Order order, the town council meeting on August twelfth, twenty twenty-five.

Will you please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

All right, will the town clerk please take roll?

Councilmember Pass Marelli.

Councilmember O'Connor.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tempell.

Here.

Mayor Moore?

Here.

Council Member Bear.

Present.

Council Member Mortalero.

Here.

And Councilmember Hoback.

Here.

Mayor, you have a quorum.

All right.

Do we have a motion to approve the agenda tonight?

So moved.

Second.

We have a motion and second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

Motion carries.

All right.

Bear with me.

I've got to have a number of items on the consent agenda.

Uh the first item is item twenty-five one thirty-seven approval of the of the July twenty-second.

Twenty twenty-five town council meeting minutes.

Item 25427, an ordinance of the town council of town of Erie accepting the transfer of rural property from Morgan Hill Metropolitan District No.

3 to the town and approving the associated special warranty deed.

Item 25432, a resolution to the town council of the town of Erie approving the terms and conditions for the sale, a power generation system accompanying a purchase order from Cummins Incorporated.

Item 25417, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving an amendment to the construction contract with territory unlimited for the Erie Commons irrigation pond improvements.

Item 25422, a resolution of the town council of town and Erie approving the second amendment to the development agreement for the Westerly filing number one.

Item 25408, a resolution of the Town Council of Town of Erie approving the engagement letter and legal services agreement with the law firm of Lyons Gaddis for the Water Legal Matters.

Item 25457, a resolution of the Town Council of Town of Erie approving Alex Wicks to the historic preservation advisory board.

And the last item on the consent agenda tonight is item 25425, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving the first amendment to the construction contract with JOC construction for the Kenosha Farms culvert replacement.

I have a motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

All right.

The consent agenda is approved.

All right, we'll go on to public comment.

And do we have anybody signed up tonight?

All right.

I will read the public comment kind of rules.

Um let's see.

Please remember the public comment is not an interactive QA forum, but rather a time for you to state your comments on a particular item or issue.

Public comment provides the opportunity to discuss items that are not on the agenda or consent agenda items only.

Please sign up using the kiosk in the lobby.

When called upon, please state your full name and location for the record.

Public comment is limited to three minutes per person.

You will be given a 20-second warning when you're when your three minutes are almost up.

At the three-minute mark, you'll also be asked to wrap up your final sentence.

All opinions are welcome.

Please be respectful of each speaker to ensure everyone feels welcome to share their comments.

Please refrain from any cheering, clapping, booing, or otherwise disruptive behavior.

All right, with that, who is our first speaker tonight?

Our first speaker is Samantha Hagastrom.

And is she online?

No, she says she's in person.

Okay.

Next we have Pamela.

Oh, I'm gonna text Ira.

All right.

Sorry about that.

And welcome and just if you can state if you're an Erie resident or not.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Pam Taysheda, and I live in the Cottonwood Vista neighborhood in District 1, which is less than a mile and a half from the Erie municipal airport.

I'm here tonight to voice my strong opposition to the proposed expansion of the airport.

The Erie Airport began as a small rural facility in the 1970s, and much of Erie's growth since then has been in residential neighborhoods near the airport, including mine.

What was once a remote airfield is now surrounded by families, schools, and parks.

I'm speaking tonight on behalf of many Erie residents who have seen a significant decline in our quality of life due to sharp and sustained increase in low-flying aircraft activity over our community.

Some of our neighbors have lived here for 20 years, and they tell me they have never heard noise like this.

In just the past few months, we've seen a dramatic uptick in the number of flights in our skies.

These flights often begin early in the morning and continue well into the evening, sometimes until 10 p.m.

or later.

This is not occasional or incidental traffic.

From what I understand, the vast majority are touch and go exercises, repetitive training maneuvers conducted by flight schools.

And most of these flights come from outside of Erie.

Our community is bearing the burden of the noise, the pollution, and the disruption while others benefit.

The peace that many residents once enjoyed in Erie is slipping away, and there appears to be no end in sight.

Local realtors, friends of mine have told me that prospective home buyers in Erie are starting to look elsewhere because of the constant airport noise.

That means our property values are being driven down.

And when property values fall, so does property tax revenue that funds our police, fire, and schools.

The airport expansion isn't just a nuisance.

It's hurting every resident and every public service we depend on.

The airport is already losing money, and the proposed expansion would require even more taxpayer funding.

Why should our community invest more into an operation that cannot sustain itself financially?

Especially when we have so many other needs in a growing town.

Every dollar spent here is a dollar not spent on roads, schools, parks, or public safety.

So I urge you stand with the residents who live under these flight paths, who pay the taxes that keep this airport afloat, and who are paying the price for someone else's convenience.

Vote no on airport expansion, and remember when you cast your vote, you're not just deciding the future of a runway.

You're deciding whether the voices of thousands of residents will be drowned out by the roar and the exhaust of constant flight school traffic.

Choose the people over the noise.

Thank you.

All right, thank you for coming out tonight.

Look to our town clerk to call up our next speaker.

Next speaker is LaShawn Jane.

Namaste, Honorable Mayor, and Council members.

The police, first responders, and guests.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to join you today as we invite you all to celebrate the tradition known as Raksha Bandan.

Or we call it in the community as universal oneness day.

Raksha Bandan is a Hindu festival whose name comes from two Sanskrit words.

Raksha means protection, bandan means bond.

Traditionally, it honors sacred relationship between the public and the ruler or a warrior, citizen and administrators, students and teachers, and most commonly between sisters and brothers.

To the ritual of tying a Raki, a sacred trade.

This symbolic act serves as a reminder of the lifelong duty of the protector, be it a ruler, teacher, administrator, or siblings or parents to stand by and safeguard each other beyond the family bond beyond the family bond.

Raksha Bandan calls on all of us to recognize our shared responsibility to protect and uplift one another.

It is a celebration of universal oneness and value of service, care, and commitment to the greater good.

In that spirit, since 2004, Hindus Soyam Sevaksang, HSS, has been celebrating this day as universal oneness day.

So this initiative, we share the message that we are all interconnected as neighbors, as citizens, and as a member of one human race or the family.

11 a.m.

Yes.

Once again, thank you for allowing us to share the tradition with you.

May the spirit of Raksha Bandan inspires us all to build a more compassionate, inclusive and unified community.

Thank you.

And the council.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So that was the last one we have signed up, but I did want to point out that we have two people signed up for item 25437, which is not a public hearing or anything, it's on general business.

It's on general business.

I don't know if you're going to let them speak during that.

Um yes, hold on.

Let me just make sure I know what uh 25437 is.

I am okay for them to um address this now.

Now it'll be the next item on the agenda anyway.

Okay, so let's see.

Melita Pierce.

Hi, my name is Melita Pierce.

I live here in Old Town.

Um I'm an introvert.

This is really uh nerve-wracking, but also very important to me, which is why I'm here.

Um I've been a teacher in the area in Boulder County for over 25 years.

And even though I don't have my own classroom, I'm looking forward to doing more teaching.

And there's not always a place for me to do the teaching that I want to do, or a big space for that, or necessarily having the right tool for teaching or even creating an art project that I would like to do.

So I am here to um just in support and thanks for um our makerspace that will have hopefully a lot of um materials, tools that I don't have in my house, but will be used collectively and it'll be nice for all of us.

I wish I weren't first.

Thank you very much for listening.

You did great, thank you, and appreciate your comments.

And then we have uh David Bickford.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, my fellow neighbors in Erie.

I'm David Bickford.

Uh I'm here to speak in strong support of the makerspace, uh, a vibrant uh makerspace, a place where creation, repair, and renewal build more than physical objects.

They can actually build and restore our very community.

Robert Putnam, if you're not familiar with him, look him up, he's awesome.

Uh political scientists.

He very compellingly documented in his book, Bowling Alone, also excellent book.

Social capital, that is the networks, the trust, the norms that bind our communities together, has been declining in America for decades.

While many people still bowl, many people bowl alone, not in leagues like they used to.

We've lost places of gathering, meaningful conversations, and collaborative problem solving.

We can define social capital more by the connections, connections, excuse me, between individuals, the networks, and our norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness.

When communities slip into isolation, like we know we have, especially since the pandemic.

Democracy weakens, and even our physical health suffers.

Stronger social connections make us smarter, healthier, safer, and richer in every measurable sense.

Another plug.

The documentary Join or Die, excellence on Netflix.

You can watch it if you got it.

Come over to my house if you don't.

Brings Putnam's ideas to life.

Its messages are simple yet profound.

Shared social spaces, the ability to meet and help each other to collectively solve problems, remind us that civic engagement, even in small groups, can literally improve life expectancy and yes, strengthen democracy.

Putnam's research even shows that your chances of dying over the next year are cut in half if you join one group that meets at least once a month.

A community makerspace isn't just a workspace.

It's a modern version of those civic clubs, those institutions, those guilds that Putnam shows how democracy was born and how it still can be nurtured.

It offers repair.

Yep, we can fix bikes, we can fix appliances, we can fix artwork that has deteriorated by not replacing but renewing.

We can create new bits of art.

We can have hands-on collaboration between and among generations and between and among different people from different backgrounds.

We can restore the skills, the materials, and most importantly, the human connections that bind our community together.

Physical places like libraries and cafes, shared workshops are essential for rebuilding social capital.

Simply put, more inclusive gathering spaces means stronger community ties.

I hope that you will support the co-create makerspace.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for coming out tonight.

And then I don't see anybody online, so that's it.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Well we will move uh right into um general business tonight.

Uh the first item is uh 25437, a resolution of the town council of town of Erie, approving a construction contract with JOC construction for the construction of the Erie makers space.

And just get to my luck, what the record show that I be Julian up here by substantial.

All right, well, that means uh Luke, you get to take the lead.

Any mayor, council Luke Bollinger, director of parks and recreation.

Hello, Julian Jacqueline.

I am not Stephanie Pisnegus.

Yeah, unfortunately, Stephanie had a family emergency tonight, so Julian agreed to step in.

So what you have uh before you tonight is a construction contract, but we wanted to bring it before the council to really highlight all the great work that the state that town and volunteers have done with the Schofield project.

So I'm gonna take us all the way back to 2014 when we purchased the Schofield property and and then and then went right into creating a community vision plan in 2018.

And that really solidified what the Schofield property was going to be, a place where we would celebrate the historic nature, we would have hands-on learning programs, classes, interpretation, and uh great events to bring to uh the town of Erie.

So in April 2021, the uh uh town of Erie secured a $25,000 economic development administration grant to support a maker fee makerspace feasibility study.

And what that did is it enabled us to hire a consultant uh to to really uh look at the feasibility of a makerspace here in Erie, looked at different sites, looked at uh talked to stakeholders, looked at different building types, and ultimately settled on the Schofield Quant Hut, which is the only non-historic building on the site.

And uh that feasibility study really uh showed alignment with the community's vision for a space that that that hosts classes, uh events, and those hands-on learning experiences that I was talking about.

