City Council - workshop

all right hopefully everybody can hear me okay it is 5 45 but we're going to hold the start of the meeting to give everybody time to get to their home computers so just bear with us for a little bit and we will get started as soon as we have everybody available

Can I just test my headset? Can you guys hear me? Yep, I can hear you okay. Okay, thank you.

Just checking. Can everybody hear me? Yep, I can hear you.

Great, thanks.

I am here.

Thank you. We can hear you good as well. So it looks like we are missing just a couple more council members. I'm going to give them about five more minutes and then we'll get going.

I would have been in a little bit sooner, but our crack IT service team that we have at Thornton makes me reenter my authorization code for meme cast every single time I try to open up a link.

That sounds like you have too much security on your system.

I do.

Hey, David. I just hopped on. Have you heard, is there like a delayed start or something now?

Chris, I can hear you. We are going to start at 5.55. Okay. Okay.

Mayor, this is Tammy. Can you hear me? Yep, I can hear you just fine.

Thank you. I think we have everybody except Councilmember Byrd who said there's an accident on his way home. So I think we can get started just being cautious that we might have additional questions that he has when he gets here.

Hey Mayor, why don't we wait for him?

Do we have a status on his arrival?

We can check.

So we just got a text message saying that he needs admin approval for his Zoom sign-in. Kristen, can you send him another link?

Yes, I'll send him another link.

Thank you. I think while we're working on that, we can talk through some of the logistics for tonight. So thank you very much for the quick turnaround. I know this is never easy to do, especially at the last minute, but given the situation that happened at the Rec Center and at Community Park, I think there was consensus that for just to be prudent, we wanted to move online. Tammy, would you mind giving us kind of an overview of the policy that allows us to do this and what steps we need to take?

Council's policy does allow for a remote meeting in its rules of procedure, section six, order of business, subsection P, indicates that if the city manager in consultation with the mayor determine that a meeting in person is not practical or prudent because of health, weather, or other emergency affecting the city, the regularly scheduled meeting may be conducted entirely as a remote meeting or canceled. If the decision is to conduct the meeting as a remote meeting, there is a statement in here that the notice should be given at least three hours before the meeting. Due to unfolding events today across the city, that time period was not feasible. We did give online notice that this meeting was moving to a remote meeting as soon as that decision was made. Your rule also allows you, all council members, to participate and vote in legislative and quasi-judicial matters and participate in executive session if the meeting is made fully remote. This is a planning session tonight, so there are no decisions that will be made by council per se. We do have a special meeting and an executive session, but I think at the beginning of the special meeting, if council votes to allow the executive session to take place remotely, council members can participate in the executive session, which is for your appointees' six-month check-in. So your rules provide for this. Also, I think there is some general support within the Colorado Open Meetings Law for when situations are developing and there's an unforeseen combination of circumstances. And state law also defers to your municipal and council rules in those circumstances. So for those reasons, I believe Council can conduct its planning session tonight remotely, and then we will talk about the exec session once we open the special meeting.

Do you have questions on that, anyone? And I'll ask, Council, when you have questions, just hit the raise hand on your Zoom link, and that will put you in the order that you've asked to speak, and I'll call on you just as if we were in person.

Also, Mayor, I've been having troubles with my video. I was taking my computer in tomorrow, so I may not be visible tonight.

Thank you. Mine keeps going in and out as well. All right. I know we're continuing to work with Councilmember Byrd. While we are working on that, Tansy, do you have any updates for the council?

I do not have any updates. I will make a brief introduction at the next item. We do have Beth Torgerson joining us for the first time. So when she comes on the screen, we will acknowledge Her, as many will remember, she has joined us as Community Programs Director. The first item on tonight's agenda related to CDBG is part of that department's work. Beth, this is her second day, so she will not have a meaningful role in that presentation, but she will introduce herself as a part of that. Outside of that, I don't have any other updates.

Other than that, you are now Rob Kolstad, according to the computer. Oh, that's interesting. You know, there's nobody else I'd rather be. All right. Council Member Morris.

Hey, just wanted to check in. Do we have an update on Council Member Byrd's access? I'd like to hold off continuing before we have him on here.

I have him on the phone right now. We're trying to troubleshoot and get him online.

Okay. Yeah. Considering, I guess, considering the circumstance, it would make sense to wait since we did change the last minute to remote.

Is there any objection from council to do that? All right. I think we can wait a few more minutes. What I don't want to do is wait too long if we're having to troubleshoot on the electronics, but knowing council member Byrd, I know he can help figure this out.

Ironic the IT guy is having the issue.

Oh, I just saw somebody pop on with the name Devin. I'm assuming that is our council member.

Yes, that's me.

Perfect. And Council Member Morris, you'll have to lower your hand after you're done speaking because I can't do that for you.

Okay. Thanks.

Thanks. All right. So now that we have everybody here, Tammy, do you have any additional items for the council?

Not this evening. Thank you.

All right, so we can go ahead and jump into briefings, although are there any questions about the agenda this evening? CDBG funding.

Yeah, so as a brief introduction, this was a previously scheduled item in terms of your annual action plan, so much of the presentation tonight is related to the annual process of submitting an annual action annual action plan associated with your community development block grant funds. Council members will remember at your meeting last week, there was a discussion about private activity bonds and whether or not there were alternatives to private activity bonds. So it was our goal to research some of those additional options. Since that time, we have also had some additional communication from some of the applicants. So We did send out a late updated packet. This presentation will reflect the most up-to-date presentation that you got this week. And so Cheryl Steinberg will take the CDBG portion of the presentation, and then Jessica Prosser will join as we update in terms of the information we've learned since the last conversation on private activity bonds. and then what some of the options and opportunities for the council to consider. Before we jump into that, again, I do want to acknowledge Beth Torgerson. And Beth, allow you just a quick moment of greeting to the council. Council, you'll be seeing Beth more as she steps into her role.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and council members. My name is Beth Torgerson. This is day two for me. I'm really excited for the opportunity to join and learn and invest in Thornton. So thank you for the opportunity.

And just as a brief reminder, Beth is joining us from the Human Services team at the county. So will be really important, brings really incredible experience and relationships to continue to improve and strengthen the systems that we already have in place. So with this, I'll give the floor to Cheryl that will walk us through the annual action plan.

Thank you. Beth and I are sharing a computer, so. And good evening. As Tansy mentioned, we are here to discuss the 2026 annual action plan. And I don't see any slides. Is there, I've got printed slides here with me so I can go through that, but I don't know if anybody else has seen slides. We are seeing slides. Okay. Then I'll just go off of my printed. So every year, we need to take a look at and submit an annual action plan. And so our purpose today is to take a look at that, review it, and we'll start by reviewing the consolidated plan. Then we're going to do our public involvement, and I'll summarize those, present the recommendations for projects and activities, and then ask for council direction and any questions you may have. So starting with the 2025 consolidated plan, this is our five-year plan. It identifies needs for affordable housing, public services, public facilities, and improvements plus program administration. And I did put the definitions of those in your packet for you. So the 2025 to 29 consolidated plan, It has these goals identified, and this is what we did through the entire process of putting the consolidated plan together. These are the ones that rose to the top as our highest priorities. So it's rehabilitate owner-occupied units, increase and preserve obtainable housing units, expand home ownership, expand or improve public facilities and infrastructure, provide homeless prevention and supportive services, and increase public services support. And moving on to public involvement, our outreach is year-round this year. We teamed up, I was also on the housing choice team and with the strategic plan as well. Using those combined meetings and discussions, I've summarized the outreach that we conducted. We did do a consult of 24 staff members throughout the year. I'm sorry, 24 organizations. We presented an interview to council and planning commission and staff. Organized a fall resource fair at Pine Lakes Ranch Mobile Home Park. 150 attendees, and that was very successful. Staffed events booths at Harvest Fest, Farmer's Market, Dias de los Montes, and Winterfest. Met with home developers and their related associations. Did a housing choice open house. And then we did a public input meeting for CDBG. We had zero attendees on that one. We did the Fair Housing and Resource Fair this year. And we did a 30 day public comment period, which we've received one comment so far from an eighth grader named Oliver, who would like to point out to us that there's a lot of grass and takes up a lot of water. And he highly recommends that we convert our city grounds where we can into more sustainable water conserving plantings. So I responded to him and gave him some links to some of our existing programs. And fortunately, one of our programs, the CodeCat program that we're recommending has the component in there of any damage we do to the lawn is repaired with WaterWise landscaping. So I thank him for that. He might be listening in today. Then we're doing the public hearing next week. And we also made sure to incorporate into the annual action plan our five publicly presented and firmly adopted plans, like the housing needs assessment, the strategic plan, comprehensive plan, and so forth. So the CDBG, input that we received as it correlates to what CDBG can fund is listed here. So it can help address high and increasing costs, especially taxes, insurance, food, water, and housing. Shortage of housing, that missing middle, higher density, micro homes, and senior housing. We can do extreme need for emergency housing funds like rent, mortgage, and utilities, and immediate shelters. That there's not enough physically accessible housing for residents to age in place safely. And the next slide. The need for smaller and more affordable and efficient homes for sale and rent. The need for more community education on housing. Need for increased home ownership and with varied designs and flexibility missing middle again housing. the need for development incentives like fee reductions, financial support, land, density bonus, and predictable application processes. And next slide. So let's jump into the 2026 annual action plan. And we have to, like I said, every year the consolidated plan, we produce an annual action plan, set it before the public, before council. And then if it's approved, we send it on to HUD It's due on the 16th of August, but in reality, we have to get it in on the 14th this year, because it hits on a weekend. So next slide. Some general information is this year we were allotted by HUD $766,847 in the grant, and that's about 45,000 less than last year. Keep in mind, we have limits set by HUD We can only fund our public service applicants up to the total of 15% of our total grant amount. And administration for the city's administration of the grant is limited to 20% of the grant. The program year is from October 1st to September 30th. And all recommended activities must meet a required national objectives. And also put that in your packet. We have three goals identified in the common plan that will be addressed in the 2026 annual action plan. And again, the deadline that we have coming up. And just to note too, we do not have to address each goal each year. Just keep that in mind. We want to try to address every goal over the five-year process. So the annual process that we go through, it's pretty much a year-long process. We solicit applications through social media, newsletters, website, direct emails, and presentations to other groups so that folks know they can apply for the CDBG grants here at the city. We received eight applications that were requesting funding. One withdrew their application. So there are seven remaining. Staff reviews and scores each applicant based off of five categories. So it's the activity, the agency involved, the capacity, of that agency in the city, finances, and timeline of the project. Then staff recommends funding amounts based on city needs, goals, administration abilities, HUD guidelines, and past experience. Next slide. On the following table, I just want to do some prep work here. Scoring is based on those five categories again, activity, agency, capacity, finances, and timeline. We always use the best practice of minimizing the risk to the city that everything is compliant with HUD regulations and try not to take on activities that would be too risky. On this chart, lower scores are the better scores, not the high scores. So the lower scores are the worst scores. And then please remember again that 15% limit on public services, because that'll come into play. So taking a look at this very brightly colored chart Next screen, please. We have ranked by their score. Again, the lowest is the best. We start with the applicant on the far left, the type of project they're requesting funding for. Public service, housing are the ones that applied this year. The description of the project, their score, how much they requested, and how much we're recommending. and then how many folks they thought they would be able to assist, either in household or residence. So taking a look at the first one with a score of 12, the Homeless Outreach Team, or HUT, we're recommending they receive the full 15% allocation for $115,027 to assist 1,000 residents. Then next is the Code Compliance Assistance Program, or CodeCAP, that is through the housing, category, so it's not limited by the 15%. And that is for a yard code compliance, fencing replacement, hazardous tree removal, junk and debris removal. And they had requested 400,700, we're recommending that to assist 30 households and pay for the staff person that runs it. A precious child, public service, scored well. It's for family resources and they asked for 40,000, but with the HUD receiving the full recommendation of the 15%, there are no more public services that HUD will allow us to fund. Then the next category in yellow, again, the housing category, brothers redevelopment submitted again, and we've been doing this for years with them, the senior paint-a-thon program. This is for seniors who are unable to paint the exterior of their home. And they received a score of 25. They requested 50,000. We're recommending 50,000 for 11 households. And Project Angel Heart, Almost Home, and Reaching Hope all applied. Unfortunately, they're all public services and there are no more public services to fund. And then the last one is kind of a new twist this year. It's we're recommending because we had some funding left over and we have some ideas for future housing plans that these funds, the $47,750 be allocated to a future eligible project or program as identified in our housing strategy, which we'll be doing this year. So it could be down payment assistance match for a grant. It could be starting up an accessory dwelling unit program. If we can't come up with a partner or a program in time, then we certainly could put these funds back into our Help for Homes program, which is still running, or into another housing project. So if anything were a major change to this plan, we would need to put up another 30-day public notice and come back to council for approval to those plans. But at this point, we're seeing that $47,750 is... something we have possible plans for it later on then on the next slide this is just an overall summary without all the other applicants on there so we recommend that code compliance and paint-a-thon and the future project be funded and public services the homeless outreach team get the full 15 percent Grant administration, the city's grant administration is $153,369. And that also funds the person who's running the program. And next slide. So going back to the consolidated plan, we're looking at what we're going to be accomplishing, our goals that we're going to be addressing this year. So it would be increase and preserve affordable housing units, improve existing owner occupied units, that expand home ownership opportunities is a possibility for the future with that 47,000. And then we're also going to be able to assist the homelessness, provide sort of supportive services. So three, maybe four out of the goals this year will be addressed. So our recommendations are, next slide, that council bring the proposed annual action plan to a public hearing resolution next week. The alternatives, we can make some minor changes to the annual action plan and proceed with the recommendation above, or we just don't submit it and forfeit this year's funding. So are there any questions?

All right, Council, if you have any questions, just hit the raise hand button. Are there any objections to staff's recommendation? All right. Thank you, Cheryl.

You're welcome.

All right. Development code. Nope. Private activity bond. Sorry.

Thanks, Mayor. So good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. As Tansy mentioned, there has been some conversations around private activity bonds since we met last week. And so I wanted to run through a few of those items of note. We will provide some additional information on the two different down payment assistance programs. both through CHAFA as well as through Prop 123 to provide some information as background prior to you making some decisions and providing direction on the recommendations. The other update is both the Cornerstone project as well as the Parterre Gardens projects have withdrawn their PAB applications at this point. They are still working on some negotiations with landowners and they're their LOI with those have not come through. And so they're not quite ready to take on PAB at this private activity bonds at this point and be able to meet the timelines associated with PAB. So we will likely see them come back in another round as they're still working through where exactly those projects are going to go. So we shifted over the past week to be able to still allocate bonds and have had some conversations with Maker Housing and the other projects that apply to come up with some options to still keep the bonds within Thornton and make sure that they can go to a project later in a later year. So next slide, please. So just a little bit of background on CHAFA's Down Payment Assistance Program. This program, as you all noted last week, has been longstanding with the state. Did want to note that If we do assign some of the PAB to CHAPA, there is not a guarantee that that money can be used only for Thornton residents. So it goes into an overall bond pool. The premium bonds are used for things like private activity bonds. to help households, and there are restrictions on the amount of money and things like that. If you go to the next slide, Kristen, this program is not quite as beneficial to the first time or home buyer as the Prop 123 program. However, we can put some of our PAB cap into this program. You can see here the different thresholds of about $25,000 or 3% of your first mortgage. There's a second mortgage option. They've added another option just a couple of weeks ago for public school employees as well. And so this provides kind of a broad overview of what the CHFA program works with for homebuyers in the community. Next slide. This shows some of the numbers of utilization of households in Thornton. So you can see the years that the city did put PAB towards CHFA for homebuyer assistance. There was maybe some slightly higher, although we did see in 2025, 81 households take. advantage of the program and then we're at 36 a year to date so putting putting an allocation in certainly helps the overall for thornton residents but we can't guarantee that that money only goes to thornton residents next slide please The next program is the Prop 123 Down Payment Assistance. So this is not something we can put PAB towards. However, we just wanted to brief counsel on the program and let you know that we will be looking into it and applying. It's a rolling application. You can go to the next slide, Kristen. It's a rolling application as part of Prop 123. Again, a little more favorable to the homeowner. So this could really be a both and scenario. of providing some to CHAPA, but we also want to make sure you're aware of this program and something we want to follow through on. The differences with this, you can go up to 120% of AMI. There's a little more funding provided for that down payment assistance. And then there's also a repair assistance loan program as well. So this is sort of a, staff's going to pursue this no matter what, unrelated to PAB, but we wanted to sort of highlight it is another option that we'll be working towards so that we know about it. I'm familiar with this program and when I was in the city of Aurora, we did receive this and we were getting a lot of positive feedback from the community. Next slide. So given this is the eligibility, so it pretty much goes for anything that's home ownership. So next slide. So given what I just said, we want to keep the bonds in Thornton. And in order to do that, one of the options and conversations that we've had over the last week without having projects right ready to go to assign them to is to put a larger amount of assignment to maker housing partners for future projects. Maker could use them for their projects or they could use them for any other project coming into Thornton that is an affordable housing project. This assures us that the private activity bonds stay within Thornton and they don't go back to the statewide pool and we have either two to three years to spend them depending on if it's 2025 or 2026 PAB. And we wanted to create some restrictions around how MACR would use those funds. So if you go to the next slide, just wanted to outline for any of the PAB that we would be recommending going to MACR, these would be part of the restrictions that We would want them to be the project located in the city. We would want it to follow the future housing strategy kind of policy framework that will be coming before council probably early 2027, that they can be constructed within the timeline, that all of their entitlements are executed and done prior to any bonds being issued. And I know this conversation has come up a few times. And so assigning them to a project means you're sort of holding them for a project. They are not going to be issued until all entitlements are done. So I wanted to just kind of make that distinction. And then if we got to a point where Maker didn't have any projects and there was no other projects interested in the city, at that point we would return them or turn them over to CHFA. So that would be sort of that piece as we talk about this. You go to the next slide. This is just draft language. We worked with legal to see sort of what some of the language that would be included in the agreement with maker if council provides direction to provide some of the PAB to maker without being signed specifically to a project at this point. So we want to make sure we have assurances for ourselves. Next slide. So we'll start with 2024. Again, these are about to expire, so we need to do something with them. So we had said last week this continues with the reassignment to the Dawson Square rehabilitation, and then the remaining amount that Maker already has they would assign to CHFA for the down payment assistance program. So that's about 2.4 million of the 2024, because there's not a project that can meet the deadlines to get these issued soon enough. And so we would turn that remaining amount of 2024, the staff recommendation is to go to CHFA for down payment assistance. I see we have questions, so I'll pause.

