[Music] foreign [Music] hello everybody I call this meeting to order this is the land use planning and zoning committee of the city council councilor Jones is excused this evening all other councils are present this is a hybrid meeting where all participants will be in person our video or audio conference members of the public have the opportunity to address the committee if they signed up for public comment for the rules published on the agenda and on our website on Friday Council staff has confirmed that no individuals signed up to speak this evening we're going to go to agenda item a r113 counselor Ben thank you madam chair [Music] our 23113 is the uh Amendment to the Rail Yards master plan which many many years ago I was involved in in creating the purchase of this site uh many many folks were involved who helped out to recognize the historic value of this site and uh including at that time Governor Richardson mayor Chavez the city council many folks recognized that this project which which was a key component of the Borealis sector plan at the time when I became a counselor for the district and the area um was already a policy of that of that sector plan that it be in a important priority of The Umbrellas community that that site be purchased it's uh most people know about it it has a long history it was a the employment center of Albuquerque in uh the beginning of the the 20th century and um service you know huge numbers of locomotives traveling between the East and the west coast of the states there were only a couple other uh railroad locomotive repair shops of similar size in those days between the Mississippi and the West Coast so this was a very important part of Albuquerque's history very important part of Albuquerque and South Broadway and Bareilles history and so um I I don't think it's it's necessary to go through all of what we've gone through but uh city did purchase the site in 2000 seven I believe it was 2008 and uh and we've moved on from there with some bits and starts any uh 27 Acre Site like this with uh huge historic buildings and and uh some fairly minor surprisingly minor environmental problems uh to get it to get to the point where it is today is really exciting but um but this this sounds like it's a big deal that we're updating the master plan uh it's relatively a straightforward simple uh process and I'm going to turn it over to Ms Schultz and our consultant to explain uh what this is about um the the master plan that that does exist was as a result of a previous request for for proposals and we the city actually partnered with the company who produced the existing master plan but even back then even even though they are no longer part our partner they did they were required to listen to the uh to the priorities of the neighborhoods both neighborhoods South Broadway and umbrellas and to accommodate those in their design um their design is not being implemented but the many uses that they talked about on the site or else mostly still relevant I would say and uh and therefore we it's time to update the plan and Mitch also give us the history of how that's occurred so far Madam chair counselor Benson we need a motion and a second before we dive in oh yeah I will I will move uh approval of of r23113 and I'll second I'll second that motion thank you counselor and Council event and I believe we have um Miss Morris online to do an overview and then oh I'm sorry I forgot we were a hybrid Ms Morris uh has has uh been part of the project from from initiation and prior to my time on the project so Ms Morris please good evening Madam chair councilors um it's with uh great pleasure that I'm before you this evening working in conjunction to this uh this update to The Rail Yards master plan as councilor Benson mentioned um professionally I've been involved with this site for a long time um and and the same for for our Consultants uh Jackie freshman as well with with consensus planning so I'm going to just go over some kind of uh kind of a broad background about this particular update and then I'll hand over to Jackie to go into a little bit more details about what this Master Plan update covers and and the process associated with that so as Council Dimension mentioned the site was purchased by the city in late 2007 early 2008 and The Rail Yards Advisory Board was established very soon after within months of the purchase of the site with a role of guiding the developments of the site and the creation of a master plan from 2012 to 2014 there was an extensive public process it isn't snow globe it was an extensive public process to establish the content of the Australia's master plan that we have adopted today the plan was adopted in 2014 and the plan reflects extensive engagement with the community and the many stakeholders that are interested in in this very important site within Albuquerque however since 2014 there have been some pretty significant changes that are relevant to the site that now merits this updates to the master plan the intents behind this update update was to ensure that the master plan remained relevant and effective in guiding the revitalization of the site um The Plan update had a very particular and specific scope which was to stay within the the realm of those changes that have occurred since 2014 um and those changes are we no longer have Scimitar as the master developer the city has assumed that role of Master developer the comprehensive plan and its Associated policies were updated in 2017 and the following year the Ido and the rate the relative relevant zoning framework with the idea was adopted in 2018. there have also been very significant improvements made to the North End of the site and none of these aspects are reflected in the in the master plan today and so this update is intended to address those three key aspects um I will now hand over to Ms Fishman with consensus planning who will be presenting some details of those plan updates and the process we went through I'll also note that there is an amendments in the packets that switch that proposes to switch out the exhibit to the bill the updated exhibit incorporates the epc's recommended conditions and then