[Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] order we need to do the call-in line or announcement good evening thank you for joining tonight's aurora city council study session if you are listening on the phone please note public comments are not taken during study sessions the phone line is in listen only mode the council welcomes comments at regular council meetings on both matters appearing on the agenda and during public invited to be heard the phone line opens for sign up on those evenings at 6 pm thank you okay and katie can you do roll call please yes mayor pro-tem bergen councilmember crooms councilmember gardner councilmember jorinsky councilmember lawson here councilmember mercano president councilmember medina council member mario president councilmember sundberg and council members of onik there's a quorum and the mayor is here all right we'll start with the mayor's update you know what um hey if somebody can come up and look at my computer i think i'm having trouble with the video it's a new computer um there's no mayor's update no issue update um a consent calendar um [Music] i don't know is there any objection to moving item number two a through 2g forward mayor uh zavonic uh council members demonic i don't have any objection i do have a question about 2a um and i don't know if i could ask it now if you want to vote on the others and then i can ask you let's photo on the others and we'll bring it up okay okay uh is there any objection to moving item number 2b through 2g forward seeing that item number 2p through 2g will move forward um with the click now please read the title time well i'm number 2a consideration to appoint one member to the human relations commission um councilmembers yeah just the question for staff is what if any uh guidelines do we have and this isn't related to the potential appointee appointment of erica ponder but just more generally for the human relations committee and frankly all of our committees i know with cabc because those members are appointed by council members if they're missing or if they're doing if their conduct is outside of you know certain bounds they can be asked to be removed but with these types of appointments where we're all voting to appoint them are there any sort of consequences for behavior that that might be deemed inappropriate for being on one of these committees council members ivanic this is katie so each uh boarding commission has their bylaws and a lot of them specifically outline the conduct as to what can get them kicked off a board it would be city council members who would actually have to do that since you appoint them so if your majority vote by city council but it's not in the resolution and we don't have it in the city code but i can send you a copy of the bylaws for the commission that you're questioning okay so for i just thank you for that clarification and for for further clarification we look in the bylaws but unless council uh is i guess somebody brings to their attention this this is it could be happening and nobody is there any sort of governing of of that behavior internally amongst the body i mean how would it get brought forward um other than us you know happening to run across it so that would be also in their bylaws it will state if the chair co-chair needs to get a majority vote by their members to bring it forward to council uh they have set uh procedures for bringing it to the council members if you could send me a copy of that i would appreciate it thank you okay here i'd like to make a comment on that as well oh mayor tim you bring up a really good point because um for example on the cabc where we have our own appointees even getting the attendance record sometimes is is you know difficult so i had to actually request that at one point um but you're right on these other boards and commissions we don't necessarily know you know attendance records or any other issues unless the chair i guess of that board or commission brings it to our attention so i don't know if that needs to be changed um in terms of asking for that information um since i don't think any of them are required but i'm not 100 sure um can staff answer that question um yeah mayor protein bergen we do have the pr plus committee that the boards and commissions do report to so i believe that if there was an instance where a board of commission member was missing too many meetings then the chairperson could reach out to the individual council members or also bring it forward to the pr plus committee and so in a lot of the boards and commissions in their their bylaws and in the city code it outlines how often they are required to report to that policy committee okay further discussion mayor steinberg uh yes uh councilman sumber on this topic of human relations committee i just like to read the purpose i just discovered uh to promote a mutual understanding and respect among all people disseminate information and educational materials to eliminate prejudice promote human relations and investigate complaints of this nature so i would just like to point out that the people serving on this committee uh they're in the public spotlight if they're on social media and might want to demonstrate a kindness and respect towards other fellow city employees is there a further discussion seeing none is there any opposition to moving uh number two a forward seeing none item number two a will move forward i number three implementation of camping ordinance update good evening mayor and members of council this is jessica prosser director of housing and community services um emma king could have share access that would be great yeah that must be where it says oh is it okay please proceed okay so while emma king is getting access to share i will just start the presentation so this is an update related to the implementation of the camping ordinance that was passed a few weeks ago staff has been working diligently with our service providers and partners and is engaged with hdr architects and atkins to start this process of implementation so emma if you want to go to the next slide please we wanted to provide a list of things that are already happening and are in progress and then we'll move through some more specifics related to creating 24 7 sheltering at the day resource center as directed by council during the implementation of the ordinance so at this point we are still abating camps we're still following our process for that that we have been we have seen an uptick in complaints coming in as a result of just the education around the ordinance so we're using our existing abatement contractor to get those taken care of we have an agreement um coming to council on may 9th for additional um abatement services so that will be coming we still have the 10 beds at comitis that are for specifically set aside for when we're doing camp abatements so we have those beds available to folks we are exploring hotel motel vouchers that can be used for non-cold weather times we have a whole protocol around cold weather with motel vouchers so those would be for specific populations to use we are reviewing the code related to having the day resource center function like it would for cold weather and the building division and fire life safety are looking at those and so we should be able to use that facility like we do for cold weather once we complete that review we currently have one full-time employee that's dedicated to encampments abatements that goes out and posts this employee was brought on in january of 2022. the complaints around encampments are still being um submitted through access aurora so that is ongoing um and then we have been able to very quickly get hdr architects in adkins to help us start looking at what a conversion of the day resource center would look like we already had them under contract so we didn't have to do a full solicitation process so we were able to get them started very quickly next slide please related to updating the policies that really implement more specifically the ordinance we are working through drafts with the legal department related to any updates we need to our current business policy memorandum around encampments like i said we've had one in place since last summer and so we're tweaking that to be reflective of the ordinance one of the major things is we no longer have to have a defined health and safety concern related to the encampment since camping is not allowed we don't have to establish that so that will be a change there we're working um through a draft of a bpm related to the storage of personal property as directed in the ordinance um we'll talk a little bit more about personal property here in a few slides we've met with denver we've looked at several other cities approach to this and we've also received feedback from our outreach street outreach folks and folks experiencing homelessness directly about what would be best for them we're also been talking with our contractor keeson who does the abatements to understand what their abilities are and aren't if you might recall we have passed in council approved an iga with cdot a couple of months ago related to the city being able to post and clean up encampments in the cdot property within aurora this would allow us to get those taken care of faster and and timely cdot's current requirement within that iga was seven days and we were having a little bit of trouble getting on them to notify us the mayor had a great meeting with the governor's office and the cdot folks and so subsequently i've been able to coordinate with cdot staff to reduce the seven days to 72 hours so we have a consistent approach across aurora depending no matter the public property that's being addressed and we also no longer have to get approval from cdot we just need to notify them and we have currently within the iga up to 75 000 per year for them to reimburse us cdot has also agreed that when we get to about 50 000 they're willing to up that amount for us and provide us with more so that was a great progress and we really hope to be able to abate some of the cdot properties in a more timely manner next slide please so tonight we also wanted to go over some of the costs that we have been able to calculate these are all estimates at this point related to the implementation of the camping ordinance this is something else that was asked by council as part of the implementation so we will go through these more specifically in the slides that follow but we have um put them as separated between annual costs and one-time costs so at this point i'm going to turn it over to julianne with hdr architects to walk through what it would look like to create 24 7 sheltering at the day resource center to continue to have that facility operate as a day resource center as well as create a sheltering option for folks that would be comfortable for them folks will be willing to come in one of the main barriers we've heard is storage and being able to not have to come and go and so as council directed we have been doing some work to see what that would look like so um with that julian i'm going to turn it over to you very good good evening everyone my name is julianne shearer with hgr i'm sorry can't hear me no julian i'm not ready yet i'm not ready yet i'm very sorry i messed up got ahead of myself so i'm just going to talk about staffing really quickly um and i did want to acknowledge that bob dorsheimer from mile high behavioral health care is also on the line to answer any questions here again we've been working with our service provider to come up with what the staffing model would look like this is a further breakdown of that we had set a precedent with this a little bit when we had done our emergency shelter during the winter of 2020 2021 so again we have staffing there during the day this would be adding that night shift to it adding some additional care navigators case management security and things like that and bob is on the line to answer any uh questions um at the end okay julian over to you i'm sorry i asked a question sure um can we get because i'm looking at my backup i i don't think we have this particular breakdown yes and i apologize for not getting the powerpoint to you all uh beforehand we will absolutely get it to you after okay thank you questions i have a question about what the what the overnight care navigator does you want to address that after the end or coming out it doesn't matter bob are you on and able to answer the question more specifically what the overnight care navigator's role is yes i am on the overnight care navigator works to secure the facility it's awake overnight position the overnight care navigators deal with behavioral problems counseling we still receive referrals from apd at night so comitus and all of our 24 7 operations have three awake shifts uh first second and third shift is all awake and receiving uh consumers at any point in time there's a drop off okay please proceed are there any other questions okay i have a question yeah on the overnight care so there are four currently before currently mr georgetown the current staffing pattern is it's uh seven days a week first shift this staffing breakdown would add second shift and then third shift the shifts overlap team a team b on a wednesday so currently uh second and third shift is not hired this is the proposal but it'll be two overnights on the first part of the week and two overnights on the second part of the week okay but that's what so it's not current this is not what we currently have your current slide that you're looking at is not what we currently have that's correct okay can we get like a comparison because it's just hard to follow otherwise you want the overall staff to operate the facility 24 7. the current staff and then the proposed i guess this is the proposal so yes you can do that mirror protein thank you okay next slide julianne all right excellent well good evening everyone again i'm julianne shearer with hdr and i have with me today my colleague david lemke and so we were asked to uh work with jessica and the service providers and team and we gathered a bunch of information and to answer your questions uh related to how can this existing facility be renovated modified what do we got to do to make it 24 7 given the recently passed ordinance so let's start with what we have and that's what you're seeing here the existing layout of the of the building itself now remember this was a gymnasium that has been converted into a day center the occupancy classification for this is currently assembly which is what uh gymnasium's fall under construction type is 5b and it is a sprinkler building it's about 14 600 square feet that includes the 1600 square foot approximately 1 600 square foot mezzanine which is that white box that you see kind of off to the right of the slide so it hovers above the the restrooms uh currently around the perimeter the the uses are mostly business uses whether they're counseling rooms um a computer room and uh and the uh staff uh room and then the center area is really the the space that the assembly occurs with all of the uh folks that are that come to the day center so when thinking about how this becomes a 24 7 operation um we looked at what can we do uh to provide bedding you know places for people to sleep as well as that intermittent time where people are sleeping but also make sure that we have operationally functional things of where people are eating versus sleeping that we're not intermixing them very much and there's a reason for that the reason is operationally that once you don't want to be eating and sleeping in the same place it's it's uh there's a health health hazard there and we want to make sure that we clean things properly so if you go jessica or emma to the next slide so here's what what we've proposed in terms of looking at you know quickly high level concept but what could be done in this existing building so you'll see there's two areas that are designated with blue beds those blue beds are bunk beds and we are able to provide some bunk beds in that mezzanine level and also carve out a space in the gymnasium for bunk beds having two separate areas for bunk beds is really helpful too so they can separate population between genders so you have a place for women in a place for for men in addition we are able to sort of divide the space in half not not physically but at least operationally and keep where you see all the rectangles and circles those are indicating um tables and so the eating area and those places that people are hanging out closer to the kitchen closer to the restrooms and can stay in that configuration as additional bedding might be needed so the additional bedding are those yellow mats that you see on the floor and so while it's nice to have it's good to have that separation of uses of space between dining or hanging out and sleeping so then operationally when people you know wake up and they move to go have their breakfast or something like that those mats can be dismantled you know cleaned and put away in the floor cleaned and such without having to disturb the operations of of eating in addition we're providing you'll see there's a small rectangle at the bottom matte storage so those those mats can be properly stored in a convenient location for easy use to to take um out um in the evening to provide additional um accommodations so the total accommodations approximate total accommodations with what you're seeing here is around 108 folks that may be experiencing homelessness now in the event that there's a severe weather and that sort of thing then you know you do what you do now and that's clean out the whole space and you know see how many people you get in here but this would be more on a day-to-day basis in addition uh you'll see that we didn't uh we haven't done a full code analysis and one of the unique things about this type of facility is now you know we meet the exiting for um assembly however the intended use doesn't really fit neatly into a code um description and so typically we work with the code officials the local local jurisdiction um to determine you know are we going to look at this as a dormitory or such so depending on that discussion with them um there may be the need to increase the number of of of plumbing fixtures whether they're showers or toilets but currently the facility is going is going to be doing a restroom renovation so we'll have to talk to them to see what that's about in addition we've tightened up the security at the main entrance which would be a good need for them to make it a more safe space for folks to to enter and exit and provide the convenience that the folks are looking for so you know this is really focused on seeing what those modifications are for for sleeping um you know in addition it's a it's a very uh you know old building and so um looking at the mechanical systems and the electrical systems and such we tied that all into the scope of work which you'll see will be reflective in the cost later on in the slide so if you go to the next slide emma let's just talk about some of the um sites site modifications and so there is that existing day center and one of the a couple of the um site modifications that were requested is how do we become how do we create a more uh private enclosure so that there's uh not only security for those that are part of coming to the day center but also um being uh good good neighbors and so around the perimeter uh we have identified um a fence with with slatting um to sort of create that privacy enclosure uh number two is identifying uh places for uh camping to occur within the facility for those that do not meet the requirements for coming into the facility and or other operational requirements that are deemed necessary four is the mechanical yard and that is something that would probably need to grow a bit in order to accommodate updated mechanical systems to make sure that we have proper air flow for a 24 7 facility there's a number six is for a dog run some of our folks do have um have pets um companions that are with them so providing an op a place for them there as well as um a place to hang out so that lower area that's still within that enclosure is a place for people to to hang out and enjoy the day and then also number five to bring back a um you know physical exercise we know that having physical exercise helps um mental stability and such so having a um bringing back that uh half court basketball court so these are some of just a quick overview of what um you know working with jessica's team and the providers and clients and such is kind of where we are in terms of just an overall quick concept to see what can this resource center potentially provide your your community as mayor mike let me ask the first question what um i don't understand why we have to change out the front door it's a pretty heavy metal door pretty secure so one of the things that to change out the front door where there was a couple considerations one is having a um better visual connection between the inside and outside so um the request of looking you know being able to see out right now there's just a slit window and what that slip slit window um you know if you get a little bit more glass at least that upper portion beat to be all glass there's a little bit more transparency for security so people know who's coming in and who's leaving but can't you see through that right now uh not you can but it's kind of a sliver versus you know just having when things are a little bit more um transparent there's a um a physical kind of thing that comes up upon you that you're you know you can be seen and uh behavior tends to be a little bit less obstructive and of course we don't have to you know i guess that comes down to i mean there's all these little pieces within that total cost to look at yeah what is what is the green area so the green is currently that's where all of the barracks were taken down and so right now it's mud and so in order to um you know not make it to be a muddy mess is putting down whether it's a mulch or um you can spray uh seeds to have some grass grow or something like that so that it just doesn't stay sort of a mud and that area that is part of the property currently it's a pretty large uh space it is well something struck me earlier when you said make them comfortable during the day are are i thought when if they were coming from the encampment and we were trying to bait the encampment that we're providing shelter i thought maybe i'm getting confused with the current situation and and maybe bob can address this don't you don't they get out of the day resource center during the daytime they're not going to just hang out hang out during the day right uh thank you for the question it really depends mayor pro tem on what the activity of the day is so there's a schedule every day that they sign up for different computer classes haircuts different medical appointments to answer your question more specifically to be at the day resource center you need to be doing something