good evening everyone um welcome to this meeting of the land use planning and zoning committee of the city council and i hereby call this meeting to order all committee members are present today via zoom this is a remote or online meeting where all participants will be on a video or audio conference we appreciate your patience as meetings are con conducted in this way members of the public city staff and the media have the ability to view this meeting live through youtube and zoom webinar the live stream can be accessed from most smartphones tablets or computers for those watching on the live stream thank you for joining us written comments were received for today's meeting and were provided to members of the committee members of the public have the opportunity to address the committee if they signed up for live public comment per the rules published on the agenda and on our website on friday if you are watching the youtube live feed for this meeting please mute or turn it off when you are called upon to speak we will call for the speakers when we get to the individual agenda item they signed up for here are the public comment ground rules so first i will say all members are here present and accounted for members of the land use planning and zoning committee here are the public comment rules for this evening comments are to be addressed to the committee members only each participant has two minutes to present please keep your comments germaned to the topics on the agenda and any disruptive conduct will result in removal from the zone meeting room there will be a two-minute time limit when you are called upon to speak the timer will start once you begin speaking then the zoom moderator mr moya will let you know when your time is up so first we will go to agenda item a which is r8 counselor benton would you like to introduce this legislation councillor benton has disappeared from the screen all right i therefore let's move on to the next agenda item can i do that if we can start with this one okay i will introduce it for counselor benton then as a request of staff r8 is enabling and directing the parks and recreation department to review and make recommendations for the management of the open space trust fund review and recommend updates to sections one and two of the rank two albuquerque major public open space facility plan and make recommendations for increasing equitable access to parks open space and to provide outdoor environmental education programs benton would you like to move a do pass on this piece of legislation yes i do now that i caught my breath thank you thank you madam chair i'll i'll move a due pass uh for this legislation thank you and are there uh counselors any questions for staff for the administration i think we have a second from uh councillor feeble corn madam chair american council phoebe corn i wasn't looking at the picture i'll get the hang again okay any questions at this point i do have a question as well manager okay counselor feeble corn um so i um i am full in full support of this i just am looking at the new committee that will be formed and i'm wondering what thought process was put into who how many folks from city government versus the public were included in that committee if somebody could walk me through that i could probably speak to that uh counselor um thank you councillor benton yeah essentially i see uh ms young who's a former member of the advisory board is here to speak as well but and we have a couple of speakers identified they're going to speak to the bill but basically uh you know we um our best group of advocates i have to say over the years has been the advisory board we've had a very strong advisory board over the years and and this one's no exception as it's currently made up um so this is primarily an internal group that that includes the advisory board and so forth but um we we a lot of the issues that have been that have been raised here were raised in the previous bill that was vetoed and that was uh overridden by this council uh uh or not overwritten that would the veto was upheld by this council excuse me and so um the issues really were extensively debated debated at that time and so we've kind of gone back to the drawing board including uh consultation with members of the advisory board this bill has been crafted in cooperation with the um the department uh and the open space division but i i i guess um i i'll probably miss schultz might might describe kind of how we come about come to the point where you're where we are with this group and why we think it's a it's a it's a good process forward um for the osap in conjunction with the department to kind of conduct these public hearings so so the uh [Music] i consider this this interim group to be um relatively short-lived but let's go ahead if you if we may man i'm chair and go ahead and hear from from ms schultz just to answer that question but also to give us a briefing on just where we are with this book thank you mr president uh miss schultz madam chair councillor benson thanks i'd be happy to do a little bit of an overview on this bill um r8 as councillor benton previously mentioned is in response to some legislation that was adopted late last year and then vetoed um that veto message called for the city to take kind of a deeper dive into a few different things related to our major public open space program the first thing is the the funding mechanisms how major public open space is acquired uh what those pots of money are where they come from and how they operate the kind of biggest one that was uh up for discussion last year and in the veto message was the open space trust fund the veto message i think acknowledged that the open space trust fund was potentially not serving the city to the best of its ability really should have a more thorough and comprehensive look at and the committee that councilor feeblecorn is referencing is supposed to do just that to take a look at that trust fund in addition to other funding mechanisms that exist within the city for open space acquisition to be clear the committee that councilor feeble corn is referencing the legislation calls for to be comprised of the cao or their designee two reps from the parks and recreation department one rep from the department of finance and treasury two reps from the open space advisory board one of which who will chair the committee and two reps from council services those folks are supposed to kind of put their heads together and think about all the various funding mechanisms associated with open space acquisition and then go on to forward recommendations to the council and the mayor on any improvements that can be made uh to that kind of system as a whole um council fuel corn to answer your question more directly it is heavily staffed by city members you're correct the only kind of non-city staff folks are the two open space advisory board members however i would expect that any recommendations that this subcommittee comes up with would be presented to the open space advisory board as a whole um that board conducts public meetings and takes public comment um they have quite a bit of members of the public who regularly attend their meetings and and provide input on the open space program and and uh acquisition efforts so i do think that there is still kind of a public process baked in to the the committee as a whole for when they're ready with their recommendations that those will be presented in a way uh that the public will have an opportunity to to participate thank you thank you uh counselors are there any other questions madam madam sheriff i just may elaborate a little bit um so to as michelle stated a lot of this has to do with the fiscal solvency of the uh trust fund and so forth but another issue that's that's extremely important and that is is is prominent here is equitable access to open space so parks of course are we try to build a park within one you know we have a city policy and and uh director simon i'm sure is on the is on the call and available as well and um and uh and the superintendent of space ms mcroberts but this was one of the key issues that that has been raised and that i think the parts department and and the open space division take very seriously and i know that we as a council do too is the access to parks is pretty clear you know we should build parts that are walkable to every neighborhood in the city um the access to open space is kind of different because it's typically you know aside from the bosque itself which which bisects our city um the open space and the um these what's called major public open space there is a difference between that and what should i guess lower case open space which is can be all sorts of things including community gardens and any kind of neighborhood facilities and parks as well that's all types of open space but the major public open space system which was created back in 19 in the 1980s excuse me somewhere in there that is a unique thing that tends to be on the periphery of the city so how do we get access to that for any citizen and um and i think uh director simon can probably and ms mcroberts can probably speak to any questions about that but i think that's a really important part of it as well but the immediate task at hand is to review the existing ordinances and the existing rank um rank 2 correct me if i'm wrong ms schultz rank 2 land use plan that has to do with open space of collectively all the open space and how we deal with that which is a document that was created in the late 90s and has been updated not enough in my opinion over the last 22 years or so and so it addresses that as well as how we move forward with that as well so um this is really just setting something in motion that that the deadlines are over a couple of years really and looking at the fiscal solvency of the fund how we can do better with that and uh and probably you know there's a likelihood that we would want to need to go to the state legislature to to be able to do better to be allowed to do better with with our investments in this fund and to have a sustainable source of drug in them so so that's that i know we have some folks signed up to speak we might want to hear from them or we might maybe remember if madam sheriff you don't mind if we could hear from those who have signed up to speak we could hear from them and then uh perhaps hear from the administration yes sir that's next on the agenda are there any other questions of counselor benton before we move on in that case do i have to move it madam chair yes uh uh counselor pena yeah i don't know if this is the appropriate time or not you know and and um i would actually like to to consider uh a motion for no wreck to full council when we do it just because i think there's some some opportunity here to you know enhance this language as you know i was one of the ones that devoted um for a variety of reasons um you know to to us to use them to utilize money for the trust fund uh just because all the money that we've acquired over the years really hasn't went to to um purchasing property so we kind of have this chunk of money that's just been used and just kind of being recycled i think that we generate i don't remember the amount and i don't have those notes i was italian counselor people court and i moved my office around so i lost a few things but um uh you know the money that we have been able to use to secure property was actually the money that councillor harris had put in for that two percent which i think that has gone a long way to make sure that we purchase property in the city of albuquerque and how the trust fund as important as it is i agree with the sentiment that we really have to make sure that it's used as its intended because the money right now is used for park i think my understanding is used for mainly maintenance and not for the acquisition of property right it's the two percent that that councilor um harris had put in and he had actually increased that percentage as part of his resolution but you know i really would like us to have a conversation about the definition of open space as you all know um i had been working on some open space that wasn't you know i'm of the understanding that it's for it's defined as pristine property and often times in communities marginalized communities you know it's we don't necessarily find a lot of pristine property so the example given is the um crestview bluff which is just a place a spectacular place in the city of albuquerque obviously it would need mitigation it's not pristine but i think it's something that really we um the the way open space is defined it wouldn't even allow us to purchase to be able to purchase that property so i think we need to make those considerations as we move forward so i would you know um after the discussion after we hear public comment i'd like to make a recommendation for for no rack or to defer it to another meeting so we can kind of iron out some of those things so thank you madam chair thank you uh counselor pena are there any other points um any more discussion from counselors um in that case i believe we will go on to public comment thank you madam chair you're very welcome our first speaker will be tasha young miss young please go and meet yourself and your time will begin when you start speaking thank you very much madam chair and members of the committee i'm tasha young i'm a former vice chair of the open space board but i am a board member currently and i speak only for myself today i'm very proud to be associated with i'm looking at lines 13 and 14 of r8 one of the nation's best city open space programs i speak in support of this resolution i think it creates exactly the kind of partnership between the city the open space board and all of the members of the public who come to our meetings it'll create a dialogue that is absolutely necessary in the best interest of this good program so i support the resolution thank you very much thank you ma'am thank you our next speaker is barbara taylor barbara please feel free to turn the video on and meet yourself and your time will begin when you start speaking madam chair members of the committee thank you so much for the opportunity to comment on r8 my name is barbara taylor and i am a former cip official former director of parks and rec and currently a member of the open space advisory board i'm speaking for myself today because the board has not been able to meet to develop an official position i want to thank councillor benton for sponsoring this legislation and for his continuing support for the role of the open space advisory board the board has been discussing the future of the trust fund for many months and i certainly understand that the fund needs to improve its return on investment or in fact it will slowly lose its value and become useless it is encouraging to know however that in the 2020 legislative session the city along with the municipal league and association of counties supported a bill to give local governments more latitude to invest funds on their own though this bill did not pass it outlines a promising approach that could have a significant positive impact on the open space trust fund i also want to vote voice wholehearted support for section 3 of the bill regarding equitable access to parks and open space programs i know that the superintendent of open space division has made significant strides in programming opportunities for underserved communities to experience major public open space and i look forward to more of the same and finally i want to express appreciation for the clear definition of major public open space public open space available to everyone these lands express the value that the city and county together have placed on the collective heritage of this unique place that we are privileged to live in i know from first-hand experience how hard parks and rec has worked to improve preserve and grow this heritage thank you very much for the opportunity to speak thank you miss taylor thank you madam chair that will conclude public comments for this item thank you counselors that does conclude has said the public comment um their counselor benton would you like to uh proceed well i i would like to hear from the administration at this point uh if we could please yes director director simon uh thank you uh madam chair uh counselor benton we support this legislation you know i think it's it's on target it does what i think the council wants um to do with respect to finances it does what uh it asks for what the open space advisory board and our department wants to do with respect to looking at the the uh the management and uh benefits of the open space trust fund and it gives us some very good homework assignments uh to prepare important information for the council for future consideration these programs so i think it's a good bill and uh we support it madam sheriff i see counselor pena has it i know that she has a question uh but but just specifically if you could uh um mr simon i i uh or director simon i i think the uh the question that if this is not what the question is from uh counselor pena is with regard to the definition of major public open space was which is sort of kind of the leading affirmation beginning uh in the uh whereas is of course of the in the in the actual sections action sections is affirming the definition which was defined back in the 90s as to um what major open space is as opposed to other open space but um without necessarily you uh weighing in yet i just want to put that introductory question before counselor then you ask her question thank you thank you councillor benton counselor pena madam chair thank you for my question yeah you phrased it much better than i