Okay, will the town clerk please take roll council member Hobak?

Here.

Mayor Moore?

Here.

Councilmember Passamarelli.

Present.

Councilmember Baer.

Present.

Mayor Pro Tem Bell.

Here.

Council Member O'Connor.

Present.

And Councilmember Mortalauer.

Here.

Mayor, you have a quorum.

All right.

I'm going to make one adjustment to the agenda tonight and then ask for approval, and that is to postpone item 25246, a resolution of the town of Erie Council adopting the town Erie Resolu Resilience Action Plan.

There are some questions that came up from one of the council members, so we're going to push that off to a future meeting.

So with that one adjustment, do we have a motion to approve the agenda?

Can I ask a question about since we already had a study session about the resilience action plan?

Is it I'm just curious if there are questions that can't be answered via email?

Perhaps.

And if that happens, then we'll just bring it back to a future agenda.

Okay.

So are we having another meeting to uh to talk about it?

Possibly.

And this is where I'll work with the um town manager to uh to get that scheduled.

Okay.

All right.

Do we have a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved.

Second.

All right, motion is second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

All right.

We have an agenda tonight.

Um we'll go right into the consent agenda.

Please bear with me.

We have quite a few items tonight, so I'll read through these for the record, and then we'll get into the um into public comment and the main part of our meeting tonight.

All right, the first item is 25578 approval of the October 7th, 2025 town council meeting minutes.

The second item is 25621, approval the October 28, 2025 town council meeting minutes.

Item 25622, approval of the November 4th, 2025 town council special meeting minutes.

Item 25583, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving a second amendment to the construction manager at risk contract with France and Pittman Construction for the Erie Police Department expansion and remodel.

Next item is 25587, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving the assignment of the energy performance contract from Icon Energy Limited to Icon Energy CEGLC.

Next item is 2559.

25559, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving the fourth amendment to agreement for the professional services with Burns and McDonald Engineering Company Incorporated for construction management services for zone three Dweld County Road 7 waterline improvements.

Item 25560, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving a second amendment to the agreement to for professional services with a T Operations LLC for construction management services for Weld County Road 3 bridge replacement improvements.

Next item is 25599, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving amendment number one to 20 first interim agreement with the Northern Integrated Supply Project, otherwise known as NISC NISP Water Activity Enterprise for participation in the Northern Integrated Supply Project.

Okay, that was a mouthful.

Keep going here.

Item 25600, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving the second amendment to the development agreement for westerly filing number two.

Next item is 25535, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving a construction contract with JOC Construction LLC for the Sunset Area Trails Phase 1 project.

Item 25620, a resolution of the town council town of Erie approving a construction agreement with JOC Construction LLC for the Coal Creek Reuse Waterline Upsizing.

And the last item is 25616, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving a certificate of appropriateness for the demolition of the siren tower at the old Erie Town Hall, Erie Chamber of Commerce at 235 Wells Street.

All right, do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So move.

Second.

All right.

So we have a motion by Council Member Mortalero and Mayor Pro Tem Bell did the second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

All right.

We've gotten through the consent agenda and we'll go right into public comment.

I'll look to our town clerk to see if anybody has signed up tonight.

No.

No one online either.

Is there anybody in the audience who would like to address this tonight?

Okay.

We're gonna keep moving on.

We have three items tonight.

I will say that in between the second and third item, we're gonna shift the way the uh council chambers are set up.

So we will leave the dais and we'll get um into a study session format for that last item.

The first item though is a very important item.

It's 25610, a public hearing, a resolution of the town council of the town at Erie adopting the 2026 budget.

And uh this particular um journey, we've done many, many study sessions, and we've had uh one overview just a few weeks ago.

And with that, I'll welcome back Sarah Hancock, our finance director and Cassie uh Bethune um budget and finance manager.

All right, good evening, Mayor and Council.

Thank you so much for having us for the final, hopefully final um budget presentation.

Um we're thrilled to show this to you tonight.

Um it is pretty much unchanged from what you saw from first reading um with uh one minor change.

So we're gonna get into it.

We're gonna review everything one last time and make sure you don't have any questions.

Um, and then we'll be ready to hopefully adopt.

And I'm gonna interrupt you just for a second, just so I could say the words that we are officially opening the public hearing.

Great call.

Awesome.

Okay, so um again, I'm not gonna go through the agenda here, but just so you're aware, we're gonna basically go through all of the summaries that we've seen before.

Um, so with that, we are going to review what we did change, which again are not actually changing the numbers, but changing how we're looking at the numbers.

Kessie Bethun, budget and fiscal manager.

So this is what we had talked about in the first reading where we're plugging in the anticipated debt issuances that we're planning for projects, such as the PD expansion, the new water treatment plant, and additional projects that we have going on in storm drainage.

So to do this, we just wanted to show a balanced budget since we're anticipating to spend the money.

We want to show the money that we're anticipating to get that'll fund it just to give a better picture overall.

That was the only change that we made from the last one.

And so this is the fund balance summary.

The only changes you'll see on here were just to the water, wastewater, and storm drainage fund.

The general fund, we already had the debt, it was just a miniscellaneous income before, so we just moved that over.

Um, so there was no change to the total revenues on the general fund from the last reading, just on those enterprise funds.

And here's the general fund summary.

This is the same as before.

So we've got a spendable fund balance at the end after all projected expenditures of about three 15.3 million.

If we include the turn back, then that actually goes up to 19.7 million.

And the turn back again is just what we project will not be spent by the end of the year.

And we'll go back to fund balance.

So looking at our revenue predictions, these were hitting the major categories.

The main thing that I want to point out once again was that on those building and development with the permits and use tax, that negative one percent is from the current budget, not from actuals.

And so we have seen a bigger decrease from last year's actuals, but that is just from the current budget.

Uh and then the same thing here.

We were just going through this is the same as you saw in the first reading.

We had no changes on the expenditures.

Uh one more reminder the change is six and a half on the positions there.

That was because we did have a reduction from freezing the affordable housing manager position and a reduction in part-time hours.

And so that's why we have six and a half, despite that we added nine positions.

And I'll also point out here that um capital, you'll see that large amount in capital in the budget, and then the estimates are quite a bit lower.

That is because we do anticipate that many of the capital projects will roll over year over year because many of them are multi-year.

So you'll see that in our first supplemental uh early in 2026.

And just at a high level, um, we will uh we have focused a lot of the budget on um the council priorities that we've heard throughout this year, um, as well as many of the multi-year projects that have been um part of the priorities for Erie for many years, and that includes many of our parks, um many of our uh trails and open spaces.

Um we've also focused uh our debt service on expanding the police building and ensuring that we have um sufficient funding for our ADA transition plan, and as we look forward to that.

We also have uh quite a bit of funding um in place for our water supply, um, and that includes uh designing our water treatment plant, and that is where our large portion of our debt funding is in the budget.

And then finally, we are funding some mission critical positions, um, and those positions are uh pretty much contained to uh the general fund as well as some self-funded positions, including the conservation trust fund and then the water fund, wastewater fund, and storm drainage fund, which are all accounted for in our rate study each year.

And then just to overview um some of the reductions that we did go through.

We did take a very strong look at our personnel.

So we will only be doing a uh 2% merit on um full-time staff along with the 2% grade movement that we do for all staff, and we are not doing a merit increase for part-time employees, and we also took a very hard look at our long-range staffing plan, which uh resulted in only those nine uh total new FTEs, and uh we also included 4.4 million in operating reductions across all funds.

And then finally, our capital improvement plan is quite large this year, um, and a great deal of it is uh relying on debt.

Um, and as usual, uh our water fund and our utilities um takes up the bulk of that because uh water is a very expensive component of our uh capital improvement plan.

Um, and here's just a summary of some of our most expensive uh capital projects, which include this year um mine mitigation at town center and ECC to help support um that those projects as well as street maintenance projects in particular in our capital improvements fund.

That fund, those are the highest value in those funds.

Um, and then you can see some other uh projects in particular um that are supported by some of the other impact funds.

You can see Morgan Hill and Compass Park, those are those phase one projects that were a big priority for the council included in the parks improvement impact fund, and in future years we do have unfunded but phase two planned projects included in the planning process.

And then you can see the police and facilities impact fund, um, that PD courts expansion, which will be a component of the COP's issuance that we will be bringing to you in January.

And then finally, you'll see in the water fund uh the water treatment facility.

Um partial of that will be uh cash funded, and partial of that will be uh debt funded.

And then I'm going to let Cassie talk through the general fund forecast.

Okay, just once again, this is the same as the first reading.

Uh the main thing here is that we are staying above our minimum fund balance projected out through all the way through 2030 for our whole five year forecast.

Our available resources are above what we're planning to spend, and we will continue to watch what happens to uh plan out those future years.

And I will just draw your attention to the center here of debt.

Um, that purple bar is going to be where our uh debt payments for the remaining payment on the ECC, the police facilities, as well as the anticipated COP's issuance are all budgeted and well within our ability to make those debt payments.

So those are planned for and anticipated out in perpetuity for the remaining payments.

And then finally, for our CIP or in particular our CIF, our uh Capital Improvements Fund.

Um, we are pretty healthy through 2028, but again, um just highlighting that we will have to continue to really watch this fund and consider what projects we will want to prioritize in the future and consider what may need to be um you know uh consider for different alternative funding sources.

And finally, this keeps getting smaller.

Um, we will be bringing back to you the final end of year supplemental, which is just a cleanup of any final uh items that we need to uh get short up before the end of the year.

Um, and we will also be bringing a very short presentation um on the mill levy certification.

We'll show you how we do that uh calculation, uh, what it will look like for folks whenever they look at their tax bill, and um we'll have you uh certify the mill levy for the end of the year and move into 2026.

So with that, uh we are ready for any questions or discussion that you have.

All right, I think we'll first go to public comment if anybody is uh signed up to address this tonight on the budget.

2026 budget.

We don't have anybody who's signed up in the room.

Nobody online either.

Okay, just making sure there's nobody in the audience who would like to address us on this topic.

All right, wonderful.

Um I'll bring it back to council uh for any questions.

See, we've done if anybody's watching this and you're thinking we're just rubber stamping things.

Oh my gosh, that we spend a year um just hashing things out and um all the good work and helping educate us and our questions and back and forth.

And so I know there's a lot more work than what appears to be uh happening tonight.

Um I do have one question, page 14 page properties on there for a million dollars for public works.

Remind me what that one is for.

So let's see here.

So I will have to defer to um our director, David Passick.

Um, but I will say that I believe that that is simply for some conceptual planning, but I will let him speak more specifically.

Good evening, uh council uh David Passick Public Works Director.

Um the additional funding uh presented in the budget is contingent upon the direction uh to be given by council.

We're gonna have a discussion later tonight and probably in the future as well about the village of Cole Creek uh parks and open space facility.

Um so that's to help advance the final design efforts with that with that that are planned contingent upon council direction.

So okay, yeah, just making sure that conversation is still to play out tonight.

So even if we approve the budget, I'm I want to make sure it's on record that until we actually give direction that nobody should be going out and spending um spending that money until we know.

And in that amount, nobody could spend it without bringing it to you.

So you're in good shape.

Right.

And I'll be there if we go out there and just build a few things.

No, sir.

Yeah, and I'll clarify too.

