City Council - Regular Meeting

3rd, 2026 city council study session. We've got two items on our agenda today. The public realm vision plan uh downtown commercial historic district and then we'll uh we'll hear about our uh 2025 year end action plan and KPI update. So with that, I am going to turn it over to uh Miss Irene to give us uh a preview and introduce our guest. Council President, council members, thank you. Um, I'm going to kick it off. I'll do a little bit of an intro and then most of the presentation will be done by Sandy, who I'll introduce as we go along. So,

can I stop you for a minute? Actually, administer zones asked me to uh acknowledge that we are doing a lot of attempts to make our study sessions more informal. Uh two weeks ago we were in the corner over here and uh uh I think uh the council members felt we were able to have it a robust and informal discussion. We thought maybe that space was a little too uh kind of isolated. The public weren't able to uh see us directly. So this we're trying this space out this time and after our session we invite members of the public, council members and staff to to give us your feedback as we uh continue to work on making our uh sessions more accessible. So continue.

Thank you. All right, so um we're going to jump right in. Um and if there are any questions throughout, feel free to stop us. I'm sure there's also time at the end as well. Um, so kind of going back, January 22nd, 2024 was when the historic district um was approved by council. Um, and that establishment historic district after a number of years is really recognizing the downtown commercial core at the center of that. Um, and here's like an updated map. I think we've used some of the other ones which um, this one I think looks a little bit nicer and shows all of the contributing building as well as the non-contributing. Um, and so this represents what the district is within the downtown area. Um, and then this was kind of came out of that initial historic district. Um, and really there was a lot of discussion about like what does it really look like in terms of implementation. And so this was kind of that first piece that we really looked at. Um, we coordinated with our partners as well as DMC to kind of establish like what are the key supports that are really needed for the district. Um, obviously the one we're going to talk about today is public realm, but I just wanted to note a lot of these are ongoing and not only are they being done by the city teammates, but also with our partners. Um and through that process um and this really came about as part of that public realm and identifying what does that vision look like we did an RFP process and we selected men collaborative um and new history um Sandy is sitting to my right and she's going to be doing um most of the presentation and she'll probably get into a little bit more but wanted to also note that we also work with new history um and they are more of a historic consultant as well so they work with um mend and with the city teammates and with the public on developing this plan. Um, and really the intent was how do we develop that vision for the historic district and what does that really look like and that was a lot of that goal that we brought about. So what we're going to discuss today um is really the project background, the community engagement and all the work that was surrounded in that um the vision plan and we're going to kind of

walk through all those different steps and then allows time for discussion. Um just wanted to kind of note this plan um as you'll see is kind of like this highle vision plan. Um there's there's several notes in the plan that require additional work for implementation. So we will note that. But these are just highle concepts. Um and these have also been coordinated and recognizes this is part of a larger planning efforts that are going on within the downtown area. Um and we had coordination among some of those as well. So just wanted to make some of those notes to give provide that context as we dive in. Um and once again you'll kind of see this is kind of those eight circles but in a little bit different way. The ones that are highlighted are really ones that the city teammates are leading in the in this area. Um, as you kind of see some of the we've done some of the financial, the regulatory and mobility. Um, and this is really focused on that public realm aspect and what does that really look like. Um, and with that I'm going to turn it to Cindy. Thank you. I'll let you be able to see. Thank you. Okay. Council President, council members, thank you for having me at this table today. My name is Sandy. I'm a landscape architect and I'm a founding partner at MEN collaborative. Um, as Irene mentioned, we are hired by the city with our team member New History. Uh, we do urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture. So we really brought that, you know, framework of how, you know, successful public realms really work and new history's perspective and the stakeholders that we talked to throughout this process really brought that perspective of what makes this district really special from a historic and even modern use. Um, so when we're talking about the public realm, um, we're really talking about the space that is open, available, free for everyone to use and enjoy. Things like, um, elements that provide safety like lighting and signage. Um, ways to um, find your way around the district through wayinding, storytelling,

sidewalks, bike lanes, gathering and open spaces, green spaces, seating and comfort features, the streets. There's a lot to think about when we're thinking about our public ground spaces. And when we set out um starting this process, we really wanted to identify what we were working towards. Um so we really wanted to have this comprehensive vision plan specific to this historic district um that can really envision a future for the outdoor public spaces. And this is really just starting to provide that roadmap for implementation. um you know, how some of these spaces could be designed a little bit better to create a little bit more of a cohesive um inclusive and well-designed area that really speaks to and and really honors the history of the downtown commercial historic district. We held a series of engagement events um throughout the project process starting in June of last year. We started with some focus group discussions. Um we interviewed about 20 people there. We also did door knockocking within the district. We held a couple um workshops with stakeholders that are, you know, business owners, build property owners, um uh different downtown um organizations. So, a couple workshops with folks and we also had a popup at Thursday's downtown. And we also had a project website that was started at the beginning of the project. It's still up today that hosts resources for people um to download things that were developed throughout the project process and to learn more. So the key takeaways from our engagement process, there are six of them and you'll kind of see how these influence, you know, as I start walking through the plan and how it, you know, has really shaped up and come together, how these main takeaways from engagement started really coming together. And these are really important. So, I'm going to read them to you and I hope that's okay. Um, so the first key takeaway was that the

district has a strong historic identity, but it needs approved visibility and connection. The second key takeaway is that there's a strong desire for a more vibrant, inclusive, and walkable public realm. The third key takeaway is activation and small business support are keys to revitalization. The fourth takeaway is that there are opportunities for improvement regarding accessibility and multimodal connectivity. The fifth takeaway is that trust, collaboration, and follow through are critical. And the final and sixth takeaway is that there needs to be a balance between preservation and modern needs. Um, these are presented 1 through six, not in any particular order, but just so that we have a a way to organize them. Um, I'm going to start walking through the plan. Um I know that the the draft of the plan was provided to you all. So

can I ask a question about the uh community engagement? Yes. Um if you go back one more slide if can you just give us a little bit more flavor on on who you talk to in those stakeholder groups. And I'm particularly interested in in uh whether you talk to several members of the kind of growing arts community that's in the historic district, that kind of niandic group that uh we're starting to see grow in that area.

Yeah, I can speak to a couple of points throughout our engagement processes that we talked to that particular group of stakeholders. um to start there in our focus group discussions um there the owner of Art Heads um well I don't know if I should call people out specifically but um there were a couple um folks in the business owner um focus group um discussion that sort of represent that kind of more um creative sort of side of some of these more creative businesses. Um, we did notice, you know, as we started studying this district and getting familiar with it as the as the project started that this is a really vibrant place for, you know, design, art, um, everything from, you know, um, painting or makers to there's architecture firms in this district. So, there's a lot of creativity in this district. So you'll see as we kind of get into the report here, we're kind of blending that like what does that mean in the context of history and these historical resources. Um in the workshops there were um uh there were mailing lists that were utilized to um advertise the workshops out to key stakeholders. um I think over I I think it was between two and 300 people that the invitation went out to and we saw representation from property owners, business owners, um folks that were just in general interested in the process and in this area um from a historical perspective. Chime in if I'm missing anything.

I was saying we also reached out to anyone that was living within the district as well as

Yeah. Okay. Did I Thank you. Yes. Okay. Okay. So, um the structure of the plan. So, we have five chapters within the plan and it kind of um is structured to you know walk you through sort of this project process and it builds towards this final vision plan. So the first chapter is about the vision and guiding principles where we really outline um you know and unpack a little bit more of that community engagement and how that engagement process and talking with community and stakeholders really informed um the goals and the vision for this plan, what we were trying to achieve. um the case for action summary. Um when I dive into that a little bit, you can kind of think about it as an existing conditions report with a little bit more context to it. And then chapters three and four are kind of the the meat of this plan here where chapter 3 starts to really frame out, you know, the framework for how we're approaching the vision for the public realm in the future. And then chapter 4 is sort of those elements that fall within that vision plan. And then chapter five is the um sort of high level guidance for implementation for the vision plan. So starting with chapter one and then I'm also going to explain sort of the graphics a little bit if just cuz they're they're a little unique. So we um and this kind of gets to that blending of art and history where you know there's there's just a lot of creativity in this district. There's a lot of rich you know culture here and history here. So, um, we, you know, really wanted to try and find a really fun and engaging way to kind of blend, you know, this 90 year period of significance, but also how people are using and living in this district today. Um, so if you have any more specific questions about any of those graphics, I can answer them. Um so back to these um

six key takeaways from uh our community engagement, those sort of directly led to um how the vision statement and the five key goals for the project really came together. So the vision statement is that Rochester's downtown commercial historic district is a vibrant and welcoming place where people gather, connect, and create new lasting memories among the core of Rochester's historic commercial spaces. It is a place that resonates with excitement, culture, and energy of these historic blocks and the businesses within it. This is a destination full of life where residents and visitors alike feel drawn to return again and again. And the idea of that vision statement is once all of this is implemented, someone can visit this historic district and you know say that is a true statement that that is really you know um and then we have the six goals. Um so um the public realm will help foster a sense of place and community. support and incubate small businesses and local owners and will intentionally weave the downtown commercial historic district into the greater fabric of downtown Rochester and that it will retain the historic character of the district. The case for action um I'm going to go through this really high level. It's kind of its own standalone document but we summarized it in the main body of the report here and it's organized into three sections. And in the first section, we're really telling the story of the history of um the the historic district. The energy is sort of how people are using this district today. How are people living here and working here and sort of playing within the district? Um how are people interpreting history in their own ways in the district? And then the context are is everything else going on sort of around the district and things that impact um how we did this planning process. So previous plans, current planning efforts, um already adopted initiatives,

any regulatory, you know, analysis that was imperative for us to understand. So Irene showed you a version of this map. This one gets a little bit more detailed with the story. Um, in the case for action, we really, you know, in the historic designation report, there's a lot more deep dive into each individual building and in each story. Our intent here was to kind of, you know, pull back a little bit because we know it's important to tell these stories, but how do those stories really um translate into public realm? So, do those stories contribute to economic development, public and civic life, or people in stories? So we just kind of started thinking about how these historic the buildings that were historically here when the period of significance was um you know sort of happening. The story also is important when we look at the existing conditions of the public realm. So we analyzed and studied the existing character materials and landscaping social aspects. How are people interacting within the district itself? Where and what are those economic activities within the district? um what is accessibility, ADA compliance, crosswalks, lighting look like today and then how are people finding their way throughout the district today. So we did sort of a an existing conditions analysis report there. The energy is, you know, really understanding how people live and work and play here. Um how this district is really brought to life through public art and through design, both historic and modern. and then how that story is being told through individuals on their own properties, how people are interpreting history and helping visitors really understand the importance of this place. And um importantly, we looked at other planning work and efforts. So these are already, you know, completed or adopted or in in the case of the link bus, you

know, in in progress efforts that um are above downtown or are adjacent to the commercial historic district. Um so things that were really important to keep in mind and to consider and to sort of apply to the process here. We also did a quick study of mobility and parking. So, how are people moving through the district and how do people arrive to the district? Where are those opportunities? And then the plan itself, this is the the fun part, the meaty part. So, the framework, it's really important that we emphasize the role of this historic district in the greater, you know, context of downtown. There's various districts within downtown. there's a lot of history outside of the very specific boundaries of the um designated district itself. Um so we were really looking at the historic district as a key patch in the quilt of this greater downtown story, this greater story of Rochester. So, we were really thinking about how this historic district can start to, you know, provide those tendrils and those conduits throughout downtown and start stitching all these different parts of downtown together um to feel more cohesive. It was also really important that we found the right balance between already adopted efforts such as the 2022 heritage preservation program design guidelines, secretary of the interior standards for rehabilitation considering you know this is a historic district with historic properties. Uh already adopted initiatives like the 2017 city design guidelines for the DMC district and importantly community and stakeholder input. So there was a lot that really fed into this final vision plan and a lot to balance when we were um going through this this entire process.