2023 town hired Formworks Design Group to uh create construction documents to uh for the Kwanzett Hut.

And this is where the collaboration came in with our co-create nonprofit group that Julian's gonna talk about here in just a second.

And it was a really uh great collaborative effort to design the space along with FormWorks, who is the architect for the project.

And really what we end up with with uh is is two sides of the facility.

So one is uh is a clean, clean side, which is uh made for more of those uh technology and clean fabrication type activities.

So think of uh 3D printing, laser cutting, uh electronics, those types of activities.

And then the other side is more of a tactile side.

So uh as we call it, the dirty side.

So uh woodworking, uh painting, clay modeling, those sorts of things.

So and then you have a little central space in the middle of the Kwanzit hut for hosting classes and uh different kinds of workshops.

So uh upon your approval of the construction documents or excuse me, the construction contract tonight, uh, job construction will be issued a notice to proceed, and we'll roll right into the remodeling of the Kwanzett Hut uh along with our phase two package A side improvements and the barn rehabilitation project.

So we're actually we're approving one construction construction project tonight, but it actually is is part of a larger project, which uh I will just put it in a plug if you haven't responded yet.

Uh and this is great information for anybody who wants to join August 28th at 4:30.

We will be hosting a groundbreaking ceremony at the Schofield property to celebrate all the great projects that we're starting up, uh, which will really kind of seal the deal on the community's vision dating all the way back to 2018.

So that's uh August 28th at 430.

So, Julian, you want to touch on the co-create?

Sure.

Uh thank you, Luke, and great job.

Appreciate it.

Uh as Luke mentioned, Stephanie had a family emergency, and she wishes she could be here.

Um she's taking care of some sick children.

Obviously, that takes priority.

Um so she let me know about an hour ago that I would be here.

So I will be reading her announcements more than anything, but happy to answer any questions.

And you heard a couple speakers already, but there are representatives of the co-create group in the back of the room.

So if there's any specific questions on their volunteership, they're operating, uh, the plan for the space once it's constructed.

I'm sure one of us will be happy to answer.

Um, I think when I started with the town four years ago almost exactly, this group was in its infancy.

Uh original volunteers without really much commitment on the space yet.

So I just applaud and commend that group through the ups and downs over four years of sticking with it.

Um getting this close to now having construction contract soon to be in hand and getting this thing uh constructed and operational to other group, hopefully here in the near future.

So the notes that Stephanie gave me um from the volunteer leadership group, it has been kind of a leadership committee since the inception about four years ago.

Uh now about two years prior, they actually incorporated as a volunteer nonprofit, so they're a form nonprofit 501c3 of the state.

Um so they have their own appointed board and secretary and uh chair and vice chair and the sort.

So within that body, they do have a contract with a uh consultant who's uh a guy from Boulder who operates the Solid State Depot in Boulder, so there's a lot of built-in experience from that group.

Um, and within that plan, uh they've identified a business plan for how the space intends to operate once it's constructed.

And pardon me for reading, but that's the best we're gonna do tonight.

Uh so it'll be fully volunteer operated until they've secured enough funding to maintain paid staff.

Uh it'll be a membership-based organization where members are given broad access to use the space to construct their projects.

Some rough monthly rates at this stage is around 40 dollars a month for an individual, 25 for discounted students, seniors, veterans, etc.

Um, for sponsored folks for those in need, uh, sponsoring is a donation option uh for zero, and then a family rate for a hundred dollars.

And there are bulk memberships available for companies and organizations as well.

Uh, they do expect to hold regular regular classes and workshops, potentially a 70 to 30 revenue split between instructor space for paid classes, but that many of the classes they offer will be free.

Um, and then we're almost there, two more.

Uh so Luke mentioned kind of the breakdown of space between the clean space and the uh the not clean space.

Uh so rough space allocation between the two chunks of the building, about 20% for wood shop, 10% for laser cutting, 10% for general mechanical, uh, 15% for pottery ceramics, 10% for sewing, 10% for member storage, 10% for 3D printing, and 25% for a classroom.

Uh and then the last piece is that they're expecting revenue within the first year for these memberships to be about 50 to 75,000 dollars, and that are they're expecting to see 75% of the revenue from membership and 25% from fundraising.

Um that's the notes that I was given.

But if there's any questions on the operating, whether for me or for the board members in the back of the room, happy to take them back to you, Luke.

Questions?

All right, you're good.

Let's uh bring it back to council.

And I'm excited about this.

I'll hold my comments until um all the council members can chime in.

Uh why don't I just start here and we'll just go all the way around?

Thank you.

Uh, thank you for the presentation and for pretending to be Stephanie.

Great job.

Um, but we missed Stephanie.

No offense.

Um, thank you to the commenters who came out.

Um, it's great to hear from the public about how important this is, and that was really great perspective on you know, sort of the loneliness epidemic that we're having in the United States, and I've done a lot of research on that, and so that was a really great framing to look at this kind of um investment in a town amenity.

Um, how it can solve or attempt to solve that.

Um, but my question is around the um, and I don't know if you're gonna be able to answer it since you're not Stephanie, but around the membership, is it like inlist capacity?

Is there a capacity?

Is it scalable?

Um, or do we have a starting off point or that we'll be able to expand?

I would invite Karen to join if you want to help.

Karen's the board chair for the volunteer group, so she may have better information on membership than we do.

All right, not just ask you speaking to the microphone.

Next, that's a reminder for all of us since we do have air conditioning running in the background here tonight.

I was just asking about capacity of how many members could occupy the space at the same time or yeah, just uh for the membership.

Is there um like I just are we starting off with a with a small group and then we'll expand or how did how does membership work?

Can everyone all at once join?

And will you will we be able to that I guess?

I think um with membership, so there'll be 24-7 hour access um with a key fob, and so that will allow for a lot larger range of use utilizing the space.

So we're hoping that we won't won't run into any issues as far as being overcapacity.

Um again, it's a it's it's hard to judge because people have different hours of availability, and then we're gonna also offer programming which will take place of the membership time.

So we may close off half of the building for a workshop or class that may um make it so the member can't use it at that time, that area.

Um so it's it's just I think we're gonna have to trial and error it and see you know where who we can get to sign up initially and how that goes.

Um we do have great guidance from SSD, uh, which is an operating makerspace already, and he's given us some great insight uh into how he how his place is running.

And there's also members that choose to be members that don't necessarily use the space or don't use it that often, just in support of what we're doing.

So we may have you know 70 members, but maybe only 50 of them actually come and utilize the space on a regular basis.

Does that answer your question?

It does.

Yeah, that's great.

Thank you.

Yeah.

That's good.

All right, Councilmember Mortalero.

Um so it said the timeline's a hundred and eighty days from approval.

So when would uh the remodeling start?

Um if if it gets approved tonight.

We will issue a notice to proceed tomorrow.

Oh, great.

Um awesome.

And uh I read that the the restrooms are ADA compliant.

Um will the entire facility have an ADA compliant review?

Um, you know, ramps are or whatever are required.

Yes, yes, all all town facilities are required to be ADA compliant.

And we've been working closely with our building department.

Shout out Dale Ulmer in building uh throughout the design process to make sure that we are meeting all the applicable building codes.

Great.

And and thanks uh for Luke and and Julian, and you took me through a tour of makerspace uh several months ago now.

Um so thanks a lot.

Appreciate you guys being here tonight.

Okay, Councilmember Hoback.

Um thank you for the presentation.

I had the pleasure of having coffee with a resident um this week who uh is very interested in creating community um here in Erie.

Um similar to something he and why his wife had participated in in a prior town that was comparable in growth trajectory and uh creating the human connection and just that was the entire discussion was really about creating community.

I think makerspace co-create is is a huge step in that direction.

We'll will take us a long way in doing that.

So thank you for doing this.

All right, I'll loop all the way around, Councilmember Petseramelli.

I'm very excited to see this in um and it'll be like Flusteven Center and like people can connect.

It's very close to my home.

And uh one thing I wanted to ask was um will it be the P um included as part of the Rec Center so that more extended services or just a thought of it?

That's a good it's a great question.

Thank you for asking that question.

Uh I think there will be partnership opportunities with Co-Create, because CoCreate's gonna operate this space, but uh Karen and I have been geez, we've been working on this for almost six years, I think.

So we'll I think there'll be some partnership opportunities too to to have some some programming that we that we run through uh the recenter on on behalf of CoCreate.

Yeah, this um it'll be the first space which can host more people in Erie and like weddings.

I'm excited.

Thank you.

All right, council member O'Connor.

Thank you.

Um so does it will the current parking be able or the parking lot be able to handle um the uh the traffic going to makerspace because there's another parking lot being we conducted a traffic study and then that that phase two package A site improvements that you all approved, oh I want to say about a month ago for ECI site construction, that's what they're doing right now.

They st they they started August 11th mobilizing and we we made the we we designed the parking lot for capacity for both the Schofield site and makerspace.

And the membership, does it include materials or how how does that work with say clay and getting that kind of type type of those details haven't been figured out quite yet?

Um again, it's I think it's all in how much funding we can get up front.

Um but there may be similar to the library does this and other makerspaces do where they will charge for certain materials.

Um but the use of the equipment uh will be included in that cost.

It just materials are still kind of up in the air as far as what will be charged for those and what what will be provided versus what we can afford to include in the membership.

Makes sense.

That was it, thank you.

All right, Mayor Pro Tim.

Thanks.

I think they're probably already asked.

Uh just uh thank you all.

This is uh uh pretty cool to see this finally come to fruition.

This is something that even predates my time up here, so I know I was speaking for former councils, and uh I'm sure they're all very appreciative to see this going.

I know my wife will probably be a uh a fledgling member because uh she has uh we both have expensive hobbies, hers is quilting, it's golf and music, so balance and stuff out.

So all right.

That's all I have.

All right.

Well, I'll uh kind of wrap it up.

And I'm gonna start with um join or die.

Um so one of our speakers um you know talked about that, and you know, I'm one of the people that looks back on the pandemic, and I think it fractured our community in many, many different ways, fractured families.

And so I've been talking more and more about what brings us together, and I focused primarily on music and arts.

I would put this under the arts, the creative arts, and so I'm uh a hundred percent uh behind getting this off the ground and making it happen.

The other thing from perspective or for perspective, I work at Colorado School of Mines, and last year they opened the Labriola makerspace.

This is a maker space for mechanical engineers, basically.

So CNC machines, woodworking machines, sewing machines, 3D printers with standard material and advanced materials.

But what I see in there is collaboration.

You know, when I walk through there, the students are working together in teams, and and that shows how um we come together as community, and I think it's a big deal, and we've gotta we've got to um continue not only this but other things in our our town that uh bring us together.

Um we as a uh council are going to be considering priorities for next year, and one of the things I will have on the list is can the town have a volunteer coordinator because I've been hearing from the different groups, whether it's the chamber or um um the events that are put on by other groups.

We need volunteer help in each group goes out and gets their own.

Could we do something possibly to help with volunteers that may be needed here at the uh makerspace as well?