Council Member Morris.

Hey, Jessica. Hey, super helpful information. Thanks for actually sharing that Prop 123 program. Wasn't aware of that. And I'm looking at on this, the 2024 balance to CHAFA via Maker. In our last, I guess in the update, did we talk about this going to CHAFA directly? Is that what we agreed at our update?

yes and it will go to chaffa directly but the distinction there is maker already has those allocations from previous projects we had allocated to where the projects are not moving forward and so maker has them in their control and we're telling maker to go assign them to chaffa does that make sense it does what what amount is that again approximately It's about 2.4 million. Sorry, we didn't get that number on the slide. Should have.

And then, so do we have a tracking mechanism or accountability mechanism to know when that transfer to CHAPA happens and how soon that should happen?

Yes. So we have to assign and essentially say what we're doing before September 15th. And that comes through an agreement between us and Maker. And then we can ask, we would require, we have to see that go to CHAFA. So we would have sort of a paper trail based on the agreements that are required. Erica, anything you want to add to that?

She's trying to unmute, I think. Excuse me, yes, sorry. So sort of in this process, the city already did allocate to Maker the 2024, the full allocation, And what we're trying to do now, Makers Legal Counsel told them, we can just use this without the city having to reallocate it. They felt certain they could just use it for Dawson Square, even though the city's allocation had been for Claude Court. And I said, We would like a paper trail. We would like resolutions showing that it was rescinded and reallocated to a different project to connect the dots, so to speak. And so Maker does already have the full 2024 allocation. They can reuse it for Dawson Square, the 6.5, and then the balance. That's why Jessica was saying Maker will just... then later send it to CHAPA rather than us sending it directly. And I think that does legally work. What we have also talked about in, and she'll get to this in a minute with 25 and 26, is putting sort of a stop clock on it. These 2024 private activity bonds need to be used by December 1st. 23rd. It's like a weird pre-Christmas date that they always pick. But it's December 2023 of 2027. They do not right now have a project that they know they will be able to use. So I think in our discussions with them, they are prepared to just send the balance to CHAFA right now. And then what you'll see from that draft language a couple slides back is the 2025 allocation would have a you have to apply it to a project before december of 2027 leaving that last year if they haven't used it then sometime after that date they need to demonstrate to us that they've sent it to chaffa okay great thank you councilmember martinez uh yeah thanks a couple questions um the private activity bond time span how long do we have before

they expire. Is it two years, three years? I can't recall from the last presentation.

Yeah, so three years, but each of the different funding years is now on a different timeline. So we need to obviously use 2024. The clock is ticking as Erica was just mentioning. So the 2026, we have a longer runway.

Okay. And then you mentioned that there were some withdrawals. I think you mentioned the parterre one and there was another one. Those ones were on the table. Well, you know, those would have been eligible possibly for the 2024 program. allocation, but since they withdraw now, that kind of leaves us with only one option. Is that?

Yeah, those projects wouldn't have been ready for 2024 to begin with. They weren't part of the process.

And so there's no other eligible projects for the 2024 bonds. Is that correct? Correct.

So staff recommending those go for the down payment assistance program. Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Did you have another question?

Sorry. Let me see if I can figure out how to lower this hand.

There we go.

Just making sure. Okay. I think we're good for the next slide, Kristen. Okay. So for 2025, then similarly, We had, as recommended last week, $6 million for the June grass development. That still stands. The rest of the balance of 2025 would go to maker housing partners for future affordable projects with the conditions that we just explained would be the recommendation there. Again, no other projects that are ready to go at this point, but we have a little more time with 2025 to assign them to another project. Next slide. And then for 2026. Okay, so then this is a chart showing what I just went through in sort of bullet points, showing how what was originally allocated and where it would be going. Next slide. So then for 2026, we have a few options. We have more time. And so there's a few pieces here. So I think the first option would be and the staff recommendation would really be to assign This allotment of 2026 for future affordable housing projects, we do have about 11 projects in the pipeline. That have reached out to the city through planning through Community connections and housing that are interested in doing affordable projects in the city they're all at different you know sort of places in their timeline of getting. entitlements or getting financing stacks together. And so some of them will be ready soon. I know some of them are looking at going for tax credits by next summer. And so it would make sense for prior cycles. And again, we would be keeping them within the city for use through maker housing partners because they're able to actually issue bonds. The next option on the next slide. Before you move on, Council Member Morris, you had a question about that slide?

I do. Hey, Jessica. So looking back at our slides with the down payment assistance, and it looks like from 2022 to year to date, 2026, that's about 235 Thornton homebuyers. And so I think one of my concerns is that we're not if we're not doing kind of our fair share of giving back to this fund that we're taking and using quite a bit of it that we're not uh maybe being good partners with chaffa um so you know i know we've got this kind of balance that we want to set for future projects but you know if we are and have been taking from the fund and not giving to it is there a way that we can actually just use some of that balance and contribute so that we show that we're we're taking an active role and in supporting homeownership in our city?

Yeah. So again, I think the third option is around down payment assistance. The second option is to fund a, on the next slide, is to fund a project that's just outside of the city that serves seniors, and that would be an option too, and then put the rest to future affordable housing projects. And the third option was to look at putting some of that funding towards CHFA. for down payment assistance. So again, 2026, we have some flexibility. You all could say to us right now, hey, we'd like to put half to CHFA for down payment assistance and half for future affordable housing projects. All the future, this is really open. And so staff's looking for direction on that. But we wanted to provide those three options. We feel like the highest and best use of this would go to future projects through Maker, keeping it in Thornton, assuring that. And then also, obviously, we'll be putting some of the 2024 to CHFA for a down payment and then also pursue the Prop 123 funding as well. So those are the options. I think that's the end of the presentation. Really, we're looking for direction on the 2024, 2025, and then 2026 recommendations that are put forth.

If I can just chime in for a second. On option number three, assigning all or a part of the private activity bond allocation for 2026 for CHFA, we could do that directly. You could do directly instead of to make or through CHFA, but sort of what we have talked about with 25 and 26 and that draft language has a deadline in it by which if MAKER hasn't found a project that meets the city's conditions, then it would automatically require them to send what was left or the whole thing if none of it was used to CHFA when there was still one year left on the private activity bonds potential use. And so I would just say that if we're talking about 2026, that allocation to CHFA doesn't have to go through MAKER if council doesn't want it to.

Go ahead, Drew.

Question. I was looking at the PAB website or the state website on PABs, and they talked about an industrial use, small industrial use for these funds. Has that ever been something we've explored as a city?

I do not know because I wouldn't have the history, but it's something we could look into and get back to you on. But I will just also mentioned that we do have the deadline from the state. And so this is probably timely enough at this point that we need to sort of move forward with this and probably wouldn't have a lot of time to come back to another planning session.

And I would also just add in like we go out sort of to bid and ask for letters of intent. And if we received a letter of intent for a proposed industrial use, that's something we would consider and score on. But without an actual application for it, I've only been here four years, so I've not seen any kind of industrial use. But again, you know, we're unfortunately in a position where in the last week, two of the letter of intents have fallen through or they're not ready. I know Cheryl and I had a conversation with the Cornerstone team and they very much are hoping that they will still be developing in the city of Thornton. They are going to explore additional locations. And so hopefully one of those comes to fruition. And then I do believe that the Claude Court project is planning on amending their application and coming back. So these are just a couple of the things that Jessica mentioned are in the pipeline as far as potential projects.

We can certainly follow up with a report on industrial uses and if there are ways that we, if that's a desirable thing for the council, how we could encourage those kinds of applications in future cycles.

It was just one of those things that if it's a possibility to use these funds in a way that generates more economic activity for a city, then I think we should explore it. But of course, I mean, council needs to agree with that. But it was just something that I noticed that we've never discussed. But as far as, I guess, my opinion on this, I would like to see a portion go to Chaffa, but then I would agree with the other recommendations, or at least I agree with either of these options as long as some of it goes to Chaffa.

So essentially we have the 2024, 2025, and 2026 allocation. So let's start with 2024. The recommendation on 2024 was to reassign the 2024 PAB in the amount of 6.5 million for the Dawson Square rehabilitation and then the balance of Chaffa via Maker. Is there any objection to that approach for 2024? All right, and then the 2025, The recommendation was the 6M and change. To maker for the June grass development, and then the balance to a future affordable development conditions with conditions from the city. Any objection to that.

And just, I think that's what we were talking about with can a portion of that. Go to Jaffa do we knew how do we figure out that amount?

balance that was uh and maybe if we go back to the slide on the screen it might help i think those were the conditions if they didn't have a project within the time frame then it would go to chaffa that's correct if if they did not have an eligible project and

I believe the language was the first priority is a project in the city. Secondary priority is one adjacent to the city because both the Dawson Creek, Dawson Square project is not technically in city limits and the Sherrill Wood is not technically within city limits, but they are close enough that there is a benefit to Thornton by those projects. And then if they had not found a project to use the allocation of private activity bonds for by December 23rd of 2027, then it would go to Chaffa, whatever was left. Which would be the 3.4 million, assuming June grass uses what they say they're going to use.

So I was under the last time we talked about Dawson's where it was a part of the city, but where is that located?

Council members, we can't use the chat because of open meetings laws. So if you have a question, you have to raise your hand in order to ask that as Erica is getting the answer to that question.

Cheryl might be better equipped to answer that question.

Hi. Cheryl, can you clarify if that's in the city?

So the Sherrill Wood is not in the city. It's near. It's in unincorporated Adams County. And then the Dawson Square is just a block off of the city boundaries down on the southern side.

So is that unincorporated out of this county? Yes.

And I will just note, Council Member Morris, because you were not on the council at the time, When the council originally made the allocation to Dawson Square apartment, it was known that it was not technically within the city, but close enough that I believe the judgment of the council was that there would be sufficient benefit to Thornton residents because of its immediate adjacency and because of the population it served.

That is correct.

I guess I get that. I understand a block away, there's maybe a slippery slope there because it's black and white when it's in the city limits, but then it becomes subjective after that. I do have maybe some concerns with allocating that money to a non-Thornton apartment complex or portable housing complex, but I do understand what you guys are saying. If there's stats to show that you know, these are Thornton residents, or that had moved to, you know, there from Thornton, because it's the best option nearby, then, you know, that helped even justify it even more.

Yeah, unfortunately, this is a new build. So we could certainly get from them maybe individuals on their waiting list. I'm not sure what statistics they could provide, given that this is a prospective project, not an existing development.

Oh, so the rehabilitation is of an existing apartment building, but it's a first-time affordable housing complex. Is that right?

I think they're getting confused. Dawson Square is an apartment rehabilitation, and Sherrill Wood would be a new build.

And Sherrill Wood is not what we're discussing at this point because that's 2026 potentially.

Right. So Dawson Square was a previously approved project by council. Previously approved affordable housing complex, and they're going through rehabilitation. So they have been operating as an affordable housing place. Is that right?

Yes, I can answer that. That's correct. And with this new rehabilitation, it will lock that affordability until 2056. Got it.

Okay. Thank you.

All right, Council Member Byrd. Devin, you lowered your hand, but you didn't unmute.

I hit the wrong one. My personal opinion on this is that we should be giving people the opportunity to buy houses using Chaffas instead of the financing of projects that are outside of our city. I don't see a lot of benefits to our city from the sense of adding an additional project outside to help another city grow. Whereas we need to be helping residents potentially within our city more so.

So you're objecting to the proposal for the 2025 bonds?

Correct. I would still stand by my original ask that we give all of that money towards first-time home buyers. All right.

Councilmember Martinez.

Thank you so couple questions first is. There was a little bit confusing when we're going through the project name so we'll just go through each one Dawson Square apartment rehabilitation. Is that in the city limits of Thornton?

No.

Okay. That one is that the one right outside of the city and the southern border? Okay. June grass. Where is that one?

It will be within the city.

That one's within the city. And the Sherrill Wood one obviously is not in the city and is not bordering the city, correct? It is further south in the Sherrill Wood neighborhood, correct? Correct.

And the Sherrill Wood is 2026. Yeah, I understand that.

I just wanted to make sure. The three properties we're talking about, it wasn't completely clear to me if any of them were in Thornton, but we know Junegrass is, Dawson Square, I recall that conversation. from a year ago or a couple years ago. So with the 2025 options, I like the staff's proposal. With the June grasping within the city limits and putting the balance to future affordable development projects, I really you know, last week, I was getting on board with the idea of. Giving our funds that chef I think it's very important to support first time homebuyers I think that program is highly effective, but after learning that. we aren't guaranteed that our contributions are being diverted to the applicants of that program who are from thornton who are trying to buy a home in thornton that gives me a little bit of pause um for similar reasons that we've heard you know i don't i don't really uh like the idea of not not knowing where these activity bond financing is going. I'd rather the funds go to help affordable housing development within our city. And if we can't guarantee that all of these funds are helping out Thornton, it feels like we could possibly be subsidizing people statewide for that. And that I think there's better uses. So I agree with the staff on the 2025. recommendation is the highest use for that.

All right, Councilmember Russell.

All right. Yeah, so I guess I understand, like, I'm obviously a big supporter of Chaffa being in real estate myself, but in response to the concerns about the funds going outside the city, when we're talking about projects that are one block off or nearby, Chaffa received $22 million in those three years in which we did contribute to and showing a total of 475 residents to include the years in which we didn't contribute, well, the max is 25,000. So if all 475 recipients maxed out their chaff at $25,000. That comes to $11.875 million. So it seems contradictory to me that half the money, $11 million, went elsewhere in the state versus something that's a project one block outside of Thornton or the senior housing that would be very near to Thornton. So, um, as much as I want to support the, the Chaffa, you know, half the money that we've given them before doesn't touch Thornton. And that's what the assumption that every single person got the max 25,000. So, um, my position would be to support the projects that are right on the border of the city because we're keeping those dollars in projects that are very close to the city, whereas $11 million could have gone to Durango and Pueblo. That's much further away and not even bordering the city. So I would agree with the staff recommendation to support the projects that are very close to the city because that does have an impact, whether it's residents or family members the parents of thornton residents that are in that senior senior housing project or someone that just moved you know just outside of the city by a block like to me that if we're trying to reduce waste and keep money in thornton sending all of it to chaffa where there's a there's a history showing that half of it didn't make it to thornton

And you're still muted.

Okay, can you hear me? Sorry. We can. I actually lived in Sherrill Wood for a short period of time before my family moved to Thornton. And one thing I can say is that when you live in an incorporated Adams County on the outskirts of Thornton, you spend almost all your money in Thornton. So it's almost like you're a resident without getting the benefits. I've met a lot of folks at the Active Adult Center and the rec centers that are Mapleton Public Schools or live in the outskirts of thornton um and take advantage of our amenities but like don't get the uh the benefits of being actual residents of thornton so um this is being close enough i think i would support the 2025 staff recommendation all right councilmember morris

Hey, yeah, all good points. Appreciate everyone's input. You know, to keep this kind of black and white for me, you know, if the property is not in the city of Thornton, I won't support the allocation towards that. I'd like to see that go something in our city. So the June grass, that all looks good. As far as the future affordable housing in the city with conditions kind of holding out for 2025, You know, I'd rather see that go to use now than sitting in a pot somewhere waiting for something to happen. So I'd like to see that go to Chaffa, you know, so we continue to fill that pot. And so that residents can continue to get that down payment assistance. And, you know, I know that there are, I think there were three programs mentioned in the Chaffa slide or down payment assistance slide that There are other methods in greater amounts that are possible based on the type of assistance that's given, especially for the teachers in that fund, which was super interesting. So I'd like to do our part there, give our fair share, you know, back to that pod and see more people use it so we're not just taking.

