foreign [Music] good evening everybody I call this meeting to order this is the land use planning and zoning committee of the city council all counselors are present or will be very soon but we are not going to wait for them this is a hybrid meeting where all participants will be in person our video or audio conference members of the public had the opportunity to address the committee if they signed up for public comment for the rules published on the agenda on our website on Friday we will call for the speakers when we get to the individual agenda items you signed up for we're going to Jump Right In we've got a long night in front of us we're going to go straight to item a um counselor Jones technical difficulties hang on just a sec testing I'll just use another one thank you we will now go to agenda item 0 0 54. this is adopting city-wide text amendments to the integrated development ordinance in conjunction with the 2022 Ido annual update process to address the need for more housing opportunities I move a due pass I'll second we are going to start with a presentation from staff on this issue so I'm going to go to Ms Schultz and then we'll have a short presentation by the administration so go ahead Ms Schultz thank you madam chair let me get my presentation shared Mr Moya does that look good is it up on zoom in in the room okay great good evening counselors I'm going to walk you through o2254 which proposes to adopt text amendments to the integrated development ordinance relating to opportunities to build housing within the City of Albuquerque this bill is one of four components to the 2022 Ido annual update the following bill 077 is the second Bill and earlier or late last month the full Council already voted on the other two components related to small areas as a reminder to the committee in the full Council um that shows you where duplexes are allowed permissively today they are only allowed in the r1a Sub Zone the R1 Zone district has four sub zones associated with it r1a b c and d r1a is the smallest of those four and duplexes are allowed there today the proposal in o2254 proposes to allow them in all all flavors or sub zones of R1 so the map on the left shows you where they're permissive today the map on the right shows you where they would be permissive if this proposal were to move forward in this in this context a duplex is an attached unit so a shared wall unit where you would have two distinct dwelling units either on a proper on one property or straddled by a property line and there are a couple of photos on the left that show you existing duplexes in the city of Albuquerque today if you wanted to better Envision the build form of that the environmental Planning Commission did recommend approval of section one on this bill with a minor recommendation that the bill proposes to delete an illustration that the EPC thought would be helpful to keep in the documents showing the distinction when duplex proposes to straddle a lot line kind of a minor recommendation from the EPC later on in my presentation I will review one committee Amendment related to duplexes in the R1 Zone that'll be Amendment A1 Madam chair do you want me to go through each section individually or do you want to stop and kind of take comment on each section if it's all right with the committee I think we'd like to finish up the presentation and get our um Community input on this first bill and then we could take a quick dinner break okay unless I hear anybody complaining we'll go with that okay Madam Cheryl I'll continue thank you so section two of the bill relates to accessory dwelling units in the R1 Zone District today accessory dwelling units with a kitchen are only allowed in certain mapped areas of the city um so the map on the left shows you where they are allowed either permissively or conditionally depending on the rules within that small mapped area and those small mapped areas relates relate to either existing sector development plans that allowed for adus with kitchens um permissively or can conditionally prior to adoption of the Ido or within centers and corridors which was a recent Amendment to the Ido to say that those are permissive within a quarter mile of urban centers main streets and premium Transit corridors in the R1 Zone District so left is where they are allowed today the right map shows where they would be allowed permissively moving into the future there are some existing and proposed requirements associated with accessory dwelling units that I'll quickly review the first one is a new requirement of a maximum of 750 square feet um uh accessory dwelling unit building Heights would be limited to the height of the primary structure on the property so if your primary house is 18 feet tall then the accessory dwelling unit could only be up to 18 feet tall as well accessory dwelling units can only be placed in the rear yard so behind the kind of rear facade of the primary building they can't take up more than 25 percent of the rear and side yards combined so you would add up the square footage of of those setback areas on both sides of the primary structure and behind the primary structure you would take 25 of that and that that also indicates the maximum square footage of your accessory dwelling unit so while there's an allowance for 750 square foot square feet if that 25 calculation tells you that it can actually only be 550 square feet you would be limited to that accessory dwelling units have to meet fire code which indicates setbacks from existing buildings to say that an accessory dwelling unit in the rear Yard can't be directly next to another existing structure without providing some kind of either fireproof materials on that building or requiring a minimum setback there are occupancy limits to to all dwelling units that come from the building code and accessory dwelling units would be required to follow those and the Ideo also requires one parking space be required for every accessory dwelling unit so most of these requirements are existing in the Ido today for accessory units the 750 square foot maximum is new with this proposal the EPC recommended approval of this proposal as it existed in the original bill with one recommendation The Proposal in the bill originally only discussed making accessory dwelling units permissive in the R1 Zone districts the environmental Planning Commission and planning staff heard from folks who live in the ra Zone District that's the residential agricultural Zone district and they would also like um accessory dwelling units to be permissive in their zoning District so I've shared a map here of where that ra Zone District exists and later on in my presentation there will be four amendments related to accessory dwelling units amendments A2 three four and five and I will review those individually once we get to that segment of the presentation three of o2254 discusses the exemption of kitchens of kitchen requirements in the Ido from for conversions of non-residential uses to residential uses if you'll recall last year in last year's Ido annual update this body the full Council created an exemption for conversions of non-residential uses that could be anything from a hotel a motel an office a warehouse to multi-family to say that if that multi-family development is is building less than 100 units they are so the project is associated with funding from the Department of Family and community services and there will be Services Social Services provided on sites then you don't have to follow the typical definition of a kitchen in the Ido and that boils down to the requirement of an oven or stove so these those particular conversions would be able to move forward without providing a formal oven or stove that would be required for other multi-family developments what o2254 proposes to do is to take away the requirements on unit numbers the the 100 that I mentioned and the requirement that there be funding from the Department of Family and Community Services associated with the projects and at the onsite and that there be on-site Services required so essentially these projects could only happen before if there was going to be an affordable component to them and that will still be the case moving forward but also market rate projects would be able to take advantage of the Lesser kitchen requirement um the environmental Planning Commission recommended approval of this amendment with two recommended changes the first is that there be some more explicit language about what type of cooking appliance be provided the language today talks about a microwave or a hot plate and there was quite a bit of discussion about an induction cooktop instead and so there's language proposed in an amendment later on that would amend in that language related to an induction cooktop as an appropriate means of cooking appliance the second recommendation from the environmental Planning Commission relates to the non-residential business park zone or nrbp inherent in the name residential uses are not allowed in that zone District today the proposal from the EPC recommended that multi-family development became become a conditional vacant use within the nrbp Zone District what that means is that when we typically wouldn't allow residential uses in this Zone District if the building is vacant for five years or longer the city will will allow additional uses to be contemplated for that property in this instance where they wouldn't be able to do multi-family development before we would allow them to do multi-family development if they go through a conditional use process which requires a public hearing before the zoning hearing examiner there are two committee amendments related to section 3 of o2254 those are A6 and A7 okay section four relates to building Heights for multi-family development and affordable housing development and this one's going to get Pretty In The Weeds so the the bill as it was originally proposed looked at the RMH Zone District that's residential multi-family high intensity and all of the mixed-use zones so MXT through mxh and proposed that there would be no maximum Building height if you're doing multi-family developments what I've provided on the screen here is kind of a general overview of how building Heights are regulated today in those zoning districts and how those would move to no maximum Building height the environmental Planning Commission generally recommended approval to say that we should look at Building height limitations for multi-family development in these various zones but they took a much more nuanced approach than no maximum building Heights um and I'm just going to run you okay so here's here's what they ended up recommending what I'm showing on this table is uh the MXT Zone District MXL RMH mxm and mxh these are all the Zone District zone districts contemplated in o2254 originally anywhere that you see underline text shows a new requirement or an or allowance or an amended allowance so instead of saying no Building height maximums for these zones if they're doing multi-family developments what the EPC instead said was we will allow building hype bonuses if you're doing certain types of developments so for example let's look at the MXL Zone District in the column here today the MXL Zone district has a maximum Building height of 38 feet embedded within the epc's recommendation would say that if you're doing Workforce housing which is a defined metric in the Ido and the city's Workforce housing ordinance that you would get an additional you could utilize an additional 12 feet of building Heights if you're in a center or Corridor where City policy contemplates denser development more intense developments you could be permitted to have an extra 24 feet instead of 12 feet that's that's generally two stories in addition to that a new bonus was contemplated by the EPC related to multi-family development in general so there are existing Workforce Housing Development bonuses in the Ido today the EPC is contemplating is recommending that the council contemplate creating a new bonus for multi-family development that that could be market rate projects and that bonus is nuanced out by what's what's called areas of change and areas of consistency these are mapped areas within the comprehensive plan where again we want to encourage development It generally tends to exist along centers and corridors that have existing infrastructure so again looking at the MXL example if you wanted to do a multi-family development in the MXL Zone and you were within an area of change we would the this amendment contemplates allowing a 24-foot building hype bonus if you're in an area of consistency where the city is not quite promoting so much Redevelopment or change you would only be allowed a 12-foot building type bonus this was the epc's attempt to kind of tease out where additional density and height bonuses would be appropriate per comprehensive plan policies also within the epc's recommendation on building Heights exists a proposed change to the neighborhood Edge provision what I'm showing on the left is the neighborhood Edge provision that exists in the Ido today which says if you have low density residential developments in the ra R1 RMC or RT Zone District that development within either 50 or 100 feet of you is limited to 30 feet in building Heights beyond that 50 or 100 foot threshold you could then utilize the maximum Building height Allowed by your base zoning District but that within that that 50 or 100 feet you've got to bring the building height down to more closely match what's next to you the proposal by EPC does not get rid of that original neighborhood Edge provision that would continue to exist in the Ido but it proposes a new neighborhood Edge so while it was low density residential development in low-density residential zones that are being protected in the original neighborhood Edge this would propose to protect multi-family development within the rml and MXT Zone District so same exact kind of concept within rml and MXT if there is multi-family development within 50 feet of that lot building Heights would be limited to more closely match the maximum Building height of those two zones which is about 48 feet so any neighboring developments within that 50 feet would need to stay at 48 feet and then beyond that 50 feet they could go up to what their base zoning District allows Section 5 of the bill related to parking for affordable housing developments today uh I've listed here on the slide the parking requirements for multi-family development whether it's affordable or not the parking table today doesn't make a distinction The Proposal as originally drafted in o2254 said that we were the proposal was to tease it out a little bit to say for multi-family development where 20 of the units provided in that development are affordable to 50 percent or less Ami that there would be no parking requirement at all the EPC recommended denial of that with no alternative alternative proposal there is a committee Amendment a nine that I will review later that proposes I would argue maybe a middle ground between no parking requirements and no Amendment at all the last section of o2254 also relates to parking but for multi-family development more generally so we're not talking about affordable housing here again today all multi-family is subject to the parking requirements that you see on the left as proposed in section six all multi-family in a mixed-use Zone District could utilize a 75 percent parking reduction the EPC also recommended denial of this proposal after taking public testimony and comments and again there is a committee Amendment a 10 that responds to this recommendation of denial and proposes something a little different Madam chair that concludes my overview of sections one through six I can go through the proposed amendments or if you would rather move to public comments I'm happy to do what you like thank you Miss Schultz we do have a short presentation from the administration so I'd like to go to that and then we'll come back to council members for questions on the bill before going to public comment hello Mr griego I appreciate you uh giving us an opportunity to sort of try to put this in the context of the larger housing forward initiative which the mayor's team has been working on um with several departments um I've just uh uh Shannon's passing out a report that we put together um that we just want to emphasize these are this is all evidence-based stuff that we're proposing that other cities have been trying to implement in various degrees we really tried our best if you look at the back of that report to really look at what cities across the country are doing to tackle this housing crisis because we're not alone these are definitely best practices evidence-based practices and I think they're um as we'll as we'll talk more about they are very uh very much we think reasonable uh rational and incremental so um so um if we can get the I don't know if we have the slide the first slide up uh can you guys see it otherwise okay so why are we here I think that's that's the the goal is I think we all agree I think all of us share uh a common value that we really think that everyone in Albuquerque regardless if they're seniors uh or college students uh wherever they live in the city um regardless of their income that they should have a safe place to call a home that's affordable I think I think no one here no one in the room would would disagree with that I hope um and I think that's what we're trying to really um ask Council uh to partner with uh with us to try to solve this issue mayor's clear that this is a proposal and we hope that we will continue to compromise and work with you um but ultimately I think the common goal here is we have to really in a very sober way look at our housing crisis um as that as I said is being is a phenomenon across the country um next slide please so um you know lots of folks who looked at this um we based on census data or a study by the urban Institute uh industry data we tried to get take our best guess of what's what the scale of the problem and I think you've all seen these numbers depending on where you are on the housing market and where you whether you're um on these sort of lower income end or you know frankly a renter or a homeowner um there's a gap between thirteen thousand as high as 30 000 units depending on on housing type we'll talk a little bit about housing type um we know that half of render renters in Albuquerque spend uh more than 30 percent of their income on rent um and in many many cases for many many folks in Albuquerque it's more than 50 percent um which uh besides being causing all sorts of other problems affects our Economic Development expects uh affects people's disposable income affects all the things that we uh think we need to do for our families and folks in the city um we know that over 1300 people are experiencing homelessness and this is certainly part of the reason why we're here and trying to do this we also know that rents increase 20 in 2021 and they are up 2.6 since 2015. so clearly I I hope that we can agree that we have a very serious problem in our city again we're not alone but this is our attempt to take to take the lessons from other cities and try to solve this problem together with Council and with the community other statistics uh next slide please um our estimates that there are 2200 uh unhoused households needing permanent Supportive Housing industry estimates are that there are over 13 000 new market rate housing needed and that's everything from the New Economic Development projects like Netflix and Amazon and these other projects that we're working on that we're going to need housing for those folks so this is just an unhoused folks these are young workers these are people we're trying to attract to the city um in addition we need close to 27 000 Market rates single-family homes um the urban Institute commission to study or we commissioned a study there have been sent to uh carried out that said that that found that 30 percent uh that we need about close to 16 000 units for people at 30 percent of area median income and for those even uh further in poverty uh 28 28 I'm sorry 28 000 housing units are needed for people at 50 of Ami so for the most low income end all the way to Market rates everybody agrees that we have a real Gap in housing Supply so really our approach was to to look at what other cities were doing and what are they doing on the really on the supply side what can we do to try to increase the the the number of housing units across the economic spectrum we set a modest goal some of you remember when we announced this 5 000 additional units uh if the if the if the Gap is 30 000 this is a pretty modest uh attempt and uh this isn't uh all the units we're going to build ourselves certainly we're going to partner with non-profit providers uh nonprofit Builders for-profit Builders increasingly for the Casitas we'll talk about uh individuals families who want to add space for their for their loved ones for their Elders for their children or perhaps to have a a an additional source of income so this is uh these are all policies that we think will help us get there none of them are a silver bullet but we hope that together at the end of this process we can find a package of policies that will help us address this housing crisis in this huge gap um uh so uh what we what we I think we all agree on and I think what the mayor said um several times publicly is there just is no way to get to this uh to this Gap to address this Gap without fundamentally adapting our Planning and Zoning code it's just we can't get there we can try to do more affordable housing based on what we're doing now you all have been generous in appropriating capital and and voucher uh support through the budget but there just is no path to getting uh to a real solution to this housing crisis without us making some reasonable changes to the to the idea and Zoning code and I think that's what we're going to talk about tonight um one of the one of the measures that we've tried to really lean into and I know that several of you have have been involved in this um is one policy that's that's showing a lot of Promise across the country that we're working on currently I know um Council and Council grad has been very active with this issue is is trying to figure out how to um uh sorry next slide to uh to convert some hotels we have a first one happening we're trying to we've tried to do it in a very inclusive way uh open to to Really recommendations and how we do that in a way that uh really tries to solve the problem of this gap of housing specifically for folks who are uh who need affordable housing and in some cases for folks who are who are needing in need of transitional Supportive Housing um we look forward to working with Council grout and Council to try to make that a reality uh surestay's been a long process and we're hoping that that will be the first of many projects like that throughout the city throughout the income spectrum that will help us chip away at this Gap uh again it's not a silver silver bullet but we're hoping it'll be about a thousand units by 2025 is what we're hoping that'll produce um another policy that was discussed at fgo the other night next slide please um is uh again this will not uh solve the whole problem but we've heard from many many neighborhood leaders and many uh members accounts so that we have to do a more assertive job of of uh addressing a nuisance abatement so uh several folks have said like what about these properties the the problem hotels the problem individual houses and Commercial spaces that have really been uh Havens for crime and for trafficking um how do we first of all take care of that but in the process if some of those properties and we want to be clear about it not all of them but some of them could be converted to affordable housing I think that'll that that that gets us to both goals of really making neighborhoods safer and taking care of these problem properties and also creating hopefully uh some more uh affordable housing for for Albuquerque residents um what we learned along the way uh is again not unlike most of the country we have a we have a Workforce challenge Industries said like we'd love to we'd love the ideas and you'll hear from some of them tonight but at the end of the day somebody's got to build this so we also uh can't just hold a hold uh you know Sort of hope that somebody's going to step into the gaps of the city uh and the administration is really trying to partner with the Cog and with the uh with the state and others and the FEDS to figure out how we start to train up folks because if we're serious about uh solving this housing challenge if we're serious about it we're going to need people to build these Casitas people to build uh the affordable housing we're talking about so we've also committed to try to help uh bring 250 new uh uh construction related jobs online from young people from folks perhaps coming out of uh incarceration wherever we can frankly get folks to do this work we're open to it and we welcome your ideas for that as well so finally um I think um I think what tonight's about is really a it's it's a it's a centerpiece of this strategy which is we can't get to