thank you good evening everyone nice to see your pictures on my hollywood square screen so we'll see how we can move you around shall we get started with the meeting i call this meeting to order this is the land use planning and zoning committee of the city council all committee members are present today via zoom this is a remote or online meeting where all participants will be on a video or audio conference we appreciate your patience as meetings are conducted in this way members of the public city staff and the media have the ability to view this meeting live through youtube and zoom webinar the live stream can be accessed from most smartphones tablets or computers for those watching on the live stream thank you for joining us written comments were received for today's meeting and were provided to members of the committee members of the public have the opportunity to address the committee if they signed up for live comment per the rules published on the agenda and on our website friday although staff has informed me that no individuals have signed up to address the committee today so let's now go to agenda item a 083 counselor benton this is yours [Music] thank you madam chair 083 is amending chapter 9 article 5 part 5 of the revised ordinances of albuquerque the albuquerque clean indoor air ordinance is what is known as colloquially regarding public consumption of canis cannabis uh following the enactment of the new mexico cannabis regulation act nmsa 78 section [Music] 26-2c-1 netsec i move a do pass do i hear a second for that second council feeble corn uh second thank you counselor um we do uh we do have um an amendment uh to discuss but just for beginning uh i would like to hear from this our staff um just to explain what this is about of course it has to do with the state passage of legalized cannabis and uh and getting aligned with that we just uh uh just considered some consideration to it to last night before the public safety committee and uh that are regenerated from the similar issues so i'll turn it over to up inside julia's ready to get up to the plate thank you councillor benjamin good evening julia miss coolidan sorry to call you julia if you would uh give us a little additional information please yes uh thank you madam chair counselors as councilor benton said this bill updates the albuquerque clean indoor air ordnance to comply with some recent changes to cannabis law at the state level the state did a couple of things it enacted the cannabis regulation act and then pursuant to that the state's clean indoor air act which regulates second-hand tobacco smoke was updated to include some restrictions on cannabis smoke albuquerque's clean indoor air ordnance is intended to model and expand on the states act however in its current form our ordinance only regulates tobacco smoke so these proposed amendments contained in o-83 would expand the city's ordinance to include the regulation of cannabis smoke and it would also define the limited areas in which public consumption of cannabis is permitted thank you counselors are there any questions if not we do have an amendment a floor amendment uh floor amendment number one to o2183 and i will read that if you'd like it is on page 6 line 21 inserts a new subsection d it is unlawful for a person to consume cannabis in any public place except in a cannabis consumption area this subsection d shall not be construed to restrict the ability of a person to prohibit conduct otherwise allowed in the cannabis regulation act on the person's privately owned property and on page six line 23 insert cannabis shall not be consumed openly in public within the city of albuquerque and then it reads the smoking prohibited that's it sorry i was going to read the whole thing to you so i would um move approval of this amendment counselor so i have a second counselor benton uh gave us a second therefore if we would call the role please absolutely counselor benton yes council facebook no counselor pena excused councillor sanchez yes councillor jones yes and that passes on a 3-1 vote thank you counselors we appreciate that next is uh councillor benton do you have another amendment um i do and uh let me see if you can get to it here not a power user not my ipad counselor benjamin it is on the screen if that's easier for you okay very good thank you you're welcome uh yeah um this would be amendment number two two twenty one eighty three on page three line twenty three strike and insert as follows cannabis consumption area this is changed to read an area of cannabis established of a cannabis establishment licensed under the cannabis regulation act chapter 26 article 2c nmsa 1978 designated for smoking or other use of cannabis on page 691 insert as follows smoking means inhaling exhaling burning carrying or holding any lighted heated or otherwise volatilized tobacco or cannabis product including all types of cigarettes cigars and pipes and adding e-cigarettes and vaporizers and any other light tobacco cannabis product and then on page 6 line 21 a new subsection d is added this is 9554 smoking prohibited d would be would add the language it is unlawful for a person to smoke in a cannabis consumption area whenever a law enforcement officer other first responder or employee or agent of the city of albuquerque bernalillo the state of tribal government or public utility is conducting official business at the cannabis consumption area and then on page four line nine insert a new subject section as follows 558 posted smoke free and smoke permitted areas uh a to advise persons of the existence of smoke-free areas or smoking set a typo or smoking dash prohibited permitted areas signs shall be posted as follows three for each cannabis consumption area cannabis smoking permitted sign shall be posted where it is in a clear conspicuous and easily legible at each and easily legible at each public entrance and uh these definitions i'll leave up to staff to explain why they're important counselors are there any questions of staff madam chair i have a question yes counselor um yes so my question is on number three when we say it's unlawful for someone to smoke cannabis when an agent of the government is present um does that that seems very concerning to me they're in a place where they're legally allowed to consume cannabis and someone walks in i understand if it's a police officer they would be in a in a uniform but if they're a utility worker or a city employee they will not be in uniform and how will they know that they are supposed to not be smoking cannabis in a legally