one good afternoon we will call to order the November 3rd meeting of the Phoenix City Council will the clerk please call the roll councilwoman I'm sorry councilman decisio here councilman guardado here councilwoman O'Brien present councilwoman pastor here councilwoman Stark councilman Waring yeah vice mayor Garcia I apologize vice mayor Garcia I see you thank you very much mayor Gallego thank you Mario Barajas is with us here today to provide interpretation Mario will you introduce yourself yes mayor thank you hello my name is Mario warajas and together here I'm here to interpret for our Spanish speakers for today and I will now like to take the moment to introduce myself to our Spanish speakers and review a couple of housekeeping matters Within minutes thank you mayor thank you Mario we're the city clerk please read the 24-hour paragraph the titles of the following ordinance and resolution numbers on the agenda were available to the public at least 24 hours prior to this council meeting and therefore may be read by title or agenda item only ordinances number g6871-6908-6915 and 6917-48072-48087 and resolutions 219732-21976 thank you vice mayor do we have a motion on boards and commissions item one motion to approve mayor and city council boards and commission nominations second those in favor please say aye aye aye aye opposed please thank you [Music] passes unanimously we next move to liquor licenses the city provides an advisory role to the state vice mayor do we have a motion motion to approve items two through ten okay motion a second any questions or comments all those in favor please say aye aye aye the opposed please say nay passes unanimously city clerk are we ready for ordinances resolutions new business planning and zoning yes mayor vice mayor do we have a motion motion to approve items 11 through 50 except the following items 14 25 26 27 28 29 item 47 is as revised item 49 is requested to be withdrawn and excluding these items for public comment 38 45 46 47 and 48. second I have a motion oh sorry go ahead mayor I'm sorry number 18. uh vice mayor you're comfortable adding 18 to the list of items removed from consent yes remove item 18. all right so now we'll have roll call on the vice mayor's motion which will include item 18. roll call I'm sorry yes decision yes cuardado yes O'Brien yes pastor Stark s wearing yes Garcia yes and mayor I've been advised that item 17 also needs to be pulled I apologize wonderful um would you like us to begin roll call again yes as long as the maker of the motion is okay with adding that and the second thank you so much are you comfortable removing item 17 from the consent agenda yes and I am too thank you to our seconder we'll do roll call again including both items 17 and 18. I'm sorry decisio yes guardado s O'Brien yes pastor Stark yes wearing yes Garcia yes there you go passes 9-0 next move to item 14 a contract with the Area Agency on Aging and I'll turn to councilwoman and sorry hey mayor I just wanted to give a special shout out to this item I think it's great we know that in Phoenix older adults tend to be on tighter budgets and continue to be the most at-risk Community for complications due to covet 19. so I'm very happy to see one-time arba funds being used to help get them groceries and medication to their homes especially during the upcoming holidays we've had residents and friends in my district who have reached out and have let us know they're still opting for online pickup and delivery to avoid crowds and we know that these tools can especially be tricky and hard to keep up with without access to Reliable internet and even a mobile phone so I think these efforts will go a really long way to keep communities protected especially as we work to keep vaccination rates up and help deliver the latest booster information so very excited about this item and with that I move to approve item 14. second Motion in a second any additional comments certainly agree with the councilwoman the Area Agency on Aging have been a great partner with us during the pandemic and AARP actually early on in the pandemic really emphasized the importance of serving those who were homebound so thanks to all who have started this and continued It Roll Call I'm sorry yes to CCO yes O'Brien pastor Stark yes wearing yes Garcia yes Gallego passes 9-0 we next moved to item 17 which is the issuance of project revenue bonds or Provident group Costa Isabella properties do we have a motion motion to approve item 17. second promotion and a second any comments mayor um this is councilman Pastor are any of those uh any of the people that are benefiting from this issuance on the phone mayor we do not have anyone signed up to speak on item 17 at this time okay I have several questions on item 17. please go ahead so item 17 uh happens to be in Puerto Rico which was hit very hard by Hurricane uh Maria and is rebuilding as we speak and uh and Costa Isabella they are wanting to put in that area a Hotel in that area and do improvements also uh also one of the things about Puerto Rico is that due to the economy and some of the farmers pharmaceutical uh businesses leaving Puerto Rico for a while back has also devastated the island in the sense of jobs and so uh it