All right. Council Member Alge.

All right. Can everybody hear me?

Yep.

Okay, Jessica, thanks for the presentation. Yeah, you know, Chaffa is a great tool, obviously, for folks to get housing assistance, but still, you know, hearing, you know, Devin and Drew's you know, opinions on that. But still, I believe that I agree with the staff recommendation for 24 and 25 still. You know, these projects, Sherwood and, you know, and Dawson Square, they're close enough to the city as well. And that's, it's a positive, you know, impact to the roots of Thornton. still i understand if it comes time that we have to switch funds to chaffa we do need to be able to do that um but still i i do support staff's recommendation for 24 and 25. that's all i have council member salazar so how many units are at dawson square 36.

There are 36, so then we would be able to allocate to remodel their whole entire. All their units. Okay, so then I am going with the staff recommendation.

For 24 and 25 cancer Martinez, you had something to add.

Well, a question. Does anybody in our team know how CHAFA, the down payment assistance, is funded? Is it entirely funded by these private activity bonds? Are there other funding sources? I have no idea, but this conversation is making me more interested in that down payment assistance program and how it's funded.

My overall, go ahead Cheryl. Okay.

Besides the, you know, the general pool then being let to the public, which puts that premium pool together and it produces higher dividends. And that's what they use for the down payment assistance. Now on some of those programs, you notice there was a repayment to the program. And so they do have a revolving loan fund, but I know very little about that. And if it's, use separately or in combination with all the private activity bonds that are put into the pool. Those are the only two I'm aware of.

All right. So looking at how we move forward, it looks like there's consensus to go with the staff recommendation for 2025. I'll agree with the staff recommendation as well. I get the CHFA side, but if we're not willing to support projects that are nearby, I'm concerned about giving everything to CHFA that could be anywhere in the state. So I would rather keep it close to home where we can get the most residents supported, even if they're in unincorporated. So now let's talk about 2026. There are three options on the table. Um, if anyone would like to raise their hand and talk about which option they support, or if none of them, that's acceptable as well.

Christine, can we advance to the 2026? Thank you.

So, option 1, as you can see, is assigning the balance to maker. With conditions from the city option to assigned to Cheryl would. or future development and option three is to make her to allocate to Chaffa. But again, Chaffa cannot be told that they have to keep it for Thornton. Council Member Morris.

How about option four sits in a pool and we see if we get industrial options applying?

I think from a timeline, we don't have that luxury. That might be something for 27 to talk about.

That's correct. We have to make our decision or we have to make this initial allocation by September 15th.

Okay, so a party, like an actual entity has to be identified that will hold that future project? Correct.

Yes. And it has to be an eligible entity, meaning an entity that is allowed under the law to issue the bonds on our behalf. A lot of communities just go to their local housing authority, which maker is basically that for Adams County.

Okay.

For example, like when we had our conversation with Maker in light of Cornerstone sort of falling through and the Parterre garden falling through. Like, for example, the city of Westminster does a similar, hey, Maker, we're going to allocate this all to you for eligible projects. We can say eligible projects within the city. And then if none of those have come up in the two years, we could say then it needs to go to CHAPA. Or we could say, I mean, the conditions are, we can put whatever conditions we like on it. But we do know that they are asking currently, they put in a letter of intent on Sheryl Wood. Claude Court might be coming back. And I know the Cornerstone people really don't want to give up. So...

So, Drew, do you have a recommendation or a request for how that would work, what your thoughts are?

Can you go back to 1, 2, and 3, and just, like, double-check those? I mean, I do like option one with the, I guess I'm throwing in the Chaffa element. It seems like nobody has an agreement or most aren't, but I do think we should have a portion always allocated to that fund. I'd like to see that continue in 2026.

So option one with the conditions being a project in the city, and if they can't spend it, it goes to Chaffa.

Well, I mean, I do want a portion of the 10 million now to go to Chaffa.

Well, I think they, well, staff can talk to that, but I think they have two years to figure out what to do with that. If they don't spend it in two years, then it could go to chapter.

That's the recommendation, but that's the recommendation.

Yeah, no, I understand that. I'm just, again, I'm looking at home buyers now that are looking for support home buyer assistance wise. So again, you know, being a good partner with that fund, like to see a portion of that contributing to that this year. So that's my opinion. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Martinez.

Okay. Question about the Sherrill Wood project. Is it fully funded or is it dependent on this allocation? And it's a maker project, is that correct?

Correct. It is a Meeker project and they are looking for additional PAB. I do not know the exact status of their capital stack for the project, but they were applying and asking for it from the city of Thornton. So they're probably trying to complete their capital stack and get enough of the bond cap that they need to continue.

Sure. And Do you know if they've also reached out to other cities? So, I mean, Sheryl Wood is not in a city. It is an incorporated Adams and is surrounded by Thornton, Westminster, possibly even, well, not really. Thornton, Westminster mainly. Do you know if they've reached out to Westminster? If they even have private activity bonds available, are they having the same discussion that we're having?

Sheryl, are you aware if, go ahead. Sorry, sorry, Jessica. I don't mean to interrupt. When I looked at Westminster, I pulled up their ordinance allocating their 2026, and they have just allocated it to Maker generally for projects within the city. So if Sheraldwood is not within the city limits of Westminster, I don't think they would, they may have applied for Westminster, but I can tell you that Westminster's allocation just went to Maker generally. Okay.

And in talking with Maker, they mentioned they would have to go likely to the state for additional private activity bonds, but I don't know about the other communities.

Okay. My next question is, does the staff have a recommendation for 2026? We got three options. Is there a recommended option from staff?

The recommended option would be the first option to assign these to Maker Housing for future affordable housing to be identified within the city limits in the next two years. And if that is not accomplished, and again, it doesn't have to be a maker project. It can be any affordable housing project within the city that meets those conditions. If that doesn't happen, then it would transfer over to CHAPA for down payment assistance.

Okay. Then I will be in support of option one.

All right. Council Member Russell. You're muted.

I'm going to be in support of option two. The reason being is because of the second bullet point with the conditions from the city. So that would potentially leave open the opportunity to Council Member Morris's position of getting funds to CHAFA. So, you know, I'd like to support the senior community nearby to Thornton because I believe there's probably some Thornton residents that have some older adults that would perhaps be in that Sherrill Wood community. And then if they're unable to utilize the rest, then it would inevitably go to Chaffa per our condition statement. So to me, that's the greatest serving with keeping 4 million close to Thornton. in the hopes there's another project that would be supported with the remainder of the funds. But if not, then it goes to Chaffa. So I think that's a real good meet in the middle from what it sounds like with the other council members that we want to support Chaffa. We also want to support nearby or close housing projects. So two kind of outlines all of that. The housing project in Sherrill Wood, with the hopes of a new project within the city. And if not, then it goes to Chaffa. So that, that kind of meets everyone's, it sounds like everybody's requests or, or intent with the funds versus option, you know, option one is pretty close to that, but it doesn't assign anything specific to Sheryl Wood. And that would mean all 10 million, if they don't identify projects, all of that would go to Chaffa. And that's a big chunk to Chaffa given the, my previous statements that maybe half of that makes it to Thornton and the other half of the 10 million could be anywhere else in the state. So two makes sense to me. Option two.

That's Member Salazar.

Is Sheryl Wood a maker project? Is that who owns it?

Yes.

Okay. So essentially it is going to maker. So I agree with option two. Thank you.

Mayor Potemayela?

My head's set. I will go with option one, please. Council Member Alte?

Thank you. Yeah, so... You know, with Westminster not, you know, initially with Westminster not going, helping with Sherwood, that kind of gave me some brief pause. But at our community cleanup on Wednesday, I talked to a couple of members of the Crossing Point community. And this is a conversation for another time, but still they're saying in the phase two and three portions, the newer, there are seniors in that along with affordable housing. That's kind of an issue with me on that. And Sherwood's going to be specifically a senior community. And I think we need more senior affordable housing. And so... I do agree with Councilmember Salazar and Councilmember Russell that I'm going to support Option 2 in this situation. Plus, then we can, if that other remaining $6 million and change, if we can't find another project, you know, in Thornton during that time frame, then we can go ahead and give that to CHAFA and satisfy that need. So I will vote for either Option 1 or 2 when we formally vote on this. I want to stress that. But at the moment, though, I do support Option 2.

All right. Dave or Devin, do you have a thought?

Devin? My personal opinion is that this should all go to CHFA, but if it's between options one and two, then I would choose option two.

And Catherine Bercoteau?

Sorry, Devin was quicker than the button. Option two.

All right. And I also agree with option two and that's consensus for option two. Thank you.

Thank you. I do want to just clarify the conditions for part two of option two should be development within the city because we're already doing some allocation to Sherrill wood. So I just wanted to confirm that. Okay.

Yes. Thank you. All right. Do we need a five minute break or should we keep going? Keep going. All right, we'll take a break after the next one. So we have code update discussion.

Yes, thank you. Next slide, please. So good evening, Mayor, Mayor Potem, and council members. Warren Campbell, current planning manager. Tonight is an opportunity for staff to introduce council to the phase one proposed amendments to the development code. As you recall, this new code went effective in September of 2025. It was an 800-page document, so we identified early on that we would be coming back in the near future with corrections to grammar, punctuation, typos, citations, and general oversights. So that is exactly why we are coming through tonight and we'll be coming before you in the near future for an ordinance to amend the development code to make these corrections. Next slide. So again, tonight we're talking about phase one. You can see we're adjusting or making some amendments to some minor process adjustments, policy, grammar, punctuation, citation, some oversights. And to be clear, we did discuss all this with the HPA and the commercial developers group. So we have done some outreach. There will be a second phase with some additional identified items to correct. And then there will be even some interest in the housing choice portion, which we would be bringing forward. as well later in the winter or spring as we get some additional resources devoted to that. Next slide. So we have six particular items we wanna highlight out of the over 90 corrections we've proposed in this first ordinance. The first one we have has to do with housing types. The newly adopted code in an effort to increase housing diversity and choice in the community, we put some regulations into the code that in the residential high and medium zone districts that there's incorporation of at least two or more housing types in those developments. It's unclear in the code that within the cottage housing design concept, if the incorporation of two different housing types satisfies this requirement, staff is proposing amendments to clarify that it indeed does meet the requirement to include at least two housing types in the cottage design type of layout. Just for reference here on the side, we have an image of a project that's been coming forward and attempting to locate here in Thornton. And again, it's a cottage design and it does include multiple types. So we would make amendments to make this type of proposal in compliance. Do we, I think we have a question. We can address that now. Morris.

Council Member Morris.

Hey, Warren. I had a question on how does, so the cottage housing, so we have that rental project at the corner of, what is that, Washington Center Parkway in Washington. That's like the little color. A villa? A villa, there we go. Would this update have stopped that development from happening based on the requirement for the two distinct dwelling types?

Um, as far as I'm aware, there is only one type in there. There could be two. Um, yes, the new code would require at least an incorporation of maybe some duplex style or some single family detached. Um, but, um,

would be my knowledge we are looking for two different types of housing for sure on certain sizes is there a way that we can find out for sure if the avila projects have one or two distinct dwelling types because i'm the reason i'm concerned that i guess maybe if you give me the reasoning or give us the reasoning again why we have two distinct dwelling types required for cottage housing development

Well, it's for all types of development in the residential high and medium. What we were trying to clarify is with this type of design layout, we are also asking that there's two different types and that two different types would satisfy those requirements. It's all about trying to create opportunity and price point differences within a development. So that's the reason why. And I can certainly... do research and be prepared when we come back for a public hearing on what Avila has and does not have.

And if it's possible to have that beforehand, that'd be good to know. But how would, you know, we had a public hearing last week with that project that hallway in 120th with the radio towers. Yes. That I think was a rezoning approval, if I remember correctly, and annexation and all that. Did those homes considered cottage style? Because they seemed like they were in pretty small lots, pretty small single family. i'm not able to answer if they considered it or not but what i can say is it was under the previous code where there were different parameters different housing designs and layouts allowed so different so a little bit hard to compare so again um my concern and maybe nobody on council agrees with me or not we could hear opinions on this but i feel like adding this two distinct dwelling types stops our cottage houses from being developed Because like Avila, if they are only doing one type, which I only think they have one, but again, that's why I'd love to confirm, then we wouldn't have that type of property in our city, which I think is a great value add to the housing diversity in our city. I'm just concerned that we're adding in something that we don't have to, that would stop the cottage houses from being built, which is again, what people are asking for.

To clarify, this is creating more opportunities for more zones for cottage housing. It doesn't restrict somebody that might do cottage housing in another zone. Warren, can you confirm that?

I was just going to say the same thing. It's that this only clarifies that doing this would meet the requirement. Today, it's unclear. So we're trying to clarify you can do this and have the housing mix. I would also suggest, Council Member Morris, that a large enough project could do a cottage-style design of all one type. and then do a different product off that's not even cottage design layout. So again, it's always the intent is to create the diversification of housing availability.

Sure, no, and I agree with that. I'm just thinking of smaller site development where you have a, the developer can only build the cottage housing, like single family, just small square. I guess an example would be the one we saw at the corner of 124th and York, where that developer was looking to put, based on the pre-app, they had about an 800 square foot 28 or 20 single family homes that were about 800 square feet, two bed, two bath. I would consider it a cottage style. There were 22 bed, two bath and eight, I want to say like three bed, two baths. When I look at this, And look at this, then I'm like, I'm wondering if. They now couldn't do that anywhere in our city unless they added a duplex.

So, let me clarify again and I think this is maybe better for us to follow up and a different report. So, again, this is talking about 2 existing zoning districts. that require a mix of housing types. Many, many zoning districts don't require that. So we can follow up in a report and outline for you all the zoning districts where you could just do cottage housing as a single use type.

Got it. So there could be residential low density and you can have cottage housing in there. Right. Single dwelling type.

We'll follow up with all the zoning districts that would allow cottage housing as an outright use.

Got it. Okay. That's great. Appreciate it.

Council Member Martinez. Yes.

First, thank you drew for asking that question I had the same thoughts and I agree with your stance on we're trying to bring the. cottage housing type you know, make it more amenable something that developed as a legitimate option for developers to do in our city. which is why I was such an advocate for it last year to get it into the more zoning types. So I agree with Drew on that. And as regarding the Avila development, that was a planned development legacy zoning district. So it was a completely custom zoning project with the planned development project. So I think that would also allow them to, you know, essentially write their specifications to suit that specific project. We don't have planned development anymore with our new code, correct? We have an overlay. So my question to staff is with planned development overlay on specific zoning base layers, base types, that could allow for flexibility or maybe like waiving some of these. For example, if it was a planned development overlay on top of a, residential high or residential medium district, that would allow for flexibility and things like this? Is that what the intent of the overlay was?

Yes, if it meets certain criteria, the overlay can be used in just that manner. So if, for instance, some of them are going to be affordably designated, attainable, so there are some criteria, but yes, you get a gold star. You followed the code absolutely perfectly there.

Okay, thank you. So when you all follow up, maybe... It would be helpful if you could briefly mention the role that the plan development overlay has on that specific question about cottage housing types. When you look at, you know, not just the base layer, but also what could be possible, and even what are the limitations of the plan development overlay? Thanks.

Noted.

Councilmember Russell?

Yeah, so obviously I'm an advocate for the cottage housing as well, too, but I think there's one point that has yet to be mentioned for Councilmember Martinez and Morris by having that diversified product within, say, a cottage-style neighborhood. This is advantageous to the developer because then they could utilize duplexes and cottages within that same community, which brings down costs. Building duplexes versus every house being single-family, even though their cottage is... I think financially advantageous to the developers. So, you know, there may be a small portion of the site in which it could help them reach a profitability threshold that they're trying to achieve by doing 10 duplexes and 40 of the cottage style homes. So this would be advantageous as far as my understanding is with builders and developers as well. So it would encourage cottage housing, getting 40 of them, but then, you know, if this was a distinct area, requirement where they needed to diversify some of that site, then this is a way to bring down costs and meet the criteria. So to me, it's a win-win. We are encouraging the cottage-style housing, but we're also helping the builders and developers achieve profitability that they need to achieve by incorporating some duplexes within that same site. And so I don't really have any questions or anything. I just want to reiterate that to the others that this would be helpful in bringing in that cottage site because then they could make more profit or ROI on this entire development site. And then that would get a cottage-style neighborhood across the finish line, whereas it may not get across the finish line if they weren't able to add a few duplexes in there to help their bottom line. So to me, this is a great thing because it doesn't inhibit cottage. It just helps encourage more of it because the bottom line and dollars are important to the developers. That's all.

