[Music] All right, I'm going to call this meeting to order. This is the land use planning and zoning committee of the city council. All counselors are present this evening with councelor Bassan joining via zoom. We're going to start with our land acknowledgement. The city of Albuquerque was established on the unseated traditional homelands of the Tiva PBlo people, the PBLO of Sandia and Isleta. As caretakers of the middle Rio Grande Valley, the Tea people nurtured and cared for its human and non-human inhabitants, as well as the desert, mountain, and water ecosystem since time in memorial. Historically, the PBLO peoples have contributed to and guided the development of Albuquerque and New Mexico, and they continue to cultivate the cultural, spiritual, and socioeconomic life of Albuquerque and our land of enchantment. We also recognize that Albuquerque has long been a gathering place of diverse indigenous peoples, tribal nations and pblo of New Mexico and indigenous nations from around the world and that this sacred space continues to be their traditional homelands. All right. This is a hybrid meeting where all participants will be in person or on video or audio conference. Members of the public have the opportunity to address the committee if they signed up for public comment per the rules published on the agenda and on our website Friday. We'll call for speakers when we get to the individual agenda item you signed up for. The public comment ground rules comments are to be addressed to the committee only. Each participant will have two minutes. Um I am giving everybody two minutes but there are over a hundred people signed up. So, please don't feel like you have to take up that time and please watch the timer if you're either at the podium or online because we will cut you at two minutes um just to make sure that we have enough time for everyone to speak on the bills that they want to have conversations around and any disruptive conduct will result in removal from the meeting. We are going to move to >> Madam Chair. >> Yes. I'd >> like to make a motion to suspend the rules to extend to midnight tonight. just jumping right in >> based on the number of I'm kidding. I'm joking. I'm joking. >> Um, that is we all laugh, but that is a high likelihood. So, just buckle up there. Um, all right. We're going to move to agenda item A. This is EC433, mayor's appointment of Dr. of Mi Mr. Daniel Solaris to the land Landmarks Commission. I'll move a confirmation. >> Second. >> It's moved and second. Is there anyone signed up to speak? >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, we have Stacy Gia signed up to speak. >> Madam Chair, does not look like she has arrived yet. >> All right. All right. Councilors, are there any questions for the staff or the administration on this? >> Were there any zoomed? Okay. There are Zooms on the list that you sent us, but they're not on the Zoom meeting. >> Madam Chair, she signed up for in chambers. >> Okay. >> Um for 433. Oh. Oh, I see. See what you mean. My list is >> I apologize. My list is a little condensed. >> Okay. So, there are two people on our list that are on Zoom for Correct. >> BC25433. >> Thank you. Valerie Tsh is not on Zoom, nor is Rose Verona. >> So that does >> so no public speakers on EC2433. Counselors, any questions, comments? All right, we have a motion and a second. We will move to a roll call vote since we have somebody on Zoom tonight. >> Councelor Bassan, >> yes. >> Councelor Champine, >> yes. Councelor Grout, >> yes. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Chair Feebleorn, >> yes. >> That passes. >> All right, we'll move on to item B. This is EC454, the mayor's appointment of Mrs. Sarah M. Burwald to the landmarks commission. I move confirmation seconded by councelor Grout. Are there any folks signed up to speak? >> Madam Chair, thank you. We have one sign up on Zoom, Valerie Taus, and she is not present at this time. >> Okay, >> thank you. >> Any questions from counselors? All right, we'll move to a roll call vote. >> Councelor Basant, >> yes. >> Councelor Shampine, >> yes. >> Councelor Grout, >> yes. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Chair Feebleorn, >> yes. >> That passes unanimous. All right, we're going to move on to agenda item C 088. Um, adopting the renters empowerment and neighborhood transparency ordinance. I'm going to move uh to full council with no wreck. >> Second. >> Um, and then we do have a committee substitute that everyone should have. Um, and I going to go ahead and move the committee sub hearing. No second. >> Second. >> Oh, second. All right. Um let's go ahead and vote on that and then we can have comments um from the public. Uh let's move to the roll call vote on accepting the committee sub. >> So one is a I'm sorry the the question from councelor grout was uh there's two. One is the clean version and one is a redline version. >> Um or at least that's what it should be. That's what's in your iPads. >> Yes. And the edits start on page five. And I can just quickly um go through the changes. This came from the administration. Um they listened to the comments from the last hearing and so this will this committee sub will remove the renters's insurance requirements. It um removes the requirement to pay um to accept payments from cash, check or money order. It also on page seven includes um language that says that the landlord has the right to provide a list of up to five licensed insured professionals to the tenant. If such a lice if such a list is provided, the tenant must utilize one of the professionals on the list. If the necessary repair falls into the scope and absent a list provided by the landlord, a tenant must obtain three documented quotes and use the lowest or the middle cost bid. And the other changes are on page 11 um that deal with how um the the um dwelling information would be reported under the landlord registry and it clarifies that all you know information about the landlord would be redacted in IRA. Um, so that is the committee sub. Oh, and there's one last thing on the last page that um the city does not participate in the enforcement of state law. That was just a clarification that was a misunderstanding during the last presentation. So that's the um committee sub. We've got it moved and seconded. So we'll go to any other questions. All right. Go to a roll call vote. Excuse me. Roll call vote on the committee sub. >> Councelor Bassan, >> no. >> Councelor Champine, >> no. >> Councelor Grout, >> no. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feeborn, >> yes. >> That fails on a two three. >> Thank you. Uh we will go to the original bill, um which was my preference anyway. and we'll go to public comment. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Our first speaker is Patricia Wilson, followed by Serge Martinez. Madame Chair and councilors, earlier this summer, I submitted a detailed letter noting my concerns about this bill, including not allowing a landlord to have a no pet policy, the burden of additional paperwork requirements, the section on timely repairs, allowing someone other than the building owner to hire contractors is fraught with liability issues, 02588 has 12 references to the Uniform Owner Resident Relations Act. What is wrong with just requiring compliance with the existing law? If the act is deficient, let's fix the act, not pass legislation that references it a dozen times. The New Mexico Legal Aid Renters Guide should be required reading for all tenants and landlords. Local mom and pop landlords care about their neighborhoods. Private equity corporate landlords care about their return on investment. This bill is designed to punish the bad actors at the expense of all landlords. Please oppose it. Thank you very much. >> Serge Martinez followed by Anthony Kawuchi followed by Chris Shane Tanner. Uh, good evening. My name is Serge Martinez from the New Mexico Center for Housing Law. I'm also a lawyer who practices in the area of land tenant law and I teach and write in that area as well. And I'm here to speak in support of strengthening and expanding tenant rights and efforts to protect and create affordable, stable housing. Who wouldn't support making sure folks are safer and healthier in their homes? Not forcing people to choose between a place to live and being a companion animal or getting a firm grasp on how many how much rental housing we have in Albuquerque and what it looks like. I support this because I know that we all benefit when we and our neighbors have safe, stable housing, kids do better in school, folks have better health outcomes, communities are stronger. So, um, this bill benefits everyone, not just renters, right? It benefits the entire community. So, I urge you not to make the mistake of seeing this as a zero- sum game. letting opponents of this bill pit vulnerable communities against each other. Uh last time we I was here, I heard a lot of talk about our seniors who were forced to become landlords so they could supplement their retirements. That is an extremely vulnerable population. I don't disagree with that. But helping them on the backs of renters who are also an extremely vulnerable population with extremely low resources is not the right answer. letting that happen, letting folks pit those groups against each other, you know, keeps us from seeing the larger picture and the common enemy that we all have, which in Albuquerque right now is a lack of affordable housing, a lack of safe, stable housing. We don't even know how much housing we have or don't have because we haven't been able to create a registry that would allow us to figure that out and then address the problem. By focusing on these larger issues, we can actually address the problems that all of the groups that are suffering in Albuquerque are having. So, I support efforts to make renters safer and healthier and to be more in control of their own lives and strengthen our communities. Thank you, >> Anthony Kawuchcci, followed by Chris Shane Tanner, followed by Franchesco Artist. >> Good afternoon. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important topic. Uh, my name is Tony Kucci. I am 53 years a New Mexican. Uh, I'm a graduate of Sandia High School and of UNM. All four of my brothers are graduates of Sandia High School and five of my six nieces and nephews were born here in New Mexico. Our parents were in real estate here uh for many years and over those many years of hard work, they acquired some rental houses which they left to my brothers and me. The Kawuchi family is well known for taking good care of our rental properties and our tenants. On average, our tenants have been with us for about six years. One of our tenants is a retired chief of the Santa Fe Fire Department. He and his wife have rented their home from us for nearly 20 years. Honoring an arrangement with our parents, one of our longtime tenants pays below market rent and in return does some handyman work for us. As an example of how we maintain our properties, over the past five or six years, we have converted all of them from swamp coolers to refrigerated air at a cost of about $12,500 uh each. If the ordinance 02588 is passed, we'll have to sell our rental houses because it won't be economical to continue to maintain those. In the current real estate market here in Albuquerque, those houses will be bought by people who are going to live in them and they won't be available as rentals anymore. And I expect that the same thing would happen with many other rental properties. Thank you, >> Chris Shane Tanner followed by Franchesco Artist followed by Anami Doss. if you're one of the following speakers, please make your way up when um Mr. Cornelius calls you out. >> Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. All right, a little bit about me. Uh I'm a native New Mexican, first generation American. My mom was born in Colombia, uh US Air Force First Sergeant, retired UNM alumni, uh bachelors in biology, uh renter for more than half my life. uh and currently I'm a proud housing provider for single uh seven single family residences in the Albuquerque metro area. So, a little bit more about this bill. So, um I'm here to speak out against the rent ordinance. Uh Bill 088, while its intentions may be good, its consequences are deeply troubling, especially for small landlords, which are the vast majority of housing providers um for tenants in the Albuquerque metro area, not Black Rockck. And um this is the backbone of our rental housing market are these small landlords. Uh this bill imposes unreasonable operational restrictions. It bans breeds and size restrictions for companion companion animals, limits deposits, and prohibits landlords from requiring renters's insurance. These changes shift all liability for tenant cause damage onto landlord, an unfair and unsustainable burden. Also, I spoke to my my insurance person and asked if there's a bite history on an animal, regardless of if it's a companion animal. Um, the insurance can and will drop you. So, that's that's an important thing to know. It also restricts how rent can be collected, banning fees for online portals or specific payment methods. These limitations may seem minor, but they add up over time, especially for small landlords already stretched thin. The compliance requirements are complex and costly. From documentation to inspections, uh the burden is disproportionate. Many small landlords may be forced to exit the market, reducing housing availability, and driving up rent. Uh allowing tenants to hire contractors without landlord approval is another major flaw. It opens the doors to substandard work, inflated costs, and legal liability, including mechanics leans that could threaten property ownership. Thank you. Francesco artist followed by Anami Das followed by Raul Kro. The rent ordinance focuses on what we the people must do, landlords and renters, but lacks the mandate of the administration's obligation to enforce the legislation they themselves are currently drafting. This administration is on record of not being trusted to grading their own homework. And the decadesl long Department of Justice degree in place the entire time they have been in power. So the guardrails currently in place are not doing the trick. Even with the DOJ leaving, we are shot in the head by APD execution style while handcuffed in the back of a cop car. Let the record show that including but not limited to city legal while in the performance of her duties for the city of Albuquerque in collusion with Mayor Keller's risk management is in willful unlawful violation of multip requests regarding land use planning and zoning in a malicious unethical abuse of power and bad face sabotage in violation of including but not limited to city policy. personnel policies, rules, regulations, and procedures, rules of professional conduct, and code of eth. City legal has gone from being a zealous advocate to a willful co-conspirator to cover up laws were broken to cover up that laws were broken. The royalty sitting at this table is on record as being above the law and immune from having to follow the laws and the constitution. So while you and I have to follow the laws, they don't have to. I strongly disagree. No kings. Anami Das followed by R. Kobos followed by Mark Hannand. Raul Kobos followed by Mark Hammond followed by Stephanie Aragon. Hello, good afternoon members of the city council. My name is Rahul Kobos. I am a renter here in Albuquerque. I am here to share what I think about the rent. My rent continues to go up and my landlord never fixes the maintenance issues in my apartment. This law will be force landlord to fix the problems that are responsibility. Stop wasting our time. Use empathy and think how it feels to be in a situation like mine. Thank you. >> Mark Hammond followed by Stephanie Aragon followed by Josh Price. >> Hi Mark Hammond. Thank you very much. My wife and I have three properties in town that we rent and they're not typical. They some of them cost over half a million dollars and we have a management company that handles all of this for us. And I read through this and it it angered me. I mean, who who are you folks or who is this city to tell me that you can impose fines on me with shorttime restrictions for things that maybe need to be disputed or discussed. That's that's pretty unfair. The management company we use takes care of all of this for us. I don't always like the outcome, but we contracted with them and it works. And no, I don't want six dogs in any of my rentals. Heck, the way I read this, you could even put a horse in the backyard. Don't like that either. Um, I hope you don't know on this, I don't see how this helps anybody. You know, maybe there are some situations but the company we use takes care of all of this for us. And we we have problems. We've had dogs bite people, then come back on us. People had to get rid of their dogs. But it's it's just going to make it harder for somebody like my wife and I to manage the properties if we're hit with some of these silly rules with short time frames. I've told my wife, if we start having problems, let's just liquidate and bag it and get out instead of putting up with these restrictions because I actually see this as over control by the government. I see it as somewhat socialistic and really unfair to people that invest money and try to make a little money off it and maybe provide a decent place for people who can afford it. Thank you. >> Stephanie Aragon followed by Josh Christ followed by Bernardet Hardy. >> Hi Stephanie. Have horrible anxiety so if I sound stupid I'm here. Um, okay. So, I'm massively against Bill 88 because it incredibly biased in the tenants's favor. The tenants already have way too many laws supporting them and all the things that they do poorly. I recently evict tried to evict a tenant out of one of my properties. It's going to cost me over $18,000 in damages and repairs. She had a drug bust done on the property. I went to the courts. the a police report is not evidence in the state of New Mexico. So, they couldn't even use that to evict her. What ended up evicting her is she never transferred the utilities under her name. The judge then allowed her more time to stay into the property, which in that time she busted out my windows. She put glass in all my pipes and she almost blew up the neighborhood. So, I know a lot of the landlords that are coming up here are going to use facts, stats, and everything else on you, but I specialize in low-income housing. I buy properties. I sell to low-income housing. I rent to low-income housing. Section 8 is a huge part of my rental portfolio. I love some of some of my section 8 tenants, but unfortunately, there are a lot of really bad seeds. Um, if my tenant had the ability to call in a contractor to get me a new roof out of spite, she would have done so. And then a lean would be placed on my property. Also, um when you do deal with low income, you find out the ways that they do things as well. A couple of my friends have emotional support pets and it is $250 on a shady website. Go online, you claim PTSD. You get whatever type of animal you choose. I love pit bulls. I love Rottweilers. I own them. I pay for them. in my house and the damages that they choose to do in the home that I live in. Personally, I don't want to pay for a rot rather that my tenant chose to bring into one of my homes that chose to eat my baseboards, chose to scratch up my doors, chose to damage my floors. Like, these are very animals are very aggressive. Animals pee, animals poop, and we the landlords have to pay for that. >> Thank you. Josh Price, followed by Bernardet Hardy, followed by Ryan Swinny. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Josh Price. Uh I'm here again um talking about the same bill that we talked about about a month and a half ago. Um what I would like I would urge you to vote against it again as we did before. Um in that month and a half, I don't believe that any stakeholders have been reached out to um or talked to to collaborate as we had asked um in the past. Um we are here to help. We don't show up here in in this amount in this capacity um to just you know say things frivolously. I am here as a volunteer only here um in the capacity of protecting my community and what happens in Albuquerque. I do not get paid to be here. Um and what I can tell you is that there already is law that protects both tenants and renters or renters and housing providers. I've got a copy of it here and I can supply it to you if you want. Um, this bill is wolf and sheep's clothing. It adds extra things that harm landlords only but don't necessarily help renters either. Taking away the the capacity for a landlord to require renters's insurance harms that renter. We talked about this a month and a half ago. um being able to put mechanics leans on a house because a renter just decides to go ahead and ask for work that may or may not actually need to be done. We have code enforcement that says whether that needs to be done or not. It shouldn't be a vague this is what I want, this is what you don't want to give me. All of this goes through a court of law. There's a judge who is elected, as you were elected as well, who hears these cases and decides on them. And then there's civil penalties for bad actors based off of a judge's decision. So, I have a copy of the law for you and I'd like to supply it if you need it. Um, but we are here to help and I would urge you and I'd like to have it on the record and if there are any, you know, media here, please don't let us be put in a bad light again. We are here to help and we would like to help you. >> Bernardet Hardy followed by Ryan Swinny followed by Denise Willie. Good evening, Madam Chair and committee members. My name is Bernardet Hardy. I live in district 6 and a lifelong renter. I'm here in support of 088 um because it's a step forward. It's not perfect, but our renters do need rights. I have a list of issues that I've gone through. Uh also trying to pass the the uh ban the ban on rent control. Um also Serge Martinez was our lawyer for one of our first cases that we went to court for. um because uh we had some unlawful evictions in some our of our community school councils like 10 years ago. So we've been doing this a long time and we need rights. It's about damn time. Thank you >> Ryan Swinny followed by Denise Willie followed by Christopher Venegas. >> Good evening madam chair and members of the committee. Um last month the majority of you voted against this bill. Just tonight you voted against to not amend the bill. It's time just to put this bill away once and for all. Let's form a broad coalition of landlords and tenants, coalition partners, and craft future legislation that addresses the key landlord and tenant issues in Albuquerque. Thank you, >> Denise Willie, followed by Christopher Reeneas, followed by Anthony Marino. Hello, city council members. Yad a my name is Denise Willie and I am a renter from the west side of Albuquerque. Uh rental apartments under new management get tenants to sign in with sign on incentives but in turn have added fees that were not stated clearly when we signed the lease. Why am I paying water and utilities when PE with PNM and New Mexico Gas but still pay additional water and utilities along with our rent? I don't understand that. Also, wanting to utilize our patio, which is part of the square footage, is an extra $50 added to that each month if we want that. Um, there's like parking. If we want covered parking, that's $50 as well. Otherwise, you have to do like street parking. I don't understand that either. So, I'm just here to uh we need fair more um more understanding for our renters. Thank you, >> Christopher Venegas, followed by Anthony Marino, followed by Cara Rolls on Zoom. >> Thank you. Uh my name is Christopher Venegas. I'm the president-elect for the Realtors Association and I just want to put on the record since this wasn't passed last, we haven't been approached once regarding any collaboration on this and having to do with real estate. We're the go-to people for that. So, I just want to put on the record um I'm also a realtor, real estate investor. I own seven rental properties myself and I work with a lot of clients that are investors and a lot of these clients I work with day-to-day, they're mom and pop um investors that only own one rental property. And when they only have one property, they can't afford to make big risk on on these investments. So if you like, for example, a client V Victor of mine, he has one other rental property, he charges, 1750 a month for rent. If he he can't make big risks. So if you guys allow this to pass, that would allow him to any tent to come in to bring dogs into to a picture. If you're to bring in a large dog in that situation and that large dog was to create damages to that house, he only has a deposit of$,750. this guy doesn't have a lot of money for him to bring aside to put towards this rental property to fix it up. So, the concern I have with this is you guys are going to be hurting a lot of mom and pop renters and and uh mom and pop investors that are trying to make this American dream work of building wealth long term and it's really going to hurt it and in turn I think it's going to hurt the renters themselves and not having as very many options anymore because of that. Uh, another issue too is this. It violates federal fair housing laws. In here, it states that you can allow up to $150 for a pet deposit fee for a companion animal. In the definition of companion animal, you guys have emotional support animal. That's a protected class in the federal federal housing laws. So there, you're not allowed to take any deposit for that. So I hope that was just a slight oversight, but I think it's clear these oversightes and things like this, we haven't been talked to, and it I just want on the record that we need to be talked to. We can collaborate with this in a positive way because we're all for everyone being happy in this situation. There is a win-win at the end of the day. So, thank you, >> Anthony Marino, followed by Cara Rolls on Zoom, followed by Jonathan Hamilton. >> Hi, good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of city council. Thank you for having me. Um, so much right. Um, I could probably talk for two hours, but I've got two minutes. Um, I'm totally against this bill. What it does is it doesn't it it really like everybody before me has said all the mom and pop businesses cannot afford this. The rules on this are silly. I mean we know people people will take advantage of these the pets on here. Who's going to what's going to happen when somebody moves an alligator into an apartment complex, right? Um pets are messy. People these landlords work really hard when it comes to our senior citizens. These that's their retirement after they're done. and then we're going to make it harder and harder for them. This bill is overreaching and needs to be refined. Thank you. >> Cara Rolls, followed by Jonathan Hamilton, followed by Anna Bevido. >> Hello counselors. Thank you for allowing me to speak today and also to be heard. I'm a third generation uh New Mexican born and raised here in the state. After reviewing the proposed legislation, it raised a considerable amount of concern as an owner of a professional property management company that has been in business for almost 14 years. I primarily manage single family residential homes for homeowner or owners that only own maybe one or two rentals. While it appears the legislation seeks to create greater support for tenants, the potential consequences could do just the opposite. Introducing this legislation could potentially create a sudden and severe drop in properties available for rent due to the greater hardships, costs, and complications that landlords will undoubtedly face in order to comply. It's true that many private landlords are currently in need of greater education and greater enforcement of the current current ordinances and laws in place. However, these new laws would pile on more demands to all landlords, including those that operate in professionally following all of the current laws. The new laws would unfairly weight so many things in the tenants's favor and remove items that a homeowner should have control of in their own property, creating a potential sudden withdrawal of properties from the rental market. This would affect rental rates, rental availability, and would end up hurting tenants instead of helping them. One particularly concerning aspect of the legislation is its prohibition of the requirement of renters's insurance. Who is this intended to support? Property owners and renters could be financially devastated in certain circumstances by this lack of protection. Additionally, the idea that pets in rental properties should be governed by the city rather than the property owner is very peculiar. Properties are unique and many pets simply do not fit certain spaces. It feels unreasonable to force people to allow animals in spaces that they own that would cost thousands of dollars in damage or cause physical harm along with the legal liabilities attached to that. The potential consequence of this could be very farreaching, creating a strain on the city's ability to control pet populations, stray animals, and regulate exotic pets as well. Tenants may not understand that beyond the rules which a landlord could >> Thank you. Thank you, Carol. Your time is up. Up next, we have Jonathan Hamilton, followed by Anna Bevido. Dear, city council, thank you for uh hearing us today. First of all, I would encourage you to vote no on this bill and al and actually formally remove it so that we don't have to address this again. I am a current property owner and I have two rental properties, one in Rio Rancho, and one in Albuquerque. this adversely affects my my ability to actually manage that property in a way that's consistent and in line with our goals as my wife and my family. Um, first of all, the registration part of this goal um of this bill is very overreaching as far as the information you guys are looking for. Most of this is public record. They can find out who owns the property. You know who we pay our tax bills. You know what the square footage is. you know, all these all this information. Unfortunately, what we charge for rent and security deposits are are realistically none of the city's business and they should not know what we're doing. As far as that goes, in my opinion, it's the determination of me and my wife to make sure that we have properties that will be that will be taken care of and also that will be um a good investment over the long run. Part of that situation is too, is I can tell you with both my properties, if someone were to purchase that property, they would pay a far more in a mortgage payment than what we pay what they paid in rent. And that is a re reality for a lot of um landlords out there. Second, I also urge you guys not to not to take away the ability to enforce renters's insurance. liability claims alone could devastate and wipe out somebody's entire savings and we could actually lose the properties. >> Thank you. >> We have Thank you, >> Anna Bevo, followed by Chris Leslie Curtis. >> Thank you, city council. My name is Anna Babito and I'm a renter here in favor of this act. Um, and to all the um, overlords crying about how they weren't uh, insulted about this, the renters weren't either. And since this bill was last heard in committee, um, no city councelor has reached out to uh, renters or any and privacy in our homes as renters. Um, this bill would require transparency in leases, eliminates junk feeds, and holds landlords accountable for basic maintenance. These changes cost the city nothing but protect thousands of families from exploitation, displacement, and fear. City has the council, city council has the power and the responsibility to protect our people over profits. And to currently, we are seeing an overlap and intersection of the national and local here. and that earlier this month, the Trump regime declared that the federal government will not protect its people against any city or state that wants to imprison the homeless or mentally ill. As is seen with ICE, there is no due process or safeguards for human rights. This puts the onus 100% on local governments to protect their communities. As workers, renters, and immigrants, we demand the city council of Albuquerque put people over profits and Berkeley over billionaires. Thank you, >> Chris Leslie Curtis. followed by Shawn Masters. Hang on a sec, Chris, let me get your video on for you. Sorry, Sean Masters, followed by Chris Leslie Curtis. My mistake. >> Uh, hello, council. My name is Sean Masters. I'm a a veteran of the United States Air Force. I uh had the pleasure of marrying a woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico. We own one home in Albuquerque, which we lived in when we were assigned there. And we were lucky when we were forced to move uh after the in 2010 to find residents that actually uh rented that house for 14 years. One of the things with that and this ordinance in particular I'm concerned about is the fact that my family, their family, and our property managers all worked together as a team to ensure that they had the best support that they needed. I understand that there are probably bad actors out there. However, one of the things that I've seen throughout my career is that there's constantly rules being written to punish everybody, but due to the actions of a few. I believe from what I've seen and what I've experienced, most people who are property owners are looking for the best interest of themselves, but also the best interest of the people living in their properties. And that's true with us. My concern is that this ordinance will basically shift the need of all parties away from equality to falling under the uh the renters. I also believe that the requirement for the renter registration does start to really violate my own personal uh information. uh as said before that information is in many places already out there and it creates a structure that is very easy for this the government to start imposing fees that no judge is going to be ruling on. So thank you for your time. Good night >> Chris Leslie Curtis followed by Micah Boutilier. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening. My name is Chris Lesley Curtis and I am a second generation um New Mexican. My family has had a real estate investment and property management company, Lesley Investment Properties in Albuquerque. Um we're in our second generation. I own two single family homes in Albuquerque that I rent. I am also here as president of the New Mexico Short-Term Rental Association, a 501c6 nonprofit organization. And I'm here really today to speak on behalf of my role as a landlord. A lot has been said against this um ordinance and I also um encourage you counselors to vote no and to formally remove this. I understand it was back up just um over a month ago. We have heard the previous testimony, the multiple um problems with this, although well intended, we can see that the consequences are quite dire and uh perhaps have not been thought out. So, I also call for a coalition of tenants and renters to come together to inform a more reasonable and acceptable and legally viable um ordinance. Thank you very much for your time. Micah Boutilier followed by Valerie Taus. >> Hello, city councilors. Thank you very much uh for your service to the community. What you do is vastly important. >> Sorry. >> Hello. Can you hear me? >> Please, Valerie, please mute your phone. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, I'm a qualifying broker, uh, licensed with the New Mexico Real Estate Commission, been a property manager for over 20 years. I represent 115 Albuquerque rental property owners. They've all voiced major concerns about the rent ordinance uh, both in its initial meeting where I spoke in June and again now that it's coming back up. Senate Bill 267 was passed by our state legislature this spring. It was enacted on June 20th of this year. Uh this revises uh the URA in many areas that are very important and are very similar to some of the top things you're looking at with the rent ordinance. Specifically, the application process and regulations, also the new late fee cap at 5% of the monthly rent, down from the previous 10%. And the requirement to disclose all lease fees and rental ads. There was an earlier comment about these hidden fees. That's that's gone. Now, the New York uh act will enforce that all landlords have to disclose lease fees up front. These are three major, very fair and reasonable changes to the Landlord Tenant Act of New Mexico that protects all New Mexican citizens. The idea that the city should now take this to a whole another step further with incredibly negative ramifications to the community, uh it it it just doesn't make sense to me. Let's let the state legislature do their job as they have done this year by passing Senate Bill 267. The number one concern for my clients is this allowing tenants to perform their own repairs. I mean, it opens up the door to unscrupulous acts. It goes against the real estate commission's ruling from 2019 that only licensed vendors can work on properties. Let's let's just take a a second to breathe and realize that the state legisle already done their job. Please vote down rent ordinance and any future bills that would cause a vast vacuum of Albuquerque rental properties that would this would encumber the owners and they would sell and that's just going to drive rents up and we don't want to do that to our tenants. We want to protect the tenants. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Valerie Taus followed by well there's some people have signed up that I I'm a thinker in in the house so I will list that after Valerie speaks. Valerie go ahead. >> Thank you. >> Go ahead Valerie. >> Please go ahead Valerie. >> Hi. Um I am a uh real estate agent and property owner and landlord in Albuquerque Expential Properties and there I just wanted to bring up a couple of points aside from there from a slightly I'm also a mortgage broker from a slightly different standpoint. Um I see the you know extreme desire to present ten protect tenants but I think there might be other ways that the city could move to protect tenants that might be even more valuable because the most shocking figure that I saw recently was that 44% of households in the city are renting which I think is shameful and uh as a city what we should be doing and as a you know maybe moving to subsidize interest rates for renters who might be interested in buying and you know somehow find some type of subsidization because this many people really should not be renting. And if we can sort of create a um a backs stop so that there aren't as many renters, it will loosen up a lot of pressure on landlords because what I'm seeing when I put a property out for rent is huge amounts of interest. The people are very desperate. They've gone through horrible experiences, which is no doubt why this legislation appears to be necessary. But these renters shouldn't be in this situation in the first place because the credit scores are being used, I think, very in a very heavy-handed manner to prevent people from purchasing. And the interest rates are disproportionately high for people who need to live in their homes. I mean to you know interest rate interest rates are currently structured such that people who are trying to buy homes are actually paying more than investors and that's almost backwards. If the city could somehow subsidize these people to get them in an equity position all of these pressures could be alleviated and we're looking at it from the opposite standpoint. Um that that's kind of the perspective that I'm coming from after talking with so many people who are in such desperate situations. I don't think this type of legislation is is helpful. Putting the pressure on the landlords when the real pressure is on the tenants and we need to take it off of them >> and that means putting them in a better place. >> Please mute that and move on. >> Thank you Valerie. Um thank you madam chair. Um people listed that I did not find in zoom are Francis Robinson, Aninsley Souder, Carl Vidal, Anna Marie Guru, Katie Lions and Annalie Des. So if anybody's in the building, please come up to speak. >> That concludes comment. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you. All right. Um that is um public comment for 02588. We will move back to the counselors. Are there any questions on this bill? Okay. Um, oh yes, go ahead. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Not really a question, just um wanted to talk just a briefly um about why I'm supporting this as a previous renter. Um it's not an even playing field, like not even close. Um I think I write I'm grateful that the a lot of the public commenters that are in this like landlords or real estate professionals um want to come to the table to talk about better options. Um I think that though this is a start that we need because people are absolutely suffering when it comes to the fees. I've have story after story from my constituents who um work two jobs. Landlord, this specific landlord says you can only pay your rent online, right? And a $50 fee to pay their rent online. That is not a cost of doing business. That should be sent over to the renters. Um maybe you should choose a system that's less expensive. I mean, there has there has to be other ways. So, I I am going to take you up on that offer. I highlighted, you know, the folks that said they wanted to help here because we we need we have to do something. Bottom line, we we do and I'm sorry that they ruin it for the good landlords, but we have too many bad actors that are not doing the right things by renters. Um I had a situation in a home that u was owned by a lawyer. Um, and I had to go o in over and over to work with code enforcement to have them come and red tag and do any of these things before he would actually fix anything. There already is state provisions in our state laws that will allow for me as a renter. If I've said to my landlord, I need this fixed and it's gone unanswered for 30 days, it's already in the state law that I can get a qualified person to do that and subtract it from my rent. That's already that's something I had to do. um as a renter. It didn't feel fun. I was scared because he's he's a lawyer. I'm not. I was just a high a college kid trying to figure out how to make sure I had heat in the winter, right? So there there is a misbalance here and we do have to figure out um what to do. And so for me, I'm supporting this because I have been in the in the shoes and the only thing that helped me was becoming an owner. as a single mom, there there's just no way I could have housing stability without ownership. So, I appreciate the public commenter that talked about home ownership because that's something that I'm absolutely wanting to figure out how to turn more people into owners like like the landlords. You have that ability. Um, and so I just wanted to say that that this isn't about condemning one group over another. It's just finding a balance and that's um this is at least the start to that. Thank you. >> Thank you. I'm going to say a few things about this, but not many. Um, I think everybody knows that I've been working on tenant protections um since I took office, and I will continue to do so as long as I'm in office. Um, couple of things that were said that were that were inaccurate that I just want to set the record straight for. Um, no one should think that there will be just random exotic animals hanging out in Albuquerque. That is a law that we already have. There will be no alligators. there's a law that says you can only have um four dogs at a time. So those are those are unfounded issues. Um but it really does come down to whether or not the entire family gets to stay together. And um for people like me, their companion animals are their family. And as I've said in the past and I will continue to say um I do not believe that I should have to be separated from my family just because I am a renter. And so that those comments I found um particularly bothersome. Um we did hear some folks that said that, you know, wouldn't it be nice if we worked together and found something that we could all agree on, been there, done that. Um I think everybody remembers one of my original proposals to protect tenants. Um we took three, four different meetings with the community. We amended um everything that was brought up and we brought back something that basically said, "All right, all the other stuff thrown out, but we'll have a a bill that says that you have to tell people what you're going to charge them before they sign their lease." Which sounds pretty reasonable to me, but that was also um not not acceptable to the landlords that show up on Mass to oppose these things. So, um, you know, I'm all for talking about it and moving and trying to find something that will move us forward. Um, but somebody's going to have to prove to me that that actually is a real offer and not a repeat of what I've done before. Um, and then I just want to say that I heard a lot of folks concerned about things that were in the committee sub that was voted down by this body tonight. um including all of the redaction of private information um from the rental registry uh accepting cash payments. All of those things were proposed to be taken out and were voted down tonight. Um, so again, I think that it is clear to me that we have mostly good landlords in our city, but I did a quick count today and of the 2,768 violations that were reported of our old laws that don't even cover all the things in here, but those were reported to um the city last year. Those came from 373 properties. So, it is the same landlords over and over and over again that are not preparing their homes in a manner that allows someone to live in it comfortably, safely. And so, to those landlords, yeah, this is for you. To the landlords that are providing decent homes for the tenants that live there, this won't affect you. I've talked to many many landlords who read this and went I'll have to register. Okay. So, um I we all know how this is going to go but I just want to say that um you know tenant protections are necessary in a time when we are seeing people leave housing every single week and become unhoused. And then the same people that were here tonight complaining about these massive tenant protections that would somehow bother them so much are the ones that come back and complain about the number of unhoused people in our community. So um with that I you know I urge your support to move this to full counsel and let the folks have a full hearing. We'll move to a roll call vote. >> Councelor Busan. >> No. >> Councelor Champine. No. Councelor Grout, >> no. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feeblecorn, >> yes. >> That fails on 23. >> Oh, council. >> Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion for a do not pass. >> Seconded by councelor Champine. Move to a roll call vote. >> Councelor Bassant. >> Yes. Councelor Champine, >> yes. >> Councelor Grout, >> yes. >> Councelor Rogers, >> no. >> Councelor Fiborn, >> no. >> That passes on a 3-2 vote. >> All right. Thank you. Moving on to agenda item D. This is um Councelor Rogers. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um this is 089 amending chapter 9 article 24 known as the safe outdoor space operators permit ordinance. I move for no rec recommendation. >> Second. >> All right. That's been moved and seconded. Do we have um any committee subs or anything you would like to move before we go to comm to public comment? >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I do have a committee sub to move. That is in your packets. We have um just some technical changes mostly from what um this is by request from the administration just to clean up a couple of um just minor errors that we needed to change in the um original. The only substantive change in the committee sub is actually nope not on this one the next one. So there is no substantive changes from the original. Just cleaning up some items um in the um in the original. >> So I move the committee sub. >> I will second that. Any questions? >> All right. Roll call vote. >> Councelor Bassan. >> No. >> Councelor Champine. >> No. Councelor Grout, >> no. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feborn, >> yes. >> That fails on a two-3 vote. >> All right. Um, so we were back on the original bill. Any further amendments? >> No, Madam Chair. We move with no recommendation on the original bill. >> Second that. Um, I just want to make it clear to folks that are going to comment um on the bill that it's exactly the one that was proposed and that all of the technical um amendments have been voted down by this body. We'll move to public comment. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. First speaker is Jesse Harden followed by Gillim Curley. >> Hello. Thanks for having me. Uh my name is Jesse Harden. I am pastor of New Creation Albuquerque Church. Also operator of the first and only operating Safe Outdoor Space in Albuquerque. I just wanted to I'm also here with Kurt who is my neighbor and a resident of Safe Outdoor Space. He was a homeowner for 24 years, lost his home after a medical crisis and was also a business owner and he uh lives in our space and he's very grateful but doesn't want to speak which I understand. I um just come to we come to lend our voices in support of all the changes that would make it more accessible and more uh uh for property owners and organizations and churches to create more safe spaces in the city of Albuquerque. Uh we have created a really beautiful space that uh is building some beautiful community that's pleasant to live in and to live next to. and I live in the neighborhood and believe that many more spaces can be created that are uh beautiful to live in and next to. And the current ordinance as it stands makes it too burdensome. There's too many barriers. It's too it's cost prohibitive for really anyone uh to try to do it. And we've tried to do it and we hope we can sustain it. But with the current ordinance, I don't know if we can. So I hope that I encourage you to adopt all the changes. Uh just share a quick story. Uh the first day we were open, I arrived early in our safe outdoor space uh to one of our first tenants emerging from her tent. I said, "How'd you sleep?" And uh she breathed really deep and um smiled and had tears in her eyes and she says, "I haven't slept through the night for four years. Uh thank you for creating the space." So, I just want to encourage you to make it possible for others to create uh spaces for our neighbors and move them towards stability. Just giving them a chance. Thank you, >> Gillum Curley, followed by Diana Simpson, followed by Ilsa Beal. >> Good evening, council members. I'm the owner of Quirky Used Books and More. As you may have heard, our bookstore has been allowing a small number of unhoused neighbors to camp at the back of our parking lot. Every tent on our property and every tent in a safe outdoor space means one less tent on Albuquerque sidewalks, in our parks and alleyways, under our overpasses, or on private property where they are not welcome. We've been asked why Querty used Books and More doesn't apply to be a city sanctioned safe outdoor space. The answer is simple. The burdensome regulations and unfunded mandates in the safe outdoor space ordinances make it impossible. Providing 247 support and meeting the wraparound social service requirements in both the IDO and the licensing ordinance would cost over $150,000 a year. Even if we had that budget, the economics just don't make sense for a space with only 10 tents. 089 and 090 taken together would go a long way toward removing the obstacles to creation of safe outdoor spaces. They don't go far enough, but they make enough changes the court to use books and more will be able to submit an application to become a safe outdoor space, allowing us to continue helping our unhoused neighbors with the city's blessing rather than its opposition. I have to say, however, that the SOS operators licensing ordinance shouldn't just be amended. It should be repealed. If operators of camping areas intended for middle class or wealthy campers, what we call campgrounds, are not required to be licensed, the city should not impose a licensing requirement on operators of other camping areas, safe outdoor spaces, solely because they serve a different economic class of people. Thank you. >> Diana Simpson, followed by Elsa Beiel, followed by Elena Benton. >> Thank you. Uh my name is Diana Simpson. and I'm a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice. As you may know, we represent Gillum Curley in his appeal of the city's imposition of fines for having tents in the parking lot of his bookstore. Before this committee are two pairs of bills that would ease the burdens of the safe outdoor spaces program and make them more available. These bills contain good and necessary changes. In the interest of this committee's time, I'd like to talk about both within my two minutes, but only speak once. The city's current safe outdoor spaces program is prohibitively burdensome. As you just heard Gil saying, the 247 on-site support requirement entails more than $100,000 in costs. That's an enormous amount of money. Uh meanwhile, it also requires plumbed water stations that require tens of thousands of dollars. Uh it's no wonder that there's only one approved site in the city. At the same time, homelessness is a big problem in Albuquerque. Last year's point in time count revealed 2740 homeless people, nearly half of whom were unsheltered. Since then, the city has outlawed sleeping on public property. With that as the backdrop, these proposed changes become urgent. Both proposals correctly alleviate the two expensive concerns that I've mentioned. Two other positive changes I'd like to highlight are from the mayor's proposals. The first is that Mayor Keller's version would relax the cap on SOS sites per district. This would allow more providers to help those in need. More dispersed sites are a better solution than fewer intense concentrations within the city. That said, the cap should be eliminated entirely to allow SOS sites to operate where they're needed by people who wish to operate them. The second uh other positive change is that it Mayor Keller's version would remove background check requirements of both operators as well as those staying on the sites. Everyone deserves a safe place to stay, even those with a criminal history. So long as people are acting safely and complying with the law, they should be welcome at an SOS site that wants them. Ultimately, these are these proposals are a change in the right direction. We encourage the city to to pass them. Thank you. >> Be followed by Elena Benton followed by Anami Das. >> So I'm a little bit tet tonight. I spent this morning again sitting with folks who had just been displaced on Tennessee again and again was a man just sobbing, sobbing because he had lost everything. Some of those things that they had lost, myself and other volunteers had bought, procured, begged for, and then distributed just to see the bloody city just chucking everything away again. And there is no end to it. People are sitting on the on the curb just devastated, not knowing where to go. And it's hot now. The sun is just blaring down. and the people are expected to just disappear. So at least with the SOS there will be a measure of security, a measure of stability. At least the volunteers who are the primary people who do the outreach on the streets will be able to find the people that we've been working with. We won't have to start a new every single time with yet another sleeping bag, yet another ID document, etc., etc. So, the city has simply not caught the wave, the curve with getting something done. And plonking the appendix gateway on everything and anything is not a plan. So, with the SOS, please pass it. Let it happen. Let it happen broadly and widely and easily so that as many people as possible can host. And to the city, especially tonight where I'm not in the best of moods, I would like to say just get out of our way. Let's do you because we're doing your job. Allow us to do it. Thank you. >> Elena Benton followed by Anami Das followed by Dylan Quay. >> Hello. Thank you. Um hopefully I don't speak too fast. I have a number of issues. So the um these SOS I think are a great idea to transition people from the streets into more stable living environment, but I'd like to see a couple of things kind of tightened up with here. Um I'm seeing that there's tents and also vehicles allowed in the areas, but I'm not seeing anything being designated about the spaces between them. I think there should be something written into here because if there is such an emergency such as firemen or EMTs coming in, they need to have a clear pathway to reach people and even those people are in the back. And I'm not saying anything in this amendment or the following one also. Um I want to talk about and I'll talk later on also is that um what is it um the closeness between the places and hepatitis. So per the CDC and the Institute of Health, NIH, they estimate that 35% of the homeless have hepatitis A. And so when I'm going through these and I looked up into OSHA, how many toilets versus uh wash hand stations and the ones that are being proposed in here don't even meet OSHA standards for a workplace, let alone if you think about somebody having to live there. And so I'd like to see that increase. Now, I understand that plumbing is expensive, but I would like to see if this is going to be around for seven years, that maybe there's some help for the operators to get grants or something like that to make this because seven years is a long time for portaotties. And also, how long are people going to be staying here? Days, weeks, years. Are these vehicles do are they going to be required to be mobile the whole time or what if they break down and they're just junk sitting there? who is monitoring this? So, I was in the planning department today and I found out that there's nobody monitoring group homes and community residence facilities. So, this can easily um deteriorate into something that's unpleasant for the residents. >> Thank you. >> Anamani Doss followed by Dylan Quay followed by Renee Horvath. Dylan Quayar followed by Renee Horvath followed by Denise Ford Renee Horvath followed by Denise Ford followed by Nick Hamill on Zoom. Uh, good evening. Uh, I just like to speak on the safe outdoor space because I spoke on it a few years ago when they first started thinking about safe outdoor space and they wanted to um, and I do appreciate that we're trying to deal with the homeless issue, but I do worry about removing and weakening some of the requirements of the safe outdoor spaces because there are safety issues that we need to consern consider here. And uh, And so I did attend the IDEO amendments for the safe outdoor space several years ago and there was a lot of opposition and there was a lot of opposition uh to make it a permissive use in the IDO which it is and the um and so that's why they put these requirements on to try to address some of these issues and u you know originally I thought yeah the safe outdoor space may be helpful but we do have I started to notice we do have a drug addiction issue and so those um people uh need a little more long-term treatment plan and uh and I've I've been promoting that we do more of that long-term housing maybe at the East Gateway to do long-term treatment for drug addiction. It will take a long time, but it is a hospital with rooms and bathrooms and a kitchen down below. But in the meantime, um I also um as we were looking at the safe outdoor spaces, we learned that Denver had safe outdoor spaces and so did Carl'sbad, New Mexico. And the ones in Denver that were managed and supervised by a church, it seemed to not be a problem because they were organized and they managed it pretty well. It looked like the one in Carl's bad on the outskirts of town. Uh it was on the outskirts of town and it is managed by organization and it seemed to not have problems. But I guess I'm you can ne if you keep your requirements strong you can negotiate >> next to next speaker. >> Thank you madam chair. We have Nick Hamill followed by John Bolton followed by Nikil Pylor on Zoom. Go ahead. >> Hi everyone. >> Hi. Thanks. Uh, my name is Nicholas Hamill. I'm a registered nurse and president of the Fair West Neighborhood Association. Fair West is a neighborhood within the International District and within District 6. I'd like to voice my support for the proposed amendments to O2589 and O2590. I'm part of a growing group of neighbors. Uh we're collaborating to create more small community supported safe outdoor spaces. We think they can be valuable additions to our community, creating more places for stability, connection, and hope. Uh the proposed changes to relax some of the financial and administrative burdens to open and operate us all a small safe outdoor space would be beneficial to our efforts. In the future, we look forward to applying for operating permits and working with the city to improve living conditions for our neighbors with our neighbors. Thanks for your time. >> Thank you. Up next, we have John Bolton followed by Nikquille Pylor. John, can you please accept promotion to panelists? Okay, go ahead. John, >> please unmute. For 26 years, I've lived and worked in the International District, working with community issues and trying to help solve some of our larger needs. I support the safe outdoor space amendment um because we have to be thinking different. We're in a housing crisis and we have to be acting and doing things differently. after three years of our ordinance. I applaud Jesse and Nick for for Rich for the safe outdoor space we do have, but we need so many more. Right outside my door, my office on Vermont and Central, I every day I have close to 100 people living on the streets. We will need 10 organizations, 10 outdoor spaces with 10 folks living in each just to deal with Vermont, a half a block of Vermont Street. Um, as I talk to people on the streets, it reflects what the 2024 point in time interviews came up with that 87% of people on the streets want to live in a safe outdoor space. They want safe camping. They just don't have places to go. We don't have enough organizations to open these up. We don't have enough professional case managers to deal with it. So, we have to start looking differently. We've purchased um today we've just purchased our ninth vacant lot out of 350 in the international district. Only one of them will fit the zoning requirements for a safe outdoor space. The other six were currently building small uh housing for permanently affordable. But we have to be doing things differently. I I encourage the city to look at paying for um restrooms, trash, fencing, some basic items. It chunk change for our city, but it'll make a long way in helping organizations be able to open these up. We also have to look at solutions from our neighbors. Many of them can help if they want to. Thank you. >> Thank you, John. Up next we have Nikil Pylor followed by Karen Navaro. >> Uh hi uh my name is Nikil. I'm the uh co-chair of the Albuquerque Democratic Socialist of America. Uh and I think the the main question uh sort of we're dealing with here is do we see the uh homelessness situation in Albuquerque as a crisis and an emergency uh or do we not? Uh and so I think if we do see it as a crisis, if we do see it as something that needs to be uh addressed urgently, then uh it's very straightforward that we we want immediate relief for the problem uh in the form of things like safe outdoor spaces, in the form of expanded city services. Uh and uh certainly we need a long-term systemic approach uh through expanded housing uh and uh working with a lot of people on the streets to get them essential services. But things like safe outdoor spaces, they are a very immediate way uh to address this issue. Uh I think we we heard earlier there are uh local business owners who have tried to use their resources to uh help with the problem to help people on the streets nearby. Uh and yet we've seen them being harassed by the city's uh code enforcement uh because of how ownorous the existing safe outdoor space uh policies have been. Uh I think that you know some of the previous speakers have mentioned issues such as uh drug addiction or disease and you know we can either use that to make people feel afraid or threatened by these people or we can stop and think is it a lot easier to deal with these problems uh if the people on the streets have a place to stay if they have a place uh where they can reliably go back home every night uh if they have services that are within easy access. I think that makes it a lot easier to deal with uh issues like addiction uh and plenty of other problems. So uh I urge the council to uh think about this situation, treat it like the emergency it is uh and ignore the fearongering. Thank you. >> Karen Navaro followed by Shenoa Ba Stillwell Jensen. >> Good evening councilors. I speak in strong support for amendments to the two safe outdoor space ordinances to make it easier for community partners to open and safely maintain safe outdoor spaces. Every safe outdoor space that opens will give people who cannot cope with being in a huge shelter the peace of mind of camping in a tent or structure with supportive services brought to them from offsite and harassment from the city for camping in a tent. A safe outdoor space would provide a handwashing st station, access to toilets and showers, and easy access to medical and homeless services, street outreach teams, so they can actually keep in touch with the person and build a relationship. They can adapt their schedules to go to these safe outdoor space sites sites without a formal contract being necessary. and they can go to adjacent spaces. Also, with 50% no-show rates at homeless service centers, why not bring the services to the safe outdoor space without having a formal office on site? Current u current ordinance requirements for full-time 247 operator on site, 247 security, etc. post too high a barrier bar that is too costly for faith-based communities to make a commitment. on call and regularly visiting services can be just as effective and not break the bank. Finally, why not have a mobile shower that CFBQ would pay similar to the one that Joanne has at Compassion Center to maintain that could go from safe outdoor space to safe outdoor space. It's doable and it's an easy expense to justify since the city has $36,000 to spend per bed annually at Gateway East. Thank you for your time. >> Chanela Ba Stillwell Jetson followed by Joe Sabatini. >> Hello. Thank you so much u madam chair and members of the council um and the community. Uh my name is Shano Ba and I've worked in many different parts of the city. Um I love our city. I love the people of our city. Everyone that we even call unsheltered relatives rather than homeless people. We need to reframe how we talk about our community members because they are our loved ones. They might be a child that um need support. They might be a sibling. Each one of us in our families has someone that may have been unsheltered or at risk for homelessness. I've worked in nonprofit clinics. I've worked in clinics. I've worked at in different um establishments that support and care for our unsheltered relatives. It's important to have um safe outdoor spaces. Um we currently have close to or over 3,000 unsheltered or families who are at risk for homelessness within Albuquerque School District. If we don't allow for this safe outdoor space, what are we going to do to help our children learn and also for our parents and guardians to thrive who are at risk for homelessness or who are unsheltered? We also need to think about the language of love and kinship as we talk about our community members. Every faith and those that um are atheists have ways in which we honor each other as human beings. We need to dignify our people. We need to care for them. places like the city of Flagstaff have done mobile units just like you heard. Um Dr. Linda Sunstone has an amazing integrated mobile unit for all people, not just unsheltered, but for anyone that might need access to a shower or other types of services. We also have the city of Denver as you heard earlier that provides more shelters, safe sacred spaces for community members to feel dignified and as a whole person again. They're ready to work. They're ready to contribute to society. They're just not hearing that they're cared for. They're not hearing that kinship. >> And it's important that you >> Thank you, Shanola. Your time is up. >> Thank you. Up next we have Joe Sabatini followed by Sarah Azibbo. Hello. I'm Joseini. I've lived in the uh near north valley uh for 55 years now and I'm representing the near north valley neighborhood association. We have been looking at this issue but uh we which is just north of I40 between I25 and the Rio Grand. Um, there are two major homeless providers located within our boundaries. We request that you defer your vote on the proposed ordinance. Um, we have a housing and homeless committee that has been reviewing the proposals that that you've been considering and the the options, some of which you've heard um tonight. We do generally agree um that the current uh zoning ordinance is impractical and needs improvement and uh we voted last week to request deferral of the amendments to achieve the goal. We've been in contact with councelor Rogers and our counselor Baka suggesting some possible improvements and we'd appreciate the time to fully discuss these possible improvements uh that would make the safe outdoor spaces practicable while still taking into consideration the impacts on the larger community. generally needs to be addressed and we appreciate your work on it. Thank you councilors. >> Sarah Aebo followed by Denise Ford. >> Good evening councilors. I am Sarah Aboebo. I'm here to speak in support of 02589 as well as 02590 as a beginning step to addressing the need for safe shelter for unsheltered relatives. The first time I spoke at city council meeting years ago, I advocated and pleaded for your support of safe outdoor spaces. I have since witnessed the process Jesse Harden and New Creation Church persisted through to establish Albuquerquey's first SOS with tents on pallets that the mayor was proud to claim as his own triumph. The mayor then encouraged every church to create an SOS, but recently admitted the process is not easy or accessible. Many safe outdoor spaces are needed to help people stabilize and transition from existing outside to living in housing when it becomes available. We do have a housing shortage. Changes are needed to this ordinance to provide for these. Currently, city zoning laws punish property owners who have stepped up where the city hasn't, compassionately giving people space that is safe to exist outside. I worked alongside East Central Ministries and Quirky Used Books and More as they have been targeted for zoning violations with possible fines now rising beyond $30,000 for providing space for people to safely shelter on their own property. I have been pained to see human beings displaced from public resting spots at a great cost to taxpayers. I am further disturbed to have learned that in June of this year, 51.4% of bookings at MDC were people identified as transient. These costs and cruelty are indefensible. Creating multiple safe outdoor spaces that provide people with a safe home base as they seek out resources, employment, reconnection with family without needing to carry all they own be threatened with violence or displacement is one step that needs to be taken to address the issue of homelessness that is plaguing our city. 02589 allows for the expansion of SOS across the city by revising the stringent operation costs, though it can go further. I support the expansion of the number of SOSs allowed in each district by excluding those operated. >> Thank you, Mrs. Zebo. Sorry, your time is up. >> Thank you for the two minutes. That was great. >> Thanks. >> Thank you, Denise for Denise, you're mute. There you go. >> I appreciate this time. Uh even though I feel for the homeless, I am speaking in opposition to the safe outdoor space uh permit. It is proposed that this ordinance is to maintain our commitment to health, safety, and neighborhood standards. This, I believe, is a false statement because it no longer requires background checks on operators and residents. Means that felons and sex offenders are able to enter these spaces if there are background checks. Safety is an issue and if we eliminate background checks, we constantly lower our standards for uh getting into uh things like tiny homes that the Eastgate Center uh we do not need to lower our standards. We need to keep those at a good level. Uh if owner if an owner is not in compliance, what happens to the tenants when that facility is gone and how will the city monitor other than just reporting by operator? Uh how will we monitor these places and who will be overseeing them is another question. But lowering standards and uh not doing background checks is a very uh strong safety issue that I think we need to enforce. Thank you. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I was unable to find Carol Pierce in Zoom, so that does conclude comment. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Coronelius. Um Councelor Rogers to open on her bill. Let's give a second to see. >> All right, we have him signed up for the next one. So, back to Council Rogers. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll just open by saying I've heard from a lot of potential operators and some you heard of from today um who want to help us with the homeless problem, um but continue to say how ownorous the process is and expensive the process is to be able to do this. I think we need other options and it's clear that the last three years the ordinance as it stands isn't working. We've only we only have one approved safe outdoor space in all of Albuquerque in District 6. Um it's it's a great um it took a lot to help get that to even open. Um, and so I see this as something that gives other options because right now there is no other options outside of shelters. Um, and folks that don't want to be in shelters, that are not breaking the law, right, in any way or shape or form should have that option. And so I, um, yeah, I think that's all. >> Thank you, councelor. Any questions or comments? Councelor Champine. Thank you, Madam Chair. I only have uh several uh why did we remove background checks for the operators? >> Councelor Rogers, who do you want to answer that? >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh I'm going to send that over to the administration. Uh >> Madam Chair and Councelor Rogers, we have the appropriate staff here to answer that question for you. Good afternoon. Uh, I'm Maria Wolf. I'm a homeless innovations officer for the city of Albuquerque. Thank you for letting me address your questions. Um, specifically to that, that was a mistake in the draft and it was supposed to be added back in in the committee substitute. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. That's why I wanted them to answer because I put it in the committee sub put it back because we do need that. We do need folks who are operating these to have background checks. Um, in regards to the sex offenders, there's already rules in our state law. >> Madam Chair, I believe I have the floor on this one. >> I'm answering your question. >> She answered it, ma'am. >> Council, I'm gonna give councelor Rogers one more moment to answer your question, then I'll go back to you. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, again, this is by request, so I wanted to demonstrate that this is something that I caught and wanted to put back in the committee sub that you voted down. Thank you, Madam Chair. Councelor Shantine. >> Thank you. Uh, how many were in attendance at Coronado Park on average when that was a safe outdoor space? >> Madam Chair, I can take that. >> Uh, Council Rogers. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I was actually working for the city during that time. It was not a sanctioned safe outdoor space. Um, so it it was not an actual permitted safe outdoor space that anybody was operating. >> Thank you, Councelor Champine. >> Okay. Then a followup to that. Then if we weren't operating it as a city, why did it on a monthly basis the police go to it? Uh, solid waste go to it, clean it up, and police it if we weren't supporting it. >> Mr. Mononttoya or Miss Wolf. >> Um, thank you, Madam Chairman, and counselors. Um uh I think that the process that was put in place to maintain or assert cleanliness and sanitation at that park um was um similar to processes we have in place with other encampments currently. >> Okay. So we support other encampments through cleaning and policing and such. >> I I don't know that I would say we support the encampments. I would say that we do work hard to clean spaces where people have camped and um try to uh make them a safer area. I uh the Coronado Park was a very different situation than any of these planned encountments that would be safe outdoor spaces. That's part of the intent for this is to really change what it is. Okay. Thank you. And I apologize, Madam Chair. I'm not addressing you, so I will rectify that. Uh, Madam Chair, at Gateway East, and I don't know if the administration or has anybody ever been denied for do we run background checks at the admin at the at gateways that they stay at? >> Do you want me to respond to that? >> Um, we do not. Um what we try to do is make our um services at Gateway Center um low barrier because you're trying to get people connected to service and get them on a stable path forward. So conducting a background check or not allowing pets or requiring sobriety on site that would be a replication of services that are already available at other shelters. What we're trying to do is fill the gaps in services. >> Okay. And madam chair is that why we part of the elimination of the felony abat convictions was removed so that people who were convicted felons of aggravated battery are allowed to stay without knowledge. Are you >> whoever would like to answer it? I'm I'm since it's the administration and by request either the counselor or you. >> You want me to answer? >> Okay. Um, madame chair and and counselors, we want people to be able to attain stable housing and whether they are um former felons or have other issues in their background, we believe that societyy's better served by having them in stable housing than on the streets. >> Okay. Madame Chair, um what is your alternative on the on-site food service or mental and physical health services since it's being removed? So, Madame Chair and counselors, again, our goal for this is to make these ordinances be less burdensome for especially the faith groups who are trying to put them in place. It's not that they will not provide these services. We're trying to make it so they can do it in a way that works within the community that they're building. And so, individuals can attain food boxes. They can have their own EBT. They can have other resources that they're bringing to the safe outdoor space individually or as a group. We're trying to create the flexibility that allows these groups to create these spaces that are so needed. >> Okay. And Madam Chair, uh it's stated in there that there needs to be some sort of uh regulation or protocol for for conduct of violations um before tenants can be removed. There needs to be a progressive discipline. What what does that mean? >> So So that is actually defined in the management plan that the group puts together. And so, um, in the case of, uh, Jesse Harden's, uh, Refuge, uh, safe outdoor space, they've laid out how the conversation goes with the tenant, reinforcing the rules, how when they first come, they have to sign an agreement of the rules that they agree to follow. they um have uh the uh the plan for how over like if if a problem continues, you have a progressive until the person is removed from the space by the operator. Um and this is recorded. They have um disciplinary notices that are required in the management plan. The management plans are actually quite extensive um with each group that management plan may be um slightly different or or stronger on one part or another depending on the group that they're trying to serve in their safe outdoor space. >> Okay, >> Madam Chair, um so there won't be any more inspections by code enforcement, but 311 Oh, no. I'm sorry. there's no more inspections by the the operators in the surrounding area, but instead call 311 to clean up human feces and needles and such like that. Is that correct? >> I I think that they're trying again to be less burdensome in the actual ordinance. I I believe that the faith groups and the other civic groups and individuals and private property owners are very intent on having good relations with their neighbors and keeping the areas clean. Um that they are taking that responsibility and will continue to do it. I I don't think it's just going to be a 311 call. I think part of that language initially was reinforcing the the need for people to report appropriately. Um and so some of that has shifted. >> Okay. I'm a little confused then Madam Chair because it was reduced the original one or one that I did read reduced it from 660 ft which was two city blocks to 330 ft which is only one block um that they don't have to inspect now. So they don't it it says it in there. They don't have to inspect within a block of their site. They actually just call 311 to have them clean it up. That's in the rules. So um kudos to them if they actually go and do it, but they're not following the rules that are set forth. So now they just go on to 311 and it's pushed on to the city to clean up the spots that they're tenants in a sense are defecating and trashing and doing illegal work. So okay. Um why and that leads me to another question madam chair why the reduction from the 660 to the 330. So uh councilors um, and madam chair, I, uh, believe again it was to reduce the burdens, some requirements that were seen as very extensive by a lot of the faith groups, civic groups that are considering putting together and trying to keep together a safe outdoor space. um they don't believe that um those more extensive areas are necessarily as a result of the spaces that they're going to create because the people who are in their safe outdoor space are going to be following their rules and so they're going to maintain the space in the immediate vicinity. If it's in the broader area that may or may not be as a result of the people who are living in their safe outdoor space. Okay. Uh, Madam Chair, what I noticed in the one on Zonyi and um Zoney and uh I think it's Texas that they did that the the govern uh the county does is that when it first opened there was requirements that they couldn't fill it but everybody camped around it and one or two blocks away from it and then when they could fill it people still camped around it u one or two blocks away. So I I I find your statement a little tough to believe that if they're in the encampment, they're going to follow rules and there's progressive discipline if they don't and then they'll get kicked out and camp on the streets anyway. So um thank you for the answers and the clarification. That was a lot of what it is. My final question, ma'am, and I think this is more directed at the administration is that we're doing a lot of uh as she put less burdensome for safe outdoor spaces. Why are we not being less burdensome on business owners then for the regulations that they have to go through when they need to get something opened? Why can't this same thing be applied for them? >> Madam Chair, councelor Shampine. So again, uh my name is J. Ryel. Uh >> thank you Mr. Ryel. >> I appreciate the the opportunity to speak on this. This is uh a one of the many solutions that we have to bring towards homelessness and reducing uh the homelessness and this is directly beneficial to businesses as well. We have found that if we have a uh safe outdoor space um we have the ability to address the individuals living within that space. we have the ability to locate and provide the services directly to those individuals to develop the relationship and the rapport with them so that we can get them connected to services that they might need and also the a better trackway uh towards housing stability. Uh so this is this does benefit the business community as well. >> Okay. I it goes that that it's a great description of what it was, Madam Chair, that but my point or my question was is that we're making all these efforts to be less burdensome on this program, but yet we have stringent rules and regulations that small businesses when they get started, we don't have the same approach to them. We are doing it for the homeless, but we don't do it for people that that contribute to GRT or anything like that. We still have a six, seven, eightmonth waiting period of permitting and such. So I just find that amazing that we're going to be less burdensome on them but not on taxpayers in a sense. So but >> madam chair I that wasn't a question. It was basically a statement. So thank you madam chair. >> Thank you councelor. Any other questions? Um all right I have a few. Um Mr. Maybe you should stay up there. Um but I'll I'll direct this to councelor Rogers and then go from there. Um councelor Rogers why why would we need safe outdoor spaces? Why don't we just have overnight shelters that everyone can go to? >> Thank you, Madam Chair. That's a great question. Um I think most of the folks that I've talked to that are getting um just swept in our encampments um don't feel safe sometimes in our shelters, not just the city runs, but other shelters. They don't feel safe. um they'll rather take their chances out um in a well-lit area on the side of the road which is um for some of us we don't understand that but that is the reality and the choice that a lot of folks are having to make. I think that this to Mr. Rael's point, this is just one solution, one option to give folks um that is already uh on our books just act. And to councelor um Champine's question about business owners, the most pe most of the folks that are going to sign up to do these are churches and they don't fall under the same business requirements of a for-profit business. Um because other than our Kirky Books owner, that's the only business owner that I've seen try to step up to help in this way. that is not a faith-based organization. And so I think it's important to already note that there are faith-based organizations have completely different rules than business owners. Um even with their land use um they can do this type of stuff on on their land. Um, and so for me to answer your question though to go back to your question about the importance, this is just one option that we need in the continuum of care. And the bottom line is these ones with permitted are absolutely more safe than what we had at Coronado Park. Like that was unsanctioned. Um, the safety was something that we heard a lot about when Coronado Park was open. Um, and I think even though we're trying to make these changes, it still will create a better environment for folks than what we have right now in encampments. Thank you, Mr. Can you tell me how many folks have applied to open a safe outdoor space since we originally allowed them about three and a half years ago, maybe three years ago. >> Madam Chair, I'll defer to Miss Wolf on that question. >> Thank you. So, when the safe outdoor space ordinance first um started, we had a number of organizations apply. Um my understanding is that two were actually permitted. One was at um Gateway West and allowed safe car camping and then at the Albuquerque Opportunity Center again was a car camping. Um uh shortly there uh the were in those cars and camping just went into the shelters. Um there uh were various issues. The operators chose not to continue to uh have safe outdoor spaces at those sites um because of kind of the um trying to think of the right word. just the the dissonance of having the shelter with a transient population and having the parking lot with a transient population and uh people using both spaces and and a lack of clarity in which rules people had to follow. So those operators chose not to continue to have those safe outdoor spaces. Since then we have one um permitted um and that is uh Jesse Harden's um >> Thank you. So my my question was really how many people have applied and I will answer the question for at least for my district and I don't know what it is citywide but in my district we've had two applications and they were both withdrawn because not because they did not want to help our unhoused neighbors not because they weren't committed to um assisting the community but because it was just too ownorous. Uh there were too many requirements and so that's two in district seven. And do you have any idea of how many citywide have withdrawn because they just couldn't do it? >> Um, I don't have the actual number of how many have withdrawn. I can obtain that number and get it to you. >> Okay. Thank you. And then my my last question and just something that councelor Shampran brought up um you know about helping businesses. Um, have you had any reports from businesses around the one functioning uh safe outdoor space that perhaps this is actually useful for businesses to not have the unhoused camping in front of their building or in the sidewalk in front of their their retail establishment, but rather have a designated space for them to be. Um, is there any is there any proof or any thought that that could be beneficial to all businesses, not just the um the house of worship that is offering the safe outdoor space? I would I would say there's a lot of thought. Um we don't have a lot of proof about a lot of things when it comes to the things we're trying to put in place. Um one of the things that we run into often when we're trying to figure out new ways to address our unhoused situation is um that uh perfection can be the enemy of um trying to do the right thing at the right time. Um, so we do not have all the proof we need for all the things, but we do have people in faith groups especially that want to try to help and have found that it is too burdensome and they've had to withdraw or just stop their application process. >> Israel, Madam Chair, just one one uh more item to add on to that. I think it's important for uh you all to understand too uh so I don't have a direct as Miss Wolf mentioned we don't have a direct number to provide to you about businesses that are saying that this is a good or a bad thing but what we do have is extensive meetings that we've held with various faith group leaders and nonprofit providers who are interested and who are here before you today in support of this amendment stating that for this to work and for them to be a part of the solution uh to this issue we need to make this change. So, um it's it's critical that the public also understand that a safe outdoor space and the impact to the surrounding businesses is that we will have uh a better understanding of the individuals in those safe outdoor spaces that would reduce some of the fears and concerns that they might have. We we as a city can work better with partners uh like uh Mr. harden um to be more responsive to areas that they have a safe outdoor space operating and we know that the individuals who are are work are living in those uh outdoor spaces. This is overall I think an increase in public safety but also uh a measure that is going to really provide as as councelor Rogers mentioned one more solution uh that we need towards homelessness. >> Thank you. So I'm um I obviously I'm going to be supporting these bills. I think it's vital that we provide more um more spaces for folks who are unhoused in our community. Um it does strike me as very telling that all the folks that showed up here tonight to support these um a large percentage of them are um businesses uh churches and folks who and neighborhood associations who are surrounding the one existing safe outdoor space. And I think that's very telling that the the one place that we have this working in our city, the community around that is saying yes, please more. And and to them I say I of course will be supporting that. And I did want to just quickly make one correction. Um many unhoused people contribute gross receipts tax. Many unhoused people have jobs. And I just wanted to make sure that that was um clarified before we move on to councelor Grout with some questions. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to make sure that um there was a constituent that asked for his um articles to be placed into the record. So I wanted to make sure that those got placed into the record and that was from an email that came to all of us this morning. Can we make sure that that happens? >> Madam Chair, councelor Grout, we did add that into uh the one drive file for uh this. >> Okay, very good. Thank you. Um, and then um I um I'm very concerned about this. Um I still I I have a I don't like seeing people in tents. I want to see them. It makes me sad that they are living in a tent and um with no running water and um I I think we need to do a better job to get them into shelters and places. We yesterday I looked at a a dashboard. We've got 240 empty beds that are available right now for people to to to be in and that's a good thing. I also um while I understand um a few things, not quite sure why we're doing this right now when this you're trying to change the IDO and we're supposed to be doing this every two years instead of when we want to. I think we should be waiting until go through the process that we we made. Um, also, um, I think about I know that, um, I'm glad that churches, um, are wanting to step up and help in certain in in ways. Um, but I also am very concerned about the security. Um, security if somebody's available 9 to5 and then afterwards you're on your own. There's a phone call away. Well, a lot of things happen at night. A lot of things happen at night. and you're there are a lot of churches that are in the middle of neighborhoods and that's scary to not have security available 247. Um sadly we know that there are issues. Um I do um my business is near um Quirky Books. is about a mile away and but I drive there for for reasons to for to vendors and so forth and I see the area around it and the the um transates around it and I'm concerned that when there's not security 24/7 that there's going to be more of that in neighborhoods and that's a scary thing. We don't want to it need we need oversight. Um, I am not ready to support this um, the way it's written. >> Thank you. Any additional comments from counselors? I did want to go back to Mr. Mononttoya. I think I missed him earlier. >> Madam Chair, just to answer your last question regarding any sort of complaints that we received. Uh, director may be on the call today, but if we would had any calls, they would have come to code enforcement. Uh, to my knowledge, we've had no complaints. through the planning department. Uh none in the mayor's office and I'm not aware of any that were reported to 311. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. Councelor Rogers to close. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the the conversation and the discussion. I think to answer your question, Councelor Fibocorn, we have an amazing dashboard online. It's a safe outdoor space application locations. We've had 11 in three years submitted. Five have been denied. Four have been withdrawn. We have one approved and we have one awaiting review right now. Um and so I think it's clear that in three years to only have 11 applicants, this isn't working. It's it's not working and we need to do something uh to make it better. Um I know um the committee sub that I brought forth didn't pass, but it had a lot of fixes to a lot of the things that we're talking about today. U my intention was not to take out background checks, so I put it back into the committee sub. Um the 24-hour security, look, we don't we have one security guard at the Westside Shelter for 600 people. It's not adequate. And it's in the shelter. Um and people don't feel safe there either. And so for me, for a space of 10 people, um it's less risk than what we're carrying right now at the Westside Shelter um with one security guard um for each shift um for 600 plus people in one facility. So um I think what we have right now in our community um with folks just it's it's inhumane. It's inhumane to not be clear about where people can go and sleep. Um and we have to we have to do better. And so I urge your support. Thank you, councelor Fablecorn. I do want to, you know, obviously do amendments to move it back, but I I put all those things back. I just don't think it's going to make a difference um sadly one way or another. So I don't want to take our time adding a whole bunch of amendments um because I don't think it'll make a difference in our votes. >> Okay. Thank you. We will um seeing no additional hands, we will move to a roll call vote. And the motion before us is a move to full counsel with no recommendation. >> Councelor Bassan, >> no. >> Councelor Champine, >> no. >> Councelor Grout, >> no. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feeblecorn, >> yes. >> That fails on the two to three vote. Madam Chair, >> Councelor Champine, >> make a motion to do not pass on O2581. >> Moved by councelor Champine, seconded by councelor Grout. Roll call vote. >> Councelor Basan, >> yes. >> Councelor Champine, >> yes. >> Councelor Grout, >> yes. >> Councelor Rogers, >> no. Councelor Feeorn. >> No. >> That passes on a 3-2 vote. >> All right. Um, we will be moving on to agenda item E and that is also Councelor Rogers. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we know where this is going. Yep. >> So, we'll just say >> No, let's move it with no recommendation. >> And I will second that. Any amendments or things? >> No, Madam Chair. >> All right. We'll move to um public comment. Mr. Cornelius. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. First, we have Jesse Harden, followed by Gillum Curley. >> Glad I have a second shot. Could you look me in the eye, please? You guys, I appreciate it. I am very disappointed. It seems like you're just I don't know if you're listening or or this is just a farce, but um I would just invite you to come to our safe outdoor space. I believe it's a space that your constituents and your businesses would be pleased to be next to. I also really um don't appreciate the language that you use that is dehumanizing and dis disrespectful even to my neighbor Kurt here when you uh talk of people and you that there's safety concerns. uh is a security for the neighborhoods or for the people that are vulnerable and on the streets. We have to start seeing people as neighbors and not as problems. We need to start looking at the poor and standing in awe at how much they carry rather than in judgment at how they carry it. But even we don't know. Do you know how they carry it? Do you know them? Do you know people? Do you come out? I'm very disappointed that the voting is just along party lines. It's so disappointing. Um really it it it I'm also a son of a family business owner, a very successful business in Albuquerque. Um there are business owners here. Mr. Brad Day is here. He'll speak. A successful business owner and property owner. Um I'm very disappointed. I don't think that you're trying to listen to understand. Your questions had an edge to them. Uh that were not did not have a heart or posture of listening or humility. It was to um yeah, I guess maintain votes. I'm very disappointed and I pray that you would come and actually see the operation of a safe outdoor space and how this will actually help your neighborhoods, your communities, and the people that um you say you care about and that you care you you say you don't want them to be intent. Well, what's the solution? Uh thank you very much. Uh and I please do come. I I would love to have a conversation with you. Gillim Curley followed by Diana Simpson followed by Cada Botm. >> A no vote on this proposal as with the last one is a vote in favor of the status quo. The status quo is the city solid waste department locates and removes 600 to 1,000 encampments each month from public property. The status quo and that As far as I can tell, the numbers don't quite match up, but that is a count of locations. It can be a city block, not number of tents. That is what you are endorsing with a no vote to to continue that rather than getting people off of the streets, off of the sidewalks, out of the parks, and into a place that is set aside for them. Council Champine, to answer your question from earlier, I'm a small business owner. The regulations I'm subjected to by the city for running a retail store are much less than what I would have to do to be a safe outdoor space. The city doesn't tell me that I have to have 247 staffing. The city doesn't tell me what kind of books I can sell, what kind of bags I can put them in anymore. Um, doesn't tell me um but I have to provide this service in addition to a book, that service in addition to the book. So the requirement, the regulations that are so burdensome with safe outdoor spaces go far beyond what are placed upon ordinary businesses. I urge you to support this. If anything, I would urge you to go beyond this and look at the other obstacles that would remain the creation of safe outdoor spaces. The obstacles that keep people camping on our sidewalks, in our parks, over underpasses, and on private property where they are trespassing. Thank you so much. >> Diana Simpson followed by Cada Bottom followed by James Shanley. Cada Bottom followed by James Shanley followed by Ilsa Beiel. Good evening, chairman Phil and counselors. My name is Cadia Bottom and I'm a tenant at the Gateway Navigation Center, building 11. My voice is cracking now because as I listen to you deny these changes for the outdoor space. I think about the area I'm in, the schools have just created a walking bus because there's over 200 people laying on the sidewalks between these schools. And you don't see where a safe outdoor space would be better than to leave them on the streets for these kids to have to pass. I I I I don't get that. I just don't get that. One can't say what won't work if it hasn't been tried. I'm aware of the opposition to safe outdoor spaces, but the operative word is safe. Given the amendments and management of the SOS, I truly believe we as the city can start seeing a decline on our streets. Residents can start appreciating their neighborhoods and parks. I ask that you seriously consider this amendment for the good of our city, citizens, and unsheltered neighbors. Homelessness is not a cookie cut issue, but having dignity is. Thanking you in advance for your consideration to amend this ordinance. But since I still have a little more time, I wish you could come and see the people on Valencia and Cardinas where the kids have to walk all the way around because they are not understanding. just to them this is a negative situation but this is somebody's mom sister brother whatever >> James Shanley followed by Ilsa Beiel followed by Brad Day >> Madame Chair councilors if fire or floods roared through our city and displaced 3,000 people from their homes I don't believe we would ask them to hang for a few years on the streets and sidewalks while we rustled up $300 million to erect an unhoused industrial complex for them. What we would do is whatever it took to address the issue with urgency. All of Albuquerque is being punished by this crisis of the unhoused. the entire city. Every day these unfortunate people spend without place or shelter increases their vulnerability to physical, behavioral and substance illnesses and predation by criminal elements. Our community happens to be and fortunately is blessed with an extraordinary number of good Samaritans able to earn the trust of those people on the streets and by that trust are capable of establishing curated communities in safe open spaces where small groups can be sheltered and guided toward a better life. We all had the privilege of hearing from a number of those good Samaritans here this evening. Those people are not stopped by 75% refused services. They have shown willingness to dedicate their own resources to establishing those spaces if our policies aren't made so ownorous as to be threatening instead of encouraging. If you via policy demonstrate more trust and willingness to collaborate with those good Samaritans instead of creating barriers, Albuquerque can make measurable progress on this most damaging of our urban afflictions. And once you fix that, then you can move on to safe indoor spaces. >> Thank you. >> Elsa Beal, followed by Brad Day, followed by Peggy Nef. So, my day is not getting much better. Um, where timing is concerned, I wonder how much longer do we need to wait? How much longer do the people on the