first but I'm going to do and I'm just kidding um so I'm going to go ahead and call this the order and we will we're going to move things around a little bit tonight we're going to do Parks and Rec first then we'll do the Acres at Gilbert Campus and then we'll go into the planned LDC text Amendment for parking so Parks and Rec good evening uh hope everyone's doing well this evening for those that I have not met before my name is Robert Carmon on the Parks and Recreation director for Gilbert and with me today we have some of our team members who are hiding behind the boards Kylie Sorenson who's our Parks manager and Rocky Brown who's our business manager we wanted to be able to uh visit the commission tonight and be able to give you an update on the Parks and Recreation master plan at the same time if you do have some time we also want to provide an opportunity for you to be a little more interactive with it and share any of the the thoughts or interests you may have within our Parks and Recreation system but to give you a little bit of a brief background before we start the presentation the last master plan was completed in 2014 so we're coming up on 10 years and I think the timing is perfect because we have a lot of undeveloped spaces but also spaces that the community is really interested in seeing some newer amenities come online items like riparian preserve education Center along with development of Gilbert Regional Desert Sky Park but to get us started today we had put together a brief video just to kind of kick off the community with the parks Market Parks and Recreation master plan efforts which started in April it's usually no worries you can find that video on our website um but just to kind of give a brief little background when we really thought about approaching the the master plan it was important for us um to really make sure that we we really hit the community outreach component so when we were selecting our uh our consultant we had taught to them about what have they seen within Community engagement what have they seen in terms of those engagement numbers and everyone tracks engagement numbers differently they they do it from website clicks to to in-person visitation but we really hit upon what's your total number of engagements that you've seen and they came up with a number of 30 000 for one of their communities in Texas now a lot of people don't realize that thirty thousand is actually a lot of engagements for a master plan and with Parks and Recreation we tend to we like competitions in the nature of parks and recs so we said we're going to double it um and our team thought we were crazy the Consultants did but really the drive and wanting to double that is we wanted to make sure we reached out to the Gilbert Community and met them where they were we didn't just want to hold workshops um at some of the community centers we wanted to go out to the parks we wanted to go out to the HOAs we wanted to attend their events the Little League nights the shops around Gilbert the restaurants so we have been tirelessly visiting everywhere in Gilbert all corners of Gilbert and really bringing that Community engagement to everybody and we'll kind of go over that in a little bit um but with that we had kind of come up with the tagline of plan where you play and with that if you were to visit Gilbert az.gov the pr master plan for the online portion there's an idea wall so it's very similar to the board you're going to see back here where you can just provide sticky notes you know digitally of things you'd like Parks and Recreation to consider or look at there's an interactive map so a full GIS map overlay of Gilbert where you can drop a pin anywhere and say you know I think I'd really like a dog park at this particular park or maybe maybe I'd like a bench at this particular location there's no scale as to how big or how small any of the ideas can be to give you an idea to this date we are over 11 000 um website visits just on on this website with a lot of interaction so it's actually pretty fascinating to go in there and see some of the feedback so far with a lot of great ideas from the community there's an interactive exercise so that can take people through a budgeting exercise if they had a hundred dollars to spend within Gilbert how would they devise those funds with with future development and then a survey the survey is relatively long so I always warn people if you're going to click the survey it's not your typical shorter survey that you see when Gilbert puts out it's a statistically valid survey that was sent out through Etc through everyone in the community in a mail-in survey so we wanted to make sure to protect the Integrity of it as we went through so hopefully you've seen this out in the community once or twice already the marketing collateral and branded giveaways if you visit any park right now you'll see the plan where you play logos markers QR code everywhere every Recreation Center every town building along with a lot of the restaurants and shops also put it up you know for for parks and rec so we're very excited about that these are things we've had in our in-person engagement events and we have had a lot of them if you want to know the most popular item those little things that look like frisbees on the table they're actually dog bowls for water and I can't tell you how many people have utilized those and then when they're taking the items you know part of that stipulation is that they're visiting that QR code prior to utilizing it so it's really been a marketing uh success with with allowing the community to interact and then we'll get to the community outreach efforts so a couple of uh newer engagement type practices that we went to and I mentioned that we wanted to get out to the community where they were one of the most recent events that we did is we went out to all the HOAs and and asked them if they're having any Community get-togethers so we had a few of them reach out to us uh Coronado Ranch just this past weekend hosted one and we went out on a Saturday night to the ranch with all the families and set up the boards that that you see behind us and just had an open engagement session where we could ask everyone there what type of items they're looking for and they could participate in the board we went to Morrison Ranch so you can see some of the the kids and you can kind of see the stickers in the background to see how active they were definitely filling those out we held a ice cream social the a couple of weeks ago so it was really one of our favorite events we had partnered with six different local vendors shops around Gilbert and we did a three to five time period and we we invited Gilbert Police and Fire to join us and essentially we had it sponsored but when the community came out and visited those locations we had to deal with those particular shops where they gave away free ice cream or a free treat to anyone who came out and did an engagement effort so just through that two-hour time period alone it was about 1500 people that received a free treat but about 2 000 plus people that actually came out and that alone led to you know between three to five thousand engagements right there so just kind of a different way of looking at that Community engagement process we did the same thing at Oso we went to a happy hour time period on a Thursday night out in the playground area happened to be a Star Wars night so there were a lot of families there and just really we've been doing doing this throughout the community in as many locations as we can and we feel pretty comfortable that we're going to surpass the 30 000 for sure we're going to be real close to hitting that 60 000 and the Outreach efforts are going to be complete in July mid-july we're going to do one more July 4th and then kind of close that down one of our other fun ideas that we've been taking around to different Parks is a traveling mural so this is another sort of Engagement effort this is visited everywhere from the neighborhood parks to The riparian Preserve to the major parks to the rec centers it's an artistic representation of all the different parks in Gilbert and anyone we've had all ages participate where they've either kind of colored in some of those amenities or added some other ideas and what kind of represent the riparian ponds in a way been a very popular um item so just kind of a different approach so that kind of really summarizes it in terms of a timeline we're going to continue that Community engagement through like I said mid-july it's going to take us quite a bit of time to kind of put all that information together all the data that's being collected and that's just one piece of it that's the community engagement piece we're also working on everything from uh Recreation you know amenities to know what the private sector is offering versus what we're offering the different HOA Parks levels of service accessibility within