okay we are live evening everyone uh this is the meeting of the land use planning and zoning committee of the City of Albuquerque of the city council and I call this meeting the order all council members are present today via Zoom this is a remote or online meeting where all participants will be on a video or audio conference members of the public have the opportunity to address the committee if they have signed up for public comment per the rules published on the agenda and on our website Friday we will call for the speakers when we get to the individual agenda item you signed up for here are the public comment ground rules comments are to be addressed to the committee Members Only each participant has two minutes to present any disruptive conduct will result in a removal from the meeting we will now go to agenda item a r 74. it is approving the university Metropolitan Redevelopment area plan r74 I am introducing for counselor Davis I move a due pass second that's a pass and a second counselors we will now hear from the Metropolitan Redevelopment agency Mr Bruner um Madam chair um I think director Bruner is uh trying to get into the zoom room he was doing it from his office so I think we may need a second for him to get on great this is all a practice run everyone so we're working on this [Music] um okay should I go ahead and take speakers I would sing for you but I think we would lose everyone so uh this is a great new experience guys foreign ER is having a little problem getting on so we're kind of trying to fill air time on this practice run for the folks in the economic development conference room is there someone who might be able to get us started while Mr Bruner is connecting to zoom think of it so um yeah we apologize um Mr Bruner was I think there is uh we think there may be a uh a there was a rumor of a fire drill in in City Hall so um I think you may have he made a look he just he just texted saying he's trying to get on so we're trying to get him on now um uh foreign Morris I wonder if you might be able to get us started um while we're waiting for Mr Bruner and if not we can just hang tight pattern Council as I'd be more than happy too so um OS 74 is the um approval of the Metropolitan Redevelopment area plan for the University MRA area um you should be relatively familiar with this as back in June the Metropolitan Redevelopment area boundaries were approved by Council and this is the kind of next step in that process which is the approval of the plan um I see that cyran has hopped on um and um uh director Bruno probably is moments away from hopping on to so um with that very simple background I'll hand us over to Syrian and maybe we could start with Sirens presentation and then uh director Bruno can do closing remarks as opposed to opening certainly um we were kind of scared we were told uh that there might be a fire drill in the city hall so we tried to get home uh to do this as soon as possible um so I think that he is still on his way back home but it looks like Economic Development conference room is still online so um thank you so much uh counselors for uh hearing this today um I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen and give you a brief presentation on an overview of the plan so essentially the university area has been designated as a metropolitan Redevelopment area and I believe that city council designated that back in um September of 2020 and following that we completed the plan for the rest of the area so the Redevelopment area here as you can see is bound between the university Corridor to Gerard it encompasses a majority of silver along Central and then also continues down the Yale Corridor this mostly encompasses commercial properties we find that commercially zoned properties are most able to use our Metropolitan Redevelopment incentives especially areas that are zoned for mixed use or multi-family projects as well um this was the study area essentially what we were looking at is that the university area has a high proportion of students that are younger which brings the median in household income down significantly below the rest of the city so part of what we found in our uh in our study is that because of that demographic um the commercial area does not see as much vibrancy as it possibly could in other university areas which sometimes can seem a little bit more eclectic and diverse in income types with professors living there but we see that professors actually are mostly in the Eastern portions of the area as well so it's a very it's a very student dominated population we did a lot of community engagement surrounding the plan to gather feedback on what we could do to improve the conditions in the university area we had a zoom community meeting um in February of 2022 and that was essentially to go over the designation boundaries the that I showed you earlier and collect preliminary ideas for the plan we had 55 attendees to that which is a pretty great Outreach and and attendance for for planning projects in March of that same year we also attended we held a we held a planning process at the near Heights Community Center where we offered free dinner and drinks and gathered input on the plan we had different subject area tables so we had some subject areas that were on specifically um housing on crime on beautification in the streetscapes on business Improvement districts as well and we got a lot of great feedback on that and we spoke to a lot of business owners who became interested in being involved in some sort of business Improvement Alliance and I'll tell you a little bit more about that and how it's progressed later and then in June we reviewed the draft of the Metropolitan Redevelopment plan and collected feedback on that throughout the project success we also collected ongoing business and property owner surveys to kind of identify what business owners are experiencing in the area so that we could tailor our action plans to the to the needs of the business environment as well we of course also attended several neighborhood association meetings on multiple occasions with University Heights Victory Hills and Silver Hill we conducted a real estate market analysis which showed some really great strengths and also some really interesting weaknesses so the vacancy rate in the area is very very low it's less than one percent which can be a good thing or a bad thing essentially it's a good thing because it means that a lot of people want to live there it's also a bad thing because it can increase rents in properties that might not actually need to collect that much rent because there is such a high demand it also indicates to us that there is not enough supply of housing in the area and a lot of the projects in the area are old they are falling apart and they're not using a lot of the land that they could be using as you can see kind of in this typical multi-family university area photo down here a lot of the land is dedicated to parking and it's only a two-story structure when they might be able to go up to three or four stories depending on the zoning in that area and we've also seen that there's not a lot of multi-family projects going in there there's only been one project in in the area since 2008 and they added 12 units and that was in 2022 and you can see that highlighted up here so these are the kinds of units unit types and they did actually a pretty high density in that area which is good because we're utilizing the land um they essentially the community said that they like this type of development style where it's between you know two to three stories I know you can't see it back here but there is actually a second story this is a raised area we also contracted with contracted with rs21 to do a Mobility study to identify who is visiting the area and how much time they're visiting the area as well and we find that you know of course as is expected we see a lot of people returning to the neighborhood during the student sessions um you can see that from July to August we see a significant increase of folks coming back to the area and one thing that we found very interesting is that there are a lot of people who are coming from over 35 miles away which indicates to us that they might be coming from areas outside of Bernalillo County and possibly even as far as Santa Fe or Los Lunas um this one also was in the Yale chord or they have significantly fewer visitors to the area um that might be because it's further away from the University and they also don't have as much um retailer Food Services in the neighborhood as well um and we find that one of the interesting things that we found is um they see a lot of increased activity when there are neighborhood events and Sport sporting events nearby as well