All right, and then the last thing I'll um say is I want to thank uh Mayor Brooks um and the council ahead of us because the money uh the 1.1 million uh that is in the budget that we're gonna be doing, it was um the prior council and uh the mayor's leadership that got this in the budget, and so we'll spend the money uh that was appropriated uh through that process.

All right, with that, I'll see if there's a motion to approve resolution 25136.

Motion to approve second.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Well, I love that, man.

That was fast.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no.

All right, motion carries.

Thank you.

All right, we will move on to the next item, which is 25368 housing needs assessment requirement of Senate Bill 24174.

And with that, I'll bring up Eric uh Leveridge, um, housing management analyst.

Welcome, Eric.

Good evening.

Uh thank you for having me.

My name is Eric Leverage.

I'm the housing management analyst for the town of Erie.

Um excuse me.

All right, we will cue the presentation.

I'll give you a second here.

There we go.

Great, thank you.

Um here to discuss the uh Denver Regional Council of Government's housing needs assessment.

Um the requirements of uh SV 24 uh 174.

So uh last year the Colorado State Legislature passed uh SV 174.

Um it requires that uh all communities in the state with a population over uh 1,000, um, that they uh conduct a needs assessment um that conforms to the state's methodologies uh by the end of the year um in 2026.

Uh DOLA, the Department of Local Affairs released these methodologies in December of last year.

Um and in reviewing the methodologies, uh Erie's housing current housing needs assessment, which was originally adopted in uh 2023 and then updated in 2024, uh, does not appear to conform with those methodologies and those requirements uh for three uh sort of overarching reasons.

Uh the first is that our housing needs assessment does not include an analysis of accessible visitable uh or supportive housing units.

While there's some discussion of local salaries, uh there's not a comprehensive analysis tying the existing job market in town to the housing needs, both in terms of overall unit numbers as well as affordability.

Um there's also no the town's housing needs assessment does not include a an analysis of displacement risk.

Um these are all uh factors that are featured in DOLA's guidance from from last December.

But under the the uh language of SB 174, we can the town can still meet the requirements of the uh law by reviewing and providing comment on the Denver regional housing uh did excuse me, the Denver Regional Council of Governments regional housing needs assessment.

Um this regional housing needs assessment was initiated in 2023 to take a really uh a regional view and approach to the housing challenges uh in the Denver region.

Um it's a shared uh data-driven process, um, and it's really looking at not only um how much the region needs now, um, but also projecting into the future, looking at uh 2032, uh, both in terms of uh where how much housing the the region needs, where it needs it in different submarkets, and at what price points.

Um there is a considerable stakeholder engagement for the Dr.

Cog process.

There is an advisory uh group that oversaw a round of interviews and focus groups with uh uh an array of stakeholders, including government officials, housing developers, uh, community groups and advocates, as well as finance professionals uh and economists.

Um and the advisory group uh was able to incorporate all of that stakeholder feedback into the report.

Um so under the terms of SB 174, there is a uh after the uh regional housing needs assessment is accepted by the Department of Local Affairs, which Dr.

Coggs has been.

There is a 60-day review period for local governments, which is why I'm here for you today.

So the summary of the key findings of the regional housing needs assessment were that uh probably not coming as a surprise to anyone.

Um the region has not produced enough housing to keep pace with the population growth as well as job growth in particular areas of the region.

Uh the greatest need for additional housing is for low-income households, those making below 50% of the area median income.

Um there's a need at the regional level for more diverse housing types due both to an aging population as well as a demographic shift towards smaller household sizes.

Um, and also that the housing types as well as affordability are unevenly distributed across the region.

Um the regional housing needs assessment uh looked at, as I mentioned, current and future need.

So the current need in the region is 69,000 uh housing units.

The future need between now and 2032 is an additional 1454,000.

So the total regional need um is at 223,000.

The distribution, um, these uh graphs are pretty typical for any housing need assessment, um, particularly within Colorado.

Um there's a need for additional units at every single income level, but over half of the units that the region will need uh by 2032 is uh low-income households making uh below 50% of the housing uh the excuse me, the area median income.

And uh Dr.

Cog's analysis doesn't just look at housing statistics.

Obviously, there's uh uh an analysis of affordable housing the existence of affordable housing units, what the housing prices are look like looking like and overall uh unit counts and vacancy rates, um, but also looking at population, both current and future, looking at what those but the prop overall population growth is going to look like as well as uh demographic shifts, um looking at current and future employment, um, the way that those uh industry shifts might inform the the need for different types of housing at different um price points, as well as transportation, looking at current and future trap traffic uh transit uh multimodal commute times, um, all those kinds of issues.

So we um looking at Erie specifically, this is Dr.

Cog's 10-year housing need in Erie.

Um the town is projected to need uh 1,430 total units by uh uh additional units by 2032.

Um 57% of those are 821 are at the 0 to 50% AMI level.

But as you can see, and these are numbers are similar to our analysis uh in the town's housing needs assessment, there's actually a fair amount of need at the top end as well because if you're designing housing types for folks making 120% of the area median income or higher, a lot of the times that's looking more towards home ownership.

So folks that are renters actually don't have units that are matching their income.

So the the middle of the the market gets gets uh squeezed.

Um looking at uh cost burden of households in Erie, um homeowners, uh roughly one in five homeowners in Erie at this point are cost burdened.

Um about five percent of those being severely cost burdened, uh, which means that you're spending greater than 50% of your income on housing costs.

Uh cost burden just means 30%.

Um looking at the uh the renters, um we have uh for 2022 uh 41% uh of our renters are are cost burdened.

Um this is uh these are the Dr.

Cog numbers.

This is one area in which there's a bit of a discrepancy between Dr.

Cog's numbers and the town's housing needs assessment.

The town's assessment found that um 54.7% of our renters were cost burdened.

But the reason for this is that we're using two different data sets, pretty well, using the same data set from two different years.

Um the town's assessment relies on the 2020 uh American Community Survey, five-year estimates, whereas Dr.

Cog, since it's coming out uh later, is using the uh 2022 numbers.

Um the other area and where there's in which there's a significant uh discrepancy in the numbers um is that the uh towns assessment, which again is using 2020 numbers has um the town's total housing units at uh 8,912.

Um the Dr.

Cog assessment has the town's overall housing units at uh 10,000 10,300.

So that it is a significant difference, but talking about a two-year difference in the data sets, which obviously with the rate of growth in Erie, um, it's not surprising that there's a that there's a significant difference there.

So um this meeting in order for uh Erie to accept the Dr.

Cog regional housing needs assessment.

Um this hearing was required within that 60-day period.

The other requirement is that we provide the department with local affairs with comments uh on the regional housing needs assessment.

The comment can be no comment, um, but we need to provide if the if council um wants to uh sign on to the regional housing needs assessment um to come into conformity with the law and avoid provide uh avoid conducting uh another housing needs assessment or another update to our previous housing needs assessment.

Um those are the two requirements that we we must fulfill uh by September 12th, 2025.

The second step, the second requirement of SB 174 is that by January 2028, each community must have a housing action plan.

Um this is more uh housing needs assessment is really looking at numbers, projections, you know, these are this is where the need is the housing action plan, is more about goals and strategies to meet those goals.

Um there is the the recommend or the guidelines for the housing action plans were released at the end of June by DOLA, and there is also a regional housing action plan option.

Uh it's some as I I work with the Boulder County Regional Housing Partnership as part of my role here with the town.

Uh and we are discussing through the partnership ways to also take a regional approach to the action plan.

But the distinction with the action plans is that each each jurisdiction has to have its own goals and strategies.

So I'm happy to take any questions or comments.

All right.

Well, thank you.

And that is Dr.

Cog, it's the region, right?

Now this housing assessment would be for Erie, and that's the numbers you have in here, right?

Does this take into account the transit-oriented community law that Lafayette has to follow, but we don't.

And so I bring that up because Lafayette, the mayor has said that they will grow to over a hundred thousand people from 30 whatever thousand people, and it will likely be many high-density units to meet the need.

If they are growing that much in Lafayette, does that offset the need that we would have to provide, or is it looked at exclusively community by community?

It is broken down community by community, but it is ex the entire region was examined.

And so that's why it's broken up into several submarkets.

But I think with regard to transportation specifically, um I I mean I can't speak with 100% certainty that that particular transit-oriented development uh requirement was specifically included, but I I do know that not only um was transportation and its impact on the overall regional housing market and each jurisdiction within it was considered by Dr.

Cog.

They do it uh a significant amount of work around regional transit, and actually, if I'm not mistaken, I believe that some of the funding for this regional housing needs assessment was from the Department of Transportation.

And so I I feel confident in saying that that was incorporated fairly comprehensively into the process.

So then I that leads into my second question is um on the last slide it said if desired, council should review and provide comment on Dr.

Cog's regional housing needs assessment.

Yes.

And sub bullet staff provide the comments and meeting details.

So the question is what is the mechanism to do that?

Because maybe my first question is a comment that um could be put on the website.

Um, but we as a seven-person council, I think would need to figure out what comments we want.

And so I don't know if that's a question for you or a question for our town manager on the time set up.

But you know, how do we how do you want to do this?

Yeah, I mean, I am happy to work with you all to con whether it's consolidating comments or if if we need to think through the process of having something sort of officially recommended by uh the by council.

The the requirement was that we have a hearing and that we provide comments from our council.

Um so I I think there's some some flexibility in in uh how we collect those comments, but what isn't flexible is that we will need to have them submitted by September 12th.

Which isn't a whole lot of time.

It's it's not.

I agree.

So, Mayor, on on that point, I would suggest that um certainly the easiest and quickest way is to make comment tonight and we'll um incorporate those into something that we send to DOLA.

That's also probably the best way to comply with open meetings requirements so that it's clear that comments from council are available for anybody to hear at this point.

Uh if you're not comfortable with that, maybe there's another approach.

But yeah, I I'm uh I'm okay with that, but um for those of us that need processing time, right?

The input and time to think about it.

I think it would be good to maybe be able to send you our comments and then you can loop those back publicly at our next meeting.

Let's see.

Maybe we have two meetings, official meetings before this is due.

Um is that right?

So, yeah, we've got a couple meetings.

But let's get any comments that any of us have.

I've given you my one.

Um, and uh see if any other council members have anything they'd like to uh suggest.

Uh Councilmember Bear.

Thank you.

Thanks, Eric.

I appreciate this.

Um I attend Dr.

Cog meetings, so I've heard the regional housing needs assessment kind of through the process.

And last week we got an update on the regional housing strategy, which is the follow-up to the regional housing needs assessment.

Um and so they're just starting that and kind of deciding what next steps will be.

Um so this is an ongoing conversation too.

It's um, I mean, there's the law we have to comply with, but it it continues to be shaped.

Um my questions are about our housing needs assessment that we completed.

Um did identify that our greatest need was rental for 50% AMI.

Um so that's an agreement.

I was just wondering if there's anything that stood out to you that is wildly different or unexpected that we should look closely at.

