Good evening, everyone.

I'm gonna call to order the town council meeting on October 28, 2025.

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

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and one nation under uh individual liberty and justice.

All right, well, the town clerk please take roll council member Hoback.

Here uh Councilmember uh Pastor Morelli, present council member O'Connor.

Here council member Mortalero.

Here council member Baer present.

Uh Mayor Moore.

Here.

And Mayor Pro Tem Bell.

Here.

Uh Mayor, you have quorum.

All right.

I'm gonna see if there's an approval for the agenda after I remove um item 25565, which is a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie, adopting amended town council rules of order and meeting procedures, and item 25566, an ordinance of the town uh council of the town of Erie, repealing section one five five of the Erie Municipal Code and repealing and reenacting chapter seven, title one of the Erie Municipal Code, all regarding the town code of conduct and ethics.

Uh, these will be moved to a study session or a future uh meeting.

Uh do we have a motion to approve with that amendment?

So move.

Second.

All right, motion is second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no.

All right, we have an agenda.

We have quite a few items on the consent agenda tonight.

So bear with me.

Uh the first one is 25142, approval the October 14th, 2025 town council meeting minutes.

Item 25013, the law enforcement records personnel appreciation week.

Uh the proclamation sponsor is Councilmember Emily Baird.

Item 25464, an ordinance of the town council town of Erie affirming the town's existing permitting review process for electric vehicle charging permit applications and opting out of the adoption of the additional printing permitting requirements in accordance with House Bill 241173.

Item 25514, an ordinance of town council of the town of Erie accepting the transfer of rural property from HT Flat Iron LP to the town and approving the associated special warranty deed.

Item 25550, a resolution of the town council of town and ery in support of a grant application for funding the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Construction of Reach 2 of the Colorado Col Creek Trail and committing matching funds for the grant.

Item 2555, a resolution of the town council of town of Erie approving a funding agreement with Excel Energy for Design and Relocation of a gas line at County Line Road in Austin Avenue.

Item 25541, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving the 25 funding agreement with the regional transportation district for the town of Erie Metro Transit Pilot Program.

Item 25439, a resolution of the town council of town area approving the first amendment to the agreement for professional services with D2C architects for design and engineering services for the Erie Police Department EPD expansion and remodel project.

Item 25524, a resolution of the town council of the town area approving the first amendment to the construction manager at risk contract with France and Pittman Construction for the Erie Police Department expansion and remodel.

And the last item on the consent agenda is 25543, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving the CMAR contract for North Water Treatment Facility.

Move to approve.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

All right, we'll move right into public comment tonight.

And do we have anybody signed up to speak?

We do.

All right.

Let me just uh set the uh set the um rules uh for public comment.

Um please remember the public comment is not an interactive question and answer 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 public hearings.

Please sign up using the kiosk in the lobby.

If you have a handout, please give it to the town clerk to the left.

Uh they will distribute it to the council included in the meeting record.

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

Uh the public comment is limited to three minutes per person.

You'll be given a 20-second warning when you're at three minutes or almost up.

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

Um, all opinions are welcome.

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

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

All right, who's our first speaker tonight?

Uh first speaker is Micah Frank.

All right.

Hi, I'm Micah Frank, Holbrook Street, Erie, Colorado.

Um different things to a lot of people, but the town of Erie flag means nothing because it doesn't exist.

And I would like to change that.

Um after the flag policy was enacted a while ago, I learned that the town doesn't actually have an official flag.

Um, and that is one of the flags that can be officially flown on the flagpoles.

Um we could adopt a flag with the black field at the gold tree, but I think we could do one better and do a community-sourced contest of vexologically minded people to kind of drum up support for the identity of Erie, what it means to all of us, um, and hopefully adopt a proper flag, a properly designed flag.

There's a lot of opinions out there about good and bad flags.

Um, it'll set us apart from other towns and continue to cultivate the culture of Erie, continue to like um, you know, deepen the definition of what a small town feeling is.

I know a lot of us have a lot of pride in living here, and flags are really important.

Um, it may seem silly, but I don't think it is.

And I would love to um, you know, see the community involved in designing a flag.

Um, no matter how you feel about the flag policy, I think it would feel good for everyone to continue to move forward in an actionable way and to continue to do the next thing and not let the conversation stall in the water.

And a town flag seems like something most everyone could agree on, and it will just take us in the next step and keep us going in the right direction.

Um I would love your support and the support of town staff to um, you know, kind of do it properly, follow all the rules and policies and procedures, and uh get a lot of community support and get people really excited about it.

So um, yeah, it's something I am super passionate about, and I love flags and I love flag design, so this won't be the last you hear from me, but um I just uh wanted to start the conversation, and I'd love to chat more and learn more, and hopefully we'll see this happen.

Um we'll circle back after the holidays, but I just wanted to let everyone know what I was thinking and hopefully we can make this happen.

Thank you.

Excellent, thank you.

I know there's a few others on the council that have also brought this topic up.

Uh Councilmember Professor Melly comes to mind.

Um, so after the new year, I'd love to connect.

Okay, do we have another speaker tonight?

Uh Sam Fogelman.

Uh Sam Fogelman, uh, Hobrook Street District 2.

Uh I'm here again to request that you all take definitive action to ensure that the current uh conditions that surround us um give fewer opportunities for oppressive practices here in our town and our surrounding communities.

Uh while some people may want to characterize Erie's current surveillance structures, which include flock cameras and plenty of other public and private systems as necessary and important public safety.

Their potential is part of as part of an authoritarian web of social conditioning is the threat that will be forced on all of us.

By allowing these systems to continue to exist, we provide the current regime with the infrastructure they need to force their project 2025 reforms on everyone and track us down if we don't comply.

Whether you have felt the effects of it yet or not, the web of cameras around our town and region is definitely within spitting distance of authoritarian surveillance overreach and is belligerently pounding away at the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

If you want to protect people from that, then the time for action is now.

What we are seeing in real time today, every day from all around the country are violent arrests of people with no warrants announced by masked men who refuse to identify themselves, who restrain their victims, read none of them their rights, shove them into unmarked vehicles, and speed off without telling anyone where they're being taken.

At the same time, Flock is investing in remote operated drones, now has a partnership with Amazon ring cameras and has a documented track record of national searches with ICE as the reason for access.

There were 1,400 of those in Denver alone.

This company has already shown itself through these searches to be complicit and an accomplice in this national kidnapping ring run by our federal government and would likely cooperate with any federal search warrant or cut for customer data, including ours.

That should be a terrifying reality for each of you and make you realize that these violent arrests that I described that offer no due process and immediate deportation to third-party countries, can we weaponized through this system and used against any of us?

I'm hoping that one of you will introduce a resolution to dismantle and remove all flock camera systems so that each of you has to go on record as supporting or opposing the existence of surveillance with so many oppressive uses and potentials.

Realistically, there's a possibility that me simply being here and saying these words could put me on a list for social ostracism, re-education, or even kidnapping, since that's apparently their latest MO.

And likewise, if any of you is willing to introduce a resolution to oust flock from our community and/or vote for it, you put yourselves at risk for the same.

But the more of us who are willing to speak up to do what is right to make decisions for the general good, the better off our country will be and the safer all of the 20 seconds.

I'm asking you to be an example to some of the 4,000 other cities that have sold their own safety to Flock.

And now to the whims of the authoritarians in charge.

Take steps now and in the coming weeks to dismantle this and make it so they have one less lever of control and fear over all of us.

If you're willing to be brave, I'm sure there's plenty of us who live here who were willing to support you.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Okay, no one online.

All right, we're gonna move right into general business.

We have three items tonight.

Uh the first item is 2553, a public hearing, first reading of the 2026 proposed budget.

And so I'll declare the public hearing is open for that.

And uh Sarah Hancock will um join us to lead the discussion.

Well, they're getting settled in.

I will also say that last Tuesday we had a detailed study session on the budget.

So if there are individuals out in the area that would like to see the discussion on the budget, that happened a week ago.

All right, good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm Sarah Hancock, the finance director.

I'm joined by Cassie Bethun, our fiscal and budget manager.

Um, and this evening we are going to formally present the budget.

Um, we uh do have an abbreviated presentation this evening.

A lot of this information we did present last week.

Um, so some of the slides we will breeze through a little bit, um, but certainly if you have any questions or need us to stop, just let us know.

Um, again, we're gonna go through quite a bit of information that we did look at uh last time, but there will be some information that we're going to be lifting to the surface that um some of the departments uh went through in more detail and depth in the uh study session.

Um, and just to do some highlighting here, um, our budget process does start in May, um, and we did do quite a bit of work alongside the council this year in terms of understanding how we're going to move forward with our revenues and priorities.

Um, our budget did close in June, and we began reviewing that budget with our executive budget team.

Um, we did do three rounds of reductions through this whole process of totaling about 4.2 million dollars across all funds.

Um, and we did do reprioritizations to balance our budget in the general fund um through 2030, which we were quite excited about, and you all got to see the fruits of that um last week in the study session.

We did do some extensive uh work on our personal and compensation considerations.

Um, and last week you saw the final budget ready for consideration.

So I'm gonna let Cassie talk through this one, um, but we've we are going to make some changes to this uh per some new information that we have.

So I'm gonna talk through that a little bit.

Hello everyone, Cassie Bethune, budget and fiscal manager.

So I started digging into the GFOA best practices because of all of the anticipated debt issuances we have and the way that it looks on our fund balance summary here.

And recent guidance has changed where they are recommending that we put that in the budget to then show the balance of this is what we're anticipating to get to fund the project, this is how much we're anticipating to spend to fund the project, so that we will no longer be having these negatives.

We just found this out though after these materials were submitted, so we will have that for you on the second reading.

That's the only change that we are planning at this time.

Yeah.

And just to also uh because I was like, oh, that's interesting, we've always done it this way.

I did call a couple of our peers.

Um I'm uh spend a lot of time speaking with the uh department director, the finance director over at Brighton.

And uh, she also uh said that they are moving towards doing the same thing.

So this does seem to be a shift in the industry.

Um so we're hoping that that will also be just be clearer about what we'll see.

So you'll see in the revenues line that anticipated debt issuance uh for second reading.

All right, so diving into the general front here.

This is mostly the same as what you saw last week, but we did have a few slight adjustments.

There were a few officers that we need to align to the correct step and within our personnel, and then we also needed to complete some allocations for telecom that hadn't been completed and allocated out to the departments previously and was all in central charges.

It doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

I believe it was about 140,000 that you'll see in the operations and maintenance line, the operations and debt on this slide, that it had increased due to those changes.

I do just want to point out that I just realized a few minutes ago, the last few numbers for the ending fund balance on this slide are not correct.

They were not updated from last week.

Later on in the presentation, there are correct ones that have the correct fund balance on them, but you'll see they do not match up.

So just want to be clear this is not correct for the ending fund balance, but later in the presentation is correct.

If you'll just point that out when we get there.

Absolutely.

And we can also update the presentation and send that out to council afterwards.

Yep.

Okay.

Um we're just gonna go through this quickly.

Nothing has changed here.

Our revenue projections have stayed exactly the same.

Um, something that we wanted to just um point out again, these negative um percentages here are from the uh reduction from what was budgeted, not a reduction from what we collected.

So just want to highlight that again.

All right, so diving into the comparison here, the main difference that you'll notice from what we saw last week was that we've added the 2025 estimates and the 2024 actuals to this chart and table here, just to give a better idea on how the budget changes over time.

Now, the major difference that you'll see is with capital with both our projections and actuals compared to the budget for either year.

The reason for this is that we have to budget most of the time for the large projects so that we can encumberage, we can sign a contract, and so it's gonna be a lot higher as we have those big multi-year projects come on and we have that bouncing ball effect where we roll that over.

And that's what we bring to you all in the spring.

So we're gonna go through a few of the high-level priorities here in some of the projects that align with those.

Um the priorities that we ultimately utilize through the budget process were a combination of the priorities that we already have listed on our website on law online, alongside the priorities that the uh council had identified through the community survey this year.

Um, so managing the growth to make Erie better, not just bigger, um promoting a prosperous local economy, providing high quality amenities, and then ensuring a safe, healthy, inclusive environment as well as a safe, affordable and reliable water supply.

Um, so for that first uh priority, we have projects in here that were will work towards upgrading and building our new transportation infrastructure throughout the town.

We also have funding to work towards uh updating our town's impact fees, which the council indicated was a strong priority, but is also a requirement of the charter for us to do every five years.

Um we will be also be updating the unified uh development code and maintaining our existing streets through funding in our uh CIF.

Promoting a prosperous economy.

We have uh we'll continue to work towards securing the grocery store and commercial development in town center.

Um, we'll be updating the town's affordable housing policy and strategy and using multiple strategies to retain grow and attract new businesses and implement the Erie Airport economic development strategy, most of which of that budget will be a part of the um airport budget slash economic development budget.

And then in terms of providing high quality amenities, um, we will continue to work towards developing the compass and Morgan Hill Parks, which includes the uh phase one development that you saw the presentation with Parks and Recreation earlier this year, as well as expanding the Erie Community Center.

We'll continue the design and securing funding for the second community center, which includes that design funding that we have in the parks and recreation budget.

We'll continue the Col Creek Improvements, reach two and four.

We also have funding for constructing new trails, as well as continuing the Schofield and Makerspace School Field Farm and Makerspace.

We also have continued funding for public art and cultural programming.

And then finally, one of our biggest projects for ensuring a healthy inclusive environment include expanding the public safety building.

Like I said, one of our largest projects this year that will be funded through the certificates of participation.

We'll also continue to strengthen our oil and gas monitoring and enforcement through our sustainability programs as well as other new sustainability initiatives.

And we also have funding in our CIF to fund our ADA transition plan, which we all just also discussed last week.

And then finally, related to our water supply, we will be designing and building new water storage tanks, but we'll also be deep into the designing of the second water treatment plan, which is the large portion of that debt that we'll be issuing for the water fund.