allowable space madam chair council fablecorn um so the this portion of the amendment is focused on these government employees who are present and carrying out their official duties um so like a good example would be if an apd officer was called out to a cannabis consumption area to deal with some sort of an emergency there smoking would have to stop whether it's the officer informing people to stop or maybe the establishment itself informing people that smoking needs to stop at that point is not dealt with in this particular ordinance but the rationale being that we don't want these individuals to be exposed to second-hand smoke possibly become intoxicated on the job and some of these employees may also be subject to drug testing as part of their conditions of employment so it's it's narrowly focused on when these uh individuals are there carrying out their official job duties thank you madam chair i you know i just have concerns that when we just say it's unlawful for smoking to be happening when those folks are in the building that's concerning if it said something like um you know after a period of warning or something but just to have it say it's unlawful it's very concerning to me i don't care uh that's a really good point um you know couldn't this just read you know upon notice from the public employee public or the employee who's there working upon notice um that that smoking shall cease until uh until the uh the employee has to it has has vacated the property has has left the smoking area would that be a problem julia there would be an amendment to this amendment uh madam chair counselor benton i i do think that we can insert that um edit into your amendment yes so if it's the if it's the uh if there are no objections to the committee i would make that amendment to my own amendment i don't believe that requires a vote or does it julian does that require a vote let's yes let's do it anyway so there's a motion is there a second a second oh so motion in a second for a floor amendment councilor jones i see councillor sanchez has his hand raised maybe before we should hear from him got it councillor sanchez are you going to tack onto this or do you have another do you want to talk about something else thank you madam chair i just wanted to quickly just state that uh me being a law enforcement officer and having uh to walk into a situation like this you never know if it's an emergency situation no matter what the situation might be i honestly believe that uh the way the the way the ordinance is written right now is the correct way for a law enforcement officer or anybody that walks in i mean even if it's a city worker that walks in and he has to handle some sort of duty within that within that uh within that environment that i still believe that the smoking should cease to meet immediately and i think that it's important that we that we maintain that uh that there is really no announcement that uh the minute the officer or that official capacity person walks in that uh that it should cease because the last thing you want to do is have a firefighter a police officer administering some sort of emergency service to that individual and then become intoxicated so it's really important that that we we make sure that those people are kept safe immediately thank you councillor sanchez councillor benton do you have a comment on that um i would just you know also defer to councillor people corn who brought this up but but i think uh the intention would just be to make it clear that just because a person walked into the room now everyone else is out of compliance without some sort of statement that they need you know just announcement by the person that i'm here on on a public official business um that and that that you need to stop smoking until i can get out of this area type thing but i'll i'll defer to council people corn on that thank you council feeblecoin i'm sure uh yes councillor benton's correct i'm just concerned that you know i'm in a legally allowed place and i'm smoking cannabis with my back to the door and a representative of any of these organizations and there's a lot of lists here comes in and all of a sudden i am doing something unlawful and i wouldn't even know that i was doing something unlawful and i don't think that's what the intent is and i think that just adding in something that says when you walk in the door you have to notify the room that they need to stop smoking and and so that they have an opportunity to not be breaking the law seems like a relatively simple fix to this problem counselors are there any other comments counselor benton uh sorry just in response to that um um what what i would be asking our staff to to wordsmith here would be some sort of you know you could say my suggested language was what was a pond notice that notice could be from the bartender that could be uh from anyone uh it could be from a member of public that say hey an officer officers are here in some kind of business we need to stop smoking but upon notice whether from that uh public employee or from the operator of the uh business and i don't think we would necessarily need to spell it out who would be but upon notice that some sort of notice being given if i've got my back to to the situation and and there's no commotion or anything going on for me to know otherwise that i would need to receive some sort of uh verbal notice that that that uh i need to cease uh consumption thank you uh councillor sanchez counselors any other comments uh at this point it looks like we have um do you have counselor sanchez um being in that situation it's really difficult maybe um we could do something a little different in terms of along the lines that um if i know i understand what counselor feeble corn means but i just know that you're when you're in a situation and you're going in to help somebody and you're walking into a situation and you may not have a chance to say anything you may not have a chance to announce yourself and uh is there any way that we could maybe put something uh maybe a posting at the door something that says if if there's an emergency situation um that in that that the use has to cease immediately the last thing you want to have happen is you want to have you know there's already going to be a ton of secondhand smoke in there and my my feeling is that the minute you walk in and you're in a designated cannabis smoking area it and i've never smoked weed before so i don't know but it's on my understanding that when you walk in the door that you can become um you can become