No, I I think the the the primary issue would be that difference in the 41% um and 54% on the cost burden for renters.

Um for the most part the numbers are are there are slight differences, but they're not considerably different.

85% versus 87% uh things along those lines.

Um also because it is a 10-year projection, it's anytime you're looking at housing data, it's old.

Yeah, but um, you know, they're using 2022 numbers, which makes sense because it's a 10-year projection, but you know, I think the the number that we're using internally for planning purposes for building units is you know 14,093, I believe, and the Dr.

Cog assessment has that at 10,300.

So there are discrepancies, but I think can really just account for the difference in uh in data when we're pulling the data because it's honestly um in terms of sources, it's almost uh all coming from the same place.

It's all coming from Census Bureau ACS data.

So did you agree with um I think I was taking notes, but I think I heard you say that we were according to this, the housing needs assessment.

We're 160,000 units short.

Is that what you said?

Did I make did I mishear that?

Uh that would I think that's the regional number for the just the whole region?

Yeah, right.

Like I was I was like, I had to miscar that yeah, we have 135,000 overall at 80 percent or 50 percent AMI and below the overall housing need for the next 10 years is 223,000.

Yeah, okay, so that's regionally.

But so was there what was there a number for Erie?

Did I miss that?

1430.

14,000 uh 1,430.

Okay, that's I misunderstood you.

Extra zero in there.

Yeah, exactly.

I think my blood pressure went up.

Um okay, so 1400 sounds more feasible.

Um, and then what AMI, do you know what AMI that is such a conversation that we have every time we talk about you know affordable housing or the housing needs assessment is um are we gonna use boulder counties or weld counties?

So I'm just curious how they got a regional they would have they they utilize the local AMI for each county, so Erie would be split.

Okay in their analysis.

Okay, so we're split.

All right, but that's fairly common across the region.

Westminster, there's a lot of communities that uh have those conflicting AMIs, and so uh I think they were able to incorporate that into their methodology.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks, Eric.

Appreciate the presentation and you know, make making sure and working to keep us in compliant.

Um so on slide four, I'm I'm kind of looking at at the summary of the key findings.

And uh the first one region has not produced enough housing to keep pace.

So I think we're doing okay on that one.

Um the uh the low-income uh household uh you know below 50% AMI.

You know, my time that I I've spent up here, I see that is is a very difficult um uh income to work with, right?

There are no developers coming to us and and saying that they can do that, right?

Um, you know, the cost of land, the cost of materials, labor costs, everything's going up.

So I I get why that's such a very difficult um you know uh income to uh to help out and and support um without it being highly subsidized.

If we highly subsidize um housing, then we we're taxing our aging community, right?

And and we're we're putting them to a point where they can't afford to stay in in their house that that they had.

So that's I think that's gonna be the big struggle for um for supporting that.

And and uh so you say that there's many challenges to to addressing that organization and and thus why or that income level, and that's why that area is is so big, right?

Even even cheese been um that you know we put in you know three and a half million dollars for um still is at an AMI of of 100 up to 120 percent, right?

So um I yeah, I don't know if anybody has answers for for that income level.

That's gonna be a big challenge, and and it and that's a huge think tank uh conversation, I think, more than um you know, then something that we we can certainly solve here.

So uh so appreciate it.

Thanks.

Yes, thank you.

Um and and I would agree that um any local, regional, statewide, national housing needs assessment, that is going to be the hardest income level to serve.

Um the there is always going to be a financing gap on those projects, and it's it's it's a matter of what form of subsidy you can try to use um to fill that gap uh and what that looks like.

But um Erie and Denver and Colorado are certainly not unique um in that being the the biggest uh shortfall in the housing spectrum.

Thanks.

Okay.

Um thank you.

Uh I didn't read through the entire law.

It's very long.

Um did they give uh this the housing action plan that we need, did you have by 2028?

Um did they provide details as to what that needs to include?

Uh yes, uh DOLA released their um guidelines for uh the action plans on June 30th.

Um I haven't had time to fully dive in or digest.

Um I was mainly mainly reviewing to see that there was a regional uh option and it wasn't necessarily required that every jurisdiction have a full action plan.

Um but uh it's a you know it's an 80-page guidelines documents.

It's fairly detailed, um, and I'm confident that uh after the decision is made about the housing needs assessment that we'll we'll be able to um work over the next couple years to make sure that we're we're firmly in compliance with those requirements.

Okay.

Um yeah, so I think in that light, my only comment back to them would be it's gonna take us some time to compare and contrast against our housing needs assessment as well as figure out what our action plan needs to be.

Um because we didn't come become overnight experts on this, so absolutely.

Um and I think that's one of the discussions we're having within the regional partnership is what does it look like?

Our our needs and our goals here in Erie are going to be different than Boulder or Longmont Superior is almost completely built out.

So their strategies for addressing affordability are gonna be considerably different as well.

So we're I think we're having an ongoing conversation about what makes the most most sense and is gonna work the best for our communities, and we'll we'll certainly keep council updated.

Right.

That's all I have.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um I think first thing is we need to have a study session because I think majority of the council are against the affordable housing and uh low-income housing.

And if you see the 1413 10 years, I think it's doable.

So I think we need to go have a detailed discussion of how to arrive at this.

And before that, should we do or not?

Let's get on the same page.

And if we all are on the same page, I think we'll come up with good solutions and how to get here.

And 1430 doesn't look like a big number.

I just I had a question regarding um so we if we go with the Dr.

Cog um assessment.

How does that come well?

Not that's not the right way to phrase it.

Um what would it look like if we wanted to do our own assessment again-wise, cost-wise, and not go with the Dr.

Cog.

Um so we've got a a fairly firm foundation with our existing assessment.

Again, some of the some of it was updated last year.

Um but I think in terms of looking what at what would be required is we would need an analysis of accessible, visitable, and supportive units.

I uh personally don't know how we would do that.

Um I am sure that we could uh you know partner with consultants and stuff that would be able to do that.

But um that would be a fairly significant lift as well as the analysis of um tying the overall job market to the housing market.

We've got a little bit of that with we had some salary analysis, but the thing that's really missing from that piece is how many folks are working in each industry in town and how and the overall sort of economic dynamics that could impact the um the housing market.

Um and then a displacement analysis, which most housing needs assessments I've read don't have that.

Um that's not to say that those analyses aren't out there.

Uh I know that this that Denver had uh a pretty substantial report on displacement.

Uh I want to say in 2019, 2018, something like that.

So it's all doable, um, but I do think that it would be um uh a fairly significant um financial and and capacity investment.

Um I the the initial housing needs assessment was uh conducted before my time here.

I can't speak to what the budget of that would have been.

Um I can follow up with you on that.

Uh but uh it's it's our recommendation that it in the interests of uh of efficiency um and sort of fiscal responsibility that this is most likely the um the best way forward, but Sarah I just thought I'd come up at Sarah Normala Planning and Development Director.

Just thought I'd come up and share that the last housing needs assessment that we did was around um eighty thousand dollars.

So um I am sure as things go up in price that we would probably have to um spend a good chunk of that to get our housing needs assessment up to par.

And um if over time, as we develop our housing action plan, we'd also be spending dollars on that, but there are grants available, so I would hope that and that the money that we spent on the original one was part of a grant as well.

And I I think it's also worth re uh I I don't think I mentioned this in my presentation, but these are required every six years, um, these housing needs assessments.

So uh there's always the opportunity to sort of revisit the town's approach after going through this first cycle because you'll have your first assessment by the end of 2026, you have to have your action plan by the end of 2028, and those are every six years as well.

So you'll have a four-year window, uh, or I guess thinking about lead time and everything, at least a three-year window, um, to sort of see how things play out um and reassess as needed.

And be able to then compare the two, I guess at that point.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, Mayor Purdue.

Yeah, thank you.

So um wow, that's really loud.

I I got a notice to speak directly to the mice.

Okay.

You're doing great.

It's better.

Um so I had uh similar concerns with Mayor Moore did, only not from uh the Lafayette standpoint, because I feel there's somewhat of a buffering between Lafayette and Erie, but uh my concern was more towards uh Broomfield because uh Broomfield east of Sheridan and south of seven, they're doing a lot of high density development around there and how that might skew uh things in our region, you know, locally.

Um the other thing that um uh I I guess uh similar to uh uh counselor O'Connor that um I mean certainly yeah I do I don't want to you know I I don't want to invest another hundred thousand dollars to do another one that sounds like you know there's some time constraints here, but um I I do have some concerns over the Dr.

Cog study because the the one thing, and especially with you talking about dealing with um uh Boulder County and Weld County separate um because uh uh you know my uh my wife used to teach in Keynesburg and Keynesburg isn't anywhere close to Erie now.

Maybe the all of that averages out across Weld County, but uh Weld County County is I think it's the second or third largest county in in the state, and uh uh uh area-wise, mostly very rural areas, lower income.

So we're kind of the skew to that.

Um so with averaging out that data.

Um the other thing I I guess um little concern just from things that I hear talking to um home builders in the area and uh currently what happened today, we got some good news with as far as you know in inflation numbers were better than expected.

Um, but with um holding interest rates where they're at, I know the home builders were expecting those to come down.

Um they're really um seem to be sluggish to get on there.

So I I'm a little worried that if there is um you know a shortfall in in demand that that um that could possibly increase and then what other effects we had on that.

I think back to the study session we had with uh uh Dean Wobikan uh that uh a lot of that I think uh is going through this.

I think we're kind of waiting to see um a number of things that happen in the economy, but it I think in addition to that um I know just from we got sent the preliminary uh results from our our community survey.

We're having that study session next week.

So also gathering that data and discussing that um what came back from our residents.

I think it's gonna be important in this discussion.

Yep.

So all right.

Thank you.

Um one point I would just raise is that um Dr.

Cog actually only covers the southwest corner of Weld County.

Okay, so the whole county isn't incorporated into their analysis because I mean northern county be much further be much smaller uh different from from Denver, and I'm sure folks a lot of folks up there wouldn't want to be associated with Denver either.

So uh yeah, though it it it is uh the they definitely did their best to try to um draw lines in in a really logical way based on okay, you know, transit and economic inter interdependence and things like that.

All right, it's fair to say that all of Erie is in Dr.

Cog on the Weld County side.

Okay, yeah.

All right, um, I don't have any further questions, and I really appreciate all the questions and comments up here because I'm thinking ahead now to the logistics.

I agree with Councilmember Petra Melli that at some point we've got to have a steady session.

We do not have time to have a steady session before this deadline of September uh 12th, I think it was.

Uh so here's what I'm gonna recommend.

I'll look to our attorney to make sure I don't recommend anything that isn't uh legal.

Um that you've captured comments that I think could easily be used on the Dr.

Cog website.

I think you prepare that into a formal um memo to the council and put it on the consent agenda for approval at our um meeting on the 29th.

That allows any of us to see those before the meeting, and then any one of us could pull it off the consent agenda and either add a comment or um get clarification on a comment, and that would give us one more bite at the apple before um the deadline is here.