We'll also be adding solar power to the water and wastewater facilities, and we'll continue to be working with our regional partners to resolve some of the issues that we're seeing with the NISP projects and the Chimney Hollow projects.

All right, diving into the new positions that we've proposed.

There are four in the general fund.

I want to remind you that we talked about this last week.

The assistant coordinator position is offset by a reduction in part-time hours.

That one is a net zero as far as the total cost to the general fund.

We also had a reduction of a position that was removed.

The affordable housing manager is not funded in 2026 for a net of two being added to the general fund there.

And then we just have the one for the Parks and Rec and the Conservation Trust Fund.

Additionally, for the utility funds, we have about a quarter million dollars for two positions in the water fund.

Wastewater fund has about a hundred thousand, and the same for storm drainage for those tech positions.

All of these are reflected as a March start.

That is what we're projecting for them.

So they've been prorated for that.

And then we budget out the max benefits since we obviously don't know what they're going to choose when they get hired.

And we also just want to talk a little bit about what we are reducing in the budget so that we're aware what we have, what our trade-offs have been.

Some of those we did talk about last week, including the recommended one year reduction in full-time staff merit from 3% to 2%.

We'll still be doing that market shift of 2%, but we'll also only be doing a 2% potential merit for full-time employees.

We did remove that merit increase for part-time employees.

They will still get the 2% market.

They just will not be eligible for that merit increase.

We also reduced the long-range staffing plan anticipated positions from 41 down to 9.

Of course, we would never have brought 41 positions.

I would never allow 41 positions to come here.

Yeah, we would we would not be happy.

But we certainly probably would have brought a few more that were less critical or cost neutral for your consideration, but this year we were we brought only those cost neutral or critical positions.

For operations, we did bring those 4.4 million in operating reductions across all funds.

Some examples include planning and development incentives that cheese were treesmen were reduced by 2 million in the CIF.

All departments reductions to consultation services were about 1.6 million, with a large portion of those being from public works and utilities.

Economic development incentives were reduced by 400,000 so that they could do that a little bit more as needed.

Environmental services, consultation services were reduced by 225,000.

And then other operating reductions, including clothing and uniforms, office supplies, printing and copying services, especially items that we, as we become more digital, we could reduce over 150,000 was also reduced.

And then just want to highlight some of the capital projects that have shifted.

In the Capital Improvements Fund, we did delay the facilities energy performance to a certain extent.

So some of that project was reduced by 1.1 uh 15 billion.

Um we also reduced uh the parks and rec capital equipment by 90,000, um, reduce the electric vehicle charging stations, traffic mitigation, and some police capital equipment.

Um we also have some unfunded projects, which if uh you have some additional questions about this, David is here to speak about it.

Um but the uh Mellair Lombardy Corridor Safety, ECC improvements and Lehigh Park renovation to the splash pad were also unfunded uh in the 2026 uh CIF.

For public facilities unfunded, we did delay and unfund or become unfunded the Page Property and the Erie Community Center edition.

We do have the funding in there for the uh feasibility and understanding of that project, which we talked about last week, but this is for the full project scope.

And then in the Parks Improvement Impact Fund, uh the Morgan Hill Encompass Park full phase two is not funded.

Um we do have those phase one and the design funded, but not phase two.

And then the new airport terminal building was removed as well.

And so with all of that said, we do have 300 million dollars budgeted in our capital improvement uh fund with the majority of that being in utilities at 208 million.

Um, and again, the large majority of that being our water treatment plan.

And I'm just gonna breeze through these here.

Um, if you have any questions about these, let us know.

But these are all of the um one million dollar plus projects um for all of the funds for capital.

So if you have any questions about any of these, let us know.

And then finally, um, not much has changed here.

Just want to highlight the deadline item here.

Um, nothing has changed on that, but that is where we are going to have the certificates of participation budgeted.

Um, so the uh this line right here in the center with um for 2026 at 4.684 million.

That is going to be the debt payment for the remaining ECC payment one more year, um, plus the uh prints or excuse me, the principal payment on the police building moving forward, and then the certificates of participation for the police expansion as well as the mine mitigation, and then a 5% inflator on that for 150,000 accommodating any changes to the project or any type of interest rate change.

We're hoping the interest rates will drop, but we just want to make sure that we're covered if something happens.

Anything else?

This is the correct fund balance for you to look at.

I'll hold here for just a moment so you can look at them.

All right.

And then this has not changed one bit.

Just want to highlight here that we will be doing a general fund transfer this year of 10 million.

Um, 7 million of that will be the transfer of the mine mitigation funds that will be proceeds from the certificates of participation for that mine mitigation project uh at town center as well as the ECC.

Um we will have to consider in the next couple of years what projects we will want to continue to look at that will be funded through the CIF, um, considering that funding will begin to there will be less cash flow for us to do pay as you go.

Um, so again, just want to make sure that we uh consider what projects we want uh to continue to be a part of this fund.

And I just want to talk a little bit um shortly here about budgeting for resiliency.

This is the one big project finance has um on our uh work plan.

Uh we don't always have really super fun stuff, so I always want to highlight the fun stuff that we do do.

Um this year uh we had some pretty big goals uh for making budgeting more fun, but also making it more efficient and resilient.

Um we did start engaging departments on performance measures.

You'll notice in the document this year that more departments have performance measures, have begun tracking how well they're doing.

Um we're trying to help uh assist departments um in seeing what other municipalities are tracking.

Um so we're hoping that we can get everybody uh feeling a little more comfortable in that area.

Um we are also meeting more frequently with our departments to help them understand current year spending trends and helping them get more strategic with their budgeting.

Um we focused with departments that were more complex this year.

Um we did also focus on departments that had lots of budget facets, including grants, capital, um, and we did hold monthly meetings with our our key stakeholders and in particular uh departments that had large capital budgets.

And um our capital improvements analyst in particular spent a lot of time with those uh departments.

And then finally, this year we used targets um to help support our departments and making sure that they had efficient budgets.

Um we asked them to really hold to that number and uh to give us a full justification of why they had to move away from that number.

And then our new revenue process we've talked a lot about with you guys.

Um, but the aggregate level forecasting was really important to our process this year.

So finally, uh we'll have our second public hearing for the URA and town budget on November 18th.

Um so any changes that we need to make, we'll make before then.

And then um on December 9th, we'll have what will be a second supplemental, but we'll technically be the fourth supplemental whenever you add in the fleet supplemental and all of that.

Um, and then we'll also certify our mill levy for 2026.

So with that, we're ready for any questions and discussion from you all.

All right, sounds good.

I think what we'll do next is uh see if there's any public comment, and then I'll bring it back to council for questions.

There is no public comment.

Nobody is nobody is signed up.

Just double check in the audience, see if anybody like to address the budget.

Okay, seeing then, I'll bring it back to council for any questions or comments.

Councilman Reber.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for this presentation.

And I thanked you last week, but for making this understandable for my brain is really quite a feat.

And I really appreciate it.

Um I just am curious about I you know when we look at the town survey, we saw that um affordable housing and ensuring that the town is keeping a level um effort for what we're already doing.

Um I'm I'm concerned about that we've eliminated the affordable housing department and we're not backfilling that and how we'll be able to maintain that um commitment to our residents.

Um so I don't know if you have anything to say about that or so I can certainly let Sarah Normella speak a little bit more to the program.

Um but uh what I can say about the position itself is that we have frozen the position.

Um so I think the idea behind it was that we wouldn't actually eliminate the FTE fully, it would be frozen so that it was not activated this year.

Um but if the council um wanted to go a different direction or wanted to reactivate it, then um and we had very clear direction on how affordable housing wanted to move forward, then we could do that.

Um so I think that was kind of the idea behind it, but um, I'm not sure if uh director Normella is in here, but she is welcome to elaborate if you have anything else now.

Okay, I think that's probably the extent of it.

But yes, I think that was the intention.

What would that look like to reactivate that position?

So because we are not funding it in the budget, essentially we would just have to bring it back to council um via the supplemental budget, um, and just say we we want to fund this position, um, and then we would essentially activate the position again.

We would just need that appropriation authorization.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Other questions, Councilmember Bear?

Nope, that was it.

Sorry.

Okay, no, that's good.

Go ahead and uh council member Marcholero.

Thanks again.

I appreciate all the work you've done long before last week and and this week.

So um my question, uh I have a couple questions, but first one is on slide seven, uh, where it shows the 2025 budget.

Um we have capital at um 267 million, uh, and then estimated is significantly lower than that, and that's because it's rolling over.

Is that primarily the um water treatment uh facility and the water tanks or so we could definitely pull what specific projects are driving that, but it's a very safe assumption that the majority of that is the water and utilities funds.

Um probably water tanks.

So um the water treatment plant is not actually um in the 25 budget, but there's a large portion of the design in the 20 um five budget that would be rolling.

Um but yes, there's there's a very large amount of uh utilities funds projects that move year over year.

Um so it'll fall to fund balance.

Oh, excuse me.

It'll fall to fund balance, and then you'll see us bring it back to you in spring supplemental and reappropriate again.

Okay, and then that's why uh 2026 budget goes up because that all that water treatment water tank and whatnot is.

Yes, and it'll actually add a little bit on top of it.

Yeah, yeah, I know uh 90 million for the water tank or something like that.

Yes.

Um water's yeah, storage tank.

Um then on slide 15.

Um, I just wanted to know what slide I'm like a couple things.

Um the parking wreck.

Uh we're bringing it down uh $90,000.

Is that equipment that would be going to the um ECC equipment or I'm actually going to loot uh look to director to speak about specifically what equipment was removed?

You mean council Luke Bollinger, director of parks and recreation.

You were asking about the 90,000 parks and rec capital equipment.

Right.

Yes, we pulled that out in anticipation that we would probably roll that into the expansion project.

Yes, okay.

So for the 2026 budget, we've got a 1.26 million dollar expansion for design and engineering.

Okay.

And so that's the design work, and then the 11.4 that's being delayed is for the for the expansion for the for the actual construction FF and E stop cost.

Yes.

Will we need the mitigation done for that expansion?

No.

That is on the west side, excuse me.

The yes, the west side of the ECC in the in the current native area just east of County Line Road.

So that that does not involve any mitigation.

Okay.

The expansion that we're looking at will not require any uh geotechnical mitigation to the extent that the area east of County Line Road would okay.

Great.

Thanks.

And then I had uh uh another question on um the Mueller and Lombardy corridor safety um multimodal improvements, uh Dave thanks.

Um just wondering what that involves and what are what safety issues are currently there that um you know that we're we won't be addressing uh good evening, council David Passick, public works director.

Um so that project we had uh previously had in the budget.

We did a uh comprehensive safety analysis this year um after the completion of our transportation mobility plan, and we specifically looked at currently budgeted projects to see if they were uh actual needs based on the data that we collected.

We found that that part project, one of the that project and a few other projects in particular were not needed at this time.

Um that being said, we're still gonna look at those in future out years, and we're also gonna look at alternative ways of funding that via safe routes to school grants, other grant opportunities.

So it's not that we're not ever going to do those projects, we just may look for different ways of bringing those forward um that are less impactful to the town's budget.

Okay, yeah, thanks, David.

Yeah, no problem.

And as far as like what those projects consist of, it's mostly uh restriping and um kind of making uh better use of the existing pavement surface area that's out there right now.

So yeah.

Thanks, no problem.

And then also on um slide 15 talks about um unfunded or you know, for this year, Morgan Hill and Compass Park, and and that's phase two, right?

Where we are funding phase one at about six or three point something million each exactly in the 2026 budget.

Exactly.

Yes, that's all phase one in design.

Okay, great.

Thanks.

Of course.

You know, if you can update the slide to say that that's phase two that's on there.

I can absolutely.

Yeah.

All right.

Any other questions from council?

Mayor Pro Tem?

Sure, thank you.

Um we've got a lot of questions from the public about this, so I just want to bring this up.

But with the COPs with respect to uh the mitigation, things like that.

When can you explain a little bit about a accounting standpoint how we're showing the debt, but when we're actually issuing the debt, and then there is an obligation uh within the general fund for for payments?

Can sure so do you mean whoop go of course I went the wrong direction here?

Do you mean how we're showing the debt like here on this?

Okay.

Um, so uh we are forecasting the debt.

Um with a geo bond, uh we are as an example.

If it's voter-approved debt, we essentially are taking a mill levy or a sales tax amount, and we're dedicating that.

So that means that until the debt is paid off, that is dedicated and we have to pay it.

Um with the COPs, we have to make a deliberate appropriation every year.

Um we are showing the debt here as if we are going to make that deliberate appropriation every year alongside the dedicated debt.

So we're going, we are treating it in our forecast as if we are absolutely going to appropriate it, no questions asked.

So we're treating it from an accounting standpoint as if the council will in perpetuity pay this debt the exact same way that we would treat it as geo um bonded bonded debt.

That is best practice.

Um municipality that I'm aware of, as far as I've heard um ever doesn't pay this debt.

Um we we treat it just like you would treat your mortgage.

You pay it, and you know, you make sure that you keep a hold of the property.

So like I said, we're treating it as if we would treat any type of debt.

This does, you know, even though it is not a um a voter-approved debt, it is still um something that impacts our bond ratings, it's still something that impacts how we are rated by SP and Moody's.

Um, so it is in it is advantageous to the town to commit that every year.

Um, and so we have forecasted for the town to do so.

Does that answer your question?

Okay.

Perfect.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay.

Come back.

You good?

Okay.

Council member uh Pastor Melly.

From the down survey, we saw like people are asking for more sustainability directors.

And we're getting um money from downs.

It was one of the like hi on.

So is there a room for it?

So I will I can't speak specifically to um director Frank's uh programs, but he has been uh very um enthusiastic and clear that the budget that is has been that he brought forward um will achieve exactly what um he feels is important this year, that it's sufficient funding for the programs.

Um I know that they are also looking at a lot of grant dollars.

Um I don't know, I don't think he's yeah, um I'll continue to speak for him unless he feels uh enthusiastic enough to come up, but um he I know he has a lot of exciting projects um on the docket.