the community the list goes on and on of the types of things the master plan is going to have but really wanted to focus today on some more of that Community engagement that's really you know I think why we're all here is to make sure that we can build the future that the Gilbert Community wants within Parks and Recreation we expect that we'll see kind of a collection of those come August and September and we'll start working with our Parks and Recreation Advisory board but happy to continue to visit some of the commissions in town and keep them updated throughout the process with a intended date of being completed December to come back to town Council but with that I'd be happy to take any questions but also we did bring our boards so I don't know how much time we have but if you would like you could engage with us the same way everyone else has and come down and take a look at some of the pictures and idea walls Rocky and Kylie will be in the back and can guide you through it it doesn't take much time at all but it is it is fun once you start putting stickers on uh some of the amenities you'd like to see but happy to take any questions all right thanks Robert any questions for Robert yeah so I really like your tagline the plan plan where you play I like that question I had maybe it's more of a comment as you start doing the master plan is how do you balance the growth in the south portion of town against kind of the Aging facilities in the North and the West portions of town and because that way it's kind of spread equally through that yeah commissioner Bianca that's a great question and that's that's going to be one of the challenges we face and I think you know part of the reason we look at that accessibility and Equity of the amenities is we need to make sure that we're providing you know those services to everyone in Gilbert and so so much of our development is in that sort of North section that you see across Elliott Guadalupe all of our recreation centers and that's definitely a feedback we've been receiving quite a bit as we'd like to see more of those Southern amenities but we do when we start to review that information there's been quite a balance of people who are not only asking for those Southern Gilbert amenities but also saying hey we have our Parks like Freestone McQueen some of those that are now approaching that 20 30-year you know no periods and we've been able to replace things like the playgrounds but it may not have some of the newer amenities that you'd see at a newer Park like Gilbert Regional or desert sky or some of the opportunities we have with future development so one of the ways we're going to look at that is taking a look at what the most requested amenities are overall from the community taking a look at that Community feedback in terms of by location and figuring out how we can best put a plan together to present to Advisory Board to Town Council and to the community on how we can appropriately place things in an equitable manner that kind of gives the best access to all so I will say that it's going to be a challenging part of it especially with the amount of feedback we're receiving it would be a lot easier if we didn't have quite as much but I can tell you that it's intimidating when you're when you see just even the digital comments and that doesn't even take into account all of the different focus groups and other things that we've been working with so that's kind of how we'll have to distribute it and then and do the best job possible you know being Equitable with how we disperse it yeah thanks and I'm sure you're going to look at the demographics too and where you know folks that want certain amenities are in the town versus others so yeah that's a balance absolutely one of one of the things that uh we see is is even things along the lines of uh skate parks uh dog parks and all of our dog parks are relatively at Cosmo and and Crossroads crossroads right now which are very close to each other and a lot of interest in having one at Gilbert Regional and other areas so how do we best you know take what we have and maybe look for more creative usage of our space to kind of to grow that doesn't always have to mean we have to do a lot of development it may just mean there's there's smaller wins sometimes down the line of just how we can reutilize some of the space we already have thank you any others yeah wish for Gage thank you so much for the presentation um on behalf of my 10 year old I would like to know when are there going to be more pickleballs at Gilbert regional park because she's dying to learn how to play but every time we drive by it is packed of people yes well commissioner Gage that you wouldn't be the first one to ask that question uh you can see there's a pickleball picture behind us and it is one of our most requested amenities so with a budget actually being adopted just last night we're going to start our next round of community outreach this year because we're going to go into full design of the remaining section of Gilbert Regional and that will really be our time where we'll be able to design where that could be and it may not just be at Gilbert Regional at Gilbert Regional our only pickleball courts that we have so it kind of goes back to that conversation of that we kind of had right before of you know do we need to look at other locations throughout Gilbert where we can spread out you know the pickleball courts and make sure everyone has access or at least relatively close access but with that being said the design line would take place next year and we'd be having those community outreach processes in the in the fall so there's going to be time to be able to share that and and definitely uh you know there are over close to 400 Acres of undeveloped land as well in the park system that we can be creative with thank you we live right in Shamrock Estates go south of the Gilbert Regional Park so I will let her know and she will come to a meeting in the fall and please she's dying to learn how to play and we don't even know how because there's no room there to even try so yeah I don't know she'll be so happy thank you they're definitely uh it never slows down no it doesn't it doesn't matter what time you drive by at night it's like it's always busy yes thank you oh of course and uh just on that note I would like to mention that this weekend one of our other engagement efforts is we're going to have a children's design your own park playground day so it's a free program at the Southeast Regional Library it's a Saturday and we'll have our Consultants there along with playground designers and and contractors and they're going to lead the the kids from 5 to 12 through kind of an exercise where they get to design their own playground build it and our goal is we can kind of keep that stored utilize what we learned from them when we start to design some of our newer playgrounds and also just give them a chance to be interactive with the process and share some of their ideas in a way that you know is Meaningful to them anybody else all right thank you Robert let's go ahead and take five minutes we'll go down we'll interact with the boards um and then uh we'll let you guys clean up and move on and we'll go from there so let's go and take five minutes thank you all right let's go ahead and wrap up Robert thank you very much so we'll expect 397 Acres of pickleball courts so just okay all right Kristen you ready okay we'll go ahead and uh bring us back to order we'll call it on item number two um Dr 2330 the Acres at Gilbert Campus expansion and Kristen now it's on okay there we go all right good evening everybody um the case I have for discussion tonight is for an expansion to the existing aces of Gilbert School the school is located at the southeast corner of Galveston and blue jay just west of Power Road it's surrounded by vacant Parcels to the north and south and business park to the East and single family detached to the West the site is approximately 4.8 Acres it's currently zoned neighborhood office the existing building is 34 232 square feet and the applicant is proposing a 6812 square foot expansion on the Southwest portion of the school seen in this image shaded in Gray all right the requested expansion will include six new classrooms a support room and a storage room Landscaping modifications to the site are minimal and mainly occur in the areas where parking is also being modified I bubbled them here in blue with the expansion the applicant is proposing to remove 12 parking spaces to allow for better configuration of the 48 parking spaces that they're adding in the landscaping that's being added will be consistent with what currently exists on the site with the 12 new van parking spaces being added in the southwest corner of the site the applicant is proposing to add a new parking lot light so far this is the only comment that we have returned to them that's going to need Corrections which