Council Member Morris.

Yeah, I would agree with you, Chris. I think I'm taking a similar approach here, but what I'm trying to get at is I don't want this proposed solution to be a mandate for two distinct dwelling types because then that requires, that could actually cause things to not pencil out. So some cottage developers, they have their models and it's all the same product. And then for us to require them to add a new product that now has to go through a total redesign, I mean, those are added costs that I'm just saying if they don't want to do that, then they don't have to do that. If they want to do it because it helps their, you know, it makes the project more feasible, then absolutely. But I'm just trying to say, hey, this, if it doesn't have to be a requirement, then it shouldn't. And so we're basically saying the same thing, but I think it's just coming from a different angle.

And then as we move on, just a reminder, this is not for the entire city to require two different housing styles. It's for this particular district, residential district, to have this. So I will turn it back over. We can continue the presentation.

Next slide, Kristen. All right, the next thing we identified as we were applying the code, as you may be familiar, many residential neighborhoods have a clubhouse type of an element associated with them and their amenities. There are provisions in the code that identified accessory structures as being a maximum allowable height of 16 feet. Well, clearly 16 feet in height maximum doesn't really work for a clubhouse size structure. So we are proposing amendments that allow a clubhouse structure, as you can see in this image on the right-hand side, to be at the same scale as the houses within the subdivision. Again, an oversight just captured in a wrong category. So that's this particular amendment. Next slide.

The next thing we- Did you have another question or you just didn't lower your hand?

Thank you.

Sorry, keep going.

Perfect. So the next thing we identified is we have a number of neighborhoods and developments where the developers in trying to address their public land dedication requirements would like to propose a privately constructed and maintained park but have it count towards their public land dedication requirements. So we wanted to clarify the code because we've done this throughout the history of the city and the previous code as well. But we needed to make some amendments to the new code to clarify public versus private parks and what types of amenities we need to get into the private parks open to public use so that we can give them that credit uh the short of it is is if a private park built by a private developer is going to get credits for the public land dedication we the city the staff will ensure it has amenities that qualify it in our eyes as being a public amenity with public access so that's what this uh proposed amendments is all for councilmember russell

Yeah, so this is one thing that I'm in particularly not in love with. And we've seen this a few times through these development presentations and where in lieu of having the dedicated land, they'll add park benches or a dog park, but then it just gets wrapped into the metro district and the residents end up paying for that park. So if the developer's not going to dedicate land for it, and just say oh look at all these amazing amenities but then the residents are going to be paying for it in their future metro district it's just letting the developers off so i know i'm arguing both sides of the coin here being pro-development and then in this situation you know this is what came up in last week's meeting too um when they talked about the street light and it was very quietly slipped in there with like oh we have three million banked for future road improvements oh the street light's part of that well that's all part of the metro district so Essentially, why even mandate for the developers if they're just going to keep passing the cost of it to the future homeowners, increasing the metro district costs? And let's be honest, most residents don't understand metro districts. We had a resident last week said he knew nothing about metro districts and asked a question that was fairly elementary around metro districts. But the reality is, if we go this route, now they'll just build whatever amazing public park but make the residents pay for it via Metro District instead of it being dedicated land. So we're going further in that direction, which is something that I already see problematic because it's just getting passed on via taxation to future residents. And this would just broaden that Metro District cost to those residents. So I get the purpose of it, but I... I'm not in support of allowing, you know, them to get out of more land dedication at the expense of our future residents. To me, that's just really sticking it to the resident. And it's already being done, but this just furthers that, in my opinion. I'd love to hear some other council members' opinions on that because that, you know, to me seems exactly what this would yield.

Council Member Martinez? Yes.

Yeah, I'm sure you're concerned, Chris. And so my question is to probably our city attorney's office about, you know, what are some options or limitations, caps, any kind of regulatory or rules around, you know, the mix of funds on private property? privately built parks that are open to the public? Can we cap the amount of money that can be used from the Metro District on that space? I'd love to explore what kind of options we'd have legally to address Chris's concerns, which I share. And this is something that I think is important to protect our residents. It's already a difficult, I think, for a lot of people. They have a big surprise, right, after they buy a house in the metro district and a year goes by and the assessments go up by a lot. It's a story I hear over and over again. And, you know, if we could figure out ways to, you know, cap that or put some guardrails on this practice to ensure that, you know, the they're acting in good faith when it comes to the public land dedication requirements.

Right. Councilman Martinez, I would just say that, you know, we have not recently, but we've redone our service plan requirements and we try to take a careful look at those types of issues in the context of that. Our authorities are, you know, somewhat limited. We get a look at the financials, you know, what kind of mill levies they're looking at. um and what is proposed there but we can certainly um I think provide you an update of of the issues we do look at when we process a service plan for a metro district okay that sounds good uh you did that get out what you're asking yeah you know what uh Tammy we'll probably just put that on our our next one-on-one meeting agenda Sure, we can talk a little bit about metrics and the breadth of that. You bet. And I'll send council an email on it too.

Okay, thanks.

Yep.

Council Member Alge?

Sorry, let me get here. All right. Thanks, everybody. Great presentation so far. Warren, thank you. Yeah, I, you know, I share the concerns, you know, with Councilmember Russell and Councilmember Martinez as well, for the simple fact. Luckily, we're on that Grand Place Park, you know, that's a city-owned park. Don't have to worry about that situation. But still, when folks realize, you know, after that, what Metro District is, and oh, yeah, we're in Hawk for, in our case, it's infrastructure. It's due to like $3 million, you know, and the last thing folks want are ad costs. So, yeah. So, Tammy, I agree with Justin and Chris. We definitely need some clarification, you know, on what protections there are for homeowners on this. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Morris.

Yeah, I wanted to ask, is there a difference between, or does this adjustment apply to any type of development in the city, or is it over a certain size of development?

I would have to refresh my memory on that to be certain.

What I'm getting at is... When we're looking at redevelopment opportunities in the city, in that public land dedication, there are lots that are less than an acre in size, right? And if we're still doing cash in lieu on these types of sites, those are places that cost. Those are opportunities to make it easier to do redevelopment in town.

You're correct there, and I'll have to re-verify and get back with you on exactly some of the thresholds. But yes, I think what you're getting at, and I can confirm, is on smaller properties, redevelopment properties, that dedicating actual true land would be prohibitive to the success. There is a full cash-in-lieu type of option, yes.

Okay, so right now this is essentially a blanket policy that covers all types of development in our city, doesn't delineate between sizes of the lots.

I think this is meaning where somebody has to develop a park, this is just intended to represent that it has to be built to a park standard. So it doesn't change the requirements inherently of where a park would be required. And again, we can follow up on those thresholds.

And again, if I was unclear, this was a policy that we've had in place for the entire time I've worked here for five years. And I think in advance of that, even this was just in the new code. There was not the clarity around how we achieve what we had been doing previously. So this was a cleanup. So, again, taking into consideration some of the commentary we've heard about the concerns of the burden on metro districts and such. you know those are true statements this was not a change in policy from what was before we were clarifying that this policy is the same but if we need to have a conversation about the appropriateness of the policy that can happen at another time okay yeah that's i think that's where i'm leaning more towards but i i'm i'm great with your proposed solution otherwise thank you all right lauren keep going all right next slide These next two are particular requirements that were in the previous code. Some reason they did not get moved forward into the new code. So this first one is there are requirements in the code to have a particular type of buffer when commercial is being developed next to residential. We identified that the manufactured home legacy district was not captured in the list of residential districts where this buffer requirement is required. That was not an intended outcome of the new code. So we're looking to put it back into the requirement for that separation of a buffer between commercial and manufactured home legacy district. And in case it's of any concern, there have been no applications of this where there was a negative effect to any of our mobile home legacy districts again we caught this early we're getting it cleaned up next slide another oversight it was always in the previous code it was always intended to be carried forward but it didn't get written in the black and white of the code we've had setback requirements off wetlands of 50 feet we're looking to put that back in next slide This is the last item we want to cover tonight. I think it may be an item close to home for many of you as there's always a desire to get buildings repurposed, especially in the commercial realm for new users. We identified most recently with the Chicago Pizza down on Grant and the Fahrenheit Motors AutoZone repurposing of those buildings that we had created a process that was um extensive and time consuming for some of these minor improvements so we would like to make an adjustment more closely aligned with how we handle things in the past which is as long as something qualifies as a minor redevelopment and that is shown on this slide is something 25 or less of the gross floor area change in height and such so it's these minor things And in the case of like Fahrenheit Motors, they literally want to put a roll up garage door on the back of the building. And we had to do a much more extensive process. We would like to move these minor redevelopments into the category of a minor planning permit instead of a development permit. So we can get these turnovers and these remodels done quicker moving forward. So business friendly type of adjustment. Next slide. So we will take the feedback we've heard tonight. Sounds like we'll prepare some documents. We will provide even outside of the normal process to get you that information. We are anticipating going to the planning commission in the August, September timeframe to get their feedback on these. And then we will bring forward at a later date from there to city council for a public hearing on the ordinance. And then again, in the fall and winter, we'll be bringing forward those other amendments for phase two and for the housing choice recommendations. And that's it.

Are there any other questions from council? All right. Thank you very much. All right. We are going to take a 10 minute break to get some water, get something to eat if you need it.

And we'll see you back here in a few minutes.

all right it has been 10 minutes so i think we can go ahead and get started if everybody else is ready all right the next item on our agenda is discussing a potential charter amendment question and i will uh turn the floor over to both uh tammy ellico and kristen long so

There was some requested follow-up in terms of costs and procedures. And so with this, I'll turn it over to Tammy and Kristen.

Thanks, Tansy. So we want to go through some draft ballot question language based on council's direction to prepare that and then discuss the costs of elections. So with that, I'm going to jump right into the ballot question language. These first two sentences give context for this within the charter. And they indicate that the citizens of Thornton find that council members and the mayor are elected to serve the residents of Thornton and should remain focused on the duties and responsibilities of their elected office during their terms. The next draft sentence reads, the purpose of this subsection is to prevent conflicts between holding office on council and campaigning for another elected office during an active term on council. So again, those were put in to give some context. Those could also just go as comments along with this ballot question and stick to the remainder of the language within the question. And so the crux of it is any person serving as council member or mayor shall be deemed to have vacated and resigned from such office upon formally declaring candidacy for any elected office other than the council member or mayor. And then we go on to attempt to define formally declaring candidacy, and that is when you file a candidate affidavit, nominating petition, statement of candidacy, or paperwork to create or designate a candidate committee for purposes of seeking elected office, and then publicly announcing one's candidacy where such announcement is accompanied by any filing required under Colorado election law or taking any other official action required by federal, state, county, municipal, or special district law to qualify as a candidate for elected office. So we have attempted there in that to capture the earliest point at which candidacy is declared under state, federal, or local law as being the point at which the council member or mayor shall have been deemed to vacate the office. Also, the point of that is there's no official action that has to take place, but that by declaring, by filing, it's an automatic vacation and resignation from the seat. And then So, yeah, again, and then the next sentence is that it takes no formal action by the council or the mayor or the council. And then again, the last sentence is the mayor and council member shall within 10 days notify the city clerk upon formally declaring candidacy for any such elected office. Obviously, the purpose of that is so that we have official notice that someone has declared candidacy if the clerk has not already voted. been made aware of that by the filing and gives us a date certain by which a declaration has to be made to the city clerk. So that is the proposed ballot language. Happy to try and answer any questions on that before we move on to costs.

Council Member Russell.

Yeah, you had mentioned that the first portion could be comments. I feel like that should be comments simply because it says the citizens of Thornton. And that to me sounds like every citizen in Thornton believes that. And it's... very broad reaching in how you say that. And if this is gonna be a ballot question, I think that's a little bit influential on the vote in making it sound like, well, everybody in Thornton thinks this. And we also had brought up the discussion. I know Jan and I had a little conversation around appointments. Again, you throw your name in a hat for an appointment, there's no guarantee. You spend a year plus running or campaigning to run for a seat. And there may be an opportunity where you submit yourself into an appointment opportunity. And if it doesn't work out for you, all of your work and commitment to the city is thrown out with it because of how this reads. So I would think that there should be some language around appointments or at least the discussion among council members, as Jen and I kind of touched on it a little bit last time. And then I think statements that really are definitive, like all citizens. It doesn't say all, but it says the citizens of Thornton. So to me, that's so broad that that should probably be in comment because I think it's steering the ballot question as well.

To follow up on that question around appointments, nobody files candidacy for an appointment. Is that correct? That candidacy paperwork is only filed to actually run for the seat. An appointment itself is through, usually, if it's a state level, it's through the party, not necessarily through a candidacy through the Secretary of State.

Okay, so should residents have that clarity in the comments then too, that appointments are not part of this ballot question or part of it? So that it's, I mean, we know that, you know that obviously, but again, we're banking on residents to know that. So- Is there a point worthy of commenting on?

If I could. Yeah, that was one of our questions, Council Member Russell, is whether or not, you know, appointment should be included or if it's particularly being excluded from this.

Well, Jan, you proposed it. I mean, what's your position? And I guess give us what should we talk about? What do you think?

Well, and I was thinking along those lines, like there is the blue book as well, right, with the comments that go with it. It makes sense to put it in the comments to say, what is a candidate? And that's, I mean, some of that is outlined here where you have to have paperwork. So appointment just by the definition is not a candidate without the paperwork to go with the Secretary of State's office or whichever agency is managing that form.

Correct. We would have to expand the definition if you wanted to include appointments.

I mean, I don't know that appointment, I mean, it's such a short process. The whole point of this is to not have someone candidate or to campaign for a new position while they're in office. And an appointment usually is within a week of a notification.

Anyone else?

Yeah, Senator Byrd.

Doesn't the state constitution already have definitive definition on what a candidate is? So why would we have to rename that?

You know, not as particular as this, and I think we're trying to capture you know, every type of filing that could occur. Like, for example, if you run for a federal office, you would file some candidacy paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission. So I think we're trying to make it purposely broad so that it covers every situation where you're declaring a candidacy.

Yeah, I'm just, I'm confused because, I mean, when we started campaigning for the the council there was specific terms that were told to us or it's like if you were considered a candidate a candidate once a reasonable person can assist that you are running for an office so that's you going hey councilman Russell I'm gonna run for mayor then at that point, it's like you are now declaring yourself as that point from a reasonable standpoint. And I think that when it comes from the candidacy side to Council Member Russell's point is if you're taking donations, you're a candidate. You have a campaign running at that point. So that's kind of what I was asking for.

Yeah, incorrect. Under this definition, it's not just declaring your candidacy. It has to be accompanied by a filing. And also, you know, at any time when you have a candidate committee and you're, you know, collecting or expending funds. So it's not as much as just making a speech. In other words, you have to file the requisite paperwork to become a candidate.

Okay, well, I go back then to with the appointment. If that's clearly identified between us, I thought it would be something beneficial to residents, considering it just happened very close by with Broomfield. Everybody jumping in under Faith Winters, you know, that... A lot of questions came out of that. So I am attempting to be as clear to the public as they vote on this as possible. And should that question arise and they don't know the difference between appointments or candidacy, that's why I thought it would be a good note in the blue book. But if nobody else thinks that is... worthy or necessary for putting in the blue book, then that's fine. It was an attempt at transparency for them to understand the differences.

Yeah, and I think it is an important comment to the degree that this definition does not cover appointments. So it's official candidacy declaration and campaigning is what triggers this. And the filing of associated paperwork.

And I agree with you, Chris, I do think putting it in the blue book makes sense to clarify for clarification. But then we need 3 more council members to agree with that. Martinez.

I mean, I have a comment. I just have some. Issues with this. ballot question in general. I see that this is confusing to me is the motivation behind it. I don't necessarily think that This will stop people from running for another seat. I feel like the intent or the implied intent of this is to make people think twice about running for a seat outside of the city of Thornton's council or mayor. And I don't think this is going to be an effective deterrent on that. In that case, it's going to lead to actually more special elections. Last time we had a ballot... a proposed ballot question regarding special elections many of the people on this council were very concerned about all the added expenses that special elections have but now we're having a policy that would actually result in more of those special elections so I don't understand why some of the same people that were in support were opposed to the special elections on the grounds of added costs, we're now seeing them in support of a ballot question that will lead to more of those special elections. So it's really hard for me to really get a handle on what the motivation behind this is. To me, it reeks of politicizing and politically motivated because I can't suss out what the motivations are conflicting And so I'm not in support of this at all. And if we did have to go forward with this, it does seem... Overly vague, we didn't specifically asked for council member Russell specifically asked for having the appointment in there, but it's not. To say it's in the blue book. I mean, we had that argument last year and and again, people wanted to put the cost up front when others said, oh, we should put it in the blue book. So we have 2 conflicting sides. I don't I don't see how in the course of a year. We've just. OK, we're OK with spending all this money on special elections. It's quite a change in position. And so I really don't see the need for this at all. Nobody that I've talked to has expressed the concerns of that. And, you know, I just I'm not in support of this at all.

