foreign uh Eva we could start about five minutes maybe are we ready now or I know at least is trying to get her iPad fixed so uh we will need Lisa because the first item is the swearing-in okay so we can we can go ahead and start is that what you're saying no no I'm oh that's right I forgot we were swearing her in again boy she gets a permanent appointment and all of a sudden we hold up the meetings for her okay chairman now I believe we can start all right we'll go ahead and call our study session to order and the first item on the agenda is the oath of office and we have the mayor here to conduct the oath of office we're very fortunate this evening so mayor how would you like it us to do it do you want us all to come down at once or do you want us to come down one at a time that's a great question chairman Simon I would like you to come down one at a time and I would like to do individual swearing-ins for you so that it's not like a cattle call because I don't like that so I'm going to start with Noah month Noah if you'd like to come down please okay do you want your sunglasses around your neck or do you want to put them in your pocket there you go I'm a full service manager yes and Keith will be taking photos so does Keith have a steady hand that's what you know what I'm just going to ask you to repeat after me and I'll try and do it in small chunks for you okay I know a month I know a month just only swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution that I will support the Constitution of the United States of the United States and the Constitution and the Constitution and laws and laws of the State of Arizona of the State of Arizona and the ordinances and the ordinances of the town of Gilbert of the town of Gilbert Maricopa County Arizona Maricopa County Arizona that I will bear true faith that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and allegiance to the same and defend them and defend them against all enemies against all enemies foreign and domestic foreign and domestic and then I will faithfully and that I will faithfully and impartially and impartially discharge discharge the duties the duties of the office of the office of a town of Gilbert of a town of Gilbert Planning Commission member Planning Commission member in Gilbert Arizona in Gilbert Arizona according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations thank you mayor thank you guys taking pictures together do you want to take a picture now how is this working I can use mine yeah um well congratulations no oh no I hear can you take this and sign this and return it to our team here and now I'll ask Jan Simon to please join me yeah you can clap go ahead bill you can clap commissioner Faye you can clap exciting hi young I didn't ask to raise his right hand he used his right his writing for his mic I guess you're swearing either way right come back I'll try and keep it small ion Simon ion Simon do you solemnly swear do you solemnly swear that I will support stuff there that I will support that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and the Constitution and laws of the State of Arizona and laws of Arizona and the ordinances of in the ordinances of the town of Gilbert the town of Gilbert Maricopa County Arizona company Arizona that I will bear true faith that I will bear true faith and Allegiance and allegiance to the same to the same and defend them against and defend them against all enemies foreign and domestic all enemies foreign and domestic and that I will faithfully and I will faithfully and impartially and impartially discharge the duties discharge the duties of the office of a town of Gilbert Planning Commission member is that too much of the office of the Planning Commission town of Gilbert planning commissioner Planning Commission member that was a lot sorry in Gilbert Arizona in Gilbert Arizona according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so oh my God congratulations John [Applause] foreign next I'll ask Lisa to please join me [Applause] here you go Lisa and that's already on so if you want to put it in Montana maybe raise your right hand that'd be great thank you I Lisa Gage hi Lisa Gage do you solemnly swear do you solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution that I will support the Constitution of the United States of the United States and the Constitution and the Constitution and laws and laws of the State of Arizona of the State of Arizona and the ordinances and the ordinances of the town of Gilbert of the town of Gilbert Maricopa County Arizona Maricopa County Arizona and then I will bear true faith and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and allegiance to the same and defend them and defend them against all enemies against all enemies foreign and domestic foreign and domestic and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully and impartially and impartially discharge the duties discharge the duties of the office of of the office of a town of Gilbert a town of Gilbert Planning Commission member Planning Commission member in Gilbert Arizona in Gilbert Arizona according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations Lisa thank you she's unappointed she just said she just said I feel so tall right now she's unappointed oh Lisa here I wore heels too guys the kids in elementary school are taller than me and now Thomas Everett this put this in your left hand and raise your right hand Thomas I Thomas Everett aye Thomas Everett do solemnly swear do you solemnly swear that I will support that I will support the Constitution the Constitution of the United States of the United States and the Constitution and the Constitution and laws and laws of the State of Arizona of the State of Arizona and the ordinances and the ordinances of the town of Gilbert of the town of Gilbert Maricopa County Arizona Maricopa County Arizona that I will bear that I will bear true faith and Allegiance true faith and allegiance to the same to the same and defend them against and defend them against all enemies all enemies foreign and domestic foreign and domestic and then I will faithfully and that I will faithfully and impartially and impartially discharge the duties discharge the duties of the office of of the office of a town of Gilbert a town of Gilbert Planning Commission member Planning Commission member in Gilbert Arizona in Gilbert Arizona according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations Tom [Applause] and I'll have you sign it and date it to put it right away and next Lewis last but not least put that in your left hand and raise your right hand there we go I should know this by harp by now right i Lewis D gravina aye Lewis digrovino do you solemnly swear do you solemnly swear that I will support that I will support the Constitution the Constitution of the United States United States and the Constitution and the Constitution and laws and laws of the State of Arizona the State of Arizona and the ordinances and the ordinances of the town of Gilbert the town of Gilbert Maricopa County Maricopa County Arizona Arizona that I will bear that I will bear true Faith true faith and allegiance to the same in allegiance to the same and defend them and defend them against all enemies against all enemies foreign and domestic foreign and domestic and that I will Faithfully that I will faithfully and impartially and impartially discharge the duties discharge the duties of the office of of the office of town of Gilbert town of Gilbert Planning Commission member Planning Commission member in Gilbert Arizona in Gilbert Arizona according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations