Okay, council, I think we can get started.

I will call our work session to order.

Good afternoon, and Jay, over to you.

Good afternoon.

Um, I'd like to start off by making an upcoming event.

Next Tuesday, uh, 5 12, May 12th at 10 a.m., we will be having a little press conference here at City Hall to talk about and put out more publicity about the illegal gunfire campaign that we've started.

And so um welcome, we welcome any city council members that'd like to attend.

Under organizational updates and employee recognition, I'd like to start off by calling up uh Jessica McAkren to recognize our stormwater team.

You know what?

We will postpone this because I don't see the team here.

It's a nice day, so they're cleaning.

I'm gonna postpone it.

We're gonna come back.

All right.

It's not raining, so they're actually preparing.

Uh, okay, then we'll jump to the next one.

Diana Giordano, assistant city manager to recognize Public Service Recognition Week.

All right, afternoon, mayor council.

Um, I'm Deanna Giordano, city uh assistant city manager, and it's public service recognition week, so May 3rd through the 9th.

So we want to be able to, this actually has been celebrated since 1985 for both federal, state, and local government employees, and it provides us with an opportunity to celebrate our employees here in the city of Fort Worth.

And those are the individuals that uh bring a level of dedication and integrity and professionalism to our city to make sure that every day behind the scenes it's keeping our community safe, thriving, and moving forward.

So I'm gonna take just kind of a brief walk down memory lane and to remind us that the city was incorporated in 1873 with a population of just 500 employees.

That year the city hired their very first public servants.

Their jobs were to keep the city safe and deliver essential services to its residents.

Now, fast forward more than 150 years, one million residents and over 8,000 employees.

Um, and the core of the public servants, what they do is still the same to keep the city safe and to provide essential services.

So a lot has changed in terms of growth, but this core of what we do uh is still the same.

I'd like to add that our city, particularly here in Fort Worth.

I hope you're as proud of them of our employees as I am, because they are the very best public servants that I have seen.

They're highly skilled with top-notch expertise.

They not just only do their jobs, but they do it very well.

They come to work every day to execute your vision, the community visions, and making sure that we operate as one city and one team.

So please join me in thanking the resident the members of our city team for public service recognition week.

So I'm gonna look to the audience.

If you're a city employee, if you would kindly stand to be recognized.

That's most of you.

And anybody that's watching online, give your hand give yourself a pat on the back because you all deserve the recognition for keeping Fort Worth thriving and moving forward.

Thank you.

I saw our chief financial officer didn't stand.

I think he didn't.

He doesn't like the condition of the budget.

Yeah.

He doesn't want to acknowledge it.

Um, William Rummely from our courts department to recognize uh our teen court program.

Thank you, Mr.

City Manager, Mayor, and City Council.

I'm just gonna turn this over to the chief judge.

We just want to recognize our teen attorneys and uh the coaches that helped them.

And I think we have a presentation.

Good afternoon, mayor, council members, city manager Chapa, staff, and guests.

I'm here today to recognize the achievement of our Fort Warteen Court program.

On March 28th, the Fort Warteen Court competed in the Texas Teen Court mock trial competition held at the City of Frisco Municipal Court.

The competition was limited to 12 teams.

Each team was comprised of three members.

Our teen attorneys consisted of Sienna Schressa, James Jex, and Christina Azore.

I am proud to announce that our team attorneys placed second overall at the mock trial competition.

Our teen attorneys were coached by teen Court Coordinator Ivan Yanias, Municipal Court Judge Patricia Summers, Patricia Municipal Court Judge Laura Genoza, and Assistant City Attorney Prosecutor Adeline Atkinson.

At this time, Judge Summers would like to say a few words about the team court program and the state competition.

Good afternoon.

Thank you so much for having me here.

I tell you, I am so honored and grateful to have an opportunity to talk to you and about the recognition of our team court program and especially our outstanding achievements as a team court competition program.

But just a little background information on myself.

I began, and a lot of people don't know, I began as a volunteer back in 2000 and 2001.

And then I became a substitute judge in 2002, and then I became a full-time judge in 2014.

So in my opinion, teen court, along with the support of this city council, you have given me a very rewarding career.

Thank you for that.

During those years, I've been involved with training many of our teams.

Hey, thank you.

It's right in my face.

But this is not about me.

This is about our teams, our teens in our community.

Teen Court Program is a voluntary alternative to adjudication and sentencing for teenagers in the municipal and justice courts.

It allows eligible teens to have their cases heard by their jury or peers.

And instead of paying a fine, sanctions may include community service, educational programs, and or future participation to court.