So from my understanding, it is sufficient funding for those.

Um so unless he feels he needs to talk a little bit more.

Okay.

Okay.

Good evening, council.

Uh David Frank, director of environmental services.

Uh so uh our department's only a couple of years old, um, and and we sort of inherited uh our budget in our first year of operations.

Uh and so um this was uh we took a chance or we took the opportunity in 2025 to really go through our budget line by line, um, figure out you know, compared to past years what we were actually spending.

Um and I think that this budget is in line uh with our actual expected expenditures for 2026 um without any reduction in services uh or any of our programs.

Now, if we happen to have some surprise, uh a great opportunity comes along, it's just too good to pass up that we weren't able to foresee.

Um, or uh, you know, people are really enthusiastic about uh certain rebate program, um, then we'd probably bring something like that in supplemental rather than um you know just reserving funds for uh unexpected uh expenditures.

So that's that's kind of the philosophy we took of let's try to get our budget as close to actual as possible.

That's kind of the the point of budgeting, and then um you know, if we have if we have extra needs um that we don't foresee next year, that is sort of the purpose of the supplemental uh budget.

Hopefully we don't see that.

We're we're gonna try to be um responsible with the funds we've been you know afforded the opportunity um to spend on behalf of the residents uh and looking forward to 2027.

Um, you know, we'll work with our team and see if there's exciting opportunities we want to bring forth in that budget that could require expansion, but for now, um, you know, I think we'll be set.

One quick question.

So was this uh charging stations for new stations to be installed?

And we are seeing that the current stations are like a broad leaves and yeah, so yeah, these are more these are for new electric vehicle charging stations, um primarily at town facilities, but but other places where we can find um that there's capacity in the grid um and access, obviously, uh where we can install new charges.

We're gonna keep uh charging ahead uh if you will.

Um maintenance of existing chargers.

Uh obviously most of our electric vehicle vehicle charges are very, very new and still covered under warranty.

Um, but we'll um you know, like all town-owned facilities and and operations will um as time goes on, budget uh expected maintenance.

Thank you.

Uh council member O'Connor.

Thank you.

Um slide 15.

Can you walk us through um the ECC improvements?

What is being unfunded there, what's not gonna happen.

Yes.

We need to start putting the director's table directly behind the podium.

So much like the the equipment uh question that came up earlier, because we're anticipating the renovation and expansion potentially moving forward in 26/27.

What we did was we released a lot of those funds, racket ball core conversion, there's some weight uh uh weight room, floor suppression systems, and some other improvements that we thought will let's hold for 2026, see where the expansion and renovation feasibility design goes, and then potentially include that as part of that ask, whether it be from the public facilities impact fund or potentially from uh from a bond proceed.

Okay.

So the um the talked about improvements like the racquetball court.

Yeah, just gonna roll that all.

So for the past 15 years, you know, we've been putting projects in these items of you know, improving the ECC.

This year we pulled all those out, knowing that we were going to be looking at a much larger project, and then we'll include that as part of that larger project.

Makes sense to help balance the budget for this for 2026.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Um, well, just passing uh on the way to slide 22.

Slide 21, I I for one appreciate the process improvements listed there.

That's uh I think it's always good to reevaluate the process and not just repeat the same thing.

But anyway, um on slide 22.

Can you walk us through um the millby levy certification and how that's going to impact residents?

What they've how much they pay.

Yes, so we do a calculation, and actually you do the calculation, so I'll let you specifically talk about what you do there.

Yes, so we get our values from the counties and we get the proposed values in August, and then we'll get the final values at the end of November, and then we plug those in to see based on what our current uh town operations rate is, and then how much our debt rate needs to be based on the new values, what the total mill levy will be.

And we bring that breakdown to you guys.

You're able to see the breakdown, see what each part is, what the changes from last year, and then you vote to certify it, and we submit it back to the counties, which is due, I believe, on December 15th.

Yeah, and one of the important components of that as an example last year, based on the valuation amounts, um, we were actually able to lower the mill levy slightly because the valuations were enough that we didn't actually need to tax as much in order to generate the amount of money that we needed to um pay our debt or our geobonds.

Um so, as an example, that would be part of the calculation is to ensure that we can make those debt payments based on that calculation.

Um so that's basically the process to ensure that we can make you know all of the um those two debt payments are a component of that.

Um so that's why we need to bring that to you to ensure that we're certifying that, uh, that we're meeting our obligation our debt obligations and all of that.

So um we can certainly uh when we bring it, we can maybe put like something together to kind of walk you through what we did uh in a little bit more depth than we typically do, if that would be helpful.

I think it would be helpful for the residents.

Yeah, of course.

To know how this process works.

Of course, happy to do that.

Thank you.

Okay, you good?

All right, then I'll just uh round it out here.

Nothing uh nothing big.

I asked most of my questions at the study session.

Um, but I just found out that racquetball courts may be pulled out of the rec center one day.

This is killing me because when we did the recent the first time, I advocated to get those courts in there, but I get it.

Pickleball is kind of taken out over.

Oh, just one, okay.

Um the affordable housing um position.

I think one of the challenges we have is first our residents through the surveys said um we don't want to use town money to fund affordable housing, but if state or federal money is available, right now we used ARPA money or ARPA money has been used partially for this, and I don't think there's any more federal money coming our way in the current climate.

Uh with the state budget as it is, they've clawed back money that was uh gonna be in proposition uh one two three, which I think will also reduce our ability to move forward.

So I'm fully in support of the positions just being frozen at the moment.

However, if money becomes available from either the state or federal government, then I would look to Sarah on do we do contract help to just get us through a project perhaps, or do we, you know, is it big enough that we have to do something else with uh with staff, but basically work it once we know what it is.

I've also asked uh the town manager for um information on the cheeseman property, as it's now um we're selling units, and I think once we get that that'll help inform the council on whether the first um Erie affordable housing project is meeting the goals uh that were initially set out for that.

Um, and then the last thing that is just on my mind, and I think I brought this up at the study session.

Um, that's the building permits.

I know that it's uh only a portion of our budget, um, but just for the record, um, the last um published numbers that I saw, uh, which were published on October 4th, um, we had three townhome um permits pulled in September, five single family homes, zero in August.

Um in July, we had six uh single family no town homes, and in June, uh 15 single family no town homes.

There's a positive to that in the sense that growth will slow, and I think our community overall has been saying we're growing too fast, and I think we're seeing that with the pressures on the police station, the public works facilities are our recreational facilities.

So the slowing should help us catch up and uh to write the ship, if you will, from that perspective.

But on the flip side, it could impact the budget, depending on if this slowdown is just a blip or if it carries into 26.

And I suspect all conversations, I don't know, maybe March, April time frame would probably be when you guys will have a sense for that.

Yeah.

All right.

Um with that, um, I will uh actually close the public hearing and the public comment portions of this first reading.

The second reading will occur on November 18th in just a few weeks.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right, we will move on to our second agenda item, um, which is actually going to be continued.

It's item 25537, a public hearing, a resolution of the town council of the town area approving the Canon Key Creek filing number 11 preliminary plat with conditions.

Um the applicant has asked for this to be continued to January 27th.

I'm gonna look to our attorney because do I need to open the public hearing and then continue it?

Correct.

All right, then I will um open the public hearing uh for item 25537, and then see if there's a motion to continue until January 27th.

So mayor would like to make a motion to continue the public hearing at the January 27th regular town council meeting.

All right.

Do we have a second?

All right, we have a motion, second.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

All right, we've continued that particular item.

That takes us to the last uh regular item on our agenda tonight, which is another public hearing.

It's item 25485, a public hearing uh on ordinance of the town council, the town area amending section 912 of the Erie Municipal Code to remove the automatic sprinkler system requirement in the international uh resident code.

So I'm opening the public hearing uh for this particular one, and we do have a staff presentation tonight.

I will just say that we had a study session on this, and we did direct staff to um bring back this uh this change.

So I will turn it over to Deb Batchelder, okay, to lead us.

All right.

Thank you.

Good evening, Deborah Bachelder, Deputy Director of Planning and Development with me, Sarah Numela, Director of Planning and Development.

And we also have Ed Kodlinski, who is our building official here to help answer any questions.

Sorry, technical difficulties.

Here we go.

So in December 2024, um the town held a round table with the home builders association of Denver and Homeowners Associations.

Uh and one of the action items that came out of that meeting was the request of potentially moving removing fire sprinkler systems from single-family detach and attached homes, which includes duplexes and townhomes.

Um, and then in May of 2025, as you mentioned, we had a town council special meeting, which we spent several areas in deep discussion with both the home builders association at Denver, Mountain View Fire Protection District representatives were there also in the discussion, as well as town staff.

Um and the request was asking if you wanted to consider uh um a repeal to the sprinkler system, and you had authorized to authorized us to move forward with a hearing and a consideration of an ordinance which we're at tonight.

So the International Residential Code, it was first um included sprinklers in 2009, and then in 2019, the town adopted um the 2015 IRC, which and we actually exempted fire sprinklers at that time in the single family and attached homes.

And then in 2022, we adopted the 2021 IRC, in which we did include fire sprinklers in the single family and attached homes.

We're currently under the 2021 IRC, and so we as of today we do have fire sprinklers required to be installed in our single family detached and attached homes.

This is a table we had shown you at the study session of surrounding of surrounding communities that have uh requirements for fire sprinklers based on single family duplex and townhomes.

Um our building division since this packet was posted has updated this.

There were some slight changes, but still has the same flair.

Um the town clerk will be passing those new tables around.

We did share that with the home builders association.

There weren't drastic changes, there were both backs and force where it knows once to yeses and yeses once who knows.

So the potential benefits and savings that could be felt from removal of fire sprinklers is um a reduced exterior wall fire separation and wall separation between two family dwellings as well as elimination of floor protection can reduce the cost in attached homes.

Um there's about a $13,600 and $69 savings for builders on ceiling and floor treatments.

And then NFPA uh states that there's an 89% reduction in risk of death and 70% potential reduction in property loss.

Um, and that's from keeping fire sprinklers.

Sorry.

I think I said remove.

I meant the opposite.

And then in insurance cost savings, um, we did call around to some local insurance agencies and asked about um any cost savings related to having fire sprinklers in your units.

To be honest, it was all over the boards with some of the companies saying we don't offer it.

Um, other of the agencies that had more than one company under them saying, well, it's usually just off-the-fire sprinkler portion of your uh insurance, and typically they see that it's less than a hundred dollars in savings when it is offered.

Okay.

Um cost and impact and incentives.

So you know, if if we are requiring the sprinklers, the increased cost of construction increase can affect the impact, the affordability of homes.

So uh you had asked us to look into what the general costs were on single family homes.

We went ahead and contacted some of our local builders and got some more numbers.

Um, and these are averages from those numbers that we collected from builders.

So on a single family between two and three thousand square feet, it was about twelve thousand seven hundred and forty-five dollars.

On duplex home of a smaller size of about 15,000 square feet was just a little over 10,000.

And then same thing for detached town homes that are about 2,000 square feet, it was just a little over 10, 10,000.

Currently, we don't have any incentives to put in fire sprinklers.

Other communities have been known to provide those or um sometimes districts.

Um, it could be in could be equipment or property tax rebates.

It's the end of our presentation.

Um, this is a public hearing, and it was notices required in our municipal code.

We've provided provided you with ordinance 3225, which modifies the 2021 international residential code to remove the requirement for automatic fire sprinkler systems and single family detached and attached homes.

Okay.

Then I will look to our town clerk to see if anybody has signed up for public comment tonight.

Yes, we have quite a few.

Um, the first is Reggie Carvet.

You said Reggie.

I don't see them.

Okay, so let's go to Mike Ingleston.

Engleston.

My name is Mike Eccleston.

I live at 3020 Cherokee Court in Erie.

Uh, and I am a fire sprinkler contractor.

Um I've been in the fire sprinkler business for about 45 years now, and over that time I've seen codes come, codes go, things change.

But the one thing that has always been very important to me is life safety.

That's the talking about people.

We're not talking about dollars and cents here.

How much is your life worth?

It's not dollars and cents when it comes down to what the fire sprinkler system could save you your life or your kids' lives or whatever over a time frame.

I have a I own a house here in Erie.

I built there 24 years ago.

My house has a fire sprinkler system in it.

I don't know where you guys are getting your insurance information from, but ours roughly is about $300 a year savings.

It's not enough to necessarily pay for a $10,000 if you're looking at it as a financial investment.

But overall, houses that have it in usually sell for better prices because of the protection of the fire sprinkler system.

And you know, it's it's always a tough thing to look at.

Um we've got a lot more EV cars out there.

We're seeing a lot more EV fires in garages.

The fire sprinkler system typically does not cover the garage, but it usually gives a protection between the garage and it moving into the house.

And that's a major concern of if you're going to talk about fire safety for the people that are living within the house.

Overall, typically one to two heads actually activate and cause the by the time the fire department gets there, typically they are either under control or close to out.

It depends on what it is, if it's just a kitchen fire or if it's something more substantial.

Um, you know, we're we're seeing construction methods and things that burn quicker, burn easier.

If you've ever seen uh the ASFA or NFSA life safety trailers where they show a sprinkler room compared to another room, it's incredible.

It will actually make you think twice about what you're putting inside your house.

Furnishings are more flammable, all of this.

They go up quicker, they cause more fires, more damage.

So when the fire department rolls in there, they've got two and a half inch hose typically.

They're putting somewhere between 500 to 2,000 gallons a minute, depending on how many hoses they've got and what they're doing, where a single sprinkler head is putting out somewhere between 16 to 20 gallons max per minute, and typically it can control the fire.

The biggest thing with a fire is typically it's not that you get burned to death, it's that you die from smoke insulation.

By the time the fire reaches to where it's going, your less than 36 inches clear space from your floor up that you have is not filled with smoke.

You're trying to get out of a house, it's dark.

It usually, for whatever reason, seems to happen at two o'clock in the morning.

And 20 seconds.

