 So, I just want to stop by, thank everybody for being here, especially my friend, Chris, from my office, and Neil for teaching this workshop. I just want to tell you, this is really great to see, this is a great turnout. We want to empower people with as much information as possible. This is, as you can see, a complex process, but I think you have a great capable person teaching a class with Chris. So, I want you to know that we're here to listen to your concerns and we'll be moving this forward in a manner that everybody fully understands what's happening. We'll be working with you, not around you. Peter's an only and I just want to thank the City Manager. I oversee this entire process. He's very much involved and I want to thank him. He's been a great partner in helping us to establish the right amount of, the right pace that we need for establishing these language categories. He's seen in the first hand that people are interested in learning about this, wanting to learn more about what it means for them and their neighbors and the City as a whole. So, with that, Peter, would you like to say a few words? Thank you, Councilman. As Councilman said, I'm one of the Deputy City Manager from the City and one of my oversight areas is the Planning Department. And we have been working over the past couple of years in the development of the comprehensive plan. Many of you may have been involved or seen it. And the next step in that overarching plan is doing these individual, regional center or neighborhood plans. And that's why you're all here. It's not easy to make sure the community is comfortable with your plans. You don't understand how they're developed and what language they're using in there. And so an event like tonight is meant to give you more information in a simple way. Our staff and planning department are planners and it's a different style of communicating and teaching. So we have two non-planning staffers that they help teach tonight kind of a relay versus perspective to help you understand it. And it's critical that you understand that they're in agreement with the neighborhood plans and the land specifications and categories. Because they're your neighborhoods, right? They're our neighborhoods. But if you also ought to read with them or if there's some problems with the plan that's ultimately done, it's not something that's representative of your community. And that's not good for us, nor is it good also that ultimately has to adopt them. So tonight is an effort for you to begin to continue the learning process and other series of classes that will take place. I'm going to encourage you to take as many as you can and to spread the word to your community, leaders of your neighbors about how these classes are and to get even more people involved. And as the councilman said, I want to thank you over here in the city for coming out tonight on a wet night and on a late night event. And we'll be getting some information that will help you to better understand and better communicate these plans to your fellow neighbors as well as your community leaders. Thank you, Chris. So we are definitely going to go over in class. So if anybody has to leave, please feel free. But I'm going to try to get as much information as possible. And this is a hands-on workshop. So you will actually have the opportunity to create as a partner for this process. So I'm just going to start with a brief introduction. And the first thing everybody wants to know is what is land use? So a lot of discussion that I have with our community leaders is land use versus zoning. So this is the definition of land use. It is the holistic planning of an area to reserve resources, administer housing, and it follows a comprehensive assessment. There's a lot of bit words. Ready to go. Holistic planning. So the word holistic means all-encompassing. So if we're holistically planning an area, we are looking at all pieces of that community and planning for all pieces of that community. So it could be the people, or it could be the buildings, the land, the services, the businesses, and on and on and on every piece of that community which is going to be unique for every area. I'm going to jump to comprehensive assessment because it follows a comprehensive assessment meeting that has to come first. So the first thing you have to do is research a lot of it. That involves community input, so you have to meet with the people in the area. It could be technical surveys and analyses. So what is the annual income of the area that you're looking at? What is the average household size? What is the demographic of the people? Is it a community that is primarily senior citizens? Is it a community that has more young individuals? Is it a community that has historically had a lot of crime? Is it an area that has had a lot of stormwater issues? So all those technical surveys and analyses are taken into account to give a holistic view of what's going on. We also use census data to get a lot of that information. Now right now we're going based on our 2010 census, which was many years ago, and as many of you know, San Antonio has changed a great deal in those years. And so soon, for many of you in the room who will be part of year four and five, you will have the opportunity to have the 2020 census, which is a non-dependent bet, to you of having that updated census data. But the planning department does also put together some information as part of the analyses that they do prior to the area, and they publish those documents with statistics and analysis, things like that. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, which is just finding everything you can about an area, its history, its culture, to preserve the resources. Most people, when they hear resources in natural resources, such as our water, our land, our energy, our food, all of those types of things, but it could be community resources, like the education that's there, the services, the businesses, preserving small businesses. It could be the cultural resources, like the kitchen area, the culture and the character of that community, the arts that are present within that community, or, I don't even forget this one, it could be preserving infrastructure resources. So the existing streets, the drainage, the sewers, a lot of communities within the center city are built in silk, which means that our sewers are habit-free to come in every time it rains, and those sewers shift on their ground, they start to crack, especially the old ones that are made out of clay. So those take preservation, and it should be part of the comprehensive planning process. It could also be utilities, like CPS lines, or, you know, Google Fiber as part of a further planning process, so any number of infrastructure resources are also considered. To administer growth. Now, because of a lot of what's happened in the city, when you hear administer growth, most people think of construction, and they think of growing, big, tall skyscraper buildings. It doesn't have to be. It could be more in better housing, growth of the businesses or economy in an area, improvement of that infrastructure, improvement or increase of services. So if your demographics and research come back and show that a community is primarily senior citizen, and they have primarily low incomes, but there are no senior services available in that community, that is an area for growth, that should be part of that comprehensive plan. It could be to develop the education, the arts, the culture, and what these priorities are are going to be determined by you, the community, as part of that planning process to say, we need more of this. These are our areas of growth. What is it that's important to your community and it doesn't have to be development? In the construction sense, it could be development of a resource. Any questions about the definition of it? A mailman, do you want to add to that? So now, we are going to apply this a little. So we're in Portland, New York. I chose Portland, New York because my grandma lives there, and I know it very, very well. You don't necessarily have to know it very well to identify what this area right here is. So I have four land use categories, and we're all going to do this in a group in just a minute. The land use categories are residential, mixed use, multifamily, and commercial. So if I'm looking at this area right here, in an aerial view, what do you think is most likely the land use category that's applicable to that area? Residential. Using our analysis of our visual ability. Now, I'm going to teach you how to use this software. This is fantastic. I strongly recommend you all, as community leaders, to use this software. I use it to track zoning changes. I use it to track infrastructure. And then you, as community leaders, can put together a map of your community, what you lack, what you see, what you don't like, and present that to planning staff when it comes time. So this is Google Docs. So here I am in my drive. And I go to make a new document, and I go to Google My Maps. And then y'all take a picture. Should I have got some pictures of Andrew or something? And then I'm going to go back to my map. So this is what pops up. You go here, right here. Draw a line. And I am going to outline. You have to click every time you want to dock to it. I'm going to outline this area. And it is now. And I'm going to make a big color that I've made residential, which is, if you wanted to change or edit this in any way, you could look on it, edit, and then I could adjust these here and clean up some of these lines. So once you're done with an area, it would look like this. So this is an example of a land use map where I took the core residential area, and I made it residential. These here are industrial warehouses, and so I made an industrial. This is my commercial corridor, so I went through the alley and around, and we outlined the commercial area. This area here is mixed use, because it's got a mix of apartments and a mix of small offices, retail spaces, so it's my mixed use area. This is all apartments, so it's all multi-family, so I made a multi-family, a little bit more commercial here and then another section of residential up there. So this is what it should look like when it's done. Now, on torture. So me and I are going to pass out some things for you. I'd like you all to find a partner. So first, wait. Don't let go away from me yet. What you're going to do is you're going to get a map, and all the maps are different, so you have to look at your picture. And you are going to cut out a section of your map so that it directly overlays on top of a color that indicates with a land use category. So I have four land use categories with colors indicated. You will cut them out, and then you will cut out the adjacent area so that it also matches a different land use category, and then they fit together like a puzzle until you have done your full map, and then you will have your land use map for your very small area. So you and your partner are going to get a map. You will have scissors and cardstock at the center of your table, and you are also going to get a land use category guide. Okay. Raise your hand as if you used every color. Okay. Raise your hand if you did not use every color. And that's okay. That is absolutely okay because what that means is that you are tailoring it to your area, and not every area has every type of color. That's a different one, by the