showering eating doing your laundry um case management getting your mail so generally they're you're not hanging out all day but if you are waiting for medical appointments and people that do come to the day resource center to go to the va or another another part of the campus they do wait um for those appointments from other facilities other providers um so there is the possibility for people to be waiting and we do need some waiting areas while they're waiting for other providers to come meet their needs yeah thank you and i know i know you try to you know help them with all those services but i guess i'm talking about two different populations because you have your you know your uh folks that that you're trying to help them move on um whether it's get a job or or get resources but the in the encampments i get well i guess if they're willing willing participants to come they may partake in your resources but you may have people that do not want because you mentioned the camping so if they're not going to abide by rules they have the option to camp would they i don't like using the word hanging around but are they going to be hanging around so these are these are excellent questions and these are things that we're going to have to work through as we implement the camping band so what i know of the population currently they would probably prefer to be outside as much as possible and be inside probably only at night most of the people that we have met will want to use the bunk space and will utilize the bunk space there are many i like to call them folks that are full of freedom and the folks that are full of freedoms um that really don't want to fall into any type of structure or rules but are willing to start the process will probably be the ones that are outside now the ones that will probably choose to stay outside and just kind of check us out get to know us they've been on the streets 10 plus years so the more chronic they are the more harder they are to engage these are the type of people that will most likely be outside so there is definitely mayor pro tem two different populations that we'll be working with and this is a brand new population coming inside so um obviously we'll be doing updates to council as we get better equipped and understanding uh these individuals but i think for that there is no provision for a safe camping space am i correct in that that's been with uh mile high has not proposed um any type of safe camping uh within this proposal this is uh for phase two and other possibilities as we learn but as of right now there would be no camping outside but that requires council authorization so let me look at this this we're it's like we're building a park i mean um i'm concerned about the amount of space out there if we're gonna try and do something with it from the landscaping perspective can we narrow that area down um and still have an outside space for people to go to but not as expansive as uh so what we've done essentially is we're taking the footprint of all the old barracks and and bringing that into this particular um campus or whatever you want to call it but i think that uh i'm concerned about the cost of that and i'm concerned about the water that would be involved mayor we can certainly look at this we know we need you know some fencing and some outdoor area and we can look at what that looks like and we're also working on that widening of mont view and so as those things come together the ideas for the outside um will be a little more um you know solid the existing garden area is up here and then you know like julianne says creating some kind of ground cover all right where's the existing gardener again can you point it in it's the number three number three okay yeah so um just creating some type of outdoor spaces number two um there's outdoors there's a significant outdoor room there right so i think you can bring me in and you're gonna landscape that area so i i just think in terms of mitigating the area um in terms of what the requirements are i would think if you could cut off as much as number one as possible in terms of fencing got it bob do you need that all that space um thank you for the question mayor um this area number one we currently don't use because that's where the barracks came down if you look at number two number two is the space we currently utilize and have been utilizing until the barracks came down so for all of the number two areas we would request to keep that but the rest of number one we we've never had and and don't need so we're actually gaining back um just better use of the space that we currently use now that those two barrack buildings are removed so it's it's better line of sight it's safer and it gives us more more space to do programming um and behavioral de-escalation so yes mayor we would respectfully request area two okay but you can live without area one we don't have area one now and area one we don't need no okay okay if we can do that i think as we when we conclude maybe i'll go to council in terms of trying to define a consensus on some of these issues area one's currently fenced off from us and that's all the old that's the old auditorium this area one is all out front of um district one if i can help draw people's attention to where this is so we've never utilized this okay can i ask about that same area so it's it's area one does it belong to the police for their district one it is it is part of the uh the law that is mckinney veto that's correct because the reason i'm asking is i don't know if you've been in district one but it's it's in horrible shape and then they have that horrible dome thing where they keep equipment um are they planning to use this area for in to enhance district one so mayor pro tem if i might in our next presentation we're gonna do a thorough analysis of this is called parcel n um it's about four acres that's just to the south of mont view um and we also own a portion to the north of montview as well and so we're going to go into depth about this whole property in our next presentation but again this number one area was just a stabilization of the mud and from an appearance perspective not just right no i'm just in operations with this do okay does the city own it then yes the city owns it yes okay okay this whole parcel as well as the one to the north where district one is like i said we have real property on for the next presentation okay and then for bob you know you mentioned the security um for the front door security or and i think i saw in the presentation you're gonna add security um at night but what about again it's a different population coming in do you foresee any issues with panhandling on the campus at all like i guess you'll have police presence so i i appreciate the question mayor pro tem uh we worked with jessica to um ms prosser to understand the needs of the new population as ms prosser discussed earlier with the e-shelter the e-shelter did during the pandemic bring in a different population than what we were used to and we did have security um so what we learned with the new population that we've not encountered before or have a relationship with security is going to be very important to preserve the relationship on the campus that's why we're adding the security staff to make sure people don't wander off start panhandling or doing anything else like that if i could respectfully talk about area one from a security standpoint i would definitely fence that off so people can't have access to that what will end up happening when see people see that space is that will encourage camping people dropping by people wanting to hang out so that area one does need to be secured um from us and from the community so it's not used but the security staff um that we are negotiating in this budget to neighborhood services is to decrease cu police involvement with us as well as apd so we believe that adding security as well as putting our security personnel in vans will take them off the campus or put them back into the building so our goal is to decrease all of that now and for the future okay thank you um bob though now that you're with us um what is your opinion on the security door replacing the front doors thanks mayor um mayor we we specifically asked the city to look at the door we've had a significant problem with the door for the past four years since we saw started operating the door the door was actually replaced recently to that really strong door that you're talking about the problem that we're talking about is we need line of sight and positive control of the facility so what does that mean that means i need to be able to have my cameras and my staff making sure that all the areas nooks and crannies can be either seen on camera and or by staff members one this will decrease violence two this decreases on the sale of drugs within the facility and um at end and the use of drugs so the way you enter into the facility is very difficult when people are upset and they're blowing out of the building and people are trying to enter the building they clash and we've had quite uh quite a problem with the way the structure of entering the facility is so to make it safer and a line of sight we we had asked for help modifying the front door okay thank you further questions all right emma can go to the next slide and then julianne back to you okay so um atkins took a you know again this is a high level look at uh the cost estimate of uh what you've what you've seen and you know there's additional scope work and everything um and so what they're looking what they calculated so far is that um you know the interior modification is almost 1.3 million and then the exterior work um you know almost uh 340 000 um so for a total project cost of you know 2.6 2.7 million now again this goes back to you can see it says 200 um 2022 numbers uh without code review so that goes back to my comment of we'd like to work with the local jurisdiction to make sure that you know do we have to add additional um showers and um and toilets and do they agree with the approach uh that we've taken in terms of looking as at this as an assembly and how do they want to um categorize those areas of sleeping within the overall so it's you know more than one use because this sort of uh intended use this type of facility doesn't fit neatly there's no shelter homeless shelter or something like that in code so it doesn't fit neatly into the code in terms of getting those numbers all correct but it is sprinklered and such so that's that's all good news so right now that's what um what you've seen as you know just that high level uh category uh four or five cost estimate of what we're looking at well um was there a consideration for um excuse me if this situation warranted in other words the demand that converting the mats into double bonds that would give you another 28 sleeping positions uh possibly it does it does start to break down that space a little bit more we'd have to make sure that we have you know exiting through you know that you can move throughout this space freely so that could be something that we could uh look at as well and again um i think it would be great to to to have that conversation with uh jurisdiction you know having the authorities having jurisdiction so we can really make the right decisions code for yes okay very good that's enough that's that's through ordinance by the city council okay uh further further questions thank you sir uh thank you julianne for your presentation um so the code issues that you're bringing up is actually something i brought up on the dais i have a background in the aac industry myself so uh from your perspective what do we risk in terms of a code review that is not necessarily favorable with what you have currently laid out do you suspect there might be required egress changes and what do you think the changes will be in terms of water closets and labs so looking at the water closets and labs um if we if we look at uh if we take this kind of assembly approach which is pretty much the the um most uh aggressive look at the at the code we would have to add a couple more showers i think three showers to men's and women's and then also a few more water closets for the for the ladies so um as typical as you see in assembly we did also look at the stair that leads to the mezzanine uh currently the riser to tread um ratio changes uh it's all within code but it does it's not regular through the entire so that stair needs to be rebuilt in order to um meet the meet the current code so that you have a continuous riser to tread uh ratio through the entire um stair um and i think it's also dependent on how they see these rooms um you know if they're if they're rooms where the where we have the bunks right now because it would be nice to have them somewhat enclosed um if they if code when looking at the code if it requires us to do a half hour or some sort of rated separation between the rest of the assembly then that's another thing that we need to consider so do it you know because this is a two-story space um as a gymnasium so that area that we showed where we were kind of bumping out a wall into the gymnasium space will it need a lid do we need to have doors on it to make it an enclosed and then change the sprinkler access to that and then also thinking about that in the same way at the mezzanine level the mezzanine level does have a second exit which is goes directly outside so there are two exits out of that space though it is um if we do the bunks the occupancy is less than less than 50. so uh that should that's helpful um for us as well so i think it's you know it's just a matter of getting into those minutiae details of how it actually gets detailed out and once you know if that mezzanine floor if we need to add a door up there in order to close off that space you know do you lose a couple bunks or not and mayor to your question about can we make those mats into bunks we probably could we would just want to look you know work with um with bob and his team about those light those sights you know that keeping those lines of um those sight lines open and putting up walls how does that sort of break down the space even further um deterring that that line of sight mayor i have a follow up all right uh thank you sir um so julianne um with regards to accessibility um you know you mentioned the stairs need to be rebuilt but there's currently no way for someone who's using a wheelchair to access the upstairs is that going to be an issue as well not since it doesn't um it's less than a third of the space it's not going to require accessible you know being accessible and i think they would have to make we you would just make accommodations for those folks um needing that at the at the ground level okay and uh just refresh my memory if we're gonna need to add fire rated uh barriers um that's going to also require reconfiguration of hvac for that well it's going to get new h back by and large yeah it's going to get new i mean we identified basically i mean right now that you know the system it was sort of rehabilitated a bit in 2017 but given that you know we we're creating different zones and the fact that it's just it's not efficient to keep kind of a 24 7 operation of you know fresh intake and getting the old air out so we'd probably take a look at that entire thing anyway okay do you have a ballpark of what those additional costs might run that we just discussed now and as you saw too this is in 2022 numbers and we know where that where escalation is going you know council member marcano a lot of those things are listed in the atkins uh breakdown um within there so you guys have the whole breakdown okay yeah so emma can we move on to the timeline for this um we have just a few more slides um so back there we go keep going there we go next one okay so we so as julianne mentioned once the hdr was finished with their look we turned it over to adkins to do the pricing high level that's where the pricing came down the breakdown of the different components both inside the building and outside the building and then we also asked for a timeline reasonable to finish the design put things out to bid complete the construction and so this is kind of a rough timeline of that it's undetermined at this point if you know construction can happen while the building is still operational so that would be something we need to look at if we need to temporarily relocate these services to complete some of the construction next slide emma so then these are just some existing photos of the adrc of some of the areas we've talked about next slide so just then we wanted to break down some of those additional costs that we mentioned at the beginning to better understand so for abatements we currently have 250 000 in the budget we're estimating uh based on as you saw in the spreadsheet that was attached in your packet the ability to do about six abatements per week that's three days a week with the contractor in aurora doing two per day um and so that's where that comes from and just the demand we're seeing in access aurora we're estimating um additional staff time that's from all the other departments that are working on this in the publicly owned land legal as well as other staff we would be looking at two additional staff to help with posting abatements helping with outreach and just helping with coordinating with keyson processing invoices all of those things we currently do not have a dedicated vehicle for posting abatements or any of our homelessness staff and so that is included as well next slide emma so we're also looking at outreach um we've had conversations um with mile high we also have an outreach team with aurora mental health salvation army has an outreach team we have an outreach collaborative that meets once a month and so this would be looking at either having an additional team that can be on-site when the abidement is currently happening and help outreach to encampments on an ongoing basis once they're posted by the city so again this is something that's being considered and recommended at this point um as well as an additional vehicle for that team next slide emma and then we get into the storage of personal property so at the beginning i mentioned creating a new policy or bpm around storage or personal property we are looking at options at this point what's recommended would be to create some type of storage on the property of the day resource center within that kind of number two area for the storage of personal belongings we would be looking for either keystone as our current contractor or another environmental type of company to be able to identify remove personal property coming into a camp it would also create storage for people that are coming into shelter to store items we also have a need for folks that are living in vehicles when they come into comitis and shelter for a longer length of time like 30 days to be able to store items so that would accommodate that both the transportation of items keyson does not currently provide that service the tagging of items the categorizing of items the storage of items and then be available for people to retrieve items we also just kind of as an aside when we met with denver to review their process they're storing everything that's that's not soiled they also indicated that in uh three years 15 people had come back to retrieve their items so if people are coming to the day resource center to shelter we would hope that they would be recovered a little bit easier because they would be at the same place denver takes them to a warehouse that then people have to get to and find so that is where we are with personal items looking to define that and then looking at how we remove them from the encampment store them and then return them to folks next slide please these are just some examples of some storage containers that would be for lease so we're not paying to build something on that site um and then again it's close to where people are already located next slide and i think that is the end of this presentation and update so i know we've had several questions along the way but um if there's anything else uh council members have in terms of questions or feedback we'd be happy to take that now are you is it councilmember lawson or someone else mayor i didn't hear you councilman lawson okay thank you um jessica i just had a question so um in the 650 000 that you have for the abatement process um does that include all of the along i2 i225 as well because those camps can tend to be a little bit bigger and then sometimes stuff is left behind so for you know additional cleanup so does that include that amount as well it does not so that would be the separate amount from cdot i mentioned that iga with cdot for 75 000 and cdot acknowledged that we may have abatements that are going to cost more than that on an annual basis and so that's where um they have agreed to increase that amount if needed so we would want cdot to pay for their property so even if the city's coordinating the abatement and the contractor we would expect to get reimbursed for those so the 650 is what we're anticipating um that would be on uh city-owned property abatements okay and then does this include as well with c dot i guess um when we're talking about the cherry creek park if we see them on this side on aurora how is that part of the c dot and how we're going to address those issues or is that just a later issue that we'll address as they come so um i'm speaking for the mayor but the mayor was able to address that when he met with the governor and the state as well and so we need to get connected with the state parks and things like that there's a bunch of different property ownership down in that area and so there are other state agencies that do have land within aurora and so we need to work towards working with those agencies as well that have a similar type of agreement um for cleanup or have them clean it up okay because that will be coming so um just another question for bob um so bob i have a question on so now this looks like the aurora day resource center um is now going to kind of become this full-fledged shelter so i guess what my question is we're going to be integrating populations for the population that actually comes in every day as for the day resource center i mean um how are we going to adapt to that and make sure that they're still getting the same services as when we're kind of adapting to this other population and mixing the two yeah that's really an excellent question and we've already started the planning process for that so we've increased our staffing capability by writing other grants that we just received so we'll be adding mental health and substance abuse and case management to support the new population as well as our current staffing pattern will support the the population that we have been working with for a number of years so we'll take the schedule the monthly schedule that we build out and create more uh orientation type programming so brand new to homeless