City Council - workshop

Good evening and welcome to the July 6th, 2026 Westminster City Council study session. Thank you for joining us this evening. Please remember our meetings are governed by the rules of decorum posted inside the chamber doors. We ask all attendees to maintain a respectful environment, no disruptions, threats, or audible expressions of support or opposition are permitted. Signs and placards are prohibited and all attendees must remain seated in designated areas. Mayor Pro Tem Nurmela is absent this evening from the study session and so we'll do a quick poll to excuse the Mayor Pro Tem.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. And yes. Thank you so much. Okay, we'll move on to City Council reports. Councillor Azadi.

It's been a while, and there was lots of stuff, but I wanted to kind of just focus on a few kind of more recent important ones. The first was that we had our Environmental Advisory Board meeting, which I printed out some stuff from there, and now I am struggling. So we, the main topic of the discussion were ways to promote kind of water-wise gardens around the city. They were kind of talking about what other municipalities have done. And then also we discussed what I'm passing out, what I'm passing out right now, which is a survey that all of the board members or the participants on the advisory board filled out. You can see, They kind of rated some stuff or ranked some stuff while also having just kind of some individual feedback. And again, topic of highest concern is often water conservation, especially right now. So it was a really fruitful meeting and looking forward to... know continuing to share you know what they produce around some of this stuff and also um you know if we have anything that we want to throw as a council to them i'd be more than happy to share that as well um we city manager andrews and i got a chance to visit uh the city park rec center fitness center while it was closed over the last week and i remember my first year i thought it was just a week of vacation my first uh like year that i was exercising there i was like oh how did you all enjoy your vacations and They explained to me very thoroughly that that's not what they do while the center is closed there. Everyone's on call. So normally they take away their kind of typical shifts and they're all just there all day long all week working on facility updates, professional development, some of them getting their CPR certification. So it was a really great time and had a chance to see everyone all at once there, which was really nice. Councilor Ireland and Johnson and myself were at the Westminster Chamber Government Affairs Committee meeting and it was at the Church Ranch Event Center. And there were a lot of things we're kind of following up via email with staff on some questions that the event center and the chamber themselves had. And maybe once we kind of land on somewhere I can give a more thorough update. But one of the main takeaways was they kind of wanted to host or at least the chamber is looking to potentially host a kind of bigger meeting with event centers around the areas and the city. So as we kind of continue talking around some of these ordinances and some of these changes that they can kind of have a chance to voice some of their thoughts as well. And then finally, I had a chance, just a quick highlight. I went to Green Gable Roofing Company, ribbon cutting. And even though they were, I initially thought they were just kind of replace, you know, replace your roof kind of company. They actually do a ton of like, I know I'm forgetting the word, but like if you had some sort of like environmental impact, like a fire in your house, they actually do not only structural repairs, but they do remediation on it. like, you know, they help you coordinate with other companies or other workers on, you know, cleaning out your furniture, what's, you know, if there's any water damage, that kind of stuff throughout your house. So really wonderful, you know, business and they're part of our chamber, which is really awesome. So just wanted to highlight them and it was a great ribbon cutting because it was like seven different companies that were there and it was a good time.

Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Ireland.

So I'll just, CML was long ago, but I got great feedback from people that were so impressed with our city, especially right there by the Westin, all the boardwalk there and all the changes. They thought we had a beautiful city, so hopefully we'll get more business from that, you know. Went to Wellness Court. A shout out to Joni who graduated, made huge life changes. It was so nice to see. Of course, with the chamber meeting, I've also talked to some restaurant owners and they're concerned about some other regulation and mandates that have come from the state that's making their business more expensive. So even a town hall with them would be nice, I think, with some of the restaurant businesses in our area to see what they're dealing with. Of course, I've talked about HOAs, having a town hall with them. And we've had some HOA issues. And I know that Councilor Azadi's trying to get through the HOAs, but the amount of time that we'll get through all of them when we keep having things come up, it'd be nice to have a town hall with all of them. Of course, I went to, I went to this flag raising ceremony where Paul Gerda spoke. He's very, he's very, good speaker and enjoyed it. And then the North Metro Fire Department raised the flag and both of these were there. So thank you very much all of you that helped. I went to the splash party for the 50 year anniversary of Countryside Rec Center. Great turnout. The staff did an amazing job. I enjoyed that. I went to the City Park fireworks and concerts, talked to many people there. They were from all over the country, I'm telling you. We had some people that stayed there from the softball tournament and they were impressed with the city and they were happy to stay for the fireworks. So it's a great event and brought in people from all over, especially people that had their event canceled, like in Colorado Springs, there were quite a few from there. So I'm glad the show went on. There was no wind, so it's great. that we did that anyway. That was it in a nutshell. Thank you. Councilor Johnson.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I also attended, as Councilor Barajas said, the chamber event at the Church Rants Event Center and a really timely conversation with what we're going to talk about tonight about, you know, we are writing ordinance because of community response. And there's a lot of event centers out there that have a lot to say about that. And I think it would be good to get their feedback. But just in that meeting, the feedback they gave was really important and powerful. And we'll bring that tonight. So that was great. were well worthwhile to attend. As Councillor Ireland said, you and our city manager did a wonderful job at CML and the city itself was a great host and we got nothing but positive feedback about our city and a lot of people were really impressed with the way we do things and it was glad we could host and hope to host it again. And I think everyone did a fantastic job and particularly like the goats, which was a great addition baby goats, every event, baby goats. Where's Eric? Top Taco, what seemed, despite the rain, was really successful. Activating downtown and seeing the way people get activated by those events and bringing in people from hundreds of miles away to our city for a purpose as Councillor Ireland said with the fireworks you know is a really good job by the city and by many of the downtown businesses and our partnership with downtown Westminster but the rest of the city and so that was a great event with a lot of success and ongoing, I probably had a couple of special permanent licensing board meetings in between there, and those folks always do an excellent job. And finally, you and I got to attend the Rocky Flats tour, which was really valuable in learning about how the Rocky Flats Land Management Agreement is being upheld by the federal government and great attendance from all of our neighbors, including Boulder and Arvada and Jefferson County. And there's a lot of really good work and partnership that continues in that area. But it was a reminder that we need to be vigilant and continue to hold up our end of the bargaining around monitoring to make sure that we can give them the feedback they need to keep everyone safe.

Thank you. Yes, lots to cover. So I just a big thank you to staff for how incredibly well the 4th of July event went. I heard that it's a higher turnout than ever before. So that's really wild. And thank you to everyone who brought the concerns about whether we should have the fireworks display because we really took that seriously with the ongoing drought, whether or not this was the right call. And I know our fire chief, did a lot of work with our neighboring fire chiefs to have those discussions as well as with our engineers and city planners. And it was interesting because it was explained that fortunately for our city, due to the fact that we just finished the Dry Creek restoration project, that provided irrigation throughout the area that they were going to hold the fireworks in, which meant that this fireworks show was actually safer than ever before. Oh, and I see a former fire chief, Doug Hall, right here in the audience. How you doing? But that was really good to know that this was actually safer now than it had ever been. And of course, we had our professional fire staff on hand in case anything happened. And that is the real value of providing the fireworks show is bringing everyone together to celebrate together. so that it really reduces the impact of everyone going home and celebrating on their own, which is much more dangerous. So that went really well. So thank you for that. As was already mentioned, CML was a really great success. I'm really proud of all the work that Westminster put into that. We had several different panels that were held by our Westminster representatives and city staff and our chief of police and our fire chief. They all did a great job. We also had panelists from our engineers. We had, gosh, I'm losing track of folks, really. And Jody did more than one panel. I think he did three total. It was a great time and it was nothing but really positive feedback and a shout out to everyone who's been working on the new downtown for decades. We did that downtown tour. It was very successful. There are more attendees on that mobile tour than I think there often are in annual CML events. And then, apologies, my brother's constantly calling me. And what else do we have at CMO? We had a lot of, we had, oh, Jodi and I did our public engagement panel and that was really successful as well. I got lots of good feedback. So that was really exciting. And then I wanted to call out the Sparkler Girls Tournament. It was my first time getting to throw the first pitch. That was a really incredible event. Holy cow, there are a lot of folks that come from all over the world to that event. I had no idea how many areas that that draws from. Not only just all over the country, but Japan and South America. It was just amazing. And there was a really moving tribute. to an Arvada firefighter who was lost recently, just September of last year due to cancer from the line of work that he's in. And so just very beautiful tribute. And I was really grateful that his whole family was able to be there for that moment. With that, I just want to give a shout out to our staff as well on the beautiful landscaping throughout the city. I've noticed that all the waterwise gardening is really starting to pick up. The plants are starting to open up and bloom. And there's been a major reduction in water use, as we already know, to this giant garden in the front of City Hall, but also all over. I've noticed it throughout the city. It's just looking beautiful. So I know that the folks who are hands down in the dirt, I just hope that they get to hear part of this too. you know, that they do a really great job. So with that, City Manager.

Mayor, thank you. I do have a report this evening. Yeah, and follow up to your point on waterwise landscaping. Those of you who haven't gone yet, we got great feedback from our Colorado Municipal League attendees around Big Dry Creek and walking that and all waterwise landscaping that's been reestablished. And although there's some irrigation to have it, That would be a significant water savings for us, as well as the City Hall demonstration front lawn. Before we go to our next slide, I want to affirm that this year's fireworks events that the City put on the professionally established ones did have record participation. We had over 17,000 people come to City Park to watch our fireworks. And one of the things the chief noted, of course, is we're not a mountain abutting community. And as you mentioned, Mayor, we had a very, very strong set of parameters in place that did allow us to do that. And it did reduce the number of folks that would be having wanted to do fireworks themselves, great risk in a dry environment. So overall, big success. Okay, next slide, please. And that is it. I do want to give a shout out. It takes a lot, not only to deliver the fireworks itself, but to have it be a very safe event for our community. And a particular shout out, if I could, to Police Commander Jim Buckner, who arranged all of the police efforts to have it be such a safe event this year. To our Fire Lieutenant, Tim Guthrie. Tim, thank you for having it also be a great and safe event. And our Parks, Recreation and Libraries lead, Alex Reeves and Leah Krumpholtz. a rare shout out but that's it it was a it was a landmark uh fourth of july celebration for us we had over 40 food and community vendors for those of you there and uh there's only one photo and that's done by our in-house uh photographer uh which is a great picture you can check out more on our facebook and instagram site for pictures and updates on how it went on saturday night

I just want to pause and say, holy smokes, that photo, that's Westminster right there, right?

That's Westminster.

I mean, that looks like a New York Times photo. So just great job to the photographer. It's not AI. It's not AI, guys. That's right. That deserves a shout out.

That's amazing. That's Christopher. That's who takes your pictures at the dais. And so next time you see Christopher, give him a shout out. Yeah, and I'm sure you're going to see some more of his work on our Facebook and Instagram sites. So please check those out. Next slide, please. All right. History is coming to life this weekend. Experience America's favorite pastime, the 1870s way. So the vintage baseball game is a free family friendly event that's presented by our very own Westminster Historical Society. So please do try and go Saturday, July 11th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Wolf Run Park and that's at 4705 West 76th. If you haven't yet dropped in on one of our historic games, you can actually watch an authentic 1870s vintage baseball game played by historic rules. And this part is really cool. You can see suffragette reenactors bringing history to life between the innings as they campaign for women's right to vote. So you're going to get taken right back into the 1870s and feel like you're right there. So please check that out. Next slide, please. All right, I also want to announce this. This ties a little bit into a comment about supporting our restaurants, and we will follow up, Councillor Ireland, on your suggestion around a direct outreach. So the city has just unveiled a new how to open a business guide in Westminster, and that's a revamp of the old how to open a business guide. and that is now more comprehensive, inclusive and accessible for entrepreneurs who want to make Westminster their home for their business. The guide is now also available in Spanish. You can get either the Spanish or the English version at westminstereconomicdevelopment.org slash smallbusinessresources. So that's a really exciting revamp of the program. And we're seeing great success. For those listening who don't know, Westminster has one of the highest per capita small business ownership in the state and our good folks in our economic development team make sure that that trend is continuing. Next slide, please. All right on tonight's agenda there are three presentations this evening and discussion by and direction by City Council. The first one is a report out for our water or water affordability to every resident task force and that includes recommendations from the committee directly to Westminster City Council and we'll have more on that when we introduce that topic. Next up will be report out also on a very significant committee effort our Rental Housing Committee outcomes and recommendations and recommendations on our 2021 International Property Maintenance Code adoption and I see a number of committee members from both of those committees and this is an opportunity as we'll also have when we begin those topics to thank those members of our community who have given so much time and expertise to advising their city on both of these very important topic areas. The third one tonight is proposed options to address City Council's feedback on event centers and live entertainment venues ordinance. And Councillor Johnson mentioned some stakeholder work at the event center, one of the event centers this past week. So that one will be our third one this evening. There's no executive session tonight. So those three items will comprise tonight's work. Next slide, please. This week, a busy week for the city and our community. On Wednesday, July 8th, we have another one in the Plaza Sessions or the Downtown Westminster Summer Concert Series. So this is the ongoing activation in downtown Westminster, and that's right at Central Plaza Park from 5.30 to 7. The same night at 6 o'clock is the Inclusivity Board Meeting. And on Thursday, July 9th is our Parks Recreation Library's Open Space Advisory Board Meeting right at City Park Recreation Center. on Sheridan Boulevard, and that will run from 6 to 8 p.m. And then on Friday, July 10th, another one with our police department, Coffee with the Cop. This one's at Cozy Coffee at 14694 Orchard Parkway, and you can drop in any time between 9 and 11 and share a coffee with one of our police officers. Next slide, please. On Saturday, July 11th, happy to announce for our community another free tree limb recycling drop-off at our Brow property. That's at 1001 Elkhire Street. And that's, again, anytime between 8 a.m. and noon. Residents are welcome to drop off free drop off of tree limbs that have fallen in recent storms or that they've taken down for safety reasons, just bring those by. We will mulch them up and provide them back to the community free of charge at our mulch site on Westminster Boulevard, which is also free. So drop them off for free and pick up the mulch for free. Also on Saturday, July 11th is the baseball game that I mentioned. That's the vintage baseball game that's at Wolf Run Park. The address for that is 4705 West 76th and that game starts at 9 a.m. The second in the series of our contractor licensing and building code update work, that's part two right here at City Hall. That's also on Saturday and that will run from 9 to 10 a.m. That's open to the public. as well as all of our stakeholders. On Sunday, July 12th, again, another activation in downtown Westminster, the Summer Yoga Series continues at Aerostat Park from 9 to 10 a.m. and that's at 5750 West Central Avenue, right in our brand new park. Next slide, please. For our next meeting of City Council, that's on next Monday, July 13th. That's a regular meeting of City Council. There will be one proclamation. That's for Disability Pride Month. There's one item on consent agenda, and then we have some public hearings that night. The first one is a public hearing for an official development plan for the PROS Uplands Filing 3, Block 1, Tract A, Block 3. So that's an Uplands development. Next will be public hearing and first reading of Councillor's Bill 22. And that's a comprehensive plan amendment and consideration of a preliminary development plan for Mandalay Gardens. And then there's a public hearing on the 2026 Community Development Block Grant or CDBG Annual Action Plan and first reading of Councillor's Bill 23 regarding a supplemental appropriation of those CDBG grant funds. Next slide, please. Also on new business is a first reading of councilors bill number 24 amending the Westminster municipal code regarding the keeping of chickens. Next up will be first reading of councilors bill 25 amending the 2026 budget with an authorization for a supplemental appropriation from the 2026 estimated revenues in the fund accepting Jefferson County's emergency communications authority funds through an IGA or intergovernmental fund. agreement so this really uh that's a lot it's a mouthful but it's really to accept grant funds from jefferson county for emergency communications next will be first reading of councillor's bill to provide for traffic regulation through the use of speed cameras so this is a high priority item for our city council and our community and so we're bringing that back on next monday for first reading of a bill to enable us to bring our speed cameras into effect in westminster Next up will be first reading of Councilor's bill regarding supplemental appropriation of repurposed capital project funds. This is follow-up to Council's work identifying project savings in our capital work to reapportion those for strategic plan outcomes and tasks implementation. Next up will be first reading of Councillor's Bill updating Titles 1, 6 and 10 of police regulations to align with Colorado state statutes and this is part of our ongoing work to amend our own regulations to match the state statutes. Next slide please. And finally, in post-meeting that night, there will be two presentations. One will be on child care provider property tax rebate program. So this is a City Council priority. We are coming back to you with the report and next steps for that property tax rebate program, and then also a proposed ordinance to exempt infant formula, diapers, and feminine hygiene products from the city's sale and use tax. Next slide, please. As always, please do use our Access Westminster app or go directly to report it at the website, westminsterco.gov, Access Westminster. Give us a ring at 303-658-2400. Hit our website, which we are continually updating daily, westminsterco.gov. And of course, please do look at our transparency portal, westminsterco.gov, 903-TRANSPARENCY. If you have any questions about how the city is spending its funds, you will find all the answers there right down to the dollar. That's all I have, Mayor.

Thank you so much. Questions or comments on the City Manager's report? I have a quick question, which is the tree limb recycling events, how busy do those usually get? Are they well used?

Depends on the preceding weather pattern but they're typically very well subscribed and we have called in the past special ones as well as regularly scheduled ones throughout the summer and fall to address any storm events so what we did have a special one recently for after following the ice storm but they're typically very very well attended and it's a great outcome because we then produce mulch. homeowners to come and use for their own purposes. So it's a full cycle. Win-win. It's a win-win for us and for our community.

That's good. It means the word is getting out. They know where to go. Okay, that brings us to this evening's presentations. City Manager, would you like to introduce our first presenter?

Yes, I'm going to ask actually Deputy City Manager Barbara Opie to kick us off this evening and

If I may, please correct me to get the verbiage right here. I was reminded to remind folks in council that we're not giving direction in this, but this is the time to ask all of our questions, really dig deep, understand the information so that when it comes down back to us, then we can give direction at that time. So this is Q&A and understand what's happening here. So thank you.

Mayor, thank you. And I can confirm working with the team this afternoon, we do have a follow-up session scheduled for August 3rd. Yes, sir. And Barbara's going to cover that. It's all good.

It's all good.

And that's council's night to really go into having absorbed this evening's report from our committee asking all your questions tonight and we'll set you up for a very productive discussion about next steps for water rates in Westminster on the 3rd of August. So tonight is really to hear from the committee and answer any questions you may have about the work that they did.

Thank you so much. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor and City Councilors. I'm Barbara Opie, Deputy City Manager. I'm here to have the opportunity, appreciate the opportunity to introduce the water affordability for every resident task force report and the recommendation presentation. Tonight is a culmination of seven meetings plus a capital improvement program overview and tour of Big Dry Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility. Meetings held between April 29th and June 23rd of the Water Task Force. This group dedicated hundreds of collective hours to understanding and discussing the city's water and sewer systems, financial obligations, consumption data, affordability programs, and great design trade-offs. The report in tonight's packet was compiled by the city's utility cost of service study and rate consultants, Reptile's financial consultants, and edited and refined by the members of the task force. Tonight's presentation was prepared and will be presented by Task Force member Kevin Kinnear on behalf of the Task Force. I also want to acknowledge the staff members that are in the audience, Andrea Song and John Burke, and numerous staff members with our public policy and budget team, as well as Public Works and Utilities who helped support the Task Force through their efforts. Tonight City Council is requested to receive and review the report and recommendations of the task force. And you are not being requested to provide us direction at this point on rate structure or the adjustments, but rather receive this report and ask any clarifying questions of the task force in preparation for the August 3rd study session. Just a note, for the task force members, we originally were anticipating it would be July 20th, but with a variety of modifications, we can confirm that it will be August 3rd instead. But before I turn the presentation over to Mr. Kinnear, I'd like to ask the city council members who are our liaisons, Councilor Ireland and Azadi, who served as those liaisons to the task force, if they had any comments to kick us off. So with that, I'll turn it over to Councilor Ireland first.