That works.

Yes, perfect.

All right, excellent.

All right.

Thank you very much.

That is it.

And uh go.

I'm sorry, I thought are you part of the attack for um Dr.

Cog?

Are we or does Erie have someone assigned to that through this process?

Uh my colleague and I are sorting out who is going to be.

Okay, but so Erie has someone through this process.

We'll we'll stay involved.

Okay, okay, that's great.

Thank you.

All right very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll move on to our last item tonight.

That's 25214, a public hearing, an ordinance of the town council, the town of Erie amending chapters six and seven of Title 10 of the Erie Municipal Code, removing alternative standards for affordable housing projects.

With that, I will declare that the public hearing for agenda item 25214 is now open.

And I will uh just set this up to say that at a study session back in March, this topic was raised.

It really came out of the Thomson Thrift uh discussions that highlighted some of the requested changes.

So with that, I'll turn it over to staff and we'll uh we'll go on a journey.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Council.

Um my name is Sarah Normella, Planning and Development Director, and I am here with Kelly Driscoll, our planning manager, and we've both been involved in the crafting of the original language adopted in 2023, as well as the conversations with council and our uh former affordable housing manager and um the latest draft now that you see before you so I'm gonna turn it over to Kelly.

Thank you.

Um we will I'll give you a little bit of background and Kelly, if you could just speak close to the sorry yeah, give you a little bit of background, uh go over the proposal and then go into the criteria which is outlined in the UDC.

Um so some of this Eric kind of already covered.

Whoa.

Okay.

Um February of 2023, uh, we did have a housing needs assessment and affordable housing strategy done.

Um in June of 2023, the former uh council signed the commitment to meet the proposition 123.

Um, and then in July of 23, uh the changes to the UDC to allow alternative standards for affordable housing projects were adopted.

Uh finally in April of 2024, DOLA did issue guidance on the fast track provisions of proposition 123.

Uh in May of 24, council had a study session on affordable housing policy, and then the following month adopted uh affordable housing policy.

And then, as Mayor alluded to on March 4th of this year, you all had a study session uh where town management was directed to remove the provisions that allowed alternative standards for affordable housing, but keep the definition of affordable housing.

So, since that time, housing staff worked with legal council to draft the ordinance and with administration to get things scheduled on um hearings.

So uh to remain eligible for funding under Prop 123.

We need to adopt a fast track review and approval process by December of 26.

Uh we also need to increase the number of our affordable homes in Erie by 15 units.

Um as Eric said, we are participating in a regional housing partnership, and we are a part of a local planning capacity grant.

Uh they just hired a consultant, and they will have some recommendations for the group this winter and then provide implementation support through April of next year.

As a part of the legislative process, Planning Commission uh reviews changes to the UDC and makes recommendation to uh you all.

And uh they first took this up in May and ultimately decided to continue their consideration of their recommendation to July 2nd and asked for a study session with council.

Uh that was deferred until you all had your results from the survey.

Um they continued general discussion um on June 18th.

There were two public comments, uh, one written and one in person.

Um, and then finally on July 2nd, um they uh considered their recommendation formally, and most were not in favor of repealing the ordinance, and all were in favor of taking a collaborative approach with you all to revise the standards.

As far as the proposal, the original draft ordinance excuse me, would remove the administrative review process for PLATS and site plans for affordable housing projects, as well as um the alternative standards.

So the density bonus, the no limitation on lot size, uh setback and lot width reductions, and then the alternative equivalent compliance.

So Planning Commission at their July 2nd meeting in a six to one vote recommended keeping the ordinance as codified, but limiting the administrative approval process to a hundred units or less, of which 12% or more are affordable.

And ask that council work with the commission and staff to develop changes to the UDC that are in conformance with Prop 123.

And we are not required to do uh posting mailing or neighborhood meetings for UDC changes.

As far as the criteria for your decision that is outlined in the UDC in chapter 7, uh it's provided here on the screen and then also in the staff report for your consideration.

And that is all I have on the presentation.

Happy to answer any questions you have.

Okay, um, let's why don't we do public comment and then we'll come back to um uh the staff.

So is anybody signed up for public comment?

Yeah, we have two people.

Hang on just a second.

First person is uh Janet Brown.

Good evening.

I'm Janet Brown.

I live in Erie.

I'm in district one.

Uh and I wasn't sure where this fit in the but it appears it fits in everything that you've talked about tonight.

So let's talk about community housing and that small town feel that keeps buzzing about.

The population of Erie exceeds 40,000 people, making it larger than many of the other communities nearby.

Is seeking that small town feel and mirage.

We can't undo population growth, nor do we want to.

We want to do better at managing growth and making Erie a desirable place to live, rick recreate and do business.

If Erie appears to have been built in pockets, Old Town has the bulk of the diverse commercial services, restaurants, small businesses, and a few dentists.

Most of the other neighborhoods are isolated oases of housing, sometimes large homes on bigger properties, providing space between neighbors.

Many have parks, some have small community centers that allow for social interaction between neighbors.

Our neighborhood, Country Meadows, has two very small children's parks and an open space.

The open space is contaminated thanks to Civitas.

We walk by, we don't gather.

Recently, the council approved the Northwesterly Development.

It offers a variety of housing options, including independent living for seniors.

There's a commercial zone as well.

I commend you for approving this development.

Community is what happens when people gather, socialize, and get to know each other.

Friends in Old Town tell me they know their neighbors and most of the business owners because they regularly frequent those businesses.

For over 25 years, I've worked with older people.

At that point in life, they don't tend to talk as much about careers or wealth or their possessions.

They talk about financial challenges of living on a fixed income with rising costs.

They talk about family relationships, community, and connection.

Erie has limited housing options for older residents who want to downsize and move into a single story with a fence, a condo, or an apartment.

This forces a loss of community.

Loss of friends, family, loss of work, and sometimes the identity that goes with that, loss of mobility and physical health.

Any of these can negatively impact mental health as well.

Losing the knowledge and compassion of the elders in our community is a loss to the younger generations as well.

Grandparents are often the main source of safety and connection for children from homes where abuse occurs.

When we talk about income appropriate housing, let's also consider the senior members of our communities.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Uh, one more Bob Bratis.

Hello.

My name is Bob Brodis.

I live in Flatiron Meadows in Erie.

Uh good evening, and thank you for the opportunity for me and others to speak.

I'm here today as the vice chair of the Erie Planning Commission.

And I'm optimistic that the recent town survey will show support from the community for income appropriate or affordable housing in Erie.

And wanted to explain the position of the planning commission.

The majority of the commissioners, as Kelly mentioned, support the recommendation before you tonight to have the Planning Commission work with the town council and with staff to help propose and develop updates for our ordinances and fast track process for your consideration.

No one's doubting that.

Particularly as Director Namella has the authority to reject fast track applications that come before her.

Additionally, as Eric stated, there's a large need for income appropriate housing to support first responders, teachers, and retail workers who work in Erie but cannot afford to live here.

There's also a need for senior housing for people who desire to downsize, as well as young adults who grew up here and want to stay in Erie but can't afford to do that.

While public comment is one directional, I am available to answer any questions you may have during your deliberations.

And thank you for your time and consideration.

All right.

Thank you.

All right, that's it.

Anybody else from the audience would like to address us?

I think we have one more.

Just join us at the podium and name and whether you're in your summer as well.

Oh, okay.

Good evening.

My name is Ed Gion, and I live in uh District 2, 381 Dust Place.

And a couple of things that I just like to point out.

I've been sitting in on a lot of the council meetings and study sessions, and so I'm fairly familiar with this topic.

There's no doubt that housing in Colorado in general and in the Denver area is expensive, and it doesn't always match up with the incomes that are associated with it.

But just from my standpoint as being somebody relatively new to Erie, uh a couple things that I would ask of counsel.

One is I think there needs to be some better definition out to the community of affordable housing.

Because affordable housing to some people means providing diverse housing options.

Could be single-family homes, row homes, townhomes, apartments, etc.

That each have a different price point.

But it could also mean town subsidized housing.

And I think there's confusion out into the community as to really what's going on when affordable housing is talked about.

So I think there could be some better education for the community as a whole as to what council is talking about when they're talking about affordable housing.

The second thing that I'd like to mention is one of the things that drew me to Erie is what was mentioned just previously about the small town feel.

And as this town grows, maintaining that small town feel is not an easy thing to do, in my opinion.

It takes conscientious effort and it takes planning, but it's something that I think is invaluable, and I think will make Erie a really special place continuing into the future.

So one of the many things that in my mind keeps a small town feel is how does it feel when you drive into it?

When somebody that doesn't live here drives into Erie, how does it feel to them?

Does it feel like a small town or does it feel like rooftops everywhere?

Kind of a thing.

Um, to me, some of the options like that are in Parkdale with the skinny three-story tall, those look more urban than small town feel to me.

And so I would ask that we look at what kind of housing options we're offering and where they're located in town so that visually we can keep a small town feel as well as putting other programs and uh facilities and activities to keep small town feel as well.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

And we're gonna take a slight pause here as we figure out who's online.

Sorry, I just couldn't promote them.

Yeah, that's okay.

First one online is Cliff Zwart.

Let me promote him.

All right.

And um, how many do we have online?

Just so I have a sense.

How many are in the middle?

There's just two at their hands raised.

Okay.

So far.

Okay, Cliff, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Cliff, can you hear us?

He's unmuted.

Okay, how about we move to the next person?

And maybe Cliff will figure out his audio and we'll come back.

The next is Ben Hempel.

Ben, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Can you hear me?

Yes, Ben, we can hear you.

Good evening, town council.

My name is Ben Hempel, and I live in Erie.

Uh sorry I wasn't able to uh make it in person, but wanted to give this comment.

I am the chair of the planning commission, but tonight I'm speaking as a resident.

Uh I'm speaking to urge you to reject the ordinance as written to removing affordable housing provisions from our municipal code.

Removing these provisions entirely would eliminate the ability and optics that our town supports affordable housing for our community.

Rather than complete removal, we need a thoughtful revision that maintains our commitment to housing options while addressing the legitimate concerns about the current code.

The point of commission has provided a recommendation that deserves serious consideration.

This recommendation limits the administrative approved approval authority while both bodies collaborate on comprehensive code revisions.

This approach offers several advantages.

It preserves the existing provisions while allowing for improvements, ensures public input through the revision process, and it maintains commission and council oversight during the revision process.

Affordable housing is critical to provide local housing options for teachers, first responders, service workers, and town staff who keep our town running.

It supports economic diversity, helps young families, and provides housing choice.

Removing these tools entirely sends the wrong message about our community's values and priorities.

Speaking as the chair of the planning commission, I want to reiterate our commitment as a commission to support the goals of Erie and to work with the town council to develop code revisions that address legitimate concerns while still providing tools for affordable housing in Erie.

Thanks for your consideration.

Okay.

And let's try Cliff Swart again.

Cliff, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Yes, yes.