makes a series of related edits in relation to the conditions that were recommended by the EPC um when you are ready to move that Amendment I'll be able to go through that in more detail but but now I'll turn over to Jackie to present and then I'll be available for any q a thank you Miss Morris Ms Fishman go ahead okay uh thank you madam chair and and counselors again my name is Jackie Fishman principal with consensus planning and it's been a pleasure for me too to to update the the master plan I'll try not to call it a master development plan because Michaela just got here and she'll hit me if I do um so we've been working on this um for about two years um it is uh on on its face seems like a easy job but there was a lot of detail in it it was not an easy document to to change and to unravel some of those items that the master developer had put in there it's much more of a Planning and Zoning document than it is a design document uh that that's I think you know a good characterization of it uh Gary go ahead slide so Petra went through some of these items the context of you know when when the original Master development plan was done 2012 to 2014 it was adopted and in 2014. um the intent is to make sure it stays relevant and effective and guiding the revitalization of the site and then the three items that were included in the scope well noting that the city assumed the role of Master developer the changes to Planning and Zoning in in Albuquerque the comprehensive Plan update in 2017 followed by the Ido in 2018. and then there's been a lot of changes to the site to the north part of the site go ahead so the intent there's a number of statements here one to update the master plan to ensure that it stays current and applicable two to recognize that Scimitar is no longer the master developer and the contract was terminated three to remove scimitar's specific Design Concepts I always like to call out the acoustic firms as something that that was in there and no longer is um also the site uh personalized or the site was totally personalized and that had to do with uh the scimitar's uh thought process and how they would take down the site through development and since the city is the master developer that's no longer relevant so we've removed all the the lot lines that were in the master plan as illustrative um uh next one was again reflect the new comprehensive plan and the Ido so we put in all the relevant uh comprehensive plan goals and policies and took out the old ones from the the previous comprehensive plan made changes to references to the Ido and the fact that Borealis sector plan no longer exists but is now captured in a in a CPO also to reflect the physical changes that have occurred at the site and then incorporate summaries of Post Master Plan studies for instance there was one report that Dr Claudia Isaac old professor of mine from UNM had written a report and and we have that in in the document now um consensus planning was hired in a little bit longer ago than I thought it was a little more than two years ago February of 2022 we had several railyards Advisory board meetings I believe there were four in total the last one was in January of 2023 when when the board recommended approval of this amendment also we had a facilitated meeting as part of the typical EPC process that was in March and only one neighborhood person came and then of course we had our EPC Hearing in April and they also recommended approval of the amendment this slide shows one of the pages that that we redlined so it was um some more tedious process we had a Redline version of it so anything that was no longer relevant I struck um with with a red line literally and then anything that we were adding we underlined in red there were a lot of images throughout the plan it was very Hefty document that were removed and so the EPC when they reviewed it they had a clean version and then they had the red line version as well and I'm just showing you this page to just to show you how we we went through that process one of the new sections in the in the master plan there's there's not a lot of brand new things but one of them was a noise section and that came out of one of our Rail Yards Advisory board meetings where the two neighborhood Representatives expressed some concern about noise emanating from the site and so um I I looked at some examples specifically the noise section in Balloon Fiesta Park obviously we customized It For The Rail Yards but now that's in in the document before you today okay also what's new to the document is a height diagram originally the the master plan had a very I don't know if it was complicated a spreadsheet that had fars and Heights and land uses it all sort of mixed together it was really hard to understand I never as part of the team that worked on it in a minor way and I never understood it myself so I was glad to get rid of that we simplified things I think it's easier for both educated people who who do this kind of stuff all the time as well as as just regular people that might pick up the master plan so the height diagram just shows simply where Heights are appropriate and what the maximum height limits are the big brown area really reflects those existing large buildings I think they are 67 feet in height so if you're around those big buildings you can be you know equal to those those Heights the yellow is I believe it's 30 feet and that came out of the Barella sector plan um so that um that is trying to show some you know sensitivity to context and in in the neighborhood the oranges site uh area is um about 45 feet and that also reflects um The Heights around it this side just simply shows the revised site plan we went through a somewhat difficult process to we we contacted all the various Consultants that have worked on the site since 2014 and tried to merge all of the AutoCAD files together so that the site plan reflected uh what it is today so it even we even show the the roundabout that's been planned but not built but we wanted to make sure that was in there it shows the plaza area that's built and the the new parking lot on the North End some of the clarifications that we made and this