Lewis thank you and here is your oath Lewis if I could have you come over here and sign this down and if I could ask the new members all to join me for one photo down here please congratulations [Applause] and um thank you for letting me come and participate in the swearing-in this evening I have a little gift for each of you we have we have a brand new lapel pin that was literally just delivered on Monday this week so I'm going to give each of you one of these awesome thank you well thank you for coming in conducting our Oaths of office that's special appreciate it thank you thank you all right the next item on the agenda is to elect a chair and vice chair at this time unless there's discussion I would like to nominate Noah munt as the chair and I would second that motion or do we have to wait for him to accept that he's willing to or I second it regardless of what he says as it is I have no choice thank you all right so um we need to cast votes on that you please open up the voting and I may or may not have the voting screen here I don't know I don't maybe I'm not allowed to vote for myself I'm sorry I can't seem to get the screen to work why don't we do a Voice vote if everybody's comfortable with that a roll call or a protocol okay let's do a roll call vote okay commissioner Davis commissioner Anderson commissioner Faye aye commissioner Gage aye commissioner Bianchi aye Vice mayorman oh well well I was unaware of that but uh yes I chairman Simon aye okay all right so the motion carries uh 6-0 with uh commit Vice commissioner Anderson uh not present all right so and then um unless there's discussion I would like to open a um nomination of Vice chair of commissioner Bianchi I would second that one also all right we have a second by commissioner Faye and we'll take a roll call on that as well commissioner Davis aye commissioner Anderson commissioner Faye aye commissioner Gage aye commissioner Bianchi aye chair or vice chairman it's chair um hi and chair or commissioner Simon hi all right so that motion carries 6-0 with commissioner Anderson not present so thank you can we go ahead and make a swap now all right um we'll go ahead and make as well John oh my God [Music] foreign thank you chairman we can reconvene into our study session very well thank you very much for all the efforts moving right on to the study session to item number three I'd like to call the uh for Water Resources we're going to have a nice discussion of assured water supply with Miss Lauren Hixson the water resource manager Lauren take it away oh there it goes yeah okay perfect thank you well good evening Commissioners my name is Lauren Hixson water resources manager for the town and I'm going to talk more than just assured water supply so all things water this evening I always love having a captive audience about water because my husband doesn't like when I drone on about water he doesn't find it quite as fascinating as I do but I hope you guys enjoy this presentation going to talk just about our department and what we do why we exist what we oversee discuss the groundwater code and assured water supply definitely going to hit on that talk about the Colorado River and our shortage planning efforts and then discuss water supply projections and how all of that fits into water resources and conservation policies as well as planning and development so I'll just start off our Department's main purpose is to ensure that Gilbert's water supply is protected and used in the most efficient manner it's accomplished through sound Water Resources management effective water saving strategies timely communication and compliance with state regulations our department is in the town manager's office so I report directly to assistant Town manager Mary Goodman that's somewhat unique in the valley this differs depending on each utility sometimes they report to the public works director sometimes Water Resources is housed in the manager's offices so I oversee two main staff the water and energy resources planning advisor Stephen Walston and our water conservation coordinator Jeremiah Churchill and Jeremiah oversees our conservation team which is made up of two Senior Specialists Jeff Lee and Gina damato and two Junior Specialists Lauren Marx and Michael Haynes and an intern which is currently Eliza Sorensen so we that team really makes sure that they're the boots on the ground making sure everything happens with implementing our water conservation programs so our team really has three main components water portfolio management making sure that we comply with state requirements and making sure we have sufficient supplies both now and into the future overseeing water resources and conservation policies so both recommending policy as well as implementing policy and then implementation of our conservation programs so the next slide shows our current portfolio this is just looking at the potable side our reclaim side all the reclaims that we generate and use directly gets met what's left over gets recharged and that recharge is a component of our sustainable Supply going forward so in that pie chart to the left of the screen um there's different components a big component is Salt River Project at about 40 percent cap so Colorado River supplies at 41 percent and then two components that really we pump from Wells to supply demand but um really are a sustainable Supply because they um it's reclaimed recharge so it gets recharged back into the aquifer at about 15 as well as what's called safe yield groundwater and what that means it's a percentage of our demand that is assumed to naturally infiltrate and we've done studies locally that shows that that percentage does truly infiltrate through drywalls Etc throughout the area from storm water so that's our sustainable Supply to meet demand and we're managing that portfolio and then there's the true use of the supply on an annual basis so in 2022 we met Demand with 37 Salt River supplies directly from the treatment plant 39 from our cap and about 24 percent pumped from Wells and so you can see we're getting close to how we operate meets our sustainable Supply on an annual basis um and so then I'm going to jump into policy and the state level of why we why our department really exists and why we have the programs that we do why we have built that Pi chart of our supplies the way it is why it is all sustainable supplies and you're not seeing something called out as just pure groundwater and that's really tied back to the 1980 groundwater management act and back in 1980 these areas that you see on the graphic these five areas soon to be six they're a new active management area was voted in this last year in Douglas but these areas we're seeing profound groundwater depletion and that needed to stop and that needed to stop for two reasons simply for aquifer management but also in order to get Congressional approval to build the cap Canal Arizona was required to have a plan in place to mitigate these groundwater depletions and so we are located in the Phoenix active management area there are limits for groundwater pumping here we cannot pump below a thousand feet below land surface and we also have to pump per the existing per specific groundwater rights so back in 1980 no new agriculture could occur past 1980 those rights were established at that time the other major component of this was the assured and adequate water supply program that went into effect in 1995 and this program requires either developers or water providers Within These active Management areas amas to prove 100-year water supply prior to development so really the policy is water