Council - Regular Meeting

All right, I think we're going to start.

Maybe not.

I'll just turn off the mic.

Thank you.

OK. So those online, can you hear us?

I can hear you.

Great, thank you. Thank you. OK. Really sorry about that. If you have the IT director here and he can't figure it out, you know something's really wrong, Thank you so much for being here this morning and we'll go as fast as we can now. Rodney Ashby, planning and zoning director. We're excited to have you here. This is an important piece of your job responsibility. And I know I'm really biased, but if we can't get the vision right for our community, then something's wrong, right? Like that, that's a serious, serious hurdle for us. So, um, A comprehensive plan is a ground up effort. It's not intended to be those who are in positions making the decisions. It's intended to be gathering input from the public and then sharing that input with others and then coalescing around ideas that really matter to the community. That's the purpose of the comprehensive plan. So what will be a failure today is if we don't hear anything from you. If we do hear aspects that you are concerned about, if you feel like we just can't implement what we've heard from the public, then that's actually somewhat of a success for us because we've got to redirect things. We've got to make sure that it is workable. If we have heard things from the public that's just not implementable, we need to know that. So it's also a success if you give us your input and you tell us that we're doing the right thing, we're heading the right direction. And so I just want to really encourage you at the start of this to be engaged here. There is a lot of information, as you can see in your packets, there's a lot of information, but we're going to try to summarize that and and then seek your feedback on the input that we've gotten and then are giving you. So with that, I'm gonna turn the time over to Doug Critchfield, who is from our team leading this effort, and then Miriam McGillivray, did I say that right? Okay, our consultant and project manager for this.

I just first wanna introduce, we have two new staff members. Hayden Draper, if you could stand, Hayden. He's a new senior planner for long-range planning, took Bree's place. This is his first day. So I said, we're going to break you in, Hayden. And so, Hayden, just a couple seconds. Do you want to tell a little bit about yourself? He's a talented landscape architect. So we're excited to have his skills here. And then I have Michael McCormick. Would you stand and introduce yourself? He's an intern.

Thank you.

Yeah, really great support. And we're glad to have both of them. So we're welcome both of you. I'm going to do a real quick, just a recap of how we got to this point. And then Miriam from Logan Simpson is going to take us through the rest of the discussion today. So this is our timeline. You've seen this before. We're now on phase two where we're taking all of vision work that we did over the summer last year. And we're starting now to put that into, um, tangible implementation plan, which includes objectives and strategies similar to what you see on the current plan. And we're going to bring those forward to you. We've also shared a lot of that work with you already through an email connection. So, after this work today, we're going to go out to the public again this summer. We're going to do a similar type of outreach. We're going to have another survey. And we're going to ask people essentially the direction that we're going and where they can see significant needs in the community. And we'll have more details about that as we continue to develop that work. And then phase three is going to be some drop-in events and then a final workshop and the final public hearings. So just a small recap. We did quite a bit of engagement that led up to this. We had several interactions, a lot of face-to-face work, over 200 hours of staff time, university and high school classes, drop-in events, things like that. We had good results. We shared these with you last time around. Most people that we interviewed live here or work here or they're a student here. There was a few business owners and some other folks. It was good for us to see that the census shows a certain demographic in this area age-wise, and we were able to pretty much match that demographic in terms of the people that we outreach to. So we were pretty happy with those results. These are some of the things that we heard primarily. People want a safe, walkable, and affordable community. They want it to be clean. family-friendly, so they want the Nampa feel here, and they want to maintain that and preserve that feeling here as a community. The number one issue that people are concerned about is affordability, public safety, and preservation of natural areas, which we think we've interpreted to mean both natural areas and probably agricultural land, so we've joined those two together, and that was pretty clear in the focus group work that we had. Some of the things that people would like to see us do is continue to work on downtown, solve traffic problems, and deal with growth and manage growth. And so those are the primary issues that people would like to see here. So Miriam's going to take us into the focus group work that we did and the meat of the discussion today. If you have any questions, we'd be glad to take those. whether we do that during the discussion or we take a few afterwards. It's kind of up to you as to how you want to do this, but we're glad to take any questions that you had and try and work through those. We're going to try and stay focused on the issues. We have quite a few issues to cover today, so we're going to try and stay focused on those. If we start going down a rabbit hole here and there, maybe we can just flag that a little bit and have a little bit more discussion vis-a-vis email or some other methodology. Okay, Miriam, thank you.

