Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Hey hey hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Morning everyone. Welcome to our affordable housing. Well, it's not affordable housing. I'm just changing the name of our committee. Our housing and neighborhood services committee meeting. I am council member Lana Mayfield. I have the pleasure of serving you as chair. I would love to go around the room for everyone to have a chance to introduce yourself with your name and organization and or community affiliation that you are a part of. And I'm going to start to my far left. >> I'm Julie Porter with partners. Michaelart city of Charlotte. >> Dale White Community Solutions. >> Dave Foster, community solutions. >> Steve Cohen with one mech. Tom Hard. I'm a historian and a member of one mech. >> Neil Wickham, Housing and Neighborhood Services. >> Harold Thompson, Housing and Neighborhood Services. >> Janine Simmons, Housing and Neighborhood Services. JD Masa AAS, council member, committee member, district 5. >> Kimberly Owens, uh, district 6 and housing committee member. Monica Allen, city manager's office. >> Rebecca Hefner, Housing and Neighborhood Services. >> Warren Wooten, Housing and Neighborhood Services. >> Anna Schllo, city attorney's office. >> Thank you all. And I am going to take a moment to just ask us to keep our colleague Renee, Council Member Renee Johnson. Why am I like my mind? It's too early. My mind is not working today. Renee Johnson lifted. She will not be joining us today. She is dealing with family concerns and care. So, we want to let Renee know that we are thinking of her. But we are going to be jumping right in. So, I am turning >> and it's women's history month >> and it is women's history month which we are represented. So, thank you very much and thank you for being an ally. So, we I'm going to turn this right over to our DCM, Miss Monica Allen. >> All right. Well, good morning, Chair Mayfield. And good morning, everyone. So, today's agenda includes two items focused on strengthening our affordable housing strategy and advancing preservation efforts. So, first, the committee will discuss potential enhancements to the affordable housing policy. At the mayor's request, we will consider how the policy can better align with the mobility plan and further prioritize anti-displacement strategies, particularly as transit and transportation projects move forward. This item is for information and discussion purposes. Second, the committee will receive a staff recommendation related to the city's rolling Noah acquisition, rehabilitation, and subsidy RFP. This recommendation concerns a proposal to preserve a naturally occurring affordable housing property in District 3, Council District 3. This item is also for information discussion and together these items support our ongoing efforts to mitigate displacement and preserve affordable housing across the city. So at this time I'll turn it over to director Rebecca Hefner. Thank you and good morning everyone. So you may recall from what month are we in March? from the February meeting that uh council member or chair Mayfield shared that we we had started off with the snack and then we were going to bring to you in March the full meal. So, what I would say is we're really going to dive into some pieces of the affordable housing funding policy this morning. Uh but again, it's just pieces. This is kind of like a multicourse meal. So, uh, we'll go through a lot of it today and then, um, there'll be continued opportunity to dis for discussion around the policy as you move forward in committee. >> Rebecca, before we jump in, as y'all are getting ready to pull that up, would love for my colleague to have a moment to introduce yourself. >> Good morning, uh, Council Member Joy Mayo representing District 3. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. So this morning we are going to continue discussion of the affordable housing funding policy and a couple of things that we're going to focus on today is to talk about uh location priorities specifically as they relate to mobility and anti-displacement. So that's a continuing conversation from again I guess we call a snack that you had on Tuesday at the strategy session as part of the overall discussion of mobility. And then we're also going to dive a little bit into uh our partnership strategy. I'll give you a high le a high level of our overall partnership strategy and then what that looks like within uh within the uh housing trust fund and housing bonds specifically. Next slide. This is a reminder of the policy referral. So, the the mayor made made a policy referral to you all uh specifically to think through what enhancements are needed to the affordable housing funding policy to integrate with the goals of the mobility plan and to mitigate displacement pressures. So the fund the funding policy was first adopted in 2024 prior to the $und00 million bond and the policy anticipated right at that time we were already working towards a funding source for the mobility plan. So the policy anticipated it but at that time the the projects were still unfunded. So, this is really to think through are there updates and enhancements needed now that there's a funding source and we're really starting to uh move into the implementation phase for transit and transportation. Next slide. As a reminder of that 2024 bond is you you had um so you think about the policy. Actually, I'm going to just go to this briefly. The policy itself, it's a two-page document. It's um short and sweet, but it's very rich rich and robust. And the policy itself applies to all of your affordable housing investments. The piece that's specific to the $und00 million bond is when you get down into categor categorization um and and and investment priorities. So, here's where we are with the 2024 bond and um that you had $100 million. There's currently $44.2 million in that bond available. And this slide shows you the allocation goals um and the balance. And that'll come up again in the next presentation because you'll be talking about a potential investment in that third row of rental housing preservation. Next slide. Within the housing funding policy, you have established five investment priorities. And those priorities focus on population, location, resident services, partnership, and innovation. And today, what we're going to dive a little bit deeper into um are your location priorities. both both the category itself, but also how the location priorities show up in other places within the policy. And then we're going to dive into uh partnerships um to talk a little bit about not just what what are you looking for per the policy, but what makes a good partner. uh so so that that we can and and um the housing services team can bring you good recommendations. Next slide. We've talked a little bit about this at strategy session on Tuesday. Your affordable housing funding policy already prioritizes anti-displacement and integrates with the mobility plan. in in when this was developed, you were already anticipating these things and uh a and you acknowledged what what we talked a little bit about at the retreat or strategy session, excuse me, is that um there there really are different types of displacement pressures depending on what the drivers are. So the transit line and the transportation investment creates a different kind of displacement pressure than the the what we see just based on growth and development and density within our neighborhoods. Your bond actually your policy addresses both of those things, but today we're going to focus on its integration with the mobility plan. So, $49 million of the bond, almost half is dedicated to uh anti-displacement activities. And again, this isn't the only funding that goes to anti-displacement. It's just that funding that is within your affordable housing bond. And so we get to that 49 million through uh home ownership, rental housing preservation, housing rehab and emergency repair, and site acquisition. So we consider those four categories um to to include uh encompass anti-displacement. And and actually would you go back two slides, Harold? I think this is important to take a look at. So when we talk about the bond, we usually say that uh we usually just give the categories, but in the policy itself, it actually fleshes those categories out a little bit. And so when you look in in at the detail, you can see in what ways these different categories address displacement. And so, uh, home ownership includes new production, down payment assistance. It includes our acquisition, rehab, resale. It includes ADUs and missing middle rental housing preservation. It includes Noah acquisition, which you'll hear about today, but also multif family rehab and small landlord investments. And then housing rehab and emergency repair. Those are those are already designed as staying in place opportunities. and then site acquisition. So, I just wanted to to highlight the depth that's in the policy um and and how all of those activities really do support staying in place. All right, let's go back to slide six please Harold. All right, so that's the 49 million you've already dedicated to anti-displacement. And then within a variety of places you are already integrating with the mobility plan in your pop in and and anti-displacement in your population priorities as you dig into the bullets there um one of your population priorities is households at risk for displacement and when you dig into location priorities one of your priorities there is areas vulnerable to displacement. So the this addresses both the h the individual household level as well as neighborhoods uh where that are experiencing intense displacement pressures. Then as you move on uh trans the location priorities include transit oriented development areas. Uh so that's in alignment with your mobility plan and then also locations with high housing location scores. So, we'll take a look at that tool in just a minute, but it's important to note that those high housing location scores, you have already said in your policy that they're prioritized over financial leverage. And part of that uh language is because we know that there are places in our community where land costs are high. It's difficult to create affordable housing. And so you have stated in your policy if it's a good location that's more important than how much it costs per door. Now you still have to balance um you know how much it costs per door and your overall goals to produce and create and preserve. Um but but that's what your policy states. Um and then the last piece is you have a you have a specific category that is aligned with the mobility plan for site acquisition in current and planned transit areas. Next slide. So, you all have a housing location um scoring tool and that scoring tool which you can see an image of on the left and is available on the CLT community um hub along with a number of other uh tools uh for the community. Um so that tool prioritizes transit proximity and access. Um so I'm going to give you just a quick overview. It's kind of little on the left there, but you're in but your your full score includes four components. That's proximity, access, change, and diversity. So proximity looks at the amenities near a proposed site. And that includes things like grocery stores,armacies, parks, schools, shopping centers, uh, and and transit. Access is a measure of the number of jobs that are within commuting distance to a proposed site. And it it um it is jobs by both public transit and auto commute. Um change is a measure of neighborhood change. And that looks at how how quickly a neighborhood is developing and changing. So, it it incorporates things like uh household income, uh uh building permits, housing sales, housing price. You got Okay, I got it. Um Warren Warren Warren actually uh developed the thing. So, this the genius mind behind it. Um so, he can he can remind me. And then and then diversity um looks at the proposed housing units by AMI and how they compare to the existing housing in the neighborhood. And so what what you have what you told told uh staff at the time is that you wanted to put affordable housing in places that were approximate to uh amenities and services, places that had good public transportation access, places that could get to jobs. um you wanted to invest in neighborhoods that were changing rapidly and you also wanted to promote diverse price point housing uh by by evaluating what the what the um what the diversity of the uh new community would bring. So that's your location tool in the big picture. What what I want to highlight for this part of the conversation is that in that tool you get a lot of points for access to transit and transportation. So each of these categories is 10 points. If you are um close to a high frequency transit stop, rail or bus, the site gets five points. That's half of the scoring is related to transit. And then on access it actually um weights the pro public transit commute a little differently um to to provide a you know a higher score if the access to jobs is actually through public transit. Next slide. So, let's talk about what it means to have a priority versus a target because this is this is where um some of some of the conversation arose last year during the discussion of the uh sales tax referendum. The only place in your policy that's currently targeted to a specific geography rather than stated as a priority is your site acquisition category. It is specifically designated for current and planned transit areas. All of the other things we just talked about, you have listed as priorities. So you you you will recall you had you had lots of advocates calling on you um for a portion of the bond in the future to be dedicated to a specific geography, especially around the silver line. Um and so a couple of things when we were meeting with our partners and and stakeholders and advocates um you know one of one of the things that that we shared was well these areas are already prioritized in the adopted policy. So if projects and developments and ideas from those areas do come forward, they'll rise to the top because they're prioritized. Um and and then and then for y'all of course you you you have to think through right geographic targets they create trade-offs with other areas of need and so what you know what does it mean if you reserve or target a portion of the bond to a specific location. The other challenge is if if you target in a specific location, which you can, it's it's you can do that under the bond. Um, it works with legal and the requirements of the state and all of that. Um, but there's there's the possibility that it could slow creation of housing units because when you reserve funds for a specific area and there are not yet development projects ready, then those funds sit while other needs press and so it just creates a tradeoff. Um, it it's absolutely doable. Um but but staff kind of brainstormed on this as we were working with our partners over the course of last year and we wanted to make sure that we brought forward some alternative strategies that you could consider that could potentially meet the same goal. One is the affordable housing concierge. So this is a pilot that's already underway. you received a uh memo from the city manager um last October. He sent it out on October 30th. So now I have to say you you got it in October instead of November. Um so it seems like we're a whole month behind, but it was the 30th. So um so this pilot is underway. What this pilot does is it creates a um contract position on >> Go back quickly. >> Since we do have three new members that came in in December, we definitely want to make sure that we get that out to them so that they have that information. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thanks for the reminder. >> That's what this little back and forth. Wait a minute. I haven't seen that. >> It was in October. >> Yeah, it it was at the end of October. And actually, so this is um big picture. it will be helpful for you to have that because that memo talked about some of the pilots that the manager um referred to this committee. So earlier in the year when we talked about public ownership when we talked about the Treasury property tax model um those things were referred by the manager to this committee in that memo um and and then um uh and then some of the things we'll talk about today. So thank you for the reminder. We'll get that out. The affordable housing concierge is essentially a position in housing and neighborhood services that works in the community. So, and you know, working working with our staff, but actually in the community daytoday cultivating projects, making sure that um developers who are bringing plans forward to the city know about all of the options in the UDO for uh for affordable housing. um uh incentives, making sure that they they know what what um what is possible with city um funding and programs. Um but also not you not just big things, but helping our um community based organizations like for example, we're piloting this in the West Boulevard corridor. So, working directly with the West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition side by side when they go to talk to developers and talk about what they want to see as a community. Um, it also will help the this position will also help equip those kind of CBO partners um to share the programmatic information so that their residents know about and know how to apply for things like emergency repair and housing rehab. there's a ve fairly fairly broad scope because you have a lot of different programs and opportunities. Um but it is specifically intended to cultivate opportunities um so that you can activate on your prior stated priorities. So um we're really excited about that. It's moving um moving through our processes right now and and expected to roll out in the community soon. a couple of other alternatives or you know not necessarily even alternatives, right? You can do both. And um but one one way to think about your current policy is actually to strengthen the prioritization of new transit lines um both rail and bus in the location tool. So there are ways that it's already prioritized in there, but for example, um you could you could say to staff, we want to make sure that we're also considering the future. So uh you know, right now you only get points if there's an existing stop. >> But you could think about we want to make sure we're being forward thinking and let's add the future stops into the tool, for example. and that would strengthen that prioritization. >> Another option, and you talked about this a little bit, um there were some in strategy session there were some interesting um viewpoints from your morning panel on mobility about direct acquisition of land. So this is something that um we do from time to time in other places and under other programs. You may recall in December, Warren brought forward a land acquisition in the Katherine Simmons area, right under under the um community development umbrella. A couple of years ago, there was a hotel acquisition that was converted later to affordable home ownership that was done within the Carters of Opportunity. We do this from time to time, but right now in the way that you have um site and land acquisition set up within the bond and within your um fee and loo funds is that we put out an RFP and um and we and we have developers bring bring us opportunities. And now we're we're hoping to get more of those opportunities through the affordable housing concierge work. But if you wanted to accelerate that, one of the things you could ask us to do is to explore what would it look like for the city to directly acquire. This is where Anna will jump in later because there are some guard rails around that and and how we can do it and um and how how quickly it needs to be activated for affordable housing. But it's an opportunity to explore. All right, next slide. So the next part of the presentation is going to focus on partnerships and chair Mayfield I actually want to pause and see would you prefer to talk a little bit about location and mobility and then switch to partnerships >> in order for us to I think it would be better. >> It would be better so that we can follow the line through >> just keep going. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Great. Um so so we're switching gears a little bit from location priorities to the the um the investment priority around partnerships and leverage. So in your policy, this is actually the text copied and pasted from your affordable housing funding policy. Your direction in in this policy is to build partnerships and leverage the market. Uh so the the first bullet is really around a breadth of partnerships. You're asking you're asking community partners um private and philanthropic and public all to come to the table. This is a collective vision around how how we bring affordable housing to the community. And then you're also um referencing back to another investment priority here about providing resident services and that requires partnerships. The second item is that you want to leverage um the the uh development incentives and allowances that you've created under the UDO. So you're giving priority um to proposals that utilize those to maximize affordability. And I've just noted here again, this is related to affordable housing concierge because in order to ensure that people are or or promote the incentives and and and bring more of these forward to you, we're going to get out in the community and work directly with our partners um uh to cultivate those. The third the third piece is about creative partnership models. Um there are a lot of different creative partnership models, but of course we're going to highlight here this is related to the faith and housing initiative. And so um one one of those important partnerships that we have across our community is the faith-based partnerships and the faith and housing work that Chair Mayfield is leading um and and the mayor uh started a couple of years ago. And then the last bullet is to create incentives that activate private market participation. And so um there there are there are a whole range of ways to do this but one of the ways that uh that we've already started talking about is this um property tax grant model that we call Trezy. So just I wanted to make some connections here that you laid out the policy and the things that staff is bringing you. We listened. Um, so, uh, it it takes it takes a lot of creativity and innovation, which is another one of your priorities, but you've got what you've got, I would say, the best the best housing team in the nation um, bringing forward these ideas to you. Next slide. Okay. So, the partnership strategy here, I'm going to zoom up, zoom, zoom out, zoom out. Okay, thank you. I'm going to zoom out just a little to talk about the partnership strategy. So, this goes beyond the housing bond and really thinks broadly about um about your partnership strategy. So, what what staff are doing is thinking through what are your housing priorities? What is your policy directing us to do? And we're trying to bring forward to you public private partnerships. Again, housing doesn't happen just with with your funding um with defined outcomes. And so, part partly that's defined in your uh in your housing policy. Um we work hard to ensure that partners have clear pathways to funding opportunities. So all all of our um uh funding opportunities are collected on on one one page of our website. The RFP process um is out there. Uh we we want all of our partners just not just the ones who know how to go through our processes, but all of our partners to have clear pathways. Um, one of the things that the team does is each time there's a new funding opportunity, they host a webinar and they want to make sure that it's clear, um, you know, what what these opportunities are and how to apply to them. Third piece here, uh, databased funding recommendations with high value propositions. So, um, I was just chatting with council member Mazwaras before the meeting and we were we were sharing Oh, thank you. Okay. >> Um I I I was um you know chat we were chatting about um kind of how how data is used not just about funding recommendations but how it's used to communicate with um with the public engenders trust. And so when when we're clear with our partners about what information we're using to evaluate the proposals they bring to us and then the that ultimately you all will consider u that that brings you better recommendations with high value propositions but it also contributes to clear pathways and ultimately to that public trust in the decisions that are being made. The next point here is to support capacity building for emerging emerging partners and developers. And this this is intended to really grow the pipeline especially of our local partners who want to participate in bringing affordable housing to the community. And so we'll talk a little bit more detail about this bullet because you have been clear um both with your housing staff but across the board that capacity building for emerging partners is important to you. Um and the last piece is ensuring compliance, accountability and successful delivery of outcomes. One of the things we don't talk about all the time in these meetings because it happens on the back end is our very extensive work in contract moni mon monitoring uh asset management and compliance. Um and and that that all happens after contracts are awarded and after housing communities are put um are put are put into action. Um, I can't think of the word for that. I'm sorry. I'm with you, Miss Mayfield. It is. It is early. All right, next slide. So, this is again the zoomed out portion of this, which is your partnerships vary. They vary by the type of services that that you are providing. So we you have a whole range of partners in the affordable housing development space whether that's single family or multif family supportive housing Noah acquisition or land acquisition. That's a different type of partner typically than does some of the other activities. Um you have you have a range of partners that do single family housing preservation and and home ownership. um under you you think about a program like House Charlotte down payment assistance, right? So um we Dream Keyy's in the room, they administer your House Charlotte program. Um but it's not just Dream Key, it's all of the realtors, all of the lenders, all of the housing counselors, right? The the partners that make these programs possible um are very extensive. Uh but then you also have programs for homelessness and rental assistance services for persons living with HIV and AIDS and then some program specific activities like thinking about faith and housing or displacement services. So next slide again I said this at strategy session I'll say it again. You have so many more partners than what you see on this screen. Um, so you know, if if if I've if I've left um important I I I I'll acknowledge actually I have left important partners out, but I wanted you to get a sampling and just really see the breadth and type of organizations and partners that help make um make this work possible. Next slide. And then on building partnership capacity, this is this is work that you have been doing broadly through your CBI work and small business uh capacity building, but we also do it very specifically within the housing development space. So uh you may be familiar with the ready training program that Lisk Charlotte puts on. So this is a training program that the corridors of opportunity program provided funding to um and it is for emerging developers to really expand their capacity, you know, technical assistance, coaching, mentorship, project development. Um and then there's also some opportunity within that to access capital. Um it's a cohort-based training model. Uh they are in their second cohort now. I'm going to give you a sneak preview which is that there are developers from the first cohort who are in your housing trust fund now or and ones that are working with us to bring applications forward for um the next bond. Um so this has been really successful in terms of bringing new partners into um that pipeline. >> Sorry Rebecca don't mean to interrupt. Oh, sorry. I'm not allowed. Uh, is it possible when those developers come through the ready uh training part if like similar to how you did on the last slide when you say related to could you do that as well? I just think that really helps highlight um the work that y'all are doing. >> Yeah, great. Great. >> Sorry. Yeah, great recommendation. We'll we'll make sure to do that um when we bring forward recommendations. Um one of the things we do is we give it a little star if it's a faith and housing project. So, this is another way we can make those connections. Um, the second the second piece here is um housing has a contractor assistance program and this is really intended to bring new contractors into our um our rehab uh and emergency repair programs specifically. Um, one of the things is when we use federal dollars that is those dollars are difficult for smaller partners to manage compliance and all of the rules and regulations and additional steps that are required. Um and so what we want to do is we've provided some funding for um to to um uh contractors that could for example purchase equipment um have wage subsidies for new hires or upskilling existing um employees. We do a lot of work for example under the federal u housing um work around leadbased paint remediation. Those are specialized skills. They require training and certifications. Um the last piece, and this isn't currently active, but just as a reminder, you also do a variety of things around nonprofit capacity building periodically. um within your ARPA funding. Um for example, um you had a you had a very large grant program um called the community resilience fund um during during the pandemic recovery and included um within the and then also you made a series of larger grants for nonprofit supported housing. So, both of those programs provided access to this 9-month cohort-based training program um um continuously through our monitoring, through our compliance, and through our um asset management. But when we think about what makes a good partner um is a partner that's really bringing you enhanced capacity u a partner with expertise and a proven track record. We're looking for deep community relationships. We're looking for financial sustainability and strong fiscal management. All of the risk management requirements, for example, need to be met. And we're also looking at timely deliverables and successful outcomes. Next slide. What I want to acknowledge uh and and also kind of plant seeds for some further conversation later. This is a little bit outside your affordable housing funding policy. Um, but I want to acknowledge that your affordable housing funding policy uh a and and the housing bond as a funding source, they can't solve every problem. So, there are a couple of gaps and um and as as Chair Mayfield will remind me, um those are opportunities. So, we have some opportunities before you that that that you can ask us to take a little deeper dive into at some point. Um, one one thing is that your current policy and related contract requirements, they only apply to communities that are approved under that policy. So, anything that was done um prior to the the January 2025 date when the funding for that bond activated, you know, happens under previous policy. Now, what I will say is when partners come back in, if they want to renegotiate terms or they want to extend their loan to extend affordability, new policy, new requirements, right? So we are able over time to bring people in into that new policy but that is a little bit of a gap. So if you think about for example now you require your housing trust fund investments new multif family to include resident services in some way. you have a you have a whole um range of uh in uh city supported affordable housing that may have resident services but also may not because it was developed un under a previous policy. So you you all um you know you I'll give you a hypothetical case study that happens in in E every day I know you get these calls. So I want to um uh t talk through this. So when you approve affordable housing developments, the rents that are approved are based on area median income and not each individual's household income. And what that means is that as area median income rises, which it has very rapidly over the last several years, the rents that um developments can charge under the um federal rules for tax credits, for example, they also rise. households, their rent, their incomes may not be rising um at the same rate or at the same time. And so, especially for residents on a fixed income, especially um you some of our seniors, for example, um that I know many of you work with, they they can they can um start to be uh priced out of affordable housing. So there's a that's a huge gap um and challenge. But what I want to say is that is not a challenge that's easy to solve with this funding source. couple of reasons. In your um your housing bond is um uh regulated by NC general statutes and in that housing bond they talk about capital investment and associated costs and you have a lot of flexibility under that umbrella. The one thing it specifically states you cannot do with your housing bond is to provide rental subsidy. And when you're thinking about residents on a fixed income, especially at that 30% and below, what what the what you really need to be able to do is match both the affordable unit with a housing subsidy. You can't do that under the bond. There are other ways you can do it. We can talk about those, but you can't do it under the bond. So, the way that it's addressed currently is with resource and referral services. So, um we we provide referrals to uh h to housing navigation to um legal assistance and and other other resources that can help people stabilize. La next piece here, um there's some limitations of of the larger market that you all are working within. So, Council Member Mayfield, um you you uh asked the attorney's office during strategy session to look at what our options are related to rent escalation. So, within your contracts now, and I'm going to I'm going to make sure this is right. There is a rent escalation cap um of 3%. >> Depends on the contract. >> Depending on the contract um around 3%. Is that fair? >> Depending on the contract. >> Depending on the contract. >> Some of it is regulated by what is in the tax credit. >> Yeah. >> Rule. >> Okay. So, some of it's regulated by the tax credit, others um others depending on the contract. But we do we do work to put in provisions that um they don't don't cap but create escalation that's slower over time. Is that fair? Okay. And so um what you what you had asked about um Chair Mayfield in terms of capping based on household income um you I will just say is going to be almost impossible under the bond because your financing gap funding is a very small piece of a capital stack for a development. And so, especially when you're thinking about tax credits, you have a lot of other investors who are coming to the table, what we need to do is ensure that your requirements remain compatible with those other funding sources. So, we can, you know, we can we can push, right? we can push towards your your priorities and requirements, but there's a place where we have to to um balance that with what's palatable and compatible with the larger financial markets that you work within. And so I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying let's think about a different way to accomplish the same thing. Um and then the last piece is um we we have been hearing concerns around property management practices. Um and so a couple of the things you one of the one of the very easy things that we can do and have already done is to think about what are the ways that staff can put greater emphasis um on the track record and quality of proposed management companies before we bring you a recommendation. So that's that's an um an easy opportunity to do more around that. Um and so uh next slide. Okay. So next steps. We've covered a lot today. Um I'll I'll I will um uh hand it back to you in just a moment for conversation, but thinking about how you work through the funding policy recommendations. Um you you have two things going on at the same time. one is you know the funding the funding recommendations under the current bond. Then you have the FY2027 budget adoption process which will set the dollar amount for the next bond. Um so in the current bond um recommendations are going to come forward in April on as you look forward to the next bond the manager brings his recommended budget to you in May. you all adopted in June. At that point, when you know what that dollar amount is, that's the point that I re I recommend you think about h the housing policy investment categories and allocation goals. Um because one of the things that council was very clear about when they adopted the current policy is it's not 50 to 100 wasn't twice the same thing, right? you really made a lot of adjustments. Um, so I think I I I just want to put out there the recommendation that um in terms of actually recommending allocation goals that you pause on that until the bond amount has been voted on. And with that, back to you, Chair Mayfield. That was a lot of information. Thank you very much. But I would like to pause to let our guests introduce themselves. Madam Chair, you're so kind to committee. I'm Mayor Pro Tim James. I'm just glad to be here. Thank you. >> Thank you so much, Pro Tim, for joining us this morning. I would like to open it up to committee for any questions you may have. I will start with JD. Kim, did you also have questions? I do. >> Wonderful. So, I will start with JD, go to Kim, and then >> close out with Council Member Mayo. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, thank you Rebecca for that comprehensive and detailed presentation and I I think it's very helpful for us new council members. I think it is one of the most comprehensive and detailed presentations we've gotten over the policy. So, I appreciate you setting up the appetizer last month and and giving us this first part of the four course meal. Um, I I wanted to talk a little bit. It's slide 15, the gaps and opportunities. There's another gap I see as we have these discussions and as we meet with different developers who are wanting to apply to a housing trust fund dollars uh to use them is this chicken and egg challenge problem we have which is reasonzoning right um we have we've seen some instances where developers want to reszone a parcel to make it multif family and they their project details that a part of it is going to go to um affordable housing a set a set percentage of the units will be AMI restricted and that their intention is to apply for housing trust fund dollars right and there are times where developers in good faith put that if it's not if they don't get the housing trust fund dollars they'll null the reasoning right but there are cases when they don't do that so I think that's an opportunity we can work on which is how do we better um what what language can we use or what processes can we improve to make sure that that's not always the case, right? That we don't have to rely on the developer to signal to us that they won't reszone that property because the last thing I want is for us to reszone um a property adjacent to a single family neighborhood, right? Uh to make it multifamily that might be using housing trust fund dollars when the developer says that's the intention and then they don't and they don't null the reasonzoning, right? Um, and then you just now have a parcel that's open up to by development. Um, and anyone can build there. So that that's one. So I I'll just >> Great. Uh, we'll we'll explore it. >> Perfect. Um, I thank you for adding the concerns around property management p practices. That is a huge one. Um I especially when we get more into say stay staying in place and senior affordable housing the these our senior folks you know require attention and care and when we have property management that does not take care of them you know uh that's that put us in a in a hard situation uh when it comes to our effective partners. I wonder if there's a way we can tie in our workforce development goals in into this, right? And how can we work more closely with our workforce development uh team uh to also in the strategy session I mentioned how can we catch a wide net for foreignb born um folks that have degrees that are high performing um as well as our women and uh people of color uh developers. Right. Right. Um, so how can we tie in those goals into how we outreach to smaller developers uh and contractors? Um, and then I have so many things. Okay, so this is not about the housing location tool, but more so of a concept and I'm here ideulating and putting out my thoughts to see if there's appetite. So, one of the concerns, as you all may know, that district 5 has, particularly the greater Eastland area is the saturation of income restricting housing, right? And we don't have many amenities yet. And I say yet because that's my goal is to attract more amenities. But affordable housing succeeds when it is paired with amenities transit um safety and economic opportunity. And when it is not, um, housing becomes a silo, right? And so we talk about this concept of live, work, and play. Right now, the greater Eastland area is simply a live part of it, right? And so when you have developers come to council and say the reason we can't attract high-end grocerers or retail spaces, right? Because the AMI levels are so low, which is true. We live in a capitalist society. You know, private industries, private uh uh corporations are looking at our AMI levels and we keep putting HF dollars into that area. How can we mitigate natural se uh well segregation, right? Um because while I understand that the data and you know I'm a data person we don't have the biggest concentration of housing trust fund dollars in in that area but we do have a good amount right and when you bring in a lot of AMI restricted housing to that area you know these private entities are going to look at that and are like well they don't deserve that Target or that Walmart or that Starbucks or whatnot right and the intention is not to gentrify a neighborhood the intention is to make sure that it has everything right. It has nonprofit services, wraparound services, mixed income, mixed development. So, one of the things uh the challenges that this area has is food insecurity, lack of jobs, and longer commutes. Sometimes that can be contributed to a high concentration of incomerestricted units. right now. How can we look more intentionally into areas that already have these higher amenities and put housing trust fund dollars in there? Right. Um, for example, Greater Eastland doesn't has a average household income of $50,000 or less. That's an average household income, right? And you know, when we have developers come and tell us that we can't bring in amenities to that area because the AMI level is low, it doesn't make sense to put more AMI level. However, the far east of Charlotte has a Walmart, has a Target, has a lot of parks, right? Has retail spaces. How can we be intentional in targeting those areas that already have existing amenities to make sure that it's truly mixed income and affordable? The last point I want to bring related to that is um thinking more intentionally about what projects we see come forth that prioritize mixed use development right I like for example five points in historic west end right east yards we're seeing that happening there as well um I I I really want us to get in a mindset as a city and if my colleagues have the appetite that we becoming a growing city. Uh we have to start building up, but we can't just build housing. We have to build amenities with it, you know, and so is there an opportunity for us to adjust our policy to give some type of priority to mixed use development, right? Um rather than just living units, right? Because if we are really set or want to accomplish our 10-minute neighborhoods communities goal, a part of it is going to be we we got to start mixing use, right? >> And we're going to because I mean there's I lived in DC, I lived in New York City, and there is nothing more I love than getting out of bed, taking the elevator downstairs, and just walking two minutes to get my coffee, right? or walking around the block to get my uh physical, my my annual physical. Right. And so those are things that I want us to think about and see if if there's any appetite for that. But thank you. That's it. >> Great. We're taking lots of notes. When we when we bring you back options, we'll we'll make sure they address these items. >> Thank you, Council Member Owens. >> Thank you, uh, Chair. I um I'm afraid this is going to be a little bit more stream of consciousness because I was taking various notes along various places and so it's going to be a little random. Um one of the things that you said that I I really hope that we have appetite and I believe you were were suggesting you know that that we should is is to skate to where the puck is going with respect to transit and to to have some intentionality around future stops. very high level I have an appreciation for some of the lessons that we take away from the blue line and I say that advisedly that it's a very high level appreciation I don't know that I yet have the refinement around how we could do things differently um to to really address what I see is I'm sure there's myriad reasons for displacement but two that come to mind are the economic displacement that we saw as things just got priced out along the blue line and then we've got a coming source of some displacement around what we're going to be building and where we're going to be taking some properties and and rejiggering things. I I my question is around do we or should we differentiate the types of tools that we have to address each of those types of displacement. you know, I I I won't belver the point, but we've obviously been very focused and and a lot of our our um public are very focused on what's going on along I77 and looking to remedy um as best we can with the tools that we've got, the displacement that is going to be attendant to growth. So I'm I'm viewing that but I'm also viewing just the economic displacement that the housing still exists but it is not accessible to you because you senior have a fixed income because you you know incomerestricted person for whatever reason cannot rise with the rest of the neighborhood. So can you speak at all? Do do we have different tools available for those two things? Should we and where can we get what we need to do the right thing on those? >> Yes. So yes, you have you have different types of tools and your your anti-displacement strategy is really built around what we what we say is right tool, right place, right time because because you you have you have a variety of tools that are laid out in the affordable housing funding policy in your housing trust fund. You also have a whole variety of programmatic tools that address specific challenges for households. And you know what's interesting is that as we as we work through these issues in community is that you know because household needs change over time. Same household at different times could need different tools, right? It's not just at at that neighborhood level, but What what we try to do with neighborhoods for example is and this is the nest commission um neighborhood equity and stabilization commission when they were working on the anti-displacement strategy. They held a workshop for neighborhood organizations and laid out these are all your tools. let's work together to figure out which tools you need in this place. And some of them created smaller plans for anti-displacement that helped staff then know which programs to market and outreach for in those places. And so I think when you start to think about the different challenges that might be related to um you know the I77 versus the challenges of um coming transit versus we're just in a neighborhood that's surrounded by this growth and then now have these displacement pressures. Um the what the gap I would say is still there is that for any given household it's still complicated to navigate all of the options. And so one of the things that that we need to be thoughtful about is how do we do a better job making any of these opportunities easy to access, easy to understand, and easy to use. I appreciate that. I think one of the things that comes to mind as you were speaking is is again I I'm going to go back to the I77 example where they talk about this community resource center >> and that being a place where because we the state are doing this thing around and to your neighborhood. We're going to make resources so that this, you know, I'm going to be informal here sucks as little as it possibly can. You know, I I feel like some of our mobility when we do look at situations where there is anticipated based on our experience and and and based on just economics, there's going to be economic displacement. And so having a community