What a relief.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Cliff Zwart.

I live in District One.

I live in 1654 of River Street.

Thank you, Mayor Moore, Mayor Pro Temp Bell, and Council members for the opportunity to share my concerns on ordinance 17 2023 tonight.

Erie deserves a better affordable housing ordinance.

And because the ordinance is so defective.

It's administrative process and alternative standards must be repealed.

It was premature.

It was drafted and passed prior to Erie's affordable housing policy.

Affordable housing manager MJ Adams stated the town was early out of the gate.

It's defective because it's not in alignment with Colorado Proposition 123 requirements.

Sarah Numero statements in a planning commission meeting regarding the bonus of 25% density above the zoning's maximum show that 25% was baseless, arbitrary, and quote, seemed like unquote, like a reasonable amount.

In fact, it is not required by Proposition 123.

There is no accelerated timeline per proposition 123.

Instead, there is elimination of requirements in this ordinance for community meetings, planning commission oversight, town council oversight, and citizen input at those council and planning commission meetings.

This puts the town at risk.

The Hunter 11th and Arabico Arapo Thompson Throat Project showed just how valuable this oversight and community input are to address project risk to the town.

With only 12% affordable housing, 17 2023 falls far short of the 50% affordable housing goals in Colorado Proposition 123.

With Thomson Threat, there was no benefit to the town for affordable housing, and that nearby civil departments in Nymmel were winning units for less money than those 12%, resulting in quote, unaffordable affordable housing.

Has alternative standards.

Not limited to infill development in existing developed areas of town per the town's own affordable housing policy.

17 2023 provides more density while requiring less community benefit infrastructure in order to make developer profit margins.

This presents an increased risk of harm to the existing community.

And I'll end with repealing 17 2023 is not an action against the town's affordable housing policy.

Repealing will remove risk to the town using a flawed process and provide the opportunity to draft a new ordinance that truly aligns with Colorado proposition 122 seconds pre-a defects.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

And I'll look to our town clerk.

That's it.

That's it.

All right.

Uh with that, um, I'll close the public comment section and um I'll bring it back to council for questions of staff, and then after that, I'll close the hearing and then we'll deliberate.

Anyone have uh questions for staff?

Councilmember Morcalero.

So I have one question, and I think I'll save the rest of my comments for deliberation.

Um the 15 units that are required by December 31st, uh 2026.

Are they satisfied by the cheesman residents?

Yes, they are.

Okay, great, thank you.

All right, other questions for staff.

All right, seeing none, then I will close the uh public uh comment um and the public hearing portion um and we'll bring it back to the board for deliberation.

Um okay, go ahead, councilmember.

I have some thoughts, um so I just um first of all want to thank staff in the planning commission for your dedication to this and having so many meetings um to really thoughtfully consider it um and come up with a good solution.

I appreciate that in May the planning commission asked to meet with the council um this summer before this came back to us, um, and and we didn't get that on the schedule.

Um so I really would I think it's important that um the council and the planning commission meet together to understand and have the conversation before we take any action on this.

Um, I also we brought up the community survey earlier, and um spoiler alert was just reading through some of it, and there is strong support for affordable housing from the survey results that we'll get um next next week or next meeting.

And so I think it would be premature for a council to make any decisions on this um without considering those uh results of just full in in just full transparency.

Um I I don't know, I just appreciate the planning commission's um suggestions.

Uh there which was you know to add the provisions.

Um I'm sorry, it was just I had that pulled up earlier and then I closed it.

Um the conditions are that um the expedited process will be limited to developments that are less than a hundred units, and that council tasks the planning commission to work with staff and town council in order to develop a UDC amendment that addresses the concerns identified in one or more joint study sessions with the town council in the planning commission, um, and this should include creating an application process, which is Prop 123 compliant and allows the council the necessary time to receive and review the community-wide survey results.

So, you know, just with those things in mind, I think it would be prudent for us to press pause and and come back to this.

So all right, council more clero.

Okay, so um I think most people know that I I've had concerns with uh ordinance uh 17 2023 since I first learned about it over a year ago.

Um so what my one of my concerns ordinance 17 2023, uh neighborhood meetings are at the planning director's discretion, they're not required.

Also uh 17 2023 removes the requirement for site plan reviews by the planning commission and the town council, allowing an administrative review process uh by staff only and can pull into the planning commission at the discretion of the planning director.

Um again, in turn that that removes the ability for public comment uh if those uh reviews are um are not required.

Um it allows a 25% increase in our zone densities uh for only 12% affordable housing.

As you may recall, our comp plan uh recently in last fall increased the densities by 50 percent.

So this ordinance was put in before the comp plan.

Um the comp planning increased it by 50 percent.

This would with this additional 25 percent bump would take our densities to an 88 percent above the previous comp plan of 2015 2015.

So again, strongly concerned about that.

There's no minimum lot size required.

172023 does not align with uh state proposition one twenty-three.

Uh one twenty-three has fifty percent or more affordable housing units uh per application.

O sevente has only 12 percent.

2023 or one twenty-three rental properties are at 60 percent AMI or below 017 is 80 percent AMI.

Prop 123 has uh sit for sale units at 100 percent AMI or below 017 is at 120 percent.

Prop 123 has a 90-day application process, which is going to be a major challenge, um, and I'll speak to that in a minute.

Uh Prop 123 does not require an administrative process that we have in 017, uh bypassing or uh removing um planning commission and town council on reviews.

So planning commission recommended that the town council instead of repealing amend it um restricting administrative process to uh applications of a hundred units or less.

Um and and they also recommended a collaboration with uh with town council.

I totally agree with the recommendation to collaborate.

I think that's be a great idea.

I think there's a lot of concerns.

I I think it's really important that that we collaborate and we come up with a recommendation that will be one two three compliant, and we were able to uh have a fast track process that will work for uh planning commission, town council, and staff, uh, which is going to be a challenge in itself by restricting to 100 units or or less, uh, that doesn't uh address a lot of the other concerns that I I mentioned, um, and it actually allows a hundred unit development to be put on a lot size as small as 2.67 acres based on the the current densities and the 25% bump.

Now that's obviously not going to be possible, but if there's a hundred homes on a five-acre property um in my district, I'm gonna be very concerned about um what goes through there, and I want to be a part of that process.

I also want the neighbors to have their their neighborhood meeting and their ability for their public comment.

So um I believe that any uh ordinance that complies with one two three will require a unique process, a process in which there will be significantly more information and data required at the time of application, so that you can uh so a 90-day process would be successful.

Um and it would not be an administrative process.

Um, for all those reasons, I I'm voting to uh repeal uh 017 2023.

I actually was closer to the staff uh uh prop or proposal that they provided uh than I am the planning commission's uh proposal.

So I got to say.

Thank you.

Um thank you for all of your meetings that you had that you held with the planning commission.

You guys uh there was a lot of detail that came out in those meetings, and it's very informative.

Um, you know, and and and this housing the housing ordinance that we have now is not an attempt and should not be an attempt to meet the minimum requirements of prop 123.

It it needs to address many of the things that we've heard tonight through the uh Dr.

Cog uh regional assessment uh housing assessment um and our own um assessment as well.

Um our current ordinance is not perfect, and that's been uh acknowledged um in the planning commission meetings, and there are some things that need to be changed, and maybe neighborhood meetings is one of them.

Um and uh it was it was it was commented on by former uh manager uh MJ Adams that uh we were early adopters to try to comply with uh proposition one 123.

There are some changes, and that's what we needed to do.

We need to give thoughtful uh consideration to and work with staff uh and our housing needs assessments and prop 123 and all of it and and deef it up quite a bit, probably.

Um repealing it and leaving us with nothing um is is not the right answer.

Uh I don't believe we're at uh terrible risk.

We haven't even had any applications uh um since uh since then um to to to address that try to to address it.

Um and I agree with council member bear.

It's it's very premature.

We have paused and put off a lot of things this year because of the town survey, and to push this through is is telling the town, hey, you know, everything you've told us in the past, and maybe you've told us on this survey.

We're not gonna address that right now.

We we're gonna we're gonna repeal this and uh and uh I I think it it it tells the uh uh tells the residents, hey, uh we have an agenda rather than listening to what you guys uh really want.

Um so I uh am going to vote against repealing it, and we do need to uh have some study sessions and uh work on uh beefing it up, beefing up our ordinance and uh move move ahead.

This is the the um administrative review and some of the adjustments to the buildings or not building standards, but the uh code our UDC.

It's one of the few tools that we have to encourage builders to build more affordable housing.

Pushing it through one of the one of the big complaints that we hear from builders is it takes a long time to get permitting done.

It takes a long time to get approvals.

We've got to speed that up, and we can use this process to speed that up in all areas.

We can take our our our lessons learned and our and our and our best management practices and beef up everything for all building.

Um but to keep costs lower, we need to help our builders advance their projects in more reasonable, quick time frame and not um and not delay because time is money for these guys.

Time is money at and and uh the return on investment depends on being able to keep those costs down.

So um repealing it, I think is a uh a very premature and uh poor way to go about it.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

I'll loop around councilman Pitts from Um kudos to the planning commission for spending a lot of time and you know coming up with the right solution for this one.

I am for income appropriate housing, senior housing, and all the disparity that we have in housing inventory.

So I I we need diversity.

So repealing this will not take us anywhere.

I am for like keeping the code as is, and like council member Baer said, we can have a study session and include all the feedback that we got from the town with the comprehensive uh survey that we did.

disparity that we have in housing inventory so I I we need diversity so repealing this will not take us anywhere I am for like keeping the quote as is and like Councilmember Baer said we can have a study session and include all the feedback that we got from the town with the comprehensive uh survey that we did I think we could uh people have spoken and the results are out so that would be my thank you Senator O'Connor thank you um I oh seven um uh excuse me oh seventeen uh twenty twenty three it it it to me is a problematic when comparing it to Prop 123 and the inconsistencies I think the the my one of my biggest concerns is the resident input and that the residents should have input into what is going near their homes and if that is not preserved in the process I think we're doing we're doing um a disservice to our current residents we they should have a voice in this process and that's the part of this that really does concern me um I mean maybe I shouldn't throw this out there but we could do a moratorium so it's preserved but can't be used because it's to me leaving that door open does present does present the opportunity for a builder to come in and use this this um existing ordinance to um to build something that maybe the surrounding residents don't want to have in their area okay pro 10 thank you mayor so um I want to go back to something and it it's uh spelled out in the presentation here I'm just gonna read from what was already presented to us March 4 2025 the town council study session on comprehensive plan and affordable housing directed the town management to remove all provisions alternative standards for affordable housing from the UDC and preserve the definition of affordable housing I was there we all were there at that study session there was no dissension towards the direction given that went to the planning commission and the planning commission decided that they wanted to go in a different direction I want to go back to uh July of 2023 where we had another issue we ran into with the planning commission and there was a concern from this body that the planning commission was not following the vision that the town council had set forth as a result of that we added to the planning commission application this byline says by signing this application if appointed to the planning commission I agree to remain supportive of the board of trustees at that time we're still board of trustees goals priorities throughout my appointed term and the policy guides established by the American Planning Association this my friends is political theater this has nothing to do with affordable housing I I think council member Mortalaro spelled it out uh very very clearly um the fact was in June of 2024 we had so many people come to our meeting that we had to hold that uh hearing at Calvary church to accommodate all the people we couldn't even we had to go over into a second meeting to hear the Thomson thrift application because there was there were so many people that wanted to speak and we want to give everyone a chance to speak uh we didn't have time to finish that then we found out that after that that um due to the update in our comprehensive plan that would bump up the um uh bump up the the zoning densities uh and in addition to that the fast track policy uh bump it up in additional 25 percent you want to talk about the town survey i i since you all brought it up i'll i'll bring it here because there was misrepresentation from this from members of this board about what was said in that we will have a full discussion on this next week and I encourage everyone to go over there the top two issues that came up uh with regard to describing top two three issues priorities problems you think the town of Erie should address in the next two to three years number one traffic congestion and road infrastructure number two rapid growth and over development and yet we have a policy in place here that says we're gonna give you a free 25% bump to your densities let me tell you about cheeseman and I was somebody from very early on I uh I was one of two people that voted against cheeseman and it was not

Number one, traffic congestion and road infrastructure.