first then development and you'll see developers slash water providers and I'll get a little bit more into this on the next slide but developers if the developers getting the assured water supply it's called a certificate of assured water supply if the water provider is getting that it's actually a designation of assured water supply and those are very distinct things and Gilbert falls into a designation and I'll get into why that matters specifically as we progress but whether you're a certificate of assured water supply holder or a designated provider you have to meet seven criteria in order to get that certificate or designation to get that assured water supply and those include physical availability so the water has to be physically available it has to be there in the ground for 100 years or it has to be in the rivers and canals for 100 years you have to have the legal availability to that water for 100 years so you'll see a lot of these leases or contracts that we have are generally for a hundred years because because of this requirement you have to have continuous availability so you have to have the infrastructure either in place or planned for in order to deliver that Supply to you you have to meet water quality requirements of the state make sure that it's going to be to potable standards you have to meet you have to have Financial capability to build the infrastructure to pay for the water supplies and and the CIP planning process for Gilbert meets that criteria and then the two next ones meeting the management plan and meeting the management goal are really tied to aquifer management and sustainability so the management plan puts in fact into effect conservation measures if you're going to be pumping groundwater whether that's recovered water that you stored or just groundwater you have to implement specific conservation measures and so as a town we have to meet that through our conservation programs and so that's a lot of the reason for the initial development of all of our conservation programs was to meet that management plan we're currently in the fourth management plan they change over time about every five to ten years a new man management plan goes into effect the last one goes into effect in 2025 and that they continually ramp up the conservation requirements for water users not just Municipal providers but agricultural users Industrial Etc have to all meet the management plan if they're going to pump groundwater and then meeting the management goal and meeting the management goal the act of every AMA has its own goal Phoenix's AMA goal is safe yield which means the same amount of water that's being pumped out gets put back into the aquifer on an annual basis as a region we have not met that however as Gilbert we do meet that and we have to meet that for our shared water supply requirements so every drop of water we pull out of the ground we have to replace it with some kind of other Supply whether that be another surface water supply or reclaimed water we have to offset that many entities do join What's called the cagrd the central Arizona groundwater replenishment District in order to meet that management goal we are a member service area of that but because we have sufficient renewable supplies to offset any pumping we do we do not need to pay the grd to replenish on our behalf so then really that management goal is free use renewable supplies so we do that through our designation so as I said we are designated water provider and this means this really matters because it means we plan for the entirety of our service area and the entirety of build out so we determine whether or not we can continue to serve new development that comes online we manage the portfolio we acquire the supplies on behalf of all the development that occurs within Gilbert and then we we say what can be built and what cannot be built depending on how our designation looks and so we've acquired this we've got one back in 1995 we did have to update it in 2010 we're currently updating it again and it will occur the current one expires in 2025 but we're applying to the state at the end of this year for the next 10 to 15 years and we do have the adequate resources within our portfolio to meet those existing and projected demands if you're a certificated provider you only obtain the water that's needed for just that subdivision not for an entire service area and so where this really matters um is in recent news you probably have been made aware of the new Phoenix AMA groundwater model that was released on June 1st and what this model showed was that all the physical available groundwater within the region within the Phoenix AMA has already been allocated either through existing designations existing certificates existing water rights for agriculture um Etc and then also future so any certificates that haven't been built any demand within the designations that hasn't come to fruition all that groundwater that was allocated under all of these different permissions has already been fully allocated and so um what this meant was a halt on new certificates of groundwater and also new designations if they were going to use groundwater however for designated water providers we already have secured the groundwater needed and there was only shown a very minor deficit which I'll show on the next slide for meeting the needs of any designated providers per the groundwater modeling so the this shows a graphic on the right of the groundwater model that was released and all the little dots are all different wells in the model that showed a deficit in demand 100 years out 2121 and overall over the hundred year period 5 million acre feet of unmet demand was determined that's not just existing that's all future projections for all issued certificates all issued designations and also all existing agricultural pumping you can see the 4.9 is divided into different categories the majority of the deficit was to meet agricultural demands but you see kind of generally geographically where those dots are located they're located generally in the Southeast and the also the southwest of the region of the AMA and just generally on the periphery because you're getting closer to the mountains in many of those areas so the aquifer is more shallow and so what the model showed was that 5 million acre feet is equivalent to about four percent of the total projected demand for the whole region over the next hundred years fairly minor deficit when it comes to you know overall percentage but a deficit nonetheless and a me a reason for the Department to have halted new development on groundwater alone if you're developing with another alternative water supply that doesn't affect that is not impacted by this model again designated providers only accounted for about 100 000 acre feet of the unmet demand and none of that was within Gilbert so the key takeaway is that Gilbert is a designated provider all of our allocation of groundwater is unaffected by these results we do have a portion in our portfolio that we have been allocated of groundwater and it's not affected and then really importantly the water a shirt water supply program is working we haven't gotten to a point where 50 deficit in 100 years we've really managed as a state this is a very good result in a sense of the assured water supply program is monitoring how much groundwater is being used and managing that sustainably but that doesn't that means there's going to be changes not necessarily for Gilbert but it affects we're in the aquifer we are we the aquifer affects us as well as our neighbors and so the pattern and rate of growth will