way. Oh. What I have just found as you go, if you want to go ahead and flip it over, is the zoning code that we will be using for this workshop. So it is a simplified version of a zoning code. And what I would like you to do is on each of your coloring sections, I want you to write down what zoning codes are included in that. So for example, if you have a section of blue where there are large commercial box stores, you would put BC. And the other blue square has to be BC as well. So if you write it in one blue square, it has to be in every blue square that you have. And then you will go ahead and go through and apply all of your zoning categories into your land use categories. And the furthest row, I left blank. And I want you to transcribe those zoning categories from your colored blocks onto your land use categories. Okay. So what I would like to know now is what did you notice when you were cutting out your map? It was the same. Okay? It was hard to tell what things were, right? And I hear a lot of that. And that's important because what I want, you to notice is that it does take more analysis, right? Than just looking at the map and drawing lines. So what are some things that you could have done that would have made this easier for you? I don't know. That's great. What else could you have done? You wanted to know where to put those lines. Tax data? You could look at tax data, absolutely, to see are these due flexes or are these single family residences, right? So VCAT has a lot of that information. What else could you do to give them a sense of where to draw the lines? I thought it was very subjective. If I was in charge and I got to cut this all myself and I could cut it up in multiple ways all day long, right? It is. So I'm afraid I would hate to act on my own and prematurely make decisions based on without having a lot more information or a lot more people act to care about that. And that was why the very first thing that you do is the research, right? All of those things that we talked about is needed in order to accurately draw these lines. Let's just say if it was for your grandfather, we knew it was also there. That's right. And I did. So now, where did you end up drawing the lines? Yes. You guessed a lot of industries, right? You cut along the borders of the clean line. You can see those lines. And so it's easy to draw those lines. But do our development patterns change based on the street lines or based on how wide the street may be so that you can see it on the map or a highway, for example? Does that change the development pattern? Yes. Absolutely. What about natural features? And when you cut along a river or a drainage channel of any kind? I'm sure. And maybe you did. I know last time when you was like, it's on the river. I was like, natural features. Natural features to buy the community. Right? You talked about that last time. And so that could very well mean where you have driven and you've drawn your lines. So what I would like to do now is I would like to know what is a category that you wished you have had? So I know Ann, you have mentioned the couple. I'm so sorry. So she said to me, she said, well, these are warehouses. That's industrial. But we don't have industrial. And so now that's for public institutional, which is a very common category, right? If you want to designate something public institutional. So I'd like you to be right now. Let's go ahead and look at your map. And based on what you have, what is a category that you wish you could have? So it could be two versions of something, big commercial, little commercial. Think about where you applied your zoning. Are there lines that you wish you could have drawn between different types of retail spaces? And go ahead and write that category on the bottom row of your land-use category in Scottish. So I'm very curious to know. Did you put, raise your hand if you put the big R in the residential category. Raise your hand if you put the big R zoning category in the residential land-use category. Raise your hand if you put it in multi-family, excuse. Anybody put it in mixed-use? Could you put it in both, or either? Absolutely, depending on the style and character of that neighborhood, right? And so you start to see, really you start to shape. So in your land-use category, there is another column. It is the description of what those land-use categories are. And that is very important. It defines it. And so if it's a residential category but you didn't put the big R there, you put the big R somewhere else, you might define that rather than just suburban neighborhoods. You might say suburban single-family neighborhoods. And then in your multi-family apartment-style living and duplexes, right? You might qualify that. You might add in those descriptors. So what I would like is that I'd give you a little bit of extra space on that worksheet. So look at each category, including the one that you have created and expand that definition a little bit based on what is in your area. So did you split up your commercial? Do you have different types of mixed-use? It's different. And so think about it. Every single zoning category has to fit into a raspberry land-use category. And these are the only options that you have if you did not create an industrial category when you chose to go through them, where is your industrial gonna go? So every zoning category has to be in a land-use category. Where is your industrial gonna go? Excuse me. They're all over there. Okay, we're gonna do one more thing through the maps and then there's one other thing I wanted to go through with you before we adjourn for today. So the last thing I'd like you to do is to, based on your map and looking at the aerial shopping aspect, identify