[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right good morning welcome to this February 5th meeting of the Charlotte City Council Transportation Planning and Development Committee we'll start as usual with introductions beginning over there sir I'm Brett B I'm the communications manager for CS monut planing director Tony msia with char ler Alexandria s AIO Charlotte Allison Craig planning director Malcolm Graham Committee Member Ed dggs committee chair Marcus Jones city manager Les Babson assistant city manager Yolanda Jones planning staff Brent kelam CEO cats then Alexander Charlotte Transportation Terry lale planning commit hi good morning everyone Debbie Smith Charlotte Department of Transportation and mckin City manager's office Laura Harmon planning department Alan good planning staff Rob do we have anybody online good morning good morning Dante Anderson uh mayor Pro 10 district one good morning Renee Johnson District 4 Committee Member good morning Victoria Wallington at large Committee Member good morning Rene asku city manager office looks like that's it uh okay we have uh four items today on our agenda and uh the first of which is performance measures uh we like to switch item okay we're going to switch item one and two all right so the first thing so you said yeah first thing is we'll get our cats update from Brent Kagel yes thank you and good morning uh relatively minor updates uh this month uh just a reminder national Express will uh transition as our bus operator uh later on this week next week um we will also be planning now that they team is transitioning and they're taking over um to introduce their uh management team to the committee and to the MTC as they come on board but we're excited about that transition uh and then the last update is uh the FTA through their contractors has been conducting over the last several months uh maintenance and operations special review as well as a financial management oversight special review both of those reviews are um nearing the end we are working with the uh ft's contractors to schedule exit interviews um on those um once those exit interviews are complete we would expect that uh their document in the form of a draft uh report uh should be issued for both of those reviews we don't have a time frame yet but we know we are they're nearing the end they have completed their fieldwork and document re reviews by and large and all the other items uh that we have been following are basically uh ongoing maintenance things like that right correct sir um the items from the work group uh continue to on are ongoing we continue the uh truck or wheel assembly maintenance um we continue working with ncdot SSO related to the directive that we spoke about last month um and and all other things just continue they're ongoing uh I will note the aerial structure inspections the bridge inspections uh have completed now and we will be waiting for a final report from the engineers um just as a point of reference we worked with the engineering or the bridge inspection firms so anything that they identified in the field they noted to us and we immediately addressed but the process is once they are complete with all of the inspections they issue a final report so they will be uh working through um issuance of the final report but the situation as reported last month is basically the same in terms of those uh Vehicles being sidelined and resuming Service as they are maintained yes that is correct sir okay uh any questions I'd like to welcome uh committee Vice chair Marjorie Molina to the meeting good morning margorie good morning I apologize I was having some problems getting on this morning yeah I know that technical stuff it's tough yeah I'll see y'all in a few I'm actually in transit Miss Johnson you have a question I do thank you thank you Brent for the update I wanted to I just wanted an update when you say the we're continuing with the will assembly maintenance um I know that there was a a dollar amount or or or plan to get all the um the maintenance done so I I just wanted more of an a detailed update on that how what percentage of the the trains have been have been repaired or um do we have an estimated completion date do we need to add more to our budget I just wanted a little deep dive on where we were with the uh required maintenance thank you we can provide that uh yeah I think that's a longer report Miss Johnson so if you're okay I'll have him follow up is that all right I think our public would like to hear that as well so is that something that we can put on the um on an agenda Mr Jones or can we get an update did you have something tonight um yeah yeah yes so we can certainly so let me let me pull it together I will attempt to have something tonight for you um even if it's not complete it's we can fill in the the blanks um if we need to uh at a later date so if it's okay Miss Johnson we'll do that we'll get some information tonight there there are a lot of moving Parts there so it takes a little work to pull all that together I understand but a report just to say we're continuing the will assembly and thank you Brent you know I think you do a great job but I think this is that are Public's interested and this is an an issue of Public Safety so a a report a more detailed report would be helpful for all thank you sure absolutely and I I'd like to emphasize as I have in the past there uh the public should not be concerned that there is a safety issue here so some cars were taken out of service out of an abundance of caution the operating trains are all the newer trains they don't have any of the issues that uh that we have encountered over the last couple couple of years and therefore I feel that if anything uh this is one of the safest systems uh you can imagine it's under such scrutiny right now that uh if anything uh I just don't want people not to ride on trains because they're worried that they aren't safe I think they are safe agreed you wouldn't put it that way because you have to be a little careful about the word well I I I mean we would if if we thought that there was uh some kind of imminent Hazard to the public we wouldn't we wouldn't put the vehicles out on the tracks to start with um we are working diligently with seens uh it is a little bit more of a complicated answer as far as the timelines goes and the the budget um but we we have worked with ncdot SSO Safety and Security office as well as Seamans to develop a maintenance uh routine for all of the vehicles um to get the maintenance done and we have um uh many our staff our our maintenance Crews uh uh personnel are doing all of the maintenance required and and the system is is operating well even with the directives that we have from ncdot and because of them I mean in the sense that ncdot is being very watchful in terms of making sure that the system is operating safely so but we'll get more uh later today Miss Johnson at the meeting um anybody else yes sir yeah just a quick question BR thank you for the update any any update on what's happening with the federal review yes so so the federal reviews that is the maintenance and operations um review and the financial management review they we we don't have a an end date so to speak but we know that they have completed their on-site uh staff interviews and their document reviews um and they're starting to schedule what what they call is an exit interview which is here are the observations and and we work together through that exit interview exit interview The Next Step will be issuing a draft report we don't have an exact date on that but we we know we are closer than farther away from draft reports being issued yeah we're in the tail end of this process and nothing has concerned you especially that you've uh in the process uh no sir so we have already had the special maintenance uh exit interview and quite frankly the officer ations um that there are some things that we can do better um but they are really related to how we report on all of the maintenance we act that we're doing right um if anything I would say the FTA or their contractors uh believe that maybe um there was an impression that we weren't doing any maintenance or that no maintenance that is not the case uh what they find is that you know over you know 95 97% of all maintenance is conducted on time per specifications the truck overhauls which is one piece of Maintenance we're not but that is one piece of Maintenance and literally the the maintenance protocols when you look at all the different maintenance protocols um they're 10 pages long right there there are literally hundreds if not thousands of protocols that need to be followed and they are being followed by staff every day every month every year and the truck overhauls are the sort of centerpiece of our remediation efforts so we have a schedule for addressing that that is correct um so when you say exit interview that doesn't mean you're leaving does it no it means that they're leaving good for now but they won't be far away all right do we have anything else for Mr Kagel if not thank you sir we'll move on to the what is actually the first item in our agenda now miss Babson yes sir um well this is a continuation of the conversation that Council had at their annual strategy meeting just a couple of weeks ago and so our interest today is to give the committee an opportunity to talk through um the goals and objectives that were selected sort of those that thank you those that you would want to elevate and have staff then go back and look at to develop measures and Targets in the coming months um so with that you'll see on this slide that we are seeking committee endorsement today to move forward with the development of those measures and we want to give you an opportunity to again see what those measures are and have some discussion around them and then we'll um in the last slide lay out sort of the timeline for how that will happen and move through committee I will also point out that every committee is having the same discussion today as well so next slide um this is just just a reminder of where we're headed and again how the goals and objectives relate to ultimately measures and targets I will also say it's important to note um council is very aware of this and familiar with conversations around measures and targets related to strategic priorities and goals and objectives of work that is done by the city organization and so this is not intended to replace that um but instead just Elevate some of those for your consider and a routine reporting from staff next slide please so again as a reminder this is a work effort that occurred at the annual strategy meeting and in that session each committee chair had another council member along with them council member dggs I believe your Vice chair council member Molina was with you on this exercise and so what you'll see on these next two slides are six I believe objectives that you select Ed and then reported out to full Council next slide please and so these are the remaining two that make up that six next slide and for consideration today um again we can we can talk about these in any way you want to but as I looked at the six that were selected I wanted to provide this feedback um on one of those objectives I believe you had a write in response and used the word um okay I don't have it up there it was reduce I apologize so on on one of those goals you wrote in a word to reduce um the vision zero um from eliminate yes reduce change it from eliminate to reduce thank you um and we are just suggesting and want to remind Council that you do have a council adopted plan that calls for eliminating deaths and serious injuries we we do recognize this is an aspirational goal the other item we'll point out is that under your strategic Mobility plan and the 50/50 mode share um you have several items that support that goal and those are listed to the far right as improved Street and Redway system Street connectivity and capacity and Regional connectivity and investment and I believe in that instance you supported or you selected one of those three we can certainly St with that um or you could consider adding all three of these to that as well and then last but not least um you added a wrin goal with an objective related to area planning timing and process and the outcomes associated with that and again as I mentioned earlier I would just remind Council um and this committee that we come to you every month with information and updates around the area planning and Udo work and so with that I will hand it over to you chair and let you have a discussion about this this item so I would just comment um I didn't like the word eliminate because it's not measurable right in other words if you establish a goal of eliminate you try to measure the outcome you're never going to get there so that's why reduce would be more quantifiable and you would have more accountability around how much progress you'd made uh but I take the point about that was maybe not language that uh language could only be changed by a vote of council since that was the policy that Council put in place um I will say generally uh I thought our process for arriving at these was a little rushed we had to choose some very long lists of priorities many of which were important so uh uh personally I'm I'm you know fine with identifying these but I don't want even the appearance to be created that somehow that means that everybody else uh it takes a backseat the fact is we actually need to be working on all of those things um any comment from the committee I think your observation was was similar to mine in terms of uh many choices to be made in a short period of time all of them are valuable uh initiatives that we are to continue to to Monitor and move forward I'm okay with the list you know I'm not married slowly to it but you know it's it's a good process to keep it moving forward I have Miss Molina uh thank you Mr chair I actually I I fully agree with you I think what we found um in that list was it was an enormous list of deliverables um and that word eliminate versus reduce uh was one that the chair and I struggled with because like he said that's not measurable right to say eliminate and and you know we we don't have a way to show progress if we show reduction then we can show you know our efforts to eliminate it over time and I think that's a better approach as opposed to just solidly saying you know um eliminate so understanding that we still have steps to do for the adopted um initiative and and you know some stakeholders still to try to bring to the table I I like reduce a whole lot better than eliminate um and and there was a lot of overlap too right for other committees and things of that nature that kind of you know created an opportunity for us to um make sure that you know we didn't choose something that was outside of the scope of what we do for this particular committee as well so just wanted to put that out there all right um uh thank you Vice chair Miss watlington thank you uh chair I would just add that first of all I'm very happy to see that we are putting metrics to these items and every across all of the Committees because we know that um people do what you inspect not what you expect necessarily and so I'm just glad to see that we're putting some real metrics towards our goals I see it a little bit differently I believe that eliminate is the objective and any results that we would provide would be related to the actual number of fatalities and serious Industries or serious in injuries so we can absolutely track that as the metric whether or not we achieve the goal I think is is a little bit different right it's not a yes or no we did it or we didn't it's the goal is to eliminate did we reach zero no what number did we reach I think the metric is the same regardless so um to the extent that we'll meet the same intent without having to try to uh make an adjustment that would require councel action I think we can still get where we're trying time to go thanks uh I agree with that I I think my only point was um if you had reduced and you had numbers like Target numbers that you set for yourself in terms of achieving that reduction rather than just having updates to see whether there had been a decline then we would have a reference right like if you bring it down by 10 that's what you intended to do if you bring it down by 15 that was over performance if you bring it down by five it's underperformance so I would like that kind of accountability around these outcomes I can see with the goal being eliminate what I'm hearing you say is you just want a Glide path to get us to the goal and then we can track whether we're red or green versus the Glide path but the numbers are going to be the numbers right our Glide path will never however go to zero I mean the behavior of people and so on there's a certain amount that uh you can't realistically hope to eliminate I mean let's not get bogged down on a semantic quibble I I think the intent is clear and we will uh be interested to see what kind of metrics we're able to look at in the pursuit of our goals so uh uh you know I'm fine it's just uh I I would like to see us establish a uh um a schedule of some kind or some reference that tells us whether or not we're doing better or not as well as what we set out for ourselves so is Miss milina uh Miss Molina yes thank you Mr chair and I actually you took the words right out of my mouth right I I think before we could even say that we would align metrics we need a schedule right you you we don't even know what a project Baseline based on what we just assign would look like right so without metrics I don't think we could delve into too many details but I I do look forward to delving into those details and you know working towards what would look like elimination well I'm sure we'll hear more about this uh Miss Babson how many of these uh on this list already have available data so that we can start out with some starting point and then actually have measurement as to our progress great question um I haven't dug into every one of them in a lot of detail but having spent my previous life in the transportation department I'm very familiar with the two that are on the screen and so as it relates to Vision zero and our strategic Mobility plan um we do have some metrics and measures associated with those goals and objectives where we can start to provide you information the vision zero obviously that's a plan that Council adopted more than five years ago so we have a tremendous amount of data um associated with the safety on our streets um and then again the Mobility plan is fairly new but we do we have started to develop measures around um how to make sure that we are moving in a Direction where we're achieving those goals and then if you will go back to the next slide slide four yeah that one um on the comp plan um there's been a tremendous amount of work associated with the comprehensive plan Allison might be able to speak to this even better than I can but we do have a comprehensive plan dashboard and so we've identified a number of items within that plan and those goals associated with supporting and achieving that Vision um so we've done quite a bit of work in that space as well to identify ways that we can measure achieving these goals so I would just ask that we have a bet we have more opportunity to come back to you in March and dig a little deeper in all of these areas so miss Craig uh do we track right now these 10-minute neighborhoods do we have a starting point so I mean that one's a little bit harder to track um so that that would be one that I think we're still developing on how best to do that and we're of course watching very closely to what the council discussions are and these performance indicators and how we can be um in alignment with that and so being able to use the dashboard to help uh relay that information as well so there's a lot on the dashboard that still it might be data that we haven't even started collecting or data that's not spatial in nature so it's a work in progress right but anyway the plan is then as we go forward to uh create a more uh accountable framework right like like something measurable that we're watching in order to track our success in the pursuit of these goals yes sir that's correct absolutely so where we can we'll we'll establish those measures and where we identify gaps we will commit to the committee and Council when we will be able to develop those and come back to you and Report out uh for me the 10-minute neighborhoods are difficult they're they're desirable and there there are a lot of places where they can work and there a lot of places where they just don't uh so we're going to have to get real about that all right anybody else mayor poam thank you Mr chair um as we go through this exercise today Miss bapson for all of the Committees um I I hope that we can keep track of the Redundant goals as they cut across the Committees and they need to be a a redundant in order to get to the the Finish Line um but I would like for to just make sure that we're keeping track of those that are in fact cutting across multiple committees ensur need to and if they need to that's great but if they don't need to um then we should be able to streamline our objectives and our metrics yes ma'am thank you for that feedback so you said you wanted an indication from us uh it's not an action item as such so I guess uh without objection committee uh we encourage the staff to move forward with these does that work yes sir thank you we will be back next month with more information not hearing any objections okay good uh our next item is a planning update and for that I turn over to miss Craig thank you so much um and if you could pull up my presentation that would be great um so we are here today to give you an update um you go to the next slide on um mostly on the council referral regarding duplexes and triplexes and large res residential development projects and talk to you about um what we have done in the background what we've been evaluating and then bring forward some recommendations and next steps for you um at the end of the presentation we'll give you a brief um preview of some future planning topics that I know you discussed at your retreat just wanted to acknowledge that we're working on them and that we will be back in front of you shortly next slide so um the council referral I wanted to use the exact language just to remind ourselves because it's um it's been a couple months since we've been back in front of you to talk about this but the city council um referred to staff to recommend alternative options including a schedule for potential changes to the Udo for allowing duplexes and triplexes and larger projects developing by right in residential zoning kind of a mouthful um but really uh just for context remind people this was kind of ignited I guess by one case in particular although issues are happening like in my district and around but in that case the petitioner told residents that if they didn't approve the plan that the petitioner had submitted for approval for Council approval then they would develop by right and that Prospect looked pretty unattractive to them so they came to us and said how did you adopt the plan that puts us in this position where we have to make that choice and frankly I'm a little bit in that situation too so uh that that's the the context for this and uh I will mention personally my impression always was that our kind of lowest density residential would be a mix of housing types including a substantial some significant portion of single family so it wasn't the intention to kind of wipe single family off the map entirely the intention was to take what were previously exclusively single family zoning districts and make room in them for higher density types like duplexes and triplexes so that's what we're working on thank you very much Mr chair um next slide so I just want to you know of course we start with the vision um and so in the Charlotte future 2040 comprehensive plan um goal number two is that Charlotte will strive to have a diversity of housing options just like you're saying by increasing the presence of middle density housing which includes duplexes triplexes for plexes town homes adus and other small lot housing types um so that's really the goal that we aspire to is that we're wanting to um we want to work on housing it's a a challenge um in Charlotte and Nationwide to have both availability of housing as well as affordable housing um and sometimes that means different types of housing so next slide and just as a reminder um used this slide a couple times before but I think it's really important because what we've been developing um over the last number of decades are really on the two extremes of of the broad spectrum of housing so we've done a lot of detached single family houses and we've done a lot of Apartments but there's lots of housing types um that are in between that we really have underbuilt um for decades and not everyone wants or can live in a single family house and not everyone can or wants to live in apartment and it's really important for us to have different housing options in our our community next slide so going back to to your comments Mr chair um what we are starting to see are some um submitt of entire developments of duplexes and triplexes and really questioning is that what we um really sought in our overall comprehensive plan and our goals um for housing and so some of the things that we've been talking about over the last few months are um what are the desired Quant of units we're looking for what are the quality of the development and then where they're located and so um what I'm going to be talking about really centers around those three areas next slide so when we came to you all in June um we talked about one of one of the considerations that we were exploring and it goes back there's a specific comprehensive plan goal um related to this about wanting to have different types of Housing and develop uh in in our development projects and so one of the things we entertained and we talked to you all about was okay maybe we have this sort of um once you introduce duplexes and triplexes uh maybe there's a requirement that a certain percentage is single family and the other is um duplexes and triplexes um we've been and I'll go through each of these in a little bit more detail we've been looking at two other considerations that I want to talk briefly about today is looking at the overall development standards particularly in our conservation um development type um that will increase open space and buffers between development types that help um that impact walkability and livability and then thirdly is um location so um are there locations where large developments in of duplexes and triplexes are desired um more or are are less desirable and so where are we trying to Target growth and what does that look like next slide so this is the slides or this is the thought similar to what we came before you in June um so mixing housing types and how does that work with the framework and development so this is um an existing development in Plaza Midwood um and what I wanted to point out uh is the way that this site has been developed it's really in PODS of development um types of housing types and this is really traditionally when you start to have mixes of housing um in larger sites you start to see PODS of these types of development so you'll have PODS of duplexes PODS of sing single family homes PODS of triplexes or town homes and the reason for that is a function of um there are different uh developers that do different types of housing uh development there also a financing function and so I think ideally we would love to see a Triplex and then a duplex in the single family home and have a mix of different housing types along a block but a lot of times that's it's not uh realistic as to how that's developed and so while I think that this I think this particular development and the scale of where it is and the context is appropriate we wanted to look at some other options um to bring before you all so next Slide the next is looking at development standards so this is really looking at um sort of the quality of of the development are there modifications that we might need to consider to help better uh reflect our goals outlined in our policy that start to look at the interactions between an existing sub Division and a proposed subdivision so whether or not we need to increase the amount of open space uh look at different access points are there additional buffers required and are there certain height elements that we we would uh we should be considering and next slide and then the last consideration this is really looking at location but by location you're still you know potentially also talking about quantity of units is um looking at our activity centers our transportation corridors or Strategic investment areas that you've been talking about recently are there some parts of Charlotte that are better equipped to have new larger subdivision development with housing diversity and so the map on the right is something that we've been talking um internally um about as well as with our partners with um Charlotte Department of Transportation and what this map is showing two different things so I'll first call call you to the areas highlighted in red and so these are um these are part throughout Charlotte that are 5 Acres or more that are zoned in1 a b or c so are lower intensity residential areas and then um and then in the purple or the hot pink or whatever color you view that those are our um community and Regional Activities center Place types and so some of the thoughts that we've been considering is that as you start to look at where you're starting to concentrate density um looking at 10-minute neighborhoods in the form of of centers are there certain parts of the city where maybe it's more appropriate to have density than others and so it could be some of the things we've been talking about is when you're away from those centers maybe the intensity of development should be less but then conversely when you're closer to a center should it be more um we've been seeing a large increase in the number of town homes being proposed um through the resoning process in particular um and this is uh an opportunity for housing ownership I know that this was something that you all talked a lot about at your retreat um and we've seen a pretty large increase in the number of of closings that are Town Homes versus single family homes so are is there enough of an opportunity here as we consider locational criteria to also consider that next slide so my recommendation to committee today is to send this to the udio advisory committee to explore these three things so these are can get very technical and very um nuanced and detailed in terms of when you start talking about regulatory language um but we've we really spent some time when when the Udo went into effect to reconvene the Udo advisory committee and um ensure that we've got a number of individuals that represent um the community from all different council districts the affordable housing the development industry sustainability there's a lot of individuals on this group and this is really why they're here is to be kind of a think tank and but for a referral I probably would have already gone to that group for discussion but I felt though because of where this is that it was important to come to committee first and talk about the three directions that were considering changes um and get feedback from you all and then bring it to the udio advisory committee for more discussion next slide so the timeline for this um it's not I know that this um has been in play for a few months and so I'm not intending for this to to um continue on for the same amount of time um really wanting to to have uh two Udo advisory committee meetings this month um to talk about this specific topic um and get U discussion and direction from the community and the development industry and then come back to you all in March with an update from the advisory committee and really move in April and May towards finalizing approach and next steps for a future text Amendment or amendments depending on uh where this goes next slide and then again um this is my last slide just in conclusion I just wanted to acknowledge that there were um there's some questions at the city council Retreat about area planning wanting to know where we're heading what we're doing um and so we couldn't fit all of that in in the presentation of course today but um we'll be able available to give you an update at the next committee meeting as well as an update on the tree canopy analysis work that we're doing so next slide I think that's it for me that's a lot uh committee questions Miss Wallington thank you um my question is just for a clarification because I know that we've had this conversation a number of times um during zoning meetings and I'm thinking about a particular um petition that is open right now where we were discussing this um topic to be taken up by the advisory committee but it was specific to areas that were developments that were larger than five acres and that really didn't meet the need when it came to establish neighborhoods and interrupting the character of that neighborhood so I wanted to make sure that I understood where that fell within this discussion so that's really this this that's the heart of what we're talking about so um so what I want to consider is for those Parcels that are 5 Acres or more that we look at locational criteria we look at development standards and then potentially even a requirement for a mix of uses when we introduce those duplexes and triplexes so um this is this is this is the heart of of of that question okay so what I'm hearing is five acres or more um I'm asking about five acres or less less okay sorry you're fine um so the reason for the five acres and of course this is up for discussion by committee but the reason for the five acres is that is the traditional threshold that has been in our um our develop our our development ordinance that 5 acres and more are uh a large subdivision a lot of times when you're in the two to five acre range you can't really get the street Network in and so you don't see a lot of developments in that category um because they just there's not enough land to actually be able to do a full subdivision and so hence that's where we landed at five okay so then it feels like there's a need to really separate the two topics so there's this topic that's about how do we build a subdivision that's got mixed use um but I don't yet see anything that actually addresses the issue that's on the table in regards to neighborhoods that have um say an established density or something of that nature and they're faced with these enormous relatively uh developments um that really interrupt the fabric of their neighborhood so that that's the piece that I was hoping that when this was brought up at the last zoning meeting that would be discussed here so I I would offer that to the room that I'd really like to see in addition to this in terms of making mixed use uh subdivisions i' I'd like to see us address this ongoing topic around how do we make sure that what we intended for um increasing density does not uh negatively impact our other goal of retaining identity and charm thanks and Miss Wilding toon I have a comment about that too but I'd like to hear Miss Johnson uh thank you Mr chair um you know that I I piggyback off what council member W Lon says I absolutely agree we know when we were developing the Udo that there were only 33% of the subdivisions that did not have a a an HOA to protect them from this type of of of of change and we know that we need dens but we don't want to negatively affect neighborhoods and the petition that uh that we discussed in our last zoning meeting is less than 5 Acres but the impact is is going impact is going to be so um profound and in such a change in character to the neighborhood so I definitely think that we need to look at uh subdivisions that are less than five acres because it has a greater impact on those neighborhoods I mean it's going to it's going to change it you know the the the multif family in a in a neighborhood with 20 homes or is a greater impact to the quality and the character of that neighborhood so we there's definitely room for us to to revise the uh referral I would say we because that's that's that's a that's an important issue as well thank you I think that um an important issue maybe not exactly the same one but going back to the 20 240 plan and the Udo uh there was an underlying goal to slow down the rise in housing cost by increasing the density of uh development that was the starting point uh that included eliminating completely any single family zoning categories and opening the door for the duplexes and the triplexes unfortunately opening the door so wide that there didn't even have to be any single Le family and that's one of the things we're working on um but the other thing that was in the background all the time was well what about the adjacencies and and what about the the sort of suitability of that kind of development in the context of what's around it uh a lot of