May I pretend my ally? Birdie, you're still muted.

Sorry. I keep thinking my headset's going to unmute me and it's not working the way it used to. Anyway, back when we put this, when we were talking about the special election last, I guess it was last year before last or last year, I had made a comment. I remember in It wasn't looked upon too good at the time, but it still aligns with this. I just think if you run for the office, you should be able to commit to the four years that you've said you're going to be in the seat. And I think that's what it comes down to. We could talk about other ballot questions, but to me, this one tied to it specifically because I have stronger feelings about running for office and then a year later running for another office and then a year later running for another office or trying to get appointed to other offices. That's a tough decision to make in a moment, but I think that what we've seen, especially with this last primary, and we see this throughout the state and probably throughout the country, is that with the political jobs that people decide to take, they decide to run sit in it for a year knowing that something else will come up and it's really not fair to the residents of Thornton for us to um get elected to the seat and then lily pad out of it as soon as we have the opportunity so um for me it's less about other ballot initiatives although I do feel this ties directly to the one that we went we did last time I feel like it's less about that and more about, like, if you're getting elected to a seat in the city of Thornton, you should commit to it for the longevity and not in the way to, like, just think, you know, I want to be appointed or not even appointed, but run for another office. Because running for office, as we all know, takes around a year. And so that's even a year, even if you don't win, that's a year that you haven't been able to fully focus on your city council role. And the folks I've talked to about it, and I really do try and stay as, you know, unbiased as possible because it's my personal feeling, but I just want to know what they would think. And a lot of people, to them, it seems like common sense. Like if I vote for you to be ward two city council member, you should be there for four years. I shouldn't, you know, have somebody, I shouldn't have to vote again the next year. I shouldn't have to have somebody appointed to the seat because you decided to do something else. If we're going to look at this as a party issue or a capacity building issue, I further have stronger feelings about that. As a former organizer, you build a broad, wide base. You don't build a linear hierarchy of people that get to step in line and move into a seat. So if we're going to really talk about building capacity for movements, whether those are Democrat or Republican or whatever movement we decide, like it could be another party, a third party. It could be people who are running specifically around certain issues. Then you should build a broad, wide base so that – you have folks there and they could be into those other seats that they need to be running in other seats. You shouldn't have to count on the people in the city council of Thornton to hop into the next seat. So I feel pretty strongly about this and I feel I can defend it myself, but like ultimately I support this wholeheartedly and that's all I'll say about it. Thank you.

Council Member Byrd.

Yeah, I'm in full support of this. I don't think that this curbs or prohibits ambition at all. I think that you're able to seek higher office if you choose to do so. But I think it should be done on your own time and in a manner that's not going to be done by the city. So it's not really a restriction. It's more of a choice for that person who wants to run. And as we as elected officials, we swore an oath and took a role to be elected and serve our duty. What does that say to the voters if we're not going to fully commit because we're trying to gain our own political prowl and progress up a ladder? I think that should actually speak monumental to voters. So then they can look at that and be like, well, you abandoned us when we needed it. Why would I vote for you the next time? So I'm 100% supportive of this.

There we go.

Sorry. I'm in support too. I guess I just don't see the same data that this will cause more special elections. It kind of will push back on that premise. So I'm in support of it.

Council Member Morris.

Hey, all good things from all the council members here. I can see kind of all sides of it. I am in support of this ballot question. I think some of the concerns, like this doesn't stop your ability to want to seek other offices. It's just saying commit to the city what you said you would commit to. And so I'm in agreement with that. And I would say the second part of that would be it would cause someone to think twice about wanting to run for something else mid-term. And I think, you know, there are financial consequences for that for the city. And so I do appreciate it, you know, I don't know, making you think twice. So I am in support. I appreciate it.

Congressman Martinez, you have something to add?

Just a few follow-up questions. So, you know, I'm hearing a lot of concerns about commitment, you know, holding your commitment. I actually share that belief. I agree with that. I think people who run and get elected to any seat, whether it's Thornton City Council or not, should do their best ability and commit to their term before running for another position. My question is, does this ballot measure really address those concerns? Is there anything in this ballot measure that would prevent somebody from running for another office before their term is complete?

I would say no, but per the terms of the ballot question, their position would be vacated and they would have been officially resigned from the office after formally declaring candidacy for any level, state, county, municipal, or special district.

Okay, so the answer is no, which means that this proposed ballot question does not even address the concerns that you have all shared with us tonight. All it will do is cost the city money when somebody makes the decision that they're going to make. I do not think that those costs are going to deter somebody who's determined for whatever reason, right? And remember, I agree that that would be, I think, the wrong decision for somebody to make, but they're gonna do what they're gonna do. And if they want to run for a higher office now, now, what we've done is we are imposing a significant cost to the city when they do that. So, 1, we haven't even addressed your concerns with this balance measure and 2, we've added significant costs. Based off of the fact that. People are going to. make their own decisions. So, you know, I guess it's unknown, right, what level of deterrence there will be. So I'm not... I'm not willing to gamble on a known cost when we don't know what's actually going to happen. So if we want to address, you know, if we want to find a ballot measure that's going to hold people to their full term, I would be more open to that. If we wanted to change this and say, you have to serve your full term unless you have some kind of legitimate reason to quit. I don't think you could even do that legally, but that is really what we're concerned about. If that's what the real concern is, We should write a ballot measure that actually addresses your concerns. This does not do that.

Councilmember Salazar.

I agree with Justin. I think that it's going to put undue stress onto the city and to our citizens. I don't understand the motivation behind this question. you know, other candidates have ran and they've done, they've lost and they still served at the city level and they did a great job and they continued to do a great job until their term was over. So I don't understand why we would penalize someone for a choice that they want to make. Council Member Aldi.

Thank you. Thank you, Tammy, for the presentation for the ballot question. So, you know, and there are other municipalities that have enacted this as well, Greeley specifically. I do know a friend of mine who is running for state rep in HD50, Tommy Butler. He was on Greeley City Council and he was forced to resign from his council position when he announced his candidacy. So, I've weighed both sides of this. That side initially, okay, I'm kind of not liking it. But then at the same time, I do understand the other side as well, why we should take this up to the voters. And what we're doing tonight is not saying, okay, we're doing it. We're gonna let the residents of Thornton make that decision. And I feel that they should have the opportunity to make that decision. So I have thought about this for quite a bit, but I think that we should move forward on this and let voters decide. And I will officially state that I will stay neutral in this process. I campaign for a lot of folks and knock doors for folks. But on this, I will stay neutral and let the residents make their decision on their own merits. And I will respect the will of our neighbors. And that's all I have.

All right. So there is consensus to move forward to support the question for the voters. And so I also support bringing the question to the voters for the various reasons that we've talked about. I think a lot of times we need to listen to the voters more often. I was criticized for not doing that before. And there's an opportunity to learn and get better with that. And so I'm going to support it as well. Chris, did you have something to add?

Yeah, I'm fine with whatever the consensus is, but we still haven't, I guess, gotten a consensus on the appointment because Tammy, you know, kind of reiterated my points that this doesn't outline that definition. So where do we sit on that piece? Because that's, you know, my biggest contribution to the conversation right now. And I'm very unclear still.

So the proposal is, we'll say the proposal on the table is to have it added to the blue book to clarify appointments. Is there any objection from council to go that route?

So I can understand. You want the ballot question to cover appointments too.

For the blue book to clarify in the discussion.

That it does cover appointments.

That it does not cover appointments. Because an appointment is not a candidate per the law.

Okay, good. I understand. And yeah, it's not in there at this time.

Okay, and the first statement then, the citizens are removing that to the comments and out of the actual ballot question, considering how you know, it reads the citizens of Thornton's all, I mean, to me, that sounds like all Thornton. So is it fair to move those position statements that are leading, in my opinion, to comments as well then? I'm fine with the question we're going to move forward with, but, you know, a small rewrite or some citizens of Thornton, something.

Or just moving the first sentence to the blue book.

Yeah, something along those lines, because it's very directional. It sounds like when you say the citizens instead of some citizens or, you know, something like that would be, I think, a little bit more factual.

And it is more of the purpose of this particular question is would do that, you know, it would do it would say that, you know, elect elected are in place to serve the residents of Thornton. It's one comment on this ballot question. So it can be written as a comment easily. So. Not a problem. Mayor Potem?

You're still muted.

Sorry, again. I will pick up to a shine with this. It's the, just the thing about, it's a very weird thing about the language. Does the whole charter, I don't have the whole charter in front of me, but does it all say citizens, or does it ever use the to serve the residents? Like, does it say the citizens? Because that's kind of weird that it says the citizens of Thornton are finding counselors who serve the residents of Thornton. Do we ever, have we ever made a decision to change all the language to residents?

I believe it is consistent with citizens. Let me just look here one minute. But yeah, we can make it consistent with every other question. And I think citizens is consistent.

So make it the citizens of Thornton find that council members and the mayor are elected to serve the citizens of Thornton? Right. Okay.

I mean, if it's being removed from the ballot question and it's not going to be in the charter per se, it will just be a comment.

Okay. And like offline, Tammy, you and I could talk about the use of the word resident and citizens and maybe just have a discussion about that.

Because I think we did that last time, Council Member Ayala, and we made it all citizens. And I think council was in agreement on that.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

Did you want to go through the costs, Mayor? We have one more slide here.

We should.

All right.

But I think without objection, then is there consensus to move that first sentence to the Blue Book. I'm hearing no objections, so we can move on to the costs, Tammy.

Okay, when we bring this back, we can do some draft comments for the night that we would adopt it. So you can refer a ballot question to the citizens by ordinance. It does require two readings. We would have to adopt the two council meeting dates in August, first reading on the 11th, second on the 28th, and then it would go on the ballot after proper notice. And then council can adopt after that if it chooses, if a majority of council chooses, they can adopt one resolution in support of it under the law. Okay, Kristen, I'll turn this over to you.

Thank you. And good evening, Council, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem Council. So the election costs listed here first are the costs for a coordinated election. So that's any election that's going to be in November that we're coordinating with the county. And you can see going back from 2019, the average cost is about 63,453. And so if we are wanting to put the ballot question on for this year, that would be your estimated cost to coordinate with the county. And that cost is not currently budgeted because we are not planning for a municipal election. We do have a municipal election scheduled for next year. And so if we wanted, if council wanted to add the ballot to that, year, it would not be an additional cost since we are already conducting an election. And then the cost for a non-coordinated special election to fill a vacancy, when we did the Ward 1 vacancy, that was $78,356. And we would estimate it to be around that same cost. And then if we needed to do a mayoral vacancy, we would estimate that to be around $300,000. And that would be to do a non-coordinated, just our own election. And then there was a question about the estimated cost for polling prior to taking this question to the voters. And so we reached out to three other cities, Westminster, Aurora and Boulder. We did hear back from one from Aurora and they did have a cost estimate for us between 34,000 and 47,000 to do that. And take any questions that council has.

Okay, first, any questions? All right, so there are two things we need to answer then. One is, do we go with this year's election? I'm assuming the ones that voted that didn't want to move this forward would be a no on this year's election, but you may surprise me. Council Member Russell.

that was going to be my my suggestion you know move forward with it that's the will or consensus of the council but to eat another seven you know 63 000 to force it this year just do it next year when we have elections because you know, out of us that are up for, you know, we'd be coming out of office anyways, if we were going for like a state level seat. So, you know, to, there are no elections that, you know, we're running for at least that I can think of considering the elections this year, this November. So there's, you know, even if it's a two year cycle, it wouldn't behoove us to get it on the ballot this year. But by next year, yeah, because then that's when there'll be another congressional race or a state race. I guess if they were running for maybe RTD or something. I don't know where all of those election years fall on, but the major ones we know are basically every two years. And this wouldn't even take effect until the next year's election, which there aren't any. There's no... congressional, it would be our election in itself. But if we're running for a different office, then there's no real resignation, I guess. So if it's possible, yeah, move forward with the ballot question. But why spend the city's and residents' tax dollars on something that's not going to change between now and next November? not this November, but the following year. Like there's no impact to rush it through this year. It's just as effective next year and it doesn't cost us anything.

All right. Council Member Byrd.

I would suggest we go ahead and move forward with it so it doesn't get lost and put on the back burner. And, you know, I think that the the fact that the election coming up is already in process and ready to go, it starts putting that wheel in motion of people who are considering to either run for their seat again or run for their office, and they need to start making that decision now.

Mayor Pro Tem?

Yeah, I think this is a matter of putting your money where your mouth is, and if we're going to make it count for the future, we should make it count for ourselves. Just like if, for example, we were to do a pay increase, we would have that go to the council after our term is up. So to me, it seems like the right thing to do. And it's just about basically putting your money where your mouth is. If you're going to say you believe in a policy, then have it apply to yourself as soon as possible.

Others? Councilmember Algi?

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I agree with Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmember Byrd as well on that.

Dave or Drew?

Yeah, I'm in agreement. Let's get this going as soon as possible. Same.

All right. We have consensus to have it on the 2026 election. Then the next question is about polling. Is there interest in doing polling?

No.

I hear a no. Is there an objection to the no? All right. I think we are good for no polling.

mayor so this would come forward on first reading august 11th and second reading on august 25th sounds good all right another great topic data centers yeah so want to recognize uh staff in the city manager's office in the city attorney's office and in planning and development so um again this is a quick turnaround from your last conversation just to paint a picture of what is the existing regulatory environment around data centers and kind of narrow in some of the options around if you were going to consider a moratorium, ways that you could add nuance or distinction in that moratorium. So thanks for I think Jessica Whitney, Mike Garrett, I think are largely going to be taking the lead on this presentation. So thanks for the staff that worked on it.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members, Mike Garrett, Planning Director. Next slide, please. So we're going to be talking an overview of data centers, as Tansy mentioned, what the existing regulations are and any potential moving forward in regulations and other type aspects of data centers themselves. So we'll do a background, the regulations proposed and existing, the benefits and impacts, and then options moving forward on this as well. Next slide. So when we kind of look at a data center and we put it in quotations because it means a lot of different things, but we did kind of summarize it in this paragraph here, basically a specialized facility for housing network of servers, computers and network infrastructures, such as IT equipment, necessary for digital services, and that's where it gets bigger into the cloud computing, AI models, streaming, banking, and other types of industries like that. Next slide. So when we look at data centers in the United States, there's over 4,400 data centers in the United States, 57 actually in Colorado. Most of the metro area, as we mentioned, there's 45. And there's one operating at Thornton, and we call that kind of a medium-scale data center as we go into talking about data centers in more complexity here in a moment. Next slide. So the type of data centers that exist that have pretty much been determined by the industry and by many local governments throughout the country, everything from what they call micro or edge data centers, a lot of them are rated by either the building size or the power demand that they have. Some are equivalency to the number of homes they'd serve otherwise. So you can imagine the smaller ones would provide maybe it's a cell tower, maybe it's a hospital campus, an industrial facility. Then you start getting bigger into what they call enterprises, which often will serve like a university, for example, or governmental agency. Again, they're using a little bit more energy and they're a little bit bigger in their size as well. Then we're getting bigger scale kind of more that we kind of see in Thornton is more of a regional co-location facilities. These do have a tendency to serve, in some cases, multiple states. They co-locate many providers. In this case, they could use a consumption of somewhere over 50,000 units. What we're hearing more and more about are these hyperscale, and a lot of communities are actually segregating those from the other types of data centers because they are such a large, more impactful. They're often very high energy demanding type of facilities, both electrics, water, natural gas, we're using that as well for some elements. Building sizes, they could be massive, often well over 250,000 square feet, in some cases, two to three million square feet in size. So there's a huge, immense amount of fiscal capital that goes into creating these and developing these. And these facilities are used for emerging AI technologies. They provide global internet platforms and really enhance the cloud data environment as well. Next slide. We're looking at the current regulations in Thornton. So we define it in light industry as just a standalone as your list of other uses as just data centers. Again, it's an air quote. They're permitted in the business park or BP zone districts employment center legacy, which again, we don't zone anything that anymore in industrial legacy zone districts. Within there, there's a limitation in mixed use of up to 10,000 square feet size. So again, a very small facility would be allowed to occur potentially. And it must include a retail center, which would be highly unlikely to see that kind of data center being constructed in Thornton. We do not have design standards when it comes to data centers in our current codes. We would have a water use agreement for anything that exceeds 10 acre feet a year requiring water. That's something we'd do today if somebody came in and requested a high water use, regardless of what type of user it may be. noise is evaluated for in this slide shows except industrial and then you'll see industrial below this so typically 60 decibels non-residential areas 55 at night industrial areas 80 decibels allowing a little bit more noise of course than 75 at night so that'd be a criteria that we look under today but looking at Thornton as a whole we don't have the guardrails in our codes to do much in the way of regulating them as you would see other communities as they develop new codes to react to data centers and the hyperscaling facilities in particular. So the last slide I have before we move on to economic development is the zoning map. And what you're going to see here is basically the purples and kind of a pinkish purple. Those are areas that potentially could have data centers, and those predominantly are along I-25 and more specifically kind of where our industrial parks are up near E-470 and I-25 area. Again, those would be the areas that you might be able to get one if they can meet all the other regulations the city already has when it comes to regulating data centers. So next slide, Adam.