services this is what you can expect this is where you get your mail um and everything we do when we first meet someone so they'll now be two cohorts of people so to speak the orientation cohort and then the cohort that has started services accessing services and that are exiting services into their own homes and employment okay amir i just have one last question so if this gets approved and we start doing this construction we're going to see some interruption so if we have a 72-hour camping ban which we need to get people to shelter and then we have our day resource population um it doesn't seem to me from this presentation that you have a lot planned out about how you're going to deal with those those interruptions so um is that i mean are you really thinking about that because there will be interruptions people can't be living people can't be going into into construction so i'm just wondering how you're going to adapt to that council member lawson that's a great question i don't think we're prepared to answer it quite yet we need to look more at the design and see if we can phase it a little bit where you know the mezzanine is able to be done and others aren't there will be certain things with systems um and so we will have to explore either alternate options for providing service in a different location um or uh being able to sort of cordon off portions of the building to be able to do um the construction while still using the building so then that would probably be less i mean if we if this is if we're using the ardc and we're implementing this ban i guess i'm just trying to how how are we going to be sure that we're going to be able to adapt to this band for 72 hours especially with what we're kind of trying to we're trying to retrofit everything within a certain time frame but if we're looking at the the date looking at august for this construction to be done are you just going to just try to place people where you can to meet the ordinance requirements again a great question and i think something we're going to be exploring with the architects and design team and seeing if there's the ability to use it or not or if we need to um have an alternate location to provide those day services and overnight services while the construction is being completed uh thank you mayor so i guess first i want to start jessica i uh double checked um the package uh from um atkins and the costs that we were talking about uh that might come about as of code were not actually reflected in here so i wanted to know you know if we if it would be possible to get another update i don't know how long the code study is going to take uh on what those additional costs might be um the second thing i wanted to ask was um do you recall jessica what uh mark from houston um called their like temporary shelter basically the transition folks in the housing i forgot what the navigation center there we go thank you um since we're going to be discussing long-term housing solutions next i was wondering um what the real benefit of reconfiguring the adrc uh was going to be especially since we're only able to add 100 beds while you know some of the options in our longer term options packet we have very comparable costs and we're able to serve 150 or more depending on the building uh because i think that the navigation say for uh you know y'all have heard me talk about houston quite a bit and i think the adrc would be an amazing navigation center um and i'd like to see what we can then do in terms of you know maybe looking at one of the options that we have to purchase hotels and motels and convert those into permanent supportive housing because one of the other issues that we're going to run into with the adrc in addition to some of these unforeseen costs potential code complications is a lack of willingness for folks to necessarily go to congregate shelters you all have heard experts we've all gotten communications from you know folks who do this for a living who work in this area for a living coffining us about congregate shelters and i get that the cost of remodeling the adrc was attractive but i'm looking for efficacy above all since we're already going to be spending two million dollars a year shuffling people around the city so my i guess it's more of a a proposal for my colleagues if you know we can maybe refocus and see what we would be necessary to make this into a navigation center [Music] and then look at the motel and hotel options that we're going to be discussing coming up because what we're going to be doing here is going to be ineffective in terms of the fact that it's congregate we're adding you know raw numbers which will be able to justify sweeps which i want to point out was not necessary until we passed that ordinance um so you know we could actually take care of health and safety issues now we've kind of backed ourselves into a legal corner where we're not able to be as flexible without having beds so and we're still not actually going to be addressing the problem so i know i said a lot there but i'd like to see what turning this into a navigation center would look like and then hope that we can actually get some buy-in to uh take which uh you know and our upcoming discussion to actually basically begin to acquire properties to convert permanent supportive housing because that's basically a very short version of how houston managed to you know be so successful and i'd like us to emulate that as opposed to go the wrong way and then have to course correct after uh committing a lot of capital up front yes um could you know i i really don't want to make a decision right now on on this um i think it's you know it's important that we make the right decision with taxpayer dollars how many i mean we've been doing abatements so how many how many do you typically abate in an encampment and we're i mean we're not going to abate every camp all at one time and i know we're looking at a solution for 100 150 people but what's what's typical and and we do accommodate them now they don't necessarily take us up on on shelter jessica yeah mayor pro tem and that's kind of going back to the estimate based on working with a contractor about six camps per week is what would be probably able to be done it really depends it's been you know anywhere from two to forty over the past few years um we do offer space now um i think we will be um abating faster with this ordinance because we won't have to be looking for those public health and safety criteria to be met so um we're looking at a higher volume of abatements but it's it's it's hard to know on a weekly basis how many people um we would be abating and then also how many would come in to shelter yeah i mean because we do give them the 72 hours and i just i just question how many will really actually you know once they're abated if they'll really actually take us up on shelter um it is summertime i just i think we don't have to rush i think we're going to be able to accommodate some of the encampments um anyway that's just not sure i want to make a decision yet further discussion mayor councilmember jersey thank you i just want to say that um you know we're having this discussion tonight as though you know we're just we we've just entered the planning phase um of this this camping ban ordinance and there are three council members that were elected in november that ran heavy heavy campaigns supporting this camping ban ordinance um staff knew this was coming as soon as we were elected i i don't i don't think that this should be a huge shock and that we should be just in this in entering a planning phase i'm really disappointed to see that we're not farther along than we are and having some of these conversations that we're having tonight and i just want to say i i'm looking to build a homeless shelter in the city not a homeless conglomeration and something like a basketball court obama put a basketball court into the white house none of us even have a basketball court in our houses and we're talking about building a basketball a basketball court i i'm really getting lost in this whole thing i want to help uh you know i want to help people but i want to make sure we're helping people and not enabling people i think maybe like a walking path or a walking trail uh might suffice i can't i can't sign on to this basketball court um and uh as far as storage goes i think after uh council member mario's amended ordinance was accepted as a friendly amendment i think there's been a change of heart and so to jessica prosser i would say there's no reason to overthink that i think a majority of this council when asked if asked wants to continue doing exactly what you what you are currently doing what you described to us uh during the the council meetings i don't think there's really a reason um to take any more of your time working on how we're gonna store uh their items i would like to stay focused on on how we're going to shelter them uh i would like to stay focused on that and um so i i don't know how we do that if that's a i don't know how we do that at mayor if you if you ask if you ask for direction if i don't know how we do that one to let her know we feel about storage further discussion mayor by councilman thank you i believe uh the storage was part of the code that we passed through the ordinance so you'd have to amend that out of the ordinance and i guess i'd like to know if that's if what councilmember jorinski said is true and if folks are content with throwing away basically the few things that these people own in the world um during the conversations that i've had with bayad and other providers there are actually ways that we can sanitize um many of the items that are brought in from these camps so that folks can actually keep their possessions you never know what's actually going to be of value to other folks you know we might have different perspectives than they do and i know that uh providence at the heights actually has such a device that they showed me last time i was there so we might ask them and see what it is that is necessary to ensure we're able to you know have folks keep as much of uh their belongings as possible um you would mention bringing policy options to the council relative to storage and i i haven't seen them i didn't see him either yeah mayor we are on the plan work yeah based on the ordinance it's written broadly um to uh essentially create a policy around personal property and so that is what we're working on now and i know tim joyce is on the line he's working on that policy and again we've looked at other policies from other cities to try to determine uh what will work in aurora based on what we're currently doing um and you know i had described that during the previous meeting and so we could certainly continue on with that whereas when the contractor comes in if they see something that's clearly identified as personal property ids passports birth certificates medications very specific things are set to the side but we don't have a way to currently bring those in so they're retrievable to someone so we can continue with that all the way up to you know what denver does which is is saving things um besides clothing and soiled things and things like that so tim joyce can provide a more specific update but at this point we are working to create that policy so i would expect a range of options from status quo what we do now to a more robust policy and then better but during the uh discussion uh prior to the vote understanding was that you would bring back those policy options to us and we would pick one am i correcting that yes okay so council member journalists it's a that is not a subtle question as to what we're going to do so in terms of the storage uh containers that's um until we make that decision uh that's not something that's um deciding that's correct this is just a general update for tonight okay further discussion yeah uh councilman joshua so then i guess i would just like to put it out there rather than wasting a whole bunch of staff's time um on the storage piece of this so that we can stay focused on the shelter portion of this uh please uh jessica bring forward your options as soon as possible because i feel like i have a pretty good idea uh what this council would actually like to see for storage um so i'd like to say that and the last thing i'd like to say is about that whole grassy area or muddy area or or whatever it is if it's mud uh you know maybe we can turn it into grass or turn it into turf so we don't use water on it uh but i you know i i spoke to a homeless man who told me one time that the reason he chose to be homeless is because he couldn't stand being confined by four walls so i think that all of that open space i think we should absolutely be looking at uh uh outdoor um i guess camping outdoor camping allowed in in that open space and i guess we just need to find out how much of that belongs to the police and how much you know doesn't whatever that looks like but i don't see why why we wouldn't allow them they have 72 hours notice to move if there's something really important to them i would think i would hope they would keep it on their their person or or you know move in the 72 hours and get to these shelters and and utilize these options available to them but what if they still want to set up their tent or what if i don't understand why we would why we would not allow that especially in the summer months where if we are allowing that we can shelter so many more people well certainly that will be could be a discussion down the road but uh we specifically did not vote on that option uh and so if you want to bring a proposal forward you can certainly do that um but so but the question before us right now like to put this question before us uh mr dorchager said he did not need area one uh and would like that area fenced off i would certainly agree with him at this time that that's an unnecessary cost to try and landscape barrier one is there any objection to that i object mayor uh government sir i would like to hear from uh staff in terms of what and bob as well if uh in terms of the feasibility of having effectively a sanctioned camping area on that parcel i appreciate all the questions related to the extra space i did have a conversation with the mayor about as well as jessica prosser and i have been talking about this as to phase two and what does phase two to this plan look like councilwoman jorinsky i absolutely agree with you um phase one was really part of the planning about how can we get the camping band up and running and relatively quickly we can do that with a staffing pattern immediately by amending our contracts i can move to mats on the floor second and third shift now um and then we have to decide what the build out looks like and how does that happen in phases so there isn't disruptions uh to councilwoman lawson's uh concerns which are our serious concerns uh because we've built relationships over the four years and people are dependent on us as to the vacant land i did have a conversation um with mayor kaufman i did put forth that um if we were allowed to bring a proposal for phase two it would be utilizing that land councilman jorinski and what i went out last thursday and toured as many camps as i could what i can tell you is many people are excited about the mezzanine for women and the bunks inside of the day resource center but what we would ask and propose to council would be not the small pallet homes but the larger more sturdy uh pallet homes that would accommodate those families that have adult children aunts and uncles that we've encountered so yes i do agree that we could provide more services if we used uh the additional land um but to be honest uh right now with us not even having phase one up and running and moving to a phase two uh i'm happy to gear up as fast as you want me to but we're behind and the camping band is going into effect so my goal is is to get started with at least getting the staff hired so i can start providing the services um but phase two i definitely would think that uh utilizing that space down the line and putting up larger pallet homes so we could service more and help those that are working many of the encampments people are working and they will want to stay in the pallet homes on the campus because their hours are so different depending on what type of work they do so those are the people that will want to stay outside and not have to come into the four walls the dog runs are are important and just real quick on the basketball we just have a temporary basketball net now like you see in any driveway it's just asking for our macadam to be returned that was dug up so we're not looking for a basketball court but we just want some of the young guys to be able to throw it up into the 200 hoop that we have so um i don't want that to be built out that we're we're building something that we're not it's just something we currently have and it's it's not that big of a deal uh to me but that i just wanted to reiterate that but i do think phase two um or now uh these these are prerogatives of counsel but when i met with the mayor um utilizing that space is not currently on the table or what city council uh discussed again i suggest we go with phase one first and then we see what happens and then we can adjust from there there because did we did we decide no on the warehouse i can't remember now that's that's the permanent option oh that's part of the permanent okay mayor zavonick councilman the question this might be for jessica i know that there is some state legislation looking at building navigation centers um one for the kind of east metro area is that ridge ridgeview or is that something separate and is that something that you know we could consider as opposed to turning the day resource center into that it sounds like there's state dollars already going potentially going to be allocated for doing for for building that type of center council members zavonik you're absolutely correct and it's in our next presentation and so there's uh three pieces of legislation um that we're gonna cover and then go through some options so i would propose another option is we can get through the next presentation as well and get all the information um but yes that that is called out in the next presentation and yes there is quite a bit of state money to be leveraged at this point thank you following that i'm sorry go ahead thank you so then jessica and this is not just you but just generally um i'm looking forward to having that conversation for more of the long-term solution but in the short term and i think you know councilman brinski kind of touched on this what are we going to do to ensure that we can start to implement um the policy that we passed that was supposed to be implemented last week whether it's you know the the we were supposed to have some sort of a plan on what we were going to do with um storage i'd like to look as the mayor said beyond denver maybe look at colorado springs give us a variety of options but let's have what are we going to do to get the camping ban implemented in place i'm looking at you said we we could potentially obey six camps per week roughly 40 people probably on the high end how many beds we have available today and when can we get started because this is something that um the citizens of aurora they very they spoke very loud they want this and i don't think continuing to drag the feet our feet to get it implemented is a good idea i think we need to be focused in the short term what can we do to ensure that the camping ban can be implemented so that we can meet the desire of our residents so council member zavonik as you just heard bob dorsheimer say really hiring the staffing is the first priority to be able to open the day resource center um with mats on the floor as a starting point we also have the 10 spots at comitis right now to utilize and we certainly will be using any of the existing shelter that we have both with kamidis as well as the two safe outdoor spaces so the staffing is really getting the staff hired and trained um and making sure that we have that in play allows us to be able to do kind of the very very first phase before moving then into the phase one which would be doing the construction on the day resource center and really to answer the question of you know what do we do when the day resource center is getting renovated we could do more of the outdoor options then to accommodate folks outside to be able to do that so staffing i think is the first priority to be able to work to get that implemented okay further um discussion mayor um councilman i just really think that um you know having that area one as part of phase two and and um not making that a priority um especially going into the summer months i think that we're approaching this totally backwards i think for phase one we're looking at constructing bathrooms we're you know we're looking at major construction i think for this open area i think we look at what part belongs to the police give that to them fence the rest of it around we can get turf in there my guess is mile high behavioral health can probably get turf donated and um you know we can immediately get some porta potties out there to help these people immediately uh you know get off the sidewalks get off the sides of roads uh you know i i just i think that the priority needs to be phase two and we can get turf and porta potties in there immediately and and get these people somewhere to go can we get the water donated the water for turf mayor yeah can we get that donated a turf yeah oh well i'll let you work on that but i think that you're approaching this backwards i think we should be looking at phase two further discussion mayor sundberg uh councilman summer i just have the quick question uh in the interim here while things are being constructed improved upon is and this is to jessica i suppose are hotel rooms an option are they available councilmember sundberg in that second slide i did note hotel motel vouchers they're a good option for certain populations obviously not probably for everyone we do have some good relationships with some hotels that we use during cold weather activation and so just needing to create some protocols um and again needing the staffing um to be able to make sure that the right folks get in the room and people leave the room in a good quality things like that so that is an option and it will work well for certain uh populations and still looking into that and seeing which hotels will be willing and pricing and things like that yeah i'm concerned about adding staff right now until we figure this out um can they be hired temporarily contracted uh brother discussion mayor well can somebody answer that actually yeah sorry for that mayor mayor pro-tem from the city side yes they can be hired um as variable our employees um to address you know the increase in abatement um and then i will let bob answer from his organization's perspective with the way the situation may or pros him as and hiring right now it's