protests from people and the petitions that we've been seeing about the inappropriateness of that kind of development right near where they live and uh we kind of poked at that with the idea of community benefit agreements for example uh there was the neighborhood character overlay and we had to sort of understand what that meant and that that wasn't necessarily a response to U what a lot of us are hearing from our constituents which is uh does it really make sense to have that development right in the middle of a large single family area a mature neighborhood that's a community uh questions like that so uh I think the area planning process will'll probably uh Identify some of that but that's why I'm curious to hear more about the area planning process because I want to know whether or not we're going to get any help with that issue the smaller than five acres or even the bigger ones but the question of is there a fundamental suitability issue in terms of a type of development in the context of its surroundings and uh the way the uh the place types work we don't have a standard so uh you have a bunch of requirements you have to meet and those kind of indicate how many units you can create and therefore imply a density but there isn't a number uh and that would have been one way of kind of changing the mix but I think we decided for a bunch of reasons that wasn't the way we wanted to do it so uh I think Miss Craig what you're hearing and I will second this as well is uh there is still an issue that is not being addressed by limiting this work to 5 acres and greater uh and it's a touchy issue because it was controversial at the time we had the conversations before uh Community benefit agreements were intended to address that uh the incursion of uh vulnerable neighborhoods and naturally occurring affordable housing was an issue so we had nest for that turned out Community benefit agreements that were mandatory were also illegal and therefore that didn't happen uh so I think we've still got an unanswered question there somehow as to how we can reconcile the goal of higher density and more diverse housing with what is on the ground right now and the sensibilities of people who already live in those places Mr Graham here chair I'm sorry yeah I'm in the que I got you next thank thank you Mr chair uh given the presentation thank you for the presentation uh I conly concur as relates to the location standards and mix of use all those are extremely complicated uh and get get at the heart of the the Udo uh and and the devils in the details so forwarding it to the Udo advisory committee the wide variety of stakeholders who have participated helping build the product I I think it makes real good sense uh I think the timeline that you laid out uh makes sense as well um and um and these are for five acres or more when we start dealing with five acres or less you're really deal with cutting the bones of of the Integrity of what we voted for and I don't want to start over I'm committed to and I think my track record um suggests I'm committed to um fragile and threatened communities inner city communities um um quarters of opportunities um I got a town hall meeting this Saturday working well you work yeah working with neighborhoods and communities to ensure that they're part of the change and not victims of it um underscore change right and that's what we're dealing with and so um I think there was a reason why we said five acres or more right because we didn't want to really relitigate the the Udo and if we go lower than that I think that's what we do that's the and you know I don't want to do that and that's and that doesn't say that I um I am less caring or about um uh neighborhoods and communities I care a lot about neighborhoods and communities um I put a lot of time in in investing in neighborhoods and Community we got the nest commission that made a series of recommendations that I support uh to ensure that people are part of the change and not victims of it um but you know we spent two year two and a half years and thousands of dollars and count of volunteer hours con creting this document so I I just just just one man's opinion um but um you know I'll listen so Mr Graham I would just say that if you recall um the vote at the time was mixed right six to five and in my mind it was because there were some issues that weren't yet fully resolved and I think we're dealing with them now so I agree with you I I I think we adopted a policy I didn't support it but I feel Bound by it I get that uh but it feels to me even within the scope of that policy that we adopted that there were some things that we could have worked on more if you remember we were also under a certain amount of time pressure to get the vote done before the end of that Council and I think we might have benefited from spending a little more time on a couple of these issues but and I'm not I'm not opposed to amending the Udo let me put that on the record to you right I'm not opposed to um changes that we need to do in order to ensure that there's no unattended consequences that we don't do something literally that um that's going to be um detrimental to communities and neighborhoods right but at the same token you know 65 is 65 Council approved the policy whether you went by eight touchdowns one the game is won right and and if you want to reverse that you can because I only represent uh 111 to the council um but certainly you know I don't think we ought to be retreading ground that we've already plowed but again I'm only one person I I no I agree with you I I just think uh the difficulty is in making a distinction between any action that we might take that actually contradicts what we did before versus building on what we did before and and so uh uh if you start tinkering with this thing um you're always asking yourself okay are we still doing what we intended to do uh so uh but otherwise you know I I agree with you the adopted policy of the council is uh the 2040 plan and the Udo and um we should not on a sort of regular basis make fundamental changes that create a totally chaotic environment so uh IE you know that policy was meant to get put in place and was meant to chart the future for the city and and uh it would be really harmful um if we then changed course dramatically several times so we'll try to figure that out sir uh I have Miss watlington and then Miss Johnson and Miss Molina thank you Mr chair um I would say along the lines of what you all just mentioned there's a very real difference between um completely walking something back and continuing to build upon what we knew was an imperfect U document in the first place part of what many of the proponents of the uh 2040 plan argued was that let's just get it done and then we can work on it later done is better than perfect so to get to a point now or it's adopted and we're seeing the very real consequences which many of us forecasted and then say oh well well we already did it I don't want to start over I feel like that's not that is a disservice to the community our job is to continue doing the work ongoing until it meets the reflects the values of our community it's not about how much additional work or rework it cost us it's about did we get it right right and so there's always going to be an expectation for me as a as a council member and as a resident in this community that we're assessing the work that we do and if the the actions if the metrics if the the outcomes that we were looking for are clearly being negatively impacted we have a responsibility and obligation to do something and we see that very clearly here and for me it is not okay because I don't live like many of my colleagues in neighborhoods that have HOAs it's incredibly important to me that we continue to get it right and that we don't turn a blind eye simply because we've done the administration of adoption um when we talk about um the intent of the Udo and making sure that or that making sure that our 2040 goals are met I think that the identity and charm is there for a reason and if we're not serious about that goal then we need to have a conversation and be very clear with our constituents about that but we cannot in the one hand say that certain goals are important and then others can fall by the wayside when people time and time again are telling us there's something broken here I don't know if any of you had an opportunity but I did actually sit in a community area planning workshop and I can tell you with certainty this is not being discussed what's going on is particular areas within that broader area saying intersection um a place where we would expect we would have a community center those are the things that are being specifically questioned within those rooms when people bring up things like this and we're told that that's not really what the scope of the workshop is for so I say all this to say that while I I like you Mr chair feel bound to the policy I absolutely feel responsible to continue to work on it and I've been in enough of these spaces and I've been close enough to this work that I'm not willing to accept that we can't talk about it in zoning because it's a policy issue and then we get here and we talk about a different topic and then told well we've already worked on the other piece we've heard it enough that we've got to do something about it and I think that we can have density within our single family neighborhoods and also retain the character of the neighborhood and it shouldn't just have to be neighborhoods that are vulnerable to displacement in order to do that we've got an issue here that we can work on that can still meet goals of density and also meet our goals of identity and charm and we've got to do the work thank you Miss Johnson well there's not a lot left to say after council member watlington you're absolutely right I would just add that in addition our we're hearing from our residents I mean you you alone have a petition with almost 20 well I'll say 177,000 signatures in opposition so we're hearing from the residents as they are understanding how the Udo is going to impact them so it it it's our responsibility to take a look at that and and strive for continuous Improvement there was a split vote um but this is not a football game this impacts you know people's uh lives and and their their greatest investment so it's our responsibility to take a look at this if we see that it's having a negative impact um for our residents and not just those that are subject to displacement and invulnerable neighborhoods but the entire city so I I think that we need to hear our residents we're hearing it from from every District so I think it's time that we do have that that tough conversation and I also wanted if I could hear from Allison um how the Udo is going to affect the etj we're getting emails from residents in the etj so is there uh a change proposed for the udl and the etj areas um thank you for the question so um in terms of the locational criteria that we've been talking about um that could be something that we discuss with the udio advisory committee and bring back to council um is there is is there a a change needed for that type of development in the etj that's a conversation that we can have I'm not advocating for that I was asking if that's on the table because we we're getting emails from residents in the in the etj asking about that so I just wanted to to get that clear on the record yeah so council member Johnson when I'm when I'm um on the slide that I talked about locational Criterion are there some areas that are more appropriate than grow for growth than others um I would consider areas that are adjacent to our centers and our Strategic investment areas and our transportation corridors to be more appropriate for density and growth than potentially the etj so when we talk about locational criteria that can be part of the conversation thank you and then if if we're looking at specific areas location planning can we also look at prioritizing the infrastructure in that area so we are seeking balanced growth um if we're looking at kind of the Redevelopment areas or priority areas we also want to be uh conscious of of looking at the infrastructure in that area as well and then I have one last question opportunity zones there's Federal opportunity zones and I don't think that Charlotte's taking advantage of those is that if we're looking at locational priority priorities is that something we would take a look at um I have to get back to you on that council member Johnson we haven't really talked about those recently right now our Focus for area planning and year to is really a looking at infrastructure and amenities and then of course um working very closely with the manager's office and SE do on the Strategic investment areas that's really um a big Focus for uh for this upcoming year in area planning okay thank you Miss Johnson we did quite a lot of work on opportunity zones a couple of years ago didn't identify a uh a way that the city could leverage those there have been a lot lot of opportunities own investments in Charlotte privately uh but uh I don't know that we ever figured out uh how the city could capitalize on those to try to further our priorities yeah we we we formed the quarters of opportunities right so uh Miss Molina Miss Anderson I did want to give Mr Graham an opportunity to respond since he was a directed uh I'm sorry I didn't hear what Mr Graham said the corridors of opport that's how the corridors of opportunity was kind of born um based on under lack of really the type of um engagement needed to to capitalize on the the federal um opportunity zones we haven't actually seen any transactions it's been tough right it's hard there we we can't get into it and I don't remember in enough detail to try and fully exhaust the topic but we did quite a lot of work and it just proved to be very difficult pulled together you know maybe a a city incentive with the structure of those opportunity Zone Investments and so it just hasn't happened that we've been a party to one of those so again Mr yeah yeah I've been on Council since 2019 so I mean maybe it's something that staff can take a look at and see if there's since we do have those opportunity zones now maybe there's an opport opportunity that that that yeah I mean Miss Craig might fit now so something to take a look at thank you all right yeah yeah did you want to briefly respond before the other speakers no I just want to say once again that you know I'm I'm not opposed of amending the Udo uh I I and I'm certainly cognizant of what's happening in the community I'm I'm in the community a lot and I'm hearing a lot um uh I'm just don't want to cut the Flesh and the bones right and if we do that again we really have a different conversation um that Council may may be willing to have but it's it's a different conversation I I would be worried about kind of charting a completely different course and then disrupting because it's hugely disruptive we've seen that already uh I I would just comment briefly the growth that we're experiencing and the things we need to do are going to cause pain uh so uh you know it's disruptive people don't like change so our our challenge is to kind of pursue our goals and minimize uh the dislocation and the pain um I have Miss Molina VI chair thank you um Mr chair I um I wanted to speak specifically about um and and again I've been on Council since 2022 but I've been a community stakeholder since 2004 um and so watching and understanding what um needs to happen and the reason why the actual you know 2040 plan in the Udo um was adopted it it's important to understand um I I guess why right we have a lot of single family homes you have uh the missing middle housing that can accommodate more residents um and I mean I have varying concerns as to you know kind of isolating or saying we would like for those missing middle family homes to be in certain places then you you almost automatically if we if we start to do that in any type of way we're going to then create new communities of people who are maybe underserved inevitably or you create you know inevitable issues as as a result of that so putting people in a position where they're in a mixed and I'm just speaking Layman I'm not using any policy to address my opinion because this is absolutely an opinion and it's not extracted from any policy or details but you know if we start trying to isolate and put people who need that housing in certain places we inevitably create new communities of people of need right and so if you keep them in a mixed area then they actually get more resources as opposed to them being isolated and put in just one place as a result of what they can afford and what they can't um and so I think that's actually a plus of a lot of what's missing in the missing middle right um allowing people to have access where they wouldn't or where they would would be otherwise isolated that's first um and then I say secondly um the extra territorial jurisdiction I think that's completely separate and apart right because the history be behind the extr territorial jurisdiction um it it has its own word it has its own meaning you know uh States some of them use it for a buffer you know some of it is meant to be included some of it is not and so I think on and and then even to the extent of how they're actually included in our decision making right they do have implementation in our decision making by way of our boards right if I understand that correctly that's and I'd like for you to isolate that by the way because I I I because they don't communicate with us directly they don't vote for us directly but they have a touch Point what is that touch point the Planning Commission so the Planning Commission is composed of um um uh County Representatives um uh City representatives and CMS and so that's one major touch Point okay so there and that really your Advisory board for zoning and planning committee that then comes to city council so that's a major touch point right there is the Planning Commission and is that the only one or is there more um like as an example on our udio advisory committee I was very intentional about ensuring that we had EJ representation on the ud uh the UAC the Udo advisory committee so there's there's a number of different places where they can plug in and and be able to provide feedback and I think that's important right because hearing directly from them where do we hear from them how do they get to particip ipate in this process and what exactly does the planning you commission do so the Planning Commission is our sort of a a regulatory requirement by State Statute they are have two different committees um we have one of our committee members over there so the planning committee can advise on um sort of the larger more comprehensive like plan amendments um comprehensive plan you know the type of things then you have your zoning committee that advises you on your smaller um zoning issues or your zoning petitions that you have and so they're an Advisory board that that we listen to We and confer with and then they advise city council and make a recommendation like you see in your resoning petitions each month okay and and the reason why I'm really trying to extract and and make sure I isolate the details right because the extra territorial jurisdiction is something totally totally different right even their touch points with us is totally different so I I I I I and and I represent East Charlotte right so we have what you call the Far East and adjacent to a lot of you know the community members out there is the extr territorial jurisdiction of community members that are completely indirectly impacted by decisions that we make Saturday I spent three and a half hours with our community in Matthews um they they have a project that's coming that's AB buding their neighborhoods um and so they have a a vested interest right and so they sat down we had a great meeting and I don't want to you know go off on a tangent and so it's it's not saying that we can't or don't or shouldn't um I guess you know take in those additional details but I I want to be completely and you know clear and specific with the public and not use those two things interchangeably um and so um because I've come on the council and because we have this adopted policy that I I understood very clearly that we'd be working to make adopted changes over time with I'm I'm you know like I said I I see isolation being an issue so I think we need to be very careful not to isolate the people who would need that missing middle and put them in just one place it's it's a dangerous thing yep uh I would just mention to that uh if people in etj feel underrepresented we do the work we do in the etj by virtue of an interlocal agreement with the county right so the elected officials who are answerable to those people are the County Commissioners who approve the terms of our interlocal agreement and they basically delegated the responsibility for planning and for the processing of these petitions to us and therefore if you do have an issue as an etj resident you can approach your county commissioner and say you know in the context of the interlocal agreement we find the following and and you know we would then if we heard from them take that into account okay and that's that's great to know Mr chair because I think that's when we say that right we we mean it's it sounds as though we're not doing doing what we should be doing where in fact we don't have a direct touch point with them at all right so uh bear in mind in the etj they don't pay the city taxes and so on they're not bearing the cost of a lot of our efforts they're getting the benefit uh because of our arrangement with the county of all the work that we put into being thoughtful about land use okay so uh there is a context that we should consider for the special circumstances of the etj but compared to nothing no plan no oversight uh they do have uh huge benefits and I would just recommend the channel of having uh a conversation with a commissioner have the commissioner talk to a council member and see whether uh that is something that we should be incorporating but then of course it takes a vote of the full Council to decide if any modification of our rules for the purposes of the etj is indicated okay right so uh mayor protm thank you Mr chair and uh this discussion has been a really good one and I'm glad that we're having it in committee um I just want to ensure that and I'm fully committed to the fact that eudo is a living document and there will be modifications um as as we get further in the runway of it being online um but I want to make sure that as we're having these discussions that we're not getting out over our skis as it relates to potential modifications to the Udo and I think Mr chair you made a great point that I was going to make which is this is a an inflection point right it's a point of change and with change there there is there is pain there will be some pain points that that will occur and we have to be able to discern whether pain point or this is really and truly an issue caused by policy that we've adopted and we may potentially need to make some modific do it I think it's two two different things and I I just want to make sure that we our conversation with those guard rails in mind right um the e is a great is a great example of that type of conversation of representation and how we as a council would with atj residents and so just make sure as we're having this conversation that we're talking about real challenges that have occurred versus a pain point or two um to ensure that we're having the right level of dimensionality to what we're discussing thank you uh thank you mayor potim uh I would just note there was no way we were going to write that document and anticipate everything so so we had to know that we would put in place place our our goals and the way that we intended to pursue those goals and that there was stuff we wouldn't find out until we got and and here we are right and we're seeing all these petitions that are being recommended by the staff and don't align with the policy map this is kind of a transitional uh process that we had to anticipate you knew it was going to happen so uh the thing is to stay true to the original thing and then not be resistant to stuff that arises that maybe it wasn't impossible before tell uh I had a couple of questions Miss Craig um do I have Miss watlington yeah miss watlington you go ahead oh okay I'll be I'll I'll be quick I just wanted to um point out a couple different things I'm glad we're having the discussion about the egj because that has been something that um has been lifted up to us several times so thank you for outlining a potential path forward for those in the etj um because certainly while we there there is a process that exists there's a difference between an appointed representative and an elected official who's accountable to the people so I'm I'm I'm appreciative that you lifted up the um the county and their role in this um the only other things I wanted to add as it related to this conversation is that when we talk about planning and we think about wanting to make sure that what's on the ground ends up reflecting where we're trying to go um I think for me another topic that hasn't really landed yet and Mr menra I know that it is floating out there somewhere so I'm looking forward to seeing it um but it's truly that cost benefit piece of the growth and how do we make sure that we're maximizing that benefit right because when we talk about our goals I want us to be careful about who we really need when we say our goals right because if if the resident on the street can articulate why we're willing to make this investment whether it's in planning whether it's in Transportation we're going to have a very difficult time um pushing that goal forward and it really shouldn't even have to be a push it should be a pool it should be something that a a large majority or balance of our residents get behind and um as we continue to work through this Udo we know that there are some places that that we just don't have that overwhelming majority and there are reasons why and so I hope that as we move forward this year with our focus on metrics we get clearer about articul identifying first and articulating what the real benefit to the way that we choose to grow is because otherwise frankly regardless of whether we have written it into the policy if the outcome of that policy is that we end up with the very same things we've had before we're in trouble when we talk about missing middle when we talk about concentration of poverty not because our policy necessarily says it but because we set the stage for the market to respond in such a way that there's only going to be a a portion of the city that is disproportionately impacted that's still on us even if we didn't say we want to plan and put things only here we know what the dynamic is with our Lots across the city and with the HOAs and all of that we know how the outcome is going to come out and so we can't turn a blind eye to that so those are some things that I hope that we are able to um flush out this year thanks and M watlington uh one of my concerns at the time of the adoption of the 20 240 plan was it did articul at a vision a statement of our values the things we wanted to accomplish what I thought was missing were the sort of really tough questions about how do we accommodate the growth and maintain a tree canopy how do we achieve those 10-minute neighborhoods so uh what resulted was a list of desirables or goals um that were sometimes at odds with each other right and we didn't work out fully what tough choices we were going to make in order to maximize our our benefit in each area and in my mind that's kind of some of what we're coming up against so there was a clear statement you know we wanted to have a diverse Community we wanted to have equity and inclusion we wanted to have Mobility all those things uh but now we're getting down to kind of the nitty-gritty of like a sales tax for mobility and the trees how do we resolve the trees and uh this is going to be hard work for a while we're not done yet uh I did have a question Miss Craig uh the history of the ejs was that up until until I forget what year exactly there was involuntary annexation and so Charlotte was gobbling up the surrounding area and then a law was passed that you can't do that they have to request and so what is the status now what what is the area of the ejs in meberg County um I'm not going to have the numbers off the top of my head but you know you're right it's um it's it's now voluntary so one of the things we've been talking about is as we consider um etj is do we need to take another look at our annexation policies um just because they haven't been updated since that that change was made right um and so and I think there's been some questions that have come up um when we've had some cases come through and I think that that's it's a fair time to to take another look at that uh you mentioned the uh targeted growth areas uh are those is the designation of those the result of an action by Council or is it work that you're doing like if we had any role in deciding what those areas should be um you of course always have say in in these conversations but what I'd like to do is take some of those conversations about where we might recommend to the udio advisory committee as an example one of the things we've been talking about is um within a certain proximity of of our centers like those are areas where we want to uh Target growth that's where you're concentrating um infrastructure that's where some of the work that um that manager's office and SE Dot's doing with Strategic investment areas they're also you know really looking closely at those centers and so of course the whenever we come with any recommendations that come out of UAC that'll come before you all and you of course have say and final say so I would just recommend that after you do that before we adopt the targeted growth areas as a Criterion uh that we all of reach agreement about what that is what the basis is for identifying those um okay uh I guess my last question was you had a slide up there about the next steps uh based on how things are going and your five acre policy when would you anticipate that that could actually be adopted um there are some things that we'd like to do pretty quickly which is why we're scheduling two udio advisory committee meetings um this month and so would like to bring what recommendations come out of that group to you all in March if there's sufficient time on um on the agenda and so it's really once we have an agreement you know um about a path forward then we of course have the typical text amendment process which requires a public hearing it's got to go to committee and then come back um to um for a decision so it could take a couple months once we have a clear path forward so um this is a an information item but I think once again uh you were looking for at least a nod from us um I think what I would say is the referral you got didn't have five acres in it right so what what you're hearing is everything you said is fine however uh within that existing referral we should expand the scope to pay more attention to the smaller lots and some of the issues that you've heard from committee members here is that something that you can kind of take on board sure uh so colleagues I I hope that we'll get a more robust followup to what you suggest suggested and I suggested concerning those smaller developments everybody okay good we've got one more item uh a Mobility update from Ed mckenny good morning welcome morning Ed mcken again with the city manager's office uh if we put up the first slide so um this morning what we want to do is uh just tee up a couple things we want to tee up the referral that was made um last week and sort of as a byproduct of the annual strategy session a couple weeks ago I want to give you also a little bit more detail on the work this is there are a lot of good questions at the strategy session so I want to share a little bit of that and then really tee up uh a more deeper dive there's lots of detail to the work that's going on and so want to just te up some deeper conversations that we'll have with the committee moving forward what I've got up here is the just stay on that first slide briefly what I've got up there is just again uh referencing back to the specific Lang language of the referrals I want to make a couple of points there the policy question uh to to Really frame that the what we did a year and a half ago was adopt the Strategic Mobility plan what we've been doing since then we provided some we've been providing some updates to council is the we've been doing to essentially convert that policy into the actions that we would take the recommendations that we would make around the investment we would do to implement and support that policy really the projects and so the way we frame up this policy question is we've been doing a lot of conversations with Council but probably now is a good time to clarify and focus that the approach that we've been sharing is the is the approach that Council wants to take and we we're sort of confirming that strategy and the work that we're doing and then really from that we want to obviously get into the details share the you know the specifics around the projects that are emerging and talk more again about the process that we'll take to convert those projects to actual implementation and and Implement you know delivery of the infrastructure projects uh through funding as we move forward you go to the next slide um so we've been teasing you a little about for the areas so this is probably the first time you've seen the map of that we've referenced back at the strategy session the 16 areas I'll talk a little bit more detail about those in a moment I want to go back to um this diagram and this process that we've been talking about just to kind of reconfirm a few things about how we got to those areas so again the vision both the Strategic Mobility plan but that that plan was really based on the on the 20 240 plan so they this this was and that Mobility plan is sort of the implementation policy around the broader vision of the of the Strategic Mo or of the 2040 plan we had that work that we also did about needs just documenting across the city all the infrastructure needs from a transportation standpoint that's the the simple reference we make that to that is the 2000s so the all the projects across the city our our need or or our process then was really to take that need and focus right we that was a a list that was beyond our ability to implement uh certainly in any short period of time and so what we did was really find a way to analyze uh sort of the the need the the kind of the scale of that work and think about the the details of our policy to sort of screen down and identify these Focus areas I'll just mention how that work uh occurred and maybe make reference to a few things that was talked about this morning so safety was one so we took the high Injury Network you know where those where the crashes were happening that's a data point that we could map uh Allison has been referencing these areas of growth really the activity center so we took that and and mapped it uh another example is our a data point that we use around Transportation disadvantage and that's places where there's concentrations of older concentrations of younger uh lower access to car so we can we can document where those areas are again with a focus around on Mobility policies to provide more Choice when you put those together and start to layer them there's sort of a heat map that's gets created right where we have safety issues where we have areas of growth where these these places of of disadvantaged Mobility uh they they create sort of a heat map and so that's the priority we created these sort of focused uh specific datadriven uh Focus areas uh to to to Really put us in places where we know we could have real impact again based on our policies and our goals and then the finally part of that was okay now let's define areas around that and those areas become uh the focus of how we then will identify projects take the 2000 needs and look in those specific areas and of those 2,000 in those areas what are they we know what they are now let's let's start to to focus in on what those projects could be and begin to Define uh that investment and set up the framework from from which we could prioritize those projects and and come back to you as Council uh to to talk about how we would fund those both with existing funding and potential future funding if you go to the next slide um again a reminder about that just to summarize what I've said it's data driven so this wasn't uh sort of an arbitrary exercise just identifying areas across the city we really used the Mobility data to put us there it's comprehensive so this is Citywide we took that data to make sure that we were covering all areas of the city uh again with the notion that we had to screen down the needs across our city in key areas I mentioned we mentioned this at the strategy session we use the word Playbook uh simply as a reference for something you're familiar with with the