would have counselor ben so yeah i mean i just really you know would like to to have a couple of questions answered whether it's a move with no wreck or a deferral just to really get the position of the open space board they haven't taken a position on this bill so i would love for us before we proceeded to um you know that was kind of the criticism um the last time is that we didn't get their approval when we passed the other bill so i think that's important um and then the and then the other thing is is that you know i really would like to be able to have an opportunity to figure out what that definition is and how it applies to here at the city of albuquerque because it has been a challenge to um you know get property that's not considered pristine and you know and i think we could do a better job in terms of looking at areas that are marginalized in our community and really be able to identify you know pockets within those areas for for open space and if the definition prohibits that um i know i ran into some challenges when we were working with the crestview bluff area and some of the concern about that it wasn't pristine property and that it really needed a lot of remediation but yet it's right on the arroyo you know where it's at council betting and it's just an area that as the report stated before um with some work and and um engineering from folks we could actually bring back a lot of um natural habitat and uh lots of you know um um habitat from the area and the vegetation and the like so i think you know just before we proceed we should just kind of get those questions answered and so i would move for for a deferral if yeah i think i think as a point of order that the motion is for i do pass but um but i wonder if we could hear from from director simon as to the these definitions and questions and and uh sort of the distinction of or is is pristineness part of the uh the requirement or definition or his cultural value also important director simon uh madam chair counselor ben you know i i don't have a you know a direct or sort of definitive position on the definition it's it's the definition that's been used for years for this program i would just say that um i don't think it's so much about pristineness as just it is about the totality of the of the natural cultural resources in any site that's considered for acquisition so i think the pristineness may be a little bit of uh uh not the core issue there but in terms of uh i'll just also say that we also have set up and are excited about pursuing you know uh new new programs new variations of our open space efforts including our neighborhood open space program which is specifically designed to sort of um uh broaden the the net um you know open the door uh to all kinds of projects um particularly projects that are located within our urban core so i see you know a variety of mechanisms to make good things happen for all parts of the city and i you know i totally share counselor pena's uh desire and goal you know to have um green spaces equitably distributed across our city so um however you view the definition i think we're we're headed in that direction thank you director simon and councillor benton uh did you have a comment to that because you do have a motion a do pass and a second yeah um madam chair uh i see uh superintendent mc roberts is here as well and it would be great to hear from her as well and i i really appreciate the attitude of this administration and this particular parks department about these properties that are not exactly city parks but they're not exactly major open space and that i do support that and i do support counselor pena's desire to to fight figure out how we can uh create such a place on crestview plus but i did want to to hear from ms mcroberts who has done such a good job as superintendent under this administration thank you councillor benjamin ms mc roberts uh thank you good evening madam chair and counselor benton and um rest the counselors i appreciate this very thoughtful uh and comprehensive approach to this resolution and thinking about these issues that will have an impact and open space into the future and um and bringing in the open space advisory board and and staff in this conversation so thank you so much for this opportunity um i do have our um major public open space facility plan uh dated from 1999 we hope to update this plan in the near future um i have the definition though and so if you wouldn't mind i'd like to read that and then just give a couple of my thoughts um the definition is is very um encompassing it's it's not really restrictive it says that com the comprehensive plan defines major public open space as an integrated system of lands and waters that have been designated as such in the comprehensive plan these lands and waters or interests therein have been and shall be acquired developed used and maintained to retain their natural character to benefit benefit people throughout the metropolitan area by conserving resources related to the natural environment providing opportunities for outdoor education and recreation or defining the boundaries of the urban environment and then there's a number of bullets that kind of identify open space and its purpose the conservation of natural resources and environmental features provision of opportunities for outdoor education and recreation shaping of the urban form conservation of archaeological resources provision of trail corridors and protection of the public from natural hazards like arroyos and so um you know i do think that that's a definition that we can continue to build on and work from personally but obviously this committee i think can delve into that a lot more as stated in this resolution the other thing i'd like to mention that the open space advisory board had worked on is a matrix for identifying acquisitions of open space this matrix is you know i think includes a lot of detail about what we should look at incl including equitable access that's something that was integrated into this matrix last year and we also identified this concept of neighborhood open space and developed a matrix for that as well so um we can share that with the the counselors and i i think that can also be used as this committee convenes and really gets into the details of this a lot more but just to say that this has been identified or you know we have been thinking about these things for a while and i think you know we have a good starting place for sure thank you um councillor benton you have a motion on the floor for a do pass yeah okay excuse me counselor pena has her hand up again counselor pena yeah well let's hear from him so thank you i appreciate that you know that was one of my two-pronged questions is that you know it sounds as though i i would i would still like to have the time to kind of really make sure that that's in there because i know that um and i don't have the report in front of me when we did the crestview bluff but i know that that was a challenge that we had to to overcome so there's something within kind of the defining factors somewhere along the line if we could just get clarity because i just do want to make sure that you know communities like that um that are that are marginalized really do have an opportunity to um have their voice at the table and have an opportunity to create open space so so i kind of still stick to that just so that as long as i get comfort in terms of for sure and then my other question would be is that um the deferral i would still stand by the deferral because we were criticized last time because we did it without the the approval they said open space um board actually said that they were not able to meet to make a decision on whether they supported the resolution or not and i think that you you know we have to if if that's what our argument was last time i think we need to make sure that we do it this time and make sure that they're able to convene and make a decision whether they support the resolution or not obviously it seems as though it's a a no-brainer for them but um just because of um what the criticism was last time and then i just wonder where the administration stands on on all of this i don't know if they're even if somebody from the administration is here i don't know if they would support a deferral or not support a deferral i uh manage your counselor pena you know we are happy to support the wishes of the committee uh with respect to that motion um agnostic on that issue but uh the bill is uh i think the bill is drafted sent to believe with the thoughts of the open space board clearly at the forefront but we're happy to defer to the committee thank you director simon councillor pena okay uh councillor benton thank you madam chair yeah and and i think uh miss schultz wanted to clarify i think uh ms mc roberts is reading directly out of the 1999 and document but there is a doc a definition of space within the comprehensive plan the city county comprehensive plan so you might want to read and then you know that that is the the defining document ultimately but um uh and then my understanding from from uh the two members of the of the ocean is that they do intend to hear it we were not going to move this through immediate action or anything like that i don't mind leaving it to midi but i would like to get this process moving because um there's a lot of work to be done over the next couple of years but uh um but let's hear from from schultz thank you council friend miss shelf madam chair councillor benson thank you um i just wanted to offer a point of uh clarification mcroberts did read the definition that is located in the rank 2 facility plan which does reference the comprehensive plan however that comprehensive plan that that rank 2 plan references um is no longer in place the city has since updated their comprehensive plan and therefore the definition for major public open space has also been updated so i'll just i'll just quickly read uh what that definition is it's in the resolution itself on page 2 line 20 it says the definition of major public open space as derived albuquerque slash bernalillo county comprehensive plan shall be an integrated network of land and water that has been or shall be acquired developed used and maintained to retain their natural character to benefit people throughout the metropolitan area by conserving resources related to the natural environment providing opportunities for outdoor education passive recreation or defining the boundaries of the urban environment i think it's very similar to the definition that ms mcroberts read it's been um it's a little more concise than the definition from the old uh comprehensive plan i i just wanted to be clear that this resolution establishes that as the definition as it exists in the comprehensive plan that's on the books today thank you miss jolts and could i ask about the schedule at the open space advisory board i believe they they would meet prior to the council hearing this bill and so we would have them weighing in along with this committee before the full council so is that correct adam chair counselor benson looking at my calendar it looks like the next open space advisory board meeting is scheduled for march 22nd um yep i see ms mcroberts nodding her head at me so if this moves out of committee tonight it would be reported out at the city council meeting on march 21st and then the open space advisory board would meet the next day and may be able to put this item on their agenda for review before it would be up for final consideration by the council on april 4th thank you thank you counselors are there any other questions uh counselor benton we have a do pass with a second on the table urge your support counselors thank you would you call the role please counselor benton yes council people court yes counselor pena yes councilor sanchez yes councillor jones yes that passes on a 5-0 vote thank you counselors and thank you councillor benton um this could be a game changer councilor benton if you don't mind please i would like for you to move um the next item on the agenda which we are co-sponsoring and i need to get to my script here okay the next item is oh 2210 this is adopting citywide text amendments to the integrated development ordinance 14-16 for the 2021 ido annual update i think that's supposed to say 2022 and adopting text amendments for a small mapped area the old town historic protection over liaison hpo5 and i'll move a recommendation and do pass and i'll second that and uh counselors uh i'll leave that i guess uh the rest of this you have your script there unless madam chair thank you thank you mr pres i see you we're confused tonight thank you councilor benton to those we do have a motion do pass in a second so to those watching please be aware that today's meeting will only consist of public comment and a staff presentation the committee is not expected to vote on any proposed amendments tonight with the intention to defer this item to march 30th councillors will begin with public comment we will hear first from those who signed up to speak regarding cannabis prohibitions in old town this item is quasi-judicial and requires that members of the public be sworn in if you will be speaking to this please raise your right hand um and do you affirm under penalty of perjury that your testimony today will be true thank you thank you mr moya would you please begin calling the speakers thank you i'm sure our first speaker is michael buck michael if you're there please go ahead and meet yourself and your time will begin when you start speaking madam chair looks like he may not be there i'll move on to the next speaker which is uh jesse ehrenberg thank you can you hear me yes uh your time will begin when you start speaking thank you uh chairwoman jones and members of the committee my name is jesse ehrenberg i live in old town my take on this issue is one of marketing old town is a special has a special position in albuquerque and needs to be marketed as such to compete as just another center for food alcohol and marijuana is never going to be a successful strategy there's already endless places to go for that nob hill central and hundreds of neighborhood bars and restaurants and right around the corner from old town there's the sawmill what old town has that these places don't is history people don't come here from around the world to new mexico to just eat and drink they come to see the pueblos and towns like madrid silver city and mountain air they come to old town for the same reason old town should be what people used to call family friendly if people specifically want to get high from cannabis there will be plenty of places they can go in the surrounding area there will even be one opening right across the street on mountain road so let's play to our strengths and for that reason i support bill r 21 165 prohibiting permissive and conditional uses for cannabis and cannabis products outlined in the ido in the old town hpo 5 zone thank you very much thank you our next speaker is sylvia ramos cruz sylvia please going to meet yourself and your time will begin when you start speaking good evening i live in old town and have been here since 1999. i am a member of the historic old town property owners association and the old town portal market advisory board i enjoy living in old town because it's a place that has deep roots a tiny town built in 1706 that still has the look and feel of a spanish town with adobe buildings residences and businesses clustered together arranged around the plaza anchored by the church we link the city's past to its up-and-coming present and its vibrant future therefore preserving this historic heart is essential to albuquerque's well-being identity and character but we also want to preserve its business heart as a place where people from all over new mexico the united states and the world come to learn about and experience new mexico history enjoy a nice meal shop for authentic arts and crafts and do business in a safe welcoming family friendly and pleasant atmosphere i believe that allowing cannabis businesses to locate in old town is not conducive to preserving its character as a heritage place such business businesses will add nothing to the life of the people who live do business and work here or to the experience of local family and tourists who come here i believe the presence of cannabis businesses in old town will degrade its image as well as the quality of life for those of us who live and work here and it will adversely affect old town's economic potential as an albuquerque and new mexico unique and distinctive historical attraction that is why i support amendments to the ido to prohibit cannabis business uses within the historic old town zone i respectfully ask you to support and help enact those amendments thank you very much thank you uh michael buck are you there and connected now um hello oh yes sir my apologies i made some speak on the car wash issue not the cannabis issue okay i have you listed for that item as well so we i'll call your name uh when that item comes up thank you sir appreciate it thank you madam chair that does conclude uh public comment for the cannabis related to cannabis retail in old town uh if you would like i proceed i can proceed to the public comment for the general citywide changes would you please mr morale thank you madam chair our first speaker will be jane beckel jane please feel free to turn your video on and meet yourself and your time will begin when you start speaking thank you madam chair and counselors i'm speaking this evening as an individual but i do want to amplify some points that i made earlier today in written comments submitted on behalf of the santa fe village