Yep. So, we will call to order this um September 15, 2025 meeting of the Madison Plan Commission. Um and we'll start with um uh Director Tuttle will call the role for us. >> All right. Good evening, Alder Field >> here. >> Alder Glenn >> here. >> Alder Ugare >> present. Commissioner Bazine >> here. >> Commissioner Hec >> here. >> Commissioner Mccahill is excused. Commissioner Sanders >> here. >> Commissioner Soulheim >> here. >> And alternate Wnooki. >> Uh and finally, Chair Gnam >> here. Thanks. >> All right. Um we will start with information from our technical facilitator uh Jesse P. Hey everyone, I'm the tech facilitator today reading the spiel. So welcome to our virtual plan commission meeting. If you happen to lose connection at any point during the meeting, you can reconnect by clicking the link or calling the number in your original email. And members, if you're able, please activate your video and keep it on for the duration of the meeting. Staff, if you're able, please activate your video when you're speaking. Panelists, use the raise hand feature when you'd like to be recognized to speak, ask questions, or request a roll call vote. Lowering your hand will take you out of the queue. Okay. To the member of the public who registered to speak, the name you entered in Zoom must match the name you entered in registration. You will remain muted until called upon. The clerk will tell you when your time is up. After speaking, a member of the body may ask you a question. If you need to share documentation with the committee, please send it to the email listed on today's agenda. Thank you. Chair, the floor is yours. >> Thanks, Laya. Um, we will start with agenda item one, which is our time for public comment on items not on the formal agenda. Um, Megan, do we have any registrance for that item tonight? >> No, we do not. Right. All right. Thanks. Um, so we'll go next to disclosures and recusals. Members of the plan commission should make any required disclosures or recusals under the city's ethics code. Do any commissioners have disclosures or recusals related to tonight's agenda? All right. Seeing none, we will go to um the next item, which is the minutes for the August 25th, 2025 regular meeting. Um does anyone have corrections or additions to the minutes um that were shared with us uh previously? And seeing none, um could I ask for a motion and a second to approve the August 25th minutes? Um Commissioner Soulheim, thank you. Alder Glenn, thank you. Sorry, I had a bubble. There's a bubble over your hand. So, there we go. Um, all right. Uh, any discussion on the motion to approve the minutes? And is there any objection to unanimous approval for that item? All right. Seeing none, we'll record those as approved. Um, we next have time to just um a reminder of upcoming meetings. September is a light month. Um, so this is our only September meeting, but then we have two regular meetings in October on Monday, October 6th and Monday, October 20th. Um, and then we have two regular meetings in November on the 3rd and the 17th. All those are at 5:30 p.m. virtual meetings. And then on October 16th, Thursday afternoon, we have a special meeting in person in the Madison Municipal Building, room 215. Um, and maybe we'll uh if you stay around for the secretar's report, maybe we'll get a sneak peek at some items on that agenda um ahead of time. If not tonight, then on the 6th for sure, we'll go through that. All right. Um, we will go on to new business. And our first new business item is item two on our agenda, which is legisar number 89620. Um, adopting the 2025 to 2030 park and open space plan as a supplement to the city of Madison comprehensive plan. Um, and we have uh Superintendent Lisa Lassinger here um to share to talk us through this item. and um I will turn the floor over to you, Lisa. Welcome. >> All right. Thank you. Good afternoon, board. Um I appreciate you taking the time to let me come and speak with you. As as chair Gam uh indicated, I am Lisa Lashinger. I'm actually the interim park superintendent. Um so, uh with that, I will I have a short presentation that I've prepared, but there's a lot of materials attached in legisar. So, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. I think that I have the ability to share my screen. I do. So, I'm going to go ahead and get started. All right. Okay. Can you see my screen? Okay. Without the note page or anything like that on it? >> We can like it. Thanks. >> All right. Excellent. Thank you. Um, so the park purpose of our park and open space plan, it's really our the parks division's five-year strategic plan. It guides our decision- making related to policies, how we develop parks, how we acquire parkland, as well as informs our our financing and operations for the system. We are required to have an adopted park and open space plan in order to participate in state and federal grants when they're available. Um, we uh looked at a number of overall city of Madison planning considerations. You all are likely very familiar with many of these. Uh, we looked at the demographics. I'll go into a few more details on those in the next slide. We looked at related planning efforts. We really highlighted how the park and open space plan ties into all of the other city planning documents that we have on file. um and really how those plans anticipate growth and changes in services that the city is going to need over time. Uh we also looked at a number of environmental factors that impact the the the park system as well as the larger um region and city of Madison area. Uh so we looked at climate change, land management, the urban forest as well as water quality and we really looked at how those impact outdoor recreation in the park system. In terms of the growth of the city and demographics, you all are well aware Madison's the second largest city in the state of Wisconsin and it's been the the fastest growing city and Ding County has been the fastest growing county uh at least over the last decade. Our population is expected to to exceed 300,000 by the year 2030. Um, something I really want to highlight on here from a park and open space perspective is that our residents ages 65 and older is expected to increase by by almost 50% by 2040. So, that's our fastest growing segment of the population and a major change that we've seen. Um, and as parks and recck professionals, we really need to make sure we're planning for the needs of our aging population because, um, according to national trends, this segment of the population is actually aging much more actively than previous generations of that of that age. Um, we looked at parkland inventory. So, we looked at the various park classifications that we have here within the city of Madison. We have many neighborhood and community parks which is generally what you have in your neighborhood. We looked at conserv we have conservation parks and then we have greenways and open spaces as well as special use facilities, sports complexes and trafficways that also serve as open space within the system that we count towards our inventory. We have over 295 parks and we manage about 5,700 acres of land. uh when we look at our overall inventory, we have over 8,000 amenities within the system. So with the the trust for public land, which is a survey that we take every year, um we we rank very high in terms of basketballs, dog parks, and playgrounds per capita compared to other comparable cities uh of similar size around the country. Uh we also looked at other park and open space amenities and facilities that are offered by others. We looked at Dayne County and Wisconsin the as well sorry Dayne County um state resources UW resources as well as national resources. the na the ice age trail was recognized as a segment within the national park s services um just this last year maybe it was the end of 2023 so we were recognizing that within the park and open space plan because we are very actively working on a connection on the far west side of town um we we did a significant amount of engagement we started the process of updating our park and open space plan two years ago in June of 2023 and since Then we've led a number of community engagement efforts. We had a a communitywide survey that we did in partnership with the UW survey. We actually contracted with the UW survey center um to draft the questions and mail out random surveys to um I think I don't remember the exact number of it households that we surveyed. It's all of those results are boiled down in our in the appendices that are corresponding with this document. We did focused bipac, black, indigenous, people of color outreach. Um, during Parks Alive events, we held focus groups with youth. Um, and we also did a very much focused survey that we offer we offered both in English and in Spanish. We hosted four open houses in the summer of 2024. Um, and so that those major efforts really helped to inform the plan. um in its initial draft form. We did some final review um and offered a final public comment period this past summer for about six weeks or sorry, a little over a month in um June into July. And then we offered an open house at the end of June so we could gather final public comment before we took the document forward to the board of park commissioners and prior to that long-range planning subcommittee. Um I also want to mention our long-range planning subcommittee oversaw this work. So they met almost weekly providing not weekly monthly providing an open public forum um that anybody that wished could have come and watched the meetings or participated. Um so from that community feedback we did uh we learned that people really overall agree that parks are integral to the city's character and we really need to continue to maintain safe and welcoming spaces for all. uh that we there's a lot of balance that needs to happen in a park system and we we the the feedback that we received confirm that we need to balance our our exist taking care of our existing facilities with creating new facilities as well as balance um developing park spaces and keeping them more of an in more in a natural form. Um, we also recognize a need for in through the public engagement, we recognize a need for increased strategic partnerships. Um, and of course there's always a request for additional specialized facilities such as skate parks, pickle ball, and dog parks. Those are pretty common requests that we get, but we definitely got a large amount of quite a bit of that feedback during this process. Um, I also want to mention that we we learned through the pandemic and it was confirmed again through the public engagement process that the the community really still has a strong need for programming that's responsive to the needs of youth, especially adolescents. there seems we're we're we're doing better in terms of that, but there's still a gap in programming for those kiddos and those young adults to make sure they're getting what they need from a positive recreation outlook outlook perspective. Um, from all of those engagement efforts, we can summarize our top five uses of park spaces. Um number one being uh engaging in physical fitness activities. Number two, engaging in leisure activities such as picnicking and celebrations. Uh three attending festivals and events. Number four is really engaging in any activities involving our lakes or our our waterways. Um and number five is is biking. Um we looked at the use within our park system. A lot of this data comes from our reservation systems as well as our point of sale systems. Uh we had more than 2,000 reservations in 2024. We we looked at our top our our facilities that get the most use, our athletic uses, the top three sports through our reservation system, our um soccer, pickle ball, and tennis. But new since the last time we updated the park and open space plan in for the 2020 sorry the 2018 to 2023 time period um we had we actually had new reservations for football kamogi and ral ball. So over the last six or seven years we've added a couple of football courts um and these other sports have just uh more people have come forward with different programming that they wanted to do in the park system. We had over 514 park and street use event applications or permits that were issued. Uh that equated to around a thousand program days around the city in 2024 alone. Uh continues to have record visitorship. In 2024, they had more than 370,000 visitors. Um, and our golf program continues to be incredibly successful since the the pandemic started. Uh, we had in 24 we had more than 160,000 rounds of golf played. And just to give you a little bit of perspective, prior to the pandemic, um, over just over 100,000 rounds of golf would have been a good year. So, um, we we our parks are wellused and wellliked and we, uh, continue to see increased use. Um but all in all, our use has returned or surpassed prepandemic levels. Um moving on, we uh looked at our outdoor recreation. We did a outdoor recreation needs assessment. We looked at both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis. So we looked at the number of um the service area of our parks. So we want to have 10 acres of parkland per 10,00 residents. And overall, we're doing pretty well there. Uh we looked at a we did a geographic analysis. So we looked at how our mini and neighborhood parks are serving the communities and we identified deficiencies. Um east town and west town malls our areas are definitely two areas where we're we recognize that as infill development happens in those areas. We and as well as the downtown, we need to find ways to meet the recreation needs and the open space needs of those those members of the community. Uh we looked at regional and statewide planning efforts. So um the Wisconsin DNR as well as Dane County parks went through the same exact process uh around the same time as us. So they just both recently adopted their park and open space plans or the equivalent. Um and we we looked at their plans to see where um they had implications for the Madison area. So within the state plan, we identified major areas that we should be focusing on. Um we it it also discusses trends in investments in parks. Overall, Wisconsin invests less even though our residents consistent with Madison, even though our residents really value park spaces, we tend to invest less in our park spaces um than other states around the country. Um, Dne County Park and Open Space Plan. They recently had they again was recently adopted, but we identified some areas for potential partnership and collaboration. Um, and then there were overall themes in state and county plans, including climate change and its impact on recreation funding concerns as well as our need