Well, we're gonna get started with our study session for June 9. Council Member Miller is on his way. We have three issues on our agenda today. We have a facilities condition assessment presentation, then we'll be talking about residential parking minimums within downtown and then, developer parking agreement policy. So we'll start off with our facilities commission I mean, facilities condition assessment presentation and, Zach Wood.
And take it away. Good afternoon, council president, council members, mayor. Zach Wood, manager of facilities and property. Gonna give a quick update on our facilities condition assessment project we've had going on. So just a real high level overview of facilities. So prior to 2021, facilities were all managed by individual departments. There was no central group overseeing and directing facilities. In 2021, the manager of facilities and property role was established to lead citywide facilities oversight. And in 2022, the building automation assistant specialist and facility supervisor role was implemented to enhance operational efficiency.
In 2023, the joint facilities group was launched to bring all the facilities teammates under one department and manage citywide facilities as one group and work on collaboration across departments. As part of that initiative, some strategic across departments. As part of that initiative, some strategic initiatives were rolled out. The was developing a sustainable annual funding model for facilities maintenance projects, standardizing prioritization for framework for facilities projects, conducting a comprehensive facilities condition assessment and a ten year capital project road map and then identifying and documenting our deferred maintenance needs at all of our facilities.
Just right now, an update on some of the key facilities initiatives that the Facilities Department is working on. We have our Downtown Building Energy Transition Phase two project. That project is installing geothermal central heating and cooling plants to serve Mayo Civic Center, Art Center, Civic Theater, and Roxy Public Library. That project is under construction. We expect it to go online in November to December of twenty twenty five and wrap up construction with some site work in 2026. We also have the Regional Sports And Recreation Complex. We're currently working on design and budgeting the schematic design of that project that will
be coming to council this summer for review. Our parks and forestry expansion at the PWTLC campus is in progress. We have site grading and utility work going on. We'll be coming back in July to award all the remaining trade packages for that project. Team alignment as we've kind of moved, teammates from across the organization into one department, continuing to collaborate with other departments to make sure we're managing facilities as well as we can. The facilities condition assessment is ongoing. We're looking at that today. And then we have a few other miscellaneous projects, two roofing projects wrapping up this month, the rec center roof replacement and Civic Theater roof replacement,
and the Fire Station 3 roof replacement, which was approved last week. So just an overview of the facility condition assessment as a whole. This, document that we were delivered is intended to be a living document to give us a long term road map for forecasting our capital needs for our facilities. It's automatically reforecasted. So for example, in 2025, we completed the Civic Theater roof replacement. We now have that forecasted out in the 2045 for replacement based upon the expected life cycle of that system and using the cost breakdown and industry standard escalation rates
for those projects. It tracks all major facilities components based upon the Construction Specifications Institute, CSI, breakdowns. So we can really look at all these issues that were identified in a focused lens, so we're working with the right consultants and contractors to implement the fixes. This assessment was performed by Kraus Anderson's facility condition assessment team. They're experts in facility condition assessments. It was also reviewed with their construction estimation team to ensure that we have pricing accuracy and we're using industry standard escalation rates as we move our projects throughout this
ten year road map and beyond. And we plan to revisit this report every five years and have it reassessed, so we're making sure we're always on top of the condition of our facilities and alignment with our evolving standards for our facilities. So an overall summary of this report overviewed, 23 city facilities, roughly 1,700,000 square feet. There are still a few more facilities forthcoming. The airport will be performed later this year and a few small park facilities. Through this report, approximately 126,900,000 of deferred maintenance needs were identified over the next ten years.
And that $126,900,000 number is really the cost of inaction. If we continue to operate as usual, don't get proactive funding with our maintenance needs, that's the cost we can expect to pay to continue to operate the facilities that we have. Those costs are escalating the burden. They highlight the escalation of those burden by moving those projects out, so we have expected escalation for each year. And it serves as a reference point to compare against our strategic for each year, and it serves as a reference point to compare against our strategic investment plans and justify funding needs. So through this report, four facilities were identified as in poor condition, and we'll get into those in a few minutes.
Those were the police range control building, the animal shelter, Hadley Creek pro shop, and fire station three. So this next slide highlights the facilities condition index ratings. This is kind of an industry standard rating formula for rating the condition of a building. Essentially, we take the deferred maintenance cost divided by the replacement value of facility, and that falls into the categories in the chart there to tell us the where that facility's condition currently sits. So we expect our facilities, once they're more than a few years old, to really fall into that good to fair category. And if we can proactively fund the ongoing maintenance,
we can really keep them there. And when we start seeing that slide, that's when we see building sliding to that poor and critical category. So this is a ten year annual maintenance cost projection and recommendation given by the contractor. Obviously, this is just their recommendations. It's very front end loaded, so it's kind of hard to read. But in 2026, they forecasted about $40,000,000 of projects. We don't have that level of funding, so we're working to prioritize projects and get done the ones we need to with the funding we have available, and then working on long term, spreading these projects out into an acceptable,
funding range that we can find. This next, slide highlights the criticality. So these items on here are really showing how much these systems affect our building and the cost associated with them. So these aren't all the present day costs, but it's really showing that not investing in proactive maintenance can drastically impact. So the red indicates would it have a major impact to a facility's operation? These are things like roofs, building envelopes, electrical systems, HVAC systems, some something to where, if they're not functional, you can't operate a building. So it really highlights the need to stay on top of these items and make
sure we're adequately maintaining our facilities. So with that, we're gonna jump into kinda reviewing some of these facilities here. Can you move the caption? Yep. There we go. So the building is the animal shelter. This facility was built in 1995, approximately 6,900 square feet, has an estimated replacement value in 2025 of $2,200,000 and about $1,300,000 of deferred maintenance costs identified. So every building is gonna have a chart like this. These break down the costs into those construction specification categories, and we'll touch that as we kinda go through the main issues on these.
So in the animal shelter for the site, there was needs identified for parking lot mill and overlay and re striping in the immediate future. Parking lots got a lot of grade changes, cracking, trip hazards, things like that, and it's just difficult to navigate. For the exterior enclosure of the facility, there's original windows and doors that are recommending replacement. They're starting to fail and allow water ingress, exterior repairs to the CMU met or, CMU block, as well as repairing efflorescence with that block, and tuck pointing of the masonry service, surfaces. The roof is still the original roof to the facility.
Towards the end of the ten year capital forecast, we have that as being replaced. The interior construction is a low criticality, so we could push it out, but it's addressing things like finishes in the building, carpet, millwork, all those kind of things that, wear over time. Plumbing, so there's some issues with some of the plumbing systems, they have kind of an elaborate pressure washing system to clean the building, that's kind of a maintenance headache for our team. Addressing that, replacing some water heating equipment. The HVAC systems are original to the building, they're not in very good shape, so looking at either repairing or replacing those units,
and doing some duct cleaning just due to the use of the facility. Electrical wise, they're recommending VFD replacements, those are our variable frequency drives that control our motor loads, which run our pumps and fans, which essentially heat and cool the building. So those are past their expected service life, so essentially, as those fail, we're looking at having downtime in the building. And then, just an overall note on this facility, RPD is exploring partnerships in the community to determine the future need of this facility. So depending on how those partnerships go, there may be reassessment of the Police Range Control Building.
So this is the firing range. It was built in 1980, approximately 20,000 square feet, has an estimated replacement cost today of $9,000,000 and about $5,500,000 in deferred maintenance costs identified. So overall, there's a lot of site work, or site and logistics issues with this, there's a lot of settling of parking lots. We have water flowing into buildings instead of away. The entire, roadway and parking lot needs a mill and overlay and restriping. And then, some security concerns, just with police using it, there's concerns over the height of the fence there.
The building structure, this is really focused on the exterior firing range. You can see in the top left photo there, that structure is well past its useful life. They've been kinda putting band aids on it. You can see there's joists sagging in the middle. Overall, in the next few years, this will need to be addressed or just decommissioned. It's becoming unsafe for people to be around. The exterior enclosure of the building itself, replacement of windows and doors, a significant amount of tuck pointing. You can see in the bottom left photo, you can actually see out of the building through gaps in the precast panels.
The roof is original, so that is coming up for replacement soon. Interior construction, we have a lot of settling that happened with this facility, so a lot of cracked concrete leading to drainage issues with our trench drain systems that need to be replaced. There is no fire protection system or fire monitoring system in this facility. There are a significant amount of RPD assets stored there, so if this facility's life were to continue, we'd wanna explore something like that to protect the building and the assets within. And then, HVAC wise, most of the systems in this building are past the end of their useful life, failing, need to be replaced.
There's also no, CO or NO two monitoring for our vehicle storage, so that's what ventilates the building automatically when someone leaves a car running. So really making sure we're setting up, safety wise for our staff for the future by addressing those. The next facility is Fire Station 3, so built in 02/2002, 10,500 square feet, approximate replacement value of $4,700,000 about $2,000,000 of deferred maintenance items identified. So with this building, we have a lot of site issues, a lot of cracking and settling of concrete slabs throughout the building. We're beginning to kind of engage some consultants to identify the root cause of that
so we don't repair those and have the same issue happen again. The exterior facile the exterior facade, we're starting to see some efflorescence from the brick, window enclosure starting to fail, and some door issues. Our roof was just approved last week, so that's still identified on here. That's already forecasted out of the report, but, that will be replaced this summer. Interior construction, really updating finishes, not critical, could be moved in or out of the plan based on funding needs. For our equipment, we have a lot of specialty equipment in the fire stations, decontamination, SCBA filling stations, large air compressors for the fire trucks equipment and watch control.
A lot of those systems are starting to age out, so looking at, at, overhaul of those systems and replacements. In addition to that, we have items in the fire station, like bedrooms, murphy beds, and things like that. So as those age, are we repairing those, are we replacing those, things like that. Similar to the, range building, the mechanical systems at this building are all residential grade, not something that we really ever should have put in a building like this. They're not made to operate like a commercial system, so we're seeing those kinda fail across the board. So So we are working on a proposal to bring to the council this summer
to start designing replacements of these systems. And then, electrical lighting upgrades are recommended. It's also not identified on here, but we have been struck by lightning several times in the last few years. We had to replace a generator last year due to a lightning strike, so we are working on installing some lightning protection on this building in 2025. Next up, we have the Hadley Creek Pro Shop. This was built in 02/2009, approximately 2,000 square feet, about a $600,000 replacement cost, and $240,000 in deferred maintenance identified. So I'm gonna start with the HVAC here. The HVAC is just hitting the end of its expected life cycle,
so they're recommending replacements. Most of the Most of the issues in this building trace back to the windows and doors based on the assessment in the facility. They're assuming these are kind of nonstandard windows and doors that were never properly installed, and have probably been allowing water ingress the entire time. So we're basically gonna have to look at opening up all those walls, replacing those, and replacing all the subfloor. You can see in some of the photos where the bottom right where the floor is starting to, sink due to the moisture content. Next is, Chateau Theater. So this was built in 1927 and,
fairly extensive remodel project again in 2018. About 18,000 square feet, roughly $18,000,000 replacement value, and $1,900,000 of deferred maintenance remaining. So for the site at Chateau, there's not a whole lot to it. The Peace Plaza zone thing out there, the alley between the former Michael site and Chateau is showing a lot of wear and needs to be addressed. That'll probably be addressed as the Michael site develops rather than replacing that and then replacing it again in a few years when that project comes along. Exterior of the building, a lot of masonry issues, so there's a significant amount of tuck pointing that needs to take place on the
side and front facade. The original roof is the original copper roof in the Peace Plaza has not been touched. The rest of the roof was replaced in 02/2018. So we will need to work with the State Historic Preservation Office to explore, refinishing that roof, not replacing it due to its historical nature, but bringing it up to standard, sealing it up, replacing failed components. The interior construction, there's a need to refurbish the Skyway walk through there. That's seen a lot of damage over the years. It hasn't been addressed. Inside the building, we had a lot of damage to our historic fixtures. So if you've ever looked up in the,
in the lobby and seen the net holding, sections of the ceiling from falling down, addressing a lot of that historical facade is the big need for the facility, and that'll have to be done with a lot of state historic preservation office and specialty contractors to ensure we're not damaging the integrity of that historic component. Outside that, the elevator in the building is no longer supported. It looks like it's about a 1990 vintage. The systems in there are no longer supported. We're no longer able to get parts. Still operational, but as it fails, we're gonna have to start upgrading components within, and that's gonna be a theme of several buildings moving forward here.
HVAC system was all replaced in 02/2024. They're just recommending ongoing maintenance, which is already in place. And then electrical, there is some lighting replacement in the skyway, and then a new one that's popped up in the last few weeks is replacement of the lighting controls in the marquee, those actually failed, those are about 40 years old, so gonna be working with vendors to identify, someone who can point out too on Chateau, none of these items are gonna be changing the build we're really solidifying the building and making sure we can continue to operate it as it is now. We won't be making changes programmatically with it at all with any of these projects.
Our next facility is the 125 Live facility, so built in 2016, dollars 55,000 square feet, approximate $24,700,000 replacement cost and about $400,000 worth of deferred maintenance cost identified. So some of the big ones are a parking lot, seal and restripe in the near future, and a mill and overlay towards the end of the ten year forecast. The roof towards the end of the ten year forecast will also be recommended for replacement. Interior construction, updating finishes, not a high criticality on those. There's some kitchen equipment that is due for replacement.