likely change growth on groundwater will likely be slowed and it's just going to push hopefully we'll see just more push in Innovation and adaptation in water supply acquisition so that we are continuing to manage the aquifer in a sustainable manner manner so I'm going to shift gears from groundwater now to surface water and more specifically to the Colorado River as of late in Arizona Water discussions groundwater's been the big thing because of that halt on existing certificates and that is definitely something that needs addressing and a lot of attention at this time however we still have the current conditions on the Colorado River and so they've been temporarily improved with last year's hydrology and last year's snowpack however we're still planning for the long term to see this Supply reduced over the Long Haul we don't know what that is yet but we're still just keeping up to date on what's going on there so in 2023 we've been operating in what's called a tier 2A shortage and that's a federal shortage that's established by the Bureau of Reclamation per the current existing guidelines and due to the over above average snowfall we've seen some improvement for that to where this year or sorry next calendar year starting January 1st 2024 we will be operating in what's called a tier one shortage so that's an improvement from tier 2A because of the good winter hydrology um and again it's not just from the hydrology but also because a lot of entities have contributed to the elevation in Lake Mead and so Bureau of Reclamation releases a two-year Outlook every month of the year to see what the elevation in the and Lake Powell and Lake Mead are doing and the one in August determines the operations starting for the next calendar year so the One released last just a month and a half ago showed that we will be operating in a tier one shortage starting in 2024. so what is next so we do have this temporary reprieve we were preparing for potentially very dire situation pre this last year's winter and so that really drove a lot of discussions about negotiations about what are we going to do should the elevation in these reservoirs continue to decline and that included a lot of discussion um between all of the different seven Basin states that share the river and more specifically what is the lower Basin going to do which is Arizona California and Nevada when it comes to propping up Lake Mead and so over this last year um the lower Basin states have been working very hard non-stop on how do we keep the reservoir from continuing to tank and that plan was announced late May and what that plan put into place is that um before 2026 the end of 2016 all of the lower Basin States will conserve an additional 3 million acre feet in Lake Mead between now and then of this three million acre feet 2.3 is compensated from the federal government through the inflation reduction act and this is a big component not just the hydrology but this conservation within the reservoirs is a huge component as to the stability of the reservoirs from now until the end of 2026. why the end of 2026 that's because in on January 1st 2027 new guidelines have to be adopted and put into place for the operation of these reservoirs so those are called the post 2026 environmental impact statement that will have new guidelines and we are hoping that they'll have a lot more clarity to help stabilize the system and we hope that this continues to allow for there to be collaboration on the river rather than litigation on the river as far as how we're going to manage these shortages of that three million acre feat Gilbert did participate in a small portion of our portfolio of what we could manage to save in Lake Mead to be good stewards and to be a good partner into that situation and so we're leaving 1200 acre feet this year in Lake Mead and 800 acre feet for 2024. per our agreement with with reclamation but future hydrology is uncertain so how does this impact Arizona and Gilbert again tier one is an improvement from tier 2A so Arizona as a whole is going to see a slight increase in water supply availability for 2024 but the town Gilbert will just see the same because of the current rules on the river we see the same cut for a tier 2 tier 1A versus a tier 2A our contributions to the river will be in addition to that volume but we have a diverse and resilient water supply portfolio to sustain these periods of shortages we're going to continue to meet the demands of our community and we're going to stay just given the continued concern as to the long-term outlook on the river we're going to stay in first stage of our water supply reduction management plan which we put into effect last June of 2022. to talk to that plan a little bit and to stage one we are currently in stage one water education and we this is a screenshot from our water shortage page so anytime you want to learn more about it you can go to gilbertaz.gov water shortage and check out all the resources there and on that page you'll see a lot of information about all these different water conservation efforts we've been doing for the last year to two years and so just want to highlight a few of those we have our community water shortage team which was launched in April of 2023. we have new rebate programs we've launched three over the last calendar year or the last entire year since last September and we have our smart irrigation controller rebate we've issued close to 300 rebates for that program we've issued we have two applicants right now for our non-residential grass removal rebate that we launched in May and just went into an agreement with SRP to help match that program back in August and so we hope to see some more interest in that program we launched a residential grass removal rebate back in July and we have we just hit 200 applications for that program in the last three months so very popular program we have been awarded a three million dollar Grant to help remove grass from Municipal facilities both parks and various facilities specifically looking at non-functional Turf areas that are not really used by um by the citizens throughout the town it's really just areas that are for ornamental looks and just looking to help reduce that and be a good example to the community as far as what grass removal can look like and then we're also seeking additional grant opportunities for additional conservation and infrastructure funding through the state as well as through the federal government and we're working on several agreements to shore up our supplies for 2024 and Beyond okay so how does all that fit into planning and development so we have this Water Resources portfolio and we have to look at how that's being used now but also we have to look into how that's going to be used in the future and how much water we need for the future to get our updated designation of assured water supply and so that really ties into these three different things our designation our Water Resource Master planning and then also the implementation of our water resources and conservation code so we do demand projections through our integrated Water Resources Master planning process this is updated at least every five years and it looks at the system demands by land use classification per the general plan the current General plan at the time so then from time to time we between different updates then we'll incorporate any general plan amendments in the newest update we are able to generate what are called Unit demands for all these different land use classifications based on the historic billing that we have within the town and so this has really looked at