resource center or having I I appreciate the concierge concept, but having someone particularly as we're viewing the dimmonition in available uh lowcost legal aid systems, having something available to people to help navigate that. And for me, that resource, you know, I I know that we look very much at trying to do sort of one-stop um shopping when it comes to some of our uh county resources, you know, but could the city anticipate based on our experience with the blue line? Can we anticipate that a lot of these lines, a lot of other people, not just the city, are skating to where the puck is going and so prices are going to be going up there. where and how can we provide a concentrated group of resources that again really meets people almost before they know that they need it? >> It's, you know, gosh, I could I could really use that resource. And I want to say to combine that, and this is where I'll I'll get back to some of your your slides, you know, the the property management practices at at slide 15. You know, that's really that's that's interesting to me and I I don't want to be a micromanager as a council member and I don't expect the city to solve every problem. However, you know, those property management practices when we do approve someone to go in and do a mixeduse, mixed income, can we have more um just based on our experience, can we anticipate what those pain points are going to be for residents? Is it, you know, your pet fees, your parking fees? you know, you've got you've got a rent that seems manageable, but by the time you tack on a number of fees, that really is putting it outside the range of someone's experience, and they may not know how to negotiate and and may have the ability to negotiate some things a little bit differently. That security deposit and how long it's held and just really being a good partner >> for residents. Um, you know, we'd also spoken of of slower escalations over time and some of those things that can we do. Do we and I I don't have an answer to this, but do we have appetite for not just looking at AMI and being appreciative of that, but maybe another category of that, which is is people who are are pretty much where they're going to be. And again, I'm looking at our seniors where you've just got a set point in time. How how can we work to to think about creative ways to help manage that situation because it it's happening more and more. And I know our focus on ADU is just wonderful. And I think particularly for district 6, for myself personally, that is going to be a difference maker because then I can house a loved one in a manner that I control rent acceleration and they are not subject to the vagaries of the market. So, I I do very much appreciate that focus, but I just I think that we, you know, if if we've got the bully pulpit and can kind of, you know, use it in any ways that we can, I think we owe it to citizens to try to weigh in, particularly I I beat this dead horse when we're dealing with lack of resources to to public aid and to legal resources to help people know their rights and to negotiate from a position of I don't I don't think it's, you know, disadvantageous. and just get them to parody. You know, I'm not expecting them to be able to, you know, trump every landlord argument, but I expect them to have a toolbox. And right now, they don't. And that really puts a lot of that um power in the hands of um landlords. So, the final thing that I I appreciate the indulgence, the final thing that I will mention, I did visit a mixed income um property recently and the gentleman who gave me the tour used the phrase, "No poor floors, no poor doors." And I really loved that conceptually as I toured I had no idea nor should I nor should your neighbor what you are paying in rent that is between you and your landlord. And so to the extent that we have any capacity as these designs are are being ideated. Do we have any capacity to put a thumb on the scale for projects that really do mix in that that AMI restricted? You know, I again I just I cannot get past how impactful, you know, growing up as a as a kid, not not of terrific means. You know, somebody having something that you didn't really does color the way you see yourself. And for adults, it can be the same way. Particularly for for adult men who don't feel as though they're necessarily providing for their family. if we can just boost somebody up a little bit by giving them the anonymity within a housing, I would I would love a developer on board with that all day. So, um I appreciate the indulgence. Thank you. That's all I have. >> Council Mayo, >> thank you. I I thought it was a great presentation, Rebecca and Lauren. Thank you. Uh particularly like slide four where you included the goal and then the current balance. I know that's something council member Mayfield um has asked a lot about and I do hope that other staff members will be taking that into consideration because that's really helpful. We want to have a balanced budget. Um so I do appreciate that. Um my first question was a little bit about that housing concierge program and you mentioned that y'all were working closely with the West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition. So I would like to learn more about that. I know we weren't here for the memo, but um as a district 3 rep, I work a lot with all the resonings and I know that there's one coming up soon in that area uh 2025 1443 with Remount in uh Wilkinson and right now they are not proposing to have any affordable housing there. I know we've talked about the fee and loo and things like that, but I agree with council member Owens about the need for mixed income um particularly in a place where um has historically not seen the investment and we know that will change as the silver lining will be in that area. So excited to learn more how the concurge is getting ahead of things like that, how they are working with some of the reasonings that are coming up. Um, also be curious. Council member Owens talked about the 77 South um expansion potentially. Uh, funny enough, yesterday I was having a conversation about a potential resoning coming up. Um, and I'm just going to give you the parcel number. Um, 11910399. It's on Summit Avenue in Wil in near Wilmore in Wilmore. So um I've studied this 77 maps extensively based on the current maps which I always remind the public only 10 to 15% uh design. You know it it's going to change a lot based on whoever the developers are because they're they're having a challenge to to to do right and to think innovatively. Um, but we know that at least five homes potentially will be lost on Spruce Street. Um, because of 77 South. I'm I'm hoping that our concierge um, whoever is doing that is thinking through how we're resoning or different projects h what are the larger frameworks for things that are going on and how can we think about, okay, this project is going to come and displace people. this could be an opportunity for this person to still live in their community. And I think council member Owens really has I I love some of the points that she has when she talked about her grandmother um when she talked about relocating her. And I think that's important particularly for our seniors who may have lived in those communities for a long period of time, be it homeowners or renters. I mean, I don't think that should matter because they're still part of this community. So, how are we thinking about what projects are coming up? How do they work together? How do we support our community that may be impacted? So, I think there's an opportunity for us to be really intentional and thoughtful about minimizing the impact. Um, so looking forward to hearing more about that. Um, but yeah, I mean, I I really enjoy the concept overall, particularly a part about property management practices. That's really my biggest pain point for district three. There are a couple people who are just I'm still trying to figure out how did you get through where do we have and that's why I asked you some emails the other day like do we have any knowledge of this group do have we had success um because there are a couple that are really big pain points for me even before I was in office and just thinking how do we minimize that by being proactive >> that's great thank you I want to start out by saying how much I appreciate the three of and your willingness to hit the ground running with the committee and the >> way that you do your research and the questions that you ask some of these same questions I have been asking for years. So it it feels good to be a part of a village. One of the reasons that we're getting to this place is because of the com the questions that you're asking. >> We have been seeing this for quite a number of years with some of our partners and what makes a good partner. So, I appreciate the fact that in the presentation, Rebecca, you and the team, you know, I praise y'all all the time because Charlotte really is the model across the nation when it comes to what we've done regarding housing and being innovative. Anna, I appreciate the fact that we have the attorney's office >> right in step with us to look at the language. So when I mentioned the other day in our session regarding doing some research on one a escalation cap >> because the way it's playing out on the ground is we will have elders who are on a fixed income. >> They will renew their lease and then two weeks later you receive a notice saying 30 days there's going to be an increase. that has caused some miscommunication as well as some challenges. So, we're looking at >> we have some mechanisms in place. I am looking at can we tighten those even more and actually have some clawbacks in place. But I also want to make sure that I share with the committee and with staff. I had a conversation with leadership with the Greater Charlotte Apartment Association and talking about >> how about you putting a know your rights up in your facilities >> to help direct and let people know who to call and to help with that conversation. I'm not going to do the appetizer yet, but Rebecca Monica, the attorney's office, and I are having a different type of conversation. And I'm trying to see if we can do it before I get my hopes up and get staff's get committee's hopes up of another way that we can step into this to be more proactive because my greatest concern is that we are going to have a large number of our elders that are going to be unhoused because they have been priced out of the housing that we invested in. And also this come this ties in with the request to the mayor's office for us to be able to have a ad hoc committee. So because we only meet once a month for two and a half hours so that we can dig in and look at what we have on slide four. Is that still the goal? Right? >> Because we have more funds in some buckets than we have in other buckets. And what would it look like for us to is this still the direction we want to go in. So that was the reason for that. But Rebecca and team, >> thank you for hearing that your council wants the details and that we do want the information. I know we have an actual ask, but my mayor prom. >> Uh, madam chair, thank you and to the committee, thank you for your feedback and for your question and staff as I'm going to use a baseball terminology. >> Not a Johnny Cash song. >> No, no, no Johnny Cash song. Rebecca, you knocked it out of the park. Uh, but one thing I want to share with the committee and staff, uh, she's being very modest. And so, she was featured on a panel in Washington DC on February 24th to talk about affordable housing, putting Charlotte on a national platform. So, I like our madam chair if she could to uh give give a brief report uh about your your you serving on the panel and I already got reviews on you. So, uh don't mess up. I got reviews already. >> Well, I hope I hope they were good. So, I'm going to be very brief because this next piece is very important. But actually thanks to council member mayor pro Tim Mitchell he had a organization reach out to him and he directed and referred me as I have been able to serve in the role of the lead on the faith and housing initiative. Faith and housing is a conversation happening all across the nation. >> Yet because of one previous colleagues and hopefully moving forward, this council supported a request of first 1.5 million and then a request through the ARPA dollars of additional million. We were able to identify a budget line item. That budget line item helped us to really spring forward with our discussions and be able to have a contract with the enterprise organization as well as NEO Group where they are actually training. But what we were what we had the ability to really discuss in partnership with leaders from across the nation is how do we do this work? And a lot of it is in our policy language and a lot of it is the conversations that and the questions that you all have asked. Are we thinking beyond when we're looking at potential transportation investment? We know the market is looking at transportation investment. We know that along Wilkersonson Boulevard there is going to be we already have high-end developments. the city's TLC by COTT housing program. When I created that in 2017, that's because that's my neighborhood. >> So, I bought my home off Columbus Circle in 2001. It was a very different Columbus Circle than what it is today. You now have 800,000 plus homes over there. My home was 695 when I purchased it. So when we're looking at how we can be creative, being able to be in that room and hear from experts from around the nation regarding how they are moving forward and creating relationships with our religious institutions. >> We have churches in every neighborhood. when we think about how we move forward and we're thinking about true divise diverse price point housing and having that true mixed income workforce housing but that housing that spans generations. >> We look at our religious institutions that may have land. >> Some may be experiencing challenges because people don't necessarily attend church the way they once attended church. But that church, that building is providing a need in community. How can we partner with them to be more targeted with what we're trying to build? How do we help get that store get that job, get that retail and not just the housing? Because as you said, council member JD, cuz I'm not going to mess up your last name. >> Okay. What we're looking at is the hole. >> And when we're talking about 10-minute neighborhoods, what's in there? I had a chance to share our 10-minute neighborhoods, the concept. I had a chance to be alongside Bishop Claude Alexander and the work that he has done prior to us creating Faith and Housing because he's a leader. We have religious leaders who was doing the work before we came along to walk beside you to say how can we help and we are never going to not acknowledge that they were on the forefront many years ago doing the work. So by being in that room it for me helped us helped me to learn more about what's happening nationwide and to make some connections but more importantly it helped to know we are not in this alone. we are not facing this crisis which is a crisis alone. It's a conversation happening nationwide and it gave a chance to just highlight the amazing work of our staff because I can't I'm I'm your cheerleader. I go out and cheer on it. They're the experts that actually make it happen. It was an amazing opportunity to be there in that room and that space and to connect with others and to be able to highlight our city >> and you have invited them to come >> and they are actually going to be hosting a two-day conference here in Charlotte and that is actually coming up April 23rd and 24th. So that was a kickoff as well as I will share that with Enterprise they have a podcast and I have been invited to be on their podcast to talk about the work that we're doing and they are a nationally recognized organization that has been doing this work for a long time but they have identified what are y'all doing in Charlotte. Council member Owens >> thank you. I I just want to amplify something that you said and be sure that I um appreciate this. Um, we have a program within faith and housing that is advising churches of their rights and options. Correct. Because a lot of what I hear um is that there are churches who are interested, but the developer is who's advising them that there's opportunity. It's not yet clear to them how to use their properties. And so I want to lift that up that we are getting out in front of that. And I also want to lift up my good friend John Kleghorn with Caldwell Presbyterian who has written a book called Building Belonging um about the 10-year journey that their um folks took. And I I commend that to church leaders, but I also commend it to all of us as leaders because it really does show the manner in which we and our processes can can make a journey that should be a little bit faster into a 10-year journey. But it also shows how you can turn a faith community from ideology into action and I really love that. So thank you for lifting up the >> I am really thank you for that because the and you touched on at the beginning we were very intentional on making sure that it was identified that we are walking alongside our religious community not ahead or behind. That's right. And that we want you to be educated. the city of Charlotte so that we have this on record has not co-signed or signed off on any developer with our faith in housing >> say that >> there is no developer that we have put a check mark and said hey this is a good developer for you to work with what we are focused on is making sure that our religious leaders whatever the form of go governance for that institution is they are educated okay >> they are comfortable with having the conversations they know the right questions to ask so that they are not in a position where once the truck contracts are completed and signed, they just given away their land >> and something is built on it that they do not have a connection with. But against my last piece, we Charlotte City, I have not said any particular developer is the developer to work with because we have partnered with list, we have partnered with other groups, but this is to educate and for them to build relationships with each other and to realize utilize us as well as enterprise as they are working their way through this conversation. >> Am I correct, Warren? You are absolutely correct. >> Thank you. >> And to further support you. >> So with that, I am turning it back over. I'll >> double. May >> I take the opportunity to uh just remind the council that on March 18th, we will have a upcoming lunch and learn for the faith and housing community where you will get an exciting update if you'd like to attend. It's going to be at Goodwill opportunity uh campus kicking off at noon. Consider yourself formally invited. And at that opportunity, we will be launching our next grant initiative for faith and housing, providing funding to churches who are interested in doing this to help with uh moving forward their pre-development. So, that grant will be announced and opening on the 18th. >> Yeah, I heard that. Mhm. >> We put money into this initiative to ensure that it is successful but it is led by our institutions. Mhm. >> That to me, and that is what I highlighted, is I think the key to why in a short two years, cuz we're only in March of 26 and we really kicked that off in May of 24th, we have been able to move as far as we have. Okay. >> My DCM Allan, am I giving it back to you or to my director? >> Go ahead, Rebecca. We were talking about limited time we have left. So you have five minutes and you have >> Yeah, you do. >> So >> So a couple a couple of um options we want to offer you. This is this is a um an exciting opportunity to learn about this Noah funding recommendation. If you if you choose as a committee to spend a little bit more time this morning, we can get through it. Um or you can choose to send it um directly to action. Are we okay with 10:45? Cuz the chair of the next committee says we can go a little further if that's okay. >> Great. Then I'm going to pass >> I'm going to pass it over to um your assistant director for affordable housing, Mr. Warren Whitten. >> Great. Um thank you all. I am going to invite up uh Michaelart uh to the to the table who's going to give most of this presentation. Um, Rebecca did something that she she shouldn't. She used my uh name in genius in the same sentence. Um, if you want to get quickly uh dissuaded of that, uh, my wife is available for phone calls and emails. Um, and she'll be happy to to share with you the truth. Um, but uh really exciting presentation uh that we're going to go through with you. I think uh first Noah opportunity uh this year and um going to tell you a little bit about your Noah property. M is going to run through some of the specifics for you. Um but we want to just note and I'm going to kind of jump to the end in this recommendation. First time that we've done this in a while is that to approve this it will require a waiver of of a clause in your Noah policy. So we're going to talk through that real quickly. and I am going to get going. So, uh, next next slide, please. So, this is a funding recommendation for a Noah that's in district three. So, this is your naturally occurring affordable housing, uh, activity. This is specifically related to efforts that we talked about uh uh council member Owens who I think sounds like quite the expert in understanding displacement policy um around how do we preserve existing opportunities to ensure that they uh even if they are affordable now they stay affordable into the future. So that's that's what this work is here. So we're going to look at a specific uh uh project staff is going to recommend funding the project. Uh, like I said, there is a waiver and the the investment on this one's going to be a $3.5 million investment for a 60y year affordability period. Next slide, please. So, I think I I I just went through a lot of this. In your current bond, you have specifically Noah preservation set aside. The am the amount that you set aside in this bond round is the $14 million. And we we do this work a lot of different ways, but typically through a request for a proposal for Noah acquisition and and we go through these very quickly because of the market dynamics. We want to give uh our development partners ability to quickly respond and request funding to protect these projects. So this is done in a row a rolling RFP. This developer responded to your rolling RFP and that's what we're reviewing for you today. And so it just allows us to move forward the the the proposals quickly. Um and and that's what we're that's what we're doing today. So next slide please. So and again uh this you see this slide frequently probably in almost every presentation. This is your allocation um goals that you set aside for this bond. And on the other side it shows you the balance. So uh you you will you will notice that this developer is requesting 3.5 million. We have 35.5 million. And so this will also be novel and this will be you meeting your first target out of your goal uh for for your current 2024 bond. Next slide please. So, um, especially, um, for our newer council members, in in 2019 when you started doing Noah acquisition preservation projects, you settle aside some specific guidelines for city to look at, excuse me, for the city to look at when we do this. Older than 15 years is one of those requirements. Uh, we are looking at uh, uh, units that are 50 units and more. We have other tools to do the smaller developments. currently already providing low rents um and in locations that are at high risk um for um escalating rents that we're trying to protect. And also we're typically what we're looking for here, we're not looking for fixer uppers in this program. We're looking for uh projects that have either a light to a moderate level of re rehab. um this project has no need for rehab as you'll see when Michael gives the presentation. Um and that have at least 15 years of life. So these are the requirements that your staff has been uh that were passed by you and your staff has been operating on since um the beginning of our Noah investments gez almost almost six years ago at this point. >> Uh next slide please. >> I think that this is where we said we'd turn it over. Take it away Michael. Well, thank you, Warren, and thank you, committee, for the opportunity to speak with you all today. Uh, so this morning, we're going to talk about a new opportunity that looks a little bit different from proposals we've previously reviewed as a council. Um, but before we do that, we wanted to take a look at the work that you folks have already been doing in this space. So, on the right, you're going to see the 14 communities across the city of Charlotte that you have preserved since 2018, representing over $53 million in investments and over 2100 units of in 21 preserved unit 2100 preserved units. There we go. Uh lastly, I will point out that you have spent 10.5 out of the $14 million you have allocated in the rental preservation funding category from the 2024 bond. Those communities are indicated by the pink dots. The subject of today's presentation is represented by the green dot. Next slide. So, all right, here we go. Uh the nonprofit known as Community Solutions International was requesting $3.5 million for the ongoing preservation of 101 Tyola. This development is located in District 3 and is an existing 297 unit multif family property in the emerging subm market of Lower South End. Uh this area, as we all know, is experiencing considerable growth in recent years. Today, 101 Tyola's rents are currently below the 80% AMI mark. However, the expectations are that they will soon eclipse that amount. They're requesting funds to not only enhance but also extend the affordability of 100 of those units. So 100 of the 297. In exchange, as previously mentioned, they are tripling the minimum affordability affordability period for Noah funded projects by committing to a full 60 years. Uh this would be the highest affordability period we have seen in our Noah work. There are several other characteristics though that make this a truly unique opportunity. So, first, unlike previously considered Noah, this development was constructed in 2021 and was recently acquired by Community Solutions. Second, and more importantly, they are prioritizing the 100 units for veterans exiting homelessness and will work within the existing network of nonprofits, government agencies, and philanthropic entities to ensure awareness and access amongst this population. In addition to the 30% AMI units, it is expected that a significant portion of the remaining units will be occupied by individuals leveraging veteran affairs supportive housing vouchers which are known as VASH vouchers. Um all this will not be done via displacement. There is an anti-displacement uh spirit amongst this property uh where existing residents will um be in allowed to remain in their units as long as they so choose. um and any occupancy that does occur will occur through natural attrition over time. The applicant has also agreed that rent increases for existing tenants will be capped at 3% annually, preventing potential rate spikes as the market evolves. In addition, this endeavor facilitates the best practice of mixed de income development by providing true diverse price point housing all within one community. The location is also a standout here. As you likely already noticed, the development is located within walking distance of the Tyola station along the blue line. Also across the street is a little grocery store. So it has these amenities that we previously spoke spoke to or that you all previously spoke to. And all this is reflected in the location score. If you take a look at that number, it's one of the highest and it's one of the highest uh that we have seen across potential HTF investments. Uh but beyond the amenities in the immediate vicinity, the residents of 101 Tyola will also be served by an on-site resident services coordinator and trauma-informed property management where the collective goal is to promote housing access and stability. >> The overall funding request may seem moderate than more moderate than you would expect for a more recently built community. That is in large part due to the development being funded by Community Solutions Large Cities Housing Fund. This is a national social impact equity vehicle with a number of very prominent um investors who are participating including those locally. The fund is designed to activate community solutions built for zero program which is a very targeted effort to reduce and measure progress towards reducing homelessness in targeted geographies. Next slide. All right. So staff believe this is a unique opportunity to lock in deep affordability within a growing subm market of Charlotte. In addition, this is a project that checks the box of a variety of council affordable housing priorities and goals as outlined in the affordable housing funding policy. In addition to all the great work that was discussed in the previous presentation around mobility. So, what would our investment be buying? The value proposition for the city is is multifaceted. First, the city's funds would activate deeper and more extended affordability targeted towards the priority population, which is veterans. Community solutions model is based around a 10-year acquisition hold playbook. um our funds would ensure an additional 50 years of affordability beyond that horizon. Second, this project advances not just our work around affordable housing but also again high priorities of mobility and transit access as well as unsheltered response. Further, our funding will secure more robust on-site services that serve not just the veterans exiting homelessness, but are being opened up to all 297 households and include a range of targeted services for veterans exiting homelessness up to workforce folks who, you know, may be looking for higher employment or what have you. And then lastly, our funding would uh potentially free up opportunities for large city the large cities fund to explore additional opportunities to replicate this model locally. Uh we think this partnership and leveraging of demonstrable and scalable solutions really just kind of makes sense and this can all be accomplished in a much faster manner than via new construction. The assets there today and can be ready to go tomorrow. Next slide. Um as Warren previously shared, Noah guidelines established general eligibility criteria which included being at least 15 years old and having light to moderate rehab scopes. This development is not that. Rather 101 Tyola was completed in 2021 as I mentioned and has minimal to no rehabilitation scope. This would necess necessitate an exception to the guidelines. Um ultimately though we believe that the project meets exceeds and meets and exceeds the other guiding principles, goals and spirit of the Noah program. Next slide. And with that we can look at the numbers here which we've we've already touched upon. Um this is the rental housing preservation uh category. Uh, as you can see, you've already committed $10.5 million. This project for three and a half would zero out that fund and and check the first box from the affordable housing funding policy and bring our our grand total down to about $40 million. The next slide and then just to take us home um next steps. So, given the innovative nature of the project, we are requesting the committee to discuss possible exception to the Noah guidelines. Following that, we will provide city council an overview of the funding recommendation at an upcoming action preview meeting where you folks will then consider approval of funding for 101 Tyola at an upcoming business meeting. Thank you all for allowing me to be here today. >> Thank you for the presentation. I'm going to open it up to my colleagues starting with council member Owens and I will be ending with our district rep for three. >> Thank you. >> Thank you uh chair. I um I hope that I was not on video for most of what you were saying because I felt like I was sitting here grinning because with each additional element of this presentation and I had skimmed it earlier but I I had not really focused on the number of things that this um makes me feel really proud about and I perhaps I'm feeling nostalgic or or just you know you hit me with the veterans and I just I was all in but at a time when our country is um engaging in war. Again, >> it is not lost on me that much of what I see Charlotte needing to do for marginalized populations, our country needs to do for marginalized people who have served it and have come back and not been able to afford the country that they defended. And so to have a project like this and to have a request to wave the guidelines for two awesome reasons, it's just in too good a shape. I mean that is just that is phenomenal. Um I I just I have so much heart for um this particular project. And so the couple of questions that I have were ones that I jotted somewhat before. I really appreciated how much I love this. And this is possibly just to put in a parking lot. The guidelines for Noah when I go to slide I guess it's slide five. the the subjectivity of that last bullet point in a state of deterioration. That for me is something that I really would like to at some later time appreciate how we're making those decisions because I know that there are neighborhoods for whom it it really does appear to them that it is, you know, their house is fine. It's not perfect. I I want us to be really intentional in that and and I'd like to unpack a bit more what all elements go into that determination that keeps something from being retained as Noah versus being destroyed and you know that the time gods will tell when we're going to have housing again there. So just if I can just and that that's not a critique of this and I understand my time and place but I just I I want to be clear on that. And then the only other element that I will have is I love the way in which this project had some affordable but this project is now taking it further. Is there a way that we could add that to the guidelines as more of an expectation? I mean here I feel like we've knocked a home run with a developer who's offering these things up and perhaps I'm just ignorant to how much massaging you did back and forth to get them there. But I'd like that to be the standard that there is some appreciable increase in the amount of affordability. So I just I put that out there in case it's possible. But I am I am all in on this project. Thank you. >> And that was that. >> Okay, Council Member Wait, Ben Aas. >> Yes. >> Um well, thank you. Uh I think this is a great project. I had the chance to speak to our chair, Council Member Mayfield, about this yesterday evening, as well as to uh the team uh behind this uh just now this morning. Um listen, I I think I'm a broken record when I say this, but we're in a moment where local government is our last line of defense in this country right now. And this is exactly an example of us building a stronger local governance in our municipalities. Um, I would be remiss not to mention that we are still the only state that has yet to pass a budget. Um, and this administration has significantly cut the services of Veteran Affairs, right, with laying off up to 80,000 employees from VA. um a as well as the recent struggles we've had as a city and I'm not afraid to mention it because if we're going to be the best city in the country, we got to acknowledge our our falls and our gaps. What what mental services our unhoused population we spoke about that in our strategy session. This this is an opportunity to fulfill that role that is missing. So this is a great project. I I really appreciate it. Um and I love to hear 30% AMI targeted there as well as well as wraparound services. And this is the perfect example of how we should be innovative and take risk as a city. You know, this is this is the perfect project to do so with. So, thank you chair. >> My district 3 representative is Mayo. >> Thank you so much. Um I'm really excited about this project. I've talked to them extensively and recommended that my uh colleagues talk to them as well and if needed I kind of nudge like you should learn more about this. So I'm really excited. I think it's a great opportunity and it's different like council member Maser Arya said. Uh it's so important for us to think outside of the box. I'm excited to think about other projects that we can collaborate on. um particularly in district three where we have a lot of transit options that are um continuing to price people out um you know all along the blue line or luxury apartments. Um and I have driven by this property all the time because Costco and Aldi are my favorite stores. I live like 10 minutes from this site maybe less. Um so I'm there like every day already. So excited for the residents um of all price points to be able to access those uh opportunities at this site. And I also love the fact that staff on this presentation included the summary, the location summary and the scorecard as as I always say I'm a former math teacher, but that is so imperative to me to see like the data. So, the fact that y'all presented that and that proximity score being a 10 and I see that all the time because I'm right over there. Um, I think it's just a great opportunity. Um, access to jobs as well. I mean, Costco we know is one of the leaders and um, you know, doing a great job by their employees. So, excited to see y'all work with other other properties. Hope to talk to you more about that soon. So I would like if you all are ready to accept a motion to support staff's recommendation of 3.5 million for 101 Tabola. >> I make a motion. >> Uh second. >> We have a motion and second. All in favor raise our hand. That is a unanimous vote for staff for us to move this to full council. And unless we have anything else, I will accept a motion to close. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. So, thank you everyone. Have a beautiful day. Hey hey hey. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. I don't Hello. Nah. Way high. Hey. Hey. Come on. Come on. la. Oh. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Everyone, Bernetta Mitchell with Mitchell Consulting Group here to um >> Okay. >> support the small business ecosystem assessment. >> District five. >> That's right. >> I see. I see. He beat me to the punch. Go ahead. Go ahead. >> Miss development. >> Eric Spar. >> Stop chasing me, Eric. >> Zach, CRVA. >> Rachel Baker, CRVA Woodside, CRVA. >> Sullivan, you're on the third. Okay. >> Nan Peterson planning >> my 911. Thank you man. >> Joe Bruno channel 9 Sean Lynch Charlotte checkers and Charlotte Crown. >> Sean Flynn CRVA >> Gina Sheridan CRVA >> DGina >> DJ Brian Miller CRBA >> Danielle Fraser workforce development Brown media relations. >> Okay. >> Towanda Brown economic development. >> Venicia Drone Charlotte Business Inclusion. Kimberly Owens represent district 6 and I do not serve on this committee so >> but we're glad to have you here Miss Kimberly >> Lana Mayfield council member at large committee member >> James Mitch committee chair >> Katie Masa AAS district 5 >> Allison Craig deputy city manager Monica Allen deputy city manager >> Rana economic development Steve Bagwell CRVA >> Kathleen Cashek general services >> Matt Hassed finance >> Anna Schlina city attorney's office >> Thank you everyone one and let me do a check. Do we have Dr. Watlington? She was going to start off virtually. Dr. K. >> Yes, I'm here. Victoria Watlington at large. >> Thank you, doctor. And I think that is it. So, Miss ACM, Miss Craig, I'm going to turn it over to you. We just have two items today, but two very important items. So, I'm going to turn it over to you. >> Very good. Yes, we have two items um today and then some general announcements about some exciting things happening in Charlotte as the third item. The first one is um the Bojangles Entertainment Complex. We talked about this on Tuesday at the retreat. Um, I've allowed 60 minutes of time um for this item just to make sure there's enough time for questions and conversation uh because this is headed to your um your March 23rd, it's actually a zoning meeting for um a council decision should the committee refer it out uh this morning. So, wanted to make sure we have plenty of time and we've got staff and of course Steve Bagwell from CBR CRVA here today. And then the second item is um talking about some of the implementation work with the small business ecosystem study that was completed. Um this was on the committee agenda uh last month and we ran out of time and so we pulled it forward um for today and hopefully we'll have a little bit more than 20 minutes to talk about it because it is very important. Um but we'll see how the conversation goes. Um so if you are ready then I will turn it over. You >> hold on hold on one second. I had >> two colleagues to join. So, first I'm going to go to the committee member >> Dante Anderson, >> committee member >> and my colleague from District 2, >> Malcolm Graham, District 2. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Very good. All right. Well, with that, we will start with Bolex and I am turning it over to Steve. Steve. Very good. Thanks. >> Uh, thank you, Allison. Uh, thank you, Mayor Pro Tim, members of the committee. happy to be with you today to give you an update on Bolex and talk about a very important maintenance package uh that we would like you to consider. And I'll just start out by saying that the Coliseum and the auditorium were the original drivers of major entertainment to our community and they've anchored the east side of Charlotte for 70 years now. So, uh, Bolex has experienced a tremendous renaissance over the last decade and we wanted to celebrate that with you today and also ask you to consider this maintenance package that will be very important uh to be able to maintain the level of customer service and support of our partners, the Checkers. We have Sean Lynch here as the team president of the Checkers. Thank you for being here today. It'll be important to uh our our major tenant at the building. So, uh, thank you. I'll take you through some just what's happening at Bowlex. that's pretty exciting for everybody to uh learn about. Uh first of all, the renaissance that I mentioned over the last decade has really been uh uh due to several factors. First, the previous improvements that this council supported. Uh we are so appreciative of that. I'll take you through what those improvements were in just a minute. Uh the return of the checkers, the coliseum, of course, uh has been key to the momentum uh that we are experiencing today. and the staff at Boplex and we have many staff members here today including Zack Rutled who's the GM of the building that have been so key to attracting the promoters that are are have been integral to this success and delivering really high level of guest service for the attendees. So all of this has culminated in Bolex now driving almost 61 million dollars in economic impact into our community. That's a 73% increase from the previous record we set in 2022. So really riding a wave of momentum and again that uh really has a lot to do with the investments that have been made recently over the last decade into Bolex. Um in 2015 a phase one renovation was completed where we added a scoreboard uh new seating to the bowl locker rooms to support the checkers uh returning to the building and Redline Club restaurant. that's been very important a service amenity to folks that attend all kinds of events at uh at Bojangles Coliseum. And then in 2020, a really creative addition was added to the complex where we connected the two buildings together. This was really ingenious because it allowed us to to address a lot of the needs for both buildings in a more economical investment by connecting the both of them together. that allowed us to have expanded restrooms, hospitality space that I will mention the city has used pretty frequently, including a recent CVI event at the uh at the building and a new entrance uh that that can service both the auditorium and the coliseum to get people out of their cars and into their seats faster, which is an important element of service that we've worked on. Uh so all these things have come together to deliver remarkable growth, especially on the revenue side. So, we were doing about $3 million a year in revenues on an annual basis in 2015. This past year, $ 199.2 million in revenue. So, almost a 600% increase uh there. Uh other uh evidence of success and growing momentum. The events are on the rise. 140 events were hosted at the building in 2015. 