants for glazing. A little bit of a preamble to this. I will uh attempt to cut to the chase and and Cala after me will do a good job of giving you some highle overview of the the project and the particulars. Um but obviously this comes to you today as a recommendation for denial from staff. There is a disconnect that we found with the applicant between two particular standards. There are the building placement and orientation design standard as well as the access design standard. Uh we believe as staff not everything in our code has perfect metrics that we can measure. um in such a case as most of our design standards, they become before you as the decision-making body um to make that

determination of whether or not those design standards have been met. Um in a perfect world, it would be great for developers to have black and white language and we do our absolute best to produce that in the code and um make written interpretations as such. Um, but we ultimately believe the code is there to on behalf of the community, not necessarily the developers, and some of these gray areas do exist. What you'll see in this report, and I want to make clear today, is it does seem like an overwhelming lack of support for the entire project. And I want to be upfront that staff does generally um support this project. The housing in this location is reasonable. We think it would meet the code as housing is. I'll get into the particulars of the the form of the housing that we're seeing. Um we think the layout is smart and and otherwise it's good. But what happens when you don't meet these two standards? You're not going to meet the criteria for approval for a development plan, which means you're not going to meet one of the criterias that says you meet all the CDC criteria. And if you don't meet those, you're certainly not meeting the more stringent criteria of the conditional uses. And there's sort of a waterfall effect that takes its way down and permeates through all of the criteria. Um so I I do laser focus everyone's efforts sort of into this discussion and consideration about these um particular design standards that we think are lacking within the development plan criteria. Uh the first one talks about consistency with character in the neighborhood and supportive of activities in the vicinity. Certainly our core trail is our major multimodal corridor. It is our primary multimodal corridor in the community. It's kind of like our green

spine and gem. Um we hold it up on a pedestal a little bit. We think that this is a front door. This is a street. In fact, we believe that the code tells us that this is to treat it in such a way. So when we look at those two design standards, I'll read them verbatim for consideration. Um 437C says development shall be placed to define the edges of and orient access to primary public and private streets, pedestrian circulation and gathering. Uh we also have the access standard 437D that says building shall prioritize orientation to these private streets, pedestrian circulation and gathering. So we don't have and you saw in the written interpretation that was included in your packet. We can only go so far. We can't make up language in between. Again, this comes in to be your role the exact intent of those. So we look to standards, we look to guidelines, we look to the purpose statements that are associated with each of those sections. Um and generally we found statements like pedestrian friendly use of porches, stoops, typical residential entries, sense of place around pedestrian circulation. So if we do a deep dive into this project and again this is about the assemblage of parts. It's been very difficult as you saw in the planning commission notes. They didn't have great recommendations either. We don't particularly bullet point a a list of things that we would like to see. It is the applicant's application uh what they desire to put there. Um and as it comes out, you know, when we start looking at what was proposed um you can see in the plans, but we have 6 foot tall fences running parallel to the core trail. The

top two feet are more permeable with some hogwire type of of fencing at the top so you can see through. Then between each of the units we have 6ft tall fences. Um we have some landscape but that's not guaranteed by the development plan. In the visuals we have some gravel paths. Feels a lot more like a backyard to us. It doesn't read like we have front doors to the core trail or any of sort of the the litany of um ideas that were outlined before. If we talk about stoops and front porches and typical residential entries and circulation, we look at, you know, sort of in the urban design world, there's public space, there's private space, and then we have places in between semi-public and semi-private spaces. And you sort of transition as you get up to a front door. We're sort of in public realm and then there's a fence and there's a private realm. Feels a little bit keep out backyardish. Uh as the staff assessment of it, not indicative of a front yard use. That's staff's opinion. So you can make the assessment and decide whether or not it meets those design standards as it applies to the development plan criteria. Then we have to layer on an additional one and that's a conditional uses. So for conditional uses we have to assess the impacts of putting this multif family here and I alluded to this kind of in my preamble about housing is generally good here but what is the form of the housing taken? Is it appropriate for this commercial services zone district? Do we think they've done the most or maybe even had to go above and beyond to make sure that it's meeting the intent and compatible with this zone district? uh in this case you know as we look at this multif family housing the applicant's position is you know generally residential has less impact

than commercial so this is a positive thing wonderful although staff understand that if that were the case we would approve residential by right in this zone district it's not about having less impact it's about having the appropriate amounts of impact and environment that appears there So in this case in the commercial services zone district we actually think that particular experience should be more about ground level activation. We think about storefront glazing. We think about patios that might be there or coffee shops or cafes. That's not something we don't necessarily think is required in this space. It is a horizontally mixeduse site. We have commercial that does exist there. Uh but as we look at the core trail as our primary you know again multimodal path our front door experience for people circulating by this site maybe that is something that the commercial services zone district is telling us is supposed to be there. So what's the best way we can do that with multif family housing? We have to make a real effort, maybe even go above and beyond the design standards in some cases to make sure that this is an actated lively place that feels like front door with these semi-public semi-private spaces that exist. Um, what we're getting is sort of a walled off experience for our core trail users as this is one of our, you know, maybe first off the top of my head major developments that's happening along our core trail. Certainly, we don't have to hold it to a higher standard, but there's a precedent being set as to what do we want happening in terms of development along our core trail. So in summary of that conditional use analysis and the criteria for approval, you know, you can find them to be in compliant of the code standards. But the question is then also for our

conditional uses is it coming up short or is it meeting um and mitigating those impacts that we otherwise find as staff in the commercial services to touch on the variances just briefly so I don't forget about them but J staff are in support of both major variances that were requested I will summarize them briefly is just for the minimum ground floor height of 14 ft if you look in the floor plans uh we don't often get this scenario that happens but there are split floor plates. So the bulk of most of these units and the garage spaces that otherwise might convert to commercial is meeting the ground floor. as you go back and there's some circulation corridors or stairs or sort of a drop floor plate, those are not meeting, but otherwise we found the intent of the code where they would be convertible to commercial spaces was perfectly in line with the intent of the code standard. The glazing major variance occurs at one place. It is between the existing older development and the new development as it sits along the core trail. We did find it to be of benefit to the owners of the particular end units that other otherwise going to live there and of no impact to the community as the space is kind of a narrow passage between the two of them that having minimized glazing at that location was perfectly acceptable. Um with that though in the summary of the reasons provided staff do recommend uh denial which is the resolution before you today. I don't mean to say or it is confusing. So, I'll remind you when you go to look at it and vote on it, it will be about whether or not you are approving the resolution for denial. And obviously Dan's here to help coach through that and I can talk you through that as well depending on the decision

you'd like to make. Thank you. Thank you, Jeremy. Um before we hear from the applicant, are there any questions you have for Jeremy at this time? Council Gary. Uh, thank you Jeremy. Yeah,

I hopefully had a got a heads up from Rebecca in terms of the question that when we looked at as you said this is kind of the second piece of that whole parcel and that that I remember there were some requirements was there in terms of with the original when we were looking at the um workforce kind of the those units or in terms um sorry the workforce units and I know specifically there was one regarding the core trail. I was thinking there was something else. So, yeah, I was rehashing this with her. We do have an trail easement that is on this property in its entirety that runs along uh between all the buildings and the river. That easement as part of the previous development plan has been recorded um and submitted. So, that is done. I can't think of there there was parking that sat on this parcel as well that obviously needed to remain. It's been uh through a minor reconfiguration but still remains in the parking numbers uh that existed in the previous development plan. I could not remember anything else aside from that and and those are obviously conditions that have been met or remain.

Okay. All right. Um and then the second question I had goes really to this concept of workforce and there's been you know certainly discussion about that. There's also we've gotten a lot of public comment, right, in terms of these are workforce units, but there is there any guarantee in here that they're they're workforce units? These are not workforce units as such. We

there was there's a bit of confusion. I'll do my best to outline it. When the applicant came to us, there was a desire to make sure that they could be approved as workforce units. Um it was a bit of a oversight on staff's part that was probably not necessary. The reason the code has workforce units and and we've left it in the application because it's it's not creating any harm. Certainly there's there are avenues that the applicant could go through um various like um changes to the approved plan that could mobilize or utilize those workforce bonuses that we see.