the number we can't get to addressing that Gap without changing our zoning code in a reasonable inclusive way and this is a policy that is not uh an outlier this is something cities across the country are doing to various degrees and frankly our proposals are pretty middle of the road they're not as aggressive uh even the R1 zoning uh uh proposal which I know some folks are really uh have some fear around is is a pretty Modest Proposal compared to what other cities have chosen to do to try to get not just a solution for their own house population but for folks who are facing rents that just are not sustainable for their families for their for their young folks and for their seniors so um this slide just kind of reminds us that that we we are a city of single-family detached housing that's where the housing stock is that's where the zoning is and that's all well and fine we've all worked hard on that and it's a problem because there's not a diverse set of housing options for the many many types of of albuquerqueens who are looking for affordable housing whether it's an apartment uh studio apartment families who are looking for a for a duplex or a multi-family space to raise their families young student young people students seniors Etc um so I know that I know that one of the concerns is what does this mean for the R1 zoning we we we welcome a reasonable approach to how we get there but we simply can't and I and I really want to emphasize this and I hope I hope we can agree on this we just can't say that that's off the table that we can't do anything there because we're going to get pushback from folks um we want to work together to try to figure out a way to to make some reasonable modest changes to how we uh to how we consider what's allowable in R1 and I'll and I'll let the zoning folks talk more about that um um so these are all the cities long list of states and cities who are doing what we're trying to do and many of them have taken a much more aggressive approach um finally um last slide uh you know um we have to do this together I think that's what albuquerqueens are asking us to do we can you know we can certainly disagree uh on the best approach but we have to find a way forward we can't none of us regardless of what neighborhood we live in uh and your cases counselors what districts represent none of us can say this neighborhood's off the table this District's off the table this part of town is off the table it's just we can't do it it's not sustainable as albuquerqueens we have to work on this together and we hope that we can find a way to do that I just want to close by saying um you know there has been I think Shanna alluded to there's been extensive public input we welcome more thank you for doing this and I know there'll be other hearings but there have been multiple opportunities for a community to weigh in and we welcome that we want to make the best decision for everyone possible but it's been over 10 uh probably probably when you look all the hearings and public meetings we've had we're getting closer to 20 meetings certainly when this process ends it'll probably be closer to 20. so we do feel like we have tried to to really listen to community um again this is all evidence-based stuff for proposing I hope you'll look at that report um and um the last thing that the mayor uh wanted to emphasize emphasize is we are really and truly open to working with you on what is reasonable here that there is there is no you know take it or leave it uh anyone's way or the highway really we want to work on this together and we think we can get there um I just put the website up there I'm not assuming that any of you uh know this but the first thing you see on our City website is housing forward and we really have asked Community to take a look at it and just learn more about this so all of us can make a good decision about how we solve this housing crisis thank you madam chair thank you counselors thank you for giving me the time and and uh uh the mayor's team are here to answer any questions at the appropriate time thank you Mr griego I just to open up for um flares if they have any questions on the riddle for either Miss Schultz or Mr griego Council Grove um thank you madam chair first of all I'd like to clarify Mr griego said that I've been working on the hotel conversions with the administration I have not so I need to make that perfectly clear they have been telling me about surestay after they have done it they have told me along the way they what they've been up to I have all along been clear that the constituents in my area are very concerned about this um so I just want to make sure that is on the record that I have not been part of what they're doing but I appreciate the administration letting me know what they're doing um so I want to start there I do have a question you have had [Music] um you have had many um meetings with the community for that input and my question is have you taken any of that input back to the table and changed any of your proposals Mr griego thank you madam chair and thank you councilor Knight I uh if I misspoke I just wanted to make sure that we were trying to keep you in the loop so that's that I just want to be clear about that counselor um uh we I think you'll see several amendments tonight and at the EPC that are the result of input from neighborhood leaders neighborhood uh concerns we know that some of the changes frankly that were that Shanna spoke about uh that the EPC essentially disagreed with came out of concern from neighborhoods and in our own proposal and some of the Amendments I think you'll see tonight which we are supporting um including some of yours counselor um they're the result of what we heard like we want to make sure that we're doing this right and we continue to be open to those so I know there'll be more amendments um and we we heard some really good ideas frankly from from members of the community so we we are trying to adapt this and we will continue to be open to additional uh amendments to make this better and make it as palatable as possible to as many folks as possible thank you madam chair a couple more questions um you mentioned that when you all were putting this all together um and you had stakeholders involved who were those stakeholders that came up with this plan um Madam chair um councilor grout uh there were many there were many groups we we met uh we met as we started to put the pieces together with uh non-profit housing developers with uh Advocates we met with Advocates we met with members of the development Community we met with um folks who were involved in Economic Development uh and and we have had regular meetings with groups that uh represent various neighborhoods across the city and and Council I just want to be clear and going forward we knew that we had to put something on the table which we knew was not the final deal was not perfect and we really welcomed as soon as we could opening it up to more we did have to we did have to put something on the table to get feedback and as we've gotten feedback we've certainly adjusted uh adjusted many many of our recommendations I'll just give you one example in that presentation one of the recommendations that we try to do more on commercial buildings that are not hotels and we you know we thought that was a reasonable again cities are doing this the industry thought that was a good idea idea some business owners thought you know why don't you take this particular property that's been a problem and try to convert it and we've learned that that's a very very difficult process and so we're not walking away from it but we've we've heard people we've listened to people and say like let's not put all our eggs in that basket let's really try to think about other kinds of of policies and efforts that might work a little bit better Council thank you Mr Madam chair what are the neighborhood associations that have helped with this program um Madam chair counselor uh we had we we held five five uh neighborhood uh meetings uh where we invited uh every neighborhood association neighborhood coalitions um neighborhood leaders to be part of the conversation to develop this policy because councilor this is uh this is this policy is in formation and um uh the the way that we think is the best way to get input is to try to as many of you do present a proposal get some feedback and then try to try to react to that and try to to fix it and make it uh make it as as uh reflective as possible of what people want so um we have done five of those uh including in your District I believe um and uh we will we will continue to take input from them and I and I should say not I won't put uh my colleague Helen Isis on the spot but we've heard lots and lots of input from uh neighborhood groups um through letters through emails and so on and we've talked we've tried to incorporate that as well so it's not just physical meetings we also have gotten a lot of comments and we've tried to to reflect those in our in our proposals as well Madam chair um my question is specifically to when you first started this program not the five Community meetings that you had just recently but when you were putting it together in the narrow it says that neighborhood associations can serve as an important role in engaging community members at a Grassroots level in local social justice and Community issues and in promoting collaboration Community planning It also says it's an important source for input from the community as they Bridge the gap between residents and government they were not brought in until after you came out and so you know once this all was all done we have received so many emails from so many different neighborhood associations district coalitions and they were they have all mentioned that they were never a part of the original plan and when when you're trying to get people to buy into this but you left them out in the beginning that's a problem and um I'm very concerned about that all of my amendments have come from the neighborhoods and that's where they're coming from just to be clear um I know that um so I'm trying to listen to them I don't know that have you all made any Amendment recommendations to your program uh proposal since you've met with these people the Amendments that are being offered tonight are they from you or the administration are they from counselors that have listened to their constituents Madam chair counselor grout I think the way that we um have approached this is in policy development um much like legislation that uh you all work on um uh there are there are very few original ideas there's nothing original in this proposal we took some ideas and we put them into the process we work with members of this Council some of them are up here and co-sponsors this bill um and tried to say okay here's some things that we have seen other cities do that we've heard in the in over the last few years that we've tried to address this this uh Challenge and here's our uh let's begin a process uh which by the way we we really tried to make sure that many of those neighborhood associations which were not aware of the process often got word from us about the EPC hearings and we heard them out we were at those hearings many many neighborhood leaders spoke at those uh those uh EPC hearings and at our hearing so um it's a it's you have to have something to react to um certainly I guess another way to make these this legislation and perhaps some counselors do this is what should we do um we didn't take that approach we said what what's working and what do we think we can we can use to try to build on and let's ask people what they think I think that's what we're doing here I think that's what we do in those those neighborhood meetings a counselor and I and I will respectfully say as a former neighborhood association president um and as someone who's active in my neighborhood association that all of us live in neighborhoods and I respect immensely the work that neighborhood associations do and and many many people in this community many people small business owners Advocates affordable housing providers have been included in this process and all of them live in neighborhoods they don't live outside the city they live in neighborhoods and they all have really good ideas about how we do this so uh we have to listen to neighbors associations absolutely and we have to listen to everybody thank you one final question I need to let you know that you did not have a meeting in District 9 just by the way there was one in six and eight that just to stay clearly we had a counselor premature counselor I know it was in physically or District but many of your folks were there it was it was a full house um okay thank you I'll have your questions later thank you thank you counselor Lewis thank you coalitions any neighborhood association or Coalition that has supported the proposal or the the changes to the audio I we hope uh Madam chair counselor we hope so we we feel like we're still in the middle of deciding what the what the proposal is going to be um I think we would um certainly um perhaps think think it would be an easier process to have our our proposal um accepted but that's not how it works counselor we're here to hear input from you all first of all as the as the policy makers in the governing body of the city uh but we uh we hope that with some compromise that we can get to a place where we'll have at least some neighborhood folks on board and um we know we have neighborhood individuals on board because most of us live in neighborhoods and many of us think this is a good idea but I don't think any neighborhoods have taken an official position in favor to my to my knowledge uh and you know and I I think that's something we're working on certainly what we welcome counselor Lewis I could just clarify we did receive it I there might be more there have been many many emails about this but um I know that we all received one today from a neighborhood association in support I did forward that and it is in your iPads under the correspondence tab so we do have at least one neighborhood association that wrote in with with support on this did you have more questions all right um with that I think we'll go to public comment Mr Moya and I'll just remind folks you have two minutes to speak we have a lot of people signed up so we are going to hold you to that two minute time frame so when Mr Boya calls you please come down and be ready to go and then on Zoom we'll just zoom second thank you madam chair our first speaker is Isaiah Torres followed by Brenda marks thank you Madam chair and members of the council I just want to say thank you again for all your service and all your work that you do here in the City of Albuquerque I'm extremely thankful for what you guys do so I was just one of the first lead off with that but my name is Isaiah Torres I'm currently a graduate student at the University of New Mexico and getting my degree in public policy currently I hold two jobs and one of the things that I'm very thankful for is that the two jobs I've hold have made me have the ability to be financially sustainable for myself so that I could continue to go to school but at the same time being able to pursue my career as well I'm enrolled as a full-time graduate student and I've served in the past year as a political director for The Graduate professional Student Association and you could say that I have a lot of my plate working two jobs wanting to go to school and so on and so forth but one of the things I'm extremely grateful for is being able to have affordable housing I'm currently right now my rent is Affordable which allows me to actually invest into the economy and also the ability to actually live my life and to build for the future but at the same time this is not similar for my fellow graduate students at UNM and throughout the state as well um for someone who has affordable housing um this certainly has alleviated a lot of my financial stress um however this is not the case for a lot of graduate and professional students according to unm's basic needs survey a lot of our students are housing insecure and that actually that rate actually changes for our non-white and international students as well um expanding the access affordable housing can increase the spending on other basic necessities such as food Child Care Health Care and also student debts which I have and it will only cure but hopefully I'll pay it back um like my mother always said though that school debt is always good debt and I'm really I'm sticking on that narrative and getting my master's not only an investment for myself but an investment for my future and for my family that I intend to raise here in Albuquerque and again I just want to say that I'm in support of the housing forward initiative and I just want to thank you for your time today thank you Brenda marks followed by Anna lamberson men and chair members of the committee thank you for letting us speak this evening I'm Brenda marks and I live in Union Castle I'm a board member of the Union Castle neighborhood association and chair of the board-appointed subcommittee that studied these Ido amendments I've emailed copies of my written statement to each of you as far in excess of two minutes I hope you received it this amendment process was rushed and your constituents have not had adequate time to digest it and understand its ramifications I believe this to be true because I know my neighborhood didn't you are taking far less time to pass these changes than the council recently took to decide whether to make ABQ bus fares free the environmental Planning Commission your only constituent-based committee charged with reviewing this had lots of problems with it the epc's 11923 official notification of decision at paragraph 33 recommended the council look carefully at limiting the parenthesis in the R1 Zone District to have either an Adu or a two-family dwelling pardon me but not both EPC also found that the elimination of height limits conflicted with the comprehensive plan and struck them EPC also struck sections five and six leaving parking requirements as is EPC at paragraph 19 said quote the proposed text amendments conflict with Comprehensive plan goals and policies related to centers and corridors areas of change desired growth and Transit oriented development end quote EPC skepticism should be enough to slow this down there was no justification as to why these amendments were called an emergency why do everything at once slow this down break it up get public comment this process from start to finish is almost complete yet it only started October 31 less than six months ago your constituents deserve better Anna lamberson followed by Evelyn feltner thank you for allowing me to speak my name is Anna lamberson I live in the Hunan Castle neighborhood and I was also a member of the Hunan Castle subcommittee to look at o2254 I'm here because Hunan Castle received insufficient notice in order to prepare comments to meet the January EPC meeting even after our the community planning staff attended one of our board meetings we didn't understand the proposal because it was Ideo was never mentioned since then we've been scrambling to come to an understanding it's a very complex subject um we have emailed each of you our our concerns in a letter a couple of weeks ago I also have an annotated bibliography that is only references and facts um the mayor suggested that we ask the council for an overlay but Council will not support that even though we meet the idea requirements of the criteria in the Ido I invite you to take a drive you will see the Hunan Castle is surrounded by neighborhoods that are popmarked by vacant lots and will never be developed either because they're not marketable or they have an overlay we have no vacant Lots in our R1 and we have no overlay neither our counselor nor City staff can explain to us how eliminating R1 in our historic highly marketable neighborhood will result in a more affordable and more affordable housing nor have they explained when where and how we were offered a we weren't failed to be offered any overlays when in our neighbor surrounding neighborhoods obtained them we now face a ready-made upzoning policy that will change established neighborhoods character empirical evidence shows that upzoning policy has not reliably produced more affordable housing elsewhere that's what's in this I have many handouts um rather some up-zone cities have experienced gentrification displacement higher housing prices and less low-cost single-family housing and less neighborhood diversity thank you Miss lamerson um councilman Beckley in your comments uh yes I do not support a character protection overlay for the purposes of not allowing secondary dwelling the whole idea of this program is to make it Citywide try to get it right make it city-wide by the way before 1955 there was no prohibition of letting Kai on secondary dwelling units prior to the enactment of the zoning code so we're not talking about ancient history or some ancient property rights the time when you're very affluent neighborhood was developed uh and uh there may even maybe even be some there if if I'm not mistaken but I haven't done a survey but the point is if we were to start carving out special prohibitions as Mr griego said we might as well drop the proposal this has got to be city-wide effort and uh so that that's what it's about uh you know I know we haven't had a chance to talk personally myself but uh but that's where I stand with it with regard to any neighborhood yours included thank you thank you next speaker Evelyn feltner followed by Jane Beckel Evelyn feltner Secretary of district 7 coalition summarizing the discussion of two meetings that involve the topic of R1 and adus we think adus should be conditional uses for these reasons adus affect immediate properties next to them probably more than the properties on which they are most Northeast Heights neighborhoods have narrow side yards with gates to the backyard in those yards therefore the Adu inhabitants and their visitors would be coming and going through the side yard they would also have any deliveries I have no idea how these people are getting mail but any deliveries would also go through that side gate the parking space would necessarily be in the driveways because most of the front yards are too small and the gates are too narrow to get a car into the backyard for a parking space we also think that the city would get more bang for its buck by incentivizing or helping developers build more apartment blocks for instance there are two apartment blocks on Central in Ms grout's District one is finished the other one is already underway they're going to house 204 people assuming just one to a one bedroom and two to a two bedroom it would take 68 adus assuming three people each to house that many people the city also we think should be continuing the hotel conversions but we doubt that those are long-term Apartments whereas building apartments really would be thank you Miss feltner Jane Beckel followed by Chloe Caswell Madam chair counselors I'm Jane Beckley and I'm representing the Santa Fe Village neighborhood association these and our written comments have the unanimous endorsement of the sfvna board they reflect our engagement on these proposals beginning with our first opportunity the planning staff review meeting in November of 2022 and include in last week's Northwest quad meeting the SF DNA is not reflexively opposed to careful and reasonable addition of Nadu to an R1 property we are strongly opposed to the permissive edition of two additional dwelling units an R1 property and view it as a real and significant risk to the health safety and Welfare of the sfena neighborhood planning department staff have repeatedly asserted that existing Ido requirements would prevent harms to Compact and modest neighborhoods that can only be accurate if idea requirements are promptly consistently and rigorously enforced at a minimum any additional dwelling unit should be a conditional use we have consistently opposed increases in building Heights they would profoundly change the landscape across the city we absolutely appreciate the Amendments intended to protect overlay zones at a neighborhood Edge provision and limit increased Heights near major public open space we believe the major public open space buffer should be larger to be affected we also oppose the introduction reintroduction of parking bonuses in view of the actual availability of public transit on Albuquerque's West Side The Proposal is currently being reviewed in the Albuquerque ride forward plan and the absence of any evidence that the city has the capacity to significantly increase public transit it does not seem reasonable to create housing where people will need a vehicle clearly to be clear these are enormously consequential changes that few are aware of and fewer still understand uh we request that this be deferred to a process where adequate input is available thank you thank you Chloe caspel followed by Mark Campbell hi I'm Chloe Caswell I'm a homeless services and Supportive Housing homeless services and Supportive Housing professional here in Albuquerque I'm also the moderate and low-income representative on the city's