So it's one of those things that the sprinkler system would knock this the flash over and keep the smoke to a minimum, giving you more time to get out of your house safely.

The last thing I'd like to bring up, uh I was at one of these meetings in Commerce City about a week ago.

Um, they're looking at also doing repealing their deal.

They put it off after the vote to go for another uh recession deal.

But a lady got up and spoke that had nothing to do with the fire sprinkler.

That's not why she was there.

She heard us talking about the fire sprinkler work.

And I'm gonna tell you, I damn near came to tears.

I'm sorry, but she said two years ago she lost half of her family in a house fire on Christmas Eve.

And that's what I don't want to see happen in our community.

I want lives protected.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate your time.

All right, thank you.

Um, next we have Eric Kincaid, and he believes he's online.

Mr.

Kincaid, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Um, thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Moore, members of the town council, fellow residents.

My name is Eric and Cade.

I'm here this evening on Bath TRB homes, normally Brightland homes.

We're proud to be part of the area community and continue to build in quality homes for our families who want to live and grow here.

First, thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration of this ordinance, the proposal to repeal the residential sprinkler requirement is an important step toward improving housing attainability and affordability in Erie.

At DRB homes, we take fire safety very seriously.

Every home we build meets or exceeds all state and local fire protection standards.

However, the current sprinkler mandate has added significant costs that are ultimately passed on to the buyers, and that as those costs go well beyond the initial installation.

Installing residential sprinkler system adds over $15,000 per home or roughly $4.50 per square foot.

And it requires upsizing water taps, which could add another thousand dollars.

We currently use a 13D suppression system that includes a black backflow preventer.

Well, not specifically required by the town of Erie today.

We are seeing similar requirements in other municipalities.

Each of these systems should be inspected annually by a registered professional.

And those inspections could cost the homeowners between 150 and 200 a year.

We take time to educate our homeowners on how their systems work and how to schedule annual maintenance with our installers.

But it's important to recognize that understanding and maintaining a suppression system is very different from something like landscaping or sprinkler irrigation.

It requires technical knowledge, proper maintenance, and ongoing cost.

And as homes are resold, there's no guarantee that future homeowners will even be aware of these requirements.

That creates both financial and safety risks over time.

From affordability standpoint, the impact has been significant.

Before this sprinkler mandate and taffe is increased, our townhomes were planned to start in the mid of upper 400 range.

Those same homes now start in the low to mid 500,000s.

Our single family homes, which previously started in the low 500s, are now beginning in the mid to upper 500s.

26.

Can easily price out families, especially first-time and working buyers.

Repealing this requirement won't reduce safety.

It will restore balance and make homeownership more attainable.

Erie has the chance to lead by example, reducing unnecessary costs, cutting the red tape, and supporting thoughtful affordable growth.

On behalf of DRB homes, thank you for your partnership, your leadership in this important issue.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Next we have Victoria Hall.

Or not.

Oh, wait.

Let me see.

I don't see her unless she's with Northern Colorado HBA.

I don't know who she is.

So she's got her hand raised.

Speak up just a little bit.

She's got her hand, somebody's got their hand raised.

And I don't, it's Northern Colorado HBA, and I don't know if that's Victoria Hall or not.

Okay.

Well, if they're online, you can um take them off a mute and at least ask.

Victoria, are you online?

Hi, I'm online.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Wonderful.

Sorry about that.

Good evening, Mayor Moore and members of the town council.

My name's Victoria Hall.

I'm the executive officer for the Home Builders Association of Northern Colorado, representing the Weld County areas of Erie.

Just like Denver Metro HBA, our organization represents the builders, the contractors, engineers, suppliers, and the trades who build homes for Erie residents.

We too strongly support the proposed amendment to repeal the residential sprinkler requirement for attached and detached single family homes.

We believe this decision is a critical step toward reducing unnecessary burdens on home builders and helping Erie families access attainable homes.

By removing this mandate, Erie sets a positive example of smart governance, cutting red tape and making homes more accessible and supporting these builders and delivering quality homes to the Erie community.

We urge you to approve this submit and continue partnering with stakeholders to create these meaningful housing solutions for your Erie families.

Thank you for your time and consideration this evening.

All right, thank you.

Uh next we have Patrick Haney.

Hello, Patrick Haney, 252 North Pennsylvania Street, Denver, Colorado.

I'm the regional coordinator in the Rocky Mountains for the National Fire Sprinkler Association.

I want to thank the council and the mayor for their continued uh support and for being leaders in fire protection in this country.

In 2009, the International Residential Code brought on fire sprinklers.

I want to make it clear that the IRC sets the minimum standard for safety in this country for homes.

When we're looking at a home, 80% of the time a fire happens in this country, people are dying inside of their homes.

Fire sprinklers allow a chance for survival up to 87%.

Now, in this country, you have less than five minutes to get out of your home when a fire starts before a room reaches flashover.

If you don't know what flash over is, that's the point when everything combustible in a room combusts.

So back in the 1980s, you had about 20 minutes to escape, but due to lightweight construction, the synthetic materials and plastics in our furniture, that is now dropped down to five minutes from the point of ignition of the fire.

With fire sprinklers, as we heard, you have about there's a 90% chance that only one to two heads will activate.

That's going to be the heads that are over and over the fire.

Um, and then when you look at the uh excuse me, when you look at the uh destruction from the fire, there is a 98.8% chance that the home and all of its contents will survive when fire sprinklers are enacted and are there entering the fire.

One of the things that's talked about here is going to be cost.

Um that's obviously the big issue, and the reason that we're speaking about this.

In Erie, it's shown that uh build the cost, the median cost of builders is between $8,000 to 10,000 dollars for homes between 2,500 and 4,000 square feet.

The builders on paper go ahead and then mark this up for the home buyer.

Uh their for-profit companies.

We understand that they have to make a profit.

There's no issue with that.

But the issue, however, is if there's a concern for affordability and attracting people to the city of Erie who want to live here, first-time home buyers, whatever that may be.

Um, the home builders will not commit to dropping the prices of homes that are unsprinklered.

They base their home prices off of market value.

Um the request to get rid of this requirement for life safety devices doesn't benefit any of the members of your community.

If anything, it makes their homes substandard, and it's going to make them drastically less safe.

To be blunt, what's being asked of you is to prioritize the profits of builders over the safety of your communities.

Keeping sprinklers in the code is an investment in community resilience.

There's going to be fewer total losses, fewer displaced families, lower emergency response rates, and reduced long-term insurance and recovery costs for the residents of this town.

I urge the council to preserve this requirement.

This literally is about life and death.

I hope you all decide not to repeal this tonight or any night in the future.

Thank you so much.

All right, thank you.

Next is Doug Saba.

Okay.

Well, Jeff Webb is next.

Good evening.

My name is Jeff Webb.

I'm the deputy chief and fire marshal for Mountain View Fire Protection District.

We protect Erie on both the Weld County and Boulder County sides.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

We're here to urge you to keep Erie's residential sprinkler ordinance, not as a matter of regulation, but as a matter of safety.

The safety of your citizens, our firefighters, and the integrity of the neighborhoods that define the community.

Sprinklers are not a luxury.

They're the most effective life safety system ever developed for residential fires.

The NFPA has notes that an average fire death rate is down 87% in sprinkled homes.

And those that are killed in sprinkled homes are usually the ones that are on fire.

Basically, the person is the thing that is burning.

In a fire seconds matter, in modern construction, the fire doubles every 30 to 45 seconds.

And so as the sprinklers there, they respond automatically, usually less than one minute after ignition.

It's long before the fire department arrives.

In most cases, a single head controls the fire or extinguishes the fire before it spreads beyond the room of origin or even the object of origin.

This is especially important in modern lightweight construction.

Modern homes burn faster.

They fail earlier.

The furniture and the interior furnishings give off no love, not only the smoke when burning, but a lethal mixture of poisonous gases like hydrogen cyanide, phosgene, hydrochloric acid, carbon monoxide, and others.

In low quantities, breathing the smoke acts like a narcotic.

It impairs the judgment, it slows reactions, and it prevents the occupants from escaping the home.

This is a relative, this is not relatively benign campfire smoke.

This is a single breath can lead to lung damage and or death.

And we've seen that in the fires that we respond to.

Sprinkler spray is a secondary matter, also helps clear the air, the same way a summer shower clears the air of pollen, basically taking those particles of poisonous gas and dropping them to the ground so you're not breathing them.

Smoke detectors are not enough.

They do nothing to reduce the spread or growth of the fire and the resulting toxic gases.

The smoke detectors just let you know the fire is happening.

It's up to you to act.

The fire sprinklers control the fire, eliminating its ability to grow.

Fewer gases are given off, the occupants are given a fight a chance fighting chance to escape.

The builders are not installing smoke detectors in your in the homes.

They're installing fire detectors.

Flame detectors.

They're much cheaper.

A smoke detector would go off as soon as the smoldering starts.

A fire detector waits for flaming combustion to go off, which is minutes later, so there's been this smoke produced that is affecting the occupants.

This gives a fire a significant head start.

Sprinklers aren't theoretical.

They're installed, tested, and proven right here in Erie homes.

We've done hundreds of them.

They're quietly saving lives.

And because the installed base in residential homes is relatively new, the experience in Erie of sprinkler saves is in the multifamily homes where they've been there for years.

In Blue Sky, there were two separate fires where the fire was kept to the object of origin.

In both cases, it was a box on the counter.

The residents were back in their home a few days later.

And in both cases, the resident was not home to have noticed the fire and acted.

Beyond saving lives, sprinklers save homes and property.

The NFPA shows that, or sorry, the NFSA, National Fire Sprinkler Association shows that in unsprinkled homes, compared, or sorry, in sprinkled homes compared to unsprinkled homes, the damage reduction is about a 90% reduction in damage.

Families that are displaced in non-sprinkled homes office spend months to year a year out of the home.

In sprinkled homes, they're back within days or weeks, a couple of weeks.

How much time would you like to spend in a hotel?

The difference between a small kitchen cleanup and a total rebuild is measured in minutes as the fire grows unchecked, and the minutes the sprinklers buy us.

By holding the fire to the object of origin, the sprinklers give the fire department a chance to save the home and its occupants.

The vast majority of Erie's residential systems use PECs or CPVC based on our last 30 or 50 or so sprinkler designs.

The installed cost is $3.50 per square foot, and it's relatively constant across the size of the homes that we were measuring.

That safety system is roughly the same as the percentage on a safety system for your car, the airbags, the seatbelts, the crumple zones, the bracing.

Would you consider buying a car without those safety systems?

You can't.

I mean, they have to be in there.

The quotes you hear at many times that value of $300 and 50 cents, those are given for single uh single designs of a custom home.

They're mixing metaphors.

We're not talking about the neighborhood wide installation of sprinklers.

Those costs come from if I build a home somewhere out in the country and I have one home with one design, it's very expensive, maybe three times that cost.

If you're doing it a hundred at a time, like you're doing in the Erie neighborhoods, it's down in the $3.50 range.

The ordinance doesn't add costs, it rebalances it.

There are efficiencies possible.

We can reduce the spacing between structures, packing more homes into a neighborhood.

We could reduce the fire ratings of the facing walls, reducing the cost of the building.

We could reduce the water flow requirements and the water pipes that are put in the street because we don't need to supply thousands of gallons a minute to put out the fire.

You can have longer call-de-sac streets, reduced road widths on the cul-de-sac, or reduced cul-de-sac diameters.

All these things are possible.

Erie hasn't investigated that because they haven't thought about it yet, but that's something to work on.

While insurance savings may vary, many underwriters offer premiums.

We're typically hearing hundreds, many few hundreds to a thousand dollars per year.

And that's tech checking directly with the underwriters, not asking an agent.

If the town, if the town repeals the ordinance, they would need to revisit the lot spacing, the fire resistance ratings, and this hydrant spacing of neighborhoods that have already been planned because by they were approved by us, assuming sprinklers would be in place.

If you take the sprinklers out, we have to re-look at how the spacing goes because then the fire be looks like an look to the fire, it looks like a contiguous mass of building, and the fire will move from home to home to home.

This isn't a debate about engineering or economics, it's about what kind of a community Erie wants to be.

No, that's not gonna happen.

They're gonna keep those prices up.

Um the council members, it's your duty to balance the cost, growth, and safety.

But for residential sprinklers, it's pretty conclusive.

20 seconds.

Um you should be prioritizing Erie's residents' lives and their peace of mind above marginal costs.

Uh one thing to note is Commerce City.

They adopted their sprinkler or they renewed their sprinkler ordinance, but it was a messed up vote, and so they're going to meet again and renew it for real.

Uh Lewisville will be readopting their sprinkler ordinance on Monday night after canceling it after the Marshall Fire.

So they realize the mistake that was made and they want to rectify that mistake.

If Erie removes the sprinkler ordinance, they will be the only bolder government agency, older county government agency that does not have a sprinkler ordinance.

Thank you for your time.

All right, thank you.

Next we have uh Tim Trostel.

Hello, my name is Tim Trostel.

I'm fire protection engineer and been a fire sprinkler contractor for the last approximately 40 years in Colorado.

Um my stance on the fire protection, that I think is a big thing with the builders.

If you talk with any builder, safety is first in construction, safety number one.

Um American Sprinkler did the fire sprinklers in this amazing new uh town hall building here with the general contractors.

So there's fire sprinklers in here.

You see them.

And with the city, we turned in a safety plan with all of our builders returning a safety plan, and with all the homeowners, they have safety first.

Safety is always number one first.

Our motto is safety first.

But when you pull fire sprinklers out of a house, you're putting the safety of every homeowner last.

So as a city, you've got to think our motto is always safety first.

The people are first.

What's their protection?

And if you pull fire sprinklers out of a house, where's the safety first?

Um every builder who builds.

I you can go look at all their safety plans, their workman's comp insurance, everything is always based around safety.

They have job huddle meetings, they always talk about safety toolbox meetings.

If you pull, so you look at the contractors that always have safety first, and they want to take sprinklers out for profit.