neighborhood association providing safe and acceptable shelter for those experiencing homelessness is an ethical and moral moral imperative for the city of albuquerque it requires a whole of city response with every section of the city providing shelter resources the equitable answer cannot be to assume that this imperative applies only to a portion of neighborhoods or certain city areas the ideal amendments particularly those submitted last week don't provide much detail about how the zoning changes proposed will actually result in the provision of shelter resources they also do not provide evidence that these amendments will have equitable impact across all parts of the city and don't actually change my concern that that will not be the case i would ask the council the committee to re uh defeat amendments a12 and a13 and remove language in the ido redline draft that limits public input if the council is committed to equity and public engagement each counselor could explicitly affirm support for the creation of shelter resources within their district and use public meetings to ensure inclusive decision-making before changing zoning laws a process like that would represent a genuine commitment to equity i noticed that the hope city website documents their um quote strong backing of the community they don't say how they achieved that but i believe it was probably with considerable efforts at public engagement thank you so much for your time and consideration thank you our next speaker is martin baca martin please feel free to turn your video on and meet yourself and your time will begin we start speaking good evening madam chair and city councilors i'm here to speak on the car wash operating hours should i continue yes please my name is martin baca i was born here in albuquerque and i have lived here my entire life except for the time when i did serve in the united states navy i've been a manager in the self-serve car wash industry for over 22 years and i feel this amendment unfairly attacks self-serve car washes although there is a large customer base for self-serve car washes and our customers enjoy the option of the 24-hour convenience i think that loitering in the city is not due to our business being open loadering is not limited to self-serve car washes loading occurs at all occasions i'm sorry all locations throughout the city especially at grocery and department store parking lots we do post no trespassing signs on our property that police officers can use in cases of loitering our equipment is not designed to be turned on and off every night and every morning how do we keep people from using the equipment i don't know actually of any other city that closes or sells or car washes at night how would we even keep people off of our law even if the equipment is turned off i support law enforcement and i regularly do regularly offer police officers a free wash and encourage them to park on our lot day and night so that they can do their paperwork in their vehicles i feel this amendment will create more problems for the police force business owners and for the public than what it was solved i feel this should be a choice for the citizens of albuquerque and for the business owners in closing this amendment is unfair because it targets the entire car wash self-serve industry if there are nuisance locations the city should handle them individually not punish the entire self-serve car wash industry as they do other businesses thank you thank you our next speaker is michael buck so please meet yourself and your time will begin we start speaking hi can you guys hear me yes please okay cool thank you uh i thank you uh thank you for the chance to speak um my name is michael buck i'm the state supervisor with uh deckard north america and uh i'm over two of the self-serve car washers here in albuquerque um i know the amendment says about loitering but we don't have a loitering problem at any of our locations and if we did we would combat and address that um any way that we could um i don't think it's fair to single out car washes versus other businesses um every business does have loitering problems and um like and as far as i said um before we don't have luring problems at our business um we will also lose a significant amount of revenue if you guys would eliminate our hours um i i pretty much don't have anything else to say on the matter uh i just think it's arbitrary that it's it's it doesn't really it doesn't make any sense to shut our business down because people loitering and if it is happening at certain car washes then i would ask that you guys address those car washes and not make it a blanket for every single business uh thank you for the time to speak have a good night thank you our next speaker is josh rogers josh please feel free to turn your video on your time will begin when you start speaking thank you good evening counselors um josh rogers with titan development i have four of the amendments i'd like to speak about the first one is amendment a2 on the hotel conversions to multi-family these conversions are starting to happen all over the city and they've proven to be a very attractive multi-family housing type for low-income renters these conversions have taken dilapidated hotels that have been run down over the past 50 years and converted them to very useful multi-family housing at a very inexpensive rental price amendment a2 is great but it's worded so that it only applies if funding is provided through the city's family and community services department i think it'd be great for the council to expand uh a2 to include any hotel conversion regardless of where the funding is coming from to provide more low-income housing opportunities it's really the only way that developers can provide low-income housing without having to go through government tax credits next i'd like to discuss amendment a9 while this is well intended to create increased density along major transit corridors which i applied i don't think the city really needs to go this far town homes are a great product for urban corridors and when done right can achieve moderate densities over 10 units an acre this housing type is used in many great cities which have far greater densities in albuquerque brownstones and row houses are all found in great abundance in cities like boston and new york along major transit routes this amendment seems unnecessary let's just let the market decide what's needed next is amendment 810 i support the repeal of this of last year's amendment after living through this on two projects it added between four thousand dollars and twelve thousand dollars worth of costs and it provided nothing of value these studies are not yielding anything useful and the projects are being designed through zoning market forces neighborhood edges and other design related issues and this just seems like a costly effort it's adding time energy and a lot of useless aspects to our drb submittals lastly i fully support amendment a11 we have researched our parking ratios extensively at our multi-family projects and have found conclusive evidence that shows we are building way too much parking in our projects that's adding to climate change heat island effects and lowering the density of our projects thank you to all the staff and counselors for your time thank you josh your time is it thank you next speaker is debbie commissioner please feel free to turn your video on i'll meet yourself and your time will begin when you start speaking thank you can you hear me okay is that okay yes ma'am please okay i think no turn it off please thank you um thank you um madam chair and members of the committee i did want to speak to a few of the amendments um the first one was a2 which is the hotel hotel conversions to residential uses for affordable housing i strongly support that um we essentially and i'm going to support the other amendments associated with providing safe outdoor spaces and temporary campgrounds as well those are 8 12 8 13. i don't think we need to i think we all agree that we have a crisis around homelessness have for some time it's really become a probably public health crisis and i think anything we can do to provide housing as soon as possible uh most of this would be transitional housing but at this point we really don't have any other options for folks who are experiencing homelessness and who are on the streets so i think the more options we could provide um you know especially immediately around the safe down outdoor spaces provide that temporary campgrounds to provide that as well i haven't really looked at the details of the safe outdoor spaces in temporary campgrounds but i do i know i do have an opportunity to really delve deeply into that the county is hoping to put a project together soon uh using that particular um amendment the other one is a3 and a4 i'm going to put on another hat not my elected official hat but my developer hat i'm the first one to use the cottage development zone it is it doesn't work very well and i'm sure that you can see the document that says that uh we really need to make it work um and as i started processing uh putting the plan together i could see that um it didn't allow for example um the other lot for example if you have a 10 000 square foot lot it doesn't take you can't calculate the rest of a lot like if you have 17 000 square feet for example this allows that to happen uh percentage-wise a percentage of the square footage and then the square footage itself for the largest lot is too small as too too little of a square footage it's 2 000 square feet for a 10 000 square foot lot you wouldn't put cottage development on there if you're if you're limited to 10 up to 2 000 square feet i mean it's just not going to work it doesn't work financially it doesn't work economically so uh i appreciate the support for that um and then i don't know how much more time i have i think those that was largely it think you're is okay thank you very much but just a second councilor benton you have a question you have a question for for uh commissioner o'malley uh mr rogers of tight development spoke about the motel conversion what you're thinking about that the way it's written right now it's really only for projects who are developed by the city or with city support he was arguing that this should be something that we we might want to do citywide what are your thoughts on that uh commissioner okay you know that's an interesting um idea and i think that's something worth considering i mean obviously we're going to be thinking about this now right um there's uh my understanding is this conversion allows for not having to have a full stove for example but could have um because you know there's we're talking about small units already um and uh it's interesting that you know if you if you uh uh you know get an airbnb or some of these smaller casitas that's exactly what they do have for you to use right this idea is not to have ideally when you're talking about the sort of housing you know you hope that it doesn't you know um become years and years that this is the final place for people to live i mean we want to be able to create some other options but it's one of the more efficient ways to to address homelessness and get families in safe secure housing so i think that this is uh that's a good question counselor i think it's something that that the the committee should consider i i don't know at this point i just thought quite frankly okay thank you i know you're an advocate for anything and everything that can increase increase the stock of affordable housing so um i thought it was an interesting point that he was making is and maybe this something all of these all of these amendments of course we can continue to craft as we go forward no counselor and if i may add to that it was interesting i actually was walking by uh java joe's and of course right next to this it the is it the silver moon or was these apartments which are uh i think 60 or below the median income i think the entire project is like that but um as i was walking past i just mentioned to my nephew's nephew and i said i wonder what the rent is over there and this young man just said it's too high he said and he he just went on to talk about how difficult it is for young people to live in town that they're basically being pushed out of debt downtown because of rents hikes and you know and this is a real problem i mean it really came home again as to the issue um that house how people are struggling to be able to pay rent young people single people families is just a big big struggle so i yes whatever we can do to help people you know be in safe housing i think that's important thank you thank you madam chair thank you thank you ellie and thank you uh councillor benton i uh mr moya thank you madam chair our next speaker is dan regan dan please feel free to turn your video on admit yourself and your time will begin we start speaking all right had a little trouble getting the uh unmute off i'm going to talk to a 10 on a general principle i am against swinging the pendulum on any type of amendment in one year if you swing it from one apex to the other you give people lots of headaches so it went in last year to take it out this year or general principal i think is is not very smart in particular i will speak to the explanation that's in the amendment says that it has no teeth well i think it's wonderful that it got into the people's radar that albuquerque has expectations that we ask that you take our environment into account if you're going to build something that will last i think that's important the 2018 iecc is mentioned that that document is based on stuff not any more recent than 2016 where in 2022 there's been a new report put out by the u.n on international level like the iecc is that says warming is happening faster and with greater intensity than we ever expected before that icc is international level it's out of touch with high desert new mexico our situation is we keep adding heat josh mentioned the heat sinks of of asphalt and the heat dries out everything i don't know how many of the counselors are aware that the oxbow right now is starting to dry up beavers are a little bit responsible for that but the increased heat is also in play you've seen articles from pnm and other people about electrical brownouts over the next several summers if if we don't start cutting down on the need for cooling and heating where are we going to be thank you dan your time is up thank you our next speaker is jonathan siegel jonathan please feel free tune your video on and meet yourself and your time will begin when you start speaking good evening madam chair and counselors can you hear me all right yes please receive uh i'm speaking tonight to two related amendments to the ido having to do with cottage developments in the r1 district commissioner o'malley spoke about the same matter we were retained to study a lot of about a third of an acre zoned r1d with a small existing house i'm an architect here in town and former member of the planning commission incidentally cottage development is mapped for as available for the parcel in question and under the ido as written the lot could support a house and one cottage which is hardly a cottage development this seems not to be the purpose of having cottage development in the ido expanding allowable area to a percentage basis is an enormous help and the recommendation to increase the area basis to 2600 feet or thereabouts is also a very big help and in the subject case that i was looking at uh would make a feasible project and a lovely project really of a third of an acre that would be able to uh in our studies finally include four cottages and the existing house and still easily meet the required open space necessities as spelled out in the ideo no complaints there uh that parking and so forth so uh i think it was just a case of not really vetting it uh as it might have been i can show an example site plan if it would interest the counselors or otherwise i'm done thank you madam madam chair i'd like to see the site plan if we can if that's doable thanks counselor benson yeah mr siegel do you have a site plan that you can show us or do we have to do it there it is let me try and get it on my account on my camera excuse me gentlemen i think we're being told that we shouldn't do this i would encourage the counselors to not review this site plan if this is a potential application that might come before the city um in the case of an appeal i think you all know that you said is all right i uh anyway mr siegel we're trying to be nice about this but the good news is councillor benton had the same answer i did so um thank you mr siegel for trying to apologize for the indiscretion uh i hadn't thought about appeals and all the rest uh what i want to say is that it's very nice to be able to make increased density around a courtyard and around a lovely setting and it can be done if you'll pass i believe it's a3 and a4 thank you thank you our next speaker is renee horvath renee please feel free to turn your video on don't meet yourself and your time will begin we start speaking hello um my name is renee horvath and i am with the westside coalition and taylor ranch but we just got these amendments uh i just saw them for the first time last thursday and so we're still trying to figure out what they all you know a little more explanation uh because we went through the city-wide amendments last fall and uh and we spent a month having several meetings with michaela explaining all the 60 something amendments last fall and we were better prepared for the epc so my question is are these amendments going to the epc or just uh city council and what is the process yeah the next hearing