Thanks, Doug, and thanks for having me come back. I think the last time I was in front of both of you was last October, September, so I'm glad to be here again. Based on the conversations that we had last phase with the public and the information that we collected with those conversations, we coalesced it into seven vision themes, as you see on screen. And within those seven vision themes, we embarked on a steering committee, a focus group-led process to really help us understand the direction, new ideas, being able to think through more specifically about what we could include within these vision themes. And so the steering committee met early this spring, and we divided them into seven focus groups. A number of you participated in them. We really appreciate that. Some of you participated in more than one, which is above and beyond. But the task that we put forward to that focus group process was to develop a list of or a series of objectives, which are essentially goals. They're broad aspirational statements of how we what do we want to be in the future? Where are we? What are we working toward? And then under those objectives, we've asked the steering committee and focus groups to think through what are the strategies? What are the kind of the actions, the projects that will help us reach that objective. So that's what we tasked the group with. And so I'm gonna walk through what the recommendations were from that process. And we're gonna integrate the group discussion after I walk through each of the themes with you. So connected and accessible was the first vision theme. Based on the conversations with public, the original vision intent for this group was to develop a safe, efficient, and well-connected transportation network that includes freight, rail, neighborhood connections, pedestrian connections, transit connections, really thinking through how people are getting around the community. The draft objectives that the focus group came up with are five different topics or buckets. This is actually the most, I don't want to say comprehensive, but it is the broadest section that we have with 13 objectives. The other vision theme sections have five to eight. So we really went pretty deep into this connected and accessible communities section. And as you can see through the draft objectives, it includes both the you know, the safety of getting around, the ability to have transportation choice, the financial stewardship, the financial responsibility of how you're building in that infrastructure, and then thinking through some smart technology, thinking through how we can use the data we have, how we can build in a more efficient system. So you have the packet in front of you. Unless you'd like me to run through each of these individually, I would rather have more of a conversation-based meeting with you. So, as a recap, we did meet with the steering committee just a few weeks ago. They had the full draft objectives and strategies document that you have in front of you for a final conversation, thinking through how the other focus groups came with their recommendations, so more of a holistic, fully thought-through conversation. And we did have some refinements based on that conversation. We have not made those refinements to the draft that you have in front of you yet, but I wanted to make sure that we articulated some of those conversation touch points. But really the discussion that I'm hoping to have with you all this morning is to make sure that these draft objectives are giving you enough direction to make the decisions you need to make if there are any fatal flaws or gaps and issues with us. I'll be asking these same three questions as we go through each of the seven focus group or vision-themed topics. As you've been able to review, and I can go back a slide or two to have the objectives up on screen, but I'll throw this back out to you. As you were reading and reviewing this section about transportation specifically, what was your gut reaction? Were there any fatal flaws? Did anything seem amiss? or do you need additional detail to be able to make your own, or to make your decisions within City Council and Planning Commission? Yes, go ahead. It's thinking through, and this was actually not part of the steering committee conversation, but we had them also provide comments on the full draft separately. So this was a separate comment there. But I think it's thinking through what is the future going to be with electrification and being able to have the connections and the coordination with Idaho Power to be able to accommodate those needs in the future. So both. I think some of it's probably public gathering places to make sure you have availability of electric vehicle stations, but also being able to have the power grid set up for it.

In consideration of expanding the connections between modes of travel, I assume that's sidewalks, walking paths within neighborhoods that connect. In Napa we have a significant amount of enclave zones in between each of our city developments. So the actual connection points aren't there. Have you seen other cities similarly in a situation that we're in and what was their resolve in achieving this objective?

So in many communities that I've worked in, they've put in requirements at least for pedestrian paths between subdivisions so that you might still have cul-de-sacs or kind of a contained subdivision. But as a pedestrian, as a bicyclist, as someone who's walking a stroller can get to the subdivision, neighboring subdivision. So it's at least providing pedestrian paths, if not having, they call them stub streets. So if a neighboring subdivision hasn't developed yet, having a future connection possibility be there.

Please. that it said the challenge is the meeting that police department for electric bikes that are 45, 40 miles an hour on a pathways. So back out of the way of being working, unfortunately, any of that's what we're now using for e-bikes. I think that's one of the issues we say we want to support the pathways, etc. However, I think somewhere in the plan we have to distinguish the usage or how those are used because of the safety factors here in the past week.

But maybe it's interesting to Is that calendar invite gone out?

I wanted to get back to your question about connecting where we have enclave, where we have county development in between city subdivisions.

And that is something that we've been talking about. We're trying to figure that out with the county a little bit, but we're also talking about that in the focus groups. Don't know if I have a really good answer for that because it's not our jurisdiction. And so we're working through that. We'd love to hear if you have any thoughts about that or anybody has thoughts about that, of how we could approach that issue. That would be really helpful.

Well, I think what's... president i think what's being i don't know the word um considered thank you is forced annexation within city limits i know that's not i'm not making a position on it but i know it's not a popular one so that's just what we're trying to decide what that looks like especially with the usage on the roads and the infrastructure and the facilities of the city, should that not be factored in and considered. So I don't know if you've seen another city do that and how quick they all got thrown out after the fact, but I'd love to know.

No, I actually haven't worked in a community that's forced annexation. They have incentivized or facilitated that so that that interested property owners would have an easier time through annexation or a streamlined process to do it. Certainly, I think it's in the city's best interest to make sure that development that's happening in and within the planning area is up to the standards for Nampa so that, and having kind of a set plan you know, level of service and kind of infrastructure understanding for when and if those property owners do want to make that step.

Okay.

It is an issue for an agency potentially dealt with this plan for a paragraph or a page two section Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

And for us to get my I we did it with both their swiped up with the 10th city of if there is and and support worse except for is that. of info to order and have capacity for existing as they can reach up to this. Now to help is those one-off deals, very inefficient. And it comes to a point where as I bring, as it comes through, I forget if it took place and the type. It's been a promised thing. It's just Napa's been very considerate and not to do. One, Napa's been considerate to allow us to grow. And at the same time, you know, we surround those communities that have been here for 45 years. There's a point when their well system's going to have problems or their septic systems are going to have problems. And I think we have to be proactive, and I think we've got to call it out in the future comp plan and how we're going to deal with the sub. So that's what I'm trying to get answers for you, but I think it's an issue that's on the horizon for us.