so from all of our background research we identified five catalytic strategies the first is to build a diverse mix of new housing options both higher density and kind of the lower density um the lower density styles that we saw earlier we find that we really need more student housing and Workforce housing but because of the market conditions we also would like to develop some market rate housing in the area as well to diversify the incomes and kind of strengthen the business market and the economic base for um places in the area we want to strengthen and diversify the commercial environment we found that there's a 25 vacancy rate in retail environments there which is extremely high and you know you don't really expect that from a University District and a lot of other university districts across the country we see much stronger retail retail atmosphere so we're hoping to identify ways that we can attract additional potential businesses and also possibly programs to improve the storefront facades and do any kind of tenant improvements that could bring new new businesses to the area we want to improve The Pedestrian and bicycle realm when you think of the university area you kind of think of it as walkable but when you actually go out there and get on the streets there are um you know the sidewalks are not always in great condition there's not a lot of lighting there's not a lot of trash cans and so this strategy three and four which is to improve the bicycle and pedestrian realm and then identify cleanliness and safety improvements will be really key to making sure that we're creating a vibrant District that people want to come to and then the final one is to form a stakeholder implementation group and that was what I mentioned earlier is these folks these business owners and property owners in the area are really interested in coming together and becoming advocates for themselves identifying you know what kind of things that they can take on and take responsibility for and that could include hiring a private street cleaning services where they have you know daily um sweeps for you know trash and cleaning the side walks Etc to make things feel a little bit more safe and attractive for their customer base they're currently in the process of possibly forming a bid and that is actually involving UNM and CNM which is a really exciting development we found that in a lot of other university districts it's really important to have the Partnerships of the local universities to create these vibrant areas I spoke a little bit to this but this is the stakeholder Improvement implementation group they've called themselves cubed which is the Central University business enhancement district and that's made up of small and large businesses UNM and CNM the neighborhood association some property owners and potential developers in the area or existing developers in the area as well so that is what I have for you today um and Petra I'm not sure if you'd like me to stay for questions from the counselors uh yes please that'd be great and I also see that director Bruno has hopped on um and so maybe we can turn to director Bruno oh thank you uh thank you Petra and I apologize for my lateness there was a fire alarm and had to evacuate and uh try to find a way to get on Zoom so um we're really excited about this plan at the MRA I currently serve as the MRA director I'm also the acting director of Economic Development and uh this is I think an exciting development for us to really take on many of the issues that you see along Central Avenue predominantly in the university area so not only is a lot of work gone into this plan but some ideas have come out that are pretty um new and different for how we redevelop areas including what Sierra and reference which is the idea of having maybe a business improvement district which most municipalities across the country have many of these types of districts that are business associations essentially that take care of a lot of issues that arise in the in the area that they um that they have their businesses in so we're excited about that and I also mentioned we've had some really good conversations with the University of New Mexico in fact yesterday I met with their vice president in charge of development about all of their development plans in the area and I think there's ways that we can team up to make sure that there's a lot of consistency between what UNM wants and what we want at the city so that that area along Central and particular really is an exciting place to not only go to school but go to restaurants and and and go to retail activities and and live in the area as well so um we've we've been been very optimistic about what can come out of out of this plan uh and with that I'll turn it over back to Petra thank you Miss Morris Madam chair um do any of the counselors have any questions for myself or for Mr staff thank you counselors I don't see any oh yeah counselor Benton thank you madam chair yeah I do have a quick question uh for the Mr staff and and uh Mr Bruner perhaps or let's let's go um there is an MR area directly south of uh of this one uh not adjacent because this one's stopped short of Yale excuse me stop short of uh desert Chavez by one block and I was just wondering about that because there we have a an MR area South Yale and we have this one that we're we're looking at now was there a I know that that perhaps most of that block is one owner was there a a reason why that was left out or maybe they didn't want to participate or just seem curious that that one block was left out just directly north of say their child's pool councilor Ben I think I can answer that question so the MRI that you're referring to the South is the Clayton Heights Mr area and actually um I I have made the same mistake at you as you at first when we were looking at the designation boundaries and I thought we should go one um one block further but that that Clayton Heights actually does encompass the block just okay north of Avenida Cesar Chavez so now we have essentially the entire Yale Corridor is an MR area and almost the entire Central Corridor is also an MR area with the exception of Knob Hill between Gerard and Carlisle okay very good thanks that that it's been a long time so yes it has it's a it's a pretty old plan thanks thank you counselors anyone else have a question if not I will I'm sorry I have one counselor Jones sorry Mr Sanchez I didn't see you counselor Sanchez I didn't see you light up oh I tried to light it up and I think I took it back down in the same touch uh anyway um the question that I have is looking at everything I just wanted to I noticed that you have the stakeholder implementation group uh but I didn't see police Public Safety or even Security in that area and I know we've had an increase in in uh drugs and and crime in that area um what are we doing in reference to that issue thank you counselor Sanchez um I think part of the these stakeholder implementation group is their their goal is to hire a shared Private Security in the area um I also in the plan there is a map of the hot spots of APD calls which happens I need to interrupt you we are having a fire drill fire alarm this is not a reason to evacuate and again this is only a test okay I apologize they're apparently only testing the fire alarm we do not need to evacuate um feel free to continue no worries I'm sure that was very alarming um yeah so I think that the essentially their their plan is to hire private security in the area to kind of enhance that um we also hope that through additional lighting and um what is called septed which is you know does essentially a design process to prevent and uh and eliminate crime property crime in the area um that we can help with property crime um mostly what their issue is in that area is broken windows and vandalism um so they're hoping that that private security will help with preventing that and additionally I think um I think that the lighting will help as well um who's going to be praying for the private security if that's the issue that would be the the security the private business Improvement District possibly in partnership with um okay thank you Council opinion your hand is up thank you yes thank you madam chair obviously I'm supportive of anything that's going to help to redevelop our entire city and and bring businesses and and the like but I just had a couple of questions you know we have we have several Mr MRA areas and and I guess maybe my first question is how much money do we have in the MRA fund does anyone know the answer to that director Bruner Madam chair counselor Pena um uh we I mean I'm trying to think off the top of my head it's it's in the millions it's less than 10 million uh more than 3 