has been told to me that you know this is a great project because jobs will be coming back um in Puerto Rico the average pay is about between eight and ten dollars and in that in that Island you also have high electricity uh costs and high water costs so um I think it's it's nice that uh we we say or or they're going to be jobs uh I had a meeting uh with the mayor and uh people around this project and in that conversation it talked about uh uh the project of talking about going uh that there's a non-profit that will be benefiting from this or be part of this as I did further research I thought the nonprofit was in Puerto Rico and I discovered it wasn't and that that there was going to be a community benefit um and so I started to ask more questions and in the process I wanted to make sure that there were some apprenticeship pieces and uh a jobs uh jobs pieces of training to be uh those that entered uh the hotel industry were able to have an opportunity to get further their education and be able to be part of this so my question is um to Mr Salgado is if he had contacted the group and asked if that could be possible uh a possibility for this project mayor councilman pastor and council members good afternoon I'm Ginger Spencer Deputy city manager and I am the city's liaison uh to the Phoenix Ida before I introduce our panel members here I would like to say that the Ida there are several idas that are located throughout the state various Counties have idas and then various cities have idas with me this afternoon is Mr Juan Salgado who is the CEO executive director of the Phoenix Ida and also Mr Mike santayanes also on my Juan's team what I'd like to say is the bond programs that the Ida issues are basically in four areas it would be Health Care it would be Economic Development it would be education and also there's one more that I'm missing um is it regular Community about Community Development regular projects uh and so when we do projects both locally as well as out of state when we do have out-of-state transactions um the fees from those transactions actually come back to benefit the local community being Phoenix and so as councilman Pastor said this is an out-of-state project in Costa Rica although there's been a community benefit identified for Phoenix We There are questions regarding the benefit to the residents of Puerto Rico and so with that I'll turn it over to Mr Juan Salgado to answer your questions um mayor councilman Foster members of the council I I believe your question was that you had asked me to contact the developer in regards to committing to providing training programs for the residents or the folks involved with the project for Puerto Rico is that correct uh I did not I asked you to contact whoever needed to be contact that was part of this project okay uh mayor councilman bastard I I have spoken with the uh the Project Lead uh which is Mr Steve Stephen Hicks who's the president of Providence uh there the 501c3 that is um managing the uh the process and so uh he has said that um in the agreement that was established between Isabella um and the uh tourism and the developer including this the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico there are some features in there describing a percent of of dollars that will be going to support local training for the residents of Puerto Rico in addition to that um I they have committed to meet with us after the sale of the prop or the after the property has been financed and discussed with us in detail what else can be done to support the residents of of Puerto Rico thank you and this is why I have was asking for this is was not just to create jobs it was really to create careers within Puerto Rico um because there's the media income of fourteen thousand dollars within that Island and a thousand under uh Puerto Rico's medium income so I would like to I I'm glad to hear that commitment because I would like this project to help really people out of property and build careers uh within their Island and to be able to advance uh their their family and get the education that is needed or wanted by them so I'm glad to hear that that conversation was taken place thank you thank you councilwoman any additional questions about the project in one of one from me there's a global conversation going now around a sustainable Finance right now and I notice that's not one of our four priority areas is the board due to evaluate the priority areas soon mayor Gallego that is a great question and I'll turn that over to Mr Salgado to respond to that I I'm sorry mayor would you repeat your question there is a global conversation going on right now about sustainability and financing projects in that area I noticed that what's not one of our four priority areas and it seems to me time to revisit that is the board scheduled to discuss strategic planning uh mayor I can assure you that that will be on our agenda to have that conversation moving forward wonderful and we have some very good priorities our project with mayo was a wonderful one and the one that's coming up next also a great one I personally have a preference for ones that we have in Phoenix thank you mayor all right uh seeing no additional questions or comments roll