If if we get direction to not move forward with that property, we'll be bringing forward for your consideration an alternative plan to uh further explore the laws facility expansion after that.

So got it.

And this is for public works on that property, not for parks and rec.

Uh good question.

That is for the parks and open space facility.

Um, but the facilities team is leading that project, which falls under public works.

Got it.

Yep.

Okay.

All right.

I don't have any further questions.

Uh oh, go ahead and um just uh for the public uh here.

They're probably if you're if anyone's reading through this and they'll look at that slide 17.

So just uh I know we've talked before about uh through the community survey that you know possible sales tax or things to help fund some of those.

So obviously with those uh with the addition of something like that, that could help fund that capital improvement fund.

So yeah, okay.

So it's not all doom and glow more.

Absolutely not.

Um it, you know, we fund the the capital improvement fund with excess fund balance from uh the general fund, but we can fund it with any um funding source that the council you know sees fit, and that includes uh a sales tax, a property tax.

So if the voters see that that is a source that they would like to for a particular project, a particular area, we can certainly make that happen um if that's what the voters choose to do.

Sure.

Yep.

All right, councilmember Mortalera.

I just wanted to thank staff for all the work, all the study sessions, the um the emails, the first readings, uh, everything.

Appreciate it.

I realize we all understand we don't want a what a heavy lift this is.

So thank you very much.

All right, with that, I'll see if there's a motion to approve resolution 25190 and the attached schedule A.

So moved.

Second.

Motion is second.

Let me close the public hearing.

We have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

Councilmember O'Connor.

The um there was a resident comment regarding that 86 million for it.

Would you mind just providing some background just so absolutely?

I'm so happy that you brought that up.

So um I can totally understand where there would be confusion around that.

Uh, in the current fiscal year, we did budget um for the public safety building in anticipation of issuing COPs and moving forward with that project.

Um, we are still in design and getting ready to move into construction.

And so in the current year, there is still um $39 million budgeted for that.

It has not been spent.

So that money will just fall off into fund balance at the end of the year unspent.

Uh the $47 million for next year will then be reappropriated into that account, and that will be backfilled with the COPs as the funding source.

So only that 47 million dollars is actually appropriated and will be spent for the PD building.

The 39 million dollars for this current year will not be spent on the building.

So while it might look like those two uh amounts are the full amount, they're just the budgeted amounts, they are not what is being spent on the building.

So thank you for that because I could totally understand why that might be confusing if you're just looking at it from a pure purely year-to-year number amount.

Makes sense.

Thank you.

Of course.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Um all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no.

All right, motion carries.

We have a budget uh for 2026.

All right, um, we'll move on to our second of three items tonight.

It's 25603, a resolution of the town council of town of Erie adopting the town's fee schedule for 2026.

And you're back with us.

All right, sir, it's all yours.

So good evening, Council.

Again, my name's Sarah Hancock.

I'm the finance director, and I am here to show you what we typically uh bring forth with the budget.

The departments are asked to update their fees every year with the budget.

This is usually brought forth with uh cost of um inflationary increases, um, or if we had a rate study in previous years, if that dictated an increase to it, for instance, in this year water rates, this is where we bring those uh changes forward.

Um this year um we have an increase in cemetery fees across the board um for the increase in the contracted services, um, as well as an option for a non-resident plot.

Um we have um increased uh water uh hydr meter deposits and the increase um of the water service charges in accordance with our rate study that was approved last year.

And then we also have an addition of uh business lay uh license late fees.

Um the departments are here to discuss these.

Um I am just kind of the the messenger of these, so I cannot speak to the specifics of the fees themselves.

Um, but I do believe that they can answer any questions you have.

Um I will say if there are any items that you do want to remove from this, um, we I believe can strike through them.

We can also bring back the fee schedule at any time.

It there is no um timeline around our fee schedule, it doesn't have to be adopted with the budget.

I did check the code today just to make sure though.

So if there's something that we need to discuss further, I want to be clear that this isn't something that has to happen with the budget.

Okay.

So with that, um ready for questions.

All right, I'll bring it back to council.

Go ahead, Remember Burton.

Thank you.

Um I have a question on uh the cemetery fees.

We we had um a resident uh several months ago coming to public comment, and know this resident lives in my neighborhood and and um he's facing some life-changing um uh events in his life.

So something that came forth and through his experience going through that.

I know he came spoke to us about about this, but um I guess I I just I don't know a whole lot about this, so do can you explain like how do our fees like relate to other municipalities on what they charge for these services and do we have any?

Sarah might have to look to Malcolm on that one.

Oh, yeah, I'll do that uh as best I can.

I think compared to other jurisdictions around us, yeah.

Uh somewhat lower, if not quite a bit lower.

That's one reason why we're proposing the fee increases.

Also, prior to this year, we haven't had a non-resident fee, and I think that was one of the issues that uh the resident uh addressed is the number of plots is finite and limited.

So we wanted to make sure that we were uh not um limiting non-residents because maybe there's some people who grew up in Erie but no longer live here.

We we still want to have an opportunity for for folks who are outside of Erie to still be uh buried in the cemetery, sure.

But uh giving preference to resident current residents, and for that reason, providing for a non-resident fee.

And also we we contract for uh pretty much all of these services, so we're just passing on the cost of that contracted service for uh doing the various things that occur as part of a uh funeral service and and services at the cemetery.

All right, thank you.

And I'll add to that that I did meet with that resident Tony.

Thank you.

Um great conversation, great guy.

And that led to a meeting with Meredith who handles all of this and the contractor and myself, just I wanted to learn.

And so I think these fee increases are a part of that.

There's a few other things that may be coming for us to consider, um, but they're not monetary in nature.

Sure.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Councilmember O'Connor.

So I had emailed in some questions and concerns uh specifically regarding the um business licenses.

Um, but I you know, don't want to necessarily hold up the fee schedule uh for these other items because the budget I'm sure is based on some of these numbers.

And so I certainly would like to revisit these late fees and the late fee structures and how when you look at the fee schedule, how different it is from other late fees throughout the schedule, and maybe the more appropriate thing to do is to strike those concerns and revisit it at a later meeting and move forward with the fee schedule as proposed.

Um what are the thoughts on why the business license fees are the way they're certainly I appreciate it, Councilmember Julian Jacqueline, Director of Economic Development.

Uh so the late fees for uh business licensing in the town is brand new.

Um over the last 10 years or so, um back in 2018, the town took action to just kind of eliminate the requirements for renewals and fees um prior to COVID.

The at the time the staff believed that might help support business owners.

In reality, during COVID, we realized that the town lost contact with business owners.

We did not have regular up-to-day information on which businesses were in existence, uh, if they were still in business, if the ownerships change, if locations changed.

It was kind of a one and done kind of thing back in the day, um, whereby you get a license when you first open, and then you never have to do it ever again.

So around 2021-22, uh staff met and decided that it was recommended to move forward with reinstating license renewals and fees.

Um there's a lot of value in business licensing.

It gives us immediate contact with those owners, gives us more regular up-to-date information on if the business is still here, who the right contact is, if they're moving, having good contact information for who those folks are.

Um there's a lot of value in having that information because it allows us to be in regular communication with those folks, putting them on our online business map, sending them regular newsletters, giving them information on grant programs, policy changes, um, upcoming events, whatever it might be.

Uh so there's a lot of value in those um in that license program.

Uh the problem is without having any teeth in it, a lot of folks just don't comply.

So we have, I would say rounding-ish, um, 280 or so commercial business licenses, another 120 or so home occupy hung home occupation licenses, and we have never had full compliance.

Um there are still that have been around 70 or so that just over the last three years that the code's been back in place, just have never complied and have just been late and not in compliance with the requirements.

Um and so consistent with other cities, uh staff would like to move forward with some kind of late fee to show how important these um these licenses are and make sure that we can get as much compliance as possible.

Um these uh currently, and I'll say the the code as it stands today.

Uh the business license code requirement is part of the municipal code.

There's a penalty section of the code that says for anybody that doesn't comply with the code, there's penalties of up to $2,650.

Um we're not going to find somebody $2,600 if they don't pay the $50.

Um, so having some measures in place in the fee schedule that says if you're late by 30 days, it's this amount, 100 days this amount, whatever.

Um the fees that we put in place were after talking to legal council, looking at other examples around the region.

Um we're not married to them, so if you have any other ideas as far as the rates and days and whatever, we're all ears, it's part of the schedule.

We want to work with you all.

Um, this is just uh the consistent uh standard we've seen in other communities.

Um we'd like to we would like to use this to make sure we can get as much compliance as possible.

Um I will say the way that the code is currently written, and we're currently working on an amendment, uh renewals are due by December 1st for that next calendar year, which is a little bit complicated, asking folks to be in compliance during the holidays.

So we are working on pushing that deadline back to two months after the first of the year for renewals due that year.

So hopefully it gives people a little bit extra lenience around the holidays to update their license um by let's say March 1st for that next calendar year.

We're hoping that helps.

Um staff is still in regular contact with these owners.

We sent out renewal reminders in August, a couple in September, another one in October.

Um so working with folks to try to get them in compliance, but really keeping that um late fee provision in place just to make sure that we can get as many of them as possible.

Um I got a lot more that of notes that my staff gave me.

So if you want me to read four pages of text, I can, but happy to answer questions.

Excuse me.

Um I can't remember receiving a renewal notice personally.

So I I I'll have to go through my emails and see.

Um I just I do feel it's it's for home occupancy license and business licenses, it it's it's four times the late fee on the commercial and eight times the late fee on the home occupancy.

I think those, if there's gonna be some sort of late fee structure, it should be in better alignment with the actual fee for the license.

And that's why I would certainly like to you know take a look at it, see how um a great because I didn't even realize there was a grace period in here.

And so spelling that out would be helpful for business owners to know that also.

And part of it might mean having different rate structures for the home ox versus the commercial because the the initial fee is different.

So should the late fee for a home oc be more than the actual license fee, that's up to the fee schedule.

Okay, okay.

Um I certainly would like to revisit it.

So if we want to strike that from the schedule, but I don't I certainly don't want to disrupt the budget.

Okay, let's how about we hear from the other council members and then we can see where this lands.

Yeah.

All right.

Go ahead.

Councilmember Bear.

Thank you.

My only question is who pays the um water meter hydrant fee.

It's paid by anyone who uh rents a meter.

It's it's temporary.

Actually, Todd'll go into detail on it, but it it's for temporary use.

Yeah.

Good evening, uh Mayor, Council members, Todd Fessenden, utilities director.

And your question was uh who rents the meter?

Who pays that fee?

The water meter hydrant fee.

It's the contractors who are and developers who are renting those temporary hydrant meters.

And that's refundable back to them if they return it.

So there's a monthly charge, but uh the fee's going up because we're getting better meters that have actual connectivity and can send us back real-time information so we can see what the demand is as of now.

It's kind of like a a meter read.

You go out get a meter read and then bill them.

So we can also see if the hydrant's leaking or something like that in real time.

So the fee went up on those, but it's again it's refundable at the end of the lease, basically.

So just so I understand that they're renting the meter, but they're paying for the water usage.

They're paying for the water usage, and then there's a monthly fee that goes along with charge that goes along with having the access to the meter, and if they return it in good shape to us, um then we refund them back the what the it's essentially a deposit.