We're kind of assessing whether it's actually needed right now. Doesn't get a lot of use, could be pushed out of the ten year plan. Some plumbing issues with the building, replacing some water heating and softening equipment, there's some pretty significant water hammer issues going on, working on resolving. And then on the HVAC side, towards the end of the ten year plan, some of the rooftop equipment is gonna be getting out of its life cycle and looking for replacement and some small stuff today with, damper linkages. Next buildings are the DSIC site and the North Precinct. So the DSIC building was built in 1988 with some remodeling in 2019, and the North Precinct was constructed in 02/2019.
They're connected, we count them as one facility, roughly 97,000 square feet, but a $44,000,000 replacement cost and 4,400,000 of deferred maintenance identified. So for the site of the DSIC building, we're gonna be due for a parking lot ceiling and restriping in the near future, as well as addressing the existing retaining walls along the back of the DSIC building that are starting to deteriorate. In addition to that, we have some water intrusion at the North Precinct and then ongoing conversations about how we maintain the landscape and get that back on track out there with the natural
plantings. The exterior enclosure really focused on DSIC. The windows were not replaced as part of the 2019 project, so we're running into a lot of issues with comfort around those windows and water ingress through those, almost 40 year old windows now. So So we're working with a consultant to review those and kind of tell us next steps on those. Conveyance systems and original elevator to the DSIC Building, similar to Chateau, components are no longer manufactured, so we've been working off of. Remanufactured, we're no longer able to procure those, so as systems fail, we're gonna have to look at upgrading those.
Some HVAC replacements, there's original equipment that was left in VSIC during the remodel, so projects to revisit those. And then on the electrical side, replacing VFDs, original of the building. We have a generator that's gonna be due for either replacement or refurbishment, and upgrades to some lighting throughout the facility. Next up is the National Volleyball Center. So this was constructed in 1999 with an addition in 02/2011. So this facility is 70,000 square feet, roughly $31,000,000 replacement cost, and $4,500,000 of deferred maintenance identified. So on the exterior of the building,
we're seeing a lot of, damage and wear on the brick surfaces, so tuck pointing, some repairs and block face, dealing with windows and door lintels, things like that. The original roof to the 1999 portion is is still original there, so we'll be looking at replacing that in the next few years. A lot of maintenance around the sports flooring will be upcoming, so replacing and refinishing those floors, maintenance to the partition walls in there, and then some HVAC upgrades as that equipment ages towards the end of the ten year cycle. Next up, we've got Rochester Art Center, so that was built in 2,004,
30,000 square feet, about a $15,300,000 replacement cost, and about $4,300,000 worth of deferred maintenance identified. So at this facility on the exterior, we've got some concerns around the caulking of the windows and possibly replacement of some of the original windows themselves, some damage to the EIFS structure on the building and cleaning of the copper panels that are starting to show some streaking in areas. The roof is original, still in good shape, but that will be that's twenty one years old now, so the next few years, that will be coming up for replacement. Interior construction, there's a lot of issues being dealt with this year in the basement.
We had some water intrusion and some mold remediation taking place, or just some sealing up, some floor cracks in the in the basement, things like that. Equipment furniture, so there's a lot of auto shades in this facility, so some some of those are starting to fail. So maintenance and replacements on those. Similar conditions with the elevators here, no longer supported systems. We have a fire control panel that is no longer supported as well, so we'll be looking to replace that. On our HVAC side, looking for some AHU upgrades there, we did, abandon the chilled water system and the heating system and tie those into the new
central plant being put in as part of the D b e t two project. So this fall, you'll be seeing a crane over there taking the chiller off the roof. That's all tied into the new geothermal system. And then there's a generator and auto transfer switch that will need service at the end of the ten year cycle, and then upgrades to our security systems as well. And the last one we're gonna touch today is the, Rochester Civic Theater. So this was built in 1963 with additions in 2001 and 02/2017, about 36,000 square feet, a $16,500,000 replacement cost, about $2,500,000 in deferred maintenance identified.
So high level on these from the outside, we've got some water intrusion happening on the north wall, which we're currently investigating, and getting a project ready to repair that. Some overhang repairs, we're addressing with the roofing project, garbage enclosure that needs to be rebuilt. The roof was just replaced, so that's wrapping up in June here, so that's forecasted out again. Interior construction, just a lot of finishes again, carpet, millwork, things like that. Equipment furniture, the theater had requested looking at seating replacement towards the end of the ten year plan, and currently, there's also, we're working with the Civic Theater on the rigging system there.
That system is currently really derated due to deterioration, so we're looking at options to repair or replace that with the Rochester Civic Theater. Still waiting for information on that. Elevators, a similar case to the others, no longer supported. Fire protection panel also no longer supported, so we're looking to upgrade that. With the HVAC systems, so we are bringing over our new central heating and cooling plant over from the Mayo Civic Center. So that will take over for the old boiler there, which was up for replacement. In a few years, we will have to replace all the rooftop equipment on the Civic Theater. And with that,
we will be able to install chilled water coils and take advantage of the cooling from the geothermal. Currently, we do not have the ability to use chilled water in that building, but we will have the new geothermal system there and ready to use when we get to that point. And then from the electrical, lighting upgrades and VFD replacements for our pumps and fans. And with that, I'm gonna pass it over to deputy administrator Parrish, who's gonna go over some of our proposed funding mechanisms for this these projects and go from there. Thanks, Zach. And I just wanna extend my appreciation. Zach and his team does an amazing job with very limited resources,
supporting our over 1,800,000, square feet in facilities. And just to give you context, that's, like, 10 Walmarts, not just the little Walmarts either, the super ones. So, you know, I it's a it's a significant task. It's also just something we have a long term ongoing obligation to maintain. So it's really no different than any other piece of infrastructure you have in the city, whether it's streets or utilities. Our vertical infrastructure is also very important. I think as you probably started seeing and, obviously, all the other buildings are in an appendices for you to look at and, you know, get more information on.
But as you see, each one of these buildings has a story, and each one of these buildings will have a different story about how you can finance and and, you know, reinvest, to help make it happen. We've done a lot of facility construction with sales tax in the past, with onetime funding, with state bonding. But when we get into the renewal state, the portfolio and options and tools you have are much more limited and probably very familiar to you all. So I wanna go through some of that. Zach's put together some great information on, you know, what a standard is right now. We're probably investing about point 25%,
of the overall replacement value into our billings every year. You should be in that, you know, four to 7% range, generally speaking. For context, our recommended CIP for '26, which is also, you know, fairly consistent with our '25 numbers, we have about $1,000,000 allocated for facility investment. So if you put that in in context, you saw a ten year need here at I believe it was a $120,126 point. $2,026,000,000. So you put that in context. If we you know, we're just gonna fall that much further behind at $1,000,000
per year. So we're we have a $126,000,000 obligation, and we have 1,000,000 per year that we're putting in there. If we were gonna, do that just to navigate the general funds facilities, because that $126,000,000 has some facilities that aren't hitting the general fund. And the biggest one is probably the civic center, at about $40,000,000 of investment needed in this ten year window. There's some different strategies for that that I'll talk about momentarily. But you would still need to go from 1,000,000 to 8 and a half million, which in the scheme of this right now isn't something that you all probably are
gonna be able to sustain or politically support. We're trying to illustrate the nature and scope of the challenge that we have here. For re for just for level setting. Our whole our whole CIP, streets, all the departments, all the things that we fund for levy supported CIP is just under $9,000,000. So just giving you scale, to this, it's a very significant, investment needed. So how do we make progress on the problem? Because, you know, you don't, you know, basically tackle and, you know, dig yourself out of this kind of a hole in,
you know, in one year. So how do we incrementally, make progress? Certainly, a couple of smaller things. We can continue to elevate our investment in the CIP, and we're trying to do that in the six year plan that you'll see at your next study session. So nominal increases in the CIP, progressively investing more. I think, we have the opportunity to capture some incentives. So if we get rebates on different projects to forward those back into the instead of reducing the project budget, potentially forwarding those into, the renewal fund.
So if we get a an energy incentive right now, we usually, you know, put that to the project budget. We could advance that into some future renewal. Not huge money, but, again, we're trying to make progress. Utilization of energy savings, we are doing more of that. We've done a lot of performance, like, internally based performance contracting on if we make an energy efficiency improvement, saving that money, reinvesting it forward. So I think there's certainly another strategy there is to continue to look at that, do that. Building automation, you know, can save it also helps you save money. It also helps you with your environmental stewardship priority,
in terms of reducing our footprint. So building automation, there's just a ton of opportunity in that space, both money and footprint wise. At at times, we'll have some debt that expires. We don't have a bunch. We have not been a debt focused city for the most part, but there are times when we have some debt expire. So instead of letting it expire, offset the levy and the general fund, maybe forward that into the facility fund. So I I get an example. This isn't general fund focused, but we do have that $40,000,000 need in the, Mayo Civic Center, in about 2030,
you know, 03/04, let's say, 2033 plus or minus, you know, we likely are gonna be done with our, debt at the Civic Center. We could then roll forward those lodging tax proceeds into facility renewal and start to make progress on the facility renewal issues there. There's some legislative things around that in terms of how we are authorized, for that, use of lodging tax, but we believe as long as we are investing in the building that we can continue the lodging tax that's currently allocated to the debt and reinvest it into the civic center.
The other is just one time funding from time to time. You do see one time funding come through whether we had a good year, with revenues over expenses in the budget. So putting that and just kind of stacking that forward, putting that onetime funding to this need. We have significant projects. They're scalable, though, to the resources that are available, and that's how we try to ultimately approach it. So, I guess with that, we didn't wanna go through every single building, but we wanted you to have the information. Wanna start a conversation. We're not looking for any specific actions from you other than awareness and then thinking
about how we can work together on this as we move forward, you know, while you're on the council. So with that, we're happy to answer any questions that you have. I'll start with, can you talk a little bit more about the prioritization that you are going to undertake on all these buildings? I mean, it's a fire hose that we just saw. And what I'm trying to get a handle on, you did mention four facilities is in poor condition. What when you prioritize, are you gonna go through and say, okay. With the,
fire station three, these are the critical, pieces and kinda what timeline as far as the ten year period. I guess I'm trying to get a handle, and I I I see it in the average of 8,000,000, but kind of in a year, what are we really So we're really looking at the criticality. So when this report came in, it did kind of it did define all the items identified with how critical they are. So, like, obviously, a roof replacement is going to be if we have a failing roof,
that's gonna be a very high priority. So to start off for the next two years, we've really focused on addressing the highest priority items and the most cost effective ones too. So our actual plan through 2026 is to have Fire Station three off this list with the roof replacement, HVAC replacements. That brings it down to high in the orange. The site stuff next year brings it down into good. So really just prioritizing on what's most cost effective, what can we get done with the funding we have available, and then what is the most critical that's going to impact the use of that facility. I'd also just add in,
it's not a great place to be from a staff or a council perspective where we have to bring you something that says, you know, the mechanicals at the rec center aren't doing well, so we need the money, and we're using this onetime money. We've been band aiding a lot of things for you. The Civic Theatre roof is leaking now, and so now we have to refocus and reprioritize our efforts into that. There's just been a bunch of that over the years. And so some of this is like, how do we get ahead of that and then to a point where we're ahead of it enough where we're not having to do the things that are so emergent, and and actually getting ahead of some of those things.
Council member Wahl. Thank you. My understanding of deferred maintenance, might be a little bit different than the way I heard it, used today. What would you consider what percentage of what you've shown us today is deferred maintenance versus ordinary maintenance over the life of a building? I think it's gonna vary by facility. So if we look at the firing range, I would say almost everything there has been deferred, like a great portion of that. It's really tough to break it down, though, but I'd say the maintenance that's been put off due to budgetary concerns, so what we're going to define is deferred or,
you know, projects we're pushing out because we know we won't be able to afford them. You know, and I can certainly understand that and have, been faced with a project, that I was tasked with that every building was in the ugly part there, the, critical part. Tens of millions of dollars because of truly deferred maintenance. That is, this should have been done forty years ago. A lot of what I saw through, what we've looked at was more ordinary maintenance. And, we don't have anything in the critical. We do have four in the poor. Again,
you don't have any idea about what truly we have deferred of that 120,000,000. Yeah. I can find that information. So, really, this is an overall summary of the building. Within the buildings, we have critical items identified. Sure. So I can find that and share it. So this report is about, like, 12,000 pages, so that's why we didn't distribute it. It'd be very difficult to navigate. Thank you very much. So I can kind of identify some of those critical ones and share that. Mhmm. So within there, projects are identified. We do have several and many facilities that are critical projects.
Mhmm. And those are the one a lot of those are ones that we'd consider deferred. So in summarizing, it was hard to highlight all that and keep it short. Okay. Thank you. Council member Palmer. Thank you. I have a few questions for you. I kind of go back to what Mr. Wall just was saying is that how much of this is are we clocking windows, are we taking care of, block that are leaking or is the roof leaking and going through the block? And so I've read this and some of the questions I have is there's owner responsibility, we own the building and then there's equipment inside, washer,
dryers, and just some things are just plain equipment, which I don't think should come out of this budget, I think should come out of the budget for the, department that owns the building or is using the building. One observation I made was that there's two buildings that basically are going to go away, I'm assuming. And one of them is the animal building. And then the gun range, I think, is going to be rebuilt with, with the county. So I don't see doing much with those two and that kind of knocks your dollars down quite a bit. I'm a little worried about the parking lots and I'm assuming, at Soldiers Field,
we let the parking lots go to heck and we had to rebuild them versus a mill and overlay. I'm assuming we're going to have our good friends at Public Works do it ourselves. We're not bidding this out. Is that your That's the plan, yes. Okay. And then you you've kind of criticized some of the HVAC stuff being residential, but if it's lasted fifteen years, why not just replace it with more residential? Because if you do commercial, it's not really gonna last much longer than fifteen years anyway. I think it's more for the operation. So fire station three, for example, has a lot of in floor heating going on there.