Um whether it's by you know square footage to the unit or change of parking standards. But as it sits looking back, um you only guarantee workforce units if you would like to utilize sort of those bonus items within the code. That's not the case for you here today. The applicant is not pursuing that. So while they're mentioned, in hindsight, it was not a necessary application. they could go through and there was some understanding as I know money was becoming and is available for workforce opportunities just to avail the applicant of all opportunities to that money but in hindsight again using that word for the 10th time was not necessarily applicable so I don't know if that makes sense or if I did a great job of talking myself in a circle you today are approving essentially multifamily housing the applicant has interest of turning it into workforce housing if money is available in the right avenues and they wanted to fit in correct boxes but it would be not for consideration at this time.

I follow up with that. Thank you. I follow up with that question. What my understanding when I when I read this was basically that you need a conditional use for multif family. Thus, you you could not have workforce housing there until you had this conditional use of multifamily. And that all you're all we're doing here is you're allowing homes to be deed workforce in the future. So, they are not nothing's deed as workforce, but you could potentially be deed.

Correct. Nothing nothing is deed as workforce housing through this approval. Um again the intent was to maybe make that available and then do sort of a dual application. In short you are reviewing it as a multif family application today. Um that hasn't been extracted out of the application but that's how I can direct your focus. And and one more point of clarification then and so in terms of the deed restriction program that was just um that we just approved with the along with the down payment. I mean that can be used anywhere.

Exactly. So that would be the the avenue that says you didn't need to have specific code dedicated workforce housing to do that. You can deed restrict any property through that program. All right. Thank you. Other questions? Yes. Um, regarding uh 437D the the access um in terms of prior, you know, you need to, you know, prioritize the orientation to the primary cedestian um entries. Yeah,

this is going to be a hypothetical question. I know you don't like hypothetical questions, but you know, assuming or you can even look at another piece of properties to understand this code. if if something passed, it was pedestrian active um and then later on a homeowner put a fence up and kind of created a barrier after the fact. Is there and it no and then at that point you're no long you you kind of blocked that in you know in the future someone blocked that pedestrian access. So what what happens in that case? I mean,

sure. The the code would stipulate that on this multif family development, you would have to go through development review. The hope would be that we catch the exact same scenario. Somebody comes in and wants to put a 6ft tall fence and we look at that in development review and we say you can't do that. Okay. Okay. Anyone else? I I may have some later, but I'm going to wait for the other applicant. Okay. All right. Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you, Jeremy. Cali, would you like to come up and state your name, address,

share this really quick, Cruz 996, Captain Jack Drive. Thank you guys for having me tonight. I am really excited to get to present this project tonight. Um I'm going to try and skip some of the stuff that Jeremy already explained really well. Um but I am presenting Eddie. Um obviously we know this area super easy access to transit downtown the core trail the Ampa rivers right there. That's Steamboat's main play thing, right? Um so we're developing one portion of a large lot which is why Jeremy described it as a horizontal use of mixes. All those uses right there count towards one large project. You can kind of think of it as us developing the last phase of the development there. So this is the portion that we're developing. Um we've fit four buildings onto this site. Um three are the trailside style and one is the riverfront style. Total it's 24 residences. Um the trailside um style of building has six units per building for a total of 18 town homes of this style. They are compact. Um, they have they each have oversized singlecar garages and extra storage on top of that. And this was designed specifically for steamboat locals. We live outside, not inside. So, we're typically pretty willing to give up a little bit of square footage as long as we have room for our toys. We would rather put our kayak in a garage than have a bed in a lot of cases. Um, the other building is another six-unit building. These are larger units with oversized threec car garages along the river. So, I want to take a minute to talk about the CDC. It's pretty amazing. Um, I am a total code geek. It's why I joined Planning Commission. I love this stuff. Um, and I love it because it provides clarity, not because I love all the standards. There are plenty of standards I would get rid

of if I could. Um, but I know what it takes to to take an idea and bring it through to a full buildable project because the code is written quite well for how unique projects are. Um, objectivity is the rule in CDC. There are some opportunities for subjectivity to arise. You guys see all of them. Um, it's when variances come across, there's a lot of subjectivity there. And when conditional uses come across, there's a little bit there as well. Not quite as much. And obviously, we all know this is quasi judicial. It's not about what we like, it's about applying code as it's written. So, I'm going to go through um a little bit. I know you guys know this stuff, but the way that design code is formatted, it's broken up into sections. So, um you have a section about maybe the roof forms and then another about how much glazing we need and then another about um what kind of materials we can put on the side of a building. And then within each of those sections, we have a purpose statement which defines the goals which the standards and guidelines have been created to achieve. So we have this big idea, right? This is what we're trying to do here with this design section. And then guidelines and standards were created in order to achieve that big nebulous idea. So guidelines um are a little bit more detailed um but those are supposed to be used when evaluating a variance or an adjustment to the standard according to their definition in the CDC. So we're not asking for a var for a variance on these standards. So we don't actually need to look at guidelines we're not supposed to. And then in the definition of standards um it says that compliance with the standards is assumed to result in development that achieves the purpose of the standard. So in other words, if we find these black and white standards and we meet those, we automatically meet this big grand idea that's really hard to like actually put a pin in. So all we need to look at is standards because that's what we're trying to do is meet those. Let's look at a little bit more

of the definition of standards. Development and design standards by definition are objective. They are objective and typically measurable criteria. Not always measurable, but always objective. and they provide specific requirements for compliance and then again compliance with the standards automatically achieves the purpose of the standard. So not to pick on staff at all because they've been actually wonderful to work with throughout this whole process and we've really appreciated all the meetings, all the iterations. They've been in support through the months that this has taken and it's just at the very end that we realized that there was this impass with how we were interpreting these standards. Um but in their staff report staff wrote that they believe that st design standards and these in particular are not all objective and measurable and that there will be a level of subjectivity but that's in direct contradiction with the CDC. They are always objective. We get to ask what objective specific requirement is a standard imposing in every case something easily observed something verifiable. It's basically a yes no condition. So let's look at those specific standards. Um the first one is in the access um section of the code. So this is the section dealing with our access points to the building. It says that buildings shall prioritize orientation of p primary pedestrian entries to predominant public areas. And staff identified this predominant public areas as the core trail early on. We didn't argue with that. That's that's the way it is. So, we're just going to not repeat all of that and say the core trail because that's what this is in cont in context. Um, building placement and orientation is the other section. This this standard is very similar, but it's in a different section. It's talking about where the buildings are on the site. Um, development shall be placed to define the edges of and orient access to again the core trail. The CDC does define orientation. It's the relationship of a structure to the streets, parking lots, all the things. We don't find that

orientation and relationship are very helpful in finding the objective objective specific standard here. Um but we have to remember that what we're looking for even though those have many many definitions in many many contexts we have to find the objective specific requirement that each of these standards is imposing. So let's read it one more time. Buildings shall prioritize orientation of primary pedestrian entries to the core trail. To us, the objective way to interpret this is that pedestrian entry should face the public spaces. That is verifiable. We know if that has happened. We can say absolutely that's happened or no, that is not happening here. Um that's an objective way to to interpret this. Staff's definition as as you heard is more of um an experiential thing that pedestrian entries should create a certain degree of contribution to pedestrian activity and experience. And they've said over and over that this is subjective. It's kind of where we got lost in the planning commission meeting because we were in this subjective world and felt like we were supposed to be there. And so every commissioner was like, uh, well, maybe if we did this, maybe if we do this, maybe there's all these ways to meet here. But the thing is, we're not supposed to be in that space. We're supposed to be in this objective space. What does the standard mean? It's supposed to be objective and very specific. and what we're talking about with experience is not specific. So, how have we met the standard? Um, every unit has an individual door facing the core trail. How have we met the building placement standard? The buildings have been placed along the core trail defining the edge of it and individual doors for each unit face the core trail orienting access to the core trail. So when you view this objectively, these standards have been met. Um, which is where this impass happened. Um, and this really important when you get into the conditional uses as well, like he said, we have two of them. Um,