Okay, thank you.

Sure.

Okay.

Other questions?

Wow, this board is really quiet tonight.

Um let's see, there's hand bill fee in here, and I know that uh for elections that's a waived fee, or we don't do that fee, is that right?

Maybe that's a legal question.

Yeah.

So the hand bill fee, right?

It looks like if you're gonna hand solicit, basically, you've got to pay a fee.

A bunch of us got elected a year ago, and I don't think we paid that fee.

Would we violate the law or no?

No, it's not right required to have, but um yeah, if the if the town's deciding to have it, as long as there's a rational rational connection to um the cost or the administrative cost for that, then it's okay.

It's okay.

Well, so there is a hand bill.

Let's see, let me find it again.

Hand bill distributor license.

Yep.

Oh, so so what what are the parameters around distributing hand bills?

I think that's for actually.

Um people who go door to door.

Yeah, solicitation.

Yeah, solicitation.

Uh we call them solicitation permits.

That's what that's all I've ever heard.

But we issue those in the clerk's office, and so um they are billed to the solicitor.

So like he can have like 12 people come and they each have to have a badge and wear it, and then um there's no way to really regulate it because people can just show up at your door.

And so when that happens, we ask people to call us and let us know so that um we we can probably get a hold of them and say, hey, you need to come by and get a permit.

But that's what we use that bill for.

All right, and so that makes sense if I'm selling windows or um, you know, gonna bunch of things, right?

Right, exactly.

Do the girl scouts need to do that?

No, they don't.

Okay, does do elected or not elect officials do those aspiring to be an elected official need to do that?

I don't believe so.

No, it's not for profit.

No, there's a code section four-three-one that talks about uh persons not having a regularly established place of business or operation within the corporate limits of the town, do directly or indirectly pass distribute or circulate any printed or written hand bills, posters, dodgers.

That's not a term I've heard recently.

Or other advertising matter without first having obtained a license to do so from the town clerk.

So that's what the fee is for for anybody who's doing that kind of advertising.

Got it.

Obviously, not a huge source of revenue because it's not on my radar in a way that is significant.

Okay.

Good to know.

All right, so now I'll come back to council member um O'Brien and um she's O'Connor.

I've done this a few times to see if um you want to make a motion to adopt with exceptions, or the other alternative is to adopt and then we would come back at some point in 2026 to look at it and then make adjustments.

Um I think those are really our options.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh I I'd like to make an amendment to um to strike the late fees on the businesses for now, but revisit those at a later date with looking at the rest of the fee schedule and seeing what makes sense.

I'll just look to our lawyer and make sure that that is appropriate.

We can just strike that for now and then okay.

So you're um let me let me call it out.

Um approve resolution twenty five one eighty nine with the exception of the late fees for businesses.

Okay, so you're making that motion.

I'm making that motion and also wanting to revisit this at a later date.

Okay.

Okay, motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

All in favor, say aye.

I aye.

All opposed, say no.

Okay, motion carries.

Thank you so much.

All right, we're gonna take a slight pause here, and we're gonna reconfigure the room, and then at that point, we are going to pick up item twenty five five forty nine Village of Cold Creek concept plan options.

Staff for making this switch.

This is something that I'd asked for because I wanted the conversation to be more free flowing.

So for those that don't attend these sessions regularly, what you saw up there with the diet is pretty formal.

I am I have to recognize people to speak.

I'll turn it over to Allie Burkhalter, um, senior planner uh to get us going.

Thank you.

Uh as stated, I'm Allie Burkhalter, senior planner and the project manager for the village at Cole Creek.

I'll also just acknowledge for future questions.

I'm joined by um Bill Vitech with Dig Studios, who is our consultant for the village at Cole Creek as well.

Um at a high level, I'm going to try to breeze through these concept plans as quickly as possible.

At the end, I do have a summary table, um, just comparing all the options, but um I'll try to get through it as quickly as possible, and then I can go back to slides as you guys have questions.

So just putting us back in um into this project.

So the village at Cole Creek is just north of Old Town.

If you follow Briggs Street up to County Road one and a half, and then it's situated between our resilience park and our Col Creek open space, and it's adjacent to the Northridge neighborhood for the to the north.

So just situating everyone as I move forward and kind of landmark things.

Our options one through three were presented on September 23rd.

Um, so these options have not changed.

Uh, they all generally consist of an ag holding designation for future development shown in red.

The darker green on the east side indicating our parks and open space facility, and then the lighter shade green indicating reserved open space for dedicated town open space.

So those generally all had the same um idea, with option one having the most ag holding and option three being the um least ag holding.

When we met with you on September 23rd, the feedback we heard was concern about whether or not the future zoning would meet our town open space requirements per the unified development code.

So this is just indicating our three requirements for the town development code to meet open space requirements is to have a minimum of 10 contiguous acres, a parcel that is no less than 300 feet wide unless it's a trail designation.

And then lastly, to be as um contiguous with other adjacent open spaces as possible.

So taking option three into play, we uh explored that a little bit, and as you can see, um, there are parcels that are less than 300 feet, but those are part of trail corridors as our code states.

It is contiguous with almost 400 acres for the Col Creek open space, as well as what's for resilience open space and resilience park.

And then the Col Creek um corridor itself is the 300 feet minimum.

So based on this analysis, we did believe that what was being presented did meet our development code requirements.

Additionally, what we heard um from the beginning of kind of restructuring our contract with Dig in the early spring in March was concern about the TNAC funding and view sheds, and so we added that as part of the scope of work for Dig was to analyze and analyze our viewshed corridors.

So these were some of the views that we presented early on and throughout the summer, but more closely we're looking at view one that is at the north end of the what would be the future trail, looking south towards Old Town, and then view five, which is at the midpoint of the pond where you would be on the future trail, and then looking to the west towards the mountains.

So moving forward, I'll show two different um the option are the view one, and then some options for what massing involvement could occur on site, and then as well view shed five and what could occur.

Um I will just acknowledge most of our zoning has a 35-foot height limit, and so we did not base this on any particular zoning category, but use that as like a general consensus of most of our categories have that height limit.

So this is that view one from what would be along the ditch on the trail on the future trail.

Um looking south, you see the lower boulder ditch.

Um on the right, you see a car coming down county road one and a half with resilience park sill to the right, and then straight down the middle, you'll see a two-story white home.

That'll be our landmark for quite a few of these views.

That is um at the end of the cul-de-sac of Cattell Street.

So if you take Cattel all the way to the end, it dead ends in a cul-de-sac, and that's a new home.

And then the shorter buildings are the Erie Meadows Manufactured Home neighborhood, that's also at the north end of Col Creek Park.

So just giving you those points of references.

And so this is what one option could be.

If you're looking at option one or two, which had more development towards the north, kind of headed towards North Ridge, these are some smaller detached cottage homes.

These are one story, and then in the foreground, you might see one or two story single family detached.

Then if you look at this again, I don't know if you can quickly see that, and then I'll have a call out.

This is showing further to south.

Again, we could have at the lower grade two to three story townhomes.

This is our medium intensity.

Again, we don't actually have a number of units, but if you were to just attach homes versus detach them, you could potentially have townhomes instead of detached cottages, depending on where we want to go as far as building types, um AMI affordability levels.

This is just an option.

And then option three, we're calling it our highest intensity.

If you did all attached product to the south end, this more closely aligns with option three and not developing to the north near Northridge at all, then you could potentially have the same number of units, but by attaching all of them, um, they'd be further to the south, limiting the area of development.

Um, this is again the two to this is two to three story townhomes.

I think what you're seeing closest um to the viewpoint is a three-story town home.

Um, you're aligning with the tree line ridge.

So I'm just gonna back up for a second.

Again, all of these homes will align with the tree line ridge, and then you can see the mountains to the background.

So noticing that our native grasses in the foreground, the tree line in the mid ground, and then the mountains.

So you might maintain a little bit more of your tree scape and your native grasses in this view by concentrating to the south.

So for up for viewpoint five from across the pond, we're kind of ignoring what's happening to the north and what might happen adjacent Northridge.

All of our options kind of showed um development adjacent the pond.

Um, again, I'm just gonna give as a reference point the two-story home at the end of Cattell, and then the Erie Meadows manufactured homes right here.

You'll have the tree line, and then this orange tree, if you squint really hard, there's a car right there, and that's County Road one and a half.

You have our tree line, and then you have our mountainscape.

So this was looking at what our view shed corridors are doing.

We had proposed some view shed corridors down the middle with homes on either side.

So this was a 50-foot view shed corridor.

It could be developed as a pocket park garden court down the center with homes fronting on a green.

That could be a road, really to be determined, just there wouldn't be buildings there.

Um the two-story homes on the right align again with the tree line, and then the one-story detached homes on the left, you can see as they shrink lower from um the grade of the pond and that ridge that's holding up the pond.

Um, again, you're just looking at their roof line versus on the second story, you're seeing the second story of those homes and might see windows, but again, the mountain view is protected and it's aligning with the tree line.

Um, this is our medium tensity option.

The homes on the left are the detached versus um doing a mix of detached and attached, and so again, two-story single family attached on the left, that could be a duplex, that could be a town home, really to be determined by a future development partner, but you could maintain detached on the right, you can mix it all.

But generally, they're all gonna be within the 35-foot limit, two stories, three stories still within that height limit.

Then with our highest intensity, if you're looking at more three-story town homes, um, again, if we're trying to concentrate homes or get our highest yield of affordable housing, um, this is what that would look like.

You've lost the view of the homes in olden town, but you're still aligning with the tree line and getting the views of the mountains to the north or to the west.

So those were quick run throughs.

We can get to more questions later.

But I also wanted to discuss the other two directions that we were taken in, and that is generating an option four and an option five.

So we were asked to just explore the idea of having no ag holding, no future development other than a parks and open space facility.

Um, and so that's option four.

Then option five is the opportunity to not do anything development-wise without any parks and open space facilities at all.

So the entire site would be retained as open space.

So lastly, this is a lot of information, and I can leave it up for all the questions.

But um at a high level, we just wanted to let you guys be able to pick and choose options.

One through three aligns with the original vision.

Do you have a mixed-income neighborhood or just development general?

Open space and trails, and then a parks and open space facility.

Um housing, the cost associated with that to the town would be dependent on a future um development partner as well as well as affordability levels as far as what the town would potentially subsidize or partnership wise as cost sharing.

The open space costs are based on retaining the pond as recreation and the build out of the trail.

And then the facilities cost as estimated and presented on the September 23rd town council meeting would be at 19 million dollars for the park and open space facility.

We're just generally saying there would be neighborhood traffic.

We haven't done the full traffic analyses, and that any infrastructure associated with that traffic would be paid by the development partner in theory.

If we went with option four, that would be no neighborhood or development, the open space, but then also doing the parks and open space facility.

Um, what we heard from feedback is on our September 23rd meeting was a potential reimbursement to the housing fund.

I'm clarifying, we're not paying back ARPA, but just an idea of in some way making a gesture to reinvest in affordable housing by either reimbursing the fund or purchasing a different site.

So I'm just acknowledging that in the chart as a potential thing we could do.

Then again, um, the pond and trail stays the same, but in order to do open space in the southern portion of the property, we'd anticipate some reclamation costs to get that butt um the soils, the grass, everything up to our open space standards, and that has an associated cost.