affordable housing committee I want to start by saying that the general public and neighborhood associations are not Professionals in housing policy and evidence-based initiatives are often unpopular according to the 2020 New Mexico affordable housing needs assessment produced by the MFA Albuquerque Metropolitan statistical area has a shortage of 49 422 affordable rental units in 2020. what this looks like on the ground is children sleeping in cars adults living in tents and sleeping on the street it's inhumane and people people in this room may not think it's an emergency but for people on the streets it is an emergency zoning changes like the ones proposed in these Amendments have been shown to increase housing availability across the board up zoning allows market rate development to produce more housing affordable to Middle income households which frees up low-cost housing that middle-class residents are currently occupying the most affordable housing is often in multi-unit complexes which are currently disallowed in 68 of the zoned properties in the city current single-family zoning is problematic in numerous ways Place places with exclusionary zoning like we have now have much lower proportions of Black and Hispanic residents and have historically used these zoning practices to exclude poor people of color additionally low density urbanization patterns and by implication single-family zoning have been consistently linked with high rates of automobile use and Emissions which is irresponsible considering our current climate crisis like with any policy proposal this one could be implemented poorly but this uh this is not reflective of the policy itself increased gentrification is a legitimate concern in regards to these policies the city should be cognizant of this fact and take precautionary steps to prevent it I ultimately implore city council to approve these amendments if the city doesn't do something drastic in this crisis we'll continue to see more and more people dying on the streets Mark combo followed by Diego Lopez foreign no we'll go to Diego Lopez followed by Rhiannon Samuel okay thank you Council for seeing me today um I'm in I'm for the housing forward initiative I have seen similar things in my travels in Seattle Portland and Minneapolis they've been very successful I would suggest considering easing parking restrictions for building I think uh individual transportation is going to change drastically in the coming Generations it's just not environmentally feasible for everybody to have a car and we're going to wake up eventually the new sense of Base abatement strategy of Mr griego is desperately needed in this city we have so much opportunity in so many neighborhoods to make them so much better but we have all this housing stock just I have a friend who owns a repair shop Rubio's repair it's right across the street from the new Central Avenue Library and homeless everywhere and having to use a gun to to get people out of his shop and it's so bad and we need to really focus on that we need to clean this city up and as far as Mr griego saying that we have all these temporary workers coming here and you're going to limit short-term rentals it just doesn't make sense at this time I think it's a really bad bad strategy don't be afraid of a new application a new way to Market it's not good thank you thank you Mr Lopez Rhiannon Samuel followed by John Bolton hello Madam chair and members of the committee my name is Rhiannon Samuel and I represent nayap I'd like to speak about a few amendments you are considering this evening let me start with neop's opinion on the entire housing forward plan and put the issue quite plainly we are in a housing crisis in Albuquerque by now the council has heard multiple presentations that outline the severity of this issue and The Simple Solution to it all is to build more our association and our members oppose tonight's amendments A1 and A5 adus and duplexes help to increase the housing Supply provide more affordable options for residents and organically increase density over time we also oppose Amendment A6 but we support Amendment A7 these conversions will help alleviate barriers to getting these types of units on the market at one point our association was pushing for hot plates instead of induction stoves but after many conversations we are in a place to accept this change if it means that we can move forward to help fix this housing crisis in summary I respectfully asked this committee to vote no on A1 A5 and A6 and please support A7 thank you Ms Samuels I didn't quite hear what you said about the uh the kitchen exemption correct so the amendment before you this evening is for an induction stove initially when we spoke at EPC we were against this and in favor of hot plates we have since changed and we are in favor of A7 and I'm sorry could you just repeat the support in opposition numbers one more time of course we respectfully ask that you vote no on A1 A5 and A6 and support A7 thank you thank you John Bolton followed by Arthur Jimenez good evening counselors my name is John Bolton I'm a proud resident and neighbor in the International District um I'm also the founder and code executive director of East Central Ministries I've come here to share my strong support for both the city's housing forward initiative and those changes to the zoning and the Ido I don't think they go far enough but it's a good start I support you moving forward in this because it is a start and it creates a vision for how we can move together in our solutions to this housing crisis we all want homes in neighborhoods where we can walk to the park where our kids can play in the front yard where we can enjoy because it's safe and everyone's healthy I've committed the last 24 years of my life to help you create this reality in the International District Our Community Development work through ECM has worked towards Solutions some of them on housing including a small housing Cooperative started 15 years ago where 13 families still pay incredibly affordable rates and build equity I live right off of Central Avenue between central and Zuni from my front yard I can see our beautiful new library so I'm in the heart of where it is and I choose to be there because I love my neighborhood and I want to find Solutions along with you in this but we are in a crisis people are in crisis we don't have access to homes that people can afford because there just aren't enough homes and rental costs have increased too much many who oppose this will talk about their own personal preferences or personal comfort I'm saying we need you as Leaders to help lift our Collective eyes above our own personal interests to what we all need together so I'm in support of this thank you very much Arthur Jimenez followed by Johanna Stein hello thank you very much for this opportunity to speak my name is Arthur Jimenez I'm here on behalf of UNM College Democrats where I'm an officer Secretary of the group and also I'm a resident of District Five so uh this issue speaks to me because I my family has Deep Roots here in New Mexico but I grew up in Colorado because of the affordable housing crisis that is affecting the entire country I was forced to basically abandon that life in Colorado and come to New Mexico where thankfully I had family but I had to start over all new I left so much behind that I could never get back all because I reached the end of the line as far as housing goes I moved four times in one year because I couldn't stay in one place because the rent was either being tripled or quadrupled or the house was being sold for a million dollars so I'm here to Advocate on behalf of these amendments and this housing plan because I think that as we've heard a start is something every moment that we wait this crisis gets worse and worse and worse there are people on the street there are people who are living in their cars there are people who go to work every day they work hard they've done everything right they did exactly as they were told that they should do to achieve the American dream and yet they cannot get it so we have to rise above this situation as the person who spoke before me said we need to start thinking collectively and not as individual interests so I'm here to Advocate that these amendments be passed and that this plan be supported thank you very much Johanna Stein followed by Sharla Parsons foreign thanks so much for having me today and I just want to recognize the immense privilege that I have to actually be able to come to a meeting like this there are hundreds of people in this city who don't have affordable housing who would never be able to come to a meeting like this themselves small Pockets maybe neighborhood associations and specific high value neighborhoods maybe coming to Advocate to say no adus because they don't want change in their neighborhoods the people who really need this bill to pass can't come here because they need to be at work or they need to be taking care of their families but what this is really going to allow especially adus and Casita is those that have homes to be able to monetize them in different ways to support relatives to support children to be able to allow families to create generational wealth and it's a really important thing that you guys are doing here um some of the other things can also profoundly affect the scale of affordable housing but the one thing that puts it in individual families hands is adus and Casitas and that's one of the things that any individual wants to have the power and the choice to be able to allow for that and in the 60s and 70s we allowed 80 using Casitas all over the City of Albuquerque so this is not a massive drastic change it's just a reversion I own three of those buildings in Albuquerque when we try and keep our rents affordable and those units wouldn't exist if they were built today because they wouldn't be allowed and we'd really like to be able to create more affordable housing and provide support for those who need it thank you so much Sharla Parsons followed by Timothy Krebs thank you madam chair thank you counselors my name is Sharla Parsons I am a professional residential resale realtor I'm a the business the Director of Business and Outreach for seed New Mexico we're an organization who works to advocate for small businesses throughout the state and most importantly I'm a resident in the neighborhood in the Northeast Heights of Albuquerque I am here in full support of the ordinance oh 2254. we are looking at a basic supply and demand issue here and I think this will help us to solve our supply issues in Albuquerque I support the adus the hotel Moto conversions the duplexes the changing of the height restrictions and the changing of the parking requirements including those amendments that were made from Council Bible corn I would like to say that I do not support the Amendments A1 A5 and A6 I think making the adu's conditional creates an inequitable situation and it also posits uh housing as potentially harmful which feels discriminatory to me um it adds costs and time unnecessarily and we just don't have that time in my field we are constantly looking for homes that have Casitas homes that have multi-family situations for people who either wish to live in a multi-generational way they have elderly parents they have adult children with special needs sometimes they just need the extra income and it's very rare that we're able to make that happen for our clients and that's disappointing nearly half of Albuquerque Runners are cost burdened we need to remove the barriers to development to come to get our community members into affordable housing also in my opinion R1 zoning in general is exclusionary and unnecessary and it's keeping us in a holding pattern that pushes our people onto the streets I think we've seen several Community meetings we've seen studies come out from the University of Notre Dame and Harvard University we have a white paper that we've seen it's time it's time now so thank you so much for your time counselors thank you Timothy Krebs followed by Will Gleason Madam chair and counselors my name is Dr Tim Krebs I'm a professor of political science at the University of New Mexico I specialize in urban politics and policy I've been helping the mayor's team with the research related to housing forward ABQ research clearly shows that market conditions associated with rental prices and Rental vacancies is the chief cause of homelessness it also shows that housing is less likely to be to be produced in cities that make it harder for the market to build housing the housing crisis in Albuquerque is real as it is in cities across the United States housing forward ABQ addresses the issue of housing from a number of different angles if passed by the council this plan will make it easier to convert hotels motels and Commercial properties to market rate and affordable housing loosen zoning regulations to encourage more multi-family housing limit short-term rentals to keep longer-term rentals on the market protect landlords and tenants and develop the local residential construction Workforce needed to bring new developments to fruition mayor Keller's plan reflects best practices from other cities and best thinking about how to tackle our housing shortage it is balanced reasonable and evidence-based the breadth of this proposal is what gives me confidence that I will work it's about taken as a whole it's about unleashing the market moreover housing policy is not just about housing it's also about Economic Development and Environmental Protection our Economic Development efforts in the city are at risk if we cannot house the people who live here and the people that we want to attract to Albuquerque research also shows that low density infill projects work to provide decent lower cost housing I urge your support for this collection of reforms thank you will Gleason followed by Michael Peters good evening Madam chair counselors um my name is Will Gleason I'm a urban planner at Dr Paris sabatini and the chair of Urban Land Institute New Mexico and I I want to speak on behalf of the Urban Land Institute we held a housing Forum workshop last fall where a lot of the ideas in the algory's housing forward were I think gelled and and and the their recommendations were informed somewhat by our workshop and that Workshop really had some neighborhood people it had some people in the development industry but it was really a mix of neighborhood people City people people in the Housing Industry and and some of this the recommendations that we came up are very similar to what you're considering here tonight so um we support uh adus we support reduced parking and we support duplexes and I know duplexes are a tough one but as uh as Professor just said you know this is just unleashing Market forces not as if this changes and you all know this the city overnight this is a very very incremental process and I think the prospect of duplex is popping up all over the city is fairly limited it's something that there's only a few you know situations where I think that that is going to be the right solution and but let the market figure that out a little more than just saying no to that so that's I would urge your support and I Echo some of the same amendments opposing a one five and six and supporting A7 thank you Michael Peters followed by Sarah Walker Madam chair counselors my name is Michael Peters I'm a student at the University of New Mexico I'm here with the college Democrats who I've come to stand in support of all of the Amendments on this uh docket so I think that fundamentally part of the problem is that rents have gone up dramatically right and on top of that housing demand is relatively inelastic what that means is that no matter how much you increase the price of houses people still need to live somewhere and so people won't buy less housing and Market forces won't drive the prices of housing down when demand gets too high right which is why we need supply-side interventions like the ones in this proposal what this proposal does by changing these zoning laws by opening up all of these you know areas for you know casitas for duplexes for higher buildings is it increases the supply and attacks the prices on that side and that's really important the current minimum wage in Albuquerque is 12 an hour two thousand eighty dollars a month median wage in Albuquerque is 25 000 or about twenty five hundred uh bucks a month and the current average monthly rent in Albuquerque is 800 to 16 1684 dollars a month so is it any Wonder then that you know nearly half of Albuquerque residents as we've stated are cost burden they're spending 30 percent of more of their income on their rents probably more than 30 by quite a substantial margin uh one of the other main things is that uh forward uh housing forward albuquery has talked about um in their initiative the idea of providing renter protections I think that's fundamentally important that's the other side of the supply side issue um in particular they mentioned House Bill 6 Senate Bill 411 which didn't get passed and I actually uh College Dems we got to work with some Senators on that I was closely working with Santa roses Pino and because that failed there's a lot of render protections we don't have that we need and um so that's probably where I'd say our next steps are Beyond just increasing supply thank you Sarah Walker followed by Renee Horvath hi thank you this was um impulsive on my part I just read some of this at three o'clock this afternoon so I do have concerns as a homeowner in Parkland Hills um my concerns are with the duplex and with the height I saw a neighborhood in Denver that I went to uh every every year for 12 12 years um completely changed the um because the zoning allowed duplexes so what happened was these wonderful Charming single-family homes were torn down and in their from the 20s 30s 40s Bungalows beautiful and in their place where very large boxes that were duplexes that were three stories high that were took up most of the Lots took away the sunlight from your name from from the neighbor's Windows sunlight from their Gardens um and probably 50 percent of the houses and in that neighborhood have been just gone they're gone and the duplexes are very expensive I mean they're half a million dollars I mean that that does not address homelessness in any way I can see um so I I think there's unintended consequences and I'm real concerned as as just for my quality of life I really want affordable housing I really hope we can work with wonderful ways to help the homeless you know that's necessary but this is a huge change that I think people in Albuquerque should know about and they should be able to vote on and they should understand it better this I was gone November December January because I had a sick family member I just it reminds me of art where um all of a sudden things are going going through and people don't understand or know I haven't heard about this talk to my neighborhood association thank you thank you just Renee Horvath followed by Aaron Hill thank you good evening my name is Renee Horvath I'm with the West Side Coalition and the Taylor Ranch neighborhood association and uh I we worked with the intercoalition to send submits uh the latest letter and we do support what's on that letter uh we do have a lot of concerns about the housing forward because we feel like this is Major zone changes that affects the quality of life in our neighborhoods change the character of the neighborhoods we were the only meetings that we participated in it was not those workshops that were mentioned but just EPC we learned what is being proposed at the EPC hearing we only have two minutes to you know address some of these issues I think Community engagement which was mentioned earlier this evening is important that we could address a lot of these issues and and bring out these concerns before the they were submitted to the EPC and that would have been helpful to get a package ready to address all the concerns before it even went to the EPC and then to you for a final vote so the big concerns uh we had a meeting last week one of the quadrant meetings this was the first time those people heard about it and they were not happy with all this uh changing the R1 zoning to basically RT zoning townhouse zoning and there was concerns about parking not enough a lot of the Lots in Albuquerque are really small and they were is there enough parking for all these three units that could possibly be on a site and the other concern was investors are going to take advantage of this and buy a house and duplex it and build a Casitas and they're going to take advantage of this it's not really going to help the housing situation or the homeless situation or make it affordable maintaining views solar access privacy building Heights is a big issue thank you thank you Eric excuse me Aaron Hill followed by Patricia Wilson on Zoom lady Madam chair Council I do not have the privilege to care about views or neighborhood character or any of these things because I am one of the 50 of people in Albuquerque who are renters who are rent burdened I spend over a third of my income helping my 50 year old parents pay their rent because the three full-time jobs they work between them are not enough for our monthly rent my brother and many of my friends in in college have to have to share a Suburban house with five or six roommates my brother is 30 years old and has a wife and is 10 years into his career and he cannot afford anything more than to share a living room in a Suburban home with six people I personally work for the County government I have I am going to graduate school 20 or 30 years ago I would have had a nice middle class job where I could support a wife and buy a house and I cannot afford to live anywhere except my high school bedroom I do not give a damn about property values what I care about is having a roof over my head what my friends care about is having a roof over their head and we people under the age of 40 or 30 have teen ears and long memories and when you vote on this we will remember what you said I would take a casita over being homeless I would take a townhouse over having to share it with a dozen people because at least that way I have my own space at least that way I am not living in a tenement house because we are not a small town we are a city density is coming this is a reckoning and what we get a choice on is whether that is in carefully controlled Casitas and duplexes and apartment buildings that are retrofitted or whether it is in tenement homes being stuck in random Suburban neighborhoods thank you for your time Patricia Wilson followed by Peter kalitzis Madam chair and counselors my letter to the editor in yesterday's Albuquerque Journal clearly stated my personal support for the ideas of housing forward with its smart growth suggestions regarding infill adaptive reuse missing middle development Etc but that it needs to be separated from the Ido annual text update process I live in the near Heights Community planning area or CPA our assessment report was accepted by Council earlier this month it is a wonderful document fine-grained in its assessment of both adus and walls and fences and lots of other issues plans are made to be followed not shelved oh 2254 effectively shelves our comprehensive plan and our 12 CPAs that were first developed 28 years ago we have good plans let's follow them please defer 0-2254 but that notwithstanding I urge support of amendment A4 Adu setbacks thank you very much Peter kalitzis followed by Russell Brito hello I'm Peter calitza speaking on behalf of neighbor Park from neighborhood Parkland Hills neighborhood association augmenting our prior comments our first point is as the EPC was talking about we write we would recommend that either duplexes or Adu not both these permitting three residences that were designed for a single family property is really significant adverse impact additionally requiring off street parking another important aspect uh the changes to these going with three three units on a single lot and also allowing changing office to residential need to look at the comprehensive plan and the Ido the Ido specific districts all the non-residential specifically are meant to buffer are not increased impact by having more residential they specifically go against it so if you are going to add that because we desperately need housing you need to change all the non-residential sections of the Ido in order to go along with it um thank you very much appreciate your time Russo Brito followed by Julie drakey good evening Madam chair um and committee members I'm Russell Brito I am the vice president of the recently restarted Los griegos neighborhood association also known as lgna thank you for this opportunity to comment on o2254 specifically to support the allowance of accessory drilling units in the R1 and ra Zone districts our boundaries Encompass approximately 480 Acres two-thirds of which are zoned Roa almost a third is owned R1 and there are some limited R2 and MX along the edges uh we have a long history of multi-generational living arrangements both adus and family compounds that stretches back Generations in your bill packets you will find lgna's letter support for adus that