to work to improve the environment and our role in doing so. Um moving on um to park funding. Um chapter six focuses focuses entirely on the the various resources that are utilized to both develop the parks. So our capital budget needs as well as operate the parks within our operational resources. Um so this this graphic shows really where the park system sits in the overall city budget. um our our my data analyst created this to just kind of give a a summary view of of how we fit within that the overall picture. Uh but we also looked at alternative funding sources and this time around we assigned a value to volunteer efforts. In 2024 alone, our volunteers contributed the equivalent of 1 almost $7 million almost $1.7 million in our park system through their time and talent that they gave to various projects and programs that we've had happening between the park system and Old Brook Botanical Gardens. Um, and then we also looked at park uh system growth considerations. So, we looked at how our our parks and our resources have changed over time going back over the last 20 years of park and open space plan updates. So, I jumped ahead of myself a little bit. This graph here actually shows the trends um that in our our park in park growth and in number of employees as well as the the number of acres that the park system is part is responsible for managing. Um we there were five major PA factors that impact our resources. Number one is our our funding that was at one time stable and reliable is not increasing at the amount at the rate that it needs to be um in order to keep up with the the system needs. So we have to look for alternative funding sources and strategic partnerships. The population is growing very quickly. So the need for new houses or sorry new housing is growing but also our need to have new park spaces that meet the needs of our growing community is increasing. Um we have increased daily use and longer seasons which means we need more more resources to take care of the the parks and the system. We have historic facilities, so a lot of aging infrastructure that requires more maintenance, both from a a day-to-day upkeep perspective, but also those facilities are more costly to make improvements on as most we have a number of landmarks within the system. Um, and then we've also over time added programming that's responsive to the community's needs. So, moving on to really the meat of the document, which is our park and open space, our sorry, our recommended strategies. And so, what we've done here is we've really framed our strategies around the seven elements of a great city that align with the city's comprehensive plan. Um, each of these recommendations, which is the bold um the dark the black bold lettering is our is the recommended strategy. And within the document, there's actually anywhere from two to six or so actions that are related to each of these strategies. So, I'll just um run through each of them. Um and after that, I'll be available to answer any questions. But, uh within the land use and transportation element, uh we want to increase connectivity between parks and enhance access within neighborhoods and housing. We want to reduce parkland deficiencies and respond to increasing residential density. Under economy and opportunity, we want to create welcoming and inclusive park spaces and programming and also foster meaningful connections with groups and organizations that advance the vision of the parks division. Within health and safety, we want to promote the physical and social health of the diverse community. Sorry. Um, within culture and character, we want to improve public access to lakes and waterways and protect and celebrate the community's cultural richness. Within green and resilient, we're looking to protect and enhance natural resources and improve the park systems capacity to adapt to environmental challenges. And then within effective government, we want to develop new parks and amenities in a fiscally sustainable manner, secure sufficient resources to sustain service levels across the growing and changing system, and also pursue regional solutions to regional issues. Um before I move on from this, I do also want to mention that these strategies are really building on the strategies from our previous park and open space plan. We do um provide a summary of our accomplishments since the last park and open space plan. So, this is um taking those and building from them. And we didn't start from scratch because we um overall have found that o we're we're generally heading in the direction we need to be to be meeting the city's goals. So, uh as far as referral schedule, you are our um our second stop um in terms of referrals. Uh once you all have made your recommendations, we'll be taking the document back to the board of park commissioners uh who are the lead and then the document will be adopted by the common council um likely around um the end of October but depending on uh how the discussion goes. So with that I am available to answer any questions that you might have. >> Thanks Lisa if you could hang around. I think we do have a registrant for this item and so we'll hear from the reg um is that right Megan? Is >> yes. >> Okay. Um so we'll have time for questions after we hear from the registrants. >> Okay. Um our one registrant on this item is Nicholas Davies of District 15 registered in opposition and wishing to speak. >> Hi, good evening. Yeah. Um thanks for the opportunity to speak. Um, I wanted to register on this item because as I was reading through the parks and open space report, I uh was kind of surprised to not find any mention of uh bike parking. This this came to mind especially because over the weekend I was at a Winona park where they had uh removed the bike parking facilities, you know, while during the hour or so that I was there, you know, at least 15 people came and and saw nowhere to lock up and left. Um, Madison parks are generally better about this as a general rule, but um, you know, I guess not including bike parking in the recommendations for a new park means that uh, you know, like vehicle parking is a budget line item in there. You know, it's uh, a large parking area is recommended for a community park. Um, for a neighborhood park, it there may be a small vehicle parking area or not. Um, and there's kind of budget for that. Whereas, you know, if we don't include a line item for bike parking, then it's kind of framed as this like nice to have, you know, if if if uh there's budget left over or if there aren't 100 other priorities to meet. Um, when it really should be just written in by default as a matter of policy. Um, and you know, I wanted to bring this to plan commission in particular because uh the PR zone uh in in the zoning code actually doesn't come with any uh bic bicycle parking minimums um as a number of other zones do. Um it's uh the minimums are left to the zoning administrator. Um so it it kind of effectively means that there is no minimum per se in the ordinance. Um, so I'm hoping that this can be corrected in the parking open space plan. Um, you know, alternatively, if if we wanted to kind of remove parking considerations altogether, I mean, there is there are problems with parking lots in parks, you know, where people come uh to organize their street racing. They come to do donuts and and do other vehicular stunts or they come to take advantage of the free parking and go to events offsite. And and so when we have large parking areas, uh the parking kind of becomes, you know, what what people are there to take advantage of, um not necessarily the park itself. Um whereas, you know, in contrast, you know, bike parking can be relatively cheap to build. It can take up a very small portion of the park. Um and it seems like an easy win to kind of divert car trips. Uh so again I I hope we can kind of polish up this part of the the part of the open space plan and before it reaches the com council. Thank you. >> Thanks Nicholas. >> Okay chair that's all we have for registrants for this item. >> Okay. Um I will ask if um any commissioners have questions for our registrants. And seeing none, do any um commissioners have questions for um Superintendent Lasser? >> Um Commissioner Hec. Thanks. >> Thank you. Uh Lisa, uh can you uh just give us an idea of your reaction to the previous public comment about including some requirements for bike parking in our parks? >> Yes. Um, so I know that in the written comment there were a couple of tables that were specifically referenced and that there wasn't um that there there was a feeling that there wasn't sufficient there isn't mention of bike parking. Um first of all uh when we talk about bike parking he and the registrant is also correct that there are not zoning code around the amount of park bike parking that's required in park and recck zoning or otherwise an ordinance that would be enforced in in parks. However, as we go through and uh plan for the development of different areas of parks that bike parking is something that we consider um based on the type of amenity that we are installing the the type of park that we have. Uh we do consider bike parking to be bike uh to be furnishings. Um and the cost is significantly less than installing a a parking lot for for vehicles. But please keep in mind when we look at the parking for vehicles, that's related to generally our community parks where we're serving larger areas of the of the city. Um, hence the name community. And so we want to make sure we're allowing for multiple forms of transportation and modes of transportation for people to get to those spaces. Um, we do I I think that we do cover the need to plan for bike access within the first strategy um or it was the first strategy listed on my my slide, but within the um let me go back here for a second. within land use and transportation, increase connectivity between parks to enhance access. Um, and our our park and open space plan is really intended to be a broader document. Um, I I feel that I in my opinion, we can we appropriately cover the biking needs within that strategy and within references throughout the document. Um but certainly we can take a look um if the commission feels that we need to incorporate something around bike parking. I am a little bit concerned about getting that specific in the document um in in some of those tables particularly in the budget table because that's a very high level summary of what we're looking to do um or what we could potentially use to develop parks. >> Thanks Lisa. and and so in the budget materials uh for I think equipment and things like that uh you're saying that bike parking is typically rolled into that type of consideration in the budget and yes and I I think I I don't mean this in a porative sense but you're saying trust us and uh um I'll have to think about Uh I I I can see uh what your point is about want keeping things at a high level. Uh but could be just that some without uh drawing up a formula or something perhaps bike parking could be stressed just in language uh or me you know mentioned at some point might help. I don't know, but I I think a formulas uh for a minimum sounds very complicated and given the wide array of parks and their locations. Uh but uh I appreciate your answers. Thanks. >> Um Alder or sorry uh former Alder Hack, if I may. Um I I could see it it I could see bike parking being added to table 3.2 too and being an amenity that could potentially be in many neighborhood and community parks. Um, however, I do still think that it's most appropriate to keep it as a furnishing within the park development tables, table 6.2. Um, unless we're going to give examples of other furnishings and and so I I think that could be a balance if you would be open to that, but I just wanted to offer that. >> Thanks. That's that's helpful. >> Thanks, Alder. Alder Year. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, Director Lashinger, I'm glad that you mentioned looking at what we need to do specifically for the east town and west town areas. Of course, as this commission knows, uh we focused a lot of incentives and uh just stepby-step uh adjustments to concentrate new residential development in those in those areas. And I can see that there going to be a lot more people uh in those areas over the next five or 10 years. Could could you just elaborate a little bit on how you think about that or how you go about looking at what we might be able to do since looking at a map it appears problematic. Most of the land in those areas it's getting redeveloped but uh it almost like it's all going to get redeveloped and where we might have additional parkland or access to facilities is a bit of a mystery when I look at those. >> No, absolutely. Looking at the map, especially an aerial of how the the those areas are developed today, it does look pretty pretty challenging to figure out where we might be able to put park spaces. But that's where those area plans and special area plans come into play. And we as the parks division work very closely with our colleagues in planning and the office of real estate. We actively participate in the develop development review process. So we know in the westtown area there's a lot of new residentials coming in and there is not sufficient park space to meet their needs. So we actively work with our other comm community our other city partners um and try to pursue any sort of opportunity for acquiring park land consistent with those adopted plans. Um, specifically in the east area, we did acquire land using the same methodology. Um, in in I think the last two years, we acquired Lean Road, uh, a property on Lean Road, which we're calling Zire Park. Um, and so that is setting the that's really setting our footprint for future development of that area. the the land is undeveloped now, but it'll be a future park to be able to meet the needs of that neighborhood as it develops. And we are I can't speak to the specifics, but we are actively pursuing a couple options on the west side as well. >> Thank you, director, if that's helpful. >> You're welcome. >> Thanks, Commissioner Wnooki. >> Thank you. I have a question. I know um it just kind of generally listed out some strategies uh but knowing that as a whole the US is getting older, Madison uh demographics are are getting older, um do you all have uh you know plans or where could I find the plans that would address how to make them more inclusive for um older adult populations in the city? >> I think yes, absolutely. Thank you for the question. Um we one of the recommendations actually is let me pull it up. It's actually there's a recommendation but then there's an action within that recommendation to address the multi- um