[Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] nice guys what you're talking into okay uh i got something like that myself the regular meeting of the oral city council for monday february 14 2022 is called order with the clerk please proceed with an announcement of the call online english and spanish good evening city council welcomes feedback from the public on both matters appearing on the agenda and during public invited to be heard if you are on the phone or would like to speak and have not already spoken to an operator please practice our curricula for those watching on channel 8 call 855-695-3475 and private star 3's is connected you will hear a prompt confirming you are in line to speak to an operator and then be able to continue listening to the media when the operator comes on the line please be ready to give them your name and the agenda item you wish to speak on please keep in mind you must press start three before the city clerk reads the title of the item you wish to speak on if you are not in the queue and the first public provided to be called it heard is called by the clerk you'll be playing within the queue for the public invited to be heard at the end of the meeting and as a reminder council does not allow comments about any items on the agenda during public invited to be heard thank you mayor i'm sorry we have the spanish interpreter as well oh i'm sorry i'm staying corrected [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] mayor kaufman here mayor pro-tem bergen council member coombs councilmember gardner here councilmember jorinsky here councilmember lawson here councilmember marcano president councilmember medina yeah council member mario president council member sundberg here and council members of anik here there's the quorum uh please join me in a moment of prayer oh lord our god and our father we come to you and we ask that you would look upon this particular gathering tonight and guide us in our decisions bless our city with honorable industries sound education and good government unite the community together even though we come from different backgrounds we pray that there be justice and peace in our city give our city council wisdom direction and sensitivity to the business and proceedings before us tonight hear us therefore as we commit this meeting to the health of this community amen uh executive session updates uh we discussed um personnel matters what's that oh all right stand corrected please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice my thanks to councilmember lawson for steering me in the right direction executive session update we discuss personnel issues and labor negotiations approval of the minutes uh for january 31st 2022 uh motion mary motion to approve the minutes okay councilmember sunberg moved to approve the minutes second by second by council members veronica discussion saying no a discussion uh with the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the minutes the vote has been open for council members to vote and mayor kaufman how would you like to vote mayor road time and i believe uh councilman bargain and councilman gardner voted online okay uh proclamation mayor i'm sorry council member lawson and councilmember coombs and councilmember jorinski we need your vote i'm sorry and we can do it verbally if you need to this is combs i am having issues with you okay how would you like to vote for the minutes yes you got something madrinski yes councilmember coombs yes councilmember lawson yes the motion passes to approve the january 31st 2022 meeting minutes proclamation whereas without the story of african americans the story of america would be incomplete black history month first proposed by scholar carter g woodson in 1926 seeks to rightfully restore the struggles and triumphs of african americans into our national narrative and whereas during february our city pauses to reflect on the injustices and struggles fought and overcome by african americans throughout our nation's history and to pay tribute to the battles they have fought in the name of equality such as the underground railroad emmett till's murder the war wars student and montgomery bus boycotts bloody sunday and the march on washington and whereas while this work is far from finished woodson's vision for black history month and all who have taken up his cause have helped tell the whole story of america and everyone who built it and whereas african americans have contributed to the rich fabric and diversity of the city of aurora and have made significant strides in civil rights law medicine technology food music literature education sports entertainment journalism and the arts and whereas during this black history month let us continue to draw inspiration from the past as we continue our journey toward a more perfect future we must all commit ourselves to building an aurora where we can remember the sacrifices and celebrate the contributions made by african americans in our community in colorado and throughout our nation now therefore i'm mike kaufman mayor of the city of aurora colorado do hereby proclaim the month of february 2022 is black history month in witness whereof i have here and to set my hand and cause the seal of the city of aurora colorado to be fixed on this first day of february 2022 mike kaufman mayor are public invited to be heard mayor we we do have carly seller in the audience to speak carly if you can state your name and address for the record please thank you my name is carly seller and i live at 226 oakland street aurora colorado and i'm here tonight to talk about my excel energy bill and how much it's increased over the last three months my gas bill is up 55 percent and my electric bill is up 17 and that's comparing the bill october november december of 2020 to 2021. so that means if that trend continues that i'll be paying about two thousand dollars in uh my utility bills for 2022 that's this year so the reason i'm telling you this is because i'm here to request that the city of aurora join the case in which excel energy seeks to increase our gas bills again as i just explained they increased those bills last spring excel filed this case with the colorado public utilities commission asking permission to increase residential gas bills again by additional 13 over the next three years so they want to start that in november of 2022. if this succeeds of course businesses are going to see an even bigger increase the increased excel once now are on top of the charges they've already increased our gas and electric bills so they've implemented some changes but they're asking for more so if someone uh like myself rely on excel for gas and electric our services and our bills are going to rise that means that by the end of 2022 i could see my my utility bills go to 2200 hundred dollars per year and that's almost double what i'm paying now um all these hikes in our bills that really serves excel very well because they've done great these last few years with profits even through the pandemic if excel is successful in raising these prices it'll be an additional burden to residents in aurora that utilize the services provided i'm not able to shop around for cheaper energy i'm forced to take what excel offers and nothing is negotiable with them they are a monopoly company these increases in energy bills will hurt vulnerable consumers in aurora namely our neighbors living on low fixed incomes poor and low wealth individuals other disadvantaged residents and small businesses especially startups the public utilities commission is responsible for ensuring that energy services in colorado are safe reliable and affordable there'll be other people joining to fight this and to help keep our gas bills low and truly affordable but in order to face excel energy i'm asking for the support of this council and the mayor i would appreciate if the city attorney could write some sort of proposal advocating for the community so that we don't have to see this additional increase in our utility bills um if a city clerk if you could i believe we have your contact information if you disseminate to myself and other members of council i certainly will reach out to you and we'll please do i'm happy to give any of the information i have on my own utilities but i think this is going to be a big impact and if there's anything the city can do to take a stand against this i'd really appreciate it thank you mayor we do have a few individuals on the call in line to speak first up is katrina you have three minutes can you hear me we can go ahead oh great thanks so much this is katrina and i'm at 408 south troy street ward 38012 and i'm calling about uh me hoffman's proposed camping ban that came up again in a study session it's been on his facebook page various council members facebook pages um i know it's not on this channel session but for when it does come up again i just want to reiterate that a lot of the new council members ran on support employees um conservative values of saving money not wasting city money and we know from our neighbors in denver that camping bans don't work they waste our taxpayer money our chief vanessa wilson still doesn't support this green version of the ban we already have a patchwork of laws in place that do let police if they have the resources get people off public and private land the difference that the mayor and some council members like francois bergen are hiding from the public and misleading us is that homeless people will still be jailed or fined up to two thousand six hundred and fifty dollars according to our very own assistance to the attorney tim joyce uh with this newer van this is partly why our clique chief does not support it they don't have the capacity for this it also says that my coffin is trying to make it sound like oh we'll just put them in safer environments with bathrooms and water and that all sounds lovely and rosy but those places don't exist they're not going to be built when this passes nothing's going to change we're just going to continue the cycle of homelessness that for decades we know we know gets worse when we jail and find people or not having a place to live we know that the only thing that works is providing housing that's the only way for people to keep their jobs so if we want to go with a working first model which i think sounds wonderful people need a place to live first um and taking them out does not do anything except waste taxpayer money and just trap people in a really bad cycle so thanks so much for listening to me and have a great rest of your childhood meeting thank you thank you next is danny you have three minutes go ahead hey city council uh happy valentine's day i would love to be spending the day drinking a bottle of red with my honey and wood paddle pizza aurora's best pizza parlor but i'm instead of calling me to this meeting uh to talk to my elected so here we go i live at 4236 south bahama street um and i want to give matt props to the people behind the access aurora during a recent snowstorm uh there was like a long goose with a broken wing and it sat down on my street you know on the street and the poor thing it could join its sky brethren in their migration because i had a broken wing and it was scared and mad my neighbor and i initially tried to help it um but a mad goose is really scary so i reached up to the city via the access aurora app i reported that injured animals on our street and 15 minutes later in the snow animal services came and caught the juice using a blanket technique that was just amazing i love this blend of city services and technology what innovation like this is great you guys so you know speaking of another nation can we not send our precious city resources on the zero-sum game of redistributing our homeless population every seven days instead can we spend our city's resources on the positive sun game of innovation and growth i don't believe that you all ran for office to put the city's boot on someone's neck to push thumbs around instead of solving them i think we can all probably agree that we love the war and that we want to live in a city that we're proud of um the last city council meeting that i was at last time i talked about my experience uh doing volunteering with the blue back supporting sexual assault survivors the violent crime clearance rate last year in a war was 26 12 for sexual assault the homeless victims not assisted were not raged by other homeless people but by predators in our community to take advantage of the overstretched police force and vulnerable populations that are already castigated and demonized let's not spend our precious and increasingly dwindling law enforcement resources on shooing away the homeless from cores and bridges we have much bigger problems in this city y'all i know you guys are in this position because you wanted to change things i know you all share my love for aurora the best city in colorado denver is a joke and this is a city where neighbors help each other even when they're dealing with a scared mad dude trying to fight them during a cold winter night i love this city i know we can do better and i hope you can do better two council members thank you thank you next is janice you have three minutes go ahead okay let's go ahead you have three minutes oh i'm sorry um i think i made a mistake when i called in i wanted to talk about one of the things on the agenda i'll just say it quickly my name is jan okay we'll put you back to the queue for that agenda next up is uh aaliyah you have three minutes go right ahead hi thanks um my name is elia trucks i technically live in arapahoe county so i am not represented by aurora or denver but i am still very affected by the issues that our community deals with including the camping ban that is being proposed um really if we want to think about the the health of our community and our neighbors we can't keep playing this shell game where we just move the the unhoused population from place to place um it's a waste of taxpayer dollars and it only puts people in more danger this year more people have been to the hospital for frostbite and amputation because people lost access to sources of warmth and shelter i just urge the city council to really consider the the needs of our neighbors and um please remake this decision and put that money towards something that can help thanks thank you next is emily you have three minutes emily you have three minutes go ahead last call emily are you there all right that concludes the people in line mayor appreciate it mayor councilmember yes i was just hoping that we could get verbal clarification i've been notified by a constituent that they were unclear that they were able to speak at public invited to be heard or that the call-in line was not limited to just the public invited to be heard that they can also speak on agenda items the call in line they can speak on agenda items they just need to call in before it is announced by the city clerk and then they'll put them in the queue until that item is being read okay and then just one point of clarification on the agenda um the east bank discussion is listed as 9a and 16a which items should folks request to speak on if they're calling in 16 a so 9a is just the approval of the appellant presentation for 15 minutes so that means during that 16 a time period during the 16a time period okay wonderful thank you uh next item is the adoption of the agenda and um with that um city attorney is that that a separate vote uh in terms of the east bank appeal that can be combined your honor all combined okay very well so motion to approve the agenda and that motion will be then with or without the appeal for the east bank project motion councilmember mcconnell thank you sir uh move to approve the agenda with the appeal for east bank very well um is there a second second um you also remember mayor pretend bergen uh seconds in motion by council member mcconnell uh discussion uh seeing no discussion with uh call for the question then on item number nine adoption of the agenda mayor kaufman mayor rotary i'm sorry do you approve the agenda with that i'm sorry it's it is the adoption of the agenda with uh the appellate presentation yes sir do you approve the agenda i'm asking for your vote okay yeah yes remember the time okay uh council member lawson yes and then council member medina yes okay the the motion passes unanimously to approve the agenda with the appellant presentation and mayor we are also going to ask if we could have items 11c through 11ac approved with one motion and staff can provide a brief presentation for these resolutions okay nina is there does that require a vote or is it just without objection with without objection oh very well uh approval of items 11 c through 11 ac with one motion um a brief presentation my staff on the issue so mayor we'll do it during resolutions we're just going to ask council if that's okay during the adoption of the agenda if we have all of those approved through one motion very well uh is there any objection well mayor i have a question uh mayor proteum yeah i don't have a problem with um them being all read together and but if i have questions will i still be able to ask questions on different items uh prior to the vote okay thank you uh for any uh any objection without objection then uh we will have one vote on item 11c through 11ac uh consent calendar item 10a actually mayor sorry yes maybe i did misunderstand um so if i that would require me to vote yes on every single one with one vote mayor pro tim bergen if i may items 11c through 11ac in resolutions we're asking to do it with one motion and we can have a presentation beforehand with staff and you can ask any questions about any of those items let me do this without objection that get to give the members the ability to pull any item and vote on it separately is there any objection seeing none without objection every member will have the ability to pull any of these items out and and to vote on them separately uh adoption of the consent calendar item 10a through 10 j with a waiver of reconsideration on i remember 10 b 10 e 10 f and 10 g of motion mayor uh councilmember combs so moved removed by councilmember coombe seconded by mayor second second by councilmember lawson to adopt the consent calendar item number 10a through uh 10j with waiver of consideration on 10b 10e 10f and 10g discussion see no discussion uh uh call for the question the vote has been open to the council members in escribe mayor kaufman how would you like to vote i'm here wrote time councilmember lawson yes and councilmember medina yes the motion passes unanimously to approve the consent calendar uh council will uh stand in recess uh for five that the time is now um 5 59 we will stand in recess until uh 705 uh to give staff uh time to do an announcement in the of the call-in line council is in recess thank you members of the public who are on the phone line at which speak on a resolution of workers that have not taking a short break to allow any additional speakers to sign up please be patient and stay on the line until the operator is able to take down your information thank you [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] council is now back in session will clerk please read the title to item number 11a item 11a is resolution 20 2208 consideration to approve a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the second amendment to an intergovernmental agreement between the city of aurora colorado and the urban drainage and flood control district dba mile high flood district regarding design and construction of drainage and flood control improvements for sand creek baroner ditch at zeon and billing street uh brief presentation by staff sure good evening mayor and city council it basically summarized it in the title sorry about that but it's basically a uh this is a an iga with mile high flood district it's an amendment to an existing contract it is a project we've been working with them on for several years in 2019 there were some small potential flooding that's identified in a neighborhood on 32nd between billings and zion and the way to solve that is actually to increase the size of a couple of culverts along 32nd street so this project is to do that and this amendment is actually just to allow mile high flood district to contribute additional funds so they'd be contributing an additional 150 000 to the project questions to staff seeing none thank you motion thank you mayor uh councilmember lawson i moved to approve 11a it's moved by councilmember lawson seconded by jarinsky uh moved by councilmember lawson secretary council member jorinsky to prove to approve item number 11a discussion see no further discussion uh call for the question on item number 11a councilmember lawson yes the motion passes unanimously to approve resolution 20 22 08. uh with the clerk now please read the title to item number 11b item 11b is resolution 20 2209 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado expressing the aurora city council support of the 1400 dallas arts facility phase 2 renovation and the city's desire to participate in the colorado community revitalization program representation by staff yeah good evening uh mayor and council this item is a resolution endorsing the 1400 arts facility renovation phase two it it as you may know there's an existing renovation currently going on in the facility and while we were conducting the facility we we found out that there was an opportunity to apply for a grant of an equivalent amount roughly 200 000 to the state of oregon uh to address items that we were not able to afford in the first phase so that's essentially it it's an arts facility um the first phase looked at some of the larger communal spaces the second phase will look at energy efficiency lighting windows entryway and those kinds of things but the building was built in 1951 so that it was in major disrepair so this is just to endorse the project and support our grant opportunity and it's required your endorsement is required in order for us to submit the grant questions to staff i've seen no uh questions of staff motion is an order no councilmember lawson i move to approve 11b uh it's been moved by councilmember lawson seconded by martin councilman seconded by councilmember mario to approve item number 11b discussion see no further discussion another question before us is the adoption of item 11b call for the question mayor i'm going to have to do a verbal roll call um i apologize councilmember jorinsky yes councilmember mario yes mayor protein bergen yes councilmember marcano yes councilmember lawson yes council members of onik yes councilmember coombs yes councilmember sundberg yes councilmember medina yes and councilmember gardner yes the motion passes unanimously to approve resolution 20 2209. thank you very much and we will now have a presentation on item number 11c through item number 11ac good evening mayor of council my name is lana dalton i'm the homelessness programs manager for the city this is the 2022 homelessness services notice of funding ground that went out in november and these are all the uh designated approvals that we have for this 2022 year could you briefly go through them would you like to do a presentation or would you like me to just to bring up all the different allocations that have been uh recommended briefly summarize what they do okay um so they provide homeless services in the community everything from behavioral health services like uh crisis intervention counseling services street outreach to our shelter services within the city of aurora in all things behavioral health mental health and in between and what explain the shelter issue the shelter currently we have one shelter and that is comitis crisis shelter it holds between 130 to 150 individuals on any given night we also have 75 overflow mats essentially in our aurora day resource center that we have on cold weather nights and then we also have several safe outdoor spaces two of them that provide sheltering options which is a tent and that's between 30 to 60 individuals and then we also have pallet shelters which provide 30 to 60 individual shelter as well and safe parking which provides parking for individuals that are sleeping out of their vehicles for 25 to 50 individuals and what does this do to expand the capability that we have what does this do to expand the capability that we have in terms of shelter space this maintains our current ability to provide the services that i just mentioned so it's just continuing the status quo correct uh further questions of staff mayor uh mayor perturm so do you do you want me to just go through i have 11 q r s t u v and x go ahead go forward with questions sure with all of them well one foreign one but you have the floor to go through all of them okay thank you thank you mayor um on 11q which is the safe outdoor space warehouse those are for operational costs using marijuana monies which marijuana monies are usually um well they should be for one-time uses um can you just briefly explain the operational cost is that for staffing that is correct so marijuana dollars are utilized for ongoing operational costs throughout a variety of different programs and that is one of them that we are providing staffing for that includes case management housing navigation and 24 7 assistance uh on site okay um all right then on 11 r 150 000 where is the safe parking uh it is currently at the restoration christian ministries location which is 1105 it's basically sixth and chambers area and that's where it provides the safe parking alongside the colorado state parking initiative and is that for operations of staff with staff or is that for any hard cost uh that is for operational costs operational costs okay 11 s 50 000 um and that is for second chance housing navigation again it says to operate the program so i assume that's for staff that is correct that's for staff okay uh then 11t 150 000 that goes to second chance also i think that was for rental assistance program but is that also for staffing uh that is for rental assistance strictly so it'll be for individuals that are coming out of incarceral settings or individuals that have you know records and things like that helping them navigate and provide rental assistance for those individuals that money actually goes to help correct offset their rent okay very good um and then 11 11u restoration christian ministries um how so that's also for operating so that's also for staff so no that is actually for uh infrastructure costs and so we have uh have this safe oh go ahead oh sorry no i didn't mean interrupt go ahead uh so those are for the safe outdoor spaces where we have the tents it's to set up um specific things really like fencing uh again security things of that nature okay and then i'm almost done and then on 11x ready to work which i always call rich house that one again is the fun to [Music] fund ready to work so is that i think i had asked you before that's for a case manager or that is correct for case management services as well as peer navigation services okay so and i ask all these questions because i think we are doing a lot to help the homeless population um you know providing the the safe parking the safe spaces um but we're doing a lot in terms of operating or you know contributing money for actual operations and so my question is um or maybe my comment is that i would hope some of these organizations are going to be able to sustain themselves in the future with grants that they would apply for as well as donations because i think what we're doing some of them i think you know we're going to be very involved with but some of them i would think are eventually going to be self-sustaining and so um i guess i will ask for a an analysis of their performance and how you know how they've done i know i've asked before and i've never received any of the the um reports but if i could get just an analysis and i think you guys are working on this um correct me if i'm wrong in terms of just being able to really um understand how the money is utilized and to make sure that it is uh truly helping [Music] those that reside in aurora absolutely in response to that i would say this is the first year that it is a requirement for any agency to put into the homeless management information system also known as hmis and that is where we collect our homeless information regionally and so that is a requirement so the hope is at the end of this year we'll be able to put together a state of homelessness report as it relates to aurora specifically and have that data to support that okay thank you so much for the questions of staff mayor uh councilmember savannah yeah just to follow up on that question i noticed in the agreement that it does have the performance performance reporting and it sounds like there's a system that's going to allow for that to happen is there going to be because and i don't see it in here um a date by which you're going to present it to council once you get these reports back so yeah so the annual reports will be due january 15th of 2023 and so my hope is to compile that data within the next two months after that and do a report um in the first quarter of next year okay and just to follow because it does say that there's quarterly reports of am i reading this wrong that that's right that's accurate is it possible for us to get those as they come become available the the quarterly reports we can have more more constant check-ins as opposed to seeing it once a year absolutely okay thank you that's all further questions of staff by saying none uh well i think you stand by just in case um uh motion here uh casper laws i moved to approve 11c to 11ae 11 ac ac i'm sorry 11 a.c councilmember lawson seconded by zabonic uh second by council members wanted to approve item number 11 c through 11 ac discussion see no further discussion uh call for the question it has been open to the council members in escribe to vote um councilmember lawson yes yes and council member combs yes the motion passes unanimously to approve items 11c through item 11ac thank you now uh with clerk please read the title item number 11 a d item 11 a d is resolution 20 22 37 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the iga between the city of aurora colorado and the counties of adams in arapaho colorado for the provision of a veterans service office position brief presentation by staff good evening mayors members of council roberto venegas deputy city manager this is a intergovernmental agreement for year two of an iga with adams and arapahoe county to provide a veterans services officer who will be located at uh 15400 east 14th place in altura plaza the city is committing to providing technical and equipment for this individual that is hired by or the salaries paid by adamson arapaho 50 50. so this is year two of the program council member bergen had some questions about symmetrics which i sent to you via email in terms of the program and number of veterans served in the first year which is 20 20 21. we had 1416 unduplicated veterans served 627 of which or 43 percent were veterans from the city of aurora and a successful claim rate of 73 so that's basically working through the claims process with the particular veteran to a a resolution um so a good number at 73 will continue to track those metrics in year two questions to staff i was seeing none a motion is an order mayor to approve 11 a.d uh it's been moved by council member uh removed by councilmember lawson uh seconded by perkin um councilmember medina to approve item number 11 a d discussion i see no further discussion uh uh call for the question on the adoption of item number eleven a d councilmember lawson yes yes the motion passes unanimously to approve resolution 2022-37 clerk now please read the title to item number 11 a e item 11 a e is resolution 20 22 38 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the iga between the city of aurora and the podre tech metropolitan district to use water from the whitney irrigating ditch company shares presentation by staff good evening mayor and council marshall brown general manager of aurora water this item is related to the lease back of eight shares of water rights in the whitney ditch back in december 2020 the city acquired 119 shares in this ditch it's pretty common when we acquire water that we acquire the water before we actually need it so we'll typically lease the water back to entities that we've acquired it from or other entities in close proximity these water rights we leased