Once the requirement is completed, the cases are dismissed and they do not show up on their record, and they can also ask for an expunction of their total record.

Youth diversion, we have that.

It just started last year.

Teen Court is a part of our new youth diversion program as well.

Many times people come and they have an opportunity to volunteer as juveniles and as adults in our criminal justice system, which leads us to the team court competition.

Since 2007, the Texas Teen Court Association began a statewide competition where teens come together to compete in mock trials in a one-day competition.

The students volunteer to compete and demonstrate their leadership in public speaking, teamwork, critical thinking, and courtroom procedures.

The teams are made up of three teams, two attorneys, either defense attorneys or prosecuting attorneys, and one witness.

They must demonstrate their ability to present both sides of their case before two judges.

Those judges then grade them based upon their opening statement, their closing statement, their cross-examination and examination of their witnesses.

From 2007 until 2020, Fort Worth Teen Court has been involved in those competitions, and we have won many awards, including three times as the first time placement award.

But during COVID, things kind of slowed down.

And so it was just this year that we were able to reinstate our participation in the team court competition.

And I am proud to announce that our Fort Worth team earned second place this year statewide, competing against 12 teams.

I's about to graduate from high school in two weeks.

And he is a very competent, dynamic, and definitely a natural leader.

He has plans after graduating from high school, he's going to serve his church on a two-year mission wherever they take him.

Very young, very nice young man, very strong, very articulate.

Christina de Zor.

She's a highly intelligent 16-year-old.

Christina graduated from high school at the age of 15 and is currently attending Tarrant County Community College.

Through her experience with us this last year, she has decided she now wants to become an attorney.

Even though I told her doctors make more money.

She is 15 and is attending North Lake High School in Denton.

Very talented performer, and whose dance recital was rescheduled just so she could come and represent us in the Fort Worth Teen Court competition.

These young people trained tirelessly, beginning at Tuesdays, Thursday evenings, and all day Saturday.

Their dedication, discipline, and teamwork led to an incredible accomplishment.

I would also like to thank Yubon Yannis, our court coordinator, our team court coordinator, Judge my colleague, Judge Laura Condoza, and City Attorney Prosecutor Adele Atkins for helping coach and prepare these students for success.

Teen Court changes lives.

It gives youth a confidence, a purpose, and a second chance.

It teaches leadership, accountability, and service.

Today we proudly recognize these exceptional students and celebrate the continued success of our Fort Worth Dean Court.

Thank you very much for your time.

Next up, we have Marilyn Marvin, Director of Property Management to recognize our fleet group.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, and Jay.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Marilyn Marvin, Director of Property Management.

And earlier this year, through the our fleet was recognized through the uh North Texas COG and the Clean Cities Initiative.

And we received the fleet, not me, received a gold award for the uh for providing clean transportation through our cities.

And so I'd like to just let Brad, who is our assistant director, say a few words.

Hi, Brad Hunter, assistant director of the fleet division.

Uh mayor, counsel, Mr.

Choppa.

Thank you for this recognition.

I also want to recognize our director, Marilyn Marvin.

Her leadership and support, both in front and behind the scenes has been key to this operation.

This recognition reflects our uh the work of our technicians, supervisors, and support staff that put it in every day, keeping the city of Fort Worth equipment in service and departments moving.

We manage a tough fleet.

It does not slow down, and neither do we, nor shortcuts.

We make we make the hard calls.

Not every call is easy, not every call is perfect, but we own the results.

Fleet's mission is critical.

If it's down, the operations are impacted.

We 100% acknowledge that.

It's that simple.

Our job is to keep equipment safe, reliable, and ready when it's needed.

We're responsible for every city asset in our care, and we take that very seriously.

Everybody behind this.

I promise you, they're sitting here thinking, Man, did I call that customer?

Is that vehicle gonna get done?

Because I'm sitting over here.

I guarantee they're all thinking that right now.

That expectation is clear.

We do it, we do the right thing every time.

We're proud of this recognition, but focus doesn't change.

We stay disciplined, we execute to the standard, and we are accountable for the revolt results.

We truly are one vision, one journey, and one team.

I thank you for this recognition.

Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Okay, I think we put out the bat signal and their stormwater folks are here now.

And so I'm gonna call Jessica McAkron to recognize them.

All the rain, as we know.

Perfect.

Well, I'm joined today by Jennifer Dyke, Assistant Director of Stormwater.

And Lisa Biggs, our floodplain administrator, who I've gone shopping with.

I can't believe I just completely went blank.

Y'all can write over here so they can.

So every year in Texas, Governor Abbott proclaims Texas Flood Awareness Week.