corridors of opportunity but I want to be clear the plays really are the projects and so what this was will result for us in these strategic areas is the projects those become the plays we Define those we prioritize and then based on funding we act on them the projects themselves will be scalable we talked about bundles I want to clarify that as well you know we have needs that are sidewalk gaps we have needs that are future signals we have needs that are pedestrian Crossings uh bike facilities congestion and impact uh we can when we talk about bundling in certain areas there's the the sort of the composition of those needs uh that create places of investment so that you might have a corridor that has several of those and we can uh do those over time in kind of a phase way so when we talk about bundling it's really just making sure that we understand uh the the sort of collection of projects that have impact on each other but allows us to be scalable and Implement them both shortterm and longterm and then again the value of doing all of this gets us a list uh it's more focused than what we've had before and it tees us up again both for our current funding our future funding taking advantage of federal grants so this becomes a a way that we can more quickly uh really adapt and take advantage of any number of funding opportunities moving forward so what I want to do go to the next slide I want to give you just sort of a few snapshots of some of the detail we mentioned last at the at the strategy session as well that we're building all this work into what we call a story map which is really taking all that data and information and putting it in a platform that the community can see it so it'll almost be like a website that has all this information you'll be able to zoom into these areas we'll have some information about the analysis I mentioned so that you can tell that story for the for the community in a complete way and they can understand the details ultimately again this gives you the snapshot of the 16 you see those areas and you see all these lines and dots right those represent the projects themselves you'll be able to focus in on those uh again as a community member and and understand you know the specifics of those uh some of the details about how they relate to other projects and again understand about their impact and relationship to to where people live and to sort of the needs that they see in their Community again this is just a snapshot we'll we'll share with you moving forward we're putting more detail and kind of building this out we'll be sharing hopefully we'll have this ready for our next conversation with you in March next next one just to dive in a little bit more detail I'll just show a couple of these areas so as you zoom in you'll have a little bit of description and some understanding about the details of these geographies you'll you can see now there's sort of a key to those dots in those lines so you'll be able to understand uh what those projects represent again when this is sort of fully ready to go you'll be able to click on those lines and dots and and be able to get more detailed information about the specifics of the projects next slide I think is just another example so again just to give you a sense that you'll then have this map you'll be able to move around you'll be able to zoom in and kind of understand the details of this work um specific to moving forward with these projects I think the final slide just pull up um just kind of getting where we're going next uh we're doing lots more work to get into the details of those project so we'll share that with you uh we'll talk about the community engagement process some reference has been made to the area plan work that will happen later this year this work then becomes a great way for us to start the conversation with the community where we're talking about the needs that we already knew started to Strate strategize about how we would um sort of pull them to to implementation with then we can again align them with the conversations around the broader and uh expectations that the community has around these area plans tying the mobility infrastructure at least to the growth the P the the place types and all the expectations in in each of the community area U plans that will be developed and then moving forward there's still a tremendous amount of work to take those lines and those dots and put feasibility around them begin to design them in more detail so that we can understand the cost in more a more specific way and you know we'll talk about that process but one part of it that you might um remember and understand is the advanced planning uh uh program that the manager set up a couple years ago where you take projects that are that are sort of full better understood and move them into a phase in which more detail and design really happens so that when you when you're done with that advanced planning phase you know uh pretty specifically the the cost of that project and then they become uh investment opportunities that then the council recommends for uh Bond funding moving forward so there's a there's a process we're going to Define that has a little bit more front end this kind of feasibility work that would then put projects into advanced planning and move forward so we want to share with you how you would take all these lines and dots and start to build a program kind of a machine of moving these projects more for implementation so I'll stop there again we wanted to just tee up the the um uh the referral uh talk a little bit more detail about where we're going and and really hopefully become the the sort of the U starting point for conversations that we'll move forward with this committee starting as early as next month so Ed um my understanding of this process was to specify in Greater detail what we wanted our streets to look like what kind of outcomes that we wanted to accomplish in the context of other conversations strategic Mobility inter connect Beyond and so on I think it would be helpful for us and unfortunately we're just about out of time but what I would like to do is work with you to kind of pull together sales the revenue from the sales tax right and and so we talked before about a plan that would be like a 1.80% rail etc etc and that needs to tie into this right like this doesn't address issues of funding you've got private funding from developers in the context of Redevelopment according to our uh the Udo uh you've got city funding you've got some State funding for the state roads so in my mind I'm trying to pull this together right so I talk to connect Beyond and we're talking about a one sense sales tax so that would need be needed in order to make a lot of this happen uh and and the policies that affect development like what the burden that's placed on developers when they develop something got to have the 8 foot this and the six foot that and this street structure but you know what that points to is this Patchwork of development with these new new New Concept sort of roads and and sidewalks and then in between the old stuff and so uh I I would like to be able I think this is great work by the way because uh our plan our so-called plan was never actually a plan it's a list of 2,000 projects right so my understanding what you're doing is beginning to shape those into a sequence or a priority structure uh and align that with the resources that we will have in order to have a way to move forward I think that's great but um I think we all on Council need to understand better when we're talking about the Strategic Mobility plan or connect Beyond or this you know what where where is the intersection of these things how do they all fit together um and I think for the moment that's all I have I'll be curious to see in Greater detail what's happening down there in South Charlotte but it's funny I chose that one I knew uh I knew you'd be interested just a quick comment on what you said and I was going to sort of mention this we talked a little bit about this at the strategy session absolutely right there's you simply put you could almost describe sort of three layers to this right there's the the Strategic work that we're doing really the city projects you've got the larger Transit plan and then you've got the connect Beyond right and they they all are uh important and work together to collectively they are one plan uh the point I think we talked a little bit about at the strategy session was there all there's work happening concurrently we we need to continue to do this work at the scale of the city the work we're doing is aligning partic you know very specifically with those bigger plans so there's no disconnect there uh but we need to we need to continue to do our work at the city level to make sure that we're ready but at the same time you're right we we we concurrently have to align all of that because there is one plan the funding question none of this that we showed can really be advanced in any meaningful way without new funding uh and so it's you know this is dependent upon that bigger conversation absolutely so there's work happening I know the work group uh the council work group has been established to kind of get into those discussions uh at the same time but yes for sure we need to funding is the fundamental question with all of this because I think it's critical that we get a public information campaign started for any sales tax that we hope to get approved by the public uh we need engagement with the legislature they want to know what we're going to do it's very hard for them to glean from what you've told us and conversations that are taking place elsewhere exactly what it is that they would be authorizing a referendum for so I hope you'll just come back and speak to us again meanwhile I have Miss Molina and Miss Johnson thank you Mr chair and I'll be brief first I want to start by saying thank you I'm always I I love your passion around this work I think you do a great job um I'm I'm proud of all our staff yall know that um absent an Erp Absol you know absent interpres resource planning details right the information and Technology would really I can't wait until we're able to you know take advantage of that I know that that's in the works and that will help you guys create swim Lanes on you know what's working what is you know seemingly redundant right um but you know if I was a Community member I got to bring this up cuz it it's it's absent here that's why it's very important for us to kind of paint that picture properly right of the other things that we have in the works right if I was a Community member and I was looking at this I'd say wow especially the community members that I represent and you know them well uh they're going to say wow they left East and West Charlotte out right because you really don't see a whole lot of dots there and you don't really know what else is going on so you know I think you know away and there's already a lot of illustration so if you put more dots on there it's just going to look like a whole new just red white blue green all that map um but some way and I mean I don't want to tell you how to do the job you got the why or the how you know we tell you what you tell me the how how do we really illustrate that to the public to let them know everything you know that we're working on that's going to make their lives better with reference to transportation and and our planning so I know that this is transportation specific what we can do right now what the plan is right now um absent any future planning but you know how do we let them know um what else is happening concurrently with these plans um so maybe there's something that we can share like you know this is what we have planned for this you know but also you know from uh Transportation I'll just say e Charlotte I got to say e Charlotte for an example right um we have high bus usage we have you know plans that we're discussing around how we're going to update you know our transportation with reference to buses and Etc um you know letting them know you know especially I see that that's far east I know it's Far East I can tell just by looking at it I know it um but then letting the people who are closer you know Inland know that we also have additional projects that are going on as well so um I'd like to see that I'm interested in seeing that so that when I'm approached by the community as a result of seeing this information I can disseminate that information as properly you know or as close to you would like to you know have me do so that's all my feedback yeah real quick that's a great reminder and it pointing back to this this tool that we're building the story map uh all many of the things you just described we can make sure we've got the data we can map it so we can we can include that in that tool so you can see all those things related that's a that's a great point Thank you so uh we're in overtime here but I want to let Miss Johnson speak thank you I won't be long um thank you Ed for the presentation I'd like to meet offline so we can we can talk about District 4 specifically it's a very unique area we've got you know lots of jobs and we also have the blue line so um I I think it seems that our Transportation uh challenges are a little easier to fix if we could just find that last mile uh solution so I'd love to talk to you um offline and and see and take a deeper dive on what the plan is for District 4 absolutely thank you so uh Mr McKenna I think we would all like to talk to you offline yeah yeah you're going to have like a whole calendar invite list F fasten your seat belt yeah this is my only job so yes okay there is no other business I will entertain a motion to adjourn second all favor pack up and leave I okay thank you thanks [Music] everybody [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I I [Music] [Music] good afternoon everyone my name is Malcolm Graham and I chair the jobs and Economic Development Council committee for the city of Charlotte want to take this opportunity to welcome those who are viewing uh from home uh and joining us thank you for being with us uh today um I want to thank my vice chairman Mitchell for chairing the January meeting on my behalf thank you sir um no harms no strikes no harm no errors so we're still kicking it and so let's get started by introducing who's in the room um and then we'll run get right into the meeting and we'll start to my extreme left Todd ecomic christe EC hge Economic Development lar Charlotte some City Partners Alexandria s i Charlotte Taylor Swift Committee [Music] Member Tracy Dodson uh City manager's office and again Malcolm gr committee chairman James Mitchell Vice chairman Jason Kelsey Committee Member it's Travis KY I'm AKA Ed DRS morning good afternoon I'm marjerie Molina Dante Anderson at mayor protim district one Natasha Smith Charlotte business inclusion Tanda Brown economic developmentor Alex Gordon Economic Development Eric Business Journal Steve Harrison WF all right so we have three uh agenda items for our meeting today um Performance Management framework uh the impact of Uptown vacancies and the small business ecosystem strategy I'll turn it over to the um staffer um our director of Economic Development Tracy dson thank you council member Graham we're going to start with the Performance Management framework which is um really just talking through what was discussed at the annual strategy meeting and kind of some of of the next steps um I'll set this up and talk about what you did discuss at the strategy meeting you will recall that Council selected policy goals and objectives that align with the Strategic priorities of the council and then at that time it was discussed that this work would continue in committee which is why we're here today the main goal of today is to come to consensus on goals objectives which will enable staff to begin to work with identifying performance measures it's also important to note that some of these objectives we already measured some we do not and some we will need some time to understand the data needed to conduct a meaningful measure next slide please so this is just a reminder of where we started at the annual strategy meeting and where we are heading all of the policy goals and objectives we will review today roll up to council's strategic priorities additionally just because something is not highlighted on the following slide does not mean it's not important to us we have a very robust performance measure system but this will will exercise what is really meant to elevate and set policy goals and objectives to hone in on so next slide so here you will see the selections that were made at the annual strategy meeting related to business and Workforce Development this is just to remind the committee of these selections and on the next slide we'll actually get into some other potential considerations all right so for these I'm looking for a little bit more of an endorsement or add changes after reviewing what was done at this um annual strategy meeting we noticed that like there was no inclusion of the digital divide um so we've added one in here for consideration we also noticed that the goals and objectives related to traditional Economic Development weren't as strong in what was highlighted at the annual strategy meeting so again we put some ideas out for consideration that we can talk uh more about last slide and then I'll open it up for discussion as I said we're looking for Council endorsement of goals and objectives so staff can begin aligning performance measures for these that'll come back in the March um committee discussion also in March we will return with measures that align to the goals and objectives the committee has endorsed and what has been done historically is Council will approve the performance measures framework through the budget process all of this work is going towards the goals that we've laid out at the retreat better understand how we're making progress towards the C council's policy goals communicate that to council as well as the public and then hold ourselves accountable as an organization so with that Mr chair I will turn it back over to you thank you m dson and just for the record there's no one joining us online everyone's present and bright that's very impressive everybody I love that all right U open the floor for questions in reference to the uh the Performance Management framework that's in front of us again these are items that we uh identified at our planning Retreat about a week ago um uh Mr DRS thank you Mr chair uh we just had a committee meeting of the Transportation Planning Development and discussed the ones that had been aligned with us uh I think two issues one um the process through which we identified these was pretty rushed and so our ability to uh to be very thoughtful about each of the options that were on offer was limited um so uh I think all that means is that we uh as Miss Dodson pointed out we must be very careful not to neglect some of the things um that are not highlighted here my question though was uh as it was in the last committee uh do we have data already uh around each of these such that uh we can start we have a Baseline and we can start quantifying because the goal here is accountability right it's performance measurement so that means that we would have to have some metrics um to uh start from and then goals to pursue and we have to be accountable about our progress and having established those goals towards realizing them and the question is do we have data for each of these that uh would point to uh some Metric that we can work from some of these I think we do some of them we don't we're going to have to as I said earlier it's going to take us some time so that we are thoughtful about it and we do set the right the right metrics um but I know we've already started working with um a larger staff team to identify what we do have metrics for and which ones we don't have metrics for so uh council member DS just to kind of close that out I think what you'll see in March is we're going to come forward with some metrics but I think we're going to have there's going to be some others where we can say it's going to take us a little bit longer um just because we don't have that Baseline data but you are comfortable that you will be able to establish right because again the goal here is is to be able to say here's where we are here's where we want to go and here's how we intend to progress and then and then judge our success based on that um the other thing I've noticed in here is uh strategic Mobility plan invest in our Mobility future protect our future Mobility need fund Mobility you know great very near and dear to my heart but again uh what exactly are we going to be tracking on that one cuz you know there's a process right now engagement with the legislature there's Washington there's connect Beyond and all the other communities so that is actually a very big one and in order for us to kind of say okay uh in six months we intend to have done the following I just point out that that one could be very hard yep I think agree thank you Mr chair thank thank you Mr drags any other questions U Vice chair Mitchell thank you Mr chair Ju Just kind of follow some uh discussion Council M drgs I think I'm kind of a little disadvantaged I cannot remember all 26 items well that's it that we said that uh was going to be a takeaway so somehow staff if you can just give it to us as information kind of the whole list of 26 so we very clear um what we a recap for us what did we really agree on the 26 items that we wanted to kind of uh make a priority uh and then just the chair I did spend time when we went up there together and I don't see some of the items that we have put in we put a uh go a tab on stick them on one was the the true Workforce Development strategy that we were uh we would like for uh Danielle to kind of flush out and bring back to us and I think we had some conversation about really the small business minority business development and so I do not see those listed traces so I'm just so were those different than what you see on slide four and the top two just to make sure slide four and the top two it's up on the screen uh grow the number of minority business Enterprise operating in the I I think Workforce Development is excuse me Mr chairman I don't think it's identical with that we we had the $9 million that we set aside and that invites in my mind if I'm in step with you on this one uh that we track apprenticeships and and so on the number of cases that we were actually able to improve exactly so Trac I would agree I think the grow the number minority women small business captured some of the small business conversation we had but to council member mri's point the Workforce Development strateg is not listed at all and and so I do think as we made it a priority I would like to see see that as a strategic priority for this committee second that thank you Mr chair uh thank you Mr chair to follow up on that comment I'm sorry I'm eating so I probably have salad everywhere but to follow up on that comment you know we had a a conversation around you know Workforce Development is is is a breakout all in itself we lifted that up last term as well as the digital divide and when we were at The Retreat we had a conversation around whether there should be presence you know a Workforce Development and uh digital divide presence in these other strategic priorities or should it encapsulate everything within its own right and I'm not sure that we got an answer to that Mr Vice chair um I think we just had the discussion but if it's just a matter of how we want to go about it I think acms you was saying potentially maybe some of these strategic strategic goals should sit where they have teeth and some of these specific topics so if we decide to have it here within this particular um Workforce and economic development strategy then I would say I I would I'm not a member of the committee but I I would encourage the digital inclusion piece we have a lot of activities already going on and so it's measurable as well as it relates to that and it's definitely um foundational for the work that you all do as a committee we we will accept that friendly Amendment from you miss Molina thank you so much Mr chairman um and I Look to not belabor a point I am extremely interested in Workforce Development and so understanding um the purpose of why we're here right we're here to describe the what you know staff is really here to dig into the house right and so how do we do that what you know um what tools do we have at our disposal and and if I'm understanding you correctly um Mr Vice chair you're really wanting to see more of like what we intend to do to do as a result right is that what you're looking for no you're fine Mr May and if you remember Council Marina there was some even conversation about how do we take construction project and make Workforce Development a part of our initiative we do construction projects so to have a discussion how that looks and how we can incorporate it I think should be a priority for the for this committee yeah and I I have to say I agree with that 100% I I've always been of the most of what we do everything that we do has an inextricable nature right we talk about housing inevitably we have to talk about how someone's going to earn their living to pay for that housing right and then we have to talk about how they're going to get to work to you know get to that job to pay for that I mean it's just a completely inextricable nature in all of what we do but you know strictly dealing with what we deal with in this commun or this committee um Workforce Development to me is in my opinion a very very high priority so I'd like to see kind of some gr you know some granular information on you know how what what exactly are we going to just establish the um the how for or the what for you know okay um I talking about Workforce Development Miss Fraser's not here today but I did speak with her at the retreat about her coming making her initial presentation to the committee and so we're going to try to schedule that relatively soon so uh it's apparent that that's a high priority for everyone uh it is to me as well it's kind of The Blocking and tackling of of what we do here at the committee um all these football analogies today the the Super Bowl Super Bowl CHS go so um so that's really really important and I know it's important to council member um barari as well in terms of apprenticeship and and Workforce etc etc so um we'll we'll make it a priority to get her in front of us sooner than later so she can kind of lay down her foundation for us so we all can begin to understand the goal as and the objectives and more importantly the measurements I think that's where everyone's going to okay spot on M Taylor yes thank you Mr chair uh so there was a lot going on at the retreat we covered a lot of ground and I think one of you nailed it which is like okay what do we do now where do we go I think it's really important the most strategic step that we can take in our first step forward here is going to be not what we're going to do but and this is Nuance but what we're going to measure what what we're going to start measuring and if you think about the entirety of every committee and every topic whatever it may Define out you know taking on more than six or so of these major objectives is going to be difficult that's a lot especially when you consider the question of what we're going to measure economic so for example in increase economic impact in Mobility that might be a macro level measure another one might be reduced congestion so these are big things so I think it's really important that we start by saying what are the four to six each measures that we're going to Define that then we waterfall down what we're going to do how we're going to measure success versus failure there so I I think that what what we really have to do is we go through each of those because that creates 30 measures six major outcome buckets five each on average of the measures that we're going to have under there all of a sudden it turns into a really big spaghetti Bowl already just by taking on everything so so when I had jotted down some notes these don't have to be the things but like stripping out trying to reverse engineer it into these other topics and just saying okay we're going to recruit jobs what are the numbers that we're going to set set out what what have we done historically where are we at what are we losing each year so some measure of like historical current and then what our what our forast objective is around recruiting jobs training Workforce um recruiting economic events or whatever it might be these are things like you know Super Bowls to um concerts to uh what whatever you can imagine right um uh grow small business and then the digital divide how many people are currently lacking access lacking hardware and devices lacking training across so these are things that are big each we can measure specifically at our over all bucket how we're going to look at them and then the acms respectively take another cut and they might say Okay train Workforce well what about skill trades versus technology trades versus and then there's another set and then the employees below them have another set as we refine the policy once we have the measures there so that's a long-winded way of saying I if we get the cart ahead of the horse and just try to say these are all the things we care about and there it's a comprehensive list of 20 or 30 things I I think we're going to have a real tough time implementing and achieving any of those outcomes Mr Dr thank you um one topic that we hit on uh talking with Miss Craig in the earlier meeting was uh 10-minute neighborhoods so right now we haven't defined exactly what those are and therefore part of this issue of uh trying to measure success in the context of 10-minute neighborhoods is we don't know what they are so uh I I always had a concern when we adopted the plan that there are many areas in Char that don't lend themselves to 10-minute development they just don't so we need to kind of be intentional about realizing this goal in the places where it makes sense and can be done but that that in my mind is going to make measurement uh uh of these two items uh a little more difficult and um I had one other thing which I KN down uh oh yeah I was just going to say uh I I think the intention at this meeting uh it doesn't say on the agenda clearly whether this is an action item or not but I think the intention was to get sort of a nod from this committee agreeing that this is the work that we're going to be doing it would have been helpful to me further to Mr Mitchell's Point uh for the purposes of this conversation to be able to look again at the full list and personally I'd rather not finalize our commitment to these without having had one more chance to look at the full list yeah I I think that's fine again we can um bring back the full list let me back up we will make sure it gets to you sooner than later then have a brief discussion about it at the next meeting as well just to make sure that we're all comfortable with it um and um I agree with Mr barari what what gets measured gets done right so we have to decide what are we going to measure right I think that's really really important for us to jump start this discussion okay we're all good good yeah all right um uh item number two is a continuation of the conversation that the vice chair LED last meeting which is the impact of Uptown vacancy part two and we've kind of given this about 40 minutes so we're going to really scrub this um topic up again today uh and highlighting being the importance of it um also and I meant to do is before um the meeting um mistake of the the mind not the heart I'll send out to the committee members if you hadn't seen it the 60-minute uh special that they did on Uptown conversions has everyone seen it no yeah yeah I think it's worthwhile taking a look at because it really kind of puts the the conversation the perspective uh at a national level and you can see where we fit into this uh and it's something that throughout the country um major uptowns are struggling with and in this case there's really not a barometer where you can go and see who's doing it best that's right because we all are trying to figure it out together and so this is literally treading water for everyone and certainly for us in Charlotte uh um but um I agree again to get something done you have to first acknowledge that there is a problem or a concern and I think last week we kind of rung the Bell that there is a problem and a concern and I'm glad to see that Michael Smith has joined us with charlott C City Partners as we begin this discussion Miss do thank you council member Graham um you know you said it and we discussed it last month most cities around the country are dealing with concentrations in office vacancy and employment hubs and and we're no different um but every City's a little bit unique in how they're handling it and what they're what they're facing so what I'd like to do is do a quick review of the referral itself um and a short short recap of last month's discussion but then also part of the referral was what are other initiatives that are out there and so I'm going to ask James Lear to come up and talk a little bit about the reimagine Vintage office design competition and then something a little bit different instead of going straight into strategy I want to today use a sample project as a way to discuss how we might think about mitigating some of these issues next slide so since 2020 we've seen a sharp increase in office vacancy and some say the market could take as long as 20 240 to fully recover and correct so the question becomes whether or not we should step in and help mitigate the impacts in the decline of office occupancy next SL as we said last month the referral laid out a charge for the committee to look at other cities review initiatives that might be underway and consider developing a strategy next slide so I've up stated this since last month this is a fourth quarter report from kushman and Wakefield but the the issue is still is still the same um Uptown over 20% vac cancy airport area 25% South 45 Valentine 28% and University shows up at 35% vacancy something a stat that I found that was really interesting in the fourth quarter there was only eight leases that were signed above 20,000 ft and those eight leases accounted for 43% of the activity in the fourth quarter so it just shows you a little bit how things have really slowed and that's why it seems so staggering when you say it could take the 2040 to really correct itself on some of these next slide so specific for Uptown and center city which we've used this again I remind everybody that we're talking about employment areas around our city not just Uptown but Uptown offers I think the most opportunity for the discussion in uptown you have 120,000 people uh working you have 23 million square fet of office of that you've got aund of the 940 floors of office you've got 187 floors that are available and then you've got five assets that are above 50% vacant next slide what's unique for us is that the concentration of a lot of these distressed assets sit pretty close together um which leaves you with a little bit of a choice if we do nothing do we have a kind of pocket of um within our Uptown that doesn't have the vibrancy and lacking that vibrancy or if we turn a couple of these assets around and reposition them in a different way does it keep that vibrancy um throughout that area within our Center City so these are the questions that we raised last month um and that we as a staff at a staff level continue to ask and talk to people in the market about but will our investment expedite the correction um how long should we be talking about this I don't see this as something that goes into the future forever but it's something that maybe we're strategic about um certain projects over a year two years maybe how feasible are conversions um you know you get different different stats from Architects to 60 Minutes about how many projects are actually worth are able to convert and you've even heard demolition of some of these Office Buildings being being put out there is that a real possibility and then what is the impact of doing nothing so again these were just questions we continue to dig into um as we start to try to figure this out I want to now ask James laar to come up and give you a little bit background on their initiative um in this space welcome James thank you Mr committee chair council members and city of charlott's economic development team thanks for the invite sure at the end of last year we started really understanding the problem that happening across downtowns and started scanning all their markets to see how these markets were reacting to the amount of vacant office we saw a variety of solutions uh one was to scan the entire Market identify what can be converted and and go forth there other ones resurrect programs that happened in the past in order to address the current situ situation one of the markets we found most interesting was the city of Seattle they ran essentially a call for ideas and thinking about the Charlotte