So when we're thinking about that vision plan and what the future improvements or future moves can be within this district, we're start started laying it out in these four different lenses. So really thinking about infusing storytelling throughout the public realm and that's kind of that pink wash because this whole public realm and sort of everything even outside of it. Um uh there's stories to tell here. Um the second one is to reimagine streets within the district. So, first Broadway, fourth, second. Um, the third one is to revision Third Street within the district as sort of that key, you know, corridor running east west throughout the district and really starting to create those connections to the river and further west downtown. And then thinking about the alleyways as something that can really be activated. Um, there's been some great community visioning that we really wanted to kind of embrace and solidify. There's a lot of really good ideas coming from the community about alleyways here. So, how can those be thought of as really vibrant art spaces for storytelling? Um, revealing the story of the district through artwork, murals, sculpture, interpretive panels, people understand history and story in different ways. So, the more ways that we can, you know, get different artists or get historians or whatever that may be, we'll just, you know, further engage people um to want to kind of explore the district a little bit more. Maybe they park and instead of walking the direct route around the district, they want to walk through it and experience that sculpture every day. Green on historic third is sort of revisioning and rethinking this sort of critical corridor through the district. Um, importantly, third has the potential to have an even stronger connection to the riverfront. Um, there's some visioning, planning going along the riverfront. So, how can those things

really start to merge together and have a stronger, more, you know, intentionally planned out connection. Um there was also a lot of input um from community members about making that connection a little bit better because of the trail that's along the riverfront and how can you know there be a conduit to really sort of kick you off the trail and right into downtown. So third is you know is really in this vision plan scene is that important corridor. I know that the text on these is is very small, so I'll do my best to just explain. Um the upper left section is the existing condition of third. So you have um parallel parking on each side of the street and then it's a single one-way lane down the center. Um the proposed kind of vision for green on third year here is to really embrace that you know sort of um green um more lush more human scale aspect of third. So bringing up the roadway table to create a curbless design creates more accessibility. It also allows for flexibility within the public realm um for that space to flex a little bit more. So, you know, on maybe a typical everyday, you still have parking, you still have the one-way roadway, bringing a dedicated bike way through that connects to the trail and other important bikeway corridors throughout downtown. And then we can get into um you know, some more flexible programming on. So maybe some days, you know, a business owner might want to rent out or or close off a couple parking stalls in front of their business and bring maybe a booth out or do a mini popup. And then on big days, there can be festivals where the whole roadway is closed. Maybe there's retractable ballards on each side and it's just this really comfortable pedestrian corridor um for events and

and programming. So the idea of third is to really green it up, bring that urban forest initiative and already adopted plans and kind of beef that up in this area and to really give an opportunity for more flexible programming. some example images of how that has been successfully implemented elsewhere and then some examples of how some of that storytelling can happen within the public realm on learn with more increased opportunity um in the realm. The next is looking at streets within the district. Um we're going to specifically look at Broadway and First Avenue right now. Um, specific to Broadway, we did hear a lot from community members, um, that Broadway is a very, you know, fast corridor, especially through the district here. Um, it's seen as kind of a thorough fair, a little bit of a barrier, especially for a neighborhood that spans over Broadway. Um, so we wanted to take a look at kind of that cross-section of Broadway. Could that be thought of a little bit differently within this district to slow traffic down a little bit, make it more of a comfortable public realm experience, especially for all those, you know, small businesses, restaurants that face Broadway and could definitely use some improvement with some expanded public realm there. So, looking at Broadway on the top is the existing cross-section. You can see um some constrained public realm space on the west side of the street. We have several lanes um ranging from parking lanes to through lanes and turn lanes. Um looking at what a proposed design could be is thinking of you know um bringing bringing that public realm in a little bit more and creating more space for amenity spaces and then treating the existing roadway differently during on peak and off- peak hours. So really

leveraging um those outer lanes for when it's on peak, it's driving transit during off- peak hours. That's where parking is and people can find a little bit easier parking for businesses there. But that really gives us, you know, a lot more space for public realm, more comfortable sidewalk widths where people can comfortably pass each other going in opposite directions and then getting more amenity space for either plantings or a sidewalk patio, whatever that may be. And here's a little illustrative axon of what that could potentially look like. Nothing too prescriptive, but just giving a high level of of an idea there. Council member Dory,

uh, just a question. When you imagined this, when did you imagine the roadway going from the lanes that currently exist into this corridor and then back out? What does that look like? Zach, that's a Yeah, I can speak. Zach's a trans. a planner with a little bit of a transit lens. So, so ultimately, sir, can you identify yourself?

I can. I'm sorry. I'm Zach Locker. I'm a partner collaborative. I'm been working with Sandy on the project. Um, this is one of those key things where there is going to need to be some follow-up work and especially with the construction of the new bridge that that the the volumes that we have of traffic currently suggest to us that the street is carrying a whole lot of traffic during those peak hours right now and that we are actually seeing a whole lot of turn movements as well. when the new bridge comes in, that's also going to be accelerated. And so, we don't really have a very clear picture of exactly how much traffic the street is going to be carrying at those points. Um, but most likely the ways that you would deal with um the transitions between more lanes to fewer lanes would be kind of force right turns and things like that. So things would turn into um you know your third lane that's being dropped would turn into a right turn lane or something like that that block before um that that sort of transition would happen. Um typically that's the easiest way to um ensure that kind of safety of those traffic.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for the question.

Okay. Now we're switching gears to look at First Avenue. So, you know, looking at Broadway as one of the main north south corridors versus the other main north south corridor through the district. So, the existing cross-section of First Avenue, again, we have angled parking on both sides. Then we have two-way um lanes um with some existing sidewalk and amenity spaces. looking at um a proposed short-term and a proposed long-term sort of depending on what some current ongoing planning efforts might potentially look like in the future. We wanted to just provide a few different options of what some scenarios could be. um a short-term with a um a sort of a temporary testing um scenario of a bikeway on that street and then a proposed long-term if that you know potentially becomes a permanent situation and how the public realm can really increase on first avenue knowing that first is a really important corridor for you know Thursday's downtown there's a lot of restaurants a lot of businesses also facing first um how can we really start increasing that amenity space and creating better buffers against the roadway there. Then again, another axon of what that could potentially look like. This one also has a little example image and I I understand that's pretty small on the screen there. Um but it all is also in the report too. All of these graphics are pulled from the report. Um the next framework are the hard alleyways. So, this is um a way to really think about activating activating those underutilized spaces, which means the alleyways um within the district. Um and when I say underutilized, it's a way to talk about, you know, increasing access to small businesses. And also, these are, you know, corridors that are within the historic district. They

have stories to tell themselves. So, um, the community has been doing, um, work over the years thinking about how to activate these alleyways, how to bring, you know, either temporary activation or permanent solutions here by putting it in this report is a way to kind of, you know, formalize the community's ideas. So, this is an idea that was really born from community. Um, and then increasing safety and access to small businesses. there are some small businesses whose doors are um main doors are accessed through the alleyway. So providing a safe and comfortable and more visible way for people to access those businesses through the alleyway and what that can start to look like. There are some logistical things. There's still, you know, garbage trucks and delivery trucks and all that that have to go. So, you know, closing the alleyways fully isn't, you know, going to be, you know, necessarily a very practical solution. Um, so finding ways to activate the alleyways through art, decorative lighting, um, directional signage, ways to celebrate the entrances to the alleyways and make them feel like, hey, this is a space you can go down and explore. You know, maybe you haven't gone down here before, even if you've been in the district 100 times. Here's a new space for you to to find. Um the alleyways could also know during non-dely or collection times be activated with events as well and maybe start to feed off of you know events happening on third or first. So it really just starts increasing this flexibility of the public realm of activation and some ideas of how alleyways have been activated um but still you know functional and usable um elsewhere. So those were the guiding sort of frameworks. The next chapter are the elements that sort of make a public realm a little bit more cohesive. So there's sort of six key areas and

this kind of hearkens back a little bit to that first graphic that I showed you several slides ago of you know all these things that go into a public realm. So plantings, furnishings, bike racks, benches, all that kind of stuff, lighting, different types of lighting, materiality, what are you walking on? um wayfinding within the district just directionally and then parking strategies. Um these are much more further detailed out in the report. Um unfortunately we don't have enough time here for me to dig too far into these. Um but those are um 4.1 through 4.6 in chapter 4 and then implementation strategy. You want to take over here? Um so kind of implementation story really provided that overall and like a little bit of next steps and some guiding one was you know really start small think of those little things that we can kind of do and scale intentionally um recognizing I think with some of these and we recognize a lot of these concepts are going to require additional study um in terms of either traffic and engineering which we recognize so it's how can we do some additional programming and other items why that that continues to happen um and then really it's aligning our capital investments with broader downtown recognizing I think this is a plan amongst others that are going on in terms of connecting those things and connecting from this vision plan to other initiatives and how best we do that to make sure that all of these are in alignment. Um and so that's really on the teammate side to make sure we continue to do that. It's already started and then just really looking at partnerships and programming as some of those next steps. Um, I will say one of our other next steps, it's not necessarily within implementation, is we're going to kind of review all of this with HBC tomorrow as well, um, to kind of go through and get any additional feedback from them as well. And then our goal is to hopefully bring this back for um, adoption as kind of one of our suber district plans within

our comprehensive plan. So with that, I will I think that's the last one. That is the last slide. Turn it over to any questions.

Thank you. Uh, I I can start. I one I I really like the storytelling angle, the use of the alleyways that very creative. I I I think there's a lot of potential there. And uh Third Street and moving it to access the the river. So I I'm uh you know, very excited about the possibilities in those areas. One thing that I had a question about though is so um you are removing the angled parking on third and first and there's not a proposal for uh reintroducing angled parking on Broadway. And I look at it kind of in a in a historic sense. I mean we we had you know 1890s in the report it shows angle parking it shows angle parking 1947 it actually we had angled parking in the middle of Broadway in the 40s and 50s and then went to parallel parking which is less safe less uh calming. I know that angle parking it does encourage a buffer. It encourages uh greater safety of getting in and out of cars. It actually creates more parking a little bit more, maybe 20%. And uh it uh also uh gives you that main street feel of a historic district. So I guess in reading the report I was curious that there was no uh kind of pros and cons to we are removing some angle parking and I know in the community there has been discussion of

returning to angle parking on Broadway. So um I'm curious about that aspect and where if at all that was discussed.

I'll I'll start and I'll let S jump in as well. I mean, I think the other piece that we really wanted to look at is how do we have different mobility options. So, I think it wasn't just solely looking at how do we get vehicles and cars, but it's also is it potentially for transit or bikes and how do we also really focus on the pedestrian and how to create that better experience. So, I think all of those had to be counterbalanced as we were making recommendations and providing that highle vision is how do we accommodate all the different types of uses that we are going to need in these spaces. Council member Frederick's, excellent statement, President Schubin. I couldn't agree with you more. Um, from a practical standpoint, here's what I know. You drive up and down our streets that have no parking on them in our business districts. There's no businesses in the businesses, not just a few, several. So, to me, I see the I see the businesses on First Avenue Southwest that actually have parking out in front. They're occupied. So that alone, the business is to me is what provides the vibrancy in an area. I understand we can have all the nice stuff and trees and and the places to ride bikes and scooters and and have all the accessibility issues addressed, but the bottom line is we need vibrant businesses in these business to create the atmosphere in these areas that we need.