back 111 shares to the seller to be used for continued agricultural purposes until we leave the water the remaining eight shares were proposing to lease back to this pooter tech metropolitan district in fort collins where they will use those shares until we need the water at a future date the lease term is for one year renewable when agreeable by both parties again until we need the water supply questions the staff seeing none emotion is now in order here councilmember cones uh it's been removed by councilmember coombe seconded by sunbrick councilmember sunberg to approve out of number 11 ae discussion seeing no further discussion uh the question before us is the adoption of item number uh 11 11 ae um uh call for the question councilmember lawson yes the motion passes unanimously to approve resolution 2022-38 thank you um with glory now please read the title to it number 12a mayor if we could have an announcement of the call in line and a five-minute break oh i stand corrected uh um the the time is now uh 7 24 we will stand in recess until uh 7 30. council is now in recess for the purpose of a few members of the public if you would like to speak on an organ that has not already spoken to an operator please press star 3 before the item is called by the clerk for those watching on channel 8 please call please be 855-695-3475 and stay on the line until the operator is able to take down your information thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right oh okay that's right city council is now back in session will clerk please read the title to honor number 12a item 12a is a public hearing with related ordinance for ordinance 202204 an ordinance of the city of aurora colorado excluding certain property into the boundaries of painted prairie business improvement district number one and including certain property into the boundaries of painted prairie business improvement district number one and number two public hearing is is now open uh presentation by staff good evening the painted prairie business improvement district one and two were approved by council in 2017 following the formation of the district the developer and property owner modified development plans for the property and as such need to modify the boundaries of the bid the request this evening is to include property which is intended for commercial development within the boundaries of the bid as described in the petitions in your packet in addition the bids must exclude any land classified as residential from their boundaries presentation by the applicant we have outside counsel here for questions but there's no formal presentation okay um mayor we do have one individual in the public that would like to speak very well we have megan murphy here for questions only so i don't know if megan would like to come up and speak but you filled out a speaker slip i did but i don't just for questions okay all right thank you so much okay thank you well uh questions from council of the staff or the applicant seeing none public hearing is now closed our motion is in order i'm sorry uh man for tim motion to prove 12-8 removed by mayor pro tem uh second by second second by councilmember lawson to approve item number um 12a discussion seeing no discussion uh the question before says the adoption of item number 12a call for the question councilmember coombs i'm sorry i don't see your bill yes the emotion passes unanimously to approve ordinance 20 22 04. well clark now please read the title to item number 12b item 12 b is ordinance 20 2205 an ordinance of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the amended and restated service plan for atec metropolitan district number one and two in authorizing the execution of an iga between the city of aurora colorado and the districts public hearing is now open presentation must have an amended and restated service plan for the atec metropolitan districts number one and two are being proposed these districts along with the aurora highlands metropolitan districts number one to five first creek ranch metropolitan district and the air tropolis area coordinating metropolitan district will serve the aurora highlands and air tropolis technology and energy corridor these districts are located generally east and west of e-470 and south of 48th avenue the districts will serve a combined total of 41 823 residents and will include single family attached and detached residential uses high density multi-family uses mixed uses and commercial and industrial uses the proposed service plan do deviate from the city's model and incorporate the same modifications as found in the previously approved service plans for the existing districts we do have outside counsel here for questions as well presentation by the applicant it's outside counsel no formal presentation but here's a formal presentation uh questions of from council members to staff of the applicant mayor councilman combs um yes so less a question and more a comment this edition of this metro district brings the total amount of money being authorized for these metro districts to 40 billion dollars to be paid back for over longer than the useful life of the infrastructure that they're intended to to build and so at the time when these metro districts were proposed as a constituent i expressed the same concerns as i'm expressing now which is again where at that time it was 36 billion now this brings it up to 40 billion dollars that we are enabling developers to borrow and to charge the taxes to the future taxpayers without a vote by those taxpayers so that's 40 billion dollars that we are enabling taxpayers to end up having to pay without having a say in doing so one person voted in the elections enabling the existence of these metro districts and that was a representative of the developer was the one person who voted and so that's deeply concerning in addition that as people who live in metro districts know increases your tax bill very significantly and it makes it much harder for us to have city wide and sometimes even statewide tax taxes that will cover city-wide and statewide infrastructure construction and maintenance and what this really does is it a incentivizes sprawl because it is required that in order to have a metro district that you're covering an area that the city that you're building in isn't otherwise going to build the infrastructure that's part of the justification for having a metro district so we're saying we're not going to build there but sure you go ahead and charge the taxpayers for 40 years after the infrastructure is built for for these roads um so that incentivizes for all beyond the infrastructure that the city is already going to construct the other problem that we see there is that the developer doesn't have to take the risk so in the past everyone said oh development always pays its way right the developer takes the risk to build the infrastructure but in this case it allows the developer to pass on all of the risk to the future residents so they are not taking the risk necessary to make massive profit these are very expensive homes and very expensive communities that are being built on the backs of these metro districts and so i want to register that objection to adding four billion dollars more to an already 36 billion dollar price tag for taxpayers that never got to vote on it a question for staff is the intent of metro districts not to share the burden on existing taxpayers for the city that those infrastructure costs are born by the new homeowners that's correct very well uh further discussion or further questions of staff for the applicant uh mayor tim uh yes so in in a situation where there's a brand new district um and i know it's been raised in terms of like one person voting or you know or but there's no residence there yet so isn't that i guess is that typical of metro districts because until you have homeowners someone has to there has to be an election um and i i guess maybe for staff or for our attorneys is there any way to avoid that because it seems like you you don't have any residence they come later and then is there disclosure to those future homeowners that they are buying in a metro district do they do they get that information yeah i can answer that and i can certainly invite council for these districts to speak as well you are correct that the districts are developer controlled when there are no residents there is no one else to vote and as far as the disclosure some of the changes that council voted on in december with the service plan definitely increased some of the transparency at the barest minimum these are disclosures with your title work at the closing table when you purchase a home we've gone above and beyond in our service plan and tried to add additional things but everyone would have to sign these when they purchased their home follow-up mayor please proceed um would the city ever be building roads in these areas if it were not for metro districts building the um the infrastructure that's likely a question for public works i would imagine you know capital projects and things like that that that's that's a hard one to answer i've been told no um you know i live in south east ore and our our entire area did not exist over 20 25 years ago um until it was annexed in and my understanding is the city would have never built it out because of the the huge amount of infrastructure uh capital debt that would have been incurred because then that would be passed if they built for example they built the roads out in in you know any of these areas that burden wouldn't that be then passed on to the taxpayers all throughout the whole city rather than just those that choose to live within that district yeah that would be my understanding yes further questions of staff of the applicant councilmember mcconnell thank you sir um so i guess a quick question for staff um so the mayor pointed out that yes the developers the metro district will pay for the initial construction but the all this infrastructure does get dedicated to the city and then it falls in the city to maintain afterwards correct that's correct well mostly yes i mean there there are times that there are private roads that district if they have a gated community or things like that but overall yes it would be public infrastructure right so while the this is the comment portion here so while the initial cost is borne by the developer the resulting debts and maintenance do fall on the city and i want to remind you all we have a fairly large road maintenance deficit that continues to grow in part because we continue to allow metro districts to just basically be used as the default method for development in aurora and this isn't a problem that's just unique to aurora this is a i would consider it an abuse that has been you know basically promulgated throughout the state and we need to see some serious reforms on title 32 districts coming from the state legislature and i'm hopeful that you know our pfizer committee would get behind an effort to do that um i just want to you know remind folks that the transparency measures that we did pass last year um i think are important but they're a mandate because as long as this continues to be the default method to grow and develop it's going to continue to contribute to our road maintenance deficit to suburban sprawl and to broken promises to residents i think a lot of the folks who live in metro districts already in aurora know that they were promised one thing and they got another thing and frankly some of our council members i think just one anymore council member sunberg you live in a metro district that had broken promises given to the folks who were moving in there and i've heard the same thing from neighbors who live in murphy creek when i was out there knocking doors so i just want you all to really think of the long-term ramifications of continuing to rubber-stamp these kinds of districts we're going to end up with a larger infrastructure deficit even though yes we added some transparency measures to this it's a we're getting into a situation where folks need housing they're going to get into these things we're going to have without fully understanding the financial ramifications of doing so and this isn't even getting into some of the more nefarious potentially nefarious actions that we've seen in other metro districts throughout the state where you know the developers were making money not just off of the development but also off of the bonds issued to cover the cost of that development so without serious reforms on title 32 districts in the state of colorado i cannot in good conscience support any more debt being issued through this or any more of these coming online in the city of aurora a question of staff and that is that um how many communities have adopted the type of uniform standards that aurora has adopted i'm sorry did you say the uniform standards in terms of metro districts as far as service plans and things like that um i think i would probably defer to our city's legal council on that i mean it's my understanding that there's several in the metro area that have service plans um but i i don't know the number sure but since the adoption of these service plans when there was an expose in the media about problems in metro districts aurora was never mentioned post the adoption of the uniform service plan approval process and then let me say to the point that that those people that the city assumes responsibility after the infrastructure is developed that they they are paying taxes uh to the city in terms of property tax and sales tax am i correct in that that's correct metro district metro district is an additional mill levy so that would be in addition to property taxes that residents are already paying further questions of staff mayor uh council members yeah just one additional point to the point you just made about the taxpayers moving into the districts and paying sales tax and property tax the the deficit that we have with road maintenance is not one of a lack of resources it's a lack of prioritizing that and we're going to address that problem here in our winter in our workshop in april so these these districts it's kind of a chicken and egg we wouldn't have residents out there without metro districts and when they get there they provide additional revenue to the city which we have an adequate amount of revenue to to support the things that we need to support in the city further discussion mayor uh councilman combs um yeah so i do want to point out that actually there was an expose recently on these specific aurora highlands metropolitan districts so there absolutely has been since the adoption of the model service plan exposes including metro districts in aurora and actually very specifically the ones the one that we are voting on right now is part of that expose or at least as part of the controlling metro district that was covered in that expose and then the other thing i would say is um that we can't say literally in the same breath that we just have a prioritization problem and that we don't have enough resources um that which is what just happened and i think we don't have enough resources that's correct and this does contribute to that problem because it dedicates more and more lane miles to maintain of residential roads and collectors to the city of aurora in time when these roads get dedicated to the city further uh discussion uh council remember my camera thank you sir i also just want to add to the point about you know needing more residents for more revenue that is true but no city has ever sprawled its way into financial stability uh you will have to pay the piper eventually and the way that we grow because of because we allow the use of metro districts the way we do is detrimental to our financial solvency in the long term so what i would advocate which i've already mentioned at our workshop and i will continue to advocate for is infill and building up not building out you can actually potentially use metro districts for that in a way that makes a lot more sense and kind of to address one of council mayor pretends uh comments or questions earlier about how metro districts can be used after residents move in actually the heather ridge metropolitan district in ward 4 is a great example of exactly that the neighbors got together democratically agreed to create a metro district to preserve some open space in the form of a golf course um and they still have it to this day so i think it's okay when folks want to actually you know who live there who have a steak want to actually do that kind of things you know to preserve uh their community but the way we use metro districts is completely backwards to put it politely it allows someone else whose motive might not be to you know preserve a community or to necessarily even benefit a community before their bottom line allows them to dictate what development looks like and i think we should not be doing that again it's financially unsustainable in the long term further questions on i remember ecologically as well further questions on it number 12 will be i have a further discussion on 12b um is there anybody that wishes to speak on item number 12b clerk no mayor very well um public hearing is now closed uh motion is in order mary moved to approve uh motion to another move by councilman a council member journalist can you to approve item number 12b further discussion see now the question before us is the adoption of item number 12b uh call for the question the motion passes with eight yeses and two no's councilmember mcconnell and council member coomb as no will the clergy now please read the title to item number 12c item 12c is ordinance 202206 an ordinance of the city council of the city of aurora colorado accepting designation as the approving authority for the first creek ranch metropolitan metropolitan district approving the consolidated second amended and restated service plan for the aurora highlands metropolitan district numbers one through five and first creek ranch metropolitan district to be known as that aurora highlands metropolitan district number six and authorizing the execution of ij between the city of colorado city of iraq colorado and the districts public hearing is now open presentation by staff this is a second amended and restated service plan for the aurora highlands metropolitan district to accept designation as the approving authority for the first creek metropolitan district amend and restate the existing service plans for the aurora highlands district numbers one to three and approved service plans for the new districts or highlands numbers four and five as well as first creek ranch metropolitan district these districts along with the atec districts and the air tropolis area coordinating districts will serve the aurora highlands development and the air tropos technology and energy corridor serving a combined total of 41 823 residents include single-family attached and detached residential uses high density multi-family uses mixed uses and commercial commercial and industrial uses these proposed service plans do deviate from the city's model and incorporate the same modifications as found in the previously approved service plans for the existing districts a presentation by the applicant we have council here for questions does anybody wish to speak on this issue no mayor um questions by council members to staff of the applicant seeing none public hearing is now closed uh motion is in order we are a motion to approve item 12c removed by council member joranski is seconded by sunday uh second by councilmember sunberg to approve item number 12c uh discussion you're saying no further discussion uh the question before is the adoption of item number 12 c call for the question council member combs i'm sorry i don't see your vote oh i see it now thank you uh the motion passes to approve ordinance 202206 with one no from councilmember mcconnell will the clerk now please read the title to item number 12 d item 12 d is ordinance 20 2207 for an ordinance of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the second amended and restated service plan for aeropolis area coordinating metropolitan district and authorizing the execution of an iga between the city of aurora colorado and the district public hearing is now open presentation by staff a second amended and restated service plan for the air metropolis area coordinating metropolitan district is being proposed this district along with the aurora highlands metropolitan district's numbers one to five first creek ranch metropolitan district and the a-tech metropolitan districts one and two will serve the aurora holland's development in the aerotropolis technology enter in energy corridor the districts will serve a combined total of 41 823 residents and will include single-family attached and detached residential uses high-density multi-family uses mixed uses and commercial and industrial uses the proposed plans do deviate from the city's model service plan and incorporate the same modifications as found in the previously approved service plans for the existing districts uh presentation by the applicant we have council here for questions um does anybody wish to be heard no mayor questions of counsel to staff of the applicant seeing none public hearing is now closed motion is in order mayor a motion to approve item 12d moved by councilmember johnson seconded by zavonik uh second by councilmember zavonik to approve item number 12 d question before says the adoption of item number 12 d uh call for the question the motion passes with eight votes two no's council member marcano and councilmember coombs right now please read the title title number 13a item 13a is public hearing without related ordinance resolution 2022-39 a resolution of the city council of the city of our colorado approving the first amended and restated service plan for sagebrush farm metropolitan district number one and authorizing the execution of an iga between the city of colorado and the district presentation by staff an amended and restated service plan for the sagebrush farm metropolitan district one has been submitted the service plan is in compliance with the city's model service plan this district is located generally south of east 56th avenue north of 48th and east of harvest road and west of powhatan road the district will serve commercial and industrial developments the service area for all six sagebrush districts is approximately 477 acres uh presentation by the applicant we have an outside council here for questions does anybody wish to be heard no not remember 13a no mayor questions by our council to the staff or to the applicant i've seen none um sorry i was having trouble with and muting oh please proceed um so again when we look at this set of metropolitan districts it shows the total debt capacity of being over 4 billion dollars and again this is a situation where this is an area where we would not have developed and actually i think allowing developers to skirt the risk and only receive the profit and the reward on the backs of future taxpayers is a problem um and that we're incentivizing scroll and i don't support that uh further uh questions of i mean i'm sorry further discussion but as seeing no further discussion uh the question before us is the adoption of item number 13a call for the question mayor councilmember bergen i think i'm sorry did we we got a motion uh council member who moved uh did uh councilmember bergen had a question okay very well uh motion is in order did i already get emotional no i believe if you have a question though yeah okay virgin um i'm sorry may i pretend bergen i was just going to ask on um email of the time frame on this one um what was the rationale i'm sorry can you repeat that yes what's the rationale on the 50-year term um i would defer to outside counsel to answer that question no i'm reading this wrong i it's 40 years so i'm good with it i don't need it okay okay further discussion seeing non-emotion is in order mayor i motioned to approve moved by councilmember jordan's case second goodbye son councilmember sunberg to approve uh item number um is it 13b 13a i'm sorry 13ah out of number 13a um see no further discussion uh the question before says the adoption of item number 13a call for the question the motion passes with six yes votes four no votes from councilmember medina councilmember marcano council member coombs and councilmember mario welcome now please read the title number 13b item 13b is public hearing for resolution 20 2240 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the first amended and restated service plan for sagebrush farm metropolitan district number two and authorizing the execution of an iga between the city of iraq colorado and the district public hearing is now open uh presentation by staff an amended and restated service plan for this sagebrush farm metropolitan district number two has been submitted this proposed service plan is in compliance with the city's model this um this district will serve commercial and industrial developments and the service area for all six districts is 477 acres in size presentation by the applicant we have outside counsel here for questions does anybody wish to be heard on this issue no mayor questions by members of council to the staff of the applicant mayor uh councilman coombs so this is part of the or is connected to the previous items so the 170 million dollars for this is part of the total debt limit of 4 billion that these districts carry further discussion sorry questions of staff of the applicant um seeing none um public hearing is closed uh a motion is in order mayor motion to approve item 13b it's removed by council members of onyx second oh bye zarinsky councilmember jordan's going to provide him number 13b discussion we're saying no further discussion the question before says the adoption of item number 13 b call for the question councilman the motion passes with six yes votes for no with council member medina marcano in mario with no votes record now please read the title number 13c i'm i'm sorry that was item 13c um is it 13c oh i'm sorry i'm sorry mayor you're correct item 13c is resolution 2022-41 a resolution of the city council of the city of broad colorado approving the service plan for sagebrush farm metropolitan district number three and authorizing the execution of an iga between the city of aurora colorado and the district public hearing is now open a presentation by staff sagebrush farm metropolitan district 3 is a new service plan whereas the others were amended and restated it is also serving commercial and industrial developments in the same 477 acres and it does follow the city's model presentation by the applicant we have council here for questions uh does anybody wish to be heard on number 13b no mayor um questions by members of council to the staff for the applicant i see none motion is public hearing is closed motion is in order mayor motion to approve item 13c it's been moved by councilman savannah to approve item number 13b and seconded by future i'm sorry 13c and seconded by councilmember jordinsky discussion i seeing no further discussion the question is the adoption of item number 13 c call for the question the motion passes with six yes votes four no votes from councilmember medina mercano combs and mario with the clerk now please read the title item number 13 d item 13 d is resolution 20 22 42 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the service plan for sagebrush farm metropolitan district number four and authorizing the execution of an iga between the city of colorado and the district public hearing is now open presentation by staff a new service plan for the sagebrush farm metropolitan district 4 has been submitted this proposed service plan is in compliance with the city's model this district will serve commercial and industrial developments with a total of 477 acres of service area a presentation by the applicant quite just here for questions does anybody wish to be heard on item number 13d no mayor uh questions of uh members of council to the staff of the applicant mayor uh councilman comes so just want to state again that the initial 170 million in public improvements plus 680 million total contributes to that 4 billion in taxes on future residents that we are imposing by without their vote that we're imposing by approving this district a further discussion let me say they both they do vote when they're disclosed they vote with her checkbook uh when in fact the issues are uh disclosed to them as staff has presented and and they're aware of what those taxes are that they're buying into to pay for the infrastructure where they live further discussion seeing none public hearing is closed uh motion is in order mary moved to approve item 13 it's been removed by council members veronica seconded by second by zvonnik okay ouch okay uh removed by councilmember sunburst second by council member zivani to approve uh to adopt item number provided number 13d um to further discussion see no further discussion then the question before us is the adoption of item number 13 d call for the question the motion passes to approve resolution 20 22 42 with six yes votes four no votes council member medina marcano coombs and councilmember mario i will go now please read the title item number 13 e item 13e is resolution 20 2243 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the service plan for sagebrush farm metropolitan district number five and author authorizing the execution of an iga between the city of auburn colorado and the district public hearing is now open presentation by staff the proposed service plan for the sagebrush farm metropolitan district number five is in compliance with the city's model and will also be serving commercial and industrial industrial developments in a 477-acre service area presentation by the applicant we have um outside counsel here for questions uh does there is there anybody who wishes to speak on number 13 e e no mayor uh see seeing none questions uh from members of council to staff and the applicant mayor uh councilman combs just want to reiterate that again the 170 million in initial improvements plus 680 million in total debt limit contributes to that four billion dollars in taxes that people often don't know and don't understand that they're moving into metro districts as was clear from some of the exposes and also don't have a say in how the districts operate for a very long time this is a giveaway for developers and a subsidizing of sprawl that ends up costing us a lot of money and infrastructure let me remind members of council of procedure and that is that the question that i raised was the that members of council have an opportunity to ask staff in the applicant then a motion will be made and then it will open up to discussion um is there uh are there more questions of staff in the applicant the scene now the public hearing is is closed uh discussion uh when uh somebody buys a home in one of these metro districts the taxes are disclosed are they not that's correct very well uh further discussion i'm sorry council member calls yeah um the taxes are disclosed and often in a stack of documents that people are just trying to get through in order to buy their new home and they often don't really understand i know that we have tried to increase transparency and i appreciate the efforts of staffing trying to do that but the reality remains that people don't typically know how high their taxes are going to be even if they sign off on being in a metro district i talk to people who live in various metro districts in the city of aurora and some of them didn't know it all some of them as councilmember marcano pointed out are simply upset because they didn't get what they were being told they were going to get from those metro districts and so there are multiple issues here but nonetheless there is both a lack of transparency and a lack of voice that residents have while paying these millions and billions of dollars in taxes further discussion on number 13e mayor jorinsky councilmember duransky councilmember jersey then mayor pro tem sure i would just like to say to that point i think what maybe some people don't know there's an extra there's another layer of protection in place for buyers and that's even on new home builds but that is a real estate agent and buyers have the right and should be represented by a real estate agent and these types of things like tax taxes metro districts would be told to them so there is that layer of