generational recreation needs of the community. Um so I can't speak to specific work that we're doing right now um in great detail because we have we still have to develop that out. We know that we have to address those needs. But over the coming five years, we really need to put a focus on that. Um, we do we are looking at some adult exercise equipment. There's been some interest in that and how that might meet the needs of the community. I know pickle ball is a I mentioned that earlier. There's there's a been a lot of coverage on that in the news. It's it's a very good activity. Um, and so looking at how we might incorporate more amenities and activities like that in the system as well as walking paths um that might help our our aging population. >> Thank you. Yeah, I I figured it wasn't all fleshed out just yet, but um glad to hear that is on the radar. >> Thanks. Any other um questions for uh Lisa? Megan, did you Oh, you had a comment. >> Yeah, thank you, Chair. I just had one other observation to share related to Commissioner Hex's question. Um we did also share the comment about the bike parking standards with the zoning team because there was a reference to how the zoning administrator looks at bike parking. Um, and one of the things that I'll just note about our parking standards for open space and recreation uses is that all forms of parking actually defer to the zoning administrator to help make a recommendation about what the parking standard should be. So, both for bike parking as well as for vehicular parking. Um, it talks about the zoning administrator making that determination. And oftentimes, as you mentioned, Commissioner Hec, it can be difficult to set a uniform ratio or standard for either type of um uh parking for all parks because they serve different functions and they have different facilities and amenities. Um and so the basis, you know, there are very few uses within our code where we say the zoning administrator can help uh make a recommendation based on like uses or things that, you know, we may not have anticipated. And so I understand that that happens kind of in collaboration with parks as they develop a park plan. Um they sort of make those recommendations about uh the best use of those facilities as well as making sure that the location and sighting standards in our code are met as well. So just wanted to share that. >> Thanks Megan. So it's trust us Commissioner Hec but trust a lot of us. So, yeah. Um, thanks. Uh, are there any other questions or comments on this item or are we ready to move to a motion? Um, Alder Field, >> I was ready to make a motion. Wanted to see if perhaps Alder Year had a different a question or comment. >> No, I was going to second your motion because I knew you were going to do. I am happy to move that the plan commission recommends approval and adoption of the parks and open spaces plan as a supplement to the Madison comprehensive plan. >> Thanks, Alderfield. Alder, um we'll get you down as a second. Thank you. Um any discussion of the motion? >> Alderfield. Thank you. >> Sure. Just briefly, I've had a peek into some of the public engagement side of all of this and the vast data collection that the team has been working on for years now at this point. So, I just wanted to thank and commend parks staff and leadership, including through a lot of staff transition and leadership transition, for putting this together. Um, and now we have a solid document that will guide the work for the next few years until it's time to start working on the next one. Thank you. >> Thanks, Elderfield. Great work. Uh, Commissioner Soulheim, >> thank you. Um, I just wanted to offer from the the public comment, which I think was a a great point and I appreciate the discussion, that I was actually looking at table 3.2 when that was was recommended. And given some of the items on that table, like a drinking fountain and stuff, it seems to me like it would be logical to list bicycle parking on that table if a friendly amendment were to be entertained. Uh, I would be amendable to a friendly amendment >> and a second I would as well. >> All right. So, um, an amendment from Commissioner Soulheim to, um, add a specific reference to bicycle parking to table 3.2, seconded by Alder Yugger. Is that correct for our minutes? Okay. All right. Um, so I uh boy I need to pick up my Robert tools. Do we um vote on the amendment before we vote on the underlying motion? So is there any objection? Uh Megan, go ahead. >> I think since it was a friendly amendment that was accepted by both the motion maker and the second. I think you can just proceed with voting on the motion. >> Okay. So we will vote on the motion as uh amended in a friendly way. Um, is there any objection to unanimous approval for the motion as stated and amended? And seeing none, we'll record it as unanimously approved. >> Thank you. >> Thank you all. >> Yeah. Thanks for coming out, Lisa. It's good to see you. >> Yes, good to see you, too. >> Yep. >> All right. We will move to our public hearings and we will start with our consent agenda. Um, it's been the custom of the plan commission to remove from the agenda those items on which staff members believe an application has been sufficiently reviewed to support approval with all of the conditions placed upon it by the various city departments and in which the applicant accepts those conditions and there are no individuals who've registered to speak in opposition to those items. The items proposed for consent tonight are uh before you on the screen and those are items four um which is presented for approval on our agenda and item nine which is presented for referral to our next meeting on October 6th. Um are there any requests for separation for either of these items from the consent agenda? All right. Um seeing none, we'll move forward with um first the consent agenda for um approval items and I will uh read that item um into the record. So item four is legisar 89 235 um relating to 5501 Schroeder Road in Alder district 20. This is consideration of a conditional use in the parks and recreation PR district for an outdoor eating area for a food and beverage establishment open after 900 PM and consideration of a conditional use in the PR district for amplified sound for an outdoor eating area for a food and beverage establishment. Um I will open the public hearing and close the public hearing for this approval item and we'll move to a motion. Is there a motion and a second um for the this consent item? Uh Alder Glenn, thank you. And Commissioner Hec, thank you. Um so, is there any objection to unanimous approval for item four um as part of as a consent agenda item? Thank you. Seeing none, we'll um mark that item as passed unanimously. Um the next uh we also have a consent item for referral to October 6th. That's item nine which is legisar 89232 relating to 1601 North Sherman Avenue um and 1610 Ruskin Street in Alder district 12. Consideration of a conditional use in the traditional residential consistent 4 TRC4 district for a school public or private and consideration of a conditional use in the TRC4 district for a building or structure exceeding 10,000 square ft in floor area to allow construction of a new public school building to replace the existing school building Sherman Middle School and Shabbaz City High School. Um, so, uh, I think we don't need a public hearing for a referral item, um, because we'll renotice it for the October 6th meeting. Um, so I'm looking for a motion in a second to refer that item. Um, Alder Glenn, thank you. And Commissioner Heck, thank you. Um, any objection to unanimous approval for the motion to refer um, item nine? Seeing none, we'll record that as approved. Right, we will jump back to our register regular agenda and we'll go to item three on our agenda. Um, this is legisar number 89234 relating to 1402 Wyoming way in alder district 18. This is consideration of a conditional use in the suburban residential consistent one district for a school public or private and consideration of a conditional use in the SRC1 district for a building or structure exceeding 10,000 square ft in floor area to allow construction of a new public school building to replace the existing school building and uh which is known as Blackhawk Middle School and Gumpers Elementary School. Um so we will start with a presentation from planning staff and um we'll welcome planner Ernest previously known as planner Makabola. So welcome. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. I'll give a a brief overview of the staff report. So, um, as the chair mentioned, the applicant is requesting approval of two conditional uses to build a combined middle and elementary school building to replace the existing Blackhawk Middle School and Gumpers Elementary School building. Construction would begin in early 20 um 2026 and the existing building will remain on site until the new building is constructed and the applicant is expecting to request demolition in late 2027. Um, the proposed building will be two levels, roughly 90,000 square ft on the lower level and 110,000 square ft on the upper level. Um, whereas the current building is located along the site's Comanche Way and Wyoming Way, which is the same street, but the name kind of changes. Um, so the current building is located along that Comanche Way, Wyoming Way frontage at the southwest corner of the site. The new building would be more centrally located on the site. And um currently the school takes access solely from that Comanche Way Wyoming Way Street at the southwest corner of the site near the intersection of Monica Lane. Whereas the new facility will have access from both Comanche Way Wyoming Way for the middle school drop off and pickup as well as the school buses. Um the elementary school will have access from Wheeler Road. So with the traffic reduction represented by the elementary school access moving to Wheeler Road, staff do believe that the continued use of Comanche Way Wyoming Way um represents an improvement over the current arrangement where all of that access is just on Comanche Way and Wyoming Way. And this also does relate to the supplemental regulations for schools which require that a new school within a predominantly residential or mixeduse area shall have the vehicular access to a collector or higher classification street. Um and Wheeler Road is considered a collector street and the zoning administrator has determined that because the um proposed building takes access at least in part from Wheeler Road that that supplemental regulation is being met for um the urban design commission is also an approving body on this request because they review all public buildings and the UDC did grant initial approval with a condition that the building design be refined to incoror incorporate some more color where feasible. So, this would be returning to UDC um where they would need to get final approval based on those conditions. And the planning division believes that the planning commission can find that the conditional use standards are met and recommends approval. Thanks. >> Thanks, Lisa. Um all right, we uh have registrance for this item. So, I'll open the public hearing um and we'll stick to our 3minut time limit and I will um try to provide a warning you know with a minute to 30 seconds before time ends. U Megan. >> All right. Thank you chair. Um we will first hear from some representatives from the applicant team. Uh our first registrant is Matt Hos and Matt is representing the school district. Can everybody hear? >> Yep, we can. Thanks. Welcome. >> Perfect. Uh good evening, uh commissioners, and thank you for the time here this evening. Um this is the first of uh many more school sites to come with the 2024 or yeah, 2024 bond referendum. Um so the first site that uh one of the first sites that we've been working on as a design team um is the Blackhawk Middle School and Gumpers Elementary School. So I'm here just to introduce um that and is someone going to share the presentation? There we go. All right, perfect. So, uh, just to kind of situate ourselves here on the far north side of of the city, this is the the most northern um attendance area that's serving the middle and uh, elementary school students in this area. So, we have a few photos on the next slide if you want to go there. Um, just kind of capturing what the existing site looks like. So, at the top there, you're looking from Wheeler Road um down towards the existing school building. Um and then on the snapshot in the lower right corner is kind of Wheeler looking to kind of the northeasterly direction more towards the Cherokee Marsh. And then photos two and three are, you know, focusing on Monica Lane and uh Comanche, Wyoming, looking at the school. Next slide, please. So, in terms of the site layout, um as uh Lisa um had pointed out, the the new building is more centrally located um on the site. Uh important to note that the existing school will remain open and operational during the construction of the new school. There certainly will be phasing uh later in construction with the demolition of the existing school and further construction of the kind of final improvements on the site. Um but that is one of the you know largest constraints in terms of citing this new building um to keep that existing school building um open and operational while this is under construction. Um, in terms of entry, as was explained by staff earlier, uh, the elementary school component will be on the the top end of the page, so the upper um portion of the building on the first floor. Um, they'll get their access off of Wheeler Way or Wheeler Road, excuse me. And there's a parent drop off one-way loop that that comes through there and a small satellite parking facility for uh visitors and in designated staff there. And then the middle school entry will be facing the Comanche Way, Wyoming Way. Um there's two separate drop loops. There's a a parent drop loop which is to farthest to the left on this sheet kind of in line with the Monica Lane intersection. That's where where parents will drop off students in that loop as well as a a parking lot um to that side. And then the other loop is the bus drop off and that will be utilized for both the middle and elementary school um students. So they will filter into the building um from that point. Having those two separate loops is kind of paramount and design standard for traffic circulation on school sites. Separating those traffic patterns alleviates traffic congestion, improves safety for students getting on and off buses, parents' cars. Um, and brings all of that traffic circulation inboard to the site. Um, >> Matt, if you could if you could wrap up. We're at we're at our two