And this year he has proclaimed the week of May 18th through the 22nd as that week.

And last year we were here around this same time to recognize our stormwater utility folks.

And this year it's especially special to me to recognize them because this year in Fort Worth is the 20th anniversary of the creation of the stormwater utility.

And you might remember it was created after a group of stakeholders were put together following some really catastrophic flooding in 2004 that led to five deaths.

And the mission of the stormwater utility is and was remains to protect people and property from harmful stormwater runoff.

This team has worked incredibly hard over the last 20 years to start with a very nominal fee that created a little bit of money to tackle some small projects and they really have leveraged that into some really monumental projects for the city of Fort Worth, and they continue to do some really great things.

I asked them what are some of the examples that you are most proud of over the last 20 years that the stormwater utility has done.

They named that they have mitigated hazardous roadway flooding through many areas of the city, but a great example of that is off Haltham Road in areas where they can't do the infrastructure improvements to mitigate that hazardous road over topping flooding.

They have installed high water notification systems, flashing beacons, etc.

They have maintained the high water warning flasher system at over 60 locations.

And in 2024, they launched a new effort.

Um what was the new one?

I'm so sorry, I'm drawing my thank you.

That notifies people ahead of time before they get to the area of where there is high uh high water and to go to a different route.

They have mitigated flooding to 125 homes in the Westcliff and Greenfield Acres neighborhoods, and they are constantly assessing the condition and rehabbing aging drainage pipes, and we have continued to expand that over the last 20 years.

The new culvert inspection program that was created in fiscal year 24 and has inspected 2,600 of the city's 4,000 culverts, and they've cleaned 1600, which has a direct impact on mitigating flooding.

And then a huge celebration that we shared with y'all is they recently were awarded 90 million dollars in flood infrastructure funding grant for the upper Libo flood mitigation project, and that's just a really strong testament to the work that they have continued to do to demonstrate success and then identify funding opportunities to go after.

And then last year, when we were here recognizing them, we shared with y'all that they had received the Texas Flood Plain Management Association Excellence Award in 2025.

This team continues to do some really phenomenal work for the city of Fort Worth.

We saw it recently with the the um heavy rain and and flooding that we saw just um over the last couple weeks.

Last year, I think at the same time when I was up here, we had just experienced a flooding event as well.

So we are no strangers to that, and we are so thankful for the work that they do.

Um Lisa has um you've been our floodplain administrator now for how many years?

Two years.

Over 10 years, and Jennifer, you've been with the city now for eleven years leading the city.

And as Jennifer mentioned, we do have our field crews out responding to all of the calls for assistance over the last couple weeks, and we really appreciate them.

But please join me in thanking this team for all that they do for the flood awareness education and protection in the city of Fort Worth.

Just a couple more to go, and Dana Bergdoff has the honor of finishing us out.

The first one is to recognize Midori Clark and our library team.

Thank you, City Manager Choppa and Mayor and Council.

Appreciate the opportunity.

So unfortunately, Madori couldn't be with us today.

She's at an important urban library director meeting, but uh we do have our the team that really deserves a lot of the credit here today to help help accept this award.

So I'm pleased to announce some wonderful news that the Texas Library Association recently announced its 2026 branding iron awards, and Fort Worth Library has taken home the top honor in the fundraising annual report and strategic plan marketing category.

So ta-da, there's the state award.

So this award specifically recognizes the innovative marketing campaign behind the library's fiscal year 2024 annual report.

The selection committee was particularly impressed by how the library team developed a comprehensive planning strategy that resonated with our residents, demonstrated strong community enthusiasm for libraries, and evolved their engagement practices to better connect with our city of learners.

So this branding iron award is a high honor in the library profession, signifying that Fort Worth is leading the state and how we communicate the value of public services, which Deanna spoke to earlier.

It's a testament to the hardworking communications professionals who ensure our residents know exactly what their library has to offer them from millions of books and free printing to ESL classes and world-class cultural programs.

So as I mentioned, Midori couldn't be with us today, but I would like to invite assistant director Sherry Knight, communications manager Teresa Davis, and her team of talented communications professionals, Todd Overman, Erica Stewart, and Sarah Gunther to formally accept this award for the library.

So please come forward.

Next, Dana is gonna recognize uh Jessica Rogers, the economic development director and her team.

Or the last of the stars.

Yes, yes, the stars are winning here in Fort Worth.

So I'd like to call up Jessica Rogers and her team.

So you may recall that Reggie Zeno provided an informal report several weeks ago about the trans the five transparency stars that his team helped uh help the city garner through the Texas Comptroller's office.

And I'm very pleased to report that for the first time in Fort Worth's history, we have achieved the sixth transparency star for economic development.