Again, the same parks and open space facility cost.

Um, and then for traffic, we just anticipate the minor facilities traffic of our staff coming back and forth with equipment.

The infrastructure would be paid by the town because it would all be town uses and town-owned at that point.

Lastly, option five.

Um, it all stays relatively the same of what I've said, but by not proceeding with the parks and open space facility, we would look at an estimated 40 million dollars of improvements to laws facility to house the parks and open space team continuing to house them at the laws facility.

So that's the main um change for option five.

We don't see a vehicle traffic impact, but I do want to just acknowledge there would still be the pedestrian infrastructure needed of the trail crossing and stuff.

So we'll that'll be a future thing, but I do acknowledge pedestrian traffic is traffic.

Um, but there would be no vehicle traffic unless we were anticipating a future trailhead or something.

Um, and then again, all of that infrastructure would be paid by the town.

So we'll come back to this, we'll get into the leads of that.

But I at a high level want to just say we're still at the draft concept plan.

Um if a decision were made tonight to proceed on a particular option, we could move forward with doing a community open house that was originally in our scope of work with Dig Studios.

We would take this to planning commission and also get feedback before we have a final concept plan, and we'd come back to you guys one last time with a final version that might have any tweaks you request tonight.

And we'd come back to you guys one last time with a final version that might have any tweaks you request tonight.

Um if that all goes smoothly, we all agree how we're moving forward, then potentially based on whatever option, we may need to proceed with zoning, just depending on which one.

So that was it.

That was a lot of information.

I'll go back to the table, but I'll also let you guys dictate if you want me to go back to one of the options.

All right.

So I'm gonna think I'm gonna rewind the tape just a little bit further back.

Um in the September meeting, I think a number of us were um surprised by the um the full parks and rec complex there.

And that's what actually prompted, I think this discussion to continue to say, okay, is that the right usage here?

Are there other usage?

I know that I had brought up a couple other usages that are not in that table.

So were those considered, whether it's retail, places of worship, um parking for old town, support of old town in any way.

So the ag holding designation allows for any future rezoning if we wanted to pursue other future uses.

So the holding um means that whether to clarify, the site is currently zoned egg holding.

So it is in that holding pattern already.

Um, but any of the considerations for options one through three the ag holding, that could be any future use with a few with a next step of rezoning.

So um the options one through three to shrink the ag holding is just to get the reserved open space and the PLI zoning in place to allow the parks and open space to proceed.

Um the PLI uh public land institutional zoning.

That's what we would have to build in the area for the parks and open space facility.

Yeah, on the table here in the parentheses is the zoning designation that we would use.

So although this says housing parentheses, AGH for agricultural holding, um, it could be any future development, could occur within that red bubble based on future direction from council or a future development partner.

Um the PLI zoning is to allow for the facilities to be able to legally proceed with the site plan and building permit.

They wouldn't be allowed to do that with the existing ag holding zoning.

Okay, got it.

Um, another clarification for the meeting on the uh at the end of September.

Um I think we learned, much to our surprise, that the ARPA funds do not require any type of housing building affordable or otherwise.

Is that a true statement?

I just want to make sure I understood it from the last time.

Our interpretation and Sarah can always come up and uh I'm Sarah Normala, planning and development director.

Um and the uh our understanding is that we do not need to that project is closed for ARPA, and so we do not need to um revisit it in any way.

Yeah.

So Allie, talk to me a little bit more about the reimbursement to the affordable housing fund in light of the comments that are just made.

I believe that was a recommendation by council member bear to have a gesture to reinvest in housing if it were not to occur on the site.

Got it.

And I believe the 3.6 million is based on the land purchase price, is why we put that dollar a pound.

Was the ARPA contribution to the land purchase?

We want to be reimbursing it to ARPA, but we'd be can't we can't, but using that as the dollar amount of that's what we invested for affordable housing at this site, and if we could use that same dollar amount to reinvest in housing somewhere else or in some other way.

When would that transfer need to happen?

Is there a time frame or just no?

I'm just thinking of the TNAC meeting that wrong.

Well, I think that's uh we won't go direct our parks and recreation.

I think it's a determination that that council would would have to make on where those funds were coming from.

I don't think we're recommending it come from trails natural areas based on kind of the direction that we have.

I think it's a reimbursement from the town where those funds ultimately come from uh will be a decision that you all have to make.

If we do decide to take them from uh the Trails Natural Areas Fund, that will obviously have to get a recommendation from OSTAP as well.

So can you talk a little bit about the 19 million to build a parks and rec facility here versus the 40 million to build it over either by or in laws or well?

I think probably David and I will tag team this a little bit, but you all received a memo from uh town manager Fleming last week, which kind of documented uh a lot of uh the kind of the need for an expanded, and I just want to clarify it's parks and open space division.

Um recreation staff will not be at uh this facility, nor will public works be at this facility.

So the idea is when we looked, you know, in 2020, 2021 when we did the facilities plan, uh we started actually planning what does this actually look like.

We knew that probably we would have an opportunity to purchase a property somewhere in town that could house a facility.

Just so happened that that Paul wanted to sell, we worked through that deal, and we did then decided that hey, this actually looks like a good site for us.

It's already got some infrastructure on it.

Um, you know, kind of doing all of that due diligence.

That's when we you know kind of started that process and saying this could be a future home for parks and open space to kind of further push out the expansion of laws.

And then I think that memo does a much better job than I probably would documenting you know, kind of the direction that we receive and kind of pushing forward with with that that overall study.

So uh David, anything kind of add?

Yeah, I think Mayor Moore to clarify is your underlying question like why is it 17 to 19 million dollars here but 40 million dollars at loss.

Why is it 21 million dollars more to someplace else?

Uh number of factors play into that.

There's existing facilities, bays, uh garages, uh storage areas at the existing loss facility in order to do an expansion.

We'd have to possibly retrofit a number of those areas, which would be very costly to do in addition.

We're keeping a significant number of staff more um at an existing facility.

So we'd need to expand um to accommodate all three division or all three departments that would be remaining there, and that includes um brake facilities, that includes restroom facilities, that includes all the storage facility needs for those individual departments.

Right now we have a number of uh interim measures that are being uh implemented and are in or are in place, um, such as we've retrofitted a garage for some of the uh parks and open space technicians, and basically what they have right now are little basic drop-down desks for them to come in, do some basic things, and then go back out into the field.

And Luke, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the gist of what they have available for to them right now.

In order to properly expand that facility, we'd want to give them an actual usable space for to be able to sit down and do more comprehensive work instead of having to be stuck in tighter spaces in a in a garage facility that has no restroom in it as of right now.

So there's a number of issues with just expansion and renovation, it makes it more costly.

Also, we'd have to move storage facilities that are on the site.

Also, we're right next to um the floodplain out there, which also complicates things that limits where we can develop, or if we do develop in that area, we'd have to make it um compliant with FEMA regulations.

So I might ask if if Chad needs to come up, he might um have some additional input, but that those are some of the major complications that I would foresee, and what would drive up the cost uh expanding out laws in particular?

Okay, so let me just recap to make sure I'm understanding this public is understanding.

If we build a new parks and open space facility on village of Cole Creek, it's roughly 19 million dollars to do that.

If we go and touch Laws, the Leon A World Service Center, that's our current public works site, then it would be 40 million because we're we're deconstructing some things to build other things.

Right.

What if we bought the land right next door to laws and we just said leave laws alone and we but built a uh parks and open space?

Would it be 19 million dollars?

We would have to study that.

Honestly, we haven't um looked at that site, but you can imagine that would be comparable because we'd have the same type of infrastructure, similar construction.

Sorry, Chad always entered town facilities manager.

Um so you know, we we haven't studied that enough.

We would need to really do the same effort we've done uh with a pre-design kind of conceptual process with uh village and cold creek.

Yeah, okay.

So I just want to make sure I'm understanding build new on village cold creek 19 million, update laws 40 million, find another piece of dirt and build new, should be roughly the same as village of Cole Creek, depending on what's what's the land acquisition cost.

Yeah, possibly can we back up even one more step because I absolutely uh so I guess I'm confused because from the September meeting.

Um I think a lot of us were under the impression that the um the original plan was was that we were going to uh use the the house uh to maybe renovate that to have um a few staff out there and then maybe house some equipment out there.

I I think and I don't remember the exact cost, but I thought it was somewhere in the five to 10 million uh area.

So I think we were surprised with the 19 million, and it was clear from that presentation because we were talking about things extending the um uh extending the the uh ECC uh mill levy is as a means of paying for it, and which at our retreat that we had a couple weeks before, we kind of agreed that we're only gonna get so many shots at doing a a tax initiative.

So um that we just because the timing of it, we'd have to do it in 26.

So we thought uh maybe we'll not do that and do do a sales tax.

So I I guess my question is at a basic level, like I this seems um I don't know that we've got all our ducks in a row.

I mean, it yeah, I yeah, I think this is this is part of the discussion, right?

In that um not only is it the right use for parks and open space, but is it the right use for affordable housing?

Is there a better use for this property?

And so I've been uh just churning on this.

Also, can my churn is also connected to town center, which would be another discussion that's an exec session, so I won't go into the details of that, other than to say the town center is being planned to be walkable, but it's hard to do that.

And then I think about where's walkability in Erie today.

It's Brig Street, right?

It's where restaurants are, and I think that's part of our old town charm that people want to preserve.

So then I think well, Lewisville is always what we get compared to, but Louisville has got more blocks, they have more restaurants, they have more diversity of choices, shops and things.

So, how do we get our street bigger longer and have more diversity?

And one way to do that is to go north towards this property, which I don't know if if you guys have the ability to bring up like a Google map and just bring up the bigger area around this and display that, or is it if you can you you could see how close the north end of Brick Street is actually to this particular property?

I think probably it does the fine.

It's not far, and that's the interesting thing.

Cheeseman um actually goes right to the south end of this property and the north end of Cole Creek Park, and that was the aha for me saying, okay, what are the other uses that we can um we can potentially do on this particular property?

Um I won't get into any of the the town center, we'll talk about that later tonight.

Um the place of worship, um, I'll put it out there.

This got started when I met with Father Weedo at St.

Scholastica, not for this property, but to talk about another piece of property that they own up by our water wastewater plant up on 52.

And the question is, hey, how do we get that moving so that they can actually move St.

Scholastica up there?

It was through that discussion that I got thinking, well, is that the right place for the church?

Because we're gonna lose all the parishioners, all the people to come and visit our shops on Sundays and Wednesdays, and you know, when there's um there's uh events that are happening at the church, and they've also been in old town since the 1800s, and so um I got thinking, okay, does it make more sense to put a place of worship, possibly St.

Scholastica on this property, because then it draws people into Old Town.

But then it also potentially has a let me just finish my my thought.

It also has another potential real positive for old town, and that's parking.

So when you think about one of the challenges we have in old town is we have events and there's no places to park, and so could we strike a deal with St.

Scholastica to swap land, build on this property, a portion of this property, and then um in that deal actually get access to their parking as well.

So when they're not using it for their events, could that offload some of our parking?

And so I go around in my mind, what's the downside to doing something like that?

But it was through that conversation that I also learned that a totally separate entity from St.

Scholastica called Catholic Charities builds affordable housing in the 60, excuse me, the 30 to 60 AMI rate.