is why I included it in the presentation the light is currently within 100 feet of the neighboring residential district so it needs to be either relocated or reduced to 14 feet to meet our standards in the LDC the proposed expansion will be attached to the southwest corner of the existing School building and the expansion areas here boxed in red will utilize the same colors and materials as the existing building um the expansion will consist of painted masonry walls in the colors shown here and the input I'm seeking from you tonight is just general feedback and also permission for the applicant to proceed with CDs at risk and I'm available for any questions that you have all right thanks Kristen anybody have questions Bishop Bianchi even down at the end I'll still ask Kristen I didn't see it in the staff report but I think even with the larger building and the parking lot on the same site as any issues with retention are they just reconfiguring it with a provides additional depth because it looks like the open space is still exceeded so this is um chair Simon commissioner Bianchi this has already gone through a first review in our engineering team has already approved it with markups so the retention that they're proposing is so they're good they're just adding depth okay yeah perfect thanks all right any other questions comments no I don't have any either my only question was retention as well so that's all I have I have no problem with any of it so all right but just to be clear they are okay to go with CDs at risk I'm okay with cities at risk thank you let the record reflect commissioner Faye put his thumb up he's he's still warming up so give him time all right with that we'll move on to item number three which is actually item number one on your agenda which is the z2306 LDC text Amendment for the parking code update and Noah I was wondering if you're waiting for your walk-up music to start or something no uh Terry Simon there's uh there's a lot less Fanfare with this than the parks presentation no walk-up music or uh boards to bring or enter this is a little less Interactive still interactive though hopefully Noah do you have your laptop I do um I'm wondering if you just want to open up your presentation commission won't be able to see it but you can start speaking about the topic sure uh Ava I'm happy to do oh and sure enough once you threaten it it uh it decides to cooperate so yes thank you fantastic um cheer Simon uh planning Commissioners uh good evening I am presenting this evening a pretty exciting project that's coming forward through the planning department we're taking the first steps together on it regarding a refresh and update for our parking code uh this hearing just to give you a very brief introduction is an initiation in citizen review hearing the initiation hearing is primarily meant to be a kickoff hearing to introduce the work we have done preliminary to this project and uh provide some basic information about what we will be undertaking for a text Amendment or a similar update to town ordinances and standards this is also a citizen review meeting so it allows an opportunity for discussion on in a publicly accountable setting of some of the proposed changes and and some of the things that should be considered in response to the public uh for this project and then also it provides an opportunity for initial feedback on any preliminary work that's been done and any suggestions for how the planning staff or other Town staff should go forward with proceeding with the proposed amendment to uh that that's being initiated so I want to take a few moments just to introduce our the project and uh what work has been done to date on uh this parking refresh and update we this is the stems from the original parking ordinance are not parking ordinance I'm sorry Land Development code update that was done in April 2021 that uh that refresh largely left out the parking code since we wanted to have an opportunity to do a more formal parking code or a parking study and consultation to learn a little bit more about some of the ways that we can improve our parking standards in the town just for some background information the parking standards have been relatively untouched since the era of the uldc there have been some minor to moderate updates throughout the time of the old Land Development code but again a lot of our parking ordinances date as far back as 2006 and so this is a a project that we wanted to put a lot of time into and make sure that we're really approaching carefully to make sure that we're building the best possible development tools for uh Town staffs given the importance of parking and site planning and the longevity of the sites that we're building in our town the development services department issued a request for proposals in July of 2022 to find a partner consultant for this project to do a parking study with us not a not an entire quantitative study to look at every individual use and do demand studies and and parking management studies but someone who can provide some guidance on the way forward for how Town staff should proceed with a parking code update and we initiated a contract with Walter Walker consultants in October of 2022 and we recently closed out that consultation in April of 2022. the RFP that town staff put out had five areas of interest that we wanted recommendations for how the Land Development code could be improved and that was primarily our use ratios so really the the meat of our parking code design standards for off-street parking opportunities for administrative relief and parking reductions parking standards for new mode types and evolving Transportation Technologies and then parking ordinance organization and how the very structure of our ordinance is laid out for use by applicants and the General Public uh just to give you a really uh brief update we looked at this study in light of the general plan and we saw this as supported by the uh General plan uh given that it's a continuous action step to modernize Our Land Development code and ensure that we're getting the best possible site planning outcomes uh from the planning work that we're doing that includes both the design guidelines in chapter two but also many of the provisions in chapter one the actual zoning regulations that we have which are specifically called out in some of the action items in the page that I put on the screen and so again this will really help us to improve our ability to enact some of the action steps and implementation items in the general plan um by improving the codes that we're working from just again given the impact that parking has on the work that we do I've referenced that importance of parking and I want to just give a really quick primer on the the level of importance that parking has we can often see it as just a kind of a an ugly necessity that we have to deal with in site planning but it is really important that we get parking right when we're doing site plan reviews when we're thinking about uh air kind of area specific plans any planning that work that we're doing especially given that parking is the largest user of land in the town it uses you know an s a basic estimate using a GIS system will show that some areas of the Town you're seeing 50 60 percent of land area is being used up by uh by asphalt for parking so how we design those areas how we landscape them how we arrange them is all really really important and it impacts all kinds of different aspects of town function the feasibility of development projects uh the property tax that can be collected from any given site given the amount of use that can actually be placed on the site parking doesn't create taxes uh for use for other public services uh overall satisfaction in the built environment uh you know how does the town feel parking plays a massive role in that um you know the ability to access uses and have Regional accessibility uh is it's critical to get parking right for that Regional environmental quality issues like the urban heat island dealing with runoff from large rainstorms all of that is affected by our parking design and ultimately the final cost of consumer goods and housing it's no secret that housing costs have been a major discussion in the town and parking facilities and how we require them and how we do require design for them plays a a large role in how the costs of a final consumer good or housing is is ultimately handed down to our residents uh and and taxpayers in the town uh I'm not going to walk through this entire table but I do want to just briefly uh highlight that in any direction that you go um miscalibrating a parking code can have real uh it can create real challenges for planners to do their job for the town to be able to create vibrant development that's also economically and fiscally sustainable for the town and that can come not only in the way that's traditionally talked about which is uh over