I think just in response to that, I think this is really good. What I'm putting out here is connected and accessible growth has created enclave areas that make it difficult to connect throughout the city. We need a strategy for how to address the need for connectivity. Maybe consider annexing enclave properties. What are the highest priorities? So just keep in mind that when we annex enclave properties, if we force annexation, we couldn't put, we couldn't require them to give us right-of-way and build a pathway and Like we couldn't require that, we would just force them to annex. So we lose a little bit in for the annexation because now we're responsible for purchasing the right way or building the infrastructure. But if that's a priority in certain areas, if there's connectivity problems in specific areas and we know we just have to make connectivity, maybe that's something we can address at least identify the need for planning effort in the comprehensive plan and say, we need to identify priority areas that the city will take responsibility for making a connection. I think that's a really wise thing for us to have in the comprehensive plan.

I appreciate that. I also, the other part is, if we think back to some items that were before planning and zoning, and I think one came on forward to council, We have county neighborhoods that we've also, through our comp plan, said we're going to put light industrial or industrial near those projects because it fit with the growth plan of Nampa. And, of course, we've heard from neighbors saying that's just a stupid idea. But from our perspective, from a city perspective, and industrial-based needing to go in, what we've done is correct. The difficulty is folks went in 20, 40 years ago into that county sub with their one acre, two acre lots and heaven, they arrived at their destination of wanting to live out in the country. And then the city has come to them and that creates aims. But the reality is we're doing what would be typical. And somewhere in this plan, I think we have to have those conflicts called out identified so that it's not that, oh, we're just plowing ahead or we're not sensitive to the issue, but we're cognizant of the issue and this is how we're going to deal with it.

Rodney, how do we lose if we do that? Because we'd have to acquire them either way.

So when we have a development occur, then we, in order for them to annex into the city, if they're seeking annexation in order to get sewer and water, We can also require that they dedicate right away, just they give it as part of the development, right? And we can require that they do impact fees and or make improvements to the program. So what we're losing when we force annexation is the ability to exact those things from them as part of the lack of development, right? They're not developing yet. So we don't have that ability. So we annex them, now they're in the city, but we don't have all those benefits. Unless we pay for them.

Yeah, unless we pay for them. But at some point, we have a checkerboard mile roadways where we're in and out of that area. And at some point, from a traffic point of view, we have to take the position of it's time to acquire, yes, expensive, in order to get the two lanes or to take a road from a two lane to at least a three with turnouts or four to move the traffic. And we keep planning and we keep putting out the document and we keep saying we want to annex and we want to do, but I don't believe we're dealing with what we're leaving behind. It's like plowing snow. We're leaving a road behind us and it's still a hazard. It's the same thing. We're moving out ahead, but we're not, we're not dealing in this document. I don't believe we have the aftermath and the leftover. And I think we, we need to incorporate those issues into what this plan is about. Agree.

Sorry, just on that is, isn't there any language that we can put in the city code though, that would allow us to acquire that land under annexation. So we mandatory annexation, a large piece that's going to be development. Is there something in the language that we can put so that when that time comes that when they start developing that we would get that right of way?

Looking at you over here.

Yeah, we need to be on Mike's. I thought we had the overheads. Oh, we have the origins. OK, I am the quiet zone though. They accept at a certain point. Just to clarify that impact fees. It really is driven by the project so we can acquire the land if we you know, force annexation. There's different ways to call it. But the project will dictate and drive whether impact fees are eligible. So that is one option that's still in the city's tool belt. You can still use impact fees even on these force annexation parcels. As to requiring the right-of-way, that's got to be a nexus analysis. And it's possible we might get there. It touches on an area that you've got to be pretty delicate in on an exaction piece. And so it's something that as staff we can look into more closely. That's something the council wants to pursue.

Again, I think this has been successful because these are the kind of comments that we need to think about, go back with our consultants and say, how do we make sure this is in the comprehensive plan? I think this has been really good.

I think similar to the then Council President Bills was going down. I think on my roadways that I use, Middleton's a great example. There's kids coming off sidewalks and then hugging a two, three foot shoulder to get to Lone Star between Smith and Lone Star. As we expand that roadway, it should be something that the city factors in to the infrastructure improvements that we acquire the right ways and we build the site. Yeah, that's standard. And so I think it's what Councilman Mills is stating. That's something I'm more supportive of rather than the forced annexation side. And even on the forced annexation side, maybe it's more so a discussion that we need to have with the title companies or somebody else outside of the city to say, upon sale, it's been annexed. Rather than waiting to force a family that's been there 50 years to annex into the city, upon the sale of the property that it's noted or deeded or covenanted, HOWEVER THE MECHANISM IS AND THE TITLE COMPANY KNOWS THAT ONCE IT'S SOLD, THE NEXT SET OF HANDS WILL BE CITY PROPERTY. AND I KNOW WE LOSE THE LEVERAGE OF PULLING THAT LEVER OF PATCH WORK, RIGHT?

LIKE LITTLE PROPERTIES HERE AND THERE. I'M NOT SURE YOU'RE GOING TO GET THAT SAME OVERALL BENEFIT.