Um to my opinion, it's uh the fire sprinklers give you that extra in a residential facility, they give you that extra two to three minutes to get out.

They're not building safety, they're life safety.

Um, in a commercial building, it's always building safety.

It's building safety and life safety equally, but with the residents, it's house, it's the um life safety.

So in the first two minutes, a fire sprinkler will activate in under two minutes usually and have the fire contained within 90 seconds.

In that three to seven minute time period, seven minutes, you're not getting out.

I don't care who you are.

Um best chance to get out is between the minute and a half to three and a half minutes in that house.

Flash over comes over at five to seven minutes.

Um if you can get out of the house as Mike was talking about, the smoke does fill the room and goes down very, very quickly.

If you ever want to see, go to fire home coalition, and you can watch side-by-side burns and see how fast smoke will fill a room and how fast it goes down, and the smoke ventilation will kill you.

Uh, that's it's just um the poison of it.

The firefighters can talk about that.

When they have a fire, they come back, they you know, they take their suits off, they clean them, they wash them.

20 seconds.

Hazardous uh fumes in there.

So I'm here to promote fire sprinklers.

It's uh our company policy is safety first.

Um, as any general contractor, home builder, safety first.

Um so let's try to keep safety first in the homes for the people that are moving in these homes for the people of Erie.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Next, we have uh Thomas Garmond.

Good evening, council.

My name is Thomas Garmong, and I'm the division president for McStain neighborhoods.

We actually have a community here in Erie, um, just down the road.

I've also had a unique viewpoint of having served as a firefighter for several years, who's fought both house fires and wildfires during my career.

I'm also a resident of Black Forest, Colorado, and experienced firsthand the 2013 wildfire that impacted that community.

I'm here to voice my support for the fire sprinkler repeal today.

Fire sprinkler system will not save your home from a wildfire.

In fact, in the city of Lewisville, specifically repealed the requirement for fire sprinklers after the Marshall Fire, specifically to reduce the cost burden on homeowners during the rebuilding process.

Fire sprinklers are adds unnecessary cost to the home.

This is on top of $30,000 in permit fees, $55,000 tap fees.

Uh these fees alone account for 16% of the total vertical cost of home construction.

Um to mention the expense from any leaks or unintended discharges from the systems.

Just one of these events can add thousands of dollars in expense, increased insurance uh premiums, etc.

Repealing the fire sprinklers from Erie eliminates an unnecessary cost and lowers the barrier to entry for those that need housing.

Our children, our school teachers, and maybe even Erie's own firefighters.

Thank you, Council.

All right, thank you.

Next we have TJ Mantoya, and he is online.

Okay, Mr.

Montoya, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Hello.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is TJ Montoy.

I'm located at 258 Summit Way in Erie Highlands.

I'm also the division president for SLC homes here in Denver.

When we started the Westerly community nearly four years ago, we set out to bring back the meaning of building a quality home.

For us, this meant including items in our houses as a standard, such as energy efficient tankless water heaters, EV charging, which we included before it was mandated, and ERV, also known as an energy recovery ventilator, which filters the air in the house and exchanges it with the outside.

It's essentially enhanced filtration and mechanical ventilation beyond just a standard furnace.

We include whole house humidification, which is another pillar of a healthy home in Colorado.

All of these included features are directly related to healthy living, which is very important to Erie residents, especially given the oil and gas activity in the area.

At this point in time, we were being forced to consider removing many, if not all of these features due to affordability.

We are currently sitting on over a dozen completed unsold spec homes and just recently uh went five months without pulling a building permit and starting a new home.

Um just last week we had a family from Decono come over who was extremely excited uh for the opportunity to move over to Erie and uh improve you know their their lifestyle, get their kids into an Erie school, and after spending uh two days with them, they came to the realization that they can't afford to be here at this point in time.

Um we have a uh associate on our team who was going through a divorce when she when we started the community, and she was able to uh build a house in the community uh for her and her kids.

Um you know, in just four years, she wouldn't be able to afford that same home.

Um please understand that we are not asking to compromise safety, but believe the fire blocking, draft stopping, no burn applications, smoke detectors, and other life and safety measures that have been implemented for some time now are resulting in a safe house being delivered to our residents.

Uh at this point in time, we just we we really are trying to maintain that level of quality that uh the industry has struggled to see for a while.

So we're just truly asking to um not be forced to do that.

Um thank you.

All right, thank you.

Uh next we have Morgan Cullen.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Moore and members of the Erie Town Council.

My name is Morgan Cullen, and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the Home Builders Association in Metro Denver.

The HBA originally provided testimony opposing the fire sprinkler requirement in Erie when the town was adopting the new 2021 IRC code back in 2022.

For the first time ever in Erie, a previous town council decided to require fire sprinklers for new construction, which added approximately $15,000 to the price of a single family home.

Since that requirement went into effect in the spring of 2023, a number of extenuating circumstances has significantly contributed to the price of new residential development development in Erie.

Most notably, a substantial $20,235 price increase in the town's water tap fee, which went from $37,000 to $57,000 late last year.

When putting these costs into context, it's important to recognize that Erie has always been an expensive place to build homes in the metro area, particularly compared to other high growth areas.

In fact, when you combine the total builder fees for a single family detached home in Erie, it is now $85,141.

And then the $15,000 fire sprinkler requirement uh added to that.

Erie now surpasses Castle Rock as the most expensive high growth area to build a home at over $100,000.

So while we did testify in opposition to the mandate in 2022, this new reality of added fees is why we are again asking council to uh to consider repealing the fire sprinkler mandate as a meaningful step to help in helping provide some much needed cost relief for aspiring Erie homeowners.

Unfortunately, the collective challenges experienced at the local and national level are having an effect on the home building industry and local impact uh impact fee revenue in Erie.

Between January uh and August of 2024, before the fees went into effect, 680 residential building permits were pulled in Erie compared to only 286, 286 during the same pair during the same period this year, marking a 42% decrease in the number of new homes being built year over year.

This cost uh this is costing the town of Erie approximately 30 million dollars in lost impact fee revenue this year alone.

Finally, I'd like to just thank the town of Erie for all of uh the work you guys have collectively done to help identify ways to reduce housing costs for aspiring homeowners.

From the round table discussion last December that identified fire the fire sprinkler repeal as a consensus approach to offsetting the cost of the TAP fee increase to this hearing tonight.

We believe repealing the fire sprinkler mandate will go a long way for bringing uh housing costs back into alignment with market realities.

Thank you for your time this evening.

We appreciate it.

All right, thank you.

Next, we have Leroy Van Dyck.

Good evening, Mayor Moore and Council members.

My name is Leroy Van Dyck and the Vice President of Operations First Century Communities.

Um we are currently building in the town of Erie.

Um our product, our product range is all single-family detached homes, ranging from 1,800 to 3,400 square feet.

Um we have seen since the adapt uh adoption of the sprinkler code a cost increase of roughly $800,000 being passed on to our homeowners since the inset of this new sprinkler code.

We also see an average cost between $9,000 and $13,000 direct cost to our fire sprinkler contractors for the install in the home.

This is no markup, this is nothing on top.

This is our direct cost to our sprinkler installers.

This is of course adding to our bottom line cost for every home sold in the town of Erie.

Um as uh Morgan mentioned, we have seen an average uh pre-construction cost in the eighty-five thousand dollar range before we start any construction on a home.

So we appreciate the council's consideration of repealing this ordinance in an effort to help us reduce costs and bring more citizens to the town of Erie.

Thank you for all right, thank you.

Next, we have uh Carrie Lewis.

Good evening, Council.

Thank you for your time.

My name is Carrie Lewis.

I am the area sales manager for Toll Brothers Homes here in Erie.

Um I oversee the Erie Town Center community as well as the new upcoming North Sky community that we will be opening.

Um, I am actually also a personal resident of Erie and would like to speak on my own personal behalf this evening.

Um my husband and I had the opportunity to purchase an Erie in 2022.

And over this last three and a half years that we've lived here, we've just absolutely fallen in love with the city of Erie, um, everything it has to offer, the amenities, the community, um, all of the above.

Um, as we continue to grow our careers and potentially grow our family, we currently have a two-year-old daughter.

Um, we are hopeful to stay in Erie.

We keep discussing, you know, other locations, other places that would be viable for us, and we just keep coming back to Erie.

Um, with that being said, um, this will be our third home if we were to purchase a bigger home.

And um even for our family who is fairly financially stable, um affordability is a concern of ours.

And we feel like this mandate is something that adds costs to the homes here in Erie, and um we're afraid that we, you know, if if cost continues to rise, um, that we won't be able to stay in Erie for our family.

So um I do personally believe that affordability can impact um you know all different stages of life, rural families, urban families, young, old, um, and so even first-time homeowners obviously are impacted, second homeowners.

Um, so I do think that affordable affordability is very important for the town of Erie to continue growing.

And I think that by mandating the sprinkler system again, it just adds those costs that not everybody can, you know, then obtain that affordability within Erie.

So you know, hopefully, if we can repeal this mandate, it will just continue to develop the community, grow our economy, and allow um homeowners to continue to purchase an Erie.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Next, we have Heidi Majarek.

Hello, Mayor Moore and esteemed council members.

Um thank you for allowing me to be here tonight.

My name is Heidi Majarick.

I'm with um Gage Land Development, 8827, East 35th Avenue, Denver, but from Erie, Pennsylvania originally.

Um so I want to thank you for taking the thoughtful time to consider repealing the requirement for residential fire sprinklers.

Um this is an important thing for you all to consider, and I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Um, especially when we're talking about home price affordability.

Since 2023, new new home construction has seen a substantial increase in costs due to various mandates by the town of Erie.

Most notably the adoption of the IECC code, newest IECC code, which cost about $12,500 per home, the new metro district policy that the town adopted.

Um, having worked for Southern Land and having done the math, that cost us about $16,000 per home to meet that um to meet that policy.

Um the fire sprinklers that you've heard are are costing anywhere from 10 to 15,000 a unit.

Um, and most recently, as you're aware, the water tap fee increase for 20,000.

So in a few short years, the town mandates have increased new homes by over $50,000 a home.

According to the NAHB, for every $1,000 increase in price, $2,373 households get priced out of the market in the state of Colorado.

The combination of these mandates has priced out almost $120,000 Coloradans from the town of Erie.

When I bought my home in 2007, I maxed out the mortgage that I qualified for.

If I had had to fund fire sprinklers in my house, we would not have been able to purchase that house.

In 2024, on the precipice of the town adopting the new water tap increase, our our um industry came to you all and asked for the opportunity for all stakeholders to consider this issue before a council vote.

Our industry expects expressed our concern that Erie was becoming too unaffordable for Coloradans, and that our industry would move to other municipalities that were less costly if the water tap increase was to be passed.

I think you can see that you are seeing some decrease in your permits.

Of course, there's also the economy that's a part of that, but um, but there is no doubt that um that the permits have decreased.

Um staff worked to create that round table for us with council representatives, with HOA representatives, with industry representatives and staff to discuss reducing um that $20,000 tax if we could.

Um and through that process, the town um worked with us in good faith.

We understood why the town could not do that, and out of that came this idea to relook at fire sprinklers.

And so I just want to thank staff for how diligent they were and for all of council who participated in that to help us try to find a way to get people into housing in Erie.

Thank you so much.

All right, thank you.

Next, we have Eric Patterson.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Who's out loud?

Uh my name is Eric Patterson.

I'm an Erie resident and uh senior land analyst for Toll Brothers, home builder and developer actively investing in this community.

Um I'm here to express my support for repealing the mandatory fire sprinkler requirement in new residential construction.

Um thank you for reconsidering this ordinance and allowing us to discuss it today.

While I respect the intentions behind this ordinance, the reality is that it adds approximately $15,000 per home, a cost that directly undermines housing affordability in Erie.

At a time when affordability is a major concern.

This regulation pushes prices further out of reach and affects the viability of future development.

Uh I analyze uh potential land deals in a multitude of municipalities along the front range and can offer to you what my perspective looks like on this.

On what would be considered an attainable $500,000 townhome, the combined cost of vertical construction, approximately 250K, the finished lot, approximately 115,000, tap fees 75,000, and job overhead 25,000 leaves builders with very thin margins, around 7%, which is not sustainable when considering the risk time and effort put into a new home development.

Adding an additional 15K makes the deal go from tight to barely even working.

Um repeal isn't the only lever that can move the needle, but it is a step in the right direction when considering cost reductions to achieve better affordability.

For toll brothers alone, the sprinkler mandate represents a 20 million dollar impact across our 1300 lots in Erie.

These would be sunk costs we cannot recover, and they jeopardize our ability to our ability to continue investing in Erie.

When it becomes too expensive to build an eerie, home builders either offer a product at a price that makes money or they focus their efforts in other jurisdictions where margin uh is commensurate to the time and risk involved.

This further exasperates the supply and affordability issue that Erie is facing, where builders were no longer want to offer diversified product.

The only thing that pencils are high priced homes that can absorb the cost and are largely unaffordable to middle income buyers.

Repealing this ordinance is a step toward preserving housing affordability, encouraging responsible growth and ensuring Erie remains a place where families can put down roots.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

All right, thank you.

Next, we have Chad Rodriguez.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor Moore and Council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight regarding this.

I'm here representing Drew Mark Holmes, and we either own or control about 750 lots at your recurring.

So this is near and dear to our heart.

But I want to go back to I believe it was at the round table discussion when people were going back and forth about the merits of it or not the merits and etc.

And Mayor Moore.

You came up with a really good thing.

Why can't it be a choice?

You get to choose to finish your basement, you get to choose your granite, you gotta choose your cabinets, your roof, your everything else.

I think it goes upon the home buyer to make a choice.

I don't think the home building industry would be against making that a standardized option that the home buyer can choose.

It's no different than pre-wiring for solar.

Yep.

You don't see very many people choose solar to go on the roof of their home.

It's their choice as a home buyer.

And if we allow them to make that choice, I think at the end of the day, we've done right by our home buyers.