They've done a facility up north in Fort Collins.

I think there's another one in Denver.

And then I got thinking about what uh council member Bearer, I think is probably our biggest advocate for affordable housing.

And I'm like, huh, does that have a play in this in some way as well?

That's really as far as the thought um God.

But I would certainly like to see at least enough support to at least explore it to see if it's viable.

I have no idea if it's viable.

Um in this this bigger picture.

I if I could just respond on possible other uses.

Um a lot of what we explored with, I'm gonna just go to the one of the viewshed um with either the highest intensity on either um view shed analyses when we're looking at building types, and I'm gonna bring my architecture background into this.

Um, generally the commercial we see outside of you know, big box lows and king supers are one story commercials.

They generally, even with prepee or um the Erie Social Club building, those stay within our 35 foot range.

Okay.

Um, so that's just generally how they're constructed.

That's what pencils out for developers.

So if we think retail or mixed use development and lean that direction, that works.

Um, when we think about assembly uses that are trying to house um large groups, um when you have the larger span, I'm gonna bring my architecture in.

When you have the larger span of a building to house a lot of people in assembly use, you end up having to go higher with the roof in order to reach those spans.

And so if you think about the height of Calvary Bible just down here on Cheeseman Street in Old Town, just the nature of that use leads to taller buildings, and so just acknowledging that that was a major concern, that use type might lead to blocking views, if that's still one of the major concerns, just with that use type.

So that's just my architecture building typology background.

That would be what I heard was a concern, and what could be a concern with that use type.

Um another thing as far as um just gonna go maybe back to when we looked at options one through three, we acknowledged the cheeseman street low water crossing has its limitations for um how that could be used for access.

So um if we want a connection to old town, um we're not even really supposed to be using it as pedestrian access.

Um it needs some safety infrastructure, so there's a cost associated with that that I don't think we could put a dollar amount on tonight tonight.

So if we wanted to improve pedestrian access along there, um there's more study to be made, but with uh County Road one and a half, when we initially studied it for even at a high level the neighborhood, the level of traffic to expand those bridges with even just throwing in a number of 200 housing units or even the facilities, there's a lot of limitations that spacing.

So as you think of spacing on the spacing of intersections to the existing bridges, um there was this Northridge arrow, but actually what was recommended by our traffic consultant was this green arrow that's 400 or 500.

Okay, I see your problem.

So these green arrows were planned connections.

Um we're limited because of the lower boulder ditch here, as well as the county road, uh the Col Creek Bridge here on what transportation improvements we can make.

So I can't speak to that, but with any higher traffic use, or if we're trying to get a lot of pedestrians from maybe a large parking area in toll down.

I don't know if you've walked to that bridge, it's not very pleasant as it is crossing, but if you were to use like a pedestrian trail, that might be great.

But if you think about um I'm trying to think of like the balloon glow when you're walking across from the high school to the field, like you're next to a large you have huge groups trying to use a sidewalk for any big events.

Similar might happen for um our downtown parades if we were trying to use a parking lot.

So those are my two high levels of the architecture and the use limitations and our building height and view shed concerns, and then transportation.

I don't know if we can bring John Fruzi up if you have more questions about that traffic level and what infrastructure costs or needs would be made with any higher use.

Yeah, I think all I'm looking for tonight is we know enough to say absolutely not, it's not feasible.

And I'm not hearing that from you, but I'm what I am hearing is that there could be limitations or cost considerations the bridge or um the traffic uh that would go into that.

Yeah, I I think what Allie's trying to what she's not trying to use.

She's what she's doing is is any one of these three concepts there development is possible.

What that specific development is, I think are those future conversations, whether it's the retail, whether it's housing, whatever it is.

Um and I really I want to go back to Mayor Pro Tem Bell, your question as this you know, the surprise of the $19 million facility.

So based on the direction that we received in January, March, April of this last year and kind of exploring some alternatives for the parks and open space facility.

That's just how the project evolved, right?

Yes, it was probably originally looked at as just a the uh a renovation of the home, but as we got to you know, that's what a feasibility study is.

You start looking at is this possible?

Yep, okay, keep going.

Is this possible?

Yes, keep going.

So then it evolved into that more of that facility to say, hey, this is actually working for us in the long term.

Because this is this is the long-term solution.

It's part of the long-term solution for the parks and open space division.

So that's why you know it seemingly started out as this hey, we're just gonna renovate the house and put staff out there.

Well, there's 23 staff in parks and open space.

That was never a possibility.

Then it then we look at, well, how can we take the pressure off of laws, relocate an entire division for the next 30 years, and that's where you get a $19 million facility.

So what I guess one of my concerns is, and this is in my district, so I think we've probably got a lot of Northridge residents here, but um I mean, where the existing laws facility is, and I realize it's it's you know, off the bottle there.

I mean, for the residents there, there's several ingress egress ways that they can get in and out of there.

Um, with that facility being there and and having the fueling station at the north end, it puts a lot of pressure on on Fletcher and and one and a half.

There's I mean, you know, it's not really um you know, built for you know, having a lot of you know, driving gravel trucks and things like that through there.

So that was probably one of my biggest concerns was seeing uh the I guess the shock value if we were and seeing I would I uh I was on the impression it was gonna be a smaller facility there or whatever, but you know, when we're talking about possibly you know, having uh you know, another fueling station there, uh you know, multiple uh multiple vehicle depot and things like that.

I think that puts a lot of stress on existing residents that are there, and uh I I think there was a lot of um surprise from the community that I will know.

Yeah, I will note just um for the good of conversation in the memo that we had sent to council.

Um some of those items that you mentioned in particular that are more concerning, are alternatives that we noted that could be either deferred or or removed from the plan.

Okay, it was just more of a consideration.

The fueling station's a good example of that, yeah.

Um of hey, this is a nice to have and would make this a very viable self-sustaining facility.

However, we have a number of fleet vehicles that are housed at town hall right now that go to laws to get fuel.

So if that was not a consideration or not a can or not something that council wanted to pursue, we could leave the existing fueling station at laws and have fleet vehicles continue to go there for fueling purposes.

So I mean, I I just wanted to highlight that for the good of our conversation.

There are certain alternatives that could reduce costs, could reduce some of the concerns that are being noted by uh adjacent community members um just to help with this conversation.

So I think oh, go ahead.

And I will just note too, like the the 19 million dollars, yes, that's with all of the uh add alternatives added in.

If we were to remove a number of those alternatives for consideration, it would drop the cost down to 17 million.

I know that's not significant in the grand scheme of a 19 versus 17 million dollars, but it is two million dollars, which is worth ensuring so and and yes, uh Council Member Mortalero, uh remember you had said uh your your questions in, and that was kind of a response to to that that queries what inquiry as well.

Um, and I think we have to remember that you know, currently the parks and open space division plus public works and some utilities are going through Erie Commons neighborhood.

So we're relieving some of that pressure, albeit it's 21 full-time staff, not 23.

Shame on me.

Uh, we're we're taking them out of the Erie Commons neighborhood and putting them on a parks and open space affiliate where they don't have to go through any neighborhood.

They're not going through Northridge.

There are one and a half, so they wouldn't be access, they wouldn't be using Fletcher.

And I think the the general activity of parks and open space, yes, we'll have some material delivery, we'll have obviously staff going in and out, and then we'll have our normal base of operations.

But I also think we have to remember that we have coal miner park, coal creek park, the linear trail, the bike plaza, and we maintain maintain downtown.

Oh, you're always gonna have parks and open space trucks, equipment rolling through downtown, no matter where the facility is.

Sure.

Yeah.

And I mean, some of my concerns were around uh the traffic, right?

Um when it went from you know, ha housing some parking rack to to kind of the campus, you know.

I I look at it as that traffic's either gonna go through Colliert Hill, uh, it's gonna go down Briggs or it's gonna go down cheeseman, right?

And you guys are really busy, you got a lot going on.

So there's a lot of lot of you know bigger trucks, you know, equipment and whatnot that would be going through those roads.

I was having lunch on Briggs, and there were about five trucks that went by in the hour and a half that we were there.

And you know, they're big diesel trucks, you gotta stop talking why they're going through.

But I'm thinking, well, if we're gonna add on top of that, you know, town uh facilities traffic as well with with their vehicles, larger vehicles.

Um, that's gonna become instead of noticeable, you know, to to annoying.

Um if you have to if there's double the amount of traffic that yeah, I saw that the hour and a half hours there.

So I think that just goes back to my my point of we're we're down there, we're down there anyway.

So I think that that traffic isn't necessarily gonna increase.

Um now, obviously we're we'll we'll we'll be doing some studies, but uh you know, the I mentioned those facilities that we already maintain in that area.

You know, those are our our our Chevies, our F-150s, you know, those are the big the big dump trucks.

We don't we don't we don't operate those.

I think the biggest equipment is a single axle dump truck that that we operate.

We also now we're now we're maintaining the wetlands area, and then we're also we also maintain reliance park uh and then and then that open space too.

So uh we're we're already in the area.

Um, you know, I John, what's the road classification of a briggs right now?

So the um one and a half as it kind of turns into briggs that these are all arterials that uh connect to the rest of the roadway system.

Okay, yeah.

So we have we we will obviously take that into consideration.

But again, I think what we're looking for is some just some general direction on you know what that looks like, and and as we continue that direction, looking at impacts like that.

I think just to note Travis, this would always be studied, but that traffic in and out of the Mark's North space.

So you're correct if I'm wrong, would be very much um time of day.

So you'd have in the morning going out to job sites, there's not a lot throughout the day.

There would be some, but there would be less throughout the day, and then in the afternoon hours when they're coming back to the facility to finish the day.

So it's very much morning, late afternoon, and early morning, late afternoon, and then throughout the day, sporadic.

So I I get the advocacy for putting this down there, but man, I am struggling to see why putting an industrial facility north of Old Town benefits old town and our small town feeling.

Um it's convenient.

We own the land, so there's lots of positives along that um that way for sure.

But when I think about this from a 50 or 100 year decision, it just doesn't seem like the right place to put any trucks, any more um industrial type usage down there, especially when we've got we may not own it at this point, but there's at least land that is down by the public works facility um where this is already coming from and out of.

And you know I'm looking for ways to enhance old town.

I mean I think that's an important thing when we we look at the the surveys I think you were going to jump in earlier and I no I was thinking um this is you're talking at a very high level of just to avoid affordable housing you're looking at options.

All of your options didn't sound like you it wanted to add something it was driven by I don't want to do affordable housing no no let me find alternative no it's a little at all that that's exactly the opposite when um I was talking to Father Weido and understood stood through that conversation we weren't even talking about a different piece of land we're talking about the land they own of on Highway 52.

And then the um uh the information was shared that well hold it Catholic charities does affordable housing and so I don't know if a uh a deal could be struck if it is feasible I think some of the things that Allie had discussed would be um we'd need to figure that out we need to get over that hurdle could you do the church and then how much land is left because I'm also don't want to see um this infringe on the best open space that's there right so if we said there's gonna be 50% open space at this point in time then how do we how do we do affordable housing yeah so a lot of time was spent on you know doing the due diligence about having a bootable housing here and half open space and we are seeing this thought process from you from the last six months how can I avoid affordable housing here how can I put something else you know like then came up with all this oh parking or let me put a church or let me put something else it feels like that that you're driving this somewhere else I'm not driving it anywhere else I'm trying to find the best usage that will support old town there's no money by the way to build any of this affordable housing these are renderings and the state and federal government is pretty much shut down you know funding so just because we have a rendering I don't want anybody to think that all of a sudden we have a bunch of affordable housing and in fact we will be having another conversation about cheesemen our current affordable housing which is turning out not to be affordable.

