 Being six o'clock, I will call to order the June 4th meeting of Onoski City Council and ask everyone to rise for pleasant allegiance led by Councillor Covey. I'm on due diligence to the life of the United States of America and to the Republic of the Lordship's hands, my nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Up is agenda review. I think before that I'll just make note of the mayor is unable to join us at the moment, but is hoping to call in soon. So we look forward to that. Any changes to the agenda? Yes. So two changes. I administrative error on my part at the last meeting we heard from the Chinden County Solid Waste District on their FY 19 proposal. And you had asked for me to put it on the consent agenda for approval tonight, and I just didn't get it on there. So I sent it around to you earlier today, and I would ask you to add it to the consent agenda for as an approval item. And then secondly, I noticed that we also neglected to put down discussion or approval items for any of the regular items listed on your agenda. They're all meant to be discussion. None of them were warned or intended to be approval items. So just wanted to clarify that as well. Everybody good with those changes? Do we need to take any action to do that or? You should probably vote to add the consent agenda. Okay, so let's entertain a motion to add the Chinden Solid Waste District proposed FY 19 budget to be a consent agenda. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Motion. Thank you. Approved. Okay, now we're on for public comment. This is an opportunity for anybody to address the council on any item that is not on tonight's agenda. Does anyone have anything to address council this evening? So we will move to the consent agenda. We have three items tonight. Approval of the city council minutes of May 21st, 2018. Approval of warrants, warrant ending 531, 2018. And payroll for period May 6th, 2018 to May 19th, 2018. And the Chinden Solid Waste District proposed FY 19 budget. I entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Second. Motion by Christine, second by Eric. All those in favor? Aye. Motion passes. City update. Great, thank you. So a few quick updates tonight. First, I want to introduce Angel Lane, who is sitting here at the table with us. She is our new assistant city clerk who joined us this winter after our restructuring that we did as part of the FY 19 budget process. So Angel comes with about 20 years of customer service experience with FedEx and a number of other customer service roles and has hit the ground running and amazes us with already how much she knows every day. So she's sitting in tonight to learn, as she will be taking minutes in the future with Carol and Janet as well. Excellent, welcome, Angel. Thank you. Welcome. A couple of other updates. You heard from me that very sadly the bridge rail repair project that was scheduled for this summer, our lowest bidder dropped out after the contract was officially awarded. John Rauscher and the Burlington Public Works crew have gone through a process to put that project back together and have reissued it for bid. We anticipate bids due back by the end of the week this week with the work to start in mid-July. So that's really good news that we can get that back on schedule and happen this summer. The municipal garage washdown, we do this every year. We wash down the whole parking garage. It is taking place from Sunday, June 10th through June 13th. That notice is currently up in the garage as well as sent out to all the garage contracted users and on Facebook and out through our communications channel. It starts from the top down. So for people who park regularly in the garage, just pay attention to those levels and what days the individual levels of the garage are being washed. As you may know, we have a Weaver Street bike lane pop-up going on that will keep going through Sunday. If people want to provide comment, there's an online survey that's linked on our Facebook page and our website. And there are also paper copies here at the window as well. Welcome everybody's insight. Discover Winooski. The Winooski version of the, or the Winooski arm of Discover, the Discover Jazz Festival is going on as we speak and through this weekend. Going on throughout venues in the downtown. We encourage people to get out and go to that. There will be concerts in Rotary Park Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. So hopefully the rain will hold off. This is in partnership with our first Winooski Wednesday event of the year that will take place this Wednesday at six o'clock with Sabayuma, free meals for the kids. We hope in a beer house or a beer garden coordinated by Monkey House. We hope people come out for that. Alicia and eight volunteers from our trail crew worked on Saturday and Zack worked on Saturday to repair the trails in Memorial Park and will continue that on June 17th. So if people are interested in helping work in the trails and improve them, contact Alicia. And then finally, just to put this on your radar screen, I believe we are going to need a very quick special meeting at the end of June beginning of July to set the tax rate. Because you all know that's simply a mathematical equation, but does need to be done before tax bills are printed. So more to come on that, but just want to put it on your radar screens. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? So council reports? I don't know which side we started on last time. Fantastic. Thank you. I haven't done it. Likewise, I think we're all together Saturday. That's right. That's right. We, council did have a great five hour retreat on Saturday, four hours with staff, where we focused on the FY 2019 strategies and priorities for the coming year and it was a very, I think, wide ranging discussion, but really appreciate the time that staff took out of their Saturdays to support us in that conversation and for the members of the public that attended and weighed in. I have two items, but we're going to be talking about them tonight. So the Treasurer's Job Description and Housing Commission meeting. So I'll wait until then. Nothing for me to add either. Okay. Great. So we will move into the regular items and start off with item A, the pool, bond necessity resolution and timeline. Ray will kick off that conversation, I hope. So this is another long series of meetings about the pool. At the last meeting, you asked us to do a couple of things, including move forward considering a bond necessity resolution. So we have prepared for you tonight, well, Ray prepared a flyer that went out to the Fundraising Committee in advance of Memorial Day just as an information piece for you all that lays out the three different cost proposals. We have included the draft of the necessity resolution that you would need to approve before this item would be added to the August ballot and also a clarified timeline that just reflects what we discussed last time. The one new thing included in here. We spent a little more time with the cost model. So what Ray has been sharing historically is the full cost of the project implemented in one year. So we wanted to look at whether there was a pathway to implementing a bond vote that allowed for more incremental increases. So that would include carrying interest-only debt for the first five years, which is allowed through the Municipal Bond Bank. So you have that model in front of you as well. The upshot of that is that it does allow for smaller increases over time. The cumulative ad is greater because you're carrying that interest only for five years. So it would be about a 9-cent increase overall as opposed to an 8-cent increase, but it would be a slower ramp up. So we wanted to put that in front of you as an option as well. Obviously no decisions on any of that tonight, but I want to put it before you. And just so we're clear because this is a discussion item, the goal of this presentation and discussion is to get us to a point where at our next June meeting, we can authorize the bond resolution language with an amount for that, if that's the decision. Correct. Correct. You'd need to technically pass the resolution that would allow us to put it on the bond. And what's the deadline for doing that in order to get on the August? So the ballots for the August election go to print or are available at the beginning of July? Yep. So I have to send out on July 1st the absentee ballots. If we're going to move forward in August, but we need to do it at our next take action by our next meeting. So that I can include the paper ballot and the actual printer ballots. Great. Thank you. And I don't have a lot more table setting. Thank you, Jesse, for that. I did want to, I'm going to put Cindy or Bear on the spot because I know that's been a question as well. And the pool committee met on Wednesday night, actually at the same time as our community services commission. So Cindy had a quick update from that. But beyond that, I think that'll sort of be the bulk of the table setting. And then I think we're here to sort of answer questions as discussion flows from there. So I don't know if we can have Cindy share a quick update if that work. Sounds great. Cindy, would you want to give us an update? That's great. So we did meet last Wednesday. It was a good turnout. I think maybe like eight people, nine people. So I am meeting with one of the representatives or board directors of the Myers Foundation tomorrow to make sure that the 503C information and everything is all set. We have a couple of people working together to create a website where a donation link will be on and information about the pool will be on. And we're hoping to get that up and running by June 15th. We also have a subcommittee that is starting to collect data about the pool past and present. And they're going to be putting together a brochure that we intend to go to major donors and present with. Our next meeting is Wednesday night where we'll pinpoint the top 10 donors that we intend to contact. Our hope is to contact and meet with at least five of them by the end of July and present them with the brochure. And hopefully know if we're doing the right thing or not doing the right thing and what feedback we'll get back from that. I think that's about it right now. Thank you. And thank you also to the committee for being at the Memorial