parking and the challenges that that can create environmentally in making developments infeasible things like that but also if we don't provide enough parking for parking requirements if we don't provide flexible parking Arrangements which can adapt to different sites and really provide necessary parking infrastructure that is suitable for the restrictions that a site might place on a certain development or incomplete parking standards if we're not taking into account new technologies if we're not taking into account uh new uh you know evolving Trends in the ways that people are parking that incomplete data and incomplete code can result in real problems for being able to be a fully competitive community in our region uh in in more broadly in a national scope so I what I want to do is just introduce the basic recommendations report that you received in your packet it is the final result of our consultation with Walker Consultants which I mentioned we wrapped up about two months ago uh and it is a uh it's a really important document to grasp as we really start to analyze how we can improve our parking code going forward this was really the vision for that document was just creating an updated set of parking requirements that support sustainable and future forward growth as well as vitality and vibrancy in our community Again by their their goals we're eliminating barriers to that type of those kinds of um or reaching that goal keeping up with market conditions and Trends as I just mentioned in the previous section on Paving the way for a new future for parking transportation and mobility in Gilbert land use 2.0 has been tossed around quite a bit as a term and so making sure our parking code is able to adapt to the changing needs of Gilbert's increasing you know focus on infill development and moving from just Greenfield development and thinking about how we're going to use space efficiently so that's kind of the vision for this report these were the guiding principles I I don't need to spend too much time on them because I think that they're they're fairly straightforward and that Vision really kind of was transformed into these principles but I encourage you to review them uh in your packet to really understand how we worked with our consultant to create a set of guiding principles that's that are also going to guide our project for revising this parking code going forward as well and they ultimately address six areas and and these are largely the ones that we requested but they also added just additional items for um kind of doing maintenance and updates to our existing procedures not just proposing new ones but also looking at the standards that we have right now and really just kind of doing code maintenance finding areas where things are are not um you know perfectly enforceable they cause us to do a lot of internal interpretations they slow things down and so they addressed all the items that we asked for in addition to that critical step of improving our code and I'll just briefly walk through just a couple of the recommendations in each of these sections just again because I think that they're important for kind of understanding the scope of the project that the planning department is trying to take on uh for the standard parking requirements um the the primary area that they they looked at here were our parking ratios the amount of parking that's required per specific unit of a certain use so square footage units of residential things like that and provided recommendations that are in line with uh kind of professional Guidance the manuals that exist for this and identifying where Gilbert is out of step with those and the same was used for bicycle standards with their appropriate bicycle parking standards they were put in line with those industry standards as well and then uh outlining some steps for how what needs to be included in parking studies uh really clarifying that for applicants so that when we have uh proposals such as this where you have a conditional uh ratio for certain uses that have high parking demand variability there is a clear set of standards that can be used to enforce that and show what needs to be documented in order to interpret what the correct parking demand for those uses are and we can talk a little bit more about any of these recommendations at at the end here but I just want to give a really brief introduction to them for standard parking design just simplifying our parking geometry tables kind of creating ready-made packages for different types of parking spaces making it easier to understand for applicants and again trying to make reviews more efficient integrating new standards for pedestrian facilities adding new options for kind of design requirements that we can incorporate into our text that was kind of the the broad scope of the recommendations in this section and then also addressing some missing geometries that are commonly used in the development market and in in for developers adding parking to developments just trying to make the code more flexible and provide more options and and clarity about how to implement those options in development in Gilbert uh the parking reductions and admin relief section was the longest in the report and it just addressed a couple of key areas where we they proposed potential parking reduction strategies uh with accompanying parking studies or Planning Commission approvals uh creating parking reductions for things such as mixed-use development offering an opportunity for an administrative relief of up to 25 percent with a parking study or up to 50 percent with a review by Planning Commission again all of those numbers are just the initial recommendation amenity specific administrative reductions based if they meet certain uh that kind of works like our vdod where we have certain amenities that can be included or certain development benchmarks that can provide minor administrative reductions and then some new infill standards that help kind of overcome some of the challenges especially for small businesses and Commercial uses with some of these infill sites the maintenance and update to our current procedures largely focused on our variance process so updating our opportunities for parking variances on some of those special and unique circumstances areas where you have say unique site shapes unique constraints from the Adaptive reuse that's being done on that site things like that um EV charging requirements for both the parking space geometries but also design standards for the um for the EV stations themselves signage requirements for those opportunities for Ev conversions just really again clarifying a clear Gap in our code where we don't have really any standards for uh requirements for EVS let alone anything for design standards even though this becomes a common request with the town and then clarifying passenger loading requirements and how that will work with some of our parking requirements and then finally improving the public interface by developing new resources and reorganizing the outline of the parking chapter in the Land Development code to make it easier for officials such as yourself as well as the public and applicants to be able to kind of walk through that parking code from start to finish as they're creating a site proposal as we look to the actual comment period for this for the initiation and citizen review hearing it's worth noting that this cons this report does not represent final ordinance language being brought forward this is an excellent opportunity for discussion about what's included and what's recommended for changes in Gilbert's code but it's not a binding guiding policy document in any way this isn't going to be the final language that we put in the ordinance unless it's believed by staff and by yourselves that it's appropriate language to put in and it will help us achieve our goals for Land Development in Gilbert but it is a set of recommended changes based on peer Community analysis you know best practices from the industry some standards guidance from some of the engineering manuals that exist for parking and other guidance informed by our current conditions in Gilbert they still did a lot of work on these recommendations to find areas where we can improve our kind of standard operating procedures around parking in the town finally looking at next steps uh we're right now in the process of Department review where other departments are looking at this document alongside yourselves as a way to assess the recommendations and their validity for the town of Gilbert and also address areas that were missed by the consultant areas that might help departments do their jobs better with parking as and parking reviews as well uh our study sessions such as tonight and future study sessions that you can see on the development agenda to my right we'll do Outreach to Community Partners other agencies to really make sure that what we're