was sent to the EPC in the city council in November 2022. I want to express my and my association's gratitude for counselor bentons and Jones sponsorship of amendment A2 that reflects epc's condition to to allow adus in the ra Zone District regarding Amendment A5 A5 is contrary to Los Greg or neighborhoods association's position that supports adus as a permissive use I want to give a big shout out to the hard-working staffs of the planning department and Council services for facilitating the Ido annual update because this coordinated effort brings land use entitlements and regulations even closer to the comprehensive plan's vision for land use growth and service provision thank you madam chair I'll stand for any questions if you haven't truly drakey followed by Michael Brasher Julie if you could unmute please sorry about that thank you chair and counselors previously I've been involved in the submission of comments from the ICC District 9 Coalition in Buda Canyon neighborhood association and submitted comments my for myself regarding ordinance 2254. I heard similar concerns at the EPC meetings public comments at city council at the Holiday Park public meeting so I won't repeat those um within the letters that we submitted we submitted opportunities for compromise recognizing there is a housing need in Albuquerque and we want to be a part of the solution now I speak on behalf of in budo Canyon neighborhood association who voted to oppose the massive zoning change particularly in light of the cover analysis that accompanies 2254 that state zoning will change from our win to RT now speaking for myself also related to the cover analysis specifically to number four stating that there is no Financial cost of this ordinance this means departments responsible for review and inspection of housing construction will remain understaffed unable to Support Compliance unable to enforce the rules and Regulation and unable to provide services for smart growth that taxpayers and our community deserves given the previous comments I look forward to working with Mr griego on possible compromises thank you very much Michael Brasher followed by Teresa Ferris thank you Mr Mr chairman uh Madam chairman first I'd like to ask that we defer action uh be taken on this uh and uh you have an opportunity for more discussion within the general public then I'd also like to say thank you very much to councilor grout for submitting your amendments some of them deserve very serious consideration counselor thank you hopefully the other counselors will follow your example get their amendments out to the general public so be people can have a better understanding of what is planned in uh in this housing forward action and and I hope that we can avoid late night floor Amendment floor amendments when the final vote is taken uh I hope that the general public will watch that very carefully I think it's very important also mayor Ruskin 74 created the scattered housing policy and he did that with the idea that you don't want to create pockets of poverty the hotel conversions uh we need to watch that and be very careful and maintain that scattered housing policy I think it's critical and the need for code enforcement people of course is critical counselors thank you very much for your time we appreciate it Teresa Ferris followed by Rachel Biggs hi thank you for your time I'm Theresa Ferris and this is my husband Eric we have submitted our responses in writing and it would take us about 20 minutes to go through all of them so we just want to respond if we can to things that we've heard today and specifically to to Dr griego Who said that because we do although we support a lot what's in this ordinance we do not support the R1 changing of allowing duplexes it was stated that this decision was done as evidence-based reasonable rational and incremental and we would argue that it is actually none of those things evidence-based at the meeting at Holiday Park two weeks ago the city admitted they had not done any surveying to tell whether our current infrastructure could support these changes they also admitted they don't have any idea of how many people might be interested in in putting in duplexes or converting to duplexes also at the last meeting at Taylor Ranch a week ago they admitted they don't have any data as to whether or not where it's been put in other cities whether it's working in fact the evidence when we looked at it it indicates that in many of those cities housing prices have skyrocketed because developers have come in and put up really high end duplexes that are actually gentrifying neighborhoods more than before reasonable we would argue that it is not reasonable to put this through in this manner where city and state law to notify property owners in writing directly is not being followed rational we would argue this is not a rational way to go about this change because if R1 literally means residential one family a more rational way to go about this would be to say we want to change your zoning to R2 meaning residential to family and then that way it would require that to follow the law and it wouldn't be legislative in nature that it you would have to notify each and every property owner in writing and lastly incremental I don't know how you could say that changing the entire zoning across the city at one time in any way is incremental thank you so much for your time and consideration looks like Rachel Biggs was disconnected so our next speaker will be Carletta Bradley followed by Sandra McArdle hello my name is Carletta and I would like to share a personal testimony with you I have a 49 year old brother who has suffered from epilepsy mental illness and other disabilities all of his life currently he is living at his friend's shed which has no running water nor electricity but he's proud because it's a space that he can call his own because of the current R1 zoning regulations although I have capacity I'm unable to provide a Humane place for my brother to call his home as he strives to maintain his dignity and Independence I'm happy to see that the regulation is being Revisited and I'm hopeful that we can reach a decision that can come and come to a compromise to help families such as myself thank you so much Sandra McCardell followed by Tim nicely good evening Madam chair and city councilors thank you for the opportunity to comment this evening my name is Sandra Mercado and I'm the owner of a small Energy Efficiency Green Building business as well as a daughter I speak in support of housing forward Albuquerque in this ordinance for three reasons first as a daughter I would like the opportunity to ask my 95 year old mother to Stay With Me but my home is not suitable and she likes her independence second I'm concerned about being able to hire good employees when there is insufficient good quality housing for them to live in and third I believe that Albuquerque needs more private investors to help address housing challenges by adapting unused or derelict buildings to provide additional housing and I believe this ordinance will help make that possible thank you all for your work on behalf of those who call Albuquerque home thank you Tim nicely followed by Angela merkurt hi my name is Tim knisley thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly on this I'm a community and economic development professional I've spent 10 years working at the Rio Grande Community Development Corporation on responsible development for the South Valley I currently work in real estate I buy derelict to run down properties and we fix them up and put them back to service I'm on the board of the browse Community Coalition City small business regulatory Advisory board and the Construction Industries commissioned for the state so I spend a lot of time looking at the interaction between government business and how it affects our neighborhoods I support these changes to the Ido I believe they align with the original vision of the idea which I worked on many years ago with many Community meetings I believe it will make housing more affordable and I believe that is one of the most pressing crises that we have here in Albuquerque New Mexico um I do not support amendments to A1 A5 and A6 we simply need more housing units that's all there is to it um affordability is critical to Quality of Life in Albuquerque I've been in Community Development for a long time and this is a a great step forward for the City of Albuquerque I urge you to support it thank you looks like Angela left the meeting as well so our next week will be Terry Storch followed by Ian Robertson um hi thank you very much Madam chair and counselors my name is Terry Storch and I'd like to say that I support the Albuquerque's housing forward proposal I'm in favor of 22 I'm 54. and I can't duplicate the eloquence of a lot of the speakers and before me the experts who talk about why this is economically sound why this will create good housing um and I cannot in any way shape or form duplicate the eloquence of some of the younger speakers The Graduate students the people living with families and um I can fully hear them say why should I care about a view when I'm sharing a house with 12 other people and living in the room I lived in as a high schooler now I have to say with another speaker that I am very concerned about gentrification and I'm very concerned about those unintended consequences um rapacious developers who don't build things that are affordable that don't build things that are on a human scale and don't build things that are attractive but my vote is with this proposal because we have to say yes and we have to try because we have who is it that is is living living in housing um um insecurity it's kids Aunts Uncles parents it's the people who work in um or schools who work in our health clinics who work in our favorite upscale restaurant I live in the near North Valley I have a casita that's in the ha it was in the house when my husband and I bought it in 1980 we live in a much much older neighborhood very mixed income I say leave it up to the homeowners to have neighbors living behind them that are good neighbors and to keep their place nice I am against the caller coordination for adu's I think that's grounds for lawsuits thank you very much he Ian Robertson followed by Kristen green uh Madam chair and counselors thank you for your time my name is Ian Robertson I'm a homeowner in the north campus neighborhood I'm here to support the ordinances with the Amendments A2 and A7 specifically which help eliminate existing barriers to a diverse and thriving housing market that will promote lower rental rates and promote more housing options at this moment there are residents who are feeling the pressure on their ability to house themselves and their families we've watched fear dominate this conversation around housing in this city for too long I'm here to ask our elected counselors to take this opportunity to lead from the front and acknowledge that continuing to fight sensible alleviations will only deepen the existing crisis building more units is our way out and this ordinance is our chance to make that happen I've heard a number of people tonight say they want affordable housing they want a healthy on house they want lower rent they want to stop the brain drain our state experiences but there's always a catch and I've watched that in this city for a very long time there's always a catch what I'm asking is for people to allow the possibility that they might be wrong about some of their fears about this housing crisis let's do what's right for our City's residents the economy and young people who want to stay here but feel that that is impossible in the current conditions thank you Kristen green followed by Peggy Norton good evening Madam chair and counselors I'm speaking today as an elder Homestead neighborhood association board member speaking against o2254 as it could disproportionately affect marginalized and low-income neighborhoods what's to stop a developer from coming in and offering 30 to 40 thousand dollars over asking price on a house which is more than a poor family can say no to a block of 20 single-family homes could suddenly double or triple in density with no recourse for adjacent homeowners due to permissive status those left owning homes will see front yards become parking lots and residents squeezed out of street parking we're told not to worry code enforcement won't let that happen but in my half of district 6 about a quarter of the homes have three or four cars parked in front yards it's unsightly and an environmental hazard due to many neighbors calling I'm sorry despite many neighbors calling code enforcement has rarely rarely seen fit to handle the issue the sweeping changes from 2254 aren't going to affect the people pushing it such as planners developers or this Administration they live in gated communities under HOAs historic overlays or other protective covenants how nice it must be to live in a legacy neighborhood where changes you place on others will never impact you personally city council voted against protecting tenants rights when it comes to predatory practices by landlords how can we believe that they'll protect marginalized neighborhoods from predatory developers we need housing and there's no denying that but we don't need hastily assembled one-size-fits-all solutions that seem geared toward turning over and turning out residents who are less desirable than others in favor of developers there are better ways including mandating all new developments to be mixed income thereby ending ending economic segregation and the stigma of affordable housing a seventy five thousand dollar new Casita is unlikely to be rented affordably again I urge a defer on 2254 or decouple it and treat it as the major city-wide change it is rather than a minor change to the Ido thank you Peggy Norton followed by Carol Miller hello I'm Peggy Norton and I have to say I'm president of the North Valley Coalition and due to another project I have been working on I have failed to spend the many hours neighborhood associations have followed to understand all these changes um I am disturbed that it says the North Valley Coalition sent in a letter supporting the uh amendment to uh which allows in agricultural districts we did not have a meeting and I we did not send in a letter so that is a misstatement um I'm concerned that cpos will not be protected and that height limits which were a big issue in these apartments going up on Forest Street we got a maximum height limit to our CPO but now I see that that could be doubled again um I'm concerned about parking because another big issue has been this permit only parking so rather than a development providing parking we're going to close off the street to people parking um I also feel the only reason I'm stabilized in my rent is that I own my home and I I see nothing encouraging ownership I got it through New Mexico Financial Authority a down payment and you know if you keep renting you're you're at the market of rents that's just the way it happens to be I'd like to see some of this um I know in our area a to use they're supportive I like that idea of if you can either do a duplex or an Ado let's ease it in and then have time to look at it later amendments take several years to make changes to policies that don't work thank you Carol Miller followed by Rosemary Blanchard good evening counselors thank you for allowing me to speak on the issue an important issue of Equitable housing for everyone my name is Carol Miller and I live in the Four Hills Village I own my own home it's a nice neighborhood however I have to drive through the intersection of Central and Tramway every time I go go anywhere and anytime I return home and I see people in tents I see people on the corner asking for food and other kinds of help and so even though I own my own home I see very clearly the need for housing for for everyone from all incomes and backgrounds so I support housing forward Albuquerque six sections in their proposal oh 2254 and I also just wanted to say that people who need housing are not dangerous per se because just because they need housing does not mean necessarily that they are dangerous I was raised in a duplex and I seem to be an okay supporting citizen active in indivisible Albuquerque and um Progressive issues and I would also like to say that um I support the Ido annual update Amendment A3 about the commercial parking requirements sponsored by Tammy fablecorn and I also support the uh amendments of the housing forward ordinance a2a3 A4 and A7 thanks so much Rosemary Blanchard followed by Maria griego hey let's trying to get my video started that every time I turn it on you folks turn it off okay now you've got me uh hello members of the committee counselors my name is Rosemary Blanchard I am currently a resident of District 2. but if this housing forward initiative is improved I hope to become a resident of District Six and I hope to do that by being able to put a casita or if it turns out to be more economic a little duplex but I suspect Casita in my daughter's backyard so that we can continue our support of each other as I get older and as their needs change and I think this is a very new Mexican thing to do so I'm hoping that you will and and to me it's delightful that this change that I have been looking forward to for so long is also a change that will help so many people who are challenged by housing lack of housing to find alternative ways of of putting themselves in an autonomous living situation intergenerational living compounds are very new Mexican and they're also an important way that families can take care of each other today the covid-19 pandemic changed the way many families mine included looked at the relationship between residents of family members and caring for each other suddenly seniors who were in Senior Living were blocked off and you couldn't get you couldn't get near them and they couldn't come out and I had even been thinking of senior living but uh as that arose I realized I wanted to be where I could help my family they could help me and that's what uh this uh oh 24 2254 will do and I hope you will support it not only for those when marginalized housing situations but for families who are trying to do the best by each other so thank you so much Maria griego followed by Jim strozier thank you my name is Maria grego I'm an attorney with the New Mexico Center on Law and poverty and the director of economic equity the center on Law and poverty supports the housing forward initiative and this ordinance and appreciates the intended outcome to reduce barriers to housing and incentivize the development of new units to increase the city's housing Supply these steps are crucial given the unprecedented housing crisis currently plaguing the City of Albuquerque with record-growing inflation Rising rents stagnant wages and an ever increasing number of unsheltered and housing and super insecure for kenyos the city must take Swift solution oriented action to increase the city's housing Supply as you have heard from other commenters nearly one-third of New Mexicans rent the home they live in and while the minimum wage is twelve dollars the wages need to rent a basic two-bedroom apartment it's 12 is 17.56 an hour this is not sustainable despite the comments earlier that there should be no rush to pass this through we are in a dire emergency and the city must act quickly so I encourage you to adopt this proposal which will increase housing Supply and the best way to solve the housing crisis is with housing thank you Jim strozer followed by Anne Lynn Hall great uh thank you madam chair and counselors uh thanks for the opportunity to speak on this topic this evening my name is Jim strozier and I'm the current president of Na IOP the Commercial Real Estate Association housing is critical to our community Economic Development and our quality of life we are on record to supporting the housing forward amendments to help deliver more housing to our community increasing the supply and variety of housing is the best way to ensure that housing is Affordable to all of our residents there are several new amendments on tonight's agenda that I would like to address we are in support of amendments A2 adding the ra Zone Ace and A7 regarding Hotel conversions these amendments will help move the needle forward and help to eliminate barriers to addressing our housing crisis we are opposed to Amendment A1 regarding duplexes A5 requiring conditional use for adus and A6 which is basically the counter amendment to Amendment A7 and the reason that we are opposed that we're opposed to these amendments is that they basically uh put more barriers to the creation of new housing rather than eliminate them it's important to note that both the duplex Amendment and the Adu uh amendments are really solutions that are long-term they're organic ways to increase density over time and I feel strongly that they ultimately will benefit the neighbors where we see that happen over time the goal of the housing forward initiative is to eliminate barriers and we support that goal amendments A1 A5 and A6 do not meet that objective we also appreciate the efforts to find middle ground and solutions related to adu's height and parking which are addressed 8384 A8 A9 and A10 thank you so much and Lynn Hall followed by vinay Rogers okay good evening Madam chair and council members my name is Anne Lynn Hall and I am the CEO of prosperity Works our work is to advocate for systems that support economic prosperity and we all know that housing is foundational to economic Prosperity I'm here today to ask you to support increased housing options for our community we have a housing crisis in Albuquerque families who live below the poverty line spend at least half of their income on housing with one in four families spending 70 percent on their rent and utilities we have 1300 people each night in Albuquerque who are experiencing homelessness and we are short 15 000 affordable housing units right now we have a moral obligation to meet this need quickly there are solutions on the table now that will address our housing shortage the changes proposed to the Ido that provide additional ways to increase housing units are important changes to the Ido we absolutely should allow duplexes to be built in R1 zones duplexes are a way to increase units without huge impacts to neighborhoods we should also allow accessory dwelling units as permissive this is also an easy way to increase housing units we should seek to find Creative Solutions that provide needed housing for our community including Hotel conversions with kitchenettes adjusting parking and increasing height requirements if you had to choose between being unhoused or having safe affordable housing with a kitchenette which would you choose as I listened tonight I believe that we need to acknowledge the impact on racial Equity of this housing conversation I urge your support of the housing forward changes to the Ido to increase housing access thank you Renee Rogers followed by Richard Scheffler Schaefer excuse me and firstly thank you for what you guys do this is the first time I'm sitting on a meeting like this and it's very interesting to see um what everyone has to say and it is no secret that we are in a housing crisis I came to Albuquerque 17 years ago and it was a very different City from what it is right now and when I was introduced to these ideal changes uh ordinance 2254 which I absolutely support it got me excited to be a part of part of the city and the community that wants to make a difference for the less fortunate and you know I I can go on about just like so many people have said um the the idea is to make us sit if you want to come not about competing but we want to welcome people when I came here I was welcomed and uh you know I'd like to do the same for others as we see industry expanding uh we don't want to we don't want to be a situation where people are ready to invest and bring our city to you know bring it up and then we don't have housing for all the people that they want to that would be needed to you know run their organization so I'm in full support of ordinance 2254 and uh and that's all I have to say and again thank you for what you do you guys are sitting here late in the evening listening to all of us and I appreciate that Richard Shaffer followed by Ian menskin hello I'm an officer in the Vista Grande neighborhood association and in Wisconsin the West Side Coalition and I can assure you we were not consulted on any of this there were presentations that people in the audience always felt was a done deal as it came forward as a result we're very appreciative of uh councilor Renee routes amendments to uh to the bill and um and I would like to take a slightly different attack we've written in comments but I'd like to say don't declare a war on Albuquerque's middle class neighborhoods um the we this city is below average pricing for its single family for its housing it is below average right now uh we don't need to break uh single-family housing R1 in order to accommodate more people we should not bring that race to the bottom if Albuquerque is having trouble attracting employers who are willing to pay a living wage over 17 bucks an hour um then we