call I'm sorry decisio yes yes O'Brien oh pastor yes Stark yes wearing yes Garcia yes there you go passes eight one next up is item 18 issuing multi-family housing revenues for harmony at the park 2 project we have a motion emotions approved item 18. second the motion in a second any questions or comments but mayor councilman decisio thank you mayor so if in one I just want to let you know this is not a reflection on you at all by comments it's more about the process of how things get done it's not just here it's happening across the country there's a shortage of affordable housing throughout the entire country but what ends up happening and I wrote about this gosh years ago and I'll just give everybody an example of what happened and what I believe is happening here when I go through these numbers so a few years back the City of Phoenix is building affordable housing on property they already owned and it ended up coming at 305 000 a door a door people could have been able to build apartments at 150 000 a door at the time so literally double the cost of what you would find anywhere else wasn't about faith World regulations it wasn't about anything else like that it was just doubling the cost because the City of Phoenix was involved in it and I'll explain how that money does and how we end up cheating the poor and this is good I believe it's just going to be another example of that we could have literally doubled the amount of units doubled the amount of units in the private sector you know that for the for affordable housing we could have done it done everything else exactly the same in this case here the city thinks is a partner which means it gets its part of the share and all that so it allows so by doing that we allow inefficiencies in the system right now the the cost per door the cost is about 315 000 a unit you can build not buy you can build on your own land houses for 350 000 a unit and a one bedroom is going for a little over a thousand dollars a month I believe it's a thousand twenty nine a month is what it's scheduled to do that's not affordable for most people so what ends up happening is that you get these governmental entities that are involved in it they get their share and we're LA and we basically let these organizations these private sector groups these companies from the private sectors to take advantage of it because we get a small cut out of it and I'm telling you it's just insane right now paying 315 000 a door for affordable housing just doesn't make sense and anywhere in anywhere any logic it just doesn't make sense so I had issues with this before I'll have issues with this now and if we don't find less expensive ways of doing these things we're only cheating those people that deserve the housing and should have opened it opened up we could have more than doubled it before and I don't know what the numbers are in the private sector now for like the cost of affordable house I mean a cost of regular housing but at the time we sold the most expensive unit that sold sold remember we were building right and we built that 305 000 door we're 277 thousand dollars a unit now they had valet service they had Dry Cleaning Service they had an amazing pool in a workout area better than anywhere else that I've seen and that sold for 277 thousand dollars a door when Phoenix was building it for a 305 000 the door for affordable housing on land that they already owned so we've got to figure out a better way of doing this and I think there is a better way to outlined it but we've got to start becoming more competitive and plus this is an out-of-state group if you look at it this this is the same group over and over again that gets all these contracts there's a reason for that no except for others thank you man I'm going to be voting now thank you councilman decisio I I find this project very exciting there's a need for three and four bedroom units uh in affordable housing there's so many of them that are one bedroom or um maybe two or even just um anyway um and we have large families often multi-generational when we were developing Edison East Lake and we did all the community meetings we heard over and over again I want to be with my entire family and that's something that I certainly respect to me this is a very complicated site significant archeology I appreciate that for both this project and the one that the city um has that Edison East Lake we have been very respectful of the archeology and and moving of the bodies and there's also additional costs on this like relocating families that are not something you would see in other projects so personally I will very much looking forward to supporting this it's in line with the vision of the community and our need to do more affordable housing projects and I believe I saw councilwoman Stark as well uh yes thank you Mary sold some of my thunder I was going to mention that I think a lot of the costs in in councilman cicio you're right we got to look at a better way of doing this but the costs include Demolition and then there's um remediation of the property as well and you have to locate the people during the construction but I I hope we can find better ways to drive down the cost I think the actual cost without