Council, can I just for fun? I mean, I think we're I think part of our intention with giving these different options is also still including on street parking. It might not necessarily be the same, but I think we recognize there's a need for a balance of all those different things, but also the value of having pedestrians moving around downtown is also helped create that vibrancy for those businesses as well. And if you have a better experience in that pedestrian realm, it helps people want to do that more often. So, I think it's kind of balancing those

different pieces. There's five months a year where we have decent weather and and that's a fact. We uh we battle weather even when it's nice out in the in the summer. We have lots of wind, lots of humidity, lots of rain, da da da. And I think it's I understand wanting to have those things, but the reality is if you look at how many days a year our public spaces are activated and used to their full potential, it's staggering actually how low that is. So, I don't mean to be a poo pooer, but I'm just stating the fact of the wall.

Thank you. Uh, in theory, uh, I'm going to follow up on that. Uh, I got a kind of a coperia question, but I'll just stay with the parking for right now. If you're going to punch me, take it easy. I easy. Uh, in theory, I uh, like the idea of moving people to ramps. I'm a ramp guy. The last time I parked on the street was when I went to a city meeting at Discovery 2 and the ramp was full and I had looked for some place on the street. I would prefer to be in the ramp. Uh a lot of people don't prefer ramps. Uh my question is in your engagement particularly with business owners uh were they in favor of removing uh street parking?

I are you okay? Yeah. Uh so we did hear about the importance of having street parking you know especially on third and just a a small I don't know if we can go back in the slides or not. Um there the vision plan doesn't call for complete removal of parking on third. Um so I have another question about that. How many spots does that remove? How many on street uh the the totality of the plan? How many spots are we removing from the street?

I think it was about 12 on third itself. So parking would remain on the south side of the street, the angle parking, but more probably on first, right? But I I would also note with this vision plan, I just want to set a little context. It doesn't mean that all of these projects are going to happen at one time or this will be the end. I think with all of these these are concepts of how it could be especially with this plan and then further study would need to be required before and additional engagement would probably be required at that point to figure out okay what does what do those priorities look like? These are options that we would consider and that we have shared and gotten feedback on.

So that allows me to drill down to my very last question.

Yes. Uh there are lots of others, but um I wonder when you say, Miss Woodward, that we're going to be um approving a plan. And I've heard so much uh uh we need to study more. We're not sure. We'll start small. Uh in the plan itself, it talks about uh the a shortterm and a medium and a long term. If we were to approve a plan as a city council, what are we actually approving? I think what we'd be asking you to to do is to adopt the plan as something that has been reviewed and in general these are some concepts but I would also recognize like you know this plan isn't consistent is consistent with our comprehensive plan and other plans and it would be for this historic district area. It wouldn't necessarily say like exactly I'm approving this project because there would be additional approvals later. But it's recognizing the engagement that took place and these priority priorities that have been identified within this adopted plan that would allow us to start that implementation of looking at some of those other things.

That that still makes me nervous. But uh could could I could I go back to uh the the business owners uh then and uh how they received the idea of removing uh significant on street parking and I'm not worried only about third about uh other uh places particularly first half. Can I jump in and talk a little bit about parking? That's okay.

Go ahead. Um so there are as Sandy said with the reconfigurations on third and first I think the total is that there were between I want to say it was 27 and 32 spots removed. Remember that the reconfiguration of Broadway would actually add parking spots in a lot of those areas that do not currently have them. Um you can actually go back to the original um the mobility drawing. There's a map up there. About 90% of the parking spaces within the full area are currently in rents. Um that is the vast majority of the spaces that that people are actually going to. And what we really want to do and we we talk about this as a policy element within the plan as well is thinking about how we are using pricing and other tools that we have in order to really encourage that. So at the very like best case scenario, a lot of cities are actually going to dynamic pricing. And what that means is that you want on every single block that you have, you want two or three spots open at all times. So the fuller that those spots get, the more expensive they get, which directs people then to move in towards the ramp areas. But there are less, you know, fancy technological ways of doing some of that as well that are working to really encourage people. What we really wanted to set out to do with the parking, we wanted to make sure that we had on street parking for people with, as I see many of us in this room are currently dealing with, we want our handicap spots to be accessible. We want um likely signed spots for people that are just doing pick up and takeout and that sort of stuff as quick. And then we do want some folks for some folks that would just um sort of enjoy, you know, prefer that to actually parking in the ramp. So trying to really create a balance there. in the discussions with business owners, of course, there's

going to be a variety of opinions about that um that are going to vary, but the preponderance of what we heard was that what is missing and especially from Broadway was the public realm space to be able to have things like outdoor seating that the existing public realm I I mean, council member Friedri to your point, it's really unpleasant. There's no shade. It's not very nice. Then what we are kind of envisioning by having parking that only takes up 8 ft instead of parking that takes up 18 ft is that we got that 10 ft that we can start to bring in more trees, more shade, more of those sort of other elements as a way of making it a better place to walk. It's more healthy in more of the seasons more of the time as well. So there are of course all these trade-offs with this. I do think the concepts that we shown for Broadway specifically have the idea that you probably do need to limit parking during the peak hours in order to facilitate the traffic there. So in that particular case, it probably doesn't work to do angle parking on Broadway itself just because the lanes then are not the right sizes in order to be able to facilitate that. Um but on other streets, you know, there are continuing options for other I guess formats like that. So just one more followup question. I think I agree with everything you said

but I will just try one more time to ask the question. This will be the third time. Uh particularly on first and third. What do business owners think about the reduction of parking? I I I've tried to be clear but I haven't. And can I can I just

can I just remind uh council members that it's interesting because we're talking about the Melt historic uh district study and I I kind of felt when I was reading it especially pages 30 through 39 I thought maybe I was reading the downtown mobility uh study which I think we're taking up next week which actually deals with first. So, uh, just remind ourselves that we will have that this not I'm not putting off this discussion for now, but we will have it again next week. So, thank you, Council Member Miller. Oh, well, I was just going to say, you want to finish up?

Yeah, just really quick. I know we're on the time, but um you know where Zach was going with how the the parking on the street parking taken into consideration, you know, what's going to be sort of those short-term spots. What are where are the accessible spots going to be? I think that's getting to Irene's point of those next studies that need to happen. And then I think there will be further input from community, from property owners, from business owners on on that. And and I guess I'll just say I mean we we can go I mean frankly we could go property by property and say like what each one of them said and the ways that we tried to accommodate their specific needs for their buildings that includes not only parking but things like how their you know when we talk about the alleys how their deliveries are happening, how their trash is happening. We have had those conversations with all the business owners. Um, I would not claim to say that there are not some business owners that would be concerned about some of the alignment. And that's where it's sort of sometimes looking at the district scale and looking at the individual scale, you've got to find the right balance between the preponderance and what you're hearing from the community, from the business owners, from property owners, and so on.

Miller, do you have questions? I'm going to I'm going to move this along. Council member Miller because I've got I've got three more council members after the town speaks.

Thank you. I'll try to be concise. Uh one, I just appreciate that this plan really seems to take into the context of the downtown and different times of day and different times of the year. I mean, to council member Frederick's point, I mean, we do live in a colder climate. There are times of the year that more people are out. There are times of the year where maybe that street is less activated. But I think having a design that flexes up and down depending on the use, the time of day, it's really smart. I mean, I I'll note that we're in a very different configuration than a regular council meeting, and that's what intelligent design allows us to do with this space. But to the point of, you know, parking, I I think that we often talk about how do we manage the supply of parking and how many spaces are there and where are those spaces? And I'd just be remiss to to mention I think a couple years ago there was a parking rate study that considered exactly this of how do we encourage people to consider using the ramp and we the council at the time made some changes to the parking rate structure. It does sound like there are opportunities to consider additional uh steps in that direction. Um, but I also hear from business owners quite frequently that there's not a comprehensive downtown employee parking program or contact for non Mayo employees and Mayo has a very specific set of parking structures and programs that are available for patients and employees. But I I get the sense that we're maybe have an opportunity here to think about employee parking programs. We have surface lots that are over at the Civic Center South lot, which is roughly the same distance from there to downtown as the Mayo Southeast lots are. And I see many employees parking there and walking if they're not on the shuttle schedule. And so I just I suspect that those are places where we could provide some more affordable downtown employee parking and then the ramps could be priced differently. And I suspect that many downtown business owners don't want

their employees to be parking on the street, taking up spaces where customers could be coming. But it feels like we haven't yet gotten to the place of managing the parking, the demand for parking and where it is. And we end up arguing about how many spaces are on each block, which is in the context of this plan recognizing that that's a trade-off of the use of the public space. And so I feel like it's a management question and a policy question of how do we appropriately manage the space? And I again I really just want to commend you for the the creativity of flexible lane use that at peak times where we have a lot more people trying to enter or exit downtown in cars that that space can flex differently. But during the middle of the day when those are just very wide lanes that are somewhat difficult to cross if you're on foot, I think that this kind of concept um gets a really smart um use of how do we manage that program or how do we manage transportation um depending on the the time of day and um month of the year. Uh, I was also just going to mention that I I just want to reiterate that the small business supports and activation of spaces to get more people because those people are hopefully customers for our downtown businesses. And I think recognizing that how we fit more people and encourage more people downtown into the public space gives business owners a lot more of an opportunity to encourage that market to them, offer some uh amenity, reason to come into the business and and hopefully spend some money. And I also like that you've kind of drawn soft edges around the district because I think it's important how this interacts with the spaces beyond. And uh I would also just mention the the somewhat prominent uh empty lot that becomes a snow dump um at the corner of Fourth Street and Broadway seemed like a really unactivated space that falls outside of this district but interacts with the district. So how we think about

those edges is important and my understanding of how this district moves into the downtown and draws from the downtown. And then I I think you know the other piece that I I hear about thinking of the budget and the the city supports there's a lot of talk about art but I would just recognize that we as a city only have a public music department and we don't necessarily have um staff managing the art in the public space and other cities I've lived in I include Iowa City that I think has done a very wonderful job um encouraging public murals encouraging public art they have invested in some of the staff support that makes that possible. And I I look around the room at community development and I I just think well I mean we could ask community development staff to do that but I suspect that they're quite busy and we often hear about the limited staff time. So I just I think that that's an important consideration of what the staffing looks like to to manage some of these initiatives. And um and I appreciate that you brought up allards again as like a way to protect and make the space flexible because the other element finally that comes into all of this is this only works if it's enforced. And one of the mechanisms of enforcement would be to send out community service officers to write parking tickets when the lanes are not parking. But also thinking about some of the other ways that um the the design reinforces the use rather than having to send out people and say that's not how that's supposed to be. go write a ticket which is just a bad experience all around.

So I think those those would be my comments of reading the report but thank you. Thank you council member Ke. Thank you. I'm just going to start with some high level stuff. When we established a district we were very building focused and not so much what was in the buildings and we seem to have totally separated that now and only talk about what's active in the buildings. And I and while I understand why that happens, walk me through why we don't talk about the why historic district doesn't really take any uh pride in this building came from this era and how it would do and become part of that education.