on an average basis for each parcel based on land use classification and we're able to translate that also to zoning category so then we look out and we say okay this is all the demand today this is all the parcels that are built out today looking out to the Future once everything is built out per this plan what is the demand going to be so we have this graphic is just showing portable demand I have a Graphic coming next that has potable plus reclaimed so you'll notice some difference in the differences in the numbers but as you can see from 2021 through build out past buildup 2046 we're projecting a water demand growth of about 15 percent now that is if our demands stay kind of where they currently are based on the averages for the various land uses and different developments within the community but if we have some specifically high water use industry come in or other developments it could be as high as 25 so we do plan for that variation but what is also interesting is to look back at how has water use Trends occurred since our last time we did this update and so um this graphic shows your our population versus our total production demand and you'll see it's not it's not that straight linear growth pattern Quite A variation over time you see 2018 to 2019 actually a decrease in water demand and then it shoots up in 2020 and then comes back down in 2021 and kind of stays stable in 2022 and what this really represents is that outdoor water use has a huge impact on our water demand because of the variability of our climate how much rain we get in the in the summer how much rain we get in the winter and so that's really what dictated that 2020 increase was because of just a very very dry hot summer so you're probably going to see that increase again with 2023 given the record days over 115 that we experienced so um but we're hoping through our education with our community that we'll see that a little bit less that Spike not be as extreme because a lot of the time we're seeing a lot of overuse with over watering that is not needed so what this graphic is showing that we've had a three percent water production increase from 2018 to 2022 just simply looking at 2018 and 2022 but we've seen a nine percent increase in our population so it does show that there's not always a direct linear correlation between water use and population so as I mentioned outdoor water demand has a big impact on our water resources and that's because sewer flows and reclaimed water are a huge portion of our portfolio and our sustainability moving forward so we've done flow monitoring throughout the town and it shows about 40 percent of the water from residential areas single-family residential areas returns to the Sewer that means about 60 percent of the flow of the water use for single-family homes goes to outdoor water use we do not see that back in the system we don't treat that at the wastewater treatment plants and we don't deliver that back out to reclaim water users now reclaim water either gets used directly on landscapes or we do recharge that back into the aquifer so again this really contributes significantly to our sustainability we do see a higher percentage of return flows for other types of development but again we we just plan for the mix that we see in order to plan for how much recla and water will have available both for recharge and reuse so then Excuse me while I get some water so then let's talk about what are the existing resources and conservation policies that we have in place um I'll hit on a few after this slide but just high level we do rezoning reviews so if a land use is changing we will look at based on our unit demand calculations from the master plan what the effect what the expected projected impact on water use would be typically on average for that type of land use change we oversee and Implement and manage our reclaimed water use agreements and if a new applicant wants to use reclaimed water on their Landscapes we then help them through the process and get that agreement in place we Implement our conservation code for new development so we implement the code for limits on water intensive Landscaping the plumbing code reclaim water requirements that did get updated in 2021 so pre-2021 an entity could use who's going to use reclaimed water could have up to half of their landscape be high water use plants we've now reduced that down to 30 percent just to recognize how important reclaimed water really is in the overall Water Resources portfolio that um historically it kind of was looked at something you just needed to get rid of but it really is a key and vital portion of our portfolio we implemented smart controller requirements for all non-residential development and then we've implemented our water allocation policy back in 2019 we also have conservation oriented tiered water rates those were updated back in 2022 currently undergoing a rate study to go if adopted by mayor and Council would go into effect next spring for new water rates and again that just drives conservation because the more water you use the more you're going to pay for it and then we updated our water supply reduction management plan in 2021 and supplic supplemental never mind we then implemented it in uh June of 2022. okay I'm getting close to the end um just want to hit on a couple more things rezoning and water allocation policies so as I mentioned we do the rezoning reviews there is going to be an update where adding text to the staff report will detail this these changes in water use and its relative impact to water supply for the town so be looking out for that it historically has been in the council Communications but now going to be included in the staff report just given the need to continue to emphasize water conservation and how water use how water is used throughout the town and then lastly our sustainable water allocation policy so rezoning reviews are looked at very high level we're not looking at a specific water user a specific tenant a specific development per se we're looking at just oh that's for that type of density or for that type of industry or that zoning this is what an average water use is if it changes to something else that's the change on an average basis when we look at our sustainable water allocation policy that is now looking at specific use a design review has come in we're looking at a specific use and seeing if it fits our sustainable water allocation policy this addresses only non-residential water users and it applies to any entity that's going to use a three inch or larger meter or two or more meters or greater than a hundred thousand gallons per day and what it does is it allocates a base water volume for every type of zoning throughout the town non-residential zoning throughout the Town based on our historic review of our master plan and why this matters is there's a big variation in non-residential demand when we were looking at this policy you can see this graphic was generated to just show you know three inch meters generally you know under 40 000 gallons per day but then you start start to get larger you're seeing hospitals HOAs Parks schools start to jump up in demand given the large outdoor water use for parks and schools specifically but then we knew that there are other users out there for example data centers that really go off the charts when it comes to water use and so we wanted to have something in place so that when an entity came to develop in Gilbert we didn't allocate all of our water to one entity and didn't have anything left for the next person to come down the line we want to be able to have a way to say you can