Yeah, thanks, Mike, and good evening. Can you guys hear me okay? Okay. Great, okay. I'm gonna talk a little bit, Mike mentioned it. We do have an existing data center in Thornton, and that is Google. They're in Washington Square Business Park, about 105,000 square feet. They've been there since 2008, and they have around 100 employees in that operation. We also have another existing building right at 120th and I-25, the 12-121 Grant Building, which is where Avaya is and the MIR Group. That building has some vacant space, about 60,000 square feet of vacant data center space. Their floor is divided kind of half and half, 30,000 square foot footprints, and half of those are our data center and the other half our office space. And so the data center component is vacant there in that building. And we do not have any data center projects currently in the pipeline. It looks like we have a question there, Council Member Morris.

Yeah. Thanks for confirming the data centers in our city. And I didn't know about the Grand Street one or the Avaya building. But between these two sites, What would they be categorized under that? I guess the little chart that Mike had about like the different sizes

Yeah, it would be more that regional data center level. They're certainly on the smaller scale. I'm going to give you an example here on the next slide of kind of more of that hyperscale, that larger footprint development. Yep, there it is right there. Nice timing on that one. Thanks, Kristen. Hopefully that answers your question, Councilman Morris.

So, yeah, just if we could go back. Could you go back to that slide with the categories slide? So you said it would be more of the regional size? Is that just based on square foot?

Yeah, mostly just based on square foot. The demand for the 12-121, I think they can get up to close to 10 megawatts. They're not there right now, but they could ultimately get up to that point. So I guess right now they're probably closer to that enterprise, but they could have the capacity to get up a little bit higher.

Okay, that's helpful to just have context on what we're looking at here. Thank you.

Yeah, sure. No, I know it can be kind of confusing with the different types. But we did want to share an example. So this is a previous application we had. This project is no longer active in the city, but we did work with them over last year and the year before. uh, on a potential location in the city. Uh, this was, this is that, that hyperscale data center. This is over a million square feet. These are six buildings, about 200,000 square feet each. And this was their, um, their working site plan. Uh, they had on this site, they would have had to rezone, uh, because it was not zoned for, uh, for what they were looking to do. So there would have been a rezone required. They were not going to utilize, um, water for cooling. They were going to cool with electricity. So they were not using, the water demand was pretty low, but they were going to use a significant amount of power. So I think there's a question from Council Member Byrd.

And real quick, Council Member Morris, did you have another question or do you need to put your hand down?

I need to put my hand down. Thank you. Council Member Byrd.

You said this was a previous applicant that came through. I'm curious around a couple of things. One is you said that they weren't really using any water systems, which tells me that they were probably either doing energy or a closed loop system to keep everything cool. The second is that in this diagram here, it shows a substation. Is that an existing substation that was already there or is that something they were working out with with the utility companies?

They were going to have that built on site with the utility company. Yep. So that substation does not currently exist.

And then when they came to the city regarding this build-out, had they already spoken with the energy companies and the utilities to make sure that the power subsidies would be there?

They had significant conversations with the utilities throughout the project to ensure that they weren't going to be building all of these buildings at once. They were going to build them in phases. And so they didn't need all the power they would ultimately need in the beginning. They phased that up. And so they were working with the utility companies from the very beginning, from the get-go.

Thank you. And one last thing before we continue on is when the decision came about the location itself, was that a consideration on the reasoning why they chose that location? Was it because of the approximate location that the utilities would be able to help service it?

Certainly the utilities were a big factor. The site itself was a good deal on the site. A lot of times with data centers they want to find affordable land and affordable power. Those are kind of their two big things. And they were getting, I think, a pretty good deal on this particular land at the time. And I think they felt that they could achieve their utility operations that were needed. So That was kind of the big piece. They also had planned a number of buildings throughout different cities in the Denver metro area to support their growing operations. This was going to be one of a number of buildings and the location of this fit really well with kind of the locations of their other building or their other campuses, I should say.

Thanks. I'll hold the rest for later.

Great. Maybe next slide, Kristen. So I did just want to touch on some of the benefits. of these projects, and these have been mentioned briefly, but we're really kind of using that hyperscale model from before, that example from the application we had last year. Significant financial impact. So that should be a 200,000 square foot building. I apologize. 200,000 square foot building equaled about 10 to 15 million in tax revenue over 10 years. That's per building. And they were going to put six buildings on. So you can see the really significant financial impacts there. They do have high paying jobs, though they're not usually as many. So they're usually six figure jobs. But in the scope of how large these campuses are, they are the job count is not as significant as, you know, manufacturing operation or something like that. And then once construction is completed, they do have minimal traffic impacts. They're generally just people coming to, just the employees coming to work and they like to kind of stay pretty private. So there's not usually a ton of impacts. Council Member Bird, do you have a question?

Yeah, the 10 to 15 million, is that the ongoing recurring revenue for equipment and stuff as it's going on or is that the one time upfront payment for the initial construction and equipment purchase?

Yeah, so it's actually over a 10-year period. This particular project was replacing their equipment like every three to five years. And so these are estimates based on the numbers they gave us over a 10-year period per building. And they do not include a real property tax, just a use tax and business personal property tax.

Thank you.

Now I think we're going to turn it over to Emily Hunt to talk impacts.

Thanks, Adam. Good evening, Council Emily Hunt, Interim Utilities and Infrastructure Director. So, we've been talking a lot about both the energy and the water demand. And just to back up a bit, you know, the reason that these data centers do have so much demand on either energy or water is because of the cooling technology that's required in order to ensure that the servers at the data center don't overheat. And so, It's kind of one or the other. Water-cooled data centers use significant amounts of water, but they consume less energy. So just think of like giant evaporative cooling systems. These are used in various parts of the country, depending on climate, depending on what's more appropriate. If it is a water-cooled data center, they can really use massive amounts of water, 100 million gallons a year to about 1.5 billion gallons. Just for context, 100 million gallons a year can serve approximately 1,000 single-family homes. So it's a pretty big water demand. Mentioned that water is also used for evaporative cooling. which means that virtually all of the water is actually consumed. Whereas in a typical residential home, water goes into the home, water goes down the toilet, water goes into the ground. A lot of that water comes back to us and we're able to reuse and reclaim that water. But in something like a data center, it's completely consumptive. So everything that goes to the data center is essentially consumed and we don't have the benefit for that reuse. So it makes it kind of an enhanced burden on a water utility. On the other hand, if data centers decide to not use water, the alternative is to essentially use energy, air conditioning, that sort of thing. That means that there's not a lot of water being used at all, just kind of for indoor uses for the employees and ancillary uses like that. But the energy demands get really large, 20 megawatts all the way up to 800 megawatts, depending on the size. And you've seen those slides previously. There are some that use kind of a hybrid model where They might be using water cooling at very specific times of the year when energy demand is high and water maybe isn't so high. So there are some hybrid ones. One thing I did want to mention about the water in terms of Thornton specifically, Mike mentioned briefly that we have this process that we call our commercial water use agreements process. And this is something that's relatively new. We've had it for less than five years. And essentially what it requires is that any commercial user that comes to the city, whether it's a new build all the way to a tenant finish, they have to submit a water use questionnaire. And they tell us how much water they think they're going to use over the course of a year. Our staff and water resources evaluates that based on the industry that they are proposing. And if it's under 10 acre feet, we kind of consider that to be a nominal water user. If it's over 10 acre feet, they go into this separate process where the city kind of has two options. One, we can determine that we simply don't have the water to serve. a large demand or we don't want to provide the water to serve a large demand. Alternatively, if we can enter into a water use agreement with that user where we've determined that we have sufficient supply, but we want to really be able to regulate that supply and make sure that they don't go over the estimate that they've provided us. And so that's a really important point, and I think it's a really important tool that the city has, that if we were to get an application like this, the water use agreement, it's in code and it's also supported by state statute. It kind of allows us to take a pause to evaluate the demand of a specific commercial water user and make a determination as to whether or not we can move forward, and if so, under what terms.

Councilmember Byrd has a question.

Yes, since Thornton owns our own water utility, and there's a water use agreement already in place, specifically anything that's over 10 acre feet. For 100 million gallons, we're talking a little over 300 acre feet of water, that would already kick off that water use agreement anyway, correct?

That's correct. It would kick them into an evaluation to determine whether or not we think we have the adequate supply and whether or not we want to serve them. If we do want to serve them, they absolutely will have a water use agreement that we can put some additional conditions on.

And I see a lot of the impacts of this on here. Is this also including closed-loop systems that are actually going to be able to run through things similar to Parker's setup, where one they just got approved is actually a closed-loop water system instead of being a full-on evaporative cooling system?

Yeah, we'd look at what that demand is. Even closed-loop systems still require the initial water that goes into it and then some replenishment. So they'd still go through the evaluation process. And we'd understand how much that closed loop system would use on an annual basis. And if they fell under the 10 acre feet, we'd probably still kind of monitor them, but they wouldn't need a water use agreement. If they go over it, then like you said, it's not going to be as much as a full evaporative one. So it just kind of depends on exactly what that closed loop system requires.

Gotcha. And to shift gears and kind of touch base on the energy side of things again, since, I mean, we own our own water company, so that's something we can control with that water usage. But since we don't own an energy company and run our things through that, since it's all PUC, and we share the same grid as Tacono, Erie, Brighton, what specific kind of energy impacts can council regulate through the land use? If we say, you know, we're going to just simply decline and not let you do this, what's to stop them from going to Brighton and using the same energy grid anyway?

That's a good question, and I actually don't know the answer to what we can regulate in terms of energy usage. I would presume probably not a lot because, as you said, it's outside of our authority, but we could definitely look into that a little bit more unless someone has an answer that they want to pop in with.

Yeah, I think that our biggest Threshold of control around everything is kind of the water aspect. So I'd be curious if there's actually anything we can do from the energy aspect of it.

Council member want to clarify you're talking about could we intervene and another municipality that was planning to permit something that would be in a shared. Distribution system is that the question?

No, my question is more of if I want to design a building that uses 800 megawatts, what can the city do to prevent me from doing that if the power company says we don't care how much power you're utilizing?

Okay, but you're talking about if it's something within our municipal boundaries.

Correct. Let's say it's a manufacturing facility, but it uses 100 megawatts of power. That consumption is still a power consumption, whether it's a manufacturing facility to build Teslas or it's a data center. It's still using an immense amount of power. Do we have any control around that, or is our main element of control just the water aspect?

And I can speak a little bit to that, Councilmember Burke. And we can, when it comes to something within our boundaries, set those limits, but to your point that we can't do anything if a data center or any other high energy user wanted to go into another city or town that shares the same power grid as us. So it would have that cumulative effect still, but we could regulate within our own boundaries.

Yeah, and that brings up my point of more that if they're looking into the same grid, the Thornton rate payers that are paying for the energy consumption are still being affected regardless, but we're not getting any of the incentives off of it. We're just hitting the impacts.

I'll keep moving through this slide. One thing I also wanted to say just on the water side again, one thing that's a little uncertain is the wastewater discharge that comes out of these systems, whether it's water-cooled, air-cooled, anything, that's just something that would require some additional investigation. We've had industries that came through that had impact on the city's wastewater system. And then Metro Water Recovery is actually the entity that treats the city's wastewater as well as a lot of the wastewater around the metro area. They would also likely have an evaluation process. if there was wastewater discharge that, you know, had constituents in it that they were concerned about treating or needed to regulate. So just one other piece of a potential impact out there. In terms of noise, you know, these cooling systems can be quite loud, whether evaporative or air cooled. So that's something that is, and just the sheer number of of systems that they have to keep the temperatures down that can be, they can be noisy. Um, and then, uh, a lot of these, uh, and, uh, these data centers have backup generators, diesel generators. And so the noise that's associated with those as well as potential emissions that come from those. So kind of a high level, uh, overview of, of potential impacts with the data centers, as well as, um, you know, what, what the city has, uh, in terms of, uh, levers to pull.

So we'll move to the next slide. And I think that's it for me. Yes, and this is me.

So we will talk a little bit. I won't spend a lot of time on this because I know we all just are still recovering from the legislative session. But there were a couple different data center, kind of competing data center bills that came up last legislative session. One was trying to promote data centers to try to make us more competitive with Wyoming and Texas, added tax incentives, investment requirements, renewable energy. Then there was another, SB 26102, that really was trying to more regulate these data centers. And there's just a couple of examples of how the state was attempting to regulate the big one, is to address some of the energy concerns that were raised. By 2031, large data centers would have to match 100% of their annual electricity consumption with renewable energy. They also would have to pay their own infrastructure costs to attempt to eliminate cost shifting to other utility customers. A utility could deny service. They could say that... that if the project would reduce electricity reliability, if it would interfere with clean energy requirements, and if the utility's greenhouse gas emissions would increase for the following 15 years, an energy utility could deny a hookup request. It would eliminate any ability to discount electric rates. It included water use restrictions. And one of the main concerns with, as mentioned by Emily previously, with these are the backup generators. And this proposed legislation would have limited the use of those backup generators specifically to they could only run during emergencies or limited testing. And they could not be used for trying to shave off peak energy usage, economic dispatch, routine grid support, anything like that. There was extensive annual reporting, and it did grant, specifically grant local governments land use authority over certain site assessment aspects with these data centers. And again, neither of these were able to make it through the state, but it is an indication that they will probably be back next year, something along these lines for next year. And next slide, please. And we have recently had several local municipalities and counties take action related to data centers. Here are some examples. Moratorium, we have Denver, Woodland Park, Broomfield on the larger data centers, Jefferson County, Larimer County, Boulder County, six months on, again, the larger data centers. And Longmont has recently completely banned those hyperscale data centers. So those have been completely eliminated in Longmont. Can I have the next slide, please? And then we have a couple different examples here of types of regulation. So Weld County and Logan County have taken a couple different approaches here. Weld County essentially just defined data center. They defined it very broadly, and they said, okay, this is going to be a permitted use with a special use permit in our light industrial zone. And then it was a use by right in industrial zones and with an administrative review. So they did not create... a very specific regulatory scheme for these data centers. They just define the use and said it can go here, here, and you can point it in these different zone districts. Logan County is sort of the opposite approach. They took a very comprehensive regulatory scheme with these data centers. They It applies to, as you can see here, all data centers with a nameplate capacity equal to or greater than one megawatt. And the nameplate capacity is essentially just the energy draw. You have to do an impact analysis with a location map, a conceptual site plan. You have to plan out access routes. There was impact fees built into the regulations. It also, interestingly, requires a plan submittal to the Department of War. I don't quite understand the logic behind that, but it's in there. So we've got kind of two different schemes that different Colorado counties have come up with, and just some additional things that other municipalities across the country have looked at. Again, there have been several across the country that have banned hyperscale data centers, limiting to industrial areas. They would protect utility customers by requiring that there are not any costs shifting onto existing rate payers. A lot of types of requiring environmentally low impact construction and site design practices, public hearings, conditional use permits, noise standards. All of these are the types of regulations that we are seeing coming up around the country that are things that can be looked at as well. Can I have the next slide, please? And so we have a couple different options here when it comes to data centers legally as we sort through all of this information and decide how we want to proceed. We have the pending ordinance doctrine or we have moratorium. Pending ordinance doctrine essentially just allows us to tell anyone who submits an application, whoa, wait, we're not going to accept this application. We are currently working on regulations. And once we get those regulations in place, then we will accept your application. And the ordinance does have to be legally pending, which is essentially we would have, staff would have to be working on it. We can't just say, oh, it's an idea floating around in the ether. Staff actually has to be taking steps towards regulation. And in terms of duration, we just can't unreasonably or arbitrarily refuse or delay the issuance of a permit. But as long as we are actively working on regulations, we could legally either refuse to accept an application or refuse to issue a permit. And then The other, and this would not require any council action other than, you know, informally directing staff to start working on regulation. And can I have the next slide, please? And the other route is an official moratorium. And this would require council action, and this would formally stop any type of application from being filed. And the purpose of this is to allow, to maintain the status quo, which at this point is just the one smaller scale data center in Thornton. That would allow staff to really dig in and study and really make the best decision for Thornton. And this must be reasonable under the circumstances. And generally reasonable has been six to 12 months. If you get longer than 12 months for a moratorium, the courts get a little, it does get a little more scrutiny from the courts. But six to 12 is a pretty safe duration for a moratorium, and it can be extended or removed as appropriate by subsequent ordinance. So, for example, if we realize if a 12-month moratorium is put into place and six months in, we realize, oh, we've got everything ready to go, that can be undone via ordinance as well. And when we are, if a moratorium is something to be considered, it can be tailored to, do you want it to apply to only hyperscale? Do you want it to apply to all? So it can be fairly nuanced and detailed, which the pending ordinance doctrine is really just kind of broad-based, and you don't get into that level of detail. And again, that would require a council action. And I believe that is our last slide. Yes.