street need to wait? with regards to people perhaps not needing to sleep in substandard conditions like a tent and so on. A tent in a safe outdoor space is it still offers more security and stability and so on. So one of the speakers mentioned that we're lowering standards. You do know that the people at the moment are sleeping on the sidewalk without toilets, without water, without any security. And then I appreciated that the housed is concerned about security issues and so on because you might not have direct contact with folks. I I fully understand that. I've heard I've heard that a lot. You do know that at the moment with all the displacements, people are moving more and more into the residential neighborhoods. So watch a park coming to you shortly. It's going to happen. So rather get people sorted and stabilized. That's the one thing. The other thing is that at bottom it's actually a croc that the city is placing restrictions on people who are prepared entities that are prepared to step up and host and provide opportunities that the rest of the city administration is just not quite managing. They're expecting the hosting entities to carry the full burden of cost, of liability, of everything. This city is giving nothing. With Jesse's place, they organized a photo op so that the mayor could be there. That was it. >> Thank you, Miss Be. >> Brad Day, followed by Peggy Nef, followed by Elena Benson. Just wanted to see if the timer worked. Does it does work? Um, let me see if I can pull us out of the weeds here because we're getting way off what we're really doing here. The reason I can say that is because three and a half years ago, I spent dozens of hours down at Camp Hope in Las Cruises. Camp Hope is the number one safe outdoor space in the nation. They have gotten all the veterans off the streets. I mean, they have done a marvelous job. They've been doing it for 19 years. So, what did we do? We're not making up these rules. The the most common form of business in the United States is a franchise. And the reason why you buy a franchise is because somebody has made all the mistakes that you need to make in that business. And what you end up with is protocols that actually are cost effective and make that business work. That's exactly what we did down at Camp Hope. We took everything they were doing, all their protocols, security applications, everything. We brought it up here and Gil Curley and I spent dozens of hours drafting the first safe outdoor space amendment to the IDO. It was approved. I got a permit to take 50 women off the street. They were being abused and trafficked. But the mayor took our land and traded it with the state for his rail trail after we spent thousands of hours getting all that organized. Well, I'm out of time. Anyway, I hope you pass this, Madam Chair. Darn it. >> Thank you, Mr. D. >> Madam Chair, may I make a request that if he had more to say to let him finish? >> Mr. today. Did you have additional comments? Councelor Champine is open to hearing them. >> Do you want me to speak? >> Were you finished, sir? You seem like >> No, I No, I No, I There's a couple of things that are really important here. Number one, the safe outdoor space is not the panacea for all of the homeless problem. The safe outdoor space is for people who are sober enough and sane enough where they want to get a job and get off the streets, but they have to have a place to clean up. You can't get a job if you don't take a shower but once every six months, could you? No. So, you have to have a place where you can clean up. You have to be safe, which these are. There fence, there's locks, there's security. The residents have to put in six hours a week of security, cleanup, and so forth. That's where the security comes from. Plus, there's a manager who's on call 24/7. Okay? If you look at the franchise that we came back with from Los Cusus, it's all there until it was disfigured by the city council. They added all this stuff and it made it financially ridiculous. It'd be like us buying a McDonald's franchise and screwing up all the rules that they have. Well, we're not going to make any money, are we? No, we're not. That's what has been done to safe outdoor spaces and you are the only one who stepped up and tried to get it back to the original franchise with the right protocols. That's what you have to do. Then the safe outdoor space that Jesse started, there's two, three people that already have a full-time job. They're going to be out of there in three, four months to get their own place. There's only 400 people out of the 2700 on the streets that are going to qualify to be in a safe outdoor space. This is not for everybody. It is not for everybody. But by God, those 400 people are out there baking every day and we're not doing a damn thing about it, are we? Thank you, Mr. Day. >> Is that enough? I >> mean, if it were up to me, you could keep going, but I'm gonna let Miss Nef come up. >> Peggy Nef, followed by Elena Benton. >> Can I have the same amount of time, please? I want to take it in a different direction, though. I want to congratulate you. I want to say thank you for this dialogue. I want to congratulate you guys that are out there that are on the streets. I want to say good luck. Bring it. Bring it again and again until the angels visit. Miss Counselor Champagne Counselor Grout and Counselor Benton at night and wake them up. We have a crisis. We have a serious crisis and this is an answer. It needs work. It's an unfortunate mistake about the uh leadership not having to be vetted. And I think that it needs to be tiered so that we recognize that different neighborhoods have different needs. Needs to be directly linked to those neighborhood associations. You have my comments on the previous bill. You can get some of this stuff into the amendments. Don't bring Ido amendments to LUPS. Let's take IDEIDO amendments to EPC. Yes, that's the way we'd like to see it happen. Unless, you know, of course, you really get a hold of this crisis. Then I'd like to see it done in a proper fashion where these people are consulted and they help draft and they know the problems and they know the inside outs and they have everybody on board because everybody needs to get on board here. Permitting is a incredible process. We have a problem with it at the planning department. We do not need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of permitting. We need to improve permitting processes. We need to improve vacant and abandoned lists. We made need to make vacant and abandoned lists available on public the public can see them. I put a nipper request in for vacant and abandoned list to look at them in association with 167. But I got a list of vacant and abandoned problems that were already solved. So now I have to go all the way back to the beginning and I appreciate you coming out here and being out here. I just sat through some amendments. >> Thank you. >> Elena Benton followed by Dylan Quayar followed by Emily Severance on Zoom. >> Hello. Good to see you all again. And um I really want to support this and I want a really good foundation on this ordinance so that um it will be successful. And what I'd like to stress which I mentioned earlier is please have the fire department review the plans that the operators are submitting so that the EMTs and even the fire department can get in. We both or all of us know in the wintertime homeless will set fires and the fear of fires in a closely or compact area of nylon tents is not a good thing. So maybe even require that they have fire extinguisher on site also. Um, I request more hygiene stations as I outlined earlier primarily due the hepe epidemic. Well, we did have an epidemic here per the CDC and it just um was finished five years ago and I hate to see another epidemic hit our state. Um, space allocation standards, please include that. I know people are really um trying to help the homeless, but let's not pack them in so much that creates another problem. And please require signage from day one. People are coming into here. There will be people going in and out and having a sign that lists all the the phone numbers, websites, whatever that are necessary for the success of the people um to get help when they need it. And okay, um kind of frosting on the cake for the tents. If you can require like platforms so they're just not straight on the ground with the cocka roaches would be great. And those people trying to Oh god, I should say kaka. Sorry. And um a place maybe for receiving mail would be great. Those trying to transition into jobs need a lot of times need a physical address. Thank you. Dylan Quayar followed by Emily Emily Seance on Zoom followed by Nikquille Pylor Emily Severance followed by Nikil Pylor Emily if you'd like to speak can you please accept promotion to panelists Emily Seis. >> Thank you. Are you able to hear me? >> Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. >> So, good evening. My name is Emma Se. I reside in a high neighborhood district six. >> I strongly support changing the rules for safe outdoor spaces so it's not so I approve of most of the changes in Mayor Kelly version. I was going to speak on how we need to increase the number of spaces instead of limited them. But instead, I have the voice that I'm incredibly disappointed in the three counselors for I haven't approved 89. I find their decisions both immoral and evil and illogical. Albuquerque currently has 2700 unhoused people. about 1300 or at least 1300 of those are living on the street. By not increasing the safe outdoor spaces by making the rules less, >> we will continue to have people move from sidewalk to sidewalk, from park to park. are camping already wherever they can in public places. They're defecating in public places. We need safe outdoes. >> Give them place where they're safe and where they're help. Let's get the umps off of the sidewalks and out of the parks by giving them a place where they can belong and their lives. Please remove the limit on how many safeties there can be. Please pass 090. Thank you. >> Thank you. Nil Pylor Aiden Hendrickson. >> Uh hi. Yeah. Uh yeah, I'm Nikil. Uh I think that uh you know a lot of people who have spoken previously uh a lot of people who have uh kind of commented uh for the public comment uh have asked have reacted in surprise and disappointment at the council voting down uh the previous uh ordinance amendment. And uh I yeah I share that that concern and disappointment. Uh but I I think we have to ask here uh what really is going on uh politically with the issue of homelessness. And I think we've reached the very unfortunate situation uh with our political system where uh certain ends of our political spectrum and certain politicians uh have been using the issue of homelessness uh to fearmonger and to spread a very particular narrative uh about this city uh that Albuquerque is a city plagued with rising crime when in reality crime has been decreasing. uh that the only response to homelessness uh is this kind of heavily carceral uh polic effort. Uh and so I think from that lens it's not too surprising even though it is very disappointing uh that we see the council voting down non-carceral means to address homelessness like expanding safe outdoor spaces uh and empowering ordinary people to uh use their resources to help out those in need. Uh you know I I definitely urge people in the audience to continue this uh fight. Uh, city council elections are happening uh, later this year and I think we should pay very close attention to uh, the city councilors that are interested in supporting efforts like uh, this ordinance amendment uh, to make it easier to bring people from homelessness towards temporary shelter and then from there hopefully towards long-term shelter uh, versus the people who only want to use this issue to spread fear and division within the city. Uh, thank you >> Aiden Hendrickson followed by Joe Sabatini. >> Hey, I want to thank Councelor Rogers for proposing this and I'm I'm really hope that that we can we can make it pass. Um, to me this this feels like common sense. I am somebody who cares really deeply about our our homeless community members. Um they I have I have friends who live on the street. Their lives are really really high. Um their security is that they don't live um they have to they have to fear for their safety every day. Um, but even if you only care about the safety of those of us who do live in homes, I still think this is a common sense piece of legislation. We know what we have to do about homelessness. We have models of other cities doing this like Camp Hope in Los Cruus um being far more successful in addressing this very serious issue than than Albuquerque is. Um, this isn't a silver bullet, but it's one part of a solution that can really get us toward a a city that treats the most vulnerable among us more humanely and also one where we're all safer and where we can all experience the benefits of economic growth. Um, having these people on the street helps nobody. And this is our choice between do we want people on the street or do we want them in a sanctioned encampment because they're not going to go away without without a sanctioned cabinet. Um, so that's that's how I I I see this piece of legislation. Um, and I really urge you all to to do something um and address the status quo with this um triedand-true model that's proven very very successful in Los Cusus. Thank you. >> Up next we have Joe Sabatini. Joe, if you could please accept promotion to panelist if you'd like to speak. >> Joe, would you like to say a few words? Uh, Madam Chair, Joe has declined several promotion attempts. So, that concludes comment. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you everyone for um hanging tight on the online. I know it's hard to sometimes get off of mute and all that. And if Joe comes back up, just let him know that we will um that we're moving on. Uh, all right. We're going to go back to Councelor Rogers for an opening. Thank you so much. I um just want to end or close with a couple things. Um our intention was never to bypass EPC. So I want to say that to my UPC peeps. A change to an article required a change to the IDO in companion. So our intention was never to skip you. Just want to make that clear. Um I am ex I also agree with what we heard about Camp Hope. The only difference is the city if Ellis Cruus actually owns that land and operates that through a contractor. So they actually fund it. They give the contractor all of the resources they need to run it. The city of Albuquerque is not offering that to operators right now. So I would love to have a Camp Hope and maybe we can work with the administration to do that, but it comes with resources. The reason Camp Hope is successful, I've gone I've met with the city councilors, uh, have to shout out our promp down there, uh, Johanna Beno, who's walked me through everything that they're doing down there to make that successful. And it is the resources that the city provides to that contractor that makes it successful. Um, and so I would love to figure that out and work with my colleagues to come up with something that we can all live with. Um, but I just have to say I think it's extremely extremely funny that we talked over and over in Agnosium about burdensome, you know, requirements on landlords, but now we're are okay with the overburdensome regulations on safe outdoor spaces. They are technically landlords, right? I mean, so I just I have I can't let I have to get that off my heart. um because they are landlords, just a different type. And so, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the discussion and I urge your support. >> Thank you, Councelor Rogers. We're going to go to a couple of questions. First to councelor Champine. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Madam Chair, that was my close per our rules. Just Just >> I withdraw them. >> All right. Doesn't really matter. Let's go to a roll call vote. Councelor Bassan, >> no. >> Councelor Champine, >> no. >> Councelor Grout, >> no. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feborn, >> yes. >> That fails on a two three vote. >> Madam Chair, >> make a motion. Make a motion do not pass. Motion to do not pass. >> Second. >> Seconded by councelor Gra. Roll call vote. >> Councelor Bassan. >> Yes. >> Councelor Champine. >> Yes. >> Councelor Grout. >> Yes. >> Councelor Rogers. >> No. >> Councelor Feborn. >> No. >> That passes on a 3-2. >> Thank you. Let's move on to agenda um item F. And this one will be a little easier. Uh 092 amending 586 prohibited activities of the Albuquerque Open Space Management Ordinance to include overlooked animals. I will move a due pass. >> All right. Is there anyone signed to um Yes. Go ahead. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I have Robert D. Young signed up to speak. Madam chair and counselors, uh, considering other discussion tonight, this issue seems small, petty, and embarrassing. However, that said, I am Bob D. Young, a resident of District 7 and regularly use Albuquerquekey's open space. Among other activities, I run, cycle, cane cross, and bike jaw on its trails. has written one of the proposed changes to the open space management ordinance could make every open space user criminal criminal many times over during every use. While I trust the intent isn't to rewer open spaces and prevent anyone without a scientific research permit from using them. Taken literally, that's what is effectively done by protecting every invertebrate species. Every every recreational activity in open space harms mites, nematodes, tardigrades, and other microscopic invertebrates. Further, ants, spiders, stink bugs, mosquitoes, and flies are at risk if they cross a user's path. Reference referencing invertebrates in the ordinance is entirely ambiguous with any enforcement being arbitrary and difficult to monitor. There are over 1.3 million invertebrate species. If there are species, genera, or families of invertebrates of concern, they should be specified in the ordinance instead of a blanket protection. Thank you. Madam Chair, that concludes comment. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I want to thank the gentleman for coming. Um, we did get the call earlier today and we agree that that is um a potential unintended um way of looking at the bill. So, I have passed out an amendment that I would like to move and if we can put it on the screen for folks to see. Um and I will move uh committee amendment number one on page one line 18 insert intentionally following no person shall and this will clarify that the harm must be intentional and so um really great catch. >> Sorry >> that is >> very hard to see. Um I will read it again just so everybody can follow along. On page one, line 18, insert intentionally following no person shall. Um, and again, this will say, so that will say no person shall intentionally harm and then go down the rest of the list. And so, um, I'll move that amendment. >> Second. >> All right. Any questions on that amendment? >> All right. Roll call vote. >> Council Bad. Yes. >> Councelor Champine. >> Yes. >> Councelor Grup. >> Yes. >> Councelor Rogers. >> Yes. >> Councelor Feeblecorn. >> Yes. >> That passes 5 Z. >> Great. And again, thank you for raising the issue. Um, so I'm just going to uh do quick opening on this bill. Uh, we recently had someone who was very concerned. there were two ponds that are in our open space areas and she had seen folks despite the sign that's right next to the pond that says no fishing. Um she'd been witnessing a lot of of um concerning behavior and we were talking through that with um the open space folks and parks and rec um recreation director Simon and they they said hey you know there is this slight problem in that uh fish are not actually included in the ordinance. And so we haven't posted no fishing, but we uh there might be a concern long term about enforcing that. And so we just decided to um put forward this to to get that clarification so that our open space uh staff and officers are able to enforce the signs that are already up and make sure that we are protecting all the animals on our um open space lands. And so um I will open it up for any questions from any of the other counselors. Councelor Shanghai, >> you actually that was Madam Chair that was my question is that so that was this would mean that no one is allowed to fish from like the real grand or something. Is that correct? >> No, actually councelor Champine the the two ponds that are in in this purview are not the real grand. in the Rio Grand. We have um I believe we have uh I can't see. I'm sorry. I'm old. But we have someone from open space who can come down and talk to us. Oh, is it Colleen? Okay. Um that can come down and talk to us about what those two pieces of land are and and how that does not um affect the Rio Grand. >> Good evening, Madame Chair, counselors. Um I uh would like to clarify that. So along the Rio Grande as well as in the Riverside drain and of course at the Teley Beach ponds, fishing would still be allowed. That is managed by the New Mexico Game and Fish and they actually stock those areas. Um so it would just be areas that are considered wildlife preserves. That's a specific designation within the open space type of open space and that includes these wildlife uh wetlands uh that are really intended to support wildlife and not be a fishing pond. So this would be specific to that area and other wetlands that we have along the Rio Grande. >> Okay. Madam Chair, so what we're saying here is that even though the sign is posted, it's not enforceable. There's no teeth behind the posting of a sign. >> Um yes, it does. the ordinance, you can see the change. So, it does cover many other animals, other different species, but uh fish was excluded. I don't know why. It was a long time ago that the ordinance was created. So, this is just clarifying that fish would be included in that. >> Okay. Madam Chair, I'm not trying to dispute that these wildlands and sanctuary should not be poached. Um I'm just trying to understand this completely. Um knowing that knowing that an ordinance that states that sign prohibited that you're not following a posted sign is in the city ordinance. They said in a traffic code, they have it in the I believe in the city ordinance. So that has teeth in it. Um that if someone's fishing in a posted no fishing area that can be cited. Um is this overriding that or is this kind of getting rid of that or are we not aware of that ordinance? >> Um count uh madame chair and counselor champagne. Uh yes, it would include uh so you're right, it doesn't have the teeth that we need right now to deal with uh fish in particular. Uh the other animals would be covered and so just by adding in fish to this ordinance, it would allow us to then um site somebody who is fishing illegally in that area. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Any other questions? All right. Um, I will just close by saying I I did not know this was an issue, but in that conversation with a concerned citizen, it came up and I do think that we need if we have signs out that say we shouldn't be doing something, I think we should have it on the books that backs those signs up. So, with that, I urge your support and we'll move to a roll call vote. >> Councelor Bassan, >> yes. >> Councelor Champine, >> yes. >> Councelor Grout, >> yes. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feeborn, >> yes. >> That passes 5-0. Thank you everyone. I think we're going to take a 20 minute break and we will be back in um in 20 minutes. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Why? Why? My Why? Why? [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey. Okay, we are back. Um, we still have a quorum. We have councelor Grout here. Um, councelor Bassan is online. Uh, councelor Champine is running. So, we are going to move on to agenda item G and that is R 167, establishing an opt-in process for legislative zoning conversions for properties zoned R1, RT or RML to increase housing options statewide and allow mixeduse development along C collector and arterial streets and within established metropolitan redevelopment areas. I will move a due pass. >> Second. seconded by councelor Rogers. And we're going to start before we go to public comment, we're going to start with two amendments. Um, amendment A, which is in your iPad. Um, we have it. Can we show it? Okay. All right. So, amen. There we go. Amendment A. I'm going to move committee amendment number one uh to to change the title um from to say resolution establishing an opt-in process for legislative zoning conversions for property zoned R1 RT comma RML comma R NRC comma NRBP comma NRLM or NRGM. And the reason that this amendment is being proposed is that we had added in the metropolitan redevelopment areas um and the allowances there, but we did not add that into the title of the bill. And so we want to make sure that we get the title corrected. I will move a move that amendment >> and it's seconded by councelor Rogers. Any questions on the amendment? >> All right. Roll call. >> Councelor Bassan. >> No. Councelor Champine, >> no. >> Councelor Grout, >> no. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feborn, >> yes. >> That fails on two, three. >> All right. And we will move on to um uh committee of amendment B. I'm going to move amendment number one, number two. Amend sections one um starting on page 10, line 13 as follows. And you can read the changes on the screen. Uh A will say property zoned R1 on corner lots are eligible to be converted. B will say property zoned R1 fronting a collector or arterial street are eligible. Uh D will be changed to delete of local streets. E will add the fronting language. G will get rid of of of local streets. And H add the fronting language. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Cox to explain this one. >> Chair. Thank you. And counselors, this is a technical amendment uh that basically clarifies some of um the confusion we experienced when we went to some of our public meetings in that we were ended up seeing corner lots that were um fronting a arterial and a local street that wouldn't be eligible under um a criteria that that they were meant to be eligible on under the original um creation of this resolution. ution. And so basically by removing of local streets um in A D and G and just saying on corner lots, it kind of made that clarification. And then the fronting language was to clarify that if you are a property on a an arterial or collector, um on could have been interpreted to say also the back of a property. Um and so we wanted to clarify that it is the front property line. um along a arterial or a collector that makes you eligible under that criteria. >> Thank you. I'm going to move that floor amendment number two or committee amendment number two. >> Second. >> Seconded by councelor Rogers. Any questions? Councelor Shimpan. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just out of curiosity and Mr. Cox, if you can whoever can answer this. Um, if this passes and it says that properties like number C says property zoned R1 in other locations are eligible to be converted to RT and then F goes property zoned RT in other locations can be moved to RML. Can you move an R1 all the way up to RML because it's now zoned to RT? Wait a while and then zone it again because it's been reszoned. I mean, is there multiple stages you can go and move an R1 all the way up? Councelor Champine, we we are on this amendment, but I'm going to go ahead and allow an answer on the >> Well, that's part of the amendment. You're ch >> Mr. Cox is allowed to answer. >> Um, so Chair Feebleorn, uh, councelor Shampine. Um, so, uh, criteria F and C won't won't be changed, but I I guess to get to, um, what I understand your question to be is that if if this passes tonight and R1 zone district does uh, convert to RT through this legislative action, that person that owned that R that now converted to RT lot, uh, would have to go through the general process and steps that anyone has to go through for a zoning amendment today. Um it would not you couldn't upzone RT to RML as part of this legislative action. You're only able to go uh one rung in the latter. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions on the amendment before us? >> All right. >> Madam Chair. >> Oh, I'm sorry, Councelor Bassan. Madam Chair, I just on that I think that was a good question because with it, but then so does it say somewhere in there that it only can go one rung up the ladder? >> Mr. Cox, >> Chair Feebleorn, and Councelor Bassan. Um basically the the ruling here is that um because if a property owner uh applies for their property to be upzoned, there is only one decision making power uh at well basically we will package all these zoning amendments together and you only have the opportunity to apply your property once per this legislative item. And so, um, basically within the the timeline, I believe it's six months that people will have the ability to apply for their property to be part of this package. That that's the only opportunity you get. And so, it's only one time that you can convert your property and uh to go up to another level would have to be outside of this legislative process. >> Thank you. >> Other questions on the amendment? All right. Um, roll call vote. >> Councelor Bassant, >> yes. >> Councelor Champine, >> yes. >> Councelor Grub, >> no. Yes. Sorry. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feborn, >> yes. >> That passes 5 Z. >> All right. So, we have a somewhat modified um bill. Let me just Well, let's move to um public comment. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. First, we have Jackie Davis, followed by Jane Beckley. >> Good evening, counselors. It's lovely to see you again. Um, I'm up here to voice my support for R 167. As a resident of a neighborhood where there are two houses, I believe, that are zoned R1. Um, things have not fallen apart in our neighborhood. In fact, um, it's a very lovely place to live. I get to walk to coffee shops. I can walk to the grocery store. I can walk or bike or take transit to school and work. It's a lovely place to live. Um, this would legalize more housing options for people all over our city, especially when it comes to these transit corridors that are so highly desirable to people in my generation. Um, we're going to want to rent houses and own houses very soon and we're going to be entering the market. So, we need more housing for us. And that's not to mention the unhoused neighbors that we have camping in tents. We have the need for safe outdoor spaces. For that reason, supporting this allows a meaningful step towards more housing in denser areas to allow people the opportunity to get up off their feet and um yeah into houses. So, thank you. >> Jane Beckley, followed by Patricia Wilson. Madame Chair, councilors, I submitted written comments and an annotated map of Santa Fe Village under R167 to each of you. Thank you for acknowledging receiving those. I support consideration of proposals to increase housing options when they are part of the IDO amendment review process. There is no evidence that increasing housing options is what R 167 will accomplish. Some research raises the potential its effects will be gentrification and more high-end housing. I am opposed to creating a separate process to enact zoning changes which removes the EPC. Nine individuals appointed because they are qualified to adjudicate zone change requests as the decider in a quai judicial public hearing and instead treats zone change decisions as a legislative process in which the city effectively decides winners and losers in zoning decisions with no requirement for public notice or determination that the application meets all of the eight criteria for approving a zone. map change outlined in IDO 6-7 G3. I respectfully request that you oppose R251 167. Thank you, >> Patricia Wilson, followed by Loretta Nuranho Lopez. >> Hello again, Madame Chair and counselors. R167 has a lot of where statements. The final one says, quote, "Whereas the city council is the final decision-making body to accept legislated zoning conversions that implement the comp plan and change the official zoning code." And the first words on the city website's council page are quote, "Legislative authority for the welfare of the people of Albuquerque," unquote. Not developers of Albuquerque, not elected officials of Albuquerque, not outofstate investors of Albuquerque, the people of Albuquerque. This resolution should be rejected out of hand rather than continuing to pass crisis legislation and pouring more money into into the multi-million dollar unhoused industrial complex. The city could do more to increase housing by providing CASIA grants. just give any property owner $50,000 towards the purchase of a Boxable or some other similar prefab ADU and permit it instantly and I'll put one in my backyard tomorrow. Thank you. >> Loretta Nuranho Lopez followed by Evelyn Felner followed by Jordan McConnell. >> Good evening chair and committee members. My name is Loretta Naran Hopes and I'm a member of the Stark Neighborhood Alliance. The HNA request that the land use planning and zoning committee deny resolution 25167. This resolution to upzone only gentrifies historic neighborhoods. One of the historic neighborhoods such as Martineztown is example of mixed zoning and how it has gentrified the neighborhood. This resolution intent by the city of Albuquerque planning department and developers is a road to eliminate zoning in Albuquerque. The city of Albuquerque and its citizens are being sold a lie that endless upzoning and luxury development will solve affordability. The truth is resolution 25167 only fuels speculation and drives prices up and pushes families out. Throughout the state, upzoning has already increased housing prices. The outside influence wants you to believe that suburbs and single family home are racist and exclusionary. When a majority of Albuquerque historic neighborhood residents live in very low and medium-density neighborhoods with diverse residents, these majority believe home ownership is central to the American dream. These outside organizations are backed by corporate and financial interests pushing profit-driven agenda disguised as progressivism. Their true goal is to maximize returns and community well-being and not community well-being. The integrated development ordinance should not be a place to help developers make a profit and neither should government money be allowed to be used to help development make a profit. HNA understands that 25167 of zoning to increase housing density and encourage the production of more market rate housing by minimizing public input and eliminating environmental review will not solve our affordable housing crisis. The zoning laws such as 02467 and R25167 will harm communities by escalating housing car costs and increasing property tax burden. I ask you to please deny this uh resolution. Thank you. >> Evelyn Felner, followed by Jordan McConnell, followed by Mark Bo. >> Evelyn Felner, former president of INZ Neighborhood Association and