minutes, so Okay, >> we have a couple final comments. Yep. >> Yeah. Bringing the traffic inboard to the site will vastly improve the traffic because I know Comanche Way and Wyoming Way is a is a challenging street to navigate during pickup and drop off time. So, I have nothing further. I'll turn it over to uh Susan Bowers with our team to go through a few more floor plans and architectural details. >> Thanks, Matt. Um, Megan is that >> Yes. As Matt noted, our next registrant is Susan Bower Sox representing the project team. >> Very good. Progress to the next slide. So, um, just a quick glimpse about how the building lays out. Um, currently the the building is positioned into the hillside. So both the middle school and the elementary school enter at grade. So the middle school entrance is uh this is the lower level and so the middle school entrance is in the center of your screen um which is entering from um the southern part of the site which is Comanche way. Next slide. As we look at the upper level, um the entire um bottom part of the plan, u plan South as you're looking at the diagram is GPER Elementary School. And so the main entry for Gumpers Elementary School is on the right hand of the plan um which is also entering at grade but at the upper level off of Wheeler Road. Next slide. So this gives you an idea of the the two entrances um both the north and south elevations and the middle school entrance is the bottom image which is the twostory portion of the building and then the elementary entrance is the top image which is the singlestory elevation in order to break down the building for the age group of the students. Next slide. These are the east and west elevations where you can see that topography coming down across the building as it extends to the south. Next slide. And then a couple renderings just to help you understand uh visually. This is looking from the south to to the north. So this is looking from Wyoming way at that middle school entrance. Next slide. And then this is looking uh from the north off Wheeler Road to that elementary school entrance which is the singlestory portion of the building. Next slide. This is looking from the other direction from the north off Wheeler Road. And next slide. And then this is from Wheeler Road but from the west side. So you can see that topography coming down as it comes around the building uh to the Blackhawk Middle School entrance on the south. I believe that's the last slide. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um I believe that's all of the attendees representing the applicant team that are registered this evening. Um, our next registrant is Nicholas Davies of District 15, registered in opposition and wishing to speak. >> Hi, thanks for the opportunity to speak on this item. Um, a lot of the redesign looks great. I just wanted to come and raise my concerns about what the project team is calling the parent drop loop. Um, this is a type of rural school element that has a really bad track record at other school districts. Uh, there's a primarily American problem. where it induces demand and and creates rather than alleviates congestion. Um, and it creates this feedback loop where parents show up earlier and earlier to idle their cars on school property and and jockey for a position at the head of this line. Um, and this this type of child drive-thru is associated with worse academic outcomes and it dehumanizes students treating them as parcels for shipping. uh vehicle traffic on school property also adds air pollution to a population that's susceptible to asthma and it introduces a lot of unnecessary vehicle pedestrian conflicts you know placing undue burden on the kids who are going to travel to and from school actively. Um, so and you know it it it stuck out to me because you know another school site up for redevelopment uh the Shabbaz Sherman site not far from this one um also didn't include this this kind of rural feature and and they're not all that apart. So I don't see the the need for like a rural uh feature on this school property. Um what what other cities are doing is actually turning street frontages in front of schools uh into you know either entirely traffic free or free of of through traffic which kind of extends the range of where u kids can gather or disperse safely or where parents or caregivers can meet up with those kids safely um and and without creating kind of one bottleneck of congestion. Um, and I think that this school, you know, could be a good example of that because, you know, we have this low traffic, uh, neighborhood street running right in front of it, um, that could easily be closed off to through traffic and and turned into that safe space for for kids to be kids. Um, so I just wanted to raise that concern uh, with this and, uh, thank you for listening tonight. >> Thanks, Nicholas. Thanks for coming out. >> All right. Um, >> okay. Um, we just have a few others to read into the record. Um, the next registrant is Ann Cook of District 18, neither in opposition nor support but available to answer questions. Um, and Yavon Palawitch, uh, also District 18, registered in opposition but not wishing to speak. >> Thanks, Megan. Um, are there questions from the commission for any of our registrants? Um, Alder Glenn, thank you. >> Um, with these designs, with the loops, will there be um like separate areas for uh buses versus like car pickup, or will it all be in the same loop? Was um Matt or Susan would is one of you able to answer that? >> Yeah, I can answer that. Um so there are two separate loops. Uh or actually I should say three separate loops. So there are two parent drop off loops. Um the Wheeler Road loop would be the loop for the parents caregivers of the elementary students. Um, and then if you're picturing the site plan, the one that aligns with uh Monica Lane, uh, that drive loop will be the the parent or caregiver drop loop for the middle school. And then the further kind of easterly or to the south um, drop loop on the south side of the building would be just for buses. So they there is a intentional separation of vehicles versus buses. >> Okay. >> Um I you you could you see the house I used to live in for about eight years. It was right on the corner of Ashen, Wyoming. Um and my son went to the elementary school there and middle school and then high school at East. But um I it is why it is considered I would say maybe by traffic standards a low congestion I believe you described or a low moving street Wyoming it is lot going on from about 8:00 a.m. till about 5 p.m. Um, so I guess I don't know if I have a question as much as has there been I I don't it's not like I see anything wrong with the loop, but I do know of loops like that that haven't worked in bigger cities. Um, has there ever been an alternative thinking of because I always thought when I lived there that that's during certain hours that's Wyoming just should not be used. um and just be a parent. I mean, they do it now kind of hodgepodge. We all just sit out there really early, so we could have been the first one in line and close to the school. Um, has there been any thought of an alternative not the loops or um a way that the plan could be designed where you could almost exit in but not loop but a straight through cuz I just think coming back through and back out back onto it looks like I think if the design if I'm remembering right to the design command sheet for one and coming out on Wheeler for the other. Correct. >> Correct. >> Yes. Um are these uh has there ever been did you look at designs around not having a loop? Just thinking along the lines of is this the best that for the area just question. >> Yeah. Um, I can I can address that. So, yeah, we did we did look at uh other alternatives and we actually met with traffic engineering staff very early on um because we were aware of the um higher volume of traffic on, you know, a local street during pickup and drop off and it sounds like that might progress throughout the day. Um so that was definitely a concern when when coming into you know figuring out the best way to circulate traffic through this site. Um traffic has been is very supportive of of what we are proposing to date. Uh, I know some complications with trying to loop traffic or create a uh instead of looping them around one circle and going back out to Wyoming Way is um considerable grade and like punching another access out to to Wheeler Road. there's a significant hill there and so there's just traffic safety concerns in terms of vision um coming from the top of the hill or the bottom of the hill um and things like that. Um so I guess in in short yes we did look at other alternatives but traffic's engineering was very supportive of our of our latest concept or design to uh kind of handle the traffic and you know best course of action is to separate the the parent vehicles with the bus uh traffic. Um, I think there's certainly some logistics to to work out uh in terms of how um we educate those parents and caregivers that are coming into those drop off loops uh in terms of which direction they can enter and exit and things like that. Those are probably further discussions with the district that that have to be made. Um, in terms of alleviating the traffic congestion, this was the the preferred option by traffic engineering. >> Thank you. That was very helpful. >> Commissioner Sen, >> thank you. Um, I just following up on that. I just wanted to clarify. Are you saying that the area on Wheeler Road where it looks like currently now there's maybe soccer fields um sometimes a baseball field that that is a hill just I mean I'm looking at it right now on Google Maps admittedly but it looks like there it's quite flat leading to the the school. >> Yeah. So the the field itself is flat. the the grade on Wheeler Road is the concern, especially as you go to the I guess back to the east. There's a a fairly large grade difference over a couple hundred feet. And so just that sight distance if we were to punch another access out to that point um just concerns uh with having proper sight distance a lot of traffic uh that was not preferable by the design team nor traffic engineering. So the site itself is flat but the street has some fairly significant grade that has some concerns for sight distance. Okay. Thank you. >> Thanks, Commissioner Rosnuski. >> Thank you, Chair. Uh, do you have a idea right now of the number of students that arrive by car and any projected induced demand that this perceived more convenient way of arriving by car would increase the traffic? That's for anybody on the design team, I guess. >> Sure. Um, help me. So, yes, we we do understand the the typical amount of like bus traffic. Um, and I guess there's no certainty to figure out exactly how many parents are going to drop off. I think that changes day by day. Um, car pooling, that sort of thing. But we we did factor factor that into our our designs on the on the drop off loops and used some uh parameters I guess I'll call them to make sure the drop off loops had um adequate queuing length um so that traffic could circulate through um those areas and and provide You know, I think one of the parameters we assumed was like a 15minute drop off window at the beginning of school. So, you know, not all parents necessarily show up at the site um at the same time um just based on being a parent. I I know how that goes to get kids out of the house. Um but uh you know making sure that there's enough room on those loops to to circulate enough traffic, keep traffic off the street and then get them back out so that we don't have a bunch of queuing on the physical public streets um to get into the site. So specific numbers I I can't say I have those in front of me or share those, but those were all utilized in the planning and design of these loops. Does that answer your question? >> Well, it might lead to a follow-up question. So then, do you are you anticipating an increased demand for the use of these loops with the installation of them versus the situation that exists right now? The I would say the traffic is anticipated to be similar. We we're not the district isn't projecting more buses. Um which I think is a a a large telltale sign of if the students aren't coming to school in a bus. Um they are either walking other modes or getting dropped off. Uh we did I didn't mention this earlier. One of the parameters we did kind of assume, especially in in this particular um school site, it's a it's more residential. There certainly is walkability to the to the west and south. Uh so we did factor that in. Uh number of students will likely um walk to the school, but we don't have any this the district doesn't have any certain metrics of how many students walk each day versus get dropped off by a car. So these are, you know, numbers that we're using percentages and and and parameters the best we can to kind of make this as efficient as possible. >> Okay, thank you. >> Oh, Glenn, >> just a quick question. I was trying to look through here, but it's really tiny and if I scroll, then I lose all of you all. So question is easier to ask. Will there be what is the foot what is the size difference thinking of especially for Blackhawk? We have I have five elementary schools in my district, one middle school and then there's one middle school and 12 right next door. Um so wondering is will this be larger and how much more? And then um what about for bikes and staff parking cuz that's a large concern over here for teachers. >> Susan, do you want to take the the school size question? >> Sure. So the schools are similar size that they are today. they are allowing for some growth but within reason. Um and so roughly um between Blackhawk and Gumpers we're roughly 100 more students than maybe what it is right now at this moment but that's planning for you know several years out. So I don't expect that to um be the number tomorrow. [Music] >> Thank you. And what about the parking? Did you or was that that second part for that? Yeah, I I can I can answer the the parking uh question. So, um the parking uh on this site is based on the zoning code requirements which is based off of um classroom counts. Um so that would then be based in in number of staff and so we are meeting that parking requirement uh based on the zoning code >> and lots of bike racks. Yes. Yes. There are lots of bike racks, lots of opportunities for students, staff, visitors of the school to to park their their bikes. Uh they're on each side of the school. They're accessible off of Wyoming as well as Wheeler. >> Thank you. And I agree with the um with the neighborhood being a ve where the school sits in an area where yes, there's buses, but a large amount of children walk to the