Day event and handing these flyers out. It was quite a good group making sure. And I don't think I saw anybody who thought I used to be there. So thanks to you Ray for putting it together. I got it really clearly laid out the options. And so thanks again and thanks to all the folks who then send emails to all of us talking about those options. So I think it worked as intended and really appreciate that outreach that was done. It's an important part of the process. Anything else for us? I think for now, as Jesse sort of said, I think we've shared a lot of info with you. So I think again happy to ask or answer any questions that may come up. But like you said, I think the hope tonight would be to have discussion kind of leading to a decision point at the next meeting. One of these three options, which we've really put out to the community. And because the fundraising effort is really getting underway, I think it's also important to note that the bond resolution will say up to a certain amount. So that if fundraising brings in a substantial amount of money, we don't have to take out that amount of money. It's an up to. So folks are aware of that. So I will stop talking and turn it to you all for thoughts about which of the three options. Or first of all, I guess any questions for Ray or Jesse and or thoughts about where we stand. There are no impacts to our bond rating or anything for the newest proposal of the tax-reduced where we're only paying interest for five years, correct? Correct. So the city of Winnowsky is not bond rated by itself. We are rated in with the entire Vermont municipal bond bank and we bond through them. We don't issue our own bonds. But there is no it's always an option available to municipalities to do the five years interest only. And that's that's something I have to think about a little bit more in regards to financing, but just to kind of give everybody the perspective of where I'm coming from and thinking through that balance between, you know, and I think we've talked about this a lot. I feel like safe, healthy recreation spaces are really important for our community, ones that are open and available for all members of our community. And I think that the pool has a lot of value in providing that in looking at the different. And we also, of course, have a responsibility to taxpayers to to be sensitive to or be fiscally responsible to people who are paying taxes here in Winnowsky and looking between the two proposals. I think I struggle with the loss of the community room in the reduced tax proposal because I think again, that's another space that could be utilized really well by community members for a number of different purposes. And I think that the gain of between the two proposals, it's about twenty six twenty four dollars difference. So for each tax bill, it's about six dollars a bill. And so just to kind of give everybody a heads up, I will be prepared at the next council meeting to move forward and putting the original proposal on the ballot, that's kind of where I'm coming from. And at the end of the day, too, I really that's where I personally am landing, but I think the community has spoken really loudly and clearly that this is something that they want to weigh in on. And the decision isn't up to us whether or not we move forward with the project. It's up to the community. And I think we have a responsibility based on what we've heard from the community to allow Winnowsky residents to vote on that. Thank you. That's right, Matt. I have slightly different feelings. Otherwise, you would be here. So we have received a lot of input from community members. And I think still the majority of the messages I've been receiving are folks who, you know, don't feel that we are committed to moving forward with the pool in general, which we are. I feel like we clearly are. I mean, I can't speak for all of us, but we seem to be on that track. I think that we do have financial responsibilities to the community in addition to providing services and, you know, amenities that are useful. And I think that this decision is not happening in a bubble. So when we're talking about, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 dollars, it does matter because we're going to see increases to our residents. Likely if we move forward with the Main Street, there'll be tax increase, there'll be some utility rate increases. We don't know yet what the actual budget for next year will be, what kind of increase we'll see there. Certainly to some extent at least inflation cost of living increase. And as, you know, as we discussed at the last meeting looking at the financials here, while some of these things would be great to add, the pool itself is an amenity that we, you know, we choose to fund. It is not a revenue generator and it never will be. And the addition of features that are very much nice to have while they could draw more participation or more visitors from out of town. There's no, there's no data here that shows that that increase in attendance will even come close to paying for the cost of those items. I think hearing through the community vision process, what is really important that came out of that is the zero entry pool that we can have a more accessible facility. I think some of these other features, they just, I don't feel the necessity there and I don't feel like putting that tax burden onto the entire community. I've certainly heard strong support for let's re, you know, let's get the pool reopened. We want this. It's very useful to the community, but also concerns about continuously increasing tax rates. Looking at the two, the options for value engineered and then the reduced tax impact. Not only do I feel more in line with the finances of the reduced tax impact. Some of the items taken out in value engineering are actually, we had talked about being maintenance, like reducing maintenance and extending the life of the pool. And so my preference definitely is to go with the reduced tax impact version of this. And I would like to see that, you know, see that in the resolution so we can move this forward for August. Thank you. Well, I, I too support the original proposal. And for me, it's, it's a matter of life and death. I think having a pool that is accessible and that is inviting and engaging for all our community can only help prevent accidents that we've written this in the recent past to our lovely river. And I think we need to let the voters decide if this is what we want to do or not. But for me, it's a matter of life and death. And I think the pool needs to be back online and needs to be prepared for our growth in our community. And I think it would be an incredible asset. But at the end of the day, I think it's priceless. So I would rather see the voters decide if this is where we want to go or not. But I support the original proposal. I had just a couple of questions about the timeline. It got cut off a little bit on the handout. So when it says construction phase, 380 days, I didn't calculate where that takes us to. So 20, is that, that's up at a 2. Yeah. So that was, we got this as a Gantt chart from the engineer. So it was, so that would be October of 2020. October of 2020. 2020. Construction would be complete. Correct. So that would be open for 2021 summer. And, and forgive me, but is that impact, is that timeline significantly impacted? If we, and the reason I'm asking this is because I think that to me, I agree with your concerns. And I've heard, you know, we've heard strongly from the community services commission that they support the original version and the vision that was developed by the community. And so I'm wondering, and so I do believe the community should have an opportunity to vote on that original vision. And I'm wondering if that fails for some reason. Is there an opportunity to come back in November? And if so, with a scaled back version? And if so, does that significantly alter the timeline? If that's not a fair question, I apologize. I recognize that you're not the engineer's side of the step. I'll take a stab and you can kick me hard under the table if I may off. I mean, I think a November vote would potentially run spilling the final pieces into that construction season of 21 in the early spring. Just if you think about, you know, if there's two winter stoppages instead of one, there could be some finished pieces that following summer. But I think either way, we're likely still open summer of 21. It just may be for a truncated season versus a full season. But I don't think from an operational standpoint, substantively, that changes a lot. And again, I'm not a contractor nor an engineer, but. So no guarantees. No guarantees. But I think that the difference between August and November is not likely to be substantive in terms of an open season. So I guess that's how I'm thinking about it. August being a primary year, it presents us with an opportunity to have this vote. And if the community knowing that it just approved the Main Street project is willing to also support the original vision of the pool, then I think they've decided that. And so I believe I agree that we ought to put that proposal out in August. But it would be great to have confirmation of that at the next meeting. Sure. Anybody else up here want to say anything before I turn it over for public comment? It's not directly related to the bond vote. But it's something that I want to reiterate at any chance while we're discussing the pool. And it's something we talked about Saturday is just ensuring that if this bond vote does move forward, how we structure our fees. Schedule is accommodating of and that there is a waiver and subsidy program in place so that all members of our community are able to utilize that facility without barrier. And then a second component to but I totally just lost that probably come back to me later. Okay. I have one additional question, please. I think you probably can't answer right now either. And I'm just wondering if a scaled back version of the scope of work could potentially lead to the pool opening in 2020 and not 2021. I don't believe that's. No, I don't think that is true. I think that the time to do full design, you know, we're at about 30% preliminary engineering right now. So we have to completely design and engineer the pool and then bid it and then construct it. So it could in theory