come to Gilbert but if you're going to come to Gilbert you need to bring your own water supply or you can come to Gilbert your overall allocation policy limits but we see the economic development that you're going to be bringing to Gilbert so we're willing to give you some of our Reserve supplies that we have available to serve you and so that's really what this policy allows for when we're reviewing um those specific uses as they're coming into the town we can determine whether they're the best and this is not just Water Resources this is a conversation with Town manager's office Economic Development as to whether our recommendation would be for them to receive that Supply or go out and acquire their own Supply and then that would require an agreement that goes to Mayor and Council for approval I'll just skip these details because I've gone in enough detail but anyways it just shows that we have certain triggers as to when that policy goes into effect and we it has some buffer from our actual unit demands so we're not trying to capture everybody we're trying to capture those extreme users in the system and just make a plan for how they're going to be part of Gilbert's overall development okay so in summary Gilbert's designation of assured water supply provides water security for existing and our future customers we track and monitor the water supply availability we regularly update demand projections and we have our conservation code to help protect our supply and lastly reducing outdoor water use is a great way to increase sustainability so with that I'll open it for any questions and thank you for having me today yes thank you very much Lauren does anyone have any questions um Vice chairman Bianchi thank you thank you informative I just got the question so if we're not looking at a tier two shortage anymore if we are taking a reduction in Colorado water river allocations what does that do to the percentage of our sources so whether it's SRP or groundwater do we achieve that through conservation or do we have to take a larger percentage from those other sources yes so we have to either reduce demand through conservation measures or we have to increase Supply so you've got that down to a T and we will be increasing pumping groundwater pumping um now we have Reserve long-term storage credits from previous years where we've recharged water beyond our existing demand at the time and so we do have reserved supplies that we can access to help offset that but again we want that to last as long as possible because it's our long-term savings and so reducing demand helps mitigate that and helps that last longer and then you'd also showed the slide on the data center usage and water usage so does that tie into like an economic development plan where those uses maybe aren't sought after from our Economic Development Department or how does that how do those water usages and those uses factor into other department yeah so we with the sustainable water allocation policy we adopted a water strategy report and that comes along with it that's available through the water conservation website and it details what types of Industry typically we would consider for the different tiers of water supply availability and yes it definitely does come into the picture as far as when our Economic Development folks are are out talking with folks who want might want to relocate here and I do know just I don't want to there there's good technology Innovations happening with data centers so that that use is going down which is great with like air cooled systems Etc so I think these types of policies help industry innovate so that they can still be where they might want to be but not having as much impact on resources okay thank you thank you chair thank you anyone else all right very good well thank you very much Lauren that was a much needed presentation I think it's a real important topic as everyone knows I love water so um I really appreciate it and uh look forward to all the great things you and the team do thank you so much okay moving on now we have item number four which is the update from staff on secondary dwelling units which was a request from past chair Simon um and the Planning Commission chair we are past six o'clock I don't know if you want to go into the regular meeting and then reconvene or if you want me to just scroll through this quickly how long do you think this will about eight minutes well we'll come back to it all right well if it was seven maybe but all right so with that then we're going to hold off and I'll uh temporarily pause here we can have a discussion of the regular meeting minutes I don't or the meeting agenda rather and since we just had a reshuffling of the deck here I know that the yawn you were in the Monday meeting and I missed it is there anything on the agenda that we should discuss here um the only thing that I have is that item number 11 we were looking to continue is that still accurate I know Keith's out of the room right now so um yes that is still accurate okay we'll see if anything changes but as of right now yes okay so item but we would still need to open that to the public correct yeah so item 11 potentially be continued but need to be open and then item 10 unless anybody has anything that they'd like to hear on that um in the meeting we discussed moving that to consent so I didn't know if somebody else on The Wanted did anyone have anything on item 10 that they wanted to is there anyone in the any citizen here to speak on item 10 . all right let me see anyone okay I think with that we might be able to move that one so I will temporarily uh put a close to the and during the study session we'll come back everyone take a five minute break and we will start the regular meeting at approximately 607 thank you all right uh for those of us who have watches we'll note that it's past 607 um if we could please have the Commissioners come back up to the diocese for the meeting thank you all right thank you very much everyone uh we're going to call to order the regular meeting and the first order of business will be the Pledge of Allegiance please stand and join me thank you okay could we get a roll call please commissioner Davis here commissioner Anderson yeah commissioner Faye here commissioner Gage here commissioner Simon here Vice chair Bianchi here chair Mont here we have a quorum thank you very much okay moving on we'll do the approval of the agenda and we had some discussion in the last meeting about possibly moving number 10. correct yeah to the consent and I'll just check I don't see anyone else that showed up so if I would entertain a motion if anyone has one to move item 10 to the regular or to the consent agenda sure if you're ready I would move to approve the agenda with that following change moving item 10 to the public hearing consent calendar thank you Vice chairman do I have a second I would second that thank you with the record show that the commissioner Faye seconded uh or is our voting system okay let's put our votes up then all those in favor okay motion carries seven zero here we'll move on to some Communications Communications from citizens at this point members of the public May comment on matters within the jurisdiction of a town but not on 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 is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak as a citizen seeing no one we will move on to the report from Council liaison on current events and I see that council member Anderson I was I was about I knew it councilmember Anderson is not here to Liaison on this uh evening so we'll move on from that moving to