implementing is actually workable which is pretty in line with other LDC text amendments we'll do our ordinance development and review process and finally Bring It Forward for your consideration in a public Hearing in the August September time frame we have a large work plan that we're working off of here's just a snippet of some of it just showing the um you know amount of work that's going into reviewing this and the amount of work we still have to do on this so again I just want to emphasize that this is not a final document but this is the beginning of a really productive discussion around parking and how we can improve the economic and environmental sustainability of the Town through the way that we're enforcing parking for new developments in the community so I will conclude with that again thank you for your participation in this initiation and citizen review hearing and I really look forward to the discussion that we're going to have together tonight and in future hearings going forward thank you for your time and I'll turn it back to the Diaz thank you chair thank you commission all right thanks Noah does anybody have questions or comments for Noah at this point yeah wish for Gage I love listening to you talk Noah it's so great no one has ever had more passion talking about parking or makes use zoning districts before so thank you for us nerds out there that also love this stuff um I am so happy to see some administrative relief options because I have been on the other side of parking requirements and it's really hard to get 40 open space with all the parking um so this is great I'm so excited I know Keith's not here but he and I have had this many this conversation very many times about how the requirements are pretty restrictive so this is welcomed thank you commissioner Gage thank you for your feedback it's it's creating new Tools in our toolbox as we like to say so we appreciate that feedback thank you anybody else commissioner um so unfortunately I'm gonna go completely the other direction um so one of the one of the factors that was only barely addressed is that I don't feel or get a lot of pushback from anyone about their being too cumbersome of parking requirements in the town I do very much see particularly in two areas where we don't have enough parking that's the Heritage district and some of the single family areas especially single or multi-family where there's no on-street parking and the spillover is I mean it's exploding on Facebook it's causing all kinds of legal jams and it spills over either to law enforcement or city council and law enforcement that's a problem we I mean the city really can't do anything about that unless we do something about it ahead of time which is what we should be doing which is why I think a lot of our parking standards are right now inadequate because they're too small and something that's going to spill over at Council as happens about every other month is is something that we need to very proactively be acting to prevent and and frankly I think we're going the wrong direction well we used a lot of words in terms of modernized refreshed updating improve but the thing that immediately jumps out to me is particularly in the very first section I didn't do a 100 line by line comparison but I compared what's in the table to what's in the current Land Development code and everything is the same or less and some of them are less in areas that are pretty critical I noticed some of the areas lose their guest parking requirement altogether and some of them it goes down and that's in my opinion very much the wrong direction and contrary to what I I'm I don't know why council is not acting more strongly towards our Economic Development Department there is not enough parking in the Heritage District everyone keeps saying there is enough we've got enough baloney when people are saying we've got enough it's because there's ten thousand spots required we've got 9 000 or we've got 10 100 we've got enough that's not the standard the standard is you need enough that people don't make an economic decision to not come because parking's a headache every parking space is not created equally and when people start showing up the first person takes the best one the next person takes the next best the next person well eventually at some point 60 70 80 percent the parking spaces that are left are so awful that people turn around and go home um I don't know if you've been to the farmers market since we've closed off the parking lot north of the canal it's a mad house I I consistently I can it's a long but I can walk to it and I do walk my dogs to it I consistently see people pulling in driving around for a minute and going back home again without it getting out their cars that means we failed in there and I see that on Thursday nights the Heritage district is failing in my opinion yes I bet somebody could point to the fact that these people are leaving and what but the whole sixth floor on the east side parking garage is well of course it's empty that didn't stop people from leaving and I noticed the parking numbers are going down in this or that the parking requirements are going down which I think is the wrong direction um there might be some of it in terms of regional commercial where we can't afford we've got big open Lots at the hospital that we could compress I'm not saying everywhere and I didn't do a 100 line by line comparison but where I did it looks like everything's going down and the few key areas where I did look at the things where I have personally experienced or I see blowing up on Facebook or at Council they're going down so that's kind of that's wrong direction in my opinion um the focus on bicycle parking I mean it there's no harm in it and this is my opinion nobody cares bicycle parking is not a big deal there's plenty of it I ride my bike there's plenty of ways to lock up a bike it's it's there's no harm in it but don't get too wrapped around the axle on that one um and then there's a few specifics I want to talk about on the parking study by a licensed third party that was odd language to me um first of all that's not the Practice Act of either civil engineering or architects civil engineers tend to be the ones who are doing it but who's licensed specifically covers this type of study that that requirement that's in this recommendation is not actually a requirement found in the Arizona revised statutes or in the practice acts so I mean does that mean that staff couldn't do it um and it's it's it's a weird language and it probably needs to be reviewed and cleaned up um section B2 the location of parking stuff seems to be getting into architecture architectural decisions that should be done on a case-by-case basis you know it might be guidance it might be a guidance document that we could so it might be a little that might be a little hyper technical reading in my opinion um I am concerned about the administrative reductions all of the the flexibility administrative reductions because when I see a parking use that is individually inadequate and I drill into it pretty consistently what I see is this was not a standard this was a substandard parking facility that was built based on captive use reductions or something like that and somebody got creative with assumptions I you saw it when um I don't remember the name of the project the project I was just actually talking about kind of the one that's north of the canal and north of the Heritage District when they were coming in they had done a parking study and they had a number of captive use reductions and I took their study and I kind of did go into it I actually think they revised their study when I asked for a copy of it but they did have some pretty creative and and that's usually where I see the defects coming about I don't want to prevent staff from having flexibility but it seems like there's a pretty significant focus a pretty about a fourth of this entire report is based on giving staff more flexibility in the very place that I see most abused when it comes to causing a facility and this is part of the focus on externalities developer builds it dedicates it sells it and leaves it's city council or the surrounding businesses are something that are dealing with the wreckage afterwards and parking is one of those inadequate parking it's one of those significant areas not not final language unless staff employing and planning and zoning agree I'm kind of pretty far from even wanting this recommendation to go forward into a planning capacity um and then there's a whole section on electric vehicles which I think there needs to be something there needs to be an update related to electric vehicles that is a whole different category that's not currently addressed in this or pretty much any other parking regulation line I mean maybe some cities are starting to get them and that's that's fine the two parts that concern me about it are it's one in one of