HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - Mail Packet - 3/9/2021 - Council Futures Committee Agenda - March 8, 2021
City Manager’s Office
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PO Box 580
Fort Collins, CO 80522
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Futures Committee Agenda
Monday March 8, 4:00-6:00pm
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Chair Comments and Approval of February 24, Minutes:
4:00 4:15
Think Tank Item 3-2021
4:15- 5:15 The Past, Present and Future of Futures
Overview of History, Purpose and Impacts of the Futures Committee: Dr. Megan
DeMasters, Sustainability Services, City of Fort Collins
Facilitated discussion and reflection with Committee Members and participants
5:15-5:30 Bloomberg updates from the Mayor
Upcoming items
Unscheduled Items
Changes in Service Delivery **
How to co-create in the midst of COVID-19**
Slow Cities **
Design Thinking **
City as a Platform **
Drones**
Regionalism (Larimer/Weld county)
University of the Future
Futurists
Cultural Heritage
Learning
Curiosity
Mental Health
Learning (knowledge and
wisdom)
Digital Equity
Committee Members
Mayor Wade Troxell (Chairperson)
Councilmember Emily Gorgol
Councilmember Julie Pignataro
Staff Liaison: Jacqueline Kozak-Thiel, Chief Sustainability Officer
Staff Support: Megan DeMasters, Specialist, Environmental Services
**Committee Priority topic
Think Tank Items 2021
1-2021 The Future of Housing
and Communities of
Opportunity
2-2021 The Future of Livable
Cities: Housing, Streets
and Food
3-2021 The Past, Present and
Future of Futures
Think Tank Items 2020
1-2020 Becoming Fort Collins:
Regenerative
Approaches for Our
Future
2-2020 The Future of Health
Equity
3-2020 Voices of Youth
4-2020 The Future of
Community
Engagement
5-2020 Pragmatic and
Visionary Approaches
to Digital Inclusion
6-2020 The Impact of COVID-
19 and the New
Normal of Work
7-2020 Future of Leveraging
Our Platform of
Connexion
1
MINUTES
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
FUTURES COMMITTEE MEETING
Date: February 24, 2021
Location: Zoom Webinar
Time: 4:00-6:00pm
Committee Members present:
Mayor Wade Troxell
Emily Gorgol
Julie Pignataro
Additional Council members present:
Susan Gutowsky
City Staff:
Jackie Kozak-Thiel, (Staff Liaison)
Presenter:
Jeff Risom, The Gehl Group
Additional Staff present:
Kyle Stannert, City Manager’s Office
Kelly Di Martino, City Manager’s Office
Tyler Marr, City Manager’s Office
Colman Keane, Connexion
Sarah Hite, Environmental Services
Cameron Gloss, CDNS
Caryn Champine, PDT
Dean Klingner, PDT
Teresa Roche, Human Resources
Greg Yeager, Police Services
Nina Bodenhamer, CityGive
Drew Brooks, Transfort
Lindsay Ex, Sustainability Services
Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Social Sustainability
Victoria Shaw, Sustainability Services
Brittany Depew, Social Sustainability
Community members:
Diane Jones
Max Moss
Michele Betsill
Kevin Jones, Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce
Susan McFaddin
Bill Becker, Energy Board
Meeting called to order at 8:03am
Approval of Minutes:
2
Julie Pignataro moved to approve January 11 minutes. Emily Gorgol seconded. Motion passed
unanimously. 3-0-0.
Chairman Comments: None
Summary
• Jeff Risom, Chief Innovation Officer for the Gehl group connected various conversations that we
have had at Futures including Housing, Streets and Food
o Jeff touched on council priorities and topics that touch on current planning processes
such as Our Climate Future (OCF) and the Housing Strategic Plan (HSP)
▪ Examples include smart cities, a well-tempered city, and the soft city framing and
the continued focus on human scale, community building and community design
• Livability is woven into much of the work that is done at the City
• There is an opportunity to learn from cities that are “postcards for the future”
o Jeff compares and contrasts Copenhagen and Fort Collins
o While Fort Collins should not strive to be Copenhagen, we can learn from their history
and the changes they have made over the last 40 years, use these lessons learned to see
how to plan for future livability in Fort Collins
• Continue to consider density and how density can be beneficial
o As the Housing Strategic Plan moves from adoption to implementation, density will
continue to be explored as housing options are developed across the whole housing
spectrum including missing middle
• Community building and design utilizing triple bottom line thinking support non-car development
and can be connected to recent plans such as OCF and the HSP
o Consider how to redesign our streets for connectivity
• City as a Platform was explored and developed as place for innovation, connection and change.
Consider how we can continue to utilize this.
• Our infrastructure and streets are some of our greatest assets to reach community goals.
• Consider how to support our local food systems—OCF explores the expanded role for thinking
about food
• Explore how cultural change in the community for community members and housing builders and
developers and shift how our city is built out
o How do we create platforms for yes?