intoxicated immediately and and and that concerns me as well because we're having a designated spoken area and yet we're going to need to be sending possibly sending people from law enforcement or afr who actually have to test and not only have to test but can become intoxicated immediately walking through the doors so it just makes it really really difficult for the law enforcement community and the uh public safety community to to even enter a place without even being exposed and so i still have a concern with that so i would think maybe if there's be a place that you can maybe post it at the door um that if um someone in their official combat capacity enters that it may be the responsibility of the owner to make sure that everything because more than likely the owner or somebody that is running that business at the time made the phone call to get the emergency services there so maybe we can incorporate that so that somehow [Music] they can be set up so that the law enforcement person or the person in the official capacity doesn't have to make that call and they're actually still as safe as they can be thank you councillor benjamin and then councillor feeblecorn again [Music] i wonder if miss colloden or mr melendress uh could could uh craft something uh short and sweet along the lines of what what council sanchez just said i like the idea of the proprietor uh basically you know handling the situation as far as the notification but uh i'd like to hear from councillor google thank you and councilor feeble corn and then i have one comment counselor feeble corn i'm chair i i do agree with uh counselor benton i think the onus should be on the proprietor here rather than having individuals who may not be looking at the door understanding what's happening if we were to write it where it was the proprietor of the establishment shall stop smoking in this situation then it's not that these individuals that just may not be paying attention may not know what's happening behind them or on the other side of the room wouldn't be doing an unlawful act it puts the onus on the owner of the building or on the owner of the business thank you thank you and if i may uh counselor sanchez before i ask you to speak i'd like to add one thing that that has been suggested and that is a an addition that says upon notice of the arrival of the public employee smoking shall cease until the employee leaves the area which is pretty simple and straight and of course one other thing that we need to discuss is the fact that in the legislation for this an elf air filtration system is required so hopefully the amount of smoke floating around will be mitigated as much as possible so just a couple ideas to to put out there and we'll talk about a counselor feeble corn did you have another comment no i'm joseph sanchez yes thank you madam chair basically i really liked what you said and i think we're really coming to a consensus here i like the fact that if you're going to be making a phone call or someone's going to be making a phone call to public services then at that point it makes it really really important that they can shut down everything at that point the smoking can stop they'll be expecting the emergency personnel to enter and at that point it will be good i really like the fact that there's venting so that so that you know there's nobody that wants to you know if you're in there and you're walking through as a public employee and going to help out then at that point you probably have run a less chance of becoming intoxicated and can render better care at that point so i like those comments thank you madam sheriff i made that so this is an amendment to my amendment do we conclude that we need to vote on this amendment to the amendment yes we do and i'm just discussing with petra if we need to do this now uh vote on an hour later petra um you should go to my mail because then when you vote on this amendment you can go to your amendment as amended okay so let's i'll make if i'll make a motion to um put this in the record upon notice of the arrival so this will be an amendment to the amendment what we read before uh do i have a second on that look at that there's a motion and a second counselors all any other discussion counselor pena councillor pena did you want to speak or just letting us know that you're you're available now no um madam chair just if you could read the amendment again because i know there was some discussion about language change and i just want to make sure that i understand the amendment before i vote on it thank you counselor pena it says it's an edition it says upon notice of the arrival of the public employee smoking shall cease until the employee leaves the area madam madam chair i think i just want to make sure that every if i may kind of interject i want to make sure that everybody's clear on what's going on i think that what you read is the amendment council benton's amendment as it was presented to the committee and i believe that the amendment that was i think articulated by council fueblecoin and accepted by councillor benton would say that upon uh i don't remember the exact language maybe julian you could put it up on the screen because i think we're missing some some verbage there that we need to be clear on before you all vote thank you mr melinda julian is searching there he is um we want to scroll up a little bit julian page so i think what was proposed is that it would say is unlawful for any person to smoke in a cannabis consumption area i think you should say um that the proprietor of a cannabis consumption area shall cause smoking to cease whenever a law enforcement or other first responder employee or agent of the city et cetera et cetera as conducting official business i i believe that was what i heard being proposed and so that's the amendment to the amendment um that i think was articulated i think if i may mr melinda's the term proprietor i'm not sure i think it should be a little more broad than that is the proprietor not normally considered the owner of the business um yeah good question so um the licensee perhaps the owner or manager just want to make sure that by saying owner we're not leaving out somebody but the employee the the employee in charge of the facility at the time madam chair by may and councillor yes i see counselor pena has another question but but just so that we're clear on this i i think proprietor is a correct is correct because a proprietor is not a person it's it's the operator and their employees if i'm not mistaken i think it's the right term