So I wanna thank those residents who were on the task force and taking the time to be informed and give recommendations on water rates. I did send out an email. I learned last week that a couple of the members were not residents of our city, which was concerning to me. Being a water warrior, I think people that recommend water rates should also have to live with the water rates that they recommend. So that was a concern to me and also, One of the task force members was concerned about the financial statements that they were given. I asked... If this could be clarified, they were not happy with the clarification. So I sent out what I was given to an independent CPA in our city. And he came back with the question that he put forward the most is why there was not a cashflow statement. He said, given the discussion center on the cash, city's cash position would be much more informative to provide a statement of cash flows or equivalent sources and use of cash analysis. Such a statement would clearly show cash generated from operating revenues, cash received from debt or bond issuance, cash spent on capital construction, cash used for debt service and the resulting change in cash balances. I think for transparency, this is important to know where our water utility money that comes from people's water bills is going. We're told that this is supposed to stay in our water utility, just like Gulf utility, Gulf money stays in the Gulf utility. So if we could show this and clear this up, this would be the best way to move forward because it's hard to do water rates when we don't know all the money is in the utilities. So if we could clear that up and have a cash statement of where the money is going, be greatly appreciated.

I think that's the best way to move forward. Anyway, that's my statement.

Thank you very much for coming and giving your presentation.

Thank you.

It's my turn? Yes, sir. Thank you so much. I wanted to just start off by saying I have a few minutes if everyone would just give me some room to speak to this. Staff, number one, Andrea Song and Barbara Opie and the rest of staff, you guys did such an excellent job. The leadership that I saw over, it was more than seven weeks, I think it was nine weeks, but seven meetings was fantastic. This was the best leadership most transparent, most collaborative, most effective task force committee that we've had. The report, if council has read this report, it's fantastic. It's thorough. That's how these meetings went. They were very thorough. The community members, so all of you, so all nine of you, not only am I just proud, but I'm just really excited because I think this is really a spark for future committees. This is a new model, honestly. The way, the diversity of the backgrounds of the task force members, right? Seven of them are Westminster residents. Two of them are representative of lots of Westminster residents. To Council Island's point, They may not be residents. Those two may not be residents of the city, but they actually impact thousands of residents, low income, moderate income, property, multifamilies. So I'm just so happy and proud that all of you have been part of this and that you've had a voice. So thank you so much for that. The goal of this task force was to increase public trust. and understanding, right? We have a very complex water system, billion dollar asset, right? It takes a lot of months, usually years. The deputy city manager can attest to this. It takes probably years to actually fully understand how the system works. And these guys did it in seven meetings. I think the average was two and a half hours. Some of them went four hours long and just the ability to take that on and to fully understand it and then use that knowledge and actually collaborate and figure out and design rates, right? With affordability in mind, with sustainability of the system in mind, you know, financial stability, operations stability, but also the people, right? That the people are looking for some relief, right? from an affordability standpoint. So this is the first time we've had a resident-led community task force that can determine what the water rates should be. And I think all of staff should be super proud and all of the community members should be super proud of that. To Councilor Ireland's point about the accounting, There is no mystery. Staff provided a super thorough answer to the question of do we take profit? The answer is no, it's not profit. We've answered that for years and there is a formal response that staff has given us that I trust staff, I trust what they've given us. And I think from a standpoint of follow-up questions, I think they already have an answer to your questions, Councilor Allen, on the accounting and what the accounting means and how the accounting works. But I wanted to thank the finance team for that response. It's been years of this question of profit or not. We don't take profit. It's an enterprise fund and they explained what that means. Also wanted to talk about just to directly name the task force members that were on this. because you guys did an excellent job. Sandy Popasil, Dana Ashley Ohm, Craig Russell, Marissa Garcia, Emily Brooks, Debbie Fisher, Doug Hall, Kevin Kinnear, Michael Washburn. These guys have such a diverse background. It's listed in the report, right? So they're engineers, they're water attorneys, they're multifamily owners. There's a former fire chief on here, longtime residents. This was such a diverse group of people, and I wanted to just call that out, that they were able to come together and form consensus. full consensus on what the affordability policy statements should be. And that policy statement, which you see on the slide, that's not easy to come up with, right? To actually have consensus on what does affordability mean to Westminster? That's what that statement, And everyone agreed on this statement. And that statement guided the design of the rates, the subsequent design. So that should be highly applauded. So yeah, thank you so much. The results and the actual recommendation, which we read over the weekend to me has been such a, I almost cried reading this because if you look at it, what they're recommending, is that we are lowering basic water rates for the essential household use. In this inflationary environment, in the economy that we're in, in all of the, you know, you've heard about the affordability crisis and everything that's going on and everything costing more money. They looked at the data and they said these tiers, the first two tiers, not just for single family, but for multifamily, right? We carved out a whole new class of multifamily, which is a new design. So we're basically saying lower the rates for these first for the essential water use. And then those water intensive irrigation users should be paying their fair share. because we are in a multi-year drought. We have a limited water resource that can run out, right? So it's a responsible, it's moral clarity is how I see it. And I just wanted to give that, I don't want to steal your wind here, but to introduce Kevin Kinnear, he's one of the task force members and he's going to walk through the presentation. Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Well, that pretty much sums it up, thank you. Now, first off, it was a privilege serving on the task force, so thank you for appointing me. I think the other task force members feel the same way. We had a lot of engagement and some lively discussion, which shows the diversity of thought relating to water rates and water use in the city. I was going to introduce the task force members, as Adi has done so, but if you guys could, who are here, if you could just raise your hands. So we've got several of the task force members here. Also, I want to acknowledge Raf Telles, the consultants that worked with us. Matt Witteren was a facilitator of our meetings. really responsible for herding cats, which as an attorney I use that phrase all the time because attorneys are the worst cats to herd. We were far more tame in this task force. Todd Cristiano did a really good job of presenting concepts that are very complicated in a way that helped us think through some of this stuff. Counselor Ireland and Counselor Azadi were really a great assistance to us in providing kind of the 30,000 foot perspectives the city council may have in what we're to do and how we might think about things. So thank you to both of you for that. And last but certainly not least, just repeating what both Councilor Allen and Councilor Azadi said, staff was remarkable. Barbara and Andrea and John who are here were there all the time. incredibly responsive, very helpful to understanding complicated issues. We also had Mandy and Brian Donahue assisting us with policy and finance things and were really such a great help. I have the privilege of serving on the Planning Commission and have been so impressed with the staff in planning. And now I've had an opportunity to work with these others and these other divisions and departments. And across the board, I think we can be proud as Westminster citizens of the staff that we have here running our city. I think we're in great hands. So on to kind of what we did, I would just talk about the members. So what did we do? Over eight weeks, we had seven meetings, one site visit. We were tasked with providing community input on water rate structure options, assessing affordability, this is water affordability for every resident, equity considerations, and that came into play with kind of, well, how about the larger water users? Well, let's talk about equity and affordability on that perspective, and there were discussions about that. And then, of course, coming up with a formal recommendation. We reviewed our system. It's very complicated. The water rights, I happen to know something about from my prior life as a water attorney. If anyone has read the Cosmic Agreement relating to Clare Creek, no, you didn't. It's a beast and Westminster is a part of it. We looked at the legal and financial frameworks of rate structures. compared with some of the peer cities. And there are some areas where we're kind of right in the middle of our peer cities and some areas where we live on the higher end. But in no event are we really outside the realm of what other peer cities are charging. And then of course we looked at affordability and customer assistance programs that we already have and you'll see at the end that we're making a recommendation that we maybe look at that and maybe strengthen or add more to that. And then finally the rate design itself and spent a great deal of time talking about that. Early on in our meetings, we kind of prioritized what is it that we want to accomplish and recommend. Obviously, this group at this table may have different perspectives and different priorities. But what the task force decided is among all the different priorities and issues associated with establishing rates, the two most important were affordable basic water and reliable utility income. Affordable basic water is your essential indoor water use. That is kind of the, from our perspective in the United States, that's just kind of the core basic what you need to drink to clean your house, for sanitation in your home, the essential life-giving use of water. Reliable utility income is an issue that rose to the top in several of our discussions. We are very proud of our water system. We are very proud of the water that we get. I made a comment before that I used to work for a firm that did water rights for the city of Boulder. Sorry, any fans of the city of Boulder. Their water tastes horrible.

And ours is incredible.

And so one of the kind of overarching themes was we want to keep that. We don't want to fall behind. We don't want to, avoid maintenance. We don't want to avoid capital improvements that are necessary. And so those two pieces, how do you do affordable basic water and maintain a reliable income for the utility is a complicated question. And actually it's an easy question, complicated answers. And so that's kind of what we spent a lot of time doing. I did this because one of the things that, this picture shows areas around where I live. One of the things that we did as task force members, but many of us did, is wander around talking to people about how they feel about their water rates and structures. And we have among the task force, Craig has rental properties, He spoke to his tenants and others around there. I wandered around my neighborhood speaking to people, how do you feel about water rates? What do you think should be changed? What could be improved? What about the water system itself? Not surprisingly, most people didn't know anything about, I just pay my bill, I don't know. Some people were price sensitive. Among the pricing, discussions that we had and sometimes heated discussions that we had were when we talk about outdoor irrigation use especially, we have the basic indoor use, nobody disputes that's critical and affordability on that level was not highly debated at all. But when you start talking about the outdoor use, now we're talking about concepts of do we We have concerns about if our pricing for water becomes too expensive, we're going to have brown lawns. It's going to be a burden on long-term homeowners, especially elderly who are on fixed incomes. And kind of the aesthetic and trees, you know, we're a tree city. That was brought up and concerns about not being able to handle these kind of concerns if we make our water rates too expensive. And so as a mediator, I always try to expand the pie. In this case, we don't really have much expanding pie going on. We have to raise a certain amount of income to provide operation and maintenance, service our debt, and provide capital improvement, and then have a reserve. We just have to do that. And so the question is, how do we do that? I brought these up. A couple of things that impact how people think about the non-basic essential water use are, these are examples in my neighborhood of people who have gone to xeriscaping. And some people think xeriscaping is dirt or rocks. This is an example from my neighborhood of what they've done. They don't really have water bills at these homes anymore after these lawns were established. And so that's how they dealt with their water bill conundrum. They didn't want to pay $250 a month in the summer for their water bill. So they did this instead. That's not a solution for everybody. The other kind of dichotomy that we have is we have a lot of residents who live in kind of the original neighborhoods that are not governed by an HOA. And so what they can and cannot do with their lawns is a little bit different and more lenient than what someone, like I live in a community governed by an HOA. And if you let your lawn go brown or die, you're gonna get a letter from your friendly HOA board. That's a little bit of a different dynamic than it is in some other areas of the city. And so we have kind of different pressures and different schemes on how some of these things might be dealt with. So it was very informative to talk to people about how they felt about water. And we had some who had people with sticker shock water rates, some of the task force members. And so we talked about that and how that might be addressed. One of the things that comes of all this, and I alluded before that we need to cover operations and maintenance, we need to cover debt service, we need to cover capital improvement projects, and we need to have a reserve. This is a printout or a snapshot of financial planning model that we used with the assistance of the Rafteles group who designed the model. I better not say that. I think they designed the model. Anyway, they presented the model. You need to be careful. In any event, they let us play with it in a closed environment. And what comes from this and playing with the model is when you make a change somewhere, it has impacts everywhere.

everywhere.

And so if you increase the rate increase, it will have an impact. How much you change that has an impact. Are you covering your debt service? Are you covering O&M? Are you covering the planned capital improvements? And are we maintaining a sufficient reserve? The importance of these things are, A, capital improvement is maintaining our system, improving our system so that 10 years from now, instead of having a $5 million project, we don't want to have a $50 million project. We want to stay on top of that. We don't want our reserves to fall too low or that will hurt our credit rating, so borrowing money becomes more expensive. These ideas are not unique to this water rate structure. You guys deal with this stuff in a lot of areas in the city, but it is especially poignant here when you make a small adjustment in what an increase, a percent increase might be or a modification to capital improvement budget, or any of these elements, and you just make that change in the spreadsheet, or let's reduce our reserves a little bit, or increase reserves, has a big impact across the board. So that's one of the things that we did is looked at how these things relate to each other and the impacts that one change has on the others. And we all survived that day, by the way. We didn't lose a single workshop member of that evening. I want to get at this point to kind of what our primary recommendations were after these discussions about rate design and discussions about what we have to do and what our kind of net nut is, if you will, what we have to bring in. We made two primary recommendations and then we'll have some sidecar recommendations that I'll just discuss at the end. One was to change our current three-tier structure to a four-tier structure. Essentially what we did is cut the first tier, which today is 0 to 8,000 gallons per month for a single family customer, into two pieces, 0 to 4,000 and 4,000 to 8,000. Then tier 3 and 4 are the same use levels as they are. Our proposal would be the same use levels as they are. The rates would change. The reason we are recommending this, and I want to step back a second and say while we did have consensus, we did not have unanimity. It's an important distinction. There are people who would have come up with a different proposal, but in the end we had consensus on presenting this as our recommendation. So with that caveat, What we've tried to do here, the zero to 4,000 is important and it's meaningful because the average indoor single family use per month is right around 4,000 gallons. So what tier one represents is on a year round basis, the amount of water that it on average, the typical single family home in Westminster will use. This, under our proposed rates, would actually decrease a few cents per thousand gallons. So you can see, if we were to go with our proposed rate of $4.16, and we have some examples in a minute, and the typical, the average single-family customer uses about 4,000 gallons for indoor use per month, they're spending about $16 per month on water for their basic essential water needs. As you go up the tiers, that means that there are other uses. Often that would be irrigation, but there are other uses. And there are also larger families. So a larger family would not be represented necessarily by the 0 to 4,000 gallon per month average. They might have a higher use amount simply because there are more people. There is a bell curve from January 1 to December 31 in water use. So when we talk about 4,000 gallons is our average monthly use, that's the winter use for a single family resident. And then as you approach May, that average monthly use increases, go to July and August is where it's peaked. Then it slows back down and comes back down in December back to about the 4,000 gallons per month. If you were to be able to average that out over the year and pay your water bill over the entire year on a flat basis, the typical family in Westminster would be using about 8,000 gallons per month. It's not billed that way. It's not used that way. It's not paid that way. But if you average it out, that's about what it would be. So that's why Tier 2 then makes sense. Tiers three and four then represent higher water users. Honestly, we don't have on a percentage basis a lot of people using 40,000 or more gallons per month. Number two is we're proposing a new multifamily customer class also with four tiers. Curiously, our multifamily customers average indoor winter consumption is about 3,000 gallons per customer per month. So about a thousand less than a single family home. And so that's, we did the zero to three, three to six, six to nine, and then over nine on the multifamily. These rates are not very radically modified and we didn't have the time or the data or the instruction to really dive into what should we do with multifamily and how to make multifamily customer more equitable with single family. Why would a family of an average multifamily customer using 3,000 gallons pay more than the average single-family home customer using 4,000 gallons. If you do the math, if someone is using 3,000 gallons at 887 or 812, that's over $24, $25 per month for using 3,000 gallons. The zero to 4,000 rate would be, like we said before, a little over $16 for a family of four using 1,000 gallons more. So there's a little bit of an inequity there, but just pulling multifamily out of the irrigation class and creating a new class is step one in evaluating what you might want to do with multifamily rates. So this is our proposal to kind of pull it out, create a new class, create a tier structure like we're proposing with the single family customers, and then more or less leave the rates alone, adjusting a little bit for... the goal of encouraging conservation. So this is a simplistic calculation of what would the impact be on a bill for the water consumption portion of your bill. Remember, your utility bill includes roadway fee, it includes stormwater fee, it includes sewer fee, it includes a base water infrastructure fee. Did I say that right? And then it's your water consumption. The only portion of your utility bill that is impacted by our work that we did on this task force is the water consumption part of that bill. This table represents what that would look like on your bill. So if you use 4,000 gallons in a month, today, your bill is going to be $16.80. Under our proposed rate, it would be $16.64, so just slightly less. the next 4,000 from four to 8,000 would be billed at 3,360. So if you use 8,000 in a month, you would still get the benefit of the lower rate for your first 4,000 gallons of usage, but your next 4,000 would be slightly higher and $34.64 would be the total bill then for that 8,000 gallon customer for that month for the water consumption portion of their bill. Then as you go up to eight to 40,000 gallons, those $32,000 would be billed at a higher rate as we saw on the prior slide. And then over 40, I capped it at 100,000. One of the questions was how many large water users do we have? And we're not qualifying. It's whatever the basis for the large water use is. How many of these counts? So of the 30,727 single family accounts, 30 of them in 2025 used more than 100,000 gallons. So that's one one thousandth of our residents. And 99.5% of all single family accounts used no more than 40,000 gallons. So we really tried to focus on kind of the meat of where our water users live. And that's what, this is what their bills, their water bills. And as you can see, the 40,000 gallon use, that went up about $23. uh under this structure so we're not talking about doubling or tripling or even uh 25 increases we're talking about in that case 10 in the 100 000 gallon customer example that's 100 so that's a map this is lawyer math uh 100 out of 850 help me andrea um one eight to thirteen percent That's not bad for a lawyer. So about a 13% increase there. Here is an example of an actual bill for an average single family water. Again, you can see the water utility infrastructure charge, the sewer charge. Now the sewer charge is based on your individual average winter consumption. If the average... Winter consumption is 4,000 gallons. You're paying about 30-some dollars... In here, this customer uses 3,000 gallons, so a little bit less. But you're generally going to be paying $30 to $36, $38 a month in sewer fee, and then stormwater and roadway improvement. So the water consumption portion here actually ends up being $64.24 on the actual this year's bill, this year, last year. Our change in the four-tier structure and the changes that we're recommending would result in a bill of $68.02, so an increase of less than $4. A high-end single-family water bill Same analysis would change from $271.06 to $293.19. So about $22, 8.7%. That was lower math again. Okay. In addition to the tier structure, the adding the multifamily and its tier structure, and then the recommendation on the rates themselves, we have a number of what we call sidecar recommendations. And these are things that came up that we thought were important that city council might want to think about going forward in the future. One of them is to create a new, well, first off, the new, we don't yet have the multifamily class. So number one would be to create that class multifamily with the four tiers or however many tiers you would want to do. Number two is study water budget based rates. Now we do tiered rates. A water budget based rates would be based on actual usage. Your billing would be based on your actual winter use would be the foundation of the water budget based rates. It's a different water rate model altogether. But some of our sister communities along the front range use that. And so it might be worth looking at whether that would be, it would address the kind of an equity thing. as opposed to kind of the two big pieces that our rate structure, our rate proposal consists of are affordability for the basic use and then a conservation element to encourage people to do the water-wise and other kind of water conservation measures. a water budget-based rate would have more of an equity gist to it. You wouldn't have to throw out affordability or conservation. It would just be focused a little more on that. One thing that we had a wonderful presentation on were the customer assistance programs. And we have customer assistance programs that can provide up to $25.

$25 and we're changing that credit to $30 per month in July.

Yeah, so in July that will be $30 per month to people who need assistance with their bill. And we think that... We can't necessarily solve anything through rates in terms of affordability because we have to pay the bills. We have to pay our debt service. We have to have capital improvement projects. We have to have a reserve. We have to have O&M. So only so much can be accomplished that, but there are still some people who are going to need some assistance. And so we think continuing to work on developing and being really creative with customer assistance programs to help those who really are kind of

in need is another tool that we would really encourage council to have the city look at.