the statements it talks at one of the philosophical or vision statements is to minimize the cost to developers actually I think that that's where most of the cost needs to be if we're retrofitting an existing facility the existing facility should be putting it in or there's sometimes Federal grant dollars for building new ones that I don't know that the city's focus should be minimizing the cost of developers I think it is a an off-site or an infrastructure cost to the developers where it should be and then and then there's it and I appreciate the honesty actually because usually people try to hide this in bureaucratic double speak which is quite a bit in this report by the way um that these are ada-esque I don't remember how they described it but that they'd be essentially dedicated electrical vehicle electric vehicle spots kind of like the way Ada is which is probably necessary especially when there's a charging station there but it's also problematic if it's part of the total number because Ada often sit vacant I mean you've got people driving around like they're trying to get spring Springsteen tickets in a lot that's jammed and it's like the mall at Christmas where literal people are leaving the farmers market and people are following them in their car to see where they go but then the Ada spots are sitting empty we've we've seen that and I'm not critical of you know handicapped people or something but that same thing is going to happen with electrical vehicle spots I think maybe or maybe not because maybe there's gonna be a lot I don't know that the science or the not the science but the the standards are there and I'm concerned that if if we're going to have these dedicated Reserve spots that are going to further reduce what are in my opinion already substandard numbers and have the potential to be sitting vacant at most critical times there is a provision in the state law to actually there's certain signs to reserve you've got to get the signs exactly right before you can admin issue tickets to non-electric vehicles or even non-charging electric vehicles um I don't know I'm not altogether comfortable with that part that's a that's a bit of a rant um and I've got a whole bunch of other notes but that's kind of the so fundamentally while I'm not against a refresh of the code at any point and there's a few parts in it that particularly the electric vehicle that do need to be written and do need to be created when I see the Walker report as the recommended recommendations and the starting point of where this Land Development code rewrite is going from my instinct at this point is to say stop no we're better off without doing a refresh if that's the direction we're going um so uh commissioner first off I want to thank you for your extremely thorough um input um I I think there's a movement in in parking in general and you've probably seen it in news to kind of reduce parking at all costs and I want to maybe first at least provide some comfort that that is not necessarily how we approach this and everything that you just mentioned in terms of kind of right sizing whether it's the uses you know the ratios that you mentioned whether it's the electrical vehicle requirements um you know there is room to have those conversations and there may be uses for example that say we need to throw out the recommendation or reduce it and increase it because it's tailored specifically to standards and what Gilbert is experiencing so I I just want to First give a summary comment that I really appreciate the feedback that you provided I want to provide just a couple really quick clarifying comments on just a um just to maybe provide some clarification on a few points um the first is that um for the Heritage District I know that the first section mentioned has different columns for the Heritage District in the Gateway District however that was kind of added on at the End by the consultant it wasn't necessarily um the Heritage district is largely out of the purview of the study because it operates with economic development in such a different capacity we have a whole different tracking mechanism and you will also receive recommendations for improving the parking conditions in the Heritage District in a separate Heritage District parking master plan that would come probably later in 2023 so some of those concerns that you mentioned about parking available availability in the Heritage district will actually be addressed by a different document at a later date so while that doesn't I think there's still plenty of validity for going forward with a parking ordinance refresh here and we need to work in cooperation with that project that is that's something that's being addressed and I think that some of the other concerns you had are completely valid and have already come up in planning conversations particularly the single family and multi-family standards which you referenced early on in the in the comments that you provided we are there's a lot that needs to be done to clean them up because as you mentioned they're not working right right now we have a ton of parking overflow and we don't have a clear set of policies for thinking about even on-street parking or how we want to proceed with parking in neighborhoods so there's definitely room to have those conversations in this in this this refresh and update I think this provides an opportunity to address that issue in particular and to really work through you know line by line essentially and looking at these uses and trying to understand where are our top priorities for lowering or increasing parking standards I just want to mention that that's not off the table for some of these uses there's other specific feedback that I can probably provide on some comments and I'd welcome continued discussion on it I may not be able to address all of them on the Diaz right now but um I think a really appreciative of a lot of the detailed feedback that you provided going forward with this thank you and actually you you summarized my I wanted to go into a little bit of detail because I wanted to make it clear that unlike a lot of other times I actually read the um but you nailed my my philosophical right size versus reduce at all costs um yeah there's places we can reduce there's places we probably shouldn't reduce there's places we probably need to increase and and opening a Land Development code revision is not a real controversial position right it's always a good diff we've got the labor to do it when I started reading the report it shifted me from whoa this isn't about right size this looks like reduce at all costs um I don't know that there was any in that table of recommendations you're well you're right and you're right I did not perceive that the Heritage District was going to be getting because it's pretty clearly broken out with recommendations but um I don't know that there's anywhere it was recommending increases or or something which which is what got me thinking that well this is a reduce at all costs which I was hoping to get everyone to like no no no no we need to right size this is a reduce at all costs go back to the drawing board right size is probably is where I think we all probably want to be this did not communicate I'm pointing at the questions but um as if my the report was sitting here on my screen like it was right size is where we probably all want to be and that didn't get communicated to me sure and and commissioner face some of this is just going to be the division of labor and these types of projects between a consultant who can provide a lot more of an advocacy bent towards a certain goal or a long-term Visionary kind of goal or thinking about what is the role of Parking Way long term versus the pragmatic work that we have to do which is we'll we have to answer to planning problems today and we yourselves as you know officials and ourselves as staff are directly accountable for improving conditions today and that's where I think that conversation does shift from reduce at all costs to right sizing and I do believe personally having worked with the consultant that there's a lot of areas where we can make some really meaningful reductions that are really important and say you mentioned some of the regional commercial zones and that exactly where my mind goes or dealing with some of these medical office uses or some of these things that changed in the last five ten years dramatically um but I think that a there are also areas where we can look at increases and I think that a an initiation like this provides a venue where we can start to have those conversations because as you mentioned there's some really pressing issues whether it's land availability in commercial zones or whether it's single family on-street parking and some of the challenges we're having with that that need to be addressed sooner rather than later and so that's why I think it's it's important to approach this this report as