Market of call for ideas people would ask what the heck is that so we ran a competition ours was a little bit different Seattle all based on going from office to residential here in Charlotte with our Economic Development momentum being a little bit different than Seattle our office stock being a little bit different where we sit in the United States being a little bit different we opened that instead of just going from office to residential it was office to anything residential upfit office institutional uses think higher education think Child Care Facilities think of public Plaza spaces where it could be more publicly activated by uh the amazing nonprofit Cadre that we have here in Charlotte so with that launch the competition the other piece that we were looking at was was to help move the market along the conversation prior to the Vintage office design competition was how many buildings are in foreclosure how many floors are vacant um what's coming next we wanted to take the idea and say what can we add to Uptown to strengthen it what can we do to secure the tax base what could we do to complement existing uses that uses that are not there what can we do to strengthen the existing office as we go through this time and so with that um put the call out got several submissions uh one of the other things that really helped Seattle on this was they got renderings for the amount of possible public investment what do you get in return so seeing these visuals of a building that's vacant now to a building that's active what does the street level look like what does a residential unit comprise of how many units could you get out of it what sort of funding would be needed in order to bring this to fruition and so with that we got a series of place-based ideas in uptown going on um essentially five buildings out of six sub middle teams next slide please and with that um we had two first place winners so think of one Wells or 301 South College and then the other one which Tracy has teed up Brooklyn and church the other we had two other second place winners 500 North Trion which Trac will talk about a little bit and then First Citizens Plaza in order to evaluate the committee that we put together to put it think of 12 to 14 Community Representatives the from the economic development perspective city and county from the commercial real estate piece from the residential piece nonprofit um Business Leaders we we looked at all the submittals across of a variety of criteria one leaning towards action so one of the things we learned of all these other programs going in other cities you want projects to be completed so that was one of the big criteria like get things done second Innovative think about the ways that the use could be changed think about those inside dormant hidden areas within an office building and how can they be used in a different way uptown activation as Tracy pointed out on her slide about how much public investment is around Bank of America Spectrum think about activating these spaces in relates to that public investment I think Brooklyn church really kind of Hit Upon that adjacency and the way that they're thinking about that site Economic Development purposes the councilman bari's piece from last committee think about the supply side think about the demand side as well so looking for solutions that address not only the supply but also the demand and then think about the public benefits that could be delivered with a public investment um if there is no public investment and the market just does what it does we think there are two big concerns of that one is the amount of time that it takes for that to happen second does the public sector lose an opportunity to bring something into the Uptown in order to help move it from a central business district to a central activity district and then so those are a series of pieces what we've learned last point to make and then uh really look forward to questions just recently rent Cafe put a report out about office to residential conversions in the United States right now there are 5,000 Apartments being converted out of offices there are 150,000 in the planned pipeline big cities that are doing this DC almost 6,000 Apartments being converted New York City the next one Dallas right Dallas is a really interesting case they have no incentive program what opportunity are they losing in the public sector in order to deliver what what's need needs to be in Downtown Dallas in Chicago and LA are a couple other examples of that um so it's these things are complicated rubrics um to try to understand in order to like convert but it's definitely happening in other markets um again going towards the the notion that Trac laid out about recovery and then also adding to um what do we want to add to Uptown and then the the council M cars note key metrics right is it tax base is it vacancy rates um is it strengthening other office is it what other uses do we want in uptown to complement the other public pieces thank you James wait can we go back one slide really quick because I wanted to point something out so I had the opportunity to sit on the jury team I guess it was um and one thing that was really great about this is y'all had a very robust team that was looking at this there's a lot of different perspectives and a lot of different conversations um one of the projects I wanted to to highlight in there was 500 North Church which you see pictures of on the screen a lot of L of people know this as uh Harvey gant's old Architecture Firm um the proposal for this was uh with du greater charlet and so it it didn't necessarily fit the mix of like the office tower vacancies that we've had but it was a really interesting project that I've charged the staff with uh going back and looking at and seeing if this is a real possibility to have do greater into come into the Uptown area on North TR so more to come on that I just wanted to flag it because we thought it was a really interesting one from a Workforce Development nonprofit idea that wasn't on our radar before so thank you for that opportunity next slide so coming off of what James just said and projects that were actionable this as James said this is the project one of the project winners um this is The Old Duke Energy headquarters and I recognize it's a little bit unusual to bring a project forward like this but I think it starts to help us if we think about the context of a project help us think about ways that we might look at investing in these projects so because it's a project and it's real and there is a path forward we wanted to go ahead and start start talking about it next slide so the Duke Energy um headquarter building uh this vacancy is really as a result of flight to Quality so Duke Energy came out of this building as well as what we all call The Duke Energy headquarter the current Duke Energy headquarter building to move into to a new tower um and so they sold the property to assana Partners in MRP realy um their vision is to convert it to a residential um property with ground floor retail the building currently is was built in 1975 778 th000 Square ft and 14 stories it's an entire city block um and actually sold for 35 million million which was way discounted um sell price even as we start to look at um trying to make the economics of these conversions make sense just note that was already um a discounted price going into the site so next slide and tell you a little bit more about the project their vision is to demolish about 215,000 Square ft and reskin the facade in order to achieve 440 uh multif family units with about 60,000 sare ft of retail um one of the other benefits is they're utiliz ing the existing parking structure that is there and if you look at the bottom slide um on the far left whoops back the bottom Slide the bottom um image on the far left that parking lot that is actually a future development PAD as a phase two of the project is also one of the things about this and again if you if you can Envision walking down church or walking down Brooklyn this this whole block has essentially kind of been walled off and now it's going to reop open not just having residents live there but it'll have greater pedestrian activity through and around the site so James mentioned it connecting to some of these other public assets such as the stadium or rir Bearden or the night um uh Stadium there's opportunity there to create this higher level of activity as these projects reposition um doing a conversion also allows you to deliver the residential units faster and it's somewhat of a new cost from compared to new construction although it's still tough now what's unique about this one and we can go to the next slide is because this was offered or this was owned by Duke Energy really wasn't much of a tax base coming in on the property but the Redevelopment it gives us um a new tax base to consider what tools that we might have but additional um things that they are offering within the project um around Workforce Development is program funding and part Partnerships around training job fairs internships and an mwsb commitment there's an environmental component to to this as well and you think about it when um I think they have estimated there's about 54,000 tons that are diverted from the landfills when you do a conversion versus a new construction um so we have to think about that they're also partnering with Duke Energy on a demand response automation which um reduces energy usage during periods um so there's a good partnership there and then again as James said it with a lot of these it's just adding housing into um our Center City and diversifying it further from a um employment center to an activity center so for today's discussion I really wanted to use this this project is to see we've talked about these issues in Center City you know is there an appetite for public investment in a project like a Brooklyn and church do you see see the benefits of it um what type of benefits would you like to see in a project like this um this particular project is um a potential tool is a tax increment Grant or Tigs as we've done um before on projects because it hasn't been on the tax basis other projects a TIG might not be the right tool for it um and then depending on the uh conversation today if there's a willingness to look at something like this we would then start to coordinate with the county to understand what types of benefits they would want to see if they're interested in participating in the project as well and then we would come back to committee with additional um project details so with that I will turn it back over to you all for discussion thank thank you Tracy uh and let me reiterate right now there's not an act of the council or the committee to do anything correct at this point so this is just an opportunity for us to to get an idea of what a conversion project may look like and feel like so um you don't have to talk specifically about this project uh you can talk very general about Uptown conversion um for sure and things that you would like to see um with this as a backdrop um I think think the county is taking a look at this um so you should know that as well um but for our purposes is a general conversation General discussion uh with a uh wink and a nod towards bullet number one is there an appetite for public investment in Brooklyn and church are in uptown conversions in general uh so with that as a preamble um I I'll make two comments on my own and then I'll let the um committee have their way um I think we we we ought to do something right I think we can't pretend that this is not happening to us I mean so we have to take a look at how we can help publicly and and private Investments um you know developers are going to cringe when I say this um because I know the complexity of of these projects uh and I know the balance sheets and that you know affordable housing was kind of missed um uh in general uh in terms of how do we incorporate affordable housing uh in these vacant office Towers how do we introduce affordable um um real estate relates to um retail space of a public investment was to be considered in any project generally right housing affordable retail space for small businesses who want to operate in an uptown environment where um the barrier to entry in many cases is cost and rent and those type of things right and and um um also we are to take into consideration the number of other public investment that we are making uh in uptown whether it's our investment in um uh Spectrum Arena or our investment hypothetically uh with um other partners that we may be having conversation with I.E uh temper Sports and and entertainment uh investment in transit uh in and uptown our philosophy in reference to crime and Public Safety and how does vacant buildings um play a role into that I mean so I hope our conversation is Broad enough that would take all those things in consideration and I will turn it over to Mr D so um I realize we are not talking about a transaction structure but having some idea of what it might look like would uh inform us as to whether this conversation is going to lead anywhere right and so I'm wondering I mean we're not talking about it now but has there been any discussion with the other parties in pencil about how this might work is that just something you're not willing to share yet or is there really no idea whatsoever what kind of public involvement might be needed here no we what we have had discussions with the property owners about the use of a tax increment Grant tool and what that what that might yield if we did that we've looked at it in it I don't have a target for you today but we've looked at it in in the number of years as well as you know with the Tigs 50% or or um 45% or 90% And what that yields and what that does with The Gap um and then we've also married that out with the public benefit what our take Investments could go towards right and part of the infrastructure of the project and does that make sense so we've started to play with those pieces um but before I Totally Baked the cake I wanted to hear from from you guys because this is a different type of reasoning or rationale for investment so I really wanted to make sure that we had the opportunity for you all to weigh in on what types of public benefits you would want to see before we got too far so you know I would say uh it's very appealing right I like the idea of creating the residential units and I like the activation at that location um it does need to be seen in context you know we don't even know where the stadium is going right now yet um the thing I guess that uh that I'm wondering is this is like a private sector investor and so how we defining what the public interest is like how are we defining what amount we want to avoid that vacancy because that has negative implications for Uptown there's some value there for that but then we might ask the question okay is there going to be any deed restriction or other affordability around the residential units and uh you can't double count like if it takes money from us in order order for them to be able to do this then that's one thing if we then add on the idea that we want some sort of affordability then that's another thing so we would need to think about whether we were accessing housing trust funds or what we were doing in order to motivate Mobility affordability which I think ought to be part of the conversation given our priorities uh so um my general comment would be yes you know I appreciate the thinking uh I would be interested to know for example uh Mr laar you said conversions in other cities uh uh have the projects in other cities had public money absolutely so whether it be in this time frame or in the past right so Lower Manhattan after uh 911 and in order to try to bring that subdistrict back they had the 421g program so that was a tax abatement piece so that very large um um public investment there and then there's a variety of cities that are doing this now Calgary Canada being one of the best examples of bringing just a straight up um Grant into the equation other ones would be I would say Chicago the leading City right now they have an old Financial District on Lal Street where they have identified um a tiff format in order to help bring those conversions and and then also bring a series of other activities there the other pieces they might seem more pedestrian but they're also very important from our understanding of from the development side of things um Navigators within city government in order to help understand because this is a new thing um that that many um people in in the roles now have not seen in this generation so navigating that piece how does how does the relationship between the project and tax assessor work relationship between the fire department between zoning and codes right so looking at that as a I would say sending a strong signal to the development community that Charlotte is looking to do this so I think offer significant value just by Expediting the path through the city processes we've heard how expensive it is just to deal with government uh that might be something we would want to look at uh I I would say in general definitely interested uh I I like the thinking um and particularly at that location uh I'm just um uh kind of curious about what tools we're talking about I've said often in the past the tig is not free money just because we're trading away future tax receipts that we wouldn't receive other wise we are still diluting our total tax base uh in in relation to the needs that this the growing city has so it's not Costless right just understand our our tax rate is calculated based on how much revenue we need in order to provide city services and when you exclude certain properties from that Revenue then it implies a recalculation of the tax rate there there is a cost there but uh doesn't mean we shouldn't use the tool but uh let's not imagine that it's free otherwise I look forward to hearing more about it I think it's an exciting idea Mr Mitchell uh thank you Mr chairman first of all I want to thank uh Center City Partners For You Been a partner working with us on this initiative particularly bringing the private sector to the table I I think it is key as we try to work together the private sector need to be um uh a true partner um Tracy and Mr chair I'm a yes for all three uh bullet points OB curious to see you know we can come to what benefits we looking for uh Tracy would be helpful because I'm a big fan of T but just to kind of uh remind us what of the T projects we have used just so we know we have a good reference point and and and thirdly I I I do like one box um in this competition that's the 60,000 retail space we hear over and over from our visitors who come to our great City that that one thing we're lacking is retail in Center City so that checks a big box up for me so thank you and looking forward to uh moving forward on this uh great opportunity mayor PR thank you Mr chair I I love this approach of having the competition and thinking about you know these distressed properties that are highlighted on seven I agree that this is uh a benefit across the board and in particular for this site you know there's a bit of a there's a lack of activation as it relates to retail but there's a bit of a canyon effect there that could be perceived as not particularly safe you know around the stadium and um and I know in Manhattan and Lower Manhattan when they did the work after 911 you know was very thoughtful about trying to open up some those spaces that were were very much a canyon effect to instill public spaces and Retail and so that's a great opportunity here for this building in particular when we talk about housing this is a I think if we decide that we want to do something like this that this is a great opportunity to um en ensure that the housing is accessible from a Workforce perspective so the workforce housing you know and and those individuals that are sitting from at that you know 50 60% Ami um working every day we need to have more units online accessible to to those uh residents and I think this is a great opportunity for us to think about how we can impact there and then on slide seven you know and I know we're just talking about Brooklyn and church right here but on slide seven where we see that cluster of uh red buildings relative to um Spectrum Arena I think that is you know you you can quite often look at challenges as opportunities to reimagine spaces and I just that cluster alone of properties I think it's a great opportunity for us to reimagine that part of Uptown so I me yes I think this I look forward to what's to come in terms of uh you know the innovation in this space I I agree with you mayor protim the rub is the the workforce housing and how you make that affordable and and I think again I can't speak for the council I only speak for myself but based on our conversations about equity and housing I mean if we're going to invest money for convergence out toown affordability is a no-brainer that has to be a part of it which is going to impact cost for for sure and even that's I said earlier affordable retail space if there's going to be a public investment and there's going to be retail that it has to be accessible for a number of folks who want to take a part of that so I I kind of get it and I also get the complexity of that as well um C Molina you've been looking at me yeah thank you Mr chair um actually I'm I'm sitting here I'm looking at Michael Smith and I'm nodding yes right um and I'm happy to see you guys in the room thank you for being here I think it's um you know great to have you guys at the table as very important stakeholders in this decision making process um and I you know I literally was going to say I was going to talk look we're talking Workforce we're talking about reimagination right um and and as we continue to look at you know our Workforce opportunities again inextricable nature of what we do and how it builds one upon the other right um I I think we could we we really got an opportunity here to reimagine and I mean I I love the idea that we get our ideas from other places but I think we have the flexibility to do as much as we can imagine and and the beauty of bright Minds that come and compete is that you can ensure that you know the best is bubbling to the top you got all of the talent coming pulling itself voluntarily saying this is what I have this is how I think whatever whatever um but the best of that is going to Bubble to the top and then we got this new opportunity to imagine not what others are doing but what Charlotte can do right as we think through Workforce Development as we think through living wages you know because the one thing that I said I remember you know and I'm not going to date myself but and and somebody's going to laugh when I do date myself so I'm just G to not say too much I know you know but like I was a teenager in the 90s right but I remember in the 90s um you could be a high school student and drive a school bus right there was a such thing as being a high school student and being able to be a senior in high school right and still drive a school bus but we don't have that anymore so now we have like high school bus drivers or we have a shortage of bus drivers right and likely we have that shortage because don't you start James I see you James leave me alone you both of y'all so I'm I'm in that millennial generation but I still remember what the '90s were right and I remember that people my older sister her generation she graduated in the '90s and I remember she had peers that were in high school that were driving school buses now school bus drivers can't afford to live in our city and we need them desperately I'm a mom I'm a single mother I live in car rider lines uh and we need those stakeholders in our communities right we want to go to Starbucks we need those stakeholders in our communities we need the cafeteria workers we need the school teachers you know and we're talking about varying degrees of area median income but we're still we have this unique beautiful opportunity to imagine charlet and answer our issues however we'd like them to be right so I'm not saying we need to fill the Uptown with you know our working class individuals but these are very very important workingclass human beings that belong to our community and without them we all feel it right and so I'd like to inject that type of thought into our conversation as we think this through forward and I know this is a lot of the what and I know you guys are going to dig into the how but as you know a member of this body I would like to see us start to think from that place of of thought right and that how can we be creative around keeping the people that we need for us to function properly a part of our community and maybe we call that Workforce right and I mean I've heard varying degrees of what we call you know the working human that's in our community um that we really need how do we keep them approximate to what we do but but we can we can really do that this is a unique opportunity for us to really dig in there get as creative as we can we have the minds we have what we need at the table and I'm confident of that it's just how you know how do we do that how creative can we get so that's my thought around what we do and like I said it just what we do in my mind and I'm one human speaking for myself it builds on each other so we got we got now in in what is seemingly a problem an area of opportunity that I think we can really just dig into and be intentional about resolving a lot of the issues uh that we're facing as a community so I just want to add that thank you Mr M thank you Mr chair um so as in the least uh offensive way possible and that how I'm supposed to start my sentences now post Retreat you've been doing well yes yes thank you mayor btim uh I I think there is some awesome work here I'm excited about but I I'm just I'm G to have a differing opinion on the fact that should we just move forward down this path and I hope this will make sense um when when we put aside other comments that I've been able to make in these Committees of where the macro kind of Workforce and and office vacancy um ecosystem is going I won't rehash that but I think it's a little early for us to completely jump to conclusions yet on that as well as tabling the the public safety aspect which I think is massive in this and just just jumping to this I really like the creativity but I think there's one more step that we could contemplate that would really take this from a good idea because we have enough smart people that we could get to a ribbon cutting where everyone's excited the question is did we get to something that's truly scalable that move the needle in an outcome based way or did we all just kind of get a couple headlines and we unsure if we did or not I think the difference here goes back to uh something you said there which is uh how I talk about supply and demand in this way it's spec versus transaction and we can approach something in a speculative manner in a way that we hope the ultimate Supply we create generates some sort of impact and starts some flywheel or we can figure out a way to go directly with this Innovation and idea towards a transaction that actually is the demand so we're we're we're not asking ourselves how do we want to Loosely tie strings to create a public benefit we're saying the number one public benefit is jobs that you bring to this town so it brings me back to this point of if we're at a macro level looking at this can we go and put all of our effort behind recruiting companies to Charlotte and and rather we look at this as a problem to solve we look at it as an opportunity that puts Tools in our tool belt to go better recruit companies so to go out to a company to have a Nationwide in partnership with the alliance and other folks a nationwide um advertising campaign that says Charlotte's the first ever place where one of the incentive recruitment tools we have is we will build out and spec your your office space for you and that doesn't have to be transitioned into the capex that normally baked into your per square foot cost it's something that now like a j dig or like a big that we have here is another tool where we're doing the same thing we're specking it out but it's tied upon a company bringing jobs here that aren't here today to fill out those spaces and maybe some of the things are public amenities for their employees and others but it's tied to like just like we might have an opportunity hiring Grant or a j dig or whatever it is it's it's a pool of capital that's designed to go transactionally to meet the demand so they're bringing the jobs here and we're taking the vacancy rates which result in the lower costs per square foot and then bringing that down further by building it out in great ways that maybe they need the flexibility to say I need a two or threeyear lease versus a 10-year lease with the uncertainty and now we're winning on that market front and to me that's a scaled idea like I said this is good thought and Innovative and can we get from this point to some ribbon cuting that would be exciting absolutely I know that but is the loose thought and a prayer on what that is actually going to generate and how we write the the history you know you know with the the the ability of the the historian or do we have something that's truly measurable that's measured in jobs I think that could be super powerful here and I know there's a lot of companies out there that would absolutely see this as a benefit not our problem to solve uh getting into these spaces with with low to no capex buildout or Community opportunities and and things like that so I hope that there's one more step we could take rather than making this a kind of specked out Supply kind of governmental will will make some hypotheses and then we believe this will happen versus let's just transactionally connect it to recruiting recruiting companies and jobs here miss that'ss so couple of things one council member m reminded me of this I took this out took the slide out from last month's presentation but you know it is important to remind everybody that as we think about this we are thinking about those three buckets right that we talk about for Uptown public safety quality of life um the economic development bucket as well as the one that I kind of call public realm um that we we still think in those three ways but under the economic development kind of space uh council mcari is absolutely right right this isn't just about building conversions it is about how we get aggressive and creative on on business recruitment because we're no different than any other city across the country in terms terms of the challenges so we're seeing our peer cities that we compete against get aggressive on business Recruitment and I firmly believe that that's something that we should be doing as well I can talk to you offline about some of the challenges that I've um I've encountered in that space but yes that's absolutely a a piece of it the last thing I'll say um is to council member Driggs comment we have asked the development team to work through because you bring up a great point about adding additional cost burden onto the project that already has cost burden and so guessing from my my seat that um Workforce housing affordable housing would be a part of the discussion I asked them to look at the numbers and back into that so that we aren't assigning something if that's a path that we want to look at we're not assigning a number or affordability that they can't hit because it makes that Gap that much bigger so we're in the process of talking through some of that as well could be a valentine re imagined kind of conversation okay all right so um I think there's a um a consensus to kind of take a baby step forward uh on this uh I I just to the public and to the council members there's a lot of red and orange dots on the map and the the public cannot be a part of every solution I mean I think that's a fair statement to say um and so I think we we go in this acknowledging that that um it's it's a it's a very big concern um not only in uptown um but throughout the city uh and public participation is only a part of the answer I'm not sure uh I think B Carvey is Right corporate Recruitment and providing incentives is another part of it as well um I I heard a comment at at the last meeting as I was listening it too that some buildings may need to come down um so I'm just kind of talking out loud for the community and the council members to know that there is a um this is a a problem uh or a concern that's going to be with us for a while that there may be a role for us to play um but that role Evan of itself is still a small role and a big problem U that we got to confront so um I think you got what you need mson yes um any other questions all right let's see where this goes great thank you we'll be back um all right now shifting to our last item small business e system strategy I'm going to ask Holly and chrisy to come up and give us an update welcome Hol and and and again I said to retreat you know part of you know what we do is this committee gets a lot of attention um because we talk about big large sexy things um that people care about um but the blocking and tackling that we do is really is our small business our Workforce Development our CBI program those are things that really go under the radar um that this committee does and that staff does on it each and every day so I just want to welcome you to the committee and thank you for the work that you do and and I think we look forward to kind of hearing um about this ecosystem strategy well thank you so much for having us and for those um kind words you know small business and Equity around the small business space is something that we eat sleep breathe every single day and Incredibly passionate about and work very closely with our um teammates and CBI on um as well so this strategy I you know talked about it in the retreat I'm going to turn it over to Chrissy because Chrissy Floyd is really the lead of this work and I feel like it's important for her to tell the story about what we're doing but this is an amazing opportunity it's something that's never been done in this city as an organization or in this community this thorough and we really appreciate your support so I'll turn it over Christie thank you thank you Holly thank you Mr chairman committee thank you for having me here today as Holly said you heard a little snippet about this at the at the council retreat but I wanted to give you an update on where we are in the process on this small business strategy and give you a little recap of what you heard because I know you heard a lot that that week so uh last year city council approved $800,000 in arpa funding for this small business strategy and the goal of this is to Come Away with a comp comprehensive plan that will help increase the Equitable opportunities for all small businesses we're asking our consultant to take a really deep dive into our small business ecosystem and that's going to require them to do a lot of work with our small business Resource Partners and our small businesses to help them to gain an understanding of what our strengths are and also what opportunities we might have to do something different you know this whole reimagined concept so what's out there that we might might be able to do something different we have never done this type of study before as a city so we're really excited to have this quantitative and this qualitative data that we're going to get from our consultant about our small business ecosystem you know we've said it before and we say it every time we talk to you small business data is really hard to come by and that's because there's not one Central source for the data there's data here there's data there it's all over so we're asking that consultant to really take a look at the data and all of those sources and bring them together we want to be able to use this data to help make decisions about future investment small for make we all have yes so small business is defined in a lot of different ways and so we are defining as U businesses that have less than 50 employees and um that can include even solopreneurs businesses that are in business for [Music] themselves I just I'm yeah it's a number of employees okay uh okay next slide I wanted to give you update on where we are in the process we began this work in mid 2023 and we began by taking a look of a look at studies in other cities I wanted to have a really clear understanding of what some of these small business ecosystem assessments um com are comprised of so we can put everything that we want into our scope of work we want the consultant to have a really comprehensive uh plan when we come out of this so our RFP has been issued I have in my hands 22 proposals from vendors for uh this study and our selection team is taking a look at those our selection team includes staff from Economic Development Charlotte business inclusion we have a staff member from the corridors of opportunity team but we've also asked some of our Resource Partners County Economic Development and a member of the business advisory committee to join us and reviewing these so they can advise us we