We thought that it might be valuable as we continue to struggle with balancing all of these objectives to have the task force or a similar commission be long-term or permanent. So other cities have a water commission or a water task force. There was some interest amongst the current members of the task force to continue working on water matters, water rate matters and related things. So this is one of the sidecar recommendation we're making is to consider establishing this as a permanent or long-term task force or commission. And then this is linked with studying long-term collection system resiliency against climate change in connection with our city water supply plan. And it's important to remember that, again, we have an income objective that we have to meet. If we encourage people to conserve water, and as we become more susceptible to modifications to our water supply as a result of some of the climate issues that we're facing, we still have to generate income to pay for the system, to pay our debt, to pay our... capital improvements to keep our water supply system running and running well. That could have a long-term impact on this rate structure. The rates, the specific rates we're proposing would be for two years, as you know, because you're doing a two-year rate thing. But a long-term planning and long-term design, and this could be part of a task force or commission that make recommendations to city council, but how do we deal with the WaterWise program with encouraging people to conserve water when we still need to generate revenue? We have a drought contingency in place But what would that look like if 50% of the people replaced lawn irrigation and garden irrigation with Xeriscape where after the first year or two they were not irrigating anymore? Could have a big impact on revenue. And so that's something we didn't look at. It's something we couldn't look at. You didn't ask us to look at it. But it obviously will have an impact on what rates will look like in the future going forward and perhaps other elements of the water collection system and how that operates. So I'm sorry, I probably took too long. I am an attorney. So that's it for the presentation. If there are any questions at this point, we'd love to.

Thank you so much for that very thorough presentation. Council, questions? Councilor Feiner?

Well, I just don't know protocol-wise, are we asking questions to Barbara, to the task force?

If you'd like to manage them, you may. We have questions for the task force. Yes. If the task force is willing to help answer the questions. and I think his question is more throughout this, do they normally, in the past, they've still gone through the mayor, but I mean, since it's the staffs, it's honestly not, either way is fine. Regardless though, I do wanna get to Councilor Ireland's questions, so yeah.

So we didn't tell the Water Task Force, but the sewer rates, are they gonna go out the same amount as the water?

No, that's a separate item that will be coming to council with the August 3rd discussion. And that is obviously something that this task force did not have time to get into. So that will be a separate recommendation. That's why the recommendation to bring you the full water bill, utility bill, excuse me, at that time where it's got any potential adjustments at that time.

And another couple of concerns is how much did the consultant cost for this? Because I feel like the money could have gotten to people that are suffering for water. I was told by someone it was $250,000. Not for this work. I hope that's not true. I don't know what the full bill was for. They were working on our cost of service. Because that's not something we can continue to do. Correct. I mean, the staff can do it, but I can't see hiring a consultant to do it. So two years ago, some of the city council agreed to no more than 4.5% increases in water rates. And that's what the people were told. That's what they think they're going to get. I don't know. I know we're doing irrigation for HOAs. I don't know what that amount is and how that's changing. These HOAs are only considering four and a half for their HOA fees to go up. That's a concern for me. It was promised. It's hard for me to go against that. So that's one item that I am concerned about raising it more than four and a half. Plus, like you say, people start conserving more. Then how do we pay for the plant? That's what's concerning me about this, you know, drought. Because we may not be able to water anyway. And then we have a plant to pay for it. So that's a big concern. So lots of questions still for me that have not been quite answered. But anyway, thank you. You did a great presentation. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, Councilor Borja.

Thank you. I'm curious if a member of the task force want to comment on kind of some of the sidecar, particularly multifamily, kind of like, One of the hopes that I had for this task force was that we could kind of address some of that multifamily residential outsized impact, right? Like we're just got that pretty vivid example of the discrepancy between the two. You know, someone who lives in a multifamily residence giving their kid a bath is paying like double for that bath versus over double versus what others were. So I'm curious less about kind of I mean, maybe it is a very specific to data, but was the recommendation to kind of look at that later on based on just a lack of timing, a lack of available data, or, you know, I know that I read in the report that you know there's this conflict of if we adjust rates now and then create all these new classes it's going to be a lot of chaos kind of in people's bills um so i guess i just wanted to get a little bit more um flavor coloring on kind of why some of these sidecar pieces weren't included in the report if if anyone would like to kind of comment on that or staff or whoever i'll take a stab at it do you want to jump up to the microphone and introduce yourself please

I'm Emily Brooks. That question, Councilor Barajas, was one that I asked as well. And my understanding is that within the task force, I shouldn't say my understanding, within the task force, we acknowledge that we need to do more. and positioning the city to be able to do more with pulling that multifamily out into its own entity, we see as a first step, not last step, as a first step. And one of the things that we took into consideration was we still have a fixed revenue objective to bring in. and a more significant change in the multifamily rates right now could be disruptive to the single family residential. It's just like Kevin talked about, it's kind of whack-a-mole. If you make a change here, that change is gonna show up someplace else. And so it's not that we don't think, if I can speak for the group, that more should be done for multifamily. We weren't able to get all of that done in the timeframe that we had. So we have the structure established to be able to do that and acknowledge that we need to do more. Hence, maybe a continuing task force would do that or staff could look at it. I don't think any of us were convinced that this is all we can do to address the question of multifamily.

Thanks for that response. That's really thorough.

I don't know if anybody else wants to add to that.

No, I mean, that kind of fits it perfectly. And I'm heartened by that one of the recommendations is a continuing, whether it's a board or a commission or some sort of piece. I don't know what the right... venue to discuss that would be, but I would love to circle back to that because I think having some sort of body, you know, we have a lot of things that we're thinking of, so having some sort of body kind of reminding this council and advocating for that kind of work, you know, seeing the kind of outsized numbers for multifamily residences, it's obvious that that money's gonna have, that revenue is gonna have to come from somewhere if there's a reduction. If nothing else, maybe that's where we stop increasing on increases. I mean, because I don't know, again, that's kind of outside and we don't need to give direction at this moment, but I think there's room for that continuing discussion. And if members of this task force want to continue advocating for continued conversation, I'm all for that and supporting that.

I think that we recognize that that needs to happen. It's just a question of what does that look like and the timing.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

Can I share one thing I learned from it? So from my understanding it takes, it costs more to take water to multifamilies, the pipes are bigger, plus the multifamily number you're seeing is It's a one meter for that whole unit. So it's divided not equally because it's just divided amongst all of them, which is different than single family. And also the new multifamily that have individual meters are all grouped into single family already. It's the older units that are all on one meter. And the only way they can do it is just divide it up. So it doesn't matter if one person uses less water. Is that true?

I was just going to explain real quick. I mean, multi-family... Introduce yourself. Yes, thank you. You're welcome if you want to introduce yourself. Thank you. I'm Andrea Song. I'm Utilities Division Manager. And thank you, everybody. Mayor. Councilors, just to clarify, the multifamily does get a little bit confusing just because under the planning code, multifamily is defined as anything beyond a single family or single attached family home. but that could be duplexes, triplexes, and four units plus. But really for utility billing, what ends up happening is that for almost 99%, there's always a little bit of outliers, but that actually for a duplex and a triplex, those are actually under the single family tier. When there's more than four units, then it falls under the multifamily tier. There might be just a slight nuance, like with five townhomes based on the year that they were built, whether or not they have a single meter. But most of the sub metering, it's not required and they don't get a separate bill. If they have a master meter on these multifamilies, four plus units, it's up to the landlord to divide that. We do not issue them a separate bill. So I just wanted to clarify that. Just thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And so we're going to go back to one person at a time. Did you have more to add, Councillor Brooks?

I mean, just, no, I appreciate it. I mean, my, just for kind of clarity and transparency, my, I live in, you know, townhomes and we're master metered.

Yeah.

And, but like, you know, so we have, we could potentially hit a decent amount for outdoor irrigation. Thanks to a lot of the work that our HOA has been doing, we have about a little over a third of reduction in lawns, lawn space, which has been great. But, you know, we just like for the showers that I take, you know, the gardens that we water, the smaller socialized lawn, right? Like everyone kind of can, can engage and entertain on that lawn collectively. There's an outside, and we don't need to get into that. My real question was just about kind of the task force's sidecar conversations. But yeah, I guess that's kind of just want to finish up echoing the advocacy for some of those continued conversations.

Thank you. And I want to make sure we touch to every councillor. So Councillor Azadi, you've been waiting very patiently. No, it's fine.

I just wanted to add to that. On the multifamily, can you go back to slide, can you leave it on slide seven on there? Can someone put it on there?

I got it.

That has the two charts. But what we did, what the task force did on multifamily it may look like it's not much of a change, but those first two tiers actually, that's like a 9% decrease for tier one. which is like we talked about indoor essential use, 9% decrease. We've never done that for any rate in the history of the city, right? So it's still much higher than the single family and there is work to do. So I agree with that. And by the way, it's still up to council. This is a recommendation. I wanted to bring that up to highlight that this is a recommendation to us and we can still decide to tweak, change, edit, do our own thing, whatever. So multifamily, I am also interested in should we still lower it now versus waiting later. Now the problem to Councilor Island, so what she said is correct. Single, most of these multifamilies are single metered. And landlords are profit driven. So it's very difficult for us to actually ensure that whatever we do, we lower the multiray families too. of multifamily rates to actually gets passed down to the units. It's almost impossible for us to ensure that if we lower it, the landlords would then lower those bills. That's the biggest nuance in multifamily and that's why we said, okay, maybe we just do the structure now and set up the structure and do more analysis to see if we can actually target the units versus having the landlord keep all the profit to themselves.

Thank you. And Councilor Johnson.

Thank you, Mayor. I have maybe a question for the task force and then just want to echo that I think it's a missed opportunity. I really appreciate what's done in multifamily, but I think it'd be a missed opportunity for staff if on August 3rd we also don't have options to right-size this rate because these rates are going to last two years. That's two years of really dramatic, you know, prices for multifamily that have gone on historically for really long. And I think, as an aside, that also affects our development here in the city of when water rates are higher for these buildings, we're incentivizing building a different type of unit. But my question for the task force is, could you educate me a little bit on why there's a jump between Tier 2 and Tier 3 that's significantly larger than, for example, Tier 3 and Tier 4? Which, you know, on the idea of conservation, wouldn't it jump from tier 3 to tier 4 want to be even larger in order to conserve even more at that high level?

Great question and the basic answer is that so much of the customer base that has a larger use whether it's irrigation or otherwise lives in the eight to forty thousand that having that jump helps. Well, it does two things. One, it serves the two goals of affordability by not bumping up the lower rates in tiers one and two. And so it's absorbed into tier three, largely tier three, because that's where the meat of the customer base is. And then it also promotes conservation in that group where the most of our customers are. On that prior slide, 99.5% of our customers do not use over 40,000 gallons. If you want to have an impact on affordability and move it somewhere, if you move it to the over 40,000, you may not recoup that money.

I appreciate that answer. I'm curious, though, why... Like even, you know, not saying there's a problem with the tier two to tier three jump, why is it less in tier four anyways? I mean, why do you slow down the rate acceleration at the extreme uses of water? Because from an idea of conservation, wouldn't you want kind of this parabolic increase, you know, or exponential increase the way you do from tier one to tier two to tier three to tier four?

Great question and one of the themes that ran throughout this task force process was there are no easy answers and there are a lot of things that we're trying to accommodate and there was a concern over having people that are, some of the families that have high water use, if you were to increase that so much, we're trying to address some of the negative consequences of having rates that become so onerous that they can't pay their water bill, they move, you have brown lawns, some of the concerns that we'd had there. There still is a rate increase for those over 40,000. So it's still not less expensive per unit, per 1,000, for them. It's more expensive. It's just not, we got to a point where we thought in trying to balance all of these things, some element of equity, some element of conservation, there is still an increase, but it's not as big of an increase. And incidentally, again, we're talking about one half of 1% of the customer base in the city. And so we're really not going to make a big difference one way or the other in terms of the global budget.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Mary.

Okay. And Councillor Brouhaha.

I just wanted to say, I kind of jumped in straight to the questions, just wanted to say a big thank you to the task force members. This was like such a heavy lift. I am thoroughly impressed with staff's kind of preparation for this and this task force's ability to digest. I mean, this is heavy stuff. And so I just want to say a thank you. I didn't get to throw my thanks out before I threw in the questions.

Councilor Haag. Yeah, I don't have any additional questions, but I'm really, really impressed. And this was a very good presentation. And so thank you so much. Thank you for all your work.

And before we wrap up entirely, I do think there were a few outstanding questions. Do we want to try to get back to those either by staff? Councillor Azadi, I heard you say that some of Councillor Ireland's original questions were answered, but Councillor Ireland, you began with some questions. Do we have on hand reports to answer those questions?

Those were finance questions.

I also have a question about this multifamily. So if we're grouping everyone into one meter, you're going to go over 9,000. So do we divide? No, per unit. Oh, it's per unit.

But it's all in one meter. So if you had 10 units and you had 9,000, that would be 900. Boy, I just did lawyer math again. I'm not sure I did that right. 90,000. Thank you. You break it down. So it would still end up being less than around 3,000 historically on average. I mean, the master meter itself would have over 9,000, but per unit, you divide them.

That's why I thought it was divided. But if you have some crazy person who's using a lot of water, you can make everyone just bid 1420. Anyway, it's a difficult. That's why, to me, I won't say more, but existing rates being on the same makes more sense that way, man.

Okay, and I just want to make sure that the audience listening is able to clarify any of those remaining questions. So Barbara, I don't know if you had any final thoughts.

So there was additional information requested about looking at the annual comprehensive financial report, the ACFR, and looking at those numbers. The numbers that were provided, because the 25 just literally got posted within the last week, was from 2020 to 2024. And the question was about a profit as when components were added back in. Finance staff prepared a document that I sent out to city council and to the task force members on Friday that kind of tried to outline the explanation of how the PACFR and how to read those different statements are concerned. And only just identified that, you know, while the change in that position is an accounting term and I am not an accountant, so I will admit that right up front.

Cash went... and just show a cash flow statement, which is common practice in accounting.

So that's additional information. Thank you very much, counselor. That was submitted today. So we'll get some additional information there. As to the question of whether the utility is making a profit, no, that is not the case. It is actually operating as intended. So built into the rates are ongoing repair and replacement because at some point tap fees generally go away. There'll be a little bit as redevelopment occurs, but that was the main driver for the city's utility system in the 90s and early 2000s, 1980s as well, as far as the growth of the utility system. And that was where the majority of the funds were used to help build out the system. as the system ages and as new development, as we're close to less than 5% build out, the ability to use tap fees to pay for that type of investment goes away or becomes very limited. And so built into the rate structure is that ongoing repair and replacement. And so as there's either savings in a given year for expenses and or the revenues come in, the savings goes into the capital project reserve in the utility fund. It stays in the utility fund and it acts as a savings account. The best way I can describe it is my personal generalization, which is think of my household. That if I know that I, at some point, am going to have to repair a roof, replace a hot water heater, things of that nature. Hopefully I'm able to save some money for that future need and that's what the capital project reserve operates as. So it allows us in years of savings to put into that account and then when we need it as those capital projects happen, we're able to use those funds to help pay for it so that we're not having these odd spikes in rates to try to smooth it as much as we possibly can.

Thank you. Thank you so much to our deputy city manager, because just for the folks listening, I wanna make sure this is a really good opportunity to clarify what is happening in that fund. And if they do have questions, of course, as you said, you sent us an email on Friday, but if folks want a copy, Just ask and we can send that. We'll get this information on the website. That's right. Everything is available. And my thoughts is just extreme thanks to staff for making such a beautiful website where all the data that the task force has been working on for the last several weeks is collected in one place, it's accessible, and you can see the context, the history, you can access the reports, and you can really understand where the task force was going because they had such beautiful minutes, as Councilor Zotti said. And so it really helps with the transparency and visibility of this whole project. which was the whole point of this task force to begin with. So I do want to give my extended thank you to you, Mr. Kinnear, as well as everyone on that task force. You've really outdone yourselves. I think that this is exemplary work and it's a really beautiful example of what we can do when we bring the community in to share the work and you are our advisors, right? And that's what City Council is, of course, is public stewards. We're supposed to be listening to you, the residents, on what you think we should be doing. And this has been an ongoing conversation for several years. And so I really think this was the best way to do it. So thank you to Councilor Zotti for this suggestion. I think that this was truly a success. So with that, thank you so much for your presentation. Well done. I have a request for five. So we will come back at 8.05.

But only by $2.

do do Thank you. . . . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you.

Thank you so much, Abby. With that, welcome back. We are on with our next presentation. City Manager, would you like to introduce our presenters?

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to turn it straight over to Director Lindsay Kimball, who's going to start us off. Sorry, I wasn't sure if you or Larry were starting.

