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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEconomic Advisory Commission - Minutes - 02/18/2015MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2015 Location: CIC, City Hall Time: 11:00am–1:30pm For Reference Karen Weitkunat, Mayor & Council Liaison 416-2154 Josh Birks, Staff Liaison 221-6324 Dianne Tjalkens, Minutes 221-6734 Commission Members Present Commission Members Absent Michael Kulisheck (Mike) Michael Rechnitz Denny Otsuga Ann Hutchison Linda Stanley (arrived 11:11) Sam Solt (via phone) Glen Colton Ted Settle (arrived 11:11) Kim Dale Staff Present Staff Absent Josh Birks, Economic Health Director Dianne Tjalkens, minutes Lindsay Ex, Interim Customer and Administrative Services Manager Justin Scharton, Environmental Planner Guests Meeting called to order at 11:05am. Review and Approval of January minutes Glen moved and Denny seconded a motion to approve the January 21, 2014 minutes as presented. Motion passed unanimously, 6-0-0. Public Comment—none Commission Member Updates • Denny said CSU is hosting Agriculture Innovation Summit March 18–20. Attendance is open to the public. Get information on their website. Staff Updates—MOR— • Josh gave the following updates: o Asked group to think about next meeting: March 18 (Spring Break week). Will poll members for alternate meeting date via email. o Foothills Mall: Dispersed $23.1 million of 53 million assistance package. Have met requirements for first 2 tranches, and approaching leasing threshold for 3rd tranche. Working on design for underpass at old Larimer 2 ditch. Have announced some new tenants.  Have announced Cinemark. Additional to Timberline location? • Yes. With different format/experience from other location including hot food and alcoholic beverages.  Who negotiates the tenants? • They do. Their property. Staff has encourages certain types of tenants as impact sales tax, but they are property owner and control leases. o No active primary employer assistance packages at this time. Focused on understanding compliance for previous packages. Will have report out in March. No issues with performance. o Innovation, Economy, Clusters: Good support for local food. Competitive process for cluster funding: 11 applicants for $377,000 total. Interdisciplinary team of staff reviewing applications to make recommendations.  Local Food Cluster includes food manufacturing? • Focus from growing through production and distribution. Objective is local produce in restaurants and grocery stores. In formative stages, looking for gaps, and understanding food shed.  Regional includes Boulder/Longmont? • Working with Weld County, Northern Colorado. • Sam can come to EAC to discuss more o URA and regional development projects: new legislation on URA policies and procedures. Anticipate bill will pass. Changes to state statutes that govern URA include County representative on URA board. o URA: final disbursement to north college market place. Finalizing ongoing agreements on maintenance of wetlands. Prospect Station: awaiting reimbursement request. Working on Innosphere assistance. o Econ Health Strategic Plan Update o Policy issues tracking with other departments: Nature in the City, Housing Affordability Policy Study, Josh Ames Certificate issue, FortZED, CAP financing, etc. o NCEDC will have no full-time staff as of Friday. Have consultant and looking for new CEO in April. NCEA is new start-up funded by private sector. Will be complimentary. No City funds have been provided to NCEDC this year. o Making adjustments to dashboard metrics. Also using metrics for internal purposes related to BFO and budget. Can give quarterly update.  Metrics are not indexed and many cannot be directly impacted by Economic Health.  Topic added to unscheduled agenda items.  Must also have conversation on what sustainable economic development is. AGENDA ITEM 1—Nature in the City: Lindsay Ex, Interim Customer and Administrative Services Manager and Justin Scharton, Environmental Planner Strategic Plan to Council March 17. Staff took TBL approach to this project, with assistance from Megan Bolin, former Economic Health staff member. Seeking recommendation from EAC on draft Strategic Plan. Project is part of City Strategic Plan. Development patterns are changing to growing in and up, rather than out. Goal is to preserve access to nature and small town feel. This project builds on existing programs to get linkages between public and private lands, for people and wildlife. Want variety of nature experiences from playgrounds/parks to wilderness. 3 Project Phases:  Inventory and assessment: Data from 166 sites on biodiversity and vegetation. Lands managed for wildlife had best biodiversity. Social perspective: goals around infill and redevelopment need balance to escape from urban. Emphasis on connectivity. Also looked at business attraction and retention and impact on home values, based on proximity to nature. Nature contributes to quality of life.  Strategic Planning: Chapters—Vision and goals, policies, and implementation. Vision—10 minute walk to nature with variety of experiences. Easy access, high quality spaces. More diverse landscapes. o Policies:  Connectivity: Systems for people and wildlife. Also thinking of access versus other modes of travel. Wayfinding versus sign pollution.  Land Use and development: Land use code changes. Standards for open space are not clear. Providing design guidelines (developing with CSU). Sustainable urban agriculture policy.  Policy Coordination: best management practices and alignment between dept.  Long term monitoring: working on additional species monitoring and long term monitoring with CAP  Funding and incentives: Implementation costs. Leverage existing programs.  