want to have a really full perspective on on this and select the right vendor um our hope is to have the selection completed by the end of this month and have a vendor in place because we want to go ahead and get that work started our plan is to have the study completed by the end of this year so we can go ahead and begin implementation now once we have a consultant in place we're going to work with him to create a strategy to give you regular updates on what we're doing this is not the last time you're going to hear from me about this until 2025 don't worry um we'll come and give you updates all along the way or where we are in this process um so we're really excited about this like I said it's something that we've never done before and we just are looking forward to getting started more information to come okay um more information to come but are there any questions right now Mr DRS so uh what what is the end result expected to be like are are you planning on having programs that that Target uh the businesses that have been identified or described by the study or what what will you do so we're not going into it with an outcome in mind we're going to sort of see what's out there you know they're going to talk to our Resource Partners about what programs are out there what services are out there where are their gaps who is not being served like they should be and maybe it's programs maybe it's Services maybe it's partnering with our Resource Partners to create different things or to do things differently so we're going to really rely on the data that's collected in the focus groups and the interviews to really um tell that tell us what should come out of it and but just be more specific about our small business priority yes I do want to say one thing I think that is really um important here and we are very very fortunate that we have such strong relationships with our small businesses and our partners so we have been um able to create things like amp up Charlotte that do have those continuous metrics showing success but what we're going to be able to do here is say to you all okay here's a study right and it's look look at the ecosystem as a whole but it's also going to look at us you know what I'm saying the city and so it will be informed in saying when we have this implementation plan to say like okay when we ask for support this is actually data driven we're not it's it's we we've gone through a strategic process when we come to you and say okay this is the expansion you know what I'm saying of a city program or this is what the recommendation recommendation is so we're very very excited to be able to do that could we see the RFP that was issued um that would help us understand you know what it was you asked them to do thanks sure thank you Mr chair Mr Mr Mitchell thank you Mr chair chrisen hollly thank you continue to do uh uh a great job for us I agree with the chairman this is important I mean uh if we could be known to be the most uh enticing City for small business to thrive I think that's a good win for our city and thank you you have reached out to Resource Partners along the way so I agree with you holler we have great relationship with the organization and I look forward to it I mean this this tie into our priorities right one of our six priorities was small business and so thank you all looking forward to uh to see who wins at the end uh uh to do the have Lifting for us so thank you may P thank you for the presentation I and I agree that this is valuable work when you mentioned uh the the individuals or entities that were involved in the interview process can you mention those again sure the folks on the selection team yes so we have a staff member from Economic Development we have a staff member from Charlotte business inclusion we have someone from our corridors of opportunity team we have someone from County Economic Development we have several um Resource Partners and then we have a member of our business advisory committee okay okay great um do you have you interfaced at all with the CLT allow Alliance Foundation in this work they are one of our Resource Partners yes they yes excellent because I think it goes very well in concert with what you're trying to accomplish fantastic looking forward to the outcome thank you quick question are we doing a look internally or also we looking outside of the building in terms of the scale and the scope of the procurement opportunities that all these major corporations have for small businesses so in terms of the RFB yeah so you're saying is this plan going to address how do we connect small businesses to the corporate community so I think it could I mean I think what I believe is going to come out and again I don't like to restate you know what what I think but when you're doing these interviews with small businesses I mean that's a constant thing right and it's something that we've tried to address that through amp up that's why we have that corporate or you know that that larger organization that is the The Entity that opens up their SE Suite to the mhm that cohort that's going through the program and all the graduates as well we're really trying to create those intentional yes I see there's there is an opportunity for that and I know the alliance to your point is working on that so um again we are working closely with them on this project so I think there will be some Synergy around this I can't tell you definitively what that would be obviously but I it is going to come up that in your conversations with those guys I mean if I was a small business owner they buy more goods and services than the city uh on an annual basis with less hurdles to jump over um and um they can be a lot more flexible in their spending happiness than we can be from time to time so hopefully there is a connection with the alliance and others as we kind of talk about this whole ecosystem that's what a big part of it um but yeah so hopefully as you just kind of talk to your partners and say hey you know what have you done lately Mr bardi thank you Mr chair um I'm glad you guys are working on this can't believe to uh I think one of the problems across the board for everything but it it particularly materializes here is we tend to start big new initiatives and ideas by jamming ourselves in a small bucket or closet or corner and trying to design around that I think a great example of that is how we were looking at the overall metrics and it was kind of jammed into 10-minute neighborhoods even though that makes absolutely no sense for literally anything that we should be talking about from scratch in here so I I just would encourage us you know you got to set out and collect the data to help inform but I think starting from a couple assumption points is really critical so for me addressing the space because I I love this space very dearly I would start by saying okay what's the measure we're going to start with and build around what are the couple premises well last time I heard under 50 employees small businesses I I'm I don't this may not be right but there were something like over 10,000 of them and they represented 60% of the workforce in our community huge numbers great place to level set where everyone is so now we're talking about all small business meeting just that definition we're not going to do anything else until we answer a couple questions which are how would you at the next tier down bucket them into technology startups versus you know and pop grocery stores and restaurants to to whatever those major buckets that we've we've done this exercise in the past and just ask kind of two questions one is what are the Thematic kind of uh thematic level uh challenges they're facing and two what is the inventory or uh menu of solutions that's out there so for Mom and Pop restaurants that need Capital might be very different than a small business that could be Bank of America or Wells Fargo's vendor if it was on the radar um so I think when we start there then we overlay certain components like CBI other things like that if we start in one of those perspectives we lose this whole 60% of the workforce is represented there so I would encourage and I'm glad to work offline with you guys as needed as you're working through the RFP and you have it they'll kind of collect the data in the direction you point them and I think you have to give them we have to make some assumptions and point them in a direction that could be proven wrong but hopefully if we do it properly it'll be enough because folks in particularly Consultants can literally bring back anything we want so I think it's important that we scope this and go down this the right way now um because it's been a lot of years that we've kind of deprioritized it overall all right ladies we look forward to you coming back before the committee and giving us periodical updates uh along the way uh again this is is one of The Blocking tackling things that we do that I think everyone's really really interested in um the outcomes uh one qu question to miss doson before we leave and then uh it's not an agenda item and I ask she would just kind of tell us where we are with eastn bro not like being put on about to leave here this is um and I'm GNA I'm going to look at Todd if I say anything um in incorrectly um my understanding is that they have gotten back um a series of the engineer drawings to then go out to bid and they've done that um to get cost estimates and um we should have that in two weeks two and a half weeks something like that so then we'll be able to better refine our numbers to understand um where the what level the public investment needs to be at okay so Mr barari if I would add to that I think I think it's really important like this is going to be a deep level of detail all the way to at a bid level where there aren't going to be any questions at that point of is this correct I think we have to as a group make sure that whatever conversations and being ramped up we need to do to make sure we're being ramped up as a whole Council of all stakeholders in parallel that we try to figure that out just making sure that we don't waste time once all this critical path that the the staff has been running occurs yeah uh and I open up the can of worms no no I'm not going talk about it was something else I don't think we should get to no no no again I just want to um remind the committee that it's not in committee uh this topic now as as with the council as a whole um that I take a little ownership of it since it came from the committee and it's and it's been out there for a while uh Mr Mitchell M Mr chairman Committee just two people piece of information one is James you mentioned about Seattle Chicago and DC you can give a list of other cities we're about to meet with some of our colleagues at National League of cities March 10th through 13 so give us the time to have some dialogue with those representatives and secondly uh Tracy uh just for the new person on the committee can you give me a list of all the referral items we have a for this committee I'll be interest to see what is our backlog of items that been referred thank you Mr chairman and and Councilman Mitchell we'll get you that list um we'll work with with James and team but we have a a list okay actually big binder of plans and initiatives from other cities okay motion for adjournment this [Music] wej [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] this [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all [Music] [Music] la [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well good afternoon everyone I hope you all had a great weekend um today is February 5th budget governance and intergovernmental committee meetings I'm dmle ajmera committee chair and we will start with introductions to my left thank you madam chair uh James Mitchell Committee Member Lana Mayfield Committee Member Sean Heath assistant city manager Dana Fenton with the city manager's office Charlotte lamb strategy and budget right Bergman strategy and budget Dante Anderson mayor protim district one okayy Hannah bronberg strategy and budget Jennifer Allan strategy and budget Mr Hillman demy M Mega m mat Finance Nelson contract all right well we got full Village here we got our budget Village here strategy and finance thank you all for being here today we have three items on our agenda uh first is our federal and state legislative agenda um and uh this is a followup conversation from our previous meeting so let's let's turn it over to Dana Fenton to walk us through an update thank you madam chair uh as you're as you are as you stated you are correct at the last meeting on January 8th we discussed the uh draft uh legislative agendas from staff and um and today uh we will be asking you to approve the legislative agendas um but I'll go through first I'll go through the proposed federal and state issues a suggest Ed motion then the next steps afterwards next slide please uh this is a slide you saw last month um about the legislative agendas and I would just stress that our goals are based upon the city council strategic priorities and that could be achievable in this climate both economic and political and the shorter sessions that we have uh this year especially at the state we're only going to be in in session for about 2 and A2 months we should be out by July 4th and then uh the requests need to be actionable through budgets uh legislation or Grant request and then more importantly Do no harm we don't want to do anything that's going to open up a can of worms uh unknowingly so next slide please uh these are the legislative issues that uh uh that we have um and I'll go through those next slide please uh under the mobility of course we talked about last time we would be focused on the federal side of trying to get more resources to build out our strategic Mobility plan but at the same time we've be trying to work with the state to secure the The Authority uh to provide the local matches of those projects and then of course uh getting back to the federal side we try to also support Federal resources for passenger and Freight rail initiatives next slide please Aviation uh just to let you know uh just to put a little bit more detail there we're still working on the letter of intent securing that for the fourth parallel Runway project that's a $450 million request and again I don't expect to see a uh any indication as whether it'll go ahead and approve it until at least a permanent FY 24 budget is adopted uh by the Congress and signed the law by the president um that's been the typically when the FAA makes these commitments they uh they generally want to wait for that budget to be uh adopted and in this case as you know uh they haven't done it yet and then we have uh there's other resources for for Aviation for the federal government that we can see and then of course the instate program uh that's the uh North Carolina airport Improvement program uh next slide please under Federal under upward Mobility uh be seeking resources for the corridors of opportunity projects and then of course uh there's there's some other resources available local and Regional uh economic and Workforce Development initiatives and then we have also in the state state side is that there's State Economic Development programs that we utilize and we should probably show support for those if needed and then uh also we'll be trying to access any pass through funding for Workforce Development that's administered by the state next slide please uh digital inclusion the federal the big thing on the federal side is that the affordable connectivity program has run out of money or will run out of money in April 24 April of this year and so uh there's going to be a need to appropriate more funding for it at the same time on the state side we'd be trying to access uh pass through funding for for digital inclusion administered by the state and that uh the general assembly has been very good about supporting uh extension of broadband of rural areas and that helps us because if more folks in the rural areas get online they can do more business and it's just better for the state overall next slide and then immigration uh we only are focusing on the federal side and one is to uh one thing we've been working on is to improve the H1B Visa process and then also I'm just going to go down to the third one real quick to say that we've also made the pitch for increased resources for Refugee resettlement and in that immigration bill or immigration compromise that that was arrived at by the Senate that Senator Tillis took part in that there's fun there there is funding for more resources for Refugee resettlement and for improving the H1B a process the second one establish Pathways to citizenship I did not see anything in there about it uh now at the same time let me just make sure you all know that the house Speaker has said instead of arrival uh and U politics presidential year politics or play there so anyways uh I'll try to provide you some more information about it uh in the next weekly report next slide please Public Safety um support on the federal side for uh Federal resources for fire police and even Emergency Management type Services we do receive funding right now for that and then on the state side we' like that there's some funding that goes to the state uh in the public safety area that we could access at some point and then of course there's some uh 23 2023 legislation that's eligible to be considered this year that we were working on and uh in a lot of cases we've been working with the the lobbying team has been working with the sponsors and others and so we want to be able to be in a position to uh watch that go through or watch that uh those uh changes we got to uh to be still in legislation when it's voted on this year next slide please uh the environment I've got a couple several things in here I know there's a lot of words in here I apologize for that but there's a lot going on in the environmental area as we know and uh of course we you know we have a lot of federal resources coming down for environmental programs we would be supporting those but also we got some unfunded mandates coming up uh posos in lead service line replacement uh those will be both uh unfunded mandates on all local governments around the country and so um there's some work being done uh by Senator Tillis and some other Senators to try to find sources of funding for those too uh and then also support environmental justice initiatives which is a which is a u uh something that's very important to you all and then we have the U there is pass through environmental funding that comes to the state we would try to access it and uh and then also I said before we need to have past regulation consistency between the state and federal governments and we've worked on that before uh but uh every once in a while this comes up so I just want to get it out there to our delegation and then of course we have some 2023 legislation to be monitored and next slide please and uh housing uh support for federal Housing Programs there's you know you got cdbg you at the home investment partnership and other programs like that and there could be an attempt in the house and try to scale that back somehow and of course I brought up last time the federal Housing Voucher programs we're not um we're not asking let me just clarify for everybody that we're not asking for increased authority to require landlords to accept vouchers but rather what they what they're saying is that the program the way it's administered could use some improvement so we put that out there and see what might be possible in that uh the pass through housing tax credits uh that are funneled through the state uh the low-income housing tax credit so uh that's uh uh that something that we we try to be very aggressive on and then finally there is some 2023 legislation eligible to be considered uh this year would be focused on so Madam chair I'm going to just pause right there in case anyone has any questions on this so far before we get into the suggested motion yes uh thank you so much Mr Fenton that's a lot of information uh data download but um I certainly appreciate the work that you have been doing Dana to keep us updated with your with your periodic weekly emails I certainly appreciate that I think those are very helpful uh I do have three items that I would like to uplift uh I certainly appreciate Senator Tom ts's efforts on immigration reform um I know that we do get a lot of requests around H1B and the delays that we have experienced well many of our residents have experienced so it's great to see there is some movement on there um uh so I absolutely support everything that you have listed on there there are three items uh that uh you and I have had conversation on and also I had um I have had this conversations with my colleagues uh who serve on this committee so first I had brought up how Bill funding and I know that council member Mitchell serves on this ad hoc committee for Mobility plan um and pow bill is a very small part of the overall Mobility plan so I wanted to get inputs from the committee members would you like to how do you feel about adding power bill or would you just like to have just one item that is mobility um because power bill was only $6 to8 million that was an item we were not successful with getting funding restored in previous years and I don't see any progress so far but Mr Fon if you could just provide an update on that and I let committee decide whether they would like to Champion that as part of our State Legislative agenda or not yeah I would just say that for the last three years our state lobbying team has done a great job of getting in there to talk with leadership about this very very issue and uh after 3 years I think we got we got the word pretty clearly last year that neither the house nor the Senate are interested in restoring it to the city so it would not be achievable in this political climate Okay how do you feel about our Mobility plan how do I feel about what about our Mobility plan I saw that was one of our items as part of our transportation well I think just two weeks ago when we had the retreat up in Winston Salem uh pretty much you can tell that all the council wanted to push on Mobility so but U I don't know what else I can say about it in terms of the kind of traction that it's getting from the state legislators so far well uh number one is that there's going to be a lot of work done whether it's U I think it's the work group on Mobility that was formed and uh mayor protm council member dggs and Council member Mitchell were appointed to that committee by the mayor and there to take a look at those very very things and so um you know if we you know we've been working very very hard the mayor's been working hard the city manager's been working hard on this and uh I think to say that you know in terms of the red line for example we're further along now with a red line than any time during the time I've been with the city I've been with the city for 14 years now so uh we we are making more progress with that and that's a that's a key that's a key thing we have to be able to get in order to get the support of the northern towns and thereby uh there are legislative they're part of the legislative delegation and also uh key policy makers outside the county you're right I certainly we we have made some progress on our Mobility plan especially with the red line conversation um so I if committee is okay I think we do not need to include the PO bill since we are not going to see much movement there um as long as we continue to work on the Mobility plan I think that will address some of the lack of funding on the PO Bill side the other two items that I have here is uh State funding so last year with our state legislator support we were successful and our lobbyist and Mr Fon we were successful uh with securing funding of up 20 or $30 million for uh to recruit an asset to our city that will be a tourism asset and I would like to Advocate and I would like us to Champion that we use those funds to recruit additional tourism assets or use those funds to maintain our current existing tourism assets so if we can add that to our legislative agenda uh I would let our committee decide on how they feel but I think that is an important um legislation uh funding that we absolutely need to further our Economic Development goals our tourism goals uh Madam chair I can tell you just as we spoke before the meeting is that U that $20 million for project breakpoint uh the general assembly has already probably decided where it's going to go so we we're actually too late to the game to ask for something like that and also just last year the meals tax was extended for another uh to 2060 and that provided a lot of room in the amount of amount of uh debt that could be issued uh on the meals tax and also a lot of a lot more projects can be taking place so I would like to hear from committee members as to how they feel um Miss Mayfield wow thank you madam chair Dana for a little clarification so we lobbied our Representatives we did receive the funding for the 20 million it was for a specific project but you're saying now it's up to the general assembly has the ability to say what that 20 million that was approved for Charlotte can go to versus us being able correct that's correct it was it was specifically uh it was a special allocation okay uh and it was for project break point which uh which is not going to happen and um and so um uh in that case we never receed the money so we do we do not have the discretion to uh reallocate so if we have another potential Hospitality ask we will have to start the process over to go and solicit for yeah with all the with all these uh with all these prospects and all the different types of projects you're going to have to make you're going to have to work uh up in Raleigh on anything that comes up not to have somebody uh available to do uh something that may come up you need to have a you need to have a uh either a firm commitment or some sort of some sort of agreement in principle or something like that uh you know we were we were doing the uh you know actually the the people behind project break point we're doing a lot of work on that and uh the general assembly uh felt very comfortable with it so so the actual potential Partners was doing a lot of the heavy lifting oh yeah yeah okay so it make that funding is not there anymore because it was identified specifically for that project if we have another opportunity again we start the process all over again that's correct and you were mention that we that there was funding meals did you was that M extension of meals tax extension of the meals tax yes okay I have a different question but I'll ask it after we get to this okay um so I I ahead yeah uh just a followup um so Dan I think it'll be helpful if we if we can improve our communication cuz I think some of us was not under was not aware that the funding had shift and so we totally understand it was a marked for a particular project but I do think a simpler you know sh un for you w successful we will be we will partner with you but due to you were not successful the $20 million have been reverted back to our budget just so we all been on the Level Playing Field yeah it was never it was never in our budget I don't think it was in our budget I thought it was in their budget they they in their budget yes right so uh so if they appropriate in their budget I just think and we was basing on we thought then we would have those funds if we've been successful so the fact we were not I just think a communication piece would have make sure that we all on the same page and and Madam chair I I think you might need to Ed inform everyone this evening um uh about that that we no longer have access uh to those 20 million they was isolated to just have particular project okay thank you I I I agree with council member Mitchell it was in their budget it was specifically allocated for this project specific project um so what I would like to instead advocate for is that because we get we get tourism projects all the time whether it's our existing assets or whether it's new uh trying to recruit something else right we have a line item on our State Legislative agenda that we seek State funding to boost our tourism assets whether that's existing or that's something new uh so that L item is always there how how do you all feel about that because I I just think that many times we are feeling the gaps um the city is filling the void and and gaps but if we have this item Whenever there is an opportunity we will bring this up to our delegation and I know we are all going up to Raleigh sometime I think in a couple of months in April is that so I I would like to bring this up so there is always a topic of conversation on on this I'm going to ask the uh staff to uh take the slides back to the upper Mobility slide okay because under um upward under the uh State Side uh there already says support state Economic Development programs and I don't think you really need anything in there to be honest with you because um a lot of times again you know we talk about a specific project up there there's a process that Miss Dodson goes through to to talk about that with them and I don't want to put anything I prefer not to put anything into the agenda uh that uh that somehow uh uh affects that uh there's a very a very uh unique way of of um asking for dollars from the state for these types of projects and it's better that you not Telegraph it in a legislative agenda got it so what was Mr fron when we requested support for the project break point was this process followed was that process that wasn't part of last year legislative agenda but we had this line item right no no that was this is this is new from last year this is new it did not appear in the legislative agenda last year as I said be at a previous meeting everything that's in there is really part of your strategic priorities and uh that did not that was not in this in that agenda okay so I think this kind of covers everything it covers uh recruiting new companies whether that's asking for tourism uh funding for tourism so if committee is okay we can move on to my third item the last one I promise is there a number of items that were requested by our police chief so police chief have brought this up at our Retreat as well as many uh public um forums uh he had asked for additional funding for the DA's office uh I know that's an issue additional funding for juvenile support and uh there was a specific bill I don't remember what is it called uh raise the age uh he wanted to assess the impact of that um so I would like I know that we don't have that list I had requested that from Chief jannings and once we have that list I would like that to be added to our legislative agenda I certainly appreciate the work that you all done to fulfill one of the requests it actually we were very successful uh in addressing the pre-trial Integrity act and that was something championed by Chief jannings last year and you uh and and all of us on the council so the one in committee who wanted to be added so if we can um have similar planning place for this additional items I think um certainly there is a that's a lot of uh that's a long list he has but I I think we need to we need to address those items yeah I I can share with you that the mayor made a referral to the housing safety and Community Committee which I know three of the members here council member Brown uh council member asir and council member Mayfield are on they're going to start talking about that at 4 p.m. today and because it's been referred to that committee uh it's not appropriate for this committee to take it up and you'd have to wait for a recommendation to be made to the council and then a referral to the city to this Committee in that case so it's just premature I also talked with the chief today about that he said he said that he said two weeks ago that he didn't know what the solutions are that he just wanted to be studied he doesn't even know if the changes would have to be made if anything to the raise the age law for example and in terms of what the budgetary needs of the da and other offices are he doesn't know what those are either but that's been a familiar issue uh to us throughout the years for the da okay Madam chair can I make a point yes hold on so I certainly there is a lot more work that needs to be done and I know council member Mayfield myself and council member Brown do serve on that committee so we are discussing that later today uh but you know uh when we are discussing those items at the housing and Safety Committee we are discussing a policy at the local level we are not discussing the items that will be added to our legislative agenda I think that's the job of this committee um to figure out what gets added to our legislative agenda recommend that to the full Council and then Lobby our state and federal delegation uh but I I don't see that being discussed today is that right M I know council member Mayfield is the vice chair of that committee [Music] if Madam chair if I can and Dana if I'm hearing you correctly your expectation is when we have the conversation in our committee this afternoon the recommendation could be for it to be referred to this Committee in order for it to be a part of the legislative conversation because I understand what Madam chair is saying that if it's legislative wise we should be wants having a conversation is your expectation that housing referred and Mr Heath had I think that uh also just want to point out uh I think council member air just said it a moment ago that this needs to be studied to find out exactly what we have to do if anything and um and that if it were to there were to be a recommendation out of the committee that it would have to be a referral from the housing safety Community Committee to the city council okay so I think Mr Heath Hadad a response I'll be very brief so we are going to discuss this at 4 o00 this afternoon and my assumption now and the reason why we're bringing this into the conversation later today even though the referral just happened Thursday of last week is that what we've been asked to do is is a full evaluation of of the holistic strategies to uh find opportunities in collaboration with other partners to reduce juvenile crime and in my view all options are on the table at this point it could be City specific programming partner programming policy changes at the local level policy changes at the state level Investments at the state level Investments at the local level and that we would do that holistic analysis through that committee referral and there could be I could Envision a piece maybe that's broken off and require some additional conversation in this committee at some point um but uh I think our preference from a staff perspective would be initially to have all that work housed through that one referral to the housing committee Okay so so um council member Mayfield we will have continued conversation on that and we'll bring that up cuz this is a living and breathing legislative agenda it's not something we are going to just um close it for the rest of the year so uh I do have a couple of folks in our in my list I just want to recognize council member Brown who just joined us um I have council member Anderson followed by council member mayi and council member Mitchell thank you uh madam chair actually Sean just did a great job of summing up um intentionally what I wanted to say so we really just recently had that referral to the commit the housing and Public Safety Committee and we want to wait until they have some actual time to work on the referral to come up with some recommendations uh before we bake anything into our recommended uh leg legislative agenda so I would I would say it's a bit premature at this point uh but let's see what happens out of that committee over the next few weeks and as you said this is a living document so we can bake that in but we need to be a lock step with what the holistic uh strategy and approach is before we bacon into our legislative agenda thank you madam chair if I could also bring up uh thank you thank you mayor proam but also if the committee makes a recommendation to the council and the council says let's added to the legislative agenda then uh we can do it yes but uh right now we just can't yeah we just don't need to go through this I think to keep spinning our whe here if the recommends it we'll just add it okay and we'll have a discussion on that later today so I know council member mayil and council member Mitchell thank you madam chair Dan I was just trying to figure out under the environment slide you noted that we because of the PS we have a number of unfunded mandates do we have an idea of what those what that Financial cost would be not yet not yet um there's regulations being prepared on posos and those should be out later this year we also have a challenge that there's three different Departments of the federal government that are developing those regulations there is some coordination taking place by the White House of those agencies but uh we have no idea right now what those uh cost be well as of right now we have our lobbying team that we have in Washington DC standing on top of it so that