really need to look at who we're trying to attract and what their motives are um I do hear from a lot of people who work with low-income people yeah but uh Albuquerque's single-family homes are below national average and they're below national average in price we had four thousand Kate Schiller home index is much more accurate we've had no research on this but we had 4 000 homes in 2016 on the market now we have h70. what happened we got an Ideo in the City Planning Department that kind of is declaring war on its neighbors [Music] in metkin let me start your video there there you go hi can you guys see me yes sir but you are muted now so if you can unmute yourself can you hear me now yes thanks proceed thank you madam chair and counselors my name is Ian I'm a resident of being near North Valley and a board member of the near North Valley neighborhood association I wish to First Echo the nnbna support for the expansion of adus we have a severe housing and homelessness crisis and adus would greatly expand housing options in a way that maintains the character of communities while also supplying much needed additional Revenue sources for struggling homeowners for the record I recently had to move out of my downtown apartment of 10 years because of a 400 rent increase and I currently live in a much more affordable Adu which has been great for both me and the landlord I also wish to express my opposition to Amendment A3 which would require that any Adu be constructed with exterior materials that are the same or similar to that of the primary building on the lot given the prohibitive costs associated with traditional construction I think this requirement would impose an unnecessary financial burden on homeowners who could construct adus that would be aesthetically pleasing using non-traditional and considerably cheaper options like barndominiums and possibly 3D printing in the future while these much cheaper non-traditional options can be quite beautiful and even more environmentally sound than traditionally traditional construction options they may not allow for the kind of customization that would meet the A3 requirements the net effect of the amendment would be to greatly reduce the number of homeowners who could otherwise afford to build adus using non-traditional methods and by extension greatly reduced the availability of new rentals and reduced alternate income sources for struggling homeowners at a time when the fastest growing homeless demographic is seniors no homeowner wants to construct an ugly Adu for multiple reasons obviously they wouldn't want to live with an eyesore and they wouldn't want to lower their property values either if given the freedom homeowners will be able to greatly expand housing options increase the revenue and improve the character of the community as long as they aren't burdened by unnecessarily rigid design and construction requirements and I ultimately also want to Echo Pego Peggy Norton's comments that we we need more affordable home ownership options for True housing stability thank you very much [Music] Madam chair that concludes public comment for o54 thank you Mr Moya we are going to well I'm going to say two things and then we're going to then we're gonna take a quick break I just want to respond quickly I wanted to ask um on Geo or or Miss Schultz when was this bill introduced Madam chair o2254 was introduced by the Council on November 7th of 2022 and then referred to the EPC for consideration okay so um it and it's got about two more months to go so I just wanted to make that clear that that is not fast um that is not a rush job it's been out in the public since November 7th um and so I just wanted to make that very clear because we heard that a lot today that we were just rushing this through and the other thing and this is just a point of personal privilege I've heard it four times today and it's beginning to annoy me I do not live in a gated community I would not live in a gated community if I wanted to live in a gated community I couldn't afford to I live in a modest home that I literally bought 20 years ago and I could not afford today if I had to buy it again which is why we're here today having this conversation so with that um we are going to take a 10 minute break staff has been here since this morning that you're hungry and they just need a little bit of a break we're going to do that then we're going to come back and we will go through the Amendments that we have that you've all seen and then just to be clear the intention tonight is to hear those amendments and then defer this bill to the 26th to the next lups meeting which is going to be on the 26th of this month just want everybody that is here to understand the process so give us 10 minutes and we will be back foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] no [Music] no no no no no no no no no no [Music] no no [Music] more [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] laughs [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you foreign foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] I think we're going to jump back into it it's been a little over 10 minutes so thank you to everyone who stuck with us during that break the plan is now to go through the amendment packet and so the amendment packet has been online for a while you heard a lot of folks commenting on it but we're going to turn it back over to Ms Schultz to go through that for us Madam chair committee members thank you there are 10 published last week I'm going to run through these one by one and provide a very brief overview of what the amendment does and then the counselors connect ask questions move their amendments at their leisure so diving right into Amendment A1 this relates to duplexes in section one of o2254 amendment A1 proposes to delete Section 1 of the bill in its entirety the result of that would mean that duplexes would continue to only be allowed in the r1a zone District as they are today and not the rest of the R1 Zone District um and I I can pull up a map if interested about what that distinction is any questions counselors yeah I just have one can you just give a little background on the rationale for excluding duplexes but allowing adus Madam chair counselors I would defer that question to the sponsor of this amendment to discuss the intent and that's counselor grout thank you thank you counselor Madam chair thank you again this is something from the neighborhood associations the people that reached out to all of us actually they sent us emails and I think that people a lot of the neighborhoods are are worried about it the traffic we haven't even talked about the infrastructure that will change because of this um and having a three possible families on one lot um could be problematic and so I think that people understand um an Adu the benefits more of that and so it's just something that I brought forward because it was asked of the neighborhoods um my neighbor has an Adu in in his house at his on his property and um I think it's fine I think it's fine I think that it would be odd in a regular neighborhood to all of a sudden have a duplex in the middle of the neighborhood it's just when somebody buys their spins their hard-earned money on a single family home that was their their biggest investment they ever made and for that to the neighborhood to change it's it's you know it's it scares some people so that's it other comments questions counselor Benton my childhood home was a duplex and um it fit right in with the neighborhood not every house had one um I mean it was well designed it's hard to admittedly it's hard to regulate good design we try to do that a lot but very solemnly do we really get it right but uh but it it was uh it was an easy fit and um I think in our case we were both renters so we had our common landlord but uh yeah it was it was it um I couldn't see how there was any real problem with that or how it was disruptive or anything like that to the neighborhood admittedly it was probably also again as I was speaking before in response to one of the speakers probably built pre-zoning and um you know a lot of things we did pre-zoning we're kind of Common Sense you know they they uh we weren't over regulating anybody and and they kind of just responded to the market and and there was a market I suppose for a scattering of these smattering or scattering or whatever the correct word is of these in in the neighborhood and so you know I I think back on some of the comments that were made earlier the public comments that the opportunities to do this in existing neighborhoods are probably few and far between we did hear the um we did hear the argument about Denver and that is a very overheated extremely overheated market and where tear Downs are common whether it's for a duplex or anything else and You Know It uh it's understandable why some neighbors don't like to see a tear down in their neighborhood especially if if the design that replaces the old design is inferior but uh but this is the way we we operate uh you know in this country it's a uh like it or not it's a free market and um you know I feel like this this is a a market-based solution and I also Echo the uh and appreciate the comments by one of the speakers who said it's in a Mexican way of life to have multi-generational uh dwellings on the same property and um and and that we really see throughout throughout the state and uh and I I take to heart when I hear somebody talk about wanting to to live with their mother or to have their child live on the site but not in the same dwelling when they become an adult so that's just my thinking about it but uh I understand I understand the concern about change and back to this change is always going to be happening thank you manager um all right I have a couple more questions um it's my understanding under the current Zone that in one single family house you can have up to five unrelated people living there is that true Madam chair committee members yes the Ido defines what a family is exactly as you just described so in that situation there could be five people with five cars taking up street parking and Road parking and driveway parking and there's no no ramifications for that Madam chair yes that's correct so what we're saying with this amendment is that we while we want people who are low income to be having to cohabitate like we heard from the young man earlier tonight because he can't afford his own place we want to take away the opportunity for that to be divided into two dwellings so that someone might possibly be able to afford a place to live on their own at some point in their life I think that's very strange um and and and really an interesting thing that we're saying we you know I feel like we're continually saying we just don't want change we just don't want anything new and this is not a new thing we've had duplexes since the 70s I too lived in a duplex but I was a renter so perhaps that's a problem for some folks but um there is no there is no reason that we can have five people living in a house unrelated but we can't have two unrelated people living in a house that's got a wall that's shared so um you know for that I just I can't support this amendment um any other comments questions counselor Benton sorry just another thing that that uh came to mind the um Mitch Schultz we the front yard parking requirements that that I co-sponsored with uh Sally Maye many years ago those which would still apply to these R1 properties would they not Madam chair councilor Benson yes that's correct regardless if it was a single family home a duplex or a duplex with an Adu front yard parking limitations would still be in place so by definition in some cases that would preclude the creation of the duplex or uh you know if if um if we were to to uh make that a consideration uh in many cases if it were to remain in consideration I mean it would uh in many cases it might convince a a property owner to not Bill a second unit Madam chair councilor Benton yes a duplex does have an off street parking requirement so if someone were to convert a single-family house or build a duplex I'm trying to find my table here they would need to provide one parking space for uh duplex that's got two bedrooms or if the duplex has three or more bedrooms it would be two parking spaces and that's over and above whatever they would be required for the dwelling itself Madam chair counselor Benton yes and it's the same parking requirement for a single family detached home so typical single family detached Zone would be two parking spaces and so there would be one you'd have to accommodate one more in order to build the Duke life Madam chair Mr President one or two depending on how big the duplex is if the duplex has three or more bedrooms then it's two spaces but two are under bedrooms just one parking space okay thank you one more question right now where are duplexes allowed Madam chair councilor grout I'm going to navigate up to a previous slide that had a couple of maps on it uh the slide that I have up now on the left map all the areas that you see in yellow represent the r1a Zone District where you can do a duplex today the map on the right represents where duplexes would be permissive if this proposal is to pass Madam chair councilor grout let me be clear about that if you're if your Amendment passes what would be retained is the map on the left if your Amendment fails uh what would be on the table is the map on the right okay thank you I can share one more just comment um preserving the residential one District zoning area is important people um spend their lifetime it's their biggest investment and um when you go to buy that home and then zoning changes in that neighborhood when that traditional family single family neighborhood I can see the concern that many many people have I have that concern as well I know we need housing I I know it we need it badly I think we can find it different ways than getting rid of our one will that will it be gotten rid of totally will it be RT or will there be R1 anymore Madam chair counselor grout um there's no proposal to delete the R1 Zone District which is called a single-family Zone District now RT would continue to be its own separate Zone District what would change within R1 which typically allows for one house per lot if oh 2254 is to pass in total there would be a potential of three units per lot on this cover page that we Madam chair excuse me on this cover page 40254 it does say this legislation would amend the ideal text and these amendments would replace the R1 Zone district with rt zoning what R1 zones would be left Madam chair counselor grout my understanding is that cover letter erroneously references a previous iteration of the bill that never ended up getting introduced that did contemplate moving the R1 Zone District to RT but that is not what got introduced on November 7th okay so follow up are there any will there be any R1 zones left Madam chair councilor grout r1a r1b r1c and r1d would still be in existence if these proposals in o54 move forward okay thank you Madam chair councilor groud I'll just note that this amendment has not been moved yet so if you're interested in having a vote on this you will need to make a motion and a second Madam chair I'd like to move this motion Amendment not hearing a second Amendment one okay um you know what I I would um move a deferral for two weeks so that we can have some conversations around this and see if there's an opportunity to um rethink something in this so that we can move something forward okay Madam Madam chair councilor grout um individual amendments don't receive deferral motions so the the rephrase it would just not get a second you wouldn't discuss it and then counselor grout could move it again in two weeks is that okay with the sponsor yes ma'am okay all right let's move on to A2 Ms Schultz Madam I'm sorry just to be clear somebody just texted me um not a deferral but we will hear it again on the 26th okay Madam chair uh committee members Amendment A2 relates to accessory accessory dwelling units and proposes to allow the ra Zone District um to have accessory dwelling units permissively in addition to the R1 Zone District that's on the table as a part of the original bill this was a recommendation of the EPC condition and per public comment I do want to make a clarification that in the amendment in your packet staff noted that the North Valley Coalition sent in a letter of support for this amendment that was indeed a staff error as Miss Norton pointed out it was the near North Valley neighborhood association not the North Valley Coalition who expressly provided support So apologies to the North Valley Coalition that was staff error any questions on this one second all those in any more discussion okay all right uh as expressed by uh some of the uh uh public speakers from the North Valley uh this is really just adding um our a to the uh to the secondary dwelling uh uh attached uh adus uh within the or detached excuse me adus this is specifically within the our way ra Zone as was expressed by those folks that that is a uh an appropriate place for uh in the in these large Lots larger Lots in the North Valley that they would uh like to have that apply in that area and I think that's the main area where these uh the zoning exists is within the valley if I'm not mistaken Madam chair councilor Benton there's a map up on the screen I know it's probably a little hard to see all the yellow area represents ra zoning in the city you're right the bulk of it is in the North Valley there is a little bit in the Northwest part of town as well all right okay we have a motion and a second any further discussion Madam chair I'd like to clarify for the record um that this is committee Amendment one not two okay um the motion on A1 technically did not happen so thank you Amendment A2 is committee Amendment one so we are on A2 committee Amendment one we have a motion for a pass we have a second all those in favor raise your hand and say yes yes yes anybody opposed all right uh five to zero that amendment has passed let's move on to A3 which will be committee amendment number two um and Council of route thank you go ahead and Shannon Madam chair councilor grout um committee Amendment two proposes to add a requirement that accessory dwelling units must be constructed in a similar color and material to that of the primary building on the lot so if the primary house on the lot is made out of Stucco then the accessory dwelling unit would need to be made out of Stucco if it was blue stucco then it can't be lime green stucco Etc foreign chair again this is a from the neighborhood associations a request you want it to look nice again I'll use my neighbor he built a lovely Adu that he uses for his his mother and it looks just like his regular house and it looks very nice in our neighborhood any questions comments I have a feud I would like to move this amendment number two do I hear a second it's very disappointing that the neighborhood association we're not listening to that okay we have a second all right counselor um I'm sympathetic to this amendment um but I also uh appreciate the comments by one of the last speakers who who spoke to uh the issue of affordability of some of the old materials if you had a brick house nowadays you don't see many brick houses being built nowadays and there's a reason for that they're very expensive to build and I I'm just going to put it out there and see if anybody's interested but I would offer what I consider a friendly Amendment and delete the words of material and leave the color I would accept that friendly Amendment so do we have to to vote on that friendly Amendment no Madam chair councilor Benson um for cleanliness of the record if we could vote on The Friendly amendment that would be great okay great okay so we have a friendly amendment to A3 which is um committee amendment number two and is to strike the words materials and materials and materials and so we have somebody that moved that I will second that so all those in favor raise your hand and say aye okay um anybody opposed all right five to zero we've adopted that friendly amendment to um committee amendment number two so okay just want to make sure no one else had any questions um so let me just ask one questions about this so I do really appreciate the friendly amendment I think that makes it a lot better but I just want to make sure I understand if if somebody has a shed in their backyard are there requirements that they have the same color as their house Madam chair I believe that this amendment is specifically applicable to an accessory dwelling unit and just not an accessory building right reading the amendment now yes so someone could have a shed that mismatches the color of the primary structure but once that's a habitable dwelling unit it would need to be the same color okay so so it really doesn't make cohesiveness in our neighborhoods we are going to still have sheds and other dwell other non-dwelling units that don't look anything like the houses that they are behind I believe I that's not a question I'm just making a point um so for that I you know I still have some problems with this I do really appreciate the friendly Amendment but I I personally have a shed and it does not match my house um and I feel like it would be weird that you know someone who's wanting to do this to allow their mother-in-law to live with them would be required to do that matching but I wouldn't and I just have a shed that I put stuff in so um any other questions or comments on this one would you like to close I heard your support all right all those in favor of A3 which is committee amendment number two as amended raise your hand say yes yes anybody opposed unanimous we we will move on to A4 Ms Schultz Madam chair this is also related to accessory dwelling units and proposes to implement minimum side and rear setbacks of five feet there are no setback requirements for an accessory dwelling unit today however the fire code does have requirements for if a structure of any kind whether it's an accessory dwelling unit or not is near another structure so in lieu of setbacks in the Ido there would be building code requirements that would get at the fire safety aspect but this would create a zoning requirement at five feet from the rear lot line and five feet from any side Lot line there would need to be a setback any questions counselor Benton um going back to my unfortunate knowledge of the previous zoning code might be easier if I didn't know so much about that uh the previous zoning code I don't know if there's anyone here who can answer this question but maybe it's something we could look into but the previous zoning codes for R1 uh and for accessory buildings of any kind so shed secondary dwelling any kind of accessory building separate from the main dwelling uh I'm pretty sure uh well I'm very sure because I built one uh on the lot line uh zero zero lot line not for my main house but for the accessory dwelling in it and um what I had to comply with was the fire code I had to build a one hour fire rated wall on that property line and that's the way the previous code read I don't think it had a rear setback and I think that's something that that there are some there is some discussion in the idea now about rear setbacks for these units if I'm not mistaken or for accessory accessory structures does anybody know uh Madam chair councilor Benton um someone is trying to look up in the old code how that rear setback our accessory setback would have been implemented generally speaking when the idea got adopted setbacks in the R1 Zone District got brought over as they were from the old zoning code um and I I would guess that for accessory structures that was true too which is why there is no side or rear setback requirement today your comments about the fire code are correct my understanding is that if there's another building near that accessory dwelling unit and neither of those buildings are made of fire rated materials there would be a 10 foot um distance separation required but once you start to construct and fire rated materials that distance goes down the 10-foot separation between buildings of any kind on the lot was a requirement at the old R1 zoning so I can clarify that for a fact but the what I'm specifically times the side side Lot line and possibly rear I don't remember about the rear in my case the rear was dictated by a public utilities so I didn't have to deal with it but Madam chair councilor Benton we we don't have that information off the top of our head but we might have it in a couple minutes okay Madam chair counselor Benson you were you're correct your your memory is correct there was no cider rear setback requirement before and what the Ido says today is there's there needs to be clear clear passage I believe is the phrase but there's not a numerical value associated with that at some point right okay so that's different than this correct and that that's as it exists now that would apply uh without any of these amendments to any uh to any accessory accessory building Madam chair councilor Benton that's correct thank you you want to make a motion I'd like to make a motion to move uh committee amendment number three I will second that uh any more