million um but it is assigned usually by uh Mr area or purpose um so for instance uh last year Council um gave MRA 3 million for housing downtown which is in and around an MRA area and around a couple of them actually so it just depends and some of those accounts go back you know a decade or so as well thank you um Madam chair so just a follow-up question um maybe this is Petra or Mr Bruner so you know mras at the time when I think when we were establishing a few of them and maybe councilor Benton can attest to this is that we they were established the establishing legislation Petra it was for areas it would not likely um you know there wasn't incentive to to develop so we created these MRA areas for areas that you know struggle to um encourage or get development and so um as that's happened you know West Central is obviously an area where you know people have overlooked over the years and and not much development had it happened over the years so we looked at it when we were advocating for it at the time and this was a tool for you know marginalized communities to be able to use to be able to encourage new development and along with that came these additional incentives for developers to be able to come in and and make that investment right and so as time has gone on even though that fund has always been very limited and um the Mr areas in West Central in particular hasn't really been able to access those dollars uh the way it's to me intended to access um and then we've created more and more with kind of a limited pool of money and I think sometimes when we do this I mean it's going to have it it looks to me as though it's starting to have like a negative impact on some of those same communities that really need the additional investment because as as we do more mras there's the incentive where it's a a likely area like the university area that there's kind of investment there already and you know if developers were to get these additional incentives and not even including the MRA dollars that they're more likely to um invest in that area even though there are areas of need within you know the university area and such but I feel like yeah you know I don't know if there's a question within all this but um Petra can you kind of talk about the establishing legislation and what it was intended to do sure yes so um the designation went through uh I thought it was earlier this year and I said maybe last year I need to pull up the date but the area was uh the boundaries for the area were designated um per the Mr code and the Mr code requires that findings of Slum and blights be found and and the area was found to have issues of Slum and blight which which cyran identified um in terms of funding there are uh as as um I think as you mentioned there are there are some I think General possibly some general funds but then there are also I think in most senses now when we have Mr Money it goes to a particular Mr area um and we're not kind of an identifying particular areas um I I'll sort of turn over to director Bruno to talk about this a little bit more but Mr I think is at least in my mind more than the funds that are available they it's the ability for folks to take advantage of the Redevelopment tax abatement program that just got got up and running um it's the ability to use Brownfield funding um it's the ability for the city to make strategic improvements in an area without having to worry about the anti-donation clause and so while the city spending funds and areas is is one important component of Mr there are a number of other tools in mr's toolbox which I'll hand over to director Bruno to talk to a little bit more because he'll be way more familiar with those tools than me thank you Petra just to add to what what Petra was saying is that that's what that's what I had said you know in addition to just the limited funding that we have we have all these additional incentives that could be utilized in Mr area I guess what I'm the point I'm trying to get back to is that you know we've created so many Mr zones within the city that sometimes Within These zones there are more um areas that are less likely to need that designation although there are blighted areas within throughout the whole city we can actually then designate this whole city as a as a blighted area right because every single community in our in our city has certain blight but what I'm saying is that are we now watering down the intention of the Mr for air districts that really need that additional investment and incentive to encourage because for me what I was told many years ago was that it encouraged because of these additional incentives to come to areas that wouldn't that not likely go to and I guess so my question back is to you know although I I don't know that this further hinders areas that really have blight um adding additional Mrs continually adding additional Mrs so Mr Bruner you were gonna respond to something yes Madam chair and counselor um you bring up some good points um and Mrs have been in existence since the 80s um so you know Soldier and sailors Park which I'm sure you're all familiar with was an MRI or MRA area um so it's gone through it also different styles of of interest from the council and the Mayors in the past in in what they want to accomplish sometimes it's heavily weighted towards housing or maybe towards commercial or something else but um you know I I think if you compare us to other Redevelopment organizations across the country there's probably more we could do we're pretty limited and when we declare an MRA area we might do a couple commercial projects in that area but not the entire area so sometimes we don't really get a true what you might call blight um we don't have a home ownership program or a home repair program or a small business lending program that other cities might have that would really do more comprehensive work so then what you end up seeing I think is a couple projects here or there and it is based on developers who have the appetite for it now we design our rfps to address a specific need on a vacant lot or something like that we can also Council can also ask us to address specific needs in Appropriations and things like that so we can get a little bit more targeted I I which is I think what you're kind of getting towards a little bit more targeted towards specific areas in usage um but I think that when I look at UNM I remember being a student there 20 years ago getting my master's degree in the planning department and the Latin American studies department and walking by Apartments a half block off of central that still look that way today and are pretty run down and um I think we all agree that the university area could use a refresh and student housing could be a lot better when it's when it's off-campus housing if for instance in the retail situation isn't always great uh what we're seeing so um I I think you know this plan is a good entryway into looking into some of those issues and if Council uh wants to direct us in one way or another towards certain uh activities that they want us to pursue or how we're all ears and we love to help out um I will say too that we are trying to build more relationships with the non-profit sector that's out there on housing and other areas to understand where we might be able to partner more in the future um but uh but I I agree there's there's a lot of MRE MRA areas and a lot more we could be doing um so the other thing I'll just mention is I think we'll be having meetings in the next few weeks with counselors about our proposal to the legislature to expand the Authority for tax increment financing in particular districts to allow us to collect gross receipts taxes and and reinvest that so you could take an MRI MRA area and then create an increment District to to raise the level of dollars that you could put into that area because as as you know if if I have uh five hundred thousand dollars to spend on West Central it will only take me so far but if I had 5 million or 15 million I could do a lot more uh with those funds at our agencies so we're going to be looking at creative ways we could maybe expand the authority and generate more revenue and do really more transformational stuff um Madam chair well thank you Mr I'd like to have those discussions part of you know when uh early 90s and we were trying we were doing the West Central MRA you know and there was there was factions within the community and then there was Advocates who were saying that you know I'm doing what we were trying to do out there was problem in reality that was some of the oldest part of the City of Albuquerque pre-1960 boundaries of the City of Albuquerque and and yet we we bought to try to to make those improvements with with some