YEAH. IN YEARS PAST, WHEN SUBDIVISIONS THAT WERE PUT IN WITH SEPTI AND JOINT WATER SYSTEMS, there came a time when it was needed to put in sewer. And you got your onesie-twosie properties up and down the corridor roads that are an impediment to expanding the road system. We experienced that, Council of Planning and Zoning experienced it on Greenhurst. When the good property came in, they wanted to still hold out a piece of property. And we insisted, no, The developer's got to go back to the property owner and get that strip. That's the last piece. There's still one other little piece to getting that road to be able to expand one day to a four lane. That's how it's designed. That's how it's built. So if we leave these patchworks all along without a game plan, how to deal with the individual stuff and also the annexation of a 30 unit county sub that's been there for 40 years. And while they're getting along right now, I got to believe some of them are going to start aging out. And the issue soon is going to be, oh, city, we need your help. We didn't want you before until it's crisis management time. And that's why I'm bringing these things up, I believe, in our plans. So I appreciate the patience with me here.

This is really helpful, actually. It gives staff a good direction as to what,

should be thinking about in the coming future but also in the to what to put into the plan and and i think we've captured it here yes so rodney lately we've been we've been trying to stay away from certain certain projects that we voted on what years ago that we approved it and the direction was correct but now it's not So on a case-by-case basis on projects is what I'm worried about. And so with this development, this direction, will it be the same for impact area development connection as well as the enclaves? Are we going to go depending on environment, geography, traffic, all that stuff? That's a huge idea there, Beth, when I'm thinking. How can we make it smoother so we can just blow into the developments?

Into existing developments? Yes. Existing development agreements on projects that have been approved in the past. So we're making these changes for enclaves. How do we force somebody that got approved in 2009 to maintain the same standard that we're holding to enclaves when they end up having these challenges? Yes. Thank you. Yeah.

That is challenging. I think if it's... We've talked before maybe about exploring expiration of development agreements, but if they go away, then what happens to that property? It needs to go back to the county or something. So that would be the solution. It would go back to county development. We'd have to do a de-annexation That's the only way I can think of if we had some kind of condition in the development agreement if it didn't develop out.

Here's something for us to think about from the planning side and legal side. Property gets approved for annexation, has a DA put on the property. I believe in our development agreements, we should be requiring that right-of-way dedication is done within a certain period of time. So if the development never goes, the city has the right-of-way and ends the start-stop checkerboard system. And if we can legally do it, then maybe we're already doing it.

So currently, on the major roadways, the existing roadways that come in, When a property is annexed, the dedication of right-of-way happens prior to the third reading of the ordinance. So unless something really strange happens, that right-of-way happens before we even record that development agreement.

Okay. Thank you. What about the construction of the infrastructure, i.e., a sidewalk?

So the construction of the infrastructure doesn't happen until the development actually develops. But the right-of-way dedication itself, so that's preserved if the city – say on middleton road that's part of our impact that's on the impact fee list if if a development were to have come in dedicated the right-of-way but not proceeded with construction we would be able to use that right-of-way that's been dedicated with the city project it wouldn't impede our ability to do that and it helps by having the right way to bring the cost of that project down

Do you see any projects not happening if we force that they put in the infrastructure of sidewalks? Where a developer would say. Prior to the development of the remainder of the lots. A similar 2008, if they're up in North Napa, and now we're waiting until today to develop, that that infrastructure should have been put in 2008, at least for connectivity's sake, and then they can do the remainder of the construction thereafter.

That would be a challenging one. I think we would be unique in the valley certainly to do that. The challenge obviously there is there's capital outlay prior to them having a return. And so that would be something that we'd have to discuss with the development community and see what their thoughts on. Council President, you may have some thoughts there, but it would require code change, but it's certainly a possibility.

And we're kind of crossing over between a couple of themes here. As you can see, Miriam's got the sustainable infrastructure and services objectives up there. Keep going where we're supposed to be. Thanks.

I skipped ahead because I didn't think that was conversationally relevant to the sustainable infrastructure and services section. I WANTED TO CALL IT SPECIFICALLY OBJECTIVE NUMBER 32, AND IT CAN BE WORKED TO FOLLOW ALONG. THE EFFECTIVE STATES ALIGN ANNEXATION DECISIONS WITH LONG-TERM GROWTH AND SERVICE HOLD, AND WE HAVE THREE STRATEGIES UNDER THERE RELATED TO EVALUATION CRITERIA TO ENSURE ANNEXATION CAN BE SERVED BY CITY SERVICES, STANDARDIZING Reorganization agreements or requirements to clarify expectations for infrastructure, and then coordinating annexation planning with adjacent jurisdictions. I have made some notes here as an opportunity to maybe strengthen some of those strategies in order to get to that objective. But this focus group really, really dug into a lot of these conversations. What we heard maybe, because you remember on the slide that Doug had up, managed growth was a huge, conversation topic in phase one with the public, not only making trying to make sure that we have the infrastructure in place before you have transportation problems due to new developments in growth, but thinking about how schools are built or laid out. Where are we looking parks? How thinking through the future amenities that come along with growth as well. So this session we went into a lot of a lot of that conversation. and thinking also through some of the transportation connections and infrastructure needs there. So I think we can probably move into this section. If there were other comments related to sustainable infrastructure and services, I will say one of the top things that came out of this discussion with our focus group, not only this one, but a number of them, was really the desire to put and maybe incentivize growth where you already have infrastructure and services. So thinking through those enclave developments or areas that have vacant parcels right adjacent to developed parcels, thinking through that redevelopment and infill as opposed to prioritizing the continued expansion or greenfield development on the fringe. So I think across a lot of the focus groups, there was a desire to pull in or prioritize infill development, both from a physically sustainable perspective, but also thinking through how do you create a vibrant community? You want people in their core areas. You want to build community with those neighborhoods so you have connections, you don't have the gaps in services or infrastructure. So just to preface the conversation there, Any other conversation that we need to know about related to this section specifically?