be done a month or two earlier if it was scaled back, but that would still only get us into like the end of August or September 2020. Okay. Not significantly before. It came back to me. Please. Second was just acknowledgement of when we saw at the last council meeting, the side by side comparison you had done of the cost of the pool and what that could also mean were that money infused into the regular community services portion of the municipal budget. I think that that was that was something to look at something really important for us all to keep in mind as we go into the regular budget cycle. I think historically in a lot of communities, not just ours, oftentimes community services do end up first on the chopping block for cuts. And I think right now Ray and all of his team run lots of amazing programs and services and a really, really lean capacity that I personally, you know, as we look forward, I think that the last thing we need to do is sacrifice those for moving this forward. And this is something important to keep in mind. They're already doing so much amazing work and could be doing a lot more with this similar resource and we need to look to, or I believe we need to look to support that work moving forward. I viewed that presentation somewhat as opportunity cost rather than we're going to cut programs. We may not be able to expand some of the community services. Correct. And Seth isn't here, but that was sort of in response to a question that he had posed a few meetings back leading up to that memo. So yeah, I think opportunity cost is the best way to frame that. Those are not necessarily things that will go away if this project moves forward. It would just be things that may or may not be able to happen in the future, right? Right. Okay. Anything else? Is that? This is Seth. Yes. Welcome, Seth. Can you hear us? Yes. Good evening. Good evening. So we are about to turn it over to public comment, but I do want to give you the opportunity. If you have any comments to make about which of the three options you're thinking about at this moment, we've all sort of done that. Seth, could you hear Nicole? Yes. So we've been going through the three options as presented in the attachment and the council has each expressed their views and wanted to give you a chance to do the same before we open it up for public comment. I'll just say for the public and anyone who's watching, he's actually calling, driving back from another meeting so he's in the car so there's some background noise. Sorry. Do you want to comment, Seth? Seth, you might address the new funding proposal that we looked at tonight in terms of the phased-in approach. We did talk about that earlier, but I think you may know more. We lost him? Well, when he comes back. All right, at this point in time, I think we will turn it over to the public. If you could please address the council with your comments and speak to the question before the council tonight. Would anybody like to address the council on this topic? Yes, sir. So we've been talking... I'm sorry, could I just ask that you identify yourself before you speak? I'm sorry, chat with you. Thank you. And the pool is named after my father. Yes. So we've been talking about this pool in this exact room waiting for you folks to come along. I appreciate you volunteering your services beyond the council. Ten years now. Bare minimum ten years to replace the pool. And we passed it and passed it for probably five, it's been called about three or four now? Three. And we started to have some real serious meetings at senior assistant center with a lot of people there. Probably four years ago. They're here before they had it closed. Four years ago, we got promises from the city. Again, different council and I know things changed. Been there, done it all. But for years, we sit here and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. What we're going to do with the pool, I'm going to put it before the voters. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. When five years ago, we were promised by the council that that was going to go before the voters five years ago. We still sit here again yet tonight. And we're not quite sure there's going to be a bond for it. I think that's just serving here that we've done this long enough for this pool. Yes, I want to see the pool stay there. Yes, I'd love to see if our kids in our community, they need it. They could enjoy it. But we're done. You know, we're still talking. There's still a question whether we're going to put an arm on it. Well, let the citizens of the city decide not to do this. CSWD budget got passed a lot of money. No question about that. That's what they do. It's not even money. Our taxpayers pay for that. But does everybody in this room know it? We believe that CSWD's budget got passed, right? Yeah, we talked about it the last time. We had a presentation from CSWD. It's stuff like that. Ten years. And they do a great job from trust me. I don't know what they do. They have enough money. I don't know what they do. Over ten years we've been talking about this pool way before you folks. Put it before the voters. Let the voters decide. Get it over with. In a divorce, say no. Let's move on to something else. Main Street, when you talk about it for one year, we've got a $22 million bond pass. We're talking $4 million for a pool. One year we talk about Main Street. And you guys put it on the ballot. They're a little talk about the bike path. But let's just put it, let the voters decide. In a divorce, say no. Let's move on to another project for the kids. We spent a lot of time in the city deciding what we're going to do with the pool. Trust me, a lot of time has been involved in this pool. Thank you. And just to be clear, the decision is about how much bond we would be going to. Well, I understand. Who else would like to address the council? Yes. My name is Mike Myers. I was down with my grandfather. I was under the understanding that tonight was the meeting to go for bond. I've been on the pool committee for three years now. And we've been here. I've been coming to meetings now twice a month. We've been doing our fundraising. The pool committee was doing meetings twice a month. Now I'm on the fundraising committee at a room twice a month. And we keep coming back here for the same conversation. It's like a ceremony. And you're not getting any closer. So I'm trying to figure out what more do you need to say yes to put it on the ballot. That's what my impression was tonight's meeting after our last council meeting. Again, the decision is which of the three options and then we need to have bond resolution language printed and provided to the council so that we can vote on that language. So our plan is to vote on that language at the next meeting so that it can go to the voters in August. That is the plan. Because we haven't decided which of the three options. We need to hear from it wasn't listed as an action item. It was listed as a discussion item. So we could hear again input on the three items. We could talk about the three options and give staff guidance about which option we want so that we can vote on that formal language at our next meeting. It will not delay whether or not it goes before the voters in August. It would give some confidence back into the community about the pools if you just get it all the way. So that's enough to be honest with you. Jesse. So I know it's a really tedious legal process but this is a required legal process that the council go to to pass a bond necessity resolution. They have to, we have to be given permission from the council to have our legal council draft it. They have to then review it, make sure the numbers and everything line up. And then we all, it's always a two-step process where we bring it for discussion and then approve at the following meeting. Without presuming to guess a vote the council may take. I think if they give staff direction tonight to move forward with bringing a bond necessity resolution to them for approval at the next meeting, I think that what you've heard from them tonight in your comments is that they will be inclined to vote to move that forward in August. But it's a legal requirement that they look at this language and review it and then approve it. It's frustrating I know. The language we have before us, which is in the packet, has a lot of blanks. And our job tonight is to fill the blanks so that when they come back to our next meeting it's a complete document that we vote on. I'm looking forward to that meeting. Who else would like to address the council on this side? I think the vice-president has a question. Who prepared the estimate? How much confidence do we have in it? And what happens if we go to bid and it comes in much higher? So I will defer that to Ray. Sure. We had an engineering firm prepared. Yeah, so we've worked with Weston and Sampson over the course of this project to help us do first the conceptual design and work with the community feedback and try to get all the input from what the community was interested in seeing as features and then move with them into the next phase which was the preliminary engineering. So it gets to about 30% design. From there we have a pretty strong degree of confidence in terms of the cost estimates. I know you're an architect and you've worked in this realm. There's always chances that you get into a project and things change and shift. But I think my understanding is that if we're given a bond amount to play with and work with that's the amount we're going to have to play with and work with so that we would work then at that point with engineers and contractors over the course of the next phases of the project to stay within our means there. I don't see us being able to blow a project budget way above what council approves as a bond because there's just not funding available to do that. So it would be an iterative process I think over the course of the effort. But again I don't think that's going to mean significant changes to the project in terms of what it looks like when the door opens on day one versus kind of what we've seen on paper to date. I don't know if that helps. And there were contingencies built into the stimulus in the event. That is a really good point. There are contingencies built into the budget so it's possible we end up surprised in the right