was with help from the planning department we added a numbering system to each of the the buildings that were mentioned in the master plan but not in a very clear way so I think there's a lot more clarity to the site plan than than it had before I should mention that the master plan includes 11 by 17 dean of the site plan and the landscape plan but we also have a separate large format 30 by 42 landscape land and site plan as well and the EPC approved or recommended approval of those with two separate action items this uh slide just simply shows the revised landscape plan we added trees where another consultant had had designed their landscape plan so we wanted to reflect that we also added some trees along the edges because that that was a goal or a you know a policy that's that's in the master plan it was to try to provide as much buffer on the east and west edges as we could and so that that's what that's all about other than that this this um the landscape land didn't change a whole lot we had done it my office had had done it years ago and so the plant materials stayed the same and um it just reflects the you know the current improvements on the site and I believe that's my last flight thank you Miss Fishman any questions for either Miss Fishman or Ms Morris before we move on to the amendment Madam chair I have one question go ahead counselor thank you madam chair um so if I understood correctly you did work with the neighborhood associations and the neighbors around and they were pleased with the changes and approved them Madam chair counselors yes we did so the Reliance Advisory Board um includes a representative from the Morales neighborhood association and the South Broadway neighborhood association so they were part of all of The Rail Yards Advisory board meetings and then we also had a pre-application meeting for the EPC portion of the application um we invited both Bareilles and South Broadway so the museum but we only had one person take us up on that um I'm assuming that's because the representatives on The Rail Yards Advisory Board did their job and kept their associations informed on the on the updates terrific thank you um thank you madam chair that's all I had I'm glad to hear that all right thank you any other questions counselor Benton it just for for people who may be observing the meeting um the radio Advisory Board was created early on when the when the site was first created or first purchase excuse me uh this Advisory Board was created and it includes elected representatives from the area including a County Commission uh State Senate uh uh uh State Rep House of Representatives uh myself I've been on it the whole time since I've been here for the whole time but the counselor from District 2 and but importantly it called for these elected neighborhood representatives and the neighborhoods have been very engaged uh through the entire project process and very engaged on that Advisory Board and I think that's been helpful to just have that direct contact with the neighborhoods and um and uh that is that that board has worked very well we also have a representative of the uh Urban landed to the development kind of expertise on the site and that has been very helpful for the board as well thank you thank you any other questions I know we have folks online so I just want to make sure that they get a chance to ask all right seeing none councilor Britton do you want to move your Amendment yes uh thank you madam chair I'll move amendment number one which is in the iPads and this replaces exhibit a to the resolution with the attached exhibit a and uh we'll ask uh Miss fisherman I will get that motion thank you thank you interested and we'll Miss Fishman do you want to explain this or Ms Schultz or Ms Morris uh Madam chair counselors yes I'm available to to explain this so the the first portion of this amendment lists the conditions of recommendation from the EPC um so these are the uh so that this is the first part of the changes that it makes um there are conditions one um through eight um the first one replaces the phrase Master development plan with the phrase master plan throughout the documents uh the second one um makes some editorial corrections to the phrasing um of the description of the PD zone and there are some similar Corrections in number three um and then number actually condition number four um the the the master plan as it is adopted today um has these as Council as Jackie mentioned these um land use the personalizations and then land uses are attached to each parcel um and then from that it references that the uses are actually per the the Barella sector plan and so right now in the document you have to kind of jump through three hoops to get to work out what exactly the uses are and when we were drafting the exhibit that's in the bill today we didn't quite get all the way to the third step of the the jump so we just had the general use categories that the table had used and we realized that didn't wasn't actually correct and so working with with EPC stuff um we realized that it really needed to reference um the same Zone categories that the sector plan does and so the sector plan references the R3 Zone in the old code the C2 Zone and the IP Zone and those translate today to RMH and exam and nrbp and so this basically puts the language from the sector plan into Ideo phrasing and then puts it directly into the master plan and so that is this section on permissive uses um the next action updates the prohibited uses list with um uh Ideo raising and so for example off-premise signs are not a use so that language is stricken from here and moves to a different section which we'll come to in a minute we don't have gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas cells anymore we have light vehicle fueling and heavy vehicle fueling um and then uh we don't talk about nicotine and cannabis they're actually their own uses and then adult uh uses was a general term that was in the SEPTA Plan before and so we break that out into today's Ideo phrasings of adult retail and adult entertainment um the next section um just clarifies the parking section and the and how that approval