They installed some residential in floor heating manifolds to control it. We haven't been able to get actuators for those in a long time. So basically, if you go to fire station three in the middle of winter and one of the bedrooms is calling for heat, every room in between also gets heat. We can't get components for those residential. With the with the commercial systems, it's a lot easier to get support. We get a lot more serviceable equipment out of that. So are are you planning on ripping up the floors and replacing No, the manifolds that are in the mechanical room is bringing those up and converting them to like a building automation style system or control valves. Okay. And,
I think we have to at some point do a decision what to do on the chateau. I mean, if we're putting $1,300,000 into it, we've already put a lot of money into the chateau, what how much longer are we going to have to maintain this building? Then I look at the plumber house and, it's I think, value is 21,000,000 and you're doing $4,500,000,000 of of repair and a slate roof. If you're gonna replace the slate roof, I can't even imagine what that was gonna cost. Do we have an idea what what that cost is? I'd have to pull it out of there, but, yes, it is identified in the report. We just got the plumber house,
Corey Hill and I was thinking the old fire station too last week. We just got those, so those were kinda thrown in here. But, yes, the slate roof and the replacement cost is identified. Okay. And then there's three of them that I know of, and I'm sure there's other buildings. But Eastwood Pro Shop has always been criticized as that has to be replaced, and and I don't see that on your list. And So that's one of the few that we're hoping to wrap up. I believe Eastwood Pro Shop, Northern Hills Golf Course, was there? Northern Hills, we just redid. So Or just assessing it to see where it's at and get And then nothing for RPU. Everything is great, wonderful at RPU. We don't need any roofs.
We don't need any buildings. Is is that kind of where you're at? We've not performed this with RPU, no. And well, they're city owned buildings, so why wouldn't we? So I think there is there is options to explore that in the future. We really started with the buildings that joint facilities is managing and then picked up a few along the way when departments came to us asking for info. So this is really meant to be an evolving project. That's why the airport's getting picked up later this year. I think there is opportunities to reach out to RPU and see if they're interested in contributing this. Well, they're they're a city owned building, and so I would assume that we'd wanna make sure that we get that taken
care of because I don't I get tired of hearing $3,000,000 for this roof and $3,000,000 for that roof and I don't need our view to come and say, Oh, we need a $3,000,000 roof. And so I think that since they're a city owned operation that we should have control over their buildings. And then Mayfield, I don't know if you did anything with Mayfield but, I think there's going to have to be a decision on what we're doing there. So, as funding, I think one of the ideas is we have our surplus property coming up. I would assume that if we sold surplus property that we could take that money and put it into this fund which should kind of help us out and not
have to use property taxes. Is that right, Mr. Perry? That could be done. Well, anything be done, but that's a pretty good idea, isn't it? I agree. It's definitely an option. Okay. Thank you. Mayor Norton. Thank you. I just had a couple of quick things. One is, it seemed to me that, the windows and tuck pointing across all the buildings that you mentioned and probably more that you haven't mentioned seemed to be a problem. And I wondered, is there any economy of scale by having hiring someone to do tuck pointing or to do windows and have it done rather than saying we're gonna do this project,
this building, that we hire someone to do multiple buildings and hit those really key issues where you could see water coming in or egress, or ingress. Yeah. Yeah. There definitely is. There with all the mobilization on-site. So as they set up scaffolding, things like that, there is, counting to scale to getting that all set up and letting multiple vendors come through. There's not a lot of vendors that do all that work in house, but, yeah, there are definitely opportunities to, package projects together to complete them at the same time. Okay. So that was one question I had. The other was, I just have to say I'm a little surprised that some of our projects that
we've talked about today are some of our newer buildings. And I don't know if that was just we needed to do it, so we did it on the cheap, and now we're paying the price on these newer buildings that are needing millions of dollars' worth of repairs. Yeah. I think that's a great observation. And and, yeah, I think there's there's two things that are happening there. One, there's not making buildings like they used to. Right? Like, so there's some of that. Like, you take the animal control shelter and you say, well, that was built in the nineties, but we haven't really invested in it since then, and it wasn't built to last. So there's an element of of that.
I think the other thing, though, that's important is that, you know, we haven't done the preventative maintenance. So that's another factor. But maybe the bigger factor is before we had joint facilities, we really relied on departments to deliver these projects, individually. So we, you know, we were basically asking people that, you know, don't do facilities for their day jobs, to execute and deliver, in some cases, fairly substantial facilities projects. And right, wrong, or indifferent, our friends in the departments, you know, do their best. But when you start to make decisions about program versus building sustainability and,
you know, long term investment, program tends to win in that environment. And so we've been trying to kinda balance that out where, you know, as we move forward with these projects, we're trying to get the right systems in place and meet the programmatic needs, but also do right by the buildings. I mean, I think Zach has a great example. You know, we came in, and I think we had seven different building automation systems, plus or minus. And all that has to you know, doesn't really work together and talk together. And so part of the mission has been to how do we get on one system even to balance all that out. That's just, like, one super small example,
but I think that's a huge part of it. Thank you for that. And it leads me to my my kind of final point. And before I do that, I just wanna say thank you. I think, you know, I became mayor in 1920, and there was nothing like this going on. Really? 1920? Oh, '19, 2019 and 2020. I'm old, but I'm not that old. And I just, I just really think this is a huge step forward in how we're gonna manage our community to be able to, to keep an eye and plan ahead and do all that.
So I think this is wonderful and I I wanted to say thank you to Scott and Zach and Aaron and everybody else that's been involved in this. I think it's the right thing for us to do. But the last piece, when I was on school board, and that was, like, other lifetime ago, the legislature gave us some deferred maintenance legislation that allowed us to get ahead of and fix some things that have been sitting there forever and a day. And I don't remember any longer because I'm old and I can't remember things anymore.
Thank you, Randy. You didn't say say anything. It was your look. You know, I don't I don't remember how that all played out, but is it something we could be seeking from the legislature to help us along, or is that just a whole different ball game? It is. So the schools have this facility aid that they are able to access or, levy above and beyond their basically, we'll call it a levy limit for the school districts because they don't have the same ability that you all do to set a levy. They have sort of a the state sort of, you know, sets it on their behalf. So with the facility and a few other things, they're allowed to go over that.
They don't apply that same thing to cities just because you have the opportunity to do that every budget cycle. So it's not the same same piece in place. There are certainly things you think about, you know, in terms of chasing additional dollars. You know, we've leveraged different tax credits and other opportunities, but maintenance money is very hard to come by, generally speaking, as a rule. Council member Keane. Yeah. Thank you. So just to follow-up on council member Palmer's thing. I too noticed some build buildings missing and they were parks. And I thought they did belong in here, and that's just a matter of catch up.
Yep. But I also noticed some major things that aren't in here that are more enterprise tied to or utility tied to. Is there a a longer term thing to take those into these facilities or do they stay with their enterprise or their utility? Yeah. So generally speaking, what we try to focus on initially is, you know, what's your general fund and levy supported facility obligation, generally speaking? What are the facilities that joint facility is actively supporting? And and it is a bit of a debate for us, like, you know, where does facilities come to the table versus, you know, where are we delivering,
you know, some kind of, you know, utility based system like a wastewater plant, for example. Yes. That's a building, and there's lots of things to be learned from a facility perspective, but there's other treatment processes happening. Or certain like, if you're at the rec center, you're working in, you know, custodial, but you're also maybe on the Zamboni, and so you have a programmatic mission to what you're doing too. So we have, you know, not engaged as deeply on some of those things. But anything that's in the levy, we're trying to, you know, navigate here specifically. But I think the the beauty of the model too is Zach is available across
the enterprise. And, you know, the our folks that are working in facilities are connecting. They're working within an impact team, and they are sharing resources as well. So even if they're not here, Zach's available. Scott's available as a resource for all those folks as well. I I guess the point I was trying to make, and I think you guys have done this before bringing it to us, as an example, like the water treatment really doesn't belong in this list because it's funded not through the levy but through an enterprise and it should stay off of there. I mean, we could do it altogether but then we're gonna be coming from different funding sources which is another level of confusion.
Yes. And I think it's also good if they're, you know, they have an office portion of their building and they want advice on building automation systems that the team is there to support them and help them with that. But generally speaking, we we did not focus as much on the utilities as part of this. And and again, I'm I'm my point wasn't whether they could help here or there, but I think it would muddy the waters to bring all those in. Water treatment is in India. Public utilities, another big landholder. But also our I think our ramps and our parking enterprise are not included here either. Is that correct? Okay. just on the, I was a little surprised going through the downtown city buildings like Male Civic and
the library talking about HVAC things. Did I misunderstand the the geothermal investment that, because I thought when we were doing a business case, we set that off against spending HVAC, and now we spent the geothermal. But now we're saying, but we need HVAC spending. And I'm maybe I missed what was happening, or can you give me such a shed some light? Yeah. So really, the downtown building energy transition phase one and two is addressing the central heating and cooling plants. So really, our central heating and cooling loads are hot and chilled water we send throughout the
building. Library still has all our original air handling units, all the original terminal units, the VAV boxes that serve each room. None of that was touched. I mean, that's a significant project. We are then opening up the building to crane units in. We're taking all the ceilings down to replace ductwork and things like that. So when we talk HVAC, those are the remainders. And it's not necessarily that they all have to be replaced, but we have to get some kind of program in there to improve them, you know, retrofit them with newer fan technologies, things like that, to keep them operational before they get to the end of that lifespan where they're
no longer operational. Alright. I I mean, I understand what you're saying there, but I will just share with staff that I feel misled because I thought when we made a business case of comparing HVAC expenses to geothermal, those would be covered. And it apparently, they're not. Well, so our operating expenses. So our energy usage is going down. This is the equipment that remained behind. So yeah. But yeah. I I know. It remained behind to a future expense where when we did the business case, it appeared that it wouldn't be there. It would be covered through the geothermal. That's that's the point I was trying to make.
Going through this reminds me of the, you know, the medical thing of having preventative care versus waiting until something goes wrong. And the the same thing many people deal with now with the debates even in our state about it's better to do preventative than that. Is that a good analogy for what's happening here when you say deferred maintenance? That it is more expensive afterwards and it's less expensive? Because I haven't felt that in these discussions. I think there's a case by case basis. So a roof, we're gonna have to replace a roof every twenty to twenty five years. When it gets to more systems in a building,
our mechanical system, things like that, we can address things smaller ahead of time and then get ahead of them before they become a big problem. So our VFDs on there, replacing those, getting those getting newer models in, new control strategies, things like that, we can really improve a system with small investments rather than waiting till it's time to replace the whole system. So, yes, there are instances where that does work, but overall, like, when you're talking a big project like a roof, those are all gonna have to be replaced no matter what sometime. We can extend the life with some more proactive maintenance programs in there,
having increased inspections, repairs, things like that done. But, yeah, it's all on a case by case basis there. Okay. Just just so you understand, though, it's coming to us as we we decided to, you know, staff this facilities team, but when it comes back with is about a $7,000,000 a year bill if we wanted to do it right. And part of it is, what's the savings from that? Is it are those other projects that we've had over the last twenty years because of deferred maintenance going away? Can you identify savings? And apparently, we can't. I think we can put something together to kind of identify what the cost impact
would be if we try and address some of these projects proactively rather than waiting, you know. I think we can put something together to help Yeah. I don't think there's a yes or no answer. I think it's more of just a concern I'm I'm voicing. Yeah. I Yeah. And I would just say, I think some of these are potential savings items and some of them are just if you wanna be in the fire station business and, you know, have a facility for that. Like, it's this is gonna be what it's gonna cost. So, you know, I don't think that it's have we accumulated a lot of, previous deferred maintenances? Again, very similar to the streets conversation.
Every year on the streets that goes by that you don't fund it at the full level Yeah. You potentially are paying more downstream and or, you know, gonna gonna have, you know, more accrued liability every year that you don't meet that funding level. Level. Similar situation here. It's just sometimes a little bit more obvious when roof leaks or things like that happen. But, yeah, if we're gonna provide these kinds of services both to departments and the community, some of it, it's the cost of doing business. Okay. Similar thing, like, in industry wise, if you have, like, if you're a homeowner and you own a $300,000
house, you have to probably assume you're gonna have so much maintenance a year. But that's different than capital improvements. Do you have some rough numbers as maintenance in that 5% expenses, and capital improvement is more is a different number? They come up they come up unevenly. They don't come on a regular basis. But if you own a million dollar building over twenty years, do you expect to spend 30% of that as capital improvement? Or if the answer is always it depends, is there any rule of thumb or industry thing that says if you're gonna own
this much property, you better have this much in your outlying budgets? So I'm not aware necessarily for operations because that kind of differs based on how buildings are set up, what systems they have. PWTOC, for example, is significantly more energy intensive than city hall. So for operational, no. But for, CIP wise, yes. Industry standard is 4% to 7%, basically. And it kind of all depends on how proactive you are with preventive maintenance. So that's with the capital projects though. Like the operations is really a case by case basis what that budget looks like. Four to 7% per year should be put aside for?