Council Member Byrd.

Not specifically for you, but back on slide seven, the city has the zoning district similar data centers could possibly be approved right now. I'm confused on some of that data that's there. And I also have a question regarding that. The area north of 168 between I-25 and County Road 11, and Weld County. There's essentially directly to the east of that, there's the water treatment plant for North Glen. Is there any reasoning on why that wouldn't have already been zoned as appropriate? Because I can guarantee you no restaurant wants to build right there, so...

I can try to answer that question. So the property, that property is in Broomfield's corporate limits. As of today, I'm not aware of any requests for them to do anything in the data center specific, and I'm not sure about their water availability to do such a thing at this point. But yeah, we've not received any referrals from them at all about that type of use up there.

Okay. And then with I know that we have area that's essentially pretty close to that same spot. It's hard to tell on this map exactly what that, but it seems like it's not included in that same general area.

So about 160th, just north of B470 and south of B470, that'd be an area that could potentially have data centers under the zoning districts today. That's that purple and kind of, I don't know what color to call it.

On the map currently, we also don't have anything that's coming out with the annexation ability that we had from Weld County.

No, this map does not go into Weld County. The north part is 168th and Weld County Road 2.

Yeah, just curious on if there was going to be included into the future ideas around that, because that's another area where there's just a whole lot of nothing up there right now.

So zoning wouldn't be applied to those parcels until they were annexed, if they were annexed.

Yeah, so in my opinion, in this case, that would mean that this right here would just be kind of a misleading map. being that we have land that's available as well that just hasn't been zoned yet because we have the annexation already in place. We're just waiting for that to go through the actual council policy.

No, it has not been annexed. So that's a future decision of the council whether or not to annex it. And at the time you annexed it, you would apply zoning too. Yep.

Correct. We went through the intergovernmental agreement to make sure that we have that ability to annex it in that situation. Correct.

It is in the growth, the planned growth areas. Sorry, we misunderstood your question.

Was that it, Devin? Okay, thank you. Councilmember Martinez.

I would like to learn more about the water use agreements that we have. Any use over 10 acre feet per year requires a water use agreement, regardless of what kind of development is. So could you expand upon that and tell us what kind of things go into a water use agreement, how they benefit the city, how they benefit the applicant? and what kinds of controls and leverage the city can use to protect its residents' interests with those water use agreements.

Yeah, thanks, Councilmember Martinez. So they only apply to commercial users. It doesn't apply to residential developments at all. And we've probably been doing them for about three or four years. And the main reason that we did them was because commercial users can be anything from a gas station, which hardly uses anything, all the way up to a media, a hospital, that sort of thing. And so the variability of water use within a commercial customer is really vast and we needed to have a way to understand that demand and regulate it as well. So if a commercial user is determined to be kind of a high water user, which is around that 10 acre feet a year, Our current agreements are basically kind of hold them to the estimate that they've provided us and that we've validated. So let's say it's a bakery or something like that, and they think they're going to use around 15 acre feet a year. We essentially put them, the water use agreement puts them on a water budget. and says that you're allowed to use 10 acre feet a year. We then monitor that usage and if they go over that usage, they can be penalized by kind of going instantly to tier four rates. We can also renegotiate the water use agreement with them You know, they're expanding their operation or something like that. I think we can put additional protections in the water use agreement that we haven't done yet. Ours right now have been pretty just, what's your annual use? We're going to put you on a budget for that. And if you go over it, we're going to either revise the agreement or penalize them. So that's kind of how they're structured right now. And we probably have about a little over 20, 25, I think, on the books. And the way that it benefits our residents and the way that it benefits the utility is, as I said, it really allows us to understand that commercial water demand and understand the impact that different commercial uses are having on the city, making sure that we have adequate supply. It kind of flags some things for us around system capacity. The effluent that I mentioned, some of these big water users are also big wastewater dischargers. So it kind of is a nice pause that allows us to understand the overall impact of a commercial user. It's really just a demand management strategy from our standpoint. I think I hit most of your questions, but if I missed something, and Jessica can probably jump in as well. She's the attorney behind all of the agreements, so we work closely with her.

Okay, yeah, that is very helpful. So, you know, I did hear you mention that there are certain, there are definitely opportunities to expand the scope of water use agreements for extreme, you know, at the higher end of water use that, you know, potentially could be one of those scaled data centers that use the evaporative coolant. you know, however you want to characterize that, um, that, or, or any other kind of industrial user that uses, um, you know, at, you know, at the one percentile or more, right. The highest percentage use of water in the city. Um, there's, there's more room for that. That's, that's right. That's what you said.

Uh, there's more room for, uh, For them to use additional water? Is that what you were asking?

No, what I mean, I'm sorry. I wasn't being very clear. No, you're fine. I mean, there's more opportunities to enhance our water use agreements, add more provisions, things that don't exist now in our water use agreements. There's opportunities to add other protections in there that can ultimately serve our residents and our businesses.

That's correct.

Okay. That's my question.

Now, to Monroe, so you had your hand up, but you took it down. Did you have a question?

Yeah, I was curious because they were talking about the water, and so Emily had mentioned that we can reassess their water usage or put them to tier four. I guess the concern is if they're like an alphabet or a company with a lot of money, is there any insurance like, sure, we'll just pay your tier four rates from whatever, August through the end of the year, and we'll do that every year. but we're burning through the city's water. So can we ever, at that point, I mean, they've built a facility. Is there any way to stop that usage or just charge them a lot? And if they don't care about the bill, we're still just putting a lot of water into one facility. Is there any measures beyond a higher charge after we've gone down that path? And if it were negative, how do we pull ourselves out of that situation?

I can address, and then Emily, if you have anything you want to add. The answer is yes. We actually, when we wrote the code, we specifically made these water use agreements a condition of a water service permit. So if they do violate the water use agreement, it is technically a violation of their water service permit, and we can shut their water. There is a process we would have to follow in all of that, but yes, we could.

Okay.

Emily, is there anything you'd like to add?

Other questions from Council?

I would just love to see some areas outside of Ward 4 for these potential data centers because you know our residents and Drew and I's feelings that we're seeing a lot of these large employer, industrial, manufacturing, just all taking over the north side of the city. Throwing some data centers in there is, I can already tell you, it's not going to be well received. I was speaking to Devin and telling him about what I thought of the land north of 168th if we were to annex it next to the water treatment facility. At least there it would be out of sight, out of mind. When I made that suggestion to him, I I wasn't implying that we could go that path right now because we haven't gotten through any type of annexation or even the study at that point, but I would love an opportunity maybe to reduce some of those opportunity areas for data centers in Ward 4 because there's quite a bit and it's already, like I said, a very commercial northern part of the city that residents are calling it the commerce city of you know portion of thornton so um go east with these or spread them out between fracking sites and commercial and employment centers and industrial and manufacturing like north thornton and ward 4 is is not looking like what i think the residents are envisioning and they're already upset so with the only real opportunity being in ward four a little bit in ward one i noticed on that map i would highly suggest that us as a body of council maybe consider some other locations and i know we can't make that consideration right now without the well annexation but It is not going to be well received if this is the majority of locations in which we could establish a data center or allow one to be developed. That's going to be a very fierce fight.

Councilmember Martinez.

Yeah, to add to Chris's comments, you know, the other, albeit much smaller cluster is down in South Thornton. And that matches a pattern that, you know, I've learned through listening to some representatives from advocacy groups around the country that a big pattern that they're seeing with these types of developments is they're targeting communities that have higher population of you know, lower income or marginalized residents. And that's certainly a pattern that we saw in Denver when they proposed a data center for Globeville. It's something that's a pattern that we see across the country. And so, you know, the bigger theme of this, you know, when you go to slide number 13 on that, you see a diverse set of communities right here in Colorado from Denver all the way to Woodland Park. Two very different communities with two very different politics that govern those communities. Both of them have agreed upon moratorias for data centers. And if you look across the country, you'll see an even more diverse spectrum of different types of communities who are concerned about the lack of regulatory power that they have when it comes to protecting their residents and ensuring that their residents' interests are being fought for by their elected officials. And so taking a step back, I think that these data centers are widely unpopular across the country. I think that's a fact that it's really hard to argue against it. No matter what community you go in where there's a data center proposal right now, the community is very hostile towards that proposal. The hostility may or may not be based on accurate information, but regardless of whether their sentiments are based on facts or rumors or just feelings that they have based off of the broader nationwide conversation, their sentiments are real and they're something that we need to address directly as leaders of those communities. And if we were to proceed, you know, if we were to receive an application or if we were to try to do something without a proper deep Stakeholding process that engages the community and learns why what what are the reasons and also maybe even expanding to an education campaign right if we want. If we want data centers in our community and we've seen on some of these slides there's financial benefits certainly those financial benefits, no matter how large they are are not worth it if you don't have any of the Community buying into it. If you build these data centers or if you allow them to be built without taking in the feelings of the community and learning from them and trying to get them on your side with facts, you've lost the public trust and that's more important than any amount of revenue when it comes to a local government. That is our job is to build and maintain the public trust. And so one of the reasons why I introduced a moratorium, because I think that that gives us time to not only look at the different regulatory issues that we saw earlier on a slide, we heard from Mike who said that we don't really have the guard rails from a land use perspective on that. Well, we need time to build that, but we also need time to engage with our community and make sure that their voices are heard and that we have an opportunity to educate them on the facts of what data centers, what benefits there are to data centers and what the real impacts there are. Because right now they're operating on the national conversation, which isn't entirely based off of facts. So I don't think it's right for us to allow these types of developments to happen when there's such a hostile environment. widespread across political spectrum sentiment against these types of developments. So we've also heard that there's opportunities to enhance our water use agreements as well. So there's many different facets of these data centers and the regulatory power that we have as the city of Thornton that we can investigate along with the stakeholding side, which I absolutely think is critical, that I think it's really incumbent upon us to go forward with a 12-month moratorium as I proposed a couple weeks ago that will give us time to investigate all the different ways that we can protect the interests of our residents because above all else that is why we are here that is what we are meant that is those are the people who put us here in these positions to represent their interests and if we don't do that we are failing them so again I'm going to advocate for what I originally introduced is the 12-month moratorium so that we can properly investigating what it's going to take and what it means to have a data center proposals into our community.

So the proposal on the floor is a 12 month moratorium. Devin.

Yeah, I don't think a 12 month moratorium is necessary, but A couple of things. One of the things that was mentioned when I mentioned Weld County, we said we haven't discussed anything as far as annexation into Weld County. The city of Thornton already owns 165 properties in Weld County, three of which are actually on County Road 2, and part of which is in our IGA agreement of what we were wanting to annex anyway. I think that's something worth noting is that we actually already owned land in the area that we were discussing annexing. The second part of that is that we had conversations around land use guardrails. That's already in place. We had conversations around water use and how you have to go into a water use agreement. That's already in place. So I don't think a moratorium is going to Add anything that we already don't have in place that we can't just work towards on a better strategy and policy than an outright blanket. We can't do this.

That's number algae.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the presentation again. And, you know, two weeks ago when we, you know, first discussed when Councilmember Martinez brought it to the floor and I support a moratorium. I'm still in much so. i did not ask the question weeks ago but it was brought up that we it's not an ironclad one so that makes easier even easier for me to support a moratorium at this time because we can come back and say okay we have everything in place as a city we have updated our ordinances and our in our zoning codes to you know to ensure the protections are there for our residents and plus that gives time um for our as i said two weeks ago in planning session We have a general election coming up in November, and once again, assuming what happens, it doesn't matter. We're on the dais. We have to go by whoever happens to win that election. That's who we're going to work with, whether in the governor's office, the attorney general's office, because we're going to have a new governor, attorney general, new legislature will be in place, and give them the chance also to come up with the data center legislation for next year's session. um that gives time for us to improve our ordinances it gives time for the state to come down with some guidelines and laws uh to help protect our neighbors um i do um you know agree with devin though you know they do bring up bring a huge fiscal impact um you know short long term to communities but still the what councilman martinez said i agree with even more because you know it doesn't matter what side iron in our nation um data centers are extremely unpopular um and and they're worried about you know the electricity use worry about the water use and in our situation you know we're in a drought right now and law folks are concerned about water use all around so that's another thing that we have to strongly consider um so a moratorium will help ease those concerns somewhat, and then we can do the proper outreach and community. And then we could possibly move forward on this. So that's all I have on it.

So John, you support a 12 month moratorium?

Yes, ma'am. And also with a to extend it if things in place so in our ordinances and codes um that we can be able to handle it then i will be able to remove the moratorium early if if the requirements are met all right council member morris it's a couple questions here um based on some of the things that came up so

We talked about the water or sewage site that North Glen Oaks in Weld County, just north of the city. I know that, or at least I've heard that they're looking at, they're changing that area into like a light industrial area and giving themselves some economic opportunity in that area. Do we know, or have you heard any talks or what they're planning to do data center wise in that area?

I don't know if we know specifically around data centers. We have reached out to the city of North Glen to coordinate on our Weld County. They're on the technical steering committee to coordinate their planning with our planning. That effort is pretty early on. I don't know that Mike Garrett will be able to speak to that kind of off the cuff. That might be a better thing for us to follow up and inquire of North Glen.

Yeah, there's something to consider since they're on our border and the potential that we might be even closer to them in the future at that site. So I would echo Council Member Russell's concerns around the proximity of some of these or the potential based on the zoning of having that business park and that employment center and the way that that kind of expands from Washington East and North and puts us kind of right against some residential neighborhoods, especially some that are being annexed. being built just south of home depot there off highway 7. so um with that is there the ability to do more location restrictions uh like you know we know that we have two right now or the potential for two at in the washington business park uh or we have like uh devon or councilmember bird mentioned that we have some future areas that could be potentially annexed that could house those, or can we go deeper than zoning to specific locations in the ordinance?

Let me make sure I just understand your question. So it would essentially be a targeted moratorium saying, and I'm just going to make up an area for an example, like no data center could go at 160th and Washington.

the for the duration of 12 months something like that or the kind of the opposite which is more permissive which is you can only build a data center in this site or at this site uh like right now there's washington business business park which um is 124th and grant and up to 120th and uh grant and And I specifically would mention that place because we have the Google data center there, and then Avaya has their building there. So could you do it like that where you are just picking a location in the city that allows the development of those in this site?

And for clarity, you're not asking related to a moratorium, you're asking relating to changing regulations that allow the use only in a- Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, that feels more like a zoning amendment to me. And Tammy, if you disagree, obviously feel free to speak up, but that to me feels like a zoning amendment that would go through a normal zoning amendment process.

Okay.

Agreed. That's right. Yeah.

Okay. And then on that same line of thinking, is because Avaya, the Avaya building already has constructed a part of their building to support a data center, do we have any, is there potential for a legal issue from that ownership if we said, hey, by the way, you can't do data centers in Thornton for the next X amount of months? Should that be a consideration?

Well, if we were to draft a moratorium, it would only apply going forward, so it would not impact those that are already entitled and operating.

Well, so that's my concern. So the building exists, at least Adam told us, they built it to support a data center, but there is no data center there yet.

Yeah, and I think that in order to operate a data center in there, the use has already been applied. So they would not have to go through any city processes unless maybe just getting tenant improvement permits. They would not have to go through any city processes to put a data center in there. So I think in that circumstance, there's not much we could do about the Avaya building.

Okay. So a moratorium in this case would be kind of a –

a moot point because we could still have a data center open up because it already exists at least infrastructure already exists at that site yes but that that is one of the it's not that hyperscale um data center that is um you know the the ones that we see in the news that are causing all the issues that is a smaller site but to your point you are correct okay

And, you know, is there any real, I mean, I saw the slide, like two different, one council is involved and then one we're not. But the difference between a moratorium and a pending ordinance, you know, a pending ordinance seems like it accomplishes the same thing, which is we're actually doing work. to figure out regulations that make sense for our city, and we're actually taking action from a staff perspective, and we're not doing a moratorium just for performance value. Am I correct?