okay sounds good to me uh counselor pena yes madam chair and the other clarification was is that we took check out the word unlawful because i agree with um counselor peoplecorn thank you counselor uh pena are we comfortable with that and and can we read that back the way we think we're are there any other comments before we vote on this amendment to the amendment okay do we need to read that back petra to be sure yes okay yeah i think we were i think we were making several changes in there so i'm going to ask miss morris to read back what where what is being proposed that we the amendment that we're proposing to use to amend ms morris madam chair counselors if i caught everything correctly section d would start with the proprietor shall cause the smoking to cease whenever a law enforcement officer other first responder or employee or agent of the city of albuquerque bernalillo county state of new mexico tribal government or public utility is conducting official business at the cannabis consumption area are we comfortable with that counselors yes and just again to clarify we still got to vote on the amendment after we vote on this yes that is correct so we are now voting on the amendment that was just read the amendment to the amendment that was just read we have a motion in a second councillor benton urge your support i guess thank you unless you're calling for my vote not yet we'll call the role councillor benton councillor benton yes council fablicorn yes counselor pena yes councillor sanchez yes councillor jones yes that passes on a 5-0 vote thank you councillors uh we're now moving to amendment number two and i believe this is um [Music] i'm just back you're finished with that amendment thank you right so unless there any other questions about this overall amendment uh thank you thank you councillor benton would you like to see something to close no okay this is a vote yes this is a vote on the amendment to the amendment the amended amendment okay call the rule please counselor benton council people corn yes counselor pena yes councillor sanchez yes councillor jones yes that passes on a 5-0 vote all right that was amendment number two we are now uh ready to vote on the final bill counselors unless there's any other comment amendments and i will need to vote on the final bill as amended so if you will i think i need a second on that probably no i got it sorry second okay counselor benton yes council people corn yes counselor pena yes councillor sanchez yes councillor jones yes that passes on a 5-0 vote okay thank you everyone that was more than a little confusing in my mind um next on the agenda is um b o seven adopting a zoning map amendment for approximately 14.1 acre site located on the southern side of the harper road northeast between wyoming boulevard from mx 11 to r 1c in order to facilitate patient development i would like to move a do pass and then perhaps we could get a little more explanation from staff on that one madame chair i believe you have some procedures in your script that need to be read um for this particular agenda item got it do i get to take a second on that first may i hear a second on that what i just thank you councillor benton so here we go oh 227 is a quasi-judicial request which requires special procedures to allow the applicant staff and the public the opportunity to speak time limits for for presenters are as follows introduction by staff five minutes presentation by applicant 10 minutes public comment two minutes per person rebuttal by applicant two minutes comments by planning department if any city staff and the applicant must be sworn in if you will be speaking to this item as a staff member or applicant please raise your right hand do you affirm under penalty of perjury that your testimony today will be true i do thank you there were two who raised their hands and answered to that miss schultz would you please begin your introduction yes thank you madam chair um this request is for a zone map amendment for an approximately 14.1 acre site i am going to share my screen so that i can just pull up a quick aerial map of the um the area that we're talking about this is near uh what's known as the albuquerque academy this is just uh north of the albuquerque academy the parcel is not owned by the academy unrelated but in proximity i've highlighted the parcel here in blue this is the about 14 acre site um that is being requested to go from mxl uh that is mixed-use light intensity to r1c um the r1 zone is our low density residential zone uh and the the c is a particular flavor of that that r1 designation that indicates the lots will be on the larger side this request was considered by the environmental planning commission in october there was very little discussion from the commissioners on the case some of the discussions surrounded particular site features or site layouts but i'd like to remind the council that what you are considering today is a zone map amendment request and pertinent details to site layouts and site features are not considered as a part of a zone map amendment request the integrated development ordinance has specific review and decision criteria that the applicant who is with us today that's jackie fishman with consensus planning had to provide to the environmental planning commission to justify the requests uh to essentially prove that moving from the mxl zone to the r1c zone would meet the that criteria found in the integrated development ordinance and further a preponderance of goals and policies as they are outlined in the comprehensive plan as i said the epc considered this case in october of last year there was one public commenter at that case who was a representative from the albuquerque academy um who voiced some general concerns about grading and drainage um of the sites in relation to future developments and uh the applicant's response to that which which in my opinion was the right response is those details get sorted out at the site planning stage and where we are at right now is solely considering is a zone change from mxl to r1c appropriate um the details about the site would be worked out and approved through a process a separate process in the future um ultimately the environmental planning commission did end up unanimously recommending approval to the city council for this case uh subject to a series of findings related to the justification that the applicant provided to them those findings are are in the ordinance that the council is considering uh this evening um there's an amendment uh related to those findings