of protection further discussion i'm sorry mayor tim thank you um you know i understand that not everybody is um educated on metro districts so i think it is important that they that they have that information before they make a very serious commitment to buy uh to buying a home with um you know the mortgage payment and maintenance of homes and so forth that that follow that um but we also have a housing crisis and we need more housing and so you hear that all the time and i you know how is it going to be built if we don't have metro districts that are paying for the infrastructure and building the homes i guess the alternative is somebody buying land and then having to build it themselves um and then the city having to put in the water pipelines and the roads which i don't think we have you know the capital to do that so as much as i appreciate that people need to understand what they're getting into um i think that's an educational um campaign that that maybe we could do but again we have a housing crisis and we need homes uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir um so i want to let you all know that when i was looking for a home with my wife one of the places that we looked in aurora originally was actually in a metro district and when we asked for clarification as to what that meant we were basically told oh it's like an hoa and it's in reality much more complicated than an hoa and i actually have a friend of mine who reached out to me actually just a couple nights ago who is going to probably be the future work five president um who asked me about metro districts and told me that his realtor told him the same thing that's still apparently the line but it's kind of like an hoa it's a lot more than that so i agree that realtors probably could be the line of defense but i think they also need better education than what they currently have and be more transparent with potential buyers and also um with regards to you know our housing crisis i agree we need more homes straight up i don't think we need more three-quarter million dollar homes but that's another discussion but i also want to say that developers all over the rest of this country are able to build without special districts and metro districts i don't see why colorado is unique and that they can't i think the issue is that we have this tool that is being again in my opinion abused by developers and has become kind of like the default way to build here when that is not ever really the intent when you look at the legislative history of metropolitan districts it was to have a tool to avert some risk during an economic downturn not to be used as the default way to build anything you know basically commercial or residential space uh in colorado so again we cannot in good conscience uh support these kinds of districts until they are heavily heavily reformed further discussion c9 let me just say this and that i will be reviewing the disclosure requirements and if i find them insufficient then i will put forward a proposal to change them the public hearing is closed um motion is in order mayor motion to approve item 13e it's really moved by council members zvonnik seconded by jarinsky councilmember joerinsky to approve item number 13e for further discussion i seeing none the motion before us is the adoption of item number 13e call for the question the motion passes to approve resolution 2022-43 with six yes votes four no votes from councilmember medina mercano combs and mario all right we'll cook now please read the title item number 13 f item 13 f is resolution 20 22 44 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the service plan for sagebrush for our metropolitan district number six and authorizing the execution of an iga between the city of aurora colorado and the district public hearing is now open presentation by staff the proposed service plan for sagebrush farm metropolitan district number six is in compliance with the aura city model service plan and the district will serve commercial and industrial developments in that 477 anchor service area presentation by the applicant we have council here for questions does anybody wish to to be heard on item number 13f no mere um questions from members of council to staff for the applicant mayor councilman coombs for a question yes it's a question to the city attorney is the discussion from council members after the public hearing has been closed included in the record of the public hearing yes it will be thank you further questions of staff of the applicant uh seeing none public hearing is is now closed uh motion is in order mayor uh mayor pretend motion to approve 13f it's been moved by a mayor pro tem seconded by sunbrick councilmember sunburg to approve item number 13 f discussion mayor uh councilman crumbs just wanted to note that this is another 680 million dollars added to the bill further discussion so no further discussion the question before says the adoption of item number 13 f uh call for the question the motion passes to approve resolution 2022-44 with six yes votes four no votes from council members medina marcano coons and mario kart now please read the title item number 13g item 13g is resolution 20 2245 a resolution of the city council of the city of iraq colorado approving the service plan for the grand avenue metropolitan district and authorizing the execution of an integra intergovernmental agreement between the city of aurora colorado and the district public hearing is now open presentation by staff the proposed grand avenue metropolitan district is located near north akron street near east 13th avenue and as well as north akron street near east 14th avenue this district will reserve will serve a residential development it is approximately 3.81 acres in size and the population of the district at build out is estimated to be approximately 153 residents this service plan is in compliance with the city's model presentation by the applicant we have council here for questions does anybody wish to speak on item number 13g yes ma'am we have one person in person dan krabs he's with applicant okay never mind questions of members of council to staff for the applicant saying none public hearing is now closed motion is in order mayor motion to approve item 13g it's moving by council member seconded by jarinsky councilmember jordan's key to approve on number 13 g uh discussion mayor my counselor comes so this is less than the others i believe it's 3.6 million dollars but serving only 153 residents further discussion see no further discussion um question before us is the adoption of item number 13 g call for the question the motion passes for resolution 2022-45 with six yes votes four no votes from council members medina marcano combs and mario uh with the chloe now please read the title title number 13h item 13h is resolution 20 2246 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the first amendment to the service plan for what metropolitan districts number one and two public hearing is now open uh presentation by staff the service plans for the boat metropolitan districts numbers one and two were approved by council in 2019. the districts are requesting a boundary adjustment to amend and expand the district service area to include the inclusion area boundaries as indicated in exhibit c2 these districts will serve commercial and residential developments the area to be included is approximately 151 acres and the population of build-out is anticipated to be 2600 residents presentation by the applicant we have council here for questions does anybody wish to speak on item number 13h no mayor uh are there any questions uh from members of council to staff for the applicant mayor councilman coombs for a question yes it's a question i'm just wondering is this inclusion on this change to the boundary area related in any way to a service metropolitan district or a controlling metropolitan district that's over other metro districts or is this a standalone district i'm not sure i understand the question so the original boap districts were formed and the developer and property owners of that site have acquired this additional piece of property and so instead of they're basically just adding their new property into the existing district or is your question more about a controlling district versus a service area right so this is just the boundary area it's just adding new property it's not changing the service area of a district i i think i'll i think i'll defer to outside counsel to to further clarify on that thank you hi i'm marianne mcgee with mcgee becker and our firm represents the bow with metro district number one and two so the purpose of the service plan amendment as jesserina was describing is to add to the inclusion area the additional property that was acquired by the developer and so without the service plan amendment the districts would not be able to include this property in the future questions of the applicant can i just ask a follow-up please proceed um so does that impact in any way the ability of the residents of this district to have to be on the board and to have a say in what ends up happening in the district as the district becomes potentially resident control no okay thank you sir certainly further questions of staff for the applicant uh saying none the public hearing is closed and a motion is in order mayor motion to approve item 13h we were by council members of onyx second and by zarinsky uh councilmember uh jarinsky to approve item number 13h discussion i see no further discussion the question before us is the adoption of item number 13 h call for the question i'm sorry council member marcano i don't see your vote my escribe seems to have crashed um i'll be oh yes on this one yes okay the motion passes with nine yeses and one no from council council member medina for approving resolution 2022-46 clerk now please read the title title number 13 hi item 13 eyes resolution 20 22 47 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the service plan for the aspen business park metropolitan district and authorizing the execution of an iga between the city of aurora colorado and the district public hearing is is now open presentation by staff the proposed aspen business park metropolitan district is located generally near the northwest corner of gun club road and east yale avenue east of e-470 the district will serve a commercial development no there will be no residential property the service area is approximately 55 acres in size and the service plan does comply with the city's model presentation by the applicant we have council here for questions does anybody wish to speak on item number 13 139 yes mayor we have one person on the public call in line to speak for this item margaret go ahead give up three minutes thank you uh good evening my name is marty sobi and i live in mercy creek very near the area for the proposed aspen business park my first objection to the creation of this district is its name when you have 766 000 square feet of industrial warehouses and distribution buildings this is not a business park it is very definitely an industrial area calling it a business park seems to me to just be a way to make it more palatable even though the council commentary for this item indicates it will have public financial impact and significant private fiscal impact no one is from the applicant's team even gave a presentation about this project additionally there are no minutes from the management and finance committee for this service plan which seems to indicate a lack of transparency or at least a lack of any real discussion i recognize that this service plan is not intended for residential development but i still have serious concerns about its location it is in the area of dad's landfill and the lowry landfill superfund site construction activities at this site could very easily cause more contamination of the water aquifers and this would be a very serious thing also even if a portion of the west side of gun club roads expanded to three lanes there is still too much traffic on that road and all the avid truck traffic from this development will cause excessive congestion i know that aurora is very proud about leading the metro area and the development of industrial warehouse but i ask you to consider very carefully if you would like to live across the street from a complex almost as large as the amazon complex i don't think you would i urge you not to approve the establishment of this district and its corresponding service plan thank you for the opportunity to speak uh questions of the applicant or uh staff members again mayor tim um is this so it is going to be um no residential industrial in an area that i think is it zoned for for this um yes we can double check that but it's not zone residential [Music] let me just double double-check that okay it's zondest airport district airport thank you thank you further um further questions of the staff of the applicant mayor sunberg uh councilmember steinberg could you shed light on the type and number and size of buildings within this quoted business park um yeah i would ask the outside counsel to come speak on that please hi i'm jim cox from aspen capital partners could you repeat the question so i can answer it efficiently could you shed light on the type number and size of the buildings within the business park please sure um the site could be developed in a couple of ways we've designed either a three building project or a two building project and depending on the project it would range from 735 000 to roughly 765 000 square feet these buildings would be industrial nature used to support largely warehouse operations so five to ten percent office component within the buildings and the rest will be warehoused and supported by loading doors for trailer traffic given the high demand for e-commerce in the city and the distribution of goods further questions of staff of the applicant mr sonberg do you wish to continue could you please shed light on the height of the buildings um yes they would probably range from um minimum clear height with under once you're in the building of 32 to 36 foot clear further questions of staff for the applicant um question for staff remember tim so we're approving um the metro district but the site plan has yet to come and that would also have to go through our normal process correct that's correct okay so if there was any you know variances on height or anything that would that would come before us yeah that would go through normal planning process and adjustments would go to planning commission per usual okay thank you further discussion further questions of staff for the applicant mayor chirinski councilmember joranski i would just like to know have you already spoken to any businesses that have expressed interest in this area not specifically um no because we're just in the early stages but we the market would suggest there's tremendous demand for this type of space in these type of size ranges further questions the staff of the applicant i'm seeing none thank you very much is there anybody who wishes to speak on item number um 13i mayor we already had the public call in line for that item i'm sorry we we don't have anybody else okay very well um i can't remember okay no i i'm sorry i should have uh um the public hearing is is now closed uh motion is in order mayor i motioned to approve item 13 i moved by council members seconded by zavonik council members ironic to approve item number 13i discussion i was saying no further discussion the question before says the adoption of item number 13 i uh call for the question council member marcano yes the motion passes unanimously to approve resolution 2022-47 claire now will read that please read the title to item number 13 jay item 13j is resolution 20 2248 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the service plan for yale metropolitan districts number one two and three and authorizing the execution of an iga between the city of aurora colorado and the districts public hearing is now open presentation by staff the proposed yale metropolitan districts numbers one to three are located generally south of east jewel avenue east of south gun club road and west of harvest road the district will serve both commercial and residential developments the service area is approximately 243 acres in size the population at build out is estimated to be 1830 residents and the proposed service plan is in compliance with the city's model presentation by um the applicant we have council here for questions does anybody wish to speak on itunes 13j yes mayor we have one person on the public calling line margaret you are live you have three minutes go ahead thank you good evening my name is margie sophie and i live in murphy creek on the north side of jewel council members coons and marcano made some excellent points regarding the aurora highlands metro district and metro district in general and these same excellent points pertain to the jail districts as well and i'm very sorry that they are being silenced by being told they could only ask questions and not make comment council member bergen mentioned that developers need to make decisions initially as no homeowners exist however because of that it is important that the city protect the future homeowners from the developers and allowing developers to authorize 40 billion dollars of debt is not protecting the homeowners while developers are initially in power and before homeowners are on the board developers take steps to increase the debt and then prohibit future homeowners from being able to change that debt this is definitely taxation without representation and it is rampant in new metro districts developers also lie to homeowners by telling them they are not allowed to serve on the board until the community is 75 built out as has been said although real estate agents should be a good source of accurate information they are not this is probably because if they are honest with new home buyers they will lose sales in metro districts and disclosure during closing is way too late regardless of how complete the disclosure is or how large the font is this yale service plan calls for the exclusion of both residential and commercial property from existing mercury creek districts in order to create three new mixed use districts the land owner for murphy creek has repeatedly said there is no commercial or retail interest in murphy creek so in my opinion allowing the commercial district to be changed the mixed use is just an easier way for the landowner to sell off the land for residential use only without any requirement for commercial during last week's study session council member sunberg mentioned that mercury district 3 was paying for infrastructure on the south side of jewel and asked how or if that would be repaid to metro district 3. the yale district's legal council stated that the infrastructure currently in place on the south side of june is benefiting all the current murphy creek districts one through five and that is why we're paying for it i would like to ask council to ask more questions so i can understand exactly how incomplete and disconnected water and sewer lines on the south side of jewel are benefiting the homeowners in district 3 on the north side of duel and finally i would like to say that my district has 1191 homes trying to repay about 34 million dollars of debt and this yellow project would have about 610 um trying to repay 150 million dollars of debt i urge you not to approve the establishment of these districts in the corresponding service plan thank you for the opportunity to speak uh questions of uh members of city council to the staff or the applicant uh mayor pretend um did did i hear correctly that there were planning on 1800 residential units it is um eight 1830 residents okay and then also do we know um it it is a line next to gun club road would the developer be responsible for any improvements to gun club on their portion i think it's in their pit yeah it's in their public improvement plan for murphy creek overall those improvements to gun club road okay i mean because usually they're whatever's adjacent they would correct okay okay thank you further questions of staff of the applicant are seeing none public hearing is now closed motion is in order it's been moved by council members of onyx seconded by bergen the mayor pretend bergen to provider number 13j discussion uh seeing no uh discussion uh the question uh councilmember combs sorry about the me and button again um just noting that this is as miss sophie mentioned 150 million dollars in debt part of a total 450 million dollars in debt for these three related districts that we're about to vote mayor mayor for jim i'm trying to get back to my document but i think it was 85 million dollars in public improvements would be part of that yes staff i will pull up the service plan to confirm we also have account outside counsel here as well oh i pulled it up it's it's 85 million i i've got it thank you it's um it's in the backup further discussion there councilman crumbs yes that's 85 million in public improvements and 150 million debt limited so that's still 150 million dollars that can be charged to the both living and doing business in that district and then that's the same for the subsequent two so 450 million dollars further discussion i was saying none uh the question um let's see i'm sorry yeah we did the motion we already we did the motion yes mayor we we're calling for the vote now the question before us is then the adoption of item number 13j call for the question i'm sorry council member sunburg i don't see your vote on here the motion passes with six yes votes four no votes from council members medina marcano combs and mario now will you please read the title time number 14a item 14a is introduction of ordnance 202208 for an ordinance of the city council of the city of aurora colorado amending section 2-2 of the city code pertaining to legal holidays a brief presentation by staff good evening mayor mayor pro tem council members i'm ryan lance the director of human resources i just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to present the proposal to add juneteenth as a legal paid holiday with the city of aurora okay um questions of staff all right oh the presentation is up now okay um so after passing the u.s senate unanimously on um june 17th 2001 juneteenth national independence day was signed into law by the federal government um juneteenth also known as emancipation day freedom day and black independence day commemorates the fulfillment of freedom and emancipation of enslaved african americans in the united states the cholera um colorado recognized juneteenth as the sarah millennial holiday in 2004. similarly last year city council of aurora recognized juneteenth as a ceremonial holiday as well there are no obligations for public or private employers to designate juneteenth as a paid holiday on the next few slides i'll show you what the federal government state government and city of aurora are currently recognizing as legal paid holidays so for the federal government they do recognize 11 holidays it's going to be new year's day martin luther king presidents memorial day uh juneteenth uh independence labor uh columbus veterans thanksgiving and then christmas it is worth noting as one of the catalysts for suggesting to add juneteenth as a holiday is the fact that the federal government formerly designated juneteenth as a national holiday any future national holidays would similarly be considered and potentially brought to the attention of city management and council for the state of colorado there are 10 paid holidays one difference is you're going to see capri cabrini day it replaces columbus day and then it does the state of colorado does not include juneteenth or the day after thanksgiving for city of aurora paid holidays you can see that we have 10 holidays we do offer the day after thanksgiving but we do not celebrate caprini day or columbus day for a year of reference you could see on on the slides here we did do some survey with colorado communities cities counties but also you can see here nationally so listed here you can see that there are 35 cities and counties that are currently in colorado that are recognizing juneteenth and then there are 11 cities that have yet to decide 15 cities are currently discussing it and then 53 have decided not to recognize it for 2022. a lot of these municipalities are still waiting to see what other cities and counties are doing before they make that decision so this is a proposal for council's consideration and decision to add juneteenth as a city-paid holiday this does require an ordinance amending city code pertaining to legal holidays the cost to add as a city paid holiday is estimated to be 246 thousand dollars to keep the city's 24 7 critical operations on continuing now on the bottom of the screen there's a lot of reasons for support and um and reasons for the proposal um it both impacts as you see up here the community and employees but you can also see uh just independently the honoring and recognizing of june team on the first note this consideration of closing the majority of services for a day does does have an impact on the community and i will say we don't take this proposal lightly understanding that it does impact that community i would like to mention that this is a national holiday already so federal reserve banks as well as a good amount of other banks are closed on this on juneteenth and more and more cities as you can see are starting to close within the state of colorado on this day so we are really moving as estates with a lot of these municipalities to having this as a more common paid holiday if i can just speaking from a human resources perspective where i see the totality of the workforce management i do know working in public sector is a very intentional type of work and it requires specific types of employees truly public servants as you guys are and we do have uh you know attraction and retention is really tough within public sector especially as we compete against private sector what i can tell you is that i see many of our employees sacrifice so much for the city of aurora similar to the sacrifices that you guys do as public servants and i know that many employees they work a lot of hours and they still can't keep up with the level of services because this community is continuing to grow but providing this additional holiday does allow employees really that permission to kind of shut it down and because the city is closed and spend time with their families and work on their own personal wellness the other thing just in terms of the actual holiday itself is similar to the proclamation that you saw earlier celebrating black history month commemorating juneteenth as a holiday is an affirmation of our commitment as a municipality to understanding the past and solving the future and the challenges of the futures future it is an acknowledgement of the past challenges and triumphs of african-american people and a gesture of our continued alliance in the fight for liberation and healing aurora is one of the most diverse cities in the country and as such we should be leaders in honoring the significant moment in american history so being at the forefront of celebrating african american culture this is an outwardly display but also let's match it up with the city's inwardly commitment to creating a diverse equitable and inclusive community so commemorating juneteenth as a city holiday is a show of solidarity and offers hope for an inclusive community and future so really just requesting supports to adding juneteenth national independence day as an 11th city holiday and just open up for any questions questions of staff i'll ask the first question um so what was the average uh in the private sector in terms of how many paid holidays average but we do see six as a minimum threshold the private sector are we here to serve the people or the people here to serve us because we will have 11 after this correct we would have 11 which would be one less than federal i'll just ask you a question yep and the question is are we here to serve the people or the people here to serve us we are here to serve the people because it doesn't sound like it further discussion and first of all i support the juneteenth holiday but i think the job of our public employees are very important and taking another day out of work at this point in time is not appropriate further discussion uh customer laws i just had a question so but i think i mentioned this in the study session so juneteenth last year fell on a saturday and then this year it falls on a sunday and i think you addressed my question you said council so is the city manager going to decide if it's going to be taken on a friday saturday or whatever because you said it would be council which i don't think that that's correct so what's the answer to that yeah per policy if a holiday falls on a sunday then it would be celebrated on monday okay and then my point is um as well for this year for the juneteenth holiday which i do support i mean we have a council meeting so i guess is that what we were stating that we would have to have that discussion about amending the calendar correct okay thank you further discussion or questions of staff councilmember maria sorry mark that was marcono councilman mcconnell all right uh thank you sir so i just want to uh restate that americans are overworked and underpaid compared to other oecd nations we have a pittance in terms of holidays i think that as the public sector we should be setting the example rather than you know overworking and underpaying our public servants and i have a question for you do should people serve the economy or should the economy serve people because i think right now we serve the economy and i think we've demonstrated that through our coveted response as a nation and just how we treat workers in this country further further questions of staff for discussion mayor all right councilman and yeah so i'll just reiterate you know in our conversation uh last week there was a lot of calling into question the dedication of our city employees and speaking poorly of them and i think that we have to recognize that basically everything that we do as a city ultimately is done by city employees carrying out the direction of council so nothing we do could be done without our employees and i also want to point out that badgering our city employees when they're trying to give a presentation and asking them to make value statements which we typically ask them not to do in answer to council members is very disrespectful to the city employees in question so i don't think that that's fair i think we should demonstrate respect for the work that they do and the fact that we cannot do what we do without them and support this paid holiday 11 paid holidays is not too much and it does not mean that the people are serving us at that point our city employees worked very hard and as i mentioned before often after typical hours further discussion mayor jerinsky councilmember jordan i i think it's i think it's very important for juneteenth uh you know to be celebrated we are the single most diverse city in this state um i just you know the state has 10 paid holidays and i just you know in honor of the taxpayers in aurora i just think that we should we should stick with that and stick with 10. further discussion mayor uh councilman mayor tim yes i support the holiday i think it's really important um but i am not you know supporting it being a paid holiday unless we could um substitute it in in place of maybe the day after thanksgiving or for um taking pto time i think that would be a more fiscally responsible way to do it but i i do support the holiday just my my concern is is really just adding um adding more holidays and and we do value our employees very much in the city of aurora they do um great work it does however um for residents it does take away a day that they might be able to get business done so i think you know you have to look at both sides no further discussion motion is in order councilmember mcconnell thank you sir move to approve 14 a.m moved by councilmember mcconnell second goodbye mayor i have a subsequent motion i would like to let me do this second first and then we'll go to you uh i need a um is there a second for uh council member mcconnell's motion second second invite councilmember coombs uh councilmember jordisky yes i would like to bring forward a subsequent