Thank you, Joe. We appreciate it. Thank you, City Manager Andrews. Lindsay Kimball, Director of Community Services. Good evening, Mayor. Well, Mayor Pro Tem is not here. And counselors, thank you. Tonight we are going to speak to you about the progress of the Rental Housing Ad Hoc Committee and its relation and study and careful work on the 2021 IPMC adoption. I want to introduce all of the great folks that are with me today. To my left is Deputy City Manager Larry Dorr, who has been a tremendous force and contributor to this effort. Thank you, Larry. Also to my right is Judge Jason Longtime. He has helped us tremendously and been a special presenter and helped the committee with different questions about process and procedures. Also, we have Sam Everett, who is our chief building official and community standards manager for the city. We have Katie Curry, who's our business coordinator, operations coordinator, and Jake Walls, who is our senior business analyst. We also have Wadi Bargis, who is our property standards administrator. And finally, hiding in the back is Eric Otzelberger, who is our PRL director and has been very helpful to the committee and a great resource to us as we've worked through this more than two year process with the group. So thank you to everyone and especially thank you to all of the committee members. We have been a very inclusive committee. It's been an open There's been no restrictions on participation. We have invited our entire database to every meeting of over 300 property owners and we get the word out through our nonprofits to tenants and have used them as a force multiplier for communicating. We also have had all property owners, again all residents and all property managers invited and anyone with an interest in the subject. So we've been very open. I want to say thank you very much directly to everyone in the community services team who's contributed and supported this work. In particular, our folks who are doing the work of the property standards officers. It's a very hard job. I know I've joked before in some of my presentations, no one likes to see a code enforcement officer, a property standards officer approaching your residence, probably not a welcome sight and kind of can be scary. So it's a very hard job. It's difficult. They're in a lot of very unique situations and I just want to thank them for always being professional and treating everyone fairly and respectfully as they do their job, which is not an easy job to do. And as director, I'm very proud of the work that they're doing and that the team has accomplished over the past two years that we're also gonna be going over in this presentation. We've really done a transformation effort and it's always hard work to climb and to make yourself better and to increase the professionalism. So I'm really thankful to that whole team in Property Standards and under the leadership of Wadi, who has done a tremendous job stepping up and really being a strong leader for that team. Really appreciate him and his whole team and their work keeps our community safe, clean, and beautiful. So tonight we are going to start off by giving you a little background. I won't, of course, read everything on the slide, but you can see all of the meeting dates and locations where we've met over the past two years. We've been in various locations. As you know, to us as a city with community engagement, it's very important to meet the people where they are. So we have varied locations that you can see. We've had remote participation available. accessibility has been very important. We've always had childcare available for free, translation services, snacks. We've met on weeknights, weekdays, Saturday morning meetings, weekend meetings, trying to just mix it up around the city and times and places. so that everyone would have a chance to participate in this. And you can also see the diverse range of participants, stakeholders that we have engaged. And we started these meetings in 2025 with this larger group, more diverse group of folks, very open, of tenants, advocacy groups, landlords, to all sit down together in the same room at the same table and share their perspectives. So we started with much more formal, longer format meetings in the beginning, usually two, two and a half hours long. What we have evolved into have been shorter, bite-size, hard-hitting, very directed meetings at looking page by page, literally page by page, and redlining the proposed code that we'd like to implement. So that has been the process so far. And we've also engaged with many other guest speakers. As I mentioned, the judge very graciously was a guest speaker for us on certain questions the committee had. We also brought in Colorado Legal Services. They've twice provided free sessions for any residents to attend and learn their rights as far as being a renter. We also have seen some overarches of calls for greater transparency, accountability, and greater enforcement that we have been able to respond to immediately. And we've tried to make those changes effective as soon as possible. We've shifted, we've changed with the requests that we're hearing from this group and from the greater community. And we'll talk a little bit about that in the presentation. But above all, we were focused on this adoption of a clear, consistent standard. As you can imagine, you know, knowing the rules of the game, not having the goalposts move is very important in anything. So we wanted to be very clear and deliberate and intentional that everyone can know the rules of the game. They're easy to understand. It's codified in our code. It's through a body that also we have adopted our building code from. Our building code is also, you know, with the International Property International Code Council, excuse me, the ICC. So it's a national standard in the US and the state of Colorado. Our communities surrounding us have adopted similar actions to again not allow judgment calls in the field, right? We wanna have that transparency. And we've, as I said, implemented a lot of that already. So our accomplishments quickly, we advanced, of course, the committee's work. We noted different inspection model options. Again, we researched all of our surrounding peer communities, what our best practices, One of the most visible effort that you've probably noticed is Mr. Dore here and Wadi and are modeling some of our new uniforms that we've implemented as part of adding a level, a higher standard of professionalism and transparency and safety, frankly, for our property standards officers when they go in the field prior to the consolidation of economic development and what was community development departments in 2023, I was asked to merge those departments, which we did. Very proud of that effort. And as part of that, we evaluated We've been doing something for a long time. Why have we been doing it like that? But one of the clearest things that we could improve was the appearance, the pride in appearance, the professionalism, and just having a polo shirt that identifies you as a City of Westminster employee and requiring that you wear your employee badge when you're out doing public work. This is consistent. We actually couldn't find a city community in Colorado that didn't have their property standards code enforcement officers who wore something that would made them very identifiable and you could easily tell who's this person coming up to my door. They could identify them so it was for their safety and the resident safety. Also we were not driving marked vehicles. Some people were driving personal vehicles which is not encouraged. So we've changed all that. We drive branded vehicles. It's very obvious. It's a city worker, a city vehicle coming up to a property. So all of that, to be said, we wanted to help increase and level up our professionalism. We also did that through training, so increased training. We have leveled up and actually recently Sam Everett can tell you much more about it. She was really integral to leading this process. But we now are recognized and we are able to be a trainer of other cities in how to do this work. So we, for the first time ever, the city of Westminster is a certified community and we can continue on different levels of that ladder of professionalism and certifications. And our staff can also do that as well. So they've got new training opportunities. We've increased their capacity. We also, you know, last year, you'll remember, we are trying to look under every rock and part of what we did so we could answer the call of maybe a surge of need for rental inspections. We didn't have the funds or resources to create three more positions. So we said why don't we cross-train code enforcement officers to do the rental inspections. Rental inspectors can also do code enforcement because we have a surge in the summer when weeds get high and trash can pile up and people are outside noticing things, we get a surge in calls. So it worked for both sides of the equation there that we could help add strength when we needed to rental and add strength to our code enforcement side when it wasn't the most needed. So that was also a benefit in some of the work that we have done. We also have better technology. So we've equipped everyone with iPads, Wi-Fi, hotspots, and cars, moved completely to an electronic model. Believe it or not, two years ago, some folks were still doing written pen and paper reports, which duplicated a lot of work and was not efficient. So we found some efficiencies. We also... are coming back to you. As you can see in the next steps, Mr. Dorr was so gracious and answered the call and I said, hey, can you lead this facilitation? You're so good at this. And Larry has led that page turn efforts. Thank you, Larry. And he is going to walk through every single one of those that would be part of this, what you see there, the IPMC adoption, International Property Maintenance Code adoption. There are two parts to that that we're going to discuss with you tonight. The property standards which applies to every property. It's not just rental property. It's every property can have constant consistent standards. We also have the second part of that is the residential rental code which I will explain and is part of our existing program that provides complaint-based and systematic rental inspections for all rental properties. And that, as you know, exists already is on the books. So from here, I'm going to turn it over to Larry because the vast majority of the work that this committee did was that page turn for most of 2026. The last year has been that really, really hard work of reading every word and making sure that there was consensus. And we're happy to report the vast majority of it, there was consensus. We have one small area that Larry will describe and Mr. Otzelberger is here to help us with that one as well to explain the staff rationale for some of that. And finally, we're going to be coming back to you at a later date. We're in the final process of evaluating the use of a rental escrow. So tonight is not when we're going to go through that particular aspect of the work. Tonight we are just going to be focused on the IPMC adoption, the property standards, and the rental code, but we are going to be coming back to you not only with an actual ordinance that you can vote on, resolution to adopt an ordinance for the IPMC, but also to evaluate the use of, give you some options related to the use of rental escrows. So with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Dorr.

Thank you, Director Kimball, Larry Dorr, Deputy City Manager. First, Mayor and Council, thank you for the opportunity to present the work of the committee. And thank you for some latitude tonight. This presentation is more than double the usual length that I would bring to City Council, but I wanted to be sure and very clearly honor the work of this committee and make sure that all voices would be heard throughout the process. First thing I did was make available the International Property Maintenance Code to the entire committee. I had some hard copies that could be checked out at the Westminster Libraries, also made this available online and could be translated into other languages. I use that codebook to sit with committee members, small groups, one-on-one, and turn pages, highlight, redline, circle, etc. And I'm going to go through the items that really rise to a level that go beyond. For example, one of the suggestions that was, I think, more simplistic was where we use the expression or word noxious weeds in the definitions. Put a list of all noxious weeds there. No problem. And that's not really a policy level thing. item that will be presented to you tonight. So the policy level items are ones where there'll be some changes that were unanimous between staff and committee members, the city attorney's office. I also want to thank Assistant City Attorney Matt Munch who was with us through our journey for these months. And so this first one is really just an example of what I did as I turned the pages with the committee members as I just started in the first section, the first which is all properties. And I started with, should this be changed at all? And the city will continue to regulate properties for these matters, or should we discontinue regulation or change this in any way? And quickly, the committee was able to kind of get their arms around where they agree, where they disagree, where resources might be needed. So this is the first of an example. And the next, I'll now kind of get into some summary areas, and I'll go through these pretty quickly. I think that I've organized from what I'm presenting here into the eight matters that are on a slide that we've left at your seating areas. If you want to have a look at that as I go along, if you see the item listed, you'll know that I felt that was likely a policy matter for you. direction so mayor I'll be asking if you would hold council for consensus on direction feedback whatever the case may be on those eight but if you want to stop and talk about any of the other 24 or so I'm happy to do that and as I say I did leave probably another 8 to 12 or so off that were merely those definition add as many examples as you possibly can. So first, regarding penalties, we got feedback, and again, there was consensus around this. called for a violation for every separate day that a violation existed. And that just seemed to compound the problem and not likely lead to a solution. So the recommendation of the committee, which staff agrees with, is to delete the violation for every separate day. So in other words, if a property of any kind had weeds present There's a violation. It has to be addressed. It could lead to all manner of different circumstances, but there's not a violation every single day compounding and making the penalties and the remediation more harsh. So that was the feedback from the committee and gives you kind of a first example. We had a question about condemnation when structures were found to be unfit for human habitation because we know that that's a question in the community when the city is involved in demolishing buildings that are unfit or unsafe, etc. And the committee said, you know, no change on this. So these are matters that we felt that you would want to become aware of. The next one was quite a bit of discussion regarding removal of snow and ice. And this was the existing code reads that it's unlawful to allow any accumulation by any person. And we recognize that that probably wasn't feasible or practical in the field you know if we had a 20 unit apartment complex every person who resided there would be responsible for snow removal so there was some quick consensus that this would be the responsibility of owners only and not occupant tenants as it was at the same time for the sake of property owners property owners can have a private agreement by a lease whereby the occupant does agree to remove snow say it's a single family resident property that's being rented. The landlord owner can, by agreement, ask the tenant occupant to remove that snow, but won't you make this change? Next up was related to civil liability, and there was a request that primarily this would be the owner only. However, there was some feedback about the responsibility of those navigating the public sidewalks that they be adequately prepared for winter weather, snow conditions, et cetera. So we've made that adjustment. I should also mention that the entire red line, all 18 pages was a part of council's packet and is present on the agenda. So if you have any specific questions about that, I'm prepared to address it, which includes every single recommended change from the committee. changing and to or, shall from may, et cetera. We can talk about that. Grounds maintenance, the code reads 100% ongoing survival rate of all plantings and all landscape. And 100% ongoing survival rate is quite a high bar. And the consensus was that that could be deleted because I think obviously anybody who's making plantings wants to have this highest survival rate as possible. So hopefully this opener, I'm going in order in the code, gives you a little feel for what we're doing here tonight. Accumulation of weeds, our code would currently read and in the draft IPMC is unlawful on any premise, including city property. The change would be to include city property, which is not recommended by staff in consultation with our parks, recreation and libraries director and the maintenance of any weeds in parks and open space would be very, very challenging for our community. And it's one of the ones that's on the 8 that you see there. That would require incredible amounts of resources to accomplish and would be quite a burden on the taxpayers of Westminster. So this is where staff has somewhat a disagreement with the recommendation of the committee. And I think that's probably self-evident right away, but Mr. Otzelberger is here if you'd like to ask any questions about that. In the motor vehicle section, it was merely stipulated that a violation would be noticed, and there's been a question about would it be a violation for the property owner or the vehicle owner, and the recommendation is that it would be for both. because we don't want to get involved in disagreement about is it the vehicle, is it the property owner, and they're pointing fingers when the community is suffering through an abandoned vehicle that's on the front yard, on the driveway, whatever the case may be. We want to get it remediated. That's our goal. Our graffiti section requires that graffiti, or excuse me, property be restored to an approved state of repair. And the feeling of the committee is already, you know, graffiti folks who are victimized by graffiti, they suffer twice. They have their property defaced, but then they have to pay or expend energy to get that done. And so we agree with the recommendation from the committee which is we're going to delete approved state of repair. I think it's fairly evident when graffiti is removed what that looks like and how it improves the community. Insect screens required for every window and other outside opening. And this was revealing for me. My own home in Westminster is in violation because I don't have a screen door on my front door. And now you all probably just thought, wait a minute, I don't think I have a screen door on my front door. So this was very practical information from the committee that, you know, we even have homeowners associations that don't allow a front screen door. I think that goes for my own place, I think. So we have a recommendation to exempt the front door. And it gives you a little flavor for some of the things that were not very controversial and some of the things that may have been Next up was maintenance of door locks and assemblies, and it was recommended that this be restricted to egress doors only and not interior doors, and that if an egress door had original equipment, that that would be sufficient, that nothing would have to be added. So if there had never been, let's just say, a deadbolt, on the door that would not have to be added but if there is a locking handle door it would have to be maintained in operable condition to be clear. And then there was a reference in the code here about sleeping units and that's a little confusing to the general reader as to what constitutes a sleeping unit so the consensus was to delete that reference which is what's recommended. Then trash, junk and debris. We did have the three-yard roll-off. We had the smaller containers and had a nice discussion with the committee. But one of the things that was painful about this was accumulation not allowed. Does that mean two gum wrappers is an accumulation? And that seemed a bit confusing. and could be onerous to everyone involved. So the recommendation was to change to unreasonable or unsanitary accumulation of trash, junk, and debris. So that is a little bit further of a judgment call, but I think is a little bit of a higher bar and can be useful. Next, there's a section of the code about outdoor storage of refrigerators and that they shall not be discarded, abandoned, or stored outside the premise. And the committee brought back a very practical suggestion of let's change that and allow for not more than three calendar days or 72 hours because the concept is residents may be recycling a refrigerator. It may not be sold to a neighbor and they're coming to pick it up. They may be moving to another place residents somewhere else. So we want to give a little bit of grace to allow for our residents to have that refrigerator outside. Household waste facilities, and this goes to the garbage disposal, what many people would call that, but that the owner would provide either a mechanical food waste grinder or an incinerator or a leak-proof container. And the feeling was most incinerators in this environment, you know, it's probably not best. And so it's time to move on from that old section of the maintenance code. I know in other parts of the country that might be the case. And then we know that composting is popular for Westminster. So we wanted to add that language for composters. Next up, pest elimination. And we have on here trash containers, but really this involves, wait a minute. Oh, I've got one confused here. I'll have to, we'll have to come back to it. I think I've overlapped something, but I think instead of pest elimination document that should read related to trash containers. And there was a suggestion that those be allowed in front yards. One of our committee members feels that those should be allowed because the residents just leave those at their curb or they have them near their front yard. It's very impractical for enforcement, although we do, on a complaint basis, if a resident provides a complaint, our property standards officers will engage the resident, let them know they're in violation. give a warning if they have to come back, they will enforce that. So this is one where a council can provide some guidance on a policy feedback and direction for Westminster as to whether or not trash containers can be allowed in the front yard. currently prohibited front yard, side yard, or back yard when visible from the street. So that's something to think about. So forgive me, that pest elimination is now for the next line, which is currently it reads the occupant is responsible for continued pest-free conditions when caused by defect, the owner would be responsible. And the consensus of the committee was to change this to the owner. Now the owner can have a private agreement in the lease documents that is agreed to by the tenant, that the tenant has some measure of responsibility for pest control, that our city will be regulating and engaging only with the owners on this so that it's a little bit of a higher bar Okay. Next up, plumbing fixtures and clearances. There was a reference here that each toilet shall have clearance not less than 27 inches of width. And the proposal, this is a little bit into the details, but the committee had some strong feelings and the recommended action is to delete this and it will leave language that says adequate clearances for cleaning and hygiene and so forth. So this will simplify it. Landlords, tenants, property standards officers don't have to pull out the tape measure and make sure that it's not any less than 27 inches. So we would suggest removing that. Next under heat supply is very important to the committee and we heard about this and of course in Colorado and winter temperatures, this is so important. But that heat would be provided by the owner at a minimum temperature of 68 degrees in habitable bathrooms and toilets. And in the code, there's an ability to add dates like September 1st in the fall and April 1st in the spring. And the consensus, so that could be done. However, the committee felt that it should just be 68% all of the time, you know, in the event there's some unforeseen cold circumstances at different times of the year. So again, that's a little bit of a higher bar for the residents. And so with that, that covers all properties in Westminster. I spoke of my own, your own properties with or without screen doors. That's on the table for discussion in that kind of final aid. So with that, I wanted to invite Director Kimball to talk a little bit about the burden, the transition to shared responsibilities for our officers and the number of inspections done per year and what came of that work from the committee members during our our time together. Thank you.

Thank you. So now we're going to go over recommendations and describe our residential rental code. And this provides a table demonstrating the number of staff. So again, we've implemented effective, we began the rollout in 2025 with training for six months for cross training. And in 2026, we launched the cross function of all staff to be property standards officers and no longer having a separation between this person does only code enforcement, this person does only rental inspection. Just to keep that in mind because that the projected number we've just kept it level set for 25 and 26 and we've increased the capacity by cross training. So those folks are also still having to do the code enforcement work that still exists and rental inspections on top of that. So this is just specifically rental inspection. So we have been able to increase capacity as you can imagine look at 2023, over 2,000 inspections for a full-time working inspector is a lot. If you think the average hours that you would work in a full-time job 40 hours a week is 2,080 hours in a year, that would mean you're running through an inspection every single hour of every single day that you're working and also writing the reports and filing the summons if you have to, to go to muni court and assess the fines and tracking that. So it was just a lot. It was overwhelming. They were overwhelmed. And so this has been very helpful to add in 2025 with the consolidation of the departments. I repurposed a vacant position to add another inspector. tried to add horsepower, and on top of that, we knew we were planning to do this cross-training. So it has provided a much more reasonable working expectations. We're not literally have inspectors running from unit to unit, like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, okay, done, do, do, do, do, do, done. It was just, it blew my mind when I took over leadership of this department, the amount of inspections that were being done by one person. So it really has provided the space and the time for them to do a much more thorough inspection, to follow up, to be able to do proper tracking and reporting and as I said, we have that time and space that we need to take. You know, there's very few but the bad actors out there who are landlords are able to really pursue the enforcement side of things. You have the time to do that and get that enforcement and compliance. And again, we just made some projections based on information from our planning division on the amount of new multifamily rental units, rental single family units that are coming online. So currently, we do have an established citywide inspection schedule. The code reference is there. And some overviews, high line of the program, we have both a complaint-based and a systematic inspection. Inspection upon complaint can be at any moment in the life cycle. It could be a brand new unit that just got occupied yesterday and there's a huge problem and the tenant can... request a complaint-based inspection. And we respond to those. We try to respond within 48 hours. If it's life safety, we try to be there immediately, whatever time it is. So we do not have a time limit on those complaint-based inspections. And those are for all rental units that can be a single-family home, it can be a multi-family, a townhome, whatever it is, they are subject to this. Now the systematic inspections begin when a property becomes greater than six years old, unless there's a complaint. So we do have a schedule and the inspection frequency increases With the age of the property so you can see that correlation there And just to emphasize again, we do prioritize life safety issues Take them very seriously. They have to be prioritized by the excuse me by the management and the ownership of the property and Those are ones that we are will track hour by hour or day by day. Whatever is needed but for a non-life safety issue. There is a period of notice of violation. They receive a notice. There's a due process involved. They have a certain period of time to correct the deficiency and come into compliance. Then it's re-inspected. They call for a re-inspection. We do have increasing fines, not daily, as Larry spoke to earlier. With a second violation, a third violation, they stack until we're at the point where we're seeing there's not going to be probably a compliance. We always want to work towards compliance for folks. But if we can't get there, our last tool in the toolbox is to have a summons and we do go to court. In some cases, like remember Midland Building or Knox Court, really bad code, obviously not rental properties, but a bad code enforcement issue, it's the same process. The city does have the ability to abate a nuisance or abate a problem with a critical issue. We will send the bill to the property owner, not the tenant, it goes to the property owner, And we do have court action to try and get that money back and the fines. So that's our current system, how it works. And now I'm going to turn it back over to Mr. Dorr, who is going to walk through the page turn on our rental property standards.