311 last year. So, tremendous growth there. And we've seen that carry through with attendance as well. We were at 215 250,000 in 2015. Almost 700,000 uh this past year in 2025. So this just gives you a feel for the progression of this growth dating back to 2015 when the decision was made to make those phase one renovations in the building. You can see that on the chart here and then the checkers returned to the building in 2016, phase two renovations in 2020. And you can see how that took the growth of attendance and revenues uh to even another level. So again, very thankful for council's investment in the building that helps support this. Um so the checkers uh obviously really important to the success of the coliseum. We uh have uh uh benefited from new ownership that have recently purchased the checkers. That's Zory Sports. The team owner is Andy Kaufman. Uh Andy and Sean are are absolutely fantastic partners and Andy's uh interested in making more investments in our community and their leadership continues to have an impact. We've actually increased attendance for Checkers games this year by about 500 people per game through halfway through the year. So really happy to see that. And and the Checkers games, we get 35 home games a year plus playoffs. They made the Carter Cup finals last year which got us I think 10 playoff games. So we we hope they have another deep run this year. They represent about 40% of the revenue to the coliseum. So very important. Um and and the Charlotte Crown is another new exciting development. Zorya Sports is bringing another professional franchise to the Coliseum and we're incredibly excited to have women's professional basketball returning to Charlotte. This will be a 17game season. Uh it's going to bring new fans. It's going to strengthen community engagement. The first game is May 21st. We hope many of the city council members will join in this game. I know uh members of this committee have been really excited about it. So, thank you for your support. We'll be competing against other cities locally, Greensboro, Jacksonville, and Savannah. Those four cities will have teams, and we expect the league to grow as well in the coming years. So, we're excited. So, Steve, let me interr I'm going to give a shameless plug to two of my committee members who've already seasoned ticket holders for the Charlotte Crown District One and at large, Council Member Mayfield. >> Technically, it was me. >> I see. Okay. Okay. Let me get back to the presentation. >> Our our two biggest fans. >> That's right. There we go. Two biggest fans on the ED committee. Go right ahead sir. >> Uh, okay. But so all this success is so exciting, but the buildings are 70 years old and uh we we really need to uh make some very important investments in the infrastructure of the building. Uh Kathleen is going to take you through the details, but it will include a chiller replacement in ovens that we're replacing a piece of equipment from the '90s, an additional boiler that will add redundancy that we currently don't have. If our primary boiler has any problems, uh this will help us tremendously. and we'll begin to replace the air handlers at the coliseum which is critical for the conditioning of the building to make sure we have that quality ice that the checkers need uh to uh for that high standards that the AHL requires of our hockey uh team. So, and then this package also uh has a study where we'll also look at the electrical systems and the plumbing systems of the complex and in the years to come also structure parking. Parking is something that we need to consider for the future. We'll have we'll come back to the council at some point in the future with information on those projects. And I'm gonna oh a well mentioned another reason this is critical is the tremendously busy schedule. So much activity the coliseum you can see see here featuring important events like graduations H.B.CU battle of the bands auditorium those dance recital. We've had some dance recital in Ovens that have been there for 30 years. uh Charlotte Crown, Charlotte checkers, all those really important and we really appreciate the council's consideration of these uh improvements. >> There you go. >> Thank you. >> Uh so good morning uh committee chair, committee members, Kathleen Cashek, city engineer. I'm going to walk through the overall funding recommendations before turning it over to Matt um for the overall consideration of the project. So just high level what we have before you today is two priority investments. As Steve had mentioned the facility between Bojangles and Ovens are 70 years old. Um so we have two items before you um that we would consider priority investments. The first being a HBAC upgrade to ensure overall operations between Bojangles and ovens which totals 23 million. Um this as Steve outlined um would support collectively and individually um support the air handling units, boiler and chiller replacement at the BLEX. In addition to that, we have a um $2 million MEP, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and structural assessment um that we are going to provide some additional context around. Um, but this would then allow the city and the CRVA to fully understand the condition of both buildings and then have a strategic plan for future investments. So, in total, the estimated um cost is 25 million before you for consideration. So, I'm going to dig in um a little bit with the HVAC upgrades. So, as Steve outlined, um we've got aging chillers that date back to the 1990s. So this includes replacing two chillers for ovens auditorium. We also have six air handling units for Bojangles. I would like to point out that there are 16 in total. Um so this equipment dates back to the 1970s. Equipment nowadays is far more efficient. Um far more economical. So what we're expecting is to get the six that are currently offline replaced and then as part of our study, we would then determine how many would need to be replaced in the future. So that would come back as a future ask. Um so would like to point out that um this would help restore reliability, improve efficiency immediately once installed within the building. We've also included um the replacement of a boiler that supports both Ovens auditorium and Bojangles Coliseum. And then of course all the supporting infrastructure that is required to support these individual items would be included. So on Tuesday you heard Miss Craig highlight the importance of the schedule um which is why we're before you today. Um we have a critical nature um to move this project as quickly as possible just given the equipment demand and the upcoming event schedule. Um there's major mechanical work that is really limited to a summer window. So we would expect to have these items um the air handling air handling unit specifically replaced in July. Um this equipment typically what we're hearing back from the manufacturer has a 12-week lead time. So, in order to get the items on site in time for the summer, we would need to place that order by March. Um, this equipment also competes um with large data centers across the US. So, that's another reason why we have a level of urgency here. Yes. And um the air handling units and the chillers, we would like to get those ordered as soon as possible. Um, in order to really assist with these efforts, the CRBA has already contracted with Holder Construction. Um, they are under contract currently with the pre-construction agreement and a construction management agreement which will allow us to move quickly with this work. Moving on to the MEP and structural assessment that I mentioned earlier. Um what we're asking today are the most urgent HVAC needs, but we really need to have a comprehensive study that will look at the building both in ovens and Bojangles mechanical electrical plumbing, and structural assessment of both facilities. Given the age of the facilities, um it would be ideal to really assess the existing core building systems to understand their remaining useful life and then determine what the replacement needs are moving forward. So what we have here is a more proactive approach. Um, it will take approximately a year to complete, but based on that, we will be able to make future capital invest in investment decisions that are informed, prioritized, and aligned with the overall continued success and heavy utilization that we're seeing at BLEX. And with that, I will turn it over to Matt. >> Thank you, Kathleen. Uh, again, Matt Hassid, CFO and finance director for the city. >> Hey, repeat after me. Show me the money. >> Show me the money. Okay. Um, so a lot of my slides are going to be repeat from from Tuesday, but just sort of trying to level set a couple of things and then certainly questions as as we have them. But as a reminder, um, for the hospitality area, we have sort of three or four sort of buckets of funds that we typically look at from a budget and financial reporting perspective. The tourism one and tourism two are combined just because the way some of those revenues work. Um, but we have the convention center fund. um that is obviously for the convent center operation and sort of maintenance of of that facility amor sports and then essentially bank of America stadium the tourism fund is sort of more broad um we have we do have some statutory marketing requirements and and visitor promotion that we do out of that and then spectrum center and some of the other special events like PGA championships president cups have have been sort of funded from that the tourism 2 bucket has been primarily the cultural arts campus the um Harvey BGant center the Beckler the mint um some of those projects. And the Hall of Fame is kind of the the most restricted of all the uses being the Hall of Fame, the parking, and the Crown Ballroom that provided some expansion for the convent center and a joint use facility. Um, we talked about this last time, but these are the fund balances where we ended the previous fiscal year on. Uh, just a reminder that these do not necessarily sort of prelude to what the capacity is because this has requirements for the the next year's debt service in there. Uh we have a recession mitigation reserve that the the city council adopted a couple years ago. So this is just sort of telling you a snapshot of where we are. Um but as you can imagine there are certain projects that still have debt to come on like the spectrum center and as debt comes on the restrictions on how much debt service reserves we have to come go on to. So it's kind of some of that reserves will be spent down and some of the required reserves will go up. So we kind of meet in the middle there. um when we start looking at projects like this one or or any one, you know, based on the hospitality revenue capital investment policy that city council adopted in um a couple years ago, um we obviously always look at statutory requirements. You know, we we always want to make sure that we're following state law. Um, and then when we start looking at, you know, our other sort of priorities, we look at the existing debt commitments, whether that's something that we already are paying for or something like Spectrum Center where we have the construction ongoing. We're closing out the payoffs and that debt service will come on in the the coming months and year. Um, we always want to make sure that we're maintaining buildings. That's in part why we're here today because that's what we we need to prioritize. And then we start looking at new events, new commitments that that we can make. Um when we look at a specific you know project we we try to see which bucket it can go in because sometimes that does help us unlock different funds um one of the biggest questions is always sort of the how much and when and that's the timing and cash flow. I mean this one is obviously a very urgent item. So that's why we're coming to you and and sort of pushing this forward today. And then you know how is the city's funds going to be used. This is a little bit you know easier from a perspective than some of the P3 partnerships we had. This is a city-owned building. These are city-owned assets that we need to maintain. The HVAC, all those things are our assets. They're going into a building we already own. But sort of some of those type of things really play into um sort of the the plan of finance, especially when we talk about accessing the capital markets, the actual structure of that. Um, one thing that we didn't have on Tuesday, we we've talked about this a little bit, but did also want to sort of highlight se several of the council members know this, but you know, there is a difference between when a project gets approved and sometimes when the financing itself occurs. Um, so what what we're looking for, you know, for today to come out of committee then March uh 23rd, it's the approval of the project, setting a project budget, and then we'll be coming back at a later time that could be a couple months or even next year to actually do the financing for it. But once the project budget is set, the project can move forward. This is more of a we have to have time to actually go through the local government commission to actually get the debt financing in place and getting all of that structure. But there's nothing that would stop the project itself from going forward. But I I do want to make sure sort of clear and transparent that there's a project and then there's a financing. And I think uh we actually recently had this for some of our public facilities for police and fire stations. And council member Driggs actually I think said at the the dis even that when we're approving the financing that's not a new funding commitment that's really the procedural part of actually securing the funding part of it. Once council is approved whether it's a budget that has sort of a you know the CIP or a project like that. That's really what sets the the financial commitment for a project. The financing is more the technical how are we actually getting the money in hand to to pay for something long term. And some some projects, I don't expect this one to be, but you know, we're looking at a spectrum center, Bank of America, it can be a year or longer that we take to actually go from, you know, a council approving a commitment and actually having the contracts and then actually doing the financing. So, sometimes those really can be sort of long lead times. This one won't be quite that long because it's a, you know, city- owned building and those types of things, but there there will absolutely be a delay just because of the local government commission. So I think that's always important to to highlight. Um so for the the plan of finance itself, we'll be looking at the tourism bucket for this. Um because this is increasing the useful life of the building through capital assets. This is an appropriate use of of debt or capital finance. Um so we will be issuing we do plan to issue debt for this project through installment financing. um typically refer those as certificates of participation or cops, but that sort of the technical name is installment financing contracts. And something that we we would have talked about at the retreat, but we ran a little bit short on time is, you know, certificates of participation and limited obligation bonds are the exact same structure of a financing. It's basically just a slightly different name. Um what we've I've had some conversations with our municipal advisor um and Charlotte is one of the few still using the cop structure. Most have gone to limited obligation bond. So that's something we're evaluating. Neither cost us anything. Um I think what the market is starting to like is just the name bond when they see a debt financing. So, we're starting to see a little bit more appetite for So, you know, even if we bring one more investor in because they like the name, that could create cost savings for us because it's supply and demand. The more more interest we have in our our debt, the lower interest rates we can have. So, it's a chance that it could be a certificate of participation because those are worked well for us. But we also may sort of longterm we're evaluating moving to the limited obligation bond structure. And again, from a financing point of view, they're exactly the same. It is an appropriation and assetbacked debt. So this is a lot like your your car loan or a mortgage that the assets you're financing themselves service to collateral to investors or a bank that actually sort of is that sort of assurance that the the debt service payments will be made and Allison is do you want to do the next steps? >> Sure. Um so the request today here so we're committee um the request is that um after discussion that the committee refers this to full counsel for um a vote on March the 23rd um and then as Matt talked about of course the debt issuance would would come later if you want to mention the >> Yeah. So I can also mention um that the conditions of the city investment also include a MWSBE goal of 25%. So that would be split between 15% MBE and then a 10% WSB goal. >> Thank you for the presentation. Now we're going to committee and I'm going to have the district rep go last because it's in her district so she can bring us home. So, um, Council Member Mayfield, >> thank you, Chair Mitchell. Thank you all for the presentation. I'm definitely looking forward. It's a little interesting to realize that we are still working with items from the year I was born. So, I'm like, even though I think I'm aging well, some things might not be. So, um, I'm glad to see that we're having this conversation. So just for clarity since you just explained that even with us moving forward it takes a little time. So one do we already have a chiller on hold like we already told them hey I'm going to need you to put this to the side since >> Okay. So we've already identified correct >> and also if committee moves this forward and full council supports at our business meeting we are saying you will be able to move forward and get started even though it may take a little while for the actual funds >> as a as a part of the council action. there be a budget ordinance that would be adopted creating a budget for this project and at that point spending can be done against the budget >> but we don't have a window yet of when we know the money is let me rephrase that are we going to be releasing funds based on the invoices or once we allocate this we know that this is the amount that's going to go forward and they'll just update us as they spend down >> so I believe that this and Kathleen jump in that this will be a city-run project so this creating a budget for a project, but no dollars are not going to be spent unless there's invoices to be paid. And Kathleen, >> correct? Um, but part of that, Council Member Mayfield, will be processing an invoice to get that material and equipment ordered on the front end. >> I just want to make sure we're in that 30 45 and not 120, 180 day because I don't I'm ready for us to move forward. Yes, my colleague and I were very excited and it's debatable on who actually was first, but we are excited just overall with all the things that are happening at BOPLEX and it is an asset that one of the last few original >> assets that we have in the city. So, those were only the questions that I have. So, thank you chairman. >> Thank you, Council Mayfield. Council member JD. >> Yes. Uh thank you for the presentation. Um I I had a quick question about the funding buckets um on slide 18. Is it going to come out from T1? >> So I think when we look at affordability for for tourism, it's it's sort of a combined affordability sort of assessment. I think the majority of it I'd say is probably coming from the the T1 bucket. But when we when we make a commitment would be using sort of the T1 bucket and then would be looking at sort of the the total. And this is kind of and I would also say this is kind of a unique project where it is kind of ovens does have sort of the the the cultural arts sort of components too because some of the things so it is kind of a combined project. So I would expect that there's a little bit coming from both but we're we're T1 is kind of the primary one but T2 will certainly be a part of that because from a fund balance and policy perspective it is the the tourism sort of bucket. >> Perfect. Thank you. It's more question of clarity um because I wanted to come from both buckets. So more funding the better. Um and I I mean I just I have no further questions. I think uh this is just uh a great opportunity. Uh I would like to as I reminded my colleagues at the strategy session, you know, uh a few weeks ago, you know, because of all the rainfall, there were some leaks happening in the coliseum and thanks to the leadership of Steve and Sean from Checkers, they were able to turn around fast and adjust that and rehost the game on President's Day and still have a good number of folks come out. So, it's an incredible asset. And just the historical importance of that, I was able to graduate from Bojangles Coliseum. uh from Eastmech and also it is one of the few if not the only venue like in this large scale capacity in black and brown neighborhoods right and making it an asset to these neighborhoods that are oftent times uh depriving from amenities like like like this one so I think this is a great project and um that that's it for me >> council member district 6 >> thank you mayor proam I appreciate it um just very high level. I don't know how much of this is just commentary I want to put out into the universe versus actual questions. And so these may be things that are already in the works, but I have I've lived in Charlotte over 30 years and Bojangles has a a really uh close spot in my heart as well. Used to take my kids there for hockey games. You know, I grew up in Illinois and hockey was a major part of my youth and so being able to expose them even though we live in the south to a sport that I so associate with my own childhood was just really impactful and I I have a lot of warmth for the space. What I will say though is that the lived experience when you go to an event at Bojangles, you're largely going parking and going in. There isn't an active um restaurant space that is walkable. There really aren't the types of amenities like a a really high quality hotel. Some of the things that I think could really beef up the success of Bojangles and it's just an experience that I note only because it really hasn't changed over the 30 years that I've been here. I still cannot come up with and my children's graduation included a time when we would go get some dinner or go get some lunch and then go to our event and come back and it's just not that same lived experience. How you balance that without overly gentrifying the neighborhood is is a special question. But I just wonder as you activate your study on parking, can you include what it looks like to have a ground floor of whatever parking structure you do add some additional optionality for the the walking around experience before and after games or events? I just I think it's an opportunity to activate a corridor in a way that is not overly disruptive because we're already going on parking space that we've got. But if you could add another experience to the overall concert or sporting experience, I really think we could knock that area out of the park. And I will just on top of that say very briefly, I also acknowledge that there may be infrastructure improvements getting in and out of that area that may make that more or less possible. But let's let's think on it. Let's let's see what we can come up with to have the Bolex experience be even more phenomenal than it already is. So, thank you for this project. >> Thank you, D2. Council Graham, >> thank you, >> Chairman. Uh no-brainer. Uh this is this is a goal. We walked the property um uh with a potential client uh and I really got an an iPhone not only in terms of the mechanical and electrical needs that you pointed out that visitors probably can't see right uh or even the performers. So I know that's our focus and I raised my hand 10 times for that. Just doing some forward thinking about things that I saw during this the tour like there's only one Bay Area, right? and you got 311 events. A lot of the events can't come because they can't get into the building, right? They just don't have enough leeway to uh unload in in in the building. Uh the dressing rooms for performers and the team themselves, right? Um storage, right? It's like it's like an attic right down there in the basement, right? So, storage. Um, we talked a little bit about parking because in the future something may have happened at the the park ministries. You guys utilize those parking now that's going to shrink the number of spaces that you have. So just some forward thinking about how we park in the future. And then uh customerf facing restrooms and uh concessions. So, can you talk very briefly about a possible phase two that talks about those things? And I'm just kind of curious about your perspective on on those issues. >> Yeah. So, I I absolutely agree. All those are needs. I think we're prioritizing right now the most important needs for the building and getting that council consideration. But we >> we do visualize uh improvements we would like to see in all those areas that you mentioned. Uh I think the most important one will be to to work on parking solutions uh as quickly as possible. But you know once we address you know the mechanical systems that we can make sure the building's operating safely and service customers in the way we're doing now then I would love to come back with ideas in all these areas you described that are important to the future of the building. Absolutely. And and we have already thought about all these areas and have things to talk about at the appropriate time. I I I hope that you would do that sooner than later because if we're going to do it, let's do phase one, electrical, mechanical, get that out of the way and then really pivot to the customer experience, the entertainment experience piece, which is equally as important because again, that's 700,000 visitors and over 311 events per year. And um like I said, we lost one simply because of all those items that you suggested. Thank you. >> Very good. Thank you. So before I turn it over to the district rep, let her uh let her let her bring us home. I want to thank the Sora uh team and Sean. Uh thank you for being a true corporate partner for for us on this uh particular facility, city-owned facility. Um Steve, thank you for you and your staff for bringing this to our attention. And I think we all remember kind of the two incidents. And so we actually took a vote at retreat. Informal vote. Heard that. You heard it at retreat. >> So So now we're going to now we're going to make it formal. And this is I think I've shared this to everyone. This facility is always dear to me cuz in 1979 there was a special basketball game played in that facility. And uh it's still the largest game ever in high school. And somebody was on the basketball court. I ain't calling no names. >> That I did not. But you were there. >> Uh I played against a NBA Hall of Fame named James Worthy and Mitchell wasn't worthy that day. I'm just going to leave it at that. Okay. Uh Miss Agnes, bring us home. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I just want to acknowledge the history of this particular uh complex. Uh it is really and truly a treasure um within the city of Charlotte. haven't opened up when in 1955 um and continuing to drive uh hospitality and visitorship is truly amazing. So the first first point I want to say is the ROI on the investment of the Bolex Arena is a no-brainer. We've already seen just recently the investment in the connector and the East Charlotte room which has of course Steve we've leveraged that from a hospitality perspective but I think it helps with the checkers because they're able to open up an an informer former store every game um and as well as host different experiences there. And so every investment that we've seen over the years, we've gotten the ROI on. The most important slides I think are at slides 11 and 12, right? Which is effectively saying, you know, we have grown um revenue by 5 and 62%. Attendance has been up 175%. But we're doing that with mechanics that age back to the 70s. Um, which is truly amazing. I had to replace my HVAC system in my house over this cold winter. And it's amazing that you guys have been able to, you know, band-aid this thing and keep it moving. But, um, having said that, we really need that investment in this building because there's some tremendous new things upon the horizon. Last year they hosted a um a form of MMA called PMMA for the very first time and that experience brought people into the building brought people to the city of Charlotte and they're committed to coming back again this year but highlighted some of the HVAC issues in terms of um AC and other experiences. And one of the mo most important things about the Bolex that I think we overlook is the fact that one in three visitors who come to the Bolex and have an experience travel over a 100red miles to get there which means they are spending the night in our hotels. they are going to our restaurants and more than likely um leaning into other um visitorship experiences where they're spending more dollars in our space. So very excited for the crown to come activating the building yet again, the PMMA coming. And so I am really and truly excited about this experience. I think uh Mr. Chair, this is the very first thing we need to unanimously vote uh to not only send to council, but hopefully we'll see a unanimous vote at council uh to invest and double down on the BLEX experience for the legacy of the of the Queen City. Thank you. >> Sorry. So I motion therefore therefore I I motion that uh this committee approves that we move this forward to the larger council for an approval for a larger consideration. >> Second. >> All right. >> Motion made by district one representative Anderson and second by two people council member Mayfield and council member JD. >> Is council member Watlington. Does she >> have any questions? >> Any questions? Okay. Thank you for asking. Um I don't have any questions. Um had was able to sit down with this group and go through um pretty straightforward. We got to invest in our buildings. Um I look forward to um to attending. Uh so Council Member Mayfield may have been the first, but I do have to thank her for sending the contact information over. It's for the season ticket. >> I think that's your Doc is your hand. Uh >> Wington. Yes. >> Okay, good. That's 5. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Um we'll give folks a minute to get out. Um I'm happy to we'll have a little bit of extra time for the small business um implementation uh work. We give like a just a minute. Yeah. I never done anything. So you got all that traffic. Okay. >> Traffic too because you won't have the exodus. It won't be like mass influx because people around dinner. So, I know this is this is the main reason why um >> that Vanetta Mitchell is here, my cousin. So, I do not want to keep her here all day. >> Okay. >> All in on whatever can make that full. >> Thank you. >> So, uh DCM, would you like to introduce the next item, please? >> We are. So yes, we are going to cover um the small business strategic framework and implement implementation plan. Unfortunately, Christy Floyd is not here, so you can't embarrass her, so she sends her regards, but um we've got the dream team over here that will take us through it. Um Shaw and Holly, so I'll turn it over to them. >> Thank you, uh Allison. Again, Shahid Rana, director of economic development, and I have Holly Escript, who's a deputy as well. And what we're going to present today is a followup from the previous presentation that we had two committees ago. Um, and the purpose of this is to dive a little bit deeper into the actual goals and the implementation and how we plan to move forward. Um, a few takeaways. This small business strategic framework and strategies are based off of a study. Um, city of Charlotte contracted with uh Thomas P. Miller and Associates, also known as TPMA. And a part of that uh process was also bringing on a local subcontractor who actually was in the community who knew the work. Uh hence why we have our guest here, Miss Vanetta Mitchell from Mitchell Consulting as well, who was a part of the actual study to make sure that a um we were reaching out to the right people within the ecosystem. B, we also had a local perspective from a small business uh owner. And C, a part of any study or work that we do, um, relationships matter. And that's number one. So, making sure that, um, the people that we were reaching out to, the new relationships that we were establishing, um, that we had someone in place who can actually help support that work. So what I want to do is go through um the strategic framework and implementation plan and as a part of any plan uh plans and strategic frameworks are not directives but direction and a part of the direction there's a few considerations. Number one um as we lay out the actual key findings and goals and then strategies there's several uh factors that play a role in the strategies being implemented. Number one, it's the feedback. This is an iterative process. What we have here isn't written in stone as I mentioned before. Um, you also want to have the ability um to make pivots to uh have that feedback between council as well. And then also things change in regards to policy, business climate. There could be certain events that could have an impact on the small business community and we want to make sure we have that flexibility. There's also just the overall government process of the retreat that we had this week and wanted to make sure that we're listening if there's any things that we need to add or any perspectives that we need to have from council as we roll out some of this implementation which also essentially feeds into the budgetary process as well. So there are a few different considerations when uh we're considering the implementation strategy. Well, what I want to walk through you uh through is uh really there's six goals in which Holly will take a little bit of a deeper dive on the implementation strategy. Number one is to increase awareness and access and utilization of our business support resources across the ecosystem. So in layman terms, how do we make sure that small business owners and the local ecosystem know who are the right people to go to? So whether that's uh a nonprofit that's offering services, if there's a uh CDFI or community development financial institution that's providing uh some type of alternative to traditional banking for access to capital, if there's a local placebased uh nonprofit, whether it's a community development corporation or uh any of the programming that we have, whether even as uh direct uh coordination with city um staff or county staff, we want to make sure that people are aware of all of the resources that are there. Number two is the increase of uh access to capital across small business types in development stages that was brought up in the in the retreat as well. Just making sure as these different initiatives come about about such as mobility, do our small business community know of the different type of lending opportunities that are there and number two are they prepared? Um there's one thing to have access to capital. It's a second thing to are you prepared to even have that access and once you have it and how do you steward over that well and make the right business decisions. Number three is to reduce real estate barriers for small businesses and that's layered. It's not just about uh providing a uh a subsidized lease. It's not just about uh the physical aspect as aspects of um reducing the barriers but financial um assistance is a part of it. Uh the city also helps with the business matching grants that also supports the physical space as well. Um and that's also layered. So we want to make sure that we're also being responsive because the goals here are really uh a part of the feedback that we receive from multiple business owners and then also our ecosystem partners. Uh number four is the increase of business ownership rates historically underrepresented populations in Charlotte. Um which is pretty self-explanatory. Uh goal five is to increase the talent pipeline for small businesses. So um as businesses grow um they also grow in size of personnel as well. So how do we make sure that small business owners uh understand what resources are available to them uh what's the talent pipeline for them as well? And then goal six is an increase of local purchasing um through Charlotte. >> Ultimately what I'm trying to say is I want us to be more intentional about really reaching out to these local partners, right, and including them in this implementation framework. Um, the other thing is the last thing I also want this framework to become is uh uh one-sizefits-all curriculum for for all these different organizations across the city because district 5 is very different than district 2, than district 6, than district 1. We all are very diverse and unique in our own different ways. And I don't want this to become one of those things where we make a program, we make a curriculum, and it's something that every single part of Charlotte has to fulfill or any of our small businesses or contractors or uh CBI partners have to fulfill because each community has different needs and wants. Um and then uh I'm trying to think and ensuring that once we start doing this work, once we put some teeth on it and attach it to policy, once we figure out the funding levels, um is ensuring we take a step back from hiring out outside of state third party consultants to do the work for us, right? We we already have those connections there and I I want to make sure that we we're we're not spending money when we already know who to contact like Bernetta Mitchell, >> like other people who can give us sol solutions. We have such an incredible talent pipeline here in the city of Charlotte of people that are doing the work consistently. And so I don't want us to outsource uh further work to to other organizations that are based out of New York or California or Texas or whatnot that don't know our landscape as much as we do. Um because ultimately I just want us to give direct tools to our small businesses and our partners to create a robust, vibrant, effective and functioning small business ecosystem and to make sure and they have the data, right? These folks have the data there. So um those are all my comments and thank you so much chair. Thank you staff. >> Thank you. >> Oh, I think Shaw has chair. >> Oh sh Yes. Go ahead, sir. Those were great comments. I appreciate it. I just want to make one clarification. It was brought up before legally you can't have local preference on RFPs. >> I understand that. Yeah. >> So I just and but we can be creative about making sure that we also have a local perspective in that. So just legally if if we issue out an RFP, right, >> it has to go out nationally. And then there's criteria how we rank and then also flexibility on how do we utilize correct local consultants to be a part of that process. >> Yeah. And so I I would suggest you know let's become creative and innovative on how we can further incorporate and expand our our local reach. Thank you. >> Council member Kimberly Owens, please. >> Yes. Thank you. I um I appreciate the opportunity when I don't serve on a committee to be to be greeted with such warmth and um it was a great presentation. A couple of things came to mind and they really are a continuation of this morning's housing committee conversation around displacement rather gentrification, economic displacement or any of these things. I was very focused on that in the housing sense. And this presentation causes me to want to lean in on our businesses, particularly those that have a vibrant tenant mix and really are already placemaking. If there is an opportunity to bring them to these tables early in a process when we can anticipate that we're going to have growth along a mobility corridor, for example, can we reach out to the small businesses there and add into the curriculum some degree of knowledge around how to deal with displacement? So that is not intuitive. the the process of negotiating with a government over the value of your space that you all of that is I believe our responsibility particularly if someone is losing a business due to our mobility needs or our common good and so I'd just like to throw that out into the universe and also when I go back to that concept of tenant mix and placemaking if we do have an entire corridor of businesses for example can we work with them to try to stay together because if that is an is that is an experience that I as a homeowner have enjoyed having that recreated somewhere and giving me some sense of the cadence I used to have between going to the barber shop and then going to the grocery store or whatever. But if we can kind of help them not all just get sewn to the wind because some of those are codependencies that have risen up over decades and those work well together. And so those two businesses really that can be part of that harmony. And so I just like us to lean in on that as part of the education process as we teach people how to deal with displacement of any variety and then how to potentially stay together and aggregate their value as a as a going concern if you will of a group of businesses. So thank you. >> I'll make it real quick. um uh commercial space availability is an issue and and I I think we got to really become really creative about how we can lean in on that space and make it a a a strategic focus um especially on these quarters of opportunities as they are increasing uh in value. Um so I think that's the thing and and then lastly is the corporate support the corporate alliance. Um, I mean a lot of people come to the city, the county school board looking for work. We got a tremendous corporate community uh here that buy goods and services every day. The hurdles are less because they can they're not government. And I'm just not hearing uh and I know the alliance now is reconfiguring their small business platform. uh that I think is goal number six that we really begin to challenge our corporate community uh to do more uh and I know the environment is different but Gary you know right it it that's where the dollars are and then lastly we have vendors up here that are doing really really well that going to make it there's a lot of support services for vendors just getting started There's a middle class that aren't getting any services, um, no direction, high in ability. They just need business networking and business opportunities and to be in the room. Now, how that works, I'll leave it up to James, uh, right to figure out, but there's a missing piece. They don't need certification. They don't need handholding. They just need directional support to get business right. And that's that middle piece u that I think hopefully through your strategies and Sean you can kind of figure out how do we begin to talk to that group um advance that group network that group um because they're sophisticated. They've already done the business basics. They've already graduated from that. They're not big enough to be self-sufficient. But they are self-sufficient. Let me take that back. They just need to um to be in the room when decisions are being made about who's getting what contract because they're capable of delivering. Um but um they're being left out of the conversations, no support systems for them. Uh and that's what I hear every day from those um mature businesses. >> Council Graham, excellent comments. So, uh, staff, let me try to take a let me try to lay out a a vision for this committee. And I'm trying to be a little sensitive because we got workshops about to start. We got budget conversation. I think start around April or May. >> You got April 23rd. >> March 23rd. Okay. So DCM Allan and Craig and Shaw uh if you all can come back to us and I guess I'm I'm trying to narrow this focus right because we got we got a sprint as relate to the budget and all those items need funding FY26 FY27. Let's just take a stab at those right now. um if you all can put some numbers together then bring it to the committee and we probably uh our April agenda I think is already filled up right DCM Craig so we talking about May unless uh I can get the mayor to allow us to do a special workshop we won't call it a meeting but maybe first a special workshop just around the getting the bud budget prepared to be included in overall discussion that's what I'm afraid of I do not want us to miss that window. >> And so if if we could if staff can come back and just give us a recommendation and if the first May meeting is too late, then let us know and then we'll try to do a workar around. I'm actually committed to be flexible. How does that look? Is that just a working lunch or another meeting we can get set up uh with with the mayor blessing? The the other thing too committee because I know this is going to come to us. I really want us to focus on and Councilman Anderson said as well on those goals, we need to make sure we got measurable goals we can attain >> so our small business community is very confident on what we're going to accomplish. And so I think that one you can put that on the committee and we can start having that conversation. Now, I'm going to look at DCM Allan because you did a great job with the matrix even though we didn't go go through your presentation, but the handout was great. And so, maybe if you can tear us up at the April meeting because I think the April is kind of your show. Um, >> yeah, there's some CDI items. >> Yeah, exactly. And so, maybe we can have our our operation matrix conversation in April. and and and then start putting measurable goals under measurable things we're going to obtain under each goal. Uh with that staff, thank you. We I appreciate the consultant Holly as always. That's why I embarrass you when I'm with you because you do a lot of work and and you don't get credit for it. Shaw, just thank you. And Shaw, you said something. So, I'm going to connect you and Councilman Graham. I think this another opportunity. The CBI series was great, but I think it needs to be a followup, right? And council Graham talked about that middle uh those companies three to five years. M >> sh you started off by saying relationship matter and so as the first one was about policy to prosperity >> maybe the second one is about relationship to prosperity right oh okay DCM Allan >> no no great point >> so just want to just chime in and um respond to uh Councilman Graham's question and I think your comments um mayor prom so we had talked about at the retreat, how we're trying to be more intentional with an integrated strategy with workforce development, economic development, and contractor and procurement. And we had an actual like a mini retreat, internal mini retreat last week with staff to say how can we do more business engagement and outreach, right, to include maybe even a summit, right, where there's meet the prime opportunities. We are exploring with our thresholds for small businesses potentially raising that, right? so that those medium small businesses or large small business if you want to call them that have opportunity to compete as well at the goal setting level. So there's already internal work. So this conversation I just wanted to say is very helpful. Um and we hope to put some more meat to what we discussed last week as a staff. We just got to get something to the manager first. But definitely if there's any feedback like that that can help us align more, we're certainly open to that. So I just wanted to chime in. No, first of all, thank you. And I think from the conversation, his tagline relationship, Councilman Graham saying, you know, those, you know, Miller, I think in the community, I think, will welcome that continued compensation, how we reach out to those companies, three to five, because our ultimate goal is one day allow them to be prime, right? They sub. >> Yep. Because it's about growth. So we did very well um on our conver yeah Holly Holl you you Holly has one thing and and in committee I hope this become part of our uh our monthly meeting because Charlotte has a lot and so uh I told Miss Holland she can put together a schedule for us because I we are all busy but Holly take it away. >> Oh Shaw you got it? >> He's got it. I don't know if they're going to change the screen, but to your point, um the month of March has a lot of events uh that we're really excited about. Um here in Charlotte, you have of course tomorrow on the Eastland Sports Campus. Groundbreaking uh >> groundbreaking. You have Charlotte FC home opener. Home opener as well. >> Um Top Chef Carolina's TV premiere. Um that's going to be streamed on uh Bravo as well. Um there'll be a major special events announcement >> council Graham >> that we we we're not gonna mention here but uh there's a lot of work going into um promoting the city of Charlotte as a destination for national visibility. Um also the ACC men's basketball tournament as well. Uh so Charlotte um in SA Charlotte you also have a opportunity for uh an immersive culinary experience. So, think of a restaurant week uh on steroids to to really um have an opportunity to engage with chefs and mixologists as well. The area development site selectors workshop is a really big deal. So, when in regards to business attraction, when you're thinking about corporate relocations, site selectors are the real estate agents for the organizations. So as our team is engaging with uh corporate relocation, we don't talk to the CEO of X organization uh number one because of the confidentiality. I know >> they use site selectors and site selectors are the ones who help bring the organizations to a city. So the more engaged you can have a site selector and the more that they know about your city, the higher chances of other organizations that they represent looking into the city of Charlotte. So that actual workshop and uh area development site selectors workshop is a pretty big deal for for Charlotte to host that not only from a tourism standpoint, but the types of corporations that those uh those site selectors represent. And then last but not least, uh City Charlotte's um grand opening. This was a uh business expansion project of a little over $15 million, 500 jobs. They're having a ribbon cutting event uh here. So just a little bit of March Madness. uh you have a little bit of everything. Uh but but what I would say uh the tourism hospitality space is the dance floor where small business and larger business kind of interact. So you'll see the the benefits of the investments that you're saying yes to and how that has an impact even on small business. And then last but not least, which is really really important, the reason why your yes is so important to uh tourism, hospitality, even with agenda one of this committee is that those are facilities that host these events and with that it was very strategic about the payback maximizing sales tax. So when you have tourism, I was very intentional about utilizing sales tax because you can capture the tourism dollars and it doesn't have a huge burden on the residents solely, but the people who are visiting our community, we can capture that money and then that money can go towards the 22 strategic investment areas that improve the sidewalks, that improve transit opportunities, that improve safety in communities. So there's a direct correlation between the facilities that we own, operate, manage, and promote the events that we also support, and how those sales tax dollars goes directly into the communities for tangible benefits. So, with that in mind, we just want to say thank you, and that concludes the meeting. >> So, uh, Holl, special thank you. Let's always make this our last slide at each meeting because May is small business month and we might need two pages. So, I'm just tearing this up. And happy Women's History Month >> and and oh and March is happy women history month. So I I'll make sure I put together another slide, Lana, and hopefully you could be at that meeting that time >> if you don't commit me to something else. Sure. >> Oh, that's right. That was my fault. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Thank you, Dr. Watlington. >> Thank you. >> And that concludes the meeting. >> So uh Harley, special thank you. Let's always make this our last slide at each meeting because May is small business month and we might need two pages. So, I'm just standing up >> and and Heat. Hey Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. I don't know. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Happy. Yeah. Heat. Don't feel Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. I'd like to welcome everyone um to our March 5th public safety committee meeting and we are going to be revisiting uh two topics that we have on our agenda that we had on the last agenda. agenda in hopes that we can continue the discussion after public session, continue uh discourse and potentially have a vote so we can send it up to the larger council for final action. >> Objections. >> Yes, absolutely. And uh before I hand it over to um to to Charlie to get us started, we're going to do introductions. We have quite a few visitors in the room. So, we'll do some introductions around the outside core of the room and then we'll come back to the table. We'll start over here with our wonderful CMPD officers. >> Hi, I'm Lieutenant Kevin Peters also. >> Hello. Lucas V, Captain Eastway Division. >> Good afternoon. Reggie Jenkins, Lieutenant Eastway Division. >> Mayor Kundle, Crown Cab. Maria Saras, Charlotte Blackar Service. >> Holly Escridge, Economic Development. >> Sean Glasco, Peak Limousine. >> Oh, we were going to go around here. Mr. Dick, >> Russell, WBTV, >> Al Austin, uh, COTPR. >> Nan Peterson, planning, Isabelle, attorney communications. >> Joe Bruno, Channel 9. Janine Crump, city manager's office. >> Jeff, city, >> district two, committee member. >> Kimberly Owens, District 6. I am not a committee member. >> James Mitchell, Mayor Pro Tim, committee member. Kimberly, you >> Dante Anderson, District 1, uh, committee chair. >> Edriggs, committee member. >> Sean Heath, city manager's office. >> Charlie Jones, Charlotte Department of Transportation. >> All right. Excellent. And with that, we will get started and jump into our continued discussion on street vending. And I will pass it over to Charlie. Thank you. >> All right. All right. Well, pleasure to be back in front of you again uh this month for street vending. Uh we jump right into it. started just received notification that council member has joined us today as well. So, welcome. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. >> There we go. This uh clicker is a little touchy there, so hopefully I won't jump back and forth too much. Um, just a quick recap. Level set again. Um, street vending is illegal in areas designated as congested business districts. Uh, right now that consists of streets in Uptown and selected streets in NOA. Street vending outside the congested business district is not regulated by any Charlotte ordinances. Um, we had a NOA vendor pilot that was authorized by council last year that concluded on February 15th, 2026. um at the February 5th public safety committee uh put a couple of policy considerations in front of the group. Uh one of which was should street vending regulation extend beyond the existing congested business district and the second policy consideration was should illegal street vending have a criminal class 3 misdemeanor enforcement option as part of that. Uh we held a public input session on February 17, 2026. And I'll get into some of those details as we move through the presentation. So summary of the February 17th public input session, we had around 20 participants including small businesses, residents, council members, um and street vendors primarily from Uptown, Southoun, and Nota. Uh it's really the affected communities at this point. It's about a one and a half hour session and the previous session we held uh we had a quite a few more people there so we did uh a table session in that uh format and had report outs from the tables. This session since we had so few uh attendees um we were able to allow each attendee to basically uh give remarks for two to three minutes and talk about challenges um that they saw as a vendor as a business so on and so forth. Some of the observations from that session were the brickandmortar businesses uh expressed support of a citywide restriction. Many of the participants though were hesitant to to really support the criminal penalties. U we heard that from both the businesses and the vendors. Um permitted try street vendors and business owners expressed frustration over inconsistent results from the citations. Um that's one of the things we saw as kind of a challenge. they were hesitant for the criminal enforcement, but the citations alone don't seem to be meeting the needs. So, there's a there's a friction there between those two. Um, the NO vendors expressed frustration over the pilot program and I wanted to talk a little bit about that today. Um, you know, pilots are used as a learning tool for us. It's one of those things, you know, let's set stand up a pilot and see what we do and what we don't know. And that's one of the things that we learned from the NOA vendor pilot is uh it was a very fast roll out. Um just a quick timeline on June 23rd council approved the NOA program. By July 30th we had stood up a a portal for them to apply for permits and September 1st the first permitted vendors were actually selling their wares in NODA. Um we did have 21 vendors apply. Um we actually handd delivered permits to 14 vendors. Other vendors never responded to our emails saying we have your permit. Uh some vendors never completed the application process. Um but one of the things we learned through that pilot is that permitting process was cumbersome for a lot of the vendors. Um I think I spoke about this in maybe our uh dis November meeting. Um I'm I'm from a different generation. younger generation wants to do everything on this and uh our permit portal is not mobile friendly. Um and so we heard a lot of feedback around that from the vendors. The pilot did help identify gaps, resource gaps and technology and just overall system gaps that we would need to address if we were to stand up a larger or longer term program. Um, one final observation is, you know, we did have vendor or businesses from the south end in the area and they continue to uh voice concerns over non-permitted food vending and illegal parking, particularly after 10 11 p.m. at night. Um, still see a lot of those vendors out there. >> Can I tag in for a second? Yeah, >> I just wanted to tag in real quick because during the public input session, I I did look everyone in the eye and say be sure to to give equal billing to the comments in the room. So, it's fair to say that a lot of folks in NODA, the community is split still, right? So, the pilot program is retired. It is now part of the congested business district. Street vending is not allowed in NOA at this point. Uh feedback in the room that evening was very mixed. A number of the business owners shared that this has been helpful for them to move in this direction. public safety, public health, um, obstructions in the right of way, many concerns that they voiced for quite some time, as well as just a bit of an equity issue given the fact that for a brickandmortar business, many requirements, including insurance requirements, permitting requirements, etc., etc. Um, at the same time, street vendors are still the ones that have been impacted, very upset about the situation, believe they're small business owners, they are entrepreneurs, uh, they are doing their best to make a living in the community. Um, and some would say that it's also been a very important part of NODA's culture um, in that particular community. So, I just wanted to make sure I followed through on my commitment to underscore that the the room was a bit divided that night. Thank you. >> So, one of the asks from the last committee meeting was that we look at peer cities um, nationwide and less so at our North Carolina peers if if we, you know, our neighbors in North Carolina. So, we looked at uh six pier cities. Atlanta typically isn't included in our list of peer cities. Um but we added them to the mix just because we've heard people talk about the vending in Atlanta. Um so, just a quick scan of the six pier cities we looked at. Um all of them have citywide vendor regulation um to varying levels of complexity. Um, as far as criminal penalty options, three of the six have a criminal penalty for uh vending without a permit or vending in the wrong place. Uh, three of the cities do not. One interesting note, and I aster this on the slide, Nashville and San Diego, while they do not have a criminal penalty, they do authorize their department of transportation working with the local police department to physically remove vendor items from the rightway. Um the way Nashville handles that um if um a DOT employee sees a vendor that's not permitted um that has items in the rightway, they call the local police department and assist them with removing the items if the vendor chooses to not move when the DOT representative asks them to. Um and they can impound those items. >> Can if I may say something to Charlie's point here. >> Yes, attorney. um our city ordinance does allow the city to seize obstructions in the right of way and so that legally that is a possibility. However, it's more of wondering practically um would that be a a sea dot seizure? Would it be a police seizure? And then where would those items be housed? Um just where we store them. You know, storage space is limited, but also for anyone who has something with an open flame or kerosene, that's adds a different level to storage. But I just wanted to jump in. Charlie, I'm sorry to interrupt. Just to say >> we had that in the ordinance. We just haven't implemented that at this point. >> Um some common elements amongst the cities. Um almost all the cities have restricted locations due to rightaway width um andor high pedestrian volumes. Um rightaway width would include that sidewalk width. So, in most of the cities where they specified a 6 to 10 ft sidewalk minimum width before you could even begin to set up to vent um pro prohibitions on proximity to businesses. Uh that's one of the complaints we've heard from NOA is they set up right outside my my brick and mortar door. Uh most of the cities have prohibitions on how close you can be to driveways, how close you can be to a storefront of another business. They have size restrictions on displays. Um, of course, we just spoke about the authority to remove an impound materials. All of the cities, with the exception of San Diego, require a valid business license. Um, San Diego actually requires a a California business license. They don't require anything local. Um, so they all do require business licenses before somebody can vend. Um, and some municipalities require insurance and photo identification for vendors. Um, Nashville has a requirement for a million-doll policy with the city named as an additional insured for a street vendor. Um, I I wanted to kind of tile this together with some of the comments we heard during the input session about how, you know, we should be more like an Austin and grow these things. in in looking at their programs, the barriers to entry are fairly high for most of our um peer cities. Um the annual expense ranges anywhere from, you know, $100 to $1,000 just to be a vendor. Um in addition to having business licenses and all the other um things that go along with that. So, quick summary of uh our peer cities and where they are with street vending. So, back to the policy considerations. Um, should street vending regulation extend beyond the existing CBD? Um, I think we're still there with our staff recommendation. Um, the that does, you know, kind of put us where we need to be. Um, we would continue to allow vending during festivals and other events. And we'd still maintain exceptions such as the Try Street Mall vendor program or any other vendor programs like that that may come online. Uh we of course recommend that we have nonprofit partners administer those programs um just because they have the bandwidth and the ability to be there more one-on-one with the vendors. >> Can I tag in real quick? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> On the try mall program, just as a reminder, so center city partners administers this program on our behalf on on try. It's the only area on try where street vending is allowed and it's it's a very tailored program. So there are specific locations and specific vendors and they have to go through a full application process with insurance requirement and health department certificate if there's food. Center city partners has expressed a willingness to extend that program administration into Southoun if council were to choose to regulate street vending on a citywide basis. So we currently have 22 roughly 22 locations within the portfolio for center city partners on Tryan. Um I'm not sure how many they would consider to be um a recommendation for us if they were to move it into Southoun, but just as a point of reference, Raleigh has regulation on a citywide basis and they have roughly three dozen locations in total in their city where they allow for street vending. So we'd probably probably be in that same zip code number if you were to do something where a program in Southoun were added to what you currently have in Triumph. Thank you. >> Then policy consideration two is should illegal street vending have a criminal class 3 misdemeanor enforcement option. Um our our preliminary staff recommendation remains uh the same on this even based on the feedback from the um community input meeting and and a couple things we wanted to highlight on this. We want this to be the optional last resort. I I think what we've heard from the brick and mortar and some of the vendors in fact is that the citations just citations alone don't do the trick. there's a few bad actors that will take the happily take the citation and continue on um you know doing what they're doing. Um we reviewed uh the quality of life calls to CMPD over the past year and out of thousands of calls um there barely 100 arrests. And so it shows that there's a wide level of discretion that our officers employ when dealing with the quality of life or misdemeanor cause, which is what we want. We don't want um you know, somebody that you know does something that's low-level misdemeanor to automatically be arrested and thrown in jail. And I think what we've seen in the in the call data is that our officers are using those deescalation techniques and having conversations before they resort to uh an immediate arrest. And that would be our hope with some kind of criminal penalty for street vending as well. If >> I can tag in here real quickly on this one as well. So in addition to the data demonstrating that CMPD is very judicious and when they decide that that criminal penalty option is necessary, if you look at North Carolina sentencing guidelines in the statute associated with class 3 misdemeanors, what you'll see is for three offenses or less, the only option is a fine. It's only when you start to get into the realm of four offenses where something like community uh based work would be required and you have to have five offenses or more where a judge would really have the discretion based on the sentencing guidelines for there to be any scenario where there's detention. And even when there is detention, there's a maximum within the sentencing guidelines of 20 days. So, it's a very it would be a very unusual outcome for a class three misdemeanor to result in any sort of detention um only for chronic offenders. And to Charlie's point, um, I wouldn't go as far as to say our recommendation is only do the citywide regulation if you do the criminal enforcement penalty option in tandem with it. But I'd almost go that far because my concern would be if council if the committee were to choose to have citywide regulation without having that extra enforcement tool in the toolbox that we really wouldn't we we might set an expectation as a city that the ability to really deter the the chronic offenders and bad actors is strong enough. I so I really feel like these two even though they're separate recommendations they should be considered as a bit of a package deal. And so that brings us to the next steps. Um, of course for today, further committee discussion and potential vote. Um, we'll say if the committee decides to advance one or both policy items today, we would look to schedule an action preview discussion at a future council meeting. If the full city council approves one or both policy items in the future, um staff would definitely recommend a deferred implementation to a citywide program, mainly to give us time to build a successful program that takes vendor input, brickandmortar input, and really use help have the community help us get a program that has a low barrier of entry for the entrepreneurs, but still provides protections for brick and mortar and others in the community. So that's that's where we are. >> Thank you. So we'll open it up to council discussion. And just before we do, I just wanted to make one comment that uh at the listening session, uh myself and council member Ashira were in the room to listen to uh the vendors and the small business owners. Um so we were uh there listening and hearing the perspectives of from from a variety of different sides and as uh Mr. Heath said the population was really primarily focused on NOA South End and the Uptown area in that listening session. So I'll go ahead and open it up. I'm going to start with Mr. Driggs. >> You are okay. >> Yes. I I see you sort of moving around there. I think you're ready to >> Thank you, Madam Chair. So, I appreciate the work that you've done on this, and I think in my mind, you've addressed the critical questions, the tough questions. Uh, I don't have a big issue about street vendors in my district, so I'm going to be very attentive to remarks from people who know more about it from their constituents. Uh, my own opinion is that, uh, vendors do contribute to a lively street scene. Uh so we should appreciate them where they're appropriate. Uh just on that basis alone and um my kids for example, you know, they go and look for food trucks, right? And and it's kind of a a thing that people like, right? So then the question is how do we capture that and then deal with the the issues around unfair competition and nuisance and the other things you've talked about. So I'm really tracking with your analysis and conclusions. Uh I think that uh having any sort of regulatoratory environment that isn't supported by meaningful sanctions of some kind uh makes little sense and the fact is it's a business expense as it stands right now. Right? People just it's like parking tickets for some people. They just park and pay and that and that's the cost of parking. So, uh, again, the idea that we have an escalation for repeat offenders, Pat, but I certainly think that the situation in all those other cities you pointed to where there is city-wide regulation, we need to have some control over this. So, I I guess my bottom line is that uh I am in support of both your recommendations. >> Thank you, Mr. Driggs. I have uh Miss Azmeir. >> Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Like Madame Chairwoman said, I and Council Member Anderson were there and the room was divided. Um uh we heard from creative community. We heard from brick andmortar businesses. Um here are my thoughts on street vendors. Uh Mr. Dicks is right. Street vendors are part of the culture and they and character of many great cities. uh and if it's done correctly and if it's done right, they can add to the neighborhood's character and to the vibrancy of any neighborhood. So, and this is a great way to support local entrepreneurs. So, our goal should be to create a system that works. Uh one of the loudest concerns that I heard from street vendors is that the permitting process simply hasn't worked smoothly. Um this is not to discredit any work that's been done by C dot because they were given a very tall task to do this in a very short amount of time with the same resources. So Mr. Jones and his team has done very well in terms of what they could do within the resources that they were given. Uh however, I think we do need to work on streamlining a permit process that creates certainty for street vendors in terms of uh time uh and how much time it will take to get a permit because for small entrepreneurs that are just trying to make an honest living should not be a barrier. We also heard uh from members of the creative community who said that they don't want to be treated the same as food vendors and I think that's valid because when you look at artists and uh handcraft makers and there were a couple of them in the room they operate very differently right they don't operate the same and the policies should recognize those differences so if a a painter is selling art or handmade goods of some sort, they should not necessarily face the same regulations as a food truck vendor because food truck vendor has to meet health requirements versus versus someone who is just an artist. So I think we need to recognize that in our policy and currently I don't see that as part of our recommendations. So I would like us to explore that option. Um also one of the speakers in the room talked about uh leveling the playing field, right? So, brick and mortar businesses brought up how do we level the playing field? Many of them were asking for fairness and I think that's valid because they operate under significant regulation and cost. So, the question I have for our staff and the and the attorney in the room, what are the what are the uh is there a criminal penalty if brick and mortar businesses do not have a permit or do not meet certain regulations? Do they have a criminal op criminal penalty option? I I can't hear you. Can you hear me? >> That's not your fault. >> Sorry, Miss Ameir. Thank you for the question. I think there was a slight delay in our screens, but no, most brickandmortar businesses are going to have regulations with the Secretary of State as far as their business filings and how they establish um their business and payment systems and those sorts of things. And then there could be additional health department regulations just depending on if they're selling food versus goods. But there are no associated criminal criminal penalties based on the business license itself unless it something amounts to fraud but not based on purely operating a business. >> So I think that brings to my point about there should be a level playing field. So if brick and mortar businesses do not have if they're not meeting permits or health regulations, there is not a criminal penalty on them. Why why should we have a criminal penalty for street vendors? Uh but I also acknowledge the concerns around right-of-way blockage and I think uh Jessica Battle talked about some options that we have if if there is a blockage in our right of way. How could we um use C do DOT or CMPD to remove goods from the right of way? I I would like us to explore that option. I'm very cautious about criminalizing street vending uh because we don't impose those criminal penalties on brick and mortar businesses even though we don't regulate those. Some of those are secretary of state but they don't have those for similar violations. We should ask why we should start with street vendors. Um and that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Ashmira, Mr. Graham, and then we have Miss Owens. >> Yeah, thank you very um Madam Chairman. Um I I think the report was very well done, the presentation rather in terms of the recommendations. Um I I agree with um council member Asher, in terms of the uh the profile that street vendor has throughout the community, whether it's a nodar, maybe south or a university city. I think there's a place for it that that can be regulated. um as relates to enforcement. Um I rather have I rather have um those tools in our tool chest for the officers for them to use u than not have them at all. Right. And so I think it's u it's a graduated step as Sean has uh indicated earlier. Uh so I think that makes sense u as well. So I I can easily support recommendation one and two. >> Thank you, Council Member Owens. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, just briefly and and before you got there, I had already made a few notes, but I was so pleased to hear you say that there were places that did do the seizure um, and that we had some evidence of of how that might work in our in our toolbox and understanding from the attorney that we do have that optionality. I think for me one of the things that I'd like to understand more before I could really feel confident weighing in on criminal or no criminal first and foremost to actually seize and potentially eventually have the owner forfeit their entitlement to property. Do we know and I guess this is a question for council whether there has to be a criminal penalty or you can do that civily and under what authority we we could do that now if we wanted to. that is its own um separate offense under the city ordinances. And so if you do obstruct the right of way um then that property can be seized. How it's interpreted is that an an obstruction of the rightway truly is something where it would cause someone to step off of the sidewalk and not be able to get through versus maybe they need to turn sideways to get by. But if something is truly blocking ingress or eress on a sidewalk, it's its own section within our local ordinance that we could apply. >> Okay. Well, and and to that point, I I suspected from what you'd said that that was the case, and this is a a step a field of where you can go right now, but for me to get comfortable with criminal, I'd really like to see us first have an an approach to that seizure and eventual forfeite that makes sense for the times that we're in. So, for example, along South Boulevard, I've got a lot of folks who are like in traffic and out of traffic and selling and whatnot. If you were able to at the time you issue the citation, you seize their goods. I don't know. I'm just throwing this out there. They've got 30 days before if they need to pay to get their goods back. Obviously, we've got details we'd need to iron out in terms of how long that would be stored on the part of the city, how you would do it for goods versus food. I'm very sensitive to Council Member Ashmier's comments to that because I do think there's a palpable difference between not only the risk to the community, but also the obligations on the part of us as a as a bailor to hold on to those goods for whatever period of time. But I just I'd like to understand that better before you went to criminal. I'm not saying no on that at all, but I just I think that there are baby steps here that we could really work to our advantage. you know, for example, if it's somebody who's selling something, you know, for a concert uptown or whatever, and they're blocking the road. Well, you know, if the sidewalk's wide enough, then you really can't seize that stuff. And so, they're basically they're incented to just kind of scoff at the citation because there's nothing we can do about it. Let's look at that. Does it really have to be just obstructing the rightway? Can we broaden those things so that we've got greater power of seizure and eventual forfeite? And so I just I'm I'm excited that the whole city because again, South Boulevard is an area where I do think that there are some folks who could who could use some regulation particularly because I do know that they're blocking the rightway and I do know that there are corridors there that do not need to have people in the streets. So I I applaud this and I appreciate the time. >> Thank you, uh, Council Member Owens. So, uh, now that every, uh, council member or or committee member has had an opportunity to speak, I'd just like to make a couple comments. First and foremost, uh, thank you for the work on this. This has been has been a long runway trying to address this and, uh, I just want to con just thank and congratulate Mr. Keith and Charlie for the work that you've done um the resiliency that you've shown with on slide four where we asked you to come back at the last meeting and uh give us broader context. It's it's really uh refreshing to see that other cities that we correlate to peer cities, Austin, Nashville, San Diego, Denver, Portland, Atlanta, all have a citywide street regulation in addition to the other major cities in the state of North Carolina. And it just underscores to me that we are behind the times um as a large city um not only in the southeast but just within um the United States that we absolutely need to touch our ordinance and regulations around streetwide citywide street vending. Having said that, I am also quite sensitive to all the comments that my committee members and colleagues have made um around um the crim criminal uh element as well. Um but I do remember the comments that so many of our CMPD officers have shared with us over the months around you know trying to enforce um even in this pilot space uh but certainly outside as it relates to other food vendors you know giving those citations and then the vendors some vendors not all because there are vendors who definitely follow the process who stick to the regulations but there just some bad actors that just continue to violate, violate, violate and don't take these um these financial penalties seriously. And so that effectively undergurts um you know our our policy if there's really no stickiness to adherence um and enforcement. And so it I I'm certainly a proponent of advancing both policy considerations out of committee up to a larger council discussion um around both aspects. What I would say is what you brought us today on this slide is the minimum sidewalk whiffs is is a very um interesting perspective that I think we should bake into our policy as well as the um the um the proximity to businesses, driveways and other vendors and size restrictions on displays I think is really u another aspect ect that we hadn't really seen or at least discussed as a committee within state our our state um peer cities but with these other cities they've put some added dimension to their policy as well as a you know as we as we potentially move this out of committee and have a broader council conversation this idea around a valid business license and potentially having some insurance um is I think another aspect that we should be able to um discuss and ideulate around as a broader council. So, um Mr. Council member uh Mitchell, you you've joined us. I Mr. Driggs has a comment, but before I pass it over to him, I just want to see if you had a comment because he's already spoken. >> Madam Chair, I'm okay. >> Okay. All right. With that, I'm going to pass it back over to Mr. Driggs for a follow-up comment. So, Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion, but I want to just point out the thing that we're voting on right now is citywide expansion, these three bullets. So, uh there's a lot of work still to establish exactly what the ordinance requires. Miss Ajmira, I think we would have the opportunity to introduce the distinctions that you talked about because I thought that was a good point. So uh it's important now that we make this fundamental step that there will be regulation and that there will be penalties and look forward then to the full council working on exactly what those penalties are, what those requirements are and what it looks like. So I'd like to move uh that we uh recommend to full counsel the staff's policy considerations one and two. >> Is there that we have a a motion and a second? I have question. I have questions, Madam Chairwoman. >> Yes, Miss Amir. >> Okay, Mr. Driggs, the motion maker, if you could just uh make your motion again and specifically highlight what you are moving forward to the full council. >> So, my motion is that we have two policy considerations that have been proposed by the staff. My motion is that we recommend those to the full council. >> Miss Ashmeir, it's on uh slide five and six policy. >> So I just want to make sure um >> so first recommendation was to have regulation extend beyond the existing congested business district. So this will be citywide expansion of street vending regulations. Is that correct? That's number one. And number two is having a criminal enforcement option. Am I am I correct? >> Uh yes, those are the two major ones, but my motion includes the preliminary staff recommendation bullet points uh concerning certain provisions, limited provisions that they anticipate. and and so the recommend criminal penalty enforcement option working with city attorney's office to assure adherence to state statutory ensure that this is the option of last resort. So my motion includes uh in its entirety the policy considerations one and two as they appear in our slides. So, Madame Chairwoman, if I may. >> Yes, Mr. Senator. >> Yes. So, as I mentioned earlier in my remarks, I'm not comfortable with criminal penalty option just yet. Uh to council member Owen's question earlier to um to Jessica Battle. Uh if I if you miss Battle I just want to understand did you mention that we currently we could explore an option that would not impose criminal penalty but would give some teeth to C do or CMPD to remove or seize items from public right of way that are blocking or obstructing sidewalks. Did I hear that correctly? Yes, that is correct. Um, there would not have to be an accompanying criminal offense of any sort. There's a standalone ordinance within our city code that would allow seizure of obstructions of the rightway without criminal criminal penalties. So to the committee, I would like us to explore that option before we go down the criminal enforcement option because I think that will do what what brick and mortar businesses have been asking for is to physically remove uh goods if they're blocking our sidewalks or public right of way and um without we go down the path of criminal enforcement option. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, uh, Attorney Battle, just just for clarity, I heard what what you said, I heard you say that is already a part of the ordinance is already on the books. There doesn't need to be any additional exploration or um added policy, modified policy around that. Is that correct that it it's already on the books today? Yes, it is already there in section 19-241 that allows for seizure if there is an obstruction of the rightway as a standalone seizure. >> Yes. So, my my understanding of that is that it it already exists today. Uh the question is really whether uh CMPD would seize those items and where they would store it or if if CDOT would seize those items and where they would store it. But given that um street vending is not illegal citywide, CMPD would not be seizing those items in a citywide effort, right? Unless it were a food illegal food vendor that has not gone through the proper permitting process with the Department of Public Health. So it will be completely standalone whether it were a vendor or whether it were to be a person who sets up for example a bed on the sidewalk to take a nap that have wouldn't have anything to do with street vending but because of the obstruction of the rightway that bed in that example could be seized completely separate and apart from vending understood or I think Charlie might have some clarification. >> Yeah I I'll I'll give a prime example of how we've used that ordinance in the past. We don't currently do it anymore. Um, but we used to remove basketball goals from streets. Um, PE, you know, people love to have the basketball goal at the end of the culde-sac. Um, for years we would go out, identify those basketball goals that were in the rightway, leave a letter with the property owner, um, give them 30 60 days to remove the basketball goal. If city staff observed it again, a crew would go out and remove the basketball goal and store it at our facility until somebody came and and claimed it. I think the key distinction between say a basketball goal and a vendor with their wares. Um, from a seed dot perspective, we would absolutely have CMPD assist with those situations. Um, basketball goals, there's usually nobody there when when our crews would go to take them. So, the confrontations were very infrequent if ever. Um, but if we have a vendor there, um, you know, that's a situation where we would definitely want some type of law enforcement assistance on a on removing people's materials. >> I can foresee those situations escalating very quickly u attempting to seize active uh property of an active seller. And we had a couple of those events that occurred in Nodok where no one was trying to seize the property uh but actually going over and trying to address the the um the actual action of illegal vending. I have Mr. Driggs and then Miss Owens has a a followup. >> So following Mr. Heath's point, these two go hand in hand, which is why I've made the motion that we approve both of them. I I think separating them uh would would create a difficult situation and I don't believe the seizure option is exactly the same as what we're talking about here. So in fact I I would hope that the seizure option is kind of a a last resort thing. Uh and my concern too is CMPD is called upon to address these situations and we need to give them what they need so that they can take the steps they need to. I don't think there's any evidence that they're overly hasty to go to the extreme. Uh they always engage with people, try to negotiate with them and try to find a friendly way to just enforce that regulation. But if they don't have this in their pocket, then uh they get no respect and officers correct me if I'm wrong, but uh so that's part of my thinking about why we should do this. and then we have a lot of scope to think about how it works and and particulars but it's a step I believe we need to take >> certainly with the statistics that was shared around a thousand um a thousand citations and then moving to yet 100 arrest um that that certainly undergurts what you're saying battle you had >> yes madam chair I wanted to add to the discussion about criminal um if the council recalls a couple of years ago when we voted on when you all voted on recriminalization of certain ordinances. The thought of criminal criminal penalties was a big discussion, especially about criminalizing homelessness. And I just wanted just to remind everyone that this would be no different than that situation where officers could educate people on what the peddling laws were. Give a verbal warning of some sort, then a citation. You are now a repeat offender. Now, we can move to the criminal side, a sort of escalation given the individual vendor's behavior. So, I just wanted to make sure that the council would consider that as well um from the committee. >> Thank you, Miss Owens. >> Thank you, chair. Um just a followup for me and I just I just want to put this out into the room. I'm sure you you've already thought about it, but as I sit here and I think about the the criminal um penalty, what if we were to only extend the criminal penalty as a first step in the existing CBD and so not expand it across the city until we had sort of a test case of how that enforcement affects the CBD before we have it all over the whole city. Is is there any anything you can speak to with that? Would that sort of a phased approach not give us some additional data points with which to decide whether expansion to the entire city was was useful or you know from that for example you could have some statistics by which you would know how much space you would need if you actually seized things. You could maybe extrapolate from doing it in the CBD. You could extrapolate from that what it may look like across the city to have that particular tool in your toolbox and whether you can credibly use it before you go to actual full criminal penalty. >> I think one consideration on my mind would be of course where we have the program on trying it's the most mature program. So, it's the one location where there is the least amount of of education that's required because, you know, the ecosystem is aware that these are the rules. And that's not to say there aren't violations from time to time. So, I'm just not sure if that would really be a good proxy for what we would experience in the broader city if we cascaded this further. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. All right. So um it it is I think it is important to note that this vote today is not a vote to approve these policy recommendations but rather to um lift up these two policy recommen recommendations to the broader council so we can have um additional detailed deliberation and discourse >> but with the recommendation of the committee. >> Correct. That's correct. We are voting to to move this to full council based on our approval of these >> proposals. We have a motion and a second on the floor. So um hearing no other uh deliberation. All in favor of the motion uh raise your hands. Okay. We have one, two, three, four. Um >> all oppose. I >> Okay, we have that passes with four to one. And Miss Owens, unfortunately, you can't vote because you're not a member of the committee, but we appreciate your input. >> Thank you. I look forward to the full the full council's um deliberation and caucus on this topic. And with that, we are going to advance. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. >> Thanks, guys. With that, we're go going to move on to our second agenda uh topic, which is the continued conversation for passenger vehicle for hire. And we are getting some things ready in the room and very shortly I will pass it over to attorney battle. Thank you. Thank you and good afternoon. Um, today we're going to do another sort of recap and rele set of the current status of passenger vehicle for hire and the potential for updates to the ordinance, which again has not been updated since 2017. For discussion today, we'll talk about a little bit of background and sort of how we got here, some reminders, nothing that you haven't heard already as we've been discussing these. Then we will go over the stakeholder input sessions and the sort of final recommendations of city attorney's office at this point in the process. So as a reminder on background, back in January, Mayor Lau released a policy referral on passenger vehicle for hire for this committee to look into possible changes um of that particular ordinance. At the February 5th meeting, after a lot of discussion, the PVH, excuse me, the committee decided that they wanted to have an input session with our stakeholders, with our community about PVH and the sort of input that those stakeholders had to offer. That would be in addition to the input sessions that the city attorney's office and the city manager's office conducted last summer and then the two sessions that were conducted this past December. But this was the first opportunity for council members for this committee to hear directly from our stakeholders. And so we conducted that on February 18th and we'll get to that summary in just a couple of slides. Um in regard to the 2026 input session, that was the one a couple of weeks ago. There were a few things that were sort of frequently asked questions or probably more appropriately stated frequently asked concerns from our stakeholders in the PBH community. A lot of that similar to the peddling discussion talked about leveling the playing field between two different business stakes or two different outlooks within that industry. There were concerns expressed about small businesses leveling the playing field against large TNC companies. Again, TNC being transportation network companies, those ride share companies that you can book online or through an app to take a rider from one location to another. There were also several requests from our black car and limo community regarding having more specific ordinance carveouts and sections that were better applicable to their side of the industry opposed to those that more easily um cover metered vehicles like taxi cabs. There was also a lot of repeat discussion about universal upfront pricing which this committee has heard about throughout these different committee updates and even before full council previously last year. There were comments about black car and limo stands at various places within the city. Concerns about dual drivers. I use the term a dual driver to denote somebody who operates as both a PVH metered vehicle but also does ride share work. So imagine a car that might operate as a taxi. They turn off their taxi their taxi roof light, turn off their meter, and then they log into one of the ride share apps to take rides that way. and sort of figuring out how to add some definitions and specific sections in the ordinance that would deal with a driver who's operating under both sides of the industry. And then last, there were a lot of repeat statements about updating the fair system for black cars and limos outside of the hourly rating that they or excuse me, hourly billing that they do as the ordinance currently sits. Um the recommendations of the city attorney's office um are on this screen here and I want to just give the um just reminder that we sent I sent you all um the chart that had all of the different the current ordinance with the proposed language and then whether or not the city attorney's office sort of supported those changes. And so this is just an abbreviated version of that. I will also say along with the city attorney's offic's recommendations, they aren't just based on one particular stakeholder. They're not based on either side of the in industry, but more of a totality of the circumstances from the time that the city received a letter from the stakeholders in August of 2024 through today. We've had lots of meetings with the city manager's office and the attorney's office. We've had, like we said, several stakeholder input sessions with staff and with the council. So, these recommendations are sort of a totality approach on everything. Um, changes to the application process, adding definitions like operator, changing the training requirements to eliminate some of the training on locations and landmarks in the city. um changing the drug screening panel to a five panel which would be similar to that required by the North Carolina DMV of commercial drivers. Um, for number five, updating the ordinance as it relates to criminal history and only rejecting applications if a person has a pending criminal matter that if found guilty would disqualify them instead of any criminal matter disqualifying a pending application. We also want to update or recommend, excuse me, updating rates for agency vehicles, people who contract with organizations like CMS and DSS to drive some of their students and their clients. Um, number seven, we want to look at changing metered vehicles at the airport. Number eight, upping the vehicle age limit from 10 years to 15 years. Again, if that recommendation is taken and vehicles are allowed to stay on the road longer for PBH, they would still be subject to the safety and inspections to make sure that they were functioning in a way that is safe for the driver and the client. Roof lighting is number nine. The roof lighting recommendation relates to not just having metered vehicles have lighting on the roof, but to allow them to have the sort of LED lights in the front windshield in addition to lighting on the roof designating that they are a taxi cab of sorts. Um, some other recommendations that were not part of the August 2024 letter, but we recommend the city instituting black car and limo stands in Uptown. And that could be done sort of with the already existing taxi stands just to allow black cars and limos to go there instead of creating space for multiple types of limo stands. We did not recommend limo stands at the airport. There is a process by which black cars and limos can sort of rent a parking spot to stay there and wait for their fair to come out of the airport. Then they can circle to the front. But instead of changing that process at the airport, as we know, it's ingress and egress at the airport is not easy and to add another area of traffic where vehicles would be stopped and waiting might not be the best practice for the airport in that area. Number 11, we also recommend adding a black car and limo section to the ordinance. We recognize that this would be sort of a longer undertaking because we wouldn't be revising an existing section. We will be creating a section that truly addresses the needs of that part of the industry because black cars and limos are unique from metered vehicles like taxi cabs. And then lastly, the city attorney's office recommends moving forward with incremental billing for black cars and limos. Right now, black cars and limos must bill by the hour and they are required to bill a minimum 1 hour. Even if the fair or was taking someone on a twob block drive that took less than 10 minutes, they still have to charge for the full hour. And so the city attorney's office recommends looking at increments maybe in the around 15 minutes. So, bill by the quarter of the hour um as the minimum for our black cars and limos. I wanted to also discuss because this has come up a lot in from our stakeholders and even questions from this committee about fairs. Um again emphasizing the incremental billing for black cars and limo being recommended because you know it it helps the business and it helps the consumer to have a shorter billing phase. you know, it's not necessarily fair to either side with someone having to bill a full hour that might discourage a company from booking a short ride. But likewise, from the consumer side, it seems a bit fair to have someone pay for the actual time that they are there and bill it in a sort of shorter increment. Um, as it relates to universal upfront pricing, we have looked into this as it relates to metered vehicles and it is still not recommended by the city attorney's office to do incre excuse me to do upfront pricing for passenger vehicle for higher vehicles. Um, to be quite honest, it would eliminate the need for a lot of the need for the passenger vehicle for higher ordinance and it would eliminate the need for a meter. The meter calculates the fair based on time and distance. And as we know in a traditional cab, you see the meter running and it could be a short ride, but if it takes a longer time, the meter still runs. And so if we were to do upfront pricing, what that looks like is I hail a cab or I call a tab a cab company, they calculate where I need to go and tell me, okay, that will be $20. But obviously we know with traffic and different