motion that we designate juneteenth as a paid holiday and we take away the friday after thanksgiving in order to stay at 10 paid holidays in the city and that would be an instruction to the city manager very well second okay uh a substitute motion by council member jorinski seconded by council members of vonneck to recognize juneteenth as a paid holiday but take away the day after thanksgiving is a paid holiday discussion on the dorinski motion substantum motion uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir um again uh americans are overworked and underpaid i think we should be setting the example um for what dignity and works looks like as the public sector and encouraging the private sector to follow suit and i also want to hearken back to something we discussed in study session if anyone is concerned about efficiency we can look at staffing levels we can look at technological improvements and other things to ensure that folks are able to get their work done frankly probably more work than they're able to do currently by making those enhancements without necessarily having to rob them or just exchange a paid day off further discussion on on the jorinsky substitute motion on number 14a seeing none the question before us is the adoption of the dorinski motion substitute motion to item number 14a with a call for the question mayor mayor kaufman the mayor of oats eye on the jordan ski substitute motion oh i'm you know i'm so sorry mayor this is an ordinance and it's actually we council member loss and i don't have your vote okay actually you can there's a tie somewhere you can vote to break the tie so that would be a yes mayor kaufman uh mayor of time yeah okay the the motion passes to approve um june 19th as a legal holiday and take the friday after thanksgiving well clerk please read the title title number 14b item 14b is ordinance 202209 an ordinance of the city council of the city of aurora colorado amending sections 114-27 the city code related to storage of trash containers a brief presentation by staff good uh good morning good good evening mayor and city council i said good morning last time too my name is sandra youngman manager of code enforcement this is a request to amend chapter 114 the solid waste ordinance i'm asking to remove the screening requirement for the trash cans and designate a space a specific distance from the principal building where the trash cans will be stored stills requires the trash cans or containers to be stored behind the front plane of the principal building and this will also correct the department name from neighborhood services to housing and community services uh the benefits of this change would be to ease the burden for the residents for trash can screening requirements but still keeps the importance of trashcan placement and continues with keeping the aesthetics of the neighborhood also will simplify enforcement for code enforcement of trash can placement questions to staff i've seen none of the discussion i'm sorry um motion is an order on item number 14 b may or i motion to approve item 14 b move by council member during second by council member of medina to approve item number 14b discussion so you know discussion the question before it says the adoption of item number 14 b call for the question thank you thank you i'm sorry councilmember mark connolly councilmember medina uh i'm sorry councilmember coombs and councilmember medina i need your votes yes yes the motion passes unanimously to approve ordinance 20 2209 who are now pleased with the title title number 14c item 14c is ordinance 2022-10 for an ordinance of the city council of the city of aurora colorado amending chapter 14 of the city code related to animals and the aurora animal services division representation my staff good evening council mayor i'm anthony youngblood the manager of animal services i'm bringing forward revisions to chapter 14 which is the animal code that is mostly language cleanup and revision from the last ordinance that we adopted in 2020 there's about eight sections and a little bit of language in most of them a few questions of staff seeing none um uh motion is in order we are our motion to approve item 14c removed by council members rescue seconded by marcano councilmember mcconnell to approve item number 14c discussion so you know this question the question before says the adoption of vitamin 14c call for the question council member coombs yes and councilmember sunberg i don't have your vote yes okay the motion passes unanimously to approve ordinance 2022-10 thank you for your time have a good night thank you um the time is now um uh 8 58 we will stand at recess until 905 for an enough to do an announcement uh for the call-in line mayor um bergen i don't know how to do the motion but is there any way to do a 10-minute break very well yeah the time is now 9 58 council will stand in recess until 908. thank you remember to the public who would like to speak on the order taking a is break to allow speakers to sign up please be patient and stay on the line when the operator is able to take down their information thank you [Music] do [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] with the clerk please read the title to item number 16a item 16a is public hearing and appeal of the january 12 2022 planning commission's approval of the east bank shopping center residential site plan with adjustments public hearing is now open staff introduction good evening commissioner mayor and city council i'm ariana muka i'm presenting for staff tonight for your review is going to be east bank shopping center residential which entails an application for a site plan with one adjustment it is an application for a multi-family building and a parking garage development the applicant is kimco eastbank 689 inc and the location is on the northeast corner of parker road in quincy avenue the site is zoned at muc which is mixed-use corridor in sub-area b the muc allows for multi-family per the udo unified development ordinance one adjustment is being requested to exceed the maximum building length for a multi-family in sub-area b the site plan is to redevelop approximately 95 000 square feet of a single-story retail space into a 311 unit apartment building here is a vicinity map to show you the parcel's location in the development it's between south atchinson and parker road just north of the south parker road and east quincy ave intersection the multi-family development will take up the northern section of the east bank shopping center and will be accessed off south parker road or east quincy ave here is a more zoomed in aerial view showing the property outline dashed in red the east bank shopping center appears as a single commercial center but is not under single ownership what is highlighted in the red dash is what is part of the east bank shopping center residential application which is 7.5 acres and is under one ownership this site is surrounded by residential to the north and east and the residential is a mixture of single family detached and to the north and single family attached condominiums to the east commercial development is to the south and west with a mixture of restaurants and retail shops beyond south parker road is cherry creek state park to the west here is a zoning map showing the overall site in its relation to the surrounding zoning the site is zone muc mixed use corridor which permits multi-family development to the west and south is a continuation of the muc mixed use corridor and the site is immediately surrounded by r2 which is medium density residential and that is to the north and to the east beyond the r2 is carson park which is designated parks and open space the aurora place type for this application is commercial hub commercial hubs are especially critical to the future economic and physical health of aurora this place site primarily contains uses that provides goods and services to nearby established and emerging neighborhoods the commercial hub is intended to be an active and diverse experience for site visitors and residents the multi-family development will bring medium to high density to the shopping center commercial multi-family is a supporting land use to the commercial hub as per the aurora places comprehensive plan here is a site photo showing the existing access point the neighborhood uses to get from south atchinson way to the light on east quincy ave in south parker road the access point will be moved to the south of the multi-family development per the resolution of public comment here are two site photos facing north towards the existing single family detached homes to the north an existing tennis courts to the north here are site photos of the existing vacant commercial space in existing commercial retail 230 adjacent property owners and 42 registered neighborhood organizations were notified of the application in public hearing the review process has taken approximately eight months and during that time staff has received over 300 written comments through the project portal the city received a petition with 539 signatures to urge opposition of the project primarily due to eliminating the access of atchison way which has since been added back to the project two neighborhood meetings were held on june 22 and august 12th of 2021 some of the concerns identified at the meeting and written comments included the increase in traffic limited access to traffic light on quincy avenue density and opposition to the adjustment request regarding the building length the proposal is to redevelop approximately 95 000 square feet of a single story retail space into a 311 unit apartment building with structured parking for 243 cars this will there will also be surface parking for 190 cars for a total of 433 parking spaces this is 59 parking spaces more than required by code the retail parking space for the existing commercial and retail will be will be maintained in addition public drive access is proposed between the east bank residential and the existing retail buildings to the south to retain a direct connection between the shopping center and pierpoint neighborhood to the east the public access drive will be constructed as a privately maintained street with public access the drive provides access to the traffic signal at the south end of the shopping center on quincy avenue this proposal meets all site plan requirements for zoning traffic and drainage issues discussed during development review was building architecture site access and building length adjustment throughout the review process staff and the applicant worked together on the building designed to ensure the building has quality four-sided architecture the building utilizes similar colors of materials but with varied facades to provide visual interest along the streetscape in accordance with the multi-family design standards in the unified development ordinance the building's elevations include changes in materials and colors and variations in height and projections the prime primary materials on the facades include brick stucco cementis panels and sidings metal canopies and lighting are used to highlight key building entrances and the color scheme has primarily neutral tones to create a familiar residential quality the parking garage complies with the city parking design for city parking requirements garage design requirements by screening all parking including architectural details consistent with the design of the multi-family building the building meets the design standards for the project within the mixed use quarter zone district relative to building form materials massing ground floor articulation and roof design a key element to the design is to relate to the adjacent land uses in a reasonable manner the north end of the proposed building is adjacent to a single family development there is a hundred foot height setback from the north property line to reduce impacts to the existing homes the 100 foot setback to the north is indicated by the dashed red line to repeat anything north of the dashed red line has no structures within the 100 foot setback over 38 feet tall on the top side of this slide south atchison way separates the proposed apartment building from the residential community to the east the right-of-way width of atchison is 70 feet with the existing residential building set back a hundred feet from atchison way for a total of 170 foot buffer between the attached single family condominiums and the multi-family proposal here is a northwest and north elevation here is a northeast elevation and east elevation building elevation the vehicular connection from south atchison way through the shopping center to the traffic signal on east quincy ave was a key issue throughout the review process currently vehicles wanting to use the traffic signal at quincy avenue at the south end of that shopping center may get to the traffic signal by entering the north end of the shopping center along south atchison way there is a demand to use this signal because there is no signal at the intersection of south atchison way and east quincy avenue the first middle of this application proposed to close this access point from atchison way into the plaza the closure was identified as a major concern through the community concerns comments and neighborhood meetings as a result the applicant redesigned the site to include a vehicular connection from atchison way on the south side of the proposed multi-family into the center of the shopping center the drive in atchison way provides access to the shopping center and the traffic signal on quincy avenue in access points onto parker road the redesign of this drive access would include some improvements to the existing access which was not designed for regular public use the proposed access would provide a sidewalk connection to the shopping center and better visibility at the intersection and traffic flow into the site staff supports the redesigned access from atchinson way one adjustment from the unified development ordinance is requested as part of the site plan related to maximum building length in sub-area b the adjustment request is from section 146-4.8.4 which states the maximum building length of any multi-family in sub-area b is to be 200 feet the udo states that the building design standards aim to promote a pedestrian friendly street edge and scale to buildings new buildings shall be implemented implement building and roof articulation methods to avoid long flat walls and provide visual interest in architecture high quality materials are encouraged to enhance the architectural character and promote overall building longevity buildings shall respond to a context with a hierarchy of facade design the applicant requests to exceed the maximum building length by approximately 410 feet to have a 610 foot long building as mitigation for this request the applicant has proposed to break up the size of the building using a variety of architectural approaches to create a perception of different massing along the length of the building with an emphasis on providing a pedestrian-friendly environment here is some rendered energy provided from provided by the applicant displaying the increase in building architecture and pedestrian scale design staff recommended the proposed east bank shopping center residential site plan with adjustment as it complies with the major site plan approval criteria as per the unified development ordinance at a public hearing on january 12 2022 the city of aurora planning commission voted unanimously to approve a phased site plan to construct a 311 unit multi-family four-story apartment building and parking garage the approval includes an adjustment to allow for a longer building on atchison way does the city council wish to uphold or modify modify or overturn the planning commission's decision to approve the site plan there will be an application applicant presentation to follow and appealing good evening mr mayor council members my my name is marcus pockner i know we are pulling up our application and we'll get started in just a moment terrific good evening my name is marcus pochner happy valentine's day to all of you i am here as a land use and community outreach consultant for the applicant team i am honored to present this site plan on behalf of the east bank development i do want to show everyone listed on this sign will not all be presenting you will hear from two of us tonight but we will all be available to answer any questions that you may have as was discussed by ariana what is here tonight what is before you is the planning commission's unanimous approval of the site plan and the major adjustment has been appealed we respectfully request that the city council uphold the approvals because the planning commission properly applied the criteria from the code to the site plan and the adjustment i would like to give you a little bit of an evolution of this center the center was built in 1980 it was purchased by the applicant in 1989. many of you know this site very well it used to be a grocery anchored center here with the albertsons in the 1990s unfortunately it has turned into a little bit of a revolving door of retail instability here you see the 24-hour fitness that came in in 97 and 98 in 2001 the dollar tree was added and 2017 i believe was when the fabric store came in and then unfortunately during 2020 both of these spots are now vacant we can all speculate about why they're vacant and the turns of this but we really want to address as retail specialists part of the team is evergreen and kimco we do as much local retail as anybody in this area this is what has happened with retail there has been an ongoing shift towards online shopping smaller brick and mortar locations one thing that is very important to know about this site and why it will not change it does not have a 360 degree trade area as you know the remarkable park on the west side of the site will never have homes nor should it ever so it only has a 180 degree radius for customers and it's also on the going to work side so it will never have a grocery center here that is why the city of aurora nothing to do with any of us in 2019 modified the existing code and added that there be a change to the muc to allow mixed use to come in as a use by right in these centers this allowed us to provide a residential anchor and two-year discussion earlier to bring stability to the existing center by not building out or sprawling but building up and in without a metro district on this site these are the current entitlements that are in place again to remind you what is there it is zoned muc that is the perfect example of this it is to promote sustainable infill development of older commercial sites multi-family dwelling is listed as a permitted use this is a use that is allowed and our site plan and as the planning commission said we comply and staff said we comply with all zoning requirements there are two things that have guided us the code and the neighborhood outreach i want to say here that we started with the initial community outreach in june and i want to stop there because we learned some very important lessons after our june outreach we presented to the neighbors on june 22nd and showed them a site plan why that is important and staff talked on about it earlier is unbeknownst to us we presented this site plan we show there as you see in red we removed the existing access point on south atchison way the reason for that a planning ethos on infill is to not send our traffic into the neighborhood we wanted to limit our traffic from going into the neighborhood so that's why we cut that axos off or removed it out of respect to the neighborhood so as you can see our traffic directly addresses parker and quincy we have direct access to those so we proposed but here is the issue as we learned in june and july and as your packet shows with a petition that was formulated in june and july that is the primary access point that these neighbors have to both parker and quincy it is a very rare thing for neighbors to drive through a shopping center to find safe passage but that's exactly what happens here the reason is there is not a stoplight at quincy and atchison nothing to do with our project it's an existing access problem we do not trigger any of these issues it happens whether we're there or not whether it's commercial or multi-family so we realized at that point we need to work with the neighbors to change that so then we started in august listening hearing let you have they had a neighborhood only meeting where they presented solutions we have spent the balance of that time from august until now focused on how do we incorporate the neighborhood feedback these are the five things we've been able to address access and connectivity small businesses parking open space and amenities and the character of the neighborhood quality really honoring that quality so we'll go through how we've addressed each of these items what we have done first of all as i showed you and this was showed by staff we have improved the access point from south atchison from the center of our site you can now connect directly so you can get safe patches to parker or to quincy to go eastbound on quincy so we've provided direct access this actually makes the northern part of the retail center much safer as well there are not vehicles that transgress the entire site so we wanted to have a dramatic improvement for the existing neighborhood and we have been successful in adding that entrance this is the site plan this is the site plan that is before you so as you see there's that improved access point we redesigned this center we were able to give up 10 units to allow this new roadway to come in overall as was mentioned we are 311 units we have 62 new bikes parking spots and you can walk to two rtd bus stops this is a very enhanced multimodal development and infill development where it is most needed i do want to also notice here two other a few other things that we were able to do because we know and our traffic study borne out and worked with the city staff they said your project does not trigger any improvements at atchison and quincy we said we understand that but we are willing to pay up to 25 of that signal to address the existing traffic issue we want to help our our project does not trigger that but we want to do it we also again reduce that the other thing i will say about traffic because it always comes up our traffic study also showed that our residential use is less traffic 16 than a fully leased retail center so we are actually proposing a reduction in traffic compared to a fully released retail center this shows you that new access you can see that remarkable improvement from the neighborhood access point you see a very lively a wonderful pedestrian street that connects exactly to the east to atchison you can see a very improved setting for the neighborhood here's a few other things about the site plan again really focused on the north to have that proper setback of a hundred feet to honor the height there to provide additional stop signs and neighborhood suggestion and also to add additional seating and gathering areas to really provide the right setting along atchison the next thing i want to focus on is very important the small business outreach we have spent the last eight months i wish we would have spent even longer than that working with the existing businesses as you all know there has been tremendous interest in pet palace this is a legendary business in the site we want them to be there they are under contract for march until march of 2023 and we have reached a sign letter of agreement to extend them in the center for an additional 10 years we want them there as badly as everybody else and we're honored to have that agreement and continue to work with them to keep them in this center i do want to acknowledge the parking issue that's come up this shows our parking plan we are a 155 spots over parked compared to code for the retail and we are 59 spots over park for the residential the residential you see 243 are structured why that works here is those are actually reserved with your unit so you actually will have a very working parking garage to do that and still honor all of the retail parking that is needed i'll be happy to go into more detail i do also just want to say the really remarkable open space amenities less than a quarter mile to carson park we have lined up tried to align our pedestrian connection to have that direct way we have also been incredibly cognizant of the hoa spots to the north of us so we don't have access to them we put our own dog maintenance station on the north side of our building so it doesn't spill over into the hoa land lastly the quality this is a great building this is a great developer that works here locally we want to build it you saw many of these renderings we think this is a tradition a tremendous asset and will add to the validity of the value and safety this really shows inside the center you see the pedestrian feel the architecture really enlivening the site you see this that frontage way four-sided instead of the back of a building what is very dark today and cold this is a much livelier active street on atchison this shows that proposed access that i mentioned you again a pedestrian connection that has never existed for the neighborhood and finally i will have carolyn talk a little bit about the purpose of the hearing and mention the approval criteria that are before you tonight thank you very much mayor members of city council members of city staff and members of the public my name is carolyn white and i'm land use counsel to the applicant i too am pleased to have the opportunity to present this program this project to you this evening as marcus just noted just a refresher the purpose we're here tonight is for you to consider an appeal from the approval by the planning commission of the site plan and the major adjustment to allow the 600 foot building length so we're not here to consider the question of whether or not multi-family for example is a good use for this site you've already decided that when you rezoned the property to the revised muc type of category as was just mentioned also by marcus this project has been analyzed thoroughly by staff throughout the review process and staff has recommended that it does meet all of the criteria in the udo for a site plan we've also written you a lengthy letter to that same effect which is in your council packet at page 18 15 and rather than go through all of that in the interest of time i just want to highlight a couple key issues as it relates to some of these criteria the first one was compatibility marcus talked a lot about how hard that the applicant has worked in order to incorporate this into the neighborhood and as you can see this proposed replacement anchor for the old retail this multi-family anchor provides a really nice transition from the single-family and attached product to the east to the more intense commercial uses to the west and ultimately to parker road this multi-family anchor will be significantly more compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods compared to a large format retail box particularly the back side of a large format retail box and you saw some of the some of the photographs depicting what that interface looks like today one of the other criteria related to that is that the project will not create negative impacts on the surrounding adjacent properties or if any such impacts exist that those impacts are mitigated and again you heard a description of some of the lengths to which this applicant has gone to mitigate those impacts including designing this new access point dedicated primarily to address the concern of the neighbors to be able to access on to quincy and parker from south atchison way and there are a variety of other components to this project that have also been designed specifically to mitigate that feedback from the neighbors including the additional amenity points the access to the dog park and so on as has been described we'd be happy to answer further detailed questions about any of those mitigations and any of the site plan but in the interest of time i'd like to move on to what is really the main issue in the appeal and that is the building length major adjustment that has been proposed and as you can see summarized on this slide we're quoting for you the rule in the udo from which we're seeking a modification and explaining the justification as it was submitted to staff and as it was worked through with staff what are some of the mitigations that are included and incorporated to offset the potential impact of a building that is longer than the maximum that is allowed and here you see both a couple of bullet points summarizing that and we're talking primarily about architectural features articulation changes in materials changes in color changes in the roof line interior recessed patios at the upper stories balconies pitched roofs and so on in addition the other major improvement that you see compared to the existing condition with a building like this is that lively pedestrian area between the building and the street and certainly if you were to walk down that street today you would see that compared to the existing condition this proposal is a significant improvement for the pedestrian experience for anyone who wishes to walk along atchison way whether they're accessing the shopping center or or any other adjacent and surrounding uses here's another illustration of that difference the before and after this is from the atchison wave frontage and again you can see the significant setbacks the significant landscaping and some actual areas for seating and other improvements pedestrian improvements street furniture and so on as compared to what this what this looks like today one of the goals of the site plan was also to increase safety and as has been described to you a little bit earlier in this presentation the design of this site plan with this building as designed also is intended to minimize the opportunities for pedestrian vehicular interaction by directing pedestrians to specific dedicated connecting sidewalks to use to connect to the neighborhood rather than just sort of cutting through in random areas there's also some correlation between the proposed new building length of 610 feet and the best practices in city planning as it relates to the perfect size of a city block in fact the new udo incorporates some of those principles when it specifies that the standard city block for new construction is going to be 660 feet long along the length and also that buildings should be pushed up towards the front of the block in order to create that pedestrian experience this is another illustration of the before and after and this is a useful illustration to depict what the current existing situation is today compared to what is being proposed and as you can see there's actually a building on the site that has a length of approximately 950 feet and that encompasses a portion of the northern half of the site in a portion of the southern half of the site and then the smaller building of 250 feet that exists today and with the proposed site plan what we're essentially doing is cutting that in half and and splitting up that larger building to make for two roughly 600 foot buildings which is more in conformance with that model city block type of design and urban planning it also allows to enhance and centralize the amenities and the focus for the residential uses on the northern half of the site and it also makes it possible to include that structured parking in a way that provides for the vast majority of the residential parking needs without interfering or competing with the retail parking needs for the existing and new users retail tenants it's also not uncommon to see this exact type of building modification request in the city of aurora in fact just in the last year or so there have been seven other of the exact same requests for a variety of different building lengths but seeking relief from that 200 foot length and that can be an indication that the length may not be consistent with other components of good design that might be present in your code or with market principles in terms of what makes for an appropriate multi-family building like what's being proposed here with the structured parking wrapped around um i've been looking at this 928 thinking that that meant i have five minutes left but actually that's the time so um i just have another