of those challenges and hurdles and I think at the time um actually um um Mr griego former city councilor um griego can tell you is that you know we were supposed to um we had enabling legislation That was supposed to create a tip in the Unser area and I talked to pepra about that um and that's one thing that it was a missed opportunity back in the day to really be able to utilize that area to create that tax base within the own Community or within our own community that would be reinvested in our community so um thank you I don't mean to to belabor that but I just want to make sure that when we're just doing these MREs again um I'm generally supportive of this I I know the UNM area is um is in in dire need I just want to make sure we're just not watering down uh legislation that's intended to help um more marginalized communities in the City of Albuquerque thank you thank you councilor Pena are there any other questions counselor Benton thank you just a quick comment uh in response to councilor Payne's question which is which is you know pretty obvious one really there there's so many areas of the city and especially along these these key corridors in this case Central and in Yale itself I mentioned the the sapio portion of Layton Heights in Columbus del Cielo that's a pretty old um Mr yeah I I don't know how much we've leveraged Mr funds in that area but um but that's that's a a commercial quarter in great need of relief and uh and with quite a few residents right off of The Courier as well so you know it can be argued that that many of our main arterials throughout the city are are in or in Decline and we really do need to to utilize every tool and that's the way it's VMR it's a tool um it's not a zero there was some game that you know if we keep adding them then there's going to be less for anyone I do think it's upon us though as counselors to is it that is the ultimate uh budget to everybody to to uh beef up what we're doing with Denmark I'm sure uh director Brunner will have no complaint about that statement but but because it it is a great tool it gives us a lot of flexibility that we don't have otherwise in incentivizing investment so um I think the cancer opinion brings up an important point and um you know we recognize there are a lot a lot of our older commercial areas you know you said aside the newer shinier areas they're not in need but up and down these major corridors businesses and neighbors need help and and I think this is one of them that's no longer in in District Two so I could just uh ignore it but I won't because I know there are a lot of great people and great uh small business people along um in this entire area up and down Yale and Central who need a boost so strongly in favor of this designation thank you madam chair our counselors are there any other questions yes I have one counselor Jones it's just basically a comment and um now that there's three counselors on the west of the river I could Envision something going on and leveraging something like this all the way from the bio Park all the way up to the new visitors Visitor Center so I hope I would be able to we could all get together the three counselors that I just mentioned and and uh and support something like that so thank you just to comment thank you counselor Sanchez um and I have your attention please may I have your attention by the nearest exit if there's no other comments with the elevators I would like to move amendment number one Madam chair yes um we have one public commenter signed up to speak tonight I will um ask Mr Cornelius to go ahead and initiate public comment for this item thank you thank you thank you madam chair we have one speaker Lopez may I have your attention foreign we do have one speaker thank you madam chair Loretta naranjo Lopez um speeding on o2233 is this the time to speak Ms naranjo Lopez no this is the first agenda item you do we have her signed up on agenda item okay um we do have you signed up for o33 and we will call you at that time oh good okay thank you Mr Rhino Lopez um any other comments counselors if not I would move a new pass which we've already done and seconded I'd like to move amendment number one in your iPads Miss Morris would you like to talk about that sure I'd be happy to so the first amendment in in your iPads um this is uh talks a little bit about the zoning section so one of the key recommendations in this plan is that a future um action is to consider the zoning in the area from Central to Silva and from Yale to Gerard and this amendment just clarifies some of that language to make sure it's um really clear that this is about the development standards that has been looked for um the language talked a little bit about mxm zoning but it's really about having housing in the area and it's the development standards that are in mxm or or other Zone districts um that are of interest rather than the uses and so this amendment just makes a series of changes um throughout the documents to make that language just a little bit more explicit um Council staff reviewed this language with Mr staff and also with the University Heights neighborhood association and the email and the amendment was emailed out to the public as well prior to this meeting please thank you for your attention please councilor Bender has been a fire emergency report all right we we will not listen to that no uh all kidding aside um so yeah I was glad to hear the University Heights neighborhood association is again this is represented this area in the past um and not even in the recent past now some of it but um but the uh that they're in favor of this language which is aspirational this is not changing the zoning code but saying that these are things that need to be looked at in that immediate area because without uh better housing you know as as was stated some of the old uh properties as stated by director Bruner I believe that I remember they look exactly as they did however they're with much more wear and tear and um so some increases in residential density in that area really would help give it a kick start so I I really strongly support and if there wasn't a second for that Amendment I'll second thank you madam chair um Madam chair I don't believe that we got a second for committee amendment number one um okay I see counselor feeble corn has raised her hand thank you thank you we're a little distracted here our fire alarms keep going off you might not hear the attention please and we can barely hear me please but we are saying fire emergency reported in the building my name is madam chair with a with a motion in a second on the committee Amendment Mr novos can move to a roll call vote on the amendment thank you Miss Universe Council Benton yes councilor people corn yes yes you have your attention please counselor may I have your attention please there has been counselor sometimes you are muted reported in the building please Evacuate the bills yes the nearest exit do not use the elevators thank you thank you counselors I know this is very distracting and very loud here us Madam chair there is a second committee amendment that will need a motion and a second thank you I move Amendment two which is in your iPads second thank you from Council or feeblecorn counselors do you have any questions or comments I'll let Miss uh Morris discuss this with us then please Madam chair thank you councilors um so this amendment uh came from some feedback from the community asking about alleys and and whether the plan addressed alleys um we had a look at the public comments and the the community meetings and allies came up and while the plan talks about um making areas and uh safe and improvements in the public right-of-way it didn't explicitly talk about alleys and so this amendment just makes um the language about uh making the area safe and active a little bit but that book uh really explicit about alleys um and and the improvements public investments in in infrastructure including alleys is part of the mr20 and so this is just making that information just a little bit more explicit we are done with our testing you should not hear any more Sirens or strobes if you do it will be an actual ever take have a wonderful evening thank you ladies and gentlemen for your patience okay Ms Morris Madam chair Ms Morris has concluded her explanation um if there are no questions from the counselors we can move on to the roll call vote councilor Benton and you just very quickly I you know Ali's get a bad rap you know but but I'm a I'm a fan of valleys I think they can actually work in certain areas like this one and um they provide additional access away from the street they provide opportunities for people to park uh away from the street and opportunities for development off