I won't get into that here tonight but we've got to figure out um what is our target and and one thing that is um appealing to me is that Catholic charities focuses on 30 to 60 AMI which is totally different than what we've attempted before does it need to be on that property maybe not I don't know and then we can flip back to what if we want this all open space which would also preclude the parks and um open space facility as well because I think there is some energy from that with OST I'm looking at John as one of the liaisons to that.

Yeah so I mean to to that point Ostab sent out a memo to us prior to the September 23rd and and they're the ones who asked for options uh four or five to keep that property all open space um they feel you know um since I'm the liaison I I try and interpret what um you know what they said but based on their letter and our meetings they'd like to see all of it kept as open space um they feel that any housing um on the property would take away from the value of the open space and then they're wondering do are they getting their three and a half 3.4 million dollars of value of open space with you know you're kind of a donut right it's it's the outside edges of of the property becomes the open space area with the housing in the middle of it with you you still have the you know the mountain views but you take a lot of the view away by having you know second story and rooftop views of homes there as well so you know they're their concern was are they getting the value and I also so I kind of looked at what's required in the UDC for open space in parks when a development is done right and when you figure in what's required um based on the UDC the open space area gets uh the 3.4 million dollars that TNAC put in they're really only getting somewhere between a million and a half to two and a half million dollars of of value um out of it so um in that and they brought that up in the meetings are we getting the value and would they have um said that this is a good open space purchase with the housing there and you know further letter they feel they lose the value now

So um in that and they brought that up in the meetings are we getting the value and would they have um said that this is a good open space purchase with the housing there and you know further letter they feel they lose the value now if it stayed all open space um the question is should some of the you know money be put toward housing should um we pay additional from the Tina um funds for the extra or how do we sort that out um but that's kind of the the direction that they felt so I'll just add I did we surprise um open or the Ostab with affordable housing on this property?

No, this uh those conversations go all the way back uh predating me as the director about the the decision to purchase the property jointly at that time OSTAV and the town was looking at other priority acquisitions, and at the time the fund balance wouldn't support the full acquisition.

So we came up with a plan that said, well, what if we look at splitting splitting it right without knowing all of this information?

What if we looked at splitting it that could support our goals to for housing and preserve an open space that also had a uh trail connection?

So those conversations were had with OSTAP and OSTAB agreed to uh jointly purchase uh the acquisition.

And I think when we presented these concepts, that's when they decided that maybe we should look at a concept that's all open space.

So I will say no, we did not surprise Ostab was not surprised that we were moving this direction.

No, and and you even asked in one of our recent meetings what changed, right?

You asked Ostab, what's changed?

Why do you why are you looking, you know, when we purchased it together, you know, everybody was on board and and you know, like say so you you did ask that question, and they they told you what you know now that with the additional information, you having looked at it closer, um, you know, with the additional concerns that they have uh with what's left for open space was what changed.

And I think the memo that was uh with the September 23rd did say if the town were to move forward with a development, uh they had a number of uh principles, protect highly desirable view sheds.

I think Ali demonstrated that give priority to expanding protecting open space along the Col Creek Greenway, we're doing that.

The most valued open space lies on the southern half of the property.

That's where the warehouse was and the concrete crushing operation was, ensure trail connectivity.

We're doing that, enhanced connectivity with nearby open space, we're doing that, ensure development plans comply with current UDC requirements.

I think Ali demonstrated that.

So when the when the purchase was considered, um there were a lot of unknowns about the property.

Um Ostab had concerns, and honestly, this these scenarios are probably their worst nightmare.

Um they did not want it chopped up, they kind of hoped it would be right across from Reliance Park, a nice open space with with trip root tails connected to it.

Um there's some and was some envisioning of the housing being maybe up where the park parks in open space is now.

I know the creek creates some challenges with that.

Um but yeah, I mean Ostab said yes, but please don't just make give us the leftovers.

Yeah, and I would just say the um the existing use is on the site when we did purchase it and when those staff was looking at it, um, they were not interested in that southern portion because it was um occupied by um soil uh reclamation and gravel and an industrial use.

So we did, I think what um probably helped them see a different light with that portion of the site was that we did demolish that facility, and um, you know, that that that changed on the site.

Um recognizing our awesome GIS team, I'm able to bring up like historic aerial imagery.

And so I'm looking at September of 2022, which would be around the time of the purchase.

Yes.

So if we can you put that up?

I'm oh it's not.

I'm not sure.

Um I will figure out.

I can message Adam and work on that.

Um, but if you were to look at where the label that says ag north and to the south, the land is disturbed.

You can see that the land is a lighter color, it's from the land being disturbed.

There's a lot of activity of vehicles being parked adjacent the pond.

And so at the time of purchase, everything in the southern half had been disturbed and being used in an industrial way by the previous owner.

So I'm just providing that context of what was there in 2022 and our decision to purchase how we purchased it in early 23 versus um, you know, we spent funds to clean up the site in the interim, and we've allowed some of that native vegetation to come back, and so that might have led to different feelings today.

Lots of different interests.

Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

The picture that showed in the orientation photos that shows what the previously looked like.

Uh slide five from your presentation.

Oh, yeah.

The one with a view show.

Uh this right-hand side, far right one, yeah.

Yeah, there we go.

Okay, so that is that I can keep on doing the time machine if you want to see.

Or is that no, I know.

I think this is this is okay.

And I think I'm I'm listening to Councilmember Hoback at the time.

They were thinking the northern part was where they could get the most benefit because then you hook into Reliance Park, the dog park, and all that.

You've got the trail going down the right side connects all in.

Um I mean, there's competing interests.

Obviously, Luke and your team would love to have this land for their um their facility.

Um my personal feeling is there are better industrial locations for for that so that we can preserve as much of this as open space, contiguous open space um that we can get to satisfy the OSTAP levels.

If we took the top part and probably the the right part and said that's the Ostab piece, that's the the crown jewel for OSTAP, then what I would like to see is whether it is feasible to do the affordable housing from um Catholic charities and to the church on that southern side.

It may not be feasible, but if it is feasible, then we've solved multiple um problems.

So what I'm hearing is there is a desire, at least from you, Mayor, more for options one through three.

One through three.

Um, two, three.

Yeah, these are one through three.

Yeah, actually, I'm I'm probably not even focused on those.

I'm probably more at this just macro level listening to what OSTEB originally was looking uh to do.

Um my thoughts on how do we enhance old town?

And by having a place of worship that's coming into old town, staying in old town, you know, that enhanced old town.

But then if we can also utilize some of their facilities, the parking uh when we have our big events, that's a positive for old town.

Um and then I'll talk about the the other idea I have in exec session later tonight, but it does play into this with uh the northern end of uh Brick Street.

So to do that, we would have to have vehicle access from the south end, right?

Uh probably is listening to Alley with the bridge, and then but I think we'd probably want that anyway.

If I think about um cheesement being that street, and cheese men is the one that runs right by our park, and so that's the value there.

You just know to allow vehicle access on that, it'd be pretty significant investment.

Yeah, we've we had looked at that previously when we were looking at a vehicular connection from Colliers down to Old Town.

Um we looked at several locations, including the Cheesman Street option to create a safe uh functional access that is not impacted by the low water um overflow during flood events, um storm events.

You'd have to completely rip out the existing bridge and build one that would not be encumbered by the floodplain.

So in the event that um that's too expensive, could you have another entrance on to one and a half on the southern end of one and a half?

And could you still use that bridge for pedestrian, or is it like no, you can't use it at all ever in its current condition, you cannot use it for pedestrian access.

It's not regardless of the time of day or yeah, you'd have to make modifications to it to make it feasible from that perspective, modifications but not tearing it out and redoing it.

I can't say that definitively, but I would I would anticipate significant modifications at least.

So for example, railings.

Railings are absolute minimum.

Yeah, just I I go across that quite often.

Yeah, so I'm just curious.

I I believe the conversation with JVA, our engineering consultant, was that if we were to add railings or do any modifications of the existing there's something that prohibits you to modify the existing, yeah.

So anything that we would do to modify or replace the existing structure, we're looking at having to do a Clomar and a Lomart, which is a conditional letter of map revision and letter of map revision with FEMA, which dictates like how are we impacting the flood the base flood elevation through the creek?

So technical way of saying it's a long, cumbersome process that we'll have to spend a lot of time analyzing um with an engineering consultant, even resurfacing it.

Sorry.

Basic maintenance is not included in that.

But if you're adding additional like railings or additional like structural components to the bridge, you actually have to so if we chose to do a walkway bridge, we could just abandon that bridge and do a regular, you know, one of our trails and open space bridges without having to do all the other you'd still have to do the Clomar Lomar if you're doing a new uh pedestrian bridge.

Would those take years to do, or it sounds like it's a big deal, but I'm trying to take a significant amount of time.

I mean, it it would take, I mean, to just do the Clomar um probably six to eight months.

Because we're in a floodplain, or yeah, okay.

And then for reference, um, it might be hard to see on the power point, but there is like a dashed line that follows the edge here.

So the dashed line is the floodplain and it extends all the way up to here and then follows the entire southern edge all the way down.

So this area of green is all the floodplain, which would then again have those requirements if we were to do any type of crossing.

So I missed your mouse point, or were you on the right side slide or the right?

So if you see the which picture on the pink, I see the lower boulder ditch is the northernmost point of the floodplain.

Yeah.

And then it follows the edge of the ag holding.

So that's why that ag holding didn't go any further south, is it was literally limited by the floodplain.

So if you just follow the edge of the ag holding, that is all entirely floodplain, which has the limitations, David spoke up.

But on the uh pink piece of that you can build, if I'm understanding you're correct.

Correct.

Correct.

Um, then it with the pink piece, um looking at the kind of bold green arrows on any of the scenarios, then you're um coming into our transportation requirements as far as spacings for vehicular crossings, but I believe we could just do sidewalk improvements if we're just trying to get people down County Road one and a half on sidewalks.

Any other ideas for this property that we haven't spoken about?

I mean, I'd I'd love to be able to keep the church, you know, 126 years been in town, right?

I'd love to keep it in town still.

So it looks like the only two options or main options will be coming south off the southernmost part off of one and a half, uh, and then swing into that pink area, and then it depends on how much of that pink area would need to be used to preserve the open space at the north end, right?

Or um the 11 acres up top, would that be suitable for um putting the church on on that piece of it and still not as much in town, but still close to town, much closer than 52.

Um so then that goes back to I think what Councilmember Hoback said about Ostab would prefer the northern side, but maybe that's just a new conversation with them.

Yeah, man.

I think we should probably get them to speak for themselves, but my recollection is they're looking for a larger contiguous piece, let's put it that way.

Yeah, yeah.

So more line with that option three, which is the far right.

I think that probably maximizes probably does, yeah.

And and I just want to point out that I think we have to have some conversations on treating land with land that was purchased with Trails Natural Areas Fund.

Do you want to point that out?