school. Matt, just a quick I could probably find this, but maybe it's easier to just ask you. The square footage of the future building versus the current building. Is there a big difference there? >> I I do not believe there is a a large difference there. I don't have those numbers right in front of me. [Music] [Music] [Music] See, [Music] >> that That's okay. It's not easy to get your hands on. I think the um I think the the new proposed is in the in the report says 835480 and yeah for the total or no that's sorry that's the wide area. Never mind. Um >> yeah, >> it looks like the proposed is about 200,000 square ft um between the two levels. Um but I am not seeing a reference immediately offhand to the existing building size. Yeah, I think the I have the the like the total building square footage, so the physical footprint of it is about 110,000 square ft of the of the new building. So, as Megan noted, the the gross square footage is just about 200,000. Um because it has the two different levels. For the most part, the existing school is all on on one level, I believe. And I just I don't have that right in front of me. I apologize. >> It it looks like on one of the plan pages, sorry to interject, on one of the plan pages in the project plans, it does say that um the building's area exterior footprint is about 115,000 square ft. Um and it sounds like Matt is noting that it's currently a one-story building. So >> yeah, >> thanks. That's Yeah, thanks. Hopeful. Kusher. >> Thank you. Uh Matt, can you describe if you if you can uh any uh special accommodations for students who are walking when they cross one of those uh drop off loops? It sounds like there could be cars going both directions es and buses going both directions I guess on the one. Uh, do you know I I didn't see that traffic engineering required any special markings or or anything for some new conflict points that don't currently exist given that cars don't really come so much onto the school property? Do do you know anything about those plans? Are uh Alder Hec, are you referring to like accommodations for pedestrians across the public right of way or >> No, across the driveways or it could be in the right of way, but from the from the renderings, it looked like the sidewalk was kind of meandering relatively far from the street in the places it it crosses those uh crosses those uh driveways or or drop off lanes. So yeah, >> so the the drop off loops uh all operate in a counterclockwise manner. Um so there is a basically a dedicated pulloff lane that's directly adjacent to the sidewalk. Um, so, you know, usually parents understand children should be on kind of the passenger side of the vehicle um as they're dropping for ease of of exit um and safe exit onto the sidewalk. So, all traffic would circulate in the same pattern. And then within that traffic loop, there's that dedicated drop off lane. There's actually kind of a what loosely termed is is is a bypass lane. So if one parent drops their student off, they can pull out and get into the kind of the travel way um while other cars can kind of slide up into the dedicated drop off lane um to to keep traffic moving through there. um cuz we just can't make the traffic loop the entire site to fit all of the cars. Uh so we just need to kind of make them move through there like a snake. Um that would be and so when the students exit, they should be exiting the sidewalk and the sidewalk was intentionally designed directly adjacent to the school that once they get to that sidewalk, they shouldn't have to cross any other traffic um to get into the school. So, the sidewalks can all lead right to like a playground area or the front doors, wherever they need to go at the beginning of the day. Um, in terms of the pedestrian accommodations on the public right ofway, um, we haven't got into the details of of what that looks like, but there is some kind of markings and denotation on our plans right now that traffic engineering is planning on doing some pedestrian um, improvements on Wyoming and Comanche way at the Monica Lane and Echane intersections to provide, you know, safer for access across those streets. Um, and then there's also plans on Wheeler Road to improve an existing crossing um, which is also denoted on our plans. There's discussion about adding kind of a pedestrian refuge median lane um, across Wheeler. Um, as far as all the details, like I said, those will get worked out in further design once we start the development agreement discussions with the city for all improvements in the public right of way. But those are certainly items that traffic engineer is engineering is interested in improving upon on the public streets. >> Okay. Thanks. I I the latter is what I was particularly interested in. And whenever there's an opportunity for uh bicycling or walking students who aren't dropped off to cross the the drop off lanes uh and it looks like that's a possibility uh closer to the right of way uh and that uh those would be uh sidewalks that traffic engineering would be making suggestions on about whether or not those need you know, I don't think you're going to get rapid flashing beacons, but it it seems like a a potential conflict there uh with that many vehicles in those cues coming and going and and stu and other students trying to cross. Yeah, we would anything in the public right ofway um would come down from traffic engineering in terms of any um signage or pedestrian crossing beacons, those sorts of things. We would kind of follow suit with what traffic engineering was looking for there. >> Okay. Thanks. I I yeah, I just recognize that students always don't follow the sidewalks and as and with you're inviting that many new cars onto the property, there are there's potential for for conflict, but uh I'm not sure how that can be handled. Thank you. >> Thanks, Commissioner Heck. Other questions for registrants? All right. Uh, seeing none, I will close the public hearing and ask if there are questions for staff. Um, Lisa or Megan. And if not, I wonder if we're um ready to make a motion or what your thoughts are. Commissioner Hec, >> I thought of a question. >> Oh, great. >> And it it might be for Megan. Uh I I'm thinking about this this conflict that I was just talking about the potential for conflict and the fact that personally I think these uh these uh drop off lanes are problematic for a variety of reasons but um in my mind I'm thinking this is really more something that that's policy related. per uh some kind of zoning code change or uh policies with traffic engineering and I don't I'm thinking this is perhaps the venue to have some of this discussion but I don't know what to do about it giving plan commission's perview. Uh so uh do you have any advice there? >> Yeah, that's a good question. And I think some of the comment that you did receive and and some of the discussion I agree could be a good policy discussion to think through um broader multimodal access and facility improvements that we want to see at and around school districts properties and school properties I should say. Um certainly the comment about whether or not um streets should be closed to any kind of access that was received in the public comment I would agree would be a policy discussion that we should have um with engineering as it relates to the broader management of our networks as well. Um within the context of this project I will note that um there's a couple different things that we were discussing. We were talking about both connections to public rights of way and then also internal sort of private circulation networks. Um there are a number of conditions in the section from traffic engineering about this project specifically that do touch on some of the things that I heard discussed. um particularly the improvements to the intersection of Wheeler Way or the the crossing of Wheeler Way. Um some specifics about markings and traffic control at the driveways that are proposed um where they intersect with streets and then requirements for dedication of pedestrian easements and um some other improvements where the project connects to those uh public sidewalks, I should say. Um, there's also broad conditions in here about posting of a security deposit in the event that any other improvements are needed to be made. Um, and you know, final details about different markings and signage as it relates to some of those internal circulation and access items. I think within the context of the conditional use review, if there are um details about that internal circulation that the plan commission would like the applicants to work on, um you could provide recommended conditions that speak to what you would like them to address further in order to find condition five is met. Um, condition five is the condition related to access uh for all modes of transportation. Um, so I'll I'll stop there and just see if that helps with your question, Commissioner Hec. >> Uh, it helps a great deal. Thank you. >> Sh. >> Thank you. Um, I just wanted to follow up on the discussion of the Wheeler Road access and if you could confirm. I think Lisa mentioned that it was determined that the connection for the elementary school on Wheeler Road was kind of adequate to meet the the supplemental regulations for access off of a collector street. Um does that mean was there, you know, further review and discussion of other options to potentially access Wheeler Road, including through that area the at the west? there was um discussion from the applicant about you know the sight lines and I was just wondering if you were aware of those conversations with traffic engineering. >> Unfortunately I was not since um Chris Wells is the kind of project manager for this application. So we weren't as involved in kind of those you know internal discussions with staff. Um I believe the interpretation was like specifically about the site plan proposed like where the access on Wheeler Road is shown. >> So yeah and thank you for that Lisa. I'll agree. And one thing um just because this relates to your question um I'm just looking for the right screen here. Commissioner Soulheim. Uh this relates to your question of the applicant team. Um >> so, uh the reference that Lisa made to satisfying the supplemental requirements is about um in these residential areas, the zoning code says that for school sites, access should come from a collector street. And in this context, Wheeler Road is a collector street. So when we said that the connection on Wheeler Road satisfies those supplemental requirements, it's that in part having a connection, a vehicular connection to the site from Wheeler Road um addresses that supplemental regulation that connection be taken from the collector street. It's not specific to the design of the collector street. That is a I'm sorry, the design of the connection off that collector street. that is an engineering a a traffic engineering kind of determination. Um earlier when the applicant team mentioned um some of the site constraints that informed the location of that connection, I think this page here might be helpful in explaining some of the changes in grade that the applicant mentioned. particularly this ridge line that's represented by these topography lines that are clustered kind of diagonally through the site. Um that is a kind of separates the two flat areas of the site from each other and you can see maybe you can see somewhat um that grade also um follows Wheeler Road. So there's a a drop off in that grade as you move along Wheeler Road. I have not been part of the specific discussions about this project with traffic engineering, but I do know that when they look at making driveway and other roadway connections along streets with grade, um they are often looking at things like sight distance and safe um connections on to those slopes as one of the considerations they make in the placement of those connections. Um, so I would assume that informed the discussion about where that connection should be on Wheeler. >> That makes sense. Thank you, Megan. That's really helpful. Other discussion shouldn't repeat. Alder Glenn. Thank you. >> I was just going to make a motion to um I thought that's what you were going to be asking and I was getting >> Yeah, I was I was uh working >> getting across. >> Yeah. determine the um so the I think the I think the motion and Megan will help us with this is to um approve the conditional use subject to the conditions in the staff report um which do cover a lot of those traffic engineering grates or um concerns that we talked about >> is that >> what what Emily just said I >> that's why I always wait for Nicole usually because she can And then I'm like, so it's not all that. >> So we would approve the two conditional uses um and find the standards were met for approval based on the information provided. Is uh I I think Megan is that is there other language you'd be looking for? Okay. Um Nicole, uh Commissioner Scholam is seconding our our crafted motion. So um would anyone like to speak to the motion in any additional detail? I would I just would like to kind of have it on record that I was first of all thanks everyone for such a great discussion and looking into this. This is something obviously very personal um to me for this area. Um it is something that has meant a lot to the community. Uh, every alder would probably tell you this, but everyone has said that it feels like that the school, especially because it is our only middle school with five elementaryaries, has felt neglected. And so, seeing this come to fruition and be able to see the whole space, it it's a very large lot and it sits up on a it's on the ground of huge hills. also to see the whole space be used um to see it be two stories and accommodate um and just the newness for a community that's very well established and we like things quietly kept like that but um I just am appreciative of all the design work and thought going into it and great thank you for the great discussion it means a lot thanks >> thanks Haler Glenn other discussion [Music] Uh, Commissioner Wnerski. >> Thank you, Chair. I can appreciate the design of the school and I don't I don't take issue with there. I really do not believe it it meets condition number five and access um to this lot. I think that this is a solution in in looking for a problem and really prioritize automobiles. Um, I I'm concerned that as Commissioner Hec pointed out that it creates a lot of conflict, potential conflict with pedestrians and then therefore people will start to drive their children uh to make them feel safer in getting there. And I just think that um it also doesn't fit with the comprehensive plan uh in easy access for for bicycles and pedestrians. I think