of the alley actually uh with secondary dwelling units and such so it's a really good Amendment and I support it thank you thank you counselors uh that will conclude so we have a motion in a second on amendment number two all those in favor Madam chairman will do the roll call vote we've got a lot to get used to this one thanks guys thank you yes Master people corn yes opinion yes councilor Sanchez yes councilor Jones yes that passes unanimously thank you we will now go to agenda item b33 Madam chair uh the motion on the floor now is a due pass as amended with the two committee amendments successfully passing so uh if there are comments from the counselors on the bill we can take those now and if not we will move on to a roll call vote for the bill itself thank you seeing none we will move on with the bill with a roll call thank you thank you councilor Benton yes councilor people yes counselor opinion yes counselor sessions yes yes that's amended unanimously thank you thank you uh it's our understanding that the testing is over we can try to be normal on agenda Item B O 33. o33 is amending paragraph 14 through 16 of the integrated development ordinance to remove all references to Safe outdoor spaces this is on behalf of counselor Jones Arizona okay tough night um would you like to explain what we're doing Madam chair we need a motion first I'd like to make a motion to for a no wreck to pull Council foreign there's a motion for no recommendation I don't see a second oh second question in a second for no recommendation counselors all those in favor Madam chair I'd be happy to do a little bit of a presentation on this one and then we'll we'll move over to public comments thank you uh I'll just give a brief overview of the bill so um if approved this ordinance would remove all references to Safe outdoor spaces within the integrated development ordinance effectively eliminating it as an allowed land use in Albuquerque's zoning framework to provide a little bit of history that I'm sure this body is very aware of in May and June of this year a safe outdoor space was added to the integrated development ordinance or the Ido as a land use in most instances it's a temporary use unless the use is associated with a religious institution in which case it can be a permanent land use but in most instances it exists as a temporary use the council approved the temporary use in a variety of both mixed-use zoning districts and non-residential Zoning districts and adopted several use specific standards that seek to regulate the use in a way that kind of defines how that use looks on the ground including a variety of items such as bathroom requirements setbacks from lot lines needs for management plans Etc this request was considered by the environmental Planning Commission during September of this year the environmental Planning Commission how one hearing took public comments and considered the matter there were about 10 public commenters at this EPC hearing most of which were in favor of the bill again being in favor of the bill means removing safe outdoor spaces from the Ido the planning department staff recommendation on this request was that it should be denied the planning department staff in the work they did on their staff report felt like the request was not adequately Justified for a text Amendment to the Ido to occur uh three sets of criteria have to be properly Justified so the first one is that the proposed amendment is consistent with the spirit and intent of the comprehensive plan as amended and with other plans and policies adopted by the city council that's criteria a found in the Ido criteria B says that the proposed amendment does not apply to only one lot or development project and criteria C says that the proposed amendment promotes public health safety and Welfare um the applicant for this this request counselor bassan provided a letter of justification to the environmental Planning Commission about how those three criteria have been met for the request so it was the environmental planning commission's um duty to consider if the request was adequately Justified or not the body did ultimately end up recommending that the request be approved on a four to three vote there were two Commissioners absent at the September hearing so it was a four to three vote but that still did affirmatively send the recommendation to council that the matter be approved there was one condition that the EPC ended up recommending and the way that EPC recommendations or I'm sorry conditions of approval work in this instance if a counselor wanted to pursue that recommendation of approval they would need to propose an amendment either here at the committee level or at the full Council level the one condition of approval was that even though safe outdoor spaces should be eliminated in its entirety from the Ido that there should still be a definition of a safe outdoor space in the Ido planning staff felt that for purposes of I suppose continuity as there may still be some safe outdoor spaces on the ground if this is to be removed from the Ido that the definition would be helpful Council staff has not been approached by any counselor to draft an amendment to that effect to keep at least the definition in so that one condition of approval at this time is not on the table there are several safe outdoor spaces that are either pending applications or they have been approved or in some cases appealed if this request is to be affirmed by the council and safe outdoor spaces are removed from the Ido a couple of things happen one any safe outdoor space that already has an application in prior to the time that safe outdoor spaces is removed may continue the planning department will be obligated to consider the request under the rules that were in place at the time that that application was submitted and the same is true for any that have been already approved I noted in my staff write up let me get my paperwork back here that at the time that I did my staff right up I had some metrics for you that I now cannot find okay there were as of November 10th there were two approved safe outdoor spaces one of those uh which has been appealed it was remanded back to the planning department and the planning department is still considering that request so that one is technically in the approved bucket uh even though it's under appeal right now two denied applications for safe outdoor spaces one withdrawn application two that are currently under review and two that are awaiting review um as we continue tonight's discussion and we hear from counselors and the public it's important that we don't talk about site-specific requests as a part of this bill this bill is considering the policy consideration behind a safe outdoor space from a zoning perspective about whether that land use should exist in the Ido counselors as you know site-specific applications are quasi-judicial matters we should not be talking about those outside of a formal appeal process um so this this is also a friendly reminder to the public that uh when we get to the public comment section if you are here to talk about a specific site uh please keep your comment generic keep it broader to the policy uh behind a safe outdoor space about whether safe outdoor spaces as a land use should exist in the ideal framework or not that is what is on the table for the counselors tonight um and we do run the risk of running into quasi-judicial issues if we start talking about any of the sites especially perhaps the one that is currently under appeal and has been remanded counselors with that I would be happy to stand for any questions about safe outdoor spaces how they work in the Ido or the proposal that's on the table thank you counselors any questions uh councilor Benton thank you uh well let's like to ask Ms Schultz with regard to the discussion at the PC on this I understand that not all the members are present but um and there were what a handful of folks who spoke from the public on it um some of whom supported it uh SOS and some didn't but um what was what was the nature of the discussion uh by the commission in coming to the conclusion that they they supported this removal uh Madam chair councilor Benton thank you for that question I can dive into that a little bit um so the decision was clearly pretty split at the EPC if it was a 4-3 vote so uh for those who were in favor of the request again being in favor remain means removing SOS from the Ido a lot of the commentaries surrounded the um the perception that these would be dangerous land uses that this is not regulated enough in a way that would not provide that would not prevent harm or impact on surrounding communities and the justification from some of the commissioner's perspective was