the public hearing consent all items listed below are considered the public hearing consent calendar of the commission may buy a single motion approve a number of items where after opening public hearing no person requests that the item be removed from the consent calendar if such a request is made the commission shall withdraw the item from the public hearing agenda calendar at 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 similar to what we saw today so we'll note that we have item number 10 on the consent Dr 23-59 l-i-f-e adult education expansion could I get a motion on the consent agenda chairman I would move to approve the consent agenda thank you Vice chairman we'll have a second a second thank you commissioner Simon let's move on to voting please cast your votes motion carries 7-0 okay we're moving into the public hearing non-consent non-consent public hearing items will be heard on an individual public hearing and will be acted upon by the commission by a separate motion during the public hearings anyone wishing the comment in support or in opposition to a public item may do so if you wish to comment on a public hearing item you must fill out a public comment form indicating the item number in which you wish to be heard once the hearing is closed there will be no further public comment unless requested by a member of the commission I don't have any comment cards and I just would like to once again ask if anyone in the audience is here to speak on any of these items seeing no one we will move to open item number 11 z23-05 Tracks at Coulee station and Keith I believe you have a report for us chair Mont members of the commission good evening I'm not used to saying that we'll get used to it um where's my clicker here so the project tonight that I have is traxxa Cooley station it's a proposed pad amendment that is located west of the southwest corner of williamsfield Road inverty Drive per the exhibit that you can see on your screen due to this project being advertised for tonight's meeting as a public hearing I'm happy to give a full presentation if desired however Staffing the applicants are requesting a continuance of this project to the November 1st Planning Commission hearing so we can work through some last minute changes to the conditions of approval and to the development plan so that is all I have for you tonight unless you want more so that is the probably the briefest presentation you'll ever hear me give and I think and I think Kristen was timing it so that that is it that that concludes my presentation if you agree to the continuance or you want more information I can provide that much as I personally would love to hear you give a full presentation I will not uh inundate given it's my first order of business as chairman so uh thank you we will go on with the continuance then and we will look forward to that presentation in November thank you okay yeah I believe we do if I could get a motion on item number 11 as a continuance please chairman if you're ready I would move to continue the z23-05 to a date of November 1st thank you Vice chairman do I have a second all second commissioner Faye on the second please cast your vote motion passes 7-0 unanimous okay that is the end of the items and we will move into administrative items administrative items are for the commission to discussion and action that is to the discretion of the majority of the commission regarding public input requests on any administrative item persons wishing to speak on an administrative item should complete a public comment card indicating the item number on which you wish to address the commission may or may not accept public comment we don't have any administrative items therefore no real comment we'll go to some Communications and we do not have an executive session and I'll then open up to any reports from chairman me or other members of the commission yeah yeah commissioner Anderson uh just a question for staff I don't know if you guys know so you know the uh the big dirt parking lot in downtown what's that area called The Heritage District that that big mixed-use development is planned for what's the what's the status of that is it are they in for CD review is is there are they on hold due to funding or chairman Commissioners commissioner Anderson great question currently the applicant is working through a change to the site plan there were some issues with the Western Power Line Trail and some SRP lines there so some of the the uh the plan has to shift to the north a little bit so we're reviewing that through the planning side of things there's also been a request for some changes to parking and some phasing so we're working through that so really you're going to end up seeing a revised development agreement going to Council in the next month or so and then there will be a new rezoning request coming to the Planning Commission through the Redevelopment commission the Planning Commission and then to council to make some changes to the ordinance the phasing that type of thing so it is still moving forward it's just got to get some things in order first okay so it's good to hear this still going forward now you have my curiosity about the request for parking change are they because I know that was pretty controversial our first came through us that they asked for a substantial reduction I I don't think we need to get into it now it sounds like it's eventually he's going to come back for us so that's a little concerning to hear and then the second question I have is how's the applicant applications been looking for a town of Gilbert I mean we've been really late tonight and do the economy and just kind of what I've been seeing in the world um I've you guys been getting a lot of new applications or is it dropped off a lot or is it kind of just you know settled place right now sure chairman Planning Commission the um I would say through the planning department there's been a lot of planning division there's a lot of applications that are still coming forward a lot of them are administrative in nature changes to sign plans or packages uh some uh changes to the the facades and things like that not a lot of big projects that are coming to you but they're still planning still seeing quite a bit of quite a bit of projects being submitted on the building side of things commercial billing is still pretty strong but we're seeing definitely seen to slow down in the residential our building permit numbers have have declined over time as with a lot of other communities because of land costs construction costs mortgage rates things of that nature so we are we are definitely seeing a little bit of a Slowdown in the residential side of things okay I was trying to think of more questions since we have because we don't get you up there so often see how long we keep you up there but uh no thank you so much for the input I appreciate it thanks all right anyone else have any updates they'd like to share with the group well I would like to just take a moment to recognize past chair Simon um and all joking aside which is something I rarely do it was it was an honor story to be with you and thank you for your tutelage that has prepared me for this moment um it was a lot of fun and look forward to having more with you here on the commission so with that we will move down to number 13 which is the report from planning services manager on current events Eva thank you chairman Munn you beat me to recognizing former chairman Simon but thank you and also want to thank former commissioner Charles Johnson for his service to the town and to congratulate chairman Mund Vice chairman