already slow to hire and finding employees is very hard so contractual relationships without guaranteed employment is next to impossible we've been advertising for an on-call relief poll to help us for the past two years and people are not applying to do relief pools or contractual work right now so that would be a significant barrier in implementing the plan unfortunately is it possible that churches or other organizations would have volunteers um you know not for security but for some of the some of the um types of jobs that that you need them need help with yeah we have we have volunteers that come in from the churches all the time actually and we have wonderful relationship with the churches the problem mayor pro tem is when they don't want to come or it's a rainy day or it's around a holiday is usually when we're the busiest with people experiencing homelessness and that's when the volunteers sometimes drop off because they're busy with with their own lives and then we don't have the staff to support the work and the efforts so volunteerism we use in a lot of different ways but not for line of sight are securing positive control of the milieu and the milieu means the population of people that we're serving okay they just don't have the training and it's also not safe for you know a 70 year old church lady um coming in and her first time you know wanting to volunteer so there are safety issues when it comes to volunteers as well further discussion yep mayor councilman thank you sir um so bob how soon do you imagine we'll be able to get to phase two because i do very much like the idea of a sanctioned camping area with those larger pallet shelters that you were talking about and i see a lot of potential if we go the permanent supportive housing route for that to basically be the launching pad from folks to get permanently housed so how soon do you what's the horizon that you see on that um so as for mile high behavioral healthcare we're ready now to start moving um it's it's a matter of the city deciding what they would like to do so we we we would need contracts we would need the funding to be put in place um so councilwoman jorinsky and marcano uh at this point we're not at the point of anything being approved financially or things to be put out in contracts so that's a tough question to answer because tonight is your first presentation in planning on how to implement your camping your camping ban what i can say in defense of staff and my organizations we have been meeting pretty extensively as to how to make this very successful and and how to implement it in a way that's much different than denver or other communities that have failed with their camping bans so we've taken that really seriously that we don't want to fail i don't want to fail i don't want us to fail so it's just a matter of getting these contracts going getting staff hired getting these abatement teams and then figuring out the nuances of everything else the pallet homes in that space can happen relatively quickly it's just a matter of approving them and moving on them we've been taking direction from our mayor and working very collaboratively with our mayor so from mile high standpoint i'm your contractor your service provider i'm ready to jump through any hoops but at this point i don't have any triggers to pool because we don't have any contracts on the table as of yet so it sounds to me like we put the cart before the horse with the whole policy so thank you bob appreciate your work further discussion mayor uh council member sorry um so i would just like to say in talking about this this outdoor space um i'm certainly not talking about pallet homes um i am talking about the same tents that they are in on the side of our roads um having a safer space that is fenced in that is not on a sidewalk not on the side of the road and they are able to to move it there that is what i am talking about uh i will never be talking about pilot homes mr ghosh armor could you comment on that we're we're fine with whatever the city decides to do if it's if it's uh sanctioned camping by all means we'll support those efforts as well jessica mayor councilmember jorinsky we've had successful setups of the other safe outdoor spaces um i think i've talked through the other issues pertaining to tents in the past um you know with insurance and disasters and things like that uh related to the tents and just the longevity of the tents versus the pallet homes if someone is bringing their own tent a little bit different of a situation so lots of options on the table are the reimbursement issues that they bring downtown we would not be able to use uh hud funds um and these costs tonight would not be intended to come from hud funds the budget office will be putting together some proposals related to that as we move forward so it would not be a reimbursable issue mayor at this point thank you further discussion i see that is there any objection to go forward the first phase fair uh remember so we're gonna do the whole thing at one time for not in i mean i know it's phase one but we're not going to break up phase one into a couple phases well if the staff was to come forward with uh interim solutions which uh jessica i wanted you can comment on that because i i don't see a lot of detail on the interim solutions so mayor the interim solution um would really be to get things started so get started on the design and things needed to do the reconstruction of the day resource center and while that is happening mile high would be working on hiring staff and using the interim option which would be the use of mats on the floor at the day resource center as well as some limited hotel motel vouchers as well as the spaces that are available at comitis mayor oh uh mayor councilwoman mcconnell all right thank you sir um jessica i actually do have another question on the abatements when i'm looking at the final cost breakdown i don't see apd time or pros or anything like that specifically itemized is that all lumped under additional funding needed it's lumped under the additional staff time we are uh starting uh may 1st we're going to be tracking time we do that um through our abatement meetings each week and working with the different departments that touch abatements and so we will have a much better understanding of that in a few months but those are estimated costs at this point based on kind of the ballpark numbers that staff has provided for how many hours per week they spend on abatements so again very much an estimate and we'll be able to provide a better number but yes that would be comprehensive of all the different departments across the city okay just to clarify because that says departments besides okay all right nevermind i think i got you so i think it's departments besides housing and community services where we have dedicated staff working on abatements okay all right thank you the double negative threw me off there a little bit all right thanks yeah we're uh looking for direction on moving forward with that interim option that i just mentioned and then the um you know reconstruction of the day resource center as additional shelter options okay uh is there objection um to um first of all the interim option mayor does not have a question for jessica on the interim option please presume just assuming we move forward with the interim option when will we be able to start enforcing the camping ban so council members of anik and i'm going to defer to legal on this but as soon as we get the we're still enforcing abatements today just like we have it right so as soon as we have the updated bpm we can continue we can continue to enforce abatements and um i'll let tim jump in on this if he uh wants to clarify and i would say once we have staffing in place for the day resource center we're able to activate that on a 24 7 basis we can fully uh be prepared to abate more camps than we can today so today we can continue to abate camps with the shelter beds that we have available over at comitus and once we have the additional capacity available we can more quickly uh bait the camps um if that makes sense so when we say we put out a statement saying that we are not enforcing the new camping ban law you're saying we are we are currently enforcing on encampments with our current bpm that we have in place so once we have the new one in place we're eliminating that health and safety and we're just moving forward with abating so tim do you have an update on the bpm that you're working on related to everyone acronym news business policy memorandum okay thank you so council member stevonnik jessica prosser has explained it very very well we are currently using a policy to abate camps and in that policy there's a significant public health threats and significant safety threats that we use as a criteria to abate and we'll keep using that until we can fully implement the ordinance when we get we're changing the bpm to implement the ordinance so the criteria for significant public health threats and significant safety hits we're going to still use those but those will be necessary if we need to enter a an unattended chance say so that we can search for horrible property we need to search more we can't just enter all tense there's a fourth amendment protection to property so we'd have to get a a search warrant to enter in a tent but we're we are cleaning up camps now and we will continue to clean up camps and all the new policy does is change slightly on how we're storing property what we need in order to begin implementing it is clarification on the personal storage property say that again in order for us to begin implementing the new policy is all what you're looking for is clarification on the personal storage issue that's that's it yes okay so council has to approve a policy for the storage of property and with that then the ordinance will be effective oh my gosh why isn't that brought forward i mean this is why i understand what do we need to do and let's do it to ensure that this policy that was supposed to be put into implemented this past week is put into place i understand we have all these other issues long term that we have to continue to meet but we pass an ordinance it was supposed to be taking effect i believe this past week and it's not and if this and the reason why is because of this personal uh property issue why haven't we been presented with a number of solutions that we could choose from and just get this in place part of the problem is knowing where and how you want to store the property so it can be in the policy because the the ordinance requires a location and accessibility as well as a length of storage so those are you're deciding the process today about where to store property and then with that the policy is pretty much done except for your approval or at least we can present a policy for your consideration mayor we don't have a policy on storage right they were supposed to come back with right here here's one way to store here's how much to store and here's how what it would cost to do a b or c jessica when can we expect to get that and to make those decisions so what we provided tonight was a general overview of staff's recommendation um we can certainly follow up with the specific policy again tim joyce is working on that um the idea that we have provided based on we've looked at several different cities is to store just the personal property and again defining that to be something that is personal items ids again you know those types of things and putting them into storage containers at the day resource center and having the contractor transport those items tag them date them and do all of that so that was what was presented tonight the policy would follow from there um and that would be the recommendation it would not be the recommendation to store everything from okay it wasn't true may or so if we look at what was done before is that if you found certain documents uh discharge certificates driver's license passport you left them there at the site for the people that come back and get them so if you take that policy and store those documents um i think that would be an option would it not that's the 28 000 right look i'm jessica that would be an option would it not that that would be an option yes and so and then in order to do that and categorize that and move the property um that is what the proposal was and again it's a it's an estimation of cost we would have to talk with the contractor very specifically we would have to get actual quotes quotes on storage containers this is only documents so um but let me put that forward well mayor mayor okay i get what you're saying only documents but what we're given in our backup says the the shipping containers for storage 28 000 but it doesn't say what that stores then it says environmental com company contract for storage management 250 thousand dollars which we still don't know what exactly that is it says biohazard trained staff to pick up items label store and be available for pickup but are we talking about personal items because if we're only doing personal items i'm sure we're not spending two hundred fifty thousand dollars but if we're talking about clothing that's a different okay we have some chicken that's gonna drive what the storage requirements are uh jessica with the current abatements happening is the storage process working or lack thereof people are getting their necessary items like documents it's working currently we're not storing anything and so and we do not go through the items we provide the notice if someone is there on site with items we will transport the person with their items to shelter we do not you know go through anything we don't take anything and and take it and transport it so it's set to the side and i think just understanding personal items right now our contractor if they see something laying around they will move it to the side they are not going through backpacks they're not going through duffel bags and so if we're going to um store more items we're probably going to be looking at what's left to the side and take something that looks like a personal item a backpack a small bag something like that and transport it to storage we're currently not doing that mayor can i follow up on that when i witnessed the cleanup of camps that were abandoned after the notice was given you are talking about a lot of disregarded fetid biohazard refuse and to get bogged down in the minutia of that is counter productive and unhealthy to everyone you've got to get rid of that stuff and get rid of it quickly so it sounds to me like the staff and those who are doing the cleanups are exercising good judgment and what is working is working now he sent our contractor that is how things are happening to my knowledge we have not received any complaints from not storing items people are taking with them what they need what's left behind is not wanted again if there is something that is very personally identifiable it will get set aside if people have something personal on their body when we show up to the encampment they are offered to take that with them and so we will need a little bit of storage even if we were doing the status quo today we would not need what i have put in is the proposal um that was in the presentation i would like to call that the status quo option and uh see if you could find support for moving forward on this as a decision let me let me clarify this so are you saying that um sir because we didn't but we we would have to uh we didn't vote um so it is part of the ordinance that there is storage that that now we are going to define what is to be stored uh and if if i understand what what you're saying is that it's only the personal documents and identification that are found uh at the sun is that correct that would be what councilmember sundberg just proposed yes and then we would create a policy to reflect that based on the ordinance is there objection to that policy on storage that we will store um uh identification and personal documents mayor uh councilwoman maria yeah um i mean i so i guess i've heard like a lot of the conversation evolve a few ways and you know i i've heard a couple of reasons why this policy isn't in place now and i think where folks are trying to um blame a part of a policy that isn't necessarily the reason why this isn't happening when we passed this we knew that there were other issues like staffing that we heard was kind of the number one issue in in implementing this um i think we're fighting over details here um and yeah i mean we had talked about bringing a range of options and we haven't seen that and um i still think that we should do that um so i don't support just um pretending like our our process is working for expediency's sake um because it's not um we don't store personal property uh we don't store property um and this is everything that people own in the world and to reduce it to what just sounds very nice and expedient i think is is wrong and that's like the fundamental issue with this camping ban is that you're ignoring that people have come into homelessness for many reasons because they are people and they have issues that they're going through and i think ignoring that is going to make this worse in my opinion so yeah no i don't support that um kind of minimalizing um the storage of people's property i do think that we should have these conversations as soon as possible about what the options are but just ignoring the fact that this is everything that people own in the whole world um that's that's like the the major part about this is that we are dealing with people's lives when this happens um and we cannot make assumptions about what is valuable or not valuable to somebody um because we're not in that situation so again i i don't support that i i think we should have the larger conversation of the options um and we should have it soon mayor councilman yeah so this is again for the city attorney's office because i just want to be sure that i'm clear that what i heard earlier is correct if we clarify the personal item issue can we begin enforcing the new campaign law the section section 114 111 says we have to the policy is going to describe what types of property are going to be stored the length of storage and the location of the storage so we still haven't you you right now you're working on what type of property to be being stored so my question is if we clarify that issue if we say the council member sunberg's proposal we move forward with the resolution at the next council meeting we pass that if we do that can we begin to enforce the camping ban do you still need the length of storage and location okay so if we if we solve the uh personal i uh the personal items issue all of the issues related to it we can then begin to enforce the camping ban yes and do we need a resolution to do that yes you'll need a resolution to approve the policy okay those are my questions mayor councilmember murillo yeah so i guess on paper sure that is the process um but if we don't have the staff to do it then it's it's just a policy on on paper right we can talk about how we're gonna implement all the things but we already had a lack of staff and then you're going to add more to it and just say oh yeah now we can finally implement it but if we don't have the actual staff to implement it it's not going to get done is that a pretty fair accurate way to think about this um mr yang i've got a question and that is um if i if i say um that it's that it's um personal that it's personal identification and documents and then i say we will store it for one year at a secure location does that meet the test council or mayor kaufman i just want to offer that we have not found a city that stores anything longer than 60 days mayor i can explain what denver does with that type of documents the ids medications um personal they store it with the police department until it expires or until it's recovered however storing it with our police department is not an option fair um i'm sorry who is this yes um but okay they do have 72 hours notice so do you do you find that if they're gonna get abated and they know they have 72 hours they're going to pick up most of their personal items and take it with them to the shelter i mean i get we're kind of making this a big deal um i mean i don't think we should be storing everything forever and storing everything but i like the idea of the id and the personal documents but isn't it their their responsibility to in three days to decide what they want to take with them bigger tim this is tim a joyce that's been working with the cleaning up of these the abatements of camps since the beginning said that eventually everyone moves and when they move they take what's valuable with them so what's behind is what councilmember sundberg saw it's it's generally trash but there may be instances where there'll be an unattended camp or a tent and we might have something that we could store there or if someone is in counseling and they have a value a temp that can be capable of being stored we might want to store that as long as they are working with a caseworker to end their homelessness so there's still some questions these are things that are left behind so i would renew um tim joyce i'll ask you again i'm not gonna do prescription drugs it's it's um personal documents um or identification um that's the it's so we're taking the current policy but we're but instead of leaving those there we're taking him into a secure location we can do that yes mayor and so um and so what's your recommendation for a time frame for ids personal documents right we could store that with the homelessness division and until it expires well medication required i don't want to take medication and personal documents don't uh explain gdp-14 a discharge certificate doesn't expire why would we store it for one year um if it's a discard certificate i doubt that that would happen but it could oh okay well and i know bob is still on on the call um he he currently stores items i believe bob uh mr george simon thank you um i'd like to try to help make this uncomplicated right now so thank you for allowing me to speak there's two type of storage that we need one is when we engage people to come into the shelter for 30 60 90 and 6 months you can stay up to 24 months at commitus that's our va program when you engage people and they're ready to go and they're ready to come into the shelter and receive treatment and care those individuals that are living in their cars or other encampments they want to know that their space uh their stuff can be secured while they enter into services that's one type of storage i'm tight on that storage a lot of times i can't get people to come into the shelter because there isn't adequate storage so we need storage for people that are ready for treatment uh housing readiness and all of the long-term programs that we offer in aurora that's a certain type of storage that um we've requested the city to look into now as for the abatements what's