times of rush hour that price might need to change but it wouldn't require a meter if we did upfront pricing. Also it creates a high probability of disparities or potential discrimination in fair setting. um you know different people might be charged different rates going to a similar destination and it and it leaves open the at least appearance of even if not an intentional act of discriminating against people who might be in some sort of protected class. Um lastly it adds to a level of public safety concerns. I can imagine that um if there is a fair dispute that might escalate between a business owner and a client if the meter shows a lower or a higher price than the agreed upon fair. If we agree that my fair is $20, but when we arrive the meter, which has to run for metered vehicles, the meter says $13. You can imagine situations where a client will say, "Well, I want to pay the 13 regardless of the $20 we agreed to." And on its face, that certainly is a civil issue. It's sort of an oral contract of I will take you from point A to point B for this amount of money. It's a sort of oral contract on the spot. However, if there are disagreements, arguments, disorderly conduct or assaults, then that changes the sort of playing field and now we have moved from a civil dispute to a public safety and potentional a potential criminal matter. And so, we don't want to have all of these sorts of potentials for liability or additional public safety issues would arise from universal upfront pricing. And that's why it remains the city attorney's office recommendation to not proceed in that matter. Additionally, when we previously discussed flat rate pricing from the airport, we believe if that is a direction that the city would want to go in, we would need some more research and development on that. Charlotte, as we know, is I think now the 14th largest city in the United States. there is rush hour traffic and calculating sort of flat rates to other destination points in the city to and from the airport could be difficult. I think we have that flat rate pricing to uptown because uptown is very easy to delineate around the inside of the 277 inner loop and the outside of the inner loop is not uptown. But if you think about flat rate pricing to the university city area, um that's a larger geographic area and what points within that within that area of town would be considered part of the flat rate and we'd have to do a lot of mapping and redlinining and those sorts of things. So we we think if that is something that the committee or the larger council wants to explore, we would need to do some more re research and development on the map to figure out how that could look and also how it could look depending on days of the week and um time of day. And so I just wanted to do a deeper dive specifically into the fairs as I know incremental billing, upfront pricing, and flat rate at the airport were major topics of discussion. Um, again, the goals of these recommendations are to adjust our local ordinance to industry changes and the availability of ride share. We want people to come to Charlotte. Tourism, just like we talked about, street vending is can can set a sort of stage when you come to a new city and you are navigating how to get around. But we still want to not only balance small businesses versus versus larger business, but also consumer safety and service quality are still very important aspects that the city has to think about when we are looking at making these changes. We want to make sure that we improve the experience not only for our citizens or folks who are acting in tourism in this city but also for the drivers and the companies to make sure that we are balancing all the needs of everyone who has a stake in transportation in this city. And we also want to make sure we have a more efficient and compliant internal process to make sure that whatever changes are made to our PVH ordinance help with efficiency and we get drivers on the road so that they can make money for their small businesses, but also so they they can support traffic and tourism in our city. And so as far as next step goes, um if committee were to decide today to send this to full council, we would certainly start to prepare for that um and draft recommended ordinance changes to be presented at a future council meeting. So thank you all and I am ready for any questions um that the committee may have for me at this time. >> Thank you, Attorney Battle. And just for your reference, committee, this this green page highlights the actual current ordinance in the proposed changes that we've been discussing over the last couple of months. Um I will open it up for questions and say that the listening session that we had um with um the public was well attended. We had a lot of attendees um that conveyed their perspectives and um their passions on this topic. So again, I thank the community for leaning in yet again for another round of public discourse. I will open it up for discussion. I'm >> ready. >> Okay, Mr. >> Uh so I appreciate the work that is being done. I want to note up front if you look at the slide of PH recommendations I would like to add the word fairness to that. Uh I think what this is really about is another claim to without prejudice to where I'm coming out on the recommendations but we need to be concerned about the fact that the regulatory environment is uneven. uh and so the state regulates certain companies and we are not authorized to intervene there. So our actions create disparities. Just want to note that at the same time at the same time um we can't abandon our commitment to safety to a good customer experience and all the qualities that we look for from this small segment. uh and I I heard you uh before gentlemen. So a tiny percentage of in fact of the rides in Charlotte are actually subject to these regulations because by now the uh the TNC portion has taken over almost the whole market. Uh a couple of the thing that most of these I I believe um are constructive. So I I wouldn't want to get into detail on a point by point but particularly the pricing thing uh in the case of upfront pricing uh somebody hails a cab um and says I want to go to such and such where does the price that they get would get a quote come from? Is it the driver? Do they have to talk to their dispatcher? And uh uh how does that work? I think that's part of why the city attorney's office did not recommend moving forward with that because I believe it will be a different process by company. Um I believe the city might be able to set sort of minimum pricing, but when you think about time and distance, it would be set those fairs by each company and they would probably have their own policies of whether or not an individual driver could set a fair or whether or not they needed to call dispatch. So there's certainly a kind of arbitrariness there which leaves open the possibility in some instances of abuse and I want to be clear it's not fair to the industry to suggest that we expect widespread but the point is you don't have any barriers against bad behaviors. Uh the thing about the TNC's is you call in on your app and a computer looks at the whereabouts of the cars and does a whole bunch of analysis and then offers the price to the driver. So that's a kind of market clearing function. It's a little bit the way the stock market works. You put in an order and the computer matches your order with somebody else or uh airfares. You know, people get upset about airfares, but a lot of that is the airlines performing a market clearing function. So there's a certain objectivity there. Whereas uh when it comes to uh uh the existing uh infrastructure on the cabs, uh I'm not confident. And I can say from experience in New York uh you experience all kinds of things, right? And I don't want um visitors arrive at the airport, especially from overseas saying they have no idea, right? So they might be vulnerable and uh we need to project to them kind of control over this and that they can count on a certain objectivity and that they're not going to get a different deal from anybody else. Uh so uh I'm in alignment with your recommendation on that one. Um and then the flat rate that does exist in a lot of places like you go certain places and they say this is the price to go here or this is the price to go there. Uh I always wondered about that because unless the the flat rate is differentiated according to times of day and so on like there's a schedule uh what you end up with is uh hightra situations high demand situations where maybe there there's a disincentive for the drivers to go where they're needed because they won't get paid adequately for the trip. Uh so uh I would I would need to study that one a little more carefully. And then on the uh finally on the incremental pricing I think that's a great idea. I mean basically it just makes that market a little more efficient so that you don't have a barrier on a short ride of a 60 or $80 whatever it is full hour cost. Uh and as you know that benefits everybody. So on the whole uh I am in support of your recommendation. Um, I'm interested to hear what my colleagues think before I reach a final conclusion, but it looks to me like you've done a good job and I appreciate it. >> Thank you, sir. And if I may also add, I guess another consideration for the universal upfront pricing could be the city's development of an app that did that sort of market clearing function. But then I also think the ride share apps are are doing that. And as we know, you know, creating an app takes a bit of money and and and maintenance and all of that. So that would be an option where the city want to go in that direction. But I I think then that makes the city almost as if it were to be operating its own TNC with its own app that would set prices. >> Frank comment. So uh one thing that makes the TNC system work is the very high volume of trips. So what you get is in effect an efficient market, right? uh where there are bids you hope and sometimes there aren't but but there's a great depth to that market which suggests that you would arrive at a price that is quote fair. Thank you Mr. Driggs. I will add that it's important to note that the TNC's are regulated under chapter 20 um of the state of North Carolina general statutes and not the PBH. So there's that distinction in this conversation as well. Just to add dimension to your point there. >> Okay. I have Miss Azmeir next. >> Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you for having a public hearing. I know that uh Madame Chairwoman Anderson as well as Mr. Driggs and I uh had an opportunity to hear directly from speakers. Overall, Jessica Battle and her team has done a great job uh ensuring that we there is fairness while ensuring that we keep safety as number one priority. A couple of questions I have for Jessica. Um, I like what you suggested in terms of having an app that could take out that uh discrimination or the uh discrimination piece out, but I know that will take months in order for us to have an app that could potentially do that and address upfront pricing concerns. Uh but I've also noticed that many cities now allow upfront pricing uh while still regulating consumer protections. Uh did you evaluate hybrid models that allow upfront pricing um while maintaining regulatory oversight? So, one of the major differences that kind of affects Charlotte's position in the ability to do upfront pricing is that those other states also don't have a state statute that disallows the municipalities to regulate TNC's. Those municipalities that we researched um were allowed to have sections in their ordinance to regulate TNC. So it created a more true um evening of playing the of of evening the playing field so to speak. And so that's kind of where our research kind of ended there just because the initial state of affairs is different in the creation of the regulations that would level the playing field with upfront pricing on both sides of the industry, the PVH side along with the TNC side. And that was kind of the extent of what we looked at and just the major difference in the state not allowing Charlotte or excuse me not allowing local governments to do those regulations. To answer that question, Miss M as thank you for thanking us for the work. Um I couldn't do this without the help of Mr. Heath and the help of the team at the city attorney's office. We really collaborated amongst each other and our external stakeholders on this. >> Thank you Miss Bar. I think that is very helpful distinction here in terms of um state statutes. I have two questions on airport fair structure because we know airports are where many taxes regulations matter most right. Uh I noticed that presentation notes that there is additional flat rate pricing from the airport that needs further research. Uh given that airports are often the most common point of service for taxis and black cars, do we have a timeline for evaluating whether fair adjustments are needed to remain competitive with right share services because we want to make sure we uh we are not we are we not um we are trying to level the playing field as much as we can within the tools that's given to us by the state. So, we haven't done the research and development yet to determine whether or not in the market the current flat rate is still um fair as you say compared to industry changes. Um but on the larger side of flat rate pricing, if we were to do that sort of evaluation, it's a little bit easier from the CLT to and from Uptown. again given the the clear geographical limit of the 277 interloop versus other areas of the city. But if the city would like to explore that, we certainly would get with research and planning to not only look at other cities and how they do flat rate, but to do a sort of market evaluation of the current flat rate to and from Uptown. >> Uh yes, I think that would be helpful, Mr. Heath and Miss Battle. uh because many speakers had raised concerns about trying to compete with Uber and Lyft and uh some of these are our small business owners. Um also there were two concerns that were raised at the hearing. One was around transparency, right? Some drivers expressed concerns about permitting and renewal delays. So I know that we are modernizing the ordinance. Uh are there opportunities to streamline the application process? The small operators are not waiting months for permits. Yes. So recently, as in November of 2025, um passenger vehicle for hire, which is housed at CNPD, was supervised by a sworn or police chain of command. In November, that chain of command switched to the assigned attorneys at CNPD. And so that unit sort of reports into the police attorney's team, although it's still not a part of the actual city attorney's office. Part of my review and now managing that team is looking at the processes to make them more transparent, to make them more efficient. Right now I am in the process of sort of auditing the PVH processes to create checklists and checklists that would be public facing so that stakeholders and companies would know when I'm applying for my permit or applying for my renewal this is exactly what will be expected of me so that they can turn in the appropriate documents. Um, additionally, we want we have instituted a sort of process where we will mail off the packets to the state more frequently. Um, to mail those off on a weekly basis opposed to waiting until we have enough permitting applications to send a big batch to the state for criminal record approval, but to send those more frequently. And I say that as a segue that a lot of the delay sometimes comes from the criminal background check. The background check per the law has to be performed by the state bureau or of investigation and or they may form it out to a third-party background checking company, but we cannot do those background checks inhouse at CPD. So once we send those background checks off, that often creates a delay until we get those criminal histories back from the state. But uh as it relates to the processes at PBH, at CMPD, we are currently evaluating that and definitely making things more transparent and making things more efficient as well when we are making sure that all of those actions comply with our ordinance as drafted and any changes that could come. >> That that's very helpful, Miss Battle. And lastly, I want to uh understand enforcement side of things because I remember one of the speakers at the hearing mentioned about illegal behavior happening. There were cash rights that were being offered. There were fishing going on for rights and I think that is so important for public safety. So, if you could just elaborate on what the enforcement looks like and that um we want to make sure we support our small business operators who are following the process and um making sure that we are doing everything we can to keep our uh visitors as well as well as our residents safe. As far as some of the enforcement actions that have been brought to my attention, some of it relates to the perception of what's going on with black cars. Um, black cars, which often have the Z tags on their license plate, um, you know, sometimes operate in the black car limo realm, but other times operate as a TNC. And some of the com concerns that my team has heard has related to complaints about compliance with the PVH ordinance of a vehicle that has a Z tag, which on its face is a black car under the passenger vehicle for higher ordinance. However, there might be times where that vehicle is not operating as PVH, but is actually operating as a TNC and would have different um state side regulations for the TNC. So, it's kind of a place where there is an intersecting of the PVH side and the TNC as it relates to enforcement on those particular ZTAG black car vehicles. Um, it's also my understanding as I'm still getting to know the team and getting to know their work that generally speaking, they would do enforcement on Fridays, different times of day, whether it be morning, afternoon, or into the evening where they would go out to areas, for example, like the airport to ensure that those vehicles were in compliance. It's my understanding that there has been some time since there's been an enforcement action. um one um staffing and vehicle um availability is they don't want they can't drive their personal vehicles to do these enforcement action. They would need to take a city vehicle and also they don't have authority to pull someone over. So when PBH does enforcement actions, they had need to wait until a vehicle is stopped and then they can approach that driver and check on enforcement and and what's going on in that situation, but can't pull someone over. But they do enforcement action when the staffing um and vehicle availability allows. But again, they can't pull people over like police. So, it's sort of going to the airport or other hotspots where you think vehicles are, wait until they stop, and then approach the driver to discuss any compliance concerns for enforcement. >> That Thank you for sharing that insight. So I guess what would prevent them from collaborating with CMPD on enforcement side of things because this is a matter of public safety. I think that's something we certainly can explore. Um it's my understanding that sometimes CMPD has sworn officers have worked in tandem with PBH because as you can imagine Mr. Jones kind of alluded to it. When you take a basketball court, no one's there to argue back and forth with you when you take the basketball court. But with PVH enforcement, there are people involved and things could escalate. So, yes, sometimes CMPD is involved in that. But because our PVH violations are civil, again, it's a little bit different than pulling someone over for a criminal violation of sorts. But there there is more collaboration we could look into to have CMPD available to assist with enforcement. And I will certainly note that down, Miss Amira. Yes, that would be great if you could have a follow-up report because what I see but if there are participants or if there are bad actors out there that is just fishing for cash rights and really uh that might not offer the safe environment and if you're not enforcing it uh that really puts those operators who are following all the rules and all the protocols having to go through permitting process and so on at disadvantage. age. So I think it uh not just from the safety perspective but also from the fairness perspective. I think there needs to be a stricter enforcement uh of our PBH ordinance uh while collaborating with CMPD. But I really appreciate your work, Miss Battle, on this and thank you. >> Thank you. >> That's all I have. Okay. >> Thank you, Miss Ashmir. I have Miss Owens. >> Yes. Thank you. I um I just had a very quick question and I I legitimately do not know the answer to this. I've read some about the Whimo vehicles that we've had come to Charlotte. Are they regulated as TNC's or PVH or are they some other category? I have done some initial research into that and from what I've seen so far, they are TNC vehicles. They are hailed similarly through an app that would then have them show up at a a location. Um, I can say because it's it's just coming to Charlotte, I haven't completed all the research to look at to the state regulations on non-driver operated vehicles, but on a surface level, they are treated as TNC's. >> Just if I can can just one other question. So, so given that and and given some of the materials that we got, I I agree wholeheartedly with a number of the comments that were made by my colleague D, Mr. Driggs. I um I just I land a little bit differently with a little bit more sympathy to this concept of of at least having the optionality to do upfront pricing because I feel like what I understand of the numbers we are talking about a very small percentage of drivers who are being impacted with a disproportionately heavy regulatory environment at a time that is almost choking them out of being able to compete. And so I appreciate so many of the things that we're doing to make that playing field a bit more level, but this final element of optionality around upfront pricing seems to me to be a hurdle that I'd be willing to to understand more about. Um I I hear what you're saying. I I don't think that we want to be in the app creation business and I don't think that industry wants to wait for us to do that. But to look to them for some ideation around whether they're using existing apps or what they're able to do, I think is something I would really like to understand better before I feel like I could make an informed decision on that particular element. But I do appreciate the guidance on the rest of this. And um you know, it's it's just it's it's tough out there. >> Thank you. >> I have Mr. Dicks for a follow-up comment. >> Thank you. um the app creation. I just want to warn you that that's not a little uh spreadsheet, right? That's big. So maybe we could contract with somebody like a TNC to see whether some of that IP can be made available, but uh I warn you against trying to invent that. It's complicated. Uh the other question I had was related to Rex. It sort of caught my attention here that vehicle may be ordered out of service and shall be repaired before returning. you know, after a wreck, there are two issues. One of them is is the vehicle safely operable, and the other is what does it look like? So, uh, in that ordinance, if somebody has a a crushed fender, but not affecting the operability of the vehicle at all, do they have to go to the body shop or or uh how does this apply in that case? Because it's not a safety issue, right? It's totally operable, doesn't look good. What about that? So, it's my understanding that there is a level of inspection um kind of similar to the current age limit on vehicles. There's the aesthetic side, but also the public safety side, but that it is not doesn't necessitate that a a dented fender would keep that vehicle out of service for an extended amount of time. I think that's part of that evaluation process and seeing the vehicle after the wreck to make sure it is drivable and in a safe condition, but that doesn't necessitate, is my current understanding that it will be out until something like a fender bender were repaired. >> So, this really relates only to the safe operability of the vehicle. Yes. And then, but we do have in general a standard uh as to the appearance of the vehicle, but that's not in invoked by this. >> Yes. Correct. Okay. Yes. >> Thank you. >> Okay. I believe we've had uh Mr. Heath, do you want to make any comments? >> No. Thank you for asking. No. >> Thank you. Um before we move to a a potential motion, I just want to thank Attorney Battle for all the work that she's she and her team have done on this particular topic. This was one of the overflow topics from 2025 and I know you did a great deal of work last year and as we had conversations moving into this year about this um committee I wanted to make sure that you know these topics don't linger or die in committee that the committee can have robust discourse around these topics and then we can elevate when ready to up to a broader council discuss discussion and having heard my colleagues comments um on this particular topic today I believe we are ready to advance but we'll see how the vote goes so is there a motion Mr. So moved. And Madam Chair, I just want to emphasize I'm making the motion with the understanding that if it didn't pass today, that doesn't kill it or do anything. It just means we're not ready yet to move forward. But I do make the motion that we adopt the recommendations of the city attorney. >> All right. I have a motion and second to adopt the recommendations of our city of of attorney battle uh to advance to larger council. Any comment hearing? None. All in favor raise hands. One, two, three, four. Uh, any opposed? Miss Ashir, what say ye? >> I did raise my hand. >> Okay. >> I don't know if you can see me. >> I can't see. I can't see. Not on camera. Thanks. >> Okay, that is uh that is unanimous. Thank you. Thank you for this. With this um we have cleared the slate from our overflow. um referrals from the mayor and at at the next meeting in our April meeting we will begin with a fresh slate of referrals and get into some new deliberation and work around safety. Uh thank everyone for all the work and leaning in. And with that is there a motion to adjurnn? >> Second. >> All right. All in favor go home or get some food and get ready for the next one. What time is yours? Heat. Heat. Hey everybody, hey Hey hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Nat. Heat. Heat. Hello. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey I'm Fore heat. Heat. Heat. Hallelujah. Are you ready? Here we go. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Down. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Malcolm Graham. I'm chairman of the uh the budget governance and intergovernmental relations committee. I would like to welcome you to the Thursday, March 5th meeting. Uh we are ready to go with a a two-point agenda. Um before we get started, let's make sure that we can identify who's in the room with us. We'll start to my far left. And if you can tell us your name and who you're with, I'm Charlotte Water. >> Hello, I'm Michael with Charlotte Water. >> Jamie Thompson, Storm Water. >> Joseph Lachler, Charlotte Water. >> Carolyn Ross, Charlotte Water. Carl Wilson, Charlotte Water. >> Jonathan Gilmore, Charlotte Waterman, my far right. >> Matt Hasset, city finance. >> Sean Coffman, Charlotte Water. >> Thomas Power, city attorney's office, assign the Charlotte water and storm water. >> Dan Peterson, planning. >> David Zur with Charlotte Water. >> Janelle Goodrich, University City Partners. Dan Grass, city of Charlotte media relations. >> Keith Sty, University City Partners. And we'll start off at the das to my far left. And she brought everybody with her today. >> Angela Charles, Charlotte Water. >> Mike Davis, Stormwater Services. >> Andrea Leslie Bite, city attorney. >> Sean Heat, city manager's office. >> Joy Mayo representing district three. Kimberly Owens representing district 6. Member of the committee. >> Marine Harris, strategy and budget. Cherry Smith, Strategy and Budget. Eddie Gonzalez, Strategy and Budget. >> And those who are visiting with us virtually, could you please introduce yourself? >> Good afternoon. Dimple Ashra, committee member. >> Okay. So, today we have two topics on our agenda. First, as our normal practice during budget season, we receive a booklet budget overlook pre preview from our enterprise funds. Today, Angela Charles and Mike Davis will preview the fiscal year 27 budgets for Charlotte Water and Stonewater. Next month, we will receive a similar presentation from aviation and cats. Uh, second, we will receive an update from University City Partners regarding the MSD related request referencing our February 23rd budget workshop materials. And before we get started, I'll pivot to U. City Manager Heath and he can um kick us off. Thank you, Chair Graham, for framing the meeting. And I think in the interest of time, we can go straight to Angel and Teen for the budget preview. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, good afternoon, Chairman Graham, Mayor Pro Tim, and other members of council on this committee. I am Angela Charles, director of Charlotte Water, and I I am honored and we are honored uh to give an update on the water and wastewater fund and the storm water fund. In front of you, you have some documents. You have the storm water annual report and a one pager that represents the budget uh upcoming budget request. You also have the Charlotte water which is the other enterprise fund uh in one water and you have the annual report and also budget one pager. Also we have before you uh kombucha which is called crown bua made from recycled water in collaboration with a local brewery Lenny Boys. It is a fermented tea slightly tart and vinegary lightly carbonated containing probiotics. It is a health oriented alternative uh to soda. And so >> and so we we you know this is all a part of being uh innovated and I did not want to be accused of getting our council members uh intoxicated with uh re with >> with Renew Brew, but we do have two cans of Renew Brew back over here. um if anyone would like to uh taste um renewable. So, I just thought I'd put that out there uh for you. So, uh thanks for your support. So, we're going to we have a theme this year and it is one water, one source, and one community. And so, if you will cue up uh the video uh for us Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Thank you. I just love that video because it really exemplifies the utility, the great work of our folks. And we are one of the best in the nation. We lead out there on the edge. And by the way, we are the first utility in the nation to go in partnership to create kombucha. If you go in AI and you put who is the who was the very first utility in the nation, Charlotte Water comes up. We are clearly the only one in the nation getting out there to talk about water resources and to expose our community to recycled water. Okay. Our presentation will begin with Mike is going to talk about all the great work that our storm water folks are doing and then I will follow up with the water and wastewater fund. >> Welcome Mike. Thank you. I think we're just getting it loaded up. Hey, it should look like this. Just go. Yeah. Okay. Maybe slide two. You can go ahead and run it. Maybe it starts there. Yep. Perfect. >> All right. Well, uh, good afternoon. Um, I'm here to present storm water services budget. Um, looks like y'all might be finding your way in the packets. So here on behalf of stormwater services um you're looking at the roughly 250 so folks of stormwater services who are committed to the mission you see there and committed to exceptional service every day. Um it's my privilege just to come here and talk to you about the great work that they're doing. Um I only have five slides to present to you and so many of you are very familiar with our work. A couple of you maybe less so and we have an opportunity coming up Monday to spend a little time going deeper on what storm water services does. Um, but this is kind of set up to give you some idea of where we've been, what we do, where we're going with the FY27 budget, but really with the idea of discussion in mind. And so if you find there are things that interest you, um, we can unpack them as much as you want. Um, but hopefully what we're uh, putting in front of you gives you pretty good sense of again where we've been, where we're going. So, um, starting out with just what we do. Um you the mission is written there before you, but what it really comes down to is we're dealing with uh infrastructure and the environment. It is about gray infrastructure and green infrastructure. Um and we deal in rain. Charlotte gets about 43 inches of rain per year on average. We're a rainy city. Um some people use as a as a frame of reference Seattle. It's rainier here than it is in Seattle. We just tend to get it in big bursts, which from an infrastructure standpoint is actually a really hard thing to do because you're having to size infrastructure for really big events oftentimes. Um, our challenges uh really mostly have to do with aging infrastructure. A lot of what's in the ground has been there for a long time and it will reach its natural end of life and we've got to stay on top of maintaining that infrastructure. Um and then on the water quality side, uh similarly, a lot of what we need to be doing as we think about operating a storm water utility, uh is returning water, um that that that rains here in Charlotte and ultimately is traveling to the Rocky River or the Kataba River basins. We want it to return there as clean as it can be. And there's a lot of harms to undo in our work in terms of how our community developed before we ever had a surface water quality program. And we do that work through capital investments and programmatic things. Um we do it because it's the right thing to do. We also do it because we are required to as all cities are under the federal clean water act. Um we consider ourselves leaders in that space. So um I used this slide last year. I think context helps a lot for understanding where we're going. Um and it helps us again this year. And that is to kind of recognize that storm water services as a utility hasn't been around for that long. If you go back to 1993, that's when it was first created and that's when we started to take on the responsibility of infrastructure that had been built over decades. Um, and in many cases, not knowing what we had taken on. I'll mention that in 2007 was the first time we had development regulations the purpose for which were intended to mitigate for those environmental impacts and some of the flooding impacts of new development. So that another way to say that is everything that came before 2007 was kind of unmititigated. Um and so we're at a much better place. But we think of this as kind of a reactive era. And the other thing to know about it was we operated the utility in a manner where people called us and they said, "I think there's a problem having to do with storm water." And we would say, "Thank you for letting us know about it. We're going to put you on a list and we're going to try to get to it more or less in the order in which we're notified about it." And what we learned over time was that is not a sustainable practice. It was a great way to get out of the gate and start making a lot of investments, but ultimately unsustainable. So, some of what was going on be beginning around in 2016 is when we might think of some change management like era really starting to to take root. And the idea was we need to have a better understanding of what's going on in our system. And that starts with having pipe video trucks, which is the the when we first bought one one was in 2016. and and we've sort of grown from there of having people and technology help us better understand this system that we've inherited. The other thing I'll flag from this sort of change management era is that 20 to 24 timeline. I mentioned that that reactive era was unsustainable. And what I meant was we were taking on more things and promises and commitments than we were really resourced to be able to deliver on. And so by 2020, the expectation that emerged from from city both in the city manager's office and city council was we want to deal with this backlog that has emerged. And at the time it was 1,690 projects. So we wanted to get rid of that backlog in order to be on better footing going forward. And we did it. We gave ourselves five years to get that done. That was the commitment. And last year we kind of took our victory lap. We got that done. And that's an achievement for city council uh in terms of having backed that plan with the resources to get that work done. Where that now puts us is this proactive era. And it is about using data. It's about using what we expect will happen with assets that could fail and trying to do the right kinds of maintenance and construction to prevent that from happening. So that's the context in which we bring to you uh our 20 FY2027 budget. Um, so this is the third slide and it's just to try to tell you what's in this budget and maybe a helpful frame of reference is just to understand the size and rough allocation of it. So it's proposed as a $137 million budget and that splits roughly 2/3 one-third between operating the utility with things that could be like maintenance and operations in the field versus twothirds which is capital investment and that is really the heavy construction work of replacing and in some cases upsizing infrastructure. Where does it go? Um kind of three uh avenues that this money uh really goes towards that track with how I talked about our mission. Some of it's in our our drainage system, some of it's in protecting our streams, and some of it's in supporting other city initiatives that we need to be a part of. And so there's not onetoone relationships here. Um, but very broadly, aging infrastructure is a really big driver of how we need to allocate the capital dollars that we have, the continuous infrastructure assessment, of course, dealing with flooding. I'm going to talk on the next slide about the mitigation of development impacts in a little more detail, but stream restoration work. Um, I do want to uplift and spotlight our work with the county. Um, since the formation of storm water services, which is a joint city county utility, we've had a really great partnership. So, I want folks uh listening to this to know that that's the case and and we have really clear lines of responsibility of how we do this work together, but it's in our budget that we do some things that they've got some expertise that help our work. Um, and there's some other things I won't, you know, fully detail here, but did want to highlight that I know it's of great importance and just especially coming out of the retreat, thinking about the city's mobility plan, of course, continued investment in corridors of opportunity. All of that infrastructure requires drainage infrastructure to accompany it. So in some cases it's just hey, you know, you don't want to dig up something more than once. Let's plan it together, get in there one time and and take those leverage those opportunities to work together. We're already on those teams uh working across departments. All right. Uh this slide is really dedicated to thinking about our land development regulations and there's a little bit of a story to tell and that is to say that most of Charlotte's growth happened in kind of concentric rings, right? Like we started with an urban core and we grew outward and a lot of that was done in what you might think of as large format development, big subdivisions, big commercial projects and our regulations were very effective for that era of development. In the last 10 years or so, that format started to change a little bit and and we're starting to see a lot more infield development. Um, tearing down of old, building of new, and our regulations were not really set up for that. And and we lived with that for a few years, but the UDO got us much better positioned to deal with the impacts of u especially infield development regulation, but there is still more work to be done. Um, what I also want to, I guess, make sure folks know that we know is that this is always in balance with other city goals. We care about economic development. We care about the predictability of development regulations. We care about how the the costs of these regulations impact things like affordable housing. So, all those things are are meant to be uh in balance with one another. And we do expect in the coming year council will be seeing some things uh where we're intending to advance some things around our development ordinances. And then lastly is just kind of how do we approach uh putting the financial resources behind what we do. And one thing to know is that we work from a 10-year rolling financial plan. And we do that in part to um be in in good shape with uh rating agencies who review and and assess the condition of our debt. Uh it's just a good practice, but it helps us know what do we think we're going to be spending, especially in the capital frontier in the years to come. And then we're always adjusting it. Um but we do that in concert with the finance department and budget who help us make sure we're following the best city practices so that we can sustain the AAA ratings that we do have. Um and then philosophically the thought is we think the best practice is one where you use steady or sustained the fact that our system continues to grow and age and we do need some extra capacity. Um and then lastly also a little bit on the philosophical front is sometimes you can solve things financially by taking on more debt and we have strategically said we want to preserve as much of that debt capacity as we can into the future so that future leaders can have more wiggle room as they may need to solve future problems. And so what you then what falls out of that and you can see kind of our history of increases and where we think we're headed in 2027. I'll tell you that um 4% is probably a good general target for us in a given year. And so when you look at years 24 through 26 and note that those are a little bit higher. Um we can account for why those differences exist. And what was happening over those few years is the city was making the choice to get storm water really fully reliant on the storm water fee as opposed to mixing it with general fund, which is a great long-term place for us to be, but it required offsetting some of those revenues uh with with slightly higher fees. That that process is now done. And so as we think to 2027, we we're just putting that sort of in the bracket of four to four and a half. And I'll just say that a lot can change between now and when the city manager ultimately brings forward his recommendation to you for the full city budget. Um and so we just like to leave that in his court to, you know, figure out where that's going to land. And and it may not, you know, it's of course his discretion. Um and then just lastly, in terms of a sense of scale, um the storm water fee compared to most other fees tends to be a little bit smaller. Um so it's helpful sometimes to think about it in terms of actual impact. So, if we were to land at the high end of that bracket, a 4 and a.5% increase, that would be equivalent to 72 cents or less uh per month for 90% of single family uh rate payers. Um so, I know that was a lot um but that's kind of where we've been and where we're going. >> Well, thank you for the presentation and I open it up for questions from the committee. Any questions? Uh Miss Ellens, >> thank you. I appreciate the presentation and really must say that of the things that I've done since I've been new to council. One of the best uses of my time was the day that you spent in in our company explaining to us so many of the good things that Charlotte Water does. And so it was it's really it's it's it's in my mind front of mind all the questions we were able to ask and that interaction was just so productive. So thank you. Um, one thing that I do want to question though, and I'm I'm asking you a little bit for a crystal ball on this, but what kind of databased assumptions are you making about the frequency of severe weather events? Well, I'm assuming you're tracking those very closely and are appreciative that we've just had, you know, our whole schedule was upended, of course, this week by the fact that we had an ice storm. Um, I I've learned a new term. Uh, what was it? Um, soil heave. I've learned that term. Is that right? Is that the right term? Yes. So the the contraction and the you know when when the weather changes rapidly um you know that you do have some attendant issues that come up with those pipes. So just very high level what what are you throwing out into the universe is what you're seeing as we approach the 2030s. >> Um this will be where try a PowerPoint trick. Can you type two enter? We'll see if it matches up. It did not. I had a slide to kind of talk about this. Um, >> blew it. That's good. >> It's okay. We can do it without it. Um, it's a great question. We are trying to deal with infrastructure for today's conditions obviously, but we are looking ahead to what we think climate may deal us in the future. And so um in Charlotte we have an extremely robust set of um data collection through what's called the flood information notification system or fins. Um and that has been giving us data measured continuously for decades now. We participate in a national study through the national oceanic and atmospheric administration to use that data along with other communities to try to do long-term modeling for climate science. And so, um, Noah, we don't want to be the ones trying to predict the future. We're happy to play in that space and give them good data that we do have. And what Noah is doing is trying to come up with what they call an atlas that will tell communities, not just Charlotte, what we should be designing for. We expect, we've been told for the last couple years, it's coming any day, but we're within a year of getting updated climate science projections that will be used to help size infrastructure for things like a 10-year storm, a 50-year storm, because those conditions do change over time. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. That's all I have. >> Uh, Mayor Pro, >> thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, great presentation, staff. Uh, if you can go to the slide, I guess it's slide eight. There you go. I've uh and I'll do it again this year. I always have raised my hand for a storm water fee increase. And I I always remind the citizens why when they hear the word tax or fee, they get upset. Uh I just remind them of Flint, Michigan. >> And you know what happened to Flint, Michigan and they whole water system. We do not want to be on CNN become another Flint, Michigan. So, um, Miss Charles always applaud you for being proactive. >> Absolutely, >> Mike, for all your customer service is always very good. We call in, we have a problem. You guys are Johnny on the spot. So, I want to thank you for your customer service. But I think this is important to our citizens that when they turn on their water faucet, they have confidence that good, clean water, uh, they will receive from the city of Charlotte. One question Mike I will uh I will ask you not today but it help it will help us if we do the budget conversation just like you took the 4.5 increase equivalent can you do that for the 6.65 you see how you got storm water fee and the 4 >> you're talking about do it for prior years >> no I thought the 6.65 65. >> That's already happened. That was last year. >> That was That's already approved. >> Okay. So, this year is going to be Oh, >> we're predicting that'll be in the four to four and a half. >> That's even better. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >> Uh, council memb. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A great presentation. So, to Mr. Mitchell's point, I think the higher tax, well, the higher fee that difficult time has passed. I remember when Mr. Davis had proposed going from being reactive to proactive that was quite a journey and we've come a long way. So thank you so much for your leadership on this Mr. Davis um Miss Desai and the entire team and I I also appreciate the focus on our aging infrastructure and especially with infill developments. Uh also it's great to hear that the UDO has helped and um speaking of the UDO I know we have seen some regulations that have come up at the state level. Uh is there anything that we should be concerned about uh with this new regulations that are being uh discussed? >> Thank you for the question. Um I will say uh storm water regulations are never popular and they are frequently a target of people who are interested in reducing the cost for development. Um and so in Charlotte we do have good regulations that help us mitigate most but not all things. One tool that was taken away from us in 2018 was the ability to retrofit essentially if someone redevelops the ability to say we now want to sort of uh introduce the kinds of controls that could mitigate for past harms. We no no city in the state can do that anymore and that has set our program back a bit. So, in a way, that's water under the bridge. But we are always on the lookout for new legislation that seeks to essentially take the cost of storm water mitigation and transfer it to rateayers because if it's not done at the time of development, it's something we've got to come in behind with a project and pay for in a different way. So, as of right now, there's not anything specific. Um, but it's something we always keep a lookout for. >> That's good to hear. I mean, we've come a long way. I remember a time when we were discussing a billion dollar backlog and how you have been able to uh really be more proactive because we used to get a lot more constituents requests about um storm water concerns and issues and challenges and I have seen a huge reduction in those requests. So uh kudos to your leadership and crew's leadership on those. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Mr. Mitchell had a quick followup. >> Quick followup. I just want to say thank you to Angela Charles for Thomas Powers and his commitment to the CBI program. And every time uh there's a participation question or issue, it's nice to pick up the phone and someone who said, "I got a solution." So, hats off to Mr. Pile. Is he's here today? >> Yes, sir. >> Yeah, he's over there. >> Oh. Oh, Lord. There you go. Thank Thank you sir. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> All right, >> uh Miss Charles, um quick question. um either or. So, as we grow and develop and we run lines to new homes, um any thoughts about how we're doing in reference to that? We're not running out of water. We're not running out of pipe. We're keeping up with the growth. >> We are as long as we continue to have the support of this council. So, you know, we have 12 folks who do nothing but planning on the water and wastewater side and looking at our system. And so we're pretty good at making projections in terms of growth. The other thing that's happening to us is that we're growing denser. So we already have lines there. It's a little different type of growth in terms of extension. It's like you know how do we have the capacity or upgrade what we have. So, um, you know, staying to our 10-year long-term financial plan, which is based on projections of growth for the region is just very, very important. >> Well, well, I I thank you for your leadership on a wide variety of issues. Um, certainly the the frontline workers who get called at night. Absolutely. >> Uh, when something bursts and they got to go fix it and it's like 20° outside and this stuff. So, I um please send our regards to um to your entire team. >> Sure. Well, absolutely. We have a great team. Very proud of. >> Okay. >> Okay. So, out >> temple, you have one more question, Mr. Asher. >> Mr. Graham, I will wait till this presentation is over from Miss Charles and then I'll ask. >> Okay. Uh, you're up. >> Yeah. Good. Okay. So again, now we're going to talk about the water and wastewater uh fund and um Charlotte Water is the 13th largest uh water and wastewater utility in the country. And so our vision is to continue to be the leading utility in the country recognized for excellence dedicated to our people, community, region, and environment. Next slide. I love this map because I think it's very um helpful for our council to see where the water goes. So this is our drinking water. Everything that you see in blue and also what is shaded in black is where our drinking water goes. So we again are regional utility serving 14 jurisdictions uh in our uh region. water supply again from the Kataba River, from Lake Norman and Mount Allen. We have three water treatment plants. We have over 9300 miles of pipeline. We've got uh six wastewater treatment plants, five major, one minor. And then uh we will complete this year the largest project in the history of the utility and that's the Stow regional uh water resource recovery facility that you saw in the video. We're very very uh proud of that and it's going to not only serve western Meckllinburgg County but also uh Mount Holly and Belmont and Gaston uh county. So, it's a collaborative relationship. Uh, there the mayor of Denver at your retreat said that something about successful cities are connected. He talked about connectedness. And so, if you really look at what Charlotte Water does and how we are connected, we are demonstrating that and and and that certainly helps uh with the success of the utility. This was uh also mentioned in the video. We are the silent economic driver uh in the in our region. And for every 1 million spent, that's 22 million in economic growth. And if you look at the six county region, um 51.4 billion dollar in economic impact was contributed uh to by Charlotte Water. We help facilitate that. We have a consultant that come in every other year and this was our idea because we really need to start quantifying the value that the utility brings to the region. And so it's it's just phenomenal. 10 jobs created for every 1 million spent. But we have a fiveyear 2.5 billion that's a B billion dollar capital program. So look at the number of jobs that are created and supported uh by Charlotte Water and uh we need to do more to tell the story about this regional utility uh training and apprenticeships and internships. Uh Mayor Pro Tim just gave us a a shout out um on our programs. Um, since FY21, 103 individuals have come through our apprenticeship program in the water and wastewater industry. We are known to be industry leaders in apprenticeships, internships, and co-ops. Carolyn Ross is in here and uh she's trying to leave us, but um she is really responsible. Carolyn, raise your hand. She's really uh she's the backbone of all of this great work we're doing in the community um supporting the strategic priority of our council. At the bottom of you see our certifications we are ISO 14,0001 ISO 901 partnership for safe water program and NEAB certified in the lab. What that means is is that we have external auditors to come into our organization and look at our processes, look at our SOPs. We have folks who are used to looking at private sector industries coming into Charlotte water to look at what we are doing to make sure we're being as efficient as we can be. There's always room for improvement, but we're very very proud, especially with those ISO certifications to have certifications that you see with private companies um out in the stratosphere. So, we think that's great. Our proposed budget is 682.6 million. That is our operating budget. Our proposed capital investment program is 2.57 billion fiveyear. And if you look at our program, it what does it represent? Investment in communities, environmental enhancements, regulatory requirements. We are heavily heavily regulated on the state and federal uh level. uh rehabilitation of existing assets. That's very important. We are a utility that's over 100 years old, right? We have infrastructure that is over a 100red years old. Okay. And then increased capacity. You asked about uh how do we keep up uh with the growth? All of that's rolled into our capital investment uh program. Um, if you look at our financial plan, we have a 10year rolling financial plan. We have debt consultants, financial consultants, and then we have the cities. And Matt is smiling because he's been trained to go like this. We have the city finance behind us all looking at this fund and looking at our recommendations and helping us manage the financial resources of the fat of of the utility. And so again, what we're we are projecting between for FY27 between 5.75 and 7% for a 7 CCF customer. So let me break that down for you. 7 CCF is 7 time 748 gallons. So that's for over 5,000 gallons a month. And that would be an increase at the high end of about five bucks a month. Um, and so what would it increase? Of course, the regulatory requirements and strategic uh priorities. As Mike mentioned, the idea is to have moderate annual increases. That's how the the 10-year financial plan is. We don't want folks in our community to experience swings. So we want to have moderate increases right each year. Of course we want to ensure rate payer equity. AAA rating. Um we are one of the few utilities our size in the nation. AAA rated without any administrative or judicial consent regulatory um order um you know against the utility. We have an impeccable regulatory record and it's because of the investment and again there are financial targets and policies that help us uh maintain um our rating. So that's the financial plan. Okay. So look at some of the benchmarking. If you look at other um large utilities, large urban uh utilities in the country for 7 CCF, that's just the um unit in the in the water industry. You can see we compare very uh favorably. Of course, each utility has a different uh methodology, but we have some of the lowest rates in the country. When you look at percentage of household income uh devoted to water to your water bill, we have some of the lowest rates in the country. For example, if you look at Miami, Miami wholesales about 120 different other uh jurisdictions. So, um you know, and that that helps them with their cost. But yeah, we compare very favorably. That is us in the blue. And then affordability index. This is based upon the income in our community. And so if you boss just sounded country our Okay. So EPA has a benchmark and it is typically a water bill uh should not uh be more than 4 and 12% of the household income. Okay. And so what we do is we create a chart and council member Mayfield is really responsible uh for this. So in our community the AMI and and you all have heard of AMI is 11200 for a family of four. Okay. So you would have to be 20% AMI which is a yearly income of $22,440 for a family of four. and you would have to use over 5,000 gallons a month before you would clip the uh 4 12% of your income uh benchmark. And so therefore uh what this says is we are affordable. Okay. And that's the the EPA benchmark. And then this is my last uh slide. Uh this is a onewater slide. uh you've heard about the corridors of opportunity. It's a strategic uh priority of our organization and so uh since its inception when you look at quarters and CAS one water that's water wastewater and storm water we've invested over 536 million uh in the corridors of opportunity. This is in addition to what the investment has been in general fund. We are very proud of this because normally the the numbers that are reported are just what's coming from general fund but then you've got the enterprise funds that investment on top of that. I think that's remarkable. >> I I love that slide. >> Yeah. And that's Marcus's favorite slide. >> He loves it too. >> So we're thinking alike. >> Thinking alike. So that completes, you know, um my presentation and just know it's more than pipes and plants. It's safeguarding the legacy of reliability, resilience, and excellence. And so um on behalf of 1,300 water professionals who work in our community 24/7, uh we want to thank you for your support of One Water. >> Well, thank you. Um, council member Ashmeir and then we'll see if there's any questions at the dice. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Great presentation, Miss Charles, and a great video as always. >> Uh, well, I have questions in sort of three buckets. So, first um bucket that I have, it's on infrastructure. Um I know we had recent snow and ice storms that reminded us how critical our infrastructure is. Um when temperatures drop suddenly we have seen aging pipes can fail and residents can experience service disruptions. So as Charlotte continues to grow, uh we got to make sure that our infrastructure investments keep pace with both population growth and and the stress that we are seeing from climate. Um so my question to you uh of the $257 billion in capital investment plan, how much is specifically allocated towards replacing aging pipes versus just expanding capacity for growth? >> Absolutely. Thank you for the question. So, um I don't have the number for pipes alone, but for pipes and our plants, cuz we have two plants, really three when you count uh vests that are 100 years old, we have 32% council member Ashira dedicated to rehab and replacement of our existing system in the next five years. That is 835 million. >> Okay. So, so what we are seeing is just that we are not just reacting right to failure but we are really building a proactive replacement strategy >> so that we can um minimize unexpected out outages. >> You are exactly right. We have teams of engineers dedicated to developing and implementing our rehab program for pipelines and for plants. And what we experienced in the cold weather cold weather was um you know pipes are like cell phones. Okay. First we had the bag phone, we had the flip phone and now we've got these iPhones. Pipes are the same way. They come in different generations. And so what you saw was a generation of pipe called cast iron which is very susceptible to breaks and cold temperatures. So if you notice the brakes we had were in really center Charlotte and that's because that's where our older our pipes are. So, I really appreciate um the the question because what we do is we roll those repairs into an algorithm and then um once we see a certain number of repairs in an area, we go in and and rehab it to minimize the disruption. >> That that's helpful. >> Yes, ma'am. is 32% um is that what you see across other utility agencies where they are it's going towards aging infrastructure versus just increasing the capacity you know we would have to look because I don't have that benchmarking data I think that is an excellent uh question uh for the um 2027 capital program it's 32% for rehab and rehabilitation is 47% for capacity uh for growth and then for regulatory requirements we have another 12% which is tied to the rehab and replacement um metric that we have cuz sometimes you just have to upgrade facilities to meet the regulatory requirements. So it's going to vary from utility to to utility. Uh but I can tell you this 32% number uh seems to be increasing over time which is what um which is what we would expect because the older the utility is the more we will have to dedicate to rehab and replacement of existing um facilities. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah, we agree with that. There's always an internal tug and I've said that before and then Charlotte water u but we feel like for this upcoming 5-year capital uh program uh 32% is is what we see that we need to uh do to maintain the good system that we have. >> That is helpful to know. Uh second questions uh second line of questions I have it's on just the demand we are seeing right we are seeing a wave of data center development across the country right uh and Charlotte is no different and these facilities can use massive massive amounts of water for cooling and as we are planning ahead about about how that demand fits into our long-term water planning. So my question to you is do we need policies in place before we see more and more demand comes our way for DA data centers especially around uh industrial scale water demand uh from data centers around cooling whether is whether it's water reuse we have seen in other municipalities or reclaimed water systems >> because I I yeah if if you could just comment on that and you know how we can be pro proactive because I know other cities and municipalities are taking proactive approach so that uh you know economic development does not uh unintentionally strain our long-term water supply. >> Absolutely. So you know our first priority is to serve um our customers and that would be you know future customers also. So that is that is our uh philosophy. Now, um there is um one one data center that we know that's in the hopper in north uh eastern part of the county. And so we have been uh negotiating on using reclaimed water or the recycled water that um you know that I talked about earlier with Renew Brew and Kombucha. And that is our way, you're right, that is our way of getting ahead of it. Uh my advice would be you know as these um different proposals come before council especially at the zoning >> right >> um I guess step that's really I think the time to have the convers you know conversation because once a project no matter what the project is uh gets past zoning it's basically up to staff to try to implement um you in support because that particular entity has already received the approval, >> right? So we have to be proactive. >> Yes. So that is the step. But in terms of the the data data centers that are have already been approved or anyone that's approached us, we are we are looking at innovative technologies and we are looking at the ability um to for that particular center uh to use reclaimed water from our wastewater uh treatment plant. Also there are some data centers that are air cooled. all of them do not necessarily have to use uh portable water um for um you know for the facility. So um it's it's going to take all of us. Um I am going to attend the top 15 chief executives are going to meet in Washington um in April to just talk about what's happening across the country with um large utilities regarding data centers and technology and all of that. So I hope I can bring some stuff to you know back to our community. Absolutely. Because what I want to put on your radar is we are seeing another reasonzoning request and that will be coming down the pipe I believe in probably a month or two. Okay. >> Uh because I've heard from community uh in district 5. So I I I think if you can continue to help us with policy guidance so that we are not being reactive >> and we can have some sort of policy for for this kind of massive usage that comes our way especially from uh data centers >> and so I look forward to uh getting more recommendations from you after your conference. Uh but I have last questions on governance. >> Last one. Okay. Uh I know that Charlotte Waters serves about 14 jurisdictions across the region, right? >> And and not just the city of Charlotte, right? >> So I know we are seeing accelerated growth uh across the region. >> How are we coordinating with long-term with our partners in terms of long-term planning so that Charlotte residents are not subsidizing growth elsewhere? Yeah, absolutely. And council member Ashmeir, they have the same question. So the other jurisdictions feel like they have been subsidizing the growth within the city. So um you know what we do is we meet with the uh towns and their planning staff and uh because it is one uh one utility uh system that is managed by you know managed by the city of Charlotte but we have all these different jurisdictions that um we have to serve to so for example there was a data center that was going up in Matthews and so that that we don't have zoning authority, they could very well have gone through uh you know with that with that project. Um but to um you know so that's that's what we tried to manage um manage around and manage the system you know holistically. Um but uh yes, so I I get the the spirit of your question, but you know, just know that the other jurisdictions within Meckllinburgg County uh sometimes feel that they don't get the attention um that they, you know, that they should. And so what we try to do is say, "Hey, no, it's one system." And by contractual agreement, it is it is it is uh one system um that we try to manage. >> Okay. >> So, it's a little bit different because when you think about the small towns, the city didn't build those lines. Those lines were built by the residents of those towns and then when Charlotte Water was created, those lines were given over to this entity. And so um they have lots and lots of ownership in the infrastructure that is within their jurisdictions. And so um you know it's it's all about the connectedness and how we can manage together and not necessarily about you know who's who's paying for what. >> Okay. Council member Owens. >> Yeah. >> So thank you again for the presentation. And I do appreciate also the questions elevated by council member Ashira. I think those were all things that were on my mind as well. Um, if I can just draw your attention to slide 14 on the affordability comparison. And this is just a question that I want to sort of put out here and I'm not sure if I'm directing it to my city attorney or if I'm directing it in in y'all's direction and and whether this is something that you already have some familiarity with, but one of the things that Mr. Davis said that that stuck with me was that that we um by state statute lack the ability as a municipality to um really look to our developers to increase when they are adding density in certain areas to really look to them to provide some of the infrastructure that's necessary. So, as I look at uh slide 14 and I look at the cities that perhaps look to be um providing utilities at at a at a lesser rate, can can you tell me are those cities um where they do have more ability to have the the developer pass that on so the utility isn't in fact responsible for that added load? Do do we know that or >> we don't know. I think we would have to do more research and also remember utilities have different governance structures. >> Understood. >> Okay. >> Understood. >> Across across the nation. And if you see you see where North Carolina is where Minneapolis and Miami also have 1.2%. So this is just a percentage of household income dedicated to uh the water and sewer bill >> here. not necessarily >> and that and that's fair. I I I do hear that if I could just continue one of the things and again perhaps this is for the >> the city attorney. I know we've already discussed our legislative agenda, but I just you know it's it's it's not lost on me how many times there are things that if we had a little bit more flexibility as a municipality growing at the speed that we are growing absolutely to be able to address because I don't think one sizefits-all. I don't know that this is necessary amount of flexibility for the entirety of the state, but for Meckllinmberg County, the ability to go to a developer and to have some element of of, >> you know, uh, rationalization of the amount of density that they're adding and have them have some skin in the game with respect to that would be, I think, very useful. So, I don't know. I would just I would appreciate having greater knowledge of how you know if we do have one arm behind our back, how many other states are doing the same thing and how they're dealing with it. >> Right. Yeah. And dealing rule versus non-dilling rule. >> Exactly. So >> states because we've looked at some, you know, creative billing strategies, whereas here we have to have explicit permission. >> Yeah. >> To do certain things. So we get it. So, my hats off to you because you guys are doing it with, like I said, with with one arm tied behind your back without the ability to really address growth with with having all the tools. >> We appreciate it and we and it's the it's just it's so important to have the support of of this elected body in order for us to accomplish what we need to accomplish for our city and region. >> Well, thank you. >> Really is. Yeah. If I just may, if I may quickly, council member Owens, I will tell you, and I'm looking at Attorney Powers, who's in the room within Advisor Char, we have conversations regularly with our our regional partners and just systems in general to Director Charles's point about legislative opportunities to explore these options. And so, we'll certainly be looking at these pure cities and those lessons that we can learn from them, we'll be implementing those. But I don't know if Mr. Powers has anything he wants to add. >> No, ma'am. I'm good to go. up here just in case there's followup questions that I need to answer for specificity. >> Thank you. No, and I appreciate that, city attorney. I think again I I asked the questions simply because I am new to the dis and new to some of the the relationships that um I hope to continue to strike with some of our our state leaders and to try to um advocate for um for something that fits the moment that we're in and enables us to continue to to grow at a pace that benefits the entirety of the state. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Thank you, >> chair. And just while we're I know just when you mentioned somebody new to the process maybe in general public, um Angela highlighted the reszoning process, but um you could speak to it. I just don't want anybody think that water is not involved, you know, in the resoning process. So staff do work with water on the front end before it even comes to you. >> Yeah. Yeah. My comment was that's the time to ask the question. Yeah. >> But you've already worked staff prior to it becoming. It's not like you haven't seen it and you hadn't worked with staff. >> Yeah. In the city limits. Yeah. >> Okay. Questions? No. Joy? No, she's good. I'm good. Um, again, we want to thank you for coming before us. You you always do a a wonderful job. I had an experience with Charlotte Water last year. I was on the waiting list for four years. I waited my turn. >> Oh, wow. >> And um uh they came and replaced the pipe and in my my yard between my house and my neighbor's house. >> Uh the contractors were very professional. Uh your staff was very uh professional as well. It took about a month. Mhm. >> Uh they uh tore it up and cleaned it up and um so thank you for again for all that you do for the city and uh what you did for me. >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Okay. >> All right. Now for the favorite topic of the day um to the strongest side of the city uh which is University City. >> Yeah. >> Home of the 49ers. >> Home of Malcolm Graham. >> Actually, I think it's three of us, right? >> You and Renee. >> Renee. Right. >> Exactly. >> He emailed it. hard copies. >> I can get those for you. >> No, it's not. You want them? >> No, no, no, no, no. You You have to do that. >> I think I think Keith has something for us. >> Thank you. >> Oh, your presentation. Your presentation. >> Oh, they got it right here. That's what I'm talking about. >> Oh, they already have it. >> Johnny Army. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Y'all know I'm a slow one. If I don't have paper, I'm lost. >> Well, I wasn't going to say that, but >> I am. I'm lost if I >> I'm the same way. >> I'm glad you said it. >> By the time I get this thing open, you guys >> Well, Keith, welcome. I'll give you some time. Are you ready? >> Turn our mics on. >> Uh, welcome. Um, Mr. the man, you want to te it up or >> I think we can go right into it since the materials kind of were introduced initially in your budget workshop last week and Keith is ready to pick up from there and give you some color commentary. >> Okay. >> Well, Keith, um floor is yours. University City. There's a lot of great things happening and so I'm expedite this presentation so there's time and room for questions. Um Keith Stanley, president and CEO of University City Partners. I do have with me director of operations Janelle who's been with the organization if you guys don't mind to give her a hand 17 years. Uh just rock solid. I'm going go straight into the presentation. Today's discussion is about our community investment plan that aligns with university city's funding structure with this current scale and trajectory. This is not about creating something new. It's about strengthening an existing district that has not adjusted its military since its inception 2003. The proposal includes two components. A military rate adjust adjustment and a boundary expansion to ensure Fanner's sustainability. Next slide. New Jersey City Partners manages the municipal service district on behalf of the city of Charlotte. Our core focus is planning and development, economic development, and marketings and communications. We serve as the structured accountable entity responsible for enhanced services beyond baseline city services. Next slide. We coordinate safety presence, cleanliness, visibility, program safety, uh business support, placemaking, community programming. We advocate for infrastructure redevelopment, long-term growth planning. Our role is to protect property values, strengthen corridor corridors, position university competitively within Charlotte and the region. You can keep it there, Jerry. I think I Yeah, I'll keep it right there. More than 185,000 residents live in the University Trade Area. If it was if its own municipality and we're not saying that it is it rank as the seventh largest city in the state of North Carolina. It's it Charlotte saw it second largest employment center anchored beh anchored with 30,000 plus students in UNC Charlotte's campus. Growth has accelerated dramatically over the past two decades. But the MSD rate has not changed since that same time period. The big thing I want to take away here, we've added since 2020 17,000 residential units in University City. For us, that means that the 157 people that are coming to the Charlotte region, a large portion of them are coming to University City because it's accessible. It's a community that you can go to grade school, high school, college, get you a job at one of our Fortune 2100 companies, and get you a 55 plus community. All right, there. Next slide. University has grown in population, density, employment, and development intensity. Service expectations have increased. Safety coordination, cleanliness standards corridor visibility must match that growth. Must match the growth. The proposal ensures that we have resources to keep pace and responsible and strategically. Next slide. The image date would adjust from 0.262 to 00380 po per per $100 worth of assessed value. The delta is 0118. In practical terms, that equates to about $118 per year for every million dollar of assessed value. So, let's give a couple examples. Uh, if a property uh a $500 $500,000 property equates to approximately about $50 $59 per year, a $1 million property equates to about $118 per year. A $5 million property equates to about $590 per year. So for the residential context for a context for a home valued at 365,000 which is about where we at with university city the increase equals about $43 per home or roughly $3.50 per month. Homeowners represent a smaller share of the overall assets value. And I want to hone in on that real quickly. We have over 1,600 properties on our MSD. 97 of them really carry 60% of our revenues. So when we talk about the millage rate increase and how that would impact, we know it's really our significant players. It's our major players that own uh thousands of acres of property. For our homeowners, we're talking about a maybe a couple hundred dollars on average, but actually it's a lot lower than that. Next slide. Over time, University City has expanded northward, but the MSD boundary has not kept pace. The example I would give for those who are very familiar with University City. If you look at the intersection of North Triion and Maler Creek Church Road, the majority of that intersection is not in the MSD. Despite the fact that what I'm going call our downtown, the lake is right there. So when we're looking at cleanliness and efforts, we do a really good job. Our team, we're picking up yard signs, we're picking up trash. We're actually doing it because it's important. It's our front gate when people get off of 485 to come into that community. And if we're not cleaning it, even though it's technically not a part of the MSD, that's a challenge for us. So the expansion impact, it adds about $968 million in assessed value, generating about $364 in additional revenue for our MSD, creating consistency across the footprint. Next slide. Delivering value for our rateayers. Approximately $728,000 from the rate of judgment. uh approximately 364,000 from the boundary expansion. So we're talk roughly talking about a little bit over a million dollars of additional revenue that will support some major initiatives that we're trying to do. It centers around safety and cleanliness planning and activation. So we want strong stronger on the ground corridor visibility. We're looking had conversations with our counterparts across the city of Charlotte about the ambassador program. We would like to see an ambassador program in University City. Uh couple things that we are hearing from our residents that we are hearing from our businesses is the uh some of the challenges that that sometimes happens with with the market that we have is the shopping carts. >> We want to figure out how we can address that. It takes us about two to three hours to track down the shopping cart. Who has it? Where should it go? We work closely with the code enforcement on that. Marcelo has been great. But we're saying that to have a team that's dedicated to that. >> It'll be amazing for us. The other things that expanded placemaking and activation, we have six signature events around the lake, one in on UNC Charlotte's campus, our 5K. We bring in over 120,000 people with those events. The most recent one we have was you city lights, over 20,000 people and amazing events. I want to say council member Ashmir, thank you for attending. It is a great event and we want to continue more. We want people to be able to enjoy themselves. We call it the third place. When people come to University City, they don't have to pull out their wallets. Those families can come and just get face painting, listen to music, uh go see the different vendors. We want to continue down that path. And the last thing is long-term strategic planning and development. We manage University Research Park. University Research Park is a major asset, only second to Uptown as far as job development and economic impact. Our goal is to make sure that we have the accurate planning for that University Research Park. And a part of that is having the funds. And I'm wrapping it home you guys. Next slide. Built-in accountability. UCD UCP operates under city contract and city oversight. The governors are structured and is transparent with our 21 member board. Reporting aligns with city priorities and measurable service outcomes. This is disciplined accountable investment structure. And then lastly, last slide. And thank you chair. University city has been growing rapidly. As I mentioned, expectations are rising. Current rate structure has not changed in over 20 years. The decision is whether to maintain the static funding in a dynamic environment or align investment with growth. Thank you. >> Thank you for the presentation and we'll open it up for questions and I'll start to my right with the mayor prom. >> Move for approval. >> I'd like to make a motion. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Approve the uh University City Partners uh what you call it mil uh >> millage increase. >> Millage increase. >> Expansion and expansion. >> An expansion. >> I will second the motion provided. We could still have some conversation. >> There the the motion has been moved and second. Now we're at discussion. >> Okay. >> Council member uh >> just for clarification on the process. >> There's no motion on. Thank you. >> Yes. No. So um this is forformational purposes. there is a full process um for the military increase as well as the boundary expansion. So wanted to make sure that Keith could come today and get on you guys' radar as he starts in on stakeholder engagement. >> Okay. So so so let's back up. So that motion is >> uh Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. I will withdraw my motion. >> All right. So let's so let's have some discussion around the presentation. Once we have that discussion, then we'll pivot to the shine for next steps. Yeah. >> In terms of what we have to do uh and and timeline uh and kind of kind of level set that way. Miss Owens. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. But you ladies can go first. >> Oh, thank you. >> You explained so nicely. >> Well, I just learned an important lesson never to second your motions. >> I got all excited and it was wrong. No. So, um if you go back to the um the ninth um page, so just one slide back. I'm just looking at this area. So, I I will say in full in full um disclosure mode, I have spent the last 20 years of my career university city adjacent driving up to TIA craft um for 20 years. This area is like a second home to me and the fact that it is well-managed and and really um a place that I could take clients who were in town and we were up at the office and I I just I I so appreciate that and I I want to just go on record on that. One thing that I thought and I got real excited and started to write it down and then I confused myself because you said something else that was interesting. The statistic that you gave around the percentage of the the carry of this um by businesses versus houses. Can you can you re um restate that? >> Yes. So uh we have currently in our boundaries 1,600 properties that pay into the MSD approximately. out of the 1600 97 of them carry 60% of the revenue. >> Okay. >> And this map is actually uh a good example. If you see here, we I mentioned that we have uh 40 or 20 Fortune 1000 companies in University City. You see some of those names up there. They have large campuses that many of you are familiar with. The CIC campus, the CIA campus, now the Vanguard campus. Many of our larger institutions really carry the load when it comes to MSD. And that's how it is for most MSDs and business improvements districts across the country. I would imagine even the same thing here that it's really the larger players that carry the load. >> The value I do want to say a part of the MSSE is that everyone pays something because everyone receives some type of value. Whether it's our helping with the snow plowing within University Research Park, helping support our activation I talked about our planning. We do see the value that everyone's involved but really the major carriers are the larger property owners who own thousands of acres. >> Okay. But thank you for that and I I do always appreciate seeing TIA in good company here as part of this MSD. Um the only thing that I will say and this is possibly something that should should um be more of a transit concern, but I waited for 20 years for me to have something from South Charlotte to get me up to the university area without needing to drive. I would love to think that that's going to come at some point in my lifetime because that is such a dynamic area and there is, you know, a a healthy population of employees who do not live there and commute into that area every single day and I just question the means that we've got now to bring people to such a vibrant employment area. >> Council member, if you don't mind, I just want to share some some insights on that. First of all, you're absolutely right that the Blue Island extension, that billion dollar investment made um by those who made that decision is so key to our growth. And so we see the writership as it continues to increase. Uh the cool factor about this is that right now they're working on a $27 million pedestrian bridge to connect University Research Park to North Trion and UNC Charlotte. That would connect the JW Clay station there connected directly to University Research Park. Our goal now is we're having conversations with those major players to say, can we expand microtransit? Of course, with now with the transit authority, we're having those conversations. We're looking at what soft park has done with the skipper, but can we have dedicated microtransit between the blue line extension, we have four actually four stations within university. Can we connect that some of our not only university research park, but we also have 14 major retail centers in university city. So our goal is uh with the support of some of this work that we're doing to have dollars dedicated to planning and managing some microtransit first and last mile solutions within university research uh within university city. Thank you for that. >> Council member Bmetro. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh Keith, let me just say first of all, thank you for your leadership. Um when when you joined and you took over this position, I said, "Boy, he's a glut punishment." Um, but you stepped in, you build relationships all across, not only with elected officials, but university institutions, small business, and even the neighborhoods. Thank you for changing the boundary cuz I, you know, I've been out there for 15 years, and I'm like you. I thought that was part of your your MS uh MSA uh district. You mentioned the Sprinter, and that's where I was going. When you look on the horizon, sir, in your vision, Sprinter, uh, what else do you see that can take the seventh largest city in North Carolina, right? And you got pressure on it. You got three three council members and a chief of staff in your area, Council Graham, Councilman Johnson, myself, and and Kate Cunningham. Yes. >> So, it's a lot of pressure on you to be successful. So, just share your vision as you look forward. >> I'm glad you mentioned it. There's a couple things I would say. one we talked about the micro transit we got to make that connection the blue line extension is it's just how do we make sure that it's connected to once again not only the 14 retail centers that's in the MSD we actually have 30 retail centers throughout the university city trade area which is much of a shorter about 63 square miles so the transportation is definitely key and also includes additional more sidewalks >> okay >> we we just we just you know we're stopping literally and you guys you're much more familiar with this council than I am a mayor pro than I am that literally we have areas where people you just stop and that's it and there's nowhere to go. And so sidewalks important, but also our bus stops, >> but even to take a put that to a side as far as our transportation and public transportation also activation. >> Uh we have these six signature events. We're going to double down on that. We want to make sure that people can enjoy themselves in University City. It's the connectivity, the tissue for us to connect our community together. Very diverse community and UNC Charlotte is a part of that. So for us to have these signature events and having our elected officials come out to greet and meet the people and we're talking about 20,000 people per event. I would imagine we can grow to 40,000 easily in the next couple years. We see that value cuz we're making community. We were building these. We have beautiful buildings. We have beautiful development is happening. Have some amazing amazing businesses. Over 100,000 people that work here. Now we want to build community activation murals, statues. We want to we want to be the Hersboro Street for uh the city of Charlotte when it comes to our students to enjoy themselves within our community. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Council member Romeo, >> thank you, Chair. Uh quick question for your um safety ambassadors. Are they currently online or is that something you hope? >> That's what we're hoping for. >> Okay. Will you work at all with Center City Partners because I know that they have like an ambassador program as well. We we've been having conversations with Michael uh Smith and his team. We see the value. We actually met with their contractors and begin to pull together numbers. Hence where for us to go down this path, we understood what it would take and while we arrived at the numbers, we arrived at knowing that it would take a significant investment to make that program happen. >> We're also having conversations with uh Charlotte Works and others to see how we might be able to work with people from the community who need a second chance. possibly they can we can look at this program to offer them that second chance but also pay them a fair wage. I think that's going to be important part of our program not just to pay people a very low wage going to make people are proud when they're coming in they're picking up the trash they're picking up some of deal with some of the issues we're dealing with that they're paid well and they have opportunity to really succeed in life. >> No, I I appreciate that. My one last question with like expanding your boundaries, how does that work for the outreach? Um is it are you doing like a percentage of people who are okay with that? like how does that work? >> Uh thanks for the question. We are following the guidelines outlined by us by the city of Charlotte, but there's a couple things that we're doing. We're doubling down morning uh during the day and at night for people to come. Today we sent over 20,000 people an email introducing the idea to them, making sure they can look for frequent asked questions, maps, and things of that nature. Also, we sent out over 2,000 postcards to everybody impacted. Our goal is to make sure we have a touch point two to three times with anyone that's going to be impacted so they have the opportunity we can hear from them, understand which includes a survey that we've completed. And lastly, I'll say we have a partnership with UNC Charlotte. We uh we hire uh six interns each semester. Those those interns uh uh twice a week are going out and knocking on doors of all our businesses and institutions that will allow because we want to abide by no solitation rules. But our goal is to make sure we get out there and get to the community so we can hear from our constituency about this plan. >> Thank you, >> Council Member Asher. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Keith, and and Keith, to you and your entire team. First, I just want to thank you for all that you have done to support small businesses, bringing traction to the boardwalk and also being responsive around issues at the boardwalk that I had raised last year. I've seen meaningful progress. I hope that that momentum continues uh as you are getting more revenue to support uh businesses around boardwalk but at the same time ensuring that we have a clean and safe environment around that boardwalk. Uh with with that I have two questions unless you want to respond to this. >> We can't hear you. >> You're not able to hear me? Now we can. >> Okay. So, you didn't hear anything I said? >> No, no, no, no, no. >> We did >> continue. >> Okay. All right. Uh, let me start from the beginning. >> No, no, no. You have to. Is this your questions? So what I'm saying I wanted to understand Keith your plan about addressing some of the concerns I had raised around the boardwalk specifically on cleaning and ensuring that we are taking care of our natural resources like that lake. >> Uh council member thank you for that question. Uh we took your concerns seriously and we heard from our constituency about the boardwalk. a couple things that have happened that I think are important and key for the growth of that lake and the area around the lake. First, that we have a wonderful new owner of the former shops at University Place. It's now owned by uh Red Hill Ventures with Todd Collins. >> They announced earlier last month a $5 million investment into the boardwalk. We are working closely with them side by side to not only in support that $5 million investment. We are now moving along to create our own reinvisioning of the lake itself similar to what our partners did at South Park. And our goals to work with all our players around the lake including the Hilton Borwok Billies, many of the banking institutions that we have there, property owners, the novel, even the library itself to figure out what does the revisioning of that lake looks like. And for us, knowing that we are way beyond 3.4 million visitors per year, we want to see a new vision for that lake. And it's going to take a little time, but now we believe we have the right players in place. And so those conversations have already begun. We've gotten even quotes on what the revisioning will look like. Now is making sure that we have people at the table who will support. And I would say council member for us is that we are willing to spend the dollars and the funds, and we will. We want to make sure that it's a true P3 that those because it is a privately owned lake that those who are receiving the benefit also involved in the investment of the revisioning. Uh so then that could include new street furniture, new lighting, um all types of LED and lights and things of that nature. We just want to make sure that everyone is at the table for this revisioning. So, our goals over the next year or two is to produce a plan that we can come back and share with you and the other council members about as far as this beautiful lake and its asset, what it means to this community. >> That's great to hear. I look forward to hearing more on that. Like council member Owens mentioned, uh, University is also our second home. I used to work in the research park at TA Craft. Uh so I certainly appreciate the work uh that university city partners does to bring more jobs to the research park and creates the infrastructure. So I wanted to follow up on one more question that council member Owens had raised in terms of the uh single family homeowners. Do we know currently how many single family homeowners are inside the district and how that would change with this expansion? Yes. Couple things. One, council member, we made sure to carve out as much as possible to remove oursel to remove single family areas where we could where it was logically possible. However, per state regulation and law, we have to have a contiguous line around our boundary. So, any group that's really in any single family development that's in there is something that we couldn't avoid. With that being said, currently we see about 300 single family units within our MSD. Uh and then with the expansion, we look like it would possibly double. There's a couple areas that we're looking at. So in total, it should be about 600 single family units. Um as far as the financial impact, I don't know if you got there yet, they will be at the very lowest tier as far as payment. Um, once again, it would be once again based on the valuation of properties, most of our revenue, and I would say even 80% is coming from properties that over $5 million or more. Um, and so our our single families really won't see as much of a bump. They will see a bump. I want to make sure it's very clear, but they won't see as much of a bump compared to the rest of the MSD property owners. >> That's good to hear. And lastly, in terms of accountability and metrics measures, uh I I'll be interested with this $1.09 million in new revenue that will be coming in. Uh if you can share metrics with the council to measure success, you know, in terms of safety, uh cleanliness and business support programs, that would be helpful. That's all I have. So, I certainly appreciate all that you have done and that you continue to do uh to make sure that University City is one of the uh our very uh fast growing city and everything that you're doing to support uh small businesses. It certainly does not go unnoticed. >> Council member, thank you as mayor. Thank you for your support. You've been at a number of our events and really have been involved in connecting us with a number of different organizations to support our small business. So, thank you. >> Absolutely. and keep those children's program going, those festivals, those are the best. >> Okay. Um, so I I don't have a question. I got a couple of comments and then I'll pivot to the um city manager for next levels and and timeline and and those type of things. Um, one, uh, I am a 32y year resident of University City. Uh, and I was the council member that introduced the concept of the mental service district when I was here the first time. So, you voted for it, too. So, I'm not the only one who's been here for a while. So, I I I know the the value of the organization. I know the um uh the opportunity and the challenges um of the organization. Um and I know that um that um this is long overdue. >> Um I I wouldn't bury the lead. I would talk straight forward to the residents that there will be uh um impact uh and that it would go from 300 to 600 and then I would explain the value. Right. I that's a piece of advice, right? Um I'm a resident. I'm okay with it. Um I I can see the things that we have to do in terms of public safety, um cleanliness, um working with Council Member Johnson about the 18-wheelers, getting them out of the place. Um working with the uh retail stores about their their um shopping carts. You should sell them when you get them, right? You shouldn't return them, right? um uh make them buy them back, right? Because it's their thing that you're you're doing. Uh and I also understand the fact that in University City, we really need to um scale up. Um love the restaurants, but we need more locally owned restaurants and um more night life. um somehow if we could move the university uh to the corner of uh Harris and and and um Tryion so we could have more people on the street, right? Um uh doing football games for UNCC. So really embracing the university and something that we've been struggling with for years is um Harris Boulevard being a state road with no sidewalks. It is just the craziest thing, right? Um uh and even as a state senator, I fought that battle a lot, right? Um uh so I I the need is there and I would really really just focus on the needs and how the the resources will be spent. Uh I think you going out to the community and and marketing it uh telling the story of this of what you're doing, the need for the system. Um the community outreach, the community engagement is going to be really important. But I think I think knowing folks over there uh they get it uh what we're trying to do. So that's my u that's my piece of advice for you. Uh and and then I think council members um you got three that are residents >> That's right. >> of of University City. Um certainly um >> get everything I just said right uh in reference to how we can really um embrace the um the challenges but there's so much opportunity right uh over there. So, Mr. Manager, um, so where do we go from here? I I understand there's a a process and so, uh, who's going to outline the process for us? And I >> Yeah, I'll be brief and then I'm going to phone a friend here real quick. So, >> I'm a friend, be brief. >> I'll fall under this is a standard process. Okay. >> The motion started in the first week of February when UCP submitted the formal request. Okay. >> The budget workshop council authorized the notice to proceed. need here. We have a public conversation to hear about it, talk about it, understand the value proposition, and I'm going to ask strategy and budget to provide a window into the next 60 days, how this folds into the budget process. >> All right. Um, so just a couple of key dates for you guys. Um, by April the 13th, um, University City Partners will provide a final engagement report. Um and that will be their interactions with the stakeholders and compiling all of their results after which um council will need to review the engagement report and then give the direction to the city manager of whether uh to proceed with the rate increase. Um so we're working with two different processes here. The rate the mill rate increase is uh governed by city policy. The boundary expansion goes according to North Carolina general statute. Uh so you'll see a couple of public hearings to come up uh in May uh for folks to come and speak about it and then we'll be able to proceed with including the increased rate in the FY27 proposed budget. Um the boundary expansion will need to be approved at two council meetings. So you will see it on your agenda two times uh before we're able to uh proceed forward with expanding the boundary. So that's kind of what we are looking at over the next couple of months for you guys to get more familiar with and approve this process to continue going forward. >> Okay. I think the process has been outlined for sure. Um and again I only can speak for Malcolm. Um so junior community engagement uh if I would love to help um and and lean in and kind of share my perspective as a resident as well as a council member. Uh, and so I I think that's going to be really really important and key for sure. Uh, just making sure everyone know what we're doing, why we're doing it. Uh, and um the opportunity that exists. But I think it's um long overdue and um the the members of the um the council and the committee will certainly follow the process, engage in the process, and then follow the manager's lead as well as the budget office in terms of how we um uh get to your destination, which is um u Mr. Mitchell's motion. That's about two months too early. But but but I I think you see the sentiment in terms of what it is that we're trying to do here to be very supportive. But we'll follow the process and um and then like I said, I would love to help you with the engagement piece. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Chair, if I may just real quick plug for the next steps on the overall budget process. So is that >> Sure. >> Take a minute. Sorry. So March 23rd you'll have your next full council budget workshop. Okay. And as you recall um >> oh Matt's gone but the CFO and the deputy budget director you know we're planning to speak with you at the retreat. >> So they'll have an enhanced conversation around that for your workshop. You also have financial partners and Cherry's preparing a packet that should be out to you next week for that as well. So those >> I'm going to let Temple run with that part. Okay. That's going to be interest that's going to be interesting. >> I want to see the mandatory attendance. U I I will make sure that that is included sir. >> Thank you, sir. I'm sorry. >> No, no, no, no, no. That's fine. That's fine. Um, so one thing will be helpful for me as budget chair is if I can have just maybe a one-on-one with some of the staff just to kind of um be ahead of the meetings >> so I can know, >> you know, what's going to happen and and just kind of just a little prep. Nothing. Sure. >> Nothing heavy. Nothing. Just so I can walk in the room and and >> kind of understand what's going to happen and and be a little bit more prepared. That that would help me a little bit. >> Good. >> Okay. >> Mr. Chair, as a followup, you you will become a very popular person the next three months as as some of us committees need to send you a budget request. So, uh >> I'll I'll send it to the 15th floor. So, um, but yeah. So, yeah. Uh, so obviously that's what we're in the business to do for the next 90 120 days, right? Um, the budget and, uh, and and doing some deep dive. Um, obviously I I was joking uh, about Council Member Asher, but she's really been into that community partner stuff a lot deeper than I have. So, there's some expertise there that I think we should and and consistency, right, of the process that I think we can lean on her. um to help us guide the committee um uh and then um you know we just see where we land by by May. >> Okay, we can stay if you guys want to or we can adjourn. >> I got to get my request. >> All right, meeting adjourn. Second. I second it. >> All in favor say I. I >> I. >> Thank you everybody. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. So, you know, Heat. Heat. around. N do Heat. Heat. Hey, hey hey. Hey hey hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, heat. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Okay. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. It's Hey, you're There he is. You all set? All right. Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to this March 5, 2026 meeting of the Charlotte City Council Transportation Planning and Development Committee. My name is Ed Driggs. I chair the committee. We'll start with introductions and I think we'll go around the outside and then around the table. So you sir >> everyone. >> No, no, no, no. Way back there outside. I'm a media member for WBC. >> All right. All right. >> Monica, planning director. Kathy Cornet, planning staff. >> Steven Rosenber, Department of Transportation. >> Double chairman of the planning committee. >> Carter Crowd. >> Mohamad Janet, Hospitality Tourism Alliance. Anella Perez with the HTA, the Hospitality and Treal Alliance. >> Matt Panner with Charlotte Regional Business Alliance. Stephen Alison MBA attorney's office. >> Saman Carolina. >> Great. So, why don't we now go back there starting perhaps with you in Ron? >> Yes. >> All right. Chenes association. >> Who's the little one? >> Russell. >> She is too young to vote. >> All right, let's keep going. Yes. >> Russell action. Revel action. Jean Bosby act >> Jesse Wesley Heights >> sir >> Damen Smith uh Lake View neighborhood >> Eric sustain Charlotte mix Charlotte Observer Uh Justin Carol, deputy director, Charlotte DOT, H&TV. >> Eric Shamber, business journal. >> Okay, around the table. City clerk's office. >> Joy Mayo, District 3, not committee member. >> I'mma follow that. Mayor Pro Tim James Mitchell, not committee member. Kimberly Owens, District 6, also not on the committee. >> Yolanda Jones, planning staff. Liz Babson, deputy city manager. >> Lana Mayfield, council member at large committee member. >> And chair, >> Malcolm Graham, District 2 committee member. >> Allison Craig, deputy city manager. >> Dante Anderson, District 1, non-committee member. >> Diablo Arnold D. Wilson, agency. >> Bobby Lewis, part of the project team here. >> Felix Oberon, NC DOT. Carly Swanson, NC do >> and I'm Brett Kip also with NC do and finally online >> Mr. Drikes. Thank you. Dimple, not a committee member. >> Uh Victoria Watlington at large committee member. >> Anybody else online? Okay. So, uh we have two important topics today. Um, as I think you're aware based on the people in the room, uh, I do want to note because the topics are both important, we really need to try to finish our I77 conversation by 6:00 and leave ourselves a good half an hour to talk about area plans. So, I hope you'll all work with me in order not to have to cut off the conversation at that time. Um, our first item on the agenda is the I77 conversation. And, uh, there's a lot we can say about that, but we've reached a point now where NC DOT has, uh, I believe heard input from the community and is making a significant effort to engage and respond. So, we're going to hear from NC DOT and then there will be time for committee members to discuss. And with that, uh, Mr. Can I handing over to you? >> Yes, sir. >> All right. Take it away. >> All right. Thank you, Council Driggs. Um, again, everyone, I'm Brett Knife with the North Carolina Department of Transportation um project team, introduced themselves, and uh I know that we've we've gotten together uh recently with with uh a lot of the folks in the room, council members. Um so, we've got a lot of some of the same information in a presentation, but maybe some updated information. And the goal here tonight, at least from our perspective, would be to try to get through this quickly as you described, so that we're able to um spend some time talking through it, hearing, you know, about what your questions are, what your concerns uh might still be, and we do have the project team here to help facilitate that discussion. So, um with that, I'll try to get started with our presentation. So, uh, again, you know, our our goal and priority right now in this phase, um, of the project is is simply to listen, to hear from the community, to hear from council members uh, about what their interest in this project might be, uh, in particular about what enhancements um, you might like to see in your communities that this project might be able to afford. And so, um, most of y'all know that our, um, Brookon DOT secretary, Daniel Johnson, was able to come down, um, and visit with community members, council members, and have a good dialogue. I know, uh, Carly and some others were present for those conversations. Um, uh, Felix, on the other hand, we were we were stuck in Raleigh, uh, doing some other work this week. So, um, but I do hope that those were very beneficial and we want you to know that that's just the beginning of these conversations that we hope to have with everyone. So, um, we do really want to take an innovative approach to engage the the community. Um, th is going to take an open dialogue that we really want to have. Um, we'll we'll get into more about this, but we want to get this community engagement center that we've been talking about established. uh was very close to being able to to announce that uh location tonight. We're still trying to to nail down the specifics. Um it's coming very very soon. We're working very hard at that. Um that's going to be a location where we can all gather together. We can uh you know explain things about the project, help answer questions that the community members might have, but most importantly hear uh from community members about what your priorities um could be for your for your particular community. Um, and again, we need we need that conversation to help us shape the outcomes and shape the final design. Uh, the plans that everyone has seen as a part of our federal NEPA process, I'll get into that a little bit later. Those plans are about 15% complete at the most. So, we need to continue this open dialogue uh to facilitate um those improvements and enhancements. Um, so I want to quite get that. So, I want to talk a little bit about about why we're here. So, um I think I don't think it's a surprise to everyone to know that that I77 is a very congested corridor that the Charlotte region is growing um very very rapidly. I know as a council you folks absolutely aware of that. I know you're seeing uh zonings etc. growth coming in. So, it's a real issue um that we're all trying to work through and find a balance of how to u you know protect community interest while also managing the congestion on the corridor of I77. I mean, you can see that uh that there's a stat from 2024 about uh 41 hours of how long that the Charlotte commuter spend traffic um every every year costing the average commuter $711. So, you know, again, and it's it's beyond that. is safety of the corridor. Um that's going to be a reoccurring theme with with NC DOT. The crash rates on this corridor are um are much higher than other similar corridors, urban interstates in the state. As a matter at two and a half times higher um we actually have some updated stats. We need to update that. It's closer to two and a 2.8 times higher at this point um than the average interstate corridor in this setting. and and the corridor has on average five to six crashes a day and um the fatalities also are unfortunately a reality uh of some of those crashes and so those are uh safety is NC DOT's top and number one priority um and we want to keep focusing on that and so um just a little more context and history this project isn't new uh this project has been around uh in as an idea for over two decades and um has been in the state transportation plan um since 2014. The the project was submitted by CRTO, the planning organization that we we work with um and uh required by federal law, by the way, to participate in federal funding is to establish a planning organization, establish these long lane transportation plans. And so, it's taken us this long to get to the point where we're now able to actually talk about the concepts of the project and what it could look like. We're going to continue um this this dialogue with the communities to to talk about the enhancements and priorities and our designs are not going to be complete until later um in 2027. And uh the the private developer teams as you see on the screen that we that have uh that are pursuing this project, they're going to be incentivized to maximize community benefits. That's going to become a contract requirement. Um and it's going to become uh it's going to be our top priority as we move through this and it's going to take uh some number of years to even get started with construction. You know, this is a very complex project. There's no doubt uh from an engineering side and um so it's going to be uh you know pushing 2030 before we can really get started. So why are we talking about uh a P3 a public private partnership and why are we talking about express lanes? Well, um, a P3, uh, you know, as it turns out, is really the only way that it's feasible to deliver a project of this size. NC DOT has, um, about $600 million available for this project, but it's a multi-billion dollar project. And so the the private sector is able to come in provide additional equity and financing to bring that project forward which would otherwise uh take even decades to deliver or maybe never simply because of the transportation demands in this growing state. You know the funding simply can't keep up with that demand. And so um we we worked and I know Councilman Driggs you were heavily involved in this. We worked with CRTPO to form a working group to develop some key priority terms that went into this contract. Those terms are we can go over them again in the document in in the presentation a little bit, but those u those terms are going to be part of the contract and there's a lot of benefits uh to transit um first responders, things like that. So, um, this RFP process that we're going to be engaging in is going to incentivize, uh, they will, the developers will be incentivized to continue to pursue community enhancements and benefits. But why express lanes? Um, go back to safety. You know, we we have to have a way to try to overcome this safety concern on this corridor. We have to have a way to manage the congestion on this corridor. Um, the environment also top priority. you know, uh, more congestion simply results, um, in worse air quality, and that's been a that's been a concern we've heard repeatedly. And so, this is one way to assist in that. But the growth uh that again that the Charlotte region is experiencing, there's 160,000 cars a day that are on I77 in this project segment. Regardless of the project were to happen or not, our traffic analysis tells us that that there's going to be over well over 200,000 cars a day in the coming decades on that corridor with or without any improvements. And so those congestion levels are going to continue to rise without a project. And the crash rates are going to continue to rise without a project. The project's goal is to simply provide a reliable travel time option for commuters. So, um, and other users of the corridor. And we're we can we can use the, uh, with express lanes, we're able to capitalize on the the funding available through the private sector. So um we we've been asked a lot about transit, you know, um, you know, could a transit alternative exist on this corridor? I want to lead out with saying that one of those key priority terms is that transit will ride for free in these express lanes. There will be a reliable travel time. So, um the cat's buses would be able to to use those lanes. The wrership uh could easily increase therefore facilitating this sort of transit first approach. I've heard from a lot of folks and a lot of comments. you know, without those lanes being constructed, the the corridor would remain con would remain constricted as it is today. CAST buses can't get up and down that corridor uh effectively or efficiently. Uh first responders can't get up and down that corridor uh effectively, efficiently, um with any reliability. But, uh, ultimately, um, we're following our state law, um, that enables us to apply the the funding, the $600 million to pursue this project. Um, a transit only alternative is is not an eligible expense. So, we simply can't take that $600 million uh and apply it to some other type of project because we have followed this u this process we described where we go through the MTO submitted this project. It's been ranked scored compared to other projects in the state that's following STI legislation. So, um there there's two parallel paths that are going on right now. And I think maybe that's uh something that we need to make sure folks understand. We're we're in the we're working through the National Environmental and Policy Act. That's NEPA. We commonly refer to it as NEPA. Um this is a a piece of legislation, federal legislation that was enacted in the early '7s. This this legislation did not exist the first time I77 was constructed. Um, and this this law requires that transportation agencies take on a robust environmental analysis and and take in um input from the community and input from local governments, other stakeholders, develop a project um that works as well as we can make it for everyone. So, we're following this process. You can see uh where that purple star is there. That's about where we are right now. Um, we did establish the purpose and need in conjunction with the the MTO and the city of Charlotte and that is simply to provide a reliable travel time option for users of the corridor. So, uh, we've developed alternatives. That's the alternatives that we've uh, been able to work ourselves to a point um, and uh, we presented those at public meetings last year. And then we're going to continue to uh evaluate these impacts on those alternatives and any future alternatives that could come from the P3 procurement process. So again, parallel paths. Um we'll we'll work to get a preferred alternative uh selected this year and that's going to be informed by this community feedback. There's going to be project commitments in this document. This is going to lead to an environmental analysis document that it's going to incorporate the commitments that we've been talking about. It'll be legally binding. That is not something that we can escape from. We could not proceed with the project legally. We would not be able to get any loans, any funding. So, we would be bound to it. So, that's the plan to incorporate the community engagement, the feedback, the priorities that we can establish together in this document. We can do that over the course of the year this next year as we u work towards final design and finally uh get to construct this project that's been in the planning stage for many decades as we've described. We've got a um couple of illustrations of this uptown area the elevated express lane segment um of what that might look like. This is based this is a this is a again this is a 10 to 15% design concept that we took and made an illustration of uh to to show everyone what it could look like uh in the uptown area as you cross over West Trade Street there. And I I'll note that one um one key benefit of this design is that uh it will allow for the um reconnecting communities effort that has been a foot in the city for a couple years now. Excuse me. It's going to allow this inter this interchange to either remain as is or if it turns out that there's a key community priority to enhance that interchange, we'll be able to do either one because we're not having to disrupt the existing lanes in that segment. This is a view um of the design from the John Belilk interchange. if um you know it you could tell that everyone's driven that I'm sure been out there many times. We all know there's a lot of loops, ramps, connections that take uh traffic from Wilkinson uh from 277 from 77 and you've got to pretty much be able to move around that interchange. The design that uh we've provided, our 10 to 15% design that's required by that federal NEPA process, this is what that design would look like if it were to move forward as is. And again, it's a rendering. Um it's an artistic rendering and uh it is fairly uh accurate based on the current designs. Um but it it fits very closely within the footprint of that existing interchange. So um a couple of just base premises that this project includes are multimmodal uh improvements. So bike and pedestrian improvements on any cross street that we have to reconstruct, any bridge that gets touched. We're going to as a base position, we're going to include uh as you can see the West Boulevard example, uh bike lanes and wide u sidewalks for bike and pedestrian activity. And there's also opportunity for things like u artistic enhancements, landscaping enhancements, lighting enhancements. That's a very dark underpass. I've been under it many times myself. So, there's an opportunity to improve that. um this plays plays out with with all the bridges that we're going to have to reconstruct with this um with this project. And by the way, I'll I'll repeat what I've said in the other meetings with you. Um we we've had a strong partnership with City of Charlotte, particularly the Department of Transportation, the city's department of transportation to derive all of these multimodal improvements at all of these cross. We're including enhancements like that. So, we want to focus in on a a timeline slide with you guys for just a minute. You can you can see, you know, we we've kept the 2014 date of when this project entered the state transportation improvement plan that's on here. Um, you know, it took a lot of work just to get to the point where we are, but now we've entered this phase where we're able to take these design concepts again that were necessary as a part of the NEPA process and then put those out for public comment, which we did in November. But it's the enhanced community engagement and feedback period that I want to focus on. So, between now and the time that we can um put out uh an a draft RFP later this year, we want to establish a framework of what these contract requirements would look like. We don't have to nail down every single community enhancement concept during that period. There's plenty of time for that because we've got multiple iterations of RFPs. I'm not sure if you wanted to take a question. I think >> Victoria Victoria has a question. I think um council member Watlington has a question. >> Got it. >> All right. So, uh >> he's not done yet. Dr. >> He's not done yet. >> Yes, he going to entertain questions. So, Miss Watlington, do you have a question that he's not done yet? >> What's that? >> He's not done. >> He's not done with the presentation, >> but we talked about the fact that we might entertain questions during the presentation. That was a decision that was discussed. And so I'm just wanting to find out, Miss Watlington, uh, can you let us finish the presentation and hold your question? >> Yeah, I'm >> all right. Thank you. Let's move ahead. >> Thank you all. Sorry for the interruption there. Um, so again, um, this the community engagement and feedback period will be ongoing well through all the RFP iterations and into the plan, the actual design because remember these designs aren't complete. So, we need um we need our our our proposers, the teams that are wanting to pursue this work to uh work with us and during community engagement opportunities, which we will we will structure, we will set up, we we post those during uh or at our community engagement center that we're putting up. And we'll be able to include through iterations of this these draft RFPs, community priorities. That's what this whole period is all about. We've got a long time to get through that before we can move into a final design phase. And again, these elements, these improvements that we're talking about will become requirements not only in the NEPA document, but also in the contract itself that we would have with the P3 team. >> Click gave up on me. >> Just got one more slide. >> I got >> Thank you. So, you know, we have several ways we can deliver projects. Um, you know, a typical project of what we might call I don't even want to call it small scale anymore because a lot of our projects in the Charlotte region are are very large. uh they are very significant in terms of cost but um we might have a project where we take plans we take the concept plans like we have right now and get that through that NEVA process get an environmental permit go through all those steps and then design those plans actually actual engineer designs that are very finite that can be used for construction so that's design bid build we would simply uh advertise a contract to deliver that project. Design build is similar except we're able to lead out with again that concept plan that's set up in the NEPA process. Hand those off to uh contractors to then propose uh how they would deliver that project and also to offer enhancements to the project. They might find ways to uh deliver the project with efficiencies. They could be uh less intrusive to traffic. it could be that they're they're they're just more operationally beneficial. So, we we've had a strong engineering team working on this project for years, but just like in design build, now we're going to get the chance to have four more um highly competitive and and qualified engineering and contractor teams develop alternatives that could make this project less impactful, that could make it more efficient, and that could also ramp up those community enhancements and benefits. So that's what occurs in a P3 process. We're able to do that because of this P3 procurement process. And again, we we're in our schedule. Um we're going to be outlining this procurement plan that I've described where the contract the contract biders, they're going to have to uh they're going to read these documents. Those documents are going to say we're going to have a very strong community engagement effort with this project. It will be done in partnership with the city of Charlotte and with the community itself. um there will be requirements to engage the community as requested and I think that's the right thing to do. So in order to complete that process, we need to have multiple rounds of feedback, multiple rounds of RFP iterations that we can finally develop that final um RFP in in spring of 2027. That's our current uh plan and differences in procurement. Um, the priority key terms. I mentioned this a moment ago and Carly, I might get you to >> take over. I have a tendency to lose my voice after time I talk to you guys. In late 2024 into 2025, over the course of seven months, um, NC DOT and CRTPO formed a working group and our focus was looking at lessons learned from the I77 North project, uh, turning those into priorities for this project. Uh, and then ultimately key contract terms. So, you see there's a list here of 15 different priority key contract terms. just to look at a few of them. Um, a key difference between I77 North and I77 South will be the toll rate caps. So, right now on I77 South, there is no toll rate cap and the private developer uh can charge whatever rates to keep traffic moving in the express lanes. That will be different on I77 South. Um, additionally, there was a focus on ensuring uh transit received benefits. So, you'll see uh number nine, transit will ride toll-free in the express lanes. So, right now, uh, the CATs buses use the general purpose lanes. Well, with the express lanes, they'll be able to use those and provide that reliable travel time. Additionally, HOV3 plus encouraging car pooling. So, for those drivers that have at least two other people in the vehicle, they'll be able to utilize the express lanes for free. So, for every vehicle that's taken out of the general purpose lanes and using the express lanes, that helps those drivers that don't use the express lanes. Um, additionally, you'll see number six, a toll discount program will be implemented as well for lowincome residents. Um, and additionally, first responders will be able to use the express lanes for free as well. Um, so there were 15 different terms here and those will ultimately be in the contract. They were also shared with developers uh when the RFQ was released. Uh and then just to go through again some of the tolling policies. Um the vehicles that will not pay a toll, so transit vehicles, CAPS and MPTA, uh HOV3 plus, so for those drivers again that have at least two people in the vehicle, they'll be able to use the express lanes for free, as well as emergency response vehicles and motorcycles. Uh to reiterate again, there will be a uh toll discount program for lowincome residents and then two levels of toll rate caps. Um, again, that's not something that is on I77 north, but it will be implemented on I77 South. >> Can I can I touch on that for just one second? The toll rate caps. >> So, the the concept is that there will be um a threshold established, meaning that of of traffic utilizing the express lanes. So, before the toll rates can be raised, the volume of traffic in those lanes is going to have to be increased significantly. It's going to have to be at or near its operational capacity to maintain a minimum speed limit of like I think it's 50 miles an hour, 55 miles an hour. Y'all correct me if I'm wrong on that. Point is the the concept is that we want to optimize util utilization of those express lanes. Get as many folks in the express lanes in there that want to be in there. It's going to free up additional capacity in the general purpose lanes. And again, that is not something that exists um in the I77 North contract. So, here's um a couple of key uh contract terms that that could come out of this community engagement period. Um things like, you know, we've heard, you know, uh like reconnecting communities, obviously a reoccurring theme. We're we're fully supportive of that. So something like we could call it highway caps or land bridges, call it whatever you want. That could be a key term if that's something that the community wants to see. We can these developer teams could compete based on that. Again, um targeted enhancements and I mentioned the fifth and trade street area a moment ago. We already know that's a study that's been underway by the city and if there's an improvement that's desired there then we can work work with the city and the community to talk about what that is potentially put that into the contract. The bike and pedestrian networks again that's a baseline position that we hold as well as the city of Charlotte that we're going to include multimmodal accommodations. Um but this ultimately what makes this process um most effective is the competition that's going to be underway. These uh teams will be ranked and scored based on their ability to deliver community enhancements. Look at a couple of examples. And by the way, we got these examples. I think we got to um got on the next slide. Can't talk about it briefly here, but I526 in Charleston u similar situation. Um uh and these things like affordable housing, workforce development, economic um opportunity work programs. These are these are examples that were in the the Charleston model we're calling it, but that may not be what the city of Charlotte wants or what uh the community wants or it may be. These are just ideas as starting points for conversation. these. Um, so the I526 example um I was actually having a conversation today with um our our Federal Highway Administration um director and she worked on this project on in in Charleston on I526 and we we both agreed this is the exact right fit. Um, so FHWA is fully supportive of this concept that we're going to include the concept and the priorities in that environmental document. So FHWA themselves are fully supportive of it and also are interested in coming down to the community engagement center and hearing about some of these priorities and helping work through that process as well. But you know, here's just again community infrastructure enhancements. Uh there's bus shelters, aesthetic landscaping, noise walls, many things that we could deliver. um education, employment opportunities. These are just again examples, you know, unrelated transportation, scholarship, uh skill building programs, um workforce development type programs that could be related to transportation infrastructure because, you know, a project like this or really any construction project, it's going to take a large team uh uh in this of of folks that are interested in the STEM industry. Um, we need engineers, we need technicians, the contractors are going to need, uh, subcontractors, the small business community. Um, those are just some examples of things that this project would bring with it. Um, so we're very excited about being able to just follow along what the the Charleston example looked like, but put the Charlotte spin on it. Whatever the community is interested in talking about and city of Charlotte is interested in talking about, that's where we want to take this conversation. So, we've not touched on the bonus allocation funding. Um, I mentioned that the project has $600 million available uh to contribute to the construction of the project from state funds. But again, it's a multi-billion dollar project. So, the private sector is going to have to bring the rest of those funds. But on as per state law, on top of the 600 million, um this project's going to be eligible for $100 million. That is the maximum amount allowed in law uh for what's called bonus allocation funding and that's for um that bonus allocation is for other projects uh to to follow law. Those projects have to be in Meckllinburg County. Uh that's something that we'll work with through CRTPO. Obviously, City of Charlotte is a is a is a big uh part of that process. Um and again it just the the only the caveat here is it stays insur county because the law says those bonus allocations funds stay in the county that the project is within. >> So again we were here to listen tonight. We want we want to continue that conversation. Um that action item of of listening is going to be a continuation during this entire process. That's first in order of our next steps. This community engagement center, it's going to be a key resource for community members to be able to schedule times to come and talk with us, talk with a project team, hopefully answer some questions, but also talk through about what the priorities in their communities might look like to them. And there's a list of items that we know we owe city council. Excuse me. And there if there's other things we'll definitely add to them, but um one conversation that comes up a lot is why can't we put this thing underground? Can't you do a tunnel? Um so we're going to uh embark on a more detailed tunnel analysis specific to this segment um of the elevated area of I77 and we're going to work work through that and and try to paint a picture of what that could look like, right? what would it actually take to construct a tunnel? Um, you know, we know that that's a very tight corridor. Uh, we we know we want to reduce impacts. I think that's a collective interest is to limit impacts on adjacent properties and u community features. That tunnel anal tunnel analysis was going to have to do that as well. And we'll bring that back um to to this group. Uh we could talk through that how we deliver that to you guys. Um, also where are other express lanes or elevated lanes occurring in the United States? There there are projects that are ongoing that are elevating lanes. As it's been pointed out, there are projects where elevated lanes are coming down. So, we're going to provide that list and we're going to let you guys see what else is going on in some of our peer cities. Um, but again, continue the updates on the community um engagement plan. The uh shortlisted developers as I mentioned a moment ago are also going to have to uh meet with the community college. You have something there. >> Yeah. And as mentioned um there were four shortlisted developers for this project. Um ultimately six different developers were interested. Uh one of the uh CRTO working groups priorities was to have competition on this project. So for us to receive um six developers that were interested in this is more than what we're seeing in our peer states in terms of competition. So that was good news for us to have strong competition on this. But what that means is that we're now going to have four different design teams that do this type of work all over the world. They are going to develop their own designs. So what's important is for these shortlisted developers to meet directly with the community to listen and hear feedback as we are working towards minimizing impacts as well as maxim maximizing uh community benefits. And the one more thing I'll add to that is um as we have different teams working on the different designs, what we can do is we can try to take the best ideas from the different teams. That way we've got a a project that delivers on the community um priorities and certainly the the community benefits. So we can definitely take those good ideas that match what the community is looking for. >> So we we got through that tried to make it quick. I hope it wasn't too quick, but we certainly wanted to have, you know, an opportunity to have a conversation. If you guys have questions, um, want to dive into anything specifically, we can do that. Certainly. >> So, uh, thank you very much. I think your commitment to resolving these issues is clear. Uh, the difficulty we have right now is we have about 30 minutes. Uh, and that goes by very fast. I I assume each committee member would like to speak. Is that a safe assumption? >> Yes. >> So, uh, and and I expect that maybe some of the others on council who are here would like an opportunity to speak. I know Miss Mayo, you're on the front lines. So, I'm just asking you, we've all spoken publicly about this. We've made concerns that we have clear and so on. Our big challenge right now is to figure out what is council going to do. Uh, so how can we re represent the residents effectively? What process and what steps will we take? Um, so, uh, I guess I will start. Miss Watlington had asked to speak. Uh, I will call on each committee member and I hope that we will have time to hear from a couple of other council members who are here, but that will require that we all uh, just respect the time constraint. So, Miss Watlington, >> thank you. Um, I will be brief. Um, to your point, we've spoken I've had an opportunity to sit with uh, NC DOT um, and and share my concerns. uh and the community um questions. So I will just lift it up one time for the sake of those that are tuning in and uh just joining the conversation. Um first of all, thank you uh to NC DOT for your willingness to work with us. You uh responded. I know that this is not typically how you work, but um given the request and the desires for continued community engagement, thank you for how you've responded uh with it. I think it sheds a lot of light on how this work is done and as people can begin to understand it, they ultimately will know how they can influence it. So, thank you for that. Um, just going back to the 526 in Charleston, um, some of the, um, potential items for relication that have popped up and see has been of interest, uh, to constituents that I've discussed with are things like the advisory council. Um, very specific targeted outreach to the uh to the property owners or residents that are directly directly impacted, not just the neighborhood, but given that we've got uh, renderings um, the particular parcels that are impacted. um anti-displacement strategies uh like uh like helping residents who are impacted move within the neighborhood, even if that means some sort of land acquisition. Uh reconnecting communities, of course. Uh I'd love to see the workforce development opportunities and the small business participation. I would be particularly interested um to know um in light of the the current pause on the certification process for small businesses with NC do how that might be managed or how we are thinking about that. Um and then I have lifted up before and I know you'll come back to us with uh some idea of any other potential inclusions in terms of the design scope. Um we know that 77 is um is congested. We also know that we have a number of feeder roads that are citymained um or also uh state maintained like West Boulevard for example. Um and so I'm interested to know how much of this if any scope could be included for uh feeder roads to try to uh divert some of that traffic off of 77. Um appreciate the rendering for uh west for that West Boulevard interchange. I'm curious as to if that rendering is available in other views because I'd like to see um the exit ramp uh onto uh West Boulevard. So, if that's available, would love to see it. Um I'm hoping that you can speak to us a little bit very briefly about uh the rationale for the toll bonus. I want to make sure I understand why the 100 million is being incentivized and how that relates to the public's um net positive, if you will. um because I because there's obviously been a lot of conversation about whether or not um toll lanes are the right solution and so I just would like a little bit of context in terms of why that's beneficial beyond the um the initial capital to build it that part is clear but when it comes to future revenue or future ownership for the public what does that really really look like um and then lastly I would love to understand what we can do in um in the spirit of what Mr. chair just discussed what we as council and as residents can do to influence FHWA um and ways that they actually could be of service to us. >> So, uh NC DOT, are we clear on the question? >> I wrote most of it down >> and I have to stress unfortunately the time constraint, right? So, that that that could be a very long answer, but what can you say right now? Um, I'll try to hit a couple of things and team, please help me here. Um, you know, reaching out to impacted um residents and owners is a top priority for me and the team. Um, it's it's certainly been um it's it's it's been it's been a we spent a lot of time working on a project to get to this point and now it's time that we we've got to get in front of these folks and we want to talk to the individual owners um of properties. That is something that we're definitely committed to doing. Um we will we will make that a top priority moving forward. Um the u reconnecting community strategies again that's going to be an ongoing conversation. Um the workforce development priorities again that's a priority I've got to because I know our industry needs uh additional workforce. um the SBE conversation. Um we still fully intend to have at least small business enterprise requirements in this contract and outreach efforts, meaning that we have it. We have an ongoing effort. Felix has been to several events recently. We're going to host another one. I don't know, is it tomorrow? We got one on Saturday. >> If it's not this week, >> if it's not this week, it's an upcoming one. But we did go to breakfast conversations where Mayor Prom was there. Councilman Graham was also there where represented about 77 and the opportunities that we have. But we we do these outreach um a lot. Um and there is another one one coming up. >> Yeah. So that's going to be a priority for us. It's going to be a priority. We're going to make it a contract requirement that they go outreach as well. Carl, do