So I'm not going to go through all the numbers, all the fee increases.

You guys have heard enough of that.

I think it comes down to home buyers being able to make their own choice on where they want to put their money in their home.

So thank you for your time.

All right.

Thank you.

I believe he was the last one.

All right.

Let me just uh make sure no one else in the audience would like to address this tonight.

Okay, we do have one additional person.

If you'd like to join us at the podium, just state your name and uh address for the record.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Uh I am with uh DR uh I'm with Lenar Homes.

Uh we do have a community, a future community coming up.

If you do your name and uh oh, sorry, I'm sorry.

I'm uh Kim Oyam, I am with Lenar Holmes and the division president, and I appreciate you allowing me to speak tonight.

Um just wanted to kind of reiterate with everybody else.

Lenar is not disputing the fact of of safety and the import or the importance of safety, but we do believe that as it was said earlier that homeowners should have an opportunity to make that choice whether or not they would like sprinklers to be installed in their home or not via sprinklers.

Um before we do anything, and we even put a shovel in the ground, we are a hundred thousand dollars into pulling a permit, pulling all the permits that we need.

And that's before we develop the land, before we build the homes or anything else.

And so we as we continue to add more features to these homes.

Affordability is is something that is out of reach for a lot of people.

And we are right now, currently, we continue to see that in our own market right now.

People cannot afford and and and as us, just as many other other builders out there, we are buying the rates down, so it's not we can't say that well, it's because interest rates are too high.

We're buying rates down to 399, which is a great rate.

The problem is is that homes continue to the cost of building a home continues to climb and climb and climb, and the future generation is not going to be able to afford it because the salaries do not are not keeping up with it.

And so I hope that you know we're able to allow the homeowners to make that choice of whether or not they would like to have it in their home or not.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for letting me speak.

All right, thank you.

All right, seeing there are no other um individuals that like to address this tonight.

We'll come back uh to the council for any questions uh for staff.

So just open it up.

Councilmember Bear.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation and for everyone coming out to speak on this topic.

Um so in public comment we heard about the um increased tap fees, and I remember in the original conversation we talked about waiving the up the fee or for upsizing.

Are we still doing that as that I think uh yes, in order it in order to um serve the fire sprinkler demand, it requires a one-inch um connection, and typically if you don't have one, it's a three-quarter connection.

So we are only charging for the cost of that this the small tap, but not the not charging for the full tap cost of a one-inch connection.

So there's it's the same whether it's a sprinkled house or not a sprinkled house for the size.

There's a m minor difference in um I think it's like a couple hundred dollars or something for a three-quarter versus a one-inch.

Um I don't know the technical term.

Um turning around to see if Todd is here, but um it that's um it's a very minor difference.

Um let's see.

And are there pr extra permitting fees for sprinklers?

I don't think so.

Um is if Ed No, okay.

No, so so it'll be the same permitting fees, whether there's sprinklers or not included.

Yes, for a house, yeah.

Um so then I went back and remembered I asked a question after our study session.

And in June, you sent an email because I had asked what are cheeseman residences, they had follow fallen under the sprinkler requirement, and they were about $7500 per unit.

Um so um I'm kind of curious about some some of the varying numbers that we heard.

Um the cheeseman residences are all in independent or single family homes, right?

That they were yes, they are all under 1,500 square feet.

And so that's a little bit less than what we were quoted on some of the duplexes from some of our builders, but we did just reach out to um every builder that was active, and not everybody responded, but we did average the responses back, and and that's what we have reported.

Okay.

All right, those are my questions.

Thank you.

All right.

Other questions for staff?

Councilman?

Um, I just want to confirm my understanding about uh how ADUs factor into this and say someone is wanting to finish their basement so that it can be leased out.

My understanding is that along with the electrical and the separation of the plumbing, that new unit also has to have under this current um uh this current um ordinance that the that unit would have that basement would have to also have a sprinkler system, the the fire sprinkler system in it.

The rest of the house wouldn't.

I'm gonna have Ed come up and Ed Kutlinski is our uh chief building official, and he's gonna know more of the detail on that.

Good evening, council, mayor, council.

Um Ed Kotlinsky go on official answer the question on basement finish.

Uh the answer would be no.

Flyer suppression would not be required in a house that's not suppressed, currently is suppressed, uh, just because they're finishing their basement.

We we we as the building department do not recognize an ADU um where they're finishing their basement um for their for their intended use for their private use.

Um if it's gonna be used as an ADU um we just don't take that into account because there's much there's other code of code requirements that would have to be met to to comply with the residential code to separate dwelling units.

Thank you.

Is that it?

Okay.

Councilman.

Yeah.

So uh I see on potential cost impact and incentives.

The price, like the that is 12,745 and 10,000.

Where did the numbers come from?

Like builders or fire department or independent contractors.

Our building permit team reached out to active builders in Erie and asked them what they were spending and how that related to the size of the home.

And so those that those were the numbers that we collected.

Okay, so we don't know if it is actual cost or actual cost plus markup or we don't know that, right?

We did try and have them identify what that cost was, but no, we did um we did not.

The reason why I'm asking is we heard like at least four or five variances of the prices.

Uh people who are installing have a price.

Builders have much, much higher price.

So I'm stuck there where if this is the price, and we are not seeing it being passed off to the satellite like the buyer when they're buying home.

So I don't see where the affordability is changing.

So that was why I was asking this question.

So yeah, that's not my okay.

Go ahead, Councilmember Mortillero.

Okay.

Um so we've heard from a few folks uh about uh total builders' fees of 85,000, and then whether it's 10, 12, or 15,000 for the uh sprinkler system, that would be added on to it.

Um is that act is are those numbers accurate from your understanding that you know for Erie versus other communities.

Um so staff hasn't done a comparison of other communities.

I know the HBA has uh taken a look at that in the past.

Um but yeah, that I mean it's a combination of the water and sewer tap fees and dedication costs as well as impact fees for parks, um whether that's fees in lieu um or just the impact fee itself.

We also have transportation impact fees, so yeah, they do they do add up that I mean it sounds close to what I've what I've seen.

Okay, so that in the in the ballpark or okay.

Um the other question is if we did make it a choice um to have sprinkler systems or not, would we have to put that into our standards or what what would be required to do that to so that homes are capable of with or without we have to we'd probably have to think about how to do that unless Deborah, you have no in the building.

Yeah, we'd we'd have to look and see where we'd how we'd accomplish that.

Okay.

Can you repeat the question?

I want to make sure I'm understanding the so the the question was if it was a choice, um does the design of the house have that option in it or not?

And would we have to modify uh our code or standards to make the design so that it could or could not have a sprinkler system, right?

So when you when you have to you probably have to design your house a little bit different um to make it you know viable for a system like maybe the standard whole home plan doesn't have the you know area where you could put the sprinkler system probably does, I don't I don't know for sure.

Yep, okay, makes sense.

The the choice thing is a big deal to me.

I'll come back around and elaborate on that in a minute here.

Okay.

Councilman Hobek, anything tonight?

No questions.

Okay.

Uh Mayor Bertam.

Yeah.

Uh thank you.

Um for the cost estimates here.

Uh so let's just go with the 12745 for single family home.

Does that include any um potential is that just for the system or does it include extra cost for like insulation needs if if they're you know you have to put a another water tank in a unheated area, those types of things do we know?

We didn't we did not receive a ton of detail.

We did ask what is the total cost.

So it's okay.

Yeah, it makes sense.

Um second question would be um on the communities uh the the updated list that we got here.

Um I just want to make sure we're looking at apples to apples because I saw um Frederick was listed in here, but for my understanding Frederick's requirement, it there's there's kind of certain criteria for being uh homes that aren't within one thousand feet of a of a uh fire hydrant or um I think they also have a size limit over homes over 3600 feet, um, or three to hundred square feet.

Um so there's there's sort of additional criteria instead of just basic requirements.

certain criteria for being uh homes that aren't within one thousand feet of a of a uh fire hydrant or um I think they also have a size limit over h homes over thirty six hundred feet um or three hundred square feet um uh so there's there's sort of additional criteria instead of just basic requirements is that so yeah I put that I put the um caveat in there for Frederick I oh okay um that's what I had read yeah okay okay I'm just yeah just making sure we're um the uh the last thing I want to ask based on some of the uh comments we're made just understanding uh so other than this the I'm sorry and this is from what what IFC are we up to date on or what what is our current code IRC is the 2021 2021 so um okay um code 21 fire code 21 okay so uh aside from this we would all other updates from prior years are are being adhered to the builders so we in general are are trying to update our international building code suite of codes every six years on terms of the building side because those tend to not change as frequently as the energy code and we are updating that more frequently um every three years that's our goal so um we update them at slightly different rates but gotcha okay okay but as far as the fire code portion we're as of 2021 we're there is a go for it I believe well the deputy chief can read Jeff Web the fire marshal um the town does not adopt a fire code the fire district adopts the fire code as your protection agency um the town has to ratify our adoption and we've have just last month adopted the 24 code and we'll be submitting it to the town for its ratification shortly okay did anything change with the fire code the sprinkler portion of the fire code um the sprinkler no um that actually we write our fire code as an if then statement because we cover seven jurisdictions four towns and three counties and so and it has a very I'm gonna say bipolar um safety versus cost ratio that it's will that the towns are willing to entertain and the counties and so to the west high safety cost be damned to the east don't spend an extra penny and so the we we build our code to say if the underlying jurisdiction has adopted the residential sprinkler code here's the three features we'd like to see that make it workable for us.

Yep thank you thank you that's all I have so okay do we get everyone one more last question.

Okay go ahead so um sorry a blank note well I'll ask a question I'll give you a second to remember so I want to go back to the choice because it was a big deal to me when we did the study session I understand um council um member mortalero's question about well hold it if we give choice can they even do that do we care I guess is another way to ask this can we adopt something that says um it's a choice and it's up to the any home that is being built on any lot has to have the choice can we write that into our code and expectations I'd have to look into which code we would put it into and also consult with legal to see if that's something that we can require me ask it a different way I think today the um solar panels are not required but we require it as a choice is that a true statement from my knowledge we are only requiring it as um in areas where we've we have a development agreement where with a metro district that was one of the um the elements that they had that the developer had signed on to um so how do we enforce that and and basically can we use the same mechanism if we adopted sprinklers as a choice I will say it's hard to track when um for the for the um solar panels it's we have more of a percentage requirement related to that um and that is again kind of hard to track I would have to look at and um perhaps see if there's something in our energy code that does that may require somebody to provide um solar panel readiness in our in all of our homes and Ed is nodding yes we do require that okay okay so that's in the um the adopted IECC that we have so I again it's finding which vehicle we would place that requirement into which code so I guess

I would have to look at um perhaps see if there's something in our energy code that does that may require somebody to provide um solar panel readiness in our in all of our homes.

And Ed is nodding, yes, we do require that.

Okay.

Okay.

So that's in the um the adopted IECC that we have.

So I again it's finding which vehicle we would place that requirement into which code.

So I guess that's okay.

So I'm hearing it can be done.

You just gotta figure out where to put it.

I think so, yes.

Um I have a bunch of other thoughts, but I'll get to those in the deliberation.

I'll come back to councillor or Pesor Melly in case.

Yeah.

So uh the question was uh we heard about three, four different fees which were making it unaffordable.

Metro district fees, staff fees, sprinkler fees, and something else I didn't write down.

Is there in a way where we can make the home affordable and not compromise safety in terms of reducing fees?

Reducing fees or uh are there any other revenues other than safety?

Because having a solar or not is not going to change anything with safety.

Or you know, things like that where even metro fees maybe are the quarter inch or the three-fourth inch that you mentioned.

I don't know the what the real issue is, but can we charge less and make the home affordable?

Ultimately, I know that the developers will not pass on the savings, they'll sell the home at market.

So whatever we are giving is making it the home effect affordable.

Are there any other avenues?

Well, the fees that we have are related specifically to impacts and so um impacts from development.

And so they would have to be um and we also have permit fees and things like that for our time to review the plans.

So if there's a desire to make homes or specific homes more affordable, I mean that's when we get into our incentives conversation.

And um, and we typically only do that if we've tied it to a certain area median income level.

Um But here what we are seeing is uh the ordinance that we are trying to repeal is for higher homes, single family homes, and those are like million dollar homes, for example.

Uh if you do the math, it's like 30 or 50 dollars more per month.

If you ask our owner who's buying like a million dollar home, can you put a 30 dollar for safety?

They'd be like, yeah.

Even if you force them, they'll be yeah.

But we are putting all this burden on entry-level home, which is a town home.

So I don't see uh reason uh for this one.

Anyway, yeah.

If there is there are no other avenues where we can make the home affordable.

Well, certainly if again you would you could enter into a development agreement with a with a builder or developer to reduce impact fees or permit fees or rebate them.

Um again, that would be a choice by town council and something that you know you would have to identify as an incentive and budget.

Yeah, for that my reason is like why would you lose money on a million dollar home who's ready to pay, right?

So anyway.

So we will be revisiting um impact fees in 2026.

Um likely not to reduce them.

All right.

Um council member um O'Connor.

So along the line with along the lines with uh Councilmember Mortalaro and Mayor Moore, I was thinking about the uh special district review policy point system.

And could um the sprinklers uh um fire sprinkler system be woven into that as a warning points when we're considering special districts.

Certainly, yes, we can add that to the list for consideration.

And how would that would how would the code need to be modified or would it would it need to be we um again it would be something we would track as part of that specific development agreement and um I don't if it we would not have to modify the code.

Um the code would say what you're required to do, but if somebody makes the choice to provide them, whether through a development agreement or individually, we wouldn't have to modify the code.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions?

All right, no question, more questions for staff.

So I'm gonna officially um close the public comment portion of the public hearing and we'll come back to uh board uh deliberation.

Um I think I'm gonna start um this time um just to get my feelings and thoughts out there.

Um safety is an interesting thing, and it's uh a very hard point to debate against um when you're debating, right?