is uh date for love says the 30th are you going to take a final vote on this because i have a there's a lot of people asking questions about some of these amendments so that we understand exactly what they're proposing because we can kind of see some of the good and some of the bad and we want to make sure they're thoroughly vetted so we get a very good product out of these amendments so uh some of the things that really caught my attention um you know we spent a lot of time talking about the overnight shelters last fall and including the campgrounds and so we do have some questions about what what is the vision for the campgrounds we'd like a little more explanation uh reduction in parking a11 for multi-family and retail i can we will have a lot of problems with that that will be really bad for the people that use these apartments uh i don't think there's enough parking for them now and as somebody mentioned the rents are going up so if you have a three-bedroom apartment you may have three different people with three different cars that need uh spaces for three different cars but i think we've reducing it to two cars or one car the other one um your time is uh uh just your immediate account is a reminder these uh this is not being heard tonight these amendments will go before the uh lups committee on the 30th okay so uh can we uh have someone explain some of these amendments because you have the right to contact any of our city staff whenever you would like and have a meeting uh zoom meeting before that you will have to call the city staff and set up an appointment i can't do that for you right now i can't answer that question specifically but the city staff will help you uh understand these and answer any questions for you and again these will not be heard until the 30th okay thank you thank you our next speaker is avery volkman avery please feel free to turn your video on and meet yourself and your time will begin when we start speaking good evening everyone madam chair and members of the council appreciate your time this evening uh my name is avery volkman and i have come to speak out briefly against amendment a1 about the rock car wash operating hours uh currently i own and operate five self-serve car washes in the albuquerque rio rancho and bernalillo areas and have done so for the almost 20 years this new proposal is very concerning because it would force new hours upon of operation upon our businesses and in doing so would cause not only undue hardship upon our business but would be hard to enforce and would potentially set up that all businesses parking lots and that any place that people gather would come under this new curfew we must ask ourselves what is the core problem and would forcing hours of operation upon a single type of business really solve this problem and why are car washes being singled out i i know previous gentlemen have spoken we don't necessarily have any loitering issues at our car wash that go on from a long period of time after all i suspect that there are many businesses throughout albuquerque that have empty parking lots and that are unattended where people gather during this during the night and i sent in a a list of explanations about why this would be hard for us as a car wash owner and a business owner we are a family business and have been doing this like i said for 20 years one of the reasons is of we'd have loss of revenue significant a loss of service would be provided to our customers there are significant hurdles to overcome their hardware and software issues which prevent us actually from closing down our washes the software and hardware are not necessarily designed to be shut down on and off all the time this new proposed hour sign would be just another sign that we already have uh listed on our sites we have a no loitering sign no trespassing sign no panhandling sign that uh we were told to put up by the apd and police officer our members of the city um your time isn't okay madam chair if i may follow through with mr volkman yes of course councillor benton uh i i share some of these concerns that were singling out a specific uh type of business and and um you know i think some of the anecdotal discussion had to do with with uh apd officers telling uh neighbors and such that they can't do anything about people loitering on a business where they're not welcome um and i think before we we we actually start voting on these amendments at the next meeting we ought to hear from police department as to what they can and cannot do if if a business owner such as mr voltman is posting of trespassing and people are just hanging out not doing anything to with their cars but rather just fooling around in somebody's private property then i would hope that that that kind of anecdote does not indicate a general policy of the the albuquerque police department and so you know this may or may not be something can be solved solved by zoning and rather needs to be solved by uh by public safety personnel and what their policies are for removing uh unwanted people from private property but it looks like miss shannon may have some elaboration on that as well madam chair counselor benson i think i heard a pretty direct request from you that we seek some additional information from apd uh prior to when a vote may be taken on these amendments at the march 30th left hearing i've made a note of that i don't believe we have anyone from apd on the committee hearing tonight but i will get some information for you prior to that next hearing thank you thank you man i'm sure thank you and thank you michelle's next speaker please thank you madam chair next speaker is bradley day bradley please feel free to turn your video on on meet yourself and your time will begin when you start speaking am i on yes sir please proceed can you see me i cannot see you but we can hear you well that's okay i didn't dress up for this thing anyway um thank you for your time ladies and gentlemen uh i wanted to speak on the safe outdoor spaces the reason for that is i've spent the last two years um taking a look at how to deal with the trespassing and the trash and the needles that commercial property owners like myself have to deal with and like with any other business problem many times you can find a really cost effective solution by taking a look at a franchise that deals with that type of problem or that type of product and the franchise in this case the mcdonald's of homeless shelters is camp hope down in las cruces i've spent a lot of time talking to their people going down there i've gotten all their protocols their track record is absolutely fantastic they've been in operation for 11 years they serve about 200 people a year and it is extremely cost effective and basically the idea is to give these people a base to work from when they have showers bathrooms a mailing address a place to store their belongings or their shopping carts and get them from living in a tent which is what they would have with a safe outdoor space and get them into permanent housing that's the objective and they have been very effective at it and the the amount of expense that's involved is so much better than anything else we're doing i i mean i can't even begin to tell you so that your time is thank you okay well thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is jim price jim please free turn your video back on unmute yourself and your time will begin let me start speaking hi my name is jim price um thank you counselors for allowing me to speak i wanted to speak again in opposition to the proposed changes to the um to the outdoor and site lighting section the idea of removing the shielding from all light sources it it it would be detrimental to the night sky it would defeat the stated purpose of that section which is to prevent light pollution between properties striking you know all outdoor lighting with fixtures are well allowing light sources to be seen on adjacent properties it it it would nullify most of the whole ideo led lighting has replaced all other forms of lighting incandescent metal halides high pressure sodium compact fluorescent whatever and led lighting is very new it is extremely intense lumen output for just a single led which can cause blinding glare just make make things unlivable and unsafe so i did write a letter to the council i hope would be read upon that i don't know why this is being introduced the only thing i could see is that somebody felt street lights and street lamps should be unshielded um you know we we went to the dark skies and the whole pnm and everybody's had to do lighting that only shines down that doesn't shine to the side if you remove shielding you have lighting go to the side and go up and then once again reduce it would be detrimental to the night sky that language here is also contradictory to the idea of regulating the internally lit signs because one of the reasons to regulate the internally lit signs was so it wouldn't be detrimental to the dark skies my wife and i built a property on the west side um six years ago thank you our next speaker is reverend bob of the valley please feel free turn your video on and your time will start speaking hey y'all good to see you i'm reverend bob lavallee i serve first unitarian church as the associate minister we're thinking about doing uh hosting a safe parking program so we're watching this amendment with interest a12 i'm talking about i have a couple quick comments about how this amendment helps or hinders us in our efforts first i want to say thanks for removing the overnight supervision requirement back in january i visited a safe parking program hosted by jewish family services in san diego it's a great program very mature they don't do overnight supervision folks supervise themselves and it's very effective however the um so thanks for that part but the six foot opaque fence mandate might make it impossible for us to do this so i'd like to understand better the reasoning behind it and better yet or better yet ask that you take it out and just out of curiosity um i'm wondering where the ratio of porta johnny's of eight to one eight spots for what porta johnny came from so that's my comments thank you [Music] madam chair if if i may i think you know we uh ms schultz is prepared to to go through the amendments and we can hopefully answer that question unless you'd prefer to just answer it right now i think uh councillor benton will we're almost ready to go through that presentation if the uh people on screen would just watch a little longer i think you'll see some answers to your questions thank you councillor benton for mentioning that thank you our next speaker is peggy neff peggy please uh meet yourself and your time will begin when you start speaking okay can you hear me yes please proceed i leave my video dark so that i can represent others who cannot attend so shame that we can't have voices from all sectors of the community i have asked many times for councilwoman jones and for councilman benton to recuse themselves from votes on all things ido i will ask that again i personally believe that while you have good intentions you have seriously compromised situations and your vote is not without compromise anyway i have asked that the amendment process be looked at and i think that a few things are really important for all amendments in front of the city to have they need to have a summary statement describing the origins and the motivations behind the amendment they needed justification they need examples that show both the current issue and the proposed changes they need summaries of expected impact with estimated number of residents that will be affected they need possible unintended consequences to be summarized that would have helped with the cottage development problem it would help with a lot of things that are right now currently influencing the blighting of mobile home people people who live in mobile homes are now going to be challenged with putting a plaque on their homes or facing a higher degree of violations of ordinances i think that the public comments that should go forward are things that approach common consent i don't believe that you should go forward with this process of a hundred amendments every year it's exhausted you have no oversight in place for it you cannot continue to do this without putting the city at great risk of lawsuits there right now in front of you i just have one more comment to make about due process due process requires an independent body to oversee and to be impartial in decision making you can't both write your laws and make judgments on them thank you peggy our next speaker is frank comfort frank feel free turn your video on i'll meet yourself and your time will begin when you start speaking [Music] yeah madam chair uh counselors uh thank you uh we have the same concerns as uh uh was kind of from uh uh uh renee from wisconna there was there was we didn't receive also the information the amendments that the 16 amendments until very late we haven't had the proper ability to reveal them thoroughly so we don't at this time we don't even know how what they're really going to the impact is we don't we can't tell like from a3 to a11 and so forth that uh when you take space away it's funny in the intent when you take parking spaces away it seems like it's going to increase high density but we don't know that for sure we don't know for sure by changing the parking for the multi-families to cut those back if it's going to create any issues with our families and trying to make them use bus services more which limits their accessibility to other uh other services whether it's schools or uh medical appointments or anything like that we don't know we don't know if that's true or not since we haven't had time to really vet uh some of these and work with the city to find out what's the the intent how's it going to work that we would still appreciate a meeting and i know i remember what you said with uh wiscona so we look forward to to those meetings to try to figure out what if it's actually going to affect our community thank you mr comfort and just a reminder that the amendments will not be heard until march 30th at which point they will be heard and may be amended and maybe go on to counsel or maybe not be amended so i think you have quite a lot of time yet to look at these and try to understand them and ask questions but i appreciate your concern sir thank you for being here this evening our next speaker is guillaume curley caleb please feel free turn your video on and your time will begin when you start speaking thank you council members i am a member of the group of citizens ad hoc group of citizens who um requested the safe outdoor spaces amendment number a12 um but i'm speaking solely by myself um one of the problems with albuquerque's approach to the homelessness crisis has been to assume that the homeless or treat the homeless as a monolith subject to a one-size-fits-all solution and they aren't there are many homeless people who cannot usually do not fit in shoulders and they end up being the ones who camp in ad hoc unofficial and often unwanted land uses on sidewalks harps private property where they're not welcome et cetera so this is a proposal to bring them into areas where they are welcome to camp and give them some stability while we're leaving our city of the burden of clearing encampments relieving our neighborhoods um businesses of having to confront people camping on their doorsteps what we have done is to construct a proposal that is also does not fall into this trap of one-size-fits-all to have a lot of flexibility between say a church that wants to have two families and a 40 person perhaps professionally managed uh space with which needs professional social workers more than it needs um security so that's what we tried to do is to be as flexible as possible i don't object to a13 the heavyweight campgrounds proposal but it should not be adopted instead of the safe outdoor space it's fine to adopt it in addition but i think it does have some what may be poison painting requirements that make it too expensive to do to provide this service thank you thank you our next speaker is jim strozer jim your time will begin when you start speaking all right uh thank you uh counselors uh jim strozier with consensus planning i'll i'll be brief i really appreciate uh you providing the opportunity uh to speak to these amendments and i appreciate all the work that staff has done um i'm going to talk first about the hotel conversion a2 i'm very much in support of that and i would echo the comments from josh rogers earlier that i think it should be open to all hotel conversions um not just those that receive city funding um for those for those projects i think it's a great way to get additional affordable housing uh into the market in a way that's uh going to be very effective um and so i i definitely support that i also want to echo um commissioner o'malley brad day and and gillum that you just heard from i've worked with them on this idea the safe outdoor spaces i think we've got to figure out a different way to address this problem and i you know people always say well this solution is the only one i i don't buy that we've got to look at a multitude of ways to address this problem and help the community those most most needy in our community and i think this is a way to do that and add another tool to our toolbox and i'm very much in support of that and i appreciate all the work that's gone into this um a-10 repeal of the climatic uh i would i've worked on several projects where we've done it i haven't seen any value added to the project i think there's an assumption that that we're not taking those things into consideration in the