Implementation: Action items tie to policies and list who is responsible. Estimated costs included. Prioritized and identifies project under way. Green wall under way, limited acquisition, land use code changes. Input on Strategic Plan came from 15 member Citizen Advisory Committee, public engagement, business community engagement, board and commission feedback, and open house. Plan is online for public comment. Discussion/Q & A: • Visual preference survey: people agreed on getting rid of expanses of lawns and more plantings/visual interest. Hoping there will be funding/incentives that do not come from Natural Areas funds. Have current needs along Poudre River. Are incentives really needed for development? Developers are making a lot of money here. We should have standards that require development to meets community values. Concerned about incentivizing in general. o We are talking about land use code changes to be imposed on new development. How do we help HOAs turn existing detention ponds into landscapes that people prefer? Different audiences for different policies. o Natural Areas funds are very restricted. Will seek out multiple sources of funding, partnerships, etc. • Want to change default decision making process for development to encourage more natural/native landscaping. o That is land use/development piece. For not yet developed areas, how can we be more intentional to create a variety of experiences? • How much new development can you really impact? o Horizontally, it’s limited, but vertically in redevelopment, there is potential. Ex: hardscape plazas versus more natural areas. • How is education incorporated in the plan? Has staff thought about opportunities for community members, schools, etc. “adopt” any areas to offset costs and increase education and partnerships? o Resources: natural areas program model helps HOAs take ownership in their areas. Looking at how to do this in other areas. o Education: scattered throughout plan now. Had PSD rep on advisory committee: need neighborhood scale projects and engaging citizens. Could be more explicit. o Natural Areas challenge is influence ends at boundaries of properties. Don’t have a tool now to move beyond boundaries. Can work with neighborhoods to do backyard habitats, green spaces, etc. Natural Areas has a robust program for education and outreach. Opportunities to partner with PSD and others in the future. • Phase 1 has research on economics, but not much elsewhere. Funding is not fleshed out. o Isn’t financing general fund? o Multiple tools including outside funding, such as grants. Have not been explicit enough on financing. Challenge is Council has said this is 100 year vision. Short term financing is clear, and is in cost-implementation plan. Mid-term and longer-tern is more difficult. Have an additional index of funding resources that can be provided. • As we grow and infill there will be more pressure on existing open spaces. Can we look at impact fee as funding source for developments that are going up? Nature in the City is a type of infrastructure. Mitigating impact of denser development. o Separate fee from neighborhood and community park fee? o Yes, if not sufficient. • Concern that financial numbers are guesses. o Also don’t want to ask Council to put square peg in round hole. Soft economics. o We are a positive community that has amenities is underlying driver of a healthy economy. o Document is not clear on economic values of having a nice place to live. o Easy to ask for things and to describe outcomes, but difficult to talk about how it will happen. Need more detail about cost versus benefit in the plan. Great plan, but need to add specific comments on economics in memo to Council. Linda moved that Economic Advisory Commission recommend City Council pass the Nature in the City Strategic Plan. Glen seconded. Motion passed, 5-0-1. Denny abstained (not enough information). • Commission agreed to include a memo to accompany the motion. Josh will draft. • Does staff need to be clearer on economic benefits earlier in the plan, or asking for cost benefit analysis on implementation? o The latter. Suggestion to be clearer about economic piece in TBL analysis. o Can add development of financing plan as option item as piece of implementation. o This is future forward looking. How attractive community is, is part of business attraction. But cost needs to be specified. • Other boards have recommended the plan be adopted with caveats about content. • Best thing for economy is to have a nice place to live: attracts good people, who attract good businesses. Having natural areas where people can escape from the busy city is important. AGENDA ITEM 2— Revised Economic Health Strategic Plan: Josh Birks, Economic Health Director Questions for feedback: 1. Does EAC support broadening focus to incorporate support and service, as well as primary employers? 2. Does EAC support five themes? 3. Does EAC support strategies? 4. Any strategies or actions in which the City should not be engaged/involved? Economic Health Department formed in 2006. City Plan updated in 2010 and tool TBL approach, including economic health principles. First Economic Health Strategic Plan was adopted in 2012, but joined Sustainability Service Area and has since become apparent that strategic plan should align with other departments in the service area. Shifting into talking about why, then what to align with community values. Also want to align with City strategic plan, recognize shifting demographics, impacts of climate change, and community build out. Appendix item: defines broad categories of economy: primary sector (exports goods, imports income), support sector, service sector (low wages). Themes: 1. Community Prosperity: Opportunities across income and skills spectrums. 