that counselor jones will be moving shortly and i would be happy to talk about that um but overall i would say that this was a relatively non-controversial case which is pretty incredible given the the history on this site uh prior to the ido the council has has heard and dealt with two appeals related to previous approvals for this site um ultimately those approvals were upheld and that development did not end up moving forward so the applicant who is hoffman town church is coming back to request the zone change from mxl to r1c uh to promote development in the future of some kind of low density residential developments that does it for my five minute intro and i will pass the baton over to miss fishman to give her presentation on behalf of the applicant thank you uh any comments miss fishman sure um thank you madam chair and and counselors uh jackie fishman here from consensus planning i'm here on behalf of the applicant which is uh polti group they are the contract purchaser of the property hoffman town church is still the owner and i i think um shannon did a good job but i'll i'll just add a couple more comments to this i've personally been working on this property since 2008 so i went through entitlement process for two different senior living facilities i still thought i still think today that those are fine uses in this location i worked extensively with cherry hills neighborhood association on on all three of the different concepts for this property uh and uh as you all know or several of the counselors know that were on the council at the time in 2018 there were you know a couple appeals by cherry hills they just didn't like senior living in this location that applicant back then never proceeded with the project for whatever reason and so the property has been for sale by hoffman town church for a while um it's it's a very large property that they originally developed they had a site plan that covered all their acreage and there has never been a chance in the world for them to develop all this property so it's really been excess property for you know 15 20 years now so um going forward this would be a single family subdivision very similar to what's across the street to the north at cherry hills i did talk to the president of the association when we were going through this in september and october through the epc process and um you know they they are and they were in support of the zone change they liked the down zone of course um and like shanna said that they had questions about the design of the subdivision but uh that doesn't get worked out at the epc level during zone change it gets worked out at the drb level when we go for a major uh subdivision plant i think one of the things that ms schultz also mentioned was the concern about um grading and drainage from albuquerque academy that really has to do with the south pino arroyo which goes through this property on the south edge and uh you can see well i'm looking at my screen but um to the south of of the subject property is is albuquerque academy and the arroyo but further south is is there is a solar array project that was put in the arroyo um you know that's a whole other story of how that got in there and didn't go through the proper procedures but um anyways that that's where the concern has been is will the development of this site impact the albuquerque academy's solar field and we've got fantastic engineers on the team from bohan in houston they've studied this site with me again since 2008 so i'm confident that all of those issues will get worked out as we go through the process i would say with that i would answer any questions you may have but i i think that that gives you the the project in a nutshell thank you miss fishman counselors are there any questions are there any other comments from the planning department oh councillor benton first i do have a couple of questions um on this uh i would suppose that they would be there for miss fish fisherman or for uh miss schultz um i guess one for mrs fishman is so so this is uh uh under contract in other words for sale so so it's still the existing zone and this is the contingency aspect of the transaction is that correct yes uh councillor benton that's correct all right and then the other question is um under the existing zone mxl um what is the maximum residential dwelling units per acre um madam chair uh counselor benton there there is no maximum density uh in in uh the zoning um so it you you get to your density and the number of units through meeting your parking requirements meeting your building maximum building height requirements and so on understood yeah that that that language is basically uh i think thanks for reminding me that uh with chains under the ido to uh basically a sort of a performance based uh density if you will um uh but the uh would it be fair to say that under that zone um [Music] more dwelling units could be provided on this amount of land than under single families on them chair uh counselor benton yes uh the mxl would would probably yield more uh density than uh the r1c uh the mxl doesn't allow single-family uh residential development so we couldn't do that kind of project on the site mxl is really geared towards multi-family mixed with obviously the neighborhood commercial level development and is that is that commercial component a requirement under mxl in other words must you have a mixed use or can you just do a for example a multi-family residential project on the set uh no um madam chair counselor benton no mixed use is not required they uh somebody could do uh multi-family exclusively on this this site and all mxl or mxm sites okay thank you um that answers my questions for now okay thank you councillor benton uh councillor feeblecorn thank you madam chair i just had a question on you know in the comprehensive plan one of the goals deals with complete communities trying to get infill to to provide all the opportunities for living working shopping playing um in one spot and i noticed that in the application it said that this proposal and this change would somehow um help get us to a complete community i'm not seeing how a single family large lots in this spot would get us towards that goal can somebody explain that um madam chair counselor feeble corn i i'd be happy to address that i was asked the same question at epc i think on a on a micro level no this doesn't create a a complete community but if you look at the area around this property it is it's got a commercial development to the the west um in a shopping center west