demolition remediation relocating people addressing the archaeological would be about 136 per square foot which would bring a unit to about 100 78 000 um so I'm very excited about this project as well but I do think we need to continue to find ways to make it more affordable to build affordable housing thank you mayor thank you councilwoman Wilson mayor could I respond back to that oh sorry sure so yeah you may have some extra costs we heard the same arguments before they said because of all the Federal Regulations which all turned out to be bunk none of it was true I mean even with those regulations that were impacted or that would have impacted the project it still came out to about 150 000 a door you have the same company getting all these bits I mean these contracts from us same ones each one time and time again because they're willing to do whatever it is we're asking them to do and and it just takes out the competition is what it does so I'm telling you it's too expensive 315 000 a door and I granted you may have some extra costs here your average cost for a class A apartment Class A is 240 000 a door that's with the highest end of everything wood floors carpeting everywhere I mean you're talking Dry Cleaning Service valet service great parking that's your hard cost construction for a top of the line class a building 240 000 a door there's no way about almost a hundred thousand dollars more is added on that's just do the math it's impossible to add that much more so I we I'm telling you if we want to see more affordable housing we've got to open this thing up and allow housing to be built thank you mayor thank you vice mayor thank you mayor and thank you all for this conversation I'm really excited I think you said the three four bedroom units and especially in District data in our entire city we need more affordable housing so excited to support this project um listening to what what Sal's saying I said this before but I think as a city and speaking to staff we should in the future look to how either we develop ourselves as a city or co-develop with Partners to make sure that that we can get the best deals and so from this conversation what I'm taking is that maybe we reopen and look into the possibility of us as a city being developers or co-developers so I'll be supporting this project thank you thank you vice mayor any additional comments and this one is unusual for us we've done some single-family housing with the Ida but most of the other Ida votes we've had recently have have not been this type of affordable housing investment it's also different than many of the housing projects that have come through our council with where we've been allocating home funds or other projects this is suing bonds so it's not our general fund dollars or home funds going into this project with that roll call I'm sorry yes decision no guardado yes O'Brien yes pastor yes dark yes wearing now Garcia yes Gallego passes seven two items 25-29 are all related to our transit system shall we take them together all right vice mayor do we have a motion on 25-29 motion to approve items 25 through 29. questions or comments I'll vote for the 26 and 27 with comments wonderful okay yeah okay so then uh vice mayor could we have a motion on 25 28 and 29 motion to prove 25 28 and 29. thank you again questions or comments on 25 28 and 29. roll call I'm sorry yes deceasio no cuardado yes O'Brien yes pastor yes Stark yes wearing no Garcia yes Gallego passes seven two vice mayor could we have a motion on 26 and 27. motions approve item 26 and 27 second turn to councilman decisio for comments thank you Mary I'll make it very brief and I want to thank Scott for bringing us forward this is more along the lines of you know creating an RFP for public Outreach and I think when it comes to transit or anything that we do public Outreach is a critical thing and I think this is going to be important but this is more of a longer type question not a longer type but it's a I'm GL I hope that we start looking at local companies you know in the past if you look at a lot of these contracts that have been let by the transit groups they have been led to large companies outside of the state and we have large companies here we have companies here in Arizona that can do this work matter of fact they're going to other states right now and for some reason there's still this belief that someone from out of state is better than what we have here so it's more of a message to Transit let's take a really hard look at the local people and look at their qualifications and the fact that these companies are all over the place and we don't have to bring in National companies into the State of Arizona we can keep these dollars here and that's it Mary and I'm going to vote for it thank you thank you councilman decisio vice mayor agree with Sal again I I really do think cultural competency and folks that can speak just having lived through the South uh extension um it's going to be really important to have uh good processes and have some local folks doing this work so just wanted to highlight that as well thank you thank you councilwoman sorry mayor I've also had the opportunity to see just how important it is to have the community