design and of course we work with architects and engineers and developers all the time and we definitely take those things into account up front as part of the design of any any project and then a11 uh we're just we just have too many parking spaces um it i think we need to we need to look at that and and reduce the number of parking so with that i really appreciate your time i appreciate all the hard work you all have put into this as well as the staff uh shanna um and and and everyone petra the the whole the whole the whole shooting match a lot of hard work's gone into this and i really appreciate everybody's efforts thank you thank you our next speaker is rhianna and samuel brandon please feel free to turn the video on and your time will begin we start speaking thank you madam chair members of the committee um my name is rhiannon samuel i am the executive director for new york new mexico we're the commercial real estate development association i'm here to speak in favor of four different amendments that are before you first one is a2 like jim strozier and josh rogers we'd like to see that expanded that so it's not just limited to the family and community services funding or funding coming from the city as our folks are looking to be more responsive to the drastic housing shortage that we have for folks the next one is a10 with a climactic and geographic responsiveness if you read the language that was put into place it takes into account things like views of the sandia mountains the bosque the rio grande as jim has already mentioned those are things that our folks look at while they're designing things because it makes it more desirable for the tenants to go in there and so it just was overly burdensome and not cost effective although this analysis shows that it was five thousand dollars that they would have to spend we have um i have accounts from my folks that it's going to be more like twelve thousand dollars furthering the disruptions to um growing our economy and the development process the final two i want to speak to are a 11. i won't belabor that point but um we do have too many parking spaces and we need to make sure that we have more density throughout our city to respond to um the housing shortage yet again and then finally a 14 the utility easements related to vacations of right-of-way so thank you so much for your time your commitment to the city and looking through the ido each year um we believe that if you pass these things hopefully with those little amendments they will be positive steps towards easing the development process thank you thank you and counselors that is our last speaker for this evening but we do have a uh hear a presentation with the city staff state city staff who may speak to this agenda item must be sworn in so um would you please raise your right hand or hands as it were do you affirm under penalty of perjury that your testimony today will be true i do thank you michels and miss morris therefore please proceed with the presentation thank you madam chair and members of the committee i am uh pleased to give you this presentation tonight that will give you an overview of the 2021 ido annual update process um counselor benson you had noted in the beginning that maybe you thought this was supposed to be 2022 but this is the 2021 update even though we are in 2022 this one was initiated and the year 2021 will be embarking on the 2022 update later this fall um with that i will go ahead and share my screen and i'm going to do a general overview of the process how we got to this point today and then i will be running through each of the 17 amendments and providing an overview i will take a moment after each amendment to take some questions or comments from the counselors um and get any direction from counselors or further questions that they might need answered before we move to the leps hearing on march 30th so in september of 2021 the planning department compiled the proposed list of amendments that they had gathered over the previous year and distributed them to the public for their review the next month in october of 2021 that department held public meetings and open houses to review those amendments to take feedback to explain anything that was in the proposal prior to submitting to the environmental planning commission they then went on to submit those amendments to the the environmental planning commission the epc and the epc held one hearing on the matter in december of 2021 during that hearing they took public comment deliberated the amendments and unanimously ended up recommending approval to the city council on both packets in february of 22 the planning department transmitted all of that information over to the city council which allowed us to get it onto the letter of introduction to be formally introduced as legislation that is oh 22 10 that you are hearing this evening that takes us to march of 2022 today here and now uh is the first set of lep's hearings on the matter uh council staff did distribute the packet of amendments uh proposed amendments last week to the public for their review um we hope to continue to receive public comments on those leading up to the march 30th meeting where the councillors may take a vote on those but we'll certainly consider consider them further and continue their deliberation after the leps process concludes which might be march 30th but also might not if the committee is not ready to move this packet onto the full council when they are ready to move it on whether it's with a recommendation of do pass or no recommendation the full council will begin their review so that's all nine members of the body um sometime in the spring or summer of this year so the epc as i mentioned concluded their process in december you're considering one bill tonight that is comprised of two different applications that the epc considered the first one are text amendments to city-wide regulations so those are regulations that apply to all zoning in the city and the second are amendments to the old town historic protection overlay zone hp05 related to cannabis uses in that small area public was public comment was received on both applications public comment was taken during both hearings on these applications and tonight you have also heard public comments on both of these applications even though they have been consolidated into one ordinance so first i'll review the proposed changes to the old town hpo5 on the right you can see the boundary of the historic protection overlay zone in blue generally that's mountain road to the north lomas boulevard to the south rio grande boulevard to the west and 19th street to the east the proposal for this small mapped area is to prohibit the following uses cannabis retail that's where cannabis related products would be sold cannabis cultivation that is where cannabis would be grown and cannabis derived products manufacturing that's where you take the grown product and you turn it into something usable for the consumer all three of those are proposed to be prohibited within this blue mapped area generally at the epc folks came in support of this prohibition there there wasn't a whole lot of public comment but there was some uh and as i mentioned earlier the the epc unanimously recommended approval to the city council since that time since the epc concluded their deliberation in december council staff and and the council has received written public comment and and the verbal testimony you heard tonight that written public comment has come in the form of 13 letters of support for the prohibition and six letters of opposition to the prohibition counselors do you have any questions or comments on this item before i move on to the more general city-wide changes counselors uh council feeblecorn thank you madam chair um miss schultz i you know i'm just not sure i understand why we would be treating cannabis differently than any other industry or business that is operating in old town it is a completely legal substance and not sure why we would want to exclude it from one area of town given that the state legislation says that we can only say reasonable time place and manner restrictions but an exclusion from an entire section of town does not seem reasonable to me um madam chair counselor feeblecorn thank you for those comments um i think there is a little bit of a a policy call on this one as to whether cannabis is appropriate in a in this historic area or not i will mention that alcohol is also limited in some places in old town it's not a full prohibition but there are some limitations within the hpo5 related to alcohol so this tracks a little more closely with that otherwise i i think it's you know a determination of the council whether this isn't important to the character of old town or not thank you ms schultz i'll just say that you know i would not have a problem with similar restrictions that are that are already in on the books for alcohol but i can go to old town and have a margarita and i don't see why i wouldn't be able to go to old town and buy cannabis um when it becomes available so i'll just leave it at that thank you counselor feeble card michelle okay hearing no other questions on the old town conversation i'll move on to the citywide changes so this is going to be the packet that was distributed last week that is labeled a through 17 i believe the packet that was distributed last week was a 1 through 16. last night there was a new packet that added an amendment and i will talk about each of these individually um sorry i'm going to back up that conversation a little bit let me talk about what happened at the environmental planning commission first in december before we dive into what the counselors are proposing uh the epc as i said heard this in one meeting there was quite a bit of conversation on on primarily two topics that i would like the council to be aware of um the first is there was a request from the administration to increase wall heights in the front yard set back from three feet to four feet uh this is the single topic that got i think the most conversation from both the public and the commissioners there was strong community opposition to this request and the epc did end up recommending that it not be approved um we have continued to receive a little bit of public comment on this even though it is not in the packet for consideration by the council at the slups hearing or at full council um uh i the the council should know that that it did generate a lot of discussion in december similarly there was a another request for the overnight shelter use today in the ido you cannot do an overnight shelter at all in the mxm zone and if you would like to do it in the mxh zone you have to go through the conditional use process the request that was before the epc was to make it a permissive use in the mxm zone and change it from a conditional use to a permissive use in the mxh zone that also received some pretty stark community opposition about kind of taking away that conditional use process for the mxh zone and adding it permissively to the mxm zone the epc ended up kind of taking a middle middle of the road approach on this one and said yes this might be appropriate in the mxm zone so what they have recommended to the council is that it be a conditional use in mxm moving from prohibited to conditional but that it should retain the conditional use status in the mxh zone so what's before the committee tonight and what will be before the council later on if no amendment is made is conditional in mxm and conditional in mxh um are there any questions counselors about the epc process or the the two kind of hot topics that that um commission dealt with prior to the the lups committee counselor counselor benson mountain chair yes just to clarify so uh these were the epc's recommendations uh and so therefore the ep the recommendation for increasing uh front wall heights uh is not in the packet and then their recommendation on overnight shelter [Music] is conditional and conditional uh in in the two zones so one remains as it is and the other one it's added as a conditional use in that zone correct uh madam chair counselor benson i couldn't have said it better myself yes thank you thank you counselor benton mrs schultz all right so now we will move on to the amendments um that have popped up since the time that the epc made their recommendation these are amendments sponsored by um counselors or groups of counselors about topics that they've heard you know december january february of um this year so the first one is labeled a1 and is related to car washes we did hear some public comments on this one from a few car wash operators what this proposes to do is to limit the operating hours of unstaffed car washes so those are kind of the self-serve car washes that you see around town that typically have kind of big bays that you can drive into and where you wash your car yourself if this amendment is to pass those facilities would be limited to business operations between 7 a.m and 10 p.m so they would have to close at 10 and would not be able to reopen until seven and there would also be a requirement that there be some signage indicating those business hours um we have heard complaints from some constituents across the city that these kind of self-serve car washes can be a haven for folks to hang out at late at night and they are not there to wash their cars um they're there to sit in the parking lot and um potentially do nuisance activities and the the feedback that that we've heard and it sounds like there might be some conflicting information that i have been asked to seek clarity on from apd is whether or not one that they need that signage posted to to be able to tell people to move off of a property and two if those business hours have to be kind of established and codified for them to be able to move people off of a property when they're considered to be trespassing since the time that the um sorry this this is a new amendment that epc did not consider and since it was released last week staff has received two comments of support and four comments of opposition i will say that all of the the public comment boxes that you will see on this presentation are public comment received as of 3 pm today so any public testimony that you have just heard may or may not be reflective of that public comment received kind of calculation that i have at the bottom of each amendment um counselors are there any questions about this one counselor feeblecorn thank you madam chair michelle you know i am sponsoring this amendment and it's because of a lot of constituents that have expressed concern they live near one of these car washes and they're having noise issues and vagrancy issues all night long it was my understanding that you needed to have posted hours to allow apd to remove folks from the property in the middle of the night when they are making noise and so um i just want to see if it's my understanding that there would need no need to actually close down the equipment at these facilities it would just be posting an hour hours up there so that um apd when called about a noise complaint or called about partying in the middle of night would have the authority to move people along is that is that correct or did i misunderstand um madam chair counselor peoplecorn some of that question i i do need to clarify with apd about what they need to exercise their authority i did get i did hear that request from counselor benson and i made a note to do that before the 30th um the way that the language is written to limit business hours it would you know people would not be able to utilize the car washing equipment after 10 pm whether it's turned on or turned off or whether there's a gate on the property if the code says that that business cannot be operational after 10 those car washes would have to cease business thanks for the clarification michelle's i made my request that we hear from apd as to their ability to enforce on this type of property thank you councillor benjamin and i have several questions but i would also like to talk to apd about this and and see where we are with it so that we can all do the right thing instead of causing more problems if it were to go that way so thank you council feeble corn for uh being considerate about this are there any other questions ms schultz thank you madam chair i'll move on to amendment a2 amendment a2 comes at the request of the department of family and community services who are seeking opportunities um to convert either abandoned hotels and motels or run down hotels and motels to some form of affordable housing the the issue that the ido presents for that is anything that is considered a dwelling unit has to have a full kitchen the ido goes on to define what a full kitchen is and one of the requirements as i've highlighted in bold here is a full cooking stove range or oven it is extremely cost prohibitive and a little impractical given the size of these hotel or motel units to provide a full range or stove so what this amendment does is in lieu of providing a full kitchen under some very specific conditions one you're you're converting a non-residential use most likely that would be a hotel or a motel in this instance to a residential use and that project is associated with funding from the department if you meet those two kind of criteria then you are allowed to provide a lesser style of kitchen that would not have to have a full cooking stove range or oven it does the amendment does specify that a hot plate or microwave has to be provided so there is some kind of warm cooking element but it takes out the requirement for a full stove part of the justification for this amendment and a point worth noting is that housing