moment and i will wrap it up certainly um briefly then i just want to turn to the standards of approval for a major adjustment as is being requested and as is the subject of the appeal this summarizes the standards for approval for a major adjustment and again staff has thoroughly analyzed this in the staff report with which we concur and we also provided several pages of analysis in our letter which i hope you had the opportunity to review the main two that i would like to focus on just to highlight for you is the the issue of no adverse impact which also happens to be a standard in the site plan review and we talked a little bit about that this project provides excellent screening and buffering for the existing shopping center as it relates to the existing neighborhood and provides that that real buffer of a transitioning down use in between it also provides a much improved uh interface between the existing neighborhood and the and the new construction so not only does it not create any adverse impact it significantly improves the situation compared to the existing condition there are no major violations all of these other criteria are met we've talked just a little bit about quality screening buffering and then parking and traffic which obviously is one of the most easily quantifiable ways to measure impact and there is extensive analysis in the packet about traffic as was just presented to you this proposal will not only decrease traffic net compared to the existing use but also redirects traffic in a way that creates heightened safety both for the existing users and the new users and also creates a very much improved access for the existing neighborhood so again this these criteria have been met this last slide i'm just summarizing the conclusions in the staff report which we also share and ask that you reach the same conclusions and find that this application for a site plan and a major adjustment meets all the standards in the uda udo for site plan and a major adjustment and ask you to uphold the unanimous decision of planning commission to approve both of these applications thank you very much for your time and attention to our proposal this evening and as was mentioned our entire team is available to answer your questions as the hearing progresses we look forward to the opportunity to speak to you again following public comment thank you now we will have presentation by the appellant thank you i want to thank the council for allowing the pellet as we're called to speak my name is bill vansicle i live in pierpoint village 3. first thing i want to emphasize is this is not a liberal or conservative issue we have plenty of conservatives there i have issues with this project we have plenty of liberals that have issues with this project and we hope the city council doesn't view this as a liberal conservative issue we might look at this as a david versus goliath issue it's a group of citizens that bordered this east bank and that we're going to be impacted by this you know there's a steep learning curve as far as learning how decisions are made with the city and learning how to deal with the city i want to thank ariana and i want to thank carly cupozano who the traffic manager who has really helped us understand how the project moved through planning and development however once we got to the public hearing we were kind of on our own and we're learning as we go along we did not do a very good job of representing or presenting our case to the planning and zoning commission you know kimco evergreen and their consultant marcus did a much better job than we than we did however they've been down this road a number of times we haven't so we hope that as we present to you tonight that you'll give us a little slack perhaps understand that this is our first rodeo and it's not theirs we actually want to see east bank redeveloped and let me talk about some of the things we agree with the developer we certainly agree that the renderings of the apartments are significantly better than the vacant retail space that's there today we actually would like to see apartments in this knowing that they have the right to build apartments we just don't know if it's the right way to go about developing this um there's been significant interest in this in this project as uh ariana mentioned we have over 300 post uh comments that we've posted there's well over 500 people who've signed a petition against this project we held a community meeting i appreciate the fact that mayor kaufman and a couple of the new council members excuse me the you council members have attended this meeting again there's been significant community interest in this project okay i want to put this into perspective as to the impact this project has in relationship to the need for apartments in in aurora i'm using the figure of the the rec the need for apartments in aurora is 10 000 units i've been told that that's probably low but using that that number of 10 000 adding 311 apartments that's less than one-tenth of one percent it it really doesn't scratch the surface as far as the need for apartments in aurora however 311 residential units is a 70 plus percent increase in residential units in our community it has significant impact to our community i'm going to turn this over to kyle castanoli who's going to talk a little bit more about our main concern i've been told by by a number of council members that this is going to come down to whether this project meets the current udo clearly it does not or the developer would not be asking for an adjustment you know the the udo specifies that multi-family apartments should be 200 feet now 200 feet may not be enough but that's the present udo if 200 feet isn't enough the console should change the udo perhaps 300 feet is what should be required perhaps 400 feet perhaps 610 feet like the developer is requesting but right now the current udo is 200 feet and that's what we're asking the console to require the developer to abide by so i'm going to turn this over to kyle castanoli who will be speaking remotely through webex kyle you want to unmute can you hear me could anybody hear me can everyone hear me sure can okay terrific thank you um the first slide kyle you might want to speak up a little bit okay so the first flight city of aurora's uniform development order and it's massing and articulation hey the intent to create a built environment in which the massive buildings contributes to a sense of human scale with ground floor design horizontal and vertical articulation manipulation of building forms use of various materials menstruation and architectural details why to avoid long monolithic building shapes and surfaces and uh clearly this building and its current design as presented is the epitome of a monolithic building exactly what the city's planning vision tries to avoid maximum building length we've already talked about that um uh metro area standard city block dimensions this building footprint is is bigger than a denver city block and almost as big as an aurora city block the east bank developer adjustment request is three times the 200 standard at 610 feet and i think carolyn mentioned earlier that seven projects have been granted adjustments to my knowledge but none of those were three times three times the standard of 200 feet so really quite frankly the applicant has not met the city's udo 5.5 or d3 the flexibility and relief criteria that criteria has at what a the adjustment will result in a perception of development quality as viewed from adjacent streets and budding lots that is equal to or better than what have been required without the adjustment i think you'll hear from people tonight who whose homes but the project are adjacent or contiguous to the project that it is not viewed as equal to or better than would have been required without the adjustment two the adjustment will provide options for a more connected neighborhood layout or for an adjustment for a residential subdivision the adjustment will result in a neighborhood layout and level of multi-modal not single modal with one uh pedestrian roadway but multimodal connectivity equal or better than would have been required without the adjustment doesn't mean that three the adjustment will result in equal or better screening and buffering of adjacent properties and ground and roof mounted equipment would have been required without the adjustment again if you ask the people who live and will abut this proposed project it is not better for equal screening and buffering and fourth the adjustment will not result in material increase in on-street parking or traffic congestion on any local street in any residential zone district within 200 feet of the applicant's site frankly and only one of these criteria need to be met in order to be granted the adjustments uh respectfully say that none of these criteria are met and that the developers of argument is without merit on each of these bullet points next slide i believe i'm there oh yes okay so in wrapping up contradictions of urban planning and the proposed east bank shopping center redevelopment there's no affordable housing component to this multi-family apartment project i think marcus at the planning commission was asked by one of the planning commissioners whether there would be an affordable housing component to it he said they were looking at it well you know the planning says the the developer is elected to pay an affordable housing development impact fee which by definition segregates affordable housing so because of that is not conducive to social or economic inclusion now i think anybody in the planning board will tell you that good urban planning requires architectural design that weaves new projects into a neighborhood's existing physical and social fabric this project clearly doesn't do that and in fact when you saw the first presentation of what they proposed where they denied all access to the site from south batches of way you can see that this project isolates residents from the surrounding neighborhood and produces what amounts to a gated community so in closing i guess you know the city's sustainable info uh redevelopment uh sior which i think juan commented on earlier when he said for infill sites we want to go up we don't want to go out well this certainly goes out at 610 feet so the zoning overlay intended to create a one-size-fits-all blanket uh zoning overlay for uh blighted commercial centers that were on major arterials and granted there is um there is a there is a lot of pressure for new housing and housing demand in the metro area and certainly in aurora but the question is does the city by the way in terms of developing the udo i might say thousands of planning department personnel hours were involved in promulgating this udo probably hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent with consultants and such and this is the city's vision this is what the planning department wants for um for for the future of aurora's built environment and so you know we request respectfully that you deny the request and and that you force the developer to comport with with the spirit of ugo and especially with regard to connectivity and weaving this project into the community as opposed to isolating the community from the from this this friday and thank you very much for your attention and uh this ain't valentine's day so we ask you to consider our thoughts and not massacre our neighborhood thank you kyle again i've been told by a number of city council members that this is going to come down to whether the project needs the udo or not clearly it doesn't or the developer would not be asking for this adjustment i've also been told though that the city council has been reluctant to deny adjustments i ask you to look at this not based on decisions the city council has made in the past we agree that this this area needs to be redeveloped we also agree that departments are probably the best way to redevelop this however the 610 feet we would not disagree if if they were building perhaps two units of smaller length in fact if if they were coming to you and asking you to re to to approve an adjustment to two buildings that are 250 feet our community probably would not have a problem with that a couple of points i want to make before i summarize this one you're going to hear people speak in favor of this project and current tenants of east bank i can totally understand why they would why they would approve this project however you're probably going to hear people that do not live in this neighborhood saying that they approve of it one i don't even know how they found out about the project two i hope they found apartment dwellings before this is potentially ready for occupancy again we agree that the developer has the right to build this we agree that the the developer has the right to build four stories however we don't think it's the right way to redevelop east bank it it offers absolutely nothing to the surrounding communities and since as as the developer stated we use east bank to access quincy and we use east bank to access parker road we don't have a problem with the number of parking spaces we have a problem with the additional traffic that this development is going to create within east bank the traffic studies that were done did not take into consideration the additional traffic within the center and since we're using the center to access quincy and to access parker road this is going to create some significant log jams and it's going to create significant disadvantages for people in our community attempting to get in and out of our community our community is almost landlocked or i should say corridor locked and mr mayor you came out and drove the ingress and egress through our community and you you called me and you indicated that you felt we have a problem you know we certainly have a problem accessing quincy you have to cross over three if you're going east you have to cross over three lanes of traffic and merge into three lanes of traffic so going through the shopping center where there is a traffic light we've been doing this for years and and the developer says well we've we've listened to the community and we've put in this easement well i think the developer realized because we have been using east bank as access to both parker road and quincy they really had to give us an easement to get in and out and we appreciate that but i believe that you know the developer realized that they can't take that easement away without providing us with another easement again kymco's requesting uh a an adjustment to go from 200 to 610 feet you know it's three times the udo again if the udo is not adequate change it like i said perhaps it needs to be 400 feet perhaps it needs to be 610 feet but it's not 610 feet today it's 210 feet today and what we're requesting is that you require the developer to live within the specifications of the udo it's there for a reason okay um a couple of things for one more thing we will not have a number of people speaking against this project in in respect for the city council's time it doesn't behoove us to have 50 people come up and say the same thing i'm saying that we're requesting the council to not or we're requesting the council to deny the requested adjustment okay however we've sent somewhere in the area of 200 or excuse me 100 emails to the console expressing our concerns and asking the council to deny the adjustment request and again i i understand that the adjustments have been on a pretty ongoing basis have been given i don't know the the the if they were asking to go from 200 to 610 feet i don't know if they were properties that were out east where they were built on a much larger piece of property than this i don't know if they were asking for a height adjustment you know i can't speak but i would ask you to look at this and don't make decisions based on prior decisions that have been made regarding adjustments we support redevelopment of this center we support apartments going into the center and certainly the renderings that developers showed it's a significant improvement over what's there now we we don't agree that there we we agree that what's there now needs to be replaced we're not in disagreement with the developer when it comes to that again what we're asking of the city council is to deny their request for an adjustment to go to 600 feet 610 feet thank you for your time if you have any questions i'm going to have to bow out of here i'm available for questions now and edna demont she'll be here and she she'll be available for questions you have any questions of me um i hope you can stick around just a little bit so the next uh we're gonna do uh public comment uh and then we'll go to questions uh from staff okay in accordance to uh the way we're set up to do public hearings i i will thank you okay thank you um is there anyone who wishes to comment on item number 16a yes mayor we have geraldine santos geraldine if you can state your name and address for the record please good evening um thank you for letting us come this late and speak because it impacts our neighborhood um i live at one three five nine five zero east oxford place i live in a condominium unit just east of where the proposal is currently my unit or my building the condominium unit is the largest unit in the neighborhood it's an l-shaped building and it's approximately one-third of the size of what they're proposing what's that one-third mean it means it's within the character of the udo it's approximately that 200 feet it fits the neighborhood in my complex we have it's multi-family no question we're that's okay with us but in my complex what is there is that because it's smaller we have more parking we have green space that's our own we have a courtyard in the back where our dogs can run and play in a fenced in in a fenced area and that's the most concentrated in the neighborhood we back to the park we know what's going to happen um when um that apartment complex comes in they're going to want to use the park like we all do it's a great place it's it's how this community came together in the midst of covid we met each other around the park what's going to happen with what you're proposing because there isn't green space there isn't the 200 foot length where they have some ability to have green space around their homes is we're going to have concentration in our park which requires more resources from the city we want them to use the park as well but they're going to be going up and down our streets we're going to get the the dog poop and the pedestrian traffic and there hasn't been that designed into this plan because this proposal doesn't follow the guidelines that were set by the city i heard i listened to a lot of the discussion previously on variances for metro districts and what was the answer of of the council here the answer here it's within our city's model that was a guidance that you listened to when you made your decisions or or your when you made your decision for that and that's what we're asking here tonight for the council to do to live within that same guidance within the city's model today that model was put together with foresight planning understanding that there's transitioning from a retail area into the neighborhoods it's not a monolithic building there it's a gradual transition that looks more like what my condominium complex looks like it's about the same size and space there's more green space around it there's it'll integrate into the neighborhood rather than what the development is proposing to deny their variance thank you next we have edna and if you can state your full name and address for the record hi good evening um my name is edna diamond for some reason people are mispronouncing it anyway mayor kaufman and city council member thank you i know it's late we're all tired i'm tired um i just want to reiterate um what everybody else here is opposing this project about the building length and udo i just want to make a few comments so i'm not even going to use my three minutes is that um we were very disappointed that the planning dis commission appeared like they didn't even read our 300 plus comments and um so i didn't really think that they were thoughtful about their decision in approving this adjustment for the length and i'm glad that this group brought the different projects up on the slide and i took a picture of it if you look down the list and i think that a city council really needs to have a study session and say okay here's the nine properties that the planning commission and city council approved and gave adjustments for the length and then look at that and compare it to east bank that's all i ask to look at it we know that quincy and parker road is probably the most busiest intersection in the city of aurora we've been told that 90 000 cars pass by that's a lot of traffic and i think you all know that if you live around the area but i do want to say that carly from the from the traffic manager hired a consultant to look at a traffic light for quincy and atchison and that consultant did not um suggest a traffic light there and they're not going to put a traffic light i know marcus brought up that we'll pay this money well it's fine that you're going to pay money but nobody's going to approve this traffic light so i want to make it clear there will be no traffic light at quincy and parker i mean uh quincy and atchison and um and i think that this place type being a commercial hub really kind of um short changes the neighborhood because 70 of the shopping center now will be apartments and to me that's not mixed use i know the mixed use says you can have multi-family you can have retail services but i think when the shopping center is the majority of it is apartments i think we're missing out on those those services and so i hope that you all will take in consideration our concerns and look at the other projects and have a study if that's possible to look at the other projects what actually were granted on adjustments in the length and compare them to this thank you andrea if you can state your full name and address for the record please my name is andrea rice i live at 4052 south abilene circle aurora that is pierpoint village eight pierpoint village eight is going to abut the north end of the proposed building [Music] the developers showed you two pictures of the north end of the building they conveniently left out the one that they are going to be a button to a 100 feet it's unfenced they're removing the sidewalk the access road and quite a massive portion of the green space that we as peer point seven residences which is our parent hra have been maintaining and using um four years we have asked for i believe and has not have not yet been given the surveillance report we don't know where our peer point seven boundary ends and kimco's property begins but they are removing significant green space the developers have put the number of proposed people at approximately 800 people that means we're going to have 800 additional residents living 100 feet away from us the north end is also going to have the utility roadway which is going to be where all the trash is going to be stored excuse me the developers are constantly promoting pedestrian access walkability they they also say there are no adverse impact to the community for increasing the length of the building and providing for 311 apartments there are adverse impacts that the developers have not mitigated or addressed there's nowhere to walk both the residents of peer point plus a new proposed residence there's no bank within walking distance there's no school within walking distance there's no shopping center within walking distance for groceries there's no post office within walking distance there's no work hub within walking distance the two rtd transport facilities transport sites that the developer has mentioned take you nowhere the one takes you up to the aurora light rail the other one takes you down to nine mile there's no public transport that is going to facilitate the residents and that we don't have the benefit either of more walkability there's no um there are adverse impacts to us the other thing that we are concerned about is having 800 plus residents and again that might be more we have asked for the configuration of the shop of the proposed development i'm sorry andrea that's your three minutes sorry that's your three minutes thank you next is lynn if you can state your full name and address for the record please good evening good evening can you hear me okay there okay my name is lin coink i'm a resident of pure point uh 13963 east oxford place i'm actually the president and have been of our hoa for several years now and just to tie into what has been stated as far as no adverse impacts that's what got our attention beyond the traffic it's just the uh the monolithic size of this building is truly out of character for our neighborhood again i've been there for 21 years and as far as how this has been approached and they talk about how it's been a kumbaya let's bring the community together i as the president of the hoa wasn't even aware of anything going on until i happened to be told by one of our residents that they had a flyer on their door one of only three in our neighborhood about this proposal coming up so i last minute was that very that very evening i was able to jump on to the uh the meeting finally so and that's been kind of the approach i think we're an afterthought and i think we were also told by different experts that oftentimes city planning dots the eyes crosses the t's and that's understandable so everything going through that is pretty much scientific in a sense did they meet the standards however has been has been stated to be a dead horse the edo was not met it's been into a variance uh times three which again is completely out of character now we do the other point to make is that it is david against goliath we're up against a large firm from new york and kimko a top real estate excuse me developer also a law firm and we do want this to be evolved however chemical has been there for over 30 years and it's gone further and further into polite and i've watched it for 21 years and i just questioned their ability to manage an apartment complex in the long term one but mainly we do want it to be developed we just ask and implore the council to consider things beyond the simple approval of a plan and what the actual residents think and as bill said earlier i'm just one of five there could be 50 to 100 behind me but we we just ask for your consideration and to come back with a different plan for us we want them to be successful we want this to be developed it's just this doesn't it doesn't fit our neighborhood and the other thing about the traffic studies i believe they're probably correct about overall retail being being busier than apartments but the big problem is in the morning kids going to high school they have to go through that light now you add 800 people you're going to add several hundred cars leaving that center in the morning it's not like middle of the day shopping center's busy we can get back in getting back in is not that difficult it can be dangerous but not that difficult so that's one thing to consider as well please and i came here last minute because my wife normally was handling most of this for me as i was taught you another project so i know it was a little scattered but i implore the council to consider the the human impact and to reconsider the plan thank you okay mayor we have pet palace if you can state your full name and address for the record please hello i'm tasha wells from palace my business partner sheri grim up there and to clarify we do have a letter of an intent with kimco so we don't have a lease signed yet hopefully we will work out everything that we need to work out and i just want to take this time to say this has been a very stressful time for everyone involved with this project we've been in business for almost 29 years in the center and however this goes tonight we want to say thank you to our neighbors and to all the city council especially those that have checked in on us and anyone else that has been concerned about protecting our small business because i think that's what aurora should really be about is the people and the small businesses and we just wanted to say thank you okay mayor that is all we have for in person we do have a few individuals on the public call in line please proceed okay first up is alisa lcm sorry go ahead you have three good minutes uh good evening i am lc vengeance i live with my husband and kids at 2050 fox airplay street in aurora i have lived in aurora for most of my adult life and local cities so we have a serious problem we are in a housing crisis and all types of housing need to be provided most importantly housing needs to be provided when it is consistent with the zoning and comprehensive plan that was very viable our stakeholders we have lived with my husband's family while we have worked multiple jobs and saved money to buy a home we looked for multi-family housing as an alternative to have attainable housing while they have space to buy a home decent multi-family hands were nearly impossible to find so we keep looking further and further outside of aurora i looked up and down the parker road corridor because it is near my work we want housing at east bank i am a second generation immigrant to colorado i've dedicated my life to my family and to creating a better life for them especially which objections i have heard or learned about this project are rather offensive multi-family housing does not create more crime it does not set the surrounding property values it does not change the character of the neighborhood hearing those comments has made me very uncomfortable because it feels like everyone is doing something entirely different but using better words as a member of the city council i would ask you to please honor the code that is before you is a site plan not a change in use or zoning this is a site plan a proposal that is building what the code says to build we said that all the uncomfortable objections as they are simply objections to change and to progress this is shopping center that needs people meets life and life it meets new families with young kids it needs aurora residents to live and shop at east bank we all fight too hard to find housing please help us not have to fight for housing this proposal is completely consistent with what the code asks the builder to create we will find better housing we don't want it to be further down parker road where we create the same traffic do we have a problem with the system elsie we can't hear you roger are you there yeah are you still there healthy you seem to block her so let's go on to janice uh you're next have three minutes go ahead thank you my name is janice skinner i live in pier point 3 39 90 south atchison way i want to thank my neighbors that represented us there tonight and thank the city council for giving us the time to speak i am going to ask you to please deny the adjustment to 610 feet it's just too big the neighborhood can't handle it we don't have the facilities to add 311 units that will hold 500 to 800 people and the traffic in the mornings i know marcus says it'll be less but not when everybody's trying to go to work at the same time we want the shopping center developed but not as big as what they're planning so thank you for listening thank you next is charles you have three minutes go ahead hello my name is uh charles excuse me my name is charles brandon rich mayor and city council thank you for allowing me to speak i'm the president of the colorado apartment association and i would like to speak on the need for housing specifically in this barrier as we see uh you know all across the metro area um rents have you know went up considerably over the last few years and um what we see is when vacancy gets below 50 and appreciation accelerates above the inflation rate in this specific area at east bank within a two mile radius the vacancy rate is 4.2 percent and as a result rent the effective rents over the last 12 months has been 15.3 um in addition there hasn't been any new supply added in 2021 within that two mile radius in addition you know the adding these apartments will help alleviate some of that um rental increase in addition they will also have a positive impact on the area according to the us bureau of labor statistics consumer expenditure survey these residents at east bank will spend roughly