Correct. Yep. Trying to get to do the math here on that's full replacement in under twenty years? Roughly. Wow. I didn't think it was that high. Alright. Thank you. Council member Palmer. One thing I'd I'd like us to do maybe a little bit differently is is when we're building buildings or we're bidding things out is that you guys are looking at them and you guys as a department look at and say, Yeah, we're not going to the fifteen year roof, we're going to go with the thirty year roof because it's going to be better. This is why we're going with this system, and have you have that overview so that we're not letting departments say,
well, we're just gonna get a cheap building built and then twenty years from now, we're gonna let it slide. So we have implemented that through our, standardization, priorities that we've been implementing. So for example, the parks and forestry building, facilities was kind of leading that push on that project, so we were making sure we were installing quality systems. We went to a precast solution instead of putting a steel building that was gonna be a fifty year building with precast for a 100 building. We do do those options too with projects. Fire station three, we priced out a steel roof. It was $80,000 for shingles or close to a million for steel. So obviously,
we can put a lot of shingle roofs down before we get to that cost. But that is something that is happening now with projects moving forward. We are analyzing good, better, best, what can we do, get our most bang for our buck out of our projects. So two things. One of them is the fire control systems. I know that's a specialty. I'm assuming you wanna go with the same company to replace the ones that we need to replace sooner than later? So we do have a city standard fire system we use. It's very widespread, very available. We get a lot of these one offs that they support them for a few years and then you're stuck with one vendor that can support it when something goes
wrong, paying several thousand dollars to have them on-site for a service visit. So we do have a standard fire system moving forward that's very widespread in the area, has many manufacturers that represent and install it, so we have some flexibility on pricing and things like that. And then elevators, when the elevators go out, I know they're costly to repair and timely and it's hard to have elevators be gone in a lot of our buildings. So do you have a plan to replace these elevators prior to them going out? So it's on a case by case basis. Like, so Chateau, for example, we did procure a whole bunch of spare control boards knowing that those were the
components that failed. So we were able to procure a bunch from elevators being demolished. Other than that, we're kind of proactively working with the vendor to say, what parts do we need to keep this going and then options. It's not usually a full elevator replacement, but it's replacing the control board and the controls at the machinery unit for it. So, we are working with them so far. We don't have any that are, like, on the verge, but we've got we were keeping spare parts on hand as available. As we start to see that dwindle, we will, assess getting quotes for repairing and replacement. So, kinda wrapping up. So how will we see this next?
Will we see it, one, in our, our budget? Will there be items in our budget? I heard a couple figures. I heard 40,000,000 in needs immediate needs, and then I heard the 8,000,000 if we are to be on course for, getting ahead of things. So how are we going to see these a a greater detail of prioritization both from a building standpoint and projects within the buildings? So your honor, you know, we we currently have the appropriation of a little over a million dollars a year.
And so the facilities team does prioritize, you know, what can be done with that $1,000,000 per year. And it's emergent, high return, high value items, you know, that need to be addressed. So you'll see, the forecast for what we can do and what we've currently appropriated in the CIP at your next study session as the CIP comes forward. Other than that, I don't think there's, like, a specific point in the process where we're gonna bring this back to you other than just kinda want you to have it in your consciousness as we move forward and think about policy. And if we have one time opportunities, you know,
something that we can think about and just realize that the system's under some stress and we're just trying to find a pathway, to a bit more stability. Alright. Thank you. Moving on, we have our, residential parking minimums with within downtown, and this is, Ed Caples and Taryn Edens. Alright. Good afternoon, council members, mayor, council president, Taryn Edens with the community development department. Today, we are gonna provide you a presentation on downtown residential parking requirements. You may recall this came up last fall during a text amendment kind of following
our annual update to the Unified Development Code, and this was specifically expressed by council, by requesting that we look at our requirements. I should clarify. The the ask was to look at, minimum parking requirements within residential developments within the DMC boundary. Boundary. If you're able to move that caption, that would be great. Thank you so much. So policy considerations that we would request you keep in mind, as we go through this presentation. Ultimately, the request before council was, should the city consider removing the residential parking requirement within the downtown? So that was essentially expressed previously last fall.
Things to keep in mind as you consider this decision. Is there adequate alternative transportation options within that that area? Right? Think about our existing pedestrian and bicycle network. Think about our existing transit and, transit opportunities to come that we will describe as well. What role does the city owned public parking play in meeting this demand? So what you'll hear from Ed is a bit of our history. So the city has gone through something like this previously where we removed parking requirements because we saw essentially overreliance on our public parking. And you'll hear from,
Nolan Shield later today on a public parking policy to kind of marry whatever we land on as a result of this, discussion today. So keep that in mind as we saw that as an implication previously. What will spillover parking affect nearby residential areas or negatively impact businesses? Things we always things to consider. What impact will removing parking minimums have on the current supply? And consider what what options already exist. Does the unified development code provide avenues or enough avenues to reduce parking requirements, or should we consider, additional flexibility or removal of that requirement?
This is just a quick outline of what we're going to discuss. Once again, we we find it valuable to talk about the history because we've sort of done this before and what's changed. Looking at existing parking minimums in Unified Development Code, we'll look at some other communities and share what we found and compare them. We'll share some developer feedback that we got as well as they look at, parking considerations for their own developments, particularly in the downtown. And we'll share some potential options for the council. So thanks to the many who contributed to today's presentation and policy options. Just wanna point that out that many were,
relied upon including planners and others you'll hear from today. We like to use a lot of acronyms. We provided a brief glossary to remind you of what we'll be using, the Unified Development Code or UDC you're probably most familiar with, which is our local zoning ordinance, minimum parking requirements or MPRs as they're affectionately called our zoning regulation that I'll describe a little bit more in a slide here. Basically, just sets the minimum number that's required for off street parking spaces for new developments. Central Business District is a kind of a previously established district that we refer to,
to kind of describe geographically the core downtown of Rochester along Broadway and East Of First Avenue Southwest. The DPOZ is what was once known as the downtown parking overlay zones. We'll mention this during our history, but basically created in 2012 and it reduced the parking associated with new developments in downtown. And then later in 2017, we expanded that and called it the DMC DPOZ, to include land within the DMC boundary. So what is a parking minimum? Essentially, as I mentioned, it's a zoning requirement that mandates minimum number of off street parking spaces.
It's usually based on the size or use of a development. Got a great picture from 1983 on how those used to be determined. You'll see it was typically based on the the unit or bed or seats, depends on the use. Why do parking minimums exist? Essentially, it's trying to find that balance to make sure there isn't an impact to off street parking to support development. And that's historically, how they've been used to ensure sufficient parking is needed, to meet to it was provided to meet whatever those needs may be, as development and opportunities evolve.
So with that, I'll pass it over to Ed, our planning supervisor. Yeah. Thanks, Darren. Ed Capels, planning supervisor. So really just transitioning to the history and providing the context, the why to the what we have right now. So 1940 was when the city of Rochester adopted its zoning ordinance. That was just an eight page document. There was no parking requirements associated, with its approval. In 1965 is when the city, further expanded the zoning ordinance and included minimum parking requirements. For the 1965 document, this was a citywide requirement, associated with any residential use.
So a single family development or a multifamily development would require one parking space per unit. In 1983, there was more of a attention to the use itself. So the multifamily requirement was 1.3 parking spaces per dwelling unit. For reference, a single family detached home would require two parking spaces per unit. Moving into 1992 was actually the adoption of the land development manual, so the previous zoning ordinance, and this had rather intense parking requirements. So for a one bedroom apartment, or one bedroom unit, it'd be one parking space.
For a two bedroom unit, it'd be a 1.5 parking space requirement. For a three bedroom, it'd be two parking spaces. And then for four bedrooms, it'd be three parking spaces. One thing unique about the 1992 code though was, an exemption to Downtown CBD. So on the map there, kind of where the Civic Center is and to the the west of it is what's known as the CDC CBD. So really no parking requirements throughout it regardless of the use. So multifamily, commercial, no parking spaces were required, for new development. And really that was intentional, because there's a belief that there's enough public parking facilities both on street and within
ramps to meet the needs of that downtown zoning district. In 2012, was the implementation of the downtown parking overlay zone or what's known as the d p o z, and this was a result of the 2011 downtown master plan, and the d p o z actually encompassed the entirety of the downtown master plan. It essentially gave a positive affirmation of the, or having no parking requirements within the the downtown CBD and asked for it to be explored further, throughout the zoning ordinance. And that was, just a workshop of that and approved by council was the the d the DPOZ,
which further reduced the minimum parking requirements within downtown and still had no parking requirements within the downtown CBD. In 2017 was the adoption of the DMC DPOZ. This one is unique where it actually introduced parking requirements within the downtown CBD, so kind of went the other way on that, but did it span the boundary of the downtown parking overlay zone to include the DMC? Really what this was was a a realization that, the city just can't keep going forward with the path of creating or, or creating parking space or creating parking ramps and that,
you know, some of that should fall into the developer as well. Development 23. So where we currently stand right now for multifamily, kind of regardless of its location, is point five spaces per dwelling unit. So if you have a 20 unit apartment building, there'd be a ten ten parking spaces required based on the ordinance. There are a handful of reductions. These are the most prevalent ones for downtown. You know, ground floor commercial uses under 2,000 square feet won't have any parking requirements. A community vehicle available would reduce the parking requirements and a 10% reduction for being near transit. I have a question.
Sure. That point five, that's across the city, not just in downtown. Correct. Yep. Yeah. Exactly. And then there is what sounds like travel demand manager plan, which is, essentially reports them into the planning commission evaluating the parking requirements and essentially showing why you could provide or you need to provide as much parking. And that through planning commission approval gets you a 100% reduction. So kind of just shifting towards the the literature here associated with eliminating minimum parking requirements. I think one thing to to keep in mind here is just local context is important. Throughout the examples I'm gonna provide,
they eliminated parking requirements throughout the entirety of their municipality, and these tend to be larger, larger municipalities, a greater or more robust transit system, as well as just, you know, large metropolitan population as well. So the one for Buffalo, New York removed parking requirements throughout the city, and they saw a 39% increase in mixed use. But when it came to single use residential development, based on the previous parking requirement, they were still being over part, based on what was previously required. Another example would be Hartford, Connecticut, where they the removal
can you Sure. Can I make sure a question after? Sure. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So going on to Hartford, Connecticut, once again removed it citywide, which aligned with their previous investments in transit and walkability, and there's a reported reduction in car dependency from its residents. So here's my question. Sure. So these two examples of other cities, did you find any cities that removed parking requirements and then added them back? I did not evaluate instances like that. Because I I just I just wanna hone in on that point because I I hear these local context, but this is not a new thing. And I just wanna frame us in sort of,
like, what other cities have done and what have been the outcomes. I I I'm curious because I don't know of any Sure. That removed parking requirements and then found that it wasn't working and reinstated parking requirements. Sure. And as I work in that I have a slide coming up here on more of a the local context within the city itself of evaluating previous developments when parking requirements were not required and then with the brief election of them. Mister Yetzer. Council member Miller, respectfully, I think one example of a city that's done that is Rochester. We had going back through Ed's timeline, we didn't have parking requirements downtown and then we added the
back end. Might I frame that in a more modern context? Just thinking about that because I feel like this there have been differing requirements, but I think over the last five, ten years push nationally, cities are moving parking requirements as housing becomes scarce. And I guess I would wonder about sort of that timeline, not necessarily our own history. Continue. Yeah. Thank you. So then moving along to Hamilton, Ontario provides another example where, the studies that data showed a 15% 15 to 20% decrease in construction costs associated with removing,
NPRs. But I think one of the the key points here is it's not a one size fits all and that moving park requirements should be used strategically, not uniformly, and that the local context matters. It should be paired with other modes or other tools used by cities to really incentivize multimodal transportation. So kind of taking a look at the city of Rochester itself, so from 1992 to 2017, there was no parking requirements in the the CBD. One example I can give of an apartment building built within the CBD is a 98 unit apartment building where no on-site parking was required or no on-site parking was
required and no on-site parking was was actually built. Instead, to meet their lender requirements, they had an agreement with the city for 98 parking spaces within the city ramp. I also have another example within the CBD from post 2017, so once we we reintroduced parking requirements within the zoning district. For this example, there's a 50 unit multifamily building. 40 was required by code. It was approved through a conditional use permit, so there was 18 spaces provided on-site and then 20 through an agreement with the city and the city rent. Council member.
Sure. Thank you, president. How many of the 98 spaces were utilized? I don't know if I had that information for you. I believe that I just need to guess, to be honest. Yeah. I would just say probably a good question for the next presentation. I think you'll hear there has been a history of underutilization. They're not all used. I can say that confidently. And then, just evaluation of the entirety of the twenty eleven, there's been 13 downtown projects. Four out of the 13 projects were were under parked based on the ordinance at that time, but on average, the project provided 26% more parking than required by ordinance.