projects associated with funds from the department do require some on-site services to be provided uh to the tune of 40 hours and that's service coordination such as you know helping folks fill out job applications or you know helping them find transportation to medical appointments um that is what makes this requirement a little unique i know that we've heard public comment that they some folks would like stricken um the the requirement that these projects can only occur when associated with um housing funds from the city uh but i i think there's a benefit there could be a benefit to requiring that those housing funds be provided because of the service requirement associated with them um i do believe that we have some folks from the department in the zoom today mr moya do you see miss huval in the participant section if there are questions about the intention of this amendment or what the department was looking for we do have some experts who can answer those um any questions counselors um i don't see any hands i i guess not at this time we'll probably come back and try this again now when we hear it on the 30th so thank you miss naval will not be needed to speak on this um [Music] miss schultz if you'd like to continue i will thank you madam chair and thank you all for making yourself available tonight okay we will move on to amendment a3 a3 and a4 are related but they do different things they are related in that they are both applicable to cottage developments um amendment a3 proposes to change the calculation for cottage development to allow fractions of numbers to be used the way that the calculation is written today the ido requires that you round down certain components of that calculation there is not a need to round down in this calculation and when the council adopted the cottage development regulations they did not specify that that there were to be any rounding um this was something that the planning department put into the document as an editorial change to help uh what they thought with was clarity and consistency with the document but it did fundamentally change how that calculation turns out and so this amendment would kind of bring back the original intent of the equation as it was originally drafted to allow fractions of numbers to be used if you look in the amendment itself in the explanation section there are some sample equations where you can see where the rounding comes into play um i'm happy to go over those equations with the committee now if they would like to delve into some complicated math uh at 7 pm but i'm also happy to answer any questions thank you michelle's counselors does anyone else not want to hear this thank you michelle i think we'll we'll do this at a later date thank you madam chair um i'll just note that there were there were two comments of support and you also heard some support via verbal public comment this evening the next amendment uh leups amendment a4 again related to cottage developments also changes the formula a little bit only for cottage development associated with the r1d zone district so the ido kind of chops up the r1 zone district into four what we call flavors a b c and d and those flavors range from small to large so a is the smallest lot r1 zone b is bigger c is even bigger and d is the largest the idea behind this amendment is in the r1d zone where you are expected to have the largest type of lot in the city um that there it might be appropriate to to allow for more square footage of cottage development on those particular properties and so the proposal before the committee tonight is to increase the calculation part of the calculation for the r1d zone district in cottage development from 2000 square feet to 2600 square feet again there were two comments of support provided for this amendment and you heard public testimony this evening of support as well are there any questions all right hearing none we will move on to lups amendment a5 um left amendment a5 is a bundle of changes all related to cannabis uses last year the council established regulations for cannabis uses in the ido um as you know we predicted that adult use cannabis was going to be legalized and was coming to get some kind of basic land use regulations into our zoning framework these changes kind of further build upon what the council established last year the highlights of these changes are that cannabis retail and on-site consumption so where you're selling the product and where you're consuming the product that you just bought from that commercial enterprise those business hours would be limited to 8 am to 11 pm so outside of that you would not be able to purchase cannabis products and you would not be able to consume those on those retail sites that recommendation came in part from a cannabis consultant that the planning department hired to take kind of a broad look at the cannabis framework in the city and also has been supported by apd who has expressed concern over these types of businesses that have the potential to be very cash heavy um open late at night um so that that restriction relates to those um those proposals uh the second piece is that those on-site consumption areas that i was just discussing would be required to be conducted fully indoors that's kind of a long zoning way of saying that you couldn't have smoking patios or patio areas that are outdoors to consume these products one of the requirements for an on-site consumption area is that an air filtration plan has to be provided and approved by the city and when you start consuming in an outdoor setting there's not a way to to filter any of the air associated with that location and so for practical purposes it wouldn't make sense to have an outdoor on-site consumption area the third change is to limit the size of cannabis retail locations gosh i think i have a typo here i'm so sorry this says in the mxm zone that is supposed to read in the mxt zone the mixed-use transition zone i apologize and i i will fix that before we meet on the 30th all other retail uses in the mxt zone are limited to 10 000 square feet the mxt zone is the mixed use transition zone it's it tends to be next to low-density residential neighborhoods as a way to buffer them from more intense developments and therefore we want to keep those retail sizes small to honor that transition and to kind of honor the neighborhood scale commercial that it's supposed to be providing when we created the cannabis retail use last year um honestly this was just something that was an oversight it should have also uh this 10 000 square foot limit should have also been applicable in the mxt zone to be consistent with other retail uses the last bit of this would require that cannabis cultivation uses where you're growing the product and cannabis derived products manufacturing where you're preparing the product for consumption have to provide a letter of availability from the albuquerque bernalillo county water utility authority with their application to the city my understanding is this letter of availability is already required to be submitted to the state for their licensing requirements and so theoretically should be something that these cultivators and manufacturers already have on hand and would also just be added to the city records staff has not heard any comments on this bundle of changes from the public counselors are there any questions i yes counselor feeblecoin thank you madam chair i understand the last four or the last three requirements but i do have a question about the first one um limiting the hours of operation from 8 am to 11 pm um michelle's can you can you say why those hours were chosen um as opposed to any other limitation on hours sure sure uh i might ask to call on director gorilla from the planning department i know that he worked on some rule making associated with cannabis uses in the city and also had some interaction with the consultant that made some of these recommendations and could probably give you a better explanation of where that came from director varela are you available yes i am can you hear me we can yes thank you and uh council uh committee chair and counselor at feeblecorn thank you for that question originally the uh retail which means recreational and on-site consumption also for recreational hours were proposed to be from 10 a.m to uh 10 p.m however during the rule making process we did receive some inquiries and some convincing arguments from some people saying that it would be better for us if we could extend those hours from what we originally proposed uh 8 am would be early enough so that somebody was perhaps on their way to work they could go over and make their purchase there was also some some confusion that this somehow also applied to the medical cannabis group this is purely for retail recreational this does not apply to the medical dispensaries and people were worried that if they needed only to go to a retail dispensary which is supposed to also sell up to 25 of their product to medical that it might be too inconvenient if it was not open until uh 10 10 o'clock and likewise at night if they're getting out of work they wanted a little bit of extra time so we increased the amount of time we did consult with the police department on this and the police department was extremely concerned about the late hours for cannabis recreational sales since it is almost entirely right now a cash-based business my understanding is you cannot use your visa card or your debit card to go in and buy uh the cannabis you need to pay cash on that uh the same with the on-site consumption you need to be paying cash and they they said the absolute last thing that would be advisable in albuquerque is to have a cash-based business where people are getting high open late into the middle of the night there will be trouble there either between customers or most likely from somebody coming in to rob people and uh given the uh the the violence in albuquerque and such they said that if we were to leave those things open 24 7 as perhaps maybe one person advocated for uh that the chances of there being even a homicide at one of those businesses uh would would actually be quite realistic within the first year so we expanded it from 8 a.m to 11 p.m but that's as far as we felt was reasonable in light of the advice that we got thank you madam chief i can just make a comment you know i i i hear the concern about cash heavy businesses but the reality is there are a lot of cash businesses in the city of albuquerque and many of them including nightclubs and bars and convenience stores are open much later than 11 p.m and if we heard anything tonight during public comment i certainly heard that limiting the business hours of one type of business is unfair and so i know again cannabis is a legal business and i would be fine if we were limiting the hours of operation to hours that are similar to what we are limiting alcohol sales for but we are not and so i just i think this is an unfair prohibition on sales for one type of business within the city thanks thank you council fablecoin okay moving on is there anything else a5 okay moving on down to a6 uh this is an amendment related to freestanding internally lit signs um this proposal would prohibit freestanding signs that are internally illuminated so you'd have to meet those two criteria your sign would have to meet those two criteria within 200 feet of any direction of a residential zone district i've provided images of two signs that meet this criteria that are freestanding term internally illuminate illuminated sorry and um council staff has heard over the last several months if not if not a couple of years about some some signs popping up across the city that tend to be on the corner of the property and are just beacons of light because of the nature of a freestanding sign that's internally illuminated when you have a freestanding sign that is externally illuminated i.e would have kind of a light shining onto the sign element instead of the light coming from inside the sine elements those tend to be much less egregious because that that light is focused on the sign in these instances the light is focused totally outwards and can be very bright so there are other types of signs that commercial property owners would be able to do if they were within 200 feet of a residential zone district just not this type of freestanding illuminated sign any questions counselors okay hearing none we will move on to leps amendment a7 also related to interior lighting but a little bit different uh this amendment would require that stealth self storage facilities that are also within 200 feet of a residential zone district dim their internal lighting to 50 of the maximum allowed lighting the ido does have measurements for what level of lighting can spill off of your property and what this amendment would say is whatever that allowance is uh self storage units after the hours or between the hours of 10 pm and 7 am have to be at 50 percent that number i provided an image here of the types of self storage units that albuquerque has seen across the city pop up and they're these big kind of glass boxes and some of them are lit all night long and that is again i'll use the same word kind of a beacon of light similar to the sign amendment that we heard about previously and so this would not require a property owner to turn their lights totally off it would just require them to be dimmed between 10 pm and 7 am staff did receive one comment of support for this amendment any questions counselors all right council fbi coin thank you manager uh michelle's can you just um talk about the 50 reduction requirement it still seems like a lot of light to me um and i'm just wondering why we chose the 50 rather than a 25 or somewhere in a much more dim situation sure um we the city has been able to take lighting measurements for some of these facilities over the past um couple years that they've started to pop up in the city and 50 seemed like an appropriate level to not um spill off the property line in an egregious way that we see them spilling now um i we have not asked any particular property owner to show us what 50 looks like um so this might be a little bit of a guess but seemed like a good starting point and because we crack open the ido year after year if 50 still is not doing the job uh we will come back next year and amend that number thank you thank you council of people corn good question um any other questions counselors no thank you moving on to amendment a8 this is related to bicycle parking requirements the ido does require bicycle parking with uh development activity and the calculation specific to elementary middle and high schools has proven to be a little problematic the environmental planning commission heard a case last month for a charter school who had to comply with this provision and the way that their site plan ended up working out was um they have a body of about 700 students and we're going to be required to provide 160 bicycle parking spaces anecdotally they testified to the commission that you know they have maybe 20 to 25 staff and students who bike to school and so having to provide 160 was a lot it was a lot more than they needed and it took up space um on their site that they could be using for other things either you know in incidental facilities for for the their campus or otherwise so the proposal here is to move from the current requirement which is three spaces per classroom to a requirement that more closely mirrors how other non-residential uses calculate bicycle parking so in this instance it would be five spaces or fifteen percent of the required off-street parking spaces whichever number is greater if we're to apply this new calculation to that previous development i was just discussing they would be required to provide about 21 spaces um under under this regulation which is a little more aligned with what they told us um was the actual need for their student body um an important note that ido regulations are not applicable to aps schools uh aps is a function of the state and state the state as an entity is not applicable or subject to city regulation so this would really only affect charter schools on this thank you and councillor benjamin you have a question i did not it had to do with that aps question aps is not subject to our zoning so this would be uh primarily private schools um it is i on that note however i wonder what aps and standards are for this if any do we know that ms schultz um i don't know but i would be happy to reach out to aps to ask that question thank you i'd just be curious about that thank you council fbi corn you have a question yes ma'am chair um the 15 number um in the example that ms schultz did would get us to 21 spaces they had indicated that they needed about 20 for what's happening now um you know as we move forward with climate change and we have um you know a move towards more people biking we're trying to encourage more biking it seems to me that um that 15 might be somewhat small and totally for you know moving it down but it seems like 20 or 25 percent might be a better indicator of what the future need for bike parking would be thank you counselor people claim um thanks you thank you councillor feeble corn i've made a note of that to follow up with you before um lups on the 30th in case you'd like to move in a different direction than what's presented here any other questions on a8 counselors all right moving on to amendment a9 this is related to townhouse development in certain zones in certain corridors of the city the proposal here is to prohibit townhouses which are by definition a form of low density residential development in prohibit them in the mxl mxm and mxh zone districts