direction and have a smaller cost. The one place where we were able to mitigate a lot of the concern and contingency dollars was in the environmental realm. There was some testing done during the preliminary engineering phase that kind of eliminated the likelihood of us getting into the ground and finding contaminated soil or let them asbestos, things like that, really jack up the cost of the project. So there was a lot of work done to sort of deal with that early and kind of give us some assurances that that's not going to be part of the project. So that was part of what brought that initial dollar amount down. Thank you. I just want to make sure that others have a chance to speak if they want to. That study rate, do you have the results back from the ground studies? Yes. Those have all been incorporated into the final report from the engineer and into the budgeting. Okay. Thank you. Yep. So I would definitely encourage, if you go to winuski.vt.org there's a lot of information there. I don't know, I'll have to double check whether this timeline is up there or not. We did just get this at the end of the week as an updated document from the engineer, but I'll make sure tomorrow morning that that's up on the website as well. But that's got a lot of the final engineering report, a lot of the history of the project up to this point. I definitely would encourage there as a starting point, but also if you have questions, feel free to reach out to me here at City Hall. I'm happy to try to answer those. And if you want to see the timeline tonight, it is provided linked to the council's packet that's online. So if you go to the tonight's council meeting, link, you can find it in there as well. I just want to ask a meeting. It was 2021-22. I'm trying to figure out what year that timeline might say. Or the timeline that we presented predicts the pool being able to open for the summer of 2021. And it bridges two construction seasons, which is why it is not 2020. Other comments or questions? Okay. So it does sound like, and I think I heard Seth's input, which was support for putting the original proposal forward. So even though we're not going to take a formal vote tonight, it does appear as though the sense of the council is to move forward with a bond vote for the amount in the original proposal for the August primary. So, I think the plan should be to come back. And what's the date of that meeting? June 18th. So, on June 18th, council is prepared to vote on bond resolution language and the amount of the original proposal, which is $3.91 million. So, thank you to all of you who have spent a lot of time and energy and interest in supporting this work moving forward. It's been really important. Thank you. So, we will move on to item B, the Treasurer's Job Description. Have we lost Seth for good? We're afraid he might be in a while to roll him on. Thank you. Do you want me to turn it on? If he's available, that would be great, since he really played the lead on this, but I could fill it. Let's take a one-minute recess while we try to track down the mayor. Going by the Honorable Mayor, Seth Leonard, who is going to give us a little context and background on item B, Treasurer's Job Description. Good evening, everyone. First and foremost, it's a really important meeting. Not that they all aren't, but a lot of the content today, but unfortunately due to a legal matter at work, I was indisposed and not in a situation I could leave. So, at any rate, tonight before you, you have what is now about eight months worth of conversation and process coming to fruition. So, at the conclusion we decided to put together a group that would review the Treasurer position description just a little over three years and the sense was hey, it's been functioning for three years. We wrote the position description brand new. Let's come back, take a look at it, see how it's functioning and see if there's any changes that need to be made. During that process, I think a lot of doors from a conversational standpoint were opened up for new council members who maybe weren't here during that process. The review included going heart to heart with the charter document to say let's boil down what is it that this position actually does or is supposed to do from a general standard staffing and capacity and sort of operational development in some towns for some input, which I will say was a pretty fruitless effort because we do have a charter that defines what the position is supposed to look at. Most importantly, we sat down and had a good conversation with our auditions and what capacity was our standpoint to execute the separation of duties more closely to what the charter prescribed for the position. I'll just say generally in the spring, I don't have the date in front of me, but question description, a significant narrowing of the position and take a lot of scope off that we subsequently also to assist with the hiring of if you guys could help me out or Angela, the assisted account basically I think was the title. I think we think closely, most closely models time here that we gave him a pretty nebulous position in terms of what they're all C feedback Paul who worked with Seth on this, I think the only bit I will add for those of you who are relatively new to this discussion is that the previous job description really to Seth's point was ambitious and blended some operational and frankly policy financial advice some skill sets and expertise that we are very fortunate that we have had somebody that could with that background but as we looked at the organizational structure and roles and responsibilities I had some questions about why we would have policy and operations work occurring outside of the scope of the city manager's office and so that was sort of the lens that I brought to the discussion was both making sure that this is a position that is fits within the organization in a way that makes sense but also that is sustainable in terms of what we're asking for an individual to do for the amount we were paying which frankly is not very much so we've been very fortunate to have Dr. Tyshurst who is here with us tonight Seth just so you know does anybody have any questions for Seth or me or Jesse or Dr. Tyshurst I would say I appreciate the background because when I read it I wondered if you were leaving us or something and I think Seth correct me if I'm wrong but part of the commitment was to post this we have two people that report to the council the city manager and the treasurer's office or treasurer's position and so is it every two years Seth that we have committed to opening that up or the document states three three and yeah and so what the federal statutes in Vermont permit is for us to select a treasurer for a term of one to three years so what we have done is we have annually made so appoint somebody for more than three consecutive terms we need to we need to go back out to open it up and I guess the last piece I should just close that you know from a constitutional standpoint people engaged with was the attorney's HR and we discussed position there should be an open thank you any other questions or comments okay any questions or comments from the public this is on as a discussion item so we would come back next meeting and vote to approve the position description I and that's acknowledged it's on this discussion the one thing I would request though is if there's any substantial feedback or concern if we could hear that that would be really helpful because from a timing perspective this is a July 1st appointment if possible we would like to be able to go through the posting process and engage Julia assisting with that so that we're not surprising or in a rush and we can just okay so Jesse said that's possible and we can do that even in the absence of approval formally approving the job description we can at least have it very very very ready to go and we've done that we've done this process in the past we've actually posted positions in the past without formal approval where we've said are there any concerns because we need to get this position posted so and that actually might be the past we end up going here if there are really no concerns or if people want to pause that that past so now's your chance anything you'd like to add Jesse so I'd just like to add I think this is a really important conversation and Dr. Teissers has been so helpful to me in the beginning this is kind of my counterpoint in ensuring that we are spending the tax dollars wisely to you all and I think it really says something about this community that you're willing to have unfortunately in smaller communities across the state where you don't have those good checks and balances that it erodes the trust in government and having robust conversations like this and having strong positions in the manager and the treasurer ensure that we are being the good stewards of the taxpayer dollars what we should so I just thank you for having the conversation and thank you Dr. Teissers for all your assistance to me in the last year as well I echo my appreciation for Dr. Teissers in just informing this conversation and this process has been in addition to all of your regular duties very very helpful so thank you okay Seth I think it appears as though we have a green light to move forward and we'll be prepared to approve this job description at the next meeting we will move on to item C FY 18 policy priorities and strategy update housing with Heather Carrington and some representatives from the housing commission. Seth are you still with us? I am I'm just going to stay in middle of where I have reception so you will not physically see me but I'll just be staying here until the balance of the meeting. Thank you okay so turn it over to Heather. Great thank you so tonight we are providing you with the third monthly goal update on housing and what I've done with your memo this time is really focus in on the housing commission efforts that doesn't mean those are the only efforts that are going on at the city but I think most of the questions are about where we are where we're going and what the timeline is so I've focused on that I will say that in terms of the chart which shows you the staff recommended strategies implementation of fire software is going very well they have completed the first section of the city implementing fire