left behind generally is stuff they don't want and that stuff should be thrown away i'm in 100 percent agreement when it comes to medications i want nothing to do with them because i don't know what's in the bottle um as for the documents i would highly recommend all documents come to the rohr day resource center we have a fireproof locked cabinet there we are already doing document retention at the day resource center and we also do mail service for the encampments and people that are experiencing homelessness so if i am to engage these people and to work the camping band don't put the documents somewhere else other than the day resource center we want to continue to centralize services so i can have access to these people and work with these people get them into hmis get them case management and not make it any harder for them everything else that's left behind that they haven't taken generally is because they don't want it but the biggest part of this conversation that's not happening is when people are ready for services that's the storage we need okay so how long should we store these uh personality um mayor i would go with your recommendation of a year because people can enter into ready to work and they have long-term storage needs and comitas has long-term storage needs as well our families stay with us six to eight months my va program is about 18 months so at least giving people up to a year with the right to renew i think is appropriate all the other conversation i think we're way too into weeds respectfully and documentary retention is most important so i can get them on a bus get them a job get them medical support all of those documents should be at the aurora day resource center so i can track them and support them i wouldn't i wouldn't farm this out all over the city okay so um uh mr sunberg is this um is okay with you in terms of putting forward uh that um only uh personal documents and identification are stored for one year uh at the day resource center yes mayor very well is there opposition to that i see no opposition and that's how we'll move forward mr joyce if we met that requirement then the threshold mr joyce yes i can make that in the policy yes sir and that means the threshold requirement to start the camping ban it meets uh mr josh eimer's first storage issue um the second storage issue for a person being receiving services they may have mr they want stored as as he explained so mr joyce uh i think that i'm interested in the legal test and the legal test is not people coming into the shelter um i think the legal test as i understand it uh would be people um that um uh because of we fact that we stayed we're going to have a storage policy and so do we meet the legal tests in terms of the ordinance for a storage policy i found that question again mayor i think i understood it but i wasn't sure okay so we we need it right council members of honor raise the issue about what is the legal test in terms of storage to be able to types of property we can uh documents you've clarified that and all you need now is a location for the storage that's the directory but that's that can be left without certainty in the policy just say at a location an accessible location oh yeah okay if that means a test that's fine okay right so yes with what we've heard tonight the policy is very close to being done okay um i'm sorry uh councilman mario yeah um i mean i thought we just agreed that it would be at the uh aurora day resource center can is that not the case about location mr joyce the dave resource center can store the documents but the other property that mr gersheimer is talking about so a person's receiving services i i think we're getting property might be different that's a separate let me make sure that that's a separate issue that um that our that's there's no requirement in the ordinance to store personal effects now it's something that we want to do but it's not required in the ordinance uh what is required in the ordinance is that we come up with a policy in terms of what we are going to in an abated campsite what we are going what what we are going to take in store um and so i just want to make that clear so the only thing that we are required to store by the ordinance are our personal identification and personal documents found on the campsite after an amendment and everything else mayor i would highly suggest be on the site of the aurora day resource center once again so we can work with the population provide services keep track of them and keep them moving forward okay um i'm fine with that but i think mr joyce maybe your point is that the dave resource center is a temporary location and at some time we're going to you know next at night and we're going to discuss the permanent locations so in fact if we were to move that we'd have to go back and amend the ordinance um so mr joyce again does this meet the test i'd say with what i've learned tonight yes i can make a policy that fits what the ordinance requires yes sir um yeah councilman thank you so um i think this is a question for jessica prosser so if this you know if we have all these elements in place um to pass the legal test um to start enforcing the um camping ban what happens if we don't have enough staff to implement the camping ban so council member maria we would be looking at staffing overall for this so we still need to figure out the transport of items and the other staffing pieces which are part of these phases um so we will have to figure out the implementation of the policy as well um i have like a timeline on what that would be for just over all of the moving pieces you've mentioned tonight on um getting up to the the proper staffing to implement this yeah so if we have the personal property piece figured out we do have some existing um contractors in place we have some existing street outreach teams in place so we can see what we can do with existing staff then we'll be looking at additional staff again for those overnight pieces additional abatement staff additional outreach staff as well um you know reasonably it's going to take a little while to hire some of those folks so we would use existing staff and then to answer council members of onix question are we ready to implement yes when we have the removal of the public health and safety specification we have an answer to personal property we have some existing shelter beds that we can utilize and so we can abate as long as we have those shelter beds in place that are available and as we add additional shelter beds we can abate additional camps so the answer to the question from my perspective of can we start the implementation it would be yes we just would have still the limited shelter beds until we can get additional overnight staff hired and then be able to open up um this sort of phase .5 getting to phase one of the adrc so what i'm hearing is i didn't actually get my my question answered more that sure all of these pieces of legislation um will be in place and you know legally the the city would be covering themselves but if the issue remains that there's a bottleneck of even because there isn't enough staff all of that happens but there's still a limit to what we can do right so we can quote unquote implement the camping ban but only as much as we have staff capacity to do that's that's what i'm hearing that would be correct shelter beds staffing and you know the existing agreements that we have in place we still have to create agreements around the staffing component or hire staff internally and so what is our current staffing capacity in terms of number of camps we can abate at this point and when what is the timeline for that to increase so we have one dedicated staff person two abatements okay what was proposed tonight was to add two more plus a vehicle um and so that would need to um take place length of time yeah just i know it's a guesstimate like it'll take time i you know i'd say if if we um you know posted the position tomorrow it's gonna take probably six weeks to get someone on we probably reasonably wouldn't do that so i'd say a couple of months um and then from mile high's perspective they would have to answer you just heard bob talk about some of the challenges to bringing folks on and so it's going to take a little while mayor i do have a just to follow thanks um so yeah i i appreciate that jessica i know that um the blame is that oh this uh the storage is the reason um and yeah we we knew that we needed to address that that was never a secret um that in fact that was explicitly stated in the amended ordinance so i guess i just want to be clear that it's it's not actually that big that's a that's why we're talking about it today um and and we push forward an ordinance that um had a disconnect between our current capacity and and this ordinance that we wanted to implement so if there are issues um with us being able to actually uh move forward on that it's it's not the policy itself it's not the personal storage it's the fact that this ordinance was put into place without actually understanding um capacity issues uh that we were facing before we had this conversation um and i want to be very transparent with the public that just you know we can shout and scream all we want that ah staff why don't you have this figured out we we put these parameters on on staff to be able to and and they're doing their best to be able to staff us but that's that's still going to take time so it just it's um it's again it's not the specific pieces of the ordinance like the storage requirement we staff brought that today so we could have that discussion um there's going to be other bottlenecks that that i wanted to bring to light that are going to prevent us from meeting every every complaint that we have and it is it's going to take several months so let's not pretend like it's anything other than actually taking the time to hire the right people to train people um moving forward jessica uh what other decisions do we need to make today what other direction do you need i think we're there if we have um the the adrc met the personal storage met and then the other two components i'm not ready to move forward with any additional outreach teams we have things we need to figure out related to that but i would ask that we are able to move forward with additional staff on the city side for abatements in a vehicle that would be the last thing is there any objection to the request mayor councilman mcconnell thank you sir i actually still have a question on this and that is what is our current capacity uh both outside of the adrc jessica if you could answer that and with the adrc bob if you could answer that and what's that timeline look like to increase that in terms of the number of shelter beds available beds yeah available beds today because i thought we were always at capacity so yes we are at capacity the 10 that i've mentioned at comitis those have been held back just for abatements so those beds are mats on the floor there as well and those have been held back and not calculated into our overall shelter count because the shelters are full okay thank you and bob um i'm completely ready to move so um jessica and i have been working on this now for quite some time we need the the it's a matter of amending just our contract um we don't need a new one it can be amended with the city attorney's office the budget needs to be approved and i'll get started on this immediately so that way the contractual pieces can get done and we can get this camping ban up and running so i i agree those are the pieces that we need to get moving which is uh the city side staff and my side staff and at least it's then up and running to me um councilwoman jorinski's earlier statement what's needed and needed to be happening now um with that approval tonight i can post tomorrow knowing that a contract's coming and i'll do my part to implement it all right thank you bob brother um uh okay um to uh just rosser is there objection to just for additional staff uh seeing none then that's the direction uh jessica anything else no i appreciate the time council um the time is now at 8 43 council will stand in recess uh until 8 50. do [Music] do do [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the only timeliness around this is that there is currently legislation that has been introduced that would significantly leverage the funding at anywhere from 75 to 50 percent of the project cost and so that legislation is moving through right now it's intended that the department of local affairs will be doing some rule making over the summer and there would be competitive grant processes that would begin probably no earlier than august so if we want to take advantage of the state leveraged funding it would be something that we need to talk about before that we by no means need to have this conversation tonight we could push it to another study session but i would if we want to take advantage of that state leverage funding we would need to have this conversation um probably in the next several weeks okay uh is there um any objection to the next study session thank you i'd rather just have the discussion tonight so that we can actually have all of our ducks in a row as opposed to racing to catch up at the last minute i think we just did a whole lot of that with our previous discussion um so if staff is ready to present i'm ready to keep going is there um mayor we don't need to make decisions tonight this is really informational so mayor pro tem i don't know if that helps but we can just kind of quickly move through the presentation and then we can always come back again to have more of a discussion yeah that helps to not make decisions okay go ahead with a presentation okay i'm sorry it's a lot of me tonight so i apologize so the overview we have real property here tonight as well they've done a lot of work so they'll be here as well as our intergovernmental affairs hannah smith so this is just an overview of what we'll cover in the presentation we had been asked several months ago to look at what a new shelter option could look like a new navigation center whatever we want to call that and so we knew there was legislation coming so this is just kind of an overview um of that and then also there have been some questions of staff related to a parcel and on the fit simmons campus that we were you know just talking about where the day resource center is and where district one is so with that i'm gonna turn it over we can go to the next slide um and i'll turn it over to hannah smith um our intergovernmental relations manager to talk through the current bills thanks jessica um as she mentioned there are several bills working through the legislature right now that we have an eye on that could be used for potential leveraging opportunities um they're all continuing to move through and uh fsir committee has taken an active support position on all of them now um so the first is a grant program providing responses to homelessness it creates a competitive grant in the denver metro area to build or acquire a regional navigation campus that's intended to integrate emergency transitional and permanent supportive housing with behavioral health care substance use disorder treatment medical care case management and employment and skills training that is on the house floor currently another grant program through local affairs also to local governments in the denver area um to build another regional campus to respond to and prevent homelessness that bill passed the house on friday and was introduced into the senate um committee this week and finally uh senate bill 22 uh 221 is repurposing the ridgeview campus um that state-owned facility was formerly the redu youth services center and the proposal is to turn it into a supportive residential community that will provide housing continuum of behavioral health service treatment medical care vocational training and skills development it will include transitional housing substance use recovery treatment and services and a federally qualified health clinic both the services and the health clinic are intended to be used both for residents of the ridgeview campus and the general public so all those bills are continuing to move and we're keeping an eye on them as they move through and after they uh make it to the end of the session we'll definitely keep an eye on how to utilize those possibly moving forward thank you hannah we're also keeping in contact with the department of housing through the department of local affairs and um we'll be following that closely so with that i'm going to turn it over to hector reynoso from our real property group to talk more extensively about parcel and um the history and then um options for uh this city-owned property moving forward mayor sorry who's that shirinsky councilman johnson uh yes i would just like to know hannah just said that uh the city has taken an active support position on all of those bills i serve on the pfizer committee uh i did not support uh two of those bills so i just wanna know know was she able to talk to everyone because the pfizer committee has very quickly turned into only two members and if there's only two members and one agrees and one doesn't agree we can't take a support position so i would like clarification on that of course thanks councilmember here this is roberto angela go ahead this is councilmember lawson so we we had to make a decision councilmember jorensky an email went out um so we must have had two people that have voted on these bills to actively support um i know you don't support but we we had two council members that supported these bills i know that just wasn't my question because as you know the pfizer committee has pretty much but the policy is we send out an email then we'll do a formal vote on friday that's all i was asking is if the third member responded councilmember gardner did respond yep late today so we have everyone so we'll do the final this week okay sorry for not clarifying that council member um we're way out here okay please proceed hector thanks jessica hector and also here everyone i'm the manager of the real property services division in the public works department for the city of aurora and on december 18 2000 the united states of america acting by and through the secretary of the army conveyed the property located at 13887 east 19th place which is also known as parcel inn and depicted on the right side of your slide there it's enveloped in a yellow and green line the the yellow line is what i'll call the northern portion of parcel in the the middle piece there you see a blue line that's mont view road and then the green line is what is sometimes referred to as the southern portion of parcel in that property was conveyed to the city of aurora for no cost consideration as part of a public benefit conveyance application so the entirety of parcel in as depicted on your slide there it actually contains a total of approximately 10.288 acres of land so you're looking at about four and a half acres on the northern portion 1.6 vermont view road and approximately four acres on the southern portion of parcel n the entirety of that parcel is subject to a use restriction and the transfer restrictions or deed restrictions the use restriction requires that the property only be used for law enforcement purposes and that includes the northern and the southern portions rights of way are compatible with all public benefit conveyance applications or uses the transfer restriction does require that federal government through the general services administration or the gsa approve any proposed purchaser and that a proposed purchaser shall be subject to the use and transfer restriction the use restriction again is for law enforcement purposes um unless aurora aggregates uh or applies for a change in the use restriction which is known as submitting a a new public benefit conveyance application if you'll go to the next slide just go over thank you so abrogation essentially means that the city has to purchase the property and pay fair market value the the ballpark estimate for the southern half of parcel and could range anywhere between four to five million dollars it's fair market value or based on an appraisal in that case the city would continue to own parcel in um and and there would be no use or transfer restriction on the property so the city could sell the property outright we would own it outright we could sell it to any potential purchaser without them needing to be subject to a use or even a transfer restriction the other alternative for changing the use or even submitting a public benefit application public benefit conveyance application to the gsa does not cost fair market value the city will continue to own the property but subject to approval of a public benefit uh conveyance application to change that use for for another program um the transfer restriction would remain and the use restriction would just change to to a different restriction and we can do that to either the entirety of parcel in or just portion for instance the southern portion um and uh so then the transfer was restriction would also remain on the property so the gsa would need to approve any any conveyances and would need confirmation that the proposed purchaser would be subject to that other public benefit program any questions okay seeing none i'll turn it back to you jessica thanks hector so now we're just going to run through some different options um so this is sort of the what it would take to provide any type of homeless navigation center shelter day center on going long term building new on the site and then wanting to just run through some other options so emma you can go to the next slide we had a laundry list of different things to consider besides building new so we looked at warehouses hotels buying an office building these were all things that council had suggested and have been done in other communities so i'm not going to read through all these numbers this is in your backup again these are very high level estimates um i'm going to turn it back over to hector in a few minutes to show you what's actually on the market today in aurora and then we can look at what it the cost would be to build new and again hdr and atkins did that work so this is the purchase warehouse we had some minimum criteria for square footage looking to shelter at least 100 people so that's what this would look like emma you can go to the next slide we looked at the staffing breakdown again we would need to staff it 24 7 if that's the model we're going with so have some basic staffing costs similar you know to what we were seeing before in our previous conversation again this is 24 7. we were only solving for the evening you can go the next slide um looking at the purchasing conversion of an office building i know many of you have looked at the ready to work building something similar to that with some open areas on the floors as well as this would be probably in the non-congregate type of setting um in in creating some rooms and spaces