where those parcels are within a premium transit area um the map that i've provided here that i that i hope is large enough for you to see shows the central avenue corridor um and the stretch of louisiana where we have premium transit areas those are defined in the ido as 660 feet around a premium transit station so what this amendment would do is within all of these little black circles if you have mxl mxm or mxh zoning you would not be able to do a townhouse development i think the policy reasoning behind this is our transit corridor is supposed to be our most dense corridor of the city and by permitting townhouse development again a form of low density residential development that is not really honoring the policy intention of that transit corridor staff has received two comments of opposition to this request some of which you heard during public testimony tonight um do you have any questions counselors okay moving on to amendment a10 um amendment a10 strikes the requirement in the ido that multi-family development 25 units are greater and all non-residential developments excluding industrial development has to provide a climactic responsiveness analysis and a geographic responsiveness analysis these are two types of analyses that were put into the idl last year to require a property owner to really look at how their building is situated in relation to how the the the sun shines on their building that's the climactic responsiveness side um the geographic responsiveness side requires property owners to orient their buildings to look at views those those views are expressly named in the ido as the sandia mountains the bosque and the rio grande the volcanoes and the northwest mesa escarpment staff has heard from folks in the development community that these requirements um feel arbitrary because they don't have teeth to them they certainly have to submit the analysis but there's nothing in here that tells the city what to do with that analysis after it's been submitted um the ido is not a document that should have um you know kind of non-regulatory language in it it is a regulatory document and without those teeth um i think the idea behind the the sponsor for this one was that it wasn't appropriate here thank you and counselor benjamin you have a question yeah just just really a comment and a little bit of background on this this was uh put into the idea last year and and i posted at that time not because it's not well-intentioned and and i it was it was disappointing that people thought that this was really going to change design of buildings it doesn't it's really just putting the development team into a situation where they must do calculations and illustrations that are not really reviewed by anyone so it doesn't it doesn't require that anything be done about this climatic response from this or geographic responsiveness which i agree that you'd have to be pretty crazy as a developer if you didn't take advantage of a view that you could have uh otherwise but but um it really arose from a disappointment in in the quality of design of some of the the uh multi-family multi-story buildings and um those are legitimate concerns as well but you know i i do um feel that this was a is a very arbitrary and inappropriate place to put something like this that has no absolutely no teeth to it other than to require that a form be submitted and a bunch of drawings be submitted that don't accomplish anything so i do support this amendment thank you thank you councillor benjamin um i don't see any other questions michelle all right moving on to amendment a11 um this amendment proposes to change the calculation for parking associated with multi-family development general retail development and grocery store development overall the way that these calculations play out there will be a reduced requirement and parking for those three uses council staff received some um calculations and data from developers who you heard from this evening during public testimony about recent developments they've put together that are just being over parked that residents and guests of those residents are not utilizing all the parking that is being required um that space that's being used for for that parking could be used for other things on their site like landscaping or amenities or or even more units and now that we have some data to kind of support that the ideal requires too much parking um this calculation aims to reduce that a little bit um there is also some analysis in the amendment about the retail side of the the parking reduction staff did some research on sister cities to albuquerque to see what kind of parking requirements they have for commercial development i'm sorry for retail and grocery store development in particular and we were albuquerque as a city is requiring more parking than most of our sister cities so um this tries to go with a best practices approach and and match what some uh comparable jurisdictions are doing uh there was one comment of support for this amendment and one comment of opposition that that staff received prior to the love's hearing any questions about that one counselors uh yes councillor benton thank you madam chair um yeah just on this um just to be clear that this wouldn't prevent someone from from adding more park at parking who was developing a a business um or a multi-family development correct uh ms schultz madam chair counselor thank you for that question yeah that's an important distinction that the parking requirements in the ido are all minimums the ido doesn't have maximum parking requirements and so while we require a minimum number of spaces if a developer is aware that the market needs something different for their particular development they are more than welcome to provide more than a minimum right i mean i think you know that that is kind of a market response and what what most of us see i think when we look at at so many uh parking lots is that they're largely empty you know how how many of these commercial parking lots just taking a grocery store as an example you see that every single space is full uh you know rarely maybe maybe in the extreme uh depth of the holiday season but the rest of the time they're sitting there baking in the sun so i think this is a good amendment thank you councillor benson are there any other questions about a11 okay um a12 and a13 are related but distinct um a12 proposes to create a new land use called safe outdoor spaces um in its entirety this amendment identifies the zone districts where the safe outdoor space use can occur it creates some use specific standards for the use and creates a definition generally speaking this amendment aims to do some of the things you heard public testimony about today provide a safe space for people who are living on the streets today in a tent or in their car or in their rv sometimes on our sidewalks and our alleys and our arroyos this would provide an opportunity for these folks to have a safe space for them to put those those things they're living in have somewhere safe for their belongings have somewhere to wash their hands to use the restroom as a way to combat the the kind of unhoused crisis we're seeing in albuquerque today i'll talk a little bit about some of the standards associated with this use um that i think are important to point out that there are some kind of built-in protections um the intention is not to just allow you know tents to show up on a parking lot kind of unregulated um so so for example um for safe outdoor spaces there are pro there's a prohibition that these can't occur within 330 feet which is about a city block um and from in proximity to the ra r1 rmc or rt zone district that contains low density residential development that's a long winded zoney way of saying that these can't be within a block of our kind of established residential low density neighborhoods that there's got to be some kind of buffer whether it's another property um or not that that within 330 feet you couldn't do these there's also a cap on how many what we call designated spaces can be in each of these safe outdoor spaces so the safe outdoor space is the use as a whole and within each of those safe outdoor spaces there will be 40 designated spaces for someone to pull in their car to pitch their tent to park their rv with a maximum of 40 so that you you know these don't become wildly large and and unmanageable uh there are requirements for toilets and hand washing stations um to the tune of one toilet per eight designated space and one hand washing station uh per ten designated spaces um you heard some public comment today asking where did that one per eight number come from where did that one pretend number come from um staff has looked at a couple of developments that that helped guide that number one uh there's there's a product down in las cruces that i always mess up the name on i don't think it's hope village it's not hope work camp hope maybe camp hope down in las cruces um does something very similar to what we would expect the safe outdoor space to look like um and their bathroom calculation is very similar to that we have heard from private property owners in the city who want to do safe outdoor spaces who have gotten so far as to sketch out a site plan for these types of things and and one bathroom per eight designated spaces seem to fit okay and seem to be a reasonable accommodation um again because this use is so new to the ido that one one per eight was was what we came up with based on what we could what we could see others doing but if that turns out not to be the right calculation we will have the opportunity to change that number in future ideo updates ms schultz if i may ask a question yes since this is rather vague the way it was presented and probably the way it's written we're not talking about someone sees a vacant lot they can go start setting up tents and sleeping bags and staying there we're talking about a truly designated areas for this type of thing is that correct madam chair that's correct and some of the standards that i'll continue to read about um would be required for this type of this type of development that do really formalize it um as a as a land use and not just some some kind of arbitrary location where folks are choosing to pitch a tent so simplistically because i kind of think that way so this would be an organized someone will be managing and supervising and helping the people with a facility like this madam chair thanks for that question there is a there is a requirement in the form of a youth specific standard that says that each of these safe outdoor spaces have to include a management plan or a security agreement that's that's to ensure the safety of the residents and and proof of that that agreement has to be submitted with the application to the city and that plan or agreement has to outline either on-site or on-call support to the residents of of that area 24 hours a day seven days a week thank you that that helps clarify it for me thank you very much uh madam chair chair you're welcome i let's see there are also some setback requirements so any of these designated spaces and the lavatories the bathrooms associated with them would need to be set back 20 feet from the property line if the property is abutting the rml zone district or rmh zone district or any mixed use zone district um that's that's to say that the the designated spaces couldn't be right up against the lot line um and a five-foot setback for uh uh any other zone district that aren't one of those three that i just listed there's some screening requirements to the tune of a six foot either wall or fence or vegetative screen that is opaque has to be provided around the designated spaces that's i think kind of twofold to help with the the visual appeal of these safe outdoor spaces but also to provide the residents or the folks staying there some privacy and protection um that that requirement for an opaque wall or fence opaque meaning solid uh six feet high um lastly there is a requirement for two parking spaces per each of these developments you know if there's going to be services provided on site that staff needs somewhere to park and so and the ido does regulate parking by use and so that requirement would be added for this use um counselors are there any questions about safe outdoor spaces councillor benton it's just a quick comment uh with regard to parking spaces uh um they're also at these uh the ones that we saw in denver which there was a good tour of the campgrounds in denver there are also volunteer organizations that will will arrive to deliver food etc for the residents of the campgrounds and you know so we we might want to think a little bit about those parking spaces and i just advocated for not having too many in a different type of development but uh here we might want to just think that through of uh of what that looks like there's a volunteer organization that will show up maybe with a couple of vehicles and deliver food so that might be that in addition to a staff presence madam chair councillor benton thanks um for that comments i'll mention again that those are parking minimums so if the particular development uh knew that they were going to be partnering with volunteer organizations they certainly could voluntarily provide more parking but if that two space minimum makes you uncomfortable i've made a note to follow up with you before the march 30th hearing and we can discuss that a little further thank you yeah perhaps some kind of loading zone or something like that that's not just creating much as parking space thank you thank you and council fubicorn thank you madam chair um a couple of questions um i we heard from uh the reverend from uh first unitarian i believe um church that they are actually considering this type of of um project on their parking lot area and um you know we heard that he has he thinks that that might be a real problem for them if we require the the fencing and um i also have concerns about fencing i did speak with some folks today um you know and did get a little bit different viewpoint that it might be um beneficial to the folks who are camping there to have some privacy but i i'm just concerned that we're making this too hard for entities that want to provide a safe outdoor space and so i'm wondering if there's any um any thought to either not not requiring a fence or at least making it um applicable for the two-year time frame that we allowed for you to get a composting toilet in place to also allow a couple of years to get that fencing installed so that we don't have to wait for two years um for these churches and other uh you know great community organizations to be able to offer this service madam chair counselor peoplecorn i've written down those comments and i'd be happy to take those to the sponsors um of this to two of which are on this committee one one who is not but before the 30th i'd be happy to have those discussions to see if there's a way to uh if there's a way and a will to address your issue with the fencing an interesting counselor feel part if i may my concern was that the fence was going up in no small part too small matter to protect the residents and the citizens of the camping area because there's such crazy things going on today so it could go either way i think we should discuss it both ways because we certainly don't if if there isn't appropriate um supervision we certainly don't want to put people who are already in a hardship we don't want to put them in harm's way because we haven't considered protecting them so i was going the other direction with it so i think we could we could talk about this a little more and see what what the best practice is on this kind of thing i i agree madam chair i um you know my my take on it was that i didn't want it to be um you know behind closed doors so that folks that are staying there are are experiencing you know unsafe conditions i now see the exact opposite could also be a concern so i would like to continue that conversation um i did have one more question um i don't believe in here uh in either a12 or 813 we have a reference to refuse containers and i just wanted to see if that is something that is covered elsewhere in the ideo or if we need to include something about requiring trash receptacles in these types of areas madam chair counselor feeble corn thanks thanks for that question i think it's a really good one um off the top of my head i know somewhere there's a requirement that development in the city has to provide dumpsters um i'm not sure if that's in the ido or if it's if that's in a standalone if that's in a standalone solid waste ordinance um but i can make a note of that to follow up with you on before the 30th if there's not a requirement um we can look at putting that into a12 and a13 if there's interest and if it is covered um i can share that that reference in the code with you thank you madam chair i had one more question um on the section six where we talk about a safe outdoor space shall include social services and support facilities is the requirement going to be on the group that is providing the safe outdoor space or should that be more that they're providing um an outlet for the city to provide those services to people that are in this um safeway outdoor space i just worry again that if you know a church or another community organization wants to open up a safe outdoor space if we're requiring them to offer these social services as well it's just another barrier that might be really costly and and intensive for them to be able to to work with them madam chair counselor feeblecorn um the provisions in the ido are applicable to the property owner or the the agent kind of um occupying their property and