Number two, rapid growth and overdevelopment.

And yet we have a policy in place here that says we're gonna give you a free 25% bump to your density.

Let me tell you about Cheeseman.

And I was somebody from very early on, I uh I was one of two people that voted against Cheeseman, and it was not because of affordable housing.

It was because we locked out our old town residents from having any input on that.

And it's also because a density in that area, you've got a school there that has track meets that attract numerous people.

You have Calvary Church there, and if you've ever been on a Sunday morning, they go to three services, and people have to park on the street because uh the of all the people coming through there.

It and we just narrowed county line road through there to slow down traffic.

So you got the top two issues in here.

Does anyone see a correlation between these things?

So this is something that we absolutely have to address.

And I'm just incent that we had in February where we thought we had consensus, and then we come back, and then it's uh it's like we're gonna pretend that that didn't happen.

So this needs to be repealed.

Um if the people that you know decided they're not gonna vote uh to repeal it, I I guess that's their choice.

Let me say in following that I am for a fast track process that conforms with with Prop 123 for the reasons that were mentioned.

I think Councilor Mordoro and Counselor O'Connor pointed out very well.

Uh I also agree that our staff policy or our staff recommendation is is much better than what was presented from the planning commission.

I'd also point out that just so we're clear that the town council is the body that sets policy.

And I I have great respect for the planning commission, the people that volunteer their time there, but that is not where we write policy, and I am all for having a joint session where we can talk this out and we can come up with a plan that does conform with Prop 123 that is counselor O'Connor said puts a priority towards public input because that is what we should primarily be concerned about.

So that'll leave it.

Okay, um obviously emotional on uh many different levels here.

Um I was part of the large group for the Thompson Thrift when I first became aware of 1720 23 and recognize the deficiencies in it.

And I would say the planning commission recognized the deficiencies in it because they have started, I think uh the process that will happen down the road.

And so um, this is not the end of affordable housing in alignment with 123.

To me, this is the beginning to clean up what was in there and leaves us exposed, and then to methodically go down the process to say what do we need to do in order to ensure that Prop 123 money is available to us.

For the record, it is my understanding that money from Prop 123 is available to us right now with or without this current um ordinance.

Um okay, so um I'm also a little confused on the process, and I'm not sure this is the place to do it.

Um when we directed um staff to make these changes.

I didn't know there was a door open that the planning commission can spend money on attorneys to come up with an alternative plan.

And as I went through the legal bills today, I recognize the money was spent on this, and so I have a message into the uh town manager that I'm not expecting for it to be answered here tonight, but I want to understand is there a process that should be followed in this, and maybe it was followed, and I'm just not aware.

Um, but I want to get that on the public record at a future meeting just so that we we all know.

Um I want to reset the baseline.

And so the resetting of the baseline, the 25% increase, it's arbitrary at this moment.

Let's have that deeper conversation to say is 25% right, or is there a different percent?

It could be higher, it could be lower, but let's have that conversation.

The no public comment portion um is most disturbing to me because the only reason the Thompson thrift had the public comment by law was because the the land was not annexed yet.

Had the land been annexed and our community development director said it's good, it would not have come to public comment and it would have gone right through.

And to me, that is just a fundamental flaw in the in the ordinance that uh has to be um fixed.

The other thing about the approval, I when I realize that it's the approval by our community director development, not the person.

Sorry, you do an awesome job.

It's the it's the position.

It is three levels down in the management structure with no checks and balances with the deputy town manager that that position reports to, and no checks and balances to the town manager that the deputy town manager reports to.

You know, I'm I'm been working in um private sector and uh the last uh uh 15 years in the public sector, there are checks and balances on on this type of um this type of power, and I think that has to be reconciled as we go through this.

Um we have time.

We have time because anything that we do is not actually due until December of 2026.

In fact, there can be developments that come in that suggest 25% increases that suggest 12% affordable housing, and they would just go through the normal process.

And if it and if the planning commission and the council says thumbs up, nothing would stop them from continuing on.

Um and so this doesn't stop affordable housing.

Um it just says that we're gonna put the public um piece of the process back into the uh into the um equation.

And then the last thing I'll say is that um this isn't about stopping affordable housing.

Um I have been on quite the learning journey from the day I got elected, and I realized um that I have a portion of affordable housing understood.

And then through the study sessions, having a better understanding of Prop 123, transit-oriented um uh communities, which Lafayette falls under, but we don't, but there's definitely impact.

Um the cheeseman property, are we going to get the um residents that we thought we were gonna get?

That will inform us.

Um learning about ARPA funds that helped us buy the page property, um, and how do we move forward um with that?

So there's so many layers of this that if anybody says that um the mayor is against affordable housing, they haven't been paying attention.

I think it is about not only understanding but setting a sustainable um path forward.

And with that, I am committed to joint sessions with the planning commission uh to work together to figure out what the right ordinances to support affordable housing in light of proposition um one, two, three.

With that, I will see if there's a motion to approve ordinance number 23 2025.

Lynn, I I have one that's I'm I'm I'm calling the motion.

We've each had a chance to um to speak.

No, but I can't I ask something there will be if there's a motion second, there will be time for discussion for Robert's rules of order.

If there's no motion, then the current ordinance will stay as is.

Uh move to approve.

Or yep.

But move to is this move to repeal or move to the ordinance number 23 2025 repeals it is the staff recommendation that was directed from our study session.

So the motion is to repeal the current ordinance on plan.

Which is ordinance, if we adopt ordinance, let me pause and take a giant step back.

There are two options presented to us tonight.

The first option is or um to approve ordinance uh 23-2025, which repeals those things that we directed staff to do um back in um at our study session.

The other is the planning commission resolution P 2507, which basically would take us down the path of um the changes they suggested.

Can I oop sorry that's really loud?

Can I interrupt?

Yes.

Um it's either to adopt the ordinance or not.

Correct.

That's it.

No, oh the other one we can't even consider.

Okay.

Yes.

Sorry, I'm confused now.

What ordinance 2023 25 repeals those things that we directed staff to go do at our study session, and that is the only choice we have in front of we can either adopt ordinance 23 2025 or not adopt it, which would leave everything intact as it is right now.

Yes.

So there's no there's no option to include the planning commission recommendations.

No, because it didn't it it procedurally didn't work correctly at the planning commission.

Okay.

Second.

All right, we have a motion second.

Now we can um um have further uh further comment, and I think uh councilmember Peterson Morelli uh was first.

Yeah, um so there are two things I wanted to bring up.

One is uh Mayor Trotem saying that council member Bear misrepresented she just read out whatever was there on that I so calling it out is hold on, we'll go we'll start on this and we'll just go all the way up.

That was not appropriate.

The second thing was you mentioned about consensus for people who are against affordable housing to is not a consensus.

If it is seven zero, it is consensus.

So having said that I'm voting no right, council member Connor.

Any further comments?

Um I'm committed to to meeting with the planning commission and and coming up with an appropriate ordinance that aligns with prop 123, and um you know I mean I I I see it what I do for a living, and there's a need for housing for 65 and older adults.

It's it's that's something that that very need is out there that um we should be looking at.

So that's it on that one.

Okay.

I'm sorry, so is that a yes?

Uh we're not actually doing the votes yet, just deliberation.

All right, sorry.

I'll said I did not call out anyone by name, and uh you can review the record for that.

Okay, council bearer, any further comments?

Sure.

Um yeah, I largely I think we're in agreement, interestingly, kind of just stepping back and looking at the table.

Um we all want to amend this ordinance um so that it fits the needs of our community.

I think um as council member hobak pointed out, it's important that we're not just considering Prop 123, but really the needs of the community.

Uh we know we need a more income appropriate housing, and how can we incentivize that and a fast track is uh is a way that we can do that.

Um and we need to look at the density bump.

Does that make sense?

Maybe not.

And we need to look at the 90-day review.

Is that I I had a conversation with Director Nermella after our March 4th meeting, and and that's a lot of work for staff.

So let's support our staff, let's support our community.

I think we have a general consensus that we can all get behind.

I also believe the planning commission um, you know, is committed to understanding what the needs of the community is.

Um so I apologize, Mayor Pro Tem Bell, for for in for causing you to be incensed or feeling angry.

I um that was not my intention to um seem like I was opposing or anything.

What your intentions are, I I think that we have we have the opportunity to really work together with planning commission with staff and as a council to find the thing that works for our community, and my suggestion was to pause and really consider all of those.

Um all of all of the information that we have in front of us.

Um so I I don't disagree with anything that council member Mordor Laro said.

I don't um uh disagree with anything that council member hobak said, or I just you know I think that we should really work to get this right for our community.

Um and we have the opportunity to do that.

And I still suggest that we pause to be able to do that and and get that get the appropriate meetings scheduled.

That's all uh I appreciate all the um the work that's come you know uh taking place before today.

I think it's helped uh educate us and uh you know so we're we're better prepared to work together to come up with a a solution that will um help staff out, like I like I mentioned.

I think it's important that it's a unique process where we get a lot of the information up front so that is less burden on the staff because 90 days is going to be very challenging.

I think those are some of the details we need uh to work out in our session uh where we work together.

Um but I will never support an ordinance that takes away the voice of the residents, and right now 017-2023 does, and uh so I'm I'm a solid no I'm a solid approval of the repealing.

All right, council member hobak, any last comments?

No, I think I'll bite my tongue.

All right.

Um so we have a motion and we have a second uh a um a vote of yes um moves forward with what we directed staff to come back to us with um from the study session, and no leaves the current uh 017 2023 in place.

With that, I'll ask our town clerk to do a roll call vote.

All right.

Council member O'Connor.

Yes, council uh Mayor Pro Tembell.