as movement is happening so that we don't have a conversation like today where we I think were all a bit surprised to know that that 20 million wasn't allocated for the city to make sure that we stay on top of it and don't get any surprises cor right yeah yes we're um I know when the regulations come out that the Departments that are involved in that there a whole lot of them here in the city are going to be devouring it so it would be helpful with along with staff and the department staying on top of it that this committee at at the bare minimum that our chair is made aware as movement is happening so that we don't again run into learning well three four 6 months ago this was decided and we were not prepared whatever the decision is I'll be glad to let you know uh this committee know when um during the updates I have um over the next five six months whatever I can't remember you have a meeting in July Sean I can't remember now but at least through June I'll let you all know and then I'll do my weekly reports if it comes out during the summer break then I'll let you all know about it then and then of course in the fall we uh actually September uh not exactly fall anymore is it uh in September I'll uh we have we resume the meetings and this meeting and I'll be glad to again I'll make make a note of it there's something there and U and of course I have the weekly reports that are going out so I would appreciate that thank you madam chair yeah so just to follow up on council member Mayfield's question the budget for this year conversation have just started so how did they reallocate funding when before even the budget has been budget discussions have started or finalized they're having they're having budget discussions behind closed doors and uh they'll come back in June but it's pretty well baked right now so okay it's up okay that's not so Democratic but okay council member Mitchell thank you madam chair uh Dan a great report I I just want to uh highlight a couple of things uh on the immigration I I do think it it will would be a great Olive Branch for us to thank Senator tillers for the heavy lifting on that uh Pathway to citizenship I mean he's been working on that in a bipartisan way for almost what four or five years and for him to accomplish that I think uh Madam chair you don't mind make him a recommendation yes that we should send a letter thanking him for that work yes I'll I I'll be I'll talk with mayor lyes about that I think that's a that's a very good idea yes very good idea uh uh secondly uh uh I'm a skip all the public safe I think we had great discussion about that let let me go to the environmental so one I'mma give kudos to mam chair CU I remember when she chaired this probably her first term I would I was not environmental friendly friendly and after she pound how how how to spell it and and importance of tree canopy I've grown to be a fan because of her Environ environmental councilman mayf and I ran into this though and we started doing the Landfield issue we had landfill okay and one thing heard land fish there I'm sorry I'm sorry landfill and one issue they kept bringing up was was there any City policies related to environmental what we heard in the room and correct me uh Council mayf that the county had regulations as related to environmental but we didn't as the city and so uh the water tables they was talking about how landfill could have negative impact on the water tables and so it it I don't know um I hope we can have some language or look into how can municipalities have more policies around environmental as relates to landfill because we were really just stuck on the resoning part and the policy was really on the county side and so I just felt like that we need to we need to strengthen our policies around landfill um cuz one we got it passed so give Allison Craig and them credit planning the staff for working it out from a zon perspective but from environmental I just felt like we need to do a better job yeah I'd be glad to take a look to see what we have um but and opportunities for the city but um I really couldn't uh give you a complete answer right now no no no no sir just just so we can look it to a there'll be a followup to this meeting that would be great two more Madam chair i' be quick uh Sean this is kind of been in your ball in your court for some time but thank you you have moved up so this is kind of Rebecca but I think it'll be important for us to have the schedule for the housing tax credit because we always get into this issue Housing Trust Fund approved it but we don't know when we need to send it to Raleigh and then we got our provider scrambling the the um the crosland the la Street and so maybe the next meeting you can give us a housing text credit schedule and so we we can share that with our providers about when you need to get the application in when do we need to submit the recommendation to support your uh application for the housing uh tax credit application and last but not least Dana if we could at our March 4th meeting if you can give us the schedule because we'll be at National League of cities meeting with our representative on March 13th right and so if you can provide for us at the March 4th meeting because some of us got to make our flight reservations and Dana always follow you you say make it out 5:00 just in case we we can get through the schedule I made mine at 5:47 I saw that what time what 5:47 on Wednesday yeah it's a little bit early if you get that change to 7:59 p.m. I'd be really you want me change to 7:59 so the one because we we could have uh we could have a meeting during the 4:00 hour you remember last year Mr Mitch uh we met with Senator tills staff and that he came in after about 15 minutes and we were there for another hour right I was like this is wonderful I just wish it happened at 9:00 maybe but but you can't always uh get what you want so see that's good so can you report out we all need to make our flight for 7:59 on Wednesday too late I tell I tell Jose to change it cuz she has booked mine on the 5.7 right but I would change it but if you can give us the schedule yeah I'll be glad to go over in fact in March we're going to have a primer on that primer or I guess I should say and uh we'll be going over that and uh but also the exact schedule for that day um it may be a little bit of flux still at that point it's a week before and I know you think okay it should be set by then but yeah Congressional offices don't usually Set uh establish meeting times until about two weeks out from the meeting so okay so you have this process there for about a week things are changing and that's and that's done because they need to have assurance that the Senate will be in in OB session those days so it's a but to take while heard 7:59 p.m. flight on Wednesday I gave that to all the uh me the all the staff and the office of constituent services oh you did yes ma'am oh all right okay you got you got the 759 flight okay I S to change it cuz I was on that I was on that 547 but I Chang make that no DC I was on the phone you take that from American aine herself um no it didn't I just have one last item which is the R&D credit research and development credit I know that crba our business Alliance has been advocating and working with Senator Burr and Senator Tillis on uh R&D credit and how expiration of that could um locally affect our region economically uh have we considered adding that to our legislative agenda uh this is the first time I've heard that uh uh oh stated as a potential Federal legislative objective I haven't heard anything from the crva on that if you could just or is that the crba crba the business Alliance business Alliance okay okay not the visitors Authority okay yeah I think I saw something in there in their legislative agenda about that but um yeah we I be glad to check with Senator tillis's office to see where that is okay tell Jo change sure and if you could just give a reading material to us on that and and we'll leave it up to the committee to decide we would like to recommend that to full Council for our federal legislative agenda all right okay any other question so anything on Federal State Legislative agenda are we all good we resolved all the crisis in the world um can ask staff to go to slide 13 the suggested motion because we'll need to committee will need to adopt a motion to uh to proceed expeditiously so we're in we have agendas in time for the NLC conference Madam chair can I ask a quick question yes ma'am so Dana what you're asking for is for us to motion this out of committee but we also just had a discussion that three of us are on the committee for this afternoon if we wanted to have the conversation added what does that look like if we move to accept this recommendation well what I I don't think you need to do anything for that instead with if there are recommendations coming out of the housing safety and Community Committee to the council and then they adopt it that would be fine too that works um and uh and so that can be done that you know we have in the last uh in 2021 and 2022 the city council added I'm sorry City 2021 and 2023 the city council added two things for the long session so um so I I don't think think you need to do anything at this point so what I hear a council member may feel is that we can add it later once we have robust discussion at the housing and Safety Committee mhm that's what I think so I guess this one would not lock Us in it would not lock it would not lock it out let's put it that way you would not lock it out you can add it so I guess maybe we can add a specific Lang language more items to be added um that's probably something you need to say tonight at the yeah so we can we can do that I will bring that up but so do we need to just for clarification Madam chair when we make this motion do we need to have the additional line in there to leave space for additional items to be added that's a good good point yeah I think we should for housing and safety committee's recommendations I don't think that right now I think that the mayor and Council would want to take a look at those before they consider something like that um but you know certainly if um uh you know again if the housing safety and Community Committee comes back with recommendations and mayor council approves that accepts it for Action this year then uh it would be added to the the agenda I think Mr Heath has his hands up yes so I'm over my skis and outside of my sandbox on this but so I'm assuming that Council will always have the ability to modify your agenda and it's just a question of timing and you know can we move fast enough on the referral through the housing safety and Community Committee where that committee will have an opportunity to hear a briefing and be presented some options and weigh in on those options because my sense is there'll be a number of policy considerations and there may not be a full consensus on it so how quickly can we move through that and then once we've move moved through that housing safety and Community Committee may have a desire to see certain items added to the legislative agenda um can that happen quick enough for this to be built into the 2020 four um legislative agenda I guess it would be the question or 2025 sorry so what would be the timeline Mr Fenton uh for us to because you know they have short sessions and long sessions and I just want to make sure that we share with our colleagues who serve on housing and saf committee alongside council member Brown myself and council member Mayfield that there is a sense of urgency here if they would like us to Champion something as part of our State Legislative agenda here is the timeline yeah I'd be glad to to uh provide that to you uh we're looking to after tonight's Council committee discussion and action review next week we would like to come back to the council to get consideration of the what the committee proposes for the for theend agendas and then the short session doesn't start until April 24th so you've got a couple months there to uh to get something out of committee to the council and if something's really time sensitive then I'm sure that the mayor would consider um adding that to U in fact I know the uh committee chair or the vice chair in this case if if if if um uh something needs to be reported out in this month next month and April that I I'm sure it'll be done okay so we'll share that timeline with our housing and Safety Committee and um since we are starting conversation now I think we have sufficient time to add those items later to our legislative agenda as needed mam chair can I just chime in yes possible thank you um I I just want to reiterate at what uh Sean just said Sean I don't think you're you were over your skis or out of your sandbox or whatever metaphor you want to utilize um but because the we have the referral in with the housing and Public Safety Committee now I think this committee's done now and I don't believe there should be a specific ask for referral anything right now this evening um let's wait until we begin the work out of the referral to how in public safety and then that will inform us where we should go and then if we believe that this committee needs there needs to be an action for a referral to this committee then we can take that action but I I think we're on the same page I just wanted to be clear so everybody understands what page we're on in the him Council council member Mitchell I if if if I'm if I'm hearing everyone correctly I think there's a um thought of how can we be flexible in this motion that will allow additional items to be added to our um legislative and state agenda and the best way we can do that with the few words as possible I think we'll cut down on confusion so um uh Mr Mitchell if I'm going to ask staff to go back to slide number 10 the public safety slide and uh and it reads at the very beginning support policies and funding that further initiatives of lower crime increase Community safety redeploy resources to areas of highest and best use and I'm not going to read the rest of it there but but certainly it sets up the uh uh the ability for the council to add in something after after uh February 26 at high level I think that's great but it's not specific enough especially we know that safety has been a hot button issue and rightfully so and I think this is very 30,000 foot very high level where we need to actually demand and ask for more support that cmpd need so um you know I'm okay with us waiting till the housing Safety Committee does their full assessment and recommends policies to be added but I I just believe that this is too broad for us to take it to our State Legislative to our delegation and say oh here it is I think we need to ask for very specific items just like we have done on immigration and we haven't we don't know what those specifics are yet right exactly so that's I think that's what council member Mayfield's point was to make sure that we have room in place for us to add additional items as they come well that's Council this is a policy document of council and they can change it at any time it's not it's not up to me or to Sean so I will share that with our colleagues later today that this is a living and breathing document we will come back as we see additional items not just on safety but whether that's on economic development whether that's on transportation and infrastructure or Public Safety so I guess I think we have we spent good amount of time on this item I know you gave me an hour or so um if staff can go back to the suggested motion on slide 13 oh yes that's where we are now have a motion yeah and that's what what we have here is just just for the uh for the committee to adop just so we go to the council and say this is the committee proposed state and federal legislative agendas Madam chair I would like to move that the committee accept the recommendation of the 2024 Federal on State Legislative issues that were presented in today's meeting second okay all in favor please raise your hand in fav my hand ain't going to okay no problem so uh so does so we'll just I guess I'm not it doesn't matter yeah it's three so we'll move move this forward to full Council okay and I'll share with our colleagues later today as I give an update that council member Brown will be stiring this in depth okay and obviously Mr fron is there if there are specific questions you can either call me or James or Lana you know I just say Madam chair that uh with you and council member Brown very beautiful green hey I'll be in the green room as they say business I'll be there just for parliamentary procedure City staff I want to make sure you cat that right there that was 3 with abstain is that a no or abstain I think she said abstain be clear yeah stain that's the difference not a no exactly I didn't say no it's just abstain I got right thank you I appreciate you put it down as a no all right so that's M yes ma'am I'll speak to that this wouldn't be fair for me to vote I came in late nobody's fault by my own but I don't want to vote Yes to or something and I get a full conversation I don't want to be put down as a no either so that's right Iain whatever your professional terms you is yes abstain and then we have enough time because this won't be on our agenda till uh we have a week well we have uh tonight you can talk about it the report out and then next Monday night I'm calendar for an action review item presentation and uh and then uh consideration by Council on Monday February 26 okay so you madam Che can send the information over to me I can get with col so we can get it thank you could you sit down with council member Brown Mr Fenton and just walk her through everything and so we have sufficient time okay reest yes yes uh Daniel if it's okay on the March 4th since we'll be talking NSC scheduled we have holl in the night present need to put that committee meeting I haven't worked for them to have them physically present but they will be on the on the online do virtual yeah yeah virtual yes thank you thank you mad Madam chair I just want to thank the committee for your consideration today and uh we got more to go all right well good work Mr Fon let's go get some more money for our city um all right well the second item we have is the most exciting uh for me it's our annual budget development process and I just want to recognize all the great work that budget staff does every year we have an award winning team uh we have been uh we are AAA highly dated for what 30 plus years and uh we had a great first budget kickoff we had over 75 people showed up to our public budget 101 meeting oh nice for budget meeting can you all believe that um uh so that's that's a great start to our budget discussion and um i' would like to hand it over to Mr Bergman he can he'll review with us the proposed schedule for our budget sessions and there is a lot of work cut out for us in months ahead right and and after the uh questions from the 75 people you guys aren't too scary anymore so they really peppered me um but no it it went good uh it was a good event to kick off our engagement session SS and we'll have a uh listening session next Tuesday which is virtual and online where we bring some acms and directors in and give a brief presentation and then the public can ask some questions learn more about the budget or just uh get Concepts in front of you guys that we then put into an engagement uh packet so I appreciate the fine words or the nice words um I just have one slide for today that uh has a million different meetings of course um but every every year around this time we start our budget development process which entails uh some committee meetings budget workshops and then it goes into May where the manager will of course present the budget turn it over to you guys and uh you guys will of course have your own uh changes suggestions uh so what I've tried to do is build on some of the comments at uh the annual strategy session last week or a couple weeks ago and also build on what we've traditionally done to try to uh get as much accomplished prior to the proposed budget as possible so you'll see here uh starting today with getting uh kind of informal approval or adjustments to the plans uh and then our first Workshop this year is actually uh next week uh we have a lot of uh material ready to go that we can adjust as you would like but we want to talk about the general fund Outlook and our compensation and Staffing strategies kind of go together I think of that almost as a block where um we can go a little bit deeper than the retreat into a picture of where we are uh we've had some really good organizational successes in our staffing and compensation strategies that we feel have put us in a a pretty good spot moving forward uh but there is a lot of pressures on the general fund uh a lot of it is National pressures that we're dealing with just like everybody else so there's some things we're going to need some direction from you there and then also start the discussion on uh our capital investment plan uh March would be the main session to talk about uh the the bonds and where you where you would like us to go with those but we did want to start with the capacity and then talking about some of the existing projects that are out there some of the named projects we have in the pipeline uh so at February 12th we'll also give you a packet with uh some of the maps that were referenced a couple of weeks ago on sidewalk program and some of our vision zero program on where the projects are in the city uh what some of the the deficits are throughout the city uh moving on from there uh we've tried to uh we've tried to utilize your time in a way this year where we're not uh um having the committee look at everything twice we try to organize this so that some of the Committees like storm water Aviation water would be presenting exclusively to the committee uh to then if necessary uh talk later that night perhaps if there's uh some kind of an issue we did Elevate uh cats just because some of the discussions that have gone on uh over the last couple of years to be at the March 25th Workshop but other than Financial Partners which promise you we will uh get you that information uh a few weeks ahead of time so you have time to digest it uh we anticipate that March 25th meeting to be primarily about our bonds uh Transportation bonds neighborhood bonds housing bonds so that uh you guys can really give us some direction there so with that I turn it back over to you guys to uh see what we're missing uh how we can change and often times it's just you last year the there was a bunch of things that you just made sure that we covered which we tried to make sure fit into some of these presentations Mr bargman that's a lot for three hours discussion on Fe next Monday uh generally we have five hours um but hey we'll be breaking a record if we if we if we wrap that up in three hours I mean I I would really like us to spend more time on capital projects I know we have a huge backlog of sidewalks and high Injury Network infrastructure projects uh if we can allocate more timing towards that and also affordable housing I think we need to have a discussion on that suddenly I think majority of us are in agreement that $50 million is not enough and we need to do more so if we can just spend more time on our bonds and our capital projects that would be great if you can provide pre-reading materials at least couple of days in advance please do not give us give it to us over the weekend cuz it's a lot to study over the weekend you can if you can just give us like on Thursday or Friday I think that gives us enough time to study the material before Monday the 12th and um High Injury Network we have the list where if we can just have some sort of numbers associated with it that would be very helpful specifically how much it's going to cost um but those are the items that I had in on my list I'll turn it over to council member Mitchell followed by council member Mayfield on on that uh feedback on this thank you madam CH I think she's saiding I'm not a gentleman I should let her go first go ahead no no no I said just that just a quick I forgot what my question was go ahead okay okay so just just for uh discussion committee from a holistic perspective I I would prefer water to be with storm water instead of water being with Aviation only because then you there's a holistic approach we could have because now we're going to separate I know I'll be the first one to get confused between storm water we agree on March 4th and having the water come ation April 1 so is it any heartburn or is everybody okay we can move staff let me ask staff Is it feasible to move water with storm water on March 4th uh if we were going to put those two together I would recommend we try to find a way for storm water to to be in April there's uh a whole lot of uh rate work that's done that we need a little bit more time with water so we try to keep that a little bit later okay but what but we can certainly try to do that it really depends on uh uh what what other referrals what else uh you guys are doing if I would hate to take a whole a whole meeting of your time for um Enterprise funds so council member Mitchell um because I've been on the budget committee since I've been on the council for at least seven years now storm water it's a little bit more complex because it's got a billion well it had a billion dollar backlog um so I I know that at least for me I'll have a lot more questions on storm water so I just uh I don't know if I can wrap up all my questions in is it 30 minute slot or an hour excuse me well it depends what else you're doing that day for BG it's really so if possible Mr Heath if we can figure out a way where we have water and storm water on our agenda and we don't discuss anything else unless something and that's on the April date that would be in the April time yeah unless something urgent uh comes up unless something high priority but I if we can just limited two items to Mr Mitchell's point I think that will help understood and then Aviation I don't anticipate a lot more time on that so we can have an additional Aviation is discussion yeah so we can have additional item with Aviation Madam Che can I add on to this discussion yes for if we're looking at moving the stor more discussion to April which I think is going to be better for staff to get more time to get information for that March 4th can we take two of those bullets on February 12th so that we don't as you mentioned risk the chance of not getting into the conversation that way we have the two staff can determine which two as far as I'm concerned but that way we're not trying to get all four of those bullets in on February 12th and we not have Bill conversation if we can move two of them to the March 4th since we're talking about moving storm water to April 1 that might give us the opportunity to have the discussions that I think we would want to have well and if I could build on that and kind of meet meet you halfway that there are some things um like the whole general fund and the capital projects update and compensation that you probably want to full Council I I would think CIP capacity could potentially be a committee discussion which is more right more into the details I think that would make sense what I'd also add is if storm water and water went together in April by the time we get to that March 25th Workshop we'll probably know what else needs to be done at the committee meeting and so we may be able to move Aviation to just the end of the March 25th Workshop or something so I think it could kind of work itself out and we should be able to um have uh have storm water and water together so three more quick question yeah and I I think miss me member may fill uh CIP capacity would you like to add that to March 4th March 4th uh unless I I know that that's a topic that council member DRS often would like to weigh on uh but you know what we can do is have because after March 4th committee meeting I will provide an update to full Council and if council member DRS would like to sort of go uh deeper and then he can have a seate meeting with you um but I I just feel council member mayel is right because now we are condensing everything in 3 hours it would be difficult to cover that many topics in on February 12th no I think that's a great idea Madam chair can I just make a comment just as a reminder so um just as a reminder because we've talked about so much this year already but we have we have discussed as a council these first Monday meetings which this is one of right that we're going to Pivot from just having readouts from the Committees and just highlight those um allow the committee chairs to highlight you know the the most important topics in the evenings um and then communicate with Council the full readout of committees in a different way so we can carve out time to talk about you know a list of really important topics and projects that the council has come up with so just a reminder that as we move in throughout the year we're not going to have as much time to do full readouts from councils um from from committee members on the first Monday of of uh every month but certainly if we need to have a bigger conversation for C CIP that first month that uh that evening that's totally fine and May and perhaps maybe that is the topic for that for part of that meeting that evening if if you want to ensure that we have the space and time to double click on CIP yeah so CIP capacity it's it's a lot for me to summarize in two minutes when I do readouts uh so if it's possible because Financial Partners is 0.1% of our overall budget are you all okay with moving that to the committee or or do you want to keep that at full as full Council we move that to the committee I'm okay with that yeah so I think because Financial Partners we already have a process as long as they follow the process and Comm I think if we can move that so that will create some capacity for for whatever that's not been covered on 12th cuz 12 is just a long list I I just because I know every time we have budget Workshop we use up all five hours and we still and so in 3 hours I mean it it it will be very ambitious of us to try to do all of that in 3 hours but we can try and if not we'll move it to 25th okay so you're suggesting that we move Financial Partners to the fourth storm water to the first leave the 12th with the understanding that something may bump to the 26 natur yes so Madam chair for clarification that's not what I was saying so once we opened up the fourth what I was trying to make sure for our committee this isn't necessarily the ation for the report out it is for us to have the discussions that we need to have so with identifying that we're talking about four very in detailed areas I was just asking for staff to let me know if it was feasible for you all to move two of those over to the forth I said initially I will leave lead the discretion to the staff of which twoo move those two cuz we just opened up space on the 4th so that we're not trying to go through all four on February 12th now we're looking at other items on the calendar that's not what the original recommendation was it was just instead of looking at these four because as a committee we like to go into detail about the numbers especially with what we know when we approve a budget and then especially when we look at compensation and Staffing once the money actually goes to the Departments we've learned that fire alone uh 60% of the funding is already dedicated right off the bat so we approved one amount thinking that's what they're getting that isn't necessarily the case when it comes for the day-to-day needs so by just shifting two to March 4th I just thought that would be a good way to free up for us to have the time to have the discussions we need to have so may I suggest like on February 12th uh whatever items that you think we need deeper discussion on we can have those um you and I and council member Mitchell council member Brown we can get together after the 12th and figure out which ones we can push it to March 4th that committee needs to dig deeper on is that goodle because we don't know which ones that you would have questions on is that good yes okay so we'll just do that uh we'll let you know on February 12th uh what will be on March 4th's agenda and I mean we we'll keep the the CI CIP capacity relatively on the 12th and if there's a toep we'll go theth and and the way that we're structuring this we're setting it up so that um we're not going to put a million slides in front of you there'll be the idea is that you'll have a lot of questions that we'll be able to answer by the the next Workshop right and I just wanted to offer up if we need some time the evening of March 4th to talk about something that the committee wants to double click on or if you want to take up one of those major major topics on February 12th and use the evening time for March 4th we can do that as well I've I've communicated with the city manager and he's open to that okay so no that's great to hear so will on March 4th the committee will um have or on February 12th we'll know uh so once we have sort of um better idea as to what will be discuss on the fourth I will share with you that let's let's bring this up to full Council let's take a deeper disc deeper dive on those topics okay uh but Mr Burgman thank you so much for flexibility I certainly appreciate that I know we are adding homework to your list but I always appreciate how you're flexible in addressing council's needs two more quicker Pro I promise man chair so um staff on the financial partners I just got two things for discussion one one uh the application process because I think last year some of the financial partners were not aware of the application process and secondly we did a lot of great work using our Opa funds to take care of the Mal's Place block love so uh a either we need to communicate with them that we no longer have those funds available or two can we get an update where we are with arer funding if it's another source of funding I just think it'll be good if we get that out look and and and clearly communicate the financial partner schedule okay thank you madam chair um in fact council member Mayfield couple of uh months ago she had requested an update on arpa funds um if you can also provide us with that because that will have uh because council member Mayfield was specifically asking for economic development arpa funding but I think if we can just get more comprehensive update on everything uh just preing materials that would be helpful absolutely thank Madam chair five questions so we're having a discussion we do know when it comes to i c CIP and we're and we're looking at funding for housing we have been at the 50 million which we increased from a number of years ago I want to get an idea from staff because council member we council member Mitchell and I started the conversations more than a year ago with the city manager and I know other colleagues have as well regarding us having a real discussion around a 100 million we also are now having a conversation re realistically around a potential sales tax that would be a hard sale on the same proposal going to the community because our only time to put something on the agenda is this year this is our year that it would go on the ballot since we did not move forward with the fouryear Stagger terms realistically trying to get an understanding through from staff of trying to have those conversations so we can look at other communities we're at 50 million now San Antonio I think is like they're at 150 million but they on 3 years so it's the same amount that we're talking in that window the challenge may be is that at a onetime 100 million and then we drop back down to the 50 come the 20 26 28 and future bonds trying to make sure that when the time comes for us to have those discussions just to have it on staff's radar as well as committees that that discussion can have those additional thoughts into consideration of what would that look like cuz that would be a hard sale along with the separate conversation of who we going to get to go out to be the champion to help us move this in the community what would those two look like if we were to move forward and what would that potential Financial impact look like excuse me on residents when we already know that the latest property evaluation we already know that with the county and Community supporting the school bonds that was an automatic increase on a number of individuals and is our most vulnerable who's going to feel the impact and even with the funding that we set aside and for full transparency Madam chair and committee members I asked for the city manager to give a update on how our Opa dollars were spent that we handed over to the county I've actually asked for us to look into getting our funds back so that we can have direct assistance versus the county basically earning interest off of our almost 2 million that we put towards it mainly because it was only up to $650 we sought residents and neighborhoods that saw over 200% increase the average person only received about $350 more than 28% of the applications were denied so my suggestion is get our money back and we look at how we can have direct