Okay. Like I mentioned, we also asked, developers within the downtown, what what they think about parking requirements. So, teammate Josh Johnson gathered some of this feedback and we sort of categorized it in, the six areas before you. When it comes to financial and market considerations, they shared that in their opinion and experience, zero parking is unlikely due to risk. Investors and lenders expect adequate parking supply. They they shared that their tenants still rely on vehicles, and they shared too little parking can affect their lease up success. They shared that lenders and stakeholders still have influence,
meaning their lenders they work with often still mandate minimum parking levels or parking requirements, and under parking a project could delay approval or financing. They shared specific needs when it comes to uses, such as reliance of parking for hotels, retails, and housing, but they shared that it can vary depending on the user. They certainly shared that public parking and location can factors can positively impact a lesser dependence on parking, such as, proximity to public parking, as well as walk walkable transit rich areas, those both need less parking. They shared risks of under parking as well,
such as feedback they've gotten of negative neighborhood experience, resident satisfaction dropping, so they have their own experiences as well, when under park parking occurs. This is essentially to provide you sort of a map of where we're talking about when we're talking about downtown. Essentially, these are our zoning districts, mixed use downtown. That's essentially created from that previously mentioned, downtown parking overlay. So this is what we would consider downtown if we're talking about any changes to our current, minimum parking requirements. Around it, you will see the DMC boundary as well for context.
And I'd also share that in most of the areas in many of the areas surrounding the MXD mixed use downtown zoning district is where transit oriented development zoning districts are. Right? So those are areas where we already have some added flexibility because we know we're investing in transit, so we do wanna see less, parking there. So they automatically get a 20 reduction essentially just by existing in that zoning district. So just wanted to give you some context for our conversations and feedback we'll get. And this is what we'd propose for a downtown sort of boundary based on these zoning districts.
Okay. So if you wouldn't mind moving the caption one more time. Thank you. So with that, we essentially have four options to pose to the council. We're seeking your feedback. Note that we are coming back in July to provide an update on the unified development code and that would be an opportunity if you were proposing any changes to the code for us to include. One option for you to consider is removing residential parking requirements in downtown with the upcoming UDC update. Secondly, to do this, remove that residential parking requirement in downtown when the link BRT goes online.
So we wanted to explain that. Essentially, we would say there are opportunities within our transit connectivity and, onboarding of the link would certainly expand our transit connectivity, and we found that to be a distinction between us and other communities that have been successful. So that could be considered a recommendation as to wait until that, is available, and it could certainly lessen reliance on parking. reduce residential parking requirements to point two five per unit in downtown with upcoming UDC updates. So as we mentioned, it's currently point five, so you could consider just a further reduction as well if you're looking for more
flexibility. And then lastly, the option could be to maintain the current residential parking requirements and to and continue to evaluate development patterns. I think we've shared, UDC's been around since 2023, so we are evaluating these options. Our comprehensive plan told us, last time we updated it, that we should be looking at downtown parking specifically. So this is our chance to do that, and we've been it's been recommended before previously. So with that, I'll pause for feedback and questions. Council member Miller. Oh, you didn't have? Oh, I thought I Councilmember Palmer. Well, thank you.
My votes are number one and, I think that that makes the most amount of sense because we do have a new world with a rapid bus transit coming up. I think number two, the problem with that is is that, it takes a long time for developers to develop a project and so, I mean, no one's gonna get a new idea to put in, a new building in within the next two years. So, I like number one. I've been told that 25% of the cost of an apartment building is parking. And, you know, for us having to require it, I don't like that idea and, I didn't back in November, I don't now.
I think the other thing we have to remember with the rapid bus is that we have three new ramps, the one on North Broadway coming online. I I just think that we need to put our money in the rapid bus, system. Thank you. Count, You can say Fredericks. Did you put your hand up? Oh, council member Wall. Thank you. We have heard before from developers who say they can't get financing unless they have that same some measure of parking available on-site. How do developers in some of the case studies that you mentioned, get financing if they have no parking requirements?
Yeah. I can take that one. So, generally speaking, the developer would provide the parking on-site, but were instances where they did not provide any. They worked with the city to get an agreement of, essentially, that there's ramp space for them to, meet the owner's requirements. Okay. So there really is parking. It's just not developer provide provided. Correct. Yes. And in those, same places, Hartford Connect or otherwise, has there been, negative neighborhood feedback of cars floating out into neighborhoods? I think Hartford, Connecticut specifically had, positive feedback from from that implementation granted just the locality itself is significantly different from
the city of Rochester, a more robust public transportation system, more regional transit, more dense population, a more dense downtown, things of that nature. We already have complaints of what I would call downtown parking, taking up residential spots to the point that we have a permit parking. Is that what you love for Rochester? Let me see if I understand your question. Your the question is, with the downtown permanent parking or, essentially, neighborhood feedback from eliminating NPRs? Yes. If you build, just any number,
a 100 units, and provided no off street parking, will that exacerbate, some unhappiness in nearby neighborhoods, with on street parking? I'd say it might, but I would also note that, the permit parking or the residential permit parking program itself is an effective tool to to somewhat mitigate those concerns. Council member Frederick. Yes. In the spirit of Sean Palmer, I'm gonna argue with him a little bit. 25% of a project is not the parking if it if it is above ground or so on. It's it's if it's in the ground,
if you're under the building, all those things. That's that's when it really adds up. So having a few on-site spots can be very reasonable to do. We've done that. And, I would be in favor of number one. In the in the in the downtown area, you know, there is a lot of ramp parking. There's a lot of parking options. In my experience, it's been that very few people that live in the right downtown, region, call it, don't have a vehicle. They they walk or they ride a bike. That's been my experience dealing with all the people we've dealt with.
And to mandate developers in this especially in this area of town to have parking is just it's just not necessary. We're we're we're, building the core of our city to be all public transit friendly and to be walkable and all the things that we're doing. So to man to mandate any parking in the downtown area to me, especially from a developmental standpoint, is not is not necessary. Thank you, council member. I noticed that you did argue with him, but you landed in the same space. Council member can That's my goal with all of you.
Good. Yeah. I guess I just wanna follow-up. The definition of downtown we're using here is the which one? The Yeah. So we would say it's our zoning district's designated mixed use downtown. So the blue, red, and purple in the above. That means it is out at Saint Mary's too. And and, again, you had another map that had the residential parking zones around here too, which is all around that area too. So that's the protection from all the all the parking moving out that way. there was this discussion about do you have to build it or you could use ramps?
I have memories of things we've approved in the last five years that we did some developer did cover their parking requirements by renting things. So that's already being done. Right? Yeah. I'll I'll take that if I may. So that would be your next presentation. Right? So I think that's something a recognition of our histories. We didn't used to have a policy on our public parking. Right? So that was a big reason why we reinstated some minimum requirements because it was impacting our public parking. So, correct, it's still happening, and I think the next guardrails to sort of protect our our opportunities in that space going forward.
Yeah. I I I'm still getting my head around this idea that what we're dealing with here is future development, not things that exist right now. We're not dealing with something that's gonna impact someone in the next month. But that I so this idea of one and two, they seem the same to me. But I I think, I I'm trying to understand that if you have minimum requirements, it doesn't mean you must build. You can contract for those spaces already. We're not we're not adding that new today, or we're not being asked to to do that. We've already have examples where we've done that. Yeah. Correct. There's provisions within the UDC.
It doesn't necessarily have to be within its within the site itself. There's parameters regarding, you know, a certain amount of feet, that you can essentially contract parking out. In most cases, it's city ramps. Yep. Okay. And I had one other thing here with, yeah. I mean, with it almost seems like the the governing force here is that the current world, they're not gonna get their financing without having, you know, the the parking stuff then. The question is whether the city is just duplicating what the free market is doing, and do we really need to do that? The downside of this,
as I understand it, is if the parking flows out somewhere else and causes disruptions to other neighborhoods. Is there any like, we we've talked about having the the parking, neighborhood parking restrictions. Are there other things we should consider if we have no parking, minimums? Yeah. I mean, essentially, I would I would just say the reason why we have this minimum parking requirement as it stands is because it provides an avenue for development to justify why they could reduce the parking versus giving them the opportunity upfront, if that makes sense.
So it gives us a way to ensure that they are within proximity to other opportunities or they're providing some other offsetting factor, whether it be bike parking or public parking to that sense. Not sure if I'm directly answering your question, but just wanna say, I guess, rationale, for having those requirements is ensuring some of those things are met. But your question essentially is what could be the impact if we remove the parking requirements? It seems like we we have duplicate requirements right now. It feels reasonable to remove or reduce them. So that's kinda what I'm thinking, but I'm I'm asking the professionals that as an example,
we've had people in here complaining that they're in these parking things, and they that those aren't the panacea that we think they are either. And those are neighborhood implemented, and they are basically have to do those to protect their parking. But there's many residents there who don't like to see that because then they can't have somebody pull up for card club during the day and park where they want them to. So I'm asking if there's, you know, there we're presenting this as, you know, the developers like it because it's gonna reduce their cost. We talk about it like we're gonna have all these transit options, but I think we we should be realistic and say that's not the people all
that are coming to live downtown. There's some at least some high percentage of them are coming with cars. And are there options for them, or are they going to be in our public spaces that's gonna cause existing residence issues? Council president, if I may go ahead. I just wanted to kind of pull this together on the sense that because you're gonna hear this in the next presentation, that if, let's just say, all five of the currently planned developments downtown end up building no parking and think that they're going to have the old way of dedicating parking spaces within ramps where
you're dedicating 80 spaces in a ramp for a development, but let's say a very small percentage of those get used, but the way that that's getting used for financing is that they will always be available, you could be falsely pressuring your public parking ramp. So it is important to also think about how would which is the next presentation and conversation. What is a reasonable way to provide parking in the public ramps that is for private use? Is it dedicating a significant number of spaces that may or may not get utilized?
Is it saying we will have up to that many spaces, but over time, we will be able to see how many are being used. Because some of the way that this happened, we would have no way of knowing if those spaces were getting used by the development that it was dedicated to because it's not the specific spaces. It's a number of spaces in a parking ramp or across the system. And that means if we had a influx of people who wanted to come and have, rented monthly parking that don't live in that building, we can't rent them something that is dedicated to a use that may or may
not be happening. So it is important to think about the public ramps in the sense of how would you potentially utilize those in a way that does not artificially or truly or truly pressure the public parking system that may get utilized differently while we have bus rapid transit in place, when we have that in place? I'm not saying you you that this isn't really a question of whether you remove parking minimums. It's just important to think about it's unlikely that you wouldn't have negative impacts if it was just a, like, free for all of dedicating public parking space,
to development that is going to be required in order to get financing, outskirt. Like, I I'm as I see, the downtown definition goes pretty far east away from the the available ramp spaces. But I think the business controls are still there that if someone can't get financing to do because they're too far away from the parking, I think those are gonna be the controls. And, again, I'm I'm basically just thinking my way through this trying to say, what am I not thinking about today that we're gonna what problems are gonna be in the close by neighborhoods or somewhere else that could could come from this. Because if I watch that map from the nineteen forties to now,
what I've seen is there was a lot of concern of getting more parking, and then there was this reversal of reducing it. But it's not gone to zero, and now we're talking about it going to zero in the downtown, and I just wanna think it through. Council member Miller. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate the the presentation. And I I I guess a question going to council member Keane as well and the time from this being brought up last year to today, how much staff time goes into reviewing parking requirements? Yeah. That's a good question. Generally, they're reviewed during the the site development plan.
The consultant would provide essentially just the numbers associated with so their unit count and how many units or how many parking spaces they're they're providing. So, you know, probably just a handful of minutes as we're going through the site plan review. Okay. Because I I kinda come to the same place that council member Keane if, we have a robust especially in multifamily developments, robust financing review process that the developer is working through that's considering parking, market rates, other factors. I just feel like they're probably doing a pretty good job of that. And so when I look at the potential options,
I'm most in favor of one to my colleague's points, but I kinda wonder if it goes far enough. Another map that I think about is the map that shows Rochester in 1950 with a population of just under 30,000 people about eight square miles. That was probably a, you know, an organization really oriented around walkable neighborhoods, and I I wonder if that's not a better sort of map because I I look at this map and I see people every day walking to work in downtown from farther outside of this map because they can't even get parking close enough if they're parking.
I mean, some of the Mayo commuter lots where people are walking from are outside of this map. So I just I think this is a good step. I would like to think about other uses. I I think of the mayor's, initiative for your about youth, our need for child care facilities. I mean, obviously, child care facilities are also provide parking, especially as our transportation systems change, where people are living. I wonder about those uses, some other commercial uses, small businesses. We often hear about have barriers to entry. Parking, I imagine, is one of those. Look at the downtown landscape of service parking lots and wonder what buildings used to
be there. I've been some of that is factoring in with its parking policy. So I think this is a good step, and I would be supportive of number one for for today, but would look for additional opportunities to study how much parking we're requiring and what income what outcomes we're producing in our development pattern based on our parking policy beyond just residential. And one more point. Go ahead. We often hear from state legislators a very bipartisan effort to do parking reform, to do zoning reform, to do other reforms. And I wonder if that's not also an opportunity to proactively think about what's likely
in the next few years and get ahead of that. So we're proactively planning so that our UDC is in compliance rather than reviewing and rewriting, thinking about the staff time that's required, should the legislature do something that's more flexible than what we offer. Mayor Norton. Yeah. I'm I'm a little worried that we're not being pragmatic, and I I try to think of things from a pragmatic perspective. There was a whole page of reasons why developers and people wanted parking. And by removing it, we're not addressing any of those that page of issues that people addressed.