house so they've done one full round of inspections with that and there will be data there is data available but we at the housing commission will be receiving a presentation of what the most frequent code violations are kind of a top 10 list of what they're seeing so far it takes a four year cycle for them to get through the entire city so it's just one slice of the city but I think probably will provide us with a lot of information to go forward so that's going very well but I think we're going to focus on where the housing commission is for tonight so I brought two members of the housing commission with me so they can speak for themselves Jessica bridge is the newest member of the housing commission she's a property owner and when you see used to be a resident she's a landlord and a realtor so she brings a great deal of expertise in this kind of conversation and also Robert Malar who is a prior city counselor and has demonstrated his commitment to affordable housing throughout that time but is also a writer in the city so brings that perspective to the commission we have I would say a very well balanced commission of people who have a lot of expertise in a lot of different areas we're very cautious about the way that we set that up we have representatives from the board of the Winooski housing authority the Burlington housing authority a housing coordinator for Vermont refugee resettlement program someone who works for the Vermont housing finance agency so there are a lot of different people at the table kind of trying to give us a robust conversation oh I'm sorry also the superintendent of schools because that really plays into the whole conversation as well so I'm just going to give you a quick overview of the purpose and kind of the background on the housing commission per their charter the housing commission was asked to come in to in an advisory capacity to the planning commission to assess community housing needs to perform data gathering and analysis to establish citywide goals for housing and then to make recommendations for housing policies and identify tools to achieve those goals to the planning commission who then takes those and moves forward from there with your blessing of course so I'm going to turn it over to Jessica who's going to walk you through the next few steps and feel free to interrupt us with any questions that you have Jessica no baby tonight okay so yes my name is Jessica bridge I am the newest member of the housing commission and so I will likely rely on Heather and Robert to fill in the blanks so I think the first thing that would be important to do is just read through the guiding principles so I will do that the housing commission has established the following principles to guide its work one is encourage the development of affordable housing options for a broad range of income levels to foster a mix of housing types to serve the needs of different family compositions household types and multi-generational needs three promote quality housing that is safe healthy and durable four preserve and sustain the scale character and settlement patterns of our neighborhoods five protect current residents from displacement six support sustainable growth density and creation of additional housing units and seven be guided by data driven decision making so Heather's presentation is pretty comprehensive so I think if you read through it you will probably just have more questions than anything a couple of things that I wanted to point out if you flip over to the yellow chart or the first chart that's provided if you look under household income where it says low income under 80% am I so the per household count is 2.1 persons and I also wanted to point out that that low income segment represents 0 to 1,283 dollars per month as rent and affordable and that includes subsidized and then the moderate income the 80 to 120% am I represents $1284 to $1,924 per month based on 30% of your income this is very helpful thank you the reason why I thought that that should be pointed out is because those are the two areas actually the two segments that we focused our attention on and we're immersed in this and I thought if I wasn't clear on it that I should probably help make you clear on it so are there any specific questions or would you like me to just go through I think if you go through and should the chart just and whatever other contextual information you think is important like what you just provided so we have voted to establish affordable housing target percentages and this is for new rental units constructed in the gateway districts so essentially it's a 15 75 10 increase so and I would like to point out that's actually it is a net gain for each income level so the low income the moderate high income the smallest gain obviously being in that category the so the reason why we propose a significant increase in the moderate income category is because that was where the housing gap that we collected and this is all from the 2017 residential rental registry reporting so that in case you're wondering where these numbers are coming from and I'll point out that it's statistically significant with a 1.5% margin of error at a 95% confidence level so this is real data the the let's see I just give to so the following chart provides five year projections we recommend benchmarking these rental targets at three year intervals but this does represent a five year projection for the total number of units citywide that will be affordable to each income bracket as well as rental mixed percentages that will result if the targets are met so and you know that's a big if right we have to have the developers you know we have to provide the environment such that the developers will want to come in and then use the tools which I'll move into in a moment to make sure that we are able to meet our targets at each income level so again our guiding principle was to encourage the development of affordable housing options for a broad range and I would like to just point one other thing out and I found this also really helpful as kind of some background contextual information the City of Buenos Aires provides 5% of the total housing units in Chittenden County and 14% of all affordable rental units in Chittenden County which is significant given that we are the tiniest community so 51% of our rental units are affordable units and overall this comprises 20% of our total housing so I think those are my statistics that we can be proud of do you mean subsidized housing or do you mean low income under 80% subsidized so I think that the commission has is committed to not really well as I said there's a net gain so we are committed to increasing the number of units available at all levels but also being able to fill the gap there is a much needed gap and a little bit more contextual information sorry it's important I think to paint the whole picture so I just want to talk a little bit about the professions that are typically characterized as the moderate income level so we're looking at that middle line the 80 to 120% AMI so a person or household with gross household income between 80 and 120% of the area median income adjusted for household size often includes teachers registered nurses and police officers this is also called workforce housing I I think it's helpful to know who's making that kind of money and renting in the city wanting to rent in the city what we found is a significant gap yes Robert do you have anything you'd like to add before council starts to ask questions well I'll just jump in just following up a little bit on you know if you look at those percentages and you see the decrease in the percentage that are affordable but it's a good reminder I think to see that that's still an increase overall in the amount of units in that area it's just as a percentage of the mix so I just wanted to make that point again other things I think you mostly hit on and if you haven't I'm sure we'll hear I do want to thank you and the rest of the commission for the parallel amount of work you've done three bunders to all of you for really hitting the ground running absorbing a lot of information and taking the discussion to a place where personally I feel like it needs to be so thank you for that any questions or comments yeah was there a discussion around setting targets around the number of subsidized units so big A affordable that are coming online we didn't talk specifically about subsidized just overall affordable under 80% area median income but I do think that if we I think there's a possibility for us to discuss things like in a replacement ordinance we might be talking about that very specifically and also I think some kind of as we go forward there'll be some succession planning I think should be discussed for anything that might age out of the system so I think we have to have those conversations in the future as well yeah I think once we get into these tools to kind of meant to make this point I forgot although we're talking a lot about filling the gap in the middle these tools are mostly going to be aimed at the low affordable meaning and expanding there because we recognize that the market for the most part is going to fill that gap because they know that what's needed that the nurses et cetera want to move to Winooski that was the first one I gave you I hope so Winooski is for nurses Winooski is for nurses Winooski Winooski okay we're down here I do want to point out and that was actually a great segue Eric so the housing policies and tools for consideration if you flip over to another page where it starts off the strategic visioning area the last two columns are split into the policies for further consideration and the strategies for further consideration so and this will support what Robert said we are looking to establish an affordable housing replacement ordinance the ordinance is not something that the housing commission would be responsible for we make the recommendation you approve it and then we work with the planning commission because the ordinance falls under their purview so update form-based code to add inclusionary zoning so that is something that we are seriously considering but we also recommend or recognize that that's a very large conversation and probably underneath all of the tools that is we would need outside expertise to weigh in on