discussion all right all those in favor of A4 which is committee amendment number three raise your hand and say yes yes all right uh any opposed post all right three to two it passes no no it failed oh did you say yes or no oh I'm sorry I misunderstood that hand all right all right we are on to now we're going to get really confusing we're on to A5 which will now be committee amendment number three Madam chair it will still be number four because we log the the failed vote as a committee Amendment uh Madam chair committee members um Amendment A5 proposes to require that accessory dwelling units in the R1 Zone District receive a conditional use approval what's proposed in o2254 today is a permissive use or what we call kind of buy right um a conditional use permit requires a notification to nearby Property Owners applicable neighborhood associations and a public hearing before the zoning hearing examiner there are about six criteria that would need to be justified to the zoning hearing examiner or the zhe for them to be able to issue that approval one thing worth noting um is that there are areas in Albuquerque today where accessory dwelling units are a permissive use even without o2254 this conditional use requirement would not impact those so where those adus have been permissive permissive already they would they would continue to be permissive this would only make it a conditional use for all of the rest of the R1 Zone District that's being opened up to adus so um Madam chair um this is um another request from our neighborhood associations I think it's important that the neighbors know that you know my next door neighbor's gonna would like to put an Adu in or a duplex in um and and let me know give me the heads up so I can can um you know make sure that I like it too um again I'll use my next door neighbor um when he and his wife were going to put in their aid their Adu for their mother-in-law um he brought over the plans and we were able to see it and we didn't just wonder what the yellow sign was and um so he shared everything with us we were in the dough we were in the know um we didn't feel like it was being rushed you know without our knowledge and um once we saw what was going on we were like we're all about it we we thought it was great and again it's a great unit it's it's an added benefit to our neighborhood um it's important that we have disclosure it's important that we have transparency and I think having it be conditional letting the neighbors know of you know what your intent are I think that's a good neighborly um it's you know it's being a good neighbor and so for that reason um that's why I'm off asking um for it to be passed amended I just want to check in with Ms Schultz this amendment is competing with the next Amendment um is that both can't passed um Madam chair amendments a six and seven are competing A5 can can move independently on its own thank you Miss uh councilor grad did you want to make it I would like to move a um committee amendment number four for a lack of a second it's I'm sorry it's A5 committee amendment number four okay um so we have a motion but no second I can entertain an another motion I'll move a do not oh no Madam chair if there's no second the amendment would just fail for lack of a second okay all right let's move on to a six which is committee amendment number five and this is also Council I believe Ms Schultz will give an overview Madam chair committee members amendments A6 and A7 are competing ideas they both cannot pass so you will need to pass one of them but not the other and we can talk about both of them at once if that's helpful um I'm seeing a nod so I'll go ahead and do that I think that would be helpful if everybody's okay with that if we can hear both of them both of the overviews so that we understand the difference um Madam chair committee members Amendment A6 proposes to remove all allowances of a lesser kitchen when associated with a conversion of a non-residential use to a residential use and the result of this would be amending what's in the Ido today that allows for these lesser kitchens when they're associated with dollars from the Department of Family and Community Services when they're less than 100 units when they have social services tied to them this would this would do away with that allowance completely what's depicted on the slide here are conversions of existing hotels in Albuquerque that were completed prior to any allowance for a lesser kitchen where to show that uh other hotel motel conversions have been able to meet this requirement of a full kitchen at a market rate level committee Amendment A7 instead would amend the proposal which is in 054 today what's no 54 today proposes to allow the conversion of non-residential uses to residential uses when not associated with dollars affordable housing dollars through the city would not less than 100 units when they don't have social services on site so what's in the bill today proposes to kind of open up that allowance to anyone who would like to do it which would likely equate to market rate Apartments so A7 proposes to tweak that allowance slightly to do two things first it would clarify kitchen requirements and appropriate kitchen appliances you heard public testimony today about the induction cooktop language that's a part of amendment A7 which would specify proposes to strike the phrase hot plate and adds in induction Hot Plate instead there was quite a bit of testimony at EPC about the perceived safety of an induction cooktop versus kind of a regular hot hot plate or or burner that's the first part of A7 the second part proposes to allow conversions in the non-residential business park zone District I reviewed this concept earlier in my presentation that would allow non-residential Business Park zones um to convert non-residential uses to to multi-family when otherwise they would not be allowed to after five years of vacancy they would be permitted what's called a conditional vacant process where it's a conditional use process you have to go through the zoning hearing examiner but if you're office building in the nrbp zone district has been sitting vacant for five years we would allow you to pursue residential uses both of these changes are in direct response to an EPC condition that recommended these two proposals move forward so the the conflict here is A6 proposes to take the conversions off the table completely and A7 proposes to kind of nuance out the allowed conversions today thank you Miss Schultz any questions or comments on either and then we'll go to the sponsor of the first okay Council ground thank you madam chair um committee amendment number five I would like to move that again in response um to the constituents in my area in emails that we have all received um a lot of people are concerned about a lesser Kitchen in a conversion um I you know we're always talking about equality and I think having a lesser kitchen isn't always um the best they should have what does that gets expensive so you need a bigger refrigerator to be able to purchase the good fresh fruits and vegetables meats and cook at home so again I would ask urge your support we do need a second we have a motion any second okay for a lack of a second let's go to Madam chair I'd like to make one additional comment this amendment is duplicated in the next bill both bills talked about hotel conversions and so the action that was just taken on Amendment A6 that same action should be taken on Amendment A1 in the next bill but I will remind you all of that when we get there thank you all right on to a seven um uh either the sponsors want to make a motion on that councilor Benton yes I'll move this in just a point of clarification I believe this is we're still at uh at uh Amendment four six Madam chair counselor Benton this is now Amendment A6 when amendments fail for lack of a second they still get an assigned committee amendment number so what do we do on number one was that just that that we said that we would keep it in the queue yeah Madam chair counselor Benton that one was not formally moved okay sorry for the my confusion on that um yeah so uh so I've moved this amendment whatever it is A7 A6 uh it's A7 in our packet and it's uh Amendment Six okay thank you um okay we have a motion and a second any conversation um counselor Britain um I just have one thing that's been nagging at me with regard to this whole issue and I I respect countries grab talking about having fair and equal facilities for everyone and I think there's some real truth to that I do think that these kitchen appliances are really evolving fairly rapidly with the induction cooktop and um but to me there's something about that you're saying that if I've got a countertop appliance that may or may not stay there uh and the next the next tenant may or may not have that Appliance things that aren't built in tend to disappear in rental housing and I'm wondering I'll just ask staff planning staff and our own staff but specifically since this came from an Administration would it be objectionable to say a built-in Appliance because what we you know this has always nagged at me about the definition of kitchen in in the whole zoning codes and the old ones too is that the requirement for a stove is sort of becoming an outmoded thing anyway and should we even be should we be considering options across the board as to what constitutes a kitchen um I'm remodeling a vacation home and I'm putting in a built-in cooktop not putting in an oven because it's it's going to be for just two people and we don't anticipate needing enough it but at the same time we can buy off the shelf if we choose to these air fryers that are you know basically an oven essentially that is a portable device I don't I don't know whether they make those as a built-in or not but I know that as far as the cooktop goes and the induction type thing it would seem like we might want to add the words built in and I'm not necessarily proposing to make that Amendment now I think you know I would like to move forward with this amendment if there's support for it but I think it's something we ought to be considering and I just wanted to put that out there for the planning department for either response now or for further discussion director Varela thank you and chairwoman people corn and counselor Benton I think that that's an interesting proposition however stoves and ranges are easily removable those those are not built in what I have found as a person who's been in the in the construction business for decades now is that the problems with built-in such as a built-in uh microwave for example or the cooktop that you're talking about is when those give out when they eventually go kaput getting them out and replacing them with something that fits in that same space is much more expensive and difficult than simply replacing for example a microwave or an air fryer that's a portable one that you bring and plug in or in this case the induction cooktop and so I think that the built-ins don't guarantee anything other than a hassle Factor when they eventually give out essentially though this will be requiring the owner of of the unit to always be providing this these curves this list of options yes yes correct okay thanks something that I just thought you know we had to clear the air on but thanks hi I'd like to just say you know I I hear where councilor Britton's coming from but um from my point of view um it's really whether we want to make the developers spend upfront money to put something in that stays forever or whether we want to allow them some flexibility and costs so that we can get affordable units out to folks and if they do have to replace a uh you know A induction unit later I think that's really a the developer or the Builder's decision and I just want to say you know I hear a lot about this Equity issue and how it's wrong to have people in places that don't have full-size refrigerators and full-size stoves and you know what's really wrong is having someone live in an Arroyo what's really wrong is having someone living in a sidewalk on a tent in a tent I would much much rather be in a unit that doesn't have a full-size stove but does have a bathroom and does have a lock on the door so I think we just need to remember that not everyone is is going to be in a position where they can buy a house or rent a house that has those full-size units and I certainly hope everyone eventually gets there but this is way better than not having a place with a lock on the door and then I also just want to point out that for the first 30 years of my life I did not cook and I stored shoes in my stove and so you know we think I think we need to realize that particularly young people live life very differently than those of us up here and so you know if a young person just out of college who wants to have a place that they can actually afford um wants to to rent a place that does not have a full-size refrigerator or a full-size stove I think that we should give them that opportunity because we've heard from enough young people today that they're having a rough time finding housing and that's the point of this change to the idea all right we have a motion and a second um all those in favor raise your hand say yes yes anybody opposed okay got that one right five to zero and we will move on to A8 which is committee amendment number seven Madam chair thank you yes Amendment A8 relates to building Heights I am going to scroll back up to the table that likely made you cross your eyes earlier what that what amendment A8 does is three things it proposes to implement the changes in this table as opposed to unlimited Building height for certain multi-family development it proposes to Institute the new neighborhood Edge as displayed in this slide and it does a third thing um that is not that was not recommended by the epcs the new ideas ntpc which would be to not allow any building hype bonuses and character protection overlay zones historic protection overlay zones and view protection overlay zones in some instances those overlay zones regulate height on their own in other instances they defer to kind of what the base Ido says for for Building height allowances is this would make sure that Building height bonuses as they are as they would be allowed in this table so 12 to 24 to 36 feet would not happen in those overlay zones thank you Miss Schultz any questions would the sponsors like to make a motion I'll move Committee Member number seven we have a motion and a second on A8 which is committee amendment number seven uh any further conversation all right all those in favor raise your hand and say yes anybody opposed and again unanimous on that so we will move on to a 9 which is committee amendment number eight and this again to miss Schultz Madam chair Amendment A9 responds to the EPC conditions about sections five and six in the bill related to parking the EPC recommended that those sections just be stricken in their entirety and that parking um not change as a part of this bill what A9 does is it proposes to amend Section 5 of the bill which relates to parking reductions for affordable housing but continue to strike section 6 of the bill which was a blanket 75 reduction for multi-family housing the change proposed to section 5 would say that in urban centers activity centers Main Street corridors and major Transit corridors if there is a multi-family development project where 20 percent of the unit at least 20 percent of the units are Workforce housing in perpetuity that that development could have a 20 parking reduction seeing no conversation would the sponsors like to make a motion uh Madam chair I'll move uh committee amendment number eight and a second all right we have a motion and a second no further discussion um those in favor of A9 which is committee amendment number eight raise your hand and say yes yes anybody opposed unanimous we will move on to a 10 Miss Schultz Madam chair this amendment A-10 also responds to the parking segments of the bill and proposes to reduce the parking requirement for multi-family development by 30 percent what's shown on the slide here is what those parking ratios would look like if this amendment were to pass so this amendment isn't related to affordable housing or Workforce housing but all multi-family development regardless of cost counselor Jones I move approval of A9 18 I'm sorry I will second that whichever one it is now any conversation I'll just say you know this is mine and I just want to say you know this is to me this is a really kind of no-nonsense um idea it's a minimum we're lowering the minimums you can certainly do more if you're a developer and you and you're doing a project and you think you need more that is fine but for projects that are near you know Transit lines near places where you can work live and play at the same place it makes very little sense for me to continue to have parking minimums that are that are pretty large so with that I'd just urge your support any further discussion we have a motion in a second all those in favor of A10 which is committee amendment number nine raise your hand and say yes yes any opposed all right unanimous on that as well so with that we are going to move to um item number B on our Item B on the agenda 070 Madam chair um oh 2254 needs to be moved as amended I'm going to move a deferral for o54 to the April 26th lups hearing um got a second all those in favor yes yes anybody opposed okay thank you for that reminder Michelle's okay now we're going to move to b077. thank you madam chair um I'm going to get my screen shared give me just a moment okay oh 2277 is the fourth and final component of the 2022 Ideo annual update the text amendments to the Ido you just discussed in the previous Bill were very topic based and specifically related to housing the changes found in o2277 are much more General in nature they kind of touch all parts of the Ido and reflect changes collected by the planning department over the last year from members of the public neighborhood folks developers City staff counselors um since since last year's idio annual update I'm going to once again say the same disclaimer that I said at the beginning of the first bill which is there are three criteria that must be met in order for the council to adopt a text Amendment to the Ido the amendment must be consistent with the comprehensive plan it can't apply to only one lot or a project and it needs to promote the public health safety and Welfare so as you're considering the changes tonight in o77 those are the three criteria that you should be keeping in mind um the I'm going to outline the public process for 0.77 which was pretty similar to the public process for oh 54. in October of 2022 prior to submitting any proposed changes to the EPC planning department staff held two public meetings um these were kind of q a sessions where the planning department said here's what we're thinking about submitting to the EPC tell us what you think about these changes and it was pretty pretty conversational again on December 1st the EPC held a study session on the changes found within this spreadsheet distinct from the changes in the last bill public comment again was not taken at that meeting study sessions are really for the EPC Commissioners to understand the contents the public could view those study sessions they just could not participate and again the EPC held two meetings on this matter one on December 8th and one on January 19th of this year public testimony was taken at both of those hearings 0.77 contains about 50 changes again requested by neighbors developers staff certain council members and members of the administration changes are not topic specific like the previous bill was they they um cover a variety of topics and attached to this bill is in exhibit a which is a version of the Ido that incorporates all of the changes that EPC recommended this document is available on the abcd-zone.com website where you can view the Ido and anywhere that you see red text that is a proposed change that this Council would consider approving tonight I'm going to cover just a couple of topics that the EPC spent the bulk of their discussion on there were many things in the spreadsheet submitted in December that the EPC didn't have any conversation about so I don't think it's worth spending the time to talk about those but for the ones that either were recommended for denial by the EPC or recommended for approval what changes I'm going to highlight those today um the first one is related to non-residential conversions this was a request from counselor grout to have that same conversation we just had about our these conversions appropriate when the Lesser kitchen requirements is there her proposal was to strike that um in its entirety the EPC recommended denial of that and later in the amendment packet for this bill you will see some a similar amendment to what we discussed in o54 to again strike the allowance for a lesser kitchen associated with these conversions the second topic of discussion and probably the most discussed topic by the EPC related to wall and fence height this was a request by the administration to increase the a lot the allowed wall and fence height in a front yard setback the EPC recommended denial of this change and did not offer an alternative so there is I've been getting quite a few calls about this today so I'll make it clear there is there is no change proposed to walls and fences at this Committee hearing tonight um there was discussion about the proposed demolition review outside of a historic historic preservation overlay Zone um to require demolition review for all structures that are over 50 years old the EPC had quite a bit of discussion on this um the way that demolition review works today is that structures go through review by the historic preservation staff at the planning department if they are within a historically mapped area these are specific mapped areas in the Ido there's five of them if someone wants to demolish a building within one of those areas the historic staff has an opportunity to weigh in on that first The Proposal before the EPC in December and January would extend that to all structures that are 50 years or older within the city the EPC did end up recommending that that change be approved with some tweaks there are some very explicit timelines in the Ido about how that demolition review occurs for example once a demolition permit is received by the city the historic preservation officer prior to the epc's recommendation would have 15 days to review that application to determine if it needed additional review the EPC went on to remove reduce that to five days they made changes along that nature to kind of reduce the overall timeline in which that that review would occur responding to concerns that this additional review for all of these buildings over 50 years would take too much time there is an amendment later on in the packet that responds to this particular topic there was a proposed change from councilor Benton to implement parking maximums for some areas of the city not not city-wide but some areas the EPC did end up recommending approval of that that request with some minor changes related to the calculation for those parking maximums there are no further changes proposed as a part of this this lapse hearing there was a request from counselor Jones to delete certain landscape buffer requirements the Ido currently has two landscape buffer tables in the Ido one of them talks about the use of the property if you have an industrial use near a residential use you've got a buffer X feet and a second one that talks about if you are developing within an area of change and you are next to an area of consistency then there's another landscape buffer requirement The Proposal from counselor Jones was to delete that second table as duplicative as there wasn't a need to regulate landscape buffers in two different ways we should just do it one way the EPC recommended denial of that particular proposal but did make some pretty significant tweaks to the rest of the landscape buffer section to clarify when those buffers are applicable and which ones are applicable there was a proposal to tweak the sensitive land section of the Ido there is a provision in the Ido today that says if you have what's called a large stand of mature trees and you are coming in for a site plan that you have to avoid that large stand of mature trees which I'm gonna try and remember this off the top of my head I believe is a stand of five trees with a trunk diameter of of 16 inches that constitutes a large stand of mature trees The Proposal before EPC was to change that large stand of mature trees to a single tree with a trunk diameter of eight inches so instead of having five trees at 16 inches each if you had a single tree that was eight inches that would prompt the sensitive lands analysis the EPC heard public testimony on this that the proposal wasn't quite there yet that that seemed like a big leap for review and recommended denial there is nothing in tonight's packet that proposes to bring that back and oh no I'm going backwards um okay yeah Madam chair that concludes my review of that EPC hearing there are four sorry there are six amendments before you tonight for 0.77 