And so two things, this if you have parking minimums, it does not mean that you a developer could not come forward with parking. Correct? Right? It is up to the developer to decide if they want parking. So it's not a requirement for no parking. It's a minimum level of zero, which I personally don't think zero is the right way to go, but I prefer the point two five. But But it's not a requirement. If they say, and this is part of my concern,
building for no car is building for a part of our community, not all of our community. It's for poor and nonworking individuals who don't have a car. It's potentially for seniors who have given up their car. It's for people who love biking, and we have a subset of people who love biking and walking and don't wanna drive. But there's also a subset of people who do not want to give up their cars, and that was part of what I was seeing in that that page that had the descriptions on it. And so is it if it costs
it if it costs a ton more, and I I did agree with council member Fredericks on this issue, that it doesn't all have I mean, I know surface level parking is minimal, but if you have a point two five and you can get some street level parking, it does not raise the price terribly for individuals. It allows for people to have their cars, and in my mind is a more pragmatic and realistic view of what the next twenty years looks like. Everyone is not going to bike.
Everyone is not going to walk. We have people with disabilities, there's a thousand things, but we also have people who want their cars. If you're downtown right now, they all have taken their mufflers off, I think, for the summer, and we're hearing them all. So I don't think it's realistic to assume that no one downtown wants cars. And I do know, while we've been able to slowly peel away the residential permits, we have them there for a reason. And I'm not sure that bus rapid transit is going to meet every need, and we're going to have people going into neighborhoods again, and we'll be back to restricting neighborhood parking.
And that was an area we've been trying to peel away from. So I just ask that we be pragmatic, and I know we all have our personal loves, and that's fine. And we want to help developers build cheaper buildings. That's fine. But we also have to remember that we have to be pragmatic and make sure we can allow something for everyone. So that's my only concern, that we go too far. Don't go too far. Council member Palmer? Well, thank you. I guess I don't think anybody wants developers to build cheaper buildings. I think, lowering the cost would be nice, for but I have a question for you,
missus Elms. You're talking about dedicated, parking spots. Are people paying for those every month? It depends on the agreement. K. I mean, won't you just have them pay a fee for the dedicated part? And so that's the question that we would be asking is what should be the parameters for going forward so that we have some specific sort of guardrails to talk with developers about because some of those developers remember the agreement that they got from twenty years ago when we were building lots of parking ramps. And so was it just a different place and time when, you know, what the city was trying to incentivize to develop is slightly different than what some
of the opportunities are now. So just to be able to understand how could you do it in a way that doesn't put artificial pressure on the system. Okay. That we'll talk about next. I'm just gonna go back to what mister Miller said. My grandmother owned a house in 1947 on Eighth Ave. SE and she has an alley in her backyard and a garage. And so, in the 1940s, in the late 40s, a lot of people had a car in a garage. Almost all the Manor, Elton Hills, all those were built with garages and, get on my soapbox, but I blame zoning for a lot of our problems because,
you know, I grew up in Cochrane Manor and I could go to grandma's house and walk half a block and get milk and cookies and food and walk three blocks down and get the same thing. And then, when I went to school in Nona, you had factories and houses right next to it. But Zoni said, Oh, no. You gotta build these subdivisions and and you gotta drive into town. That's just my soapbox on that. But and so, I mean, zoning got us into this problem and we're trying to get us out of that problem and I think that, to your point, to Mr. Miller's point about what the state is gonna do,
Rochester's always been a leader. We have it in all the rest of the zoning things. I think this shows that we're being a leader. As far as the parking requirements that we took away, I think they all were during the high schools because now the high schools have free parking which, doesn't they don't have to park in the neighborhoods anymore. So, that's been my my thought process. Thank you. Council member Fredericks. Yes. I I was I enjoyed listening to what mayor Norton had to say, and she is accurate. The downtown projects per se, let's say, what we find very beneficial with those is having,
like she said, that four to 10 spots. There's a 62 unit building a block from here. There is on-site, call it eight to 10 spots, I don't know exactly what it is. And that's all that's occupied. That's the only people that have vehicles in that whole building out of 62 units. And, the ones that say say there's say it's over full, what we find them doing is renting a space, whether it be a surface lot somewhere in the community, they lock their vehicle, and then they just catch a Uber or any type of transportation.
Usually, it's Uber they use utilize. And they go to that lot and they grab their vehicle when they go somewhere on the weekend or a lot of times it sits for a month at a time or so on. So having a few few sites on, few parking spots on-site is very nice. Moving in, moving out, coming over there, loading up a few things, grabbing laundry, things like this. It is very nice to have a couple spots on-site. Having nothing, it does it does create a pickle. It does. But the next layer to that is, you go just outside of the downtown area right North South of Soldier's Field,
43 unit apartment building. Every single person has a car in one spot. And if there is two people to a room, they have one vehicle still and they have a spot. So, you know, you get out of the core area downtown, yes, they all have a vehicle. The people coming downtown and living downtown, there's almost beginning to be this common place that they're not expecting parking. And, and then if they do have parking, they're they're paying for it pretty you know, it's not cheap. So that's that's and and and that's up to the you know, I like to leave things as much up to the to the person holding the
bag, you know. By that, I mean the person paying the bills ultimately on the property, it should be up to them. You know, they're the ones assuming the risk. I would love to have 62 spots at a building and have everybody have that option, because if they didn't take it, I could rent them out privately for a place to park for people. But it's very expensive to do that in many spots. But I'm just saying, the developer is assuming the risk. Whoever is developing said property, they're assuming that risk. And then, as far as spillover into neighborhoods, it's inconvenient. You have to move that thing all the time.
You might they might spill over a little bit to go park in a neighborhood and then run over there maybe for a day, but they're not doing it regularly because it's a pain in their rear end. So I'm sure I'm catching the vibe. A few people are getting calls about, about parking in neighborhoods. That's what I'm guessing. So Thank you. Council president Schubert. Could Go ahead, mister Yetzer. Thank you. Two things that I think are worth thinking about that have been touched on, but I just before we move past because I I kinda see where this is going, I just wanna put two things on the table to think about. we've said it several times,
and I know you're about to get into it. But I agree with you, council member Fredericks, that the developer is taking the risk provided they are choosing to not then turn around and ask the city for parking in our ramps. So keep that in mind in the next conversation if that's where this is headed. But then number two is, I think there's a really strong argument to be made that our parking minimums are already zero in the downtown. All you have to do is put together a transportation demand management plan. And so going back to council member Keane's question of what would be an advantage to maintaining a parking requirement, it would be to to make them think through how are they if they're gonna
do zero parking, how are they gonna do that in a way that doesn't result in them turning around and asking the city for parking after the building's been built. And so that would be my only thing to think about is I I don't think any of us would say no, the the standard shouldn't be zero. In fact, it already is zero, provided you do a little bit of work to show how how are your patrons gonna get around. Are they gonna take Link Rapid Transit? Are they gonna are they gonna use a shut a satellite lot and Uber in? Are they what what are they doing to get down there? And so, again, I think if we proceed with number one, that that's certainly an option and and one that I think it will be just
fine. But there could be a coordination in TDM if we understand how these businesses or residential, excuse me, not businesses, residential buildings are operating without a parking minimum. So just something to think about. Council member Fredericks. Brings up a great point. So to get maybe all of our minds wrapped around it, but selfishly my own, are you seeing your ramps full on a day to day basis, or would we be able to capture some revenue by allowing people to park in there and utilize contract parking? Get you. Presentation. The next presentation gets into that exact thing.
I just get in a groove and you guys shut me down. This is gonna be fun. Alright. We're asking you to put that in a parking lot, actually. Council member Palmer. You know, you you mister Ester, you just said that, it's just have to do a a TDM. They don't just have to do it. And it's not me writing on a piece of paper. It's hiring an engineer to do a a a study to give to you that you review, then you send it back to them and they review. It's it's it's not an easy process of just, you know, this is what we're gonna do. And so I think sometimes we have to remember that it's not just,
you know, me doing it. It's gotta be an engineer or or an architect that's doing that. I don't know that it has to be an engineer. And maybe that's what the conversation should be is what what is our what is our requirements of a TDM? Okay. So how many have you had done in the last three years? Are are you referring to it, like a traffic study? No. I'm referring to what didn't you say TDM? Isn't that what they have to do not to have zero parking in Rochester? Yes. Okay. So so how many in the last three years have been done, and how many have had engineers or consultants? Well, that's just it. In the last three years, we've had had maybe you can take that question.
There's been there's been one that wasn't related to downtown, though. K. Could you Okay. We we have a lineup here. I think I have council member Keane, then council member Miller, then council member Wall. So council member Keane. I just wanna make sure when we're I I have this mental model of a larger construction project in the downtown. What happens when someone comes in with a small conversion? Taking an existing home and breaking it up into you know, and you get a permit to make it into three apartments or something. Yeah. I can't remember the exact terminology. But essentially, any conversion where you're not adding square footage,
there's no part in review associated with it throughout the city. So we're only dealing with something that's again, it's a group building sort of Yeah. New development. Yeah. Alright. I'm I'm just trying to scope this and make sure they're not something else going on here. The the one point I wanna keep in mind here when council member Fredericks talks about who's taking the risk and and I I do like that thinking, but the the part of the reason that we're involved in this is there is this concept of I'm not gonna take the risk. I'm gonna build this cheaply and have all the parking sprawl out in this public area. And that's the thing.
That's the reason we're here worrying about this. That's what happened in the past, and that's what we're trying to protect from. Now I think, you know, we're we're getting caught up with it. Right now, parking is you know, there is parking in the ramps. And if we can work that out, that's a good way to do it. And I think we do want the cheaper housing and reducing the cost of building parking in our downtown. So I think there's good reasons for doing this. But I I'm keeping in mind the real the reason or the I think it was called the tragedy of the commons where someone says, I don't have to worry about this. The public already has it. And if it if it gets to be too much on the public,
they'll build more parking for us. And that's what I'm I'm worried about here that's gonna that that could happen. Council member Wahl. I had a son and daughter-in-law who, had an apartment on Hennepin in, Minneapolis, and they had contracted, to take spots in, a nearby city owned, ramp. He forgot what floor he was on one day, and I was tasked with finding that little Ford Focus. Focus. And I wanna tell you, it was it was a chore, to have that kind of nondedicated parking.
And, no, it wasn't a car that had that sophistication of, a horn. Council member Miller. Just a a point to bring up with council member Keane and others. I I do think the neighborhood traffic, sort of question has come up, the neighborhood parking permits. I wonder when's the last time we reviewed that? You're talking about residential parking? Residential parking. Specifically. Permits. And and I guess my question is probably, is it time to? Right? Because I think of areas that don't have it, that have asked for it, that are having challenges with it, I think of areas where there's a lot of intensive demand to pave a backyard
and now sell a parking space at a monthly cost. There's clearly demand in the market. And and this is exactly kinda how I'm approaching this too is, like, there are people that are figuring out where to park even when the city policies aren't really managing the system quite as efficiently, right, as maybe the the financing is. And I think there's an opportunity there, but I I also wanna make sure we don't lose the the question and comment about accessible parking too. Just, clarify for all of us in parking too. Could you just clarify for all of us and for the public who sets requirements for accessible parking?
It's the building code. It's the building code. Managed by the state. Correct. Correct. Okay. So whether we have parking minimums or not, if somebody chooses to put parking with their development, the accessible parking spaces will be guided by the state. So I do wonder if maybe in the future legislative priorities, if there's a way that we look encourage our state legislators to look at that and make sure that ADA parking rates requirements are meeting the current disability rates. Because I think that's a really valid concern, but we can't increase accessible parking rates directly through this mechanism.
And then, I guess, again, just like having the flexibility, is is where I'm moving on this. Oh, my my question was for mister Yatser. Could you explain how the TDM program has been used once in three years? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I I don't know the details of it, but the TDM program was utilized to increase parking requirement, not decrease it. That's the only time it's been used since it was adopted in 02/1817 because it was actually introduced with the DNC DPOZ. And again, my opinion of the of the program as it exists today is there's just not
quite an understanding of how to use it. And so, again, that's, I think, part of the conversation that needs to happen. Thanks. Well, I'll I'll just weigh in a little bit. I do I I do agree with the the, looks like the majority here. I like the flexibility that it does for the city not to have the the minimums. I think, I think to the mayor's point, I I don't know that we're there yet, but I think to have the ability for the innovative future thinking developer to come
in and say, I'm gonna make this work without parking to have that option. And I also think that from a subsidy standpoint that then we aren't going to have developers coming to us and saying, we need to be able to meet your parking minimums, so give us some TIF financing. So I think it frees us up into, council member Frederick's point, puts the onus on the developers. I am very interested in the next conversation and how maybe we can look to
our ramps because I do see that they're underused. And is there some place where we can use some of those those ramps to find a happy medium on this and the next discussion. So with that, thank you very much, and we will move on to I think it's mister Nolan, is it? Yes. Mister Shih Shihl. Shield. Shield on transit and parking services. Alright. Good afternoon,
council members. My name is Nolan Shield. I'm the parking systems manager. I'll be talking to you today about a draft policy on, developer parking agreements, and we'll probably have some interesting conversations based on the questions that have been coming up so far. Alright. So similar to, my teammates from community development, we have some policy considerations for you. Just, questions to think about as we go through this. What we're looking for from you all is just your feedback and kind of conversation and, information that you would like to see as part of,
a potential policy. This is just a quick slide reminding everyone of the parking mission statement, which council approved, later last year along with some of our, top goals, in the parking enterprise fund. So current state. Current state is, for developer parking agreements is that a formal policy does not exist around this topic. There are currently 13 special parking agreements in effect today, dating back to I think one goes back to even early nineties or late eighties.
Five of the agreements are what we would consider development related. Our biggest concern with any of these parking agreements and not having a policy is that they're very inconsistent, that being terms of duration, number of spaces, where those spaces are being provided, and things of that nature, and any types of limits as well. Did, council member I just have a quick question. Go ahead. We have 13 agreements. How And those are with hotels? For this in this instance, I don't think there are any of the 13 that are related to hotels.