Indeed, thank you. And let's see. So one of the areas of substantial disagreement amongst committee members was on right of entry. And that is inspectors can enter premises at a reasonable time to inspect. with a court order and that's presently in the code and Judge Lontine presented on that to the committee and he'll present that content again so that council can make a policy decision regarding the desire to leave that in. There are some circumstances as Ms. Kimball described where information from neighbors, from the community, from the observation of a property standards officer through court action could authorize entrance in order to keep occupants safe. We have had incidents in Westminster where folks accumulate a lot of debris and other paper items in the house. Some folks might call that hoarding where a fire danger is present and fires have happened in our community. So yet we want to also respect the privacy and the sanctity of the home as well. And that's where the committee members are kind of coming at this from from both sides. So that'll come up in a moment. Either keep it or delete it. And it is a substantial section regarding notice. It was, this is in advance that I think makes things a little more clear. It just read seven days in advance and the committee has added in writing, sir to the owner or agent and you see the language that's present there. We want to use all methods possible to communicate with the parties involved and that's just a good way of doing business. So that's a recommended change. Rental dwellings inspections. Interestingly enough, this is a little bit of a confusing section in the code. There are two places in the code that allow for a rental property to be inspected at any time due to complaints, and it's present twice in the code. It's already present under 8-2-6B5, and for whatever reason in the second place, and the committee felt that's confusing. Let's just have it in one spot. Everybody knows they can make a complaint and have an inspection. Next, notice of non-compliance. Great feedback and agreed upon that when the owner receives a notice of violation that they get the code section. So they can go straight to the code section and see what is the minimum requirement. They can get in compliance. Very simple, very user-friendly. Great feedback. And then we want to add the reinspection report shall be posted to the publicly available rental registry database. And so now is an opportunity for me to give a teaser for a future action down the line. We have our current system, eTrackIt, prospective tenants, existing tenants, landlords can go in and view their inspection reports on specific addresses. It's not the most user-friendly, so learning that early on, we are already engaged with some prospective updates with competitor firms that our city's already doing business with that could provide a much more user-friendly publicly available rental registry database, very easy to use on mobile phone, tablet, laptop, that can give a much more user-friendly report. But in the meantime, folks can call us at the city, ask for community services, they can understand what's presently there, and or we can guide folks where to find that on the internet. But it is a little bit challenging to locate, so more coming on that in the future. And we got great feedback from the committee that that is a highly valuable need for this committee for this community, frankly. Owner certification for corrections. We had previously relied on the testimony of a landlord. They had a receipt. They had a repair bill. And we relied on that to avoid reinspections so that we could initiate new inspections. And instead, we've added owner to provide evidence to the city and tenant That such affirmation has been provided and including photos and documents. So the tenant has the opportunity to say. Wait a minute. I don't that's not my house. It's my neighbors. Those repairs haven't yet been completed. And, you know, they can ask for a re inspection or. Ideally, it's very transparent, everybody's included, and we move on to the next inspection. So I thought that was really good feedback there as well. Reinspection fee, the first inspection, and this was for each follow-up, but we wanted to make clear, abundantly clear that the first re-inspection free. That wasn't overtly stated. But then we want to, and that's not a change, it's just more clear, and that there's a $50 fee for subsequent follow-up re-inspections. And that's not going to change. However, we have added some language that if the owner is acting in good faith, you know, let's say we had a re-inspection scheduled, the work was to get done, and the contractor called in sick, didn't have the materials, but the owner is acting in good faith that the property standards officer could defer the re-inspection fee in fairness to the owner. So with that, I think that covers all, I think, 24, 25 different page terms. We have the eight. that are policy questions, Mayor, for you to facilitate. But one of the large ones relates to right of entry. And so I'd like to ask for a long time now to talk about what was presented to the committee. And he'll, of course, be available for questions. So, Judge, if you'd come around the table, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, counsel, presiding judge Jason Lontine, and I had an opportunity to present to the committee on this topic, particularly the right of entry as it relates to both the scheduled inspections under the rental inspection program as well as inspections if there are complaints. And so essentially there's two ways that an inspection of a property can occur. And the first of a rental property. And the first is as part of the standard scheduled maintenance, where it's laid out, as Director Kimball discussed, the timeframes based off the age of the property, how often that they need to be inspected. The other is complaint-based. If there's a complaint or a property standards officer notes that there's a condition of a property that's concerning, there's a right of entry to address that. But most importantly and really the crux here is that all of those inspections and the right to access the property is first based off of consent. The individual that is in the property, the resident, needs to give their consent for that property to be accessed. If they don't, then the code provides for a remedy that the city can pursue through the municipal court in order to gain entry into that property, either to perform the standard inspection or to address a complaint. And so I'll talk a little bit more about what the code provides there. And then, of course, for any questions from council about how that looks or what that means for our residents here. The only other exception is an emergent situation where there's an imminent risk to life or health. In those situations, there can be access to a building without a court order. So those are those situations where certainly if a building is on fire, there doesn't need to be a court order to allow the fire department property standards to go in there and address those sort of concerns. So those are really the three situations there. The standard inspection, if there's a complaint, or then of course if there's an emergent situation, there can be access into a rental unit. So the court order procedure, this really kicks in when an individual can either, does not allow a inspector into the property for whatever reason, does not give consent, or if the occupant of that property can't be located. So a property standards officer comes up, knocks on the door, nobody answers, but there's a condition that needs to be addressed or the standard inspection needs to occur. and there's just nobody there. Then the code provides for a notice requirement. The city needs to take reasonable steps to try to identify who that resident is, post a notice of an intent to inspect, and then if they still have not been successful with making contact, they can apply to the court for a court order. And that's governed by the code as well as municipal court rule 241 section B and C. But the requirements are laid out there. And what the court needs to consider is if someone has either denied entry as part of If there was a complaint and a property standards officer appeared to address that complaint and the occupant denied entry, or if they denied entry as part of the standard inspection process, these are the things that the property standards inspector would need to present to the court in order to get that court order. First, of course, the property needs to be within Westminster, so they need to establish that this is something that the court has jurisdiction over. Second, the property standards officer would need to demonstrate that the search of the property or the entry into the property is part of either an authorized scheduled inspection process that is designed in the interest of public safety, or that there was a complaint and there's probable cause to believe that there is a violation of the rental code, property standards occurring within that property that requires an inspection. And then finally that permission to access has either been denied or the occupant is unavailable. So that needs to be presented to the court in the form of a sworn affidavit. in the affidavit again here needs to demonstrate that it's provided by a drafted and sworn by a property standards official that there was first an attempt to get consent to enter into the property or that there there was nobody there to get that consent from and then finally again that it was part of the standard inspection process, or that there was a complaint that needed to be addressed. So all that needs to be presented to the court in the form of an affidavit, and the court needs to make a finding that there's probable cause that all of that exists. And probable cause is defined in the code, but essentially it's objective facts and circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to believe that a condition exists, so that the inspector is accurate that they are engaging in the standard inspection process, or there's probable cause that there's a violation of the rental standards that needs to be addressed. So the court reviews the affidavit. If all of those boxes are checked, then the order is signed and the property standards officer can gain access into that rental unit to perform whatever it is that they need to do, whether it's, again, the scheduled inspection or address a complaint. So just a few key points and part of the conversation when I was with the committee was, what's the difference between an inspection order and what everyone thinks of as a search warrant, where a police officer believes there's probable cause for a crime, goes to the court, asks for a search warrant, allows the officer to go into a building, and what's the difference between the two? And there's some pretty important differences there. The first is that initially the inspector needs to attempt to get consent and needs to ask if they can enter the property. An officer doesn't need to do that. They can apply for an arrest warrant. There's no requirement that first they go knock on the door and ask to go in before they can apply for a search warrant. The requirement here is first that the property standards officer knocks on the door, makes contact, and asks if there can be consent to enter. The second is that it authorizes health and safety inspection as opposed to an officer to go in and enforce a criminal law. And it's limited to rental code violations. So there can't be a petition to the court to search for illegal contraband or things like that. This is specific to concerns as it relates to property standards or to follow the standard inspection protocol there. And then importantly, the scope of the inspection order is also limited to the purpose. And so the property standards inspector can look at property standards. It's not personal effects. They're not authorized to rummage through drawers, look through people's personal belongings. It's to look for things that are relevant to the rental code and those standards. So some pretty important distinctions there and that I think are just relevant to council's consideration of that topic and that these are administrative inspection orders as opposed to criminal search warrants. And there's a pretty big divergence there in terms of what the requirements are, what the inspector can look for, and the process that goes into that. So that's a quick overview of the process and the code requirements as it relates to right of entry. And I'm happy to take any questions if council has any, otherwise.

Yeah, I have a little, I have a question about the scope of inspection order. So you say that it's not personal effects and they can't run through drawers. Let's say somebody has, um, marijuana or a water pipe just sitting on their coffee table. What happens then?

In terms of?

Is that something that's going to be reported to the owner? Is that something that's going to be reported to police? Is that, you know, like if there's, if there's drugs or, whatever you would use to use those drugs, like just sitting out where people can see that aren't like hidden away.

So they're without, The short answer is that if it is a violation of the rental code, then that is something that can be reported and act upon by the inspector. Legal items, such as whether it's marijuana or otherwise, if that person can legally have it, then that's not a law violation. If there was illegal contraband out in plain view, there's a plain view exception. There's nothing in the code that specifies if a property standards inspector sees something that is readily apparent to be illegal that cannot be reported to law enforcement. And so and I'm trying to think of an extreme example, but if they were to go into a property and find someone held against their will, for example, there's nothing that would prevent that property standards inspector from informing law enforcement of that situation.

Okay, thank you. Councilor Zotti. Thank you. I have a few questions and then a comment. Related to this one specifically, Is consent actually built formally in writing in the code, or is it assumed? Is it written? It's required. And if you go back to 825, can you go back to that slide? 825. So 825 versus 826, P2. Yeah, there. What's the difference? Because they seem similar. Is the inspections notice Is that topic different than the right of entry? Because that one is saying that it's required to give seven days advance notice. also apply then to the right of entry? Do they have to give seven days notice in right of entry?

If we're talking about after consent has been denied, there's a 24-hour posting requirement. So if there was a request to conduct an inspection and that was denied, then the code provides that there's a 24-hour notice requirement. Then the city official could request an order from the court. And so that comes at, the 24 hours is after there's been a denial of access and inspection notice is prior to.

So the first step is that inspection notice code piece and that number, the seven days is what they have to go through first and then 24 hours? If consent is denied, then there's 24 hours. And for 827E, What is the pathway for a resident? You mentioned that a resident can deny that, you know, an affirmation actually occurred. How can the resident say, oh, this never happened?

Thank you, Councillor Zaddi. I'm getting into that list of eight at the end of the presentation, so I'd be happy to answer that for you. I'll do that real quick. The In the notice that will be provided, the landlord will provide notice to the property standards officer. The property standards officer will then share that back to the landlord and the tenant and say the following was provided related to the violation that occurred on July 6th, what have you. And if there's any disagreement with that, please contact property standards officer door at the following phone number and next steps in the action will take place. Provided that that's adopted by the City Council, we'll just operationalize that, sir.

Yeah, so that's the question, right? So I get it that they're going to get the notice as well, but the pathway for them to actually be able to easily, more accessibly tell the city, hey, this never happened? It's a phone number they call and that's it?

Oh yeah, they can call, they can email back to the property standards officer, they can visit us at City Hall. They're receiving this by email or is it printed? If we have an email, if we've made contact with the occupant in order to perform the inspection and we believe that we have a reliable phone number and email for the person based on the inspection occurrence, we will rely on that. But if we perform the inspection due to an in-person visit, we'll either go to their place of residence or we'll send it by U.S. mail so that we'll be able to say these repairs, we were notified that these repairs were made. So we'll do it based on our experience. Based on that.

I'm sorry, if I could add as well, an added safeguard is every time we enter a property, whether someone's there or not, the inspector, that's part of our procedures and standard operating procedures that we've changed, greater professionalism, transparency. They must leave a business card and ways to contact. So they'll have the business card and they'll also have the document, you know.

What's the average response rate for that group of people who are receiving the calls? Because what I want to make sure is that if a resident says this never happened, they're not getting a voicemail, they're not waiting days.

How quickly are they getting back? We have our own standard that we hold ourselves to in property standards. It's extremely fast. It could be the same day. We've had things in 30 minutes get resolved. We have a very high standard of customer care. So we strive for 24 hours. to get back to somebody. But like I said, most of the time, if something is disputed, we'll come out that day, we'll come out the next morning, the next Monday. So we try to resolve those a maximum of 48 hours.

So when you're receiving the written affirmation, from a process standpoint, is the closed, so do you have like a closed, completed step? Yes. Do you close the affirmation before hearing from the resident? You know, the resident gets the notice, right?

Yeah.

So are we waiting to close it before?

This dual notice, Counselor, will be a new function for us. We're not doing this today. So we will have to assess the response from the residents. We're hoping that the landlord who knows that the city will be providing copy to the tenant that they've done these repairs is going to cause them to be highly compliant. We anticipate that. And then, of course, EVA. It will be an investment of resources to continue to contact the tenant to say, hey, we let you know this. Are they confirmed? At some point or another, we'll have to move on to other work and performing inspections. But we'll report back to the city council committee and community on how this new code goes, assuming it's the pleasure of the council as a whole.

So what I just want to make sure is that we don't close the case, if you will, before hearing from the resident. maybe give it seven days, you know, give them some kind of time limit. That's good feedback. Right, because... you know, we hear complaints about that.

I know we don't have this process now, but what I don't want to happen is voicemails or... Yeah, and even if it's closed, as you said, sir, they have the opportunity to complain three days later that the heater repair that was just completed was done, broke again, or was never done. So we're going to be right there on the fence watching those things.

Can you go to 302.44...

in the property code?

Councilor, would it be okay if I went to the summary and we kind of, would it be all right if I went to those? There's detail there that reminds me of my question. Which one, sir? The first slide that shows 302.4.4. Okay, very well.

Let's see.

Yes, sir. There you go. Okay, so this is about the weeds. Yes. What does this actually mean? That's actually number one on our resolution. City property, it says already include city property and the recommendation says to include city property. So what's the...

Yes, and forgive me, it would be more clear if the language summary read excluding city property and the recommendation is to include city property. So that could have been more clear in our drafting, sir. So currently the code excludes city property. and the recommendation is to include. And staff is suggesting that that's a very high burden and may even be infeasible to cover all of our parks and open space.

But is this saying that the property, so the tenant, or the owner is responsible for city property? No, beg your pardon.

So accumulation of weeds was not recommended to be changed at all for the committee. So what's currently in the code for private property and for owner-occupied rental property, commercial property related to weeds and accumulation of weeds, there's no change recommended. The only change recommended to this code section is that it all city property be included in that standard as well. So there was a sense that it seems a bit unequal that on the one hand, commercial properties, rental properties, residential properties have to live within the weeds standard and the city properties do not. And the substantial difference is that city properties include those very large expanses of open space. So that's really the difference, sir.

So basically changing this would mean that the city would need to do more to maintain the weeds?

Significantly more. And again, Director Otzelberger could address that. Thank you for letting me clarify that because this could have been written a little more clearly.

Sorry, just another point of clarification, sir, is on open space, it actually would not be recommended, right? We don't mow the open space. It needs to be maintained in a natural state. So it's really not even reasonable. I won't speak for Director Otzelberger, he can do that, but I think it's pretty easy to understand why in a natural setting where it needs to be a wild space, it's an open space, that we're not going to go out there and mow open space. That's not the purpose.

Or alternatively, pull manually all of the weeds in the open space. That would also take quite a bit of resources.

The committee unanimously recommended this?

Yes, the committee unanimously recommended that, sir. I want to make sure to represent that clearly.

Okay, that's interesting. And 602.3? Yes. So the temperature.

And this was to add dates to the temperature, sir. In fact, some portion of the committee thought, let's have a shorter range of dates, fewer than 12 months. Other committee members said it should be all 12 months. So that's a policy choice for the council to wrestle with a bit.

And the ask for that staff direction for this one is to... Pick dates?

Staff was indifferent and really deferring to the council to determine the best path forward for the community.

Regarding dates or in general to have the... Either dates or year-round. Okay. Well... Thank you. This was a pretty thorough, thanks for all the work you did over the last year. I'm sure it was a blast. But thank you to the committee, the members who are here, the folks who are listening too, that it seems like there was a lot of collaboration that occurred. Not everyone was happy with all the things, but that's probably best case is someone was good. Some people are going to not be happy. My main thing, and you mentioned in the first slide, We saw this a few months ago about rent escrow. And we were told it was pending. My first question is, what's taking so long? When are we actually going to hear back on that?

It's actually on my next slide after we facilitate the code sections. But on my next slide, I do have rent escrow or rent collection by city for unresolved violations. Our city attorney's office, Mr. Frankel and Mr. Graham, along with their assistant city attorney, Munch, have been doing some work on this and it was hoped that we would discover that some other city or county in Colorado would already be doing this. And we have, there is not one. And so our city would be breaking ground and needing to do that within the realm of the municipal court. And so it would be groundbreaking work. And so we're having some next step conversations now that we've done that investigation. We believe that that doesn't exist necessarily in Colorado yet because we have great authorities already. This would add another tool, that's for sure. but we already have great authorities to resolve and remediate property standards violations. So that's in progress, and I think city attorney's office and municipal judge will be coming back to council as soon as they flesh out those next steps. The property standards administrators that reside with Ms. Kimball, they're a second party because there needs to be the oversight from the municipal court involved in this. those parties, both landlord and tenant. So that's coming. But in the meantime, the committee gave us very clear direction that these code changes will really advance the work of the committee and we'd like to bring those forward probably next month and maybe soon thereafter the rent escrow work.

So what I wanted to say about rent escrow, So thanks for the work. I'm looking forward to hearing back on that. You know, rent is really high, is already high for Westminster families. To pay full price for unsafe housing is not fair, right? We have really good landlords in the city, but the bad landlords not only hurt families, but they are giving the good ones, the responsible ones, a bad name, right? I'm a big advocate for rent escrow. And if anyone's listening, rent escrow is a legal mechanism for the city to force a landlord to basically put, rather than taking rent from the renter before fixing issues in their home, they're putting it in a special account until those changes are fixed. until the home is habitable, until the house is safe. And I think that's critical because what we've heard tonight, we have increased capacity for our rental inspectors, but we haven't increased the number of inspections. That slide showed that the number of inspections is going to stay static. Our inspectors have increased their capacity, which helps our employees. But what it doesn't do is addresses probably a whole lot of folks who don't reach out to us yet on unsafe conditions. And we need to give our inspectors a tool, another tool because of that leveling of that static hold on the number of inspections. Our enforcement. I mean, all these changes, no matter where we land, it's much better, right? It's going to be new. It's a codified, simplified code, much more efficient, much more effective. But there's little teeth if we don't actually give the tools that our employees need to enforce this. And the renters need this because they're living in unsafe conditions. Paying full rent, that, as we know, is rising. I'm a big advocate for this and I would hope that when it comes back to us, we get, you know, I personally don't care if we're the first ones to do it. I think a lot of states are doing it. You know, if we're the first ones in Colorado to do it, we can pilot it and see how it goes. But when it comes back, I would be definitely looking forward to that. So thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you. Oh, and before we move on to further questions, I just want to ask, do we have more of the presentation to go? Do we want to take a poll now?

are we i just have these matters of the code to address and then that's the last slide okay to get a little bit of feedback from council so we mayor we would really enjoy getting some direction on these eight sections and i still have to describe number eight because that came in pretty late as your agenda was being drafted from a committee member so i added that fairly late but um these eight would help us draft the property code that the committee has worked on for these several months. These are the areas of somewhat disagreement as it was, or a need for change that may impact other community members that the committee and staff haven't yet thought about that the policy makers should really have the opportunity to address.

Thank you so much. And since Councillor Zari with his questions answered a lot of our upcoming work, I think just now, why don't we go around and ask remaining questions, get them all out, and then I'll just go one through eight around and do quick polls. Okay. Councillor Rojas.

This question was for the judge for the entry. Thank you, Madam Mayor. In terms of refusal for entry or for denial of entry, I think is the language you used, Is it the person who is residing, the only person who can deny entry is the person residing in the space? Like, I guess my question would be if a renter says, hey, there's a blank that I would like for you to inspect, could the property owner then come and say, I'm denying the inspector's entry?

So the occupant there, if an inspector arrives and they knock on the door and an occupant says, come on in, the inspector can go into the property.

Okay. And if that... Okay, that's helpful. I guess if the resident or the occupant is not necessarily the resident that's, so like for example if the property owner is inside and lets them in kind of without maybe the resident's notice, would that be, I mean the inspector is not like doing identification. kind of confirmation?