probably a little bit less people would able to be sheltered in something like this scenario unless it was a very large office building next slide again staffing costs similar depends on how many people and things like that next slide uh hotel motel is something else we've talked about again a non-congregate option um and uh another option on the table um next slide please again staffing costs probably less folks in these models unless we had a very large hotel we would not be doing full renovation in this instant to add kitchens or things like that it would just be operated as a non-congregate type of shelter option um you can go to the next slide and then these are some of the costs that we had hdr and adkins that were on the call previously run in terms of creating a new shelter building new having about 300 beds which would double the size of you know what we currently have with comitis and some of our options and also adding a new day resource center you could bifurcate these two you could just do a new day center you could just do a new shelter you could scale this in any way um but building new we thought we would probably need about two acres minimum um some type of outdoor area um and things like that and so when we uh had looked at this previously in in 2017 we redid all of the numbers with hdr and atkins and came in around 76 million um and so that feels like a very large number although these house bills that we're talking about uh previously would be able to uh provide um a pretty hefty match anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of the cost in the local jurisdictions um along with the counties and the cities would have to come up with the other portion on any of these options but this one would create probably more of those shelter beds unless we found a very large warehouse to purchase so those are some of the numbers additional information and so then i'm going to turn it back over to hector to talk about just what's currently on the market in terms of we talked through the option related to parcel n for a new shelter there's four acres on that site total something new would take probably about two of those acres um the other two could be used for something else phased in and then if it wasn't going to be there then looking at some of the other pieces of property around the city that are currently available as well as some of the other office um in warehouse that would meet that criteria just to get a sense of the market and again we're you know not looking for decisions tonight but just wanted to provide you with some of this information hi everyone hector ray noso here again um so slides 14 through 20 you'll see the listings that jessica just mentioned and so initially we identified every commercial industrial and vacant lot listing in aurora and we came up with a lot of listings so then we filtered uh those listings to fit the criteria criteria that jessica just mentioned about vacant lots being larger than two acres of buildings being equal to or greater than 20 000 square feet and we tried to keep most of the listings within two miles of the fitzsimmons campus as you'll see on slide 14 the map to the right there shows 17 total listings that met our criteria for the most part and the listings are grouped into six different areas and you can see those as identified as a1 a3 a7 and so on um four listings uh r4 commercial slash industrial buildings three of those listings are located outside of aurora and you'll see on slide 15 it zooms into area a1 and that depicts the location of those three industrial warehouse listings um they did meet our criteria for size they're located outside of aurora but they are within an area that's zoned ib or general industrial zone according to that local jurisdiction um you'll see slides 16 17 and 18 and i think 19 as well those all contain slide 16 has three vacant land listings that met our criteria those those listings are actually there are some properties that are zoned residential uh i believe to the to the west of uh i'm sorry to the east of number 19 there um the other properties uh 15 and 17 there they're actually adjacent to mixed use zoning areas and so um so slide 17 18 and 19 are other vacant land listings that are all actually located within and surrounded by properties that are zoned either mixed use commercial or apc which allows for mixed uses including residential retail and commercial and if you look at slide 20 that is the fourth um office slash warehouse listing that was the only one in aurora that met our criteria um it does fall outside of the two-mile boundary um but again it did it was available in aurora and i think it's 33 vacant already so we included that outlier just uh so we can show building an aurora any questions hector yes can i go ahead um is that did you include on this or maybe you will the isn't there property by aurora mental health at where they're building the new campus that is available for homeless shelter is that aurora so is that the building are you talking about the the new uh safety net campus that aurora mental health's working on on potomac yes okay that's seven acres in from my understanding of what aurora mental health has submitted to planning they're utilizing that full acreage i thought i thought they had one building for homeless for permanent supportive housing so okay um yeah that would be um operated by the housing authority so not sheltering um but uh for permanent support of housing so more apartments okay thank you this is my call that you know just let me just say that i talked to don element chancellor leader bishop of colorado um and she's medical campus and i see you as we make a commitment to have medical staff wherever we are as they do right now i think i'm getting resources further discussion jessica please proceed so mayor that's all we had for tonight and unless council wants to you know provide any feedback about these options related to creating a new shelter you know this is something we've set aside some arpa funds in january for both arapaho and adams county have also programmed in five million dollars for a new uh shelter at this point and then we're you know tracking the the state legislation and then subsequent grant programs and so um we can uh come back in another time to continue the discussion um but i think you know some of the decision points at some point will be if we want to apply for the grant funding if we want to build new if we want to repurpose an existing facility and then any geographic considerations related to where that would go the governance of the um if we do uh so it's state arbor dollars but basically it would be it would be as a grant and so we would be responsible for the ongoing operational costs correct that's just for the capital that's correct um the state does have some separate programs that would cover that and you know much like today we cover a portion of the cost of comitis in the day resource center currently and so we would transition those existing funds into the new facility but would not be proposing to you know fund it on an ongoing basis so that would be other funds coming in from state funds medicaid other state funds review academy does the state expect some participation from the city of aurora nope not in the ongoing operational costs we had agreed to the uh you know portion of arpa funds uh for the capital in rehab of that property but no that is not the expectation from the conversations i've had with the state and how much do they expect from us i think we did a million for ridgeview if i remember in our funds i have to get back to you specifically it was one point five or one every time and then customer on my phone oh thank you um so the the one that's 76 million is six million in operation operational cost per year for only 300 people correct yeah and mayor pro tem i wouldn't get too stuck on the numbers just because we would really have to look at what exactly we're building what's functioning within the facility and then what current money is already existing and then what extra money would need to be you know acquired and again we wouldn't be looking for the city to you know fund that on an ongoing basis we would be looking for um you know the service provider right now we have mile high providing those services and so we would also be looking for the service provider to be able to scale up to serve um the larger facility as well and so it would not be six million um a year operations on the city is what you're saying earlier on the warehouse properties was one of the properties the um the warehouse that we used last last winter is that one available no not that i know of at this point hector speak up but i don't think that one was on the list i think it's fully leased at this point and wouldn't meet the the size requirements um for what we're looking for is it housed what 150 100 100 okay thank you mayor um so i want to circle back to the navigation centers that were mentioned earlier that i guess the state um is going to be providing some funding for are those similar in terms of scope to what we uh discussed on our call with houston jessica yes so the state's calling them navigation centers we're seeing you know 24 7 sheltered slash day center so um yes it could function as what uh houston described as a very much a transitional um uh housing piece for someone for you know up to a month before they're placed in uh permanent housing it could have a floor that functioned as that it could have a floor that's straight sheltering so lots of options here yeah that's very exciting and then um on that note uh where are you and city management at in terms of fact finding mission related to houston yes ma'am okay i just heard back from mark who we met with a couple of weeks ago today actually um and so um hannah smith who was on earlier is going to help with organizing next steps um and the first i think being having a presentation for council and so it took a couple of weeks to get mark to respond but he did just respond today okay great yeah i think that presentation that we had in our call would be really beneficial for everybody to see so and uh how many people have gone to color springs to see their campus um i think we're going soon mayor um mayor's staff and i believe if two council members are going this wednesday this wednesday okay very well you know and one thing i think it might be better for us to have that discussion in terms of what we expect in terms of programs policies um i mean my guess is i've had visited the college school campus today i talked to the individual that originated the campus in terms of what he would do differently and what works what doesn't work what his philosophy is and i think that there really is a value for building a facility by campus from the ground up as opposed to trying to take an existing facility because i think that the day research center that we're going to use now as a shelter is going to be temporary and so it's going to have to have emergency shelter and you know different phases um and so i think it's better on the sake of here and one thing another thing we said was we said have all the agencies all the partners on the campus um so that people don't have to be transported particularly from mental health and so um i think there's real value in that and i look forward to having council members see that um are you are you talking about a brand new um emerge or a brand new shelter versus the ridge view or the aurora mental health well i think originally separate i'm surprised we're a party to that in terms of helping fund it really a state facility um so this is different i mean i just think 76 million dollars for 300 homeless people is not a good return on investment so if you're and i get you're leveraging federal and state dollars it's still taxpayer dollars so if are you talking about leveraging it on the aurora mental health campus or on the ridgeview campus no you know i think we should and i don't agree with the two-mile uh distance from um andrew's medical campus that that's a requirement um but i do think um uh are you scheduled to go to the um caller yeah i'm going to go ahead and start really eye-opening for you they build them from the ground up as the campus um council one more time i like this but the one part they told me absolutely don't do is the permanent supportive housing piece so we'll have that debate yeah we'll have that debate okay um okay further discussions okay thank you thanks everybody appreciate it um number three c colfax bus rapid transit project update station enhancement and cost estimate for aurora station good evening mayor and members of the council i'm going to be presenting this item along with julian liu and our transportation planning department i've got the screen share so let me just work on that really quick all right hopefully everybody can see my screen now so for this item uh this is the colfax bus rapid transit or brt project update um so uh we'll be giving a general update on the overall project and some of the project history since there's a pretty long history on this as well as our staff recommendations for enhancements as well as funding needs within the aurora section of the project and again i'm carly campasano i'm the traffic manager within our public works department at the city um so just to start off i wanted to give an overview of bus rapid transit and really what that is and what that means so bus rapid transit is a very high quality and reliable bus based transit system that delivers fast and efficient service and the service it provides is well beyond that of a typical bus route which is uh the typical bus route out there right now is the 15 and 15l route so the the brt is really meant to emulate fixed rail transit or light rail but at a fraction of the cost so in order to do that and to provide that high quality service there are certain brt strategies that are implemented to achieve this while still using bus types of facilities and bus types of services so there's a lot of different strategies i'm going to just touch on a few of the main strategies as defined by the fta or the federal transit administration so the first and one of the main requirements is that at least half of the route has its own fixed guideway so that means that the bus operates in a transit only lane for at least half but not necessarily all of the route and this really allows the bus to travel unimpeded by traffic and enhances the reliability um the reliability in the speed factor and then the next item is defined stations so at a brt station you'll feel a lot more like you're at a standard light rail station and it'll have a lot of the similar amenities to that fixed rail service while still operating within a bus so it'll have stations with that are accessible to people with disabilities it offers shelter from weather and provides information on schedules and routes and then brt brts are also required to have a branding element so the brt route will be branded and it'll be obvious that you're on a special you know brt route and that it's not a standard bus service this is something different so those are sort of the baseline requirements just to meet the fta's definition of what a brt route is um so next i'm going to go over really what this project is and this is the east colfax avenue bus rapid transit project so this project is a lot of years in the making it's been underway for more than 10 years and it's really a regional project with a lot of different regional partners so it is involving multiple agencies such as city and county of denver rtd cdot as well as aurora all partnering on this important regional project and the goal of this project is really to improve the person throughput throughout the entire corridor really to serve the region so this map shows the overall an overall snapshot really of the corridor and what the limits of this project are and it operates in three distinct segments so the first segment that you see in yellow is really the downtown denver area and that connects denver union station over to civic center broadway so that is about a little less than one and a half miles total length and throughout that segment the the bus will operate uh in on on the shoulder either in mixed flow in some of the segments or in bus only lanes that are already there in the denver section uh so then in the blue section um you see what is really the main area and throughout the denver section of the corridor this is about five and a half miles and through this area is where that fixed route will be so in this area the brt service will run in the center of the roadway and the buses will have their own lanes and then the stations uh for the this denver blue section will actually be in the middle of the roadway um so that's five and a half miles which is over half of the entire corridor length of about 9.9 miles so then when you reach the aurora section at yosemite uh the bus will come over to the shoulder and it will be side running mixed flow sort of similar to how the 15 and 15ls currently operate um so in the aurora section that is how it will it'll operate and it'll go all the way over to connecting to the ending at the r line station and connecting over to anschutz medical campus and that area so it really connects the whole downtown denver denver union station over to aurora by i225 or the project limits um let me see so next i'm just going to touch briefly on the route patterns so this will run with three different route patterns and all in all the service throughout most of the aurora section or i guess all of the aurora section on this map shows that the bus will run with about a little over four minute headways so about four minutes a little over four minutes between buses so a much faster service than what is currently out there so more information just on the overall project background and kind of why this project came to be and why this location so the east colfax corridor is really as i'm sure you all know america's longest main street it experiences very heavy transit usage today currently with the existing bus lines out there and it actually has the highest average weekday boardings in the entire rtd service area and throughout the pandemic when bus service and bus ridership actually dropped 20 for a lot of lines it was sustained through the colfax corridor so demand was still heavy during that time period and so the reason this project came to be is really um you know regional travel demand models show that in general uh the the travel demand on colfax avenue is expected to increase about 25 over the next 20 years and as as you all know this section of colfax is really built out i mean the roadway's already there the curb lines are set there's businesses homes employers already on the sides of the road we really cannot widen lane capacity for single occupancy vehicles in order to build our way out of this and so in order to meet that increased demand throughout the region and through on along colfax we really need to find a way to increase the person throughput and so there was really an extensive analysis that i've looked at different types of services and what would be the best to implement which is where this project came from and we'll touch more on that in a couple later slides but um the brt project is expected to increase uh transit ridership by 40 percent by 2040. so it's a really great way to use the right-of-way we already have available to to be able to push and serve more people throughout the corridor without widening and expanding the travel lanes and so one main goal of the project is to provide that higher capacity service to really support the ridership in the future and then to improve overall safety for pedestrians cyclists motorists transit vehicles really every mode to improve safety is a big goal to support the current and future investment along the corridor we have a lot of business owners residents the anschutz campus we've been talking about um that are all served by this corridor and would greatly benefit from this um so that's a main goal and then affording providing an affordable transit option a lot of people in this corridor don't necessarily have an option for a single-use vehicle don't may not have one and so this is an option for those folks that are probably already taking the 15 and 15l in a lot of cases and so the table on this slide shows the 2019 ridership data for the aurora stations and it's just color coded to represent the level of demand so this you can see that havana is ours is our stop that experiences the highest ridership and then moline peoria colfax station dayton as well as yosemite all experience very high ridership as well and now huliong liu our transportation planner is going to go over the next couple of slides on the project background he's been extensively involved in the project uh development over the last 10 years since he's been at the city so i'll turn it over to him for these really either okay thank you um yeah american council uh as currently mentioned that this project started 10 years ago 2012 and and at that time it was running as a study it's called the colfax quarter connections and the aurora is a partner on that project also c dot and rtd are also involved obviously and it was a project funded by uh fta federal transit administration with two million dollar grant and denver uh matched with one million dollar grant and so the project went through the it's kind of extensive analysis of the different modes including light rail streetcar bus rapid transit and enhanced box and look at different alignments on 20s mount view 17 18 colfax and 13s on the 14th and by 2014 a a preferred alternative was identified as a site running during the peak period bus only land for the entire quarter and the uh staff presented the information to council uh transportation committee and the council and uh we decided that uh we would like to see mixed flow traffic no landing in the aurora segment so a staff further worked with denver project team uh and we present more information to council transportation committee and uh by 2016 a local preferred alternative was identified as they're all site running so bus running on the kerb land uh in the bus only land in denver segment during the peak period and in aurora it will be mixed flow traffic but with all the station stock enhancements for for the entire segment uh in 2017 the center running uh brt as kardi mentioned those stops in the lands will be in the middle of the street it was introduced in 2017 and then in 2018 and 19 additional analysis in planning and the public outreach was conducted by denver project team and uh in the last two years denver had conducted additional environmental analysis and additional community outreach with the goal of to apply for the federal transit administration's small start uh construction dollar and with the denver's uh funding for uh for construction for design so uh so right now they are in the process of uh uh uh applying for the uh submitting the uh