You don't show how we're going to do all this, how we're going to fund all this.

Funding, yes. We do have some strategies. There's more detail in your packet. I am focusing on the draft. But there was some great conversation about different approaches to it. So whether it's code and regulatory approach, we had some conversation about land trusts or impact fees, that kind of thing. So there's a little bit more detail that I'm not going to cover necessarily, but you have it in your packet.

Just a quick on this section where your question of are there any fatal flaws or things in this draft objectives? One of the things that I keep thinking about as we're reading through all of this is Yeah, we do need to fill in these enclave, you know, develop where we have the infrastructure. But builders do not want to do that. They want to go out and purchase 80 acres and fill that in, which would be on the, you know, so how do you give builders incentives to take these smaller properties or enclave areas and produce some housing on those or, you know, commercial or whatever we need.

Yeah. Yes. This may or may not be relevant. I don't know. It's a question that I'm curious about. Because I know Portland, Oregon had the urban growth found regret. Did that force development of those any difficult site? What Councilman Scott was saying. This on-plate parcel comes with all sorts of difficulties to it. And that's why it hasn't been developed, right? Because it's easier to go out and buy a version piece of land and let's develop this and let's leave that because that's got too many complications. So does the urban growth boundary actually do that? Does it force them to use the particles that are available instead of being able to go grab a person when, you know, and are there other examples of cities that have used that tool to force the development of the interior on-plate properties?

It really depends on the relationship with the county, because if it's just as easy to go into county land outside of an urban growth boundary to the same density or level of development that you might have in city, then you're not making it any more desirable to meet city standards and come in. It is a case-by-case situation. I don't think I could give you the answer about Portland specifically, but there are other communities that do have either a greenbelt or a growth management area. And I think in the case of Treasure Valley, with all these communities growing into each other in some way or another, you really have to put in some pretty, you really want to, if it's really a priority to have that separation between communities, you got to plan for it. So for instance, in Front Range, Colorado, there are communities that have, for instance, put in a transfer of development rights program TO ENSURE THAT THERE IS SOME GREEN SPACE FOR A SEPARATION, PHYSICAL SEPARATION OF DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN COMMUNITIES, WHICH IS AN INCENTIVE, RIGHT, OF A PROGRAM THAT YOU CAN PUT IN PLACE. BUT THAT ALSO HAD THE DESIRED EFFECT OF A FEELING OF ENTERING INTO A NEW CITY, RIGHT? YOU'RE LEAVING THE LAST ONE. THERE'S AN AGRICULTURE OR A NATURE AREA, AND THEN NOW YOU'RE IN A NEW COMMUNITY. It takes a lot of years of planning to actually do that, and you've got to have some pretty specific tools. But I think what you're thinking of also is incentivizing or pulling, making it more desirable for developers to actually build within certain areas or city limits.

Yeah, that was my priority, basically.

Yeah. We have thought a little bit about that as we've had these conversations. And I think one of the outcomes is thinking through a tool or a series of tools that would incentivize infill development and just make it a little bit harder where you have to pay a little bit more, the impact fees are a little bit more for areas that are less desirable by the city in terms of it's not as fiscally responsible for infrastructure development, Services need to expand. You know, you're straining your services if you expand out in certain areas. So we want to kind of give the carrot to the developers who want to build in and give more of a stick to the folks that will go by those 80 acres somewhere else.

Council President. So I think we've got to be a little careful. And I guess it's tough. talking about are the one acre, the acre and a half, maybe three at the most. And we've seen plenty of them come through. And it's got a pencil. Plain and simple. It has to pencil. No developer is going to go in and say, I'm going to lose money to develop this property because it's important for me to see the city grow the right way. There's no way they're going to do that. They can't afford to. So that's why there are codes set aside for us to allow certain developments to go in at higher density. And then what happens is the neighbors come in and say, well, I don't want our S4 going in there because our subdivisions are a seven. And so I don't want that. And so how do we explain, or how do we say, well, if we allow this to go in, then it's going to develop. It's going to get curb gutter and sidewalk. You're going to pay taxes and it's going to be better for the road system because now this 500 foot of frontage road is going to have You know what I mean? It's going to be finished. It's not going to be dirt. Kids are going to be able to walk down the sidewalk. So I struggle with that because I want to see those things happen, but we just keep denying them because we're listening to the community say, well, I don't want that next to me. Well, then how do we do it? How do we develop those things? Like I said, the developers aren't going to go in and lose money. They just can't do it. And there's so many around town that if we started approving some of them, I think the developers would naturally say, hey, they're working with us here. There's got to be better incentives. There are incentives, but we're denying them even though they're doing what is in code. They're saying, hey, this is allowable because it is enclave and we're still denying them because the neighbors say, well, I don't want RS4 next to my R7. Mr. President, if I could.