and I just want to remind you that conditional use isn't a variance. It doesn't mean a use is inappropriate in a zone district. It just means we have more scrutiny. We get to ask more questions. Specifically, we get to ask four questions. The first is, is it in alignment with the master plan? Everybody agrees yes with this. I don't think there's any need to belabor this point that we need housing desperately. This is what most of your public comment was about. Um that this would be really cool housing to be able to introduce to the steamboat market. Um when it comes to is it appropriate for the zone district mitigating perceived negative impacts and does it comply with the rest of the CDC? As Jeremy said, all of their nos on those questions come directly from the fact that we don't feel that we they don't feel that we've met these standards. Um so they think there are negative impacts because we haven't met these standards and then it's obviously not appropriate for any zone district if we haven't met standards. Um so all along staff has been generally a yes on this entire concept. It's just when we got to the point that we didn't meet these standards in their opinion that these became a no. So if we do meet these standards then the answers are actually yes. And the code says that if the answers to these four questions are yes, we must allow the use. It's not like a variance where you can answer yes to all those questions and you still don't have to allow the variance. It's a may allow it. Um this is a must. Um so it's a little different. The key really is um those two standards here. We are very committed to the experience that both Core Trail users and our owners have. Um we think that these are very welcoming entry gates. Um, we provided wayinding using lit address numbers. So, even at night, you should have no problem finding the town home that you're looking for. Um, the fencing is a 4ft privacy fence with 2 ft of transparency above that because we just felt that that was more welcoming. There's nothing there's actually no code prohibiting any fencing anywhere on this site um as long as it's under six feet.

Um, so we could have provided privacy fences, but we didn't think that that felt great either. So, we opted for a more welcoming fence style along the core trail and staff had no problem at all with the six-foot privacy fences between. So, we opted to leave those um stoops and porches at every door. The CDC defines a porch as an a covered unenclosed entry essentially. So, each of these actually do the lighter ones actually do have a porch. Um, and stoops are there's no definition in the CDC, but a stoop is basically an uncovered, unadorned, very simple entry. The other ones have stoops. Sometimes they're raised, but they don't have to by definition. So, they have those. And actually, having stoops and porches isn't even a criteria, and it's not a standard in the CDC. This comes straight out of a guideline, which again, we were not supposed to ever even look at because we're trying to meet standards. That's only in the case of a variance. Um, so we actually believe that an unfenced front yard would be an inferior experience both for the public and future owners. Obviously, it's our opinion, but we thought that this looked cluttered and did not seem like a very good experience for passers by. Um, and then because no code actually prevents us adding fencing of any style, we thought that it would be better for everyone if people can keep their stuff private. Um, but if you feel that this approach does create negative impacts for the community, it's a conditional use. You have every right to impose conditions on this use. And we would love for you not to kill the project and to add conditions. We have tried to parse out what what staff and commissioners needed from us um what negative impact they felt like they we should be mitigating. So far, we haven't really gotten a straight answer. And I think it's because we were in this like nebulous subjective world. Um, but if we would love to add landscaping along the fencing, that's ultimately in the city's hands right now because there's a variant or not a variance, a a easement along there that we have to have special

permission to put landscaping within. Um, paved walkways are not a requirement in the code, but we if you feel that there's a negative impact to the community by having um more soft paths, we are happy to pave those walkways and have said that before. We've even offered to staff to put benches there if we want more activation. So, if you feel like there's a negative impact here that we need to mitigate, we are more than happy to do that. Specific comments um from planning commission just to touch on some of these so that they're not um misunderstood. Um, one commissioner said that the proposed development doesn't have a hint of commercial. Um, Jeremy already went over this. Uh, it's a horizontal mix of uses across the entire site. So, that's um, it's it does have commercial. Um, the glazing along the core trail, the minimum is 25% and we've provided 29%. So, we've exceeded that um, standard. If they had made the courtyard a more livable space and turned their back on the core trail, I might have supported that. Unfortunately, that would have gone directly against the two standards that we went over tonight. So, we weren't we weren't allowed to do that without asking for a variance. Um, what's missing is the guideline asking for enhanced vitality and wayfinding. Again, guidelines should not be part of this conversation. Um, I'm hung up on the fences on the back of building 2. We've already talked about fences. There was nothing prohibiting them. And engineering did ask for I think that Jeremy talked about this in his staff report. Engineering needed a barrier between the existing development and our development. And so rather than having this barrier floating out in the middle of nowhere, we opted to make it a fence that connected with the rest of the fences on the interior units. We just felt like that was better design. Um we saw a couple of your comments and heard some tonight. Um building articulation along the core trail exceeds standards. We were actually really surprised to see that in the staff report because we're not sure what they're talking about. That was never an issue um during design review. Um we would love an opportunity to answer your question, Mr. Aosta. um about that whole paragraph that you

mentioned in your email. We actually had a slide that we had to cut out for time, but we would love to um answer that question if you would give us the the opportunity. And I would love to also answer your question about workforce housing if given the opportunity. Sentiment-wise, the commissioners um said that I wish that we could find a way to approve this and I hope that there might not be much change to meet that one small hangup and I actually feel that the entrances complement the the connectivity with the core trail. We obviously agree with this and hope that you do too. We would love, we are very very excited to bring this new type of housing to the community and we think that this will meet a need that currently just doesn't exist. Um, and we hope that you're really excited about housing, but the problem is you don't get to approve this project because you're excited about housing. You don't get to say yes for that. But you do get to say yes because the CDC says that standards are objective specific requirements and if you interpret them that way then the standards have been met and the standards were the only thing in the way of meeting the criteria for approval and if the criteria for approval have been met then the development shall be approved. So we're really really looking forward to your conversation tonight and hope that we can move this project forward. Thank you guys.

Okay. Thank you Calie. Thank you. Okay, questions for Cali andor Jeremy at some point. I was going to give her an opportunity to you said you wanted to comment on workforce housing. So give you extra time to talk to comment about workforce housing.

Yeah, I just wanted to give our take on why we asked for that approval. um when we we actually uh submitted this application in August of last year and so there was all this talk about what was going to happen with the STR funds. Um everything was just up in the air at that point and so we wanted to make sure that if we needed the workforce housing approval to make these workforce housing units that we had that and didn't have to go all the way through development review again. Um, I think somebody explained at planning commission, so you've probably already heard this, but since the city approved the down payment assistant pro assistance program, I think that we have hesitated on us deeding them workforce housing units because that pulls away the opportunity for those buyers to take that benefit. Um, I think our intention is to build these, put them on the open market so that people can come and get their market price reduced instead of us using the money to fund the project. We want to see it go into the buyers pockets if at all possible if we can make this project work without adding too much cost to it.

Other questions? I I do. Um Jeremy the um she brings up a good point of subjectivity versus objectivity. Sure.

Explain to me a little bit about your guys's objective approach to looking at the when I saw those pictures. It looks like those are front yards that has the fence and the nice thing. Are you guys calling those backyards or you guys just don't like the look of the front yards or how are you determining that objectively? Yeah, staff's interpretation is that those look like rear yards to us. We only allow six-foot fences in outside of the front yard in all zone districts in Steamboat except for the industrial zone. Um, Cala is a scholar of the code. I will not uh deny her that. I think where uh it goes a bit ary is to think that all of our design standards can be created into objective metrics. I mean a powerful word left out of one of them is one of our design standards says to prioritize orientation. Tell me what's objective about prioritizing something. I give you two different doors. You tell me which one has been prioritized. There's no way that we can determine in an objective way. Does it have a house number next to it and then it's prioritized? We don't know. So that's why we explore those other aid. We do the best we can with a very imperfect code um to try to discern uh what the intent of the code is. You know, in this case, the applicant thinks that coming up with the or applying the word facing is their objective interpretation. You know, staff, we did not articulate this. We could objectively say that orientation means, you know, to orient an entry means to place a stoop in the direction. it. They've they've invented or it's a bit harsh to say, but they've

they've identified what they think is the objective interpretation. We have our objective interpretation. So, it's not that we're trying to be all willy-nilly. The fences are a particular one. We don't find that soft surface trails are necessarily indicative of front entries. Again, the six foot fences are not the I don't doubt that the renderings do look with landscaping in them and the right lighting and some other things can be perceived as nice compared to what maybe we might otherwise accept as an entry. Somebody could give us a terrible ugly stoop and no landscaping and, you know, a gravel lot, you know, and there maybe objective ways that we have to say it's meeting it meeting a standard. So, not saying that the renderings look terrible. Um, but to us, they don't look like front yards because we don't allow a front yard like that anywhere in Steamboat. So, it's hard to believe that it otherwise we should consider it as a front yard.