an area for growth. Now remember, we defined growth in many different ways. I want you to put an asterisk on that part of the map and I want you to think about what that growth would be. Now before you start, I know a lot of you are already looking for those vacant parcels for construction. Growth could be infrastructure. So if you see that there are no streets wide enough for through traffic, that could be an area for growth. So really be creative with what that growth might look like. Wasn't it? What did we come up with? Before we move on to the last thing we're going to cover, which is the plan amendment, I am curious, what are your thoughts so far about this? Eleven. We wish to engage this way with the city all the time. Thanks. I don't work for the city, but thank you. That's okay. I'm not saying that you could literally see what's going on. Yes. And one of the things, that's why we're doing this, so that you can really see how these things are forming and created, but also using this software, you can create a map of your neighborhood. And it's free, it's easy access, it's very easy to use, and then you can bring that with you when you are in your planning area where you already have that research. And following and suggestion, I would definitely recommend involving as many people as you can in that process of creating your map for your area. Okay, so last thing we're going to cover is a plan amendment. So there are three kinds of plan amendments, or three ways that a plan amendment can look like. How many of you put some office in your commercial language category? What? How many of you put office in your commercial language category? Either 10 o'clock. Okay. So we have some people that consider office commercial spaces. Let's pretend for a moment that by now, I put office as part of my commercial language category. This yellow staircase right here. So many come to me and they say, I work for DSD. I don't actually, what? In this story, I work for DSD, and they say, I would like to open an office right here. Please give me my COO. And I say, okay, and that does not require a plan amendment because office is included in the commercial category so they can open their office and the map did not change. Then somebody comes to me and they say, I would like to open a home office right here. So I would like to have my home office right here and it is approved. We're going to talk about whether or not I think sugar should not be approved. That is a discussion for a later day because Emile and I argue for a solid hour about an imaginary zoning change whether or not sugar should not have been approved a couple of days ago. So we don't want to get into that. But let's say it is approved and so they get their COO and the map has changed. We call this commercial encroachment because in order to have an office the yellow has to expand it has to be yellow. The parcel has to be yellow in order for them to have an office in that land use category they have to match. Which means that the peak isn't there anymore it is now just yellow. So it's not a house, it's not residential it is now an office and it is reflected up in there. We call this commercial encroachment because the commercial is encroaching. Very good to see you. I come down right here and they say, well my neighbor down the street just opened a home office and I too would like to have a home office and they come in and they request it and it is approved. It's now also yellow and it is also designated commercial. So I think it is going to be there. It is now an office because commercial forever grows. So these are three kinds of planned amendments. The first time the map didn't change. The second time the yellow, the disney yellow expanded and the third time we have a new yellow section that is surrounded entirely by pink and there is no other yellow around it. So these are things to consider when asking whether or not you should approve a plan amendment. It is how does the map look and whether or not it is right whether or not it should be approved is up for discussion. So in the last workshop we were talking somebody said, well what do you want to consider the infrastructure and if it can support that type of use? Absolutely. If you are over here where there is no yellow but this is a major corridor here we have some businesses there are some businesses across the street businesses across the street here maybe it might make sense to do it here because the infrastructure can support it but that is up for discussion. So when a plan amendment is proposed this is an important thing to look at because as you are assigning those areas in that category remember outside the zoning category outside of that land use it requires a plan amendment it requires a change and so if you as a community would like to see home offices then maybe this area should be mixed use or maybe home offices should be included in that land use category from the beginning there are also options like a conditional use that you can do that don't change the zoning and so those are things to look at as well because those don't change the map and so those are all options but this is just what it looks like because I know a lot of people it's very hard to visualize a plan amendment and you want to improve the zoning change because sure why shouldn't this person be able to have their material on the big box but this is what it looks like so whether or not it's right or even like it is up for discussion not right now but also you have to wonder what the zoning is for that home office maybe I find that's a great idea to have a home office but if it's zone C1 it's like there's all kinds of other uses that may not be so and we have a saying in my neighborhood