we've set a starting point but even that is more to frame a discussion of where the problem areas that we need to address and uh how you know we can start to really work on the values and really work on the specific conditions line by line over the next several months as we work together and we go through study sessions and review periods and things like that so I guess that's my summary for kind of the initiation of this is it still represents an important moment for us to have these conversations that we really will struggle to have otherwise no you're good I appreciate the comments um anybody else yeah Fisher Davis thank you chair um Noah one of the things I guess I'll start by saying that generally I am um with Lisa that there is you know good it's good to build that flexibility and to be able to let the Sony administrator look at things be able to you know build especially for mixed-use development and infill development I agree with commissioner Faye when it comes to private streets and the small lot residential that we do have to look at that and make sure that we have appropriate guest parking because that really does become a nightmare one area I did notice that it went there was an increase and not a reduction was it looked like there was a recommendation to increase end parking stalls by a foot when they're by a landscape Island those are the kind of things I don't want to see in there I don't think we need to be increasing parking stall sizes I'd rather see that go to landscaping or an additional parking space if needed or you know to kind of build that in versus I don't see it's a big problem safety wise to have that additional foot in when there's a landscape Island there I've never experienced a problem with that I just think we need to be keeping we don't need to be making larger parking spaces than we already have throughout the city so that's an area I'd like you guys to take a look at but I also do appreciate the look at connectivity for pedestrians and vehicular I know sometimes it's difficult between existing centers and news centers and getting owners to agree to these things but I like that there's some standards in there for people to look at and encourage that that happened because it's always frustrating when you're in one parking lot and can't get to another or there's no you're kind of jumping through Landscaping to get to another development if you're walking so I do appreciate that commissioner Davis I'm very thankful for the feedback that you provided and we we've also talked about some of those very same things and thinking about how can we get tools for planners to have those conversations where right now we have very few if any mechanisms for talking about the connectivity element or or things of that nature and so I appreciate your feedback thank you commissioner thank you chair thank you anybody else huh Bishop Bianchi no you're good all right um no I'm just going to kind of throw a couple quick two cents in here this is not my specialty although looking through the report I would tend to agree with um commissioner Faye with regards to the feel of it was just how do we reduce um I don't know if at all costs but that that is a little bit the feeling on it um and and I know that there's a push to have a walkability factor within the community and and I think that that's great and we'll have our pockets with walkability but we're still going to have transportation needs and parking needs so from a commercial perspective I have um some some hesitations with regards to some areas that reduce I think some of the large shopping complexes yes we could probably take a look at that and squeeze some stuff out of it um residential housing is a a beast of its own especially some of these small lots that we're getting where we're just packing houses in um and as the as home prices increase or even rent increases in apartment complexes we see multiple tenants sharing expenses and so we're going to see the need for more parking spaces and I think that that's probably one of those you know crystal ball things how do we fix that problem I don't know um so that that would be my big concern there um one question that I have I know that that the staff is working with a consultant on this um but in in the work that you're doing are we looking at other communities to see how those communities whether here locally or Across the Nation or even worldwide that have high demographic or high density how they deal with their parking issues uh chair Simon we are so I can there's a couple different ways that we've looked at that so the first is the peer Community study that was attached as an attachment in this report it was a deliverable from the consultant which provides some precedent for where some of these ideas have been successfully implemented the recommendations and the code so just providing some background on looking at those uh we we have you know some internal work that's already been done in terms of you know understanding the codes of communities that are very similar to us we keep pretty close tabs on some of our peer communities both in the valley and more broadly speaking Across the Western United States and luckily we get to borrow some work from our mixed use code as well where we did the peer communities assessment to start that so we have some access to those resources to look at what those communities are doing and of course if you would like to take a look at what some higher density communities that have gone through this kind of infill period of development have been doing and where they've had successes and failures that can be a part of this initiation hearing for us to make sure that we do a little bit of our homework to make sure that we're looking at some of those communities in addition to the ones that the consultant looked at I think that Gilbert is always going to have a really unique challenge that I think quite a few very new Suburban communities have where we don't have the market of on-street parking for example that a lot of denser communities do that really puts us in a different position than a lot of communities can take in terms of parking because they have on-street resources that they can price and really kind of monitor the economics of we don't have that luxury and so we have to be really careful with how we look at some of these peer communities just because we have the unique position of so much of our larger ratio of our parking in this in the communities off Street versus on Street which is obviously off the table in terms of economizing and pricing and all of the specifics of how we handle the capacity that we have for parking so we can certainly you know take feedback to look at some of those communities and look more closely and um we have the resources to do that but that was kind of an introduction to just some of the peer Community study that's been done and and where there's opportunities to to grow as well all right thanks yeah it just makes sense to me that we either have on street off Street or we have above grade or below grade that's kind of our options but how do different communities do that and make sense of it and flow which uh you know obviously it just kind of thoughts in my head so appreciate the time appreciate the presentation unless anybody else has anything or you have anything else for us um I appreciate the presentation uh chair Simon I have nothing at this time other than just the offer for if there are additional comments and feedback this is meant to be a collaborative process over the next several months of developing this and figuring out how to go forward and any level of detail of comments is welcome as well and I look forward to continuing some of the conversations we had tonight about many of the different parts of the scope of the project that we're looking at so thank you for your time chair thank you for your time Commissioners thank you Noah all right I appreciate y'all sticking with us as we uh run a little bit long there but good good information we'll go ahead and look at our regular meeting agenda as it stands currently we've got [Music] um one item on the public hearing consent my understanding is there's no reason to pull that off to non-consensual keep it on consent currently have two items on the non-consent Dr 2306 Gilbert Spectrum building three and uh s2202 Arboretum states are we able to pull either of those two items onto the consent um chairman can you please ask if there's anybody here to speak on either of those and then we can if not we can pull okay I have no public comment cards but is anybody here to speak on either item nine or ten I don't see anybody jumping up excited to speak on it so um is anybody on the dice have any reason not to move items nine or ten to the consent not I no all right so um I would recommend that we move items nine and ten to the consent so we'll have eight nine and ten all on consent so with that I'll go