and south uh there's the church to the east there's um cherry hills library uh slightly to the west of here um there there is a lot of uses that could be utilized and but i i think if you if you start from a vacant site that has stayed vacant since the 80s and have something that's a feasible development i i think it does further that goal but maybe not at a literal and micro level sense thank you counselors are there any other questions are there any other comments from the planning department okay any questions counselors any questions for staff for the administration um madam chair i'm not sure if this is the right place for this but uh um my concern with the application is this and maybe the staff or administration or mrs fishman can address it and this does have to do with the caring capacity of this land and granted an undeveloped site is in a sense a wasted site but i think there's another aspect to um what's best for for the community in general and not just the neighbors who were even against a fairly low density as i understand it senior living project um previously as described by miss fishman um my thinking on this and and somebody dissuade me of this but my if if possible my thinking on this is yes it's it's a it's a nice big piece of land that is zoned for more individuals and families to enjoy it than this low density development would create i understand why even even the findings of the epc said that this is beneficial that it that it does enhance and protect and preserve distinct communities i don't know how distinct other single family development is but but uh i recognize that it looks like what's across the street the question is is that really for the benefit of the greater community when we've got expensive infrastructure that serves this site in the street and and a lot of capacity most likely to support more dwellings there we've also got private infrastructure in the form of really good shopping in the area not far down the road as groceries multiple groceries and other retail neighborhood type services that are that are valuable um that's my question and that's my question about uh um you know maybe whoever was at the epc whether whether they discussed that that aspect um i know the the question of whether well mixed use or not but but i didn't see uh all of a sudden get noticed and maybe it could be described as to whether that was discussed at epc but epc pretty much kept repeating uh you know uh well it it looks like the existing area it predicts the identity of the existing area although uh you know this large uh school campus and so forth doesn't necessarily and and a large church is not like the neighborhoods across the street either um and then the goal 5.2 complete communities um i'm not really sure i'm not i'm not really sure how the abc came up with this uh as a furthering of that goal um i just multiple questions about how this was decided to be appropriate besides the fact that we know that neighbors across the street uh would prefer nothing more than low density uh residential housing uh ownership housing not unaffordable housing by the way uh just by its definition and location and the product type thank you thank you councillor benton are there any other comments counselors mr mario have there been any other comments called in madam chair no we did not have anybody sign up for public comment for oh 22 7. thank you uh counselors have been no other comments i would like to make one comment if i may follow up on all this and that is i live very near this property i'm very familiar with it and it has been vacant for uh decades as you might know forever there are a good mix of different kinds of housing and retail there are apartments nearby there are townhouses nearby there are single family and there's a good deal of commercial for heaven's sakes there's a walmart across the street basically but um i i see no fault with this type of development i think it will be a in my opinion only as a neighbor i feel it will be an asset to the community uh to add uh some a breath of fresh air a new a new face to something that has sat there as vacant land for decades so um with that counselors are there any other comments so there's been a oh counselor feeble corn madam chair i'll i'll just uh add a comment that you know in this time when we are having a serious shortage of housing and affordable housing and then move to increased density in the city of albuquerque so that folks do have access to housing this seems like a move in the wrong direction to me technical changes okay i understand we have thank you council of people corn i'm getting advice from here that i've been forgetting things and which is true uh we also have some technical amendments and i believe that um ms schultz is going to discuss that yes madam chair i'd be happy to uh there's one amendment to this bill related to the findings that the epc um put together in their recommendation of approval to the city council you'll see in the ordinance there are a series about a dozen or so of findings that justify the request these were findings developed from the information that the applicant would have provided about why the request met the requirements of the integrated development ordinance how it furthered city goals policies um when the environmental planning commission issued their notice of decision it contained all of these findings somehow from the time of that notice of decision being issued to this ordinance being put together by planning department staff two of those findings got missed um they were not intentionally left out they they should be included as a part of kind of the official record for the for the case um and so what all this amendment does is put back into place those two findings that the environmental planning commission did review and approve and that erroneously got left out of the legislation the ordinance the bill itself um so i i don't i don't think i need to read this underlying language here directly to you um just the i'll just provide the kind of anecdotal information about why we're doing this and it doesn't change anything about what the epc did or recommended um and in fact i would say it just kind of codifies further codifies their decision and how they um got to that decision thank you miss schultz and i believe that i shall make him just make sure we have it on record i will move amendment number one which we just heard counselor pena second a second by councillor pena councillors are there any other questions or comments uh with that we'll need a vote uh