Because everybody wants perfect safety.

But if in fact we as a council on perfect safety, then we should really be looking at the auto accidents in this town because 15 people die in auto accidents for every person that dies in a house fire.

And so under the umbrella that safety is the highest thing we need to consider, then we should be getting with the chief and lowering our speed limits to I don't know, five miles an hour, five, okay, across the entire town.

It would make it really safe to drive our cars, and it would make it really inefficient for us to get around and to do the other things.

So I bring this up in that context because I'm looking at the the sprinkler ordinance as this balance.

And yes, anything you do to take safety down, there will be a fatality somewhere that maybe there wouldn't have been otherwise.

But at what cost is that?

And I think that's the dilemma that we're all um facing, or at least that I'm feeling as we're doing this.

And that's why the choice component of this is important to me, because it then gives the home buyer the choice to say, you know what, this risk to reduce the risk a little bit is um is worth it to me.

I think the other thing that's playing in my mind as I'm trying to figure this out is the I don't even want to call it affordable housing.

It's just the housing costs.

And the less they are, a couple people spoke to this.

You're right.

If you're on that that edge, this may be the thing that just pushes you out.

I do believe the free market sets the price of the homes.

But what is interesting in our market right now is that there isn't as much demand, which means the prices will drop naturally to the point of profitability.

If there is no profitability, they won't pull housing permits because they're not going to build a house that isn't profitable.

And so when you look at it through that lens, if we do lower the cost to build the house, as our economy shifts with less demand, then in fact the prices will drop.

That is economics.

And uh I believe that is what will happen if we do repeal this and we take this cost out, or at least give the choice to the homeowner to make it happen.

Um the townhomes are the thing that um I'm surprised my view changed during the study session because originally I think in townhomes very close together, they should probably have it, but I think it was council member bear that pointed out hold it, that's what we want to make more affordable.

And so, you know, having the double firewalls and having the other mitigation um features that we heard about tonight um are what employ are in place to protect um our residents in those types of um situations.

There's a bunch more on here that I've written down in notes, but I think it really comes down to choice um for me.

And if we can get the choice in there, then I would like to take the um uh the cost burden and put that into the hands of the purchaser of the home.

All right.

Other comments um as we discuss this, Mira Pro Tim.

Sure.

Um agree with uh those points.

And I so I I would just add that I understand there's when it comes to safety.

I mean uh, you know, I I don't think any of us up here want people to be in an unsafe home.

Uh on the flip side, I would say the I don't think the builders are building an unsafe product.

So I I I don't uh it's a question of cost versus risk, and and those are decisions we we have to make all the time.

And uh so one of the things I'm coming across here is that the uh the cost that we're we're hearing these are real costs.

Our staff did uh research into this, and um this is not imagined cost, this is not um you know uh passing on premiums to the consumers, these these are real costs, and um I understand there may be some um savings from the the insurance side of things, but it's it's not balancing out.

Um I brought up before that our our current code um we only require a class three shingle on people's houses here.

Everybody who lives in Erie knows we live in uh hailstorm alley, and uh you know that was a significant increase to a lot of people, a lot of people had their homeowners' insurance dropped because we had so many claims uh in this area.

But you know, I've advocated for you know, if we go to a class four shingle require that depending on the size of your roof, uh maybe a thousand to fifteen hundred more out of your pocket, um, but your insurance savings are way higher than that.

So it's about managing those risks, and uh, I I certainly don't want anybody to be in an unsafe situation.

Um and I I certainly am concerned about you know uh electric cars and uh you know lithium ion batteries and and um the fact that you know you buy an electric car, the entire bottom of the car is uh full of you know lithium ion cells that that um uh you know luckily we haven't seen a whole lot of that.

There have been been some, but um yeah, thermal uh thervil overrun is a real concern, and and um and and but I will say uh from the fires I've seen from thermal overrun, a sprinkler in your house is not gonna suppress that.

And I say that from somebody that comes from um you know in working in the electrical engineering field, um uh but I would say that for what we need to do.

I I I agree that having consumers make that choice, I I think is is probably the best option here, and I think a lot of people would, but the most concerning thing that I see to this, because when this came up and I remember raising concerns about it at the time, and also with our impact fees, and it it bore out to be true, is that you know, I think in a typical month, um, we would have between two and you know, 200 to 500 building permits.

We we've had less than 50 building permits in the last uh four months, and and I'm waiting to see what October's numbers are.

So there's um there's a problem here because if we're not issuing the building permits, we're not collecting those fees that we use to pay for everything else.

And when we uh negotiate all those fees, like all the way we set our budget when we had the budget discussion earlier, all those come off those numbers and projections that that uh you know that we need to have.

And the other problem that we have, we're not building homes right now, or the builders aren't building homes right now.

And so then you run into more of a supply issue and less supply, that drives up cost again.

Um so um this is uh something that I I hope that we see the technology with this, that those costs for fire suppression come down to a point where one day those costs will meet, but we're not there right now.

And I I certainly understand from the the and I'm so appreciative of our of our fire protection district, uh everybody in Mountain View and everybody that works in um uh uh firefighting, but um and they have they got to make their cost controls because they have budgets too, and and so I totally understand that point.

Um the one thing that I I did hear that I I do maybe want us to address a little bit is is that because they are an approval authority, is that um if we've had areas where we've approved housing with spacing based on you know having this in there, I I'm not sure how we'll work that out, but I guess that's uh a TBD TBD discussion.

But um, I I do support uh turning this into a um uh into a uh option for the home buyer.

All right, thank you.

Uh Councilman Petstromelli.

So I have two things things like one is um when you say choice, do would you be like a choice of no seat belts in the car or in an airplane?

So when it goes to that safety level, we have to at least give some things that need to come from an authority, and when you make a choice of driving a bike without a helmet, or speed limit is 30, and you're driving 70, you get into an accident and you made that choice.

So some things as decision makers, we need to put that as a restriction in a way.

And enforce it so that it gets implemented and we take care safety at a different level.

And the lithium ion case is a very, very corner case.

We have to look at the 70, 80% cases that we can solve by having a sprinkler.

And also lives of the firefighters, how much does it mean?

Like we're always thinking from a resident perspective.

People who are working in that situation.

This might save their lives.

So another thing I was thinking is somebody said most of the time people are not home or but there are pets in the home who like you know, we we don't even think that this will happen.

And it'll save them, and they don't have a voice.

So those are the things that I thought and safety first.

We should implement this.

Not on a town home level where it's an entry.

It should be on all three homes.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Council More Bear.

Thank you.

Um Yeah, thank you.

I I agree, balance is important, and that's why we do look at you know, road safety in the in the town, and we're constantly looking for ways to improve multimodal safety, um pedestrian safety as well as as drivers.

Um in fact, we're doing the neighborhood speed mitigation study and everything right now.

So it along those lines that you know we are required as a town and as policymakers to think about that balance.

Um in this conversation over the past several months, I haven't heard anything that um inspires me to go against the advice of our fire protection first responders.

Um when we're talking about cost saving, I appreciate that it takes a lot to balance budgets and make projects pencil out.

Um, but I haven't heard anything that will really bring those costs down as far as permits, the tap fee is is waived, not waived, but the increase is waived.

Uh so we've done those things there.

Um to Councilmember Pasmerelli's point, um when they tried to put or decided that it was time to make some safety improvements in automobiles.

Oh my goodness, the hell that was raised over the requirement for seat belts.

Um and how important, how many lives has has that saved in the time since then?

But I have a page of thoughts here.

Um there's no commitment from home builders to reduce the cost of non-sprinkled homes.

I think that was a good point from our public commenters.

Um there's more than just building materials that we're considering here.

Um it's in a five-minute flash point, we're talking about sofas and and clothes and shoes and all the things we bring into the home that are flammable.

Um I agree with you, Mayor Putin Bell.

I don't think that our home builders are building an unsafe product at all.

Um, I just think what can we do to prioritize safety, and and I think that should be our our lens that we're looking through.

Um, also from a sustainability aspect that wasn't brought up this evening, but sprinkled homes use significantly less water to put out fires, and I think I'm remembering right, it was around 70% less water generally, and I think that that's an important aspect in the in the region and in the area that we live.

Um honestly increasing survival rate rate by 90% is extremely compelling.

Um so when we talk about costs, you cannot put a cost or a price on on life, and I think that that is sort of the underlying um element that there's just no argument against that.

Um what I said about town homes in the study session was that I didn't want to disincentivize development of townhomes by requiring sprinklers only in town homes.

Um we do need to see multifamily development, and so if we eliminate it for single-family homes, require it for a different you know, density, we may be disincentivizing that development.

So I've also spoken with a fire chief outside of the um study session, and it was mentioned that regional requirements actually bring down the cost for um sprinkler systems, and it will become more affordable.

So it's not like well, we can just wait for it to be more affordable, we kind of have to force that by joining our neighbors, um, our neighboring municipalities and bringing those uh costs down by requiring it.

Um and then the building permits um is concerning, but we knew after the the water round table that um and when we paused to to do the water round table, we were we knew that there would be more building permits pulled in those few months in order to get the lower rate, and then um once the rates were raised to that or I'm sorry, the fees were raised, then um we were likely to see fewer.

So that is something we were expecting, and then I think it's exacerbated by um the uh economy and just kind of what we're seeing in the in the world right now.

So anyway, I all that to say I just am not compelled to vote against the advice of our fire protection district and um appreciate them helping to keep us informed because we certainly are not the experts, and um just I appreciate the education.

So thank you.

Okay, councilmember Marchallero.

Um well, thanks everybody for for coming out.

I you know appreciate all the information.

Uh definitely appreciate our our firefighters and all that they do, and especially being here tonight.

Um, you know, speaking on this, your your uh primary concern is community safety, and and I really appreciate that.

Um, if if you ask me, you know, Garpe Blanche, you know, what do I prefer affordability or safety?

I'm a safety kind of guy, I always pick safety.

Um but I also see that you know we are um with the building fees that that we have here, um, we are in the highest bracket um of the communities around us, and this adds uh to us possibly putting us toward the the very top, which is a concern.

Um but that solely alone wouldn't be the reason for my um my vote.

Uh water damage is is a very big concern of mine.

Um I had an ice maker in my refrigerator that leaked, it was behind the fridge.

So by the time we got it, it caused mold in the house.

Um and so even if I were to move, I wouldn't move into a home with a with a sprinkler system.

I instead I I choose to have a monitored security system that has fire uh police and uh uh carbon monoxide uh as part of the system that's monitored, and um uh we my wife when she was cooking uh said it off, and the fire department was there for quite quickly.

Um so uh I I realize that still it would be more damaged than if I had a sprinkler system, but the the other concerns around mold is you know, I I have to to weigh that.

So um, you know, so when I I look at this, I have to look at it from all aspects, and you know, so that's kind of where why I'm I'm leaning against our or leaning forward the removal of the sprinkler systems.

All right.

Councilmember O'Connor.

Thank you.

So um my work takes me into a lot of homes around uh in and around Erie.

Um so I've had a chance to have some conversations since the study session.

There was a new resident from New York uh who moved into Sunset Village and was commenting to me how expensive things are.

And well, before that, he mentioned, oh, I'd like the I like that there's sprinkler systems in the house.

He was a um underwriter for travelers insurance.

And he um he said, Yeah, I like I like the idea of sprinkler systems, and then mentioned that things were expensive.

And I asked, what if I told you that the sprinklers probably cost you seven to ten thousand dollars?

Would you still have wanted them?

And he said no.

And I asked him how much was his insurance insurance savings?

22 dollars annually.

Was his savings?

Um another client down in Broomfield, uh multi multi-unit building, 62 and older.

She moved in to her new unit, and after one month, there was a problem with the sprinkler system, and it flooded several units below.

She was displaced for six months while they went out and tore out all the drywall and everything down to the framing to rebuild all those units.

Um of the downsides, or along council member Mortalaro's comments regarding water damage.

Um that just recently happened.

Um I struggle with this one safety versus cost.

Um, I do think that uh I would like to see it weaved into the special district um policy or this um special district review policy point system.

I think that would be a good way to um incentivize builders to do this if they choose to do so.

I think it could be problematic to do it house by house just because the spacing would be different for some, or you would have to set the spacing to the widest non-sprinklered standard, and then they would have to upgrade the tap in order to not have a tank in the attic, and all that brings um to the table with problems.

And so I think it can be better brought into that point system policy than house by house.

But anyway, that's my thoughts on this.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Hoback.

Thank you.

Um thanks everyone for uh your public comments and uh contributing to our conversation.

Um lots and lots of numbers uh from people in different walks of life, different dogs in the hunt, um builders and residents and fire departments and suppression people uh installers.

Um it's all been a really good balanced conversation.

I appreciate that.

Um lot of numbers being conflated in here, um metro district policy, which uh unfortunately was necessary to uh rein in some of the uh unacceptable behavior that was going on with some of them.

Um water tap fees, which our residents want because they want new growth to pay for new growth.

Um so that's that's kind of a can versus can't um question.

Um the national economy, uh most of the prices of our homes, the increases occurred uh before we adopted the uh residential the IRD IRC uh uh international residential residential code.

Um so that policy is not the uh to blame for the increase in in in in homes, home prices.

Um you know, and as far as bringing home prices down to meet demand, it's not your town council's uh job to uh uh forfeit safety to reach affordable uh points of of uh of sale for price houses.

Um I think the the choice discussion is a bit problematic um because that will be price-driven and uh inequitable from home to home.

Um two points made by councilmember Pesro Melee and Councilmember Bear, um, you know, what about the fire department?

What about our fire department's lives?

Um the statistics generally um prove out in a very compelling way that sprinklers save lives.

Um I am hard pressed to turn our town's policy and code back 15 years, a decade and a half, um, to when the sprinklers were not required um to uh protect growth, protect profits.

Um I'll be voting on no uh on this.

It would be my hope um that perhaps um home builders could could band together and get uh get the state to pass something requiring sprinklers and uh create some uh scales of uh economic scales of economy in getting these things done.