ahead and adjourn our study session we'll take a quick five minute break and come back at uh 6 25 and uh move on to our regular meeting thank you all right we're gonna go ahead and get started I have a quick question before we call our meeting to order are we having technology technology issues with the monitors tonight because they keep blanking out and it's kind of annoying I mean it's first world problems I guess but just I don't know if there's a technology issue but they keep glitching out like every 10-15 seconds so no the these are these on the dice oh mine is not so you may be having a technology problem I I thought it was just mine but I'm I was noticing they they all are I'm wondering if it is that and we were unaware of that have yours been no ours are all fine on this end so I I apologize I don't know if there's anybody in the control room and if they're hearing that and can look into it hey maybe check it out anyways all right thank you for letting us know yep for sure all right we're gonna go ahead and call our regular meeting to order we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance please rise all right if I could have a roll call please commissioner Gage present commissioner Davis here commissioner Anderson commissioner Faye present commissioner Blazer here commissioner Bianchi here Vice chairman Munn chairman Simon here we have a quorum thank you um that um we will move on to the approval of the agenda we discussed moving items nine and ten to the consent agenda so if I can get a motion to approve the agenda chairman I'd like to make a motion to take item 9 Dr 23-06 Gilbert Spectrum building 3 and item number 10 s 22-02 Arboretum States and put that onto the consent agenda along with Dr number eight Dr 2248 corbel energy storage all right thank you have a second motion to approve by the Vice chair in a second by commissioner Faye please vote thank you why don't we do a roll call about this we'll go ahead and do a roll call oats technology tonight all right so uh all those in favor aye and anyone opposed all right motion carries thank you chairman yep all right we'll move on to our Communications from citizens at this time members of the public May comment on matters within the jurisdiction of the town but not the agenda the commission response is limited to responding to criticism asking staff to review a matter commented upon or asking that a matter be put on a future agenda I don't have any Community comment cards but is there anybody from the community that has anything they would like to address all right not seeing any we'll move on to a report from Council liaison and commissioner uh I was so not going to say September and then it came out today yes September Anderson that works good uh councilman Anderson I'm sorry thank you Mr chairman uh just a couple of quick updates for you the council has been a subcommittee of the council has been working on updating our ethics policy and producing a manual actually that can be used by anyone who is concerned about ethics and we actually have produced a document that will make it simpler more understandable about the process that's involved we've actually created a manual that will address a procedure that could be used for reporting or concern about ethics and also we've broken out a portion of that into what we call a code of conduct policy there are some things that were included in the ethics policy that should be in a code of conduct the reason we want you to know about this is this will this will affect all appointed as well as elected officials and so it will affect you and we our final discussion of this will be on the 20th and when we finish with that we intend on forwarding that on to all the boards and commissions and committees so they have an opportunity to see what it is we've been working on in regards to ethics and code of conduct for all elected and appointed officials the second item is you may have heard last night if you were tuning in the mayor read a statement concerning water here in the valley we've just there there was a study of the what we call the active management area the Phoenix active management area that had to do with use of groundwater and the governor issued a statement that basically said that if you're relying on groundwater as part as your assured water supply then you cannot develop anymore because there's not enough groundwater to do that unfortunately the statements that that come out from the state go beyond this state and can have some very negative effects on economic development and there's a concern that uh everybody's lumped into the same situation that we have no water in Arizona and that's what the Eastern press is basically reporting is that there's no water in Arizona and um we have put out a statement that assures everyone that Gilmer's water portfolio is is very resilient and very sustainable we we have issues with the Colorado River we have issues with groundwater but our portfolio does not rely solely on any of the either of those and so it's very resilient and most of the communities in the valley are in the same situation there are a couple of communities that may have some problems because their portfolios rely quite heavily on groundwater and that's something that the governor is very concerned with so if you hear anything any more about that I just encourage you to be sure and let those you may talk with know that Gilbert is in a very good position in in regards to water our economic development plan should go forward and we want to assure anyone who's considering coming to Gilbert that there is our water portfolio can meet their needs in 400 years at least that's what we're required to do Mr chair that's all I have unless any of you have any questions excellent thank you any questions for the councilman thank you very much all right we're going to move on to our public hearing consent agenda per items all items listed below are considered the public hearing consent calendar the commission made by a single motion approve any number of items where after opening the public hearing no person requests the item be removed from the consent calendar if such a request is made the commission shall then withdraw the item from the public hearing consent calendar for the purpose of public discussion and separate action other items on the agenda may be added to the consent calendar and approved under a single motion currently on the consent agenda we have items number eight Dr 22-48 Corbell energy storage number nine Dr 2306 Gilbert Spectrum building 3 and item 10 s 2202 Arboretum States unless there's any reason to pull any of those from consent I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda or consent items chairman I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda consisting of item number eight Dr 22-48 corpel energy storage item number nine Dr 23-06 Gilbert Spectrum building 3 and item number 10 s 22-02 Arboretum Estates I have a motion to approve by the Vice chair to have a second I'll second that second by commissioner Faye um can we are we casting votes or taking roll call yeah please cast your vote and that motion carries 7-0 we'll move on to we have no items on the non-consent agenda so we're going to jump from past that and move on to administrative items administrative items are for the commission discussed and action it is to the discretion of the majority of the commission regarding public input requests on any administrative item persons wishing to speak on administrative items should complete a public comment form indicating the item number on which you wish to address the board the commission may or may not accept public comment and I don't have any public comment cards here are there any items that need to be discussed there are not chairman all right thank you now seeing any or not hearing any we'll move on to Planning Commission meeting minutes from the May 3rd commission so I need to consider approval of the minutes um I will entertain a motion I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes from the May 3rd 2023 Planning Commission meeting a motion by the Vice chair do I have a second I'll second I have a second by commissioner Davis please cash your votes motion carry 7-0 we do not have a executive session this evening so we have a report from the chairman or members of the commission I don't have anything anybody else have anything no all right nothing exciting happening in the Land of Oz so we'll move on to the report from planning service managers Eva do you have anything for us just a quick reminder that the July meeting is not the first Wednesday due to the Fourth of July holiday it has been rescheduled to July 12th please let me know or Tracy if you have a conflict with that date and that is all I have to report thank you all right thank you with that almost the fastest meeting in the history of the town we'll go ahead and adjourn thank you all have a great evening