current secretary of district 7 coalition. I know of no one in either body who would be opposed to councelor Feebleorn upzoning the blighted area on Manol near I25 which is the way this proposal was presented in a KRQE news story. However, the proposal strays very far from that objective. Upzoning in R1 neighborhoods all over town will not accomplish affordable housing. It will simply disrupt neighborhoods. My neighborhood in particular is very old. None of the houses have ever been torn down, which would tell you it's pretty sturdy. And all of them are R1. We do not see the need for more apartments on the edge of our neighborhood as two sides of it on Manol and Wyoming have plenty of businesses and there are apartments across Wyoming. What you are doing with this amendment is simply what's been tried before getting so that zoning does not exist except on a lot by lot basis. And in this case, there seems to be no control by neighboring properties over someone who suddenly decides to build a townhouse or a 48 48 foot high apartment if they happen to have the right corner lot next door. This is not right. It's not democratic and it's not good public policy. You should think again If you want to help the blighted area along the null, go to the EPC and get it resumed. It's a simple process. Jordan McConnell, followed by Mark Boon, followed by Carlos Michelin. >> Good evening, Chair Feebleorn and members of the committee. My name is Jordan McConnell. I'm the comm's chair for Strongtowns Albuquerque. I'm here tonight to express our group's strong support for R167. We've been collecting comments on this and I'm proud to report we now have comments and support from every zip code and council district in the city. As Strongtown's founder Chuck Marone says, no neighborhood should be subject to radical change, but no neighborhood should be exempt from change. This resolution embodies that philosophy. It's a practical bottom-up approach that allows property owners to opt into the next step up in zoning. Whether that's a duplex, a small apartment building, or a mixeduse space. It's not a top- down mandate. It's a voluntary incremental tool that balances neighborhood concerns about scale and context while giving our city a way to evolve naturally the same way cities have done always, lot by lot, block by block, in ways that fit their surroundings, preventing gentrification by addressing scarcity and making our city healthier. Allowing modest density like this creates more housing choices for seniors, first-time buyers, and multi-generational families. It strengthens our tax base by making better use of existing infrastructure. It supports local businesses and transit by adding customers within walking distance, all without radically altering the character of our beloved neighborhoods. In the face of rising housing costs and flat tax revenues, we need reforms that are both ambitious and grounded in common sense. R25167 is exactly that kind of reform and we urge you to recommend approval of this resolution to the full council. Thank you so much for your work on this. We are super excited for it. Thank you. >> Mark Milone followed by Carlos Michelin followed by James Shannley. >> Uh good evening chairorn members of the committee. Um I'm Mark Won, resident of district 2 and speaking on uh just as a citizen. Um, I write or I speak today in full support of R25167. Um, this is the kind of thoughtful proposal that allows our city to change dynamically with the needs of our community. Um, if I had to pick any change to this, I would say maybe extend it permanently would be super cool or maybe do a couple of rounds. Um, you know, I know that's politically fraught, but that would be my suggestion for the bill. Um, I would also say that I would say to opponents of this bill, um, I need I I would ask a simple question. Um, are the material conditions of our unhoused and precariously housed neighbors uh, good enough to delay action until we have a perfect solution to the problem? Or are we going to make the kind of dynamic systemic changes that we need to make in order to improve the material conditions of everyone in this city? Um, and are we going to are we going to let ourselves continue to be controlled by the landed people in this city who have a vested interest in their property values continuing to go up and assuming that anyone who moves in that is not in a single family house is going to ruin their neighborhood based on absolutely no evidence that that's ever the case. and is quite frankly uh uh it just doesn't make sense is what I'll say there. Um but I I really appreciate um this kind of thoughtful bill. I think it's going to in addition to everything else that the city is doing um that is passing. Um I'm I'm excited uh for this. So I thank you for the um for the thoughtful bill and I hope it passes. Thank you. Carlos Michelin followed by James Shanley followed by Peggy Nef. >> Um, good evening, Madam Chair, councilors. I'm here in strong support of this bill. I want to start by saying that cities have always grown incrementally, one small step at a time. For thousands of years, neighborhoods adapted uh to changing needs, changing societies, and the market could respond to that demand. But since the 1960s, we've locked our neighborhoods in amber. We made it illegal for them to adapt to respond to changing needs. This bill is a step towards restoring that natural pattern and not with high rises or sweeping changes, but by once again allowing the next smallest increment of development to be legal. Um, we've heard concerns today about public input, but I say this is exactly the right level for it. Deciding together as a city what kinds of small incremental changes should be legal everywhere. It makes no sense to take these fights lot by lot, upzoning by upzoning. Um um let's set the rules up front now and let the neighborhoods evolve and help us fight our um housing affordability crisis. Um I've also heard a lot the claim that homeowners won't be notified, but I see home owners themselves who request this. It's an optin proposal. Um, so it sounds to me like the real objection is about not being able to control what your neighbors do with their property. Even when we're talking about a such a small and needed change, we're talking about the very next possible increment of development and we're saying that your neighbors to be able to stop you from even doing that when we're in a housing crisis. Um, so I urge you to take uh this very small step in my opinion. Um I don't know why it's a one-time option Palooa instead of a um ingrained way to naturally allow neighborhoods to evolve. Um I hope this shows um this proves us I hope this can become a stepping stone towards that towards having a ideal that allows um upzoning to the next increment by right. Thank you, >> James Shanley, followed by Peggy Nef, followed by Josh Price. >> Madame Chair, councilors, uh, R25167 is in many ways a a somewhat carelessly constructed legislative initiative justified using obsolete data and quite suspect conjecture. It will enable potential significant damage to neighborhoods where 62% of the resident population of Albuquerque live. And I'm not saying in every aspect, but some of the provisions such as permitting a townhouse to be built in the middle of a street of established single family homes uh with no voice or notification to the adjacent properties. That's significant. Albuquerque is not growing. Our population decreased since 2020. The city's projection of uh housing needs based on 2% annual growth through 2045 is pure fantasy. Look around. There is no evidence to support a projection of 2% annual growth. From March through June of this year, I surveyed 3,816 properties located along five of the major corridors of our city. Central San Pedro, Fourth Street, San uh San Mateo, and Manol. Those five corridors revealed 623 or 21% of all the commercial premises on those corridors to be vacant or abandoned or for lease. Additionally, there were 118 vacant lots. Our neighborhoods is not where the untapped potential and sickness of our city lies. It's on our corridors. You can see that it is in your face when you drive down the street. That's where policy should be directed to promote repurposing for higher density housing to establish more walkable communities of integrated living with access to to transport. I urge you not to support this resolution and insult the 62% of Albuquerque residents. >> Thank you, Mr. Time is up. >> Peggy Nef followed by Josh Christ followed by >> what he said. >> Bernardet Hardy. what he said, everything he said. I want to um start with something that's really um on my heart. A lot of the uh planning department uh venues or not not venues, but the meetings that you go to, they start by saying that zoning is racist. Well, it may have been, but I don't think it is today. But this ordinance, this ordinance, listen to this definition. Racism is a system of oppression, a key factor that determines who has privilege and who does not. Privilege in this context refers to the unearned advantages and benefits that individuals or groups receive based on their social identity, their addresses, I would add, while racism disadvantages the oppressors and oppresses others. In essence, racism creates and maintains a system where certain racial groups are systemically granted privilege while others are marginalized. I would choose to change the name of this ordinance to uh establishing an opt-in process for legislative zoning conversions for privileged persons and properties zoned xxx. We do not have a serious issue when there are 6% rentals available. When there's less than 2% it population increases. When we have a pro pro we the problem we have is affordability. This does not go anywhere near approaching affordable homes. This goes and like James said breaks up neighborhoods. It takes apart what we have done for years and that's talking to each other on what's happening in the streets, what's happening to that property, what's happening in Mr. Mlan, he needs some help. There's a process in place where you can change things along corridors and transit areas. I urge no on this one. >> Josh Price followed by Bernardet Hardy followed by Jill Yagley. Bernardet Hardy followed by Jill Yaggley followed by Renee Horath. >> Sorry, I didn't know it was my turn. Go get my notes here. Hello, Bernardet Hardy here. District 6. Um and uh good evening, Madame Chair and committee members. Um I'm here in opposition of this resolution 25167. This resolution cites a lack of affordable housing as the reason for this ordinance and yet is not does not guarantee housing for the demographics that it really needs that really need it. You actually voted down the ordinance that would have helped our unhoused relatives just a few minutes ago. Increasing density will not solve the affordable housing issues because we cannot hope and pray developers will be so kind to make their properties affordable. It won't happen. It didn't happen in 2017 when the zoning was changed and it won't happen now. This resolution is only to benefit the rich and Airbnbs, not us, not renters. This this is a version, a cheap version of a trickle down housing that won't work. It never has. Vote no and R25167, >> Jill, followed by Renee Horvath, followed by Monique Hardy. >> Thank you. Good evening, councilors. I'm here as president of the Molten Rock Neighborhood Association to represent our board's unanimous decision to oppose this resolution. We do not dispute the need for affordable housing. However, we do object to a shotgun approach that relies on inaccurate data, growth data, ignores research on what works and what doesn't work for affordable housing, and obliterates established setbacks, height requirements, and other elements that thousands of of residents have adhered to and depended upon. Furthermore, this resolution does not meet the state required process of notification to residents and it incorrectly cites home rule as its authority to disregard this. State law clearly makes exception to home rule and zoning is one of those. This resolution also doesn't appear to establish any guidelines for approval of the applications other than that it results in more housing, which means that current homeowners with substantial investments for which they've worked very hard will have no voice in the application process and longstanding requirements such as view protection and character protection. overlay zones will be thrown out or without any serious analysis regarding the impact on the existing neighborhoods. I think if you sincerely want to increase affordable housing and I applaud that, one of the things that I think we need to look at is zoning changes in large developments such as we have going on in the west side. That's an ideal place where major developers can very easily plat the lots to incorporate town homes and duplexes and even those uh forplexes or whatever you want to call them and do it in a way that creates a coherent and a visually pleasing neighborhood. Thank you. >> Renee Horvath followed by Monnique Hardy followed by Denise Willie. Hello again. Um, yes, my name is Renee Horvath. I live on the west side and uh, yeah, I'm surprised that this legislation came out. It came out very unexpectedly and I'm not sure why it's even being proposed. Uh, you know, because zoning, you need to look at it very carefully and to get it right. And right now, what surprises me is to change the zoning from R1, which is typically a 10,000 square foot lot that could do a townhouse. How many town houses on there? How much parking would be allowed on there? And then a corner lot can be three to four stories. And what about the parking? And then you can do it on a collector street. And I'm thinking of Comanche because I used to live there. and uh you know a fourstory on the corner lot or threetory and the parking I just don't see how that would work and so and so I don't know why they're proposing this and then the parking you don't want it in the street especially on a corner it'd be too hard to get in and out of the street and so it just doesn't pan out. Also, um, uh, you know, they talk about, well, we need to make affordable housing. We need more housing. But let me tell you, uh, in 2018, they already update the zoning. We are allowed to do much more density, a lot taller buildings, less parking. We we have zoning categories for all these types of uh, zone categories that you're proposing in the R1 zone. And I don't see the need to change the R1 zone to do more of it because you're already doing that. We're do building a lot of apartments. Come look on the west side. We're building a lot of apartments and they're taller than before. I see it all along central and different areas of the city. And so we don't need to change the zoning and um Oh well, and like they said, our population is growing and it's not going to solve the affordability issue. Thank you. Monnique Hardy followed by Denise Willie followed by Jim Price. >> Good evening committee members. I'm Monique Hardy from District 6. I oppose R25167 because it fails to adequately address the urgent need for affordable housing in our community. We need to focus on initiatives that generally meet our housing demands while safeguarding our historic neighborhoods and sacred sites. Public participation is crucial to ensure zoning regulations reflect community priorities and encourage sustainability and fair development. This in in this includes reducing environmental impacts by supporting green in infra in infrastructure and advocating for real affordable housing to boost social equity. Thank you for your Thank you for your time. >> Denise Willie followed by Jim Price followed by Michael Vorhees. >> Hello again. R2 R25167 is not about increasing housing options or providing afford affordable housing. It is about further marginalizing neighborhood voices. It is about denying notification. Why is notification important? If you live in a neighborhood with residential zoning, there are certain design criterias defined by the Ido that apply to that zone district. Personally, I am not opposed to the ability to provide gentle density. I am opposed to council council's seemingly blatant disregard for adhering to the comprehensive plan and the IDEO amendment process. Thank you. Jim Price followed by Michael Vorhees followed by Carlos Gamora. >> Chairman Feeble Corps counselors, my name is Jim Price. I've lived here since most of this was dirt. New Mexico statute 3-21-6 requires not notice by certified mail and first class mail of zone change. The statute applies to zone changes and does not distinguish between legislative or quasi jud judicial or home rule or exemption to any method of doing a zone change. Once again, the statute does not state any condition in which it can be ignored. This also doesn't comport to section 6-7 parentheses G of the current IDO. I'll let you look it up. It also disregards 6-3D regarding bianual updates to the IDO which councelor Grout brought up earlier on another situation. Since the adaptation of the IDEO in 2018, there have been more than 600 changes made, an average of 85 changes per year. This is impossible to keep up with. It also begs the question, how many ordinances and changes have been made that the populace is unaware of, confused by, or simply don't get enforced? Albuquerque has one of the best lighting ordinances in the country, if not the world. Yet, many city employees, police department employees, vendors, and citizens are unaware of it. The city wisely paid $60,000 to Clanton and Associates in the time and effort of the planning department, the city council, and other city resources to what avail. Most people don't even know there's a light curfew in Albuquerque from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. It's in the IDEO. While the housing forward initiative, accessory dwelling units became allowed. With the housing for initiative, accessory dwelling units became allowed. Since then, the city has permitted 15. Once again, here we are updating the IDEO outside the bianual rule and the 6-7g rule. Once again, we are discounting state law. When is a rule a rule and when is a rule not a rule? >> Thank you. Michael Vorhees followed by Carlos Gamora followed by Crystal Garcia on Zoom. >> Madame Chair and counselors, if the goal of the opt-in ordinance is to enrich speculative real estate investors and global private equity moneyaundering operations, then by all means approve it. If the goal is the opt-in ordinance is to ensure that rental rates in Albuquerque increase at an even faster pace than they have been, then by all means approve it. While Albuquerquey's zoning ordinances were completely rewritten in 2017 by developers and passed into law by the city council as the IDO, even that wholesale erosion of livability standards could not satisfy the developers greed. And so naturally, Albuquerque City Council has responded with over 600 amendments since then. Some might uh say that that is an insane and absurd way to govern, but it is a great way to confuse the public and reward commercial interests. Even so, it seems that some counselors are less familiar with the IDO than one would expect. For instance, you might not know that the IDO defines gullible as an elected city official that believes NAOP wants to improve the housing affordability crisis. I certainly hope that that the issue is gullibility and not a result of the Supreme Court decision in Snyder where gifts to politicians from commercial interests long considered to be bribes can now be treated as mere gratuitities. If it is the latter, it would still be prudent for city councilors to bring the correct documents to the motor vehicle division when attempting to register cars that they have received as gifts so as to raise fewer eyebrows. Perhaps the real goal of the GOP of the OPT ordinance is to bulldoze all those pesky lowerincome historic neighborhoods and replace them with ransom note hodgepodge of corporateowned high-rise monoliths. If so, well done. And for the record, yes, I'm being facicious. Thank you. >> Carlos Gamora, followed by Crystal Garcia, followed by Evelyn Rivera. >> Madam Chair and counselors, my name is uh Carlos Gamora. I'm a professional planner that works with cities and counties across New Mexico and affordable housing strategies. Um I'm only speaking here as a resident right now. I do have a handout here that's a city of Albuquerque draft report. Uh I'm going to pass it along if you want. Um this uh this report identifies the difference uh or or the gap between what housing costs um and what is considered for uh families um across Albuquerque. Um the first point I want to make is that smaller housing uh on smaller lots tends to be less expensive. Uh but municipalities uh typically prohibit or are discouraging that kind of thing. Um, if you look at page three and four, you'll see expected costs of new development, different densities, and potential zoning districts. Uh, the summary here is that $236,000 is what's considered affordable for the average income family in Albuquerque. In R1D, the average new home costs $810,000. So, the gap between what is affordable for an average h family and the average price is $575,000. What that means is that to bridge that gap, you would need more than half a million dollars either as a down payment or half a million dollars as subsidies and taxpayer subsidies to make those kinds of homes affordable. This is this is even the lower kind of the lower end of of what we're seeing as average new home costs. Uh in RML or RT, the average new home costs $375,000. Um, so the affordability gap between what a family can afford and what homes we're seeing being built in RML or RT is 160 uh $163,000. So a much smaller gap as housing ages. Of course, it also tends to become more affordable. The point here I'm trying to make is that certain zones have more affordable housing by allowing lowerc cost housing options. Not saying that everyone likes that, but that is that is an effective strategy towards actually getting some affordable housing and getting more housing than you might otherwise see. Thank you, >> Crystal Garcia, followed by Evelyn Rivera, followed by Luis Sutherland. >> Good evening, council members. I am a member of the historic neighborhood alliance and I'm here to speak in opposition to R-167. This resolution promises more housing through increased density, but it ignores several key realities. First, simply upzoning neighborhoods doesn't guarantee affordability. Denser projects often lead to more expensive units, not more accessible ones. Meanwhile, we're bypassing real opportunities for development in underused commercial, industrial, and already serviced areas. Places where public infrastructure exists and where change would be less disruptive. Instead, R-167 pushes growth into communities that lack the infrastructure to support it. Transit, schools, green space, and basic services are already stretched thin. And too often, they are marginalized neighborhoods where residents face rising rents, displacement, and little say in how their communities change. We need policies that support nonprofit and community- based housing, solutions that prioritize people over profit. And most importantly, zoning reform alone won't help those most in need. Without public investment, the poorest households will continue to be priced out. Regardless of how many units are built, we can do better than R-25-167. We need growth that's equitable, sustainable, and truly affordable. Thank you, >> Evelyn Rivera, followed by Luis Sutherland, followed by Eleanor Walter. Good evening, Madame Chair and counselors. My background has been as a real estate residential appraiser in Albuquerque for the last 34 years. I consider this resolution to be an attack on single family homeowners. This will not provide affordable housing. The study used as the basis for this resolution, the root research study, was conducted by a Denver firm and that covers Sandival, Valencia, Torrance, and part of Santa Fe counties as well as Bernalo County. Some of the data cited was based on research conducted in the years 2012 through 2016. There are several misleading statements in the proposed resolution. The corrections are per HUD, the area median income is 91,400. Per BCadia Research, rents increased 1.2% 2% last year. For US Census uh bureau, the rental vacancy rate as of July 2024 was 6.7%. For the Federal Housing Finance Authority, prices of houses went up 3.4% last year. In the business outlook last Sunday, a Zillow sports spokesperson stated that our market has lots of opportunities and that our rents are relatively affordable. I believe what is needed is a current housing study for the Albuquerque Burleo County market area conducted by UNM's Bureau of Business and Economic Research. And as an aside, I want to say that I am insulted as a multi-generational Hispanic New Mexican to be called a racist for wanting to protect my home and my value of my home. Thank you so much. >> Luis Sutherland, followed by Eleanor Walther, followed by Aiden Hendrick Hendrickson, excuse me. >> Hello. Can you hear me? Okay. >> Yes, please. >> Madame Chair and Council members, uh, my name is Luis Sutherland and, uh, I want to express my support for resolution 167. I very much appreciate the opt-in approach to zoning changes. This allows a bottomup approach to dwelling options. It empowers homeowners to make the choice rather than top-down blanket changes to zoning made by the city. I would love to see more mixeduse development. Mixed use is amazing. I want to repeat this. Mixed use is amazing. I implore everyone listening to spend some time in the brick light district and experience just how pleasant a mixeduse option is. We need more housing options. This resolution would allow just that. Please pass this resolution. Thank you for your time. >> Eleanor Walter followed by Aiden Hendrickson followed by Laya Blazing Star. Eleanor, you are muted. >> Eleanor Walter, you are muted. There you go. Uh, Chair Feeboorn and counselors, I strongly urge you to reject R25167. The planning department's briefing claims the current IDE is racist. Yet, the the resolution itself creates an inequitable system that will hit Albuquerquey's most vulnerable neighborhoods the hardest. Here's what it allows. Any R1 property can be upzoned to R2. R1 corner lots on local streets can be upzoned to RML. R1 properties on collector orial streets can be upzoned to MXT. RT corner lots can be upzone to RM. Other RT lots to RML. RM RML corner lots and local streets can be upzone to RH. RML lots on collector streets or arterial streets can be upzone to MXM in metropolitan redevelopment areas. Um many properties can be converted to MXH. Who will be targeted? Not wealthy neighborhoods like Tanowam. The economics won't work for them. Not HOA protected communities. The rules block these changes unless owners go to court. The real impact will fall in lower valued neighborhoods and pockets of poverty. This is where the bull bulldozers will go first. Calling this equity is not just wrong, it's dangerous. The economic premise is false. Um, according to Chuck Moroni, uh, Strong Towns National, um, this resolution rests on a simplistic supply and demand myth. Build more and prices will drop. That's not how housing works. Mortgage lenders decide who gets to build. And the home building industry's profit model depends on prices rising, not falling. Looser zoning will not magically create affordable housing. History proof in that. >> Thank you. >> Stripped away. >> Up next, we have Aiden Hendrickson followed by Laya Blazing Star. >> Hi there. Um, I want to thank Councelor Feebleorn and Councelor Rogers for supporting this really forwardinking bill. There has been a lot of fear-mongering about it tonight. And I want to say to to everybody who who is concerned about this bill, um like I um I'd really like to see you um I' I'd like to see more more conversation across the aisle, right? I'd like to see property owners um talking to renters about the experiences that we have had with the massive rent hikes that have happened in the past few years. Um it's it's a crisis for for people who do not own a home here in Albuquerque. Um and it's not enough for us to be able to live out on the west side. Our jobs and our communities are often in existing neighborhoods. And if we cling so tightly to the idea of neighborhoods remaining exactly as they are, what we're doing is we're excluding all but the wealthiest Benyos from those neighborhoods. U this is not a sweeping um this is this is this is not a bill that's going to create sweeping changes. U it enables just the next level of upzoning, right? It allows homeowners who might want to um you know move in with a family member can convert their home into a duplex. They can open a coffee shop on the corner of the block. Um it's not going to allow giant apartment buildings. This isn't about outofstate developers. This levels the playing field and makes it easier for local homeowners to be entrepreneurs in their own communities and to provide housing and businesses. Thank you neighbors. >> Thank you, Aiden. Your time is up. >> It's understandable to to >> Your time is up. Go ahead and cut it off. >> Thank you, Aiden. Up next, we have Laya Blazing Star, followed by Aaron Thornton. >> Uh, good evening, Madam Chair and committee members. My name is Laya Blazing Star. I'm an arborist and bicycle commuter. I live in the Near North Valley neighborhood. I'm here to voice my strong support for the optin zoning change uh window. I believe this reform will enable our city to gradually increase in density in a way that spreads that benefit to many um not just big developers. Um, we know that fiscally sustainable cities have a robust mix of housing types available and Albuquerquekey's current lack of missing middle options makes it vulnerable um to overextending on what can be ex can what can be spent on infrastructure and it forces the city to rely on an unending sprawl um to stay out of the red. The overwhelming dominance of detached single family homes uh means there's a severe lack of housing options for those who can't afford that option or would prefer something different. Um and that can that can look a lot of ways. Uh yeah, there's just not that option right now. The the the options are like small apartments or um single family homes and there's there's that diversity is missing. Um, I believe this change will be one step, hopefully one of many steps to help address our housing crisis, um, and make a more resilient and walkable city. I urge you to advance this proposal. Please let our city evolve. Thank you. >> Aaron Thornton, followed by Alex Eubanks. >> Hi, thank you so much, Madam Chair. My name is Aaron Thornton and I'm here to speak in strong support of R25167. I am a homeowner in the Southeast Heights, but I know and I care about many people who are struggling to find housing that's accessible and close to where they work or go to school. Too often I'm told to wait and let someone else build that housing. And while I fully support the work that our housing nonprofits and our city efforts are undertaking, we need a yes and solution. So, I believe in also being the change I want to see in my city. 167 supports that spirit by letting me upzone my house to RT that would allow me to share my quarter acre lot with another family, even two, and still have a shared yard space to play and garden. And side note, I've already lived in such a triplex. It had a beautiful shared common space with a peach tree on a much, much smaller lot, and parking was not an issue. Crazy, huh? Um, it opens the door to a kind of doingbased democracy where residents don't just vote once every year. We show up actively to participate and shape the future of our neighborhoods. This bill makes the building process more accessible so everyday people like me, not just professionals, can participate in building a better Albuquerque. Thank you so much for your time. I urge you to support 167 to empower homeowners to help expand housing access where it's needed most. Thank you. >> Alex Eubanks followed by Evelyn Dao. >> Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the community. My or the committee. My name is Alex Chubanks. I'm an Albuquerque resident and I represent the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project where we promote energy and transportation efficiency which is inextricably linked to how we address land use and housing. We support this resolution by allowing eligible property owners to opt into zoning for more housing options and mixeduse development. This resolution reduces the need to drive and makes it easier for people to walk, bike, and use transit. Multi-unit buildings use less energy and water for household and single family homes, making housing more efficient. These changes make better use of existing infrastructure, avoiding costly and carbonintensive expansion. They also help locate affordable housing closer to transit and jobs, reducing total living costs for households. Right now, people our communities rely on, like teachers and child care workers can can't find homes they can afford in the places that they serve. A recent Pew study on New Mexico housing shortage underscores the urgency of making these changes. In Albuquerque, the number of unhoused people increased by 108% between 2017 and 2024. And although the city added 31,400 jobs in the past three years, it permitted fewer than 9,000 housing units over that same period. The study also found that more than 2/3 of all parcels in the city allow only single family detached homes, the most expensive form of housing. Allowing more attached and multif family housing provides more home choices, promotes energy and water efficiency, and adds housing near jobs, schools, and transit so people drive less. These reforms also make housing more affordable by allowing more homes on the same amount of land. I urge you to support this resolution. >> Evelyn Dao, followed by Merritt Tully, followed by Richard Schaefer. Good evening. I appreciate your time. I am encouraging support for council bill R 167 to establish an option. I am an owner of residential property two lots near 12 street candle area. My father ran a business on this corner since the late 1950s and lived on 12 street behind the business in the 1980s. As you can imagine, this residential property is important and valued on a personal level. Beyond the personal sentiment, having grown up in this area and worked on a family business, this is a good location much as possible and betterment of the most kind of love community. However, cost, time, and tasks associated with resoning a small property by working with builders or consultants is quite expensive and takes months, if not years, to accomplish. My particular property fits the description outlined in this bill and would expedite the goal to develop affordable and safe work live property. Additionally, has the back half of my two lots or zone as MU, having to develop under two different zone classifications on small residential properties only makes it more difficult and