I think sorry well I think I was going to maybe default to Molly to answer that question. I think that that's part of where when we start talking about the storytelling and how we can do that storytelling within the public realm that that's where we can start to pull on what are the stories of those buildings to really help people connect to them. Yeah. Very good. And that shows sort of a high level just that there's something missing for me. The other one is as a city I feel like we have a relationship with building owners.

Um as when you get into this idea of how they're activated and all that, that's the owner with their tenants. It's the owner or it's the city with RDA. Kansas City, other places. Do you have any insights on how a city interacts with the resident the the occupants of the building versus the owners? Is there some good tried and true on that or you know how do we how do we interact at those levels? Yeah, I think I mean we've started tapping into that with this process.

Yeah. And I would say our partners downtown including our Diego you mentioned are definitely part of that as well and helping with that and that's also where um engaging with I can't remember maybe it was um uh Councilman Shingham who asked right how do we engage with those the business owners who are the creative people um you know thank you I mean I I'm just doing high level things here right now just that to me we we jumped past that and I and I want to kind of consciously say like we have building owners is coming to us and saying this is what we want to do with our buildings and it's in this historic district and it has no connection what we're talking about because they are disconnected from this sort of discussion.

Um so my my point is more specific on this like everybody realizes this downtown real estate is so valuable but the same thing is true about the downtown right ofway um and the rightway as we commit it commit more and more of it to parking and driving there's less available for this public realm and less available for this other sort of activation. Um, the other like ugly fact is the more parking and the more cars you let into these areas, the less activation you can have because these things take up all the space. So, I think there is a good reason why we have to manage these things. Um, I I'm not coming here with number of parking spots. I don't know how that has to work. I, as Council Member Miller said, we tried to do that a little bit with the sort of incentive things, but um I think council member Wall is the outlier. I I think Minnesota people do not want to go into parking ramps. And any successful system in the city of Rochester will require some sort of education or some sort of thing we do to make people comfortable driving into a parking ramp and going to dinner cuz right now it's it's a block. It does not seem to happen. They want to park at the businesses they're going to. And the more we plate that, I think the le the less we'll get to the idea of having a an active downtown. Um moni our city has a complete streets policy and I think we all know that. Um um so that that means we have to provide some level of protection uh to those at risk either walking, rolling, biking or or those commuters downtown. I think we that is on us or change our policy. when we say we have these policies, we have to find a way of implementing them. Um, now I we always get into these arguments that how few and how many, but I and I think they're valid. I think this idea of we should have um all abilities and all um uh ages in our downtown would be a wonderful thing to be able to

have, but cost effectiveness. These are commuters coming to work or or sometimes coming down at other times. But um I think we have to find a way to make those sort of um trips as safe as possible.

Um so I I guess the other sort of thing that I feel like I I really love that picture of the workman putting up the sign on there because I think we really miss out on this sort of education of what our history is and some way of telling that in our downtown. Um, the other thing as far as this, I I really struggled opening this packet up and saying like, okay, we're just going to look at public realm of the historic district, but I'm really glad that it did have these sort of tentacles because we can't do the signage or the way finding for the historic district and then do it totally different down the street. We have to find we have to integrate these things. Um, someone mentioned Sixth Street. I don't know how far north we go too, but our downtown is trying to extend in some areas. Um, and I and I hope we can find some ways of supporting those things. So, if anyone wants to comment, I'm

No, I I would just note I think that was part of where the edges around was recognizing that some of it kind of goes beyond the historic district, but also recognizing how does this fit into those larger contexts in terms of other planning efforts that are underway and how do we make those distinctions and how do we complement each other? There's a lot of larger things and you know, when you pull back, it's like how do these things all work together? Um, and that's also the reason we were intentional about coordinating with other efforts recognizing there are some other things that are happening that we had to take into account. Um, I think that's part of where we were going with this and I think it kind of goes back to some of the feedback we heard early on for the historic district like how do you know you're within that area which is why we so focus on the public realm so that when people are starting to enter is there some distinctions here that start to really recognize that history and that and that also leads to the storytelling. But I I completely agree like if we're going to do wayfinding, it needs to be like how does that do citywide. It's not just within that. And so we had a lot of those discussions where it's identified in here, but it might be a piece of larger um conversations as well going forward.

Thank you. Okay. So we have uh council member Palmer who wants to get in and then then we're going back to council member Frederick's and Miller. So council member Palmer.

Well, thank you. Um Mr. Wall brings up a point and for me you you said that the plan comes back and and part of the problem with this is I would rather see us adop adopt a plan or not adopt it but receive it and then because what happens is these plans grow legs and all of a sudden it comes back well back in February 26 this is what we showed you and this is what you're you're going to do. Um and so that's kind of a thing we've fallen into that I'm not a fan of. So I would like to receive it and and let it go at that. I think number two for me is is the area that we're talking about on First Avenue runs from Second Street Northwest down to Sixth Street Southwest. And like in front of the Jacobson uh building now that that's constructed, you know, diagonal parking coming back. Well, I'm I'm doubting that you're going to allow that to happen, but I think it should. Um because that adds a lot of parking and everything. um you you show a picture of of U third and then you show a picture of First Avenue and and you literally you're losing half of the parking. You take it away from the from the west side and you take it away from the south side. Um just literally it's half the parking that you're going to lose on both of those. And I think as a business person or person that's running the business down there, not the landlord but the business, I think that having convenient parking makes more sense. um the the the alleyways. I don't know why you couldn't do your alleyways and and make them bike lanes and and that to me seemed like a simple solution to bikes is that you run them down the the the alleyway and they could go from there and I think that would make more sense. Kind of the thought I had too is when we had co we we took a lot of parking spots and took them out and said, "Hey, have a restaurant here." I remember going to afterwards going down to news and sitting there and then take them down. I mean, you can temporarily block some of these parking spots, but allow them to be there. Um, and so that's an idea that I did not hear. Um, what I did hear and really kind of

upsets me is this non-dely you had in there that we don't are going to deliver downtown or we're going to have a certain time. The other frustrating thing that's really frustrating is for the last six years I've heard storytelling. Oh, we're going to tell a story. Well, for six years, we've said it and no one seemed to be able to figure that one out. and wavefinding. It's probably one of the words that just grinds me is when I hear about wavefinding because we've talked about wayinding for six years. We haven't done anything. It's not that hard to figure out, but it seems to be very difficult for us to to figure out wayfinding and storytelling. One thing I didn't have and and it didn't dawn on me until this meeting uh the downtown master plan from 2010. If you could provide that for us, I know I think that'd be nice to see what we thought in 2010, what's changed since 2010, which is a lot. But then for us to look at that and say, you know, what did they want to do in 2010 and did we achieve it or did we not achieve it? Um, and I go back to Mr. Wall and his parking. I'm about a 50/50 on parking because if I'm going to go to the bank, I don't want to go in the parking ramp. If I'm going to go to the post office, I don't want to go in the parking ramp. But if I want to be there for a longer period of time, more than an hour, I'll I'll park on the on the ramp less than an hour for sure because then it's free. Um, but you know, we have convenient ramps, but but not everybody wants to use it. And like Mr. Frederick said, we have 5 months here of good weather, maybe, you know, and and and why are we trying to to to take everything out for that? So, I'm this parking thing bothers me. I know some people are all gunghold, get rid of cars downtown and and and just have everybody walk, but uh it's it's just not what people want.

Council member Fredericks, what is the projected cost and who's going to pay for it and what does that look like? So, we got some general estimates so we could start to look at potentially our capital improvement program in the future years and then also looking for other funding sources to be able to support that. So, we got some ballpark numbers just for us for planning purposes. And then we would have to identify larger things within our either our CIP or identify other grant sources as well. And then some of the other items we would either need to work through our budget or work with our partners as well.

So, we don't know for sure how much it's going to cost and we don't know how we're going to pay for it. we have estimates for some of the work to do the larger um kind of realignment of some of those streets, but also recognizing like it's a ballpark number that we know that we need to have a formal engineer estimate at some point, but we can use those estimates for our planning purposes. And one thing I wanted to say, uh, Council Member Palmer, business owners do care about their parking because the more amenities you have out in front of your business, the easier it is to rent. And your and your tenants are always changing. So, go ahead, Council Member Miller.

I'm just going to pose a question. Uh, and I I'm looking at Mr. Fagan, who I know can't answer us today, but I'm curious if if the city or RDA or someone even business owners know how many of the cars in general who are parked on this that are parked on the street are customers to downtown businesses. We have any sense of like we see the block is full. Are those customers? Are those employees? Are those Mayo patients? Is that a resident? I I guess I'm asking because we're talking about business access uh and we're saying the block is twofold, but I don't sense that we have good data to make that conclusion.

Is there a answer to that or uh well, we have council members who want to answer. So, I'm going to go to council member Frederick's and then I'll say this. Council member Palmer, I'll say this. that car parked in front of there. There's a lot better chance you're in that business than if there's no car there and there's no parking there. Council member Palmer. Well, from my understanding that we just redid the parking meters. It's a three-hour parking and you cannot just go back and put more money. So, you have to move your car. So, if I'm working an 8 hour shift, um even when I used to go out and plug a meter, you can't plug a meter anymore. So, you got to move your car in 3 hours.

Administrator's office. So we may and we did just change that so I don't know how much good data we would have but we could try to look at what some of the um uh cso I can't think of the name community service officer um traffic or uh parking enforcement looks like. So you might be able to get a sense of it from do we have a lot we have an uptick of people that are over the 3 hours and we probably have some information we'd have to disagreements but we might be able to get a sense that it appears they live here but we wouldn't probably know that you know where they work those kinds of things. It would probably be a very high level of data that you'd be able to get from that but that might be a resource.

I appreciate the detailed answer. I guess what I'm trying to highlight here is that I think all of us would agree that we want customers to be able to access the businesses and I think we're making a jump to parking supply like a guaranteed if this then and I'm just not sure that that's true. Um and I would like to understand that more. Um, and I guess since everybody's telling a personal ramp story versus street parking story preference, I'll just say that I I don't know if I have Park Mobile actively installed on my phone. And last week when I was coming downtown, I drove past many open spots on 1 Avenue Southwest to intentionally go to the Third Street ramp, which then is showing me that there are only three spaces in there in the middle of the day. And I I just want to recognize that. I know that Mayo has additional reserve parking in some of the city ramps while they are constructing parking ramps. But I personally would like to see us prioritize the public ramps for again customers, downtown users. Um because I think that Mayo is um needs to figure out how it provides its own parking and access to its buildings and that's a competing factor because if if those spaces are taken off by Mayo related um users, then that is less access for downtown customers, downtown business owners, etc. And so I I just want to make sure that we're balancing those needs because I was personally surprised to see the ramp so full when we've seen other data in the past. And

just to clarify, you actually were in a a vehicle car. I was It was cold. Uh one of my uh 10 or 15 days a year that it's not great biking weather. Yep. Um okay. So we have uh council member Dory go ahead council

I had one final question and that was part of the storytelling and waybinding and this is I'm actually want an answer um when we look at maps that show storytelling of the history and then we think of modern businesses today how do you reconcile those things because if somebody's downtown and they want to go out to eat um I mean you could look at a map and say well there's a Columbia hotel that's not a restaurant there's a um you know Union National Bank building. That's not a restaurant. They actually are. That's Maro and Taipop. So, like, how do you think about mapping and what you're communicating to people in the public?

I think I think that's a really important thing to dive into when you get into a storytelling sort of strategy. And we've actually had that conversation with, you know, are there any artifacts were used in the public realm for businesses that don't exist anymore? So, how do you create, you know, a way to tell that story without it, you know, being like, oh, that that's what that it but that's not what that is. That's actually a a record shop.