Can I follow up on that? Same question, please. Um, so there's two doors into each unit. There's a garage door and then there's the door by the core trail. Is that correct? Is there a third door? There are shared and collect can correct me if I'm wrong. There are shared passageways that so from the garages you enter into shared passageways and from those shared passageways you then enter into we'll say like a foyer. That foyer is now accessed from the core trail side as well as the passageway side. Interesting.

So yeah. Okay. Because my question is, and I I I guess I I'm going to have to have that picture again because I didn't see that in the picture because my what I'm getting at here is where is the pedestrian active zone for these units? I mean, is is it it would be the first 25 ft from the core trail side. First 25 feet of building depth would be pedestrian active building frontage into into the property not along the property in not along the not measured from the property line measured from the face of building face of building to the um 25 ft core trail in this case.

Yeah. So the the buildings that are fronting the core trail starting at face of building 25 ft into the building is pedestrian active building frontage by uh CDC definition. So that's what otherwise the only reason that particularly comes into play as a measure of the workforce unit housing that we are talking about. I'll wait. Yeah. No, I mean it's it's it's going to be interesting. Um because what we're what actually I have to wait for some discussion, so let me just I don't have any more questions for you right after that. I might have a few more later, but why don't you just take over?

Well, I'm I was confused by that answer because I the question I had was units as they are today. Yes. Where is the pedestrian active space? I mean it has I mean is it you know where is it oriented right? I mean yeah less more less CDC oriented you mean just as a principle of where's the pedestrian activity happen? Yeah, correct. Like it is

Yeah. In in planning's opinion of this project assessment, it doesn't necessarily have pedestrian activity because you sort of circulate, you drive in and you circulate from the garage and and probably don't access from the core trail necessarily. And we view that as a a rear yard sort of setup. And and that's my inherent try to I'm trying to get to where you guys are planning. Sure. You feel that the parking, pavement, garage access is the front access to these individual units. I'm not sure we believe they have front access. So you're saying two back doors? Yeah.

In a sense.

In a sense. I mean particularly look if we can dissociate ourselves from the core trail discussion to there's a more internal unit that look exactly like these, you know. So there's a num two two units that sit along the core trail. There's one that sits internal to the site. Um those certainly have no they don't have a front door toward the garages or the parking lot. They don't have those are true backyards and planning has no reason otherwise to place regulations on that. You know the the code is most in important to the public facing elements of our development. So that's internal to the site. So for them to have 6ft privacy fenced backyards to that other building that faced the parking lot over by the gymnastics space. That's a good example of those units just don't have front doors as far as we're concerned.

Yeah. Councelor Dixon, I'll let one question. Jeremy, what um conditions would you like to see to make you all feel comfortable? Is it simply removing the fences? What I know you won't like the answer. I know.

But unfortunately, it is it's an assemblage of parts and it's a term I've used before. I think there may be one or two things that and I didn't mean to catch there are things that come out. We've I mentioned to Cala and staff reports as we're writing and we're getting into the the particulars of criteria for approval talking about articulation. It's not the building building units move in and out, but I think there's opportunities. You know, there's overhangs on the side or the rear. There's there's probably possibilities to create overhangs over entries or so there may be larger moves that maybe it requires one or two things. There may be a small set of moves that you have to do five, six, seven things. There may be a dozen things. We just unfortunately it's not our role to be prescriptive as designers. And I know it's it's not a good answer, but

No, I get it. Yeah. Thanks. Um, I'll come back to you. Let's go right around right down the line. Start with you. You have questions? I have one, but we'll just go straight back down. Okay. All right. Okay. So, kind of just following up on that, right? One of the things that um Cali talked about is benches, landscaping. So, I'm still struggling, right? I mean, in terms of kind of that fine line. Is it just a 4ft fence, not a sixoot fence? I mean, I think I'm thinking about like the over on Seventh Street, right? Those new kind of row homes on Seventh Street, right? I mean, sure.

And they've got a 4ft fence, right? Just a front. And I don't know that they have a backyard, right? They've got So, I'm just trying to um sort that out in my mind. So, any you can answer benches, landscaping, or foot fence like that makes it better. think staff would support it. Is that what you're asking? Yes. I mean, is that is that kind of what you're saying? Because I know you've mentioned a front porch stoop.

I think we would have to review and again some in these difficult cases. It's not myself personally trying to make the decision. We do try to find consistency amongst all our development review staff. So I that direction may have legs. Uh certainly it moves in the right direction again because we know 4 foot fences are permissible in front yards and we're trying to make a front yard. That would move in the right direction. At the end of the day, I can't guarantee from the podium that that is what staff would unequivocally support.

Oh, absolutely. And I don't think I'm looking for I'm just trying to get ideas. Yeah. So, not trying to pin you down in terms of what staff would support or not. I'm trying to understand You you used some words today. You've said back door versus front door, six-foot fence, keep out, backyardish, walled off experience. Yes. All those terms are subjective terms except for sixoot fence. I will give you that. That's objective. Sure. I'm trying to understand when you say there's no front door or no front fence, you don't want the fence in the front of the house, but you're saying there's no front door. Well, they have not. I apologize for cutting you off.

No, no, no. I'm just trying to understand how those two work together because if there's a front door, well, there is a front door. We It depends what your definition of a front door is. It should be objective. We agree that it's a front door is supposed to be objective, but what does that actually mean particularly? And what if a building has two frontages or sits on a corner lot? We have to make these determinations and planning all the time. I think there can be a front door. We don't believe there is a front door today.

Okay. And if you take away that fence in the back, do you believe there's a front door? Then we would have to review that

because looking at that picture without a I mean with a Well, you say you'd have to review that. I I'm just trying to understand that if you don't walk in through the garage, how would you get into that place, that house, if you don't walk in through the garage? I think there are ways to access a building without a front door. I don't think every building needs a front door. So to say that there is a door does not mean to say that there is a front door. And that was my example for the internal building. I don't think there is a front door. I don't think there will ever be a front door. I don't think there needs to be a front door. I think along the core trail there needs to be a front door and the design is presented does not create.

My final thought on this is is the fence preventing you from thinking there's a front door.

Certainly that is one of the things that staff has uh reiterated on multiple occasions. I'm I'm struggling find going through the code real time here. Um in a I don't know in in a uh um family neighborhood where you have a a clearly defined, you know, front yard and someone wants to put a fence in the front yard. What is the code about that front yard fence? Could you put a sixoot fence in your front yard? No. Sure. That's in the um up at the development standards. There's a fencing and screening section. I Yeah, I saw

off the top of my head, but yeah,

but it says essentially um fences in all zone districts except the industrial zone in the front yard fences must be 4 feet or less. The front yard by definition, if you go to the measurement section toward the end of the code, it says it's basically face of building that faces the, you know, right of way or pedestrian active right ofways. So, and this happens all the time in Oldtown. We have to decide where can you start your 6ft privacy fence. Take the face of your building facing the street. Anything behind the face of building can be taller. Anything from face of building proud forward to the street must be 4 feet or less.

Any other questions? I I have one for Kelly. Okay.

And again, it's probably in here, but maybe you can just And we've talked a little bit about this. So, what is the distance from the front to the fence and the front to the core trail? The building articulates quite a bit actually. So it's where the building protrudes the most. That um yard is 8 ft deep there. And then there's another the core trail kind of meanders just a little bit and I think there's about six feet to the core trail. It's a pretty small space. Um, yeah. And just a I I I'm sure that it was just a misspeak, but the the code defines a front yard is the what's in front of the from the face of the building to the street, not the pedestrian frontage. This is not it's not a it's not a street facing frontage. It's not technically a front yard. And the code doesn't require a front yard or a front door. That's not what the code requires. It requires a primary access. So we can just lose the front door terminology because it doesn't matter. There is no frontage because it doesn't front a street. What the code asks for is for us to prioritize primary pedestrian entries towards the public facing spaces if that makes sense.