fta small start grant uh it's the initial rating process in including the environmental and design uh initial design and then the next uh uh year and a half they're gonna conduct additional more detailed design work then they're going to apply for the uh ft construction dollar uh uh two years later so carly is going to go through that additional uh more detailed time frame milestone timeframe later on uh next slide please currently so in terms of the community outreach uh they have uh uh conduct a number of uh public meetings and also they have a community task force that includes some of the rural representatives of influence of our neighborhood organizations and the council uh chamber of commerce reps and most recently uh they have back at uh four community meetings uh uh since 2021 and with two more planned and we city staff has worked with our specific with our neighborhood support group and we identified all the potential stakeholders which might be impact or might be interested in participating in this process we provide those contact information to the denver project team they have they have notified all of them in regarding their upcoming meetings and the meetings uh held before so for them to be able to listen to what's going on and provide their input on that and as as i mentioned earlier uh so right now they're going through the campers going through the preliminary engineering and the environmental clearance right now cardi thank you so now so that was all a background of the project and so now we're going to go over what is planned within the denver section and after that we'll go over what we um what our staff recommendation is for the aurora section and then approximate costs for that so as far as the denver section as we've said since this will be center running throughout most of the denver section for the five and a half miles denver will be constructing brand new platforms with a lot of different amenities in the center of the roadway so these will all incorporate things such as canopies and windscreens and that weather protection we talked about level boarding so that people with physical disabilities can easily get on the brt line ticket vending machines that people can purchase tickets right there on site but that they don't have to utilize a smartphone buy them offsite or slow down the bus by buying them when they board variable message signs that the passengers get that real-time arrival information and know if there's any delays or when the next facility when the next bus will be coming the project identity signage and branding and then other items such as station lighting security systems and cameras audio visual and then emergency phones as well so all of these elements will be included within the denver section um and so as part of the extensive outreach project process that denver has done and we have been involved in as well there were four different main station concept designs developed and those were brought to the community for feedback and so based on that feedback this is the denver station concept design that's being carried forward and this is a initial design so this will be refined as the design moves on but in general this is what the stations will look like within denver um so then we want to talk about the aurora section and what the proposed plan is for what the stations will look like and then what elements we think should be added with those so to meet the fda's minimum definition and requirements for brt in order to be competitive for this upcoming grant opportunity at a minimum the aurora stops will need shelters such as these that were recently installed with the 15l project so this is a photo of the havana station so you can see some of the weather protection the benches the trash cans and so in order to to be considered brt at a minimum we'll need this type of shelter and then we'll also need to add some lit schedule displays and maps as well as branding elements um and so some of these already exist at stations within aurora bus stops within aurora and where they do not exist what we would need to do is either purchase new ones or relocate the 15l stations that are stops that were installed within denver into aurora when they replaced theirs and add them to the center so that is really what is required for the aurora's segments uh at a minimum i'm just and here's a couple more pictures if you've driven colfax recently you've probably seen these out there so these are what the stations look like at moline and dayton and then so next we want to go over enhancements to the aurora section and what we as staff have looked at and reviewed with denver and think should be included beyond the minimum requirements um and there's a really important opportunity right now with the fta small starts grant that denver and rtd have been pursuing and so the opportunity right now is that we can partner with them to really leverage these grant funds and get the brt built um and so this this grant could include additional station improvements within aurora but in order to do that and to really participate in this project a financial partnership is requested in aurora to inc to really fund the improvements within aurora so denver what they've done to get some of their match money for this project is they have a bond initiative um and so they were able to get some funds from a bond for the improvements within denver but denver cannot spend denver money outside of their own city limits so aurora is asked to being to participate for improvements within aurora so this does a few things it demonstrates investment in the corridor and benefits across our jurisdictions it improves grant competitiveness and it really will help support that fta application process that's going on right now and will be proceeding in the fall and so staff has worked closely with denver um city of aurora staff has worked closely with denver to develop recommendations for the city of aurora stations that we want to go over next and so so our recommendation is to include at a baseline all of those minimum elements we talked about and then to include some additional features as well that we think will really benefit the area and will help improve ridership and just overall improve the brt the brt line so first so at in the aurora stations at a minimum we'll need those 15l shelters that you saw some pictures of in addition we think it would be important to include one enhanced station or what we're calling a signature station that looks similar to denver's and so we've really taken a close look throughout the corridor and think that this should be included at the havana location the havana location has the highest ridership it has a lot of transfers onto the bus service on havana um and so just as far as economic development and ridership um we think the overall community would really benefit from having it there and then the physical constraints there appears to be enough right-of-way to be able to put it there so that's one of our staff recommendations and we really think that that'll help just show continuity of the service through aurora so that you don't cross the you know denver boundary into aurora and have everything look different so that's one element that we think should be included in addition we think ticket vending machines should be included at all aurora stations just to give that ease of use for our passengers to be able to purchase fare and be able to utilize the service and then variable message signs a really important element that we think is included at a lot of different high-capacity transit lines is really having a variable message sign that is dynamic and updates with real-time bus arrival information and this is really important for all users to show them when the bus will be there and to give them that security to know that it'll it'll show up especially if they're on their way to work or something like that so that's one thing that we think is really important and then throughout the community engagement process as well as from business owners what we've heard is that a concern and an area of importance that was expressed is really around security security and lighting so what we think is that emergency phones security cameras and lighting should also be included at all aurora stations and then another important feature is level boarding in order for people with any physical disability to be able to board right now what the bus has to do to accommodate accommodate that is it has to kneel down and this can create a gap from the bus to the curb which can make it a little bit harder to use and it also can delay the bus so we think level boarding is important at some of our higher volume stations where we know from rtd data that people with disabilities are frequently boarding and also we've reviewed the sites and done an initial review along with denver staff and think that some locations are would be feasible um it will be a little bit harder to fit these in in the aurora section rather than the denver section because the aurora and the aurora section the brt will be side running so that means it will have to tie into existing grades which a lot of times could be up against buildings or right-of-way um so we think level boarding is feasible at various locations and that is at moline in the westbound direction um at peoria and then at the r line location by colfax station i mean that's in addition to havana so that was our so these are this is a summary of our recommendations um and so with these recommendations come the cost information so we've prepared some cost data and have worked with denver staff who provided a lot of these unit costs and kind of gave us a menu of options to consider so once you add up really the baseline condition of relocating and purchasing some of those new 15l type of shelters and adding the branding and map elements along with our recommendations from the previous slide which includes the one the one or i guess two signature stations at havana since there will be one on each side that brings the total cost of improvements uh within the aurora section to be a little over 23 million dollars and that looks like a large number but our ask right now is really for the design the design portion of that which is 10 so what we're asking is for 2.3 million dollars in 2022 to fund the design um and then that'll leave the construction costs but the with this grant opportunity the grant could potentially pay for half of it if the grant is successful so then um we would need an additional about 10.7 million to cover the construction costs um over the next few years but that's it doesn't all need to be in one year and we can really negotiate the terms of that at a later date with denver if councils supportive of this plan and so these are all planning level costs denver's currently working on preliminary engineering so that's where these costs are from so we did add in a pretty significant contingency and inflation numbers since we've seen a lot of increase in prices lately for construction so we want to make sure that these are all the costs for the items we've shown are covered and we've worked with denver pretty closely to vet these numbers so these will be adjusted as we work through final design um and so as far as the overall project timeline as julian mentioned right now denver is you know in partnership with us is going through the preliminary engineering and environmental review stage of the project next they're gearing up for the small starts rating application over the next few months and that's really why we need this feedback now and why we're bringing this this to you to now after that will be final design in 2023 and 2024 and then if assuming the small starts application is successful we'll have the bidding and construction phase which is about two years and then an end goal is that the brt service would be up and running and functional in 2028 so that's the overall timeline and so as part of this we have a few questions for council so the feedback we're looking for is first does council agree with the current proposed brt station enhancement and operations plan that we've presented does council support financial participation for station enhancements in aurora which is about 2.33 million in 2022 for design which will be formalized in an iga later on assuming council is supportive of that and then about 10.7 million in the 2023 to 2026 time frame um to fund the construction portion of it assuming the grant is successful and so we'd like feedback on these items and then if if council is supportive of this we could bring this to the next full council meeting and that concludes our presentation let's start with the question and that is what is rtds and the financial role of all this that's a good question and rtd has been very closely involved in the small starts application along with with denver and my understanding is that a lot of the support rtd is going to be provide is really going to be on the operational side because once this project is constructed they're going to be running it staffing it you know potentially they would they might be responsible for maintenance elements a lot of that still needs to be worked out later but i don't believe they're contributing a dollar amount match for this grant but laura perry is our deputy city manager on the line she might have more information on that side of it as well good evening laura perry deputy city manager um carly's absolutely correct so rtd will be responsible for the operations of the 15l and the bus rapid transit line but it is also my understanding that rtd will be pursuing federal funding for the replacement of the buses and equipment themselves as well so that they are partnering on a capital equipment contribution to support the full project and also rtd is serving actually the recipient for the fta grant so they're kind of a pass-through agency for this process quickly the improvements in terms of uh the bus stops i mean isn't that historically been their responsibility in in general yes i would say that it historically has been their responsibility but i think that the city has partnered on some of those elements in the past as well um but yeah and i don't know if young if you have more information because i think rtd did the 15l project recently and included a lot of those shelters so yeah that's correct the 15 air shelters we saw those are existing today uh those were constructions last about two years uh there was a i think it's a 12 million 10 million 12 million grand uh uh was funded with rtd i think dr clark and cdot grant and so they made a bunch of improvements for this so throughout the metro area some of the stop blocking the city many of the stock enhancements are made by rtd based on the ridership and also many stops like shelters or benches also were constructed through the our city's franchise agreement with the advertising company so it's kind of a combination of rtd and the local improvements there's little difference once the bus hits a law um then their little distance little difference in terms of movement like correct because we're not dedicating lanes like denver is correct we're not dedicating lanes like denver is so it'll still be side running within the aurora section which is how the 15 and 15l operate today further questions yes mayor joe yeah a couple questions so you said it will not eliminate lanes what about on street parking for the businesses it will not eliminate parking either where is it going um there isn't it only colfax has what it's mixed flow so currently the buses uh ride within the travel lane with vehicles and then they pull over when they reach the bus stop so it'll operate um similar to that but with much increased frequency with about four minute headways and then there could be other technology improvements that we may include that'll be discussed later on with denver um you know things that we're doing uh similar to what we're doing on havana with giving the bus maybe a priority green or something like that but in general it'll look like what it does today as far as the traffic flow okay and then how many miles is it from yosemite to the r line or to an shoot that is about uh three let me look up um it's about three miles we're on the the kind of mile grid uh yeah three miles yeah so i guess my my concern is it's only three miles but we're going to spend 10 million dollars 11 million probably go up after with inflation but um it just seems like it's not i i think the idea is great but i just i'm like that's not a whole lot of return on investment for three miles and isn't so currently the bus runs that route it's just not enhanced and i know the ridership is really good but i i i i'm not quite understanding the value so so yeah so currently the bus runs that route but it's not enhanced and really um the denver regional council of governments is our metropolitan planning organization they they look at a regional model and they have household and employment data and they really project out into the future and say you know maybe this meets our travel needs now but what will we need what will we need in the future and so throughout this section travel on colfax and the demand on colfax is expected to increase and it'll increase so much that the existing bus will operate way slower and it'll be a lot less desirable to use and it's likely that people will not choose to use that and they'll use a single occupancy vehicle instead and that'll just really clog up cool facts is what they want maybe i'm not understanding so this is not a new type of bus it's just enhancements right no it's it's new it's a new type of bus so it's it's called a bus rapid transit it's called bus rapid transit so there will be new buses um it'll be there'll be a lot of improvements beyond what the additional like the current service is and really data from other areas has shown that these improvements would increase the capacity of the line would make it more desirable to use and the data shows that really with this enhanced line enhanced transit line which is called bus rapid transit or brt um it could make it so that the transit use would likely increase 40 percent over the next 20 years 20 years with the issues that rtd has had on staffing so if we make this 10 million 11 million 12 million dollar investment are we guaranteed that they will have enough staff to run the buses that's a great question and i know they've had some staffing concerns but i would say that this is a very high priority project for them and if they were to cut staffing i i would be shocked if it was on this area but also it's going to be operational in 2028 so i mean it's really hard to know what the climate will be like there then with the economy and this is just for that segment then it's not because i saw savannah on the list yes so it's huge ridership yes so it is just for the colfax the colfax stations along the aurora segment so only at aurora stations there are about 11 stops total within aurora so both sides of the road about 22 22 stations will have enhancements throughout the aurora section um so yes it's really just to cover the cost of enhancements within aurora and then one of the there's three different route operations uh plans prepared and one of them will have the potential to expand all the way to piccadilly in the future to really support that growth and development within aurora there's already development going on over there and increased demand for transit in general so i know a lot of yeah if we um so if we approve the 2.3 million for design or is that what it is yeah 2.3 um what if we don't get the grant if we don't get the grant we would still we would still have spent that 2.3 million for design we could still use the design potentially for future projects or for improvements potentially because our since our area is side running and it's not center running we really don't need the full brt project to be able to implement improvements or to for rtd to utilize parts of that design but we would then not owe the money for construction so we would write these terms into our iga that we make with um with denver and rtd so that if the grant is not successful we would then not owe construction dollars of that edition yeah so we would still have spent the design dollars so you're correct okay yeah so i again for three miles we spend 2.3 on design and we don't know if we're going to get it so is there any way to write it so or to know if we get the you have to design it first or you before you can get the grant yeah it's really we really have to be designing it and getting the clearances while we're going through the grant development phase because we're really denver and rtd are working to get into the get into the grant process and they're going to need to get into the grant process in the fall but they're not going to we're not going to know the final word on the grant for i think two more years and who young might have more information yeah i think the the the purpose of having the final design is so you have a better understanding of the cost the fta grant is for construction dollars so you must with locals need to spend the dollars to design the stops and design the lines for denver then they they know exactly how much it's going to be cost and they go to fta ft wants to make sure if i give you the money you can do it so you have to show me with the design you cost estimates so you're sure this is what you're going to get a couple other things in terms of the operations uh the core segment for aurora is this three miles but the really this this segment is serving aurora in one line today actually the 3 15 it has been extended to pick daily they're serving the amazon facility today so so that line is going to stay that's going to be on a 15 minute frequency so that's good frequency then another line between dus to metro center so going through this core and that's another 15 minute frequency service then we have this 10 minute frequency service between i225 and dus so on the average basis the core area between i-25 i-225 and the us is going to be around 4.3 minute frequency so really some of the recommended improvements such as level boarding real-time information uh ticket vending machines those are really enhancements for our stops because they you know we have a lot of water as cardi mentioned we have about over 20 thousand daily waters and this is the line together with havana has been raised being stayed in full service the independent and it's not the first tier of the service this one has 693 right writers 690 successful that's just for the aurora segment for the entire quarter of the 2015 l that's a lot more but we want to just show you what's going on in aurora you know another thing is that really you look at the demographics profiles uh a lot of the uh people within this corridor are just the corporate pr team aurora and they uh i take a quick look based on our data 17 of those households they do not have a car 31 is six percent so we're almost triple that in terms