So I'd like JR to tell us a little bit, tell us a little bit about it.

We also did a great job, but we timed it perfectly.

This week is also economic development week.

Um and so I'm really excited to get to introduce you to a few faces that you may not be familiar with because they do incredibly hard work behind the scenes.

Um, Andrea Duffy, who's our communications coordinator, Jordan Brown, who's a management analyst on the small business team, and pre-onkar Ram Cobalt, who is on our business attraction team, and these are some really high-powered data analytics folks that when we put numbers in front of you, they have put them through any number of models.

So I just want to make sure that these guys get recognized.

Um, Ryan Poehler, who is with the Fort Worth Lab, who is on our compliance side, also did a tremendous amount of work to help us with this to review this information.

So I just want to say thank you to this team.

And I counted last night, I didn't have my glasses on, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but we are now one of sixteen cities in Texas that have all six of the stars.

So, Alan, I think you had something.

Oh, I'm gonna take a picture.

Yeah, I just wanted to give a quick shout out.

I think it was about two years ago we challenged the city to go through the transparency star program, and uh that was an aspirational goal.

I'm thrilled that we've made it.

And yeah, while there are 16 cities, there's just one Fort Worth, and we're the biggest.

We're the most most transparent large city in Texas.

Before Dana sits down sits down, I want to recognize Dana and let every all know that she has achieved a really high milestone in her in her career and in her uh area of expertise.

The American Institute of Certified Planners has named her and added her to the group of fellows.

And that is uh the highest loftiest level you can reach.

I think she's got a cool hat now, there's something that they make them wear.

Um it's got a feather in it, I believe, but um, she it's uh it's the highest level that you can get in that profession, and uh um our own Dana Bergdoff is is now a fellow.

We're proud of you, Dana.

And if I may, I want to thank Jay for your support in that in that application, but also specifically want to call out Mayor Parker, uh Mayor Pro Tem Carlos Flores, and also Mayor Pro Tem Gina Bivens, who wrote me recommendation letters last spring uh for that application process.

I had to write a 10-page narrative about my story uh here in Fort Worth, and it was such a wonderful experience, a lot of work, a lot of hard work, and I just want to thank all of you for your support over the years and the team in planning and development, and then last but not least, Fernando Costa, who was my mentor for for many many years, and still is to this day.

So, we're so proud of that and so thankful for your tenure here at the city of Fort Worth.

I think your your business card should just say fellow from now on, or just effing planner, I don't know.

We are so incredibly lucky to have Dana and um, you know, as a former planner, I can tell you that when I grew up I wanted to be Dana Bergda.

Absolutely.

So we all do.

You know, there's there's so many um aspiring planners that meet you and are completely enamored with the work that you do.

Um so this is well deserved, and thank you for sticking with us here at the city of Fort Worth.

Hey Dana.

I think we have guests that got to join us, yes.

I think our teen agers from the teen court are here.

We could actually have them come up and we can summers being recognized.

And please, interview.

So he's just gonna wave.

That's fine, we understand.

This is James.

And yes, unfortunately, James had both his wisdom teeth taken out yesterday.

So he's not smiling too.

He's a great guy.

And then this is our we called her Dukey Hauser, if you know who's uh, this is our brain girl.

She is already in college, doing great, now she wants to be a lawyer.

Even though I told her, you know, she's still gonna be a great attorney one day.

So this is Christina's award.

Christina, do you want to say anything?

You're welcome to.

Okay.

I just wanted to say that I'm very happy to be here today in front of all of y'all.

Thank y'all for seeing me and allowing me to have this wonderful opportunity to meet all of y'all, and I thank y'all so very much.

Thank you all of you.

Well, thank you for seeing us again.

We appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Feel better.

Okay.

Go take the paint pills.

Moving on to informal reports.

Um, the first is our quarterly development activity report, and DJ Harrell's here to answer any questions.

Next up is our human relations commission overview, and Kristen Smith's here to answer any questions.

Uh, I would just like for Kristen to kind of share uh some of that with us as they gave me an informal report, which was uh very good, and I'm very pleased with the transformation that she is bringing about to the commission.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

I'll just kind of give a quick overview of what the IR includes.

Um, the first thing that I do want to stress is I know there's, you know, lots of conversation about DEI, um, but specifically the Human Relations Commission here in the city is tasked with civil rights compliance, and that is directly related to civil rights law, which has been in effect since the 60s.

So our human relations commission is responsible for all of our civil rights programming, so that includes our Fair Housing Office, which falls under HUD or Housing and Urban Development.