that because there are repercussions certainly I think beyond there can be it has to be carefully crafted well put reducing the parking requirements for affordable housing so those would fall under the policies and then the strategies and this one we've talked about a lot develop a housing trust fund consider a tax abatement to incentivize affordable unit development consider waiving impact fees for affordable units Heather touched on the firehouse software so that we can focus on the quality improvements revised home improvement loan program to prioritize funds to address safety and health concerns based on that firehouse data establish a fee and lieu of affordable housing to help fund the housing trust fund and prioritize and pursue public private partnerships and I think that speaks to the big A affordable question that you had Eric so these are what we are currently working with to formalize our recommendation thank you other questions for Heather Jessica or Robert I just want to say that I love what you presented here and you know I'm familiar with the data from my previous experience and saying how you brought it to this projection of targets is super helpful and the list of you know the policies that are under consideration also really helpful so kudos on the progress of that stuff I specifically asked Jessica not to then immediately run for city council that was actually good I never got the opportunity to thank you because had you not won I wouldn't be here so that's great happy to have you nice to meet you I've had another question on the numbers I apologize if I missed this previous thing but just in regards to why 80% list chosen for AMI as opposed to in a lot of policies I've seen around the country they typically for rentals set that at around 65% to establish their targets from yeah it differs it varies depending on if you're talking about specifically big A subsidized housing or if you're talking about affordable small A the 80% was because of the other ones that I was looking at in the area were all targeting within that same this same setup so I looked at South Burlington I'm Williston and I looked at there were a couple others I looked at but I just set it up in the same structure surrounding communities which I actually think will help us in the long term as we have that regional conversation so we're all kind of speaking the same language and also that 80% is low income that's the HUD definition of low income so I just divided it into three easy categories the statewide housing goals which is what a lot of those other communities based their work off of too I have a question so these targets are for the gateways but the data aren't exclusive to the gateways is that correct is a citywide housing data the landlord registry data is it's citywide data we've looked at by block group different numbers and you know throughout the course of this so we've been kind of toggling back and forth between rental registry data and census data but I don't have specifically what is on Main Street what is on East Down Street what is on Mallets Bay Avenue I think that was something we talked about at the retreat over the weekend was feeling a real sense of urgency around understanding particularly in the context of the Main Street project what do those parcels look like currently what's the level of housing affordability currently in place because if it's not it may what very well be consistent with these averages but if not I think that adds certainly adds a little bit more urgency in terms of some of the policy work that we need to do in order to ensure that we are not displacing residents if new development occurs I think a replacement policy would be particularly useful in that kind of a situation I did have rental registry reports for Main Street but for Upper Main Street I only have about 25% so that is not the same level of statistical significance that I have citywide in terms of the breakout so I wouldn't be able to say per unit what everything costs I don't have that data we don't have that at the city and is that not data we expect we could I think you said you might reissue the survey I will reissue it but the way that we're doing it is any reporting on what they're charging for rental rates is on a voluntary basis it's not a required and I think part of that is to keep from crossing lines where we're having code enforcement asking I think we really need to be cautious with that we had such a good response rate last time and I think that I'll follow up and see if I can get it so looking at these goals as a tool to get to that percentage breakdown in 2023 I see value in I do have concerns about long term framing the goal of affordable housing ensuring that it's a temporary growth rate of 15% and that would require looking at these levers that we put in place in the future because if the continual growth rate of 15% under 80% AMI remains the goal then that will continue to shrink the total percentage of affordable housing in 2022 I think the reviewing it benchmarking it and reviewing it at three year intervals if you consider the fact that a municipal plan is good for what seven years we're going to have to be revisiting this at least eight year intervals and I would expect it to be much more frequently than that one thing I would like to point out is that I think it's important to look at the percentages and also the actual new units because when you look at the percentages it seems like we're dealing with really big numbers but then when you look at how many units are represented by certain numbers it actually scales it back a bit just to point that out because I got caught up in that at one point in the process and then I was like okay the difference between because we did there were four options and we did vote on one and the difference between option two and option three was one unit in each category so just to look at this I would also make the follow-up point that there's a limit to the build-out too it's not going to continue at this rate eventually we're going to bump up to one and a half square miles so well I mean to that point too because we're so small even small chunks of units do have a tremendous impact on the character which creates if there's an imbalance creates affordability concerns that exist beyond housing for me personally I think it comes back to one of our other things is focusing on safe, healthy, durable maintaining the quality of our existing affordable housing in addition to worrying about building more or maintaining certain percentages needs to be good housing too yeah well I guess have you all talked about like unit comparability at all because I the concept that new affordable housing coming on needs to have for its size it's never comparable number of units to what that would be if it was at an increased rent level we haven't looked at it that way yet yeah I think it's just a level detail we're not going to so I think I mean one of the interests that I have just to be clear I mean we talked it was evident based on the discussion at the housing commission level that there is interest in a replacement ordinance but that can take a number of different forms and you know you don't have to replace it on the site that you've developed and so I think one value that I have is that you know if we're going to celebrate the diversity of this community then we include it in the gateways and don't say now all of our affordable housing is going to be located in sort of the outskirts of town or in certain pockets that I think a really important thing is to ensure socio-economic integration in the community and so I think that's where I get a little concern about the type of concrete policy measures being put into place before more development. Yeah and that's sort of akin to redlining right except from the other end and that is something that we discussed and agreed that you know that's not consistent with our values as the housing commission and obviously not consistent with the values of the community so that is we absolutely have that kind of pre-visement and we're completely on board. Right. Yeah. It's not specifically related to replacement but in Burlington's inclusionary zoning policy they have an off site option where if you don't if you don't want to build your affordable you just onsite with your development you got to do it at one and a half times the rate so that is a lever expert advice on inclusionary zoning and replacement ordinances before we can go anywhere. And one of the realities I think that we already sort of recognize is that there's limitations on those and what we can do at the local level in the face of what state and federal laws already exist and you know building off-site and being the pay out of it and things of that nature that we aren't necessarily going to be able to control as much as we might like. Well, I appreciate going into it with a set of values and then getting the expertise to execute on those values and I really appreciate all the work that you all of the members of the commission are doing around this. It's like crucial to like right now the point we are at in this city, this conversation is so important to move forward. How did you have it? Yeah, I guess I'm going to pick up on a point you just made, Nicole. I guess my question is how have you solicited input from the greater community in terms of some of these ideas and even going forward, how might you consider that kind of input? Well, so just looking at the data here, because Heather, as Nicole said, has binders and binders of data, but this is just based on the 2017 rental registry reporting and I believe also, and again, this is three months for me deep, so, but I think a lot of the values have come forth from the last time that the Housing Commission presented to council and there was there was feedback because ultimately the community is speaking to you as the city councilors and then we get that information as filtered through you or conveyed by you and then it's our job to come up with the recommendations to then present to you for approval consistent with the community's values and then meet with the Planning Commission so that they can turn that into ordinance. So I would say that most of our feedback from the community is honestly coming from that side of the room to us. So, you know, the reason why we're here