Um, so, you know, it probably comes down to different I mean, Molly, I'll let you chime in, too. Yeah. Well, I've been doing this long enough now where, you know, we used to have to really rely on printed maps and and now we rely almost completely on digital and that's one of the ways, you know, where you can where you can keep um new information, updated information about who's currently in that location. Um, and that's the type of thing that we're working towards.

And I think some of that I think use technology in a in a smart way. You know, I also really enjoy non-technological ways of reading about history and more creative ways that that's told. Um, but if there's like a really deep history, you know, there were several restaurants or several businesses in this, you know, using something like a QR code so that, you know, the map itself can be, you know, current businesses, um, but finding ways to tell that story in a little bit deeper of a way or maybe the historic storytelling is a consistent, you know, medallion in front of each business so that you know, you know, this is sort of concreted, cemented in history and this is what it was. But the business itself can have its own signage that is current and draws people in.

Council member Gary.

Yeah. I wanted to uh second uh some of what council member Miller was saying about um art in the public space and and and being very um uh intentional uh to have a comprehensive overview of of that art. So it's not just finding artists to paint murals. also ongoing maintenance of of art installations, things like that. Um, my parking ramp story is that uh for the past 9 months, I've searched and and wondered where accessible parking is, right? So, uh I I'm not going to dive deep into the into the parking realm other than the fact that um I would be worried that we would cause someone with mobility issues to walk multiple blocks to be a part of the downtown community. So, I'm thinking about uh historic Third Street where there's uh I believe there's one accessible parking spot in the middle of the block. You take that away, uh then you're requiring someone who is using a cane or crutches or a wheelchair to travel quite a long distance to participate in community activities there. So, I I just want to be very um conscientious as we move forward to make sure that that these public spaces are really for everyone in the public. Also, uh, in the material section of of the longer report that does list, you know, anticipated costs and average costs, all that kind of stuff, which I thought was very helpful for me as I was trying to discern who was going to pay for this and what that would look like. I I didn't notice anything about auditory cues from when you were entering into a district or not, or when you were crossing a street that might have been changed significantly from historic memory. Um, and I would encourage us to think about planning for those auditory cues as well. We do have some crosswalks that absolutely uh provide auditory um um cues for when it's safe to cross and

when it's not safe to cross, but we don't we also have many intersections in this community that simply don't have that. Um, and I would I would love for us to incorporate that in this um redesigning of the historic district as well. If I may, there currently there are only three on street um accessible spots within the entire district. Yeah. It is our recommendation that there should be at least you block. Yes. To significantly um help improve that that um we do not do um and this goes to you know the auditary crossing signals as well as the tab strips and other accessibility things. You know, that's actually one of those things that when we talk about the balance between current needs and historically those things were not yet incorporated. So, we've always defaulted to ADA compliance when those are, you know, in conflict with each other throughout the throughout the

I and I appreciate that. I again as a a medically focused community, I think we should go beyond ADA compliance, especially in that downtown area. Council member Keane. Oh. Uh, no. I'll pass. I don't like my comment was when the thing was going on, but it's passed now. Council member Wall,

do you have examples of like cities to Rochester who have used some or all of these strategies and are thriving with the changes that have been made in the historic district? Yeah, I think one one that we would point to that um within their larger downtown, but um specifically some of the um the sort of alley improvements that have been talked about, some of the small business programs that have been talked about and some of the parking management that's been talked about, part of North Dakota has actually done a lot of incredible things in their downtown um over the past um 20 years. So, I think there a town that we would talk we would we would kind of point to as a similarly sized city. um the combinations of um you know we the college towns are interesting comparisons to Rochester because May obviously it has collegeish aspects to it but it's it's that sort of dominant use within it. So, you know, there are other examples from Lawrence, Kansas and Texas that have done some of the similar types of things as well um that managing their spaces and balancing downtown arts storytelling and um and um small business as as key kind of focus components.

I like the example especially though because if anything they have even more harsh conditions than we do. Council member Miller, just follow up on that. Thanks for mentioning college jumps. Was UMR's stakeholder involved in this process? I know they have interaction to this um district and areas just adjacent to it. Yeah, they they were one of the first um focus group discussions. Yeah.

And actually in addition to that, we also talked to the um in their building. We did we actually went door to door to talk to some of the more administrative people because sometimes when you're talking to the the university, you're getting you know a planning director or something like that. We actually talked to some of the the building user um administrator that folks are part of the the Okay. Uh council member Wall, I am also a RA guy and uh I bring it back to angle parking and interesting discussion. I'm looking forward to having this discussion again next Monday. Uh but when I talk about angle parking, what I'm really looking at is from a historic standpoint, looking at it from how does that enhance a public realm in a historic district. So I I would hope you know you you'd go back and look at that and uh invite the the uh HPC also to look at it from that standpoint. And then I also if uh we are studying the use of alleys, I would agree with council member Palmer. Let's look at you know what what are the is there potential for bike lanes in in some of those alleys. I know there safety issues and whatnot, but looking at that I would be uh interested in seeing more on that as well. So uh kind of wrap us up what what's next steps? I know HPC is tomorrow. What else is

HPC is tomorrow. We're going to take the feedback and information from both of those and make some, you know, potential tweaks to the plan if need be and make some of those updates and then hopefully bring it back to council at some point for whether either receiving or adapting. Um I kind of got I only got one on that. So what that looks like um and timing you have a sense of I think our hope is within the next month or two at the latest. I think we want we're going to HBC tomorrow to give some feedback and then we can synthesize all of that and be able to move it forward. All right. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Great discussion.

Uh we are now going to move on to our uh unless folks want a break. It's a break.

We're going to move on to the 2025 year end action plan and KP I update. Uh Mr. Paris, are you taking this one? Take it away. Take a break. No, we're not. I got I got heads. We are going to take a break. We're taking a break. Yeah. Heat.

Uh we've got our year end action plan KPI update with uh Aaron and Jessica. All right, President, members of the council. Um this is actually our first annual update. So we've got information collected. If you recall uh last June or so, you adopted your strategic priorities uh economic resilience, housing access, inclusive growth management, responsible environmental stewardship, and transformational capital projects. Uh we're just going to walk you through how we did last year. Remember though, this is sort of our first run through, so some of the data is, you know, starting and we don't have history. Um, I'd also note, um, that our goal would be then to come back in August just to give you kind of a midyear check on how things are going and then rinse and repeat for future years. So, we like to check in on this, uh, every two years or so. Um, right now things are going really well. We're early in the process, so most things are on target. I would note that this is a reflection of the action plan document. We will have some KPIs that you'll note that we did uh, flag as being offtarget. So this is really action plan focus that attachment that you all received about the 100 plus items uh within there. I'd also like to say you will probably have questions where I'll ask for a lifeline. You know we try to aggregate the document and present it to you um in kind of a streamlined manner but we also have a team of people that are working on this u to help make it a reality. So I want to acknowledge Jess's work and uh compiling all this. She does an amazing job. um making sure that we're encouraging people to submit all their information and uh getting the KPIs put together. And this really is the first time that we are presenting uh integrated KPIs. This is the long-term dream of council member Campion. I'm sorry to see you here to see it, but um he uh if you happen to see finally made

it uh to the KPI document uh economic resilience uh we've got a number of good things happening in that space. So again, we're just pulling out a few things from those 100 plus line items. Um, we did get Excel moved to the cloud. That was a real big lift for the team and the building community to transition to a new software. Um, big change at the state level. We're now doing uh both permitting and inspections around roofing and siding. And so we had to kind of staff up for that and, you know, try to be responsive, but also there's a change management component to that for folks that did not have to do those kinds of things in the past. uh regulatory improvement side and this sort of comes across all categories when you talk about inclusive growth management etc. We're trying to streamline our process, make it more efficient for people. We did get some administrative fee ordinances implemented and uh the clerk's team is working on a film permit license to address that. Um it may not feel like we've made a lot of progress on chat, but like your feedback the last go around was super helpful. Um it gave the team some direction on things we can continue to work on in that space. um and continue to advance a request for funding and and move toward a you know an operating strategy there. Uh we spent a lot of time a few years ago on a disparity study and um those are those recommendations are now starting to work their way forward um and looking at those tools. Housing access uh we've processed 15 rehab loans 378 housing use creative preserve so a lot of activity in that space. RPU continues to work through lead line service replacement. We have 20 lines replaced. the next phase coming out in May of 26. Uh we did hit 88% uh for uh residential permit review within 2 weeks. So that's an ongoing thing. We just want to make sure that you know when permits are submitted, we're getting timely review. Little longer lag on the commercial space. Um and this is a two-way conversation. So you'll hear stories about permitting review. Um sometimes we

take longer than we need to. We do have peaking seasons. Uh sometimes we're waiting for information from the applicant, too. So there's, you know, a lot of sides to that story. Uh homeless outreach and the PD, we had a lot of success with our outreach navigator. And so, uh, they were able to connect 26 individuals to housing and other supports to help them in their journey. Uh, switching over to inclusive growth management. Uh, the transportation planning space, we had the mode shift coordinator uh, brought on board. He's been in his role for a few months. So excited about the energy he's bringing to the role. Uh, transit optimization. And so again, we need to always continue to refine that space so we can have a service that's effective, meets the need, but also financially sustainable. So we did all our road optimization last fall. We're in the middle of a road optimization experience right now. And we're in the middle of the RFP uh process that will be coming forward to you later in the year. Uh thanks to congressionally directed spending, we were able to accomplish and receive a million dollars um in federal funding for the East Sro sewer improvements. We continue to have that sort of in the bonding space. And then you also authorized us to take a very close look at our tip districts and we'll look at what additional resources we might be able to bring to affordable housing investment, how our administrative fees are going, what our timeline is for district descertification to get those back on the tax roles cuz that's always a an exciting thing for us is when they descertify it becomes it comes back to our our levy. Uh responsible environmental stewardship. Uh you guys have been doing a lot of work in this space. RPU board as well as we move toward the 2030 uh goal of being renewable and executing on power supply contracts for wind and solar. Uh also in that you advance the big battery storage piece there. So a lot of work happening there. Um generally those things are on target. Um still trying to manage and nurture our simple relationship as we

move forward in that space as well uh to 2030 and what that looks like. Uh the team's also getting out there now and you might notice that this could generate some energy in the community as far as the roll out of advanced metering and what does that mean? What kind of information is being communicated back to the utility? Um and then really just starting to kind of pilot that out and see what the resident experience is like for our initial uh group of folks that are getting their advanced meters. Now uh we are in the energy sales business uh but we're also in the energy conservation business. It's a sort of a mixed uh space to be in, but we did uh you know look at our 17.4 million kwatt hour saving 25 and so that's you know positive and a reflection of RPU's sort of energy conservation mission and efforts and some of the state requirements in that space. You all adopted a rate policy um and we continue to see grants uh to build out infrastructure capacity um at our different facilities and are starting to look through that in our fleet management. You talked about that in the budget as well this year. uh transformational capital projects. Um I'd like to say that a lot of these are going very well. Uh link is 27% plus or minus complete and then the fleet delivery continues to be something that team watches closely. Uh getting to that 90% design space for the sixth street bridge and riverfront improvements. Uh a lot of permitting happening there as you saw. He had a change order last week kind of in that space as well, but exciting to continue to advance there. our downtown geothermal uh is getting close to being fully commissioned and on board. a lot of success that's happened uh bringing that project forward and you know really creating a template for how we're looking at that data and bringing it to the parks and forestry facility and other facilities as we look at options for uh the geothermal particularly the Darcy well systems that take up a lot less space but 48% energy reduction from baseline at city hall uh saw 69% at the arts center 63% at the