Yes, Mayor Moore, yes, Councilmember Bear.

No, Council Member Martellero.

No.

Or Doug, sorry, excuse me.

Come in.

No take back yes.

Yes, excuse me.

Jeez.

Okay, too many double negative council member O back.

No.

Council member Passamarelli.

No.

The motion passes.

I can't even speak.

I think the air got knocked out of my lungs after all that I'm I'm gonna both all right.

Thank you all for getting us here.

We're not done.

We are gonna come back, we're gonna make this right, we're gonna work together, and affordable housing will be part of our future.

We're gonna do it collaboratively though.

And thank you to our wonderful planning staff.

Uh, you guys do an awesome job.

So all right, we will move on to council member reports and announcements.

I've been going left all um all uh evening, so I'm gonna go right and uh we'll have um council member or uh mayor pro tempel uh lead us off.

Uh thank you.

Um so uh I just wanted to uh last week uh we had a study session on the airport, um, and there are a lot of uh different opinions and and concerns about the airport uh as you heard it again in the public comment tonight.

I just wanted to um uh just reach out to everyone just to remind that the I think it's the third Thursday of the month we have our airport economic development advisory board meetings.

Um and the public is welcome to that.

Um I encourage you to attend or watch the meetings online.

They're archived, so it's the beginning of time.

Um, so uh encourage you to go back and watch that.

Um one thing that I have been doing, because I I want to say two things real quick.

One is that I know there's a lot of concerns over flight patterns and things like that.

I just want to tell all the residents to understand that once a plane is in the air, it technically is not an area, it's an air space, and that's the FAA's domain.

We do not have control.

Now we work with our airport manager uh to control traffic and things like that.

Um there are limitations to what we can and can't do because we do accept federal grant money from the FAA.

So as far as like banning touch and goes and things like that, those are generally types of things that the uh because that's a required of flight school.

But I did want to tell the the public.

This is a uh website that I go to, and there's also an app you can get, but it's called flightaware.com.

And I encourage you to go to there, and it's very interesting because if you look at out there, you will actually see that the large majority of small engine aircraft in the area, especially if you're on the boulder county side, typically is not from the Erie Municipal Airport.

Most of it's coming from uh Rocky Mountain Airport and Broomfield, Longmont, and even Boulder typically has uh a lot more than than we do.

Now obviously with talk of Boulder and what's gonna happen with the airport that could have a direct impact on what happens to the other low airports near and how they pick that up.

Um but you can go on there and um the thing that I you you can go on there, you can track flight patterns.

I I have it up on my screen here, and you can see any of these planes and you can hover over them and you will see a three-letter digit code to tell you what airport they're come coming from.

Uh Erie's Airport is EIK, um, any flight that's designated with that.

Longmonts is LMO, Boulders is BDU, uh Rocky Mountain Airport is BJC back when it used to be Roomfield Jefferson County.

Um sorry, Boulder Jefferson County.

Um and so you can look at there, you can see the flights.

And um the one thing I will also say is that is that typically uh take the takeoff patterns.

If you if you look at those from our airport, just for aircraft to reach um uh you know cruising altitude for a single prop plane, it's around 7500 feet.

And uh coming out of the airport because everything's taking off to the north, um, typically the that uh that almost takes you in into Longmont before we get there and and those flight patterns generally uh cut across uh uh uh the the um uh for Erie Commons and then uh over Old Town, probably into Northfield and Kenosha, those those tend to be the most impact on there.

And for um the uh the person who addressed us at the beginning uh uh of the meeting, I I uh again, I don't know for sure.

Uh there you know, when they're in the air, they typically can go a number of places.

It could have been an Erie player or not, but it's something you can go and and just check on that.

Um the other thing as far as I'd say is expansion of the airport.

I I want to be clear to people with our airport board, we talk about the economic development around the airport to make the airport more self-sustainable so that we don't have to you know have a lot of general fun that we're we're having to fund that.

Um, but we do get a lot of grant money, and as you heard last week, that we are when we do accept grant money from the FAA, we we do have a 20-year commitment on those to uh to operate as the airport, and because uh the how the airport is actually is actually annexed, those areas have to be used uh for for airport purposes.

So um again, I just encourage uh the public to come out and as a reminder that um oh gosh, I had the date up, but it's uh September.

Sorry, Julian uh the airfares uh September September 7th.

Sorry, there is uh uh airfare at the airport.

I hope to see everybody there.

Um we did this a couple years ago.

Unfortunately, I was not able to make it that time.

My father had passed away and his funeral services were that weekend, but um it's I from everything everybody told me it was a huge gathering, and I hope to see everyone out there at this time.

There'd be a chance to meet the airport manager, meet the members of the airport boards if you have any questions.

Uh again, encourage you to come out.

So thanks.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Um, just off of what uh Mayor Pro Tempel said, it was an awesome event two years ago.

Well worth attending.

Um the mayor and I attended Erie Sustainability Action Plans to Ret today, and it had me thinking about the um current rebate programs that are out there uh offered by the town, and so checked the website to see what was current, and we smart irrigation controllers and high efficiency toilets, rain barrels, drip lines, sprinkler consultations, um, turf replacement, tree rebate programs.

There's a number of different programs out there that many residents don't know are available to them to help make their home more energy and efficient water saving.

And uh, if you want more information, you can go to ErieCo.gov forward slash rebates and check out the current ones.

That's it.

Great.

I don't have anything.

Uh several months ago, uh Councilmember Bear started inviting residents to coffee on Saturday on our one Saturday a month.

Um she cannot make it this week.

He's having an what is it inline induction ceremony?

Is it getting married?

So I will be hosting it, but everyone is invited to the Starbucks inside these inside the King Supers at Nine Mile.

Boy, this is a problem.

Um yeah, at 9 a.m.

on Saturday, coffee.

Um, and I think several uh a few of us will be there.

Um Starbucks inside the King Supers at 287 and a rap ho.

Thank you.

Um just a couple quick things.

Uh one is mentioned a couple times the survey results will be reviewed at the special session uh next next Tuesday.

So look forward to folks coming to that.

Um and then Eerie Fest, I want to shout out to the the folks uh being better neighbors, uh put on multicultural uh you know entertainment, um all day event, you know, nicely done.

A little bit of rain didn't seem to spoil too much.

Uh a lot of us uh stuck through the rain ran undercover for a couple of minutes and uh and kept going, so it was great.

And then uh there's groundbreaking for the uh new fire station 15 on uh August 21st at nine o'clock.

Thank you.

Um I think I just had my favorite moment in a meeting when you voted the exact opposite of the way you wanted to vote.

Thanks for kind of lighting the moment.

Yeah, um so the Sandlot baseball baseball league starts this week or started this week, started yesterday, and um I think they're still looking for some volunteers.

So if that sounds like something that you would like to do, hang out with some kids, play some baseball.

Um, I did see that they need some help with the walk-up songs.

Um, so that could be fun for the games.

They're on Thursdays.

Um, and then thanks to BBN, super fun.

Um, yeah, it was really great how Councilmember Hoback was hanging holding on to the tent, didn't fly away through the rainstorm and then we just continued on.

It was great.

Um, Dr.

Cog update from yesterday or last Wednesday, uh, we got an update from Excel, which I learned a lot from this update.

They serve eight states, they're investing 45 billion dollars in improvements coming up, and 25 billion of that is slated to come to Colorado.

Um, and largely because of our efforts in beneficial electrification and greenhouse gas emission reduction, and then also the number of um data centers that have applied to be in the state.

Um, and so and it was really interesting to learn about this.

So there will likely be some legislation and some different things we'll see coming down the pipe in future years to address the number of um of data centers.

Uh and then let's see, US 287 coalition, we meet quarterly, and um what we heard and subsequently have heard since that meeting is that um we should increase our outreach to CDOT um so that they are prioritizing our efforts to have those safety improvements um implemented on 287.

Um we got the funding, we have the federal funding.

They're starting with the northern implementation, and then there's a hang up with our area, and so um I'll be back on the grind to make sure that they know that we want those.

It's it's really simple.

It's center barriers and rumble strips, and the day we get those implemented, the day they're installed, they'll save lives.

And so um there's some like design issues with um intersections and ensuring access for ag, but we know that it's those are solvable problems, and we want to see those um updates.

Chief, I might be calling on you to write some letters um again, but anyway, uh stay tuned for that, and I'll I'll reach out if there's anything that we as a council can do.

Um I met with the sustainability has invited council to um interview with the resilience team who are implementing our resilience plan, which I've I think is in coordination with this sustainability action plan, but is its own thing.

Um it was a great conversation.

They had lots of great questions, and if you guys have any time, I think they're wrapping up that up, but there's still time to sign up for an interview, and um that was that was a really great experience.

Um we had a NATA meeting recently, and RTD is adding service starting August 30th, so that's really good news.

And if you use RTD, check to see if they're adding service in in the areas that you use, and um, you know, it won't be an eerie, but it will be someday.

Someday I'll be talking about all this great new RTD bus route that we have in Erie.

But we did get good news on an RTD grant for our um Erie B flex ride service.

Um, thanks to the transportation team, none of them are here, but they work so hard and they pivoted when the multimodal option funds were cut from the budget, and um, we're able to secure this RTD grant that we'll see in 2027, and that in cure that ensures access for our community to really necessary transit.

So excited excited about that Dr.

Cog's regional transportation plan and CDOT's 10 year plan are both being updated right now and so I I'm attending a lot of meetings where um I'm ensuring that Erie's uh plans are represented at those t tables.

I testified at the Transportation Commission on behalf of the Northern Area Transit Alliance and the I-25 North Coalition um and I began meeting with those commissioners as well so I expect to see beneficial improvements in our area um you know at the speed of government but I'm encouraged so thank you please keep your good dogs on a leash all right well all four of my things were said so I'm gonna keep this to two minutes or less somebody start a timer and cut me off if I go over the sustainable charettes that uh councilmember o'connor um spoke about awesome discussion today and it's just another area that I think we're gonna be spending more time on to understand here's the takeaway I drive an electric car in my commute and I feel good about that and then I see how little difference between a gas car and electric car compared to the the um the gases that our landfill gives off it is huge and that was a big part of our discussion today how do you how do you do things to to lower that because it is such a big contributor.

Erie Fest um uh councilmember Mortolero um uh said awesome I had a great time out there just good energy uh the um Indian dancing I don't know I was just drawn in it was uh it was a lot of fun and it looked like they were having a lot of fun uh entertaining us uh the survey results um I know this council wasn't uh unanimous in moving forward with it but I'm hopeful now that we have the results which by the way I have not looked at them in any detail in fact we've been told hold off until we get to the study session next Tuesday I'm I'm hopeful that we will start to coalesce around the output of the survey and start moving forward with the survey helping us set that direction and the last thing is I will be with um council member Hoback at the coffee on um Saturday and I look forward to that um so if you um want to talk affordable housing or sustainability or anything else I'm happy to have that conversation and with that it is 854 p.m and we will adjourn this meeting.

90 seconds good job on