presenting to you is so that you can say, you know, the people that I speak to are actually not in support of this because, you know, we will listen and we will take that to heart and then you'll see that reflected in our final recommendations which you ultimately get to say, yeah, your name. I also think the Strategic Vision guided a lot of the guiding principles and that was a long process of seeking community involvement and engagement. So we specifically pulled outwards from the housing piece of the Strategic Vision and then developed them from there. The other piece is the Planning Commission is in the process of doing a new municipal plan and so all of the commissions are bringing up recommendations to them and that process also involves community involvement. So I think there are multiple layers to the way the community is involved. And of course, all of our meetings are open to the public and anyone is welcome to show up. We would love to have input. Oh, yes, please, Mr. Mayor. We're backing up from all that just for context. Remember, we did a housing needs assessment that includes collecting information. Yeah, I mean, I do think it's important. It's important that folks who sit on the commission have that broad range of perspective and experience and nothing can replace, you know, personal outrage to people who will be affected by these policies. And so I know that there's been outrage to the business community up and down Main Street. And I don't know enough about the landlord or rental community along Main Street, but that's a I would think. I mean, we don't have like neighborhood planning commission type features here, but a neighborhood discussion around the future of Main Street. I think specifically targeting folks who live there would provide folks with a really authentic way to weigh in. Again, if the four. Yeah, that actually reminds me, I had a conversation with Anna recently from the commission. Anna Weisling is the representative from Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. And she had mentioned, you know, they know some folks in like the Main Street departments that are pretty active in their community. So getting some input that way through her or other members of the commission that have like these different touch points throughout the community. And in addition to the business outreach, getting some of that resident outreach. Yeah, I think it's a good idea. Are we in a position now or will we need to be or kind of just thinking through where we need to dedicate some resources that legal or technical expertise? Because I don't want us to go down the road and then continue to say, well, we can't make decisions on the specific policy recommendations or levers because we don't have that technical expertise. I think it's planning expertise more than anything else. So it would be a planning manager with the planning commission. You know, they've certainly written ordinance there before. I think the thing that we are being cautious about as a commission and has been discussed pretty extensively is ensuring that if you establish requirements that you also establish offsets so that the developments that include affordable housing are financially viable. And I think that's the complexity of really looking. There are some that are successful programs and there are some that are unsuccessful. For example, inclusionary zoning. It can increase affordable housing or it can decrease housing that's produced and have detrimental impact. So writing it well is important, I think, is what you're hearing. But I don't know that that's necessary. I mean, I think we'd have to have it reviewed certainly from a legal perspective, but I think a planning manager and planning commission can get together an ordinance that would be a feasible ordinance. Let's ask, I mean, from all the discussion we've had, it seems like it's a big priority for this council and we've passed this enormous, it's a really big task we've put on the housing commission. I want to make sure we're supporting that group and the resources that might be needed for us to all get to the point where it seems like from a values point, we want to get to. Thank you, I think that's a good segue to next steps in timeline. I think the conversation that happened. These activities, I don't think necessary, and we can talk about folks and talk about the perception of this. In terms of moving forward with the Main Street project, that's a decision we're going to have to be making in August. My interest is in nailing down some of these policies, maybe not have it go through the formal ordinance process, but being on council being prepared to provide clear direction around an approach in August. So if you can talk us through the next steps in timeline and how you see those these efforts sort of dovetailing with the broader development work along Main Street, I guess from a timing perspective. Yeah, it's our intention to be present because we prioritize certain policies, it's our intention to dive deeply into those immediately, so that we can make recommendations to the Planning Commission August 9th. So we'll have that conversation with them come back to you with the Planning Commission on August 20th, kind of to get your blessing on what you want to go forward and what you do not want to go forward. And then the Planning Commission takes it from there in terms of writing actually writing ordinance. So for things like the Housing Trust Fund, that would be something that you know, staff can take for I can take I would end up taking forward putting together some kind of finance package for creating a Housing Trust Fund, but something like an ordinance change would go through the Planning Commission at that point. But I think that we could have by August, the conversation where you give a blessing on yes, go forward with the replacement ordinance. So I'm just trying to I believe it was I'm trying to avoid a situation where potentially a repeat of the first Housing Commission report to council where he went to Planning Commission, made some recommendations of recommendations changed and then came to council and and so is there a possibility of you can do a joint presenting to council before the Planning Commission meeting on the 9th, just to get that initial feedback for the you know, or have a joint discussion, a joint discussion might interest of time, not having a lot of back and forth. Yeah. But how do you feel about a joint meeting? I didn't know my vacation. Just a quick question on that. I might be misreading that but looking at your timeline here, the the item listed for June 25 sounds like what we're doing right now. Oh, yeah, well, we're going to dive deeper into this is so we have those as our priorities. So we're diving deeper into those and really trying to nail down exactly what we're recommending. So but yes, it does sound a lot like what we're just thinking maybe the whole thing. If I could. Yep. So I would just I may be a recommendation to try to call us around that something has been productive in the past is having a joint meeting with Planning Commission and having the presentation of the recommendations happen at one time from an initial standpoint and listening dodging of thinking and I think that that might instead of it coming to council first. Thank you. I that seems like we're all in agreement on that. But emerging from this, this would be the discussion where if we feel differently about those percentage breakdowns, this would be where we communicate because it sounds like at your June 25th meeting, you're going to finalize input from this recommendation and how you move forward with the specific percentages. Yeah, yeah. So tonight is feedback on the percentage targets and the policy priorities. So what's in that sort of chart the goals, targets, priority policies for further consideration and priority strategies for my interest, you know, strategies, it doesn't, you know, that it's important if you don't agree with any of those to weigh in. But really, in order for this process to move forward, we need to give feedback on the goals and targets and the priority policies. Yeah, so I guess from that perspective, and I know, like the point you mentioned that really, if you look at the actual new units and really makes up a very small few change 5%, that'll be one unit or whatever it is. But just to kind of set a values statement, I suppose, and something in looking at the long term what we want composition to be, would like to see either 20 or 25% personally for the low income, especially since we're defining low income at that 80% range. And knowing that the market might then shake out for the housing that's built still in that low income under 80% is on the higher end of that. I would share my feedback that I love these numbers. Haven't seen the data, they align to, you know, what our expectation is of who is moving here. I think that seeing down the line in 2023 that we've still got 50% of our units affordable is definitely acceptable and in line with, you know, the vision of what Winooski is. And having the ability, doing that three year benchmarking having the ability to pivot on that if we're not getting there and then raise the rates at that time if needed. I also would reiterate the point you made earlier that Winooski really is carrying their weight in this area. And we can continue to do that. Yeah, I would just, you know, make the point again that we're talking about percentage of new newly built units, not the overall percentage we're talking about in five years getting to still having 50% of our units be affordable below 80%. So you're actually talking about 50% and not, you know, 15%. We're not talking about trying to get to 15% affordable. That's right. Well, right. But I think it's, it's important to just recognize that that's not going to happen organically. And, and we also don't really know what currently exists in the gateways in terms of the rental units and their level, their specific level of affordability. So there is a risk of sort of letting the market do its work resulting in the elimination of currently affordable units if there's no clear replacement ordinance. So I think to me, it's imperative that we, you know, I can live with these targets so long as we have very good protections in place for against displacement. Does make me