between 15 and 18 of their salaries on local businesses in the area supporting the local businesses that that currently exists at east bank in addition to helping increase sales taxes so i would ask you to support this project thank you thank you next is amy you have three minutes go ahead amy you're lying you have three minutes go ahead i'm sorry did you say amy o'brien amy yes you're uh sorry i didn't hear you um hi i'm here on behalf of furniture row um i'd like to read their letter um i'm representing the store at 4258 south parker road aurora colorado 80014 dear mayor kauffman and city council i am associate general counsel for furniture road colorado furniture row owns property adjacent to east bank shopping center where furniture rose affiliate companies operate the furniture road retail center i'm writing to you in support of kimcom's application to develop departments at east bank shopping center this project seeks to cure the property's chronic vacancy by providing a vibrant mixed-use development that will benefit all businesses in the surrounding area with ample parking and a new customer base we appreciate kimco's efforts in welcoming feedback from the neighboring businesses respectfully richard p r cohn associate general counsel additionally i'd like to add that i wrote we wrote this letter with an understanding of a site plan that adds a new access point from atchison that brings in new neighborhood traffic to the center also the traffic continues right in front of our store southward and leads directly to the light on quincy that helps to bring the neighborhood to quincy as has been mentioned additionally we completely agree that this new residential anchor will be a great benefit to the neighborhood and especially supporting our shopping center thank you so much for your time thank you next is michael you have three minutes go ahead michael you have three minutes go ahead hi i'm mike fruitman owner of mike's sports cars for over 29 years an aurora resident for over 30 years i am speaking in support of the east bank development as both a business owner and resident as a business owner i'm looking forward to having a residential property acting as the anchor for this retail center it has been a while since we've had a new population in this area and it will be a great addition for my business and the businesses in the center as well my business has many repeat customers and this is a destination business having 300 new residents move in is easy advertising for a business like mine that provides a very healthy monthly sales tax revenue for the city of aurora i look forward to welcoming welcoming the new professionals and helping them with their sports memorabilia needs as a resident i'm always hopeful that a new project meets the needs for missing middle level housing that metro denver needs so desperately i used to live less than a mile away from the center and i have an understanding of how unaffordable housing in this area can be i moved into a different house in this area less than a year ago and now i have a really good understanding of how an affordable housing can be the new project will revitalize this area and provide for housing and a new group of professionals to move in and enrich the population of aurora is a perfect location for new residents with businesses residents and the cherry creek state park recreation just across the street in spite of having to deal with the annoyances of construction and potential changes in parking thanks to my new neighbors i am still a huge proponent of this project again to reiterate that the nearby resident and business owner in the center i am in support of the east bank development as i understand it it needs the code it will help business and will bring much needed rental housing options to the area thank you for your time and consideration of this much needed project all right thank you next is christopher go ahead you have three minutes hi my name is christopher burton i live at 5010 east 6th avenue denver i am a partner at legend partners in denver and have been in the commercial retail and land the brokerage and development business for 36 years my work is focused primarily in colorado but i also work in the surrounding states i've seen a dramatic change in brick and mortar retail over my 36 year career excel accelerated greatly by covet in the last two years retail centers across colorado and the country are trying to figure out how to reduce their retail footprint of their shopping centers replacing empty boxes with multi-family medical schools and any other use that will drive daily traffic to the remaining portion of the retail center rooftops drive retail and bring vitality to aging properties putting customers within walking distance of retail drives money being spent locally i am working on two projects in denver where landlords are proposing to demolish a portion of the retail center and replace that area with multi-family east bank center in its current configuration is functionally obsolete east bank center will not be able to secure a grocery store as the major grocery players have chosen sites north and south of east bank center there are still multiple empty boxes retail boxes along parker road corridor that have not been filled many in better position centers with better co-tenants and east bank in my professional opinion i believe this is an ideal site to add multi-family as a resident residential anchor to east bank center thank you all right thank you next is zoe zoey go ahead do you have three maps all right my name is zoe project and i'm speaking on behalf of circle k stores located at east bank at 3200 south park the road circletape is in support of simcoe's application to develop apartments at eastbank shopping center this project will provide benefits to the local businesses the community and as your spot is taking a responsible approach to redeveloping the existing flight this project addresses the community's traffic concerns by providing improved access through site and existing traffic signals on quincy avenue cynical also plans to work with key businesses like ours to integrate and improve our businesses by introducing apartments to the property as stated previously earlier the east bank shopping center has struggled with empty storefronts ever since cold water fabrics and 24-hour fitness has vacated this project seeks to secure the property's continuing vacancy and provide a mixed-use development that will benefit all remaining businesses with ample parking and a new customer base the developers commitment to improve traffic access and local businesses is a tremendous opportunity that should not be wasted this project also provides significant economic development benefits including both temporary and permanent job creation for our residents enhance new tax revenue for the city and improve site security it offer also represents an important opportunity to ingest life secure property that have struggled for years most importantly kimco is incorporating constructive feedback from the community by designing the project to minimize and talk to the neighbors and improve the existing conditions for budding residents the whole house will support this application i think eucrasis is next yes hi uh my name is krasus i live in berlin in aurora my address is one two one seven eight east expiration drive uh like i said i'm a war resident and i've grown up here in aurora i love my city and hope to continue to live here and i would love to see the development of these of east bank and the coast apartments um i currently work two different jobs to pay for housing and i do have an apartment today but i would want a better place with better amenities i would not be able to buy a home for a while so i want to progress through better living situations until i can purchase home my friend's family lived near peer point and we've been talking about this development since the first neighborhood was held in spring last year there are many neighbors that want to support this project but they are concerned that certain neighbors will be upset if they speak up my friend and i both love to have more apartments here this is a great location with many restaurants businesses and the state park we want to live with the amenities and have the ability to go enjoy the open space across the street yes parking quickly of busy roads but this is really an empty place people are driving by this location every day wondering why we can't build any apartments here instead of driving by the baking stores i know neighbors say that this would change their neighborhood and i disagree with that but i think they will change it in a very positive way you know getting new apartments that would be very nice and add value to the neighborhood and to the businesses i've heard a few people say at these news that this will increase uh negative aspects of the community and i just find that hard to understand it's naked today with no activity and that's where things like crime and other negative things occur you know we want names and activities so i fully support the patrol development at east bay we need more affordable housing and apartments thank you thank you next is juan go ahead you have three minutes good evening i'm juanita i live here in aurora at 1148 south bay boulevard uh with my two kids i run a small business and i've painted many homes and buildings in the immediate area i used to work out at the 24-hour fitness event at the proposed fight for this project new development i have listened to the discussion tonight and i want to be sure to go on record that i support the proposed fight plan i spend too much of my time working to try and remodel and rebuild asian housing stocks and believe we must build more new apartments i would estimate that i have lived in five different buildings in europe i would expect nearly 50 hours a week to provide for my family to create a better life for them in the future we need to build appropriate density when we are right next to major roadways so that we can get old shop uh get to them from work we need to build an mpo shopping center so that we have new opportunity this will not change the neighborhood this is actually a very dense neighborhood with many condos the proposed apartments are a significant upgrade and providing the access to park the road i support this project because we need more new places to live the world we need to support the neighborhood businesses we should all approve this proposed development allow the project to be built and go drink margaritas that cause them bernie arka to celebrate please support this site plan thank you thank you next is jasper go ahead you have three minutes good evening council members and happy valentine's day thank you so much for your attention in reviewing this application tonight my name is jasper boo my address is 130 grand parkway for the last month i have been working on this project with the outreach team and engaging the businesses and surrounding this project so i'm here to speak more about the outreach to the businesses many of which are small independent employers so our team of four engagement professionals has worked diligently to address the concerns and comments of the businesses and have found in our outreach that many of our businesses in proximity to the site support this project some of these businesses couldn't be here tonight as many are understaffed and some are work late nights however in the packet provided to you by staff today you will find support letters from businesses in the east bank center and the businesses to the south of quincy these businesses include mcdonald's any garment cleaning affordable flooring nature box pet store mark anthony flower shop that laser hair removal jet pizza bethlehem handicrafts perfect alternatives furniture row mike big and sports cars 7-eleven and the reason these businesses have written letters to of letters of support to including or in our package tonight is one the potential for new customers living close to their businesses and two they are excited that this investment in the area will inspire future similar investments from both the public and private sector so i just want to close and thank you again for your review and consideration consideration of the project and have a great night that's all the phone line participants uh council uh um questions uh for staff the applicant or the appellant mayor bergen uh mayor patem thank you um and thank you to everyone that called in and and was is there in person um my question is uh to staff um you already mentioned that all the requirements were meant in terms of um code and so forth other than the adjustment being requested which is what we're um what we're talking about tonight can you explain a little bit more about um what goes into that decision that staff made and then the planning commission made because i i read um you know the end the code that it looks like there are some variables to the 200 um foot building length that that are included so it's not just that you know you mentioned or they it was mentioned earlier seven other um developments were approved with more than the 200 feet so can you talk about what else is it is considered staff yeah can you hear me great um yes so in our unified development ordinance we have a section that's 5.4.4 it's flexibility and relief and it's directly related to adjustments and that was put into our code to allow for flexibility for how we're developing the city so it's not just allowing for these adjustments and in that criteria there's a certain criteria that needs to be met to allow for an adjustment and during the pre-application process and as the applicant goes to the development process these adjustments are quite stringent talked with staff on how it meets this flexibility and relief criteria and staff did deem that this application did meet it and recommended it to planning and zoning commission for approval okay so that would be the articulation the where the building goes in a little bit comes out jets out the vertical the actual materials as well on the building so that's what staff asks to improve on the adjustment the applicant can ask for the adjustment based on the flexibility and relief so that way staff isn't necessarily always controlling yes or no so if the applicant is can is wants the adjustment we work with them if they meet the flexibility and relief criteria and that's why we bring it forward so they met that flexibility and relief criteria then we brought the adjustment forward and that's when the discussion for horizontal and vertical articulation pedestrian streetscapes and all of that began okay and then mayor do can i ask the um police questions yes okay um so i heard that um some of the neighbors were saying that they don't mind apartments being in there was there ever a different plan proposed um because i'm hearing a lot about the monolithic you know building but i mean i'm looking at the new plan i'm looking at the way it is currently right now with furniture row and the buildings that are there that's very monolithic so i was just wondering was there ever a different plan for multi-family presented mayor a council member council members carolyn white speaking on behalf of the applicant i'd like to just answer part of the question about the monolithic and then ask my colleague diana real who is a genuine uto code expert to go a little further and talk about the specific question that you asked but um as it relates to monolithic you know that particular criterion that was shown on the screen earlier it says you're supposed to avoid buildings which are monolithic and then it lists a variety of different ways that you can do that such as building articulation and vertical relief and changes in materials and so on and so monolithic the definition of monolithic isn't just large the definition of monolithic is large and everything's the same and in fact i have the definition and can read it if we need to so the the question of was there ever a site plan that um that showed something different than what's being proposed today the answer is yes originally the the site plan that we showed you was presented to the neighbors and was adjusted in response as marcus described and and also prior to the discussion with staff the building did not have as much architectural differentiation as you see today in the current site plan that was designed to do exactly what that code criterion says you do to avoid it being monolithic which is to add all these different features to make it not look the same so maybe i could just ask diana to explain a little bit more about the evolution of the site plan in that regard yes mayor members of city council diana rael from norse design i want to talk about a couple things i did i did spend five years working on the code with staff i wasn't a high paid consultant i volunteered my time but i feel like i know the code pretty well and i use it every day so in the code in the udo in section 146 146-4.3.9 b the code does discuss allowable build block length in in sub-area b which is where we are for this project and it allows a block length of 700 feet and a perimeter block length of 2800 feet so that is all four sides around a typical block in both of those circumstances we are under that those block dimensions and perimeter dimensions the second thing i want to talk about is the building length the current code does limit the building length to 200 but what i would offer is that when we considered that requirement when we were working on the code we were thinking about a lot of three-story walk-up buildings that were really the building trend at the time when we were working when we began the code seven years ago six seven years ago aurora was getting a large amount of three-story walk-up building type designs with perimeter circulation drives and parking what you're seeing today and and why we've come with this is one of seven adjustments that have come before planning commission and now to you at city council is that we are starting to see more urban format buildings we're seeing buildings that really present are presented to the street they are more urban they are pushed up to the street and what it allows you to do it allows you to to put things like structured parking internal to the buildings it allows you to put in amenity spaces interior to the buildings but it does change configurations of those historically three-story walk-up multi-family buildings i would also offer that when we worked on the code and we adopted the code we sort of always said well if there's something that comes up that we see over and over and over again as an adjustment or something that maybe we found something that doesn't necessarily work with today's building configurations we would discuss that so i have i have a few other projects that are coming along and i've i've actually proactively reached out to the planning department to set something up to discuss this particular section of the code because it seems to be the one item that continues to come before us as an adjustment and just to talk adjustments um it's not a strict line in the sand i think as as we've talked if there's a way to mitigate and and offer fair compensation for those adjustments they they should be considered i think with that i'll wrap it up and then just two very quick um can you address buffering green space and then the letter of intent is there a letter of in i think it was mentioned there is a letter of intent but that there's not an actual sign at least would the letter of intent is that i mean is that something that will change ever from from that to the lease sure mayor protem thank you for the question i'll be happy to address the first issue which was the green space and the buffering that has actually been a very something that we have looked at i want to say up front the neighbors have done a remarkable job they have influenced the design of every edge of this building so two things that we did specifically is there was a request to make it more street friendly and more pedestrian friendly on atchison that buffering so as you saw we are 137 feet set back from the adjacent buildings by the way an existing building in pier point of 350 feet in length we are set back from that we want to have pedestrian scale to honor that as well specifically on the north side of our building as we transition to the neighbors we put in at their request an open space that we can have our dog stationed there so our pets don't go to their hoa space that was an exact request from the neighborhood so we have looked at the open space and we have adjusted all sides of it additionally on the south side inside the center we added gathering places picnic tables and benches and bikes to really embrace the pedestrian experience for those neighbors as well those neighbors that surround us the second question councilwoman the request about is there a signed agreement there is a signed letter of intent you are correct that is a 10-year extension i just want to be clear that i didn't say anything wrong or i hope i didn't i want to repeat it pet palace is under contract until march of next year with a lease we want to extend that they have been wonderful partners we have worked very hard and we have gone through all the terms councilwoman in what that means we want to continue to work with them again we want them to stay in that center i would agree it's been a very intense time there's been a lot of feedback from all sides and we've all tried to work through that so councilwoman we do have a fully executed letter of agreement for a 10-year extension thank you further questions mayor councilmember savannah yeah question for staff are there requirements in the udo currently that don't allow for a variance mayor through you brandon camarata planning manager most design standards which are applicable are variable probably the things that are not variable would be land use so for example if you're in an industrial zone you can't get an adjustment to put a residential use if it's not a permitted use but for design standards such as how long something is how tall something is you can pursue an adjustment and is what would be the reason to deny a a variance like the one that's being requested on length like this um again uh brandon camerata you know we take each adjustment request on its on its own merits um and utilize the criteria that are provided as best we can and that's also why the major adjustments are are pushed to planning commission in all cases so that there is a public opportunity to vet those so those are kind of examples of the layers that are created to address an adjustment aaron if i could just a couple more please so the reason i'm asking this is it the question seems to be of whether or not the variance complies with the udo and it seems as though that given that the udo allows for the variance to be requested that the 200 feet was set not to be determinative but to potentially be asked for the variance and so therefore it would in fact and this may be a question for the city attorney it still would in fact be compliant with the udo given that the udl allows for the variants to begin with is that right that is correct that is correct okay okay and so then oh go ahead and you asked a former question of um what would when would a variance not be allowed it's if it would harm um usually such as if it goes straight up and it blocks off somebody's light you know um they they can get into lawsuits of you know your building goes up and blocks all the all the light of another building get into lawsuits with that but there is a explanation in the code that says if it blocks the supply of lighter air to the adjacent properties then that could be damage to that other property where the council or planning commission would say no on the variance but if it doesn't create damage variances get allowed almost all the time i know the council it's partly a new council but we had an issue years ago with uh vapor recovery towers and for oil and gas and it was capped at 14 feet high but the the new vapor recovery towers to allow for better um clean air were going 17 18 feet high and so we had to continually give adjustments waivers called at the time and so then we eventually just changed the code but we have so many different areas in the code that we can't update constantly so that's why the flexibility and hardship variance is in the code and one final question along that the lines of um litigation is what type if any legal exposure could we be putting the city in if we don't uphold the decision given that the applicants have been in compliance with the code and as we just you know described with udo saying that they do in fact have the opportunity to apply for the variant so i think it seems pretty clear that they're in line they're in line with the code so do we create legal liability for the city if we weren't uphold the legal liability would what would be called a rule 106 hearing where they would challenge and state that the council decided in an arbitrary or capricious manner that in what that generally means is that you decide without criteria you could just say hey i don't like apartment buildings so i'm just going to say no because i don't believe apartment building should be you know should exist that would probably be arbitrary or capricious um but on this as long as you go with the code and the requirements and you say yay or nay then the council should be protected the city should be protected in any type of suit if the rule 106 hearing does take place it is the council doesn't or the district court that decides doesn't say you made an incorrect determination it determines whether or not you use the code criteria to make your determination so what i always do is direct back to the site plan criteria does it fit the site plan criteria does it fit the variance criteria and staff thinks it does fit the variance criteria however council can they're the fact finder so they can make that decision okay thanks tell me here further questions mayor councilmember lawson i have some questions for the applicant um so my first question is on the side of the cassavate restaurant did you talk to all of those businesses on that side we sure what have you offered them and what kind of compromises have you done with them as well sure councilwoman thank you for the question that that north retail is generally what we call it that building i myself have walked that center on five occasions i have talked to all tenants in there you heard from mike stadium which is on that corner right there on the north retail i have been into casa vallarta six times what we have done specifically actually addressed an issue recently is that casa verte is so popular the cleaning store actually wanted dedicating parking right in front of their store and they were given that by kimco that's an example of something not in this site plan but an exact thing the other thing we have done is actually talk about the overall parking and actually explain to them what we're adding and how the garage will work so councilwoman do i wish we could have had even more discussions absolutely have we talked to those count to those businesses yes we have okay mayor can i do a follow-up please proceed um so you talked to livia nails you've talked to sns um you've talked to all of those yes we have yes it does not mean that they've all you know that they're all supporting but councilwoman we've certainly talked to all of them which i think is certainly part of the process and what we would want to do is to get feedback i will just say whether in opposition or support it's the substance of what is offered that has encouraged what we've done here and so i think we've really tried to work through any of those issues and again councilman i'm sure there's things that others would like to see addressed and we're trying to continue to work through any of those challenges okay my second question is you know what's wrong with i understand you want to go from 200 to 610 feet to put this i mean i live in this vicinity i'm in that shopping area i frequent a lot of those businesses so my question is what is wrong with maybe having a compromise i see that area i've lived in this area for 21 years i don't live exactly in the pier point but i live across in that neighborhood and so what is it could be so unique you're putting 311 apartment buildings up there i could see it maybe lowering the apartments putting some cafes and things it's in prime area and it doesn't seem like i don't think the residents are saying they don't want some development up there i'm thinking that they want something unique and i could see people living where i live at across in crown point all along smoky hill in the back of there really frequenting this area if it's just unique you're just putting apartments up there it's really i'm not against the apartments and i think the residents aren't either but make it unique it's prime space it's crossed from the park so i guess what is wrong with like like some compromise yeah i mean councilman i i appreciate most certainly respect your opinion on that i think we are compromising and want to continue to um first of all i would say to the building length and to that question about that you know one of the most important things here that is setting the block pattern is to allow the neighborhood to cut through the site to get safe passage there is not an easement on the site we want the neighbors to have state access so that is actually setting the roadway the other one thing we're doing councilwoman is actually wrapping the parking garage if this were divided in half you'd probably have an unwrapped parking garage we want this to be great design four-sided architecture to improve and add to the neighborhood so councilman i'll let our planner talk to more but we want this to be a horizontal mixed-use center i will say this and i mean this with complete respect in 2019 the city of aurora said the solution for these aging centers is to add multi-family to add this solution so we are following your code to add that solution as you heard professionals testify this is happening in rundown retail centers all over the metro area because it's a residential anchor that enlivens this the very best thing for those businesses is to have 310 new residents aurora residents living there supporting neighborhoods we think that's very unique we think it's a wonderful addition so councilman i would argue that we really are compromising again everything we've heard we've tried to incorporate as much as we can i think the other one i've heard the cafes and that idea we want to support the businesses that are there and bringing these people in will do so these are two vacant boxes today this is not a market for cafes until we bring people in that can support that so that's the solution that the city of aurora the planners and the work group came up with and we are simply following that code to and live in the center okay mayor just have one more question um and i i guess we just have various opinions i see it you know i know we got to support business there but there's nothing wrong with bringing other unique businesses in a prime space across from a park that's very popular so i you and i definitely disagree on that and then my third thing i heard some callers call in and say that these are affordable these are market rate is that correct no councilwoman actually i want to address that because it's a very good question we are designing these as truly market rate as you certainly understand affordable generally means below 80 percent ami and it's usually restricted these are being designed to be workforce housing and in the city of aurora and many other cities that means 80 to 120 percent it is actually that price point that we are so desperate to find to find up move up housing or move down housing so we have specifically targeted to have affordable or excuse me workforce housing at this location we think that is a terrific addition to aurora and an infill site to provide that variety of housing i would remind that your comprehensive plan calls for that variety of house price housing price points so there's segmentation in the market and that's exactly what we are delivering with this site thank you for your answers sure thank you further uh questions mayor uh councilmember george yeah i have a few questions please proceed uh so first i've been told that we're in the middle of the traffic study but i've also been