so this requirement would be on whoever is operating the safe outdoor space um that's that's not to say that the agreement couldn't look something like you know we're going to provide space on the property for the city for city staff or some kind of non-profit organization to come in a certain amount of hours a week to work with work with the residents here uh but that that is on the private property owner or the the sos operator thank you thank you uh councillor benton yeah just following up on that um you know basically um again just knowing what i've seen which is in denver um there is a they're basically creating a place there's a common place with a common space within the um within the uh [Music] campground for lack of a better word that the common space is including a little office that is for staff but depending on the um the acuity of the the need of the person who is being served uh these are outside entities who come in so i think you know we might not we might not want to get so heavily into making it sound like the the property owner is being responsible for this service however there should be uh consideration made that that outside providers would be coming regularly to the site to meet with some of the the residents to uh to help them with their needs uh madam chair counselor benson thank you for those comments um i'd like to work more with planning staff on how they would interpret that language and the definition to see if the kind of framework that you just outlines could meet that definition and if not maybe we can look at some shift in that language to make that happen thank you thank you madam chair thank you i think we're finished for a little while michelle okay we will move on to a13 a13 is temporary campgrounds um this has a lot of overlap with safe outdoor spaces and what safe outdoor spaces proposes but there are some kind of important distinctions between the two uses i think the most obvious one is that temporary campgrounds are meant to be temporary in nature a safe outdoor space could occur in perpetuity on a property whereas a temporary campground would be limited um to operations of one year with the potential for a one-year extension so a possible maximum of two years um the zoning districts that they are allowed in uh vary slightly and i can review those uh changes uh anecdotally if i can open my document here safe outdoor spaces are proposed conditionally in the mxt and mxl zone and permissively in mxm mxh nrc and our bp and our lm and nrgm um whereas temporary campgrounds are not proposed conditionally anywhere but instead are proposed permissively in mxt l m and h and then nrc bp lm and gm um so these are potentially a little more widely available because there's no conditional use process associated with them um another uh distinction between the two is the distance separation requirements a temporary campground is prohibited within 25 feet of the ra r1 rmc rt or rml zone if you'll recall the safe outdoor space had similar prohibitions to the tune of 330 feet temporary campgrounds are much smaller i think to acknowledge kind of their temporary nature that they're not a permanent use and they are prohibited within 25 feet of a mixed use zone district containing a residential use another distinction i'll back up and say the the restroom and hand washing requirements are very similar across the two they both they both require them the numbers are a little bit different but but they are both required um the the density question is a little different for temporary campgrounds sos said that you could have 40 designated spaces for the entire project site it doesn't matter how big your project site is it could be half an acre it could be three acres you can only accommodate 40 spaces for temporary campgrounds it takes a slightly different approach and says you can do 25 campsites per acre so as your site gets larger you can accommodate more campsites um that is just a you know a different way of thinking about the the density question of of the designated spaces um let's see the temporary campground does also have very similar setback requirements uh so campsites and any associated laboratories have to be set back from the property line 25 feet sos had a similar requirements um the temporary campground use does say that if if your campsites are more than 100 feet in from the property that you don't have to provide any of the buffering and screening that would normally be required if they're not more than 100 feet in then you do have to provide the same six foot high opaque wall fence or vegetative screen there are no parking requirements for temporary campgrounds we just talked about the two two required parking spaces for sos temporary campgrounds is silent on this which would i think be interpreted as as there are no parking requirements so overall these uses have some some overlap um they are not in conflict with each other the council could certainly adopt both they are two different approaches to the same issue um and the youth specific standards are really tailored for the intention of each of the uses as they exist distinctly are there any questions about temporary campgrounds yes councilor feeblecorn thank you madam chair um schultz i i understand the temporary part of this um but there's such an incredible need um i'm just wondering what the one year was based on and if there was any conversation around um going up to two years for these temporary campgrounds given the the crisis that we're in in albuquerque um madam chair counselor feeble corn i i will point out that um it's one year with a one year extension so you can do it for a year and then you have to come request permission sorry permission to do it for another year uh but essentially if the planning department you know accepts that extension then you are you are allowed to do it for two years at a time um if you're interested in looking at at two years by right instead of not having an extension i think we can have that conversation i think um that surrounds the concept of what is temporary and what does the ido consider temporary um and and i don't i don't know that that word is well defined in the document so we might have an opportunity here to to think about that thank you i did not realize the extension was an option so that that clarifies it for me uh madam chair cancer feeble corn great um counselor benton sorry thank you um yeah i sponsored this and and co-sponsored the other one as well but um i think these are both have some room for for tweaking and i hope we can we can get them to where they need but i wanted to point out i think we as a council have our ears very open to suggestions especially from the provider community no one's really done one of these yet in the city so we do have to rely on best practices from elsewhere but i'm very open to to amending uh this or discussing amendments to uh the other amendment a12 as well thank you thank you councillor benton i think we'll probably take a a couple good hard looks and look at these thank you councilor football corn thank you madam chair i just wanted to flag the same issue that i had in a12 which is the trash receptacles i just want to make sure that we cover that in both and and i also want to just say that i completely agree with councillor benton these are both really important and i would love to hear um from people that are actually considering setting these up what could make this stronger so thank you madam chair cancer feeble corn thank you i've made a note for the trash receptacles for this one as well and we'll be sure to follow up um seeing no other questions i'll move on to amendment a 14. this is related to existing utilities and utility easements that exist in areas that are proposed to be uh vacated as public right-of-way um so when a property owner wants to vacate a piece of public right-of-way that essentially means that that that vacated portion is no longer public right-of-way and that private property owner kind of absorbs it into their private property lines the the folks at pnm have come to ask a question or at least request a clarification in the ido to say well what happens when there are utilities in that public right-of-way and the city has just said that that's no longer a public right-of-way and now is it is private property um and the ido should should make a nod to this and should at least address the question and so the language that's been crafted in the amendment uh by city legal uh requires that in the event that a piece portion of right-of-way is to be vacated and contains utilities that there are some procedures outlined for how the property owner should go interact with that utility provider to ensure that they still have access whether it's through an easement or some other kind of private agreement between that owner and the utility agency to ensure access can be retained for that utility agency it should not be the city's job to determine how that access is maintained that really should be a private agreement between the private property owner and the agency and the ido says what is proposed to say as much any questions counselors okay moving on to a15 we are we are very close to the end here um and these uh this one should be pretty quick lups amendment a15 proposes to add what i would characterize as boilerplate language to the ordinance itself so this is not a change to the ido this is a change to the ordinance that will adopt the changes to the ido every ordinance that is going to change the code of ordinances needs to have language to tell the compiling agency what pieces of that ordinance need to be compiled into the code and which one should not be compiled into the code i think the most obvious example of this is we typically don't compile whereas clause language into our code of ordinances we typically only compile the regulatory pieces of the documents this language is missing from the ordinance and and simply needs to be added so that the compilers know to only add um the language that's being changed in the ido uh to the the code of ordinances any questions on that one counselors i i'm assuming not okay um a16 uh is a spreadsheet of what can be characterized as technical edits um it's a spreadsheet that's got eight lines in it these lines are applicable to sections all across the ido and these are changes at the request of the planning department as they have continued to work with city staff and code enforcement on implementing the ido things that have issues that have cropped up since the epc made their decision in december so over the last three months there have been additional issues identified with the enforceability of some of the language in the ido or vague language or language that conflicts with other sections of the ido this amendment proposes to fix those um the prior amendments that you've heard tonight have all been pretty substantive in nature that do make kind of substantive policy calls on regulations in the ido the spreadsheet of technical amendments does not do that um it just makes better the language that already exists in the document are there any questions on that counselors all right last but not least um we are on to a17 so this is an amendment that is new from the time that the packet was published last week and this is related to uh the variance process in the ido today when a property owner wants to come request a variance that is to say that they can't comply with a requirement in the ido because of how their lot is configured the ido offers that relief valve through the variance process there's a pretty um high bar of criteria that they have to kind of justify and meet to do that one of those criteria says that the variance will not materially undermine the intent and purposes of this ido or applicable zone district the proposed language here would also add or any applicable overlay zone this is to give a nod to the overlay zones and the special character that they are meant to maintain to say if you want to vary from a provision in an overlay zone um you need to provide a little bit of extra justification specific to that overlay zone to talk about how you're not undermining the intent of it um this language is i could probably be interpreted as already required in the ido um because of the the kind of starter sentence there about how the variants will not material materially undermine the intent and purpose of this ideo you know an overlay zone is is in the ideo um so this is kind of calling out overlay zones specifically um which which may be appropriate as they are special places that we do want to maintain the character of and and too many wild variances could start to deteriorate that character so this is just to make sure that the zhe and city staff is kind of keeping an eye on those variants requests that come through within overlay zones to make sure that they're acknowledging those overlay zones and discussing how it how they're not being undermined any questions on that last and final amendment counselors chancellors okay seeing none thank you miss schultz very good very good that's a complicated issue and i appreciate what you've said to us so uh counselors are there any questions or comments in addition to this if not i would like to move deferral to march 30 flaps meeting i need a second on that i have two seconds counselor feeble corn and counselor uh benton also miss uh montoya would you take a vote on that please counselor benton yes council of peoplecorn yes counselor pena yes councillor sanchez excused counselor jones yes that passes on a 4-0 vote and oh counselor pena do you have a question yes madam chair just a matter of clarification i was wanting to ask the staff um earlier on the other vote that we took for the um r r 22 a um i had said i had asked for a motion for deferral and then council benton had actually said that point of order that the motion on the floor was but it's my understanding that emotion for deferral trumps motions so i just wanted to get clarification on that if not um i'd like to ask the staff to get clarification for the next meeting so that we can you know make sure that we we did that properly management chair counselor pena i'm gonna call on any legal staff that we might have in the call tonight to identify that issue it it sounds like counselor benson made a motion of a due pass before that motion was voted on councilor pena requested a motion for deferral uh but the committee proceeded with the motion for do pass first which was successful um hi mr maro thanks for being here did did we need to to rectify that motion for deferral before moving forward with the motion of do pass and uh madam chair counselor pena i i do believe that um motions to defer are presidential and that they they do take priority over ordinary motions i cannot swear to it at this point so i think typically uh the emotional defer is something that should be heard prior to any emotions uh any other motions on a particular matter but i'm happy to to clarify that um and get back to you if that is helpful so i don't have a more definitive answer but my belief is that they are supposed to be presidential madam chair and i don't want to like continue this meeting i know we're all tired we've been here so maybe if um if it was done incorrectly then we could just re-hear it again at our next meeting or would it have to be something that gets addressed at this meeting so my understanding is that um the motion uh was sent to the full council but i believe it was to be introduced at the 20 at the meeting on the 21st is that correct michelle uh madam chair mr martin the it would be reported out on the 21st so no action would be taken um reported out from committee with with no action thank you and um councillor benjamin has a his hand up also yeah you know i think uh we would probably need to to um resolve it now as i recall um there's a discussion about a deferral i don't know that there was a motion made for referral um so but i think my response on on that just to kind of revisit it i think at the time was that we were it had to do with the ability of the the advisory board to meet prior to us hearing it uh at full council so i thought that that that was satisfactory but but uh so i think that's what happened so there might have been some confusion there because there was not a recognition of a motion for deferral or a second taken or anything like that if i if i make counselor benjamin to interrupt for a second i'm getting i'm i'm asking for some advice here since uh we have a lot of people listening uh it's my understanding their understanding that the there wasn't a true motion to defer that it was it was not seconded and we went forth with your motion that had already had a second on it so that should that one would stand but it obviously can be brought back at another meeting uh with the amount of votes that it will take to do that so um madam chair yeah so i think that what i did make the motion i actually um asked um my staff to clarify and make sure that i made the motion before i said this but the motion wasn't recognized so that's something once you make that motion it says presidents and actually we should have acted on it and either got a second or not got a second on it and and we didn't do that so i would um i would just say that maybe we can get some clarification and address it at the at the next um meeting i think that's a great idea counselor since we're getting uh different uh counseling here on on the correct way to do it so i'm sure we can get it straightened out so are we all comfortable with that for now in that case or is there any other business that we should bring forward therefore i move um the meeting is adjourned thank you thank you thank you madam chair