I think for an example that we're all familiar with, Lake Lowell and Midland. A little stretch pathway, RS, I think it was 8 or 8.5, I don't know, wanted 12, and the neighbors were able to meet them at 8, and I think we ultimately approved 8. I don't think they ever signed their development agreement, but I don't know if they're even planning to develop it. I think why I make this comment, it would be nice to know authentically from the developers, this will not pencil out If it's at this level, because we say, well, what can you do? I know everybody. If I was up there, I'd shoot for the stars and then get shot down still in profitability. But I would also like to know as a council member, the range of profitability. Is it worth your time if we reduce the density from RS4 and force RS7? No, councilman. If you do that, we will not sign an development agreement because it's not possible. I wouldn't take that snobbish or they're forcing the hand. I think it gives us a reality check of do we care about the infrastructure being put in or not? And if so, how much do we care to do that with our voting? Because I think we're aiming at a dartboard and throwing anywhere when it comes in terms of viability of projects. Lake Lowell and Midland, I hope to see that done. Maybe it wasn't feasible for them when they put pen to paper in their bottom line. So I think knowing that going into projects, to be able to express to neighbors as well, because I think we've all heard it. Developers are greedy, greedy, greedy. That hasn't been my experience. But we need to articulate, here's how the numbers work, and this is why it won't work or it does work. Maybe not a cash cow, and then we can save that for the 160 acres up north. Those could be cash cows.

Well, maybe a simple staff could, during our presentation, say, they're asking for RS4. If it was RS6, this is how many fewer units would be on the piece of property. Because in a lot of those, you know, one acre, acre and a half parcels, it's a matter of one unit. And that's going to make or break whether it's going to be profitable or not. And that's what I think most of us need to really think about. And I think if staff could do that during our presentations, then we could really see, okay, this guy's not trying to put 50 units on an acre. He's trying to put six. or five. And if we do this instead of this, it's going to be a difference of one unit. But that one unit is enough that now he's not going to be profitable and there's just no way it's going to develop. So this is great.

Yeah, I think in this conversation, I think in terms of the comprehensive plan over the language that you're talking about, the vision language of how we're going to address the issue, I think some of this stuff can be What they're saying to the city patient is that we're going to incentivize the development of multi-layer properties inside of city boundaries. And we're going to make it more difficult for them to go further and go out into more country land and talk about some of these things that we're discussing. And that can be in that language so that it is clear that this is the city's position. That we want to utilize the infrastructure that we have now and not just keep pushing the boundaries. We want to use these properties that are inside the city so that we don't have the mass order that we have now.

I'm all for the incentivizing for enclave properties within the boundaries. However, I think that we have to be careful on making it harder for developers to come in and buy properties. farmland because then we're infringing on property rights. We have to be careful there. If somebody wants to sell their land, they need to be able to. And if a developer wants to develop, they should be able to. I think, you know, and it makes us sit into this framework like a box almost because then think about like the Houston expansion that we have going on. Without those developers, we wouldn't be able to have that connectivity to the Highway 16. And that's huge for the north side. So we have to make sure that we're not hindering development too much TO MAKE IT SO THAT THE CITY CAN'T GROW IN THE WAY THAT IT SHOULD. I THINK IT'S MORE IMPORTANT THAT WE HAVE CODES IN PLACE THAT MAKE IT SO THAT IT'S SMART GROWTH, WHICH IS WHAT WE SHOULD DO WITHOUT HINDERING OR MAKING IT HARDER FOR DEVELOPERS IN THAT SENSE. MAKE IT WORK FOR US.

ON THAT, IF I COULD, COUNCIL PRESIDENT, I DON'T KNOW HOW IT CONNECTS. I THINK THE DISCUSSION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IS VERY DIFFICULT. And even in recent conversations on properties where the farmer is no longer able to even farm because they're concerned about their liability. One of the arguments that I recently heard that I, because I was right there with you, we cannot infringe on property rights. And somebody said to me, well, councilman, nobody's saying they can't sell their land at the value of act, sell it farm to farm. Well, it's difficult. And we, and even farm to farm, if you ask some farmers and it's different for others, Ag selling at ag prices, they can retire with, but they're not going to go build a house in McCall. Ag to development, they're able to retire and they're going to retire well. And it's the balance of what do we foresee? Do we want to focus our outskirts on ag to ag or are we going to open up? And that's not going to be solved today, but I think there's a diversity of thought, at least on this council of what is property rights at this point. with the aging infrastructure and the amount of deferred maintenance? Because I'm having a real difficult time growing out when we're having a hard time funding what's currently in.

Yes. So in terms of the conversation about incentivizing versus unpanelizing, right, I don't think there's an infringement on property rights to increase the amount of in that piece that are due, right? By developers. So that's part of it. I'm all for property rights, 100%. But as far as trying to incentivize developing inside the city limits versus going out and taking other land, I think that's a viable option, right? Say, oh, that's fine. If you want to do this out here, then you're just going to pay a higher impact fee because we're going to have to take infrastructure farther out to do it. So I think that's part of it, right? Just making sure that we're not infringing on property rights, for sure. BUT WE AREN'T DESIGNATING PEOPLE TO JUST PUT PAPERS AND LAND IN THE METAL. IS THAT EASIER?

IS THAT AN IDEA? THE MARKET WAS RIGHT IN ANY WAYS, MARK.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT PILLS. I'M SORRY.

I JUST.