How about the Hilton? The Hilton, it the Hilton would be other monthly parking or nondevelopment related, utilizing what I have here as approximately 630 spaces. K. Thank you. Council member Fredericks. Yeah. You define special parking agreement. So, again, I'll say, inconsistent and ad hoc historically. These agreements were not necessarily developed or put into place by the parking system administrator or the director of parking and transit or the director of,
public works even at the time. They're rather put in place by a number of different historical individuals at the city. And then, also, hopefully, yes, council approved. Do you like them? Do I like the agreements? Yeah. I think all the agreements at one time served a purpose. I've only been in this role for about two and a half years. My biggest concern for coming forward with a draft policy is that our parking is finite, as is space in the downtown, as well as even across the city. And my concern was kind of what was brought up earlier as a potential of
what if these five developments all happen at the same time. They all come to the city wanting 80 to a 100 spaces a piece. We don't ultimately have capacity to do that if we wanna achieve the parking mission of being able to provide public concerns with the status quo. So, again, there's just no current policy that guides the team, developers, or other parties about what these agreements should look like. There's numerous inconsistent, terms, limits, durations, number of spaces, locations, as well as additional terms that, we may not be supportive,
currently. Then last, we could just overpromise on parking spaces preventing us from achieving the mission. Benefits of the policy would include, again, going back to the mission, just helping us ensure that we can achieve that mission. The policy, as you heard from the conversation at the end of the last presentation, is an extension of and guided by the unified development code. So any feedback additionally that you have for that team, and how that ends up, with their next presentation due in July would be reflected in this policy as well. It provides the development community some clarity on the topic.
It will hopefully help incentivize developments that meet other city's strategies, objective goals, and specifications. I'll get into a little bit more of that later. It allows flexibility to encourage mobility mode shift, which is, part of the conversation that we had earlier also. It helps to ensure the parking system is available to everyone, as I just noted. Just kinda keeping that balance between contract spaces and, spaces available for more transient parkers that are, literally coming and going within just a matter of a few hours during the day. And lastly, it would provide some consistent parameters around potential parking subsidies.
I think I would just note there that, as was discussed, this is a tool in the toolbox to help potential developments, as a as a subsidy. Policy criteria. Some of the recommended criteria are listed here. Just that parking space to unit ratio requirements will be considered. Agreements will not be longer than five years, however, include options to renew for additional five years. That allows us the flexibility to, look at any requirement changes along with actual parking use, which was part of the discussion earlier also.
The number of parking spaces made available in any one agreement will be based on parking system capacity. I would say, city would reserve the right to adjust any The city would reserve the right to adjust any agreement based on actual use. Agreement related spaces aren't specifically signed as reserved for a specific person or specific entity. It's come, serve. However, those spaces are guaranteed for those people as long as they're being paid for per the agreement. Agreement related spaces would be, again, based on system capacity,
and the spaces available. The city would be remunerated for any and all parking spaces provided by an agreement, which as noted before, I believe there were a few agreements where we promised a certain number of spaces. Those spaces weren't all being parked aren't weren't all being paid for, but were all being reserved in our system as may making sure they were available for these, contracted partners. Some other considerations within the policy, just really that, the development itself is being evaluated based on,
you know, city development and public benefit objectives, some internal strategies, around development. And then, in turn, the parking reasonable, subsidy or agreement to enter into. I've listed a few of them here. I'm not gonna go into depth, necessarily. But one is economic development. Two is housing redevelopment and affordable housing stock. is equity and inclusion. Four is sustainability. Five is economic resilience. So some additional considerations. I just listed here that the parking system's available capacity is the most important to consider. And the city would decide the allocation of spaces across the system,
and maybe not particularly in any one location, depending on availability. The next one is fairly interesting and is very closely related to the minimum parking requirements in the UDC. Along with what you heard earlier and that we all probably need to keep in mind is no matter what our minimum parking requirements are, the development's lender can also put in parking requirements for them to obtain their loans. So this one is really just that preference would be given to developments that can provide off street parking for a minimum of 50% of the total parking required within
the development site itself. That's saying that the developer is is going to build parking as part of their development. It might not meet all of the lender's requirements or all of our city imposed requirements, but that they are going to do some and then ask for some help outside of that. And that's it. We've kind of just circle back around to the policy considerations. So I'll try to answer any questions that I can. Is the lender sorry. Go ahead, council member. Thanks, president. Is the is the lender okay with just a five year agreement to get the
money borrowed? So, that, I think, has been one of our questions, and I wouldn't say that we've answered that entirely. I know that, a couple of the developers we spoke with, thought that having the, five year renewal option would probably cover that. Give them some account for it. Because we haven't really tried to implement one yet, we're not sure what their lenders are going to say about the term. You think it would match the term of the loan ten, twenty, thirty? Potentially. The as a lender, that's probably what you would expect. I don't know their flexibility in the the duration of the term.
Can I, add some comments over here? Go ahead. Yeah. With, parking and transit. So I just wanna say that the five year term, as Nolan said, is kind of something that we've provided. Some of the things that 13, agreements that we have had no end dates, And so we're having lessons learned from those agreements on what, we can implement in our, if this policy was to be put in place, like, what are the recommendations based on those lessons learned. So five years with renewal options. That also gives us, opportunity to consider if the number of spaces in that agreement was the right number
of spaces and then any other terms that's in there. So I have a question on so if we went with a policy that that, the the owner or who whoever whoever is leasing the parking spots can be in any of the ramps. Can you talk a little bit more about, like, how we may kind of funnel them towards ramps? And is there a way that we can monitor the usage and know these tenants are using these spots.
To me, it feels like we really don't have a handle on the the agreements that we have now as far as who's using what spaces and how often? Sure. So, council president, those are all great questions. And I would say, of all, thank you all for approving the project for the new parks parking equipment because that is ultimately gonna significantly improve our ability to track and monitor these types of agreements as far as use. So, yes, I'll try to tackle those in order.
But as far as kind of pointing them or flowing them to their closest location, we we obviously, to date, have been attempting to do that. But we are getting to the point where capacity is gonna limit our ability to say this ramp is the closest to your development, so that's the one we would have you use. If there's not capacity there, we're gonna say you have a number to use here, a number to use in this other ramp, and maybe even a number in another ramp. And then, as far as tracking the agreements So do we just interrupt?
Do is that something that we would communicate with the management company on a daily basis, weekly, monthly? I mean, how how do tenants find out where they can park Sure. In a in a model like that? So in the case of a developer parking agreement, let's just say they need 50 spaces. And in the perfect world, we would say all 50 of your spaces are gonna be at the Third Street Ramp. What we typically do is we issue 50 cards.
We identify them by number. We would then give them to the developer, property owner, or whoever ends up being the management of those units. For them to manage who gets one, they would tell them per the agreement, this is the ramp that you go to park in. If they're segregated or divided up, we we would also have to specify that in the agreements. So maybe it's 25 At Third Street and 25 At Ramp 6. And then you monitor through the card. Correct? Yes. Correct. Administers, I would also say that's how we have been doing it.
But had those development agreements been constructed differently, you might be able to do it even more simply, which is if someone doesn't come and get a monthly parking lease, then you know that that space isn't being used. So if you so it's some of these agreements, it's still challenging to know what really happened with those 50 parking passes unless they're getting used. If they're not getting used, we don't know if we we can't a 100% determine why. Is it just because someone doesn't have a vehicle right then?
Or there's not really an incentive necessarily, to not just take all 50 parking passes if there's no financial cost to utilizing them monthly and contributing to the ramp. So that's an like, examples of how we've been doing it to try to work through the agreements that exist are not necessarily the the, most ideal way of how we would be able to track regardless of the software that we have, if that's accurate, mister Shield. Yes. I would say, due to the way that some of the agreements were worded,
there was no incentive to either use or not use the the passes. And there was really no incentive for us to enforce or a way for us to enforce that, yes, you have to use all of them. Council member Palmer. Thank you. Probably the most frustrating thing for me dealing with is parking with Rochester, ramps. And so, I just want to be upfront with that. So, I don't know why you wouldn't go with the ramps that are used mostly by people on a daily basis, from eight to five and not have contract parking there,
but have them go to a different ramp that we have lots of open spaces at. I don't know why we don't incentivize for cost to find out who's using it or not and I would assume that they have to pay a fee, whenever they're using our parking. I don't quite understand why we do it for free. The five year term doesn't make much sense. I think a review, makes sense to me that you would review it every five years, but I don't think that banks are going to want you to say, In five years you could lose your parking. What are you going to do? And so, the other thing on this is I would rather see us do a guideline than
a policy and then maybe work with our guidelines for a year or two and see if we need to have a policy or if our guideline works and give the staff enough, leeway to do what they think is best, and have a guideline. The only other problem that I've had and I've spoken about this before is how do we offer entry level employees, non male people, discounts so they can park in the ramp and not have to park on the street. And I don't think that we've come up with anything that's workable but somehow, I think the waiters and waitresses and the housekeeping staff and some temporary staff would
be able to park in our ramps. Because our ramps are full from eight to five and I know that they get full sometimes on Saturdays. But, I think for the best use of it, the more people we get in our ramps, the better off we are and make that enterprise fund, keep going. Thank you. Yeah. Again, I went through the charts here. I've read them. I think I understand what you've told me, but I still feel a little in the dark about what what we're really the problem that we're trying to resolve. Because when I hear somebody has a contract for 50, I think of it working one way, but it probably doesn't work that way.
We probably don't get paid for 50. We only get paid for the ones that get used? So some of the agreements, yes. Okay. I and I don't need to go through it here. But I think the point is that the contracts we have are taking up capacity without and and we don't charge on capacity. We charge on usage. Correct. Correct. Other contracts, I think, I and I've been involved with them. One of the ones is a UMR contract where it it is my understanding that it is a good use of our ramps from the way they use them and the kind of rates we have on them. And that's a different one of the 13 and done differently than the other ones.
Correct. Yep. Okay. Yep. In this discussion, there seems to be a staff concern of overusing our capacity, and there seems to be a council concern that we're not using enough capacity as it is. Is there some, like, middle ground in here that we need to understand? Yeah. I think I think I hear or we hear the team hears over and over that there's always capacity in the ramps. And I I would like to say that most typically there is, but it varies from day to day. Average occupancy is pretty close to 80%.
With some of the mail parking also being lost, we're seeing some additional pressure on our parking system, fairly significant. And we don't know if that'll be a long term or short term. But Well, that that that's kind of one of the concerns I come to this meeting with of saying, you know, is our is our parking enterprise solvent or is it or we really have to protect and you have questions in here about should we be giving new subsidies to somebody? I'm going with with what? I mean, I I don't think we have subsidy to give, but maybe I have a an old mental model of how the enterprise is is
funded right now and what our what our bank accounts are like. I mean, we might see more of this later when you guys see the see the audit also. But, the Parkin Enterprise Fund has a very healthy, retained earnings balance, and we did discuss that from the rate study also, which we we made some changes to the rates for on street parking, but we we didn't do anything to the monthly contract parking, and part of that is because we think that the retained earnings is very solid
currently. These these subsidies, again, I just wanna kinda reiterate that it's for parking that we have available. I wouldn't say that we're immediately short, but, again, it would be in the short term or in the near term. If two developments were to come forward and need all of their parking from us, that would be a significant constraint for us. And if city council approved those developments and those development agreements, we could be in a situation of asking other monthly contract partners to leave.
Yeah. Council member Keane, if I can just add on to that really quick. I I just wanna make sure we're all talking about the same thing when we say subsidy. When we're saying subsidy, we're saying by the city or the parking system providing parking, you are subsidizing that project in a different way. It's not that we're giving them it's not that we're changing our parking structure within our own. It's that the development is choosing not to build parking, which is providing a subsidy to them. But they're also not saying, but we don't need it. They're turning around and saying, city, we want you to provide it because it's too expensive for us.
And so that's when we're saying subsidy, that's what he's meaning is Yeah. Let me let me try this because the development by us Yeah. Carrying the parking bird. I I'm in a a parking in a in like, I'm looking at this as an enterprise right now, and I'm using I'm taking subsidy to mean, do we wanna subsidize the parking? I I don't think of this as a subsidy to the developer to not build parking. I think that's his decision if we have a policy of zero zero, requirements. That's not a subsidy to create a policy that's zero requirement. Agreed. But where the subsidy comes in is if the developer says,
I'm gonna create zero parking, but city, I'd like to enter into a 30 agreement with you to have 50 spaces reserved. I I but, again, let me let me just state this. But if they're paying their way, there's no subsidy. Why aren't they paying their way? I think what we're saying I I'm gonna have a have a little order here. Administer zones. Council president, council member Keane, I think that's exactly what we're trying to talk about with guardrails is that for these 13 agreements, if the same developer came forward today and we've experienced this, we would not recommend to you that you do either an unending or a thirty
year agreement. There are is at least one of these where they pay nothing. So it is a subsidy because we still, through the parking system, luckily, have to maintain, clean, repair the ramp, do significant repairs. And if they if we're not creating development agreements where where they have to think through contributing to the cost of those public ramps in lieu of providing parking if they want to or need to provide parking, then I think that you are probably perpetuating the older version of the system. And so I do think it's important to think about those levers of what would
be an appropriate cost to assign to this, how would you do the process, is it that they need to come in each year and, get you know, we're up to this number of parking, spaces would be available throughout the system, and we're gonna look each year to see how many of your renters actually have parking, you know, monthly parking agreements with the city and be able to reduce that if there's not as many people that are using it. And what is the appropriate is there a buy in that you would need to do?