have a say in what's being developed in their neighborhoods through the South Central Tod process earlier this year it's obviously all about spring local Mobility so the local perspective and goals are a crucial part of the light rail expansion process is Success so I'm really excited about what will come from this plan but also moving forward with the expansion in general thank you thank you councilwoman any additional comments roll call I'm sorry yes decision yes O'Brien yes pastor yes Stark yes wearing no Garcia yes Gallego passes 8 1. we now move to our Planning and Zoning matters after a big day for Transit we'll begin with item 38 in the vice mayor's District which is a dedication of a map of the southeast corner of 59th Avenue and Baseline we do have one member of the public to come and I'll turn to the vice mayor for a motion motion to approved item 38 second Motion in a second we'll turn to Mark Rodriguez hello Mayor Kate Gallego and everybody at the Phoenix City Council how you all doing today doing well Mary Kate Gallego and I see you and yazio in the hotel broadcasting live because hey I'm talking about the 59th Avenue Baseline we gotta we're getting on all these and all that stuff and also at Denny's and uh we got a TJ Maxx we got a Michaels we got a Jack In The Box we got everything and I'm waiting for a movie theater to come out that you guys planning it because I was waiting for that because I've been waiting for me and my mom waiting at Alma Gomez is my mom's name and also and I was waiting for other stores to come open this year and Mary Kate Gallego I always been liking news ever since 2019 because you're kind of a cool mayor you're kind of awesome and also I love the shout out to all of you guys except Sal the CCO I am not a fan of you style the CCO it is what it is because I'm just respecting you mayor and the city councils and also America Gallego I hope you have a great time and Deborah Stark I give you a Christmas card early because I hope we get it because I talk to your guys in your office because Mr Stark I know you're got it because you know I'm I kind of like you mayor Gallego and members of the city council except South CCO not a fan of him but hey you know what it is and Mayor Kate Gallego and I hope you see me real soon and also you can give me talk to me and all that stuff because you can ask me questions and I wanted to say how are y'all doing and all that stuff because I kind of miss seeing you guys ever since September said you give me that certificate and mayor Gallego have a wonderful day sayonara I got the card it's Charlie Brown thank you sir yep thank you Deborah Stewart I hope you got it I did thank you but it's ever Stark you rock you do too and Deborah Stark I would love to see you in person again when you're not busy American Eagle and members of the city council I'll give you a holiday card when I get the money have a wonderful time thank you Mark so after that testimony and support of the map uh we will turn any comments roll call on 38. I'm sorry yes deceasio yes O'Brien yes pastor yes Stark yes wearing yes Garcia yes there you go passes 9-0 e stay on 59th Avenue for item 45 but uh enter councilman ansari's District so we will open the public hearing we have one member of the public to speak on behalf of the applicant uh Manja lavazz good afternoon mayor members of the council for your record my name is manjula Vaz the law firm of Gammage and Burnham to North Central Phoenix 85004 I am here today on behalf of PB Bell without any comments I certainly won't go into a presentation I did want to say thank you to councilwoman Ansari and to her staff who have been great this project started a little rough but they've been great working is working with us and certainly also want to thank the village chair and the vice chair and members of Levine Village and the members of paseo point I know that they are looking forward to more retail in Levine and I think bringing more high quality multi-family into the core will help bring that retail and we've certainly told them that we're all committed as is the seller to Bringing more retail to Levine so with that I'm happy to answer any questions and appreciate your support thank you dude does anyone have any questions all right well close the public hearing and I will turn to councilman and sorry thank you mayor um I'll just say a few comments this was one of my first um big projects going going through as a councilman representing District Seven I knew it was very important um for the Levine Village to have their voice heard through this process that's why I'm extremely thankful to Allen and the planning and development team for facilitating additional conversations at my request to make sure that some Levine Village planning committee members had the chance to speak directly with City staff and the applicants to create a project and make amendments that worked for everyone from these conversations there were measures taken to preserve some Scenic views along Dobbins Road by reducing one of the buildings from three stories to two stories there was also a really good faith effort made by all parties involved to ensure that this project is a positive one for the community and one that