Correct. So if there is an individual that is an occupant that has file accounts, the legal right to be there and to allow individuals into that property, if they give consent, then the property standards officer could enter.

Great. I appreciate just the clarification on that. I wanted to make sure that there's not too many barriers kind of from that permission. I did have a question. That's good, Judge, thanks. I did have a question around the refrigerator. Is this just for, is there a, and should I, if I have a specific question on this, should I, you want me to ask it now, is that correct, Mary? That's right. Okay. Is that for, does it designate kind of plugged or unplugged?

it does not it just has refrigerator of any kind and i again we had we had some late updates it reads two days here which was the final kind of recommendation but council can wrestle with wrestle with what's the right amount of time i mean presently it says it can't a refrigerator can't be present for 10 minutes yeah so in or otherwise thank you for the clarification um

my main concern with this uh is twofold one if there is an exterior refrigerator for just kind of standard uh recreational use so for example if you invite your neighbors to come over and enjoy beverages in the evening time underneath your patio or sorry on your patio or underneath like maybe a carport area and that refrigerator is outside but plugged in and functional and not necessarily anything that's trash or debris that would kind of be There's a lot of what we do with trying to engage and encourage residents to connect with each other is that really low level, low barrier of entry. So if people can just go for a walk and hang out with their neighbors right outside, this could potentially get in the way of it. Much larger concern for me. Again, this is kind of like a functional refrigerator, so not something that is trash, or kind of the importance of designating the two. We've seen a lot of residents do food pantries, kind of ad hoc food pantries right outside of their homes. And one of the major missing pieces is refrigeration for people to be able to store refrigeration or if someone, maybe there's some transient community members who a resident is saying, hey, you can use the refrigerator, my spare refrigerator that I'm putting outside to kind of maintain some of your refrigeration pieces. So I just wanted to make sure we don't code this away.

Yeah. Sorry, Councilor, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I just want to let you know that the code, I just quickly looked, says equipment that is not in operation. Great. So if it is operating, that's OK. So not in operation, if it's being discarded, stored, etc. Okay, thanks so much.

Thank you. Councillor Ireland? So I want to know how we decide the systematic inspections by the age of the apartment or the rental units. Do we have more complaints under those years?

You know, given the volume, let me just go to that section. Thank you, Councillor Ireland. This gives you the strata, if I can say it that way. There will not be systematic inspection. In any case, a complaint will yield an inspection. If the home is 10 days old, an inspection will be performed. The way I described, you know, fire safety, sometimes animal welfare can be a reason for inspection. You know, if somebody has a significantly large number of pets, lots of different things. So this is... Complaint based from the landlord or the tenant?

Correct.

Okay. Yeah. And if we had a complaint from a neighbor, then we would attempt to make an inspection. And if we were unsuccessful and there was reasonable and credible evidence that the complaint was valid, then the court process is present. That's good for weeds, trash and rubbish inside the building or unsanitary conditions, myriad other things. But to answer your question, this strata here, anytime there's a complaint, we carry it forward. And this has really been dictated through the learnings of the International Property Maintenance Code. drafters and managers for many years in terms of when violations will tend to occur, when heaters start to fail, when drains start to fail, the mechanics of the home start to have a need to be inspected. And what Director Kimball put forth, committee said so well is every single dwelling is getting older in Westminster by the year. And eventually there will be more and more homes that are more than 20 years. And so the committee wrestled with and it was described that there may be some options there. Nothing direct came forward. But if we've had a property that's, let's say, 20 or 30 years old and it's been inspected five times every two years and always passed, Is that something that's needed to be reinspected every two years? Well, maybe not. I mean, if there's been five consecutive two-year inspections and it's passed flawlessly, there's an argument that it could be suspended. from reinspection every two years. But there's an argument that ownership changes, financial circumstances of owners changes, and that in order to keep the property safe, make sure that it's habitable, et cetera, that it is more prudent if the city has the capacity and the resources to inspect a property every two years. So it's really been borne out through the experience of the international property maintenance authors. that have put forth, this is the International Code Council, provided the building codes for cities across the country. And so there's a lot of data and evaluation that's come from this body, the International Code Council. So that's where it's come from.

Well, is there any discussion to have them inspected after the people move out between the people moving in instead of mandatory inspections?

Well, at the time of change, you know, certainly if there's a complaint, you know, if a person is moving out and complains that I'm moving out because the heater didn't work or, you know, that type of complaint, then an inspection would be performed. But to add to the strata of what's already here, and I keep saying that, but to the... to the systematic process would create more inspections. And based on what the International Code Council is suggesting that that may not flesh out more or different violations. So again, that's why this is sort of the best of circumstances is this systematic or complaint basis. We feel like that can cover a lot of basis for Westminster.

So why do you think we need systematic?

We discover a lot of violations that way.

Oh, you do?

Indeed.

Yes, ma'am. Another thing. I've been doing my own homework, as I do, about this escrow account. Did the city look into the warranty of habitability law that the state passed in 2022? It allows you to have an escrow account. You have to tell the landlord this is the issue that's uninhabitable. And then the court will help you, at least certain courts, I saw Adams County on the list, will help you fill out the work to take it to court to put the money. It said you can even put it in your own account. So there is already... a way out there to make, at least for the really bad things, even insect infestation I read. So there is a process to do this escrow account already in the state. So are we trying to do something more?

Yeah, thank you. It was reported to me that based on the violations that our city is regulating that no other county or city is doing that. Again, I'll just kind of defer to the city attorney's office as they work through their research. and go through this warranty of habitability that you've described. We'll certainly follow up, but there's still some work to be done in that area. We had hoped for, you know, something that was done right here in Adams or Jefferson County that I was told that's not the case. And creating a little bit of a higher bar of due process where the municipal court would be involved in declaring the necessity of rental property escrows. Because if the landlord controls money in their own escrow, that's not as... No, it's the tenant that can have it in their own escrow. Yeah, and or with the municipal court. And or the court. Right. Not the landlord. So I think there's still some work to be done on that. And I anticipate that that could come back before the city council in the next month.

Did you want to add to that? I would, yes. Thank you. Just to add to your question, so the warranty of habitability, what we have learned from various, actually committee members, was they have not seen a tenant that they know of in the state who's been successful in establishing one of those escrow accounts. So you can imagine you're a tenant, maybe you're working, you've got kids to take care of, and you're like, oh my gosh, I have to set up this escrow account on my own now to try and get some sense of fairness for paying for this property that isn't up to standard or up to the warranty of habitability. So it exists, but it's in practice has been found to be very ineffectual for the tenants who need the help the most. So that was the intelligence that we received, so that's where we were proceeding from. Okay, thank you.

Councilor Johnson?

Sure, yeah, I appreciate that. I just have three quick questions. The first one is, it's not on our policy list, but 5042, which is the cleaning clearance for toilets. I'm curious why the request to remove that. I mean, there's already ADA standards that require usually larger levels of clearance, but why are we removing this at least minimal clearance?

Thank you. Yeah, again, this was a really unanimous feedback from the in as much as much of these facilities have already been constructed in Westminster and met building code standards at that time. And any new facilities to be built would meet Westminster code standards and would be at least this width or more and meet all of the standards that you described. So the consensus feedback was by deleting this, that it will not cause any confusion that any landlord would have to make modifications, would be required to make modifications to the property and that new construction or as is will be in its existing form. Or if there's a building permit to modify of bathroom facilities that it would have to meet current standards within Westminster building code. So really it's a matter of this might cause some alarm confusion on behalf of existing owners and doesn't offer really any protection or safeguard because anything new or rebuilt would have to meet the current building code standards. So the idea, our overarching theme was to have a simple, understandable set of rules for everybody to work from. So this is one of those that fell out.

And then the other question I have is 30415, which are locks. I understand from my house, maybe I don't want a deadbolt on my second bedroom, but I've heard from tenants a lot that share dwellings with roommates that maybe they don't have a perfect relationship with, that having a deadbolt on your sleeping unit is important. And my understanding is that this would remove that requirement so that you couldn't request if you live in a multi-bedroom unit with another roommate that you wouldn't be able to require your landlord to have a deadbolt on that door. Is that correct?

I think we don't require a deadbolt on interior doors at this moment, but we don't restrict them. So that's... that wouldn't be a concern in that scenario that you describe. We're just deleting all reference to sleeping units because it was a bit confusing to the audience in whole. I was asked for an example of that and describe what you did and it's still uncommon, but this would not preclude a person from putting a deadbolt on their bedroom or they're sleeping in it all that it requires is that if there is one present that it be maintained in an operable standard that it that it be functioning and operable so the landlord would have a responsibility if the tenant moved in there was a deadbolt on their bedroom and it became malfunctioning it would have to be repaired by the landlord that that's really the standard of care and requirement at this point

And then my last question is probably to the judge or our city attorney because there was reference when I was reviewing the material and this kind of intersects with what we're going to talk about next week with 181, that violations of these standards carry both the civil municipal penalty and the criminal municipal penalty. Is that correct?

Councillor Johnson, that's correct. These could be written in under 181 and be punishable as a criminal ordinance violation. Great, thank you.

Any other questions? Okay, well, I'll ask a couple of my own, which is the screens. You know, I fully agree with not requiring them for the door, but can I better understand why they're required on all windows to begin with?

Yes, and our committee would have a variety of different answers about that. And it's a little bit more vivid in the code itself, but essentially to prevent insects from coming in, particularly this is on the all property standards section, not just the rental. code standards. So in particular in food kitchens that might have windows screens required, I think we would all want that from health safety for food preparation and so forth so that insects couldn't enter a food preparation area. That's the most vivid example. But I think generally it is an expectation for fresh air, ventilation, cooling, etc. or maybe warming as well, that windows and doors other than the front door are typically opened by occupants of all types, office, retail, residential, to let breezes flow and that there's a general expectation of preventing birds or squirrels or all of those kinds of things from coming into the unit. That's the general idea.

Fair enough. And I guess since we're talking about landlord properties, it does make sense. I only asked because recently we removed some of our own windows. We're never going to open anyway. So I just thought that seems silly, but okay. Um, I would just ask, uh, regarding the temperature for the 68 degrees that we talked about, whether we should do the dates or, or all year, I would just, um, ask council to consider, uh, making that all year because you never know what environmental conditions might come up. And speaking as someone low in iron or just as a woman in general, I know a lot of folks in my life who think 62 is perfectly acceptable. I would disagree. So just putting that out there. And then... It's funny, I have a note here and I don't know what that means. That's okay. I just wanna double down on what Councilor Zotty mentioned earlier. I think the most important point for me as well is making sure that folks can report back. And so it sounds like the hope is eventually to have some sort of software solution that will be easier to use, but hopefully it's some sort of ticketing system that we can, get their response back before it's closed. But for now, a call or email. In the ordinance, could we make sure, to your point, you said that we're dropping off a business card, could it also be written that there is contact information included? Mr. Dorr, you had mentioned it has your name and your number, but perhaps every time there is an inspection. It is part of this requirement that we leave our contact information so that they are able to do that. It sounds like that's a good process that we're trying to follow, but I think it would be good to make sure that they're able to do that. in some form or other. And then hopefully we would get to a place where the person living there, whether that's the, hopefully the tenant, right? They can like close it themselves or it can't be closed until they give some sort of, yes, we're good here. You know, just like you would in a ticket, unless it times out after seven days or something like that. Right. Mm-hmm. And then you say, okay, it's been closed. You had your window of opportunity to respond. But ultimately what's nice about that is there's usually opportunity to report on the quality of work and all that. So I'm trying to think if there's any other thoughts here. I think that's it. Thank you. Yes, we have a few other thoughts. Okay, Councillor Brouhaha.

I just thought of the idea of lobbying people on some of these. Just on the thought of weeds on excluding city-owned property, I know that there is... some very valid thought, like if the city is requiring this of residents, then like the city should be kind of doing it themselves. But just a few points. One, like the, whether we choose to increase taxes so that we can staff like an entire team to weed our open spaces or choose to go like the cheaper way and just spray a ton of herbicides around the city properties. Persistent use of herbicides have been shown to have detrimental effects on overall community health and residential health and human health while also we are on a actual current, like in this past week, a collapse of more pollinators than initially anticipated kind of with some of the thoughts. And so just as stewards of such large spaces as the city is, I think when we have kind of certain keystone properties. We do a great job of maintenance already, you know, and we respond very readily and very quickly to resident responses to the maintenance of our spaces. But kind of writing something in code that would basically be the, you know, death mark of entire pollinator species would be, I think we as a body would be incredibly remiss to engage in that action.

Thank you.

Councilor Azadi. Quick question on trash containers. What was the committee split on that?

You know, we had one person suggest allowing it in front yards. That came in after the committee's last meeting. So I can just tell you that it was one person that brought that forward. And I think it came from a place of I just reported back that we do have some complaint violations where enforcement occurs, but we don't have the bandwidth to have our property standards officers driving the community, determining who just put their trash out to the curb, who kind of always keeps it on the curb, who keeps it close to the front door, and it's always at the front door. We just, that's not a practical enforcement item for us. So this was one where we really do, I think, do need to get the policymakers to help us understand.

So this is mainly a permanent front yard, not during trash collection?

Yes, clearly. Yes, and the code allows for during trash collection, of course.

And all of these items don't really apply to HOAs anyway, correct? Because they have their own rules on. They may have higher standards. These at the floor. Yes. Okay. I forgot my other question, so I'm done.

All right. With that, thank you so much for that presentation. That was very thorough. Let's go around and just give quick thumbs up or yay or nays to each one of these. And hopefully we will be efficient here. So on item one, weeds, Councilor Zaddi.

Can there be an option C for limited so we actually select which particular city property that we want versus all city property? Can we be more targeted?

I'll put that as a suggestion.

Yeah, I probably should invite Director Otzelberger who would be maintaining that at various locations for his... As Director Otzelberger comes up, one thing to note is it's not...

strike staff that is not really an apples to apples regulation desire. In other words, the properties that would be subject to this regulation are residential properties, right? So this is where people live, where the children will play in a 400 square foot side yard. What we're talking about are natural acreages are up in the four 500 acre range and so it's a very different um it's not apples to apples so the residential adjacency properties is what these regulations apply to right would your children play in a field of you know 400 square foot field of thistles or would they enjoy walking in our open space uh and enjoying seeing natural thistles um where pollinators are landing and such so it I think that's where staff wanted to make the distinction that it's not an apple to apples comparison. If we ran residential homes, we would hold ourselves to that standard. It would be the same standard, but it's not the same standard when it comes to our natural acreages. Even our park spaces, right, which now have, and City Hall also now have natural plantings, right, to minimize water use, which is very different than the residential spaces. Yeah, so never mind. You don't have to...

Does this include commercial properties? There's tons of weeds across the street from my

neighborhood that are really high this does and we would accept your complaints at any time all right and it's a fire hazard and ma'am if i could um chief burke shared with me that you had shared with him that feedback regarding the commercial property across the street so we opened uh wadi and his team actually opened this is every year that commercial property the same thing every year Reminding people they need to mow, so they'll be served with a notice of violation. Thank you.

All right, I think we have direction there. Thank you. Number two, exempt front doors. Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Excellent. Three, refrigerators, allowing for three days, even though this says two, I remember the presentation I believe said three. So, Councilor Zaddi. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

All right. Number four, delete incinerators. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Excellent. Five, trash allow in front yard.

No. No.

No. Well, we talked about that. They couldn't tell if they were out on the street to be taken away or not, so.

The code does allow for it when it's the trash collection period at the street.

Okay, so it's our right to say yes, I guess. I don't want trash sitting out in front of people's houses.

Okay. Okay, yes, got it. And you're gonna be a yes, okay. Well, that's five to one, so we're still a no on that one. Heat supply, do we want to add dates?

Yes, and all year.

All year. So I think that that means no.

But you're not adding no all year. It's already all year. So no.

Thank you. No. Thank you. No.

No. No.

All right. And seven, right of entry. Do we want to delete that section?

Yes. Okay. Sorry, can we get a reminder real quick? What was the staff recommendation on this one?

The staff recommendation is to retain right of entry again when we have a credible complaint of potential fire hazards that might cause life safety issues or animal welfare issues and of course any time the only way that right of entry could be obtained is with the judge's warrant and And it would have to involve one of those kinds of scenarios. Again, the ones that we can think of are animal welfare and fire health safety.

So a yes would be delete the entire section?

Right of entry, delete the entire section. So a yes means we will not, if we get a complaint of animal welfare, hoarding, fire safety, if yes, we will never have the opportunity to go in. Okay. So a no is keep things as they are today. Okay.

Thank you. You were a... I'm a yes because of the visual, what did you call it? The in-view exception. To me, it's too ambiguous. It leaves the judgment to the person too much on what they can report and what they can't. If the scope is rental inspection, it should be rental inspection, so I'm a yes.

I agree with what Councilor Azadi just said, but I'm going to be a no. Thank you.

Okay. Councilor Brumholz?

No.

Okay.

So yes is taking it out. That's right. No is the way it is now. That's right. I'm a yes.

Okay.

No.

I am also a no. And so that's... I thought it was four to two. I got my math right. Okay. Four to two. So that's a no. So I think we're going to leave things the way we are.

Okay. Clear. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate that. And I do need to explain number eight now. It did not come up in the code changes, but rather I did put a note there in your red line that I would describe the the details of the current building and fire code appeals committee format. And there's no recommended code change, but rather I committed to the committee that I would describe what this code, what this appeal committee does and what its composition is. And so if A property standards officer makes a notice of violation, naturally the property owner has the opportunity to appeal that notice of violation and the appeals process involves the property owner writing a written appeal and it would go to the city manager. And the city manager is responsible for convening the committee. And that is consistent of three people who have minimum qualifications. and they must be found by the city manager to have one of the following. They are either a licensed architect, a registered engineer with building related experience, a construction company executive, or a superintendent with at least 10 years of construction experience. We're not aware of having to undertake appeals process. I don't think Mr. Andrews has received an appeal during his time as city manager. These are very unusual. And because I think council and the committee will be evolving this property maintenance code to a level of simplicity, understanding, et cetera, I would anticipate the potential for an appeal is even lower. But in the spirit of full transparency, the eligibility requirements and the process could be added to this section of the code. I would recommend that because it's not present in the red line that I provided to you in your packet. And so I think these sections should be added there in another place in Westminster code so that could be more simple. The question for the council is should this format and the way it's designed be kept as is would be a yes or no. We would then listen or bring some options forward to the council. Okay. I hope that was clear.

I think we have some questions. Councillor Zaddi.

What was the committee split on that?

We just got one feedback from one member of the committee. Again, I think it was Wednesday morning as we were producing your agenda. And so this was added very late. I didn't get a chance to add that as a red line. But at the end of the day, transparency is what we want to do. And so I wanted to describe that. So I quickly put in, I will describe that during study session as I did. So the committee never had a chance to actually... The whole committee has not. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

But keeping in mind this generally pertains to the landlord appealing their receipt of a notice of violation and the committee member is a landlord property manager. So I think fairly well represented. Just want to know what is the composition of this committee? Who are they? How do they work? Other questions?

Any other questions? I got, Councilor Haught. Yeah, what is staff's recommendation?

I think this is working. Thank you. I should have filled that in. It was at the very last minute. This feels as though it's working for the community. And it is an effort to maintain a list of five people with that measure of experience. And then we have to keep them engaged, enrolled, aware. And then we don't have any appeals for a period of over two years. And so we have to continually maintain this and we don't compensate those committee members at all. So I think it feels as though it's working at this point. We haven't had a complaint about an appeal being overturned by the city manager that a landlord disagrees with. That would be a reason to change the composition to my mind.

to follow up on Councilor Haught's question, are you saying then the way things are working, that it would make sense to remove this yes, just because we don't have a lot of appeals processes or keep this, because it sounded like what you explained just now was a tedious process of keeping folks apprised.