COUNCILMEMBER SCOGG. OKAY.

SORRY.

WE'RE GETTING CLOSE TO WHERE WE'RE GOING.

I'M SORRY. JUST ON THE VEIN OF THAT, I TOTALLY LOST JUST Go ahead.

I lost what I was going to say. I think there is a strategic approach that we can take to this. We need to know how many acres of enclave property we have. We need to know how much green fields we have that are on the bridge of the city. And we need to understand what infrastructure is in place so that we know the cost benefit to the city. We have to have a little bit of understanding of that. And that was kind of built into some of our discussions focus group. So that's kind of how we can do this from a long-range perspective.

Big impact fees is what I was thinking about, too. My understanding was that they're the same across the board according to the houses and that sort of thing, but raising them when they're not within the development of the city and the enclaves, I think is an excellent idea according to the project, the impact fees

should accommodate that yeah impact fees the daniel's quite versed in it but from my perspective the summary side is uh it's a very code on the impact fees it's very controlled as to how the numbers yeah play out and what the city is collecting the city's gotta have within their WITHIN THE TOOLBOX OF THE CITY OF EXACTLY WHAT THE VALUE IS ON THOSE THINGS TO BE IDENTIFIED. I THINK IT'S GOOD BECAUSE OTHERWISE YOU CAN HAVE THE EXACTION TYPE FEES OR OTHER FEES IN OTHER COMMUNITIES, OTHER MEANS IN OTHER STATES THAT SOME PEOPLE HAVE EXPERIENCED THAT ARE VERY PENALTY ORIENTED. AND IT BECOMES AN INHIBITOR TO DEVELOPMENT AND PROVIDING FOR HOUSING. There's a balance in there. I think it's the in and out. It's driving down multiple roads where we got improved properties and then we have 50 feet, 100 feet of unimproved property and then we pick back up sidewalk again. How do we go in and deal with that? How do we work with those issues type of deal? I THINK YOUR COMMENTS ON AND I THINK THERE'S A COUPLE OTHER COMMENTS. FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE DIFFICULTY, THERE'S A PROJECT, AND I'M NOT SURE IT'S EXACTLY WHICH, BUT ON LAKE LOWELL, WEST OF MIDLAND, AN INFILL PIECE, THEY WANTED 12 UNITS, GET DOWN TO 35, 30, 35 WIDE LOTS. Both times, council, the first time was nine lots. Second time was eight lots. And of course, it doesn't pencil. So it's understandable. The difference is you're balancing with folks who physically live there. And next thing you know, after 20 years of living there, I've got whether two-story, single-story, but I'm looking at three homes now out my back window. And that's a difficult balance because those citizens who are already there, they're citizens of Napa. The other piece hasn't been annexed yet. And here's the parameters for annexation, but it may financially doesn't work. And so it contains the city that they killed. It's a tough balance. But we can't take property tax money. We don't have that type of monies or incentive monies to go in and buy out these parcels and develop them ourselves. per se. But I understand your comments, but I also understand the impact of a person who hasn't looked at that to not look at compatible type of stuff. So those are tough issues for both bodies to deal with. So it's recognizable.

This is for the document as a whole, if I could. Yes, because we should be on this document. We got slowed up and Into the weeds on certain issues. Sorry. For the legal recourse, when it's actually approved and binding per se, if there are objectives that are spelled out in the comprehensive plan that we actually go the opposite direction on, does that open the door for litigation from a developer, from an agency, or from a taxpayer to be able to say this was spelled out in your comprehensive plan And now you've allowed us to sue you because you said this was your vision. We financially went in on a project depending on this document. I'm looking more towards the agency sense because you got a three-letter word at the very bottom of page one. And I don't want to give agencies the opportunity to come and sue us if we end up cutting funding from them this year and there's no longer fixed routes in Tampa.

Well, yeah. In this plan has a big deal about transportation and VLT, etc. And we're going to need to moderate that language. We're going to need to potentially we'll get guidance. You guys are going to talk about it. We're going to have to moderate in our plans how specifically we're referring DRT there from the standpoint of changes forthcoming.

That's good feedback. We can change that in our document to just essentially talk about transit services.

You had a better word, multimodal. Multimodal? Modal, sorry. Model modal. I should know better. Okay. MORE LANGUAGE THAT BROAD AND VAGUE IS A LOT BETTER THAN SPELLING OUT A SPECIFIC AGENCY WITHOUT OUR DOCUMENT. THAT'S GOOD FEEDBACK. I'LL GET A COMMENT ON THE QUESTION YOU HAD IN REGARD TO...

IT'S GOING AROUND.

OH, LEGALLY BINDING IF YOU WANTED TO OPEN THE DOOR. IF WE'RE CRACKING THE DOOR OPEN FOR CREATION.

A COMPROMISED PLAN IS... IT'S... THE LISTENING YOU HAVE. is the land use map. However, the comprehensive plan narrative that describes your vision, describes what you want Napa to see, is used when you go through a zoning. So if you say, you know, one of the criteria is, does it comply with the comprehensive plan? I think that's actually in a CUP, in a rezone. That's the only connection there But frankly, comprehensive plans, most of the time, cover so much material that you can almost use your comprehensive plan, in most cases, to argue any point, right? So it's kind of this weighing out all the facts. And you're saying, our comprehensive plan is really focused on this. And yeah, it has a little bit of this too. But mostly it's focused on this. And that's your job in your position to say, but does our comprehensive plan guide us to that? And is it supported? That's your job. I don't know. I'm not an attorney, so I can't speak to this. And I don't see Preston in here.