expensive to design the best solution. I hope you will support this bill as a sensible approach to resolving zoning bottlenecks and to make the process affordable and timely for individual property owners. Thank you and my appreciation to the helpful and former city employees that formed me tonight. >> Merritt Tully followed by Richard Schaefer followed by Annalie Design. >> Chair Peeleorn, councilors, I'm Merritt Tully. I'm here speaking for the Near North Valley Neighborhood Association. We understand that this bill is important and that some may prefer to make a decision rather than defer it, but deferral is what our association requests you do with your vote tonight on R 167. As soon as we heard about this proposed opt-in zoning resolution, we reached out to subject matter experts to explain it. Matt Cox kindly made a presentation at our July board meeting, and we emailed that presentation out to our membership and others. Just the same as of our August meeting last week, none of us on our board thinks we have a handle on the impacts of this resolution. And given the lack of response to our association's e- bulletins about this proposal, we're guessing few of our neighborhoods residents and other city uh residents understand its scope. Whether this is a good or bad or mixed proposal, we need more time and we respectfully ask that you give it. While our board is not ready to vote on whether to support R67, we are fully aware that Albuquerque needs more affordable housing and that there is a nationwide conversation about opening up single family residential areas to more density. Our neighborhood has supported increases in density. Our neighborhood supports affordable housing. With this proposal, we've raised various questions with the sponsor and our own counselor. Would it be possible to have reversion if you don't use your upzone in a timely manner? Could there be limits on how often the city can do batch upzoning? Why open the door for homes to be turned into commercial uses by including upzoning to commercial uses when what we need is housing? And will this upzoning make the difference we need and provide a quick increase in affordable housing? We hope you defer your vote and provide the time to give the community answers. Thank you. >> Richard Schaefer followed by Annalie Design followed by Michael Devin. >> Good evening. Um, nothing happens in a vacuum and Albuquerque has indeed lost population each of the last four years leading into this. And uh, that's happened while the population of the United States has grown between 1 half and 1% each of those last four years. Also, I hope it doesn't come as a surprise to you to know that New Mexico, relative to the four surrounding states, has more affordable housing on a per capita basis, even though our uh 30% of area median income is lower than the other four states, Texas, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. And what we have less of is the 80% AMI and 100% AMI uh housing relative to those other four states. So I think aspects of this bill make sense resolution makes sense. However, the attack on single family housing where people have moved to a neighborhood, bought a house, made their major investment in a neighborhood based on the rules and then deregulating the rules of housing all around them. It's a lot like what happened between 2005 and 2007 when we deregulated all the financial rules about housing. And we're still trying to recover from that. A large part of what's happening now is the result of a financial crisis. Now we've got libertarian um organizations and businesses that are saying we need to deregulate. We need to deregulate. You're not getting that from the average person. You're getting that from pressure groups. I hope you'll think carefully about this. I hope you stick your nose into the true uh ACS American Community time is up. >> Thank you. >> Annalie Des followed by Michael Deon followed by Roshelle Chavez. >> Hi, good evening. Um, I want to speak against our uh 25167. Um, I also want to start off by saying that um I've gotten to I've worked with uh councelor Fubicorn in the past and I genu and I know that she genuinely cares about housing and I think that this is a very common misconception. Um, so while I I do believe that the intent is correct, uh, I want to talk about the possibly catastrophic opposite effect than I think was the intent here. Um, you know, this whole idea of upzoning is based on the narrative that comes out of the real estate lobby, which outspends the pharmaceutical lobby by three times. So the narrative that zoning is going to fix bring uh the cost of rent down um is is very flawed. It's on the assumption that okay if we have more housing stock then you know there'll be more options and you know supply and demand and the price will come down. That is not what happens. It's not a matter of like mass producing TVs and so then everybody gets to eventually have a TV even if you're low to medical income. It's housing. It's essential for living. People will pay 75% of their income because they have to they have to survive. Um, and so that's why I feel like the entire narrative about zoning is just a complete waste of everybody's time when it comes to affordability. And I would love to talk about this more um with, you know, counselors if they're available. Um, and so, you know, another thing that I want to talk about is the fact that we have to look at housing trends as well. housing trends are coming back. Um, >> I wish I could I wish I could speak a little longer. Um, but I also >> Thank you. Your time is up. >> I want to defer. I would like to ask for you to defer. And I also think that the historic neighbor >> Thank you, Annalie. Up next, we have Michael Deon followed by Roshelle Chavez, followed by Denise Four. Madame Chair, committee members, thank you for your time. My name is Michael Deon. I'm a resident of District 8 and I'm speaking today in support of R167 in a medium intensity mixed use zone. And the one thing all of my neighbors and myself universally love about our apartments is that there are so many amenities right around the corner. There's a grocery store, a post office, a local bookstore, or locally owned bars and restaurants, even a children's marshal art studio. All an easy walking distance your front door. And being able to walk to these amenities is so popular that a shortcut through a fence at the edge of the apartment grounds has appeared, gone fixed up, and blocked off by the apartment staff, and then suddenly reappeared three days later. And that happened six times. I love my neighborhood and clearly a lot of people people love this sort of neighborhood that I live in the northeast heights and everywhere across the city in the city or MXL, MXM or MXT means that this popular development is illegal to build in the vast majority of Albuquerque. And what's so wrong about allowing more of these places if people want them? I have friends who live in single family residential homes and they love their neighborhoods and I'm glad they can be happy in their neighborhoods. But why do we have to fight tooth and nail to afford that same happiness to those who want to live in more mixeduse developments and have more options to choose from? I think our 167 affords us or opportunity to address this and fix this problem through a rational incremental process across potentially many lots across the city rather than just these meal one by one, which is clearly not been working quickly enough. So, I urge your support on R167 so we can allow more places to live in Albuquerque like this that I and all my neighbors love. Thank you, >> Rochelle Chavez, followed by Denise Ford, followed by Peggy Norton. >> Good evening, Madame Chair and Council members. My name is Michelle Chavez and I am here in opposition to R167. Um, as you know, these zoning changes will not address any of our city's issues in regards to affordable housing because we know that it is large developers that are coming in and they are not going to build homes that our average families can afford. These homes are going to be priced at market rate. um which you already know is out of reach for a lot of our average renters whom are already spending close to 50% of their take-home pay. So please I ask and urge you to vote against our 167. Thank you >> Denise for followed by Peggy Norton. Good evening uh councilors. I I am uh here to oppose the ordinance. First, why have we an IDEO if anyone can opt in to something different? This changes the integrity of our neighborhoods. What can I do as a neighbor if I don't want the property next door changed? Is there some way that uh I should be notified or have some type of input into this zoning change. Uh we spend a large amount of money on studies and plans and then we find ways not to follow them or to work around what you don't like. Um, the only other thing I have to say is, uh, some of those dates, I don't know if they've been corrected in the ordinance, but, uh, some of them have already passed and the dates are wrong. Uh, thank you very much for your time. >> Peggy Norton. >> Good evening, chair five counselors. My name is Peggy Norton. I oppose R25167 for all the reasons other opponents are stating. Allowing people to change the zoning for their property without notifying adjacent properties seems a great way to encourage animosity between neighbors and destabilize the zone code. Why don't we just trash the IDO since after more than 600 amendments, people still think it doesn't satisfy the needs of the city? Fourth Street, not a transit corridor, was upzoned with the initial IDO. It was upzoned again with 02469 and now 6 months later, it is being allowed to upzone again. Crazy community planning area assessments have not even started in this valley. People should have a chance for input before more changes are made. Our MRA already has MXM zoning. The Manol MRA can use zone map amendments to do what they want to accomplish without requiring the whole city to change. Also, while this upzoning is allowed across the city, it will not impact gated communities, which we've allowed to proliferate, nor the large home areas. In the North Valley, this impacts many small home neighborhoods. The changes will likely be requested by distant property owners. I'm tired of hearing the word density as if it has a single meaning and is a holy grail. It can be done with taste and scale, but the current design standards are minimal and not always enforced. Most sizable apartment complex being built at intersections and neighborhoods of small one-story single family homes has impacts. There are numerous places to build denser housing and it is not happening. Why such a comprehensive to our zone code should follow our IB IDO process. Why is our mayor trying to do this at the end of his term and who is pushing it? >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Madam President. That concludes comment. >> Thank you. Thank you, everybody. All right, I'm going to move on. I'm going to ask um Mr. Cox to do an overview of the bill. chairorn and counselors. Uh I'm going to try and go through this relatively quickly just for time sake, but um a quick presentation on R25 167. Um the map that you're seeing here uh the blue are local streets, the black are collector arterial and then the orange shade is metropolitan redevelopment areas. As we go through Oh, right. Sorry, new mics. Um as we go through um these uh the eligibility standards, all of these layers uh play a factor within them. Uh some uh key definitions uh corner lot, a lot located at the intersection of and having frontage on two or more streets and then frontage lot line a legal a legal boundary that abuts a street. Um so um the first eligibility is property zone R1 on corner lots of local streets are eligible to be converted to RML. Um what you're seeing in the map is all or are all all of the R1 zones uh within the city. And the quick graphic um with the green stars um kind of show where that reszoning could take place uh on corner lots. And so you're seeing that the interior of these blocks are not affected per this eligibility uh requirement. Um, we heard from the public uh about building heights and so this table and I'll show it for each eligibility requirement uh shows how the building heights would change per criteria. And so R1 on a corner lot um R1 is 26 feet in height and going to RML would end up being 38 feet in height. um property zone R1 on a collector or arterial street are eligible to be converted to MXT. Uh and so very um obvious, but these lots are fronting uh in this case um Gerard Boulevard. And so again, it is that front lot line that deems you on a collector or arterial. um R1 to MXT is actually lower than the RML zone district. And so MXT you would be able to go up to 30 feet in height. Um and then all other zone districts or all other R1 districts that aren't on a corner or collector arterial um you go to RT and that is 26 feet in height. So it remains the same as R1. Um the third round, properties zone RT on corner lots of local streets are eligible to be converted to RMH. Um and so this picture is um kind of telling because we had a lot of concerns about like culde-sacs. Does that deem it on a corner lot? It does not. Um you have to have two street frontages and so um just noticing where the stars are and where they're not here. Um, but the map to the left shows where all of the RT districts are uh within the city and and quite scattered kind of all over the place. Um, so RT to RH RH is more intense uh and allows you to go up to 48 feet in height. Um I will say as you can see by the um uh asterisk basically that um this general base height does not bring in extra entitlements that you would see along corridors, centers, etc. Uh you do get um increased height if you're in a premium transit or an urban center per se. Um RT along arterials or collectors goes to MXL. Uh same thing as the previous picture, just fronting. Uh in this case, Carile. Um and so going to MXL allows you to go up to 38 feet in height. And then if you're RT um anywhere outside of the corner lot or along collector arterial, you go to RML or multif family at 38 feet. Um, and then if we are RML on a corner lot, you go to RH. Um, and the map to the left shows where all of the uh RML districts are in the city, similar to RT, just really scattered um all over the place. And um, RML to RH goes from 38 to 48T in height. Um, and then if you are on a collector arterial, you're allowed to go up to MXM, um, which also is 48 ft in height. Um, metropolitan redevelopment areas. Um, using the university area here, for example, um, the university area only has one non-residential district uh, within it. And so that's this red one at the bottom of the map would be the only uh property that is eligible to be converted to MXH. Uh and so as you can see the rest of the zone districts are RM or a mix RML or a mix of other MX districts. Those would not pertain to this. We are only allowing if uh the resolution is approved non-residential districts to be um zoned to MXH which is the most intense uh mixed zone district. Uh MXH allows um structures to go up to 75 ft in height. Um but the difference is that it does allow housing whereas non-residential does not. Um the process uh pending uh the decision on this resolution uh the planning department will have a 90-day outreach period to kind of get the word out um to the residents of the city. Um after that 90day period, residents will have 180 days to submit their different required documents, signatures, etc. to get their property um into the um the batch as we're calling it. Um and so then once all applications have been received, the planning department has 90 days to get that application in uh to the EPC or the environmental uh planning commission. Um for the outreach effort, uh the planning department has uh committed to um notifications to their email list and that email list is uh consisting of um community planning area emails, neighborhood association emails and any other type of community engagement effort that the planning department has undertaken. Um they will also uh work with the office of neighborhood coordination to have more education and inform the neighborhood associations and then create a dedicated web page related to the process. Other types of outreach will be like um radio, newspapers, all your general media outlets. That is it. Questions? >> Thank you, Mr. Cox. I'm gonna open it up for questions. Councelor Champine. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a few. Um, and this is just for point of just clarification when I read this just to kind of uh understand it more. Uh, how does increasing all types of housing generally uh keep prices and rent more affordable and and what data supports that? >> Thank you, council. I'll I'll start and then I'll turn it over. I'm an economist. So, uh I I truly believe that more uh supply of any product is what will keep demand or keep um prices down in the long run. And I'm I'll turn it over to Mr. Cox for a more detailed answer. >> Um Chair Fable, Councelor Shampine, uh I'm going to try and rely on the data that is available to me. Um and similar to what one of the members of public presented to y'all uh basically it really comes down to um stock of housing uh there there haven't been too many examples within the US where we see home prices actually drop but rather we are hoping to to kind of stall the rise of prices so that um our salaries and our income of our constituents can rise to meet the already risen up value of those properties. And so um by allowing for more intense development um what we're doing is also playing the game with construction costs right now by if we can build more units with less materials then that inherently drops the value um or cost of construction and allows for entry at a at a lower point whether that is home ownership or rental rates. Um, but I think the only example of where we have seen some rental rates drop has been Austin, Texas. And that has been after they um they increased their zoning for years upon years upon years to to get that stock built. Okay. Thank you for that. Um and I don't remember I didn't write down Madam Chair where this was but uh in this there's an omission of providing a process for development division decisions that balanced the interest of the city the property owners residents and developers to ensure opportunities uh for input by all affected parties. Is there a reason why that part was omitted? And I don't know where it's fun. I just have I-3 uh- R in that. So >> So I I I will go and then I'll turn it over to Mr. trucks. It's my understanding that this would if you qualify under the terms laid out in this bill and you put in your application in the six-month period that it's open, then you are approved. There is not a process by which individual applications would be um you know going through an approval process. The whole point of this is to streamline the process and really make sure that the folks that want to take advantage of this and get their application in the in the time frame allocated in the bill could move forward with a for sure approval. >> Um, Chair Feeorn, Councelor Champine, I'm honestly not sure where in the bill you're discussing. Um >> the no3-R I don't it wasn't I I was putting down notes. It wasn't in the bill itself. um in something else and I want I don't know if it was the IDO but I I read that it was probably in the Ido provided processes for development decisions that balance the interest of the city the property owners residents and developers and ensure opportunities for input by effective parties seem to not be a part of that and I think the the chairperson announced that that this is to streamline it >> so we we we didn't allow for effective parties to weigh in on it to in in hopes to streamline this process. >> Chair and counselor, basically what we're seeing is the difference between a legislative action and an ordinance, which is the the general direction we'd go through with one-off properties. But because this will be a batch zoning and the council's ultimate power of of land use decisions, it becomes a legislative action. And then we will still turn it over to EPC after all the applications have come in. after that 180day period. >> Okay. Um, Madam Chair, I promise I'll be quick because I know it's late. Um, >> actually the the third question I think got answered. I was in the ADU uh ordinance that we passed citywide and I was saying that how many had actually applied and I I guessed a dozen but I read something it was only 14. >> Um, so far Chair Feebleorn, Councelor Champine, the latest number I have heard is 15. Um, and so it's it's again a little more, right? It's nice. Um, but I think the um >> like a lot of approaches with zoning, ADUs are are not the silver bullet. Um, but inherently we can say um we got 15 extra units basically. >> Okay. And I'll just the last one is um the 2024 IDO revision stated that the major changes to the zoning and rules of the IDO will happen every two years or every other year. So two years. Why are we bypassing that and I wasn't a part of it. I'm just kind of curious. >> Um Chair Feebleorn, Councelor Champine, so this is actually not part of the IDO. There is no amendment to the IDO as part of this process. Um but but ultimately that that power and decision- making and the ability to go through that process um no matter lies with council and so this is y'all's document. Um and the bianual is is a sorry the word bannual always tongue ties me. Um bianual is an inherent process that we have to follow and and see but it does not prohibit y'all from amending the IDO outside of that process. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you, councelor Groud, and then we'll go to councelor Vassan. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Can somebody from the administration tell me approximately how many vacant houses do we have throughout the city? >> Madam Chair and Council Gr, we have staff from the planning department and director Varela is on. >> Thank you. >> Does anybody want to answer that? Director Villa, the u we do not know exactly how many vacant houses we have in the city. Uh we have houses that we're aware of that are marks of standard that are vacant and we believe that is in approximately the 28 house range. But there are probably many many more houses that are vacant. People moved out. getting ready to sell them or they're between tenants, for example. So, we do not have a account of that because that's part of the private sector's business and not ours. >> Thank you, director. Um, Madame Chair, director, um, what is the process to get those substandard homes um, moving again and so perhaps getting a family into them? And the substandard homes are owned by uh people and we do not have the right to take their houses away from them because they it's private property. But uh we do go in and if it's uninhabitable and we have to close it up then we do put a lean on it for the cost of our uh you know services that were provided the board of costs for example and then eventually and then we make demand for them to pay and if they don't pay and those costs uh become large enough then we send it to the legal department to foreclose on the lean. And for the first time in the city's history the last year and a half, we have actually foreclosed on approximately 18 properties. And in those, the owners uh by and large were they were abandoned houses, so to speak. The owners were long gone. Nobody knew where they were. Perhaps they had had passed away, moved out of state. And so, uh there is then a one-year right of redemption period after the foreclosure is issued by the court. And then after that, then the city is free to the city then owns them and free to uh put them back into the marketplace and if they're in an MR area metropol redevelopment area then they will go through the metropolitan redevelopment process. >> Very good. Thank you director. Um >> you're welcome >> councelor or madam chair. Um with the respect to the substandard homes that have been marked for many years, what can the city do to encourage the property owner to um fix them up, sell them? um uh revitalize the the home for somebody um for the neighborhood because there's a lot of them in Albuquerque that we could perhaps in strongly encourage um they it would it would be good to revitalize them for the neighborhood. What can we do with that? You know, the houses that have substandard on them, how long do they just sit there that say substandard with no action >> and committee chair and counselor? That depends to a large degree on the property owner. Some of those it and generally it comes down to money. Those houses are substandard because perhaps somebody no longer had the money to maintain them. The house went downhill. was inherited by heirs who are squabbbling. They're in dispute with each other and they're willing to just let the thing uh go down the tube, so to speak, rather than cooperating with each other. But ultimately, those that's private property and the city's rights to go in and uh take that private property are, you know, basically non-existent. I >> I do understand. >> Years ago, the Metropon Redevelopment Act at the state level uh removed the power of eminent domain from local governments and so local government does not have the power to go in for redevelopment purposes and take a property. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. Let's go to councelor Bassan. >> Madame chair a comment that when I first was elected right before that in that year right before the IDO was originally passed before that was sector plans. Everybody said the IDO was going to be so much better. Uh I know my predecessor and personally myself don't really he didn't think of that way and I don't either but we have it. Um and there is the process and I realize that sometimes things change and we need to to go ahead and go about things in a more fast expedient way than we do with um you know waiting for the actual update to happen. But if we're going to start cherrypicking properties in this town by doing something like this, then we might as well go back to sector plans because I feel like this is one step backwards if we're going to start moving back to individual property. I guess zoning. I don't see why we're calling it zoning if it's going to happen to be so um independent from everything else. >> Thank you. Just want to make sure there were no other questions from you, Councelor Vassan. Okay. Thank you, uh, Councelor Rogers. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had some clarifying questions to your presentation, Matt. A lot of my constituents that are emailing me about this are concerned about the height. So, I know you talked about the different height options. Um, and so someone who doesn't know is how many stories is 48 feet potentially? I'm thinking four, but if the ceilings are 8 to 9 in like feet, they could be five to six stories. Just doing some quick math. So, just wondering because that's the biggest thing I'm hearing from my constituents is on the corner street within the map helped a lot to see where visualize what this is, but on that corner lot, it could be five to six stories potentially. >> Um, Chair Feebleorn, Councelor Rogers, um, it's been a while since I've been a construction manager. Um, but I I believe four stories is all you're going to get out of 48 feet based on the mechanical requirements that you have on like the ground floor. Um, even though your ceiling height is maybe going to be like 10 feet, you still need like two feet for HVAC, plumbing, electricity, etc. And so that that quickly limits the ability to get that extra story out of that. >> So, thank you, Madam Chair. So, four stories, >> four for 48 ft >> would be the max >> essentially. >> Council Rogers, can I just can I just interrupt because I want to just make sure that we're saying the right thing. So, if you're talking about folks that are calling or emailing about residential, they're in R1, then if they live not on a corner and not on an arterial, they go from 26 feet to 26 feet, no change. If they live on a collector or arterial street, they go from 26 feet to 30 feet. So four four feet difference. And if they're on a corner lot and they're in R1, they can go to RML, which goes from 26 feet to 38 feet. I just want to be really clear. Some of the higher numbers are if you're already in a low a multifamily low density zone. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, for that distin distinction. Um the other question I'm getting a lot and from my constituents is just what is the percentage of homes across the city that would be available like able to upzone? >> Do we know like um >> what is what is the number of lots across the whole city that would be able to do this versus the total amount of lots? >> Yeah. Um, councelor or uh, Chair Feebleorn, Councelor Rogers, um, the number for single family properties within the city is about 68%. Now, when you add on, uh, RT, RML, uh, the metropolitan redevelopment areas, um, I don't know that percentage, but um it would be above 68%. Um I' I'd assume. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Uh okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Other question is you mentioned no denials. So just reading through the the process that's outlined here. It goes to EPC. What does EPC do if they can't deny or say yes to something? Um, so, Chair Feeblecorn, councelor Rogers, um, it it goes to EPC with recommend recommending powers. Um, and so I might ask my planning colleagues to correct me if I am wrong here, but similar to how we go about the IDEO annual update, they would have the ability to amend. Um, no, it is a blanket yes or no. >> Recommended conditions. Um so similar to how we do the EPC red line um which it's up to council's perview to to accept those red lines or not. >> Thank you. Thank you madam chair. So then so EPC sends it to us with a recommendation and then every is it us as a council is going to be approving the batch or do we approve each application here? Um, so, Chair Feebleorn, Councelor Rogers, it it would be the general batch. Um, you would not go property by property. Um, but you do have the ability. Um, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong. Um, to as a counselor say, I I don't think that property should be zoned and remove it singly. But generally, you are making a determination on the batch as a whole. And All right, cool. >> I'm I'm going to go to um the city attorney. I I just want to clarify that that is the correct answer because um if the batch can be undone line by line by council, it seems counter to the point of the bill. So, can you just talk to that? I >> I can um um madam chair, but I would also like to hear Mr. tomorrow because he is more of a land use um attorney and uh but I read the ordinance to uh require APC to act on the batch and so I believe council would then act on the batch in its entirety. That's how I would interpret the wording of the ordinance. So >> Mr. tomorrow. >> And uh Chair Fubicorn, I I believe I echo city attorney Keefe. I the council wouldn't be allowed to um individually remove properties from the batch system. That would I think um likely get into spot zoning issues. So, I think it would have to be able to to accept the overall recommendations as provided by EPC, but I don't think they would be able to move in into im individual properties. >> Thank you. I see a planner who >> would like to have a conversation. So, come on down. >> Hi there, chair and councilors. Michael Voss, city zoning enforcement officer with the planning department. Um, only thing I would add, you uh this is a legislative action. you are acting on the batch of properties. But I think that the I would add that the point of going through the EPC and the whole review process with the applications is so that staff and your recommending body to planning commission can review all those properties and ensure that they meet the eligibility criteria that you are establishing here tonight or when you when the full council votes on the bill. >> Thank you. Oh, back to the city attorney. Uh madam chair I just wanted to add of course then within your legislative authority you can change you can do a new resolution or you could change you know your course after after hearing from the EPC but the ordinance as written now yeah would be describes >> thank you um all right we'll come back council Rogers >> thank you madam chair so that brings up a couple more questions um if we have to batch approve these are Are we going to get the at least each recommendation for every single thing that the EPC has reviewed? Sorry, I'm a process person, so I got to wrap my brain around this to be able to vote on it. >> You're good. Um, and Chair Fable and Council Rogers. And just so I'm capturing the question correctly, are you asking that um through that batch uh submitt of all these zone amendments that they would see and ensure that each property met the eligibility that it went through >> that? ABS. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, that's of course first that's what I would expect the EPC to do be doing, but as as a council, are we going to be able to see the decisions of each of those b each of those items batched, but so we can see what the EPC recommendation was? >> Um, councelor Rogers, I I believe so, but I I don't know how the planning department is going to to lay that out in their application. Yeah. >> Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is this is for me. This is just a lot of the things that came up for my constituents and in order for me to decide on how to vote, I really need these answers. >> So, so yes. Yes, please. >> Chair, counselors, uh I'm Michaela Renwitmore. I work for the planning department. Uh when we did a a very similar batch of legislative zone conversions, what we gave to the planning commission was both a spreadsheet of all the properties, addresses, owner, columns for which criteria it met and any staff notes. EPC did um make a general recommendation about the batch, but also if they didn't think that a property actually met that criteria in the way that staff interpreted it, there was discussion and they could make a different recommendation when it came. There was also a map online um of all the properties that had opted in so people could see individually on a map, not just the spreadsheet, but a map with um that you could compare. When it came to council, there were some discussions about whether individual properties met a particular criteria and in some cases um they were deemed ineligible, didn't meet the criteria and were booted out of the batch and then the batch was approved. Thank you, Madam Chair. Who kicked out some of the things? Council >> council and they were able to do that individually by application. >> So, the there's only one application. The application is for the batch of legislative zone conversions with a spreadsheet of all the properties that are included in the batch. At council, there was discussion about individual properties that didn't the counselor didn't think they met the eligibility criteria and they were removed from the batch before council voted on the batch to approve the batch. >> Thank you. So that means the answer to my question before is yes, not no. Yes, we are able to remove things from the batch if the council believes that it does not meet the requirements. the the discussion is not just on a whim or I know that property owner or there's you know we don't want that particular property to have that zoning but it doesn't meet the eligibility criteria therefore won't be part of the batch. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you madam chair. The last question um just wanted to to something councelor Grout talked about for what can we do with these adapt but I I asked for the adapt program list for the city. um and received that for my district only. There was over 40 properties in my district that were on the adapt list, not owned by the city. Um and surprisingly, a lot of the other ones were businesses, not necessarily houses in my district. There was a lot of businesses on this list that were working to get back um up to code. So, how and I know this is just one question I got and I think I know the answer, but I'm going to ask it even though I feel like not I'm asking it, but this doesn't apply to any businesses. >> Um, councelor Rogers. So, there are um up zones for some of these that are already say for example um in the metropolitan redevelopment area. that would be that would be, you know, allowable for business or housing or mixed use. Um, I'll turn it over to Mr. Cox for a more thorough answer, but that's um Chair Fable and Council Rogers. Um, so the the base zone district um does not deem what land uses is on that property. And so there are many many districts or properties within the city that that um maybe zone for um RML or something but have like a a shop in them because they um came in with the IDO's reszoning or something. And so uh to say that no business um won't be eligible is is probably not accurate. And then to councelor Feeblecorn's comment about the MAS, um non-residential zone districts only have businesses in them, whether that's a hotel or an industrial use, and they would be eligible um to zone to a MXH district that then would allow residential while also retaining the the business use as well. >> Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Last question just to follow up on that. So that means in a residential area someone could upzone and put a business there. >> Um Chair Fableorn, Councelor Rogers, uh mostly depending on if they are eligible for um the MXT. Um sorry, I need to go to all the eligibility. >> And the reason I'm asking this is because in some of my ideal updates are like bodegas, right? Bringing back the bodeas. Can that like I don't think I just wondering if if we could do if with this zoning up zoning that would potentially be something somebody could do. >> Um councelor Feebleorn um I will have to look at the that particular amendment to see the language again to make sure I'm not misspeaking. But for instance, if someone is zoned RT um or R1 on a collector arterial street, they can go to MXT, which does allow uh commercial uses of some kind. Um so yes, and maybe in the future as well. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, uh councelor Champines. >> Madam Chair, no, it was was remedied. >> Okay. And uh council. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple questions. So, we don't have to notify any neighbors if we're going to change. Is that what this says? So, you know how now if you're going to add on to your house, you have to put one of those yellow signs up that says we're going to do something different. You don't have to notify your neighbors. and then all of a sudden you start >> um so chair peopleorn councelor grout uh no because it is a legislative action uh the same notification requirements that are in the IDO would not apply in this case and so you would not have to notify the the neighborhood associations or adjacent neighborhood associations or um property owners within 100 feet I think is the general requirement that would not be part of this >> surprise goodness. Okay, thank you. >> Okay. Um, so I have heard um some really good points tonight. I think we've got a little bit more work to do on this. I've heard from neighborhood associations. Um, I had a couple of of um amendments that I was going to move, but what I would prefer to do, I think, is to move for a deferral until the next LUPS meeting to give us time to have all of the input from the neighborhood associations incorporated into um a new version that answers some of the questions that were still outstanding for tonight. And I will just point out we have some outdated dates in this bill that I was also going to amend, but um it's just been out there so long that it's already out of date. And I do find that um interesting since people are worried about how fast it's come about. It was actually introduced um 60 days ago. And so uh we would need to update that as well. So, uh, I'm going to move a deferral until the next land use planning and zoning committee meeting, at which time I can hopefully bring back with the administration some, um, some changes to address some of the issues that we've heard. >> Okay, >> that's uh moved and seconded. And any questions on that? Okay. Uh, we'll go to a roll call vote. >> Councelor Bassan. >> No. Councelor Champine, >> no. >> Councelor Gro, >> no. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feeblecorn, >> yes. >> That fails on two three. >> All right, we are back on the bill um as it was introduced with the one um edit. I will just quickly ask um Mr. Cox, what what is the um what's the next step given that the title does not match the contents of the bill now? >> Um >> or an attorney. >> Chair Feeorn, I would say that's a better question for an attorney. >> Okay. >> About the >> Can I have one one moment, Chair? So, just to clarify, the the amendment that was voted down by this body was a correction to the title um that included all of the metropolitan redevelopment area um zones. And so, we have an incorrect bill. >> Uh Madame Chair, uh fellow deputy directors informed me the clerk would just need to republish the title and that we could proceed. Okay. Um, so we will move and the the um the motion was a due pass and it was seconded by councelor Rogers. So we'll unless there's any other questions, we'll move to a vote. >> Councelor Busan, >> no. >> Councelor Champine, >> no. Councelor Grout, >> no. >> Councelor Rogers, >> no. Councelor Feebleorn. >> Yes. >> That fails on a one four. >> All right. Moving on to agenda item H. >> Chair. >> Yes. >> It did not pass. I make a motion to do not pass it. >> I believe your rule change um covers this if we should look it up. But um the rule change that you put forward was that um find it. The failure of any due pass motion on a bill and committee shall result in the bill being reported to the city council is failed and pursuant to article three or four section 66 of these rules, the council's acceptance of such report shall result in a failure of the bill. Provided however that any bill that is failed in this manner will be revived by a subsequent motion and second to revive that receives an affirmative vote of at least four counselors in which case the bill will be placed on the agenda for the next regular council meeting for action. So that will already be reported out as a failed. Okay. >> All right. Moving on to councelor Bassan for um R 169. Uh, Madame Chair, R 169 adopting a new section 3216 in the code of resolutions to require a comprehensive plan accountability analysis for certain legislative items. I move it to pass. >> All right. Um, any are there any mo um amendments to this or can we go straight to public comment? Uh, no, Madam Chair, there's not, but somehow I didn't hear if there was a second. Can you just let me know who >> Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, it was seconded by Councelor Gra. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, no, I do not have any amendments. >> Okay, so we will go on to um public comment, >> Madam Chair. I do not have any public comments. >> Oh, no public comment. >> Thank you. >> Wow, that's unusual tonight. Good job, Council Bassan. Um, all right. Any questions on this bill? >> Madam Chair, can I open? >> Yes, of course. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, this bill came to me uh with the idea from our staff acknowledging that the comprehensive plan for the city of Albuquerque is something very important that we should all really be paying attention to when it comes to any kind of land use matters and whether or not we are furthering the comprehensive plan and adhering to it or not. And I thought it was a great idea that came uh was presented to me and I hope that the rest of you will agree as well, but just like a fiscal impact analysis on certain bills and I'm going to let Mr. Cox kind of show a demonstration of what this would look like. Uh because it should be really easy. I I believe that Mr. Cox also has worked with some in the planning department to make sure that this is not going to be overly burdensome. I hope and I it seemed like it was indicated it won't be overly burdensome for the administration, but that way there's boxes checked that say this follows and would help the comprehensive plan if if we do it because and just like yes, yes, no, and why. Um, and so that way we can all have a little bit more accountability in the bills that are coming to us with kind of a way to track things, which I think is something that the city has been asking for for quite some time. And I think this would be something that can help us make sure that everyone is on point and aware of what's happening in the comprehensive plan. But if it's all right with you, Madam Chair, I would love for Mr. Cox to elaborate even further and even he has a an example of what this would look like uh for for people to see as well as the committee. >> Yes, of course. Go ahead, Mr. Cox. >> Um chair, committee, uh basically this idea came out after the comprehensive plan update in 2023. Um the comprehensive plan is a long range document and so um there are multiple administrations that go through a comprehensive plan. There are multiple counselors, staff, etc. Um and when we went through the update, it was it was very clear that um departments are are one very busy and so don't often have time to kind of go back uh to this document. yet it is our rank one document that is a the vision uh if not for land use but also many um programs uh funding um approaches to uh our not only land use but infrastructure community centers etc. Um and so with that idea, um the the concept was to essentially be able to through the years keep up with what we are hitting in terms of policy goals and actions if they are applicable as they are laid out in the comp plan. And so um there is an exhibit tied to the resolution, but frankly it was my best go at a at a science project showand tell. And frankly, the Excel table is is a little more um explanatory, but essentially the the hope would be to work with the planning department DTI to figure out a a one-stop shop um to fill out um a one-pager essentially uh for each leg legislative item with a simple process of a a drop- down menu for every different element within the comprehensive plan. And we have 10 different elements in that plan. And so it is vague and broad in and almost any legislative item um that would be relevant through this resolution whether it's um a resolution, an ordinance, uh an EC um and I'm blanking on the others. Uh you can tie to to somewhere in the comp plan. So, uh, if I was to go down to housing, choose, um, all the trigger words of tonight. Uh, let's do development processes. Um, pick the goal, pick the policy that lies within that development process, say why it's furthered, and then done. Um, and then you would hopefully click a button, presents a page for you, but that data is stored for when the planning department goes back and does the update again every five years. And they can go back and say goal 9.6 was hit with 10 bits of legislation and we can do that update in a much more efficient pattern than what was done in the first iteration this past time. But it also leaves columns for um our rank two, our rank three plans and any other reports. Um this council approves um different uh action reports uh most most council meetings um whether that is our our climate action plan, our vision zero action plan, the double eagle master plan, any anything that relates to a facility or an inherent systemic goal within the city. Um, you can also site that as well. Um, which hopefully would make it a bit easier for departments that work with those very unique reports and documents too. Um, but yeah, the the entire goal was to not be a burden on departments and make it as streamlined as possible and and I would hope with the help of some folks in the admin that that could be accomplished as well. >> All right. Thank you. Um, Mr. Montoya, does the admin have a comment on this? >> Uh, Madam Chair, I believe Director Varela does. >> Okay. Director Varela, >> I've met with staff on this and we do think that it's doable. However, it will require resources. >> So, I will I'll leave it at that. But, but it is doable. >> Thank you. All right, I'll open it up to counselors for questions. Okay. Um I'll just ask how are we going to pay for it? There's not an appropriation in the bill that is before us. So, um how will we ensure that we have the resources needed to do this work? >> Madam Chair, if I may. >> Yes, of course. Uh it's my understanding that in developing this and some of the conversations again I would I'll defer to Mr. Cox to correct me if I'm wrong but this is similar to however many resources are required for to do a fiscal impact analysis. The idea is that once DTI if they could work and planning kind of barely it sounds like if DTI can really work to set this up then it's a fillable form that should work in perpetuity. um almost on an auto cycle with just pull down menus. So, uh the idea is again to keep it very simple, but to be able to have some track trackable data for the city that I don't think from what I was told and what I understand is going to require a lot of monetary resources. >> Mr. Chair Feebleorn. Um my I did have a question into Gov Affairs as to what if there is any cost to storing data on the city servers. Um that is something that I am I I just don't know if there is a cost associated with that. Um but uh as as far as resources go um happy to provide all other frameworks. >> Mr. Mr. Mto >> Madam Chair I don't believe there'll be an additional cost what's over to DTI but we do have one question uh for the sponsor or Mr. Cox. So would this be required for every piece of legislation or just land use? Um chair feebleorn um and admin. Um madame chair going down to the right one while Mr. Cox looks that up. >> Councelor Champine, >> may I interject please? I'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules to extend the meeting to 11:14. >> Motion's been moved and seconded. Roll call. >> Councelor Bass. >> Yes. >> Councelor Champine. >> Yes. >> Councelor Grout. >> Yes. >> Councelor Feeblecorn. >> Yes. >> Councelor Rogers. >> No. That passes on a Ford one. >> Thank you for that. >> Back to um the answer to the question around resources needed or not needed to implement this bill. And I'm going to go back to Mr. Montoy. >> I'm sorry. Uh Madam Chair, can you repeat that for me, please? >> I I'm just trying to get an answer to the question of do we have the resources needed to implement this bill? And if not, what would those resources be that are needed? >> Let me yield to Director Varela and then I'll I'll take a stab at it. >> And uh just to answer um Mr. Mononttoya's question. Uh formerly, it would be ordinances, resolutions, executive communications, and other communications. >> Director Veretta Yes. And just to elaborate on what Mr. Cox just said, uh, section B1 says, "Every proposed council action shall at the time of introduction be accompanied accompanied by the analysis." So the way the bill is written, it says every single thing that council acts on is going to require that. So for example, if there is an agenda with 50 items on it, including, you know, 30 that were in the consent agenda, those are all acted on by council. So there are going to be uh in that scenario 50 of these analyses that have to take place and so it is going to require resources. This is not uh something that's going to happen automatically if it's going to have quality behind it and and of course we all want quality behind it. So there was actually some analysis done. >> Thank you councelor Bassan. Madam Chair, I would say that if it is in there, then I think that was an error and I apologize on my part. It is supposed to only be those specific pieces of legislation that come before the council. It would not include things like appeals. It would not include uh other pieces of legislation that uh I know that we have it listed out in there and I'm sorry I don't have the bill pulled up in front of me exactly, but if it is something that is counter uh it does it counters somewhere else in the legislation then I would be happy to do an amendment to clarify. >> Thank you, Mr. Cox. >> Chair Feebleorn, councelor Vassan. Uh, sorry. Below what I just read out, it also says, "Council action does not include the receipt of information, the approval of an appointment of any person to a board, committee, or commission, a land use appeal, a memorial, a proposal, or the adoption of council rules. Uh, that is found on page two, line 23. >> I'm sorry, page two, line 23." >> Uh, yes, chair. Director Varela, does that um does that solve the issue of it, you know, being way too ownorous given the that information >> and and committee chair, it it takes work. You know, obviously if you want a quality product, it is going to take some work. There's no way to impose a requirement uh and say it's not going to take any work to do. As we said before, it's doable, but uh we we don't know exactly how much work it's going to going to take. Um, and that list of exclusions does not include, for example, contracts. Council often deals with contracts. That means every contract is going to have to have that analysis. So, there will be quite a few council actions, even some that are entirely out. Um, you know, seemingly unrelated to the land use matter. Um, you know, I'm trying to think of an example. You know, maybe you have a a noise detectors that council would vote on eventually. Uh, that should not be excluded. So, it is going to take some work, but we did say it was doable. It's just this is not something that's going to be um automatic if we want it to have high quality. And out of the planning department, you are never going to get something that is halfbaked. We always make sure that we are doing something that we can defend, that we can rationalize, and that we're proud of uh to put our name on. >> Okay. Thank you. Um Mr. Montoya. >> Uh Madam Chair, I think the other thing to add to that is that there are 23 different departments within city government. U a lot of them may not have to fulfill this obligation, but several departments do not have a planning staff. So I would imagine that uh the planning department would have to work closely with those departments in order to do that analysis as part of the bill that would be uh presented. Okay, Mr. Cox. >> Um, Chair Feebleorn, um, I think the whole point of the comp plan and the over 300 actions that are, um, tied directly to every department within the city is is the whole idea behind this is that um, they have committed to actions in the comp plan. It is much more than just a land use document. Um, and a lot of the actions are dedicated to spending. Um, not just the budget, but contracts as well. And so I think that's that's kind of the message behind this, that this is a citywide document, not just the planning department. The planning department does create it and manage it. Um, but those responsibilities lie with all. >> Any other questions? Councelor Shant. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, just kind of help me understand this. When it says a comp plan analysis, it's just an action. So, when we're talking is it doable, it's time. Correct. So, if I'm correct, Chair Fable, Councelor Champine, uh, that that's my understanding and that's why the drop down menu is the option. Um, if it is time ownorous, um, we do have the section in there that says planning staff will work with planning department staff and DTI to come up with a with a tool >> with a digital not a hard copy. >> Exactly. Yeah. U madam chair so when we adopt so say we're making an a resolution this is just another sheet that we fill out to add >> similar >> maybe take and what planning department might be saying and director if you can clarify is that >> with this new order we've just got to develop some sort of way to figure it out get it downright and streamline it so it's added to the process of the the already process of writing a resolution Is that correct? >> And committee chair and counselor. Yes. This would be an additional layer of analysis that goes that accompanies any bill. And as we said, nobody's here has said it's a bad idea. Not a single person. Just for the record. >> We have just said uh it's going to require work, which does mean time. And in addition to time, we do want some accuracy and some some thought behind it. And so our our concern that we're pointing out is that it will require resources uh in order to get this done. And it is not a uh you know you spin a spin a you know pull a wheel and and uh you know pick numbers sort of situation there. You have to think about it. People have to be quite literate. They need to know uh to some degree what is in the comp plan and uh they have to be able to then u uh do some executive level thinking so to speak and compare and contrast and state what is supported in the comp plan or whether if it's contrary to the comp plan. So there there's there is work involved. >> Madam Chair and director, understandable. Um when we're talking about ordinances and resolutions and other communications executive, we would want to be that comprehensive and detailed in what we're doing to say within our plan and our 10-year plan or the comprehensive plan. So this is going to help stream or clarify and ensure um proper direction. I would the way I'm hearing it um even though it's going to take a little while to get used to or develop and understand and and then just like any change in in any business or government getting used to the new order of doing things. Um >> okay, I think I understand it right. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you. I'm going to go to Council Rogers. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to just talk a little bit about the process for the comp plans because I had the pleasure of watching the planning department go through this process um while we were doing block parties when I worked with equity inclusion and the amount of work and community engagement that just sits on a shelf and isn't used in the departments to make decisions or as our true north of what um we should be doing for our community. I think this is going to make it so that people I there was things assigned to equity and inclusion I never knew of till I became a counselor, right? Like these are things that we if we are going to get the community's input we need to use and if we're going to honor the work that the planning department does, this allows us to use the information to make decisions and to align our priorities with the community's priorities. And so for me, this is a way to honor the work that's already done in planning. um to gather all this information for us. Um especially counselors, I don't hear us talk about does this align with the comp plan when we're making decisions up here. This will allow us to be able to do that. And for me, I'm I think this is a great process improvement that will help us move forward, move the city forward in a way that we're not really paying attention to now. on. There's an immense amount of work that's done with a great community engagement process that literally sits on a shelf. And so I'm excited to see some processes that would help us use these to make decisions. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Sure. All right. Uh, Councelor Bassan for comments and a close. >> Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, councelor Rogers couldn't agree with you more. Um and I and counselor counselors all of you like it's just yes there's going to be resources when is there not but how many resources do we use on a fiscal impact analysis in the city? Uh and this is something that I mean I've heard of people that work in the city that haven't even heard of the comp comp plan and how is that possible when that's like one of our number one goals that we have to drive everything we're supposed to be doing. And so I think that this is meant to be another tool in the toolbox to be able to help further all of that. Um so that we can all be accountable and transparent. Uh you know, and if resources are needed that are undue, then I wouldn't mind trying to find them later. But I really in working with our staff and them working with some others, uh I think that it's not I don't anticipate it to be as hard as it it may seem at first. So, I would urge your support into giving this a try for some accountability and transparency. >> Thank you. I'm going to go to a roll call vote. >> Councelor Bassant, >> yes. >> Councelor Champai, >> yes. >> Councelor Grout, >> yes. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feeblecorn, >> yes. >> That passes 5-0. >> All right. And we're going to move on to agenda item I. Councelor Rogers. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. R70 is designating approximately 23 acres in the Sonteo Boulevard area between Central Avenue and Lomis Boulevard as blighted, approving an amendment to the boundary of the Central Highland Upper Knobill Metropolitan Redevelopment Area to include these same 23 acres. approving a correspondence, I'm sorry, and also approving a corresponding nonsubstantial amendment to our metropolitan area uh area plan for the same area, Central Highland, Upper Knobill. And I move a due pass. >> Second. It's been moved and seconded. Are there any amendments before we head to the public comment? All right, public comment. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. We have Miss Ward to speak. Good evening, madame chair and committee members. I have some concerns with regard to how the uh resolution uh is presented. One is there's like there are no lot descriptions and the supporting document was a handdrawn hatchmarked area that's amended to uh the current boundaries of the MRA in the and there there was a line drawing added to that but one of those lines goes actually through the middle of a block instead of using street boundaries it appears to go through a middle of a block. Um, so I have some concerns about that, especially like you have one property and right next door, one's in the MRA boundary and the one isn't and they're on the same block. Um, the way it looked like in the map in the resolution. Another thing is I am concerned a bit like active businesses that have been in business on San Monteo for decades like personal disclosure that accounting office he was my accountant for years. Um so and they're still in business so they must be doing something right. So how is it that this successful business is in a blighted area? I have very strong concerns when um this is sort of like the whole TIDS thing and labeling a general area as blighted so that you can do stuff that probably you shouldn't be doing. That's my concern with this. And so gentrification can apply to commercial areas as well as residential areas. Those are my concerns. Thank you. >> That concludes comment. Thank Thank you. All right. Any questions? >> Oh, go ahead. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, just a couple things. So, um, thank you for your comments. I'm not sure what map you saw, but the map that we have as part of the record does list the streets and goes all the way to Lis. Um, this was requested from several business owners in the area that wanted to take advantage of the MRA zone. some that have including your the place you're talking about and Sichler Farms that's in the area um that's been in the area for 30 years as a business owner doesn't blighted doesn't mean businesses aren't going to be successful. It just means um that we're going to we need to designate it that way so that we can redevelop and help those business owners. There's no residential um in this area. It's literally to be able to give these business owners access to the MRA benefits that are so important. Um if you just drive and that's what we did with our our team drove down the stretch of San Mateo where we're looking. We have dilapidated buildings, we have vacancies. Um this would just unlock tools for those business owners to take advantage of the MRA benefits. Um and for me that's extremely important to move uh things and thoughtful development by local businesses who are in there in the area right now. And so I would love your support. Thank you. All right, roll call. Okay, that Well, we're going to consider that an opening and we'll go to councelor Champine. >> Um, yes, just a couple of questions. Is this amending the IDEO? >> Madame Chair, councelor Champine, it is not amending the IDO. >> There's a couple of questions brought to me, so I wanted to make sure. >> Sure. >> Um, Madam Chair, what what why the change? I mean, what's the justification? I know the opening said that they're uh empty buildings and why is it blighted? Is it because of crime? Is it because businesses left? Is it because >> Yeah, thank you for that. >> It's kind of just the justification. >> Yeah, Madam Chair, I think for me this came directly from business owners who need access to resources in order to update their buildings and update their commercial. Most of the this is all commercial, no residential. and those business owners do not have access to these um benefits that we give to a lot of other business owners. So, this just allows us to unlock those. For for instance, Sichler Farms um they own and have operated a chili stand um on that corn right on that area. They want to use these MRA benefits to actually activate that space yearround. So, do a farm-totable restaurant, adding business, adding jobs, and be able to run a fresh food stand, which is for me important with getting fresh food in the area. A lot of folks can't afford the Sprouts that's right across the street. Um, so for me, this checks a lot of boxes. Not just for that. I'm not just doing it for one business owner, though. Let's make it clear. There's lots of business owners we heard from um that were excited about about the opportunity to unlock some benefits that would help them uh really transform their businesses and bring some more jobs to the area. you just take a drive up, it's not a lot happening um in the area. And um this would just help us spur some of that responsible growth that we really need in this area. >> Okay. And Madam Chair, just one last question. Um and the public commenter mentioned it too. Uh why the cutout halfway through the block? >> Yeah, I'm not sure um what I might ask um um Miss Delgado to help us with that because I'm not sure what they're referring to. In our packet, it has not a handwritten but an >> for clarification. It it's it cuts out the block between Copper and Grand on Monzano. >> The the map here that I have goes all the way from one block one block all the way up to >> No, it's right. No, the the the bottom left hand. >> Oh, those are residential. >> Oh, that so it's commercial and then stops at residential. >> Yeah, because we didn't want to include the residential. Um it's not as it's not appropriate for me, but >> Perfect. And then just goes along the alleyway in the back. Okay, perfect. Thank you, ma'am. Any other questions? Councelor Gra. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. What are the MRA benefits? >> Yeah, so the major benefit is the tax abatement um for redeveloping their specifically if we're talking about Sichler Farms, that's one of the major ones that they're um looking forward to being able if we do pass this to be able to look forward to. So mostly the tax abatements um not necessarily direct funding, but the tax abatements that MRA offers. Okay. >> And they would also be eligible for any grants that came up for this M zone. There aren't any right now, but just in case there were, then um that they would be eligible for those, too. But we don't have any right now, sadly. >> Right. >> Thank you. >> All right. Any further questions? Seeing none, we will move to a close. I urge your support and a roll call vote. Councelor Bassant, >> yes. >> Councelor Champine, >> yes. >> Councelor Grout, >> yes. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Feeblecore, >> yes. >> That passes 5-0. >> All right. Thank you. Moving on to the last item on the agenda. Uh, item num um item J. This is R 175 adopting an amendment to the Albuquerque Bernley County comp plan to change the designation of segments of Rio Grand Boulevard Northwest Indian School Road Northwest and Manol Boulevard for mo multimodal corridors to major transit corridors. I will move uh um to council with no >> second. >> All right. Um do we have any folks line to sign up? Go ahead. Signed up to speak. Yes, we do, Madam Chair. First up is Loretta Nuranho Lopez, followed by Jordan McConnell, followed by Mark Bon, Jordan McConnell, followed by Mark Bone, followed by Carlos Michelin. Good evening, Chair Feebleorn and members of the committee. My name is Jordan McConnell. I'm the comm's chair for Strongtowns Albuquerque. I'm here on behalf of our members to voice our strong support for this reclassification of the multimodal corridor to a major transit corridor and the comp plan. This amendment aligns our city's land use vision with the ABQ ride forward network plan recognizing Manol's role as a key east west connector as well as a highfrequency bus route. Updating the comp plan to match this reality creates consistency and predictability for transit and land use planning. Right now, much of manol functions as a strode, moving cars quickly but not serving people. This change is an opportunity to begin transforming it into a safe, vibrant corridor that supports walkability, transit, and neighborhood vitality. This isn't a one-sizefits-all development about, but it's all about allowing thoughtful incremental growth near transit, housing, and businesses that fit the context, respecting the existing neighborhoods, and making room for missing middle homes that we've been lacking for decades. Our members who live in every zip code in the city, including districts along Manol, this amendment checks all the right boxes. It supports transit oriented land use, lowers car dependency, encourages mixed use and residential development near frequent service, improves pedestrian safety, and strengthens the case for higher frequency buses and better design for all, as well as strengthening the fiscal sustainability of the city. In short, R175 helps keep our most important planning documents, including the comp plan, in step with all of our investments in mobility, housing, and neighborhood v vitality. We urge you to recommend approval. Thanks. Mark Bone, followed by Carlos Michelin, followed by Miss Ward. >> Uh, good evening, committee chairorn and members of the committee. Um, I am here to voice my support uh for R25175. I think that we should match our documents together. The comp plan should be thusly amended to match the level of service as presented in the ABQ ride forward. um plan. And then I also just think that in general transit oriented development has been shown um pretty empirically to revitalize and allow people to move along corridors and live along those corridors and be happy doing so. Um I think that more areas of our city um could be much nicer to the people who either don't want to use a car or can't afford to use a car. And so I think that designating Manol especially is a is a super critical corridor um east west and would ensure that those who live along it would be able to make great use of all of the land uses that would change by amending the comp plan to match that. Um I think that's all I have. Thank you. Carlos Michelin followed by Miss Ward followed by Luis Sutherland on Zoom. council um sorry um committee chair and counselors um my name is Carlos Michelin I'm a member of the transit advisory board and a transit user um I think the ABQ ride forward plan is amazing um it's been in the works for several years and the city brought in some of the biggest national experts um it will increase wrership and better serve residents um and all of it while still being budget neutral um in the plan will be served by high frequency buses. Um this is objectively a good thing. It will benefit people and businesses in the area, reduce traffic and noise. Um cities growth, street grow. Um and this change just reflects this growth. Um but the promise of efficient transit can only be fully realized if the built environment is allowed to grow along with it. This redesignation will simply align our rules governing the built environment with the new reality of this corridor which is one of growth and progress. Um I strongly urge you to approve this redesignation. Um and I'll point out that without it manol will be the only high frequency route on the plan that would not be considered a major transit. Thank you for your time and um I owe you to pass it. Miss Ward followed by Luis Sutherland followed by Ellaner Wner Walther excuse me. Madame Chair, committee members again I have a list of concerns about the resolution as presented. Uh first of all it doesn't I could not find where the segments were to be located and these young men pray previously were all talking about Benol but it also includes Rio Grande and Indian school um which are very different than the commercial section of Manol um so where are the segments they're not defined does that mean the city can just move the segments around and include other areas if it wants uh is there an expectation moving to a major transit corridor that articulated buses will be used and this is also an area that has roundabouts like on Indian School at 12th at 12th Street there's a roundabout I think the roundabout on real grande is to the north of where this is proposed but without the designation of where you know from where to where are these segments going to be upzoned um and the resolution ution. This was mind-blowing to me appears like you know there are the whereas sex and then you go to we resolve too and this all these section a lot of that like in includes a discussion of the back and forth that I guess the city had with neighborhood representatives. It um includes steps that were gone through prior to the resolution getting to well I guess EPC and lupus. So it's like this stuff doesn't go in an action and that's unless I read it wrong or I've got some other version. This is in the resolution under the action section. So please don't pass it as written, rewrite it or something so that it actually is not embarrassing. Thank you >> Luis Sutherland followed by Eleanor Walther followed by Leela Blazing Star. >> Madame Chair and council members, my name is Luis Sland and I'm here to express my support for resolution 175. I feel this is vital to pass so it can complement the ABQ ride forward network plan. You can't have one without the other if you want this to work. I would love to see the sections of Manol Indian School Rio Grand and Rio Grand become major transit a major transit corridor. This would make multiple modes of transportation much more viable along these routes. Um, as an American, we like as Americans, we like choice, and this resolution would allow us to have other transportation options to choose from. Uh, please pass this resolution. Please support transportation option and choice. Thank you. >> Eleanor Walther, followed by Leela Blazing, followed by Merritt Tully. Uh, chair feeblecorn and other counselors, I am writing to to ask you to oppose R25175. I live near the western part of Indian school in an area of consistency. I am supportive of increasing public transportation in the north valley. Um and I would note that currently there is no public transportation along Indian school from S 6 street to Rio Grand. The transportation department has recently decreased the bus service in this area presumably because there is shortage of drivers. The justification for this resolution is to support the Albuquerque ride plan to increase public transportation. The transportation representative that was participating in the briefing for the Near North Valley Neighborhood Association confirmed that this resolution was not necessary to increase public transportation frequency. He stated what was needed was more drivers and mechanics. So, this resolution won't help increase public transportation in this area. So, what does the resolution do? It increases density along the corridor, including in areas of consistency. According to item six under the cover lever letter section, if this resolution does not pass, quote, properties along the effective se segment will not benefit from zoning incentives for transit oriented development along major transit corridors in the integrated development ordinance. This resolution is about increasing density which reaches 35 330 ft from the center line of the major transit corridor not increasing frequency of public transportation. The transportation representative estimated to be three to five years. >> Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Increase in bus service. >> Thank you, Eleanor. Up next, we have Leela Blazing Star followed by Merritt Tully. >> Madam Chair and committee members, I live in the near north valley. Um, nearest arterial to my home is Manol. Um, I want to voice my support for the red designation of the Manol corridor to major transit. Um, the expansion of and potential future investment in highquality transit options will give members of our community the more realistic ability to use means of transportation other than cars. Every trip that's made viable by means other than a car means less traffic, less delay for everybody. Um the car centric uh infrastructure we're so invested in makes our city a more dangerous, noisier, um dirtier place to live, and it's the least efficient way to get around both in terms of energy and financial resources. Um the more people we can empower to commute uh using hybrid means or be in public transit, the more resources the city can devote to making the city a more beautiful, safe, walkable place. and the rewide rerouting of bus line as prop proposed in R175 means the apartment complexes on Indian school as mentioned between six and Rio Grand um will have access to transit they did not before. Um, and the designation will allow for highquality mixeduse walkable redevelopment in a corridor of the city um with vibrant existing businesses that would benefit from increased foot traffic. Please advance this to the full council. Thank you. >> Merritt Tully followed by Peggy Norton. >> Hi there. Uh, again I'm Merritt Tully. I and I'm here speaking for Near North Valley Neighborhood Association Chair Feebleorn and counselors. As you may have seen in the EBC 48 hour materials, our neighborhood association board voted to oppose the major transit redesation of Manol Boulevard and Indian School Road west of I40. Uh we've not taken another vote yet. We're looking for asurances that we are not going to lose the decades of work put in by the community. New Mexico's PBLO and the city to create a multimodal pedestrian and bicyclist friendly area between Sixth Street and Rio Grand Boulevard essentially in the 12th and Manol area down to Rio Grand. We're looking for assurances that we will not lose the roundabouts, the road diets, bike lanes, buffered sidewalks, pedestrian refues, and crosswalks, and that we can build on those amenities even if the buses are added west of 12th Street. Buses west of 12 Street all the way to Real Grand Boulevard would be great. We've asked for this before, for buses to go further west to serve all the houses and large apartment complexes along Indian School Road. We understand that the city could add buses without amending the comprehensive plan. Why not do that? Why put all the positive multimodal road work at risk? Thank you, >> Peggy Norton. says my video video is disabled by my host asked you to start it. Okay, >> sorry about that. Go ahead, Peggy. >> Yeah, wait. Don't start me yet because now I can't find the uh somehow I lost the picture. Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can hear you. >> Okay. Well, then I will just go ahead and read. Uh, let me see. Can I join from Zoom again? >> We we can see and hear. >> We can hear and see you. So, go ahead with your comments. >> I don't see you. Um, I lost my thing. Okay. Um, I represent the North Valley Coalition who submitted a letter opposing this redesation at least from I25 West. The main justification for the change was to increase transit, but we were told that would not happen for at least 3 to five years and a current corridor designation change is not required to accomplish this. The amendment also being proposed to support the metropolitan redevelopment area plan, but that only extends from I25 to the north diversion channel. That area and the area east to Louisiana is very different from the valley. Except for PBLO properties on the south side of Manol, the area west of Sixth Street is primarily established residential. Community supported and data-driven traffic calming and safing ma safety measures starting at sixth street have resulted in a reduction in the number of lanes. The addition of buffered bike lanes, parking lanes, significantly improved walkability with crosswalks, pedestrian refugees, wide sidewalks, and landscaping. Buses easily travel this part of the corridor, but so do pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vehicles. A major transit corridor emphasizes autooriented development in the comprehensive plan. It does not complement these multimodal amenities. Other major transit streets are Kors, Montgomery Louisiana Samonteo Lis certainly their character and land uses do not compare to Manol west of I25. We strongly support improving public transit, but the frequency change will be an increase from one bus every 40 minutes to two buses every 40 minutes. This could happen now. Please oppose this change at least west of I25. Thank you. >> Thank you, Peggy. Madame Chair, that concludes comment. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Um Okay. So, uh I'm going to do an opening and I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Cox to give us an overview of this bill, but I just I want to go through in my mind what this does and um and then we'll let Mr. Cox tell me if I'm wrong. Um so this ABQ ride forward the new route schedule increases the frequency of the buses on the on manol and throughout this area that's outlined in this bill which just for the folks that were saying they couldn't find it is on page three starting on line 11 all of the the streets are listed and so the the transit is going to go every 15 minutes on that stretch of road. And so we just had a conversation about how important it is to have the comp plan and have it be functioning. In the comp plan, the definition of a major transit is every 15 minutes of bus service. And so when we are going to be increasing the frequency of the bus service on this stretch of road, we need to update the comp plan to match that. And that is all that this bill does. But I am going to let Mr. Cox go through it in a little more detail. Okay. Chair Feebleorn uh committee. Um the request is to amend uh Manaw Boulevard, Indian School Boulevard down to Rio Grand Boulevard where it meets up with another major transit corridor already uh all west of Louisiana. So essentially where the transit center exists um at um in the uptown center in going west is where this takes place. Um the reason being is that after ABQ Ride Forward went through their um three-year study uh for the new network that um they are they are working on implementing now and and it is um it is a long range effort for staffing reasons and everything. Manol was identified as a key corridor to increase that frequency. Um and 15 minutes is is kind of the max frequency. is actually between 10 to 15 minutes depending on um whatever barriers drivers may um inherently come upon on a dayto-day basis. Um but that is ultimately why we are keeping it just on this portion of Manol. Um it does not go east of Louisiana because that goes to a 30 minute frequency at that point and it did not trigger um uh the the major transit plan or major major transit corridor definition. Um there we go. Uh and so the the biggest difference uh between these two and and I think a lot of the um uh consternation around major transit corridor is that it did it does sound intense. Um but ultimately major transit corridor means we are prioritizing public transit over most any other mo mode of transportation. But that al also means we need to design our urban realm to to benefit major transit. And so what you're going to see within uh the development process manual, the IDEO, and the comprehensive plan is that there's still an inherent focus on pedestrian improvement in that area to make sure pedestrians get to uh the transit stops in a safe manner. Um whereas multimmodal um it it does or it did uh if this resolution is not passed focus on on all modes of transportation autocentric um pedestrian cyclists and public transit where this is this is catering to our bus route. Um now there there are IDO entitlements that come with this. And in uh table three of the IDO uh you can see in uh the column all the way to the right in the table where MT is um and where it shows up in the different uh sections of the IDO. That's that's where the entitlements kind of live tied to major transit corridors and quickly go through all of them. But um kind of the biggest one you're going to see uh is are these hype bonuses that do exist upon major transit corridors. Um but it's it doesn't work the same way as we have seen in premium transit or main street corridors. Um, specifically in the MXL and MXM uh district, you get a 12- foot structured parking bonus along major transit corridors, which means if you are building a um an office building or a residential building and you want to put parking at the bottom of your structure and not take up a lot of your uh lot with parking, um you can do so within major transit. And then uh if you're in the MXH district, which has that 75 foot height um allowance, you get a 24 foot structure parking bonus. Um if you're within a major transit corridor, also um if you are to develop workforce housing as part of your development, you get a 12-oot height bonus as well within the major transit corridor. Um other um places this shows up in the IDO are uh west of the Rio Grand where it requires 50% of your ground floor to be commercial in MX zones uh if you're within a major transit or premium transit corridor. So your typical mixeduse development 50% of the ground floor needs to be something of commercial whether we see a lot of times it's like a gym for the residents or um maybe a cafe or what have you. um lighting designations. Uh they do allow a higher designation or like lumens um within major transit corridors and that would be essentially advocating for a safer realm for the pedestrians and the transit users that are going in and out of that corridor. Um light vehicle fueling stations. Um no one said the IDO was was simple. Um but within urban centers, activity centers, main streets, premium transit and ma major transit corridors, um the fully enclosed portion of the building with 1,000 square feet or more shall have a maximum setback of 15 feet. Uh and so that is inherently trying to bring our structures closer to the sidewalk to activate that pedestrian realm again um to be more uh transparent essentially. and uh create basically passive surveillance through doing so. Um and then you also get general parking reductions for centers and corridors. Um and in major transit corridors, you get a per per what was approved in 069, you get a 50% reduction if you are within an area of change within a major transit corridor. And I'll I'll go through what that is um here in just a second. But this is highlighting some of the policy around major transit corridors. And one you can see um to the right that uh it it identifies specific speed um for those corridors. And so Manol east of I25 is at 40 miles per hour already. And then as you go west, it kind of gradiently gets slower as you get into like kind of a tighter residential corridor going from 35 to to 30 um where you hit the roundabout uh essentially. Um but these these policies are just pointing out that that we are still um aiming for a an improved pedestrian realm in conjunction with with major transit. Um this corridor does go through a couple centers. Uh one the American square um where the new furniture um building is going up and then the Indian school where the Indian PBLO cultural center is. Um after EPC one of the conditions of finding was to go meet with the IPCC and just make sure they are aware of the changes and and we did so and and they they had no issues. Um but it um o ultimately they found that it was only going to improve their development into the future. Um but going back to areas of change and consistency where the parking reduction would take place, the orange is area of change and the yellow is area of consistency. Um how we designate these areas can be quite complicated. There's a whole methodology to it as laid out here. Um, but I do want to just point out step B within this. Um, after we designate everything area of change, uh, if it meets the criteria, step B then says parcels zone single family residential, um, excluding any that may fall within comp plan centers. And that is saying basically any parcel that is zoned R1 is just inherently considered um, an area of consistency. And so that parking reduction would not come into play for those. And same if your land use is single family residential. So zoning district land use, you're not going to be considered area of change. Um we also heard a lot of concern about the the design of the corridor after this goes into play. Um I just want to point out what we're showing here is major transit and multimodal and the different widths uh of design per the ride ofway and the only difference you see is in the travel lane width uh that is instead of 10 to 11 feet per multimodal is 10 to 12 feet and that is to accommodate um wider buses that that may have mirrors sticking out. Um, I will say our transit department generally is um fine with 11 foot lanes these days as we don't have uh the big elephant earier ones anymore. Um, but yeah, that that covers the bases I believe. So, any questions? >> Questions? >> Councelor Rogers. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to point out in look re reading through this I just wanted to mention that also transit corridors and correct me if I'm wrong unlock extra funding that we would be able to I I did a search um and there's six different funding opportunities that will open up um some of which we've already used in uptown um that would really unlock some different funding opportunities um so I just wanted to point that out because I know our transit director is really good at that. Um, and there's six different opportunities just for this change for formula grants, the raise grant, which um all kinds of cool things that would open some funding by changing the designation. Thank you. >> Very true. Uh, Council Shan, >> thank you, Madam Chair. Um, just a couple of question out of curiosity. Why hasn't this done been done already? >> I'm sorry. >> Please repeat it. Why hasn't this been brought forth? If it's so important, why is it now? >> Because the frequency in the transit is just happening. Um the ABQ ride forward plan um was completed. It was a I believe it was a two plus year public input process that resulted in the new plan. And so we now have that plan and the the that increase in frequency is coming. And so now it makes sense to say we should update our comp plan to match the new frequency of transit. >> Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. And what what's the current rate on man right now? Because it says that what it could be, but what is it now? >> Chair Fableorn. Oh, sorry. Um, Chair Feebleorn, Councelor Champine. Um, when you say rate, is it speed limit or >> No, not the speed limit, the frequency. rate of buses. >> The rate of buses per hour. >> Um, apologies. Um, >> 40 minutes. >> It's Yeah, it's I I just took it the other day. I can tell you it's 40 minutes. >> 40 minutes. >> It was a long time because I was late and uh Yeah. >> Okay. And so this change is is going to be viable in that sense, Madam Chair, that we can accommodate for this. So the ABQ ride forward plan um and we have director Kener here if we want to talk about this but the plan was was developed over two years where we had public input and there was a lot of conversation. We knew we had to keep the budget the same. And so did we want to go more frequent routes in in fewer places or did we want a more distributed um route system? And what we came up with was that there are some roads like Manol that really justify that increased frequency whereas we we lost a few um other routes to do that. And so it was really just a balancing of the input from the community on there was just a lot of belief that some roads like Manol really need to be able to go more frequently so that you can actually get places besides central, right? And so um I'm I'm personally very happy about the Manol frequency increase. It's going to make my life a lot easier and I think it'll make a lot of other folks life easier. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, if this passes zoning entitlements that change such as lighting, I guess have we adjusted for that or does the cost the change in the lighting requirement is there a timeline or a cost that they would have to do that? >> Um, Madam Chair, >> Mr. Cox, >> Chair Fable, Councelor Shampine, um, it doesn't require us to come into standards or or any private property owners to to comply um with those standards. Um it's Yeah, I Yeah, we we would be fine. No costs or resources. >> We don't have to change the lighting and and increase. Okay. >> No. >> Okay. Because we heard you mention it. Um and the final question, if if this does pass through um and you I heard you mention Oh, 2469. Does this change that corridor now to allow what was allowed in 2469? >> Um Chair Fableorn, Councelor Champine. um 02469 only um regulated or or added entitlements to main street corridors and premium transit corridors. Uh major transit would not be included um in those additions. >> Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> All right. Um I have a couple questions and then I do want to move um a couple of amendments that I will pass out. If somebody just put this on the screen, that would be great. Um thank you. So, um the So, we did meet with um Miss Tully and her group um and we one of the things that they came up with and you heard her tonight saying that, you know, we didn't want to lose any of the the movement that we had forward in that area uh west of I25. And I I certainly never anticipated that that would be the the result. And I was kind of dismayed to hear that they thought it was. We did a little research. We don't believe it would, but just for clarity's sake, um I'm going to propose of committee amendment number one, uh which is on page 10, insert the following new section 4 after line 30 and renumber subsequent sections. And the new section or in the designation of a major transit corridor requires, necessitates, initiates or authorizes changes to the existing roadway design, including but not limited to the roundabout at the intersection of 12th Street Northwest and Manol Boulevard Northwest. the roundabout at Indian School Road Northwest and Manol Boulevard Northwest or the striping on Indian School Road Northwest between Manal Boulevard Northwest and Rio Grand Boulevard Northwest. Any future plans, designs, and our construction of improvements or changes to these roadways shall be consistent and in compliance with the complete streets ordinance and the standards contained therein. I will move that committee amendment second and it's seconded by councelor Grout. Um I will just say that um it is my belief that this is not needed. It is my belief that those that the previous work um would stand, but I just don't want anyone thinking that any kind of change to the comp plan is going to take us backwards and get rid of roundabouts or any kind of pedestrian friendly um situation in any part of this town. So I I just want to move this and make sure that we are um just just clarifying that so that um citizens can you know feel very confident in this change. Any questions on the amendment? >> Uh councelor Bassan. >> Madam chair I would like to just make sure that I'm remembering clearly. So this is still the bill itself is a motion for without wreck right? >> It is. >> Okay. And I just I hadn't seen it and from what I heard you read, it sounds totally fine with me, but I just wanted to make sure just in case that that way we have time if we need to later. Thank you. >> Yes. And councelor Brassan, I apologize. I did not know when I was making these copies that you weren't going to be here tonight. So I um we will get them emailed to you, but and I can read it again just for clarity. There's lots of folks still here, so I can I'll do that anyway. >> I I didn't also realize I wasn't going to be there, so I get it. Again, what you read I I feel like I gathered but I just wanted to make sure just in case that I can move forward with that. Thank you. >> Yes, it is still with no wreck. Um okay. Um so seeing no more questions or com comments, we're going to move to a roll call vote on floor amendment number committee amendment number one. >> Councelor Bassan, >> yes. >> Councelor Shai, >> yes. >> Councelor Grout, >> yes. >> Councelor Rogers, >> yes. Councelor Feebleorn. >> Yes, >> that passes 5 Z. >> All right. And then I have one more um that I would like to move again just based on our meeting with Miss Tully and um her neighborhood association members. Um, one of the things that came up in that was that they felt that there was just a little bit of um, incorrect information presented uh, on page eight around some meetings that were held with the public uh, uh, about this situation and or about this proposal. And so it is one of the findings that are in the bill. We heard some conversation around why are these findings in there? These are findings that were in included to show the background of how this has come about. Um but given that there's some um disagreement on whether that was correctly reported or not and I was not there. So we're just going to delete that section. So um I'm going to move committee amendment number two. And that is beginning on page 8, line 29, delete subp paragraph A in its entirety. And on page nine, delete sub paragraph B. Um, and so the members of the Near North Valley Neighborhood Association and the North Valley Coalition expressed concern about the characterization of that feedback and they did not take formal votes when those meetings were held. So, this amendment just deletes those subparagraph or subparagraphs summarizing the neighborhood response to the proposal at the two public meetings. So, I'll move floor uh committee amendment number two and seconded by councelor Grout. Any questions? Councelor Shamp. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. So, the we're deleting that the residents were in favor of the increased bus frequency. That's what the first line of it. That's they were concerned about character and land entitlements, but we're getting rid of their in favor. Correct. >> I I let me let me go to the right page. Sorry. I believe what the um feedback that we got was that while they agreed with some of the characterization here, they didn't believe in they didn't agree with the entire characterization and I honestly did not write down specifically which part. They just asked that those two paragraphs be removed and so I'm doing that. >> Thank you for the clarification. >> Sure. >> And again, oh, councelor Bassan, can you you can see it at now at least. Okay. All right. Um, any further questions on that one? All right, we'll move to a roll call vote. >> Councelor Bassan, >> yes. >> Councelor Champa, >> yes. >> Councelor Grout, >> yes. >> Council Rogers, >> yes. >> Councelor Febore, >> yes. >> That passes 5-0. >> All right. So, we are on the amended bill and I will open it up to further questions or comments. Councelor Gra. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased to hear that you reached out to the IPCC for to make sure that they were good with this. I think that's really important. Um, so thank you for that. Um, second, does Manol turn into Indian school because they're both the same parallel. So it turns in down there close to Rio Grand. >> Sure. Uh, Chair Fable, Council Grow. Yes. Um, I I believe it's at 12 Street. is that when it becomes Indian school, >> that's where that roundabout is, huh? And that's where Okay. Yes. Okay. Very good. Because that's kind of um confusing. >> It was a new fun fact for me, too. >> Yes. Yes. So, thank you. Um and one other thing. Oh, the frequency 15 every 15 minutes. I think that's great. Do we have enough drivers for that? Director Kenir, thank you for staying up so late. >> Anytime. Um, Madame Chair and Councelor Grout, at the moment, no, we do not have the drivers to get to the 15-minute headway, although I can report that we're seeing some successes right now. We're actually down to the low 80s um in our MCO vacancies, which is better than we've been in the last couple years. So um real positive that we'll start the implementation of um the recovery network here this winter. Um the first phase will have portions of manol where the frequency will get reduced from 40 down to 30 minutes and then we're expecting about mid 2027 if we can stay on track. Hopefully we'll we'll get even you know faster at our our hiring here too. Um that at that point in time we're expecting we should be at the 15 minute frequencies. >> Very nice. Very good. Thank you. Councelor Champine. >> Madam Chair, I just have an odd question. How does how does the frequency change and and this you'd said that you're tapering down the deals and this is out of is I don't understand it. So if it goes to Louisiana and it's 40 minutes and and how does it how do you once you get to Louisiana on Monol the bus driver slow down or speed up and that's how he increases the I I don't how do you change the frequency if it's on the same street incrementally >> madame chair and councelor Champine um so it's it's how we have our buses in there and the manol route's actually going to split into two routes so it'll have a long and a short portion of it so every other bus will actually um it will go to Uptown and it'll come back and and make the run. Every other bus will go out to tramway and come back in. So that portion from Louisiana to tramway will only be down to 30 minute headways at that point. But the the short portion, which is the portion that's in this piece of this bill, will be down to 15-minute headways. >> Okay. >> So, it's number of buses and number of drivers that we put it >> out there. >> And then quickly, just a couple of com uh questions. Um, so this did go through the EPC. >> Um, uh, Chair Fableorn. Yes. As well as Gatsy. >> And it went through Gatsy as well. And they did vote to support. >> They they did. Um, there is a bit of a a hiccup as the Gatsy committee was not expecting to vote, but overwhelmingly they approved it, and it is back on the agenda this month to approve again. So they had to make a agenda correction. >> Interesting. I they reported to me on one of the meetings that they had voted to support it. So um and then I just want to clarify a few things for folks because there were some misunderstandings. Um major transit does not um emphasize autos over pedestrians. Is that true? >> Uh Chair Feeorn, that is true. >> Okay. And with major transit, would we be seeing any articulated buses? Uh, Chair Feebleorn, um, are articulated buses the ones we find on Central? Uh, no. It it will remain the ones that you see on every other route but art >> and art is a premium transit, right? So, correct. Very different than the major. >> Um, okay. With that, I will just say I think, you know, again, when this was brought to me, I I saw dollar signs because it opens up some funding for parts of town that really need it. And I also think it's really important that we keep our comp plan updated um to actually match the conditions that we're going to be having in transit. So with that, I urge your support and we will go to a roll call vote. And the motion is to move to council with no wreck. >> As amended. >> As amended. >> Councelor Bassant. >> Yes. >> Councelor Champine. >> Yes. >> Councelor Grout. >> Yes. >> Councelor Rogers. >> Yes. Council Clark. >> Yes, >> that passes 5 Z. >> Great. And with uh 10 minutes to spare, we're going to adjourn. Thank you. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Resolution [Music] 25167, which is for an opt in legislative zoning process. We're gonna be hearing from Mayor Tim Keller, Counselor Tammy Feeblehorn, as well as Joseph Greenwald, a volunteer from Strong Towns Albuquerque. And with that, Mayor Tim Keller. >> Uh, stand together. So, we're out in front of our old um this was a uh the range cafe on and all. And