From a legal perspective, yes. From a policy perspective, it does take a little bit of pressure off staff to be able to say, wait, there's a moratorium in place, versus, hold up, we're working on this. So that, I think, is really... Yeah, the moratorium has more teeth. So the moratorium... And we can get more nuanced in a moratorium. We can focus on solely hyperscale, we can focus on... It can just be more nuanced than pending ordinance.

Sure. Okay. I guess I would agree that 12 months seemed a little excessive when we do have some things that already exist in our city and we have the ability to take some action sooner, but I am open to other thoughts from the council.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Okay. Can we go back to the last slide of the two options that were given?

Before questions, yeah.

Okay, so I'm just trying to make sure I understand this correctly. So there's the only way that we could stop any new data centers would be just to do the moratorium. There isn't another option, like you said, to put the, there was another terminology used for it, but to put a stop to the data centers pending our ability to create regulation.

The pending ordinance doctrine?

Yes. That's not like really on here. It just says potential. It's the slide previous. Okay. So can we go back to that one, please? okay so i guess my question is is between these two options when you when you spoke of the first option it sounds like it would keep our city staff continuously working on regulation yes that's the staff has to be actively working on regulations yes So this kind of gives us a legal obligation to be working on regulation and getting more regulation in place sooner rather than later on the city level. I feel like, I guess what I feel like is the second option might make it so that we're just putting kind of like a ban on it for the six or 12 months or whatever, and then at the end we're just not working towards the regulation we need for the city. It seems like this would be a more progressive approach to take concerning the need for immediate regulation. So I guess I was just, out of the two options, I was a little surprised that some folks didn't think this might be a better way to really start to work on the regulation and definition of data centers for the city.

Go ahead. I wasn't sure who that was.

That's me, Jessica. Okay. This is Tammy. I was going to say, you know, both options require reasonable movement towards a goal, I would say. And there is always research that is done before drafting regulations. We have to learn quite a bit more about this. So I think in both instances, staff has to be directed by council and the city manager to work towards putting regulations in place. And they have to reasonably be taking steps to do that for either to be defensible if challenged by somebody who wants to have a data center here.

To follow up that, I do think in either one of these cases, we're going to have to come back to the council and talk about scope and goals of a project, timing, capacity of staff, and sort of other competing priorities. So I think in either case, we'd have to follow back up with that kind of conversation.

Right. And for it to be justifiable, you'd want to have a credible conversation on what you're doing and how long it would take.

Yeah, I think which one of those do you think would hold both staff and council accountable to deadlines and actual movement towards regulation?

Well, I'm not sure we're holding council accountable, but either would require direction, I think, to really, you know, credibly study and work towards regulations. Either does that. It's just that the moratorium puts in place the timeframe that you want and gives us kind of the outer parameters of that. But I'm sure if staff were directed to work on regulations, Tansy would have to work with staff to see how long that would take. And it's kind of the same process, quite honestly. I think legally, we think a moratorium may be more defensible if we're going to go on for months and months.

Okay, so Jessica said this, I'm just going to repeat what she said earlier in the conversation, that if you wanted the impact to be narrower, then I think the moratorium has a better impact. I think if there was a pending ordinance, doctrine, application, essentially anything that hit data center's we would hold off on processing those pieces versus if a moratorium was narrow, there might be some activity that can continue. Jessica, did I quote you? Yes.

Yep, you did. I guess it just depends then as a council too if we really want to, like if you want to be narrow and just do the really large ones, how many different like categories can you put into a moratorium? You're saying it's more narrow than it would be for a pending ordinance doctrine.

It can be. If you can go to that slide, Kristen, that had the categories of data center, I think it was like three or four. Yeah, so we could, if you did want to go the moratorium route, We could call out any type, you know, we could come up with definitions to cover each of these different types of data centers and apply it however council directs. Whereas a pending ordinance doctrine would just blanket apply to anything that would be considered a data center, which is not a defined term in our code right now. It just says data center.

But Jessica, it could be as narrow a moratorium or as broad a moratorium as you chose. Yes.

Okay. You can get very specific for the moratorium.

Okay. So we would have to work as a council to craft that moratorium, correct?

Yes. Staff would draft it and bring it to, based on council direction, and then bring it to council for approval.

And then we could give direction to either make it more broad or less broad? Yes. Okay. With the pending, the other one, the pending, I can't remember what it was called again. Pending ordinance doctrine. Pending ordinance doctrine, yeah. With that one, it would just be a blanket at all data centers, but it wouldn't be, if there was an application, we could still be legally obligated to

fulfill that application given a bunch of other things that would happen well if we did not if council chose not to take the moratorium route and said and directed staff to come up with regulations for data center so say tonight the direction is staff do additional research come up with some regulations bring those regulations back to us then during from the time council gives that direction staff would say, anyone who brings in, say, you give that direction tonight, and next week an application comes in for even a smaller, say, we'll say enterprise-sized data center, staff would say, hey, look, we are working on regulations for data centers. We are not going to accept this application for review. And they would say, why not? And we would say, pending ordinance doctrine. We are working on regulations. Once we come up with those regulations and we have something to analyze your application against, then we will accept your application.

Okay, okay. Well, I think I could live with either the moratorium or this option. I think this option could give us the ability to work – more nimbly and quickly through regulation if we really wanted to commit to that. But I am also okay with the moratorium as well. I think what we can't do is just let it be the way it is right now. I mean, it's not just data centers that are causing this. It's overall large industry and how we want to have it in our communities. Right now, the hot button issue is data centers, but You know, if you look at it from a true environmental perspective, it's pretty much any large industry that creates water consumption and usage and toxicities and things. So that's kind of where I'm at. I just kind of wanted to understand a little bit more about legally the options we were given and which one could be more beneficial if we were to look at working more quickly through regulation.

Council Member Salazar.

So, a couple weeks ago when we discussed this, I asked, you know, that we get a better understanding of, you know, the environmental impact, even though we haven't had enough time to be able to research everything that it, you know, does cause. Also, there was a Nextdoor post that had over 200 comments on it, and I really just need to protect my residents. So I'm totally for an 18 month one if everybody was, you know, agreed, but I'm definitely going for the 12 month moratorium because my residents are what matters to me.

Thank you. Member Byrd?

I think I'm not for the moratorium. I'm for us actually building out an ordinance doctrine around this. But regardless of which route we take at this point, I think there needs to be a really fine discretion around the definition of data centers when it comes to a lot of this. Because if we go back to the specific slide and we start talking about the demand of energy usage, my energy usage on my computer systems is more than the edge micro centers that are in here. I'm running 24 megawatts a year in my house. So I'm already at 0.5 megawatts of usage. So I think we need to be very cognizant of how we define this and how we run through this as far as definition. Because when it comes to power consumption, I don't think the vast majority realize how much power they're actually using in comparison. And yeah, I see the 20 megawatts can serve up to 8,000 to 20,000 homes. Great. If you look up my Excel bill, I promise you I'm up there really high. I just looked it up. I used 24.4 megawatts last year, so it's ridiculous. So I think we need to be very cognizant of how we define that data center definition when we do this, either way, regardless if it's the ordinance or the moratorium.

Great. Council Member Morris?

Yeah, the pending ordinance side of things, I do like the idea that it shows that we're taking action to address concerns and to really make it fit what makes sense in Thornton. It also in some ways seems like it's a way for a city to kind of set the standard and we set the tone on what does it look like going forward and saying how do you work with this kind of emerging technology that we're seeing more instead of just being like a, Hey, let me jump on the bandwagon and say no, because everyone else is. So my question around the pending ordinances, can we, as a council, being cognizant of the time and effort that will go into this say hey staff you know we want to go this ordinance route but you have we'd like to have it within six months or the end of the year or you know is there a certain time frame we can put on that so that you know we're still staying within the the intent of the law and that's defensible like how would that work

So that would just be council directing staff to bring something back to them in a specific amount of time, same as kind of any other ordinance that you would direct staff to bring back to you. And during that time...

I guess what I'm getting at is, is there a way to do this pending ordinance while also being, you know, we're kind of accomplishing all things here in a way where we're not saying, hey, staff, get it done tomorrow. but we are um we're kind of setting an end date so that if something came in we're i guess you had mentioned that there's there's a legal issue potentially where you know we need to fit in a certain criteria with pending ordinance like it needs to be in the works but if we say it takes a year for it to be in the works then yeah we're taking we're still giving ourselves tons of time to put together uh the right ordinance um it

Yeah, the pending ordinance doctrine is really just a concept. It's the length of time it takes staff to come up with regulations and counsel to approve them. So it's generally not set for a specific amount of time. It's just as long as it reasonably takes staff to come up with regulations and for counsel to approve it.

Okay. All right. That helps. Thank you.

All right. Dave or Chris?

Based on the map, I mean, again, My biggest issue is locations. It's all word for word. So, you know, if we need to look at zoning and identify better locations, then I think our city staff needs time for that. So you wanted to do, you know, I spoke about this when we talked about this a week or two ago, whenever it was, to do the moratorium. And we were able to crush it on time. production within the city, then I'm fine with ending the moratorium early. And that's an option that happens. But no, right now, we have no safeguards in place, and everything is coming to Ward 4 based on that map. And if something were to be submitted, at least... That's very clear to me in the shading and the purple on my map. So no, you know, I stand up for my residents. I'll do a moratorium, put the work in and give me something that shows either zoning changes or spread these out. But I don't want this in Ward 4 in the current dynamic of what our city boundaries are. Should we get to annexing into Weld County? I'll probably be a lot more open to it. So well, there's 12, 18, whatever. Put a moratorium on there. Let's put the pencil to paper, come up with what we need to, and then we can end it early. But It's my butt on the line right now, and it's already getting chewed up with our current development and the way Ward 4 is starting to look and the continued allowance of everything being commercial, industrialized on the north side of the city. So, you know, love me or hate me, but I guarantee you I know what the residents want, and that is definitely not a data center popping in because we haven't sharpened our pencil enough yet. So, yeah. moratorium until we produce better rules, specific areas, and not just concentrated in Ward 4. So give me some other options, but my answer is no until we address those issues. And I do see the value in what the revenue would bring. So, again, not completely opposed. It just seems very lopsided and targeted. There's a lot of city on this map, and none of it's purple except for down the street from me and my neighbors. And, well, Drew's neighbors, too, because it goes all the way down by his house. So it's literally all of Ward 4. And yours, Jan. So, you know, realistically... I need something more concrete in place before I can get behind it. And I'm not saying no to data centers forever, but we just don't have enough in place right now for me to allow anybody to slip in an application and us not be in a better position.

We do have consensus to move forward with language for moratorium. Council Member Morris, did you have something to add?

Oh, yeah, I just wanted to emphasize that I'm pretty sure all of council cares about our residents. You know, and I think that the ordinance and getting to work on that is exactly what we need to do to prevent these things from going in the wrong locations. So I'd echo that concern, Council Member Russell. That's why I brought it up about looking at specific places. So I do think the ordinance is the way to go and it makes sense. It takes action and it puts our money where our mouth is, but I will of course, concede to the consensus.

I agree. I think an ordinance with the pending ordinance doctrine covers us, but the consensus of council is to do a moratorium. It looks like there's consensus for 12 months. I think the next step then for staff would be to figure out how do we narrow that to the specifics. And so coming back with Questions that need to be answered. Is it based on square footage? Is it based on water use? Is it based on land use? What are the things that council wants to focus on? And I think you've heard a lot tonight about ideas that people have thrown out there to at least get started on that, but probably not solve tonight. But it will be coming back for further discussion. All right. I know we do have the strategic plan tonight, but we also have three discussions on performance reviews. So Tansy, do you want to give us an overview on where we are with the strategic plan? Maybe a quick highlight instead of going through all of the slides?

Sure. So you do have a PowerPoint presentation that's already in your backup. We did have tonight with the modified format, we were really going to rely on our strategic plan action team leads. I think when we were going to be in person, we would have had the operational team leads available too. I imagine many of our amazing spot leaders are probably watching, but we don't have them as panelists. So the way this was set up, you do have a full report in your backup that gives sort of a very brief status of all 65 actions in the plan that gives you a sense of What's the status of what the teams have accomplished to this point to sort of lift out from their action plans that status? And then we have characterized in that report generally sort of a what's the alignment in terms of their work products as compared to their action plan. So we've very simply made things green, yellow, and red. Green, things that we have identified as green, our teams that, you know, the tasks and accomplishments that they've completed at this point are in alignment with their action plans. Yellow, there might have been some timing issues or interruptions of staff or other kinds of, they might just be running a little bit behind the tasks that they anticipated. We do have some red tasks, but in some cases we actually have not or we're just putting together teams. Those teams are just starting because of vacancies or other kinds of pieces. So generally in the report, I think we were also going to just describe the way we're supporting teams. So certainly we've got an executive sponsor from the city manager's office, on each of the action teams. We have an action team leader, and then we've got a broader group of department directors. So we are certainly trying to lean in and support all of the teams, but particularly try to lean in to those teams that are in either a yellow or red status. So we were going to highlight tonight in the presentation we did kind of our best to sort of go back through feedback at the retreat and other touch points to actions that we knew that were high priorities for the council. So we had lifted out two or three actions. I think there was generally one or two per goal. And generally I think, you know, three to five actions kind of, per focus area that we were going to be highlighting just briefly tonight. So we can certainly reschedule this presentation. We do have some individual teams on your outlook through the end of the year that are going to start having some concepts to share with the council. Or certainly you have written materials and we can take questions outside of a meeting for format if individual council members have questions are there any questions tonight for this one council member martinez

Not so much a question as just I would just love to see this rescheduled so we can hear from the SPOT team leaders and get the full scope of what this, where we are with the strategic plan.

Is there any objection from Council? Council Member Byrd?

No, I would just actually second Councilmember Martinez's ask. I would love to hear from them and kind of see where we're at and kind of get feedback and questions to them.

Any objection? We will do some work on, this may mean some long September meetings or August meetings, but we'll work to move some things around as we can.

All right. Thank you. For the interest of time, are there any pressing matters for Board and Commission reports that Council needs to let Council know about? or any discussion items that are necessary. All right, so from a process flow for the exec session, Tansy, what is the plan there? Do we have another link, or are we going to keep on this one?

We do, and I'm actually going to give the floor to, Kristen is going to walk us through sort of the logistics of making the transition.

Yes, thank you. So, Mayor, you can go ahead and call the special meeting like you normally would. We'll go through all of the process like we would in the training room with the call to order, roll call, and motion to go into executive session. I will send out a separate link to all of council and then members that are staff members that are included in the executive session. And so then we will close this meeting link and the meeting will be closed and open the new one. Everyone will need to join through that link. And then if you have any technical difficulties or anything like that, you can reach out to me and we can get you connected.

All right. Are there any questions? I will go ahead and call to order a special meeting of the Thornton City Council. Can I please get a roll call?

Mayor Coleman?

Here.

Council Member Acunto?

Here.

Council Member Algi?

Here. Here.

Mayor Potemayela? Here. Councilmember Byrd?

Here.

Councilmember Martinez?

Here.

Councilmember Morris?

Here.

Councilmember Russell?

Here.

Councilmember Salazar?

You have to unmute.

Give it a second.

We can see her still actively moving on her camera, but she's reported that on her side, her screen is frozen. Interesting. Okay. I don't know if she can hear us. Can you hear the audio? Can you give us a thumbs up that you are here? All right. All right. Hopefully when we transition to the new link, she'll be good.

Yeah. All right, do we need to make a motion to suspend the rules in order to hold this meeting online?

I don't think so. Council's rule 4P does state, in fact, if there is a fully remote meeting, which is what we have done tonight, that council members can all participate in the executive sessions under these circumstances where the meeting is fully remote. So just noting that for the record, we're following council's rule.

All right. So before I ask for a motion for executive session, can we get a purpose?

Yes. So city council by its rules checks in with its three appointees, city manager, city attorney, and the municipal judge mid-year for an appraisal check-in. And so that would be the purpose of the executive session for personnel matters.

Are there any questions?

What would be the motion? The motion would be for an executive session pursuant to Colorado Revised Statutes 2464024F to discuss personnel matters related to the city manager, the city attorney, and the presiding municipal judge's mid-year appraisal check-ins.

All right. Can I get a motion as stated?

Motion is stated. Second.

Thank you. Motion has been made and seconded. All in favor, please say yes or give us a thumbs up so we can see you. We do have to do a roll call vote. Because we're online? That's right.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Council Member Russell?

Yes.

Council Member Salazar?

Yes. Motion passed unanimously, Arna. Thank you very much. We will move to executive session. So we will adjourn this portion of the online meeting and let's take a quick break too. So back here at 10 o'clock.