2. Grow Our Own: Economic system that fosters creative industry. 3. Place Matters: Balanced built and natural environment. 4. Climate Economy: Businesses adapt to climate change in-place. 5. Think Regionally: Partner to address issues that extend beyond municipal boundaries. Discussion/Q & A: • Primary jobs and base jobs is bad nomenclature. People think primary is most important, but not necessarily the case. o The appendix defines the terms and which industries fall into which categories. • Climate Economy: Reason we have GHG, climate change, etc. is economic growth is destroying our environment. Growing our economy more cannot help the climate. We have limited water and limited ability to support higher population. Ignoring that economy must exist within limits. Economy takes precedent over environment. We are missing what sustainability is really about. CAP CAC is ignoring growth as well. • Community Prosperity: Educated community is important to economy. 2nd paragraph talks about enabling systems that create skilled workers to meet employer needs. Add educational institutions as partners throughout the document. What are other economic development organizations? o LCWC, CSU, FRCC, NCEDC, etc. Can spell out more. • Shifting manufacturing, hear poor public perception of these jobs. Major hurdle in our community. Parents don’t want children to be welders unless they can’t be engineers. Putting resources into developing sectors, but must focus on perceptions as well. Work ready employees a challenge as well. At FRCC have business input and soft skills are missing. o Aligning training with available jobs. As well as ensuring training includes complementary skills. Hearing need machinists, but not producing them. Open pathways and address perception issues, plus understand opportunities at end of trainings. • Is this an addendum to the previous strategic plan? o This is high level policy direction setting. Have not gotten to specific action items in this plan yet, whereas 2012 plan had actions. Not clear yet. o If stand alone document, then concerned. It reads bureaucratic. Support themes, but document is lacking. Doesn’t matter in five years how well coordinated with sustainability. Not measuring that. o Started as addendum, but themes are big change from 2012 plan. Not sure how to read both together now. o What is missing, clear benchmarks? o Would strip out coordination and leave meat of what will be done. • For example: Page 11, goal A1 is to close skills gap. Strategies include creating an annual employer satisfaction survey, supporting industry in identifying skills, etc. Metrics include people with degrees and certificates placed in local workforce, current labor participation rate, employer survey data, etc. Could get more specific with tactics. o New draft has sections of integration with other departments and strategic plans. o Council asked to include this information. Goals and measurements are very explicit. o Sustainability Assessment of plan will be completed. • Do you have benchmarks for the metrics? o For some yes. Others are new and will start tracking. • No problem measuring things outside control, but good to have some with more direct impact. People will move into Fort Collins, if we let them move in and do nothing, that will become more of a problem than planning, and setting structure and programs to maintain character. Staff should be included in meetings between FRCC and industries. Welders: what are benefits, what are they being paid, how long do they stay, and how many are really needed? o Information on those things exists. Our office funnels money to support other efforts. Need metrics we control that are outcome oriented. o Most outcomes are bigger than what the City can affect. Some people choose to come here, and have underemployment. Not the City’s job to take care of that. o For a portion of the population, not lifestyle choice related. o See underemployment in places with education jobs. We can be greatest community, but then attract more people and get underemployment again. o We won’t eradicate underemployment. We are one of top 10 places with underemployment. Something can be addressed: closing skills gap, etc. o Bring in employers and they bring in new people. Need to be realistic about what the City can do. Most people can move to where they can be fully employed. Not the City’s job. • Can this group review the plan regularly? o Living document. Can use to develop EAC work plan. Ted moved the Economic Advisory Commission supports the approval and adoption of the updated Economic Health Strategic Plan, as a living document, and encourages the City Council and Economic Advisory Commission to request regular implementation updates and reviews of the plan. Denny seconded. Motion passed, 4-2-0. Linda: disagrees with specific items in the plan Glen: it is a growth enabling document, with subsidization policies • View Fort Collins as regional anchor. Words like work with and coordinate are too passive. Change to initiate, etc. Must act regionally. • Living document; the EAC need updates from staff and opportunities to add/change. • Document is a framework. New items will come before EAC and can use plan to make decisions and stay on track. • Member requested Glen to draft details on what should be done for steady state economy. AGENDA ITEM 3— 2104 Annual Report/2015 Work Plan Draft Postponed. AGENDA ITEM 4—Other Business March Agenda • Not discussed. Review City Council’s 6-Month Planning Calendar/Agenda Planning • Not discussed. Announcements • Not discussed. Meeting Adjourned: 1:30pm Next Meeting: March 18