Okay. Thank you. I have a question for Dan. If I wanted to add a condition of appro my occasional approval is that something that I you know I it happens all the time in planning commission. I don't know how if it's any different in council. Um so you do have the power to uh add reasonable conditions to approvals and reasonable conditions are those that relate to the approval criteria. Um it uh is helpful if we know whether or not the applicant would agree to the condition. So, um, if you're going to add a condition, it's it's good to ask.

Um, otherwise, I think it's you have a lot of latitude as to how you structure it as long as it is, uh, related to the approval conditions or the approval criteria rather. So, the qu I guess the question I have for you is is I as I look at this, you know, I I agree upon your your level of subjectivity here. Uh, I am still hung up on this pedestrian active, you know, access, you know, piece. And I feel that putting a six-foot fence there is, you know, kind of cuts down that interaction with that with the core trail. But I'm I'm I'm I think I'm comfortable with with human sizing that fence to to what is, you know, standard in a residential community being 4 feet. Um, and so that's where I'm kind of, you know, sitting at. And so I guess I question I have for you is, you know, would you be willing to drop that fence up, you know, at the core trail? I mean, I don't care if it what it is in, you know, back in the yard to separation between units, but facing the core trail, human sizing that I would say to to four feet.

Um, so yes, we are willing to do pretty much anything to give this project legs. Um, but I would say I would just like to explain the reasoning for why we haven't done that yet. Um, I think 4 foot fences would work in most cases, but I think that these are steamboat locals. They have dogs and they have children and a 4ft fence does not keep dogs in. And with the core trail 6 ft away, I think that that's a safety issue. So that's the reason that we dropped it so that it would appear like a 4ft fence but then still have the safety to keep dogs in to these yards. Obviously, not everyone's going to have dogs. maybe no one will have dogs, but that's our thought on it. We have a lot of rental properties and most of them have dogs. Um, and so maybe just consider that that it could create more negative impacts and that was our take on it. But absolutely, if that is what is the difference between yes and no for this project, absolutely we would drop into four feet.

One other question for you. Um, the reason you oriented these houses that way instead of putting any other way is that obviously you couldn't get into the garage if you put the back of the house up against the core trail. That's part of it, but then that standard and the standard the standard we looked at tonight required that we defined the edge of the core trail with the buildings. So, we couldn't there really was no other way to orient it. Yeah. Gotcha. Are we ready for public comment? Okay. If there's anybody in the room who would like to make public comment on this item, please come down, state your name, your address, and you have up to three minutes.

Good evening everyone. Angela Ashby, 2592 Ensrook Court. Um, for those of you who don't know me, um, I've been around a bit. I haven't been up here lately, but um I served um as uh for years as the founding board chair of YBSC, what is now the Western Resilience Center. I've also spent a significant amount of time working on housing initiatives, including co-chairing the 2016 um housing steering committee and served on the subcommittee to support referendum 5A in 2017, which created dedicated funding for affordable housing. So, for years, we as a community have been talking about the need for more diverse housing stock across price points, ownership types, and delivery models. I've known Cruz Builders work for several years, and I can say they are committed to delivering thoughtful, highquality housing, particularly in the missing middle segment that our housing community needs. and their Lagum project on 13th Street is a really good example of their ability to design efficient livable spaces for the way people live. Eddie Line is another well-conceived project that takes in a regular parcel and maximizes its potential to deliver much needed housing on a near-term timeline, not years from now. Importantly, they could have pursu pursued a lower density, higher price product, but have chosen to focus on providing more attainable mid-range housing um because they are passionate about what this community needs. What's in front of you tonight is not a new idea. It's the realization of what this community has been asking for and what you have identified as a city council priority. While leadership and priorities may evolve, one thing has remained constant, the need for housing and the desire to maintain our community character. This project supports both of them. A few key points to consider that this parcel has already been identified and and zoned to accommodate residential use and will provide housing for 18 plus homeowners

in a muchneeded price segment. It's privately funded while still allowing buyers to take advantage of the city's down payment assistance program. Super excited about that program. U the design reflects how many locals will live today. Efficient layouts with thoughtful storage and functionality. The orientation towards the core trail creates a welcoming streetscape with clear, functional entries and a cohesive overall design. In my opinion, it is designed by longtime locals for locals. It's also worth noting that even with the limited outreach, um the project has received positive public feedback as reflected in your packets. That speaks to both the need of this type of housing and the community support for it. And many of you have emphasized the importance of delivering housing now and not years from now. This is this is in front of you. This is an opportunity to do exactly that. If approved, this project can move forward quickly and begin delivering homes as early as next year. And delays at this stage only add cost and uncertainty, not just for the applicant, but for the potential homeowner. In today's environment where costs continue to rise and housing demand remains, strong timing matters. you have the opportunity to provide clarity, apply the code as intended, and allow a well-designed project to move forward. This is a meaningful step towards addressing our housing needs. So, I encourage you um to to say yes to this project, and um I thank you for your time and your service.

Thank you. Thanks, Angela. Okay. Is there anyone else who would like to make a public comment in the audience? Come on down. Okay. Is there anybody online? If you want to make a public comment, please raise your hand. Okay, seeing none, we will close off public comment and bring it back to council for deliberations. Who would like to go first?

So, I can go. Um, so I'm gonna start. I I I do like this project. Um, and at the same time I do also have cons, you know, have concern about, you know, creating a walled off experience with a 6ft fence. I that that six foot fence does bother me. I hear a s, you know, safety issue. I had a 100 pound dog that would leap a sixoot fence into a single bound. A sixoot fence is not going to keep a dog that wants to get out out. Um and so but I do believe dropping that you know that barrier and inc and I'd say you know humanizing the scale of that interaction that someone you know can come off the core trail and and be talking to the neighbors the owners of you know you know to your ne owners and that that engagement you can't have that engagement through a sixoot fence even if the top you know two feet is a wire fence. Um, so I want, you know, so to me, if you just drop that two, you know, two feet, you get that that engagement that we're looking for with the community and on that core trail and not creating that a walled experience. And so I am willing to, you know, you know, to prove this with the condition of the that front fence being 4 feet.

Okay. Thank you, Councelor Aosta. Who else? I I'll go. Dixon. Okay. Um I think I don't want to lose sight that we're talking about the conditional use for CS zone district.

So this is what I think makes this a little bit different as well. Um I asked Jeremy if the fence was removed if that would make planning department more comfortable and the answer was um no. there are more um issues to look at. So that that's a concern um as well. So I'm not sure if it truly is just the fence

and I think that's the that's the conundrum that we're in from the perspective of I think there's a lot of I mean I think there exactly this is a good project, right? I mean and and it it does meet exactly kind of what we're looking for. I would love to have more guarantee that it's workforce. I mean, I don't think there's unfortunately anything that present prevents somebody to come in, you know, um it's certainly, you know, not likely to be a second home, but you know, is just potential rentals. So, as I say, I would have um liked to have seen more security there, but that's again not part of what we're deciding on tonight. But I mean I think what we're looking for and maybe it is simply remanding it back to say okay how do we keep the design but make it more active right I mean in terms of landscaping I like the benches I don't know if there you know is an opportunity if there's any green space to put a picnic table or you know um or you know things like that. So, but I hear you in terms of I'm not sure from a staff perspective what could be done to meet that criteria.