library and then 10% at the civic center as we continue to kind of um implement there that's our last one coming on board, but uh final work will roll out in 26 there. Also, we feel like we're on a really good trajectory to get the tax credits on that project. If you remember, that was a little bit of a a more uncertain conversation at the turn of the year. Um but we are basically able to uh feel confident in the idea that we are going to get the uh tax credits that we had anticipated. We're still on track for that as well. And the parks and forestry facility, also a project that is uh on on target and on budget at this moment. you know, seeing that come online this year as well. And everybody's ready for North Broadway to be done and phase two of that uh is happening this next year and uh trying to continue to navigate around the community, but that's expected in June 26th to be wrapped up. So obviously a lot of the progress happened last year and I won't go through all these uh now but continued conversation. So in the equity space got a lot of teammates in the language line and uh that have continued to provide more access to that and uh pay differential program for folks that have uh an additional language that they're able to provide to to the community. A lot of like internal conversations happen in the organizational service space. We're pretty far down the road in the fleet integration. So we had a couple of years worth of conversation there that actually has come together quite well. We've got all the PD team sort of rolled into that model now. And so just a few uh pieces there. And we're starting to have early conversations in the IT and and safety space as we have transitions um leading up also to a bigger conversation around one water. Um and then we continue to have conversation in the uh RCTC rec uh space. So you'll see that they're trying to activate more with the walking and pickle ball and basketball. Um now the times, you know, are more morning focused. that's not something everybody can get to. Um, but they are trying to do more outreach in that space. And I think you we continue

to try to have conversations about, you know, what a reimagined um option uh might be there. Today, the uh engagement piece of that rolled out and so stay tuned for that. Take advantage of the uh in-person and online experiences that your constituents will have access to uh in the March time frame. You also uh have your council training session. Um for your second study session in March, that'll be a night where we also have that'll be at RCTC in the all-American room and you'll have one of those open houses that after the meeting you have the opportunity to kind of drop into if you like. Uh KPI, so transitioning to that space. Um so this is kind of how we're measuring, you know, what are the key measurements we have for making progress? Are these things we're doing making a difference? Um and and sometimes we can create like that direct connection and sometimes these are definitely out of our control but um things to monitor. Um I would say from a Rochester perspective, the amount of job growth we've had since 22 uh with 13,000 people uh there'd be just an amount of communities that would love to be in our situation that way. It's just a really impressive uh thing that we could all be proud of. Um but we wanted to be a little more surgical because we want to diversify the Rochester economy. So about of those 13,000 jobs that have been created since 22 about uh 2,000 of those are not health care or hospitality or service focused. So you can say about 15% of those jobs that we've created are really in sort of an area that we could consider to be a diversification of our economy.

Council member Palmer, when you do these numbers, can we have 2019 numbers prior to to CO so that we can have a real comparison? uh we certainly can but yeah there is some data points so I think part of our conversation is do we just want to look at postcoid and see where we're at and precoid uh certain things I think makes sense for that certain things are challenged but it's not hard to look back at that data okay in this case and then you're talking about the non-healthcare is 2000 the city are they city employees or how are they how are they It's a deal.

No. Uh yeah, the breakout it's all over. You know, Bernie does actually a nice job with their quarterly financial their quarterly reports. This we we just work with this data from those ready quarterly reports and um it's a variety of sectors, but we could try to get you a tighter breakout of next time where that's I'll be happy with the 2019. Council member Keane. Yeah. I just again I was just going to comment that these are like this isn't these are good indicators of the health of our county but they're not our numbers right they're things that are going on around us and we're just I I like your term forklifting them from the from the ready ready reports. Yeah. Um yeah and which is forklifted from state data you know just

and it is it does say economic resilience and it is our economy but it's not Rochester it's the Rochester or it's not even Rochester it's the MSA it is the MSA around Rochester yeah I mean it's principally Rochester but it's a little bit bigger is it as big as the county um and let me let me double check on that um this this may be Rochester specific Sometimes we can get it straight Rochester and sometimes it's MSA. So let us let us double check on that next time when we bring it back. Yeah. Again, I I just wanted to make sure we knew these aren't like our like we're working on getting these numbers up. We if we're doing our things right, these numbers go up. That's how now I look at these as indicators of of good performance.

Cumber. One thing that I would just say is our non-healthare nonhosity jobs. I'd like to know the number of those that are covered by one person. meaning how many people have two or even three jobs. Well, we can look into that. I'm not sure we have access to it. Isn't something I'm just fair point. Yeah.

Because a lot of the people that I'm familiar with and have worked with, they're carrying two and even three jobs. So, it isn't like that's 60,000 people. No, it's not. It's probably, you know, I hate to guess the number cuz I don't want to be way off, but I know it's it's not 60,000 different people having those jobs. So we can put a little more architecture around what this is all covering if that's you know regular folk time and there's like the whole non-farm employment sort of thing and seasonality things that work into all this too. Council member Miller. Yeah. Just a comment because I feel like it's come up a few times is just um if you could give us links where possible to the data source so we can integrate some of these questions.

Yeah, that's not a problem at all. Okay. Uh then continuing on, you know, we have this goal obviously of, you know, creating a vibrant environment for all visitors. Um but then also we wanted to be a little more targeted and say we want to try to move the needle with some of these strategies around weekend occupancy. Um occupancy during the week is pretty good. Um but you know, we have strategies in place that are trying to grow our utilization of an untapped economic resource in the community, which is weekend hotel rooms. So again, uh, Experience Rochester provides this data based on some subscription services they have access to here. Um, but we we did see growth in weekend occupancy year-over-year. Um, so that's positive. And then there they are able to access the revenue data. And so there was increased, you know, hotel revenue in that Friday and Saturday night stay uh space. So we'd obviously like to to keep this healthy. Want to keep seeing that go up. There's some inflation. Your average cost per room can go up. like all these different kind of factors that work in here. But as we talk about items like the regional sports and rec complex or you know how's Rochester sports doing in tracking tournaments and sustaining you know those these are the kinds of things we want to see uh there and then sales tax collection just aside from being an anchor for us in terms of a revenue source and capital investment. it, you know, gives you some insight into, you know, what is the the retail sales economy looking like in the community? Are we leaking that? Is that going down? Um, you know, we tried projecting 16 million for 25. Um, as you know, a lot of our sales tax projections, we didn't experience significant significant uh transitions during the pandemic here because people were still buying things and and I would just say maybe sometimes uh we do get sales tax uh for online purchases. So there is a way um that the online providers do end up paying back into sales and use tax. Uh that's remitted ultimately to the state. Uh housing access uh this where things are a little tougher and again I think

you know we're planting a lot of seeds in this space. It's taking a little time for them to germinate. Um but units new housing units were down some last year and so we obviously want to see that. A lot of strategies in place to try to encourage that up. uh you are you improved a lot of incentive programs with the economic vitality programs. You're starting to see a lot you'll see in the next couple slides, more opportunity for uh vacant land and so on. But uh from a new housing units last year perspective, that's not enough. Uh that's not what we need to keep pace. We're just trying to get ahead of you on that customer. Just get you that on the table, too. But uh so trying to do better there, but we need to do some things to continue to work in that space. uh single family homes and rentals, this is down because we want this number to be stable or going down probably like uh and you can see there's national conversation in this space, but you know, our our single family homes that are rentals, um this doesn't break out whether it's short-term, long-term, this is just single family homes that are rented right now. Um that did go up uh a year-over-year half a percent or better uh ke.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I understood that. I mean, I I I see that it's a a small movement of like a.7% or so, but is that really on our full base of houses like 40,000 single family homes in Rochester? That would mean about 500 of them used to be owner occupied and are now rental. However you do the math, I don't know the numbers on that. I mean, I I didn't I I've done the math. That's what it came out to, but that is correct. So, if you have an existing single family home and our inventory is blank, last year this many were rentals and um this is the year-over-year change. I guess I wouldn't bring it up. I find it alarming that it's basically people that used to be buying homes are now renting homes.

Yeah. And so that's true. You're seeing, you know, a lot of conversion there. That's what this would indicate here. Uh policy conversation wise, we we have just a limited area of space we can do to influence that at the state level. I do know that there's conversations around legislation about institutional investors uh that you know can or they can they or can't they buy and should single family homes really be reserved even at the national level that conversation is happening across political lines. I think people are saying we would rather you know reserve single family homes for people to purchase them versus institutional investors finding a safe place to park money.

And and I should also say that it's good to have a certain amount of homes that are available for rental. We're not down on rental. It's just that percentage growth. It's uh it may not sound like an a lot going from 9.2 to 10.5, but that that's a lot of homes over like a 4-year period. It's a it has a big impact on the housing market. The only thing I don't think that we know that without the like specific data is whether or not I mean it shouldn't have changed anything, but if our housing stock went up and we do have some housing products that are being built solely for rental Um, so I don't I don't know how that influences this. And I appreciate your comment. I was looking for that one like spike and everything else and it didn't work that way,

right? I I just don't know the answer. Okay, council member Miller.

I guess to this point, I really appreciate seeing these together because I think the two tell a more compelling story than either one of them individually. Um, is there an opportunity to dive deeper into some of this housing data? I mean, I'm curious about like geography, how many are short-term, how many are longer term? I mean, we could work with community development to um do like a study session in the future where we're like isolating a little bit more about I'm offering that and I'm staring at Irene and hoping she doesn't cringe. Um, but I think there's an opportunity to build in some, you know, deeper dives on things that are we're interested in because I think I don't think I know there's specific action plan items that aren't showing up here that are related to this and having a better understanding of that might help us hone in on where what are the levers and how dicey might they be, right? Like some of the levers that you have um may be diceier than parking. Um, so, so I I just think it would help us to get some context too to understand like what what maybe there's something we could track that we aren't tracking too.

I'm curious like even for sale units like um versus rental units. I mean some of that dichotomy and owner occupancy as we talked about housing access and equity and wealth creation. Um but yeah I I personally as an individual on this council would love to see a deeper dive study session into this item particularly. Yeah and we I think have it on there. I'm sorry. Oh go you you can answer and then we're going to go to during and then

yeah I think we do have some study session time at some point dedicated the idea of like what's happening in the short term rental space. So those data points you know also could inform what we're doing here. And I suspect as we go through the next few slides, we may have additional questions in this space um that might want more clarification or definition to

Yeah. And I would actually appreciate a study session on both aspects of this. Right. So that 878 to 446 number is just as concerning to me as the percentage growth in the single family homes as rentals. So whether that's going to recover through projections of things that are in the hopper that we just didn't get accomplished this year or whatever. Um you know knowing how many new housing units we need to have uh to meet what the maxfield study says. See I read it too. Um that 446 number is exceedingly alarming to me. Uh we have Miss Woodley.

I just want to clarify the new housing units also included like any multi multif family and I would so that lower number in 2025 we didn't really have any but I think there's probably four projects in plan review right now for multif family. So I would expect that number to to swing back in terms of what's planned swing back or exceed 2024. I would it would exceed 2024 as if all of those move forward. Okay. And it's it's a product of construction. Absolutely. I understand that multif family within that number and that's why you kind of see some of those dips because those are larger uh blocks of units coming here. Yeah. It looks good.