love the short foot zoning is forever so zoning and land use because remember this is a commercial designation so zoning and land use it is now yellow and so anything you put in your commercial category including because we had such a limited scope including high rise offices including if you put big commercial and small commercial and small offices all of those are all included here now there is zoning so there is more restrictive on specific parcel but the land use category and just the land use map would include all of those things yes so do you think we're moving towards a system where zoning is within land use that it will just get zoning change automatically no no I don't this under city I think there is more of that because we just get more zoning to use we have a lot of mixed use communities this could be yellow and this could be blue and this could be pink but that's very specific to this under city outside of that there are many council districts that would never even consider it you know the plan absolutely not or you know the entire community is pink as far as you can see and it's all zone bar 5 and they don't want to park more so I mean yeah I have not seen that but I do think the boundaries of like a compromise that is oftentimes comes into play because as we talked about if this could have been a conditional use and didn't change the base zoning but still allow them to do the whole office that may be the maximum zoning that is allowed but that's because the idea of the whole office is not terrible to people the idea of the whole office was terrible then the whole thing would be yes so then you might plan on maybe so then why would they be particular buildings of that kind of particular sort of town like these have for example the jail and the bell box I mean how does that get way harder I know it is I know it's bad I know from you from you it's so I know that in the areas you're talking about a lot of it had to do with so we used to have a different kind of zoning code and not completely different but for those of you who don't know we used to have a very different zoning code what we used to have was actually it was a triangle where the top tier of the triangle was like residential estate so big family houses and the bottom of that was double J which was high intensity industrial and the difference between that system and the system we have today was that if you had double J zoning you could do anything above it so you could build a single family neighborhood or you could build bonds or you could build a factory and most of the areas of the city that are double J zoning were the areas that were redlined light to the west side and so when that code converted you it all converted to I2 mostly and so that's how you end up with neighborhoods with industrial zoning on them because they were saying well JJ was our industrial zoning so that makes sense but it doesn't make sense because that's not on the ground and so that's what we get a lot of the we call code conversion areas so like Rio Road where you see all those bail bonds a lot of it is industrial zones like C3 zone and so what you would want and what we've actually initiated in the district one portion of that community is a larger area of rezoning to fix that to make it what it ought to be and it comes out of the planning processes you can do a larger area of rezoning after a planning process because if you say well this area is residential you can clear out the commercial zoning because it doesn't match the landing I agree with the scene to put bail bonds in there but is there somebody else who can not know those businesses specifically but what the zoning is on the property it was just Easter I mean that's what's been there and so nobody's actively changed it okay so I don't want to super late are there any questions about the workshop generally anything that we talked about today kind of the process moving forward we don't have a lot of things we can do to make it a world well first first so that's the intent of these workshops right so starting with opportunities like this what? yeah so the reading documents is huge but one of the reasons why we're doing this series is because we found that when people are reading documents or just going to city meetings they didn't have the prerequisites the background knowledge that's what I wanted to tell you very quickly if you make the error drop the error and see what the landing is you can also compare to what the zoning is and see what you see and maybe some issues some issues the zoning map is online you can access it it's simple yeah you're absolutely right what printing is I learned about zoning if I could answer that question if one learned about zoning I don't know if you do this I spent four hours at a zoning zoning meeting and I learned so much that I was going to ask as car washes coming in that's what I learned about four hours different things coming through the game is only for zoning supply that idea actually and I think a lot of people as you see more and more community leaders wanting to get involved more and more people are doing workshops like this one and so I just keep seeing things like this cropping up and so making sure that you go to those I found when I was learning the zoning for the city like practicing with it and so even if you can't go to the parent just look at the agenda and say oh we'll see free to I want what is that if it says you're attending plenum it will require change like this one and so just kind of looking in the sense of what the codes are we are on our own just creating several documents to simplify a lot of this stuff so I'd be happy to share those as well yeah we'll be like you know those I'll go to the parent so