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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEconomic Advisory Board - MINUTES - 11/20/2024Page 1 11/20/2024 Minutes Economic Advisory Board REGULAR MEETING Wednesday, November 20, 2024 – 4:00 PM 300 Laporte Ave, CIC Room 1. CALL TO ORDER: 4:00 PM 2. ROLL CALL a. Board Members Present – • Tim Cochran • Thierry Dossou • Erin Gray • Val Kailburn • Braulio Rojas • Renee Walkup b. Board Members Absent – • Denny Coleman • Chris Denton • Richard Waal c. Staff Members Present – • Ashley Kailburn, Sr Specialist, Economic Health Office • Erin Sporer, Business Support, Economic Health Office • Tyler Menzales, Sr Manager, Economic Health Office • Michael Bussmann, Lead Business Specialist, Economic Health Office • Sylvia Tatman-Burruss, Senior Policy & Project Manager, City Manager’s Office • Megan Keith, Senior Planner, Comm Development and Neighborhood Services d. Guest(s) – 3. AGENDA REVIEW 4. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES a. Braulio motioned and Theirry seconded to approve the October Minutes. Motion carried Unanimous. 6-0. 6. NEW BUSINESS a. Land Use Code (LUC) Phase 2 • Gave presentation to Council on November 12th. Page 2 11/20/2024 Minutes • Project team includes Clay Frickey, Sylvia Tatman-Burruss, Megan Keith, and Noah Beals • They will also be utilizing a consulting team, production team, and a group to help with the focus group conversations. • Phase two focuses on commercial districts • The LUC establishes processes and requirements for development approvals, sets development standards, guides future community planning, and regulates property use and public benefit. • The LUC does not subsidize development, regulate building code, or regulate street design and construction. • establish process and requirements for development approvals • There was compliance with certain house bills that were passed earlier this year that will affect the LUC, but it is not part of this project. • HB24-1313 – TOD, HB1152 – Accessory Dwelling Units, and HB24- 1304 – Multifamily Parking • Project Timeline • Attended November 12th Council Work Session • Currently working with consultants and staff • Focus Groups start in January • April and July Council Work Sessions • August Adoption • Guiding Principles - Draft • Enable more housing and compatible infill, especially along transit corridors and near commercial centers, create resilient commercial and employment centers that are adaptable to future needs, create better form standards for greater predictability along transit investment corridors, and improve predictability of LUC, especially to support small business owners. • Structure Plan • Play a critical role to the future vision Fort Collins is looking for. • Priority place types include urban mixed-use district, suburban mixed-use district, neighborhood mixed-use district, mixed employment district, and mixed neighborhood. • Anticipated primary focus includes urban mixed-use district, suburban mixed-use district, neighborhood mixed-use district, mixed employment district, research & development/flex district, and industrial district. • Mixed-Use District Place Types • The LUC does not support future place types. • Mismatch on how our code is able to deliver what is envisioned for the City. • Mixed-use district place types • 7% of the City • 36% of re-developable land • Typically located along transit corridors • Corresponds mostly to General Commercial (GC) and Neighborhood Commercial Zoning (about 30% each) • Draft Guiding principle: Enable more housing and compatible infill, especially along transit corridors and near commercial centers. • Potential LUC Updates • Set minimum intensities near transit, permitted uses, process review, and parking requirements Page 3 11/20/2024 Minutes • Potential outcomes • Housing diversity and choices near transit and more mixed-use in transit corridors and around transit stations • Mixed-Employment Place Types • The LUC does not support future place types • Often corresponds to Harmony corridor zoning and employment zoning. • Draft Guiding Principle: Create resilient commercial and employment centers that are adaptable to future needs • Potential LUC updates • Examine required ratio of primary employment uses versus secondary supporting uses (retail, multifamily, childcare) • Potential outcomes • Better integration and mix of uses in existing employment centers and reduction in vehicle miles traveled to support greenhouse gas reduction goals. • Standards • Better form standards = greater predictability • Update standards that are in line with the values and desires of the community: • Rely less on time-consuming negotiated processes • Provide more equitable access to opportunities • More predictable outcomes for everyone • Draft Guiding Principle: Create better form standards for greater predictability along transit investment corridors. • Potential LUC updates • Form-based standards for non-residential structures; standards that focus on public realm, pedestrian/multimodal site design and orientation; and multimodal connectivity (off-site connections) • Potential outcomes • Form standards that yield better design and more predictability, and improved pedestrian and multi-modal connections between residential and commercial areas as well as transit stations. • Equitable process: Clearly defined expectations lower the “entry point” for development, opens the door for local, small businesses. • Drafting Guiding Principle: Improve predictability of the LUC, especially to support small business owners. • Potential LUC Updates • Change-of-use process for existing sites and buildings, and explore strategies to help ensure sites are brought up to modern standards over time without discouraging new business formation • Potential Outcomes • Support local entrepreneurs, small businesses and predictability in the development review process. • Community engagement • Six commercial center visits (one per Council District), held October 4th-14th. • Sent community members out to document what they like or Page 4 11/20/2024 Minutes didn’t like about these commercial areas. • Some likes included locally owned businesses and elements like outdoor seating; features like bike parking, seating, and pedestrian buffers; easy access to residential areas and nearby transit options; and amenities such as childcare and diverse housing options nearby • Dislikes included large parking lots, lack of sidewalks or walkways, and the need for better pedestrian crossing and bike parking; bus stops that feel disconnected from surrounding areas; and lack of mix-use opportunities, particularly on the second story of buildings. • One Business Kick-Off Event • The webpage will have more interactive opportunities to provide feedback, sign up for events, and receive updates about the project. • Next steps include focus groups, community engagement sessions, code refinement, and public review of the draft. • Draft code should be released in June. Questions • What do you mean by form standards? • What the build outcome would look like in terms of setbacks, height, building articulation and elements like that. Right now, code doesn’t have it illustrated in helpful way with diagrams. Hoping to introduce that in next round of code updates. Our team of architects will help us work on them and insure they are ready for Fort Collins. • Who are your main stakeholders? • The whole community is interested in better shopping centers, but folks who know and use the code daily are those who know what is going to move the needle on what we want to see in the future. Those folks are developers, designers and even some of the brokers and those who deal with businesses moving into existing spaces. Our focus is those who use the code and take projects through the developer. Michael is finding things like timing is a big issue. Some of it is process oriented and some of it is actually descriptive. • There is a big difference in conversation between the folks that use the code every day and the business folks in the local corridors that are only going to use the code maybe once or twice. We are trying to get the right information between the right people to figure out where the roadblocks and barriers there are and how to at least reduce that in a way that benefits the community. • The board brought up that a big challenge and concern could be when someone doesn’t like something and causes a lot of noise and gets signatures. It is better to address that now and keep those fires little. • That is why we had our big community forum. We had questions about parking. Most of the community want a minimum parking standard and other folks are saying we need somewhere to park. But then there is a state bill that is going to remove certain requirements. We are looking at what might make a project more feasible but wouldn’t upset the community. Those are the things we are listening for to see if they will become bigger and looking to mitigate it. • We keep hearing about affordability in Fort Collins being a problem for our Page 5 11/20/2024 Minutes school systems, keeping talent, etc. What do you see? • The state has tried to do things to supersede local policies so that higher density projects can happen. Accessory dwelling units don’t necessarily move the needle, but they are one tool. Another one is parking standards, and it all accumulates. I think the affordability issue is tricky because we also want good infrastructure. We want good bike and walking accessibility and those can increase the cost of development. So, there is a balance there. There is also an affordable housing strategic plan. We are trying to get some other mechanisms through like our capital improvement taxes. It is tricky. I think we can set rules in the LUC that maybe make the process less onerous and that can help reduce cost for developers but that is just one piece. • One thing our consultants are going to help with is looking at feasibility in how to get more mixed-use type buildings in these corridors. Hopefully some of that can be affordable and increase housing supply. The consultants can help us get there and see where the code is preventing that. • There is also opportunity for incentives like floor bonuses for affordable housing to get built into the code. • Board emphasized importance of easily getting through the process, clarity and streamlining. • Although Building Code and Land Use Code are different and separate documents, they do have to work in concert in a lot of ways. It is important to recognize that once they get through this process, there are three more processes to get right. So we need to optimize and create efficiency. • Affordable housing is tricky. I know you cannot promise that in the process because that is one component of the issue. • Have you considered the school system in the process? It is a big issue here as the schools are under populated. • The school issue is tricky. The state came through on trying to increase density in neighborhoods. Moving housing to commercial corridors doesn’t affect neighborhoods as much but increases density and hopefully population overall. It is a long term issue. • Board recommended it being part of the marketing because people need to understand that the City needs to continue to grow. We are not doing this to be selfish, it is for the common good of Fort Collins. • Regarding ADU’s it seems like there are no longer restrictions on them. So if I want one on my property and so does my neighbor, we can do that. How does the City plan for how many ADUs can pop up? Are the considered affordable housing? How will this affect schools? • When we looked at the market analysis and how many we would it, it is really small. It is building another house. You have to get utilities out to it. It could be $200K or more depending on your building choices. The prices per square foot is not going to decrease just because