feel a lot better having a good replacement policy. And that, that, you know, from my perspective, looking at inclusionary zoning is important because it ensures a mix of housing occurring along the corridor. And I understand the need for offsets. If we if we do have an interest in promoting the development of the gateways. The fact is we have affordable housing in the gateways. So we could do nothing except say, you know, we could we could impose restrictions along on development and not have any development and we'd have a lot of affordable housing. But I think there is an interest in some level of development and the gateways that is the vision that that folks embraced when they express support for form based code. I think the trick is how do you thread that needle, which I don't think is an easy needle to thread. But what I hear from this group is figure how it's important to figure that out. And if we do then we'll be, I think we'll have something to be really proud of as a community. And how do those offsets still contribute to this larger goal, even though it might be available for a developer looking at a specific unit? And how are they not so easily attainable that everybody's just going to go for this offset and not build any affordable housing? Right, which is what we have currently. Let's put a share in the backyard. And that's, you know, and so that's one of the reasons why, you know, going through these tools is going to take a little bit more time because we have to be responsible about it. And what, you know, we looked at, okay, what are the pros and what are the potential cons and what we realized to your point, like what sort of more technical or expert support do we need? I agree that needs to be at the level of the planning commission, because for example, you know, yeah, is the fee and loo of affordable housing high enough? Like, is there enough benefit to the city or utilizing city owned and these are just examples, but you utilizing city owned property for affordable housing? If we say, yes, that's absolutely how we're going to go, but there's another highest and best use that can bring income into the city in a more positive and effective way, like, is that the right tool to help encourage affordable housing? You know, so and I think the again, not to circle back to the inclusionary zoning, I feel like I'm, you know, beating a dead horse a little bit, but there are repercussions beyond what our level of expertise could be potentially, which is why if we say yes, this is the way to go, but we don't know how it's going to affect the rest of the city and what the potential backlash is going to be in, you know, year four after we look at, you know, that three year benchmark, you know, we just don't want to get into a situation. We want to be moderate with our recommendations. You don't want to get into a situation where we're trying to seriously retool. So if I can just add a piece of context and I've not been intimately involved with the housing commission, so I'm not speaking at housing commission members, but I think it's also important to note that this is, you know, these targets and tools dedicated to the new units in the gateway are incremental and are a part of a conversation that I believe we're going to have over a years. I think that, you know, 30, this is built off the assumption that we're going to have 30 new units constructed annually, which is the average that we've seen in the last couple of years, but that's a result of a pretty big development push in the city to get new development happening. That may not continue or it may continue not in a straight pattern. So right now, just for context, and I think we need to celebrate this, not only focus on a negative, what might happen if we don't do this side, this process, right now in the eight ways we have two permitted housing developments in active developments, neither of them are on Main Street. We have no active permitted housing projects currently planned or thought of on Main Street. Now I will just admit that could change tomorrow. A developer could be doing something we don't know about it could change tomorrow, but right now we have none planned. And the ones we have permitted and we believe are pretty the one we have that believe we believe will be under construction this year, which will only be one is truly the integrated housing unit we have on East Island. That's highly subsidized with state low income tax credits. We're not going to continue to be able to do that annually. The subsidy from the state and other housing partners won't continue at that annual increment. So we may have years where we see a significant boost in subsidized affordable unit development and then a year where we see no development of affordable units. And that's why I think it's really important to benchmark this and be checking in regularly on where we are and what our targets are and not say these are our targets for the next 15 years because we don't know if they're going to work. We don't know what the market will demand and we need to keep in through it. Interim process keep looking at it. That makes sense. This one new development would actually hit our five year benchmark, the one that's coming in on East Island Street. So, you know, according to these targets, it would have, it would hit our five year total for the low income for the projections for the low income. Just this one development. If I could add a couple to reinforce what Jesse just said, I think this is a great conversation for our community to have the one we haven't had the luxury of in a long time. And that's because so can I just ask you a question set that, you know, because I think it's important that we are on the same page, at least in terms of our understanding. My understanding was this discussion was about making the possibility of making specific changes to the form based code, because the current that current ordinance does not have adequate protections for the preservation of a portable housing. The incentive program does not work. And so that's that concern is really what kicked off the whole housing needs assessment three years ago. And so while yes, we have to have a conversation and the Housing Commission does have a scope broader than just the gateways. I think the for me, the immediate interest is in understanding what changes can and should be made to form based code in order to address concerns that have been expressed for several years now that the current ordinance does not adequately ensure the maintenance of affordable housing in those gateways. I totally agree. And I think eventually we do need to go citywide with these discussions. But like, how do you eat a whale by the time and right now we have the most pressing need where we're going to see the most turnover and the most development is in the gateways. And so I feel like looking specifically at form based code makes a lot of sense. That's naturally occurring in their policy prioritization. It also naturally occurred when they said, we're going to focus on rental units first, because that's the area of greatest concern at the moment steps are going to be reviewed and discussed, for example, excess redwelling. Well, so then Seth, I guess, can some of those specific levers we're talking about that we would look at to reach these goals? Be do they need to be contained within form based code? Or you're saying these are levers that we can apply citywide. So such as like, like a replacement policy, or if we were to look at inclusionary zoning, or we can find right now to looking at just within form based code. It combines it to being just a basic conversation or discussion. Again, the one that screams that the most, I mean, it's on here. No, you're right. Seth, I think that you're correct in saying that we've been focusing on rentals because of the concerns about the gateways. There is within the document that I set out, it does say rental targets for new construction in the gateways. So that may be where this is coming from. But I think you're right in saying that we intend to be setting targets for the city and something like a replacement ordinance could apply citywide. And I would say when I'm reading your party policies and strategies, what I see here is a bunch of policies and strategies that would apply citywide. And then a specifically called out updates form based code for the inclusionary zoning. Does that not get a you know, what we're we're hoping to achieve here to protect on Main Street? I believe so. I sets comments through me a little in terms of making sure we're all on the same page. So I just wanted to explore that a little bit. I do think there's value in broadening inclusionary zoning to looking at not just the gateways, but also potentially if there is additional development, the waterfront area, for instance, I don't I don't think it's necessarily just looking at the gateways. If that is a path we go down. I think our discussions are citywide, but there is understanding of the importance, particularly of the gateways of the form based code. I mean, hadn't sat over there and almost voted against form based code for the very things that you're cited. Believe me, it's in my mind. So I think there's no misunderstanding. All kind of on the same page and speaking towards the same thing. Any other questions or comments at this point? Do you all feel like you have enough clarity around even things around the timeline and tasks? We've been clear. I think so. Do you guys feel the same? Yeah. Okay. That's great. So I want to just ask if there's anybody in the public that wishes to speak to this issue? Thank you all very much. Okay, so the next and final item on the agenda is an executive session pursuant to section three thirteen one B of title one, which would allow us to enter executive session to discuss labor relations agreements with employees, specifically our agreement with the fraternal order of police. Jesse, would you like to just mean just to? Okay. So I would entertain a motion to enter into executive session pursuant to one BSA three thirteen one B to discuss the labor relation agreement with the fraternal order of police with Jesse Baker joining us. So check first by Christine, second by Hal, all those in favor? Aye. Motion passes. So we will move to executive session. We will reconvene only to adjourn.