told that the traffic study is over um where are we at in this traffic study we have is that for i'm sorry i'm happy to answer that we have completed a traffic study when you go through the process you submit that i do want to there was a comment by the neighbors we work with the staff we show what we're suggesting as the use and then they help scope the traffic study what we should study so councilman we have actually updated that study on a number of times including to see if we could add a stoplight at atchison and quincy so there is a completed traffic study that we submitted with this proposal so then for city staff what's the plan to put in traffic lights brandon camerata with the planning department yep here's carly to give more detail on that good evening mayor and members of the council my name is carly campozzano i'm the traffic manager at the city of aurora in the public works department so there are a couple different traffic studies i think the first one that the applicant or the developer mentioned is the traffic impact study that was completed for the development so that study was really meant to look at the trips generated by the development and to see the impacts of the surrounding network so that was completed and that is something that we always require before getting to this stage and approving a project so in addition after hearing from a lot of the residents in the community as part of this project we heard loud and clear that the residents are very concerned about existing traffic flow in the area and particularly about not having a signalized access out onto quincy through atchison so what we did is we conducted our own traffic study which i think you're referring to council member and so what we what we did is we had a separate independent consultant prepare a simulation model and really look at all the develop all the traffic in the area to see if that location at quincy and atchison could support a traffic signal and what our study found and the reason why you maybe haven't heard of it yet is we just completed this study a couple weeks ago i think so it's pretty recent but the study found that a signal at that location really would not be functional just with the existing queuing on quincy the reason why there isn't a signal there already is because of the spacing and the volumes so our city standard for signal spacing is a minimum of 660 feet and the distance from the east bank signal on quincy to the quincy and atchison intersection is only about 300 feet so it's really not anywhere close to meeting our criteria and what that means is if we put a signal there would make it very hard to progress traffic along quincy and traffic would cue through that intersection and also the applicant and their traffic study evaluated the signal for warrant criteria and that's federal criteria that's you know spelled out very specifically in a federal document that all government agencies used and that criteria the traffic study um estimated that a signal is not warranted at that location and is not expected to be warranted in the next 20 years so um that's a summary i don't know if you have any other traffic questions do we have any idea what maybe some of the most dangerous intersections are in aurora the most dangerous is really a hard thing to quantify because we look at so many different criteria when we're looking at safety so with safety we really don't consider any roadway or any intersection safe or unsafe when we're looking at safety data throughout the city which is something we're doing regularly all the time as staff within the traffic engineering group we're really looking for crashes that we consider correctable by a specific engineering measure so there's intersections that have maybe a higher than we expect number of crashes and if it's if we flag a location that's something that we would look into more specifically we have access to the police databases we look through crashes we read the narratives in the report to really try to determine the cause and to see if that's correctable do you have any idea where parker and quincy ranks in that a parker and quincy has a very high high crash experience definitely yes sure so uh i mean in in my opinion uh you know if if we are here tonight discussing approving a variance on the size of this building why can't we approve a variance on this minimum of 660 feet between lives if it if it saves if it are between lights if it saves some lives in the city yeah so i can address that um i guess first parker and quincy is a signalized intersection so that's located uh west of the two intersections we've talked about so there's the parker quincy and i'm sure you've all lived there you've lived close there and drive this so you probably know this but we have parker in quincy which is a huge intersection which has a high number of crashes but also a lot of vehicles driving through it so we do expect a certain amount of crashes at that intersection then we have the quincy and east bank traffic signal which is the one for the development so that's just to the east and then we have atchison that's located east of that so what we looked at in our study is really if there are if there's a crash pattern is it something we can correct with a signal and i think it's a pretty common misconception that all crash patterns are corrected by devices or a signal in a lot of cases the signalized intersections that we have in the city just like the one you mentioned at quincy and parker actually experience way higher crash rates so quincy and parker being signalized i mean that hasn't stopped crashes and that's because you're creating a bunch of conflict points and people who feel like they're safe making a movement where maybe they're not because people are illegally queuing through it which they will do if signals are spaced less than you know a few hundred feet sure and i guess i'm not talking specifically at parker and quincy i'm aware there's a light there but there's an entire neighborhood that doesn't have a light at either parker road or quincy right that's correct and that's why when the development came in for a pre-application meeting we did identify that the access to the east bank signal for the community needed to be maintained so that is a need that we see um for that and so so my question is is there a process to i guess overrule or approve or something this minimum of 660 feet between lights to get this neighborhood alight so we did do the very thorough traffic modeling effort which was what we wanted to use to see if a light could be functional there and if we don't comply with federal standard then that opens the city up for liability and it opens up whoever is approving those documents for liability with their professional engineers license so what about the parker road entrance to their neighborhood so the parker road entrance off of atchison correct yeah so that so parker road is actually a state highway in this area at state highway 83 it's actually owned by the colorado department of transportation or cdot and so when we had the applicant prepare their traffic impact study we did have them run a signal warrant study based on federal city and state standards at both parker and atchison and quincy and atchison and neither location met the criteria we did reach out to the colorado department of transportation again to see if they would allow for any sort of variance and they cited federal criteria and warrants and all the different things we've talked about as a reason why they would not consider a signal at that location do you know what criteria that didn't meet because i don't think that that would fail the 660 feet correct so it does meet our the city's 660 feet but the city's minimum is actually a lot less than c dot's minimum c dot um c dot's minimum is uh gosh i think it's about half a mile but it's over i'll have to check but it's over double ours and it doesn't meet their criteria and that is because parker road or state highway 83 is an expressway and it is meant to convey very heavy volumes of traffic so it conveys it holds about double the traffic of quincy for example so they're very sensitive to preserving the throughput on the state highway system and on an expressway and when i'm talking about the criteria it doesn't mean it didn't meet the volume warrants because the volume warrant criteria is based on the amount of traffic coming from the side street as well so it's really just there's not enough traffic coming from atchison for to warrant stopping you know ninety thousand vehicles on parker okay that's all i had for about traveling i just have a question on this on atchison and uh parker road so i understand meets our criteria doesn't mean she does criteria but is it waiverable i mean can we apply for a waiver so cdot does not have a waiver process for their signal criteria either they use the federal standards and their own documentation with their access code to make those determinations the federal standard is not waverable no generally no the federal standard is not waiverable generally no or just no no it's not waiverable thank you uh further questions i i wasn't done mayor um that was all that i had for traffic okay thank you for that yes i want to know also i read about noise in here and that it's saying that noise will not exceed 55 decibels from 7 am to 9 pm and i see you know there's a there's going to be a swimming pool possibly some barbecue pits everything that i read do you all plan on having dedicated security to ensure that the neighborhood behind is not dealing with this this noise checking okay thank you mayor council member carolyn white again on behalf of the applicant i'm going to answer part of that question and ask marcus to answer the rest as it relates to noise generally what i would say is that as i think you all probably know and have some experience with the city has standards in its code about what is the maximum level of decibels that is allowed in different scenarios when residential is next to residential and industrials next to commercial and so on and so there are also a variety of ways to model that based on the type of use that's being proposed and so based on these types of uses in their location and the distance between them our team has estimated that it will not exceed the standard if there is a situation where it did exceed the standard then of course you would have your enforcement rights in your code you would inspect it you would take a noise measurement you would write a ticket and you would have the right to cause them to cease and desist whatever they were doing that caused the noise until measures could be put in place to satisfactorily mitigate it to the allowable levels and that's sort of the procedure for all these types of development in this scenario in this posture but as to the specific question about do we have security i'm going to let marcus answer that sure councilman and i'll just add that this will be a professionally managed building by a management company that we work with evergreen who will run this facility has and i'm sorry i think 10 to 12 in the local market of these buildings they have the same noise requirements so i think we we certainly will comply with that and councilman there will be security and on-site management i will say those are internal courtyards and part of that was done to really screen just as you're suggesting any noise or overflow of that so very cognizant of that and so yes we will comply with that and councilman not tagging on but to your earlier questions about transportation we would wholeheartedly support and pay for 25 percent of a stoplight at either parker or quincy on atchison we didn't know the results when we offered it we're still offering to do it we wish that could be changed it's an existing traffic issue not our traffic issue but we all know it needs to be addressed sure so i guess the answer is there will not be a dedicated security no i'm sorry we have a we have property management that includes security on site and that will be part of that as well i'm sorry yes okay so there will be security for that okay that would have been easier to just say yes i apologize um okay i also um 243 parking spaces in this parking garage for 311 apartments i just want to know is there any is there any room for give in there i think that where we just start a little upside down on on the lack of parking is there is there any room in there for some give there sure is and councilman i just want to talk to that the 243 are in the garage right and those are assigned with your unit and then there was 190 on the surface right for those units so we have actually heard this from the neighbors from others concerned about that and from discussions what we have looked at is in our internal garage right the structure we can add another half level of that you know how they're on the angle and we know that's a minimum of 30. we it's probably 32 or 33 but we know it's a minimum of 30 structured spaces the reason that's important is because it allows even more flexibility on the surface in that kind of shared space so councilman we have gone to work on that and concluded that we can add 30 more spaces in the garage than what's planned today okay and then i also want to know what kimco's plans are i guess ultimately with the the rest of the shopping center we heard a lot of boasting about the plan the architecture how gorgeous this is going to be sure what does kimco plan to do about the rest of their shopping center yeah councilman we are and i'm sorry we we certainly are want to add and be additive to the neighborhood but the other part of that is to the center itself right and councilwoman lawson asked about the north retail building there's also that south building right that would be at the south side of the new roadway so kimco is here they certainly could answer that but what they've said is that they want to commit to you know concurrent as the opening of that residential building if we can move forward with you all that there would be some facade improvements to go through that process to design it just as you said actually more in accordance with the new architecture right the new facades to really match that so councilman we're looking at those other two buildings to do that in more of a concurrent concurrent or similar time frame to bring those on those are those existing cafes and restaurants and businesses and we want them to stay there so we need to make that investment as well okay i don't have anything else right now further questions mayor um mayor for tim i have no merits combs i'm sorry councilmember crumbs thank you so i won't belabor the points that my colleagues have made of which there have been many and i appreciate the questions that folks asked but there is one point that i really want to point out that is relevant to the 600 feet and that is that the discussion continues to center around these two big box sites that are no longer viable and i absolutely agree that those really aren't viable but demonstrated that they're not viable within that center so that's understandable but there's also small retail that's being eliminated and that has shown itself to be viable the small retail sites are pretty consistently full within east bank and you know obviously pet palace was one of those and you have made arrangements with one site but there is small retail being eliminated by having this 600 foot waiver and having the site plan as it currently is and in particular what this has done is it's created a situation where my understanding is that the site that pet palace will go into the small retail site is currently the site of a bike shop that provides low-cost and free bicycles to kids and low-income people in our community and has been doing so at a number of sites throughout the city for nearly 30 years so nearly the same amount of time that pet palace has done so but at this point has been at um east bank for a number of years and would be displaced by the development of this project and so for me really the 600 feet the question that i have i guess in the issue that i have is that it eliminates that small retail and so my question is is there some way to ensure that there's adequate small retail space to not displace the businesses that are currently there because if the bike shop is displaced my understanding is that they will simply go out of existence and so the service that they provide to our community would simply be lost if the decision is to not honor the role that they've had in that small retail space and the success of small retail businesses within retail restaurant businesses within east bank so councilman thank you for the question i i just want to say i think that's the great challenge of these centers is and you certainly understand that what makes these centers actually work are anchors or those long-standing businesses like pet palace and casa vallarta that's what allows the traffic the neighbors to come in and support those retailers just as an example casa vallarta has six years left on their lease whereas pet palace has won all of these have eventual turnovers so councilman i am with you that what we want to do is support second chance that is a remarkable bike shop that you are mentioning we actually had a meeting there's a retail specialist with aurora we know they need to exist in aurora they need to provide that service is it somewhere else on our center is it somewhere there we're going to work to do that i think we were asked specifically about pet palace and we have found found a way so councilwoman i would just say that what we're doing is actually trying to strengthen these businesses big small medium there is no doubt that a dying center is the worst thing that could happen to any of those businesses and that's what it is today we are trying to invest and revitalize and what your code tells us to do is to bring in horizontal mixed use so again we are following the guidance of code we didn't rezone this we didn't do that this is the code solution so councilwoman let's work together to work with second chance to keep them in this center or in another center we all know how much retail is available in this city to find a place for them to work and serve their constituents does a second chance have a lease you know sir i'm sorry i'm sure somebody here knows that i can find that out for you or somebody could answer that hi good evening chris ciminello from kimco realty happy valentine's day and to answer your question uh mr mayor they do not have a lease they they're it's on a license agreement right now that we have been accommodating um to renew on an annual basis what was the term you used a lice a license agreement so it's a essentially a short a very short-term agreement okay okay further questions mayor joranski all right councilmember jordinsky um this is i guess to city staff um link apartments at fitzsimmons fits east mixed use nine miles southlands montview and 1450 abilene were the other projects that that were approved with building length adjustments i would like to know in those projects what the community opposition looked like and were there businesses facing displacement over over this approved adjustment merit through you brandon camarada planning manager those projects varied a lot in in their context certainly for example and i don't have all the information for you right now and so i'll do the best to answer the question um you know certainly some projects like nine mile and um fitzsimmons are currently you know vacant projects and so um although they're infill in nature there's you know they weren't uh raising an existing facility so most of the projects we've seen have been in that that vein of utilizing an existing vacant space and and building something new there i'd have to do a little more research to confirm some of those aspects with regards to community response to to those i would say that you know certainly east bank's been the most prominent in terms of that response um and and the response to the other projects were substantially less and in many cases uh non-existent brandon i'll give a little context on nine mile if i could so um nine mile was interesting in that um it represented an urban renewal uh site uh and so it did involve the loss of existing retail but that was a an old retail center that had gone vacant and remained vacant for a number of years and actually most of the outcry from the neighbors was to please redevelop the site now so there was substantial outcry from neighbors around that site associated with getting the city to do something to redevelop that site so much so that through its urban renewal agency the city and the urban renewal agency wound up acquiring the site uh through um eminent domain and then hiring a master developer to redevelop that site so again that did entail uh the loss of existing retail um and did entail uh significant public input i'd say as brandon said the circumstances were different in the timing of that so i'd say um you know in this case we're probably not that far down um the slide on uh a retail center going down so it's just we're at a different point in terms of of where this site is compared to where um regatta plaza nine mile was so two things i would like to point out about regatta plaza nine mile i'm very familiar with it uh the location where the apartments actually ended up being built and are are being built is the furthermost point from the residential behind the shopping center that's not the case in this development and for this neighborhood behind this shopping center and the other thing is the entire shopping center was torn down the entire shopping center so all of the retail there now is brand new they didn't just you know decide to build brand new apartments and not address the existing retail so specifically about the nine mile project i just wanted to point those two things out there's a comment by staff on that mayor can i ask a question uh mayor pretend please proceed on the nine mile this is to staff was there an incentive package uh the city uh wound up spending in excess of 25 million dollars to acquire the site so um and then there have been incentive packages subsequent uh for the redevelopment of the site including uh for the horizontal infrastructure associated to redevelop the site and then there was an incentive package with the multi-family developer for both the affordable housing because the the multi-family on nine-mile actually has two components there's an affordable housing multiple multi-family and then there's also a market rate and for both of those projects there was an incentive for those those developments and is this developer asking for an incentive not that i'm aware of thanks if i may mayor for the record this developer has not requested any type of incentive from the city further questions mayor um sorry um marcona guess what mcconnell thank you sir um so i have a couple of questions here uh first for the applicant um so earlier we heard uh one of furniture rose representatives call this a mixed-use project but the better cup shows that this is just purely residential um my question i guess is why is there a disconnect there and why is this not mixed use part of what i have seen be very successful across the country in cities large and small is revitalizing these kinds of strip centers that have big box um you know anchors that can no longer that are no longer viable due to changes in technology and preference but they are bringing in smaller spaces in conjunction with mixed use uh and creating a you know self like a small ecosystem basically uh that where the new residents support the new businesses yeah council uh councilman thank you for the question probably two of us carol and i will both answer i think to your question this is proposed again with the north and the south retail that existing retail this will be a horizontal mixed use project it's what we're seeing and that's actually the solution that was designed is to have that mix of uses so sir there will continue to be that retail there will continue to be small retail and by the way we have other small vacant retail spots so we will find a place we're not displacing people we want to do that so councilman this is a horizontal mixed use project what it is missing is actually residential it is that mix of uses that we're bringing in so we're actually fulfilling that vision and bringing that in in a way that this effectively becomes a residential anchor uh to your points here about the question or the size of that we think it is that mix if you look at those existing tenants and those spaces are there those are a lot of small businesses and we think what supports them when we went door-to-door or to shop to shop they couldn't be more excited the religious relics store that some of the stores there were like we just need people and so that's been an important thing that we will bring in this mixed use center thank you i'm going to have a follow-up mayor please receive thank you so on the affordability component so i understand that you're not pursuing you know traditional subsidized you know income restricted housing can you give us a ballpark if the workforce housing were built today what do you think the price point would be for let's say a one bedroom unit so uh councilman and you understand this the timing involved in this right we still have to go through and permits and and construct this um so we're a little tentative on that but we have run the model the performa if you will and we have them starting at around fifteen hundred uh fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred that is in the analysis under the hundred and twenty percent ami and hence why we're calling it and working as as it is workforce housing so councilman we've we really have studied this area as you heard from the gentleman who did the analysis here this area has seen a 15 increase in rents because there is no supply of rentals there is no supply of this price segmentation so councilman we're frankly trying to push that rent down i agree with you i saw your eyes go up eyebrows go we want there to be more attainable rents this is an attainable product and very important for the health of the city as a whole yeah i mean that's cost burden pricing you know i'm sure you understand that sure but um so i guess my last question for you here um is i really appreciate the good effort to you know help out pat palace i want to make sure that none of these small retailers in this area are displaced by new developments i like new developments i am very supportive of you know densifying dwindling shopping centers but i don't want to see you know places like the second chance bike shop be displaced and potentially run out of business so can you tell us a little more because i i know councilmember coombs um asked about this but i i hear what i heard from you as well we can or from one of your partners i guess is that we can talk about it um we're not talking about pet palace they actually have an agreement now and again i appreciate that what can we do for these other businesses if i may may or once again i have a brief comment in response to that question and then i'd like to let marcus um take on the full answer and um the the comment that i struggle with is that um remember that all of the leases and agreements whether they're license agreements or letters of intent or any other type of agreement between the private parties that constitute the tenant and the owner of this shopping center are subject to negotiation and the more that they become the subject of a public hearing and part of a public process the harder it is to actually have a meaningful negotiation so while we are trying very hard to answer your questions and give you the real picture and i think marcus can share the tremendous effort that this landlord has made to work with their existing tenants with the existing folks who would like to be tenants but don't have a lease right now i also would like to say there is a point at which details about the terms of business leases between private parties are not an appropriate discussion topic in this type of a public hearing and we may be approaching that point so with that caveat i'd like to let marcus answer the question about the um efforts that this uh owner is making and and will continue to make to try to uh successfully relocate all these businesses in a way that is consistent with their business goals yeah councilman thank you for that councilman i i think one of the great challenges here is i would argue that the reason tenants have not been able to survive here is because there's no anchors and we saw the evolution of this site plan over 30 years this is a 180 degree site area there will never be a grocery store here again it will not happen and we will not have that size of things we have to have so this is a residential anchor so councilman we could not agree with you more we want to keep not displaced businesses and we are working very hard with all of these businesses so you're right not going into terms you know we know when people are off leases who's on a license agreement that has been the challenge here is to continue to work with them and fill them in second chance is remarkable right we want to find a site for them and frankly we'd ask you all and your retail specialists to help us let's let's find other spots for them so councilman in no way we think they've been displaced by the market we're trying to solve that and i think that's what is frustrating here is we're actually trying to save these tenants allow them to prosper big small and medium and we certainly hope that that is coming true that genuine commitment to those small businesses further questions mayor jarrinsky and councilmember jordanski marcus you said in answering a council member lawson's question you wish you could have had more discussions with small businesses sure councilwoman i'll just say and this is a probably an observation of a site planning process in the city of aurora the site planning process requires one public meeting we have had eight public meetings and 45 individual meetings i wish there was a process where there was more involvement early on so councilwoman could we have done better unequivocally right could we have started i will tell you the truth in may and june when we didn't realize the neighborhood cut through that site and we put that site plan we lost the neighborhood then and they've never come back they said things tonight we've never heard before that they support apartments that they support you know this scale those are all new things we have heard different things than that all along so councilwoman i think we should have done a much better job with pet palace we should have done a meeting with the businesses before we announced it but that's the challenge of leases and a discretionary site planning process so that's what i'd offer we have gone so far beyond the process but we absolutely could have done better sure and i would just like to clarify and we heard from pet palace tonight and the words were we do have a signed loi and we hope to get all of the details worked out an loi is not legally binding elise is the fact that this started that these conversations started nine months ago and here we are at the 11th hour and their longest standing tenant is not in a lease is a huge huge letdown for the small business community in aurora and i want to make that known that an loi is not legally binding i want to state that mayor mayor patel um can i ask a question about the loi to the applicant sure so if it's not legally binding but you're in a public hearing right now stating that that you have signed one with pet palace does that i don't know if i should be asking the applicant or our attorneys but does that have standing maybe um your your counsel if i may mayor again uh carolyn white on behalf of the applicant um i'm sure many of you know this but maybe for the audience i'll just mention in the real estate world we talk about lois all the time like everybody knows what they are an loi means a letter of intent it's usually a precursor to signing a lease and so you go through the majority of your negotiations about the details of the terms of what's going to be in your lease during the process of negotiating the letter of intent and when you have completed that process and both parties are in agreement on what the terms are going to be how long of a period it's going to be what the rent is going to be how many parking