It's an effort. And so the recommendation is yes, keep the current building code appeals committee format. That's the recommendation from staff.

Thank you. Sometimes layman's is really helpful. I appreciate that. Okay. All right. Any other questions? Councillor Azadi?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I think we're there. Got it.

My last little piece, and we'll be done with this item and moving over to other matters for the council, is regarding rent escrow. I may have misspoke. I want to be very clear. And Mr. Graham, Mr. Munch was speaking to me briefly and when I said earlier that the city attorney's office would bring back to the council what I meant to say was some options for the council to consider and not actually drafted ordinance language because the council is going to need to flesh through their options and be informed by their attorney and deciding judge and then from that a next step would be drafting actual ordinance for the council to adopt. So I didn't want to overextend Mr. Mudge. Do I have that okay, sir? Yes. Okay. We'll get options and then we'll need some significant additional guidance from the city council. Thank you, sir. I want to make sure I got that correct. So the commitment is to bring back options to the council probably next month sometime. And then from that discussion and examination, the attorney's office with the judge will draft ordinance for you.

Sir? My question was when be said next month so that I entered it. Very good.

I think we're there. I'm so sorry. One question was at some point or another, there was a discussion amongst committee members. And by the way, a number of council members have been present for committee meetings. I want to recognize that for the community. and that at some point or another, there was a discussion of additional penalties for retaliatory landlords. And generally speaking, that would be difficult for the staff to administer, but that could potentially fit into following on with the rent escrow piece. I know that Councilor Johnson had a question about civil and criminal. And that was heard by the judge and attorney's office. So hopefully that's somewhat been resolved through this discussion, I hope, unless there are other comments.

Well, and to follow up on this conversation that you just brought forth, my last question was going to be the bill that was passed last year at the Colorado level. I'm hoping, and I don't know if we need to talk to Amy Atwood, but I had testified for it, but it was to give municipalities a bit more teeth. And I just wanted to know whether or not we had really looked at that and are we exercising the extent of our ability as a city now with the new rules of place at the state level. And so I know we just made a lot of changes, but maybe looking at that one more time before we bring everything forward and making sure we fully understand what we're capable of to Councilor Ireland's point earlier, that change was also recent from 22, but we just made some more changes last year.

Okay, got it. I think we will make that noted as we proceed forward.

Okay.

Okay. And that's all. I already discussed the inspection registry and that that will come forward. So with that, that concludes our discussion. Thank you for this direction. We greatly appreciate it. Thank you. And we'll continue moving forward.

Thank you very much. And thank you all of everyone here who worked on it. Thank you.

I would, thank you Mayor, if I could also I would like to recognize staff, thank the members of the Ad Hoc Committee who have stayed with us in some cases many years of input. I would particularly like to give a shout out to Mr. Craig Russell who is here in the red shirt and row two. Mr. Russell has been a consistent and very helpful advocate on the rental housing issues through the years and helped actually with the creation and refinement of this work, going through the page turners at the very end, but also sat on our water task force and gave that time to the city as well. So that's a double header for Mr. Russell and we wanna acknowledge you for doing that, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you all, appreciate it. Have a great rest of your night. With that, I've got a request for a break. So we will meet back here at 9.05. We will travel back in time.

Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. . .

All right, thank you so much. Welcome back. And City Manager, please introduce our next presenter.

Mayor, thank you. This is regarding proposed options to address City Council's feedback on event centers and live entertainment venues ordinance. And Director Kimball will be leading us with this one, supported by John McConnell.

Thank you, City Manager Andrews, Lindsay Kimball, Community Services Director. Tonight we are responding to questions, seven specific questions, policy questions that were asked. That staff has taken the time we've been able to research. We've also done comparisons of our surrounding communities and our peers. to see where they fall on these questions. In addition to the seven policy issues, questions that needed more clarification and information from the prior study, I'm sorry, regular meeting of city council, we also captured three questions that just needed some additional research that staff did not have at the time. And so we've gone ahead and outlined that for you. I'm just going to provide a quick background and then turn it over to Mr. McConnell to go through those seven policy choices that we have, that this body has, and answers to those three questions. So quick recap, on March 23rd, City Council enacted the moratorium on any new event centers. If you weren't already in the process or didn't have either a building permit or a business license, we were pausing on any issuance of new permits for those uses. On June 8th was when we came back, as quickly as we could, came back to a regular city council meeting to consider an ordinance to provide a regulatory framework primarily consisting of definitions for things which prior to this had not had a clear definition. And it just reflects, again, the changing nature of entertainment, how it's consumed by people not just in Westminster but we see it throughout the front range in the country of these live event center venues that John will describe to you and we are now defining to understand what those are and perhaps any impacts, potential impacts that could have on surrounding uses and residents and parking and so forth. So we have set this up and I will turn it over to John, but in each one of these slides for the seven policy discussions that were brought up at the June 8th meeting, we've identified several alternatives and the pattern that you'll see that we've used on the PowerPoint to help with the discussion and we have we can talk as in-depth as you would like about each one of these but we have identified what the staff would recommend and of course John and I can explain what that rationale was from a staff perspective why that would be our recommendation but of course we will we can do any any of these alternatives or any one that's not even maybe thought of yet. So we're happy to do that. We just wanted to provide that, um, as a, as an aid, if it was helpful to the body. Um, we also are going to do this presentation a little differently than we normally do. Normally we ask respectfully to hold questions till the end of the presentation. Um, this time John and I would love your questions. Um, cause there are, it is meaty top You see a lot of words on the screen and I'm not a person that makes PowerPoint slides with lots of words I try to be as succinct as possible and do everything but it is so technical that we felt this was probably the best way to approach it and as I said a little different we want to mix it up and if we could we would like to ask that we can discuss and have a determination or at least come back to a determination and polling of the body if if we could on a issue by issue basis, that would maybe the most efficient way to conduct this. So with that, I will turn it over to our planning manager, Mr. John McConnell.

I just wanna know as we dive in, it is 10.10 and so probably in 20 minutes, we'll take a quick vote to continue this presentation, but time's are mine. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Kimball. Thank you, Mayor and City Council. First, I'd like to direct you to a handout that I printed out for you. Actually, I printed a couple out to help the conversation along. The first one is Councilor's Bill Number 19, and that was the proposed code amendment that you considered at I provided this for you as sort of a handy quick reference. Some of the slides as I cycle through and initiate discussion on these items, I may want to refer to this from time to time and I'll know what page that I'll be referring to at that time. These first two slides especially, I'll be referring to page two and the the proposed permitted use table, and that permitted use table starts on page two and ends at the top of page three. It's the one in color. And so first I'll, And a quick recap of the general proposal that staff made to the city council on June 8th proposed that certain types of live entertainment venues or event centers would be permitted by right and some would be allowed by a special use permit. And special use permits are granted by the planning commission in accordance with the city code currently. and there are criteria listed in the City Code for which the Planning Commission would hold a public hearing and evaluate those things. And so I wanted to draw that to your attention first as we talk about topic number one. There was some sense that we got from the City Council on June 8th that the Council may want to retain that authority for itself when it comes to live entertainment venues and event centers rather than the Planning Commission doing that. So we wanted to bring that question up to the City Council. We provided you with three alternatives. Now all of these slides will have alternatives, but we recognize that these may not be the only alternatives and you may have other ideas. and as policy makers we want to hear those ideas and give you feedback and obviously take your direction on that. So alternative one, and I'll say all three alternatives based on the feedback that we got on the 8th, they all recommend that all, all, live entertainment venues and event centers require the SUP. And this is not what we recommended in the code, but based on some of the feedback we were getting from City Council, we really got the sense that you may want to consider just making them all requiring SUP. So all three of these alternatives require that. The difference between the three is that the first one would require the SUPs be heard by the Planning Commission for recommendation and then the final decision for approval would be the City Council. Alternative two would refer the SUP, Special Use Permit, directly to the City Council and bypass the Planning Commission. And this would be just one step instead of two. Alternative three would refer the SUPs to the Planning Commission for approval. And if there was any request by the applicant to modify any of the standards or the criteria that you would ultimately establish with this code amendment, then that decision would be referred up to the city council. If there were no requests for changes to any of the criteria and they met those criteria, then the planning commission would be the final approval authority. So out of those three alternatives, staff's recommending the third one, which allows the application to be elevated to city council if it wanted to deviate from criteria.

Thank you so much. Questions? Councilor Johnson.

Yeah, I have kind of two questions slash thoughts that I would love comments on. The first one is I'm not really understanding the problem with the status quo other than I guess you heard some feedback on the 8th that required this. But under the status quo, they still... require SUPs and go to planning commissions, is that correct? Or they don't always require SUPs?

The status quo is very different from what we're proposing now. Currently, events centers or live entertainment venues are not defined and they're not distinguished from other types of assemblies like churches. And so one of the main objectives that we're recommending with this change is to define those things and distinguish them from other assembly uses because they are very different from assembly uses such as churches and should likely be regulated differently if the council agrees with that.

I guess my question is specifically related to the SUPs and the status quo right now in the code for an SUP is that an event center or a live entertainment venue under the current kind of proposal, it would still go to, there's still require an SUP. It just goes to planning unless we choose to pull it up.

Is that correct? That is correct. I understand your question. Yes. Under the draft code, any, if the SUP is required, then it would be planning commission's decision. That would be the status quo. Okay, thank you.

I'm not sure you're answering the question Councilor Johnson is asking. Currently, do we have a requirement for SUPs for These uses, not the draft, the current case.

No, I'm specifically referring to the draft. I'm sorry if I misunderstood that. No, no, I appreciate that.

So currently we don't require SUPs for these uses. Correct. Under the draft, you do require them, but they go to planning unless we pull them up. And then these alternatives layer on top of that. There would be a change on top of that. That's correct. Okay, yeah. That makes sense. Thanks, Greg. I guess I will just put that out there for council then that I'm not sure I see a need for any of these alternatives. I think going to planning is the appropriate route that we use for everything else. But if we did, I think leaving event centers off and just talking about live entertainment venues is probably even a more appropriate route because as we've seen, the event centers aren't really the problem and creating these barriers probably creates even more problems for them, whereas live entertainment venues are the ones that cause the disruptions. So my first choice would be to leave the current draft, not the status quo, but the current draft without any of these alternatives. And my second choice would just be to do alternative three with LEVs, just LEVs.

Thank you, Councillor. Other thoughts, Councillor Brawhouse?

Thanks, Madam Mayor. You know, we mentioned earlier, you know, to Councillor Johnson's point at the last Westminster Chamber Government Affairs Committee, we spoke with, you know, the host of that meeting was an event center. And I'm actually, I'm a little conflicted because I want to go through this and kind of give details. But to Councillor Johnson's point, I think there might be like an outsized impact on I know current event centers aren't going to be written into this. They've been grandfathered. But there is a wealth of wisdom that I have not unpacked from them yet. And so making these decisions, I find myself, as I go through all of these numbers in preparation, I was like, man, I wish I'd be able to grab data from them. With that said, I agree with Councilor Johnson's point on live event centers only and not event centers, but I'm wondering if this is warranting a bigger conversation in terms of how we can separate that. Are they separated at all in this current? There's three different currents. I guess my big question is, We're not doing, you know, council says stop this whole thing. We're not doing anything, whatever. Let's just go back to what it was 10 years ago or 50 years ago, whatever. There is no separation between event centers and live entertainment venues, correct?

That is correct. And also between those things and churches. Yeah. All assemblies are treated the same. And if it helps, if you look at page one of the bill number 19 of the definitions for the proposed definitions for event centers and live entertainment venues are there. And those were intended to distinguish between live event, live entertainments venues such as concert halls and your traditional event centers that host private events that we're all more used to. That's...

I guess the separating the two concerns me because we talk about churches. I've gone to churches where they've had live entertainment. They've sold tickets for a fundraiser or they've had a huge event on the outside of their church. Even churches would fit into the live entertainment. It's And we have one place here who does both. And I don't think it's right if there is a place that's an appropriate place in the city that's big enough to say you can only have one or the other business here. Maybe it's big enough, it's in an appropriate place for live entertainment, but you're saying you have to pick one or the other. And I don't think that's right.

Thank you.

Other thoughts?

Okay, well, I'll give my thoughts on this. I'm really a fan right now of number two, I think, which is a big reason I think this came back, which is just that these decisions come back to council. Now, I do appreciate Councillor Johnson's perspective on I don't wanna hold up different events, but event centers, but especially bringing to light the last point by Councillor Haught, I think a lot of these are a case by case basis. And from what I remember from staff on the number of them, it's pretty minimal. Please correct me if I'm wrong. So the number of these throughout the city is pretty minimal. And so it seems to be that there's probably a larger discussion needed brought up. So if planning approves and recommends it, brings it to council. We have a big discussion. We say, is this the... And then that gathers the input of the neighbors and of the stakeholders and the retailers, whoever's nearby. And it really puts it on a louder platform. I think bypassing council was... you know, it's proved to be a mistake. This time I don't, I can't guarantee it always will be, and I hate to give us more work, but considering this is few and far between, I think perhaps this is something we should look at closely every time it appears. That's my thoughts, but I'll let other folks input.

Councilor Island. I appreciate your thoughts and I agree with them. I think it's a case by case. City Council should be able to give the public an opinion of what people really want. They want it, if it's gonna affect their neighborhood or not. I think you're right.

Thank you. Any other thoughts on this? Because we're gonna have to narrow down these options here. I want to make sure. Okay. Well, all right. Councilor Rosati.

I'll just say that it's not, this isn't really a priority for me. So I'm just listening and whatever you guys decide, I'm good with it. So I'm going to say that.

Mayor, if I may, to address Councillor Haught's comments. I just want to be clear. So if you are a live event center, you can also be an event center because an event center is less impactful. It's defined by the current definition as much smaller size. So if you were a live event center, you could still do event center activities. But an event center, because it's smaller and smaller, more widely allowed under the proposal in different zoning and land use categories, you couldn't become then a live event center because it would have greater impact. So that was, I just wanted to just add that because you wouldn't, if you were a live event center, you could be both. But if you're an event center, you can't. That helps.

I don't know. I just don't know where that fits in with churches that have ticketed festivals that would fit into live entertainment. Okay.

Yeah, and I can try to explain that.

Because we're saying... one group doesn't have that rule and another group does have that rule.

Yes, yes. So in land use regulation, I know this can be nuanced in some instances, but you have what we commonly refer to as a primary use and then accessory uses to a primary use. And for example, in the meeting on the 8th, we had a fairly healthy discussion about certain businesses that are operating in Westminster already that, like Hofbrau, that have live entertainment, but that's not the primary use of the property. They only have a band there on certain nights and only while the kitchen's open because they're primarily a restaurant. So likewise, a church, and it's been my experience too with churches, is they often have festivals, they'll have you know, a concert or something like that, but we've never looked at that as a primary land use.

But if an event center, they can't have live entertainment, but that's not their primary use. So it falls under the same, so that doesn't make sense to me. Because we're saying that we're treating event centers differently, that they cannot have live entertainment, and that's not their, even though that's not their primary use. what they do primarily. So we're treating them differently than we're treating the hot brow or churches.

Yes, and that's only because the Hofbrau for example is primarily a restaurant. They have a restaurant license. The distinguishing point we're trying to make with this case is event centers in the traditional sense have always been host to private events. You would lease out the center. and have a wedding or something like that. And live entertainment venues were really mainly concert halls and the like. So one of the questions that came up and Director Kimball alluded to this is the council was concerned about possibly allowing a live entertainment venue to also host private events and that's reasonable to do that. We would tweak the definition to do that. It was that whole backwards compatibility conversation that we had at the meeting. But yes, we also, we have carved out churches and retained those in this draft as an assembly, a religious assembly. And it would be regulated like event centers are currently regulated because they're lumped in with churches. So really this is trying to separate all three of those things out because they're very different, but they're treated as equal right now.

Is there a way to get clarity, let me see if I can ask this correctly, around why don't we go through each one that we would have under your recommended proposal? And so we can hear, okay, what can a church, for example, do? And then what could a private birthday party center do? And then what would a live entertainment do? And then I think it might help ask a few more questions and jog our minds here.

Sure. A church or a religious assembly, it could be any type of church, is primarily used to conduct religious practices of whatever the religion is.

And how large could that event go? How big could it go?

Churches become pretty large. We have quite a number of churches that are probably 50, 60,000 square feet in the city of Westminster. We've got smaller ones, the more traditional churches, but they're often referred to as mega churches, you know, and so they've got fairly large footprints. For the most part, they conduct their church services on Sunday, but they do have special events where they... Those could be outdoors, not just indoors? the cities never regulated that as anything different than their protected land use as a religious assembly.

And I would also add, John, if I could, and correct me if I'm wrong, you are the planning manager, not me. But also when those churches, when I think about megachurches, there's two on Sheridan right there that I'm thinking of and others, but when they were permitted, designed, and approved, that because the square footage was known and the assembly usage of a church, just by the sheer fact of their size, they made sure to have adequate parking. That was part of the regulation to develop let's call it the mega church or any church. So there were already standards in place where we're seeing a conflict of uses is when we have, you know, the way our regulations currently are written, if someone goes into, we can have event centers in retail centers, but there's not a requirement to do another traffic study. There's not a requirement to identify potential impacts to surrounding uses. this recommendation would create that. But we have to first define what an event center is because we have no definition right now. So we're operating in kind of this gray area. So what we're trying to do is define things and then that allows you, once you define it, it allows this body to say where are those uses appropriate.

I hope that helps. It does. And this is a big task, obviously, and you've been working on it for quite a while. I do think as a recommendation, just with seven folks to make a decision, it might make it easier if we decide on one thing at a time. And so maybe if we just were deciding on what is the verbiage and the definition, that piece, are we clear or do we need further direction from council?

We did not have, we didn't record comments about the definition from the June 8th session. So, but we're happy to, John can read that into the record or I know he printed, provided them with a printed copy before you. So we're happy to look at the definition if you'd like changes. We just didn't note that from the last session, so that's why there's not a slide.

So we'll stop and say, are we happy with the... Because that was part of this goal, right? It was breaking this up, and I think we made that motion, but I hear some questions and comments around that. So live entertainment versus event-centered, do we want any more conversation there? Are we happy with that definition? Okay, okay. In that case, then the question tonight is... Should we create new code language? I'll just let you say it if you want, around special use permitting, regardless of size or location. And so there was a question to break it up by live entertainment versus event center. So I think let's start there, just break these pieces out. Are we comfortable separating the two and treating them differently? And do we want to... goodness, we have to figure out which alternative to go through first. Are we comfortable treating them separately? Let's just give a quick yes or no.

Are we talking about just for SUPs or for the entire section of the code?

I think the entire section of the code.

I think it depends on which section, what

Right. Because if we do alternative two, they're the same.

All right. I need help figuring out which question to address first.

Let me reiterate too that these are just three alternatives. There are other alternatives. So I think what I'm hearing is maybe the council may be interested in requiring the SUP with Council's approval for just the live entertainment venues but not requiring the SUP for the event centers.

So and the thing is is I personally am comfortable with that but I don't want to lead our Council into anything one way or another so I'm trying to let them come to what they prefer to get at. So with that recommendation from staff are we comfortable with that suggestion?

I'll go last, I'll let you guys choose.