I don't believe any of these had a buy in where they were contributing something. Like, if you are in a pooled situation for health insurance, you usually have to capitalize your entry into that because you're creating a liability within the system that didn't exist before. So I I don't think we have fleshed all of that out here, but those are all the kinds of things that become a question mark of how do we have those conversations with the development community in a way where it doesn't parking ramps, but actually thinks through what are the implications of that long term. So so I have one other question and then a a comment on this.
So, the the other one was if if you do create this or we move towards a policy, how does that help us get out of these these into perpetuity contracts? Or does it? If I remember correctly, there's one remaining Okay. Like, in perpetuity contract. The rest do have somewhat in the near future term dates. Yeah. So when I'm coming to discussion and reading the packet, I I do like the idea of, having, like, a policy on this.
But when I read the criteria, it's almost like, how can we give this away? And I don't think we should be giving parking away. Parking is an expense that people who have automobiles in downtown need to pay their way for it. And I and I'm glad to hear that we have a, you know, substantial balance. But on an operational thing right now, I'm worried that we're not as good as we should be coming coming out of COVID. So, but I would expect that if somebody blocks 50 parking spots, they're paying for those and not, you know, not paying some reduced amount depending if they didn't use them or not.
And I, you know, again, I I don't wanna get into it at this level talking about what those rates are, but they should be market rate. This idea that they're subsidized because they're doing developments in downtown, I I don't understand that language. I I I wouldn't, support that. Mayor Norton. Literally been one of those topics over the years that has it never goes away, and it comes back in different iterations every time. And this is a new iteration. This is a new discussion that I haven't had in this way since I've been here. When I came on city council, I was told,
we're not building any more parking ramps downtown, period. No more parking. Done. We want no cars downtown. Well, that lasted about fifteen minutes because we had a company come in and say, I won't build downtown unless I can have parking. And we said, oh, okay. We'll give you parking. And so this just goes, you know, it just feels like we circle around this. We're not gonna have no downtown. And if we're literally gonna say, you can build a huge apartment complex or a huge place of employment that is gonna house a bazillion people day or night, and you don't have to have parking if you don't want it,
folks. We have to have space space for them, which is gonna mean either not just even talking about what we currently have, but talking about what we have to build for the future, which is more parking garages, which are super expensive. So this is an issue that is not a tiny issue. These are majorly expensive endeavors to build parking. We if we're not gonna have people build their own, we're gonna build it for them and charge them, I hope. I hope we don't have into perpetuity free parking for anyone. I have to read my note. I had two other things. One is, we are losing some of our large flat parking in the coming years due to
development. So again, I'm not sure you're counting that in your parking numbers. It's not a ramp. Right? It's flat parking like behind Midas Muffler and other places in town. Those are going to be developed in the future again. So we'll be losing parking at this point, not gaining it. I haven't I'm not hearing that. Bus rapid transit's gonna be full. That lot out there is gonna be full, so we can't keep saying bus rapid transit's the answer. It's not. And since I have served on this council, we it's all we've talked about is and post pandemic, particularly.
We need to get people downtown. Businesses need people downtown, not just people who live here. Yes. Building more housing downtown will bring more people, but we want to get people downtown. And if we're giving up those places, we've been trying to convince people that we have, that there is parking on our lots. We're hearing 80% full now. You know, for a while it was less than that right after the pandemic, and we were encouraging people to come downtown. I'm not sure they are yet, but if we give all this parking to people that are living downtown, they're not going to come at all. Because while we do have a bus rapid transit,
it's only going to serve it's going to be full all day with Mayo Clinic folks. There'll be very limited public spots. People aren't going to be able to go out there and park and come down down, nor are they interested in doing that. So I think we we have to be really realistic here about what we're doing. And I'm not hearing that realistic thinking yet. It has to be, how much more parking do we need? Or who's gonna get the parking that we have? Do we really wanna get people downtown? Even if you have an apartment with no parking, what about the visitors that come to visit people? Where are they gonna park?
Do we even have parking downtown on the streets? Very limited, and we know it's being used for Mayo Clinic. So I think we just this is so complex, and I just feel like we spin our wheels on this, and we don't have a solution. And maybe it's because it's too difficult, it's one of those, you know, adaptive problems that's gonna take we're just gonna constantly be dealing with over and over and over and over. It's never gonna go away. Or maybe we need to be a little more planful. I'm gonna interject. I think, mayor, the way I see this, a guiding policy, which, you know, you will the the staff will flesh out,
but I think it's getting to where you are looking to. I think we we have a lot of complex issues that go into our parking downtown, but I don't know that we have a real clear handle on how it's being used. And so we don't even know if there is going to be either in the short term or the long term, capacity for developments to use our city, parking. I do believe we have to we we have to,
make sure that we we know who's using it and when and to I I I think, council member Keane said this and that if they are reserving a spot, that they're paying for that reserved spot. Not I could stay away from you. So, Council member president Schoebring, I complete I don't disagree with you. Finish button. Oh, go ahead. So now you've made me lose my train of thought because I have three other counsel. My so, I think I think I agree we need a policy,
and I'm I'm looking for more meat on the bones. And I think that's what you are looking for from us is, yes, continue to go forward. And, but with the more data on where we are now, what's what is the the, set point that we're at? Who's there? How often? Vacant lots. And I agree with the mayor. We do want people residents to use downtown. I mean, one of the issues that I I talked to administer Deselmes about today is,
you know, these the barrier that residents have to just go into a ramp in order to, go to one of our fine restaurants that we have downtown? What can we do to to remove some of those barriers? So I know that's a different topic, but, council member Fredericks. Thank you, president. So I hear the number 50 thrown around a fair amount here, spots reserved, but how many total are reserved for for, let's say, private entities, that that are contracted right now? Sure.
So on on an earlier slide, we have five developments for approximately 400 spaces. Okay. Nondevelopment related agreements, 632 spaces, that's a 32. Other monthly contract parkers, which are just people living in a unit somewhere nearby, they've individually contracted with us for a monthly contract, 539 spaces. So, you're looking at around 15 to 1,600. Okay. And how many of those are are pay to play? Like, the ones that only pay if they're used?
Because you were saying, like, you know, Patrick's deal he brought up was, you know, if they're if they're speaking for 50, but they're using 30, they're only paying for 30. Right? Yes. Yes. How many of those are pay to play? I don't have that information with me. It is in the matrix, so I can definitely let you know. I think it's less than a 100. It actually just leads to the next point. So it's less than a 100. And then of those 100, let's say 99 aren't being used. Does that mean no one can use those for nine for for the month, for the day? It would, technically. It does. So they're actually straight up reserved, sign in front of them,
can't park here. Not really. But electronically, our our system says we need to keep those 99 spaces available. So the gate goes up 300 times out of 400 times. Now it says it's full because I'm waiting for these 99 other spaces. Does hurt people that wanna park on on a on a weekend when there's a wrestling match. For sure. Okay. That that then it's super valid. That's what I wanted to clarify. Thank you. Other thoughts? Council member Miller? I guess, just guiding thoughts about this. I I feel like this has come up,
but I think pricing the the contracts appropriately is, and foremost, what I'd consider as a policy guiding framework. I think for all of our parking, we've talked about this a little bit in the past parking study as well, but I think that that's how we control supply and demand because there's value in parking. We're seeing alleyways, backyard being converted to parking and private citizens. So there's value there. And I think we, as a city, need to be smart about capturing that. And I think also to the point about flexibility, making sure that we have the flexibility to use the parking system as needed, and I would look for that as a guiding principle.
But I think also and it came up mister Yasser mentioned the TDM program. I think this is exactly a place where I think we have a lot of power to have developers who are coming to us who don't wanna build their own parking but want parking to enforce some sort of, thought about travel demand management, whether that's a shared vehicle that can serve multiple residents or other strategies, because my other thought about parking is we have cars that are parked for a majority of the day or overnight. They're not actively being used. So they're serving some future travel purpose,
but they're also kind of restricted to one person. So particularly for apartment developments, if people just need access to a car sometimes, how do we meet that need without them having to own their own car, without having to reserve 50 or 100 spots or other things? And I I I don't wanna prescribe anything other than thinking that TDM is is perhaps a tool that can be used for these developer parking agreements, especially if developers are looking to not have to build, you 50,000 to 100 extra spaces at 60,000 plus a stall when they have to be underground. Council Member Palmer.
Well, I think Mr. Miller came up with a nice idea there about using the TDM as helping out with parking. I do agree, I think, with everybody here who said that you should be paying for spots, period, if you're using them or not and somehow we need to get our handle on that one. The frustrating thing for me is that you have one out of 13 that doesn't have an expiration date on it. It seems like we're trying to make a policy for that one instead of doing them all, and just learning from that one. So, I don't want us to be giving away parking,
but I do want us to make sure that we're, incentivizing not having cars coming downtown. Shield. Great. Thank you all. Administer Zalms, future study session agendas. Thank you, council president, council members, mayor. If the clerk team could put up put that up on the screen, that would be helpful. We have, something to discuss under the, future study session, which also includes the dates for the council meetings. So I had sent a note out, asking if we could cancel the August 4, council meeting based on some, challenges with, gaining quorum and,
and have that council meeting instead be on August 11, which typically would be a, study session date. One thought would be to try to rearrange the study session items, but I know that when we get a pretty heavy agenda, it can be challenging to go through, complex items. So another thought would be that if if this, group was open to it, we could add a study session on the eighteenth. So it would be shortened. We'd still need to move, I think, some of these items around, but, having a 03:30 to 05:00 study session just to get maybe two or three of
those, items, you know, onto some additional time on the calendar would probably provide the most flexibility. It would obviously be adding a meeting, 03:30 to to five, and then you would be here again, 06:00, until later into the evening. Although, typically, when we have two council meetings back to back, that council meeting usually ends up being lighter. I can't guarantee that, but, it just tends to be how some items move within, our system, based on timing in between, a and a council meeting. So if there's Yeah.
Let's get some feedback. So the the option is is, to cancel the August 6 August 4. August 4 council meeting and then use the study session time on which date? In so on you would cancel that, move it to August 11. So you would only have a council meeting on August 11. Which which is currently designated as a study session. Correct? So you would not be having that study session. Okay. How do council members feel about that? Council member, can you go ahead? Can I just understand it,
Gary? Because we published this calendar. And, again, did you say we don't have a quorum, or we're at risk for having a quorum? You there's only four people, which is a challenge depending on what's on that agenda. I I understand. Is it a four person or a quorum, or do we need five? Quorum, but depending if you had an item that required five Yep. Okay. Not be able to hear that item. Okay. Again, I just am protecting the you know, when we publish it, we have to try to stick to it. And if it doesn't work, then we have to change it. You would be doing procedurally, depending on this discussion, is on your June 16 meeting, you would be adjusting your calendar accordingly.
Okay. Alright. Thank you for the clarification. Okay. So, do you have any feedback on, on the the options in front of us? I I guess I just wanna state to make sure we, you know, we're careful with moving things around like this. But I I I can adjust to either one of the options. Council member Wahl? No. I I would certainly be in favor of having, a study session the same day as a council meeting. We used to do that. Didn't nobody died. Other feedback? Council member Miller, go ahead. I will be out of town on the eleventh. So, I I'm not opposed to the study session council meeting.
And if some get moved to gate teeth, I'll happily engage with those as well. Sounds like I'm hearing that people are fine with So what I would be putting on the agenda is, I'll use this terminology, canceling. This is what you'd really be doing. It's canceling and moving the August 4 council meeting to August 11, which would then cancel that study session and move some of those items to a study session that would then be created on August 18, 03:30 to five. I see nods. Okay. Alright. Anything else for today? Oh, and then we do have a few study sessions before that.
Correct? Correct? I think we I think we got some knowledge. I mean, are we? Yeah. We can't vote on it. Yeah. Everybody said they were fine. You're fine with it? Yeah. Okay. So I'll put my camera so I gotta Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. We made a decision. You technically will also be deciding this again. I will put it on the consent. Know, the decision possibly The possible the decision I'll be asking you to formally make on June 16 is canceling the August 4 council meeting. So you will not have a meeting that day. You would then have a council meeting on August 11, so you'd be here at 06:00.
And then on August 18, you would have a 03:30 to 05:00 approximately study session, and then a You'll get it later. I will send you an email. Council member. So, let's move on to, study sessions. You do have a couple of study sessions coming up, a very exciting one. The audit, what happens after you do the budget, what did it actually happen. We also have, a couple of budget related items on that same evening, so the capital improvement plan. So you will be seeing, a high level of that on, the twenty third and then,
a little bit of a deeper dive opportunity for discussion on the outside agency recommendations. That was in the April factors influencing the budget, but this generally gets a fair amount of discussion, so trying to move that up farther into the process. Then you do have no council meeting on June 30. So just wanna make you aware of that, in case you really wanted to have a burning reason to make plans to do something other than be at a council meeting. And then on the fourteenth of, July, we have an update on the disposition of Citi Real Estate.
So you had talked a bit about that, during other business, last week. Electric vehicle charging rates, stop number one at study session, comprehensive service water management plan, and equity in the built environment program update. That is wrapping up, based on the funding, so just wanna be able to provide an update on that. Alright. Anything else for today? If not, we are adjourned.