Um but for right now I think uh it's uh relatively small price to to pay for for a lot of people's safety.

I can't put a price on uh anyone losing a life in uh in a house fire.

Thank you.

Okay, now I've got to try to navigate um how do we get a motion because we I think clearly have a split board.

Um and I think the way that this is written now doesn't actually achieve um what we're doing because this is a full repeal, it doesn't take into consideration the choice portion if I understand this correctly.

Let me move one more sentence and then I'll come right back to you, Sarah.

Um on section one um 912B 48, it says section R313 is deleted in its entirety.

If we made a motion to adopt this ordinance, the change item 48 to read um section R313 is required as an option um for all homes by the home builder as an option of the buyer.

Does that work?

Legal question?

So I think it's either a requirement and it or it's not.

Um so we're just setting the baseline for the requirements by code.

And if developers want to build something above that requirement, they're welcome to.

But I don't think necessarily in our code, we need to spell out that option.

I think it's always an option for them to do more.

Um, but our code generally just states what the requirement is from the town and doesn't provide options to go above and beyond that.

Okay, but that poses the dilemma in the sense that um I sense that um there are a number of us on council that want that to be an option of the home buyer.

So how how do you do that then?

Um so I think for the town to mandate it as a requirement, you either must do it generally through the building code or as Sarah was saying, through development agreements.

Um but otherwise I'm not sure the town has the ability to be selective in applying the requirement.

How are we selective in applying the requirements for solar panels as an option for EV charges as an option?

I think that's a great example.

And the way that what your code says right now is the bare minimum that you must do is be EV ready and solar ready, and that's it.

If the developer wants to go above that and actually put panels on the roof, that's their decision, but the town plays no role in that decision.

So there is no way for the town to say that sprinklers should be an option.

In other words, you gotta make it available for those that want it.

There's there's absolutely no way legally to do that.

If we were to look at something that was like sprinkler ready, um that would counselor O'Connor um made a good uh point in that there are a lot of elements that feed into being able to provide sprinklers, so you would actually need to have one-inch lines um built into the development, and those are more expensive than a three-quarter inch line.

So it does have an impact on an entire development project just to make something ready for sprinklers, because you're not gonna go under, you know.

If somebody should say, oh, I want um you know, sprinklers, then you would have you'd have to dig up and replace a yeah, no, I'm just to be clear.

I'm not asking for um a whole development to be sprinkler ready where you put in one inch taps and then you let somebody make a decision down the road.

I'm saying at the time of contract when you can still make the decisions to put a one-inch tap in or a three-quarter inch tap in.

The developers order um the line, the one-inch lines a lot earlier than they would have somebody under a contract.

So I I this is something that we would have to certainly look at and see if it's feasible to have that option be easy enough to you know include in every development.

I think there would be implications that we we may not be recognizing right now.

Yeah, okay.

So I think I think under if I could real quick, Mayor.

Okay, yeah.

Um name name and what you do for the reason.

Yeah, David Pass, Public Works Director.

Um, the concept of choice, you'd have to have identified lots ahead of time.

Otherwise, to Sarah's point, if you choose to opt for sprinklers, you would have to dig up the line, replace the tap, and make it a one-inch tap to elect to make it a sprinklered system.

So you'd either have to do specified lots that have that ability or something else, because we require all waterline and infrastructure in place before we will even release building permits.

So I think you're kind of looking at a carrot stick situation.

If you want to go the incentive route, we can certainly discuss that at a later time of how we could incentivize folks to um opt in to where uh Council More O'Connor was going with the incentive.

And we're going to take that up.

I'm forgetting when we're going to take that back up, looking at the Metro District incentives.

That doesn't handle all the other developments that are already underway, though.

Yeah, I don't think we're taking that up until sometime next year.

And it only addresses new developments, not all those that are already under construct uh under development.

I'd like to take a ten minute recess here just to get my thoughts around this and maybe chat with you and then we'll come back.

Um, it seems like we're in this point to make it a big decision, but yet um it's a it's a binary decision, and if that's the case, I may want to continue this if there is support from the council to continue it until we can work through this.

Um or not, and we'll just uh I mean, my support waivers if we if we're not able to create a scenario where people have a choice.

So let's let's uh take a ten minute break here.

We'll reconvene at nine fifteen, and then we'll figure out where we go.

Um, this

And uh continue our deliberation and direction here.

Okay, after a brief conversation with our attorney and our uh director of uh community development, um there are really the these three scenarios that are playing out here that um uh probably need a little bit more thought before um we can move forward.

The first one is that we have platted lots today that have one inch lines in anticipation of the sprinkler systems going in, because that's our current code.

And the fire hydrant situation in that is likely the fire hydrants are spaced further apart, um, simply because the homes have fire sprinklers in them, and that is the way it's set up.

And so in that scenario, at least on the surface at the moment, with very little um in-depth understanding, uh, those would have to be built with sprinklers.

Just otherwise you'd have to cheer up the streets, put in more fire hydrants and and figure that out.

That's one scenario.

Another scenario are approved but non uh platted lots that would if we put the choice in, they would still have to put one inch lines to every single lot, but they would probably also have to pay for the fire hydrants closer, because if you give choice, then you know, maybe I don't know, 30% of the people choose to put the sprinklers in, but you gotta still be able to deal with the situation for the other uh two-thirds.

And then we have uh the last scenario, which are uh developments that haven't even been approved, and what's the incentives, and this is where uh council member O'Connor um you know brought up the special um district and how do we incentivize in that?

And so um I'm thinking that the right thing here is to not get in a hurry and to basically let staff and our attorneys go back and look at this and to see if there's a way to put choice in.

Um, because my vote gets uh a little wobbly.

I don't know about the others that are leaning towards repealing this, but my vote certainly gets questionable if the whole choice component is thrown out because there isn't a way to do it.

Um so with that, I want to see if uh we have a motion uh to continue item twenty-five four eighty-five.

Um the ordinance of the town council of the town of Erie amending section nine one two of the Erie Municipal Code to remove the automatic uh sprinkler system requirements.

Um in the international resident code to March twenty-fourth uh twenty twenty-six.

Move to continue the hearing to March 24th.

Or 20 sorry, 2020.

March 24th, 2026.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion.

All right.

All in favor say yes.

Yes.

Yes.

All opposed, say no.

All right.

So we will continue this to 24th.

It's an ongoing discussion.

I think we're learning as we're going.

Um I would have hoped this would have come up at the study session, but clearly it is so nuanced.

We learned some new things here tonight that we'll keep this conversation going.

So thank you.

And thank you for everybody who came out and spoke.

I know it's a journey that we're on.

All right.

Um, we are moving forward to staff um or council reports.

And so how about I just turn to my left and uh start with council member bear.

Thank you so much.

Um first wanna give a shout out to Parksy Rec for Boo on Briggs.

It was a great um turnout for Boo on Briggs.

Uh yet again, I think it's one of our most popular events.

Um super fun.

And then uh see congratulations, Chief, on our new um code enforcement officer.

We welcomed him.

I'm so sorry, I'm forgetting his name.

Shout it out.

Nope.

Okay.

Oh name name of the code enforcement officer.

New code enforcement officer.

What's his name?

Kyle Pendlson.

Pendleton, Sir Pendlesson.

And Lee Mathis, Chief of Police, she's a very anxious young man, very experienced, worked in Sheridan for a couple years.

Yep, jumped in with two feet, rescued some rock brothers.

Yeah, in the deep end for sure.

Can we have him call Steven Tebow to get the two dead trees in from the safe way removed with urgency?

Yes, Mayor.

Yeah, yeah.

He's on it.

Okay.

And then we had a NATO meeting last week.

It was a really meaty meeting.

We had talked about a lot.

CDOT came and gave an update on the 10-year plan, which they've delayed adopting until next March.

So we'll continue to advocate because one of the things that was illuminated is that the Colorado 7 and its entirety is not included in the 10-year plan.

And we need it to be in order to advocate for the all the improvements along the corridor.

And then we heard from uh RTD as well.

So exciting stuff there.

Um, what I really want to announce and discuss is that um, you know, kind of in response to what's going on in the world right now.

Um, we're kicking off a town wide donation drive tomorrow.

Um it'll start October 29th and go through November 5th.

Um it'll be a food drive with donation drop-offs at the Vec Center and at the Erie Police Department.

Thanks so much again, Chief, um, for hosting that.

And um the food donations will support Erie Community Food Bank and Sister Carmen.

Those are two uh community-based organizations that are on the ground in Erie feeding Erie residents.

Um then we'll also be pushing this on our social media um and encourage all of you to push it on your social media with links to donate directly to um all four CBOs that are uh operate in Erie that include the food bank and Sister Carmen and also Col Creek Meals on Wheels and Erie Uplink.

And um I spoke with all of those entities, they're ready and prepared to receive donations and and really need it right now.

Um Sister Carmen has seen an increase in their food daily food uh bank visits from households to about a hundred households a day.

And Cole Creek Meals on Wheels um said that Erie is their second fastest growing service area, and that their fastest growing um demographic is young families.

So there's definitely a need that we can step into and I look forward to um being able to work as a community to address these needs.

So look for the QR codes um in on social media on the posters.

When you drop off food, there will be QR codes uh in the bins or next to the bin so that you can scan those and make a direct donation if you prefer.

So thank you.

All right, Councilmember Mortalero.

All right.

Well, just uh reminder Halloween is on Friday.

So um Halloween on Friday is gonna be busier than usual.

Uh have fun, but please be safe.

Uh drivers, please go slow, watch out for the kids.

Uh and on the note of having a safe, fun Halloween event.

Uh Erie Police Department is hosting a Halloween get together from four to six on Friday.

So uh check that out.

Also, election day is next Tuesday.

And um, we had our first um Erie Open Space and Lafayette Open Space Um meeting uh yesterday uh for collaboration.

It was a very uh it was great meeting, a lot of good input.

So I wanted to thank the Lafayette team, uh Ostab and Luke and the park and rec uh team for supporting all that.

So all right, Councilmember Hoback.

Umber Baird, can you give us a little dates again, please for the drives?

Uh yeah, donation drive is October 29th through November 5th.

Um yeah, I wanted to know that and uh echo uh Councilmember Mortalero's uh wishes for a happy Halloween and a safe Halloween drivers, especially.

Be careful.

That's all I have.

All right, Councilman Pes from Ellie.

Oh yeah, I wanted to wish um happy Divali.

Everyone we celebrated last week, and most of the town home homes started at Lee Halloween.

That thing and um yeah, safe Halloween people drive safely.

Good stuff on the road.

Thank you.

Council O'Connor.

So last night, uh Councilmember Passarmelli and I were at the Historic Preservation Advisory Board, and two certificates of appropriateness came before that board.

One we'll see pretty soon, and that's for the Schofield uh barn and brooder building.

And that's to basically turn that eventually into a restroom facility for the complex.

But the second one, this picture is pretty appropriate for.

Town staff discovered that the bell is still in the bell tower.

And there's louvers over the bell tab over those openings.

On the sides.

And kudos to town staff for suggesting this idea of removing the louvers and replacing them with windows so that and spotlighting and glass.

Love it.

And they can then have the bell spotlit so that it can be more of a feature of the building, which is was built in 1906.

So hats off to town staff for coming up with that idea.

And HPAB was excited about it.

They did delay it because there is questions regarding material appropriateness because that is a nationally uh registered building.

Um and who's gonna ring the bell?

I mean, that's you gotta figure that out.

So ring it before every council meeting.

I don't know.

Great.

That's it.

That's all I have.

I may be qualified for that.

Oh, that's true.

All right, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you.

Um yeah, I'll obviously just uh thank you, Councilmember Mortal Oro.

Yeah, uh have a safe Halloween and and uh looking looking forward to seeing all the the kids with costumes out there.

Um and yeah, the uh uh council member bearer that yeah, we had a great uh uh boo on brig, so always a great event this last weekend.

So um yep, be careful on Friday night and hope everyone has a good time.

Um I did just want to uh give a quick shout out to uh Weld County Commissioner uh Kevin Ross.

Uh he announced that he will not be running for re-election, so this this next year will be his last year, and uh he is somebody through my time on the Board of Trustees and town council.

Um we're kind of with each other, other step of the way.

We will also exit together because I can't run again um in 26.

So um, but uh he is somebody that uh anytime uh I had an issue and I I picked up the phone and uh he was always there to answer.

Uh just an incredible guy.

So uh just want to thank him for a service.

He's still got a year left, so you know what is not done, but or you know, uh, so I I called him up.

I said, hey Kevin, what what do you want to get done next year?

So um uh looking forward to working with him one more year.

Um he is a Wyoming grad.

I am a CSU grad.

Other than that, he's a terrific person.

Uh uh that was not a good Saturday night.

Uh so you get you got us this year, Kevin.

Hopefully, um we'll get things worked out for next year.

Wasn't it much better for CU.

So um, yeah, it was not not a but hey, go Broncos.

So yeah, we had one local team here do well.

So um that with that, that's all I have.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

And uh I just have one quick thing.

Um I was out the last meeting, so I want to thank Mayor Pro Tem um Bell for uh running the meeting right before the meeting, um, the week before I was able to meet with the Meadowlark first graders.

Uh what a great experience.

They split the classes up and uh just being able to talk to them.

They had some great questions for me.

And uh when I got in today, I had 60 uh thank you uh notes, and uh that's the part of the job that is um uh speaks to the soul, and I really appreciated being out there.

All right, with that, um I will turn it over to the mayor pro tem to take us into executive session.

Thank you.

Uh mayor, I moved to go into executive session to hold a conference with the town attorney to receive legal advice on specific legal questions pursuant to CRS 20 2464024B to determine positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations, develop a strategy for negotiations, and or instruct negotiators pursuant to CRS 246 402 4E, all regarding the Stratus Red Tell Ranch litigation.

All right, do we have a second?

Second.

All right, all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no.

All right, motion carries.

We will go into executive session.

We will not be coming back out here.

The meeting will convene at the end of the executive session.