ms montoya would you take the vote counselor benton no council people no counselor pena yes councillor sanchez yes councillor jones yes that passes on a 3-2 vote thank you counselors uh that one was a little tough to do on the fly here there was a would have been nice to have a few more speakers but it worked so now we will go back to the bill and i make a motion on o227 as amended there's a second by counselor pena councilor sanchez was that another second or question yes all right if we would please call the roll councillor benton no council feeblecorn no counselor pena yes councillor satches yes councillor jones yes and that passes on a 3-2 vote thank you counselors um i'm looking forward to seeing what happens there this could be a beautiful project thank you thank you i will now go to agenda item c r six uh counselor benton would you like to introduce us please sure madam chair i'm happy to uh r6 is establishing city policy for evaluating competing cannabis business registration requests within 600 feet of one another i move a due pass second and um we do have some amendment or an amendment um this has to do i guess would probably shannon will more uh articulately or petra uh describe um this than i would but uh but uh you know we do have this uh the intention of this 600 foot separation which i believe um is consistent with other uh similar things like consuming alcohol and so forth but or maybe not maybe maybe that doesn't have this kind of distance requirement i would just ask staff to to uh explain that because i'm already being ineloquent and welcome to my world tonight councillor benton uh miss shelter you are miss morris miss morris will give us uh something that hopefully counselor benton and i can understand a little better ms morris madam chair counselors thank you um i'll do a special summary on the bill um as well as the amendment uh so this bill proposes uh the city policy for evaluating cannabis applications when the idea was adopted uh updated sorry in 2020 uh the council added a 600 foot distance separation for cannabis retail uses in order to ensure that we didn't end up with an over concentration of cannabis retail uses in any one particular part of town however this was uh created a relatively unique situation in that normally when we introduce distance separations in zoning there's already existing businesses and with this except with the exception of existing cannabis medical dispensaries we don't have any businesses from which to measure from and so this is the the ultimate uh to use the phrase chicken and egg question which one comes first and so uh the bill is originally drafted and and um on the letter of introduction uh on on february 4th um proposed that the policy evaluating competing businesses would be based on cannabis business registration requests however at about the same time the planning department had put together a process called a cannabis retail location approval which requires that applicants provide a state license as well as information about either a lease or ownership or a letter of intent for a particular property and that they certify uh that they are 300 feet away from a school or daycare or 600 feet away from another cannabis retail business and so what this amendment does is it updates the bill which it proposes to have a first-come first-served order for applications to be considered to reference the cannabis retail location approval and so the amendment makes four changes in order to do that it updates the title it adds a whereas clause to explain this and then adds um removes a reference in section one of the actions of the bill to strike business registration and replace it with cannabis retail location approval and then finally adds a clarifying additional action that states the city shall not issue a business registration until such time that the cannabis retail location approval has been approved thank you miss morris um thank you miss morris are there any other any questions at that counselor pena um thank you madam chair just a question since it is part of already in part of the the rules process why do we need why do we need this resolution why why is it important to put make it a law thank you miss morris madam chair counselor pena yes this is an excellent question so the ido just says that you have to be 600 feet away from another cannabis retail business but because we don't have with the exception of the medical dispensers any cannabis repair businesses um on the books yet because cannabis retail businesses haven't opened yet uh the planning department needed a process in order to work out who who comes in first who gets to be that first business second business in that the other businesses will be measured 600 feet away from and so what this bill proposes is that those applications be reviewed via the cannabis retail location approval and that those applications be reviewed on a first come first serve basis so when they come in for their apply for their crla on the planning department website they get a time stamp and so let's say business a comes in at 901 and business b comes in at 902 and business c comes in at 903 and they're all in the same street next to each other business a that came in at 901 would get their approval reviewed and approved prior to considering those next ones and madam chair counselor i mean director varela is i see turned on his camera in case there's some questions for how planning will be administering this thank you i think uh counselor pena has another question um i'd like to hear from the director first and then i'll ask my question thank you madam chair thank you director varela good afternoon thank you madam chair and counselor pena that's an excellent question it's the same one that the administration has basically this amendment would simply um in a sense tell us to do what we're already doing and so i don't think from my perspective that it's it's necessary i think what was happening here was uh in the process of us waiting for the state to start issuing the retail licenses there was a lot of pressure out there in the in the community to find out what the processes were and so as we were getting peppered with questions on what the process would be i i am willing to bet that the council was as well and so it was just a matter of timing our process was up and implemented uh i think by the same day that this bill actually got introduced and so perhaps uh that was what happened there but uh from our perspective uh you know the the administration of of the program and how to determine