How does that relate to I'm trying to relate that requirement to our code and how well it's no different than what you just said, right? I mean, in terms of it's a pedestrian active and I interrupted you. Go ahead. No, no, I'm just trying to I'm trying to relate what your what your request is to a particular piece of code uh in the CDC to to enforce that. That's that's I'm just you know just

I think I'm expanding on I think your concept right of one concept is the 4ft fence. I'm can buy into the sixoot with the transparent on the top again because it's on the core trail and dogs and um you know and it's a little bit different than maybe downtown in terms of a typical street but what else would make it appear you know more pedestrian active. Okay, councelor Pacino. Um this is intriguing. Um, and you know, first off, I what makes this one so unique is that you we are on the core trail and only half of the project is. So when you have the core trail, now you're calling that the pedestrian, you know, primary core that you want to look at. When you brought up that second picture without the fences, that's what a lot of places look like that start to have a lot of clutter and trees die and it just looks like a ratty backyard. Okay. And so for me, when I looked at that, the fence actually gave me more of an inside of a front and it was probably because the bright numbers on the sign. And I sat there and looked at it and I said, you know, if you took those numbers off it, is it really a front yard? Because you're really saying I'm the front. I'm the front. You know what I mean? So, I'm looking at those numbers and I'm like, okay, this is kind of how this thing works. But the um the grid fence that's above the 4oot, a lot of common sense with people with dogs. It's still in my subjective opinion very much a front yard because the other

side of the house is my car and pavement and everything else. So when you have kids, when you have dogs, when I have a place, if I had my kids and we somehow were able to buy that place and I had to have an open yard to the core trail would scare the Jesus out of me. I wouldn't let my car kids go out there and play in the yard. So, I wouldn't be getting much use out of the yard as a homeowner front or back because it's on this core trail which is heavily used by a lot of the public at least with a privacy fence and the way they've designed it. I have security, but they also designed it in a way, in my opinion, in my subjective opinion, that it it does look like a front access as someone driving going by my bicycle. I'm going to be looking at those the way that the picture showed, and it's going to look very much like a front yard. I don't I disagree with staff that looks like a front yard. Okay? It's not on a street, but if you had cars going by, it would look like a front yard. So I mean the way that they have access from the back down to shared thing. I mean primary access is clearly from the arc from the designer that designed the building. Could they have done it another way? There's a clean slate if you just start from scratch. So yes, the answer is yes. And as a designer myself, we sit there and always have to justify what we're doing. When I look at this project and I'm here to to judge on a quasi judicial manner, I have to disagree with staff today. This is not a project that can be denied because I do feel that there's some subjectivity on a couple of these standards instead of the objectivity. And Jeremy's exactly right. There's some things there's some things in the code that have this subjectivity inherent in the code. And a lot of that times it's with

those variances or what we call alternate or equal or better. And when they come up it's someone else's subjective saying well this is better. Well who determines whether it's better? There's no matrix. There's subjectivity built into this. So in this one I don't know where you got the impass. I know there's a lot of relationship building between the two. But this one aspect, these front yards, the way they have it, the way that this land is, it's going to have my support because I look at it from and I Kayla, I thank you for bringing up. This is a steamboat residential property. It's made by locals for locals. We have stuff and I'm sorry, I've gone by some neighborhoods downtown and ever and it just looks like crap. go over to um Eagle Point Town Homes and it just a lot of times there's no place for people to hide their stuff and it just gets cluttered. And I think that this is a a good way of pro providing housing and it was a creative solution. Yeah. And I would add that I don't want this project to go away. This is a price point that we don't see. And it's also, you're telling me that we can have these things maybe by the end of next fall or summer or whatever.

What price point do you think it is? Yeah. How do we know the price point? Well, what's the price point? But but does this I'm sorry. I don't think it matters in our discussion though because we're not talking about it probably does. But I look you guys looked at each other like it was I wanted to make another point though.

There you go. And that is that if I walk down or bike down the core trail, I'm thinking I see a little pond to fish in. I see an alpine lumber yard. I see some backyards of places really close to the core trail. I mean, really, really close. I see the Botanic Park fence. I see soccer fields. I mean, you can name it. I see everything basically. And so I would like to see how I mean if there's ways to improve the I don't even know the right word aesthetic experience or

whatever it is. I think we need to find a way to make this project work. And I don't know if a 4ft fence I I would be with you Michael if I had kids I would be concerned with a 4ft fence. I'd be more concerned about my kids than my dog personally but that's just me talking. talk if so I just think we need to figure out a way to to make this work. Sounds like there's a lot of agreement to trying to come to some kind of flexible creative solution here at least among a number of us. I don't know if if we can do that like that's why not

this is what our job to remand this back to planning commission. They're not designers. We're not trying to redesign this. I don't think we could remand it back. I mean, we could, but if you read their minutes, they were also stuck in the same conundrum of the design. If I recall those minutes correctly, um, this is again, I'm going to go back to it CS zone and so there are some different standards and the conditional use is for multi- family housing. This is where we're growing west. I mean, we have got to get this right. And I I do I like the project. We need housing. Whether it will truly be for workforce, I hope so eventually. I But I don't know. That's not actually what we're debating about tonight. Um so I I can't support I right now I can't support the way it's written. Um I have to support staff's recommendation. I don't know if I could get on board with saying remove the fence or make it to 4 feet. I heard Jeremy say it's more to it than just that. So that's it's on the core trail. It's in CS zone. We have we got to make sure we're doing this right. Um especially for future developments down the road in this area.

Would be hesitant to and I appreciate you saying it. staff says there's a collection of a few things that won't hold up in court. This is quasi judicial. We have to be very specific. If there's actually things that collaboratively, a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit here, I'm going to deny the project. If I'm not mistaken, that doesn't hold up very strong in court. So, I would be remiss to actually sit there and I appreciate them saying that, but specifically, we're here to make a judgment call. And and to me, if if it meant that you needed to get on board with a 4 foot fence out front to pass the project, then that's where I'm at because when I look at the project and I've went through it all, it just has a lot more positives than negatives. So again, if you add the positives and the negatives, for me it's a positive.

So if you say staff has a bunch and it's a negative, that's too subjective. Okay. You want to ask a question? I do. and maybe of either Tom in terms of so I mean you're hearing the conversation right I mean in terms of being support for the project right but wanting and certainly I don't think we want to be the ones designing up here in terms of saying this should be a 4ft bench it should have landscaping it should have benches we've obviously heard that there has been conversation there's how I mean can we send it back remand it and say what what what kind of parameters would we need to put around it. How would you advise us forward?

Well, I mean, I might defer to Dan a little bit here, but I mean, as council, you you can you can certainly make a different decision than staff or the planning commission and make a finding that you find that it does in fact meet uh the criteria for approval. Um, that would be one option. You could say that as you did before, you could remand it back to planning commission and have them look at um uh that particular standard and see if they can come up or work with the with the applicant to come up with a different design that they feel meets those criteria. But you have to base it on the criteria if you're not what you think looks good or doesn't look good. It's got to be based on that criteria. So, um I think if those are the two that you're thinking about, um that's what I would do. um unless you can find make a specific finding and motion that meets the criteria for approval.

Um so the discussion has you've touched on a remand to planning commission a couple times tonight. Um you you also have the power to table to a date certain and direct the applicant to make changes. Um and then it wouldn't go back to planning commission. It would just come back to you. Would they I'm sorry. Would they work with um planning department on those changes? I could. Okay. Well, I would like to make a motion. Let me take a stab at this. Before you make a motion, I have a question for Dan because I I think where you're I I suspect I know where you're going to go. So,

I Since this is a CS zone, this is probably a question for Jeremy. Um, so this is a CS zone. Can we even make a a a um uh stipulation um or condition of approval that it be a 4ft fence since it is in a CS zone and CS zones allow you a 6ft fence. And so was that would that even be allowable? And so I guess that's either a Dan or Jeremy or whoever question. Yes, it would be. I would make sure that you ask the applicant. I know you did, but I would get confirmation that they would accept that condition.

I what I heard from the applicant and do we ask again? I heard from the applicant was that anything you can you can do to make this thing go forward? Yes. All right. I'm going to uh I'm going to move to deny the um agenda item seven, which was a denial of the project. Um, you're you're so how do I how do I do this? Because I would like to item number

item six. Oh, even better. So, item what I'd like to do is I would like to approve the project with the front fence being no higher than 4 foot. The side fences could be six because I love the barrier between the two residences. If kids are playing, there's activity going out front and I'm fine with the whole project. I second. Okay. Say the motion one more time because we got to get this The motion you're making is Would you like me to make the motion? Would like to approve is to overturn the denial. To deny the denial. Yeah. Which is overturn the den. Is that overturn the denial? Is that it or what is the language? Explain language. You're moving to approve the project. Moving to approve the project. Moving to approve the project by council Pacino. We have a second.

The fouroot fence. The 4ft fence. That's the only stipulation on the core side. On the core trail side. Second by councelor Augusta. Is there any further discussion?