helps us work towards our housing plan goals in hearing from Levine residents we know and I understand how important it is to maintain the character of The Village and make sure that as it continues to grow that we continue to attract diverse retail and housing so I'm looking forward to continuing this conversation but again just very thankful for all the work that went in to get to this point and with that I moved to approve item 45 per the Planning and Development Department memo dated November 3rd and adopt the related ordinance second the motion in a second any further comments roll call I'm sorry yes deceasio yes O'Brien yes pastor yes Stark yes wearing yes Garcia yes there you go passes 9-0 46 47 and 48 will have one public hearing we'll begin with comments from our planning and development director Alan Stevenson thank you mayor members of council there's three items are three different zoning cases and Parcels that are part of one overall Redevelopment proposal for a shopping center on the south side of the property adjacent to Baseline Road and a multi-family Apartment project on the north side of the project up against the canal the three projects sit on your agenda as different items because they had different zoning cases all of the stipulation requests and modifications are dealing with the site plan and the current development format to ensure that it complies with the Public's expectations as it relates to the the zoning the one outstanding issue that did come up as part of this is related item 46 and that had to do with the realignment of 27th Street at Baseline Road the vice mayor has been working with Community residents that have had concerns some of the South Mountain Village planning committee members and the developer to come to a resolution that came out a memo just a little bit earlier this afternoon that provides for modification of the approval from the Planning Commission to require that there be some changes to the access driveway for the easternmost driveway to the subject site so that it's right in right out only that the developer will make a contribution in an escrow account to the street transportation department in the amount of four hundred thousand dollars to address I'm sorry 350 000 to address traffic mitigation issues that may arise in the future related to Traffic as this area is redeveloped those that could include a hawk as well as a traffic light at the 25th Street alignment and with that staff's happy to answer questions questions or comments before we go to the public hearing all right we will open the public hearing we do have representative for the applicant Paul Gilbert thank you mayor mayor are comfortable with the staff recommendation and want to express this particular appreciation for the vice mayor for his very tireless and tenacious efforts and bringing about a compromise that I think is a true win-win for both the developer and the community and the residents so that's all I have to say trust my Revenue will be rewarded okay any uh comments or questions we will close the public hearing I appreciate all who have worked on this this has been many years in the making and there's some real traffic concerns including one issue that went before the entire city council in this area and we're thinking of families impacted and as well as those who gave their time on this one vice mayor will first take item 45 do you have a motion on 45 foreign thank you thank you mayor and I'll just make a quick comment I want to thank all the community folks who came out to a couple meetings uh to Developers for listening and some of our uh Planning Commission and and uh bill is finding folks that that just took some interest make sure we did the right thing and got everybody on the same page um I do believe that a lot of those safety concerns are taken care of um there's a bus Bay that's also included in this project that would prevent some of the issues we've seen in the past and then uh look to the plan to the streets department to make sure that that money is well spent and that we take the safety of the residents around the area um concerns and make sure we try to to make it as safe as possible so with that I want a motion to approve item 46 based on the November 3rd Memo from the planning and development director and adopt the related ordinance second okay motion of the second any comments roll call I'm sorry yes decision yes yes O'Brien yes pastor yes Stark yes wearing yes Garcia yes there you go passes nine zero it's mayor do we have a motion on 47 motion to approve item 47 uh based on the planning hearings officer's recommendation any questions or comments roll call I'm sorry the CCO yes O'Brien yes a store yes Stark yes wearing yes Garcia yes there you go passes nine zero and finale item 48 vice mayor thanks to approved item 48 based on the planning hearings officer's recommendation and adopt the related ordinance second I'd like to send her a thank you councilwoman O'Brien it appears your audio thank you mayor a roll call thank you I'm sorry decisio yes yes O'Brien yes pastor yes Stark yes wearing yes Garcia yes there you go passes nine zero concludes today's business we are adjourned drums and we dispose of that now as oily water