four of which were published last week two of which are new this week and I would be happy to stand for any questions on what I just presented or we can dive into the amendments are there any questions on the bill seeing none let's go to the Amendments Madam chair um I would advise actually we do public comment first oh and we also need to move the bill would the sponsors like to make a motion I will I will move uh oh 23 77. good emotion and a second and now we can go to public comment thank you madam chair our first speaker is Evelyn feltner followed by Jane Beckley Hotel conversion emphasis but we think it will give temporary housing I can imagine someone who finds that they have limited facilities in these to be looking for a permanent place we would rather the city spend its money incentivizing developers or negotiating with Developers for percentages of affordable apartments I noticed that in November of 22 there were over 4 000 building permits issued and 35 percent of them were for multi-family or multi-unit buildings so it seems the department building is happening and if the city could spend time and effort to improve the number of apartment buildings that would provide more permanent housing and if it could negotiate percentages of those apartments to be affordable it would also improve the supply of affordable housing which as I have said before adus will really not thank you thank you Jane Beckley followed by Diego Lopez Madam chair counselors thank you [Music] so just three brief things regarding A2 the demolition review I would ask that that be opposed I live on Albuquerque's west side and while I appreciate that there's not any historic zones there I really believe there are historic structures and areas where um that have played a significant role in the story of Albuquerque so I would like to return to the EPC proposal um I am not opposed to increasing or changing commercial uh parking requirements but I am a little concerned or question the incentivizing commercial development um when I hear repeatedly that Albuquerque has a lot of commercial development unless this is targeted to underserved areas where we really need more commercial development and finally I would like to say that I'm grateful that increased front yard wall Heights did not successfully Rise From the Ashes and are not in fact in this year's idea thank you so much Diego Lopez followed by Rhiannon Samuel Rhiannon and Samuel followed by Will Gleason hello Madam chair and members of the committee Rhiannon Samuel again with Nayak the commercial real estate Development Association I really appreciate all your time this evening I see all of our eyes starting to droop but you're doing the the great work here and I really appreciate it I want to talk about a few items mainly on the Amendments that you're considering the first one non-residential conversions I already spoke that were in opposition to this we want to see this is an Avenue to put more residential units onto the market so we hope that we keep we hope that you keep your vote consistent and vote against that Amendment on the demolition review I really want to thank councilor Jones for taking a common sense compromise position on it we brought our concern around the intricacies of what that could do but what she did is she took a look at what are the overlay zones that are already protecting areas that should be protected and we think that's more than reasonable and we can work with it the final thing that I'd like to touch on although it's not necessarily like in your amendments now it was something recommended by the EPC it's been mentioned this evening already that parking maximums are trouble troubling for us to do because we think that the market should dictate how many parking spaces something should need and minimums are great fine we can work with that maximums are where the rub starts to happen so thank you so much for all of your time and attention this evening and please let me know if you have any questions will Gleason followed by Renee Horvath uh good evening again I'll keep it brief mostly I'm here just to speak in support of A3 the reduction in parking requirements I think the lower the better so support that and um and glad to see A1 go down demolition review I agree with the comments that Rhiannon just made and I really don't know about preliminary plots but I'll leave that to ramble Hannah so thank you Renee Horvath followed by Patricia Wilson on Zoom uh good evening again um okay I think I was at that EPC hearing and uh yes the walls was a big issue because people want to maintain the character of their neighborhoods and if anybody wanted a taller wall they can go through a process to do so but uh I think the EPC agreed let's just keep the existing language that we have secondly on demolition of buildings I I really enjoy the historic buildings that we have here in Albuquerque and not all of them may be on the historic register so I think we should allow them to continue to look at all those buildings to make sure we don't tear down something that we will later regret so uh I guess there's an amendment to undo that but I think we need to keep the landmarks Committee just to take a look see do we want to save this or not and give them a chance to do so um and then um parking I think it was related to Old Town and some other areas just I've seen a newspaper article that there was concerns about the shopkeepers around Old Town not having enough parking in the area and it affects their business so I would not want to um you know reduce parking in that area because it's such a popular area for Albuquerque so I think maintained enough parking for them so they can function so those are the three things Patricia Wilson followed by Peter kalitzis well I I was one of those phone calls that Miss Schultz was referring to this afternoon so I I won't take time to ask you to follow the epc's option about walls and fences to delete the amendment in its entirety with encroachments I support the epc's option one approve the change as proposed with the addition of bay windows this will only allow balconies and bay windows to encroach into the front yard option two which would also allow the encroachments on the street side but not the interior side would also be acceptable um my major concern has to do with understanding and analyzing all of the city-wide amendments one of the things Miss Schultz and I talked about was how to review all this and to do it thoroughly you would have to have three documents side by side the original 13-page spreadsheet of the 49 amendments the 400 plus page EPC notice of decision with its findings and conditions for recommendation of approval and the 600 plus page Redline draft which currently has no search feature that would allow you to ask it to find all the red text and then just hit next to skim through the entire Ido to find the red lines now there's no guarantee that something that EPC recommended Denial on won't rear its head in a floor Amendment in general the Ido annual update process needs to provide metrics to differentiate between textual and substantive zone changes thanks so much Peter kalitzis followed by Julie dryke hello um these comments augment Parkland Hills neighborhood associations uh submitted comments uh one is again we support uh epc's recommendation for the second year in a row not to permit the change of the three foot Wall height the second regarding uh EV parking reduction parking items 14 16 17 18 in commercial parking we support epc's opposition is currently developers have the opportunity to reduce by parking by up to 50 percent for residential as this could harm residents for decades because of lack of parking for residential and Commercial we request formal research as to the possibility possible benefits and costs that would result before just approving it um regarding the remand hearings uh these should be carefully reviewed by the council because this could actually reduce the council's currently delegated authority to the luhome uh because the chain would do it from what they come he is currently allowed to do uh overnight shelter change uh request clarification as this um prevents hotels from needing conditional use requirements the planning Department's explanation revises the definition so that does not overlap with the hotel that happens to charge substantially lessened Market rates this appears to intend to permissively allow hotels as homeless shelters throughout the city and councilor grout you know the hotel that was brought up in your area that's a concern whether it's a homeless shelter versus Apartments um thank you for your consideration now from my personal okay that's it thank you bye Julie dryke followed by Rosemary Blanchard oh Julie let me uh okay now you should be able to start your video you um thanks again for everybody hanging in there um I wanted even though you've talked about the conversions in the kitchen so I feel passionately about this and there's been a lot of discussion about affordability of Apartments I think that that is somewhat in conflict with what you're saying about kitchens families who are on WIC get free fruits and vegetables but if they don't have a place to store them those go to waste if a family can't cook a large pot of stew and have a place to store it and freeze it for the next week that food goes to waste our family's habit is to shop for items on sale because that's the way that we were raised so that our meals are affordable to this day and I encourage you to give that sensitive and good thought to who we are trying to serve and help stretch their dollar to make their dollars go farther when they're living in an affordable house housing and how they make their meals thank you for your consideration Rosemary Blanchard followed by Richard Schaefer okay thank you very much I uh had thought my comments were basically on the on the earlier resolution so I won't take a lot of your time here uh thank you very much for the consideration that you're giving to increasing the housing for those who most needed in our city I would agree with Mr Ricky that uh not to rule out a kitchen that's less than a Kitchen but to look at even the accommodations that we're making for the most emergency kind of housing so that it will be livable and so that it will be okay to raise children in and so that it will make work with the uh the kinds of uh public support and food support that families have I've worked with a lot of food programs for Hungry families and yes cooking those beans so they'll last a week or two is a big deal so thank you very much I as long as this moves forward in order to not only increase the amount of housing but increase the availability of housing for those in our city that need it the most you are in the right direction there'll be some glitches but it's the right direction thank you Richard Shaffer um I'm just going to make a general comment and that is that um be careful what you wish for you folks seem to want to break zoning zoning by and large is uh what over 60 percent of your Albuquerque residents have invested made their major investment in you can drive them out if you want you might be able to do that but be careful what kind of City you get that's all thank you Madam chair that concludes public comments for 0.77 thank you Mr Moya all right let's jump into the amendment packet we have six amendments to consider and I will go to Amendment A1 um we just need to repeat for the record on this one is that correct Michelle Madam chair yes either that motion needs to be repeated or the amendment could just not be moved the result would be the same I will leave that up to the sponsor feel free to move committee A1 committee Amendment one we have a motion do we have a second for a lack of second that fails all right moving on to Amendment A2 demolition review Miss Schultz Madam chair Amendment A2 proposes to amend the EPC recommendation that came to the council related to demolition review today demolition review applies in five mapped areas within the city of structures are proposed to be demolished if a permit if a demolition permit is pulled then the historic preservation officer has purview to review that demolition permit and potentially recommend that that demolition be considered by the landmarks Commission what got recommended by the EPC was that instead of that review happening only in those five small mapped areas that all structures that are at least 50 years old would receive that demolition review by the historic preservation officer and then potentially by the landmarks commission if the historic preservation officer determines that's appropriate what's proposed in Amendment A2 is a little bit more of a Nuance so instead of all structures that are at least 50 years old it would be all structures that are listed on the state and or National Historic register or a structure that is determined to be a contributing structure in a state or national registered District so Amendment A2 proposes to reduce the scope in which demolition review would be applicable councilor Benton uh and what are the what are the um the following small areas are these the ones listed in the explanation um Madame there's an exhibit that I couldn't open Madam chair counselor Benson um I can pull up my audio to tell you what those five small mapped areas are if you give me just a moment and while you're doing that I'll ask the administration where they stand on this one on this amendment uh is the administration have a position one way or another on this amendment I know that what you put forth was different so can you give us a moment we'll get back to you thank you Madam chair councilor Benton in the meantime those five areas that get demolition review today are neon signs along Central Avenue the downtown small mapped area the downtown neighborhood area East downtown and the Nob Hill slash Highland small area all right thank you um Madam chairman councilor Benton the administration supports the amendment thank you all right I um I I do have just a statement I support the amendment but I I do agree with um Miss Horvath who said you know we do have a lot of buildings of historical significance in this city and I'm not sure that they're the buildings that were built in 1972 they were you know not particularly always beautiful um but we do have a lot of buildings that are 75 80 100 years old and so um in addition to this amendment I'm working with staff to think through a way that we can add an additional level for those really historic homes while allowing you know the 50-year Mark is is it opens up a lot um and so I'm supportive of this but I will also be bringing something that might take another step at just those those super old historical buildings so just so everybody knows that's coming with uh any more conversation all right we um do we have a motion yeah all right we have a motion and a second all those in favor of amendment A2 raise your hand say yes yes any opposed threes four zero we'll move on to A3 commercial parking requirements Madam chair um Amendment A3 proposes to reduce parking requirements for certain commercial uses by 30 percent those particular land uses are General retail grocery stores restaurants nightclubs and tap rooms or tasting rooms thank you Miss Schultz and just as a background on this one you know this is not a maximum this is a minimum and we're saying that we believe that developers have the smarts to know if they need more parking or not and particularly in restaurants nightclubs tap rooms tasting rooms not really sure we should be encouraging people to drive there so with that I would urge your support on this I will move Amendment A3 okay I've got a motion and a second seeing no discussion all those in favor raise your hand and say yes yes anyone opposed all right 4-0 moving on to A4 Madam chair um A4 proposes to allow a preliminary plaque to be an appealable decision in the Ido today there are preliminary plots and there are final plats and generally the Ido says that only final decisions are appealable however and this is pretty specific to preliminary plots at the preliminary stage that's when everything happens that's when infrastructure gets approved and then needs to be paid for and so if someone wanted to approve a preliminary a plot at all it should happen at the preliminary stage and not the final stage before a property owner has invested a bunch of money in the infrastructure um councilor Benton all right we have a motion and a second any conversation councilor Benton yeah just just to reiterate um this is really is uh Community groups and earlier cracked at any given issue and um and avoids a lot of effort by everyone both both Advocates and uh developers uh that that something may not be be acceptable that that we would learn at an earlier stage so uh that's what this does if I if I'm summarizing correctly Madam president counselor Benton that's exactly correct thanks I think it's good legislation urge your support all right all those in favor raise your hand say yes yes any opposed or zero we will move on to um A5 initials Madam president Amendment A5 committee Amendment 5 proposes to allow cannabis retail to occur within 300 feet of a child day care facility or a school with a conditional use approval today this is prohibited so the conditional use approval would require notification to nearby Property Owners applicable neighborhood associations and a public Hearing in front of the zoning hearing examiner with a required justification of about six criteria to to prove how the request is appropriate won't cause harm on the surrounding area Etc foreign move A5 second conversation questions counselor Jones thank you I I realize that cannabis is absolutely legal but I don't believe we have tobacco stores near our elementary schools either do we which is also legal Madam chair counselor Jones I don't believe there's a distant separation requirement between nicotine retail and schools but I could fact check that pretty quickly thank you and liquor stores are not you can't sell liquor close to within this distance from a school also Mountain Tree School Madam chair counselor Jones there's not a land use requirement that liquor can't be near a school or a daycare but there is a waiver process through the liquor licensure that says that you cannot get a liquor license within 300 feet of a school or daycare but you can get that waived through the liquor hearing officer thank you Madam chair counselor Jones there is no distance separation between nicotine retail and these and child day care or schools thank you counselor grout Madam chair thank you um why do we need them to be so close to a school or a daycare I will let Ms Schultz answer but I will give my quick answer first which is I don't think we need them to be there I think that this is making it consistent with other types of products like we heard there's no limitation on Tobacco and for um for alcohol you you have to get you have to do a waiver and this is saying that you would have to do a process to have cannabis near school so I think it's really just keeping it consistent and again as councilor Jones said cannabis is legal and of course no children are allowed in Cannabis stores can that children are not allowed to purchase cannabis that is not going to change but making this consistent with other products was my goal and I'll let Ms Schultz give further information Madam chair the justification that you just described is as I understand it from the sponsors of this amendment you um one final comment I think there's a cannabis store on every corner we don't need anymore did you know that there are more can't somebody told me there are more cannabis facilities than there are Starbucks and McDonald's combined in our state that's a lot I would like to fact check that um I have not heard that but but somebody told me that but somebody told you so it must be talking about somebody somebody told me did we get did you have anything else I saw you turning on your mic Madam chair the only um thing I would add to council grout's comments is that there's an existing prohibition on cannabis retail within 600 feet of another facility um talking about the nature of them being just directly next to each other unless you go through the conditional use process so there's some Protections in place for that as well right I feel like we have almost as many Cannabis stores as we do payday loans and I'm way more concerned about the Payday Loan places than I am about Canada so um did I see you no councilor Jones thank you I understand this is legal ill I understand there's no problem with it but I have a problem with it so I can't support it thank you I'll close if you'd like or you go for it uh yeah I would just say that the conditional use process is not the same as the liquor waiver process but it's very similar in the sense that it is an open public process where there are and he can kind of have concerns that that could be raised would have a venue Madam chair councilor Benton I might argue that the conditional use process is actually a lot more intense than the liquor and the waiver process okay um given the required notification and the public hearing and the application fees Etc okay we have a motion in a second all those in favor say yes yes all those opposed um all right two to two so it fails Madam chair correct all right thank you and let's move on to A6 Madam chair A6 proposes to create a new process called site plan Dash Council today in the Ido there are two review bodies for site plans there's administrative review which is just planning staff and then and there is the Environmental Planning Commission this amendment relates specifically to development requests within major public open space major public open space are mapped areas within the comprehensive plan and this amendment would require that development occurring within those major public open space areas be finally reviewed by the city council today depending on kind of the intensity of what development is occurring in that major public open space some in some instances it would be administrative review a site plan admin in other instances it would go up to the EPC for review through a site plan EPC both of those instances would would instead turn into a site plan Dash Council where the environmental Planning Commission would take a first review at any site plan for development within major public open space and then that site plan would come up to the full city council for review and approval thank you Miss Schultz um so let me just give a little background on this um you know my my office has been flooded with concern over development in open space around the city and um I I'm pretty sure other counselors have also been flooded with those concerns and so this is our take at trying to make sure that before development happens on our major open space that really impacts all the people in Albuquerque who use our open space before that happens it would come to the council because right now the concerns that I'm being you know kind of inundated with I I literally have no impact on those projects as it stands now so that's the background on this um did I see your hand up okay yes councilman yeah I wanted to maybe get a clarification from staff perhaps would this apply to an existing structure in a newly designated open space such as Candelaria farms for instance which has existing structures in place they that would not trigger a this requirement or trigger the the this requirement do we have somebody that wants to answer my understanding that existing structures would not be um included in this because it would be something that was going to be proposed new that needed a site review and a site um plan approval but I'll defer to folks that might have a better answer we're getting it okay Madam chair counselor Benson if I understand your question correctly if there's renovation of an existing structure or facility where that footprint isn't changing that wouldn't rise to the level of a site plan review and your example of Candelaria Farms if they were um renovating an existing structure they would not have to go through a site plan Dash Council process right because I know we're talking about councilor grout's District a that type of facility where they're going to reuse the intention is to reuse an existing structure or to make use of that existing structure I thought the similar kind of situation A Candelaria Farms where there there is actually a an older building there that's tended to remain thank you councilor Grant thank you madam chair so we would at our long Council meetings that we already have we're going to make them longer we're gonna do counselor grad I think that is the the work of the that the people have asked us to do so yes we will make them even longer because I love spending time with you okay thank you director Varela oh I'm sorry uh Madam chairman um I think director Simon would like to speak to the amendment if that'd be okay sure director Simon come on down uh good evening Madam chair members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to uh give a few comments from the administration and and my department about the uh proposed amendment uh the first thing I would say is that you know I know the sponsors