Again, the 2019 numbers I think would tell a little bit different story on that. Um the max um one of the things that that I think people are um forgetting a new home that's a that's a a big number. And then I think what Mr. Dorian was getting at was with the minority to um to to increase that. So um almost everything together so it's not just a pop pop the address one thing for council member Keen a little bit don't necessarily see that 10.5 is a bad thing. What's unique to this community and probably everybody in here knows there's a lot of people that come here temporarily and they might come as a couple with one child, two child, all three dogs is more typical and one and two people, but they like a rental home. They don't want to go through the process of buying and then in a year they're transferring to some other medical facility per se and they have to resell everything. So having that inventory in this community is is super important. We see a lot of it and it isn't like it's a big oh gosh, you know, this company or that company's taking over all these single family homes. The next level that is some of those single family homes are in such rough shape. They're the only people that can afford to fix them up and get them back into the market on a rental level at least. They're uh they're bad. They're neglected and it's it's so that's something I just I want to share with you. No, I I I appreciate the comment and I I think there is definitely, as I said, we we don't want to be like against the idea of renting houses. I think there's a market for that and also good service with that. The growth in it is bothersome. And the antidotal stories I'm hearing is that people are being outbid by these other people buying them up and fixing them up as you say, but then those same people that could have bought those and start fixing them up are now renting them to somebody else. and and I find that to be a a bad way to grow our community into the next 20 and 30 years.

Council member Miller, so the question for community development about the short-term uh portion of single family homes with rentals, do we communicate to the assessor's office um which homes are rented short-term because there is a higher rate, right? Yes, we do. Okay.

Can I just offer something that I think is important in context for this? Going back to a prior comment from the prior discussion, these are data points and like we don't necessarily have the license to interpret statistically that they are causation points. But I think going back to that other slide that indicated job growth, 15,000 jobs, 13,000 or so of which are medical related could be contributing to your rental market. So we don't have the statistical license to interpret that, but there are a lot of levers that potentially impact one another. So if we have more jobs that are in the medical field and they are potentially people who are going to be here for a shorter period of time, you may actually need more rentals in your market. So it's question like we have to be cautious about the data and making assumptions that they are directly connected versus some sort of correlation that is unnecessarily causation. I just think that's important as we have started in the KPI drinking realm. Um, just to put that out there as a reminder.

Yeah, the next basket of these uh relate to like land development availability and try to get through a handful of them. Um, so just acres of vacant residential land. Uh, there was an increase of vacant residential land or land that has potential to be developed as as residential. So, you're always looking and we'll get to the next couple slides more refined in terms of, you know, what's your flatted lot supply and and some of that, but um just good to know that this numbers if it's stable or high is a good thing. So, it's kind of neutral right now, but uh as we look at this longer term, we'll have the ability to say, "Yeah, we in the urban reserve only have blank number of acres available and all that." Um lower on the infield and infield development this year as well. So, that's low. We obviously want to encourage infield development, but like Irene said, data points here, timing on permitting can be very on point, right? So, we had three big projects come online last year and I counted in the unit count for uh 24 um and then didn't have any come through for 25. So, there could be timing issues. Clearly, you've seen new infield development that's leasing up and in development and all that, but this is just about when we grab the data points. Can I ask a question on what are the parameters for infill development? What is there a size? Are we talking one lot versus a 40 acre site?

Yeah, I should maybe clarify. Maybe the titling on this is just a little off like we say infill development, but this is really grabbing development within downtown zoning and R2X. So, if you think of those two zoning districts, it's within those, which is is a targeted infill area. But if you're talking about like a multif family complex that's developed with existing infrastructure in place, um, you know, downtown or an R2X is going to trend toward redevelopment or, you know, limited smaller lot development. Um, but it really is focusing those two areas. So, maybe you should we'll tighten that up. Yeah.

Yeah. Clarify. Uh, council member Ke and I just had a clarifying question. I'm looking at these maps. It says 20 it says 2025, but I could read that to be the beginning of 2025 and not a year-end number. Are those numbers we're looking at year-end 2025 numbers? I I think they're I think they're year end, but yeah, I believe they're year end number. Okay. All right. It's just from a mapping it almost looks like the beginning of 25 and now we're going to go through 25 and get a number. But I think you're saying that no, it's more it's more digital. It's the year end 25 number is zero and the year end 2024. We know that the year for each one. Council member Miller, go ahead. Some final clarification on the uh infill. Does that not then include MXT zoning?

Yeah, I don't believe it does. I think it's those two, but Okay. I I don't believe it includes MXT. I'd have to double check, but I don't think so. Could it I could I I mean I feel like there we can look and see how easy it is to pull that data but yeah I'm certain you can probably adjust it. I guess originally asked question is what is your objective in showing this to us? how are we to use this and if adding adding the MXT in there uh adds to that objective. So what's the objective?

I mean I think what you're trying to accomplish here is to say like

you know are we developing in a denser pattern? Are we taking advantage of existing infrastructure investments? Um so we don't have to continue to expand outward outward outward. there's always part of that conversation, but I think it's saying like high return on our previous infrastructure investments is in these infill areas. So, we want to be, you know, developing that. Now, can we do things from a policy perspective to further encourage that? I think that's that's why it's in front of you that way. And if I if I can, I would just add, you have specific goals in your comprehensive plan of how many how many units are developed in downtown and in infill areas versus in suburban expansion areas. And so it's interesting over time to note the percentages of how many housing units are created in those different areas from the time the comp plan was originally created to 10 years to 15 years etc. Got it.

Yep. Um and the next one is really maybe a titling thing. Uh but if you look at the description so this is the portion of the urban service area not impacted by early development. So you have like these conversations about early development on the edge uh within the urban service area. the this would be right now and this is again something that would be more relevant over time to show you know what the effect of land use policy is both with the townships the county and the city in terms of the ability to effectively develop once it's time um in our urban service area. So right now uh 80% of the land is not impacted by early development which means 20% is right and so that might not be as efficiently developed in the future. It might cost us more um in that space. Uh undeveloped lots with full infrastructure. So this is a stronger you know like a lot of times you want to say like we have blank years of lot supply available if we're trying to meet the maxfield goals or if we're trying to keep our historical pattern in place. um undeveloped lots with full infrastructure is a good indicator and that grew a lot. I mean you saw a lot of potting action last year on the council agenda and so that doesn't mean the the units are online yet. The houses are built but the potential for that has existed and the potential for developers to start bringing in infrastructure is also there. So a good I think that's a good reflection that's a sign of you position yourself for years to come uh for a few years to come to meet the lot supply needs. again uh road miles per capita in feet. So, this is kind of a weird one and it's got a really tight range on it. Um so, just bear that in mind. It may look a little you know like more of a dip than what it really is, but uh what you're wanting to have here is a lower number and we were sort of trending down um in that space again with a pretty tight tight margin. We're talking the we're measuring the tents here. Um, but that's just saying like, you know, it's another representation reflection of our development pattern and density. Um, that also could have

meant that a a new road came online last year and pushed the numbers. So, just have to, you know, dig a little deeper into that. But, so I noticed that's off target. Uh, is there a target where you would have marked that green? I mean, I think you're in the ideal world, you're trying to keep moving down, you know, more it's more the trajectory than the number. Yeah, it's a comparison between last year and this year. Council member Palmer, hey, just two questions. One on the undeveloped lots. Is this all lots? Is this all commercial, residential, industrial

that status residential lots residential lots is right now. We also have the commercial dat. And then it's my understanding that as a good housing market, you want to have um three times what you typically would have. So, we should have 3,000 residential lots available. Is that not the the the number they use?

I mean, I I'll just jump in and while Irene's thinking about it here, like 3,000 would be like match our numbers from like the early turn of the century when we were really developing single family lots at a high level. Um, that would not be our last 10-year number. You know, this would, if I recall correctly, this would fit within our last 10 years fine. But it doesn't. But then back to the Maxwell study, we would love to get that up. But this is positive. One, that it went up, so that's good. And two, that you know, it does reflect and is in alignment with what we've seen in the recent history, not back in the early 2000s. So,

well, if the Maxwell study says we need about a thousand single family residential lots, which is about the right number, and you need three times that amount, you should have 3,000 residential lots available uh to have a good market. I think you meant 1,000 homes. Thousand thousand homes a year. No single family lots. That's what they're saying we should have. So we should have three times more. Yes. Again, it's the goal. I mean, to meet the demand, however, that just that's a production level we haven't seen for a long time. So just again, but this is why we're measuring it. It's important to understand where it is and if we're going up or down. I think it's really

But if you have a study that says this and you pay for a study and you're only doing 185 houses last year, well, we didn't build any of them. So, I think there's context here. I didn't say I didn't say we built them, but but in our community, we need to have that done.

And there's two levers to that. So, there's a lot of policy that's been put in place in recent years that has to get traction for the development community to then I'll say take advantage, but I mean that in a positive way. take advantage of the policy development in order to get the lots ready and go through the process and have them be prepared to be able to build on them. And so we don't control in totality all of those things. We have tried to put in place that will move that number up, but it won't happen overnight because there's a whole process that any private land owner still has to go through and they can decide are they ready to actually get that? Are they ready for that? I think you have another discussion you would need to have. Are you ready to really change your rate policies and completely change how you pay for water and sewer if you were going to have more production like that? That's a very significant conversation that you would need to have in order to have more influence. But the way that you tend to pay for those things is the rateayer ends up absorbing more new development. So there's ways to do that. And the question is whether or not there's policies that you want to move forward differently than you've been moving forward on in order to influence the production from the private sector.

Uh council member Miller I mean that want to answer Palmer's question note that I think you can also see that the number was relatively flat. So you're starting to see the impact of some of those policy decisions in terms of that increase and I would expect that to continue as well. I I we're not quite what Maxfield is, but I think we're headed in that that direction with some of the policy changes that have taken place and there's clearly a significant increase from what was pretty flat for those prior years.

Just a clarifying question since you mentioned the access fees, do those vary depending on whether or not? So, we have the infill goal, but do those fees change whether it's in an infill area or new growth in the urban service area going outwards? We defer a Tyler, but generally they're, you know, either unit based or land area based. It depends on the fee. So, so in some cases, no, but in some cases, yes. But like if you have a tighter pattern, you have like less storm water fees, you're going to pay like, you know, in terms of, you know, that piece. But

some of it comes down to the history of how the site has paid for that in the past as well. Um so it's kind of on case by case but generally I think your grow growth management plan encourages more dense development through some of the wastewater fees at the at the least. Yes. Correct.

All right. And so this is like your mode shift targets. So this is really a creature of something we've been tracking for a while through the integrated transportation studies that were done in 2017 18 um more recent history here kind of commitment to trying to track this annually moving forward not major swings you won't see major swings in this year-over-year um it'll be interesting to see what happens when link comes on I think certainly that's a strategy but you did get a moderate decrease in single occupancy vehicle you know uh traffic some back, you know, on the other side of it, there's an additional percentage of folks that are working remotely. So, that took some pressure off of the commuting system and then a little bit of a swap between biking and walking um in that space. So, biking up a little bit, walking down and the other two

council member Dory, are these 2024 numbers or 2025 numbers? Three and four. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. This is the data that was available. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't mislabeled or whatever. Okay. Yeah. So again, when we get the data that and transit and and car pooling relatively consistent. Go ahead. Just out of curiosity, could you describe the data source of this? I got this from the transit team. I can uh ask council member Frederick.