without kind of adequate protections and without knowing that that these are successful measures that it's not an appropriate land use in the Ido to comment on the other half of the discussion uh the other commissioner's comments were well we don't know that for a fact we haven't seen one um kind of be built yet or or tried and tested and how can we kind of anecdotally know that these are going to be dangerous without knowing it um a lot of the commentary was surrounded the idea of Public Safety and kind of off-site impacts that a safe outdoor space could bring to a community I made man I'm sure uh continue so those off-site impacts um uh what was the nature of that discussion I'm chair councilor Benton some concern that um unhoused folks may be wandering around surrounding communities or bringing illegal drug activity into surrounding communities um some commentary about kind of cleanliness of how clean a safe outdoor space would be maintained not only within the safe outdoor space itself but on the sidewalk and kind of streetscape surrounding that safe outdoor space if memory serves me correctly those were kind of the top three so so I mean this was in the absence of any discussion about uh I think I believe these are Provisions already in in the um in the uh Ideo of formulation of uh requirements for formulation of operational uh plans and security and so forth that are already in there was no discussion about that Madam chair um councilor Benton uh to reference the use specific standard that you're referencing every safe outdoor space has to include and operations and management plan or security agreement to ensure the safety of individuals occupying designated spaces um so when someone comes in at the time of application to the planning department it is expected that they also provide a management or security plan the Ido specifically states that the Department of Family and Community Services is the agency to review that plan for adequacy um and so while the idea itself doesn't you know specifically reference trash or illegal drug use or these things it's it is as you mentioned within that management plan that we would expect those Provisions to exist foreign about the nature of the discussion at EPC when especially when the evening you know several of their members not present and so forth and a small number of people discussing this um I'm concerned counselors that there wasn't really a complete discussion there and uh I'll just leave it at that thank you thank you counselors uh I believe it that's it we need to move to public comment Madam chair if there's no other uh comments from counselors we could move to public comment thank you thank you madam chair our first speaker is going to be John Salazar followed by Christopher Ferrara Christopher Ferrara followed by Damon kompanowski hi can we hear me all right yes we can hear you thank you very much uh I really appreciate being heard here uh and I guess I just want to talk about this from my point of view I'm an educator and I do care about the unhoused and I want to talk about how the way that this is structured within the Ido simply not the correct way to solve this problem so most of the uses for safe outdoor spaces are falling under that temporary status as allowed under the Ido but the very nature of it being a temporary use forbids the actual things that are making safe outdoor spaces effective in other parts of the United States so we want to talk about things like having food service full security a strong Community engagement and long-term stability that's what makes safe outdoor spaces effective and the Very fact that we're using this in a way that's temporary under the Ido that makes these things less successful it's using the temporary use under the Ideo in a way that it's not designed for and I I kind of want to pull the nature of that So within the Ido when you look at what temperature uses can be used for and how long they can go for 10 days 30 days 30 Days 7 Days 60 days 30 days 1460 days that's safe outdoor spaces then 45 days 45 days and three days so you can see really clearly that the safe outdoor spaces are being used for a time length that's just 24 times longer than the longest possible use thank you Damon kompanowski followed by Joshua glass you are muted sir there we go Madam chair counselors um thank you for allowing me the time to talk my name is Damon kapanowski I am the current president of the greater Albuquerque hotel and Lodging Association we um asked that we we are for this bill to remove the safe outdoor space language from the Ido as um we just feel as an organization that as we have seen some of the safe outdoor spaces come up we would like to have a say and where they go as um just our association we represent several hotels around the city and tourism is a bright spot in Albuquerque um greater Albuquerque hotel Lodging Association has concerns at safe outdoor spaces can be placed in areas towns that will negative negatively impact our industry we feel that each safe outdoor space should go through the proper approval process with the neighboring businesses property owners and associations our organization is not against safe outdoor spaces as we definitely feel for um The Challenge instrument we currently have but we feel we should be able to have input and where sos's are located in our city as tourism is so crucial to our city and the associates that we employ recently we found an SOS was possibly going to Jason near the Menaul Redevelopment project that was known as a blighted area and I would just say that um the city invested in a study to um really make that Menaul District um a much better more vibrant and we don't feel that that area would be good for a safe outdoor space so um we just asked that with them we look at what this could how could they negatively impact our tourism industry as we um are trying to bring visitors to our city and we feel that could be a problem thank you Joshua glass followed by Robert rule I have a question for Mr kompanowski yes I am all right Mr Cameron you so apparently you're you're okay with what's going on in that general area over there uh in the Menaul Metropolitan Redevelopment area now well people on the street with regard to homeless people on the street who are not housed Who were or you know free agents operating as they wish up and down the corridor no I I think that that's a separate challenge I think that's a challenge that we have to deal with with our law enforcement and figure that out we just don't feel that an SOS going next to uh our hotels and our member hotels in that area would probably be the best place for it that's why we just think that that SOS should be removed from the Ido as we should come together and look at that we actually have a meeting with um tomorrow actually we invited the city and um um Kalia from um I I it's skipping my name right now the name of the current SOS is out there yeah Mr company okay I gotta jump in and say we cannot discuss site-specific safe outdoor spaces tonight um I totally understand that's why I wasn't bringing it up I was asked a question about it the same thing that there should not be discussion of site specific absolutely my commission to be very clear Matt Madam uh to your attorney we had nothing to do with any site-specific situation but rather uh with the conditions in that Metropolitan Redevelopment absolutely I understand I understand the question and no we're not um I mean in the area that you were talking we are um we definitely think there's a concern and we are looking we that's why we want to come together and work towards um great places for SOS thank you counselors any other questions counselor Pena um thank you madam chair just a quick um not related to any site specific but um councilor Benton mentioned that if people were um pleased with what was happening in a certain area um currently creating any outdoor space does not um this is a question for the staff maybe Sean I don't know but it would um people can still come and go as they please and still hang out in the same areas correct whether we have a safe outdoor space or not uh Madam chair counselor Pena yes people would be free to kind of come and go from the safe outdoor space the intention of the safety outdoor space is a land use is intended to give them somewhere to kind of permanently set up either a tent uh a light vehicle a car or a recreational vehicle um somewhere kind of safe to put their things thank you and Madam chair I just wanted just to follow up with that and just to say that you know I think that's kind of a misnomer that people think that because of a safe outdoor space that that would be somewhere where people had to go um people can do exactly the same thing they're doing