So I guess in my mind, like an option three for event centers, option two, for LEVs is kind of what I'm hearing. Like, so we're separating them out, council approval for live event centers. So option two is go straight to council, right? Okay. So option two is straight to council. Live event centers, these higher impact places can go straight to council. So, and then event centers can kind of go through these administrative approvals unless they kind of have some sort, I mean, I don't know. I'm fine with option one, two, just only the planning commission or something. But like, it just seems like alternative three makes sense potentially for the one in every five years that an event center would need that kind of thing. So to me, that kind of, I can make a motion or whatever.

That is really helpful. So thank you for breaking We don't need a motion, but thank you for saying that accurately. So I think that Councilor Barajas just said what I was trying to say and what staff just said, which is yes, that live event centers would be option two. Let's start there before we go into the second item. So are we comfortable with live event centers being option two, which means they come to council? Yes, yes.

No, no. I just want to make sure that if it's appropriate that somebody can have both. I don't like that you can only have one or the other. I am a fan of... option two and I'm okay with what you've just stated as long as that includes people who would like both and then that comes to council because I don't think that we should say you can only have you know you can have a live entertainment center that can function as an event center but you can never have something that's major or mainly an event center ever be a live entertainment Like that's where my issue is.

And maybe Mayor John, you can talk about the secondary uses, the occasional secondary uses that may be helpful.

Yes, and two, this also is captured in slide five. It would be jumping ahead a little bit, but we could jump to slide five potentially. And that was that conversation around that backwards compatibility where the live entertainment venue is the more intense use, the larger use. the more impactful use, and there was some concern around counseling, and this may be what you're saying, counselor, but please correct me. Live entertainment venues being more intense, you should also be able to host private events like an event.

No, I'm saying we have a... That's not what I'm saying. Okay. Okay. We have a place right now that is both an event center and a live entertainment center. We have one right now. And I think that it's not fair to say in the future, you can never have something that's both. I understand you're saying that if you're a live entertainment, you can do, you can have like private parties or whatever. I'm saying if it's big enough, because churches do it all the time, Hofbrau does it. And I'm saying, if you have an event center and occasionally you would like to have live entertainment, I think it's not okay to say you can never do that because we allow other groups that are not live entertainment centers to have, like these church events that are held outside, they get huge. They attract way more than just the people who go to that church. Like these are I've been to, like, these humongous outdoor festivals. They are ticketed. There's music. There's one kind of music over here. There's another kind of music over there. And that doesn't even include the live entertainment. There have been, you know, who are, like, famous in the Christian community. They play on the Christian radio. And they have concerts in the church that are ticketed. I've been to those, and so I just don't think it's fair to say churches can do this, the Hofbrau can do this, but if you are not live entertainment, you can never have live entertainment. I think that that's not right, and so I don't like saying you can have one or the other, but one group... can do one thing but the other group can't, except for unless you're a church or you're a restaurant, like that's my issue. Does that make sense? Am I being clear? I don't know if I am, so I'm...

Yes. Okay. Thank you, thank you, Council. Yes, I think I hear you and I understand. My suggestion would be that we would consider if an event center has an occasional, whatever, as many times live events, it's ticketed, it still would be capped at the size of the occupancy of the structure. So I think in those cases it wouldn't be the primary use of the facility. It would be Correct me if I'm wrong, John, but it seems like we could follow the same logic and say that that's an accessory activity, accessory use of the event center, and we could write the definition as such so that it wouldn't be the primary purpose of constantly every weekend or day having ticketed things open to the public, but it wouldn't prohibit that. It just couldn't become the primary use, just like Hofbrau or the Stillery couldn't just become a concert venue tomorrow, that we'd be like, whoa, whoa, you're supposed to be a restaurant. What are you doing? I think that that sounds reasonable. And I think we could work with that. Do you agree?

I think so. But if I may, it may get pretty complicated. And so I think maybe even another alternative here, and it's kind of taking us back, but I'll throw it out there for council's consideration, is maybe maybe trying to separate the two is not the appropriate thing. Maybe just having an event center and we can come up with size thresholds and approval authorities related to that and that way they're free to host private events and live entertainment. If that helps, that would be complicated.

I think that makes sense. I also think that if we just go to alternative two, then we can make that decision every time someone comes to us. We can decide, yes, you can have both, or no, you can only have one. So I personally think that alternative Instead of saying we just have the live entertainment centers come to us, I think we should just do alternative to have them come to us so that way in case there is an issue or there's another person who wants to have both. we can make that decision if we feel like it's an appropriate location. That's where I'm at. I would rather just go with alternative two and council can make that decision on a case-by-case basis. I don't think it would be requiring a lot of work from council because it's not like these things come to us that often. So that's where I'm at.

Thank you for that argument, though. That was a good example. Other thoughts from council? Councilor Brahas?

So then it would just be exactly what's happening right now, but it just comes to us. Like, we would keep, like, in terms of not exactly what's happening now, but if we're not distinguishing, we're not... Any event center can continue, like, new event centers could pop up that do live entertainment, but we would just be the approval body and not...

I will let staff define alternative two, but it would also include a special use permit.

Yeah, which is new. Okay, so the special use permit, would be the new, like all of this would have the special use? Yes.

So but just to clarify, I don't want to build off of what Councillor Haught was saying, does the council still feel like we should define these things separately or should we kind of go back to the idea of just defining an event center to include all of this and allowing it to be approved by an SUP through the city council.

Well, I think we were trying to go through what's in front of us first. Let's just try to work through what's in front of us first. And then if we really get pushback that we wanna go by sides or whatnot, or we've got revisit, then we'll go that route. But I think right now- I know that's 1042. Oh, yes, we missed a vote. So we're gonna take a quick vote, because I've missed the time as well. But let's just stick with what's in front of us unless we've got major pushback, because I think that council's sort of slowly heading that way. So quick vote on a poll to continue this discussion. Yes. Yes.

No.

No.

I'm a yes. Didn't expect a no. I didn't either.

Wow. Like we mentioned, like there's like event centers want to participate in some of this conversation.

Well, the one we talked to, Church Ranch, already has live entertainment at times for weddings or whatever. So... They're already doing it, these events centers. I mean, it's not their primary purpose, but they do have them.

It's a different type of event. Right. It's not ticketed and it's mostly an accessory use. If I was going to argue, I would say it's an accessory use in the code.

I think staff has made it clear that accessory use is different. So we're looking at primary use. Am I correct? Yes. Okay. So in primary use, with the options in front of us, are we comfortable with Councilor Haught's suggestion to go with Alternative 2? Do we hear any more support for that or do we want to support a different direction on this? Councilor Johnson.

I still think that entertainment centers should primarily go through Planning Commission and I would strongly recommend leaving it at Planning Commission, but if Council really feels like they want to move it, moving to Alternative 3 entertainment centers. I'm fine with live entertainment venues going directly to council, although I still think that it is probably appropriate to send those to planning, but I'm more malleable to that. But I think by bringing them both up to council, it's not just our workload, it's also the business' workload. And we create this environment where we're creating more work for them, even because they have to hire an attorney to come in front of us in council and present to us, whereas leaving it in planning allows it to move through the process much easier, especially for these smaller venues that just want to get permitted to have kids birthday parties.

Thank you for those thoughts. It also lands us in the situation that we're in.

Councilor Ha? Right. The issue isn't live entertainment centers. so much as event centers acting like live entertainment centers. And that's why I go for alternative two, because I think it's important because the issue isn't live entertainment centers, it's the non-live entertainment, it's the entertainment centers acting like live.

In that scenario, I mean, they can always just get permitted as an SUP for a live entertainment venue and act like an event center. Like they can shoot high and then always just host birthday parties. Like a church can get a live entertainment venue SUP and then just never host live entertainment. It's not like we care what they do. But if they go shoot low, we just don't want them to be able to ratchet up as their primary purpose. So if a church wants to host a big religious artist touring the world, they come to the church and the church sells tickets. Even as an entertainment center, that's probably an accessory use, which they would be allowed to do. But it wouldn't be like every weekend they can start hosting artists.

As long as entertainment centers can have accessory uses, I'm fine with that.

Yeah, I mean, a church could always just say, we think we want to have those concerts. But churches have that.

I want to make sure that event centers have that.

That's what I'm saying. The churches would be like an event center. So anything, any business can say, I want to be a live entertainment venue, except for if we're going to not allow them in strip malls. So they can always become a live entertainment venue and host anything on the list. But you couldn't become an event center and then host the higher stuff.

That's what's happening. Right. So I'm going to call it real quick. So quick question. It sounds like council does not feel ready to make a decision on this, which leaves us in limbo. So my question then is staff has been doing a lot of work for the last six months trying to figure out what solutions to bring us. What does proper stakeholding look like to you? Councilor Brothaus.

Yeah, I can continue to update this body or we, you know, kind of collectively can. It sounds like at least the next step, well, you know, we sent some emails to staff in regards to some initial questions, but the chamber is hoping to organize at at least more than one event center kind of conversation so that way we can kind of have these conversations and ask these questions and they can kind of offer some feedback like if we go with alternative to my my thought would be you know even if we're not hosting it i could potentially bring this deck and just get feedback on each one of the things or whoever you know like we could all there's no boundary on who can attend it's just like an event or something um But so to me, that would be helpful because we're kind of sitting here conjecturing over with none of us having actually like gone through the process of permitting for an event center. And I think it would be helpful, you know, I know we have SPLB kind of staff and council liaison, but to me, I think we're just like as a council, probably not ready to kind of engage in some of these decisions. I know that we're not passing an ordinance right now, but I would hate for us to kind of give all this feedback go back to first reading again and then just give you a bunch of feedback that we got in the meantime and then you're just back to the drawing board again.

When is chamber hosting that event?

We haven't organized it yet but I think with staff kind of pushing we could we could get it sooner rather than later um over I mean you know I would want to make sure that this there's only like 10 of them in our city yeah there's not a ton. So, I mean, that's, and that's one, that's just one, one piece of it. But I also, if we're getting, and I would push this on, I would kind of ask this to staff. If we're asking questions that you think would be like, if we could get better educated on some of these things, like, like I'm sitting here kind of, What's an SUP? Like, do you need an SUP every time you host a concert? Like, you know, those are some random questions. So would like a pre, like an education, like info only or FYI or something memo be appropriate? Kind of, I don't even know what that looks like, but this is also some stakeholding that I think to make a better decision, like what are the consequences of separating versus not? And having things grandfathered in, but we're trying to solve for a problem. But if we're not solving the problem, these are just all questions that...

Some things, and this comes up frequently, it seems. we don't have precedent for. We've seen that Denver and Arvada are the only ones separating these things. We would be taking the lead on the front range. And unfortunately in government, I just wanna say, we've gotta take a leap sometimes. Now it sounds like in this case, we're taking the direction to go do some extra stake holding and that's not always a bad choice. And sometimes we need to make a decision and we can revisit this next year and we can say, this is working out or this is not working out, but we need to be the leaders in our community to say, I talked to these folks, this is why I think we should make this decision. We do have to take a leap with both feet sometimes. Councilor Haag.

Yes, I am not tied to alternative one, two or three, as long as the event centers have the same leeway as churches and restaurants. that maybe the event center is their primary, they cannot make their live their primary if their primary is, but to say that they can never have live entertainment, I don't think it's fair when we say other event centers like churches and restaurants that aren't live event centers can have live event. That's where I'm stuck on. That is the thing that I'm stuck on. And so I just want to be forthright so you understand. I'm not so much attached to alternative one, two, or three as I'm attached to saying that. I just don't think it's right to say that in this one instance, you can't do a thing that we allow other people you know, places to do. That's where I'm stuck. Understood. So I just want to be clear with staff and the rest of Council. Councilor Azadi.

So I know I said that I'm pretty ambivalent to it, but I will say though, to the Mayor's point and the Councilor Browse's point is this is a great opportunity for collaboration. right, with the chamber. The chamber is willing and able to actually take on the bulk of this stakeholdering. We do need stakeholdering. What I wouldn't want to happen is staff takes up so much of staff time. When we have a whole chamber who's willing to do this kind of, let them do it, and maybe recommend to us based on their conversations. That would be my thing that let's keep staff time minimal on this unless my colleagues think they should take more time on this. But this is what the chamber is good at. They know the businesses, let them do what they want to do, which is help us.

I love that idea. Thank you. Yes.

I'd just like to point out that whatever ordinance is eventually adopted by this body, generally speaking, it will not apply to existing event centers. So if you're an exist, you're an existing event center and you have a business license and you're, you know, uh, You're good with the fire department and building, et cetera. This would not affect you at all.

Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. I think we're pretty well aware of that at this point. We're just using our current related examples to help us make decisions for the future. But, and thank you for that. And with that, we have less, a little over five minutes to go before we have to vote one more time. So I just want to make sure that we're comfortable at this point holding off until we work with the chamber. Is everyone comfortable with that? Do I hear any nos?

Sorry, Director Kimmel, did you want to?

Sorry, I'm aired. If I could ask, would it be possible if I quickly ran through the, because we do have information and answers to questions and some of them are not a decision that we're asking you, but we just wanted to impart some information. Would it be okay if I quickly did that? And then also, I think with some of the seven topics, it might, maybe there's some that are an easy yes, no, maybe a lot easier. This first one was really tricky and it's very complicated, but the rest are actually much easier, I think.

I don't see any nos. Please proceed.

Okay. Do you mind if I go really quick? Did I say anything wrong? You can smack me, John. So number two was allowing live entertainment venues in retail centers with approval of an SUP. This was a big line of demarcation that we just want to leave you with that we have seen pretty loud and clear. Most of the conflict in use comes from allowing a large, again based on square footage, an LEV in a retail center that's causing the conflict. So this is a clear line that can be drawn in that John and his team have written into the ordinance. So I just wanted to share that as something to ponder. Our recommendation is to not allow LEVs, we don't see any instance where something that large would be compatible in any of our existing retail centers. Number three, there was conversation that we heard about should we, shouldn't we create a maximum size for the LEV? You could base it on many different things. Our neighboring communities use many different measures and levers. But we actually would say do not create a maximum size. Under the way that it's drafted, you would have these as standalone primarily uses. So just like in the megachurch example, actually, They're designed with the correct amount of parking. They're going to have the right traffic study done, blah, blah, blah. So putting a maximum size on there, we don't as staff recommend that just because we just don't know. And then we also feel that anytime you set a maximum, if it's 100,000, if it's a million square feet, Somebody's going to come in and say, oh, I need a million and one square feet. And then you're going to come back and need to do an exception and all that stuff. So that was our rationale for that one. Number four, allowing LEDs in industrial districts. This, I believe, was from Mayor Pro Tem. And there was a question about our straight, what we call straight zone, Euclidean zoning, M1 industrial zones. There was a question from Mayor Pro Tem that we remembered about, you know, could we allow this in an industrial? It might be compatible there, these large uses. I mean, the industrial is probably shut down. They're away from residential by nature anyway. When John and his team did the research, There's really only 14 properties designated as M1 because a lot of our city is zoned as PUD, so planned unit development, and very specific to the land. So it's less than 1% of the land area. Two of those properties, as you can read, are city open space, even though, strangely, they are zoned M1, but no fear, they are comp plan open space. And all... But one of those are concentrated between 69th Place and 72nd Avenue between Lowell and Raleigh. So again, you're creating a concentration of this high-impact use and potential effects of something. So anyway, the team actually looked at every single one of the 14. So our recommendation would be to continue to not allow that in M1 zoning booth.

And it's important to preserve M1 zoning for true industrial uses. We have very little of it and so that's where our industry needs to go and that's where our jobs need to go. These types of uses are better suited in commercial areas.

Number five, this is that reverse compatibility. We spent a lot of time talking about it. I won't beat a dead horse. We have heard Council loud and clear on this and you can see our recommendation was to allow that backwards compatibility. Staff is going to go back and look at forward compatibility or some sort of concept of accessory use for the ECs so they're treated the same as the LEVs and other assembly uses. Number six, sharing adequate parking. Yes, so currently we don't treat this use differently. So you get cases where right now after the moratorium ends, if it ends, you know, when it ends, you can go ahead and find a spot in any retail strip center. You don't have to do, there's no requirement to do a parking study. There's no requirement to do a noise impact study. There's no spacing requirements. So this is just dealing with parking that we heard loud and clear, the concerns about parking that's caused the most probably concern that we've heard from residents and business owners in the city about current event centers is the parking. We are suggesting staff recommendation to establish parking requirements based on the maximum occupancy load established by the chief building official and the fire marshal. Number seven, this is also a little more complicated, a little hairier, but spacing requirements and separation. There was a lot of discussion on June 8th about this as well. There's a lot of different ways. You can see our competitors on the matrix measured this in many different ways. We are saying no spacing requirements defined. Instead of fixed distances, rely on the other development standards that are proposed in the ordinance versus having those strict separation. Saying 1,000 feet, something might be within 1,001 feet. So you kind of run into that maximum size concept that we just talked about that as soon as you set something, somebody's going to come in with a million and one feet. So we would say, and that's all based on parking studies, noise studies. There could be mitigating factors that the applicant comes in and proposes to you, like a berm, a sound wall. That would all, I would think, impact your decision on whether or not you should issue the special use permit to evaluate the opportunity to have either an EC or an LEV. These would allow you a lot more flexibility. It also would allow them some creativity in explaining how they're going to mitigate parking or noise are the two main ones that we have heard so far from the effects of that on other uses. And then finally, these were the three questions that we were asked to study. You've seen we provided a summary table of the regulations of our surrounding cities. And we've talked about impacts on existing businesses. Very clear, current businesses are grandfathered. No one's going to lose their liquor license, their... business license or certificate of occupancy, at least not because of this legislation. I guess they could lose it because of a state infraction, for example, in liquor licensing, but that's different. This ordinance is not going to impact existing businesses. And finally, third, the regulation of ECs and LEVs in the two specific plan areas. There was a question, well, how, because Westminster Station and Downtown Westminster have specific plan areas, specific area plans, How can that be brought into compliance with this? Because they have very special zoning. We would suggest that we bring back, when we bring back updates to those plans, we certainly, I know in downtown, can say we support and want events and activities and maybe a live event center. So we would update those plans. And any update to those plans has to come to city council. That's not administrative. So that was the information that we wanted to share on that. With that, we're happy to follow your direction. But thank you for allowing us to just kind of go through that and if that is helpful. That's very, thank you.

So now that we have those slides. Let's talk to the chamber as let's host that event. Maybe we come back once that is done. I don't know if we have the direction that we need on whether that's a study session. It sounds like probably, unfortunately, one more study session at this point. Okay.

Mayor, I could suggest we will staff, at the staff level, we'll connect directly with the chamber, provide them with this presentation, which has all of these alternatives and staff recommendations. We'll also provide staff information and the Chamber would set up a stakeholder engagement and then we would have that open to Council as well. Any Council member that wanted to join in and listen in to that feedback in person, that could be made available so we can follow up with the Chamber's energy to lead that and get it set up and staff will be there to support and it'll be open to Council.

Yes. And I have some thoughts on parking and right now I don't think it's like necessarily the time to talk about that. Is that something I can just email my thoughts on parking? Can I just email you and include staff or include council on my thoughts on parking with the event center? So we don't have to start a whole new conversation.

My recommendation would be, you know, from avoiding an electronic meeting would be to send it to staff and then we'll put together, and anyone else who has other comments after tonight, send it also directly to staff. Let's have it be Lindsay. Okay. And then we'll compile those. And that's the safest for you. Then you're not having a public meeting offline. Okay.

Okay. I don't want to start a whole new conversation, but I have thoughts. Okay.

Thank you so much. Any other final thoughts before we wrap this up? Okay, and thank you for that input. It sounds like that was a really good direction to take. Thank you, everyone. Much appreciated. Thank you for all your time and continued work on this. And the time is now 11.04, and we are adjourned.

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