it’s an ADU or small space. The amount of people that can do that is pretty limited. Loveland has had an ADU policy for a while and they have had 30 in the past 5 years. It’s not like we have the policy and then 40,000 pop up in town. ADU’s is in the bag of solutions but they are lot the larger driver. They are a great option to increase the variety of choice or type of unit. Page 6 11/20/2024 Minutes • In terms of affordable housing, they are usually not. They can be but they are just market rate rent. Depending on the size it could be a good option for someone if it is a studio or one bedroom so hopefully it would be cheaper than a full bedroom house but that is set by the market. We don’t have any provisions that it has to be affordable housing. • So tiny homes would even cost the same to build? • Tiny homes are a little different because often those are built on an actual trailer or built more like a mobile home. They can also be expensive depending on how they are built but they wouldn’t be considered an accessory. • I think another piece from this conversation on affording housing that is missing is a legal definition. It has a percentage of varying income associated. Just because it is a smaller unit and its cheaper than a larger unit there is a legal definition for it. • What are your next steps in relation to Council approval? • Right now, we are going to be doing a lot of engagement. We will take what we saw through engagement and recommendations back to Council in hopefully April. That is probably when we would come back to you as well. We probably won’t go for potential adoption until August. We might look at feedback at different points. • Board emphasized building a better foundation for the process due to the sensitivity of the subject. 7. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS a. Braulio received an email from Sarah Kane stating that the Mayor wants to schedule a meeting to talk about what they are working on. He has been busy but wants to revisit the work plan so share what they have all agreed on. 8. STAFF REPORTS a. The work plan is due at the end of November. • The board went through last year’s work plan to update it. • The board updated Regionalism & Industry Cluster Study to just say Regionalism as the cluster study has been updated through REDI. • Water Supply Requirement passed so the Board removed it from their work plan. • They also discussed the projects happening in the North College region with the old Albertson’s. • East Mulberry is a long term project • I know the City will have to invest a lot in infrastructure if that area is annexed. Does the City see that as revenue generating? • It would be revenue generating in that whatever businesses we absorb their revenue would be subject into our sales tax and use. So that would flow into revenue to the City. • I think we will lose a lot of businesses, like small businesses, painters, and roofers, that will affect our community in a negative way. They won’t be able to afford that property. • In the discussions I have had so far, that is pretty top of mind for our redevelopment and real estate folks as we have to go into that with a good amount of intention and make sure not to make anyone mad. • We are just north of the corridor but when we bought the property, we were told it would be annexed in three years; Page 7 11/20/2024 Minutes that was 2013. I think they are taking their time and doing it the right way. We participated in listening sessions right around COVID. A concern brought up was as soon as the businesses are annexed they will start paying taxes but they might not see infrastructure improvements for years. • That sentiment has also been echoed quite loudly from the South College corridor. So the City is acutely aware of it as they are moving into this phase. • Board decided to keep the East Mulberry Corridor and add the North College corridor. • The board removed Land Use Code Phase 1 since Phase 1 has already passed. • The board would like to see presentations on LUC Phase 2 in May and July after the team meets with Council. • The Economic Health Office is working with the Chamber and Larimer County on how they do thoughtful business attractions and who needs to be at the table. It will not be a formal committee or subcommittee of the chamber as it is co-owned by EHO, the Chamber, and the Workforce Department of Larimer County. EHO would like to have a representative from EAB. Might want to consider if that is something you want brought back for discussion at EAB. • Since the City is now a chamber member, what kind of attendance does that allow us? • It does not include participation in the Local Legislative Affairs Committee, but beyond that I do not know. Anne Hutchinson would know more. Tyler can find out more. • Kevin did state that Tim, on the board does attend about half of the Local Legislative Affairs Committee meetings so the board does have some representation there. Although they are not allowed to speak. Chamber members are allowed to attend and observe but he doesn’t know where that line is drawn with the City. b. Ashley reminded the Board that some board members’ terms are coming to an end in March. They no longer have one-year terms. Ashley will find out more information from Davina on if any members are term limited. Applications should be out soon and if they have intention on staying on the board to please reapply. c. New file structure on how to save documents and they are not in Google Drive. Ashley will verify how she will be sharing information with them going forward. 9. OTHER BUSINESS a. Mill levy • It Passed. The Board might have to revisit it in a few years • The board said they should keep their eye on it. b. December Meeting • The Board is considering moving the December meeting a week ahead. Ashley will send out an email to find out availability on the 11th vs 18th. 10. ADJOURNMENT a. (5:55PM) Minutes approved by a vote of the Board/Commission on 01/15/2025