when an application is complete and of course have those date tight stamped coincides exactly with what the uh the sponsor of the bill was thinking but uh we don't we don't believe that the bill is necessary at this point thank you thank you counselor pena thank you madam chair so that was my question because it seemed as as though when peter was stating that it was part of the process already i didn't understand why we would need it and then my other question would be is that when it talks about like a marijuana retail location does it mean selling marijuana or does it could it be cannabis can might wanna come in like where they sell you know pipes or whatever else that they sell so is it just across the board i mean you know so it seems as though like if somebody has a a money wanna retail shop that next door may they may sell supplies or whatever the case may be yeah is that it doesn't seem like it's clear in this legislation and maybe leaving this legislation um leaving this alone and letting it be part of the rules process that you could actually navigate through that as you're making the rules because it seems as though there's not clarity on that either mr varela and madam chair thank you and counselor pena that is correct we actually know that the rules can be changed probably quicker than changing an ordinance particularly since we are getting into some of these administrative how-tos and the state changes its rules quite frequently that's how they're doing it rather than trying to change the statute so we have been kind of rolling along with their changes but it would be much more i think timely for us to continue to have some of this just administered through a through a rule making process thank you thank you madam chair thank you any other questions counselor benton would you like to move the amendment take a vote on the amendment i would madam chair um but i i would need to ask your uh thoughts on this um because of the questions that that uh have been raised and also director varela's statement that this is unnecessary um i don't think we need to sit around beating on it to death here at lux but i i think if if we're not going to recommend a no pass [Music] i wonder if my co-sponsor chair jones would be willing to change the motion to uh move without recommendation to the full council to uh to dispose of this thank you councillor benton and i'm sure i will but i think right now we need to uh uh take a vote on the move the uh move the amendment oh i'm i'm sorry that's all right i'm putting that out there because that's what i'm hearing i think let's move the amendment first councillor benton um we're kind of free-flowing tonight i'll second that motion um any comment then let's call the roll on the amendment council benton yes council people corn yes counselor pena yes councillor sanchez yes councillor jones yes that passes on a 5-0 vote thank you councillors now we need to vote on the final bill and i think we can probably a few of us would like to comment on that counselor benton would you like to comment further well i i respect the opinion of the director of the planning department on this and i'm not never been a fan of passing things that are just that might clog up the works in the future i will i know uh petra morris has has kind of shepherded this through maybe like to hear from her but if we if we've got some questions out there as to the necessity of this it would seem like we want to have some discussions about that uh and then uh and then allow it to go to full council so that that was my thinking on changing the motion from uh for i believe we had a recommendation or do pass to a without recommendation thank you counselor any other comments before i um if not councillor benton i believe that this is something that can't be done on the fly and we need to have something written in an ordinance or legislation uh i think this is far too important to a process and uh um a great adventure for the city of albuquerque to my try to get this correct uh and and i i am uncomfortable not having those guidelines put in place somewhere perhaps by the city council sending forward our ideas we might be it's not like we don't have time to do this uh we might be able to come up with something that the administration and the city council feels better about it will work better for the users and and the business people are going to be involved with this so personally i would like to see this go to full council without recommendation and perhaps we can get some more comments and some more ideas from administration and other counselors before we either approve or or don't approve this type of legislation but i think this is a big thing for the city that if we get it wrong it's much more uncomfortable to try to fix it than if we try to fix it before we get it wrong so that would be my suggestion on it that we move forward without recommendation uh director varela yeah thank you madam chair and i did want to just reiterate that there is a on parallel track with this is a rule making process the temporary emergency rule has been introduced which reflects this process uh there will be a hearing coming up on that and then we will uh proceed to converting that to a regular rule making process and so there is opportunity there and our ears are open for input from the public and from the business community uh to do it to do it through the rule making process just just wanted to let you know this isn't just simply a internal procedure that was set up by the planning department it's it's going through a public process as well thank you mr varela and i would certainly hope that the city council be included in that public process most definitely yes that's i think one of our major concerns so right now uh councilor benton we have um r6 um how would you like to move that as amended move it forward with that recommendation yes i think that's the motion at this point since you agree with that change management chair so that would be uh move forward to uh full counsel uh as amended without recommendation okay um all those in favor oopsie oops i'm sorry i don't get to call the roll sorry i want to take control of this counselor benton yes council thieblcorn yes councillor pena yes councillor sanchez yes councillor jones yes that passes on a 5-0 vote thank you everyone uh some good comments and some good information out there this evening uh is there any other business i see none so being no further business this meeting is this committee lups committee meeting is hereby adjourned thank you all