assistance cuz the idea of well we want to stretch it out before years a lot of those residents won't be in that house in 4 years if we don't help them stabilize right now and by the nature of the language you need to be on or occupied in that home for a minimum 3 years to qualify for government for County Assistance anyway so if you lose this home and somebody new comes in and they try to apply you're we're playing this game where we're missing so we're having those conversations of what does that look like so when we get to this bigger conversation understanding where we are if we were to ask for what we need to address the housing and if we were to ask for what we need of and a possible half cent Cent sales tax if that Mak sense so let's let's I think we need to dig deeper on that um council member Mayfield is talking about the homes program homes program update on that specifically so if you can have two updates one would be for arpa and one just more detail on the homes program so council member Brown thank Madam council member Brown yes thank you so much Madam chair um I was talking about the American Rescue act plan funds that's what we're talking about MH so it was a wonderful thing that Council and all of you brought into the community but I didn't know that that's where those funds came from I thought we had allocated something for grass roots on a permanent more permanent basis so that is not going to be a good it was one time MH I agree disappointing MH so there are Financial Partners uh as part of our budget review process so we will get a list of all the financial partners as part of our preading materials and some of our financial partners do get funding regularly uh as they apply so I know that um there are many council member Mitchell had championed um my brother's Keepers and they have been getting consistently funded I've noticed that uh since 2019 2019 that's fine update that's fine the only question I had was was it temporarily we so it was temporarily however through Financial Partners they could apply I understand that and they could get funding I was just asking did this the city have anything specifically that we can set aside for them I understand Partnerships but I'm standing for a Grassroots effort yeah so for Grassroots organizations for Grassroots organization this Financial Partners pool of funding that we have locally okay pull of funding okay yes that they can apply okay all right yes because you don't want to take a community up here and then bring them back down that's right after you've allocated those funds and been I guess a champion for the community and did something like we' never done before everybody's really excited about that M and so I think if we can just kind of keep something going in that area it would show that we're in Partnership to to help them be successful on some of those um initiatives that they have out there in the community perfect so I think you bring up a great point I think that's the reason Financial Partners is moving on to our commit discussion and we're going to actually dig deeper and U on that item okay hold on um just because I'm I'm confused the so to to your point uh Miss Brown Financial Partners one of the things we want to discuss is we did add we did add financial partners with arpa funds and then getting an impression from Council about prioritization with other things um uh chair air I I thought where we had ended and I'm fine either way I just want to make sure I have clear Direction I thought where we we had ended was Financial Partners was staying on the 25th and March 4th was essentially becoming any spill over or anything where we wanted to go deeper on the 12th that's correct so Financial Partners let's say if uh the committee feels that we need to dig deeper on Financial Partners we can after 25th we could push it to April good gotcha if we need to go over some more yeah absolutely okay all right committee anything else on our proposed budget development topics all right yes yes ma'am my apologies quickly just said we're all on the same page I was asking Mr Heath I'm just trying to figure out which committee the financial partners update is that full Council which I think we've done previously because some of our groups that we have funded long periods of time are not necessarily working at the capacity level that they should be for how long that they've been so we need to get a update for we need a report out on where they are because we've had a number of them that had leadership changes had some funding challenges that we can look at because as you already shared with council member Brown we do have a bucket that we pull from but we got to get our partners out there to actually apply so when I made the recommendation for the M's place last year and we were able to identify the funding through the arpa dollars that was a first time it was never at which I said during that meeting it was not the intention for this to just to be a oneoff cuz we have organizations that have been doing work consistently for years but we have some others that have come along that we that we funded so I was trying to find out from Mr Heath would that be a committee report out or would that be in a broader budget conversation how we would find time to have those Financial Partners do their presentation so I know that on 25th we have Financial Partners and they're going to give us the pre-reading materials that will have report outs from all the financial partners is that correct yeah so the the way it works it's traditionally gone before full council at a workshop and two to three weeks prior we will send home in your packet a full binder with all of the application materials the um all the goals we require them to report on when they apply each year um and so then your your comments on the 25th or questions um that would direct likely where we end up going in the proposed budget which then you can again of course adjust thank you do that okay so I know we have five minutes left here and we have last item on our agenda uh do you need anything from us anything else um on the on the budget no good we are good yep all right okay so last item is Performance Management framework and um this is just reviewing our work from The Retreat and the objectives that were chosen to be highlighted I just want us to quickly go over those and see if you have any questions so I'm not going to read through every single slide here but pretty much what we discussed at the committee we are going to review those policy goals and objectives and um if you all need any clarification this is the time so let's go to a second slide here okay so are you all good good with this okay I mean this is just a refresher so let's go to the third slide okay so third okay this slide and the one after this is what we had discussed at the ComEd level so there were three policy objectives as part of our budget so first is just making sure that we have a balanced budget um so as you can see we got to make sure that ongoing cost will be funded with recurring Revenue we got to make sure that any new expenses that that's brought forward outside of the budget process should be avoided this is just all the budget best practices and any federal grant that we received are will be used for onetime expense such as arpa uh second item we have is city will engage in the most cost effective means for providing city services just making sure that we are being good stward being good stewards of our public dollars and last but not the least uh the city will evaluate the total tax and fee burden not just the property tax rate right so I think that just gives a more comprehensive picture to our residents that what they are paying overall for City Services yes ma'am thank you madam chair for the last bullet item as far as evaluating the total tax again for transparency I've asked and I believe I asked for it from the diets but I asked for the city manager and budget staff and I think they've already started working on it to pull that comparison we are seeing a lot of for sale sing single Pro single family for rent single family homes that are being developed and to me I wanted to have a better understanding of that tax breakdown oner occupancy we are the ones that pay the majority of the taxes that business pays under a business tax rate with the number of homes that have been purchased by investors whether they're domestic or International as well as the number of new single family homes that are being developed by investment companies I wanted to get a idea and hopefully some point in the conversation CU I believe again that budget department is already looking into that based on my request I believe it was like two months ago so that we can look at it so when we're having this conversation about not just the property tax rate residents pay in exchange for government services understanding what tax bucket that owner occupy taxpayer versus that corporate business taxpayer is paying and understanding what that may do to our budget as we're looking at reduced access for owner for single family owner occupancy right so really residential versus commercial right but it's but it's considered residential because they're sing family but understanding that breakdown so I just wanted to make sure that you and Comm were aware that budget has received that information from the city's manager's office and that hopefully we will get some numbers and so we'll know the history behind it sure so okay and the last slide we have here so those so this um okay on this slide you'll see this is not necessarily related to the budget discussion but since uh C council member Brown and I had teamed up at The Retreat and uh we decided to prioritize these three items that's that wasn't covered by other committees because I think it is important that we don't lose sight of this so first item you will see where we have to increase our infrastructure Investments uh we get that question often asked at our zoning meetings uh historically our infrastructure has not kept up with the growth and development we are seeing so making sure we are measuring this so that's why it is one of the line items that council member Brown and I have highlighted um because I know in District 3 council member Brown's District um we often get lot more resoning development requests so um any questions on that but pretty much making sure that we are keeping up uh we're increasing our infrastructure ructure Investments the other two items are the C app making sure that we are continuing our 2030 goals that was unanimously adopted by the council in 2018 and also we are meaningfully engaging our residents so equity and governance framework set the framework a couple of years ago council member Johnson myself and uh council member Winston at a time were part of that commit and uh it was adopted by the full Council so that we have consistent engagement sessions uh for uh consistent engagements to our residents so so we have an update on just those three policy objectives anything else any clarification I mean I this is just a refresher from The Retreat so I I mean I and it hasn't even been that long all right so I guess with we need to make an endorsement so do we need to make a motion on this Mr Heath what what exactly do you need from from us me please oh council member Mitchell yes and I apologize I had to step out uh let me just bring some uh awareness I think we need to concentrate more and that's the equity in government's framework yes uh well I I think you all have done an excellent job three years ago when ashmir uh Winston and Johnson completed and and I think we have lost making that importance through all our decisions right and so somehow I don't know if we have a scorecard or we can get an update to say how well have we used our Equity framework part of our decisions uh to make this city kind of more inclusive cuz I I just think there's nice Buzz words I just don't see the meaning I don't see the transparency that we can say Corridor opportunity is about Equity small business fund about equity and so if we can address that Sean and staff in some way um maybe it's a refresh of course all of us because I know councilman ashir and them did a lot of did a lot of work and and I think we talked about it and then it's kind of because can we dust that off and so this will be part of our performance measure council member Mitchell and so this was added as part of our Retreat I know council member Brown also advocated for that so uh I think once we have some sort of performance measure uh we will get regular update on that so this will be part of manager dashboard moving forward all right so that's that um so do you do we need to formally adopt this yes it would be quite helpful if the committee could formally endorse it because then we're going to convert this into the performance measures and targets sure Madam chair I would like to motion for us to accept and endorse the goals and objectives that have been presented to this committee second okay all in favor please raise your hands all right so that was unanimous um so with that I think we are good to go uh good job committee we'll do a report out later today okay thank you all do I have a motion to adjourn so move so move second all right all in favor please leave the [Laughter] [Music] room [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I don't need I don't need [Music] [Music] CH justd it must be [Music] [Music] just [Music] car a [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] s [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay ladies and gentlemen we've got three council members so I'll wait for the from the St studio studio we're ready to go live good afternoon welcome to the housing safety and Community Committee I am your chair Victoria watlington flanked by two of my committee members as well as guests and staff around the room we'll start with a round of introductions I'll begin with my committee members with my vice chair Lana Mayfield Vice chair of the committee Temple arir Committee Member Rene ask you assistant city manager Rebecca Hepner housing and Neighborhood Services Sean Heath assistant City manager whitcom housing and Neighborhood Services Harold Thompson housing and Neighborhood Services Janine Simmons housing and Neighborhood Services y we're also joined by our fellow council member m Graham thank you for coming Mr Graham do we have anybody online go ahead council member Johnson all right she'll I'm sure she'll announce herself when she joins us we've got two items on the agenda for today uh first our Performance Management framework our outcomes from our um annual Retreat and then we're going to talk Community safety framework referral from the mayor which will cover our um uh youth violence topic so with that I'll turn it over to ACM ask you to Qs up good afternoon um just wanted to if you would go to the first slide please thank you next slide so today's objectives when we talk about performance uh management is really just to understand how we can better measure the objectives and goals identified by Council as part of the annual strategy Retreat so we're going to talk about those a little bit today um in addition to that the discussion will allow us to get a better understanding of how you know based on the number of objectives identified by Council how we can measure those items and we'll talk about those in detail we'll talk about uh what the next steps are and those goals so with that want to make sure that we go to the next slide I want to talk about the process and how we got here so Council has has approved strategy there's objectives there's goals that we are working on and we do on a regular basis is um within all of those strategic plans and priorities there are a number of items that we continue to work on in a regular basis but on during the annual strategy Retreat we actually uh Council actually worked on what are those key items that we need to focus on so we're going to focus on and measure everything but if we want to Target specific areas that we want to um put in the budget book and talk about uh throughout the year what are those items so those have been identified and we'll highlight those today and we'll come back as a uh group staff and provide updates on now that we have those performance objectives what are those measures and targets associated with those so this really gets to the heart of how do we measure the work that we do and service we're providing our residents next slide thank you so much ACM I'm looking forward this year to really taking a a fine tooth comb through some of our metrics as you all know we already have um metrics that we see in our budget book every year but I think this takes it to another level to put it ever before us so I'm excited about this work what you see um over the next couple of slides are the outcomes of our annual strategy meeting uh Vice chair Mayfield and I had an opportunity to go through each of the um topics from or Focus areas from our committee and pick out which items from a policy goal and objective standpoint really spoke to the priority work once again nothing is getting cut off in terms of scope for for the broader organization but for what council is going to really hone in on from like a balanced scorecard perspective these are the things that we felt um really floated to the top so the first one is about meeting our comprehensive plan goal number one and 10-minute neighborhoods we want to increase a percentage of households that are near to amenities and that people can reach those amenities through various modes of transportation um one thing I'd like to note on this one in particular because I think it speaks to the broader strategy is that certainly there are overlapping goals in each committee there are things that will show up here that contribute to Safe communities or to Great neighborhoods that also contribute to Economic Development they contribute to uh transportation and Mobility so as we flush this out um across the broader Council we'll we'll be sure to identify any efficiencies that we've got there but specific to Safe communities this is why you see it show up here uh the second one in that vein is about strategic Mobility um and our vision zero goals so part of us Safe Community is being able to ensure that our streets are safe that people can uh move about our neighborhoods and uh do so without any fear of um being injured or worse uh so that is where you see this second one that has come out really really about how do we collaborate across our government agencies and our stakeholders to ensure Safe Streets for all users then thirdly when it comes to Safe communities we've got this one here and we'll talk a little bit more about maybe another way to skin this cat but one of the ones that we wanted to highlight our violence framework to interrupt violence that's one that we know is specifically important to us particularly right now um it's very timely and so we wanted to make sure that we called out a goal that spoke directly to violence Interruption and violence reduction next slide please when it comes to Great neighborhoods one of the things that we know is a constant refrain in every conversation is how do we enable folks to become homeowners how do we enable folks to be a part part of the growth that we're seeing here in Charlotte so we really want to increase the number of home ownership opportunities specifically for low and moderate income households especially in areas with with low access to Housing Opportunity scores we want to make sure that we are enabling folks to access amenities that are existing on the one hand we'd like to bring them to neighborhoods and create new amenities on the other we would like to bring people to areas that have amenities and allow them to have an ownership stake in that so that's what one is about uh the second piece here that you see under comp plan goal s integrated natural and built environment is about increasing the number of developments utilized in Green Building practices so as we push for our sustainability goals we wanted to make sure that we called out one that we specifically as a municipality can impact heavily so because a part of great neighborhoods obviously are sustainable neighborhoods so we wanted to make sure that we had a goal um that spoke directly to that that we were monitoring very closely then we've got the comp plan goal number nine which is retain our identity and charm and I know that we had a bit of a discussion in one of our previous committees uh earlier today uh specific to retaining identity and charm about the structures themselves this particular goal however speaks to investing in the people because part of what brings charm to our city are our residents um particularly for those that are vulnerable to displacement we want to make sure that we improve that job skills match so um chairman Graham of the economic development committee certainly we can talk about how uh those show up across our two committees but this one is really about investing in the people not only the place um and then finally on this slot you'll see uh connected to our strategic Mobility plan is about equity and engaging our community and making sure that as we work through all of our goals we've got a strong connection and a strong communication pipeline to our residents and to our broader stakeholders we want to be making choices with our community that reflect our community's values next slide please so there were a couple of items that as uh Vice chair and I were reviewing the options we wanted to write in or tweak or lift up that didn't necessarily have a place to land specifically yet um and what staff has done here is provided a couple of options for consideration that might meet the intent of what we were looking for um without having to go through a new policy adoption process so that is what we're hoping to do here um the first of which was really about the right home and the right place so we've talked about part of the strength of Charlotte is that our neighborhoods are so different we've got diverse neighborhoods people can live in our city and have different experiences all across the city as they so choose and so what we'd like to do to ensure that and to help to retain that um identity and charm is to make sure that we are investing in the right places with the right types of homes and so these three items that you see here can help us track how we're working against or how we're working towards that uh and they are the following first of all is spe specific to our comp plan goal number two with neighborhood diversity is increase the score of overall access to Housing Opportunity metrics for The City the second ties into our housing access for all goal and that's about retaining the the number of noas or our naturally occurring affordable and Workforce housing units by managing changes within existing neighborhoods um and then finally as it relates to the right home and the right place we've got to take a look at our housing shop framework and that's about expanding the supply of affordable rental we've talked about home ownership and we certainly want to focus on home ownership but we also know that everybody does not Choose Or is not in a position to uh purchase at this point so we want to make sure that for wherever you are in your journey uh you're able to have opportunity for affordable housing and so that's what this piece is focused on so for counil for committees consideration these are three potential um objectives that we can assign metrics to that might help us get to that right home in the right place uh so certainly would love your feedback there and then the second item that we lifted up that really needs a home if you will um or something that we can tie back to an existing policy metric was about how do we reduce violence we talked about the violence Interruption framework but that really was about how we do the work and not so much the outcome so it talks about the strategy um about creating uh this violence interrup program whereas this goal specific to our comp plan goal number six uh talks about improving Public Safety and Public Safety perceptions initially I know that when I looked at it I focused on the perceptions piece and it's that didn't really feel like it was getting at what we wanted we want the outcomes not just people to think we're safe we want to actually be safe and we can measure that through um crime stats over time but if we focus on the first component of this um objective where it says improve Public Safety that can capture the actuals of our uh crime numbers so rather than the potentially rather than the violence Interruption framework that uh we had originally selected I would like to offer up that perhaps we consider this particular uh goal number six um in place of that one so that we can really um tie it directly to an existing policy when we're talking about violent crime reduction certainly I'm open to um ideas from the floor we don't necessarily have to take one off um but in the spirit of the original exercise if we're able to switch them out I think that will um that will be sufficient so when it comes to next steps next slide please as you can see here we are working um to get to a performance measure framework uh through the through the 2025 budget process so you can see here the next Milestones first of all today we're seeking committee consensus and endorsement of the goals that are for us so I hope that before we move off of this item we have reached that consensus um for consideration to take forward to the full Council and once that happens then staff will explore appropriate performance metrics that are assigned to our um our objectives and our goals uh to bring back to us then in our next committee meeting and then over the following months then the full balance scorecard would come together for uh for use so I will pause here I know I've got at least one question or comment from the floor but I'd love to hear your thoughts in regards to this and your willingness or um appetite to um present these forward to the full Council so I saw Vice chair oh I'm sorry okay Vice chair you recognized thank you madam chair and I want to start off by thanking our staff for hearing us and here in the community and doing a tremendous job with the recommendations we're discussing today I appreciated the fact that during the retreat Madam chair and I had a chance to really dig in and appreciate when especially when we look at go plan goal number six that improved Public Safety and Public Safety perception we had great conversation and for me it was more so initially the language said improve Public Safety perception that perception is improved when the actual interaction is improved so I'm glad we dug in a little more so that we can start capturing and tracking because assistant city manager ask you as well as the city manager when we had our meeting last week I've shared one of the instances that personally has stayed with me and honestly I toss and turn over repeatedly is the gentleman that robbed a Food Lion but was walking up the street with two bags of groceries and that interaction was a trial jury and execution because opposed to us utilizing the resources that we have already funded resources should have automatically been identified there's a reason you're still in groceries so had we dug in a little deeper we potentially could have gotten him when we we think about that 10-minute neighborhood when we think about access to employment that is gainful to have a wage to live in Charlotte not looking at a living wage because $15 is not going to help you in Charlotte it very very well may help in a smaller town but those resources weren't ta for me this conversation and I'm hoping my colleagues will support the options for consideration CU it gives us the opportunity to dig deeper and actually go to the Cs and actually be able to track it when we're talking about plan goal number three retaining the number of naturally occurring affordable and Workforce housing well here's the reality today it's not just multif family it's also single family so we have a number of investors that have come in and that have single family units that off for rent so we need to figure out how we stay ahead or in front of the curve with the changes that are happening in our city so I just wanted to thank publicly our staff for the work that you all are doing to help us get here and make sure that the com that the community understands that we are not taking any of this slightly we understand the importance of what is a great neighborhood because your interpretation or reality isn't necessarily mine in a great neighborhood and what is a safe Community I think these metrics will help help us to get to where we are aligning our policy language with the impact out in the community thank you madam chair two our goals that you'd like us to focus on or is it would you prefer all three the intent really is to if we could select one U but if there is more than one leading that you would like to speak to or that you would like to see focused on just let me know you know I'm a all girl I knew you were going to say not hey I do not like making choices I prefer that we have all the things because this is a all hands on deck conversation we're seeing Across the Nation if I had to choose you don't have to one then I'm going to say that that's my what that because they all all tie to what the needs are so I cannot choose one I am not that person I'm going to go into the store and I'm going buy the roll I'm not buying the piece I love it thank you I agree with council member Mayfield I think we got to keep all threee because tackling affordable housing crisis is multi-prong we got to focus on home ownership we got to focus on rentals for income that's 60% AI or below we also got to focus on access to Housing Opportunity so I think all three are all of them are important I I appreciate I know I appreciate how two of you condense this to three cuz I know at the retreat there were four pages and so in order for me to see from four pages to now three I think that's that's tremendous so I'm all on board with it but I also appreciate it have you if you go back one slide actually number four where you got this Vision zero because safe communities it's not just about public like the way perception is violent crime right Vision zero it's a very important part of our overall Public Safety you got to make sure we address traffic fatalities in our high injury networks and we got to make sure that we put funding behind it to eliminate fatalities that are preventable uh so that that's great to see and obviously I love you all for for including the sustainability component of that uh because that is so important but if you just go to the last slide so what is included in GNC break it down for me the last item improve public Sabor neighborh okay so how I guess I know you gave us a choice Madame chairwoman that either this or the other which one was the other one the other was the violence framework inter uh the violence Interruption framework the reason that uh this one was lifted up cuz it was really about trying to get to that metric of homicides of crime prevention yep exactly and so this one because it already says improve Public Safety it may be one that just speaks a little bit more directly to the outcome so that that's why these two are kind of just opposed against each other right yeah I think one is really the prevention especially the violence Interruption but then you got the other one that's more comprehensive right because this only focuses on corridors of opportunities versus this one all we we want all parts of our city to be safe right so I think this is great well great job I didn't expect to see 40 going from 40 to 4 but I think youall did a great job so so um I agree you guys did do a phenomenal job of of Hing this down to something that's meaning and tangible I do agree that on um slide six your Public Safety and safety perception is is sort of that macro view in your violence prevention program will fall underneath that and support that so I would I think that's a good swap for the great neighborhoods you know I know that you guys did a phenomenal job calling this down um but if I could recommend the first one on slide six the increase the score of overall access to Housing Opportunity metrics for the city I think if you're doing the other six like if you're going to include the four you came up with plus the other two on page six then that one would be achieved right so I I don't know if it necessarily needs to be a micro um objective I think that's a a macro level that if you're doing the other six you can take that one out because by default it will be achieved but that's just my my thought because I think it'll be a bit redundant but excellent job on calling this down so I wanted to follow up on council member Anderson's point about uh overall access being a macro I I agree uh so the way I see this overall access I'm looking at overall access in terms of opportunities so like social connections so having overall access to housing you shouldn't have to you shouldn't be limited to affordable housing in certain parts of our city we should have access to housing regard regardless of where you live in our city we should have affordable housing in all of our districts that that's how I interpreted it but is that what was the intent behind that is that thank you madam chair so when we had the conversation that intent really Falls Al line council member asir with what you were saying okay is the entire city because the corridors if we look and we do a snapshot a lot of the areas that were're identified as corridors of opportunity are the areas where we've SE seen the most development growth displacement and and or gentrification so now when we go back if we were to if we were to look at the housing price and the incomes of a number of those areas that has changed considerably but the individuals who were our Target are no longer there so by reducing is down to increasing the score of overall access that gives us the the ability to look at where where where you living if you were moved where would where did you move to and give us a better opportunity to track to make sure that the services that we're funding and that we're getting out to the community are getting to the intended segments of the community that would benefit um yeah we were having a sidebar yeah um appreciating the conversation around this one um so if you look at um gold 2 neighborhood diversity and you look at the on the same slide House Charlotte framework I'm wondering if we can meet the objectives of the House Charlotte framework item underneath the first one because if the first one is talking about increase the score of overall access to housing opportunities then it includes 60% Ami or below the third item speaks specifically to 60% um Ami or below so it's it's really the choice of of the committee to determine which way you want to go but just providing a little bit of clarity when we start pulling out metrics are we going to be duplicating some of the same metrics so to follow up on that I want to make sure that we have as much transparency in the conversation as possible I am looking at the impact that we are having for those that are at 120 and below so the county has a very clear role in 30% and Below even though the city stepped in more than 30 years ago to help out it was a different financial situation our core police fire police fire sanitation Economic Development our core on paper and in theory has been and should be working class so when we have the language in to reduce it and just have it as the focus of 60 and below I think we're being a bit shortsighted versus what we know now in 2024 in March of 2022 up until September if you earned $75,000 you can afford to buy a home in this city 2021 by 20 22 September going into 2023 that same 75 went up to 115 today that number is even higher when you look at the dollar amount for that purchase and or that rental and for that purchase what the interest rate is so when we Dux depose those numbers I think we would be doing a disservice if we leave it just at the 60% and Below versus recognizing that our working class including our city staff can they would they fall into what we've identified in order to give access assistance Direction guidance so again if you're making if you're a household and you're making 80,000 you're not necessarily in here but that's not enough to really necessarily grow and move in today's market that may change it may not or may change to be even higher number so when we were having the conversations and when Madam chair and I were having the conversations at The Retreat I was very clear personally not to necessarily put that Below in there because we're discounting a segment of our community where if they just received a little support it would springboard them into stability versus all the support of which the county roll through Health and Human Services DSS other things that is really their responsibility I'm trying to get the city to get back to what our core responsibilities are if that makes sense if if I may add I I think that through the first one uh goal to Neighborhood diversity