you have to add? >> Also, in addition, as part of the community engagement center, our plan is also to have events specifically tailored for small businesses and opportunities, making sure that they're able to get certified and um to do work on this project as well. >> Yeah. And that was a key term that came out from the CRTO working group. So, just like we've were able to include certain um key terms, we want to have the additional dialogue with the community. So, identify those key terms so we can incorporate that into the contract. >> And really quickly, uh a couple like design scope questions um in the and how that could relate to the bonus allocation funds. The bonus allocation funds are available because it is a toll facility that is in our legislation that um that those funds have to be provided in the county that the project occurs as I said. So, how that relates to the scope of the project that could include um additional uh projects that could also benefit um uh other roadways that could be near could be near this uh corridor. That's going to be a coordination effort we've got to go through with CRTPO, but we will certainly u be there to help facilitate those conversations. Um >> yeah, >> thank you. And lastly was just the FHWA if there's a quick what can we do to influence them. >> So yeah so um you know FHWA involvement in this pro project you know obviously uh it is an interstate highway NC do like other states has delegated authority to uh manage and maintain the interstate system here in our state but we have our federal partners and so um FHWA has to be uh okay with this NEPA document that we've been talking about. they have to sign off on that document and that's why we've been engaged in an ongoing dialogue with them and so as we're able to bring them down to have an open conversation. Um certainly I know that they're willing to to engage in that conversation with you. >> Thank you so much. >> Yes ma'am. >> All right. So everybody I think you see the problem right we don't have much time. I will say uh we have three more meetings of this committee between now and the proposed RP date and uh this will be on the agenda at each of those. Uh we can also schedule if we need to an extraordinary meeting if we feel like we haven't had enough opportunity to engage and with that uh Mr. Graham you have been passionately outspoken. >> What's that? Not just >> just a couple question. I just want to quick go back to the the tunnel analysis. >> The tunnel analysis. So when do you think that's going to be done and will the results be shared with the four uh developers who will be um you'll be sent RFP to? And will there be language in that RFP that talks about the tunnel analysis? And will there be language in there that talks about the cap and stitch options? Could you can you talk a little bit about that? Sure. >> And when will they be coming to town? Right. Before the RFP is uh released or after. >> Yeah, I I'll touch on the tunnel analysis and turn over to Bobby. So the tunnel analysis is going to be initiated. We are doing that. I don't have a time frame, but I can tell you that we will work to expedite that, but we want a thorough analysis, >> right? We want it to be specific to this corridor so that we can outline what what those um >> what what that what that type of project might look like, right? We want to we want to answer the question. We've been asked, show our homework. We need to do that deep dive for you guys. Secretary is also committed to that. So, that's initiated. We're going to we can get you a time frame, counselor. >> Um >> but it'll be before the RFP goes out, you think? >> Oh, yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And there's and there's iterative um RFP so it's not just one and doneraft draft and then draft draft. The final won't be done till the end of 2027. >> Okay. Okay. >> Uh I'm sorry. >> The only thing I was going to add like what we we will provide tons of data to the developers uh the things that uh uh Brett has talked about far as uh the NEPA design and so forth. But uh I do want to be clear as like uh when you go up there it's almost more of a footprint that you're showing. You're showing the shape of the project and then in words we're going to be able to articulate this is what's going to be required and we call that that would be in the technical provisions but then this is what's not going to be like for example we won't tell them to go build a mile and a half elevated bridge. That's not what would happen. it would be this is the shape we want and they can come up and see if they can solve it a different way and they they may decide that they can solve it with a covered cap or not. There's uh uh I can tell you from my SR400 experience uh there was only two biders at the end but there was the NEPA design and then the other two biders had completely different designs. So like they'll actually start uh when they get working they'll start at 0%. and they'll work off what is important to uh the community. So, anything from the terms from corpo, any technical terms that do always would want far as their stuff, anything that uh you know, we come out with the community and after we've have these listening sessions, then uh that'll certainly inform how we uh tell them and it's called an instruction to proposers. We instruct them what what's important. Sorry about that. Go ahead. >> No, no, sorry. And and the second, I know my time is short. the the the design plan uh the elevated highway. Can you talk about environmental concerns that that you'll be doing to address the elevated highway? And then more importantly, why was that even an option? And and you guys know I went on record saying that I don't like it at all either. So why was that an option? And talk to me a little bit about environmental concerns, air pollution, etc., etc. So yeah, I I'll be brief and certainly can team join join in here, but the the elevated design came about simply because in our design and as as Bobby alluded to, I we had to create a footprint. We have to satisfy that need for process. So we had to create a footprint that the teams could then operate within. And if the teams need to go outside that footprint, they would have to revisit this whole process. Right? So our goal is to to derive a a solution. It's just a solution that is least impactful as that we think we can make it to squeeze it in and and uptown area as we all know is an extremely tight area. It's bound by um uh you know homes, businesses, um a creek, historic cemetery. So the elevated design allowed us to miss those items. When I say miss them, I mean we're not touching the cemetery. We're not impacting homes north of John Belt. And we knew that we needed to provide some solution to create a footprint that these developers can work within. So if the developer teams can innovate and find some other way to deliver this deliver this project and construct the lanes, then they're going to be pursuing that. They're they're listening to these conversations. They know that these are going to be priorities to to try to achieve the goals of the community while also achieving the goal of delivering the project. So, it's ultimately to try to define the smallest footprint possible. That's how we arrived at that elevated design. Environmentally, no matter if those lanes are elevated or if they're at grade, meaning at the same elevation, um, you know, cars, they make noise, they have exhaust gases. And, um, again, moving vehicles instead of idling vehicles decreases emissions, but we will, as a part of this process, have to conduct noise analysis and abatement plan. So there will be options and opportunities for noise wall loss to help mitigate the noise impacts. >> Okay. And and lastly, Mr. Chairman, I know my time is running out. >> You're doing what? You're doing >> um and it's more a comment than a question. Uh so I really appreciate um the realization that um we stumbled out of the gate, right? and that you guys have level set. Um that the secretary met with residents and council members. Uh that you pushed back the the release of the RFP from March to June. Uh the establishment of the community um benefits office. And I really want to echo what council member Wallington said. I think that's really really important that we drill down and really talk about uh how we um how we cure impact because no matter what design design A B CDE EFG there will be impact and we need to minize those impact. We also need to identify right now on that 11 mile stretch where the impacted focus areas are and be reaching out to those citizens. I would love to see a a neighborhood advisory committee uh established similar to what's done in Charleston to have neighbors at the table each and every step of the way. Um for sure. Uh and then then lastly, you you talked a little bit about uh um uh as a part of the community benefits. I mean, for an example, you're going to be tearing up um interchanges like Arrowwood Road, Nations for Road, Archdale, Tyola, Woodline, South Triion, Clanton, Remont, West Boulevard. We have street standards, right? And so, um pedestrian and bike paths, um betterment costs. Hopefully, you guys can help work with us on those costs. Not coming from the bonus allocation. Okay. not coming from >> I would say this that is a goal of ours as well. >> Okay. Not coming from the bonus allocation that's a part of the construction. >> Correct. >> And then you mentioned bridges and there's like three bridges that's not a part of the plan already. The fifth street bridge replacement, the Westinghouse bridge replacement and the Tyola bridge replacement is not a part of the plans. You know, we're going to break the street out. Let's do it all at once, right? And so hopefully that's something that you can incorporate as a part of the plan as well. not coming from the um the bonus allocation. Um as one of the two major community benefits and then the benefits relating to the neighbors themselves, right? Uh I I think this council needs to be really really focused and working in partnership with youth uh to talk about what those benefits looks like and sounds like and how and when they will be implemented. Uh and so I um these are baby steps. uh folks are still not happy, right? Um that there's a realization that at least as a policy maker that I understand and so I I am hopeful that the four short list firms will hear this conversation. Uh you didn't ask the question when are they coming into town? Before or after the RFP? >> Go ahead. >> It's Yeah, before >> before and so yeah. So, and they're competing against one another. And so, I if they're hearing this conversation, they clearly understand that tunneling and uh and something other than the elevation design is desirable for a wide variety of the neighborhood leaders uh including me. And so, I look forward to working with you specifically on those community benefits. Uh talking a little bit about the um the betterment costs that I think some of these projects should be included uh in the project. as you guys are doing it. Uh and um like I said, these are baby steps, but um there are other organizations taking different steps in reference to how they want to solve for that. That's on a different track. >> So, Mr. Graham, >> so I I I just think we just need to be very focused uh and we have the conversation. So, you guys know where I stand. >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, sir. Uh Miss Mayfield. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the presentation. my questions. You can email all of committee to follow up for a sake of time. I want to follow up. Dr. Wallington specifically identified with the I586 the fact that advisory council was identified. If that is something that we are able to do, I would like for that to be representative of all the neighborhoods that are looking at impact, whether that is potential home removal and or business. So to make sure that there's true representation of communities concerns and questions also want to clarify the benefits to small businesses not just the SPE part but the businesses that are going to be impacted. We have seen where just local construction has caused businesses to have to close their doors because of the year many years of construction. So having that outline as far as what would be the plan will be helpful so that we can share we can understand and we can share that information. So the current tolls that we have do we have the tracking as far as the usage on those? That information will be helpful if we're saying this is to help alleviate traffic a number different times a day. I'm out in community. I'm on our highways. I do not see a lot of traffic on the current tolls. So, it will be helpful to actually know since you're able to track and you gave us numbers saying about how many miles and or gas is wasted sitting on the highways. what is the actual usage right now before we have this longer conversation of additional lanes. also want to make sure that I have an understanding and it was probably said and I may have just missed it when we're looking at this P3 the revenue from this who's receiving it like is there a designate designated contractual line item saying that much like if we're going to use Charleston as an example Charleston funding for the infrastructure revenue generated from the tolls will be allocated to repairing aging roads and enhancing public spaces which are critical for maintaining the quality of life in the community. That was one of the things that they sold the community on. I may have missed it. I'm asking where that language is in this conversation because if we're telling the community this is a benefit outside of maybe reducing time that cost, how is that coming back to community? and if that's even part of the conversation. If it's not, let's have transparency and clarity on that. If it is, where is that written as far as what our improvements will be from that revenue that will be generated? Also want to I think it was mentioned that first responders and others will have free access. Do they have current free access on the tolls that we have? Yes. because if that's something they already have, that's not really for me can be listed as a benefit because that's what we already have. So help me to understand so that I can better have conversation with community of how we're saying that that's a benefit to use because I would think our first responders would have that access automatically. So also with wanting to make sure I'm going to repeat advisory council that's made up of community as well as these identifying dedicated funds for repairing our roads. If this is going to be a revenue generator for a business, it will be helpful for me to be able to talk to the community to say this is how it's going to benefit us outside of you just paying for a usage and the tracking mechanism. What are the key points of knowing over time this is successful? Because again, if we do a comparison of the current tolls that we have and the usage compared to those of us, cuz I'm one of those that's going to sit on the highway cuz I'm not going to pay for usage on the toll for roads I already paid for in my taxes. So, if we're doing that, it will be helpful to know what happens if this does not generate the revenue that's anticipated. knowing what current revenue has been generated I think will be helpful to level set. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Great. Uh I wanted to note uh committee member Johnson would normally be here uh she's at home with a family medical situation. So we wish her all the best and she will get on board I'm sure with vigor uh as soon as she's able. Okay. Um so I have a couple of things. Um >> uh I'm sorry I missed Miss Ameara. No. Well, she's not a committee member. I want to finish the committee members, right? That was the idea. I'm a committee member. Right. >> You are. >> All right. >> You are a number one. >> So, uh I'm going to try to get to other members of council. But, uh so, one question I have which I think is pertinent also to the signs in the room. You say you're at 15% design and you have indicated a recommendation or preference for the elevated option. Is that now cast in stone? Do we still have room for solutions other than the elevated option? >> Yeah, I think I think Bobby touched on that well. I mean, this is a footprint. The elevated option that and and our base design is simply to create as the least impactful option that we can create that we want folks to operate in that narrow footprint because we don't want additional impacts. So, you know, again, these proposers are hearing these conversations. They're hearing these these priorities. if there's another way to to deliver this, they're going to find it. You know, that that is the ultimate goal is to deliver a well- balanced project satisfying community needs and delivering the the transportation improvement that is desperately needed out there. >> And if I can um just to add on um just to kind of keep on I'm sorry, hitting home on kind of we have to put this in words. So like it won't say anything about how what they need to build. We'll just be saying stay off of that historical cemetery that so there' be words like that and then they have the opportunity to innovate and build. Uh but we'll tell them what they need to stay away from. Uh and they'll give us feedback but they say look we've tried everything we can. We can't and we'll we'll take that feedback from them. But it's an the partnership starts soon as that uh draft RFP goes out in late June. uh and we'll continue talking to them and you know of course talking to these groups. >> So uh I have heard that uh people are um skeptical about whether NC DOT has really considered all the possibilities. Um and uh I just want to say my personal hope is that getting four major international firms who are in this space will bring different perspectives and uh I hope that in conversation with them we can reach a level of satisfaction that nothing that might get done or has been done in another country or whatever uh has been left out. Uh and they will bring into the conversation solutions that we might may not have seen yet. So I'll just mention that and uh I wanted to talk also about the pricing issue because CRTPO uh and the working group that included me were actually very focused on the issue of pricing on the road because we have all observed that uh on I77 north traffic is light and and that you get backto-back cars on south and on north it's light. So I think that came from something that wasn't taken into account frankly when the original I77 north contract was negotiated and that was a time and by the way we have been given a few more minutes by Miss Allen. Thank you Miss Allen. Uh Holmes Holmes I'm sorry there's another there's a Monica Allen too. Miss Holmes thank you. Uh so uh I'm going to talk for another minute or two and then we'll try to get some other people in. But uh one thing we looked about uh very seriously was this issue of trying to achieve utilization uh and therefore having a pricing formula that would lead to utilization in the the paid lanes that offered some genuine relief to the free lanes. So people in the free lanes will not be paying. Uh and if we achieve good utilization rates in the managed lanes such that this speed of 50 m an hour can be achieved but not 80 miles an hour as is now frequently the case. Uh that will address a major concern. uh and as Miss Swanson pointed out, we did also consider many other issues arising from the I77 experience and just concerns that we have today that maybe weren't taken into account then before the CRTPO said okay subject to these conditions uh you can go ahead and explore the P3. So um the the main concern I have that I as I indicated uh committee is in in essence we need to have now a process. We need to take the desire of council to participate and to engage on behalf of residents and translate it. Uh so one suggestion I might have is that council members submit a list of questions or concerns and that we will then compile those and the council can then agree. Okay, that's that's a good statement of the issues that we're concerned about and that would give NC do the opportunity to respond uh on an accountable and organized basis. So uh if members are okay with that, we're going to start down that road. As I said, there will be at least three more meetings of this committee. There will be reports to the full council on what discussions have happened. Um and uh I believe uh a key issue in my mind and I'm dealing at this from a much higher level than Mr. Graham who has been so engaged on the issues but uh the particulars of the community benefits and I think there's a good prototype here in the Charleston case that I believe we've all heard about. So this is an example another example of where in another state there was a very high level of engagement by the department of transportation to address concerns that have been raised. So it gives us something some ideas something to look at. Uh and I'm encouraged by the possibilities that are suggested in there the scope of the things that could happen and I hope that the residents will derive some encouragement also from the fact that there could be some real advantages to them to their community to the individually impacted individuals and and uh and also this is a larger Charlotte issue as well. So when you get into some of these sensitive historical questions, the interest in this thing goes beyond that immediate vicinity. So we need to be sensitive at all levels and uh I I as I say I just encourage everybody uh we will set up some sort of staff means of receiving input from council members and then we'll try to arrange that into something that gives you the sum of council's engagement on behalf of the residents. So now uh we still have a little more time thanks to Miss Holmes. Um and uh Miss Miss Mayo, you have also been a frontline person. So if you want to talk to us, please do. >> Thank you. Um >> Yes. Okay. >> I guess for me what I'm really thinking through is I know we've asked a lot of questions. We've been asking questions for weeks. Residents have asking questions since November. When are we going to start getting some of those answers? And is there a deadline for that that y'all can have going forward even? So 72 business hours, 48 I mean it's we still haven't got answers since November. So it's hard to continue to sit here and ask questions when we still haven't received answers nor have residents to questions that they've already addressed and concerned. Um I'll ask a couple more, but um I I hope that there'll be timely answers. Um first with the rubric for competing teams, when will that go out? And if possible, I would like for council to see that well in advance so that we can provide feedback as well. So the rubric for those competing teams that are voting for or competing for the bid. Um I would really like it to be weighted in a way that those people who have innovative plans that don't include elevated options that are thinking outside the box, we know what the pain points are for our community. how is that rubric being used in order to um benefit and uh raise the concerns of our of our residents. Um my next question is about budget. So I know that y'all talked quite a bit about how much you expect for this to cost. How does that relate to let's say this innovative proposal one of the the groups is able to come out with uh with the cap and cover but it's well over budget. How does that play into some of that? So, that's something I'd like for y'all to tell us how you're going to be um determining who's going to be winning the bid based on a couple of different um concepts. And for me, I think it's about backward planning. So, if we weren't want certain things in the contract, we know what the concerns of our residents are. How are we taking that into account when we are going through um the contract and uh determining who will be chosen for that? So, I just want us to really think through that. I want council to be part of those conversations so that we can actually um meet the needs of our residents. >> Thank you, M. Mayo. Uh other I'd like to recognize uh Council Member Mascera Arias. Did I get it right? >> Yes. uh who has joined us and uh who else would like to speak? >> All right. >> Uh okay, I have Miss Amira, Mr. Mitchell, Miss Owens, uh Mr. Everybody. All right, so now we're we're in overtime, but we have seven more minutes. So guys, uh you know, help us out here. The committee and the primary council members have spoken, but I want to give everybody a chance to say something. All right, so let's go with the Miss Amira. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and NC DOT team. Thank you for your presentation. Uh your presentation say says the design is only 10 to 15% complete and that the community can still >> I answer that quickly. >> Yes, please. >> So the the design that we have in front of us today is is a 10 to 15% level design. It's necessary to work through the NEPA process, but it establishes a footprint. We want we want a narrow footprint. We want a very le we want the least impactful option. Right? So if there is another way to deliver this project um that those teams will look for that they will look for innovation. They will use these priorities that we're hearing about today and they will influence and shape how they can deliver the project. We are simply trying to create uh at least impactful design. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Thank you. Um let's keep going. Uh, Mrs. uh Owens. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, I'll be very brief. Uh, one comment that I have is just something that I've seen a little bit of inconsistency around that I think may cause confusion. So, it's just a point of clarification. When you reference the HIV, uh, 3 plus lanes being free. Sometimes I see the omission that a family needs to have a quick pass and and I just think that that's an important element of that because I think that there can be some confusion. So I would ask for the community resource center to perhaps be very clear on that and to help people get that quick path so they can avail themselves of the lane. The other thing I would mention is in your instructions to proposers, if you could also include um the history of displacement of this corridor for foreign companies are not going to have as keen a sense of what some of these issues may be and perhaps arming them or for ararming them before they meet with the communities might better level set some of the expectations that we have particularly around displacement. Um, I often hear speaking of displacement, how many homes north of Belulk unaffected, but I don't hear much about south of Belulk. And I just really want to be very clear that we are communicating as as transparently as we can. And I do appreciate the enhanced community feedback. My final comment is I would just ask that as we go forward with processes such as this that there not be a point of no return that precedes the dissemination of maps to the community because I think that that does lead to a lack of transparency or at least a perception that community engagement is not really true. Thank you. >> Thank you. Concise and to the point. Thank you. Maseras, please. >> Thank you. Thank you, colleagues. Um, I just have a few questions and again can be emailed. Um, I want to know the impact that a widening highway would have versus an elevated highway would have. How many neighborhoods would be impacted, houses, etc. The second thing is what if we looked at just a highway that's all toll lanes, right? uh rather than having an express lane versus not an express lane because I77 north or sorry 485 um the congestion is still there right regard uh with the express lanes there. So what if you just had all the lanes toll lanes uh the other thing I wanted to ask is you know when we look at the Charleston case of I26 what you know they're working on some public transportation options there as well. I would like to learn more about how we can incorporate public transportation into these conversations. Um, and ultimately, uh, just the finding some equity and being more thoughtful and intentional with community engagement. I think the reason we are at this point right now and why there's been a lot of community push back is because there wasn't that intentionality before. And so, we don't want to be reactive, we want to be proactive. Thank you, chair. >> Oh, so concise and to the point. This is unusual. Actually, Mr. Mitchell. >> Okay. Uh, Mr. Chair, I'm going be very be very brief. I would like staff to assist the transportation committee. As long as we have I77 on the agenda, we need to move this to 267. >> We we have to make sure this is warm and embracing. You you see this is a very important topic to our community. The turnout is great, but we got to make sure it's welcoming. So staff, can you work with the chair? If this if this is on the agenda item, we need to move it to a larger larger room >> and it will be at each of our next three meetings. So, let's try to schedule that. Uh, so my last question for the group is, are we okay with the idea that we have uh a time frame of a week or two, whatever it is, for council members to get their current concerns submitted, right? And Miss Babson, can they send them to you? >> Yes, sir. >> All right. So, so, uh, >> question. >> Uh, okay. Let me just finish my sentence. I'll be right there. Um, so again, it it doesn't stop. All right. So, we're not talking about you speak now and then you can't speak again, but we want to have a starting point. So, what I'm envisioning is everybody makes a submission, committee members and otherwise, talk about your questions and and your concerns and then uh staff will try to pull that together into something that we can look at at our next meeting uh as a document that we would share with NC DOT. Um, I think we'll all be busy until then. So, I don't believe we'll miss anything by that schedule. So, without objection, that's what we're going to do. And therefore, we will get out to the full council. We're almost all here, but get out a request for input on I77 to be included in a uh a basically a submission to NC DOT on behalf of residents. Okay. >> I have a question. Hold on. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I have a concern that council is put on a timeline to ask questions when we have heard not just almost oh 20 seconds ago. There have been questions that have been asked of this process since November and even since over the last few weeks that have not been answered. I would be much more comfortable with us getting some of the answers, if not all of the answers to our questions, so that we can be responsive to the community prior to council agreeing to a timeline for us to come up with questions, additional questions to send to NC DOT. >> So, my purpose, Miss Mayfield, is to create that accountability by getting down in writing what everybody wants to know and asking NC DOT to uh react. >> They taking notes. Uh, >> what's that? >> They're taking notes. >> Yeah, >> they've been taking notes for the last two weeks. I >> I mean, I I respect what you're saying as our chair and our representative. >> A burden on >> it does put You're absolutely right. It puts a burden on them. That's their job. It puts a burden on us as well to come up with repeating what we've already asked. So, I do hear and I respect the idea of it may put a burden on them. This is our job. that is part of theirs. They have been asked questions from council. They have been asked questions from community. Yes, we need some answers to those questions. I am not comfortable agreeing to rewrite the questions that I have already asked that are recorded and written down >> to give them additional time. Well, we are already looking at March 5th and we have said on more than one occasion, well, we should be comfortable by June to have this conversation. not if you haven't responded to the questions we already have and I understand it's a burden may feel >> that is part of the work. >> Okay. So, uh yes, they've been asked a ton of questions at different times verbally and in different places. What I'm trying to do simply is consolidate all of that exchange that has taken place in a way that is accountable so that we can have a conversation in which commitments are made. That's my point. >> I agree with your point. That's not our job. That's their job to to consolidate and they have a consultant that also helps to consolidate. >> Mr. Mr. Chairman, >> yes, >> if I can. >> Excuse me. Go ahead. >> If I can, I I think Miss Mayfield is absolutely correct. They met with all the council members. They were taking great notes. The secretary was in town and took great notes with C from council members and residents. I think they know what the questions are, right? So, if they can answer it for us, I think it alleviates this two week step that we're trying to do. Uh, and and because we got 90 days before the RFP goes out, right? And so, let's I I think you guys know, right? >> I can I can provide a quick update on that. Um, uh, council member, uh, Mayo did provide us an update yesterday that there were outstanding questions from the website and so we have, uh, those questions now and they are being addressed as are all the questions that came in through the listening sessions this week. So that is underway. Should there be additional questions that come up after the meeting in any time during just send us the questions and we will continue to answer those. Uh there are some questions that can be answered now that some that will require feasibility studies of course bringing all the people in certainly around tunneling and those kinds of things will take longer. So we're trying to get an assessment of what that is and to provide regular updates uh to council and committee. We're working on a comm's plan now. As you know, we came in in crisis and so we are level setting also as a project to um align on communication strategies as well as engagement strategies. So I just ask that you would give us about seven days and we'll have some things on paper and committed to as a project team. >> Um >> so am I hearing then that uh the committee wants them to produce for us a list of the questions they're already aware of and >> I think we're going to respond answers. I think we're gonna we we have we have a lot of questions. We've had great conversations this week and they've been very helpful um in understanding not only from the residents that we spoke to with the with the secretary but also with council members. We've also been watching all of your meetings as well. So, we do have a sense of what some of those questions are. There are some common themes there as well. And so the team is digging into some of those things and we don't have an answer today, but we are going to take some time around that um because there is a need to dig a little bit deeper. Uh we've had some really good conversations with with uh community members and there are a lot of um there's a lot of sensitivity to this. And so in addition to making sure that community members understand the opportunity as it relates to benefits and things that we can do, um there are a lot of players and stakeholders that we need to bring to the table. uh but certainly getting the answers to your question is that at some point this give and take which has been unsatisfactory from the sound of what my colleagues are saying we need to somehow improve on that so we need to get down to some brass tax and talk about what the status is if if you don't have an answer what when will we get the answer and and uh what is the timeline when can what can we expect and when because we can't keep meeting like this >> I think that's a great point so I'm going to I'm going to go on the I'm going to go off the cuff here and say that on Fridays we'll tell you what we know. How about that? So on Fridays the answers the questions that can be answered on a weekly basis. We'll send that information collectively to the council and then um I think there is there's a way that we can also document the questions that we have as well so you can see what's on the record and the things that are being worked on. >> And the questions that you can't answer yet put in there don't know yet. Here is the date. That's when we we expect clarity about that. So there's more accountability about the process. Are we okay with that? We still have a few minutes that we need to spend on area plants. Are we all right for now? >> Just one quick comment and and I'll be quick and this this is an internal question for the council and not enough for our friends at NC DOT is that there is a carpal meeting coming up March 18th >> 25th >> 25th and and we just need to make sure that we're sending the right message from our representative to that board. So at some point I think the council has to come have a meeting of minds about that as well. >> Liz, I don't know how. >> So when that's done, >> it was my intention to update the board. I'll draft what I intend to say and I'll circulate it to the council and you guys can respond to that. Everybody will have a chance to participate in the message. >> It's going to do that anyway. >> So guys, we really need to move on. >> We'll talk about talk about that offline. >> Okay. Uh, >> you can rewrite it if you want to, but we need to have >> No, I just I think we just need to make sure that we're all on the same page, right? >> I'm just I'm just trying procedurally to organize all of these people and and for impact. >> Excuse me. I think we may have lost sound. But you see the draft out there for people to react to. Then I'm going to get input. I can't add who's going to write it. >> Somebody's got to write it. >> And I am the member. So I'm going to say this is what I think is appropriate to say and then you can say hey this is what I think is appropriate to say and we'll work it out. >> Okay. >> All right. Please quickly quickly now we need to get on to it. >> I know. Can you meet our members? >> Where are they? >> Committee members, I need you back in your seats. >> Hi, Mr. Dream. >> Hello. >> Hey. Hey, look who's here. Committee members, please. We need to go on to the next item on our agenda. >> Okay. In the essence of time, I can make this take not a lot of time. So, >> all right. Good. Good. >> Yeah. >> How many members do you have? >> Yeah, I have a mic. >> All right, let's let's get started. Uh, >> thank you. So, uh, committee and staff, the next item on our agenda is actually also very important. It's about the community area plans. Order, please. Order. Thank you. It's about community area plans and, uh, we've been working on this, as you know, uh, well, in April last year, a draft was released of the community area plans. uh they've been discussed at length with communities, but in November, the council voted that uh on March uh >> March 23rd >> on March 23rd, no later than March 23rd, the council would vote on the adoption of the remaining seven plans that were not adopted uh in the first place. So, this is the last committee meeting before that vote and uh we need to prepare to move ahead. I can tell you I have a personal view that it it is really a difficult situation to have some plans in place and others not. And therefore, I'm very hopeful that we can complete the adoption of the plans and then continue to deal with issues that may not be fully resolved. And with that, uh over to you, Miss Holmes. >> Well, thank you for having us. We will so just uh we will be in front of you also on Monday evening as part of the action uh preview for the so we're going to give a very shortened version in the next few minutes and you'll see much more content on Monday night especially since most of you are here. So I have with me Kathy Cornet who uh manages the long range division and uh Tree Higgler Gray who is our attorney uh with planning. So as you know uh we show this slide often but we're here just to talk through the ongoing engagement and what we've uh done since the deferral on November 24th. We have been here many times uh talking about this and uh the community area plans really fit. We use this slide. We want to make sure and reiterate the framework that you have the umbrella comprehensive plan adopted in 2021. We have the strategic action plan such as the mobility plan, the energy action plan that falls in that second level of planning. Um, and some of you'll see later some of our upcoming work that'll fit in that second bucket. And then we have what we're talking about here tonight, the community area plans, which take a deeper dive into 14 geographies, uh adding additional policy, uh additional uh recommendations to each of those 14 areas. So you all know this, we adopted seven plans November 24th, we deferred seven plans. uh we wanted additional engagement and we've really focused that engagement over the past four months. We started in December uh pulling together a new core team that could take a fresh look uh at what people were missing from the table, what voices did we need to hear more from, uh what new ideas, what are the stones we had not yet unturned. Uh we then went and um hired a community engagement consultant to help us again take a new look at that. We analyzed all the feedback we had, put it into key key themes uh so that we could have additional conversations. We focused on the messaging around those key themes and how we could communicate uh in a more clear plain language fashion with the residents of those seven um deferred area plans. Then we planned numerous touch points which I'll talk through and while also updating the staff analysis which you guys have been experiencing at your um zoning meeting. So all of this work was done with a goal of that March 23rd date in mind so that we would be ready for a March 23rd adoption. So what exactly did that additional engagement look like? The additional engagement uh happened in three different ways. So the first way the engagement happened was an online survey uh that was open the whole month of February. uh and got feedback on two major categories which is neighborhood change in existing neighborhoods and environmental impact. So looking at the common themes that we heard across those seven geographies, we tried to hone in on policies that were really important to those communities that did those two things. The survey was also a key highlight of the feedback we got at the workshops. So, we did two in-person workshops and two virtual workshops uh starting February 12th and then um the last one was February 24th. I'll also say we had and really thanks to you all um we had several town halls that focused on area plans and got feedback during this month uh which we were really able to leverage. We also had several council members um help to publicize the engagement, get more people to attend. Uh council member Mazera Arius hosted an an an east side meeting as well that we had great attendance at. So really appreciate all the individual council members that helped us whose districts this affected, helped us get the word out. Um and so great attendance of those. Um, in addition to those, we continued to have neighborhood meetings with uh specific neighborhoods that had specific issues. They wanted to take a deep dive into those issues. So, um, I'll show some of those examples. Uh, but that was another way we continued engagement um, and continued having those conversations. So, you can see here just what all of that engagement looked like. you know, a thank you to the council members who are listed here who really helped us with those town halls. Um, you'll see North End Partners, West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition. We met with Mountain Island Lake Community Association a couple times as well. Uh, we had um also a couple road shows where we were doing um additional just learning how to use the area plans and what they mean for you. So that was in Montford Park, Greater Oaks. Um just continued conversation. And then you'll see on the left all the different ways we blasted it out um and got the word out. Everything from something very low tech like yard signs to all of the social media posts and um boosting that we could do from the city organization. So this here is what those in-person meetings looked like. Even though the in-person meetings happened in different parts of town, each meeting highlighted all seven geographies that were deferred. And we actually had information on the adopted plans as well at those meetings so that people could talk to staff face toface. We had 20 plus staff members at each one from all different departments, cats, C dot, economic development, corridors of opportunity, housing, uh so that we could answer all of the questions and provide real-time feedback. Uh special thanks to Mayor Proim who was our attendance champion who really helped us kick off both meetings. Um so much appreciated for that. Uh but you can see here what it looked like. Really great conversations. um really lively crowd and where it led and this is what I'll deep dive into on Monday is the potential changes. So we have a lot of proposed changes in those buckets. So environmental impacts, neighborhood change, and then we've actually added a third which is around infrastructure based off of the comments and feedback that we have. Um, so just to get you excited about what you're going to see on Monday, we'll go in a deeper dive as to what those specifically are. We'll talk through the minor additions and revisions and some some of the things we're doing to make it um a more clear, easy to understand document and then we'll talk through some of the specific map changes. So that is um what I have for you today. trying to keep you not here till 7:30. Uh but >> keeping it keeping it tight. >> Thank you so much uh for this and for all your hard work. Uh for clarification, environmental impacts that's not just about air quality. >> No, it is not. It's about uh you'll we'll talk about it, but it's about land use adjacencies. So manufacturing adjacent to residential. It's about emerging uses like data centers and things that we may happen in the future that we don't even know exist. How do we deal with um an emerging land use that might have environmental impacts and how do we take an additional look? So, lots of good stuff in that. >> These are like quality of life issues, right? It's it's not a narrow in the sense of environment. Okay. Uh committee questions. Yes. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you staff for the presentation for coming out in community. Definitely want to thank you on behalf of the 50 plus attendees that was at the mountain island lake discussion. The question I do have is when even though we didn't go through all the slides when we break down under new policies environmental impacts we have in there avoid manufacturing near housing. The flip side of that which I would like to see the language I want to see in the writing is avoid housing near manufacturing. Yeah, >> there's a difference because we have had a couple of reasonzonings that was previously manufacturing land that would have been reszoned for housing. >> Yeah. >> And I don't want us to experience what the community next to Seofab and what the school next to Seab is experiencing right now where there was a issue. The students weren't the teachers and everybody were not notified of it. parents have clear concerns. So I think there is value in identifying both avoid manufacturing near housing and avoid housing near manufacturing. >> Yeah. And we'll make sure that we have additional copies of of draft plans. But so in the draft plans already is the reverse is the avoid housing near manufacturing. What we heard loud and clear is people wanted both. They wanted avoid manufacturing near housing and avoid housing near manufacturing because it's which use is expanding. So in the draft documents now that we're adding this, there's actually both policies. >> Okay? because we just recently have done this where we've approved a project and just as a FYI for my colleagues where we talk about Mount Mount Holly Huntersville Road unfortunately and I pray that it wasn't a fatality but as I was heading home last night in traffic right there off of the Cook's property you had all of our first responders and as I went by the vehicle was on side >> with smoke coming out >> that when we're looking at which is why I wanted us to slow down a little bit to clarify this language. When we're looking at the driving patterns of individuals, not what we've done, but the driving patterns of individuals and their potential recklessness and how that impacts others. This is why I wanted us to just slow down a little bit and look at where we're talking about approving projects and taking into consideration not only the fatalities but the near fatalities that are happening in these high network areas. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you, Miss Mayfield. And we will have an opportunity in full counsel on Monday, I believe, right to talk about that. Any other comments? Do I hear a motion? >> Anybody online hand up? I'm good. >> So, I'm going to vote no for laughs, but is everybody else okay? >> It's only you and me left. >> All right. Thank you everybody. >> Thank you. >> Thank you.