it's too very carcentric um and I I can't support it because of that. Thanks, Kosher. Other discussion? I think we can uh call the question to a vote. Um I think um I think we would do a roll call, Megan, for this one. Yep. >> All right. Alderfield. >> Hi. Alder Glenn, >> I >> Alder Ugare >> I >> Commissioner Bazine >> I >> Commissioner Hec >> I >> uh Commissioner Sanders >> I >> Commissioner Soulheim >> I >> Commissioner Wnooki >> no. Okay. Um the motion passes with one no. >> Thank you. Thanks for the good discussion and um and and thoughtful discussion as it is hard to figure out this balance. It's not these are not easy questions. Um we would now move to um items 5 through eight on our uh tonight's agenda are related and considered as one public hearing. Um, and so I will, um, I think I will, do I, should I read all four of them before we open the public public hearing, Megan, or maybe just start with the demo? What do you recommend? >> Um, I would read all four of them so that we can take the public hearing together. >> That sounds good. All right. So, we will start with item five, which is legisar 89434 relating to 302 East Washington Avenue. Um consider this is consideration of a demolition permit to demolish a commercial building in alder district 2. Um item six is legisar 89375 which would create section 28.022-0000724 022-0000724 of the Madison General Ordinances to change the zoning of property located at 302 through 308 East Washington Avenue and 15 through 27 North Butler Street from UMX Urban Mixed Use and PD Plan Development District to PD GDP Plan Development General Development Plan District and create section 28 8.022-0000725 to approve a specific implementation plan again in alder district 2. Um item 7 is legisar 89237 relating to 302 to 308 East Washington Avenue and 15-27 North Butler Street in Alder District 2. And this is consideration of a conditional use for two stories of additional building height as allowed in MGO section 28.071 sub 2 subb to allow construction of an 11story 76 unit mixeduse building. And then item eight is legisar 88957 approving a certified survey map of property owned by Butler Plaza LLC located at 302 to 308 East Washington Avenue and 15 to 27 North Butler Street and again in Alder District 2. Um so we'll start with uh a staff presentation on these items and then we'll move to the public hearing. Welcome back, Lisa. All right. >> Thanks. Um, so as the chair stated, this project requires approval of four requests. The demolition of 302 East Washington Avenue, a resone to a planned development district, a conditional use approval for additional height, and a certified survey map. And staff believe the approval standards for each request can be met. Um, however, this is the first demolition that is being considered since the code was amended earlier this year. And under the new code, the landmarks commission assigns a category A, B, or C to each building. A category A building has historic value based on architectural significance, cultural significance, or historic significance. Category B buildings have historic value, but the building itself is not historic, architecturally, or culturally significant. And category C buildings have no known historic value. Under the new code, um, category C buildings can be approved administratively by the director of building inspection and then a demolition with the category A or category B building would still be considered by the plane commission after a public hearing. and the landmarks commission determined that the demolition of 302 East Washington is a category B demolition and um the plan commission shall not approve the demolition unless it finds that two approval standards are met. Standard one states that the demolition of the existing building is consistent with or will aid in the implementation of adopted plans or with the purpose statement of this section. The plan commission may consider how demolition and redevelopment of the property relates to the implementation of the city's adopted plans. And then standard two states that there are factors that are found to outweigh the public interest in preserving historic resources. And then that standard goes on to list three findings that the plan commission may use, but is not limited to those three um specific findings in the ordinance. So staff believe that it is possible to find the approval standards met. Um the proposed building is consistent with adopted plans and it provides additional housing in the downtown with some affordable units. And then additionally, the landmarks commission found um and it's noted in their action in the report that while the building has historic value related to Madison's vernacular context, the building is not historically, architecturally, or culturally significant due to other locations being able to tell the story of the Capitol Times um which used to be located in the building. And there also have been changes to the architectural integrity of the structure. And that's all I have for staff. >> Thanks, Lisa. Um, we believe we have registrance for this item and I think the planning team is here with us as well. So, we'll open the public hearing. Um, and Megan, will you get us started? >> Okay. Um, we will start with a presentation by the applicant team. Um, the chair has approved that three of your registrants are going to pull their time this evening. Um, those registrants are Angie Black representing Butler Plaza LLC, Dwayne Johnson from Kenothy and Bruce Architects, and Joe Rice also from Kenothy and Bruce. Um, they will give a presentation of the project and will be limited to a 9-minute uh, speaking time. >> Great. >> Welcome. >> Thank you and good evening. Um, my name is Dwayne Johnson with Canoth and Bruce, and I'm here tonight with Joe Rice, also an architect with Canoth and Bruce. 302 and 308 East Washington are located on the corner of East Washington and Butler Street on the lower right side of what's highlighted in yellow here on your screen. All of the buildings fronting North Butler between East Washington and Mifflin are part of an existing PD zoning and made up of four buildings, all owned by Eric Mittton, who is on the call tonight and available to answer questions if needed. We would be modifying this PD and adding the Eisenberg Law Office building site to the overall PD and deconstructing that building along with the 2 and 1 halfstory building currently used by Capital Fitness. Um, as summarized in the staff report, we are within the downtown core neighborhood of the downtown plan and the project is also within urban design district 4. Next slide, please. 308 Eastwash is best shown here in photo A and that's the Eisenberg Law Office on the right side of the photo A. Um and as Lisa had mentioned at the August 18th meeting, this one was determined to be a category C, which would not require um commission approval for the demolition permit. Um photo B shows 302 East Wash, which is the 2 and a halftory Capitol Fitness building. Um the structure was built in 1927 and remodeled in 1997. This remodel removed much of the brick detailing and the parapit height changes and it also removed the interior for conversion into an open gym space. This current interior is shown in the lower right in photo D. Um, as Lisa mentioned, this building was determined to be category B at the August landmarks meeting, having uh having historic value, but the building itself not historically, architecturally, or c culturally significant. Next slide, please. We are proposing an 11story 76 unit mixeduse apartment building with approximately 9,000 square ft of commercial space. This commercial space would provide new state-of-the-art gym space for Capital Fitness um with the 76 multifamily units above that gym space. The proposed building is shown here in blue and it elves around the existing four-story commercial portion of Butler Plaza. The main apartment entry would be located on the corner of East Wash and Butler Street. Um, and then there would be a separate entry for Capitol Fitness and that is currently and would remain off of Butler Street. This project would also include the reconstruction of the street plaza in front of Butler Plaza as well as the rear plaza behind Butler Plaza. This plaza will incorporate a fountain, a shade structure, and heavily landscaped planters and it would be used for both residential tenants and as an outdoor seating area for the popular Naples 15 restaurant located in Butler Plaza. Our two levels of underground parking would be accessed through the existing Butler Plaza, which would mean that we aren't adding any vehicular access points onto the site. As summarized in the staff report, we are in the 8 plus two designation of the downtown height map and we are able to achieve 11 stories by pursuing those two bonus stories to get to 10 and then using an additional affordable housing bonus story to get to the 11. This would be done through a land use restriction agreement or lura which would guarantee affordable housing units for years to come. Next slide please. This plan shows our two levels of underground parking with a total of 16 stalls. Again, access through the existing building to the north through the existing parking lot. Bike parking and mechanical space would make up the remainder of the basement areas. Next slide. The two levels and approximately 9,000 square feet of commercial space are shown here in beige and they would be connected to the existing um gym space to the top left. This would be new workout space. The new space would be with the reception and lockers and other spaces in Butler's FA Plaza remaining. The apartment lobby in purple again would be located on the corner of East Wash and Butler Streets. Next slide, please. The remaining 10 stories would be residential units with a mix of studios, one beds, one bed dens, and two bed bedroom units. The 11th floor would also incorporate a community space shown here in purple and then an outdoor um roof plaza which faces the capital. I'll now turn it over to Joe Rice to go through some of our exterior renderings and design. >> Thank you, Dwayne. Um, we received positive approvals and recommendations from the urban design commission for this new project. Uh, over the course of those meetings, valuable commentary from the commission, aided this proposal's design language and form. Uh, this slide demonstrates the building's position in the city and displays our maximum story and height levels that Dwayne um described in the previous slides. Next slide, please. Uh this view illustrates how the village interfaces with both the existing and proposed developments in the East Washington Avenue view corridor. Uh filling in a gap between neighboring developments. Uh this project continues a visual procession of buildings leading up to the capital. Additionally, it adds streetscape enhancements at the pedestrian level with new landscaping and uh planters. Next slide, please. The building massing consists of a stepped masonry building separated into two halves by a folded ribbon element. >> Joe, can you get a little closer to your microphone? You're going to fade now just a bit. >> Yep. >> Okay. Uh the building masking consists of a step masonry building separated into two halves by a folded rim element. Uh the materials were selected with longevity in mind. a masonry base element supporting brick cladding on all elevations and the bisection ribbon consists of a rust orange metal composite panel. Uh large glazing sections allow for enhanced visibility in the commercial spaces and offer expansive views of the city from the residential units. Uh in closing, we appreciate the commission's time and consideration for this project. Dwayne and myself and our client Eric are available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Sure. >> Um, as the applicant team noted, Eric Minton of District 2, who is the property owner, is also here and available to answer questions. Our next uh speaker then will be Lynn Bjorkman of District 13, registered neither in support or opposition and wishing to speak. Welcome one. >> Thank you. Thanks for the chance to speak about the permit request to demolish the former general offices and principal and printing plant of the Capital Times newspaper. The landmark commission at its August meeting recommended a finding of criterion B for the building. You heard this described earlier, meaning that the building has historic value as the home of the Capitol Times from the late 1920s through the 1940s, but is itself not historically architecturally or culturally significant. As such, during discussion, commission members appeared to acknowledge the fate of the building as a loss. Given this, if you decide to approve the demolition, I urge you to condition the permit by requiring that the building be documented prior to demolition. Historian John Rowling made an excellent case for documentation at the landmark commission meeting. In response, preservation planner Bailey stated, quote, "There is a story to tell here. I think it recording the building is a valid way to go about mitigating the loss of the history of the site. Further, she noted a precedent for documentation was set when the Phileen House on Sherman Avenue was demolished. Like the Phileen House, documentation of the Capital Times building would consist of a set of photographs and measured drawings that go beyond what you've seen in the case file today. preservation planner Bailey could specify an appropriate level of documentation. And I would add here that given the budget of the overall project, this would be a very minor cost. So why is documentation important? This request for documentation is consistent with Madison's historic preservation plan which under objective 1.1 suboint C which is to quote share stories of places that have been lost unquote. Strategies to carry out this objective are listed in the plan for example creating exhibits of lost buildings and providing and producing historic preservation social media sites. This objective is not viable if we continue to demolish Madison buildings of historic value without first recording their history and presence on our urban landscape. Making documentation accessible for review would help historians, preservationists, and the public to more fully understand Madison's history and built environment past and present. and in this case specifically the important legacy of the Capitol Times as well as that of noted Madison architect Philip Homer. So I urge you to condition a demolition permit with the requirement for the applicant to document the building prior to demolition through photographs and measured drawings. Thank you for your consideration. >> Thanks