of this amendment and the other counselors here tonight on the committee are extremely strong supporters of open space and I thank you for that and uh I know typically your uh your motivations are to try to help and and improve and and all those things so I I always um look on the positive side uh of your you know the best intentions that you have so again I want to really thank you for the support of the program um the second thing I want to say is that I will speak maybe on behalf of of some folks who are not here tonight so the ordinance is on the books oh 15 in particular 63 is one of our open space ordinances that ordinance uh has duties responsibilities and powers for the open space Advisory Board again a very you know important um volunteer citizen group that they actually have a few more Powers than normal um advisory uh entities for the city we have a lot of them the open space board has a little bit more elevated role and responsibilities and authorities and the ordinance uh for the board of course says that one of their duties responsibilities and Powers is to advise the EPC the mayor and the city council as to an appropriate City Open Space Program which advice shall include basic policies on the management of City open space and also proposals regarding extraordinary facilities which this amendment goes to so I would just say again on on behalf of the open space Advisory Board who I do not believe was provided a prior uh knowledge of this amendment today or the ability to kind of Thoroughly review it through through their own processes either individually as a or as a group that I think they they deserve that opportunity I feel like um we've had a couple instances over the last year in fact where haven't always done that I think we should make it kind of a practice to respect the open space Advisory Board and and give them that opportunity otherwise I think well I will not speak for every one of them they could well um be upset about that um I don't know they may not be but um I know they take their responsibilities and role for the city very seriously and I respect their contributions to the city too so in that Spirit I'm speaking on behalf of them and and their process so that's one reason I feel like uh maybe acting on the amendment tonight may be uh not the the smartest move in the scheduling aspect of this um now with you know with respect to the the content of the amendment again I totally understand uh Madam chair you know where you're coming from I think you mentioned that uh you've heard from citizens are from around the city about development all over open space I really think this boils down to one situation mostly that perhaps has been driving that feedback that you're getting so you know in respect to that one situation I think that there's uh always an opportunity to craft specifics for one situation I know you're looking at a kind of a an amendment here that would also kind of create an overall process for future situations or situations we do not imagine yet or things like that I also get that but I want to be clear I think that this is really arising from one situation which I think has been um somewhat misunderstood and and incorrectly characterized as to what the open space division is even talking about because we haven't even made a formal proposal for the particular development I think that's at the root of your concern with respect to the amendment itself uh you know you've referenced um two definitions of projects or facilities that might be covered by a us a council site plan review process is the look at those two definitions they they're not quite identical uh there's some overlap but some differences there that could be problematic in the uh interpretation and implementation of the amendment as well so I think we we probably should take a closer look at that and while every and there is a pretty robust process for reviewing extraordinary facilities I sat on the open space Advisory Board and chaired it in the early 2000s and I took that role very seriously and the extraordinary facilities range under the definition from everything from a picnic bench up to a struck a large structure and I do think um you're talking about sick probably circumstances in which if it didn't rise to the EPC it wouldn't rise to the council right I think that's your intent but there's a pretty broad range of things I think it would be well I may have my opinions about the efficacy of what you're proposing I do think it would probably be even more problematic if you've got too many of these uh Council review responsibilities that in I think all the work you do is important in the time you take is important but I do not think the intention of the extraordinary facilities Provisions in our facility plan really had you in the role of arbiter over benches and picnic tables and even medium-sized shade structures and things like that now you know when it comes to a large structure look that's a big deal we don't really have very many of them in open space so again that's one of the reasons why I feel like if we're talking about one particular kind of development a structure a building that's producing some angst right there are ways to either isolate a council review process just about that structure or use some of the existing reviews that regard permissive uses in open space and believe you me anything that would rise to the level of a large structure of any kind is a permissive use and it has to go through all these steps of review open space Advisory Board public hearings EPC public hearings and including sometimes neighborhood negotiation or or listening sessions all those things have to happen and if a if an extraordinary facility is part of a a resource management plan it automatically comes to council so in the case for example uh councilor Benton when we we worked together on the candelarian Nature Preserve plan that had a lot in it you know some extraordinary facilities as well but it was embedded in a resource management plan and both through the policies in the major uh open space plan facilities plan and the extra resolution that you passed uh that decision making did rise to council right and that was a good thing but it was a specifically tailored uh circumstance there were also a lot of protections additional overlays on protection in the Foothills where I think you know the the rub has been lately uh and so I would just say I think all that speaks to the fact that um we could take some additional time to look at your objective make sure an amendment if you're going to propose it is squared give some of the important other players um their deserved opportunity to give you feedback and take some time to to look at your proposal thank you director Simon um so let me just respond a couple of things there um you know I definitely agree with you that that we don't want um you know too much additional review by City Council on small things but I do I do think with all my heart that protecting our open space is a really important thing and I'm willing to put in as much time as possible as needed to do that and I do agree that also this is of over one situation but that situation has has created a lot of fear in the community and they want to know that there are some safeguards and I think this is our first draft at trying to find some safeguards for them um I do also agree that we should have we should send this through the open space Advisory Board it's not my intention to actually move this tonight but as soon as it was finished I wanted to get it in the packets and get it out to the public so that we can have those conversations around what's what can be tweaked in this to make it more effective um but I do think it's time that we do something and so I will be pushing that but I look forward to talking to you over the next two weeks to figure out what that what changes need to be made here to make this actually effective and I should defer to my co-sponsor to make sure that's an okay plan all right well thank you madam chair members and you know we I again take it in the spirit in which you've offered it um and we look forward to having those conversations thank you and thank you for staying so late tonight we appreciate you all right so we're not moving that last one so we are on oh nope I need to move a deferral of um 0.77 as amended until April 26th lap searing seconded all those in favor yes anybody opposed all right we'll see you back here on the 26th for the next round now we're going to move on to agenda item C which is r92 and approving the manual Metropolitan Redevelopment area plan I move a due pass seconded by counselor grout any conversation questions I know that um Miss Morris was interested in talking to us but I wonder if she's oh is it is it Jackie Madam chair we do have Miss Fishman available to give a presentation to the Council on this matter okay we will turn it over to miss Fishman thanks for being here so late thank you um this is Jackie Fishman I'm I'm here on Zoom um foreign I think Julian has my presentation I'll try to be as quick as as possible with it so Julian if you can start that that would be great um so thank you all for giving me this opportunity to speak to you tonight not I want to start by first thanking Petra Morris for her efforts on this plan also Council fablecorn and counselor Gibson who started this whole idea and then to acknowledge the contributions to the planning effort by the Mr agency the planning department family and Community Services APD Community safety department Transit Solid Waste environmental health DMD amafka as well as the business owners that have come to all our meetings in the last couple years and are committed to working with the city to improve this area and bring back the Vitality that Midtown and Menaul Boulevard once had go ahead to the next slide okay so um for those of you that aren't aware of our process we started it a couple years ago this is a three three phase project uh the phase one study covered a large area bounded by Candelaria to the north I-40 to the South San Mateo to the East and I-25 to the West the phase one report identified and recommended that a sub-area be designated as an MR and the report was approved by City Council in November of of 2021 our phase two project involved creating a designation report for the Mr area and that was approved by City Council in April of last year phase three is what we're in right now it involved creating the Mr area plan which was recommended for approval by the ADC uh two months ago in February go ahead so this slide simply shows our our Mr area it's bounded by I-25 to the West the north diversion channel to the east Phoenix to the north and I-40 to the South go ahead um I won't read this but um just to tell you that we do have a vision statement in the Mr plan along with goals that uh we um that synthesize and describe what the plan is trying to achieve in this area in the future go ahead there are five chapters in the Mr plan it includes an executive summary an area profile a business profile recommendations and an action plan and then project financing and funding sources what's on my screen right now is a copy of the action plan it includes 22 actions that are divided into three categories which include five opportunities site slash Redevelopment projects 11 infrastructure and transportation projects and six support actions and I I will very very briefly go through those go ahead so uh this this first slide here is um opportunity site number one it's comprised of of seven mostly vacant Parcels that total about 8.6 Acres so it's a one of the larger sites in the Mr area um it's under single ownership and um the property owner who may or may not be on the call tonight he's been planning to develop the property in phases including retail along manal a bike up a coffee Brewery and bike store and a Park area for events adjacent to the north diversion Channel and then Workforce multi Workforce multi-family housing units in town home style apartment units go ahead our next opportunity site is is number two it's a series of six Parcels which contain vacant buildings it's got the infamous Quonset hut right at the corner of University of manal it's got uh vacant building surface parking um you know it's it's in pretty bad shape and and looks really bad and it's at a a major entry to the the area so that's why we highlighted it our next slide um so opportunity site number three actually comprises three separate properties that were formerly restaurants and I'm sure you're all familiar with those uh Village Inn Little Anita's in The Range Cafe the the restaurant that's on the slide right now is is a former Village Inn it's on a relatively small uh parcel it's own nrlm um so so not not a great uh zoning uh for um promoting diversity and land uses go ahead our next uh part of opportunity site number three is the former Little Anita's it's right at the corner of University and Menaul it's been vacant for a very long time uh it's been fenced there's a lot of negative activity that goes on there it's also a small property it's it's got great visibility and access but NRC zoning next our third site is the former Range Cafe it's also on a relatively small site zoned NRC and like Little Anita's really attracts a lot of negative activity if you've driven by it like I do almost on a daily basis it's just getting worse and worse every every week let's go ahead um the Mr plan also includes hotel and motel conversions as a as an action item uh and using it to promote affordable housing it's an important element of the plan and we've we've talked uh several times with family and Community Services about it there's a lot of motel rooms in in this area which my next slide will will show a total of 1500 more than 1500 rooms in just the Mr area I'm sure you're familiar with the Crown Plaza between the Crowne Plaza and the quirky hotel that that is about 450 rooms and that's the largest hotel complex in Albuquerque okay go ahead um a really important element to the Mr plan is increasing Public Safety I know you've you've heard uh from some of the business owners in the area uh at our other hearings crime is a huge concern it's contributing to disinvestment by the businesses here uh people are leaving they're not making Investments to improve their properties and so we have a series of recommendations on addressing Public Safety and we've also coordinated with uh um you know APD and other other uh Albuquerque Community safety department and and other departments on on these issues go ahead so Street lighting um we actually completed a lighting survey very informal me and my staff drove around one night to see where the the lighting issues were and so the plan identifies some very dark corridors in this area go ahead we also um identify uh traffic calming on Menaul as a action item it would be based on a traffic study but it's Menaul in this area is a very high speed Corridor it's 45 miles an hour it doesn't carry that much traffic so that even encourages higher speeds in this in this section so that's a recommendation in the plan go ahead uh Trail improvements um we are fortunate in this area to have two major Trail corridors the north diversion Channel Trail and the in budo trail these are major assets to the area and provide Strong place making lighting and design opportunities so we have a number of of uh recommendations on on that go ahead Transit has been a problem in the area uh the the bus stop that or the bus shelter that you see on my screen has been removed because of all the negative activity around it but I can tell you all the same activity is happening there with or without that shelter so I'm not totally convinced it was a good move but um we do recommend some action items related to to Transit and we've been working with the transit department on those as well okay next um we also identify uh working with nmdot and improving landscaping and wayfinding as you know this area was cut off from access to to I-25 a number of years ago and I think some of the business owners are still talking about that as being a negative uh action that that occurred in the area so we identified a couple um frontages along the the freeway that should be improved in you know working with DOT on on those improvements go ahead also building and sidewalk improvements um needless to say there there's a lot of need here um there's lots of sign of of distress and blight in the buildings and the parking lots the lack of landscaping sidewalks uh disconnected sidewalks there's just a lot of need here that the city could could certainly help with okay uh one of the things that we discovered late in the planning process is uh the Mr area has two old landfills we do think that um they are they have mostly construction debris in them we've talked a lot to Solid Waste about it and environmental health and we provide some recommendations um on how to address that issue one of the one of the landfills actually is under our big opportunity site that I talked about a few minutes ago okay go ahead zone map amendments the area is dominated by nrlm and NRC which aren't bad zones but there it's pretty limited the one brown area that you can see on my screen is mxm which introduces the possibility of of residential use in the area and so if there were any hotel or motel conversions they would probably be subject to um to zone change we want to see a little more diversity in zoning in here but obviously any zone change would be probably developer developer motivated okay go ahead the plan also calls for the creation of a little dog park um it's on land owned by Applebee's um but also a budding a mathca property a mafka is the one that that brought the idea uh to the city um we thought it was a good idea for the areas because there's so many hotels and people staying in this area we also included the concept of of including um more electric vehicle stations in this area as well and I I think it would be a a nice fit go ahead um the city and and I think it really was Council staff was approached by the friends of the orphan signs group regarding adding public art to the empty sign structures there's a a ton of them in this area and that that's something that we identify in the plan it would add a sort of a more fun playful aspect to the area and certainly would be more attractive than just empty sign structures go ahead foreign one of our important support actions in the plan is to continue dialoguing with the business owners they really have expressed Us in the last couple years how they feel neglected by the city um and so we talk about um you know letting letting the business owners know the city actually cares about the issues they're experiencing because because it's really you know there's a lot of bad stuff happening in the area and you know talking to them on on how the city can can assist them with whatever their issues are go ahead we also have a recommendation for um creating a small Visitor Center given the number of hotel and motel rooms in the area this would likely be an initiative from the private sector it came from uh I believe it was Joni Jones who recommended that from the Crown Plaza and and we thought that was a good idea go ahead last but not least our our final chapter in the plan is all about project financing and funding sources we've got a uh you know pretty robust list um we I always like to put these in our long-range plans um because it just gives people or the readers of of the plan uh some idea of what the range of of options are that they could pursue doesn't mean they'll they'll get all of the funding they need this way but uh we we like to have that as a aspect of our plans next slide oh just just more of the same project financing and funding sources with that I would stand ready for any questions you may have thank you Miss Fishman any questions okay we are going to move to public comment and I believe Miss Jones is is still here so come on down and I just want to say you know Jones has been amazing during this process she's been at every meeting and you can see it's 9 30 on a Wednesday and she's still here she is the biggest fan of this MF of this MRA and I'm really glad to get to work with her I uh began working at the uh in this at this property in 1993. um uh it was formerly the Hilton at the time and we have 450 guest rooms and we are the largest hotel complex in Albuquerque as Miss feeblecorn said we're situated on 14 acres which is one of the biggest plots of land in the MRA back in the day the neighborhood was very very guest forward uh with safe walkable restaurants public transportation for guests to travel to shopping and tourism venues the neighborhood which has declined over the years with boarded up buildings you see it all in the in the MRA and we've just been overrun with crime the MRI district has approximately 1500 hotel guest rooms which is 17 of the city's total occupancy when you look at where all of the uh the hotel guest rooms are situated um so we're looking forward to bringing our neighborhood back to being tourism-centric I mean we're it's time um and so therefore we're in favor of the MRA and I I certainly hope um we can get your vote so thank you thank you so much are there any other folks signed up Madam chair yes there's one more speaker Aaron Hill Madam chair looks like he left so that'll conclude it looks like there's someone else so sorry my name is Ron Bohannon and I didn't get a chance to sign up if I may go ahead Mr Bohannon thank you my name is Ron Bohannon I'm here representing Peter generis who owns the opportunity one site that's in there that has a landfill on the site we've finished the phase one on that site uh just a week ago and we're actually starting the characterization and identification of the limits of that landfill this MRA is critical to the Redevelopment of that area it provides a lot of opportunities for different fundings that would not otherwise be available for that property and I think it it's critical that this happens I would like to just leave you so we're in support of that I just would like to leave you with something that my dad has given me um bohannon's in this fam in the city have been working in this city for 75 years I'm the second generation racing third and fourth generation Engineers he said change is the only constant in life and this area has changed not for the good and I think the MRA will allow change to be the opportunity to redevelop this area and so with that I would urge your support and then we look forward to coming in front of you with a couple of opportunities thank you very much thank you so much all right so we have apologies to everyone that's still here we do have an amendment that we need to move on this bill it somehow did not get put into your iPads I think staff was a little busy on the 47 other amendments that we dealt with tonight so can we show that Amendment and Ms Schultz can you talk us through it Madam chair absolutely Mr Moya is going to pull it up on the screen this amendment does two things uh first is that the bill has some placeholder language that says insert date here it will we will insert the date that's supposed to be there and then second and more substantively when the Albuquerque development commission uh heard this item at their February 16th meeting they made several recommendations sorry they recommended approval with conditions this amendment includes those seven conditions largely those can those conditions seek to make the document clearer and correct an error in the existing text thank you Miss Schultz I'll move that amendment number one and a second all those in favor say yes any opposed all right the amendment is adopted back to the bill any questions comments I'm uh yes counselor Benton councilor grout also has a comment um I just want to appreciate that Ms fisherman uh mentioned counselor Gibson our former colleague up here and uh yeah she she's the one that recognized this need and and got it going she just deserves a lot of credit councilman chair I thank you for the presentation it was uh it was wonderful and um again I was born and raised here in Albuquerque and I saw it at its Heyday down there and I'm looking forward to its uh revitalization and I think this is going to be a wonderful opportunity and it's going to happen I can see it thank you and I'll just say I'm really excited about this project it was all counselor Gibson she moved this uh and it's finally coming to be a reality I'm really excited about it I do want to thank all the folks that have participated in this process and Miss Jones for being here um I wanted to thank the Urban Land Institute they included this project in their recent work and we're you know we're working together on some ideas to really move it forward um so you know it's a really exciting opportunity for the very center of Albuquerque and it's a part of District Seven that we really need to give some love and I think this plan is the first step in getting that that part of town revitalized so I'm excited and I urge your support um any further comments with that all those in favor say yes yes any opposed no unanimously that's moving on and with no further business I'm going to adjourn this meeting thank you everybody for staying so late [Music] thank you