Bianca and commissioner Gage for their appointments and welcome our new alternates Thomas Everest and Louis de grovina so welcome and thank you all for your service yes thank you it's good it's good to see some new faces you know are there friends will be missed along with them commissioner Blazer although he may just show up sometimes in the minutes we'll see if John knows it okay well then with that I'm going to adjourn the meeting and uh hold on there we go and we're going to then go back and reopen the study session oh wait I shouldn't do I have to get a motion to close the meeting or do I just do that look at that I'm already becoming tyrannical no you're good good he was already over so none of this goes in the minutes it'll look like I know what I'm talking about okay now that all that stuff that happened in between is over let's reopen the study session for an eight minute presentation from Eva good evening chairman Montan commissioners um last at the last meeting I think it was former chair Simon asked for an update on Accessory dwelling units so I thought tonight I'd give a quick introduction to the topic focusing on Gilbert's current regulations concerns with staff and applicants have with our standards and explore options to clarify the code recently there's been a demand for guest home secondary dwellings and larger accessory structures in 2021 we had six administrative use permits for guest homes and secondary dwellings so far this year we've had 20. so that's certainly an uptick in demand and in addition we probably get hundreds of accessory structures permitted in the town every year so we are not unique in this many other towns are in the same situation and Phoenix received a lot of press last month because they updated their ordinance Phoenix updated their ordinance based on the 2020 housing Phoenix plan with a goal to increase residential units by 50 000 before the year 2030. so they passed an ordinance to help them attain this goal that would allow accessory dwelling units on all single-family Lots the accessory dwelling units would have to be in the rear yards if Lots needed it they could get a lot coverage increase to accommodate the accessory dwelling unit of up to 10 percent and they would also need a use permit for the accessory dwelling unit the accessory dwelling unit would have to be subordinate to the primary dwelling unit and the City of Phoenix puts standards in their ordinance to assure this one would be that on Lots under 10 000 square foot the accessory dwelling unit could not exceed one thousand square feet and on Lots larger than ten thousand square foot the accessory dwelling unit could not exceed three thousand square feet and no accessory dwelling unit could exceed 75 percent of the square footage of the primary dwelling unit they also limited the height of accessory dwelling units to one story and no more than 15 feet in addition they placed a restrictive covenant that would have to be signed by the owner applicant who was requesting an accessory dwelling unit that either the accessory dwelling unit or the primary dwelling unit would remain owner occupied this was to prevent a spread of short-term rental units or two rental units on a single family property looking at Gilbert's code we were a little ahead of the game on Accessory dwelling units Gilbert currently and for many years has allowed incidental dwelling units on single-family Lots in the sf6 to sf-43 zoning categories these are all of our single family zoning categories except for single family detached the only reason they're not allowed in the single family d-zoning area is those lots are just too small to accommodate them and we do require a use permit for both guest homes and secondary dwelling units similar to Phoenix however we allow more than Phoenix Phoenix allows one accessory dwelling unit per lot town of Gilbert allows one guest home one secondary dwelling unit in addition to the primary dwelling unit perlod the guest homes cannot be rented even though we don't require restrictive covenant but secondary dwelling units can be rented and we do have language that the incidental dwelling unit shall be subordinate to the primary dwelling but we don't have standards like Phoenix to Define what we mean by subordinate we have many terms that I've used so far in this presentation accessory structures these are the smaller structures your detached garages parking canopies storage sets Etc we have incidental dwelling units which are subordinate dwellings to the primary and they could be guest quarters which cannot be rented and cannot have a full kitchen or secondary dwellings which can be rented and can have a full kitchen so why are revisions needed one is because of the multiple terms I just mentioned they are confusing to staff and to the applicants we further go on saying accessory structures have no living quarters incidental dwelling units have living quarters we don't Define what living quarters are we have guest quarters in addition to accessory structures we have secondary dwelling units and we use the acronym Adu in our code at no point in the code do we spell out what an Adu is or Define it so we do need to clean that up that was I believe during the refresh those were just missed and any place that says Adu it should probably say secondary dwelling unit but in addition to getting rid of certain terms we may need to add some terms there's been a recent Trend in the town for a large structures that are not primary structures are not guest quarters because they have no overnight bedrooms but they're larger than what we would typically consider an accessory structure we've had a few indoor basketball courts gymnastics studios even large hobby rooms carpentry shops things of that nature so we'd like to have better standards and definitions for those uses since they are becoming more popular we also should explore design criteria City of Phoenix as I said had the subordinate language but they had standards that went along with it so perhaps Gilbert should adopt height restrictions for subordinate structures maybe a size restriction in comparison to the primary residence or even address the placement on the lot can an accessory structure be in front of the main structure or should they be in the rear of the lot similar to City of Phoenix now this was just an introduction this will come back to you at your next meeting for the official initiation of the text Amendment and to conduct the citizen review and at that time staff will have more information we'll look at the terms and delete or add terms as necessary we'll come up with some criteria to discuss for what defines subordinate and we'll also review the process currently as I mentioned guest homes and secondary dwellings all require use permit primary to the refresh only secondary dwelling units did we do believe that that was an error in the refresh it used to say secondary dwellings it got changed to incidental dwellings which would also include guest homes so we'll be looking at removing that in addition to this I'll also be bringing some other code cleanup items as part of that text initiation so that concludes my seven minutes unless there are any questions thank you Eva does anyone have any questions I don't have any questions but I just want to say thank you I appreciate that quick overview thank you chair and commissioner Simon for requesting it I'll recognize commissioner Simon to speak post haste them thank you what I said before thank you anyone else all right thank you well with that I will re-adjourn the study session and see you all in November for the next meeting thank you