So yeah, that goes back to I think what John was saying that that the uh because I uh I had that same concern that just the if you're dividing it in half, and then whatever we use up if the if the TNAC portion is like if it was you're getting whatever a million and a half or so land that we paid three and a half with TNAC, yeah.

That's right.

And they you know uh 46.5 acres, they pay for half of it.

Um of the three options that are shown here, I feel or and they feel give them that value, right?

So do we need to pay back some of that TNAC funds, you know, kind of in the same vein as paying back the housing fee if we keep it open space, right?

So is there a way to keep it 50-50 is what we need to do.

There's no actual lines on it, right?

That we've done so far.

It could be kind of divvied up any way that we want it, as shown, and the three options, all of them are under 18 acres uh in terms of developable area.

So the pink is actually just less than the open space area.

So the overall entire property is 46 and a half acres option one, which has is showing the most ag holding, there's only 21 acres um of ag holding zoning.

So that's as close as we get to the 23 to split 5050.

So I think what I would like to see happen if there's support for it, is that you go back to see if it's feasible to do the affordable housing, the church, and the open space, and you try to keep that as close to 5050 as it is.

But if that's not feasible for whatever reason, then you come back with options, and one of the options may be that we need to pay money into the affordable housing.

Another option may be that we need more um open space money because they got more than 50%.

Well, I don't think it's possible to give more than 50% to the site, just because of the sheer nature of how you can develop this property, you're not gonna get more than 18 acres of developable property, no matter how you slice it.

Got it.

Okay, so that's not a concern on that way.

So if you're thinking about this as as TNAF getting their share, yes, they're gonna get any one of these options is gonna achieve that that 50%.

They may get more than the 50%.

Yes.

Are there any constraints with the ARPA funds to use it for open space?

No, and I will, and I I have uh director Hancock's email here, and I start it.

She's she's no requirement to pay back these funds, these funds have been properly spent, and there's no obligation to pay them back even if we do absolutely nothing with this property as long as the town retains ownership.

Yes.

Still struggle breaking this up and putting housing up on here, any sort of development on this.

I see a strip of green strip or screen space up through Erie, and part of it is the views of the mountains and the views of the town itself, the trees, and then I think about around the house where those trees up there.

I I feel like if we do a park and open space facility, we're taking that away from the residents because I I mean I understand that we need to have secure areas around facilities like that, and I think we're taking that gym part of the property away from the residents by doing that.

I so I struggle with doing anything other than open space for the whole thing and figuring out the other parts that we'll need to deal with, paying the housing fund and what we're gonna do with the parks and open space facility, and is it a new facility or the expansion?

But I I just don't see this property other than just open space.

So your solution is uh make it bad open space and what do we know this we bag space doesn't have to put money?

That's where they got only half of it.

But I hope we found somewhere to figure out some way to move forward with keeping an open space.

So in that scenario though space then TNAC or open the open space fund would need to come up with another three and a half million to basically reimburse well the affordable housing fund from other if I understand correctly, it can come from other areas, it doesn't have to come from that loud.

I would say yes, but I don't know that for certain.

What I worry about is we really don't have other money just hanging out, which also part of another conversation a little bit later tonight.

I think that I think kind of goes back to the original point of why Mostev didn't want to buy it in the first place because it would put a significant impact in the Trails Natural Areas Fund.

We'd have to make some decisions on what properties we we no longer can buy and what projects that we're currently planning to do with teen half dollars according to uh our our strategic plan that we just finished up with, what what projects that would have to be significantly delayed if we if we did make that transfer, right?

All right, so one more thing.

What what about if you kept the 35 acres um that the house and the barn are not on as open space, and then we figure out what we're what we'll do with the 11 acres up top.

Now I know we definitely want to keep the trees uh from being impacted and the trails up on on that ridge, but if you look at it that way, um that's about 76 percent of the property, which is about five million dollars, and so TNF would pay 1.6 million dollars more instead of the full three something, right?

And then we figure out what we're gonna do with the 11 acres up top, you know, whether the church can go there, whether we do a you know, some sort of park and wreck um, or maybe even affordable housing.

Um, but this way only um you just keep the 36 acres or 35 acres as open space.

That sounds like an option six to go on here.

So yeah, I just I want to address probably what uh if anyone at home is watching, like the whiplash of what there's a church, like how where did this come from?

And all of a sudden we're talking about um adding a six option and churches and parking lots.

Yeah, so parking notes yeah, um for you know, for staff, I appreciate your valiant effort.

I feel like we're all over the place.

Um I I love option three, I think it's great.

Um I think it could be an amazing plan development from the tours that the mayor and council member Morlara and I went on um to understand what a front front porch community looks like.

I think a mixed income neighborhood could be a great amenity for this part of town.

I think we could incorporate to your point.

Um you know, mixed use zoning so that we could have uh connecting old town and and extend extending it even.

Um I I don't understand the church piece, and maybe I'll learn more about that at some point.

Um but I don't I don't I don't know.

I have concerns with all the whiplash from this conversation.

Um and then we still have the issue of expanding laws and that being a floodplain and being twice as much as the 19 million dollars to improve uh on the page property that what's already there.

Um so I don't know that we've really grasped that as a this as a body uh yet like we really need to look at that.

Is that what is that what we want to take on?

We would if we were so concerned about 19 million dollars, 40 40 million dollars is um it's huge, and I don't have a way to pay for either.

And I don't doubt that it's necessary.

Um, but I just I've been trying to absorb all of this, and it's um it's interesting we're talking about reimbursement reimbursing the affordable housing fund with 3.6 million.

I'm still open to that.

I still think if that's what we do, that's what we do.

Um but it's just I I sort of I just am having whiplash from going options one to three to now four to six as well.

So that's a lot.

Yeah, this is called ideation, and it's uh it's a process that happens when um all um potential usage have not been explored.

And so that's all that's been going on since March when this first came to us in September when we learned of something new, a complete um parks and uh open space facility.

And so through that, um, I'm trying to do something though that preserves old town and the small town feeling.

What do we do to make that more?

That's that's one thing.

I'm trying to figure out whether there's an option to keep the church in old town.

Because frankly, that's an economic driver for old town as well, especially um as the church grows.

I'm also trying to to um to figure out how do we how do we know if we can also get affordable housing on there at that 30 to 60 percent.

We can only know that if we take the time to take to take a step back and to then do the feasibility.

Otherwise, we're just thinking none of this can work, you know.

Maybe some of Allie's points are it's too high, it'll never work, or maybe the traffic is too much, it'll never work.

But we don't know that, and so to just discount it, um, I think is also the wrong um way to go at this point.

I get your point, um council member O'Connor of making it open space, because that would be awesome.

I mean, it's open space, it feels like open space now.

Um and I think many, many people would would like that as well.

Um the challenge I have with that is that we don't have another three and a half million dollars likely to just um offset it or to do what we we would need to do there, and it doesn't um it doesn't do anything for the economic um side of old town to enhance that and to make it happen.

Yeah, so the ideation sessions that I worked in my career or whatever were like group of people sitting together and talking, not like one person driving an agenda or moving things suddenly, like that into a little that the chefs came from, that parking came from none of the discussions in the past we had it.

We're a group of people talking.

We're I understand, but this came in an email that as if it was already discussed about and putting it as an agenda to move forward.

So ideation doesn't work like that, yeah.

Okay.

So I just wanted to let you know.

All right.

So my other concern is that if we are moving ahead with increased open space, um, there's the cost of acquiring it, but there's a cost of maintenance, and I would like to understand that more of what that looks like for the long term.

Um if we're gonna go that route.

Uh yes, you know, we we would have to conduct an open space management plan just like we do with all of our open space properties and figure out what what what level of maintenance it requires.

Um you have you have the existing pond on site if you were to retain that that does have a that does have a cost to do um to to maintain it.

Are we gonna use the water to irrigate the trees?

We have the tree stand that's there that we have to figure out how we're gonna water, so there's gonna be a cost to that.

Um you have uh I think I put it in the slide 160,000 for just year one of reclamation activities, and that's kind of based on some of the more uh some of the areas that need a little bit more love than than the others, and that's just year one.

It's probably a five-year process, and your cost decline.

So I couldn't give you a uh a cost per acre just because we haven't done that open space management plan, because we don't know exactly how many acres we're gonna be maintaining is open space and whether we're keeping the pond and um you know there's obviously the trail maintenance, but those costs, you know, in the grand scheme of things are are fairly minimal.

It's the reclamation piece uh for that three to five years.

That's gonna be your the the most significant costs another question.

Um I'm not the pink and green areas on the south end.

Um so even in the uh the green areas floodplain, you can't build there, does that you can't build parking lot as well?

So not nothing can go there.

Okay, thanks.

Um I'm trying to figure out that it sounds like we have uh some interest in a sixth option.

And uh interest in fully understanding each of the uh pros and cons with each of these options.

Uh does it make sense for us to come back with uh expanded table like we have with five options now that has somewhat of a sixth option and a listing of the pros and cons and getting discussion of that and some direction on which of those is the way to go.

I think we will continue to spin.

I'm not hearing support for at least one of the options, but maybe I'm wrong, and that is to put the parts in open space full facility there.

Um so if we get that out of the discussion, then maybe we're talking about something simpler than what you're doing, but maybe not.

So just by a show of um you know, thumbs up or thumbs down, thumbs up meaning yes, I want to move forward with the parks and um open space facility on that land, thumbs down, meaning no, I don't want to move forward with it on that land, then at least we can get a sense of that.

Before we do that, we want to go then put each option.

Um once we get through the first one, then I'll continue on the facility as presented, yes.

So the the question, um so we all saw the budget presentation.

So after 2027, there was no more uh capital improvement funds until we figure out some other mechanism to get that.

So I my thing is just whatever it is.

I I don't see a financial plan for doing this.

So you know it's a beautiful facility, and I appreciate all the work that went into it, but I I don't in either of these options, I don't see right now that we have a financial plan to pay for them.

Right.

Well, that's nor do we have a financial plan to pay for a second recreation campus, which is part of the reason why we're engaging this survey company to help us figure out what are the voters uh likely to support what combination of different things, whether that's a parks and recreation tax, so we've heard mention of a public safety tax, what are all the options out there that we don't have enough money to fund and and what would likely resonate with the voters?

Um I I would also say not doing the parks and open space facility in this location by default means we're doing it someplace else.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If we're doing it at uh laws, our best guess at this point is roughly double the cost.

Is there any um desire to from staff to have council or to basically pursue a four and a half option where it's was uh one of the thoughts was to for lack of better way of saying it, lightly renovate the house to move some staff over there, or is that just not an option that really is feasible?

Well looking at it.

You will have to do something with the house and the existing warehouse.

I I I think if if I'm understanding that the four and a half option is we could look at a phased approach, um and and eventually do the full build out, but that's maybe not what you're saying.

Um we would have to go back to kind of the drawing board and figure out what we would want to do with the house in terms of uh programmatic level.

So I I don't have a good answer for you, other than I think one of the options that we discussed, and I think it kind of falls into the funding is is a phased approach.

I think the direction that we're looking for is do you have some sort of facility here?

We haven't explored another option of activating the site.

You know, there I think there are a lot of the same concerns that you will have.

I'll say from from Luke's perspective, like if we were to get direction to move forward with a facility at this location, depending on what the funding mechanism is moving forward to to build the facility.