Lynn. Thanks for coming up. >> Okay. Um, let me see here. There's a couple of additional applicants or I'm sorry, uh, registrants to read into the record. Sam Beers, um, looks like registered from Lake Mills, Wisconsin, registered in support, not wishing to speak. Nicholas Davies of District 15, registered in support and not wishing to speak. Devin Pollson, um, looks like of Fitsburg, Wisconsin, registered in support, not wishing to speak. Mickey Polaritzer um of Madison registered in support and not wishing to speak and Henry Gibson of Madison registered in support and not wishing to speak. Uh I'm sorry, one more. Um Alexander Minton of District 2 registered in support and not wishing to speak. >> Thanks Megan. Um are there questions from the commission for any other registrants? Commissioner Heck. >> Thank you. This is for anyone on the applicant team. Uh I just want to make sure I understand the scale of of the affordable housing commitment. Uh I from the ordinance I understand 50% of the one bonus floor would be subject to the land use restriction agreement and I'm from the renderings I'm seeing maybe about eight units on each floor give or take. So maybe four units would be uh set aside for people uh making uh no more than 80% of Dne County median income or less if you if you so chose. Uh is is that your understanding also? >> Um I can take that one. Alder Hack I think you're right on. Um the ordinance I believe reads 50% of the area for the floor, the bonus floor, right? Um so we're in you know the 6 to 8 unit range for for a floor. So I think you're right. I think it'd be in that 3 to four unit range. We haven't ran the exact calcul calculations or worked with staff to get the exact number, but I'm my understanding is similar to what you're explaining. >> Okay. Thank you. clarification, huh? >> Yeah, I see Lisa's hand also. So, yes. >> Yeah, thanks. I just want to clarify that it's um 60% of AMI, not 80. >> That's good information. I appreciate it. Thank you. Other questions for our registrants? Uh, Commissioner Hec >> last question. >> Sure. You can ask as many as you want. >> No one else is, huh? Uh so uh I guess I'd ask the the applicants uh or the applicant team uh if they'd uh consider uh how how do they feel about doing uh uh maybe a little bit of a photographic record as uh to document the the condition of the building. And uh I I realize the interior is nothing like what it used to be. So, I don't think there uh is going to be that much of a of a need to do that, but maybe maybe some to show what it even currently looks like. Uh in the the letter the in public comment that that went to the landmarks commission from John Rowling, he he even uh said he got his information from a previously published book in 2017 about what the capines was up to in that building. So I think it'd be pretty uh pretty easy to to spend a little bit of time uh creating such a record with some photographs. Would you be amendable to that if if plan commission were to add that as a condition of for the demolition? >> Assuming I'm still unmuted. Um I think the photographs wouldn't be a problem at all. I think you're right. and and um Rich Arnison had actually brought up at the landmarks um meeting that there's really not much left on the interior. It's all open gym space, you know, with pretty open ceilings in that. It wouldn't be a problem to to photograph that. And I think the exterior absolutely could be photographed. I think the harder part would be creating plans of an existing building like that. So, I think we would be more than open to the photograph part um but probably not as much to the plan work part and redrawing the existing building. My understanding understanding from Heather as well from the landmarks meeting is there's a pretty good record already for this building. I'd be interested in seeing that from her and understanding like what there already is, but if we could supplement that in some way before the raising of the buildings, I think we'd be open to the photographs. >> Thanks, Dwayne. And I I didn't mean to imply you you needed to recreate the interior design somehow from the the previous uses, but uh yeah, I I think it would be working with Heather, who I think fully understands the limitations of of what you could do and and what resources are out there. Thank you. >> Thanks, Commissioner Hec. Um are there if there are there any other questions be or are we ready to close the public hearing? Um we'll now hold the public hearing as closed and ask if the commission have questions for staff and this would be on um any of the four requested items for this property. Alder Yair. >> Thank you chair. uh following the uh details from the staff report, I certainly can see how uh we could find the standards met and uh approve the zoning change as recommended. What u I'd like to ask perhaps for future reference is what aspect of uh our current available uh standard zones um present an obstacle in this case that does not allow us to use one of those standard zones. >> Yeah, sure. I can take that question. So I think I guess the primary issue here is that like all of these buildings are on one lot that are currently a part of a plan development and then the existing building and the proposed building are interconnected with those. So like through the underground parking as well as the lobby entrance that you know they share a staircase that leads to the mezzanine of the capital fitness building. Um, so the building is very much interconnected and one option would be to do like a split zone lot where the zoning district just runs between the lot and it's sort of like you know an imaginary line. It's not a lot line. Um, in practice that's something that you know zoning staff I think has discouraged um doing what we call split lot zoning just from a policy perspective. I also think there could be zoning implications because what the setbacks are between the two zoning districts may differ if they don't have the same one. Um, another one too is like alternatively they would have maybe had to do a certified survey map and actually put a lot line between the buildings and then that creates constructibility issues as well. So I think generally generally we find that you know if there's a lot that's already zoned plan development and in many cases it's more like an amendment to the plan development rather than establishing a brand new plan development district that um staff tends to be more supportive of those kinds of requests. you know, I think maybe it would have been feasible, but it would have maybe been contrary to other policies and then also created some constructibility issues um as well. >> Uh clearly stated. Thank you. And I just I guess my the other obvious question is does it make any sense to consider reszoning the connected parcels the whole the whole part of it to one of the standard zones so that uh at some point in the future this doesn't have to be considered again. >> Yes. You know, that is a fair question and I I have to admit I don't think that is something that staff investigated um about how perhaps the entire site could be reszoned and whether or not it would comply with zoning, but I I think that's definitely something we can keep in mind for future requests like this. Yeah, I will say that generally um the zoning team in particular is really detailed in their analysis of the applicability of a conventional zoning district or a planned development district, including any amendments or expansions to those planned development districts. It is generally our approach that we try to move those into conventional districts where it's possible. So, um, you know, I think this is one of those rare examples where on balance the staff felt that this was appropriate to continue to be within a plan development district, but we do try to move as many of them as we can into conventional ones. >> Understood. Thank you for taking me through that. >> Do you hear other questions for staff? Um so we uh we want to take each item um separately and um so I think I would start by seeking a motion on uh item five um legisar 89434 which is the consideration of the demolition permit. Uh commissioner heck >> I will take a stab at this. Uh, I will uh move that we approve the demolition permit for 3022 East Washington subject to the information and any conditions in the staff report related to that demolition, including a new condition of approval that the applicant work with the city's preservation planner to uh establish an appropriate uh record, photographic record of the exterior of the building and uh any uh associated information about the use of the building uh when the cap times was housed there. >> Thanks, Commissioner Hec. >> Uh Commissioner Soulheim, second the motion. Thank you. Um any additional discussion on uh the demolition motion on the demo permit? Um right. Uh seeing none, I'll ask if there's any objection to unanimous approval for this item. And seeing none, we'll mark this as approved. Um the next item is the is legisar 89375 and this would um be the reasonzoning um proposal that we discussed or commission alg uh attempt to put this one in proper terms. I move that the uh commission finds that the standards for the zoning map amendment and plan developments are met and that uh uh we forward the zoning map amendment ID 28.022 uh-724 and ID 28.022-0000725 uh to the uh common council with a recommendation for approval. Thank you. Uh Alder Field, thanks for seconding. Um further discussion. Um is there any objection to unanimous approval or the motion before us? Seeing none, we'll record item six as approved. Um item seven is the conditional use approval for uh the additional stories um as discussed and that's legisar 89237. Alder Gare. Thanks. Thank you. We'll try again here. I move that the uh plan commission finds the approval standards for conditional uses are met and approves the request for two stories of additional building height as allowed by MGO section 28.071 sub 2 subb uh subject to the conditions in the staff report. >> Thanks Alder Glenn. Uh, thank you for the second. Um, any additional discussion on the conditional use question. Um, seeing no hands, is there any objection to unanimous approval for uh item 7? All right. Thanks. And now that leaves us with uh item eight, legisar 88957, and that is the certified survey map. Chair. Uh, Commissioner Solheim has her >> Oh, thank you. >> Yeah, thanks. I was Yep. I was looking for the language myself. Thanks, Nicole. Um, go ahead. >> I'll move the plan commission find the approval standards for certified survey maps met and forward the CSM to the council with a recommendation of approval. >> Thank you and thanks Alder Yugger for the second. Um, any discussion on this motion? Um and seeing none, is there any objection to unanimous approval for item eight? All right. Um seeing none, we'll record that as approved as well. Thanks again, um Lisa, and for our registrance, further discussion on that item. Um we have one last agenda item before we move to the reports, and that is um a discussion of the uh 2025 plan commission member survey results. Thanks to everybody who participated in the survey and um again the flourishers. >> Great. Thank you. I just want to echo the chair's thanks for participating in the survey. Um this is a really helpful opportunity for us to just check in with you about the level of detail and the quality of the materials that we're providing for you for your decision- making. Um and appreciate your time providing us that feedback. Um, in general, I'd say that uh the commission's feedback about the materials that both the staff and applicants are providing you was very positive. Um, most of the feedback indicated that the materials are very helpful to the commission or helpful or very helpful to the commission. Um, and we did hear just a a few specific comments. So, I'm just going to share my screen here very quickly and run through um a summary of the responses that we received to these questions. Um so, we asked some questions about the application materials that are provided on from applicants on behalf of the projects that you are reviewing. Um and in general the plan commission um indicated that the materials that are provided by the applicants are helpful or very helpful. Um we did receive one comment that was um kind of neutral on this uh but in general did not receive any specific written comments to elaborate on that. So happy to take any other feedback that you might want to share this evening. In terms of the quality of the written staff reports overall uh the responses indicated that those are very helpful. Um similarly the presentations are helpful and very helpful. Um, we did hear a little bit about the presentations themselves, about the applicants presentations as also generally being uh helpful and the presentations from staff both in terms of providing materials to you at the meeting as well as the ability to answer questions um as generally being helpful. In terms of answering questions, we did start to get some more mixed responses. I think here um we saw that our ability to answer questions in meetings was helpful. Um but the ability to answer questions in advance of the meeting we heard again somebody who was neutral on that. Um so happy to hear any feedback that there might be about um either the thoroughess or the timing of our ability to assist you in answering questions if you have it. Um, I'd say the place where we saw the mo the least favorable or the least positive feedback was in the materials on legar. Um, we did get some written comments related to this and I'll say that um, we share your frustrations. Um, our legislative process or our legislative system um, you know, we we have a lot of hopes for what it could do as well. Um, but some helpful feedback about naming conventions and sticking with those naming conventions as being one of the main things that I think we can control at the staff level in how those materials operate. Um I do know from the experience in working with with the chair um in her first meetings as chair um we especially see this kind of concern show up about naming conventions when you are reviewing things that are coming from other agencies. Um, so sometimes you see things about um, you know, plats or dedications or even the city um, relinquishing its ownership of certain pieces of land in the city and sometimes the materials can be very brief and not always named in a super um, obvious way. So that's really helpful feedback that we can also pass along. Um, but I I know there were also some questions or some comments about, you know, giving all of the materials that our staff are providing to you a date stamp and other things