• The Futures committee is able to zoom out and consider the mental models that we need to
challenge and evolve
Think Tank Item 2-2021: The Future of Housing Livable Cities: Integrating Housing Streets and
Food
• Introduction to the Gehl group which studies human behavior and shapes conditions for people to
thrive
• Discuss Livability in 3 chapters
• Chapter 1: Housing and Density—moving from smart city to a soft city
o In Colorado, there has been historically a limited choice for housing
o A Soft City is a city that is adaptable, flexible at the human scale accommodating safe
o Recognize that density can come in many different shapes and sizes, in the U.S. only
seeing a fraction of the options
▪ Compare and contrast Copenhagen and Fort Collins via a map right next to each
other—see differences in housing types and how nature is integrated into the city
o Benefits of density include proximity to transit, and community buildings
o Challenges with development in Colorado include:
▪ Building transit (hard to justify cost when further away)
3
▪ Neighborhoods are less permeable when they are spread out
▪ Density makes it easier to achieve sustainability goals
o Diversity in housing types leads to greater economic diversity
▪ In Soft Cities it is easier to convert buildings into different uses
o It is impossible for Cities that have large goals related to sustainability, housing, safety
and equity without incorporating density.
• Chapter 2: Streets and Mobility
o Streets are our most precious urban public resource and are 80% of our open space
o There is a need to create a culture that values our streets more.
o Discusses the National Street Service collaboration with Ford motors
▪ Streets are run by rules, but these rules are based on core beliefs about streets (i.e.
dangerous, need core flows)
▪ Rewrite rules to increase quality of streets to empower communities to say what
kind of environment they want
• Redesign for vision of community to flourish and prosper.
• Recognize that cars are not going away and value other things as well.
▪ Rules come from beliefs
• Apply principles for social movements to change our ideas about streets
o Tools to shift culture around streets:
▪ Think about space in different ways—i.e. could we grow food in a parking
space?
▪ Listen to a story about a street
▪ Boise Idaho—welcome mats next to parked cars that say welcome to walking
o There continues to be many policies that support “green cars” those policies reflect well
intentions but narrow visions. Consider how to connect different types of policies to
reduce car use
▪ Connect more green cars to limiting the fleet in your city
▪ New proposed development without parking for private vehicles
▪ Vulnerable communities more reliant on cars need to prioritize access for more
green cars to these groups as well.
• Chapter 3: Equity, Health, Climate Action
o There is a need to understand the lived experience of community members and use this as
evidence to make bold decisions
o Measure what we care about and frame data in a way that elected officials and
community understand
o Food and Healthy neighborhoods
▪ Data key—i.e. in London found that increase in childhood obesity was tied to
transport
▪ Climate targets can be reached by shifting eating habits
Comments/Q&A:
• Chapter 1: Housing and Density
o Discussion about how redevelopment can support density
o Question about how to balance open space and density—Jeff asks the committee to be
critical of the belief that more open space is better
▪ Think about the setting for open space and how to connect to it
▪ Be thoughtful about the thoughtful about location, access and climate—less open
space can actually be more useful.
o Discussion about the very real challenges with changing culture around open space and
values around housing
o Interesting tradeoff between open space and density
4
▪ Spaces we have are far away from amenities,
▪ Argue that building denser can give you more access to nature
▪ Culture of people and place can be challenging—but it can be changed over time.
o Recognize that Fort Collins is dedicated to sustainability and reducing cars, but our
housing and the way we build our city doesn’t support that. What is the role of builders
and developers and how do we bring community members along in these decisions?
▪ In thinking about livability—best transportation policy a city adopt is to change
housing density policy.
▪ To get support from builders and developers can adopt policies that support
different housing types. Also recognize that cultural changes need to happen
among builders and developers
▪
o Question about the kind of building standards does Copenhagen have
▪ Jeff shares that there are few building standards in Copenhagen.
▪ Market is Peer Driven—build efficient homes because that is what people
demand
o Question about how to address pressing need for the missing middle in housing types
▪ The biggest barrier to varied housing is NIMBYism-have to create platforms for
yes—people who want the changes have a platform for change.
• Chapter 2: Streets and Mobility
o Recognize that it is difficult to implement green policy
o Utilize City as a Platform to engage community to envision a different future for their
streets and how vision can be achieved if they are willing to make tradeoffs
o Think about how to have community pushing with you versus against you
o Mention of the Open Streets program and how to leverage and expand upon that program
o Mention of Linden street project that allows for multi-use of the street—hope is that the
visibility of this project will help to create paradigm shifts
o Question if there a universal framework that can be applied toward evaluating mobility?
▪ There is not a universal framework because different places have different needs
• Chapter 3: Equity, Health, Climate Action
o Important to think about how we value food has changed over time and the tradeoff
between convenience and food quality —tradeoff between convenience and food quality
o Community gardens as a way to keep food needs local
o Learn from the youth—where are they going? This can help us redesign and build
healthier
• Recognize that Fort Collins is a city that both builds and plans. Moving forward, need to do more
to ensure that community is building and planning with us
• Consider both how to be intentional about building a soft city and how to dismantle hard edges
Bloomberg updates from the Mayor
• Mayor discusses a Bloomberg proposal focused on wellness, equity and the urban tree canopy.
Additional Discussion: None
Meeting adjourned by Mayor Troxell at 9:36am