it's really about how we pull the metric and how we allow for drill down so if what we have is a metric that shows the overall housing Access housing stock and then have the ability to drill down by the Ami group I think that that solves both you can see the 60% below you can see those above I think that's the the better way to you know to report on the essence of what you're trying to get to so if what you're trying to get to is understanding how the housing stock is increasing who is impacting by the increase it's going to be to be able to generate that a higher level metrics with the drill down capability so just double click and see 30% 60% 80% 20 so it allows us to do that thank you madam chairwoman yes the so drill down will address what council member Mayfield was talking about where we are focused on working right we are focused on um 60 80 80 to 100 up to0 so I think that will really help us look at Ami specific categories but then also I guess when I look at overall access uh can would someone be able to get an access to affordable housing let's say in South Charlotte I think what I'm looking at is also just overall access to housing in all parts would that would that be able to say I want to drill down and say Hey I want to live close to Audrey Kel High School just for an example right uh would is there an affordable housing option there yeah so we're talking about not just being able to break it down by amii but also my neighborhood that's right yes okay all right that's very helpful thank you shair can I follow up thank you for that council member ashir because the other side of looking at that is we say South Charlotte but I'm paying rent pretty much at the the same level off of Freedom Drive off of Tuck C off of West Boulevard that I would pay and in some cases more than what I might be able to get in some parts of South Charlotte so I want to make sure that we're in a position where we are tracking to figure out how to get ahead of the changing demographics because we can't just say this part of town is a lower cost of living again if we go back and look at our corridors of opportunity and look at where we put investment a lot of those areas we now see a much higher cost of living to be there so did we achieve the initial goal and at what cost so um I just want to make sure that we are rooted and thinking about this as metrics that will live on a balanced scorecard um or or an overall dashboard so it doesn't have to be exhaustive or holistic of everything that this committee is going to do because as as you all just mentioned you you have so many objectives that you called down into the ones that you thought were the most pertinent for this committee to um have place on that scorecard right and so if all four committees have you know eight eight metrics on the scorecard and that's 32 that's 32 metrics right that that's a lot of metrics to uh com be comprised of a dashboard so the metrics that you want on a on a dashboard or a scorecard is the ones that you want to either most be most reflective on or something that you want to um put a lot of energy behind because it's it has been lagging or lacking over several years and so it's required that it has that higher level of visibility but the drill down capabilities I think are important because you could have some you you could have some overlap here where if you were to tighten up one metric then you have that one metric on the scorecard that you can then in turn drill down and and get to the individual specific micro information that you're looking for Miss Johnson hello hello everyone sorry I had technical difficulties um I just wanted to talk about the the Ami I know we um I Heard council member Mayfield and and I did have some technical diffic diffic difficulty so correct me if I'm wrong but I want to make sure that we are um recognizing the need for housing for those individuals below uh 60% or 50% or even the 30% Ami I don't feel that that that's the County's responsibility because we are building so many units we're also um developers are now also developing the the hotels and the motels which was which was a place where individuals in that Ami were able to afford housing so I want I I just want to I guess clarify what what we're saying as far as the Ami I think there's definitely a need for us to continue to advocate for this for that population because the um the Ami if I'm looking at this correct is uh 74,000 so 60% would be $21 an hour and while that might seem like um a livable a wage we know that there are thousands of folks in Charlotte that aren't making that much especially when minim minimal wage or minimum wage in this state is still $7 so it's up to us to continue to Advocate because we know how this City's growing and we I think at least some of us need to continue to be a voice to lift up the um the the lowest um wage earners in the city thanks thank you oh and furthermore I'm sorry and we also have individuals on fixed income and disability Social Security SSI pay 700 or $800 a month in this country so and we have individuals who are in that population so I just want to keep this population lifted up because there are thousands of folks who make less than $21 an hour in this city thanks thank you Miss Johnson um so as far as the metrics themselves it sounds like we're good on the ones that came out of this annual strategy sounds like we want to keep the additional four at least to move to consideration uh to full counsil um do you all have what you need to move to the next step are we retaining on slide four uh violence framework Interruption work are we retaining that one or subbing out for so are we good to switch all right so we're going to switch that okay awesome I think do need a formal motion do you need at this point do you need a formal cuz I saw on the thing it just said review and input but if we folks are ready to take action then I'll entertain a motion Mo Madam chair I would like for us to motion with the few amendments that we made with switching out on slide four moving it to slide six under the safe committees that we accept this Performance Management framework to move for committee second all right it's been moved and properly second all those in favor hi it is unanimous thank you so much now we will move to uh topic number two on our agenda the community safety framework referral Mr Heath acmp thank you thank you chair w lington we can jump to the agenda slide slide number two just going back to last week of course mayor LS released the community framework safety framework referral to the housing safety and Community Committee and today we're really attempting to level set on on where we're headed so I know this committee has a tremendous sense of urgency on this topic uh I know full Council has a tremendous sense of urgency on this topic I think I can speak for all three of us to say that we share that we share that sense of urgency we work pretty fast um but we're not here with recommendations [Laughter] today we're going to need a little a little more time but for today I will quickly do a summary of the referral and then I'll hand it over to Rebecca to provide a little bit of context around where we've been around this topic uh you know clearly this is not a new issue right so we're not starting from scratch and uh we'll shine a light on a few things that the city and county are doing and then more importantly we'll give you a little peek into where we're headed there will be a high dosage of this topic at upcoming committee meetings we know you expect that and you want to see that we're maintaining traction on this important issue so next slide please as you know the referral that was released really focuses on juvenile youth related crime and if you think back to the cmpd 2023 annual report that was released a few weeks back and then Chief Jennings briefing at the council strategy retreat in Winston Salem there was an emphasis on how juvenile related crime was really a key driver in the city's overall crime statistics when you get under the hood and while there are many statistics that could be share there's three that were either mentioned by the chief at The Retreat or in the report itself that I wanted to highlight here one is that juvenile arrests increased 34% from 2022 to 2023 within that overall statistic if you look specifically at auto theft arrests those increased 192% from 2022 to 2023 and then finally repeat juvenal arrests increased 62% from 2022 to 2023 so I think those three statistics kind of tell a story right and I think that's what we've been asked to do is spend some time move through this work as quickly as we can uh to get under the hood and come back with a suite of recommendations for consideration on the policy question itself if you don't mind I'll take the time to just quickly read through it what strategies and or policies need to be enhanced or implemented to fully leverage the communi data stakeholders and service providers to promote collaboration towards a un ified approach to reducing juvenile crime with a focus on both prevention measures as well as targeted strategies focused on Juvenile Justice involved individuals that are kind of repeating that cycle so lots of words in that one sentence but lots of important distinctions that really provide us a sense of scope as we move forward on the committee charge I'll I'll touch on each one of these maybe just provide a little bit of color commentary on the first one we know that we don't have the luxury of spending 6 months doing an evaluation of what's been done and where we're at today at the same time we believe the only way that we're positioned to identify gaps and opportunities if if we're well grounded in the current state so we do need to take a minute to and because there's a lot going on in this ecosystem both within the city of Charlotte and cmpd Community Partners like meinberg County to make sure we've got a good grasp around around the current state um second Point here obviously we want this work to be data driven uh perceptions matter yes but we have data we need to lean on that data to better understand where should we focus our intent where should we focus our attention um one of the things that we're going to be spending time on over the next month is is really getting Clarity on scope because when we come back for the next cycle I think it'll be very important early in this process to ensure that the committee is in full agreement with how we're thinking about scope because even with what I believe is a well-written referral um you could have 11 people maybe interpret it 11 slightly different ways so we'd rather know that on the front end then get through the process come back in with all of our recommendations and then have to try to put the toothpaste back in the tube benchmarking against best practices this is something that's been done within the last few years we're not starting from scratch here but it's always a worthwhile exercise to make sure we've got a sense for what are others doing in different jurisdictions that may be working really well the fourth one the shortest one of but maybe the most important for the outcomes that we want to deliver on as a city of Charlotte there's no way we can do this alone they're local Partners State Partners a lot of folks that need to be involved in this work we need to have them at the table having conversations uh I think you wouldn't be surprised by the types of entities that we're going to be engaging through this I did want to explicitly reference council member watlington and I know you've referred to a community input group uh we share the importance of having a community inp put group have the right kind of stakeholders at the table council member Brown I think at The Retreat you made a very compelling request that we need to have the youth at the table in these conversations so we need to have Juvenile Justice involved individuals um at the table providing some perspective in this work so um we've got our work cut out for us on this one there are a lot of players there are a lot of issues there are a lot of people and we will approach it with a sense of urgency the last thing I would say on the final Point here that's obviously where the rubber hits the road in terms of applicable policy recommendations as I mentioned in the previous committee right now uh the exciting thing and the daunting thing is all options are on the table right so you know we're approaching this with an open mind but what are the policy uh considerations at the local level what are what are possible things that could and should be advocated for at the state level in terms of funding or policy changes there could be some programmatic enhancements there could be local local Investments that are necessary so all of those those things are fair game at this point in time and and the purpose of this analysis is to to whittle down to what is that Suite of recommendations that we believe collectively as a community not just the city of Charlotte by itself have the highest probability of delivering an impact so with that I'm yeah please you just hit on something that I want to make sure uh folks are clear about and I look at our partners uh that are sitting uh behind you all and I welcome you to certainly join the conversation uh because it is a community conversation our committee charge here speaks to policy recommendations to council that sits within the city's perview but certainly through the course of the conversation there are going to be things that come up from our uh Partners or things that may fit in other folks buckets can you just speak a little bit to that I know you mentioned that perhaps like a legislative agenda item or things like that that are not within our local purview but I just want to make sure that folks are clear that while we are um driving the bus for the city piece they're going to be learnings that come out of this are not sitting within the city and those are not going to fall by the wayside but we've got we've got to put them somewhere and we also need some help from our partners that's right I agree and so there was some conversation about that topic in the in the previous committee as it related to the legislative agenda that's working its way through the process so well I don't know what the specifics will be as those things emerge where clearly it would be an accountability for another public sector partner or otherwise at the local or state level um we really be putting those in front of committee and Council uh for for your review and consideration and ultimately endorsement and if there are things for example related to State policy or state funding where it's the will of council to see action taken then at that point in time we would evaluate through working with Council um could it be added to the legislative agenda right and you know whether or not that kind of work can get can get done fast enough for the short session remains to be seen we have a sense of urgency we're going to do the very best we can um but I think that's ultimately how those things will play out we will not confine the recommendations solely to those things that are within the authority of the city of Charlotte thanks yep oh y thank you okay so I'm going to turn it over to director Hefner to to Pace us through the rest of the content thank you next slide please all right where we've been so as uh ACM Heath referenced uh we have um we've whove been certainly working on this issue for quite some time uh you may recall the Deep dive that was completed in 2019 around Community violence and violence CRI violent crime in particular and at that time the city of Charlotte and meinberg County we working really closely together to to endorse this public health approach to violence prevention so this is looking at uh root causes systemic issues and really trying to tackle tackle the issue of crime from health and mental health and uh housing security and Workforce Development and all the other uh lenses in addition to um the Juvenile Justice component um some of the things that came out of that work include the publishing of the community violence dashboard and the establishment of the violence prevention data collaborative so uh the the public health approach is really one that's rooted in data and evidence-based practices and we have a great Foundation of collaborative Partners working together on sharing data and taking a look at both where uh crime is occurring what it is uh and who is in involved both from a a a victim and a um um perpetrator uh lens uh in addition we launched the safe Charlotte grants so City count Council has invested in these grants since 2021 and you should have received an email earlier today promoting that uh um the opening of the application for the this current round of safe Charlotte grants so uh in in light of the recent conversations and this community referral and the urgency of the work um we will certainly U be paying special interest to those applications that support Youth and families a couple of the uh current grantees are really demonstrating being a commitment to this work um and and and doing so early right we have Partners in Hidden Valley Elementary doing steam education and workshops and partners in ml MLK Middle School um doing the same as well as conflict resolution and career exploration and probably the largest investment that programmatically that came out of this previous work is the investment that Council has made in violence Interruption so both the alternatives to violence community-based program and the hospital-based violence Intervention Program uh so you you you reference of Partners behind me so uh riela Stewart um um from the city and um Tracy from the office of violence Tracy Campbell from the office of violence prevention with meinberg County are here they work very closely together on advancing um those particular programs especially the expansion of alternatives to violence which we we've completed over the past year um and are now in three sites next slide please and I also want to just call out the great work that um the county and the office of violence prevention have done creating a uh strategic plan for Community violence reduction that's called the way forward and one of the things there there are five pillars in this plan but one of them is specifically focused on support for Youth and families um and so we we'd love to to have an opportunity to share more about that with this committee as we go through um the referral next slide and then again we have a really strong Foundation at the city of youth programs and programs that support youth uh so you can see some some examples of them here on the screen uh this collection of Partners and programs in um in in collaboration with um our partners at generation nation and the Charlotte meinberg youth Council um we're actually named a 2023 All-American City um for our work specifically in youth engagement um so and again the opportunity to bring youth voice and youth perspective and youth's recommendations into this process uh we we have we have a great foundation for that I would also say that these programs uh we are are um uh Nimble enough we've been working over the last year or so to try to Pivot towards some of the emerging concerns uh so in the fy2 24 budget for example Council added a um uh position in the community relations department to do additional youth mediation and conflict resolution so that work is gearing up on the job and career Readiness training uh the team has pivoted to um additional support and corridors of opportunity we had 363 students from Corridor schools participate in this in the past year I think it was so successful we had to do a separate one specifically for West Charlotte High School so shout out to the team on that and then we also recognize that getting um getting partnered with youth earlier is really important so we've been piloting um some programs for 13 to 15 year olds um within this mix of programs so a lot of work to do but a very strong Foundation of programs and partners that we can pull together uh to really bring you all some some meaningful and impactful recommendations next slide and this is just a summary of of ACM Heath's comments around next steps here we're really focused right now on reviewing the current data strategies and metrics best practices and benchmarks again we've done a lot of that work but it's time for an update you know since the last time we did this um there's been pandemic and and uh so we know that there are significant needs for Youth and their families um from the things that people experience during and coming out of the pandemic that we need to really shift our Focus to see what's happening now and again the community engagement piece starting with that youth engagement so we have a lot of Partnerships uh to be able to uh hear from youth about what they're experiencing today uh and what they would like to see in order to be successful um and and have a have a um a Way Forward here in Charlotte um so with that I will turn it back to count uh committee chair watlington thank you so much thank you so much uh this is promising you all have done a good bit of work in terms of strategy uh Direction setting uh since just last week so thank you certainly appreciate that I know there's been a ton of other conversations that have gone on as well while we're here I did just want to give them moment to uh Dr Stewart and Tracy can you join us real quick just because I know that often times when we talk about um crime and I appreciate that the slide is in here um we don't often talk about the office of violence prevention so I just wanted to give you a moment to just give a little bit and I know we're going to come back later on in the recommendation and do a deep dive but I wanted to make sure that there was room to speak to that a little bit and Dr if you wanted to um uh um extrapolate it all yeah introduce yourself and extrapolate all on the youth programming and then we'll jump into discussion absolutely good um thank you for having me I'm Tracy Campbell I'm the senior health manager for the office of violence prevention with meinberg County Public Health and so do want to just uplift that and thank you for having on the slide The Way Forward plan this is meinburg County's plan which includes the city of Charlotte so this is everyone's plan it is should be the only plan that we have everything that we're doing should all filter back to this plan that is the Hope and the goal it's a collective impact plan it's going to take all of us County City Community Partners everyone involved to um implement the strategies in that plan the plan is to see a reduction in homicides and gun related assaults by 10% each over the course of 5 years and so uh it's a lofty plan a lot of um lofty goals in here so we've got a lot of work to do and so we're depending on everyone sitting around this table and anyone that's under the sound of our voice to um join in with with us and work to to implement these strategies thank you um Dr Risha Stewart housing and Neighborhood Services I have one I I got one um thank you for inviting us to the table and just want to share it has been an absolute pleasure to work with Tracy um it's so great to be able to reach across the aisle for common goals um as we both have a passion for the Youth across the city of Charlotte and within mecklinburg County um as director Hefner mentioned we were able to stand up two additional alternative to violence sites um one on West Boulevard and the other in the nation's Ford area and we continue to work together for the Youth of the city um as it was mentioned on one of the slides we have quite a few programs within the city um again shout out to our um youth programs team we did have to have a special job career Readiness training just for West Charlotte and in speaking with um director Hefner last week we're looking to expand that so that we can continue to grow that program we know that career um Readiness and career exposure is important um sometimes our youth don't have that model or example at home so we need to take it upon ourselves as a community to do that work and Tracy and I commit to continue to move forward and we look forward to coming back to you within the next meeting or so to bring the strategies that come out of our discussion thank you so much thank you so much for that we look forward to the work you all will do together um and I just want to real quick before I open to discussion because of the what was just said about career Readiness I think that's a great seg way to talk about Economic Development and the tie there I just wanted to yield to uh chairman Graham if there was anything you wanted to add before we open up the discussion no I just came here to let my support to the work of the committee obviously it's a topic that we are that I am very interested in and also there's a lot of overlapping with economic development so I just wanted to kind of be a fly on the wall to see where I can help and U and not get in the way we welcome you thank you so much uh Mr asir thank you madam chairwoman um well great work uh but today I was expecting recommendations and I'm King no I me it's only been a few days um that would be very ambitious of me to expect recommendations uh but I appreciate it you recognizing that we don't need another study uh we have to we must look at this with a sense of urgency especially when it comes to reducing juvenile crime um and also I appreciate it because we have Partners here from the county because this is a community problem it requires Community solution city alone cannot reduce juvenile crime so so um I look forward to having uh Todo list for our federal and legislative agenda because we need to go to Raleigh specifically and ask for various items that our police chief has been advocating for he has advocated for uh assessment of raise the age limit legislation that was approved couple of years ago uh he's asked for additional funding for the DA's office for the court system for juvenile support um I get it that we are looking at another we are we are looking for recommendations but I think that's a no-brainer uh we already know that's an issue there is a huge backlog um we just need to push ahead and really make some meaningful progress on that um but I look forward to working with our colleagues council member Mayfield I and council member bran we serve on the bu budget governance and intergovernmental committee and we spent almost 30 minutes discussing how do we support our cmpd in trying to address juvenile crime so I look forward to this committee's recommendations but also keep in mind we have April deadline for our State Legislative agenda so timing is of the essence here so all right with that that's all I have thank you thank you so really good work off to a good start um in just a few days I just one one um small comment as we look at the library of all of the city-wide programs that are available to um underg and substantiate um what this committee is going to put forward I want to make sure that as you're going through that exercise you're delineating which programs are evidence-based programs um versus just Comm CommunityWide programs there's lots of data that uh supports that evidence-based programs um have a specific tie to better outcomes and so it' be great for us as we establish that library to understand which ones are evidence-based and which ones we can leverage in other um areas thank you thank you yes ma'am thank you madam chair it will be helpful when we look at the breakdown of our of slot six the city program supporting our you to make sure that the youth that we've identified for our Target are the youth that are taking advantage of the services for six of my initial eight years I was extremely active with the mayor's Youth Employment Program and with our generation nation and with our youth programs but there's a certain student that gets access to those we know also within CMS not every principal because it has to come from the top down not every principal has shared and or counselors have shared the different programs some schools get more information than others so to ensure that it's great for us to highlight here's all the things what we're do that we're doing when we're looking at those metrics and looking at those numbers it will be helpful to ensure that the numbers are actually touching the target our young people if I read a number of the recent reports correctly a lot of these are first-time offenders and they're offending with guns and very serious and very dangerous crimes they wouldn't even be in some of these metrics because they're not in that let's look out for you category there are a number of them who are coming from two parent households our numbers say well if you're in a single parent household here's some of the criteria of what we think is a student that may be at risk so if while we're looking at those numbers if we can over time I'm not expecting you all to jump and get all of this tomorrow but we should have some of these numbers because we've been tracking these metrics for a while to see who are the you that are getting that are connected and also what opportunities do we have between this this strong partnership we have between city and county for us to go out and help strengthen those relationships if it's in the religious institution if it's in CMS if it's in a a charter school where are these youth coming from and are we actually tapping in because a number of our some of the programs up here it is a different type of student that has access and that is just a lot of times it's that student that is honestly in a more stable environment that's take that's able to take advantage of some of these things which is probably why there was so much energy and excitement regarding the job and career Readiness at West because whoo this hasn't been brought to us what other West Charlotte opportunities do we have out there that we might not have realized or that we have realized but you didn't necessarily feel like you had a pathway to bring it forward thank you thank you Miss Johnson thank you madam chair I love what council member Mayfield just said I remember seeing an opportunity online for students to go abroad and I called about it in the the minimum GPA was 3.5 and while that hard work should be rewarded there there does need to be opportunities for students who don't who who don't have that stable environment or s or stability or or or the those tools to be as successful even school counselors there's a a disparity in school counselors in in some schools so I agree that we should be intentional about looking for the students that or or opening up the opportunity for students who might not have that opportunity as well kind of look at it from an equitable perspective there are uh Dropout recovery high schools here in Charlotte I know one is Common Wealth I had an opportunity to do a project over at that school and those kids were some leaders and and resil so um let's let's look at you know opportunities for children who might not otherwise have um the trajectory for that upward Mobility I think this I think that exposure is huge and can be life changing I also would say if we uh from a budgetary perspective if we look at increasing the funding for the nonprofit organizations that are doing the work that are on the front line that have the relationships I've been an advocate for increasing funding for nonprofit for years and we've done a great job thank you Sean for everything you've done um and the city staff um but if we can you know just keep that energy and continue to uh fund and support the nonprofit organizations I think that has the ability to really have an impact on our youth as well um I'm excited to see the the uh focus on the youth and look forward to seeing more thank you thank you Miss Johnson Al righty we need aend I don't believe so I do have a couple followup questions just um on this topic number one is what is the timetable for the recommendations I know we're at the very beginning but given what um uh what council marage mayor just mentioned as far as the April deadline for the uh legislative agenda do we have a timetable yet and if not I would just like to ask that we FastTrack those particular kinds of items as soon as they're um visible yes we we can have priorities Within priorities and obviously you've given us one today so we we'll do a lot of this in parallel clearly but we'll be sure to be ready to talk about that in March yeah awesome thank you anything else Jo all would like you got one more yeah just just to follow up to chairwoman w lon's point what's the timeline uh for recommendations so our standard timeline is to try to move referrals through Committee in about 90 days uh I will say that oftentimes that's challenging I mean if you think about the ordinances that we're going to discuss tonight a challenging topic U but fairly narrowly focused compared to this and that referral came in August of 2023 and tonight is the First full Council conversation so um I don't have a direct answer to your question other than other than to say you know we're committed to be back in March with a demonstration of meaningful progress a sub priority related to some of these questions around like State related advocacy and a clearer sense for you of what our overall timeline is I think that's about as far as as we can go today okay so the 90 minute that we currently have timeline for all of our committee items uh we may not meet that is that what I'm hearing or we may so the the 90 days is essentially The Benchmark right over the course of three months you would fully move move something through through the committee um I'm just acknowledging today that I I want to be careful that that I or we don't overpromise um how far we can get in that period of time it doesn't seem unreasonable that if we're having a conversation on this in March and April that we could be far enough along where in April we have something the committee is ready to act on so I I don't want to be overly conservative here but I am being a little conservative okay thank you I would be very conservative um because you do want to recommend commendations but you want actionable recommendations and so it's not necessarily about how quickly we can get to you and get you the right answer so you can say yes we want to make sure that we have and we take the time to talk with Partners you know do the assessments make sure we bring back the right information um I'm more concerned about the timeline for the leg legislative agenda the reason I'm concerned about that is I listened to the meeting earlier today and so whatever recommendations has to go before BG and then it has to go before or full committee to agree to put it on the legislative agenda is that correct I mean full Council yeah so council member may feel and I discussed that so it doesn't have to go to the BG if the this committee decides that it needs to be on our legislative agenda we'll just amend it that's what the committee had decided on so that it just just save time and to not rush you all oh we don't feel rushed at all Madam chairman there is a sense of urgency though right I don't want to I don't want to lose that perspective um and obviously we want to get it right um but we also want to be responsive to a public that's really looking at us to see what are we going to do and that we're just not analyzing um issues that I think you know we kind of know where we're headed so I understand the fact finding that has to be done and the due diligence in terms of working with Community Partners making sure that we're all on the same page um but April sounds pretty reasonable to me ites actually so we are due to come back in March um uh the March committee meeting with an update on the community safety framework so we are planning to come back and uh we hope that the work that we do in between time and the conversations we have in between time will bring us bring forward enough information to satisfy the C committee thank thank you just to follow up on that so end of February is when Council will be adopting the Federal and State Legislative agenda end of February I think it's February 26th obviously we're not going to meet that time frame um but I look at it this way so we have until was it April 24th what was it that's when the short session begin late so so we have multiple business meetings between March too that so if you could just timing around if you could just time around that that would be great so that Council will need to take an action on adding that to our legislative agenda because we'll need to plan ahead for that understood and obviously you'll need to have the opportunity to really soak on that conversation and understand what are the implications for other key priorities in your legislative strategy and if there's something brand new that's being introduced does it in some way compete for example with your Mobility agenda and if so helping you make an informed choice on all of that right yeah thank you all righty well I appreciate you all's attendance and we look forward to the work um I will ENT to to a Jour second thank you so much we'll see you next time [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] St [Music]