Yeah. I find it interesting that we keep putting multi- thousands of dollars in bike lanes when we only got 2% of people using them. That's just doesn't seem to balance to me.

Yeah. I mean, I would this is a this is a pretty hot topic of conversation when the IT studies came through. Um I'd say the system's been pretty disruptive. So like how do you understand if it's ultimately going to work? I think all these things have had really significant states of transition. Uh whether it be pandemic and we had this sort of shift to the remote like that wasn't really radar even back in 2019 when we did the original goal setting. Um, so there's there's definitely that um, you know, been under some form of perpetual construction for a while here and I think you do have to kind of see in the transit space and the bike lane space walking you know the that locks into your development pattern and density conversation too. So um,

well and I would just note to my earlier question if this is just commuting data that's a fraction of how people move during a day. Yeah. This is targeted on like your your how do you get to work? Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So if people are walking to the grocery store, if people are walking to a park, right? People are going to Thursday. None of those trips are likely captured in this data set. So strictly AM and PM peak. How you how are you getting to work? Okay. All right. I like the carpool piece.

Yeah. Uh this is a another metric uh that we have. So um this is kind of again just trying to reflect development patterns. So we have in the uh city employees per acre serve. So I think you can see the data here. Is this supposed to be? Yeah. So 0.0273 that has gone up a little bit. Remember, we've got some supplemental limited term positions we've added in in the recent years for a couple of projects as well as um both forward and bound. So, that's sort of your escalation that's generally happened there, but a slight uptick, but still fairly historically consistent. A pretty tight margin, you know, that you're working with. And then property tax capacity per acre, again, correlation doesn't equal causation necessarily. You want to maximize the value per acre that you have. So you don't you know a less dense distributed development pattern will have less property tax capacity per acre more density will tend to have a higher valuation. Although you can see this number would be highly influenced by appreciation of existing value in the community. So just remember that people's valuations have gone up year-over-year and residential is a significant portion of your base here. So, but no, you're you are getting higher property taxes per acre over time, which isn't the case in every community. There's some people that are more constrained there. So, this number going up is a good indicator of economic health, too. Uh environmental stewardship, a lot of good great things to talk about here. So, greenhouse gas emissions, fairly self-explanatory. Those are going down. That's what we want to see. Um renewable energy capacity in the community going up. And we're on the march, you know, again to 2030 to be at 100% here. Uh this next slide really talks about us as an organization. Um our greenhouse gas emissions, uh you know, have generally been going down. They they bumped up just a little bit last year. Um but not

in a material or significant way. Um and then we will start to trend our data here on what our energy consumption per square foot is over time. So we'll be able to get some time series data uh there on how are we doing per square foot of building because that number changes for us too. So you'll be able to normalize you know as we add square footage sometimes goes up. I I just wanted to I was looking for note for the source of these of the greenhouse gas measurements. Yeah. Um I think you know the sustainability team works on both the community level is an in-house number not not a like a DMC number or right right or just okay

so city hour they're accessing the data for that um they're they're providing that and then the energy presumption consumption per square foot we enter all of our buildings into something called B3 and that sort of just tracks our energy consumption over time and normalizes it for how to keep cool days and all that kind of good Thank you.

Uh transformational capital projects again this is point in time moving forward but 86% are on budget um 80% same percent about on schedule and time. This will be more interesting as we go ahead for you to look at how we're tracking uh with things and then grant funding. You know this is marketers are something that isn't on target but that's just because the the revenue went down. But still, we pulled in 26 or almost $27 million in the community last year that was not from Rochester. Um, and honestly, we were just in a pretty sweet spot for a couple years there. There was a lot of federal money and a lot of external resources available. We did amazing on bonding for a year or two there. And so, uh, we might not see 42 million again or 43 million again. Um, but let's let's try. we are we're always trying sort of are saying no to good saying yes to the best philosophy where we want to pursue things that are meaningful um and advancing your priorities here as well. So, with that, I think we can stop. Those are the KPIs. We'll be back with you again in August. Um, and we're happy to stand for any other questions uh that you have. Any other questions?

Thank you. Feedback if you have any. Great. How are feedback council member?

Yeah, just feedback. Again, I am glad to see these. I remember the, you know, the old discussions on trying to set up at the beginning of the year what are our, you know, key performance indicators and then tracking them through the year. Um, I think it is it it's a it made sense early on that if you're getting these in place for 2026 that we're in good shape a couple of months into it. Um I think I think last year in 2025 we had a really good year as far as staying on our capital projects and not falling off in any big way. But I am still worried that even though when we say we're at like 27% of bus rapid transit and and these other things is these are the points where things can get really difficult. So I hope we stay focused on that. And with that, I'd like to ask like like somewhere in the June, July time frame that we do do sort of a deep dive on like two or three of the main capital projects. I'm not sure if anyone else wants to see it, but um usually we do see things like Sixth Street Bridge when it's going through the process right now going towards bids, but um when something's in execution like BRT and something that big or the some of the other buildings being built, I just want to stay close that we don't end up with a a big hiccup near the end. I believe that on March 9th we are going to have some degree of that with the supportive transformation update is not super descriptive but supportive transformation means a lot of projects that are happening downtown. Um so actually as soon as uh we two weeks from now that plus the spongy moth

there you go and we can also at the next action plan update we had intended to highlight the ERP project um which is more of an internal organizational project but just again schedule budget how's it going and we could bring a couple of other of the transformational capital projects into that meeting as well. Well, that's what I was going to ask is so we see this twice a year. The KPI the KPI is once a year the but the action plan that's and I would say the second time I've seen it. So

yeah, as an adjunct to this we are uh in process with going out for our community survey and so we do that every other year and we you know working on on rolling that out and so timing going to be finalized with the vendor. Um, but that's also given us some nice time series data that we can share with you later in the year, too. Great. Thank you. Great report. Lots of information to chew on. So, uh, council member, you just said that we're doing a survey. Is the questions on the survey going to come to the council so we can or those or are they just going to be staff driven?

Um, so the way the survey is has been set up in the past is it's we participate in uh the national community survey. So the a lot of the questions are very standardized.

Um from that perspective uh that allows us to benchmark across the nation for like and like communities. So you not only get like what our Rochester data is but you'll get you know what we have for you know similar communities throughout the country. We do have one page of questions that we can customize and so um if you have feedback or thoughts in that space we are sort of open right now to what that might want to look like. Um and we can tailor those. We in the past we did something around the library and rec facilities. Um but certainly open to what that uh those supplemental questions could be. For my my two cents worth I would like to see us be as consistent as we can. So from year to year to year if not well the number doesn't make any sense. This

be our third time with the national community survey. So gives you a little bit of runway there.

Council member Frederick, how many people do you get feedback from on those surveys and how much does it cost? Yeah. So you know when you do the normal surveys it is sort of voluntary response and you have to understand that with the data you're getting that you know could be encouraged by the group that wants the thing. Um in this one uh we do it two ways. We do have a voluntary path and option um but we also have the um the scientific you know I think it's within 5% or something is our target for degrees of confidence. So that one there is some degree of like rigor put to the data so it isn't just voluntary. Um, and I think to get that 5%, was it 500 responses is what we need to be able to generalize it all out. And we try to get we'll get you like a number that's per ward. Um, as well as we we get a series of demographic data and we we get the cross tabs where you can then look at that and say, you know, this group in the community was really thinking this way, but so that might be a little different from the general stuff, but this one is more scientific. And is it 25,000? Is that to pick off? gets in that

25,000 plus or minus. So that yeah, that's that's inclusive of our whole code subscription as well. Okay. Okay. So this is what I ask and forgive me for being too simple here, but for $25,000 you're getting 500 responses. So there's that's that's the number I heard, right? So there's the randomized sample that they do that they send out mailers to the community and then there's also the opt-in responses that's open to the entire community. But we also get our subscript annual subscription to PCO. So like the survey that went out today that was about indoor recreation facilities is also included in that number. So you get multiple surveys correct for 25,000 and how many

as many as we want to put into PCO and maybe the other part of this community survey piece is I mean they have the instruments there's cost of sending out the millers and the data analysis and we engage with someone to come and deliver the results as well. So, it's not just the surveys, okay? Because I'm sitting here thinking I did sales for a lot of years. Yeah. I could go out and get you a thousand responses in about a week. But it has to be statistically relevant. So, they are looking. So, you have the survey in your hand. You go over. I'm just saying there's a way that we can get a lot more response for less money even maybe on a simple

They probably aren't getting the basic uh budget. think of budget. Okay. Council member uh Palmer, go ahead. In the years past, when you get the scientific one, you can you can tell people this is scientific. And what's kind of interesting to it um is that the the local one that then becomes available to anybody, the numbers almost correlate. And so they'll send it out to 5 thou I think 5,000 household five 5,000 households randomly. And so it's not just well I love this and I'm going to call up and say we need more of this. Uh and so for me it's been very useful um to watch the numbers and and come back. So good enough for me. Yeah. Thank you, John.

And is there at our conversation last week or two weeks ago study session, we talked about community engagement, council members uh reaching out, is there opportunity for uh council member feedback, city feedback on issues as well in that Poco survey. I think the custom questions if you have some joint some consensus with the group on what the custom questions want to be again it's like half a page or a page it's not a huge amount um but if you feel like there's a topic in the community that you want to hear about you know we have we have flexibility there um for sure

but I guess I appreciate you bringing up that point because I think the better public meetings process is an attempt to ask the community how could we be more responsive and I wonder if some of those recommend commendations or even engaging Nick with that project maybe generates a couple of um custom questions that we get a broader representation because I I know that was disappointment for me that we didn't have broader uh feedback on that process and just understanding if people want uh town halls in their neighborhoods or if they want um you know have they ever come to a city council meeting for connecting to

right but just trying to get a better data set to that same project that the mayor is bringing up and appreciate council member Palmer bringing up to just how we wish that we could engage more of the community in that process and perhaps this is a way to extend the reach of the better public meetings effort. I don't want to write a question though. They help us. But that's an area. Yeah, that's an area for us to explore. That's where the council is at for I would write I don't want to write question. Anything else for our team? All right. Thank you very much.

I sort of gave you a hint study session. Um so we have on the next study session supporting transformation updates. So, um lots of different projects and um policy items that are happening primarily um in the downtown core, but um um depending on how you look at the downtown core, you might not feel like it's the downtown core. Um we also will have an update from our partners at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture about spongy moth and their treatment plan for the spongy moth. Um not to be confused with spongy moss, which is what I thought it was for a while when I got the first phone message. Um house and then a housing code update. So maybe continuation of some of this conversation that you've had here today. Um and then um deputy administrator Parish did point out that on the March 23rd um session that is the the redo of um um strengths and leadership with Bethany Bon Steinberg um and maybe a happy accident will end up coinciding with um some community engagement later that evening in the same space. Um and um so maybe that will actually be a very positive thing. Um I believe that Bethany is feeling much better now and so that is good. Um she did present to our um leadership uh our supervisors a week about a week ago. Um she was full of energy like normal. Um did just want to take an opportunity to point out your next um council meeting on Monday. I will not be there. Um uh deputy administrator uh Parish and Deputy Administrator Steinhauser will be here. Um and we do have the as was referenced today um 6th Avenue um design as well as reimagining the connections downtown. You have the transit um uh fall spring service changes. We have moved from fall to spring. Um also on the agenda and you are on scale to have an economic development authority meeting um to talk about citywalk. So, uh, housing creation

and rules and guidelines are in there, right? Well, on consent, but consent hopefully not unless someone see no other business. We are Thank you.