Um there are phasing options associated with that.

Um if the ultimate phasing or if the ultimate uh funding mechanism were to be to bond a facility out here, you would likely want to just build out what you're gonna need long term, just because you're not gonna want to phase a bond.

Yeah, um, but um there are options to phase it to a certain extent.

Um it's just depending on what the funding mechanism is to be able to pursue that.

So I think it goes back that if we start it there, then we're likely gonna continue there and just build it out eventually, which would then go against the kind of open space discussion that we were having.

I think it kind of goes backwards to the original thought of just using the house as a almost a temporary facility until um facility was built elsewhere.

But it doesn't sound like that.

Which I which I recall hearing it wasn't wasn't really desired.

We didn't want to look at the short term, we wanted to look at the long term, which to my point earlier, that's my involvement to more of a complex.

All right, so just by showing hand, thumbs down means um no on the parks and open space facility on this property.

We recognize that we would have to go find another piece of land and work all that out.

Thumbs up means no, I want to stick with the plan to put the parks and open space facility here.

All right.

So all right, we've got enough thumbs downs that that's off the table now.

So now the t the discussion could just turn to the more pure open space, and then what do you do with the rest of the property?

Um could could I just clarify?

So we would be looking at options one through three, but the dark green parks and open space facility would then be just open space.

It's just not part of the discussion.

Or pink.

Okay.

Yeah, I don't I don't think what is drawn in any of those three actually has to stay.

Okay.

Now it's just a discussion on okay, if it's 5050, then 50% open space.

Um, it's sticking in me what um council member hobak said that they don't want the scraps, and I get that.

So, how do you figure out how to move this so that open space gets something that everybody can be proud of, right?

That people want to go to, they can go to the trees, they can go to the trail, they can get to resilience park and um be part of that.

And then what is the other 50%?

And on the other uh 50%, I would like us to at least one thing on this one.

That's our last thought on that one.

So if we keep postponing this thing or stall this project, construction tomorrow could be 30 million instead of 19 million.

I don't know what you're referring to.

The parts and facilities construction, we said we're not doing it here, right?

We have no money to do it anywhere at this moment in time.

So there's no whatever, right?

Yeah, but there's no stalling it because there's no money to do it, right?

That's got to be figured out to um our town manager's comment that we gotta find the money, we may do tax increases or ask and and all that.

Um I forgot what or where it was at.

Um, the open space getting the best 50% of the land, and then I would love to see the feasibility of could we do affordable housing and the the church there that keeps the church in the um uh in old town and it gives the option to do 30 to 60 percent affordable housing, which we haven't done here in here.

So I think that's what we're showing is this is the feasible area to build uh a development.

Uh I just also I'll I'll just throw out there that I think since this is a town-owned property that we would have to do an RFP right for a development partner, it's not a guarantee of one entity or another.

I want to make sure that we're clear on that.

We'll get us any hot water in that.

But yeah, and I think in exec session, we can talk about that too.

Yeah, and I have other concerns we can discuss in executive sessions, but so achieving.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

I so if we're looking at the developable land, and suddenly the dark green is open space and not parks and open not park, not the facility.

So it looks like just about any one of those is half and half.

Is that am I is that the real option one is 21 acres, so that gets you closest to the 23 acres from the development side.

So we never approach the open space.

We don't approach 5050 from a development.

No, okay.

That's what I was trying to understand.

So I'm learning this too.

It's almost like OSTAP, no matter how you look at this, they're gonna get at least their 50 percent.

I'm uh from staff perspective, I'm kind of hoping that we could get, as I have heard some different opinions about um, you know, 50-50 development, well, yeah, development plus open space or just plain open space.

I'm wondering if we could also get some clear direction with everybody as far as the 100% open space.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

So on that particular one, we were talking about before.

Um it's the money, right?

And and then the side of this that if we did 100% open space, one we have to find the money to buy the other part of the land, and then is that doing anything to help propagate the uh the financial side of old town and supporting old town in what we're doing.

So I was I was thinking, sorry, if I may real real quick before we get into if uh I think we would have to look into the legal ramifications of if TNAC or excuse me, TNAF were to reimburse a fund.

I I don't want to I we would have to look into on whether that would be those those funds wouldn't be appropriate use for anything other than open space parks, trails.

So why would they have to reimburse?

Maybe I'm missing that.

Well, that's I think that was an option on the table if we were to get more open space than TNF would have to pay back.

That's that's what I heard.

I don't think if they had more than 50%.

Is that right?

If it was all I don't think it would have to come from TNF, it would just have you know if the intent is to reimburse the affordable housing.

We don't really have a fund per se, but our affordable housing um effort then I suppose that could come from any number of yes.

And I I heard a mention of TNAF, so I wanted to make sure that I was being yeah.

Can we just say in the spirit of the original agreement, we agree that there'll be three and a half million, whatever that will be used for another, and then try to make it as simple as possible.

I don't know.

I'm not sure it's a bridge we have to cross at this point.

No if if the open space gets at least 50%, then whatever the other 50% is, what's the feasibility of what we built there?

Okay, affordable housing, perhaps a place of worship, then you would come back if that is a concern, right?

If it's uh 20% and all of a sudden uh open space gets 80%.

Okay, I get that.

But if it's 55 and 45, are we gonna worry about it?

Maybe not.

Can you clarify for me the dark green that's set aside for production open space?

Are you telling me that's all absolutely undevelopable?

No.

Um so there is the overhead power lines, which is a shaded above.

Um let me just double check.

No, okay, that doesn't show it.

So there is a shaded area that is overhead power line that you cannot develop underneath it.

I believe you can do roads, or you could maybe do a parking lot underneath that.

Um and then just due to the narrowness of the rest, um, traditional development would be difficult.

Um you could potentially do clustered housing or an apartment um type uh multiplex.

Um, but just due to the nature of how you lay out streets, it would be hard to do uh your traditional single family detached up-to-town homes just because of the proportions, but if you wanted to pursue a more clustered housing type or multiplex, um that would be possible, but it would just be very difficult and um not as high easy of a yield as a normal market rate developer would probably pursue.

It'd be inefficient for sure.

Um and the tree stand is also kind of the widest area is the tree stand that's existing.

So appreciate that.

That's why I think it's ideal to because we can comment the cardinal.

So at the how about we recommend at the next OSTAB meeting, they look at keeping the 35 acres off the ridge, not the 11 acres in the dark green, and keeping that all um open space.

Would they be willing to um recommend that uh you know a million or a million and a half comes out of the TNAF fund to go into housing if if they were able to keep that whole that 35 acres as open space?

I think that's where my concern lies is TNF going into a fund to be used other than for the purpose in which it was created.

That that that's the concern that I was pointing to.

So I would say that it they're gonna pay four and a half to five million for the 35 acres um that'll be open space.

They've already put in 3.4 million, right?

But it's ultimately open space fund.

It's no longer ARPA funds.

That's probably a legal question.

Yeah, it's using the we probably can't answer that.

You're not purchasing the light went on where you were sorry.

I wasn't explaining it very well, but I've got it again in the I mean I I wouldn't recommend um the 11 acres east of the creek as being the developed area, it's just very inefficient.

And it would, you know, whether or not we want to maintain the tree stand, um that would be something that would also detract from developable land in that area, and some of that area isn't developable just because it is so narrow.

So I do worry that it wouldn't be very to the west has the old uh concrete stretching facility on it, which would take a lot of reclamation for uh to make a traditional open space as well.

So I'm gonna suggest that um we stop this conversation here.

We have an executive session tonight where we can actually have a conversation about negotiations uh with regard to this property.

Um and then that'll allow us to get into some of the legal side of things as well.

All right, um, so thank you for all of this work.

Uh more to come uh after we have that conversation.

Um, with that, we're gonna move on to our council member reports and announcements.

And I think I'll do this a little bit differently uh tonight and just to ask if anybody has anything um to share as opposed to going around the diets, and then we get uh right into our executive session.

Yes, Councilmember Bear.

Hi, but you guys are shocked that I have board announcements.

Um I just wanted to say thank you to the community.

Our food drive was profoundly um successful.

We delivered over 2,000 pounds of food to the Erid Community Food Bank and the sister Carmen, and that was all in the generation, the generous donations from our community, and I'm so thankful.

Um, and Cole Creek Meals on Wheels and Sister Carmen have both expressed their gratitude.

Um so thank you to everyone who participated.

Um and thank you to Parks and Rec staff.

That was a lot.

People showed up with a lot of donations, and we took over their um break room, so many, many times actually, including after the food drive was over.

Um so I'll be testifying at CTIO tomorrow, which is the Colorado Transportation Investment Office.

Yes, yes, I'm getting it.

Only took three years um to advocate for I-25 North in our communities along that corridor for investment.

Um, and then I wanted to say thanks to the sustainability department.

They applied for $600,000 for the Powerhead Colorado um grant, and um we'll be using that to help support staff as we're implementing um those initiatives around beneficial electrification and um some trainings and things um through Dr.

Cog.

And then I wanted to thank everyone for coming out for community coffee.

Thank you, Mayor Moore and Councilmember Hoback for joining us.

And um thanks for the Veterans Day event, Luke.

That was tremendous as usual.

I really appreciate that every year.

And um, I guess I'll leave it there.

So thank you so much.

All right, great.

Any other comments, Counselors?

Mayor for Tim.

I just want to uh bring up some events for on um so uh Friday, November 21st.

So there's a cultural caravan performance.

Uh uh Alejandro uh Castaño and Friends uh is performing at the ECC.

Um uh Thanksgiving next week, which wishing everyone a really happy Thanksgiving.

Um the pilgrimage run is happening, and then uh December 5th is our our parade of lights downtown.

So see everyone down there.

All right, sounds good.

Go ahead.

So councilmember Pesser Melly and I were at HPAB last night, and they approved the windows going in front of the uh the bell tower.

Thank you, Chad and team, for that idea.

It's pretty awesome to highlight it and showcase it to the residents, and I think it's gonna be awesome.

So thank you.

So it'll be lighted behind the windows will go up, be lighted so you can see the bell.

Yeah, that's a plan.

Nice.

So yeah, we're excited.

So that was exciting to get that board and actually return it to you know um how it looks here.

So as much as possible without the open air because that presents challenges with me.

Yeah, birds and tests and version has one there and very well preserved up there.

So it's my restoration.

Okay.

With that, I'll look to the mayor for 10 to take us into executive session.

I moved to donut to executive session to determine positions relative to matters of maybe subject to negotiations.

Develop a strategy for negotiations and or instruct negotiators.

And two to hold a conference with the town attorney to receive legal advice on specific legal questions.

Pursuant to CRS twenty-four six four oh two four B and determine positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations.

Develop a strategy for negotiations, and or instruct negotiators pursuant to CRS twenty four six four two four four four four four E, all regarding the town center DDA.

All right, second.

This site is just a few blocks from downtown.

Easy access to Erie Elementary and Middle Schools, and walkable to multiple parts.

The community has a mix of two and three bedroom designs, single and two-story options, and a blend of detached and attached homes.

Each home is thoughtfully designed with access to private yards, the garden court, and shared amenity space, creating a welcoming and connected community.

Homes start well below average purchase prices in Erie at three hundred and eighty five.