So, I will be uh a no vote on this. Um I it's to me it's more than the fence. Again, it's a CS zone on the core trail. Um, I think Jeremy explained it really well, um, about the design and what we're looking for and this is a conditional use and so I think we have to apply the appropriate um, scrutiny to it and again the growth and the development going out west. Um, it's really important for us um, to really look at these. So um, I'm I'm going to be a no. And there no appetite for kind of remanding it and asking staff to work with Cali and team on what else could be done to improve the pedestrian active front

because again I agree I mean I concur with councelor Dixon. I mean we do need to get this right. Right. So, we have we have a great project. We have an opportunity to make it a better project. Um, and we certainly don't want to delay too much, but with a I believe this is a good project the way it is. Mhm. So, you're remanding it to make it a worse project for me. So, I make my void. I mean, I'm just saying I like it the way it is. Okay. You don't want landscaping.

I mean, that's I mean, I want the pictures had some landscaping. I don't know where requirement is, but it definitely has more appeal in this location. We have to look at it specifically in this parcel on the court rail without a road, without a street, nothing. It makes it a very unicorn in our city.

I and I look at this as a very small infill piece. I mean, you're someone's not going to, you know, see a zone. someone's not going to go in and put a commercial space, you know, ded a dedicated commercial space into that space. And so I I look at that as being, you know, in terms of getting it right. This, to me, this feels like getting it right because we actually have a, you know, a pretty darn nice design going into a very restricted space. And this, to me, you know, fills that space out. And what I want to do for me is just creating some engagement with the with the core trail. I mean, and if you h and that's where your neighbors will come through and start talking to you if you have a the right size in, you know, enclosure. And so for you know so that's where I'm sitting is I I feel that will take me over the over the um to the approval of this project. Yeah.

And I would say I I went out there today on the court trail to look at this. You did? Yeah. I did. And um I don't know. I like the design. I I liked the design of the project. I I know there's a lot of subjectivity and objectivity we're talking about and the zoning and everything else. I just I just feel good about this project. Um I I just can't vote no on it. So I am a question. I will. All those in favor of a motion to approve this project say I I opposed. Nay.

Okay. Motion passes 4 to one. Are you going to have to bring this back up with a different paperwork or is this enough? Do you want me to answer that? Well, usually the resolution is not the right. Correct. We only included one resolution in the packet. So, we'll bring back a a resolution for approval because there will be some other conditions of approval that are pretty standard that I think the applicant has already seen. So, we'll get that back to you at your next meeting. Thank you. And do we have to vote on it again? Yeah. You'll have to vote to the resolution. to approve the resolution. Okay. Thank you. I think we need a break. Yes. We'll see you in 10 minutes.

the Steamboat Springs Revised Municipal Code by amending articles 1 through8 to update references for the recently adopted community plan and adjust language for the expedited review process to maintain eligibility for Prop 123 funding to support development of affordable housing. PL 2026037. Welcome Toby. Good evening. Toby, senior planner. Um, I wondered if you had specific questions or if you'd like a brief presentation.

Mr. Agosa, you pulled this one. What would you prefer? just I actually the only reason I pulled it is because it was uh approved on a it was a conditional approval from um planning commission um that some word smithing would would um be done to basically um you know there was a concern that we were you know be having to approve projects based upon CDC and the community uh community plan and basically you know we want to you know write have the right wording for that and I I did I reviewed the wording myself I you But um planning commission has not re-reviewed the the wording, but I'm comfortable with that. But I wanted to, you know, make make note that there was a conditional approval and those and those changes were made um as you know to my satisfaction.

Okay. Did anybody else have a question for Toby?

Toby, I would love for you um to I'm sorry, I'm trying to pull it up here. um go over any Let me pull it up. Apologies. Um significant changes when I was reviewing the um attachment with the um changes where it showed whether um it was deleted or added or modified. So, I read through all that and a lot of it seemed like, and now I'm going off my memory, a lot of it seemed like it was just using um our new community plan, like updating that type of language. Did I miss any um I'll say major or significant change?

Yeah. Um not too much. So, in general, the changes to this um this text amendment is to update the wording, the language for the new community plan. So, to use um some different words that um our new community plan uses. So, that is what the majority of this um text amendment is for. Um there's a couple places where we did add some references to the community plan. Um a few places where we deleted a couple references. So we wanted to make sure that that community plan is sort of at the right level in the CDC. There were a couple places maybe in minor adjustment for example where we were referencing the community plan and we thought that was too small of a project for such a big document. So we deleted a couple references in a few places. So that's um our main change for this for the community plan is just sort of rearranging the words. We also redid um the process to amend the community plan. Um that now references our IGA. It didn't before. So that the IGA that we have with the county really outlines that process, but we still have an amendment process for any applicant, any person in the community who wants to amend the plan. So we updated that plan process. The other big piece of this amendment um is the expedited review changes. So um there were there was some new language added that um introduced the concept of our development review team policies. We referenced that document. Um this amendment now says we will use our development review team policies. So that was an oversight from before. It also says that we will update them. So that's added. Um we changed some specific processes um to

be useful in the expedited review process. So that was out outlined in the code in other sections, but it's clarified. Now, a lot of these changes are sort of directed from the the state for our compliance with the fasttrack review process. So there's some words that we needed to say in our CDC to make sure that we comply with those state guidelines. Um and then to get to the other changes that we talked through. So at planning commission um there were some changes in a previous version. So in our CDC in our process sections it says here's the criteria for approval. Here's the term of approval. And then there's another section in all of these processes that that is called conditions. So here's the type of conditions that you can add to a process. So we had made some we had proposed some changes um related to the community plan. We did some more research and took all of those changes out. So that was in response to planning commission's questions. Um we did add a couple conditions sections to a couple processes here that were not there. Again, we feel like that was an oversight. So, that section allows us to add conditions to something like a preliminary plat or a final plat, which is pretty typical of our day-to-day work. Um, you just had a lot of conditions that you talked about on the previous project. So, that's what that allows us to do. And then we further made changes after planning commission um when we had to review this project um with the Department of Local affairs. So, Dola needed to do a review and that made specific changes to our call-up procedures. So, um we removed the callup possibility for expedited review projects. So, that's a housing project that went through the expedited process.

Um so, we removed that callupability for the planning commission. And then for city council, we amended it so that um you may have to have a special meeting if you wanted to call up an expedited review project. The reason for that is because the state has a very specific 90-day time period. So we need to meet that 90-day time period. Our expedited review process should do that. But a callup, which hopefully is a really rare circumstance, um might have the potential to ex extend that 90-day process. And so you might have to have a special meeting if you wanted to call that up. We hope that none of that will ever happen, but we had to put those words in to sort of again comply with the state and keep us um in the running for Proposition 123 funding and programs. So, that's kind of the gist of this amendment.

That's great. Thank you for that summary. Any other questions for Toby? If not, we'll open it up to public comment. Is there anybody in the room or anyone online? Raise your hand if you'd like to make a public comment. Seeing no one in the room and no one online, we'll close public comment and bring it back to council for deliberations andor a motion. Move to approve. Second. Okay, we have a motion from councelor Pacino to approve item seven, a second by councelor Augusta. Any other discussion? If not, all those in favor say I.

I. I. Opposed. Motion passes 50. Thanks, Toby. Toby. Thank you, Toby. All right, we're going on to item H, public hearing motions, resolutions, and ordinances number nine, which is the second reading of the third supplemental budget appropriation ordinance for 2026. And Kim, do you want to give us just a brief since this is the second reading? Sure.

Kim Weber, finance director. So, as part of uh closing the year, uh it is part of our process to bring city council a reappropriation ordinance for any unfinished projects, outstanding grants, uh and outstanding contracts. So, this supplemental includes roughly 75 outstanding POS, 20 outstanding grants, and about 85 um outstanding uh or projects that haven't been completed. There's also some uh budget identified in here that uh we identified some budget errors in within the fire department that we're asking uh for an appropriation on. Uh so this ordinance is $67.8 million in expenditures with offsetting revenues of about 23 million. So $44 million a use of reserves. That is reserves. Those are are reserves that drop in um from 2025. They were budgeted um over eight different funds. There was a change from the first reading. The ordinance is reduced by about 658,000 due to scope changes in a utility project that weren't identified before the first reading. So happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Thank you, Kim. Any questions for Kim? Okay. If not, we'll ask is there anybody in the audience or anyone online who would like to make a public comment? If you're online, please raise your hand. Seeing no one, we'll close public comment and bring it back to council for deliberations andor a motion. Move. I was going to say I'll move to approve agenda item nine. Second. Okay, we have a motion from councelor Gary, second by councelor Dixon. Any other further discussion? If not, I'll call the question. All those in favor say I. I.