that can just be helpful in navigating um, you know, what's new and what um, is uh, existing information. When we get to the staff reports themselves, we asked a couple of questions about the contents of those staff reports. Um, again, generally favorable responses about the background information section. Um, here we did have one specific comment about a potential improvement to this. Um, there was a an observation that applicants provide letters of intent that often provide a lot of detail about a project. And so, um, there was just a suggestion that maybe if those letters of intent are thorough enough and providing the information that we need that we could maybe provide more of a cross reference to those letters and have the opportunity to potentially shorten some of our narrative about the background. I'm sorry, that that's relevant to the project description, not to the background. Um, so here again some some more mixed responses in terms of the um appropriateness of the length and information that's in the project description and I think that comment was related to that. Um, we asked about the analysis section and here we did also receive a comment. Um, I actually will just skip ahead to that comment because I don't want to miss parts of it. It was very thoughtful and helpful. Um here in comment three, I believe it was um there was a discussion about um the relationship of the information in the staff report to all of the conditions you're reviewing. Um it has been the tradition of the staff to highlight conditions that we think either cannot be met or conditions where we think the plan commission needs to spend particular um focus evaluating whether or not those conditions can be met. Um, but there was a a really helpful comment here um that we could have the opportunity in the analysis section to just highlight or kind of check off provide you with more specific reference to the fact that the other conditions are met that we don't uh discuss in a narrative form. and um if applicable to provide a reference to other known facts and information or information gaps that could be helpful to you all in finding making findings related to those conditions. I think that's a really helpful observation. Um and then I think the last questions here um had to do with the topic that I previewed for you when I mentioned that we would be sending out this survey. Um, I think related to some of the questions that we asked about our ability to help you answer questions and provide information that aids in your decision-making, we've also been thinking about um the time between our posting of materials with the agenda and all of the staff reports, you know, all the complete kind of staff reports and when you have a meeting where you're being asked to use that information to make decisions about projects and particularly trying to see if there's a way that we can increase the time between when those materials are posted and when you're being asked to take action in if it is helpful for being able to answer questions and for us to be able to provide information and address things that might come from public comment related to the posting of those materials. So, just so that the commission knows by way of background before we brought this question to you, um we did talk about this same issue with our um colleagues in other agencies that review development applications. We have an inter agency staff team that helps us with that. Um, we ask them about our deadlines that we give them to submit comments on development projects to us to ask if they saw any opportunity for those comments to be submitted earlier to aid in our preparation of staff reports. And I know Lisa was part of that discussion, so I I welcome her providing any kind of color to that conversation. But generally, I think the the staff teams are um, you know, they're they have a pretty full docket of development projects that they're reviewing. And so it wasn't obvious to them how uh we could move up those deadlines and ensure that they could meet all of the requirements for review. So that then kind of um helped us switch gears to think about what other ways we might be able to achieve that. And one of the ideas that we had was to potentially move the night of the plan commission meeting. Um, that said, about twothirds of you said that you would prefer Monday night as the meeting night if we were to consider potentially moving the night to a Tuesday. Um, and one person in particular said that Tuesday is one meeting day that they could not attend a meeting. Um, often because they're traveling uh for personal or workrelated issues. Um and then I think here I mentioned most of the comments that we received um in the context of the questions that they seem to be related to. But um happy to hear any other comments or questions the commission may have about this survey or about any of the items in it. All do you again? >> Uh your revelation on the comment uh with regard to the check off of the standards to be met u think makes a lot of sense. It occurs to me that there could even be almost a an embedded standard uh little little table in which we always list the standards to be satisfied and whether we just check them off or have a comment on it. probably would be very useful and probably not just for commissioners, but I am thinking for the kinds of conversations that we uh at least the alders have with residents interested in a particular project that we always get buried in at times in conversations about this or that standard and a table like that might be really helpful for interested residents or registrants as Well, thanks. >> Okay, thank you. >> Field, >> just a brief comment in support of one of my ratings in the survey. The staff reports um in particular, how they're organized, I find phenomenal because I can scan and call out the headers and bullet sections, italicized comments about the standards and analysis. So, it becomes really easy for me to go back and reference something that I'm pretty sure I read and find the right section. Um, I appreciate how approachable that is. >> Great. I'm glad that that reformatting has been helpful to you. Um, it's great to hear. >> Uh, Commissioner Sanders, >> thank you. So, I um I echo Alder Field's statements about the staff reports, but I also just want to acknowledge how much I appreciate when we have a lot of historical context going into decisions to be made that staff reports often include link to previous legisar files as are relevant. Um it makes my life easier. I don't have to go trying to hunt them down. Uh so I really appreciate that the staff reports tend to be a one-stop shop for really understanding the issues. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. Okay. Um, I'm also, you know, interested and happy to hear any kind of elaboration on the discussion about the meeting night. I know this is something we definitely wanted to get the commission's feedback on, and it seems like from the results, there is a a stronger preference to keeping the meeting on a Monday. There were a couple of comments that said folks were open but you know preferred Monday. So um I don't know if anybody feels the need to expound upon that or if that's sufficient. All right. Well, um, >> again, I'll just I'll I'll put in two cents, which will be worth exactly that, and say, you know, I would probably on balance rather do it on Tuesday, but I also think change requires more than half support before, you know, um, and so I don't think that it looks like the more than half support is for the status quo, and that that's instructive to me. So, um, sorry Darren, you raised your hand as well. So, >> no, it just, um, I'd have to be the the exact if it switched to Tuesday, I probably wouldn't be able to participate anymore. That even though I'm traveling tonight, Tuesday nights are typically events and I have things going on in the evening. So, I can zoom in from a hotel room, but but not from an event. Ah, >> we'll just have to figure out a way to create two of you. [Music] Alder Glenn, >> I was just going to add about the night that there's a part of me like, "Oh, would it be great to have this meeting on the Tuesday night? I don't have counsel so that I don't have a meeting Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on some weeks, uh, which is this week. Uh, so I mean, for me, I it's not there's not really a preference, but I hear what everybody else said. Um, either way, I mean, if it was going the other way and I was the person that was like Tuesdays just because that's what I'm used to, I'd have easily been switchable. But as the data shows, I think it's looks like it's Monday for now. But I just wanted to say that. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Trisha, >> I'll just say something that we've uh all heard many times at plan commission. Change is hard. I don't care one way or the other. So, >> yeah. I mean, and to that point, change is hard and moving the night of a standing meeting has implications for um how we report things up to the council and you know, so I think we to echo what the chair said, I think we'd want to know that it was something that had a you know, a level of support that would make that level of effort worth it, right? So I think then, you know, for us it's more just focusing on how we can make sure we're being really timely with posting staff reports and information to give you the maximum amount of time to take a look at it and to give us the maximum amount of time to be responsive to any followup that's necessary from that. >> Commissioner, >> thank you. This is not related to the night, but I I just remembered I I wanted to mention um talking about Ledger. I I will say that for some reason um finding the demolition the landmarks reports for the demolition uh this evening was a lot easier than it has for me in the past. So, just kudos to that. >> Yes. And that is that is different. So, I'm glad that was easier for you. Um, under our former demolition process, we didn't create an individual legislative file for each demolition. It was just like one group for any of them that the commission reviewed at a meeting. And so now they have their own files. So, I'm glad that was easier. >> Alder Fields. >> Sure. Um, just briefly on the night, I voted to keep Monday. I have a slight preference for Monday because it happens to be more convenient for a neighborhood meeting schedule, but that doesn't mean I I Tuesdays would work too and I would still be able to participate. I'm just reflecting quite honestly on Commissioner Hack's comment that change is hard and we need to get used to thinking about that if we say it ourselves. Right. Thanks. >> All right. >> So, maybe ask us again uh later. We'll ask you again next year. No. Um this is helpful and uh in particular as I mentioned, you know, the making a change would have implications for um the relationship of the plane commission to other boards and commissions and we're also just on the kind of um we're just getting ready to put together our schedule for your meetings for next year. And so, you know, knowing that there's not a strong preference for making a change is helpful for us to finalize that calendar um that'll be needed for um for all of you, but also for all of our applicants who submit um for specific meeting nights. So, thanks for that discussion. Um and again, just want to thank you for taking the time to take the survey and share your thoughts with us. Um, I really appreciate the level of effort that the staff puts into all of the work that they do to prepare for discussions with you and I think it's also really helpful to just check in occasionally and make sure that what we're doing helps you do the job you do um because you put in a lot of time for this um role. So, thank you for all of that as well. >> Thanks. Um, so this was a uh just a discussion item. There's no action. >> Just a discussion item. Yep. >> Yep. Yep. So we will move to time for member announcements, communications and business items. Um does anyone have any of those to share? Uh all right and then we will then move to secretar's report. >> Okay. Um we were saying to the chair earlier today that the next few meetings will be bigger agendas for you for sure. Um, so just want to draw your attention to the list of upcoming matters for both October 6th and October 20th in particular. We're going to see um a couple bigger projects and some projects that are kind of returning from um the past in some cases maybe a project that has been slightly reworked and resubmitted or is the implementation of future phases of a project um such as Hilldale. So, um, just want to point that out. Uh, we're going to see a couple bigger projects coming forward on those upcoming agendas. Um, and feel free, as always, to reach out to us even before the, uh, preparation of any of the staff reports if you have questions about any of those projects or want to kind of come up to speed on their history. The chair also noted that we have a short list here of upcoming matters for the October 16th meeting. Um this is our special meeting in person. Um we are looking forward to a discussion in collaboration with the school district um about issues related to planning and development coordination. So, we'll share a little bit more information with you about the ways that our staff has been working with uh the new superintendent in the administration around some of their strategic planning and their forthcoming boundary review process in particular and will provide us with an opportunity to discuss how uh the work that we do on the development review side relates to their planning as well. Um, we also anticipate having a discussion with you about the urban design commission code and the update of that code. Um, I think this was last before the plan commission before I started with you and so we've been working on some revamping of the focus of that and um are looking forward to discussing certain aspects of that um process with you as well. And then uh something that was requested, I can't remember if it was by the chair or otherwise, um but we're anticipating that some folks from the Department of Transportation will be joining us to give an update on the curb management framework process that they will be leading and how that could be a tool that complements our work in the development review space. Any questions for Megan uh on the secretary's report? All right. Um I think we are ready to move for a motion to adjourn. Alderfield. Thank you. Commissioner Hec. Thank you. Um any objection to unanimous approval? And seeing none, we'll stand adjourned. Thanks everybody for the good discussions tonight. >> Thank you. Have a great night.