Yes, interview meetings.

Yeah. So I can't speak to whether we get litigated. But my guess is that that would be really challenging for somebody to say. I mean, really challenging. for somebody to say that the city messed up by not following their comprehensive plan. If there's any support in the comprehensive plan for one way or the other.

The thing that concerns me the most about all this comprehensive plan is we have a yeah, but quote from the council. We do, it does comply, yeah, but here's the circumstances why it doesn't fit. And so I get concerned about that. But we've been taking it, we've been handling it the best we can. And it causes issues, but are we following the plan the way it's supposed? No, I don't think.

We're trying to do our best. We're balancing legislative versus quasi-judicial situations here too, right? An annexation is legislative action. You assign the zone, it's a quasi-judicial. Legislative action, you have all kinds of ability to make a decision. You can decide. And you don't even need to really give too much of a reason for why.

But quasi-judicial, that gets a little more difficult. Well, you saw just recently we had an issue where potential litigation was afoot because we tacked on annexation and zoning as one agreement. It met the requirements of annexation, so we wanted to approve, but it did not meet. the requirements for zoning. So it ultimately all got denied. And maybe future motions or future decisions are too pronged all in the same evening of, okay, if you want to sign a development agreement to be able to annex, I know we can't tack it on that zoning, but annex, sure, go ahead. But until something's moved here, we're not going to approve this prong.

And just quickly, our annexation criteria is different We're thinking of it more, after we talked with Preston about it, we're thinking of it more as, do they have the ability to apply for annexation? Rather than these are criteria that you have to go through to make sure whether they can or can't be annexed. That's your decision. That's a legislative decision. So we're trying to reword that. So even if you said, well, it doesn't meet this criteria for zoning, so I'm all for it. non-annexing, that's fine too. You have your reason, it's fine.

Long-range planning is also contributing more to the staff report, and we're looking at each application that comes through.

We'll provide a comment to you so that you know how your decision stacks up against comprehensive plans. I appreciate that. As a wrap-up, the comp plan is candidly what the development community and property owners are looking at. And it is the guiding document to say, do I explore doing something? And when the comp plan is written to encourage and to encourage people to move forward, it's difficult from the experience side that you could take a project in that meets the comp plan, that meets zoning criteria, then express, and then have the decision-making body say no. And for whatever reason, and somebody says, well, then there's a conflict here because what I've brought to you and paid your fees and paid engineering fees, survey fees, and a fair amount of, there's free monies put out there and on a project of any size, formal size typically it's a minimum of 50 but upwards of a 150,000 has been expended to get in front of planning and zoning and in front of city council. So it's a high risk deal. If you're going against the grain, asking for something other than what the plant calls for, then typically the applicant knows I'm going against the grain, but I think I've got a good argument why the bodies would approve and go with us on this. But that's why I think this is really important. Certainly, we've taken more time because we got into some of the other weeds that maybe didn't plan on in terms of just putting together. Potentially, if it works sometime again, possibly August, we should be circling back or early September, whatever your timeframes are, that we may need another session to carry forward because obviously we didn't get very far with your presentation and far as that part, etc. But hopefully this also helps your team.

If you don't mind, maybe, so right now we are at a critical moment where we have to say, are we heading the right direction? We've heard some really good feedback today on a couple of important We've taken notes. We'll make those changes. But we're at a junction point where now we're going to start going out to the community and say, here's what we heard from the public. Here's what the security committee came up with for objectives. We passed this on to our planning and zoning commission and our city council. And they weren't seeing major flaws in this. And so here's what we're moving forward with. So is it, would it be trying to think about how best to get your comfort moving forward?

I'd like to offer or suggest that each member here today and those who weren't, but are able to go back and listen to the conversation is if you're willing to is get on through the presentation, do some personal reading time, and send an e-mail to Rodney and communicate any concerns that you're seeing. And those type of comments, we need to get said to you for your team and not to leave Doug out, but we need to communicate. Are we reading the document? And we say, yep, this fits with what I've been setting up the dais and hearing from the public, hearing from the applicants, making decisions, is this moving us towards what we think we want? And I think it behooves us to have another 10 days to get you that feedback. And if you don't respond, then you're indifferent about it or not too worried about what this is communicating. If you're concerned about it, then we need to read through it and we need to fire off a bullet point. Here's my concern. So hopefully that information will give you and Doug and team, consultant, here's where we're going to the public.

I agree. Councilman, President, just very quickly, there's only one so far that I flipped through the objectives and goals. Affordable, attainable, and diverse housing. I would like me personally to see affordable struck from that because I think it's a talking point that's never achieved because we do not decide the market and we can add supply into the market. We've added a lot of supply into the market and we move 0.02% and houses are still median of 410,000. So I think it's a smoke and mirrors. Correct. Good to raise that. Put it in your writing. Thank you.

Affordable is an oxymoron. Yeah. It's not defined, it's not known, it's subjective, but as has been said, a great talking point. So let's do that. Let's have a little homework here. Let's get some feedback in to Rodney and Doug. Thank you for your time this morning. Motion for adjournment. Second. Thank you.

You're in 20 minutes.