Also fair employment, which would be part of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or EEOC.

We also support the ADA for public access, including our ADA coordination and then community engagement and outreach.

One of our current priorities is making sure that that commission is fully filled with community members.

So later this week you will receive an email from me just asking and providing information if you have constituents who may be interested in serving on the HRC.

It's important that we have that commission filled because they also hear appeals that may come through fair housing or fair employment.

On the second page of the IR, it includes the names of our current members and how they are elected.

And then I've also included metrics for each of our programs.

So for fair employment, our top three complaint categories are race and ethnicity, sex or gender, and retaliation for fair housing.

Our top three complaint categories include disability by far, overwhelmingly, disability is our highest, followed by race and sex or gender.

And then I've also included metrics for accessibility, complaints or investigations that have come through our office, which these are specifically limited to public accessibility.

So just recently, just to focus on re-engagement, and again, so as I'm building my relationships with our commission members and helping the community understand these programs, we had a special call meeting.

It was a combined retreat with the HRC and the Mayor's Committee on Persons with Disabilities to really do some strategic planning, provide them with training on what their purpose is and scope, and to just kind of talk through ways that we can get the community engaged.

And again, in addition to filling vacancies, our priorities include expanding and maintaining consistent outreach as well as appropriate funding of the programs and agency and making sure that we have support to continue these programs for the long term.

But I'll open it up for any questions, comments for me.

No, I just want to thank Kristen and Deanna for hitting the ground running.

I mean, I know that you just recently came to us, but the work you are doing is much needed, and I like the speed with which you are moving.

I appreciate that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Kristen.

Up next is a multifamily housing recovery program, notice of funding availability, and Casey Thomas is here to answer any questions.

Any questions for Casey?

Okay.

Next is our neighborhood street project timelines and oversight, and Laura and Pierre.

I'd like an overview.

Yeah, I think it's probably safe that we all have questions of various degrees or you just step up through your project.

Sure.

Mayor and Council, this informal report explains essentially white neighborhood street bond projects take longer than resurfacing work and how we manage our contractor performance and schedules.

In short, resurfacing moves quickly because it only addresses the pavement surface.

The neighborhood street bond projects are full reconstruction, so that includes water, stormwater, curbs, sidewalks, and ADA ramps.

The broader scope averages about 430 days compared to about 40 days per lane mile for resurfacing.

Residential access needs and utility coordination does limit how much work can occur at once.

And final paving is intentionally scheduled at the end of our projects to protect the new concrete and underground utilities.

We've also reviewed seven recent bond projects in the neighborhood streets category.

On average, they receive a time extension of about 54 days or 13% of the contract time.

Most were due to unforeseeable field conditions, utility conflicts, or scope adjustments.

All extensions do go through a formal change order process to ensure that they're justified and minimal in time or cost.

We did not find a pattern of repeat underperforming contractors, and our performance issues are addressed through contract remedies.

So we will continue enforcing our schedule requirements, improving communication with communities about changes, and evaluating our acceleration strategies and strengthening the upfront planning.

Who has questions or comments?

Should I go down the line?

Carlos, you want to go first?

Prior we have talked about some things, Lauren that you answered them, but as part of this plan, maybe if you could characterize how actively TPW is looking at uh new methods, methodologies, uh taking opportunity where there are some to try them out, right?

To employ these things.

I know you did that in my district sometime back with some uh concrete work that needed to be done, but it was cost prohibitive, and there was a technology there that you employed.

Yes, so most often we'll take a small portion of our paygo allotment and use that for experimental treatments, especially in asphalt.

There's there's a new product coming out every day.

So we'll test it on a small scale in the paygo maintenance program, and if worthy, we'll uh expand in the bond programs if we find those techniques are valuable.

Cal Craig.

I just wanted to comment the oversight.

I will I won't mention any projects Westridge Avenue, but I will say it's been what what standards are what we put in place when a contractor comes up for another contract based on the performance on the previous contract.

I just want to understand those metrics a little bit.

Yeah, so uh, you know, when there are issues, these can be addressed through either formal notices, withholding payment, or uh when necessary, suspending or terminating the contractor in accordance with their contract.

Um, so we do look at poor performance history when awarding new contracts, and it should be noted that you know council does retain that discretion uh in awarding contracts and may not choose to award a contract to contractors who have not demonstrated a satisfactory performance.

You want to council from Martinez, do you have one too?

No, just general comments, but I really appreciate you and Mary explaining you know the different projects and the scope and and why some take uh longer than others, and so I just wanted to ask about the contracts uh specifically uh when there's road work being done around schools or hospitals or any other you know, service provider that that is critical.

Um do we have