even if they reside at a safe outdoor space is that correct um Madam chair counselor Pena certainly no one will be forced to go into a safe outdoor space if they do not want to it's it's an option thank you counselor yes counselor Benton to be very clear these spaces in general I'm not talking about any specific one but these spaces in general uh require a set of rules uh security uh there's not the any tacit um ability for people to congregate around them uh outside of the gates of these spaces um these spaces take a handful of people 30 to 40 people typically maximum off of the streets and that's what they're about thank you thank you councilman Council Pena um this too because I just want to be very clear about what what safe outdoor spaces can and can't do um so if somebody decided outside the gate to congregate on a public sidewalk they still could is that accurate um Michelle's Madam chair counselor Pena there are other kind of existing city laws and ordinance that may come into play to that question about obstructing public right-of-way and those kinds of things but generally speaking yes public right-of-way uh can be used by the the public okay thank you thank you counselors any other comments we'll call the next speaker please thank you madam chair our next speaker is Joshua glass followed by John Salazar good evening thanks for the time my name is Josh glass I'm the executive director for Sunset Memorial Park um we've uh we kind of feel like we've had this thing rammed down our throat um uh and I'm not going to be specific to which SOS or or which SOS here but our neighborhood our our business neighborhood has been already deeply impacted by the homeless or unhoused as as they're often called we've seen so many businesses closed we've seen um you know door shut fences going up everywhere it's really impacting it's really impacting the neighborhood and we've had um you know we've had an increase in incidents um in our park to include um you know the homeless coming in they're breaking into our buildings setting fires um into our Mausoleum and exposing themselves when families that are having funeral services are too close to them um urinating in front of them doing whatever they can to drive the family away from the service um we're very concerned about having more homeless in the area um and and it's not so much the SOS or any SOS I'll say but it's everyone that will that will gather around that facility around that area and I've sat in a lot of meetings over the last few weeks um even months on this I have seen no solid Safety and Security plan for any SLS um we're not even getting support from the Albuquerque Police Department anymore at Sunset Memorial Park I I don't see how they are going to respond and handle any more additional emergencies so there's a lot of things that trouble us and there are a lot of things that are impacting the quality of service that we give to our families at Sunset Memorial Park you know the park is one of the pride and joys of the city and it's getting harder and harder to maintain that that um that designation every day with the homeless epidemic in the area so thank you and we are we are for this proposal John Salazar followed by Robert rule uh you are muted sir John you're muted we can't hear you sorry thank you sorry uh Madam chair members of the committee my name is John Salazar with the Roadie Law Firm P.O box 1888 uh ZIP 87103 here in Albuquerque I represent Crowne Plaza Hotel at manal and University and in the in the event you decide not to recommend approval of uh oh 22 33 as presented we do ask that you at a minimum amend the Ido to require a conditional use permit for every proposed safe outdoor space use uh presently a conditional use permit with its procedural protections is required for an SOS use in the mixed use T L M and H zones however for SOS applications in four zones the non-residential C uh Commercial Business Park light manufacturing and general manufacturing there is no requirement for notice public hearing or even an opportunity for Neighbors to be heard and present evidence before City Planning makes a decision on an application with no required notification of the approval in these zones the consideration of an SOS application is essentially a secret process with no opportunity for Meaningful neighborhood input these zones exist in every Council District residential neighborhoods and Retail businesses often abut and adjoin these zones surely it was never intended by the council that an SOS application could be approved in secret therefore we simply request that at a minimum you amend the Ido to require that every SOS application which constitutes a land use change go through the conditional use process which requires notice a public hearing the opportunity to be heard and notice of the decision thank you thank you Mr Salazar counselors any questions thank you Mr Salazar Robert rule followed by Renee Horvath Renee Horvath followed by Julia Fong uh good evening my name is Renee Horvat and I live here on the West Side uh with the West Side Coalition and Taylor Ranch and we've been following the ideal amendments and since this is one of the amendments in the Ido we've been following it pretty closely uh I it's hard to convince people to accept a safe outdoor space in their Community because we really don't have a good model and that we're proposing to do this in every district and we still do not have a good model to follow and one of my concerns as I drive around and I you know looked at Coronado Park when it was open I saw a lot of people all over the neighborhoods camped out and uh and then also the tiny homes which I thought would work to out all along the streets and in that community and uh and they seem to attract people camped outside along the streets not just outside their Gates outside their Gates and up and down the streets and uh and you asked well why aren't they inside the tiny homes they have vacancy well a lot of them have mental health issues and Drug addictions and I know I brought this up before but I think we need to start looking at how do we treat some of the mental health issues and the drug addiction issues because that's what people are afraid of and they don't want that to impact their Community they're not equipped to deal with that and maybe we need some mental health experts to help us figure out what we can do to help develop health and drug treatment facilities to deal with some of the homeless issues but because I think a lot of our problems as a result of that and then in the meantime let's beef up the West Side shelter to with the plumbing and the lockers and thank you thank you Miss Horvath next speaker is Julia Fong followed by Robert rule hello can you hear me counselors yes yes thank you I'm a resident of Albuquerque and I'm a former case worker with Catholic uh Charities and most of my clients were Behavioral Health clients and I would like to have the city consider uh having the same standards of inspections for shelters as HUD does or as the state of New Mexico does because even HUD has said that a person um that's that's homeless is living on the street or in a place that's not meant for human habitation such as a car or a park or a sidewalk so I feel that this is not a great place for a human to be living on a in a car in a safe outdoor space another consideration would be um that many of these places in general not specific um are not going to have armed security so how is this safe for the people residing in their cars I don't feel that it is for them or for anyone else around it be whether it's a home homeowner or if it's a business I don't feel that that's safe at all how is that protecting them it's not so I would I would really like you to consider holding these safe outdoor spaces is the same as emergency housing standards of Hud or FEMA because they also have standards that they have to go by but yet you know each each safe outdoor space it's not very clear as to what would be there you know I have not heard armed security and it's only at night many of these places are going to have security so I would I would like that to be changed if that's going to be passed but I really am against these spaces I don't feel that it's safe for anyone thank you thank you Robert rule followed by Ian Coburg foreign Mr rule Ian Colburn good evening Council can you hear me yes we can hear you all right my name is Ian Colburn I'm a resident of uh Santa Barbara martineztown neighborhood um and uh I share a lot of this some concerns that previous uh folks have shared in terms of wanting the best for our lowest income neighbors um but given the current um situation the crisis and and the resources that the city is putting towards this I fully 100 support