would go through um a review would go through um the next one number seven is the off-premise signs of putting that in the correct section rather than in the uses section um and then the loss condition um talks about uh making sure that Landscaping is focused towards residential when there's residential uses the Landscaping is oriented towards the residential uses and just kind of makes some some clear phrasing there subsequent to getting the recommendations recommended conditions from the EPC and working those into the document we realized that there were a couple of other um additional edits that we needed to make to complement those and so um this is now section Roman numeral two a the site plan needed to be amended to match the text that was in the master plan um B we added a sentence explaining about the use of the term master plan so that it's clear when we're using the phrase Master development plan which is only at the beginning of the document and I think one other location but the rest of the time the document now refers to it as a master plan oh yes and then um c um just kind of explains the work that we did in 2022 and added you know ads that we hired consensus to do this work um D adds the phrase and structured so throughout the document when we talk about parking um we talk about Subterranean and structured or suttering and or structured depending on the context um the the master plan as it is adopted today is very heavily focused on Subterranean parking that was a key vision of Scimitar but while that would be very nice to do it is financially very very difficult to achieve and so we wanted to make sure that there was flexibility within the documents and so allow for structured parking um and so this amendment just makes sure that the policy about parking included the phrase and structured um and then um e-rec deletes the interim uses when the master plan was adopted um we didn't have the Ido and the Zone code at the time didn't really deal with temporary uses in the same way um now that the master plan refers directly to Zone categories within the Ido um the temporary uses that are associated with those uses are covered by this and so the Ideo framework allows us to cover that and we we don't need the the text that we've got at the moment about interim uses um and then lastly we have a section that talked about noise control we talked about Rail Yards policies on noise and they're actually that was a Mis um typing it should have said Rail Yards regulations and then lastly there are some grammatical punctuation and formatting Corrections have been made throughout the documents Jackie mentioned one of them you know making sure that the site plan has each building numbered um for easy easy comprehension any questions any questions on the amendment all right councilor Ben I think Madam Madam chair um yeah urge your support on amendment number one and because we have some folks online we're going to do a role go ahead counselor Benton yes councilor grout yes counselor Lewis yes counselor people Court yes and that passes on a 4-0 vote all right that takes us back to the bill as amended um last chance for questions on the bill as amended councilman uh counselors thanks for your attention to this tonight you know it's our own only agenda item but very important project for our district and it has been moving along uh in the last few years in a in a uh more accelerated way and we appreciate that on the part of the administration's uh commitment to the site and also we have to always thank our our legislators who've been very very supportive of the project over the years so we've got a good partnership with the state on this site again it's a it's a such an important historic element not only for Albuquerque but for the state as a whole so um I want to thank everybody who's worked on this also but yeah the um Ms Morris of course have been working on on The Rail Yards over the years also the um also uh Miss Fishman and consensus planning and um and of course our planning department has been very helpful in the rewrite of this uh of this document so we can now move on with with uh as new proposals come forth such as the uh uh the CNM film school media school there will be more discussions about uh approvals of site plans and maybe Ms Morris could just point that out quickly of how that will work as as we go forward with uh with new development plans hi Madam chair council is yes um as new proposals come forward they would come in with a site plan um the site plan depending on the type of The Proposal um it would be um either a site plan EPC or um a site plan administrative depending on the scope of the the changes and whether There Was You Know Much to change on the site plan um I think Miss friends Whitmore is possibly in the audience um I might be able to speak a little bit more so that um implementation side is coming up thank you thank you Miss friends Whitmore thanks for helping us with this absolutely I'm chair counselors so because there's a master plan in place any time that someone wants to do development on the site they're going to have to come in for a site plan Amendment basically and show what's proposed to change on the site because council is adopting this as the site plan for the PD zone that means those changes have to come back before you for any for any major Amendment there are minor amendments that are allowed in the Ido if something affects less than 10 percent of the site that could be approved administratively by staff it is a very large site so it's potentially something like a change of a parking space or a walkway might not have to come back to council but certainly any new building any major change to the site would come back to council because you want to close or was that your clothes with yeah she just spammed my clothes okay or is your support counselors thanks for your attention to this thank you and we'll go to revocal vote counselor Benton yes counselor grout yes counselor Lewis yes councilor people calling yes and that passes on a 4-0 vote all right congratulations councilor Benton um there being no further business this loves committee meeting is adjourned [Music]