spaces they get all of that then you sign the letter of intent and that's a promise by the two parties to work together to sign a lease and the lease in this case will not be a new lease but it'll be an amendment to their existing lease because as has already been discussed they already have a lease so and and i would also say that in the in the world of real estate different clients of ours have different ideas about how much detail ought to be negotiated up front in that loi this is an extremely detailed loi as lois go the distance between loi and lease in this case is the short part of the negotiation the distance from the beginning of conversations to assigned loi was the long part of the negotiation so we can mention it here in a public hearing because it is a signed agreement and we're telling you that we have it i hope you're not going to want to know everything that's in it because we really ought not to go there no but there is one yeah and i didn't mean to to you know for you to disclose everything that's in it but it's signed me was signed by pet palace so they are agreeing to the to the terms in the letter of intent both parties have signed the letter of intent to which i am referring and one of those parties is pet palace yes okay thank you mayor jarrenski all right councilwood so so that means now details will need to get worked out to work towards elise if there are details which have not yet been negotiated in the letter of 10 i would be very surprised like i said this is a very detailed the amount of the build out is one of them i'm sorry the amount of the build-out is one of them the question is the amount of physical space or the dollar amount the cost of the build out is not in that will have to be worked out so councilman i'll just say this is the the terms that are probably hard for us i'll just describe briefly it's actually proposed as a turnkey lease and i'll stop there so that actually means we build out the space so that actually gets delivered to them so that's kind of the question you're asking is not necessarily relative to actually how we finish it we have to turn it over but i i don't want to at for one moment take umbrage with what you're saying we have worked as dedicated as we can i wish we would have started earlier i said that to you but this neighborhood and council members and others have said pet palace matters right we couldn't agree more so we want to finalize that we are ecstatic about the loi it is very detailed carolyn is absolutely correct we've talked about the different rooms the different spaces so if there's something else we can do to take it fruition we want to do that the other thing i'd remind they're under at least until next march another full year so we want to do that but councilman we're not arguing we want that same lease agreement that's why we're saying it to councilwoman bergen's question in public session we want them there we want a 10-year extension well i know firsthand being a small business owner myself and involved in multiple leases and multiple shopping centers i know that a lot can change between an loi and a lease and i really really would have liked to have seen or known about signed leases not even the details if they're happy great but i would have liked to have seen signed leases tonight and i would also like to state that pet palace found out about this project from the neighborhood not from their own landlord of almost three decades and granted kimco didn't own it for like the first 10 years but they found out about this from the neighborhood that's tough that's tough as a small business owner on this council that's tough to hear and like i said i know first hand a lot can change between an loi and a lease that that that's undeniable and i would have liked to have seen leases tonight that that kimco feels that pet palace belongs belongs in the community belongs in their shopping center i would have liked to have seen that it's a huge letdown for me and it's a huge letdown for this neighborhood in this shopping center further uh questions follow oh i'm sorry go ahead i'm sorry for for god just to follow up on the on the letter of intent because i know we're getting into the lease and i don't even know if we're legally allowed to be if we would even legally be allowed to see a lease because that's between two parties again if legal counsel from the applicant could address that you said it's very detailed you're publicly announcing that you have a signed lease with both parties are we entering a i don't want us to enter at any kind of space where we're treading on some legal issues mayor pro tim um we can go ahead and address that to be legal advice given to council i would probably advise to get back to the site plan criteria this is a site plan the lease is not part of the site plan it's it's obviously integrated into it but there is such a notion of interference of a private contract in which it's always good to keep government away from interfering potentially into a private contract so even though the questions will always come up because you can't separate you know the tenants from the area since there's going to be a new building but tonight the site plan goes by the site plan criteria which is in your packet there and that's whether or not it goes with the conference plan whether or not it goes with the other criteria that staff evaluated and that it's up to you to make the decision on tonight so um anyway if that answered your question i can uh yeah i just i i know we've had these in the past and there's always a fine line and so thank you for your answer you bet thanks i want to be a little careful tonight on on the criteria because there are two criteria that are that are really involved here and the first is mitigation the application the application mitigates any adverse impacts to the surrounding area to the to the degree practical thus the leases that are next door the the other big criteria that the council really nets needs to look at and council gets to make this decision is compatibility the application is compatible with the surrounding uses in terms of size scale and building facade materials thank you mayor jorinsky further uh questions jorensky councilmember gerowski um to council member bergen i i don't i definitely don't need to see uh the lease what my statement was is it would have been nice to uh know tonight that there were leases in place not an loi there's a big difference i would just have liked to have known because if there is a lease in place to i mean to sign a lease as a business owner it means you've reached an agreement um so so that's what i would have liked to have seen and and you know in the presentation tonight it talked about all of these vacancies and sure we can we can speculate um on the re on the reasons for vacancies we can certainly speculate on that but you have businesses begging to stay in this shopping center begging to stay that that found out about this project from the neighborhood i i you have businesses begging to stay and we are at the 11th hour and these people do not have a lease i i just want to reiterate that for other questions mayor councilmember mcconnell thank you sir this is a question for city attorney broughtsman and i guess also city attorney money um the part of the impact of the site plan that we're discussing is going to you know to seriously impact some of the businesses that are currently located here um obviously i don't want i hear where you're coming from about getting into least details i don't actually want to see the details of the lease my question to you all is would it be appropriate is this something that we could discuss in an executive session with the involved parties as to to get a so the council can know what is going to happen with these because i think that we've heard a lot from you know folks in the community a lot of people did make comments about the businesses and preserving businesses there that live in the surrounding community and i'm just wondering is that would that be allowable i guess uh you know within the scope and context of what it is that we're discussing here overall so again the criteria is it mitigates any adverse impacts to the surrounding area you don't want to get into gruesome detail on the negotiations of these leases but but you do want to know that the applicant is mitigating any any adver adverse impact right with the adverse impact being the potential displacement of businesses and we'd like to and what i would like to know and i think of hearing this from my colleagues is what is what material steps are being taken that they did not feel comfortable saying in public if that makes sense sorry if that was a question to us the one thing i would offer is as you look at this is the surrounding area is not the same property and we are the same property so we're talking about all of the applicant's site here and comparing it to that but i want to say again we know we have more work to do this is a site plan that actually is changing that location so councilwoman jorinsky councilman mcconnell if there's things that we can continue to try to fix we want to do that we will do that we're not chasing anybody we want pet palace i'll say it again so if there's a way that we can do that i know that that's not a legal standard any of the criteria we understand if we need a small a window of time or something like that we certainly can try to pursue that we thought we did everything we could to get assigned to loi we're immensely proud to announce that to keep them so i just want to be clear that we we know we have further to go we're going to continue to do that but if that provides some level of clarity we're certainly open to that discussion yeah mayor if i may uh councilman mcconnell thank you um i would very much appreciate that because i'll just be very clear with what i'm concerned about i don't want to sign a death warrant for some small businesses here so if we can get some assurance that you know something real is taking place i understand you don't want to discuss the details publicly real estate transactions totally understand that but i think we would feel better if we had some reassurance in our communities but as well further questions mayor joranski councilmember joranski so i ran for this office because i saw a lack of voice for two entities in in aurora one of them being our police department and the second one being small businesses i have no intention to back down or run from my support of either i think that evergreen uh has done a great job in in with this project um i you know i don't know and especially if evergreen can can come forward with even more parking spaces in the garage we heard 30 some tonight i think that's great but i'm being asked to consider an appeal to grants you know to grant this this approval when the of 610 feet when the udo states no more than 200 feet i agree that the udo needs to be looked at possibly changed i i agree with that but i want to know who who considered these small businesses that's what i want to know who considered them when their own landlord didn't tell them uh that this project was happening as far as traffic goes i do agree that even if this shopping center were filled up with with anchor tenants i agree that in fact would create more of a traffic problem than what this proposed apartment complex would create we saw tonight there was a slide that said yes there's a need for housing but this project you know aurora needs 10 000 apartments and this project would only contribute to 0.031 of this need so i guess at that point i do have to ask the neighborhood then should it be bigger i think we need to consider that i think that there is absolutely a need for for this project but i think trampling on the very people and the backbone of this country is not how we're going to get there and i'm speaking directly to kymco whether this was built as two buildings at 300 feet apiece or whether this was built at three buildings at 200 feet ap 200 feet per building i don't think that makes much of a difference i really don't even if they split these buildings up and and you know we've heard the arguments from the neighborhood i don't think that makes much of a difference i really don't i just have to say that to the neighborhood the first line in the packet from carolyn white under no adverse impacts states and i quote the requested major adjustment will have no adverse impact on and in fact will benefit the surrounding properties i think i mean i think and even from hearing from the city attorney tonight there is there is some adverse impact here there there are there is and there are some things that maybe haven't been discussed and maybe we should have allowed more time for that as far as uniqueness of businesses in in this shopping center the sports card place talk about a dying breed i traded baseball cards when i was a kid i couldn't believe there was still a sports cards place in the shopping center and i'm happy to hear that they are supportive of this project and let me state as am i if nine months ago steps would have been taken care would have been shown to some of their longest standing tenants in the shopping center it was also stated by you marcus that this project is the very best thing for the businesses in the shopping center maybe but the very best thing for the businesses in this shopping center is insured longevity that comes one way that's a lease so councilman and i think we're still if you're directing that to us i mean you're right uh pet palace again 24 years they've been on site i believe if i do quick math um i couldn't agree more with you that's cross the village palace has been there going on 29 years okay sorry my apologies so i and we want them that much longer right so i'm acknowledging and i'll say it again i wish we could have done better at the beginning of this process the the process didn't afford that we actually did tell the tenants the day of the meeting that's not better i understand that councilwoman so i want to be clear about that what i am saying to you is and councilman marcano asked the question if we can provide further in a short window perhaps an extension to get to something like this and get that done we're going to keep doing it we didn't quit uh discussions with the sell and signed loi we're turning it into lease terms now but if we need a window like that we would support that i think that what we want to say over and over again and i'm sorry i 45 meetings in eight public meetings on a site plan is unprecedented and we will continue to be unprecedented in our outreach on a site plan i will say we will not get support for this project from the neighborhoods it has been in different ways where it's said we want this the tactic on the building now is that they know that project doesn't happen so to say to split it in half that means there's not change so councilwoman i appreciate what you said we want to find something that actually supports these businesses so i respect exactly what you're saying and if we need and respectfully request if that's what your will is to take a short window and come back to this council if the hearing's closed let us go have that discussion and see if we can get to more certainty on some of those items yeah and just to follow up i think the last thing i would want to say it's you're not going to find it written in any udo or any manual that we should care about our small businesses but it comes from my heart and we should care about our small businesses so i would respectfully ask of my colleagues that we delay this vote for 45 days to make sure that there is more time to have the discussions that need to be had to make sure that our small businesses are protected with leases if there is no way that we can make the neighborhood happy mayor point of order um airport tim i i don't mean interrupt but i think we i don't think we're allowed to make motions that's correct i have to close up i have to close the public hearing before that occurs and so uh questions have to be exhausted um before i can close the public well i'm done talking so mayor sundberg on a on a motion to continue you can actually and we would actually recommend that you continue the hearing that way you can take more testimony in the future you just continue to update sir mayor i'm sorry uh mayor pro tem where it's midnight so are we talking about a delay so that the well first of all we're we're not even closing the the public hearing but if we're going to start all over this is not good that's that's not what i'm asking public hearing i'm not asking to delay publicly i don't recognize you uh councilmember jorinsky i'm sorry uh councilmember america what time are you done yes ma'am council members i'm not asking to delay public hearing i think that we've heard from the public tonight i'm asking to delay the vote to allow for the conversations that need to be had between chemco and their businesses the only problem with closing the public hearing is you're basing your decision on the public hearing if they bring more information back to you if you close the public hearing you're not supposed to consider that that's why i'd say if you want more information to come back into you that you're going to make your decision on then then leave the public hearing open so that she could make it she that motion would be in order for a continuation for 45 days sure is that standard is that without objection or no that that's under that that requires a majority under rule 14. very well uh councilman whatever my motion is that goes along with delaying this vote for 45 days is my motion councilmember majerensky moves that that the vote be delayed for 45 days or continuance for 45 days mayor um i need a second or or the motion fails mayor ii sunberg second invite council member sunberg a discussion mayor councilmember mcconnell thank you sir uh i am supportive of continuing the conversation to allow us to get some of the questions that we have answered um however i would like to offer an amendment uh that rather than say 45 days which i'm not even sure what that what date exactly that falls on we would just say we will continue this the public hearing to march 14th which is the first regular meeting of the council in march well uh uh councilmember torres could you consider that a friendly amendment so does that mean that's when it'll be called up for a vote that means we will continue the public hearing which we could get to the point where we close it and then have a vote okay yes i i support that i will withdraw my motion no it's not a withdrawal it's it's that it's a friendly amendment and uh i believe there was a second to second bergen councilmember sunberg seconded that and uh with do you is you consider that a friendly amendment as well council member sunburn i believe so very well then uh the question before us is tell is it march 14th is that the date um what day was it what day it's march 14th sorry the question before us uh is um is a continuance until march 14th um further discussion can i just ask a question um can i just ask that so we extend this but from what mr pochner said we're just looking at the businesses we're not even going to talk to the because like you said the community it doesn't matter right no councilwoman i i have to clarify that because that is exactly opposite of what i said the community has shaped every edge of this plan and we couldn't about and if there is something councilwoman that we could set with the community on i will say specifically the primary issue the neighbor one of the primary issues that the community has brought up is pet palace so that is still reflecting community dialogue we want them to be there we are trying to work with them and councilman we absolutely will continue to work with the nation well you know marcus like i said on this one side there's foreign-born people i go get my nails done there i go on that side i did a lot of services done and believe me they have said they don't even understand they don't even know what's really going on so you didn't do that much outreach councilman i walked in myself and they said they did not want to talk about it in more detail and i could actually give you the date and time when i did that well like i said and and just to kind of put a note to you as well you know um i'm probably the only council member that you didn't have conversations with um you've discussed conversations with everybody did you ask for my opinion did you even talk to me about some thoughts you didn't even do that councilwoman i have three emails to you asking for a meeting to discuss this project i didn't get those so you did not talk to me about it so but it doesn't matter about that i just hope that if you're what i don't kind of like what you stated or what was stated is that the conversations are kind of done with the community and i think that's what's really important so i know where councilmember jorinsky i'll support this but you know at the end of the day i understand the businesses are important because i definitely want to preserve those businesses but also you know i think there's conversations with the community that should still be taken and i think there should be some compromise um these people have lived in this community and they deserve to be respected so that's my opinion on that let me just say that the worst thing that could happen out of tonight is nothing is nothing this is a blighted area and yeah there are bright spots within it like pet palace however you've got two big box retailers sitting empty and have sat empty for a long time and will continue to sit empty and if that's the vision we have for this city it is the wrong vision and uh having been in property management on both sides as a tenant and as a as as a firm i can tell you i've never seen such an invasive intervention in terms of the negotiations between an owner and a tenant and i don't know how you negotiate that if you're forced to arrive at an agreement even though it it puts you at a loss as a firm but so much for free market economics um further discussion mayor mayor sundberg councilmember sunberg i agree with you sir that something should be done there i'd like to as someone with a heart for small business i'd like to direct a couple comments towards kim ko the landlord i don't think you're going to be winning landlord of the year i think you're a big aloof corporate place that doesn't really appreciate long-term tenants maybe an average of 25 years between pet palace and casa vallarta to leave them in the dark like that and i've heard about covet negotiations in which you are very inflexible leaky roofs things of that sort i'm guessing i'm wondering if anything would have been done for pet palace if someone like council member jorinski would not have been directly involved and my last thought and heart goes out to casa vallarta i want to make sure that they have enough parking spaces to continue their thriving business thank you further discussion seeing no further discussion uh the um apologies what's that i'm sorry casper counselor thank you i just want to get uh confirmation from the city attorney um that the request to discuss uh some of the more delicate matters in an executive session was understood and that that would be something that we will be able to do with kimko uh what what we will do is we'll work with the applicant on this on what can be shared in executive session okay great thank you to the applicant mayor members of council thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly to the motion before you vote i did want to just take a moment and confirm that the applicant team could be available on the night that you are proposing to continue this hearing to and if we have some key vacancies i would like to ask aloud if the council would be amenable to perhaps providing a slightly longer time up until the next regular council meeting which is march 28th 45 days would have been the 31st but you don't have a council meeting that day and so i just would like to mention that if i may take a moment to canvas the team we appear to have some potential date conflicts with march 14th that's um you know that's not relevant to i think the council decides on a date then you'll have to acquiesce to that uh is there further discussion i've seen none other questions mayor uh mayor burton okay so i'm sorry that the applicant is asking for it to be on the 28th and we're not considering that is that what we're doing so the applicants didn't give did you present a firm date i think they said the 28th they did did you present i can't see my client behind me i'm trying to figure out if that's the right date but i i think that the 28th would be preferable to the 14th in terms of number one having a little more time to have these conversations and number two making sure everyone can be present to answer your questions about them if that's the direction this hearing goes so you're saying 28th of march correct very well is let me go back to councilmember jorinski i think that's my original motion about 44 28 okay yeah okay the 20th of march is without objection 28th of march very well 20th of march seeing uh no further discussion uh the question before us is the adoption of the uh juranski motion uh to um uh to con to continue until the 28th of march with clerk please call the roll or the call for the question the question has been opened in e-scribe for council to continue the public hearing until march 28th yeah i don't have it in escribe either okay i'll just do the roll call very fast uh mayor kaufman oh yes yes councilmember sundberg yes councilmember marcano yes councilmember jorinsky yes councilmember coombs yes mayor pro-tem bergen yes councilmember zavonik yes councilmember mario yes councilmember gardner yes councilmember lawson yes and councilmember medina yes the motion passes unanimously to continue the public hearing on march 28th oh let's see oh clark please read the title to item number 19a item 19a is consideration to appoint members to the civil service commission uh without objection i'd like to go by individual members nominating these candidates and when two get to six votes then then the process would be over mayor i'm sorry murillo yeah i wanted to nominate thomas mays to the civil service commission uh is it removed by uh councilman what's that i'm sorry sorry instead of nominated like to a point sorry i can't i can't understand you right now a point the appointment very well um the motion is to appoint mr mays is there a second a second second uh second by uh councilmember medina uh discussion mayor uh councilmember joranski i would like to present a substitute motion uh very well proceed i would like to appoint matt snyder and barb clelland to the civil service commission is there a second second moved by councilmember jorinski he's seconded by councilmember zavonik uh for uh barbara cleland and what was the other second one matt snyder matt snyder discussion on the substitute sitting down with the clerk please call the roll on the on the substitute motion for barbara cleveland and matt snyder and that is to appoint to appoint them to a point mayor kaufman yes and council the vote has been opened in escrib council members ivana can you access it no okay how would you like to vote yes mayor pro tim burgin and councilmember gardner yes i'm a no the motion passes with six yes votes five no votes with council member medina marcano combs mario and gardner voting no the motion passes to appoint matt snyder and barbara cleland to the civil service commission mayor i had uh reports on the mayor's no report councilmember lawson mayor i have no report thanks councilmember gardner councilmember gardner he logged off mayor councilmember jorinski i have a report i this past week council members zavonik lawson and garner and myself we held our first at-large town hall for the community it was at the central rec center we had an overwhelming turnout it was standing room only very positive event and i think that we have decided we will be doing these bi-monthly and we will try to move them around to different parts of this of the city as much as possible so hope to only grow participation in the at-large town halls council remember savannah no report mayor councilmember mario no report uh councilmember steinberg uh no report for the sake of time sir councilmember medina no report sir councilmember marcano i'll save it for the next meeting no report councilmember combs no report mayor pro tem ameritem mayor believes she left the meeting as well public invited to be heard we do have one individual on the line proceed ally you have pleasure hi my name is ali i'm an aurora resident my testimony does not represent anyone but myself not my husband not my employer not my cats just me first i would like to express that i think it's absolutely horrible that members of council have left the meeting before public invited to be heard second i want to thank council for approving the budget to update council chambers to be accommodating for people with disabilities if it is ever safe to enter chambers again after this pandemic i look forward to rolling safely up to the podium in my wheelchair to testify and i know many other members of the disabled community which includes veterans and seniors and those of us with health concerns and injuries will feel much more welcome and ready to engage with our local governments however while we are still in a pandemic council has also made council chambers and all of city hall hostel to the disabled community including veterans and seniors and those of us with health concerns by excluding yourselves from the aurora staff pool that requires that if a member of the public requests staff to wear a mask to reduce the risk of transmitting kobit 19 the public servant should oblige to protect the house of that constituent so staffers have to put on a mask if they are asked but you don't have to you wanted to reopen these chambers and you won't even protect the people that have to be there to support you apparently no one has the power to ask you hypocrites to take on the difficult task of looping some elastic around your ears several council members openly refuse to vaccinate and thus have a much higher chance of carrying covet that might feel like a cold to you but which you could easily transmit to anyone in the room with you including aurorans who aren't in a position of power to simply ask you to wear a mask to lower that risk tonight one of your colleagues asked you to protect me his wife with severely damaged lungs and heart if i contract covered 19 i am at high risk for hospitalization and even tests and when asked to take a harmless step to lower the risk of all of transmitting a dangerous illness into my household council member jorinsky refused to mask at all council members devonic thunderbird lawson and mayor kaufman all said they would wear masks later which was obviously live because you're not wearing a mask right now at least councilmember jorinski is honest about her complete disregard for the safety of her constituents but those of you who didn't want to put on masks when you were walking around and attending meetings but you would maybe do it later what does that even mean do you really think the germs are waiting to escape your nasal passages until your meeting is over why wouldn't you take two minutes of your time to go get your mask when that two minutes could impact literally the life or death of a staff member a colleague or their parent or disabled child since council members don't have to listen to constituents who ask them to wear a mask and city staff are stuck in a power dynamic with council where they cannot safely even ask a council member to wear a mask and if they did overcome that power imbalance they will be refused or lied to city manager twombly as a city resident item for you to shut city hall back down to essential personnel or enforce masking for council while they're on premises or just keep city council meetings fully remote until the pandemic risks for people with health and health conditions has passed you are literally the only person who has the power to protect me and likely any high risk members of staff or their families and constituents i know these new council members want to feel powerful and impress their bar buddies by making their votes from their symbolically high dance but their inflated sense of health in the world three minutes meeting adjourned [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you