the SOS space all over the city as well as my neighborhood um I think the location of Menon and the freeway is probably going to be not a great place but it's better than nothing and uh you know I I hope the council continues to do all they can and I know they're getting a tremendous amount of pushback from Property Owners but I think the the the way we've been uh showed this issue by uh our politicians and our media has really skewed people's thinking and if we really start to think again that these are lowest income neighbors that are suffering on the streets and not making this an individual issue but rather a systemic issue looking at the system caring about the people and not blaming them we'll see that the SOS is an important first step to to Bringing compassion back to our city um and US Property Owners need to to understand that the fear that you have of someone camping down the street probably doesn't it pales in comparison to what those people living on the street must be feeling every day so again martineztown Santa Barbara neighborhood I'm part of the city of the neighborhood association I 100 support the SOS I do not think we should make it harder um in the idea for future sos's thank you for taking feedback ideal method Madam chair that concludes public comment thank you um would you like to give us a little more report on this please sure Madam chair I understand that you'd like to hear a little bit more about the requirements for safe outdoor spaces that exist in the Ido today as use specific standards um I'm going to do kind of a high level overview of these use specific standards I'm not going to just read the zoning text to you directly but would be happy to dive into detail on any specific standard you'd like to hear more about um so the first one is that this use is limited to two years in time that that's why it is a temporary use after that two years has elapsed six months must take place where the safe outdoor space use is not in place and then an applicant can come in to request the two years again um there is a maximum size on a safe outdoor space there's this concept of designated spaces within a safe outdoor space which is where you would have one tent one vehicle or one recreational vehicle there can be a total of 40 of those and the safe outdoor space itself May hold a maximum of 50 occupants so 40 spaces up to 50 occupants safe outdoor spaces that have more than 10 of those spaces and 15 occupants so both of those things combined um can't be within 660 feet of another safe outdoor space that also has at least 10 spaces and at least 15 occupants 660 feet is about two city blocks there's a distance separation requirements a safe outdoor space cannot be within 330 feet of any property that is zoned R A R1 RMC or RT that contains low density residential developments single-family homes duplexes townhouses these are things we consider low density residential development there are toilet hand washing sorry there are toilet comma hand washing stations and shower requirements for every safe outdoor space um and there are setback requirements for those laboratory facilities to say that you can't have those bathrooms uh right up next up against a lot line in most instances um if a safe outdoor space is going to be housing only folks in tents uh there has to be an opaque wall or a vegetative screen at least six feet high around the area that the tents are in uh we talked a little bit about this earlier every safe outdoor space has to include an operations and management plan or security agreements and some of the details behind those Agreements are that the Department of Family and Community Services must review that the plan or agreement has to indicate on-site support on a 24 hours a day seven days a week basis the management plan has to include language that no registered sex offender shall be allowed in the safe outdoor space as well every safe outdoor space has to offer social services and support facilities to its occupants safe outdoor spaces are prohibited adjacent to major public open space major public open space is a defined term in the Ideo and includes things like the Bosque the Foothills the petroglyphs Etc and the total number of safe outdoor spaces shall not include two shall not exceed two in every city council district there are some carve-outs for religious institutions who are doing a safe outdoor space they do not have to comply with all of the use specific standards I just listed most of them they are not Exempted from but religious institutions do have a little more leeway than a non-religious operator Madam chair those are the requirements that the council adopted in June for safe outdoor spaces thank you thank you uh councilor Benton Madam chair Ms Schultz uh does it is is there also not a two-year limit with a possible two-year extension on any given uh approval Madam chair counselor Benson yes thank you for that clarification that temporary use framework that I mentioned at the beginning allows for a safe outdoor space to exist for two years at that two-year Point uh the safe adware space may come back to the city and request a two-year extension so the potential for four years and then that six month lapse kicks in that I mentioned where you can't do the use at all before the temporary cycle could start again thank you thank you counselors any other questions I would like to make some comments since I've refrained from this um I did introduce this piece of legislation this o33 on behalf of counselor Hassan um but I cannot support this legislation because we do need to do something for the people and the legislation is we are looking to take care of the people we have a very good um out safe outdoor space plan it should be passed we should work on it it gives different areas of the city it says as we've had explained to us the sizes the length of time that they're there how they have to be managed uh what's going on it seems that we're looking at um something that we're running afraid of and yet we don't have too many options we don't have real housing for people some people aren't mentally or physically able or for whatever reason won't go into real apartments or housing but we can keep them safe keep them off of our streets keep them out of our neighborhoods and try to offer help to them too this isn't just a one-way Street we're not just taking care of us we need to take care of them and if we simply say no safe outdoor spaces kick them off the streets kick them out of the every open space that they can find what's Plan B somewhere we have to find out something that will work for our city um and I believe that the safe Open Spaces is something that we can try it is a trial basis it is specific areas it has already been stated and I am in very much in support of the safe outdoor spaces especially on the trial period That's laid out in the legislation so with that you know how I'm going to vote um and I would hope that um the rest of you understand that the only way we can help people is to build a way to help people or we will not be able to fix this problem that we all know we have in every area of the city downtown Uptown residential areas west side there isn't an area of the city that isn't affected by this so it's not just those people it's all of our citizens of Albuquerque and we must make a stand and try to do something and this seems like something that is worth trying and I will vote when it comes before the city council in favor of the safe outdoor spaces thank you and with that if there's no other comment we will call for a vote and the vote is the question is per counselor bassan a do not pass Madam chair the motion on the table from counselor Pena is a motion of no recommendation up to the full Council thank you sorry about that a motion of no recommendation so counselors let me see no host do you want to go ahead and do the roll call vote councilor Benton the recommendation is for a a uh a no recommendation crap Madam chair um councilor Benton yeah the motion on the floor is a motion of no recommendation to the full Council I vote no answer people corn no cancer Sanchez yes Pastor Jones no that fails my two to three books thank you Madam chair counselors because that motion has failed we would need another motion on the floor to move this to council or defer the bill Madam chair I'd like to make a motion for a do not pass uh councilor Benton is that a question or a second would you uh there's a motion in a second to do not pass um all those in favor let's take some let's take the call yeah yes councilor people Corner yes opinion no Dr Sanchez no counselor Jones yes so being new that seems to be it uh there being no further business bip slaps committee meeting is adjourned thank you counselor