of the car ownership less cars no i yeah i get all that and i think it's a great idea do so do they guarantee they're gonna guarantee service every four minutes or whatever you said 15 minutes yes that's basically uh for the core between i225 and dus with those three run patterns those has been invested through the rtd process so rtd this is most important loss really for rtd in rtd system so with 15 that means sorry 15 minute frequency from the us to metro center 15 minute frequency between us and typically 10 minutes in the court on average basis you're gonna see a bus every four or five minutes uh another thing just look at this in terms of the real-time arrival departing information why it's so important even with 4.3 minutes frequency in the core area you don't really have to worry about the schedule because at basketball when you get there no i think no i think that's all great my concern is is whether they come through on their end like i think the investment is good it's just i hope that they actually do come through with the bus service so thank you yeah i think with rtd as serving as recipient of the federal grant once the grant is is because the operations plan will be part of that application i think that's the case so they need to follow the fta guidelines and they're they can fulfill their commitment for the operations right thank you can you um willie can you summarize for me the difference between brt and enhanced bus service yes oh go ahead julian go ahead yeah really uh when we see kovacs brt as cardi mentioned uh this is this entire roughly 10 mile uh segment between i225 and dus but [Music] because it do not have to have a hundred percent bus only land for this entire segment so in aurora segment we can still we still call it brt but the assumption is the enhanced box in terms of because we do not have definitely land in the aura segment but we will have all that we would like to have all the stop enhancement uh all the amenities such as boarding tech vending machine all those things so it's not the main difference is that personally language without possibly land so speed or frequency of buses would not be a factor in enhanced um buses in line the difference so the in terms of uh speed or frequency there's no difference between a regular bus service and an enhanced bus service is it not uh that's correct in terms of the frequency it's it's the same frequency uh in terms of the in the damper segment or the inverse segment i get the dimmer segment part okay okay and uh speed obviously uh them for segments there they're unboxingly land so they can go faster but uh as cardi mentioned we're gonna try the signal uh priority for the bosses so really the intersections where the bottom lag is if we're able to get the bus goes to the intersection faster we might be achieved people to achieve the similar speed as always in denver that's not part of this particular plan correct uh that is something we're going to need to work on that's not included in this but as cardi mentioned we're working on havana the bus transit priority project we went the lessons learned there we can certainly apply to this quarter okay further questions uh mayor sundberg uh councilman sunburn in consideration of one of uh merit protests and the fact that this has been conceptualized for maybe 10 years or more is there talk of autonomous vehicles being used and an implementation or tweaking of infrastructure for that i think uh the technology is really not there yet as far as that goes in this type of application so i don't i haven't heard talks of that yet for this um but that could be a future consideration especially in the denver section where the bus has its own lane there's probably less risk there as far as passenger cars getting in but that hasn't specifically been talked about as part of this project okay thank you further questions mayor oh gosh memorial yeah no questions i just i just wanted to express my excitement and support for the brt i mean along the colfax corridor being able to get from um east to west colfax connecting the different economic um engines of the ancients medical campus to folks downtown um and i think the the benefit that would bring to the businesses along colfax being able to benefit from some more foot traffic um along the corridor i think is going to be really uh beneficial so i i i'm just super excited for like the long term vision and benefit that it would bring for the district um you know i guess all of that like vision aside from a data perspective um and from the most recent you know available study that we have on the different districts ward one relies the most on public transit as a means to commute to work more than any other district and so i think this also on top of it just being um you know more accessible for perhaps tourism um and and folks visiting our different like aurora based businesses i think it gives people more mobility and more choice in in the potential employers that they're seeking out if if they're relying on uh public transit as a means to kind of secure that employment so i think you know for the tourism opportunity and the connectivity between different economic engines as well as the economic opportunity and choice that we'd be giving residents i think this is an excellent project to invest in i'm really excited to hopefully see this move forward is there any opposition to moving forward the 2.33 million dollars for the design work i see none then that will move forward thank you very much thank you thank you um item number three uh d an ordinance uh to amend city code relating to girp and retirement plans thank you good evening mayor and council i am nancy wishmeyer the city controller and this item summarizes amendments to sections of city code related to the money purchase plan for executive personnel also known as the executive retirement plan or erp and also changes to the general employees retirement plan or gert so these code changes what they do is eliminate the option that currently exists for employees to move between pension plans so for example a current city employee who is a career service employee they're in gerp they're being promoted to an executive position like a department director right now they have the choice to either stay in gurp or transfer to erp but with these code changes they won't have that choice anymore that employee who's being promoted has to stay in gerb and this is needed it's a technical fix to our code that we need to do to avoid risks of irs taxation that would happen when an employee transfers between pension plans that have differing contribution rates because the irs only allows plan transfers where contribution rates are the same and just a reminder the employer rate for group is seven percent while the employer rate for ferb is 10 and although this risk of irx irs taxation it's been around for a while but it was just recently coming to the forefront because staff had to determine which pension plan a new employee was going to be entered into so this is prospective only we're not going to go back and adjust anyone who transferred from gert to earp in prior years and employees who are currently in earth they're going to stay in earth until their employment ends and likewise if an employee is currently in gurp they're going to stay in verb until their employment ends but if a new hire comes from the outside and they're eligible to go into earp they have to go into earth they won't have a choice to go into gerb and again this code change is necessary to be in compliance with the irs and the gerb board did approve their support for this code change at a previous gert board meeting staff did consider some other options one of the options was to increase the gert employer contribution percentage rate to 10 percent so that it would be the same as earth but staff didn't think that that would be financially feasible to do and then there was some discussion at management and finance committee meeting and so as a result of that staff is looking at some longer term alternatives to how gerp is designed and we'll come back to council later in the year with those options but the immediate need right now is to get code changed so that it is in alignment with irs mayor uh councilman mario yeah so i thank you nancy for um adding the discussion from management finance committee um when we first talked about this i had a lot of heartburn uh with uh i guess taking away the choice for people to determine their kind of retirement options after much um discussion uh you know i think two twofold one is that this this change needs to happen so that we're not violating irs rules i think above all we want to make sure that we're not in you know um i guess violating any you know mandates that we have from the irs so it was the consensus of the committee to move this forward kind of in the short term so that we don't fall out of compliance with irs rules so you know i think that for us was like the primary concern um and then the other thing was around um kind of how do we resolve the issue around around choice and you know for folks who have been on council and for folks who weren't um we recently supported the um police pension and a transition to um have you know that to to a choice right between a defined benefit and a defined contribution plan uh prior to that change there wasn't um that option and so we were thinking that we know that this there is a structure uh outlined within the city that is um already been developed uh through that prior process it does take a while but we were using we were going to use that as a model to come back to council to have a more robust conversation around whether or not they support you know a shift in just how the plan is structured to give people um folks an option between a defined benefit and divine contribution plan um you know i would encourage folks to uh when they have a chance to go through the the meeting minutes but you know there was different scenarios kind of outlined um one retirement plan might be beneficial for you know one reason over another personally i probably would choose a defined um benefit plan but you know when we it was a really good point made by staff that when there are more like managerial or executive level positions when when folks want to uh you know be promoted there's only so many city manager positions and likely folks might need to move to different cities and not might need a more mobile plan um as opposed to somebody who might want to stay and you know is from a career standpoint wanting to stay within the city so i just wanted to offer a little bit of insight to the discussion because we we we did talk about this at length and those were some of the things that we brought up and um yeah i would just say i wanted to i think the consensus was we wanted to be in compliance with the irs and then long term figure out a way to potentially offer that choice of retirement plan to our employees so that's all i wanted to add further discussion questions i see none is there any opposition to um a staff's request on item number 3d will move forward item number 3e um you know what uh time is uh um 10 12. uh we'll take a break until 10 17 uh council can recess do [Music] so back in session um item number 3b uh 2022 state and federal priorities follow-up uh council member lawson thank you mayor um a couple weeks ago um you were we brought forth the council state and federal priorities and there were at least three priorities that council members had questions on in your backup um there was um in the memo um we i guess you got answers to a lot of your questions that you had about the priorities that we were talking about one was on the state climate change police reform and federal programs and grants for housing assistance um mayor i would like to maybe take both each one of these one of the time to see if they will be approved to go on to our federal and state priorities and i'm going to have hannah smith our new intergovernmental relations manager on roberto and any staff that assisted us with answering the questions from council um so please proceed well please proceed okay well let's discuss i mean i don't i'm trying to look for hannah and um roberto can you appear on the screen thank you councilmember lawson you explained what we wanted to do so we asked questions based on the feedback at the april 18 study session so we're simply looking for a majority to move them forward or a majority to remove them from the overall priorities the other remaining priorities move forward per the direction of the council at the last study session so it's just these three items and the memo pertains to all the questions that were asked uh from council members of annika in particular and councilmember mercano so we're simply mayor looking for uh going one by one for the three of them climate change police reform and the housing assistance item and if there's any additional questions um regarding these three priorities well very well uh uh discussion uh mayor uh councilman o'connell yes thank you sir i just wanted to say that i was uh thank you for the clarification for the work y'all did and putting together the memo um i'm very excited to see that uh the intent was in fact to adopt the gbc so i'm very excited about that and yeah i'm supportive further discussion is there any objection so i i think we're on the first one is there any objection to moving climate change forward mayor procedurally if we if if council wants to move all three forward we can do that i thought there may be additional questions so i was thinking we should go one by one you want to go one by one if we could that would be great okay first one is climate change uh discussion on climate change premier uh council members environment i assume that this is just when you say climate change you're talking specifically about the uh our support of expanding the renewable energy standard is that correct that's part of the priority council part of the argument yes yeah so um then i'll be a no on on this one further discussion mayor i'm also a no jerinsky further discussion also no from sunburn uh further further opposition further opposition mayor airport oh yeah i mean this one is gonna it hurts affordable housing doesn't it with the renewable energy standards staff can you comment on that as i understand the climate change item it was related mostly to renewable energy uh standards from excel and utilities i don't know if on the top of my head i don't know if there's a direct color correlation to affordable housing we have separate priorities on affordable housing this one's related to infrastructure tax credits renewable energy uh promotions so i the staff's intent was not to have it tied to affordable housing i don't know if there is a connection but i might think next step was it not was there not a tax credit that was being taken away this climate change item is for tax credits to provide infrastructure for electric vehicle and other fleet oh okay tax credits that was the particular item for this climate change mixed up with a different one traditional opposition i've seen none that will move forward a second merits police reform it's a federal priority is there any questions on that so mayor uh council members yeah on this one i'm i support the majority of the individual bullet points on here however one i don't and that is the um elimination or any qualified immunity um i don't think that's a smart policy and i don't think we should be supporting it but i i think it's failed here and i think it'd be failure to do it at the federal level if anything else i'd like to see the feds actually define what it is as opposed to just ending it across the board but in terms of a lot of these other bullets that are in this i'm supportive of them would you want to move them and take that out yes take that out okay very well um let me start with this is there any objection uh to taking uh the qualified immunity provision out marcano um i think police can do their jobs without violating people's constitutional rights others in opposite seeing only two in opposition um there were three mayor who was the third medina is muted i think still oh he didn't say yeah i saw him saying it's not working oh okay i can barely hear you for some reason it's not working are you cuz are you uh opposed to the ironic motion to take out qualified immunity on police reform i'm in opposition okay very well okay with only three in opposition uh that the savannah amendment will move forward um it's um is there opposition to moving forward with police reform as amended uh mr mayor pete schulte uh public safety manager city attorney's office just want to let you know that the emmett till anti-lynching act h.r 55 did pass and it's been signed by the president so i don't know if we wanted if council wanted to remove that from the property since it sort of passed we can i would suggest mayor can i make the recommendation for removing that can i make the amendment to remove that from the uh police reform very well is there opposition to uh lawson's uh um uh it's not really typically a motion i guess to remove um uh the anti-lynching provision that's already signed into law uh from uh police report no opposition see no opposition and that will uh be taken out um is there any other any further discussion on uh police performing as amended through lawson and zevonic okay so you know opposition that will move forward well in the third the third one mira is the federal programs and grants for housing uh discussion um is there opposition to moving the housing uh provision forward savannah is there further opposition uh seeing that in the housing we'll move forward uh thank you is that anything else uh councilmember lawson there's nothing else mayor thank you um 5a proposal to amend section 2-672 of the city code pertaining to uh to authority to award contracts council member jeremy yes thank you mayor so i am seeking to uh restore this ordinance to its pre-july 2020 form um and this resolution would do away with paragraph c in this ordinance um i feel that this is an extra bureaucratic step and as we saw a few weeks ago the police department had to come forward to ask us to get free tires for the mrap for the police mrap vehicle so this 1033 program um is is free items that we are able to get from the military in some circumstances we have to pay shipping um costs um but i feel like this is absolutely an extra bureaucratic step and and the police should be able to get these free items as they need them and not have to wait to get in front of us um at a city council meeting and get scheduled on our agenda uh to obtain these items and and at some times if they have to wait too long to get our approval some of these items are gone so is there any opposition to moving item number five a forward uh councilman have a question for the city attorney please uh does this apply to weaponry as well or is it just um support you know items like vehic tires and things of that nature i can answer that if you have the answer as well sure yeah so this is things like wheels and tires um it is medical supplies uh there are there are some weapon systems that we get but i can tell you the last round of the m14s that we got went to replace honor guard weapons for their performances and an m1 grand that we got also went to the honor guard so mostly things that we're getting in this program are tires wheels medical supplies and regional assets that we have to share such as uh fire command post um and in the u.s under us see that's who gave us uh the bear okay uh council member marcano pete schulte city attorney's office public safety manager i will tell you that there are certain things that the federal government does require council approval and they're called controlled property and that's going to consist of military items that are provided on loan they're going to be the small personal weapons as councilmember jorensky a steady demilitarized vehicles and aircraft and night vision equipment so there is a small portion uh that if the advice to council would be if you amended this uh particular ordinance that you don't take out the council approval for those controlled items um otherwise the uncontrolled out of which is 95 of the items that are provided to us uh then then that would match what council member jorinsky is trying to do is allow the city management and the director the police chief to go forward and obtain those items uh without having to come to council okay um you're recommending we abandon this proposed ordinance the answer is the answer is no uh if you take out paragraph c 10 30 the items that pete's talking about will automatically have to come back to council you don't need to leave that in the order ordinance you can remove paragraph c okay okay thank you uh is there any opposition to moving um friday forward may i have a question council member thanks mayor uh just another similar question on um directed to our staff on what kinds of like there would be no i guess loopholes for any other weapons to be procured through this um program if if this language is taken out like i'm okay with you know again things like tires and medical equipment not needing to come to council and it sounds like there's a provision already there to address weapons needing to come to council are there any i don't know is there any other loopholes that we might not be aware of or you know might not be overt that um would allow the procurement of a weapon otherwise so i will provide the code to you council member rio it's it's 10 us code 257a and basically just defines what control property is and it's a general term so anything includes items such as small arms personal weapons demilitarized vehicles and aircraft and night vision equipment what makes it controlled is is that the dod maintains ownership of these items so they're going to let us know that anytime that we're going to be offered this equipment it's going to be under this provision that it's not we're not going to assume ownership of the property like non-controlled property we can get ownership of that after a year because he becomes a property of the law enforcement agency of the aurora police department the control property never does that so we get offered something that's designated this control property based on this ordinance we would know we would have to come to council to get approval for those items so clarifying question is are all weapons considered controlled items under my understanding and mr lathers is on here as well for my office but yes my understanding is there's not going to be any weapons they're going to be subject outside of the the the code uh because they do mean they are maintained ownership by the dod that is my understanding as well council member maria okay thank you for that clarification further discussion um seeing that is there any objection uh removing what is 5a forward then 5a will move forward um see no further business before the council this meeting is adjourned good night speech [Music]