Opposed. Motion passes. 50. On to item number I. Commission reports. We have a copy of the latest March 11th park wreck commission report. Uh assume everyone had a chance to read that. Are there any questions or comments for Angela from that report? I have none. Okay. Do we need to make a motion? Nope. Just I mean when I looked at that there was um the ebike question came up and there was some talk about that. I just I know it's on one of our work sessions coming up hopefully this summer. No.

Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no. uh was just saying on the on the uh the parks and recck commission was just talking about e ebike safety and education update. That's all I needed. It's good. Um they're still working with the police chief and the uh route county riders and others to make sure that these kids are wearing helmets with their bikes and not going so fast. Still surprised the way some kids blow through some stop signs on Oak Street that we don't have any deaths. And I just I pray that we don't I don't want to have any. But parents, keep your kids get let them learn what gonna happen when a bike hits a car.

Okay, that's all I had. Okay, good. Thank you, Angela. Item number 11, city attorney report. Dan, hold on. Of pieces of pending legislation to bring to your attention. just do anything you need to do. Oh, is the mic off? Imagine that.

Um, so I have a couple pieces of pending legislation to bring to your attention. Um, not anything that you need to take any action on, but I thought you might want to be aware that first, um, there's a pending Senate bill that would authorize, uh, statutory municipalities to impose lodging taxes. Um, ordinarily when the legislature gives statutory municipalities power to do something, it doesn't interfere with our uh home rule authority. We already have a lodging tax. Um, in this case, the language is a little bit vague as to whether or not it's intended to um affect home rule. Um, CML is uh requesting that the bill be amended. I think it would be a good idea if it were amended to specify um whether or not there's going to be any any preeemption. Uh but there's no preeemption language in the in the statute in the proposed statute and I it doesn't seem to be the intent um the way that they've proposed to codify it. But it's just a little bit of an open question. So uh that's one thing to think about. Um it would also um uh it would also change the way that commercial lodging properties are valued for property tax assessments. Um basically there's some revenue streams that are not captured now in the current valuation. And if it passes, it would likely result in a increase in valuation and so corresponding increase in property tax revenue. Um the second bill is Senate Bill 2670 and it um you know the legal terminology is it restricts the use of historic location information. Uh which what that really means is if a municipality like the city uh has flock cameras or a similar uh similar vendor, the license plate reading um once they become a day old uh 24 hours old, they're they're historic and there are a number of restrictions as to uh how they can be used by law law enforcement and um there's uh a lot of

privacy kind of rules and regulations around this data. um CML is opposed due to um the difficulties it may present to law enforcement. You know, obviously this is a bit of a hot button issue. Um I think uh our chief very clearly thinks this is an important tool for us. Um but we also have to recognize our privacy concerns. So again, uh CML is opposed to this. They're not necessarily asking for you to do anything, but um wanted to bring it to your attention.

Okay. Thank you, Dan. Any questions for Dan? Uh yeah, that first question, the first one I think it was 26 2670. You you said we you ended with we should think about these. What does that mean? I mean I I don't know how I'm still learning how this government works. Um you know, so if if we want to make sure there's no impact upon us for home rule, how do we how do we ensure that? Well, I would say so CML is already on this. Um, but if you have time, if you want to go the extra mile, it's, you know, call your legislator and tell them we have concerns about preeemption. Dig deep and learn. That's what it's going to You have to read that packet that he's read and then you get a lot more. But it's hard. Yeah.

Yeah. You'll get it. It works. We all do. Okay. Do where do you say where is it in the process? Uh 26116 was just introduced. um in sometime at the end of February. It's the first. How much more? There's only a few weeks left. Yeah, there's only three weeks left. Yeah, 2670 has been in the works for a while. It's had a number of hearings. Yeah, I think we're Yeah, I meant to say 20. It's 2661 26 116.

Megan or Dylan, either one may reach out on this one. Is that a question? Go ahead. Do you have a question? I do. Okay. Keeping us in suspense. I know. I didn't catch this until just now. My seat. Um, so I didn't realize our police department utilizes um license plate readers through Flock. We do. They do have for several years. Three

years. We've used them as well as the county. In fact, we have um seven of them. I think the county has six. Okay. Um, so I'm sure you all have been following what's going on with Flock cameras in Denver and that um, information was being turned over to the federal government, ICE. And so do we have provisions in our contract where that will not happen? I might have uh, Chief Beckett come down and um, Hi. Hi. Sorry. He's in uniform. It's good.

I just saw this otherwise I would have reached out. Haven't come down. Um you don't have to apologize for calling me down here. Mark Becket, chief of police. Um I I'm going to tread a little lightly. I'm going to say so what you're talking about has been highly politicized and it's not entirely accurate.

Um we've had meetings with Flock. They there are data protections in place there. The um I had a conversation with the director of public safety a few weeks ago specifically about this bill and where we were at with it. Um the this thing really the questions flock kind of came into the spotlight last year because of an incident in Denver that actually had nothing to do with um the license plate readers had to do with a gal who was identified and um wrongfully identified. So it's one incident and then there was a data breach with um some of their stationary cameras like their surveillance cameras which are not the license plate reader cameras. Those are really the only two things that have come up. Um, Flock has got a group of folks in the in at the capital that are working on this thing. They're talking to us. They recognize if this passes, it would make the technology obsolete for us already. Um, but I will say the specifically this information about this data being shared with the federal government is to, as I've been told, is not accurate.

Okay. Okay. It is cuz I feel like Denver City Council um voted to not use flock because of um these issues. So again, I'm just following, you know, I read the news and um so that's when I saw that. Yeah, the bill revolves around and Dan can correct me, but the bill revolves around not just the fact that it's a continuous surveillance that this technology has existed for two or three decades. Um it's the sharing of the data which is unique to Flock and between agencies and there are we do have agreements with agencies but we have to enter into an agreement with each of those agencies. So we do not have any agreements with with the federal government.

Okay. Colorado and again like I have not I've heard what you're speaking about. I have yet to hear the actual instance where that occurred like I nobody has been able to produce that information to my knowledge. I'm not saying it's not out there but I've never seen it. Okay. Colorado has legislation that specifically prohibits the sharing of data with with federal governments. And uh the attorney general, I've talked to him about it. He he has pursued action against Mesa County deputies for sharing information with with Homeland Security and ICE. So I I question the validity of of that actual allegation. I have not seen it on paper. Okay. If it if it were to come to light, I think it would be something to talk about more robustly, but we have we do not share our data with the federal government.

Okay. Yeah. And it's not so much the um license plate reading and that it's it was my it was more about that company Flock. So if you're saying you haven't heard or seen this um and that you're comfortable at this point with using Flock, then that's fine. Yeah. I mean, Flock is they they pioneered they pioneered the integration of the technology between agencies and and on a broad spectrum. They're there there are very few agencies in Colorado that do not use Flock right now. and and there's that's one of the fastest growing technologies in law enforcement right now. So, um yeah, everyone's using it and we use it to great effect. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. You

All right. Any other comments or questions for Dan? I might just ask a question. And I could didn't um probably should have sent this a little bit earlier and regarding I think it's House Bill 261313 which deals with Prop 123. I don't have we I know it's in the bill has come passed out of the house. I think it's up in the Senate on Thursday. Have we taken a look? I know Kelly we had a there was a conversation an email conversation about it. I don't know if we've followed up on it in terms of whether it is impactful or is going to change the requirements and you can get we can talk about it offline.

Yeah, why don't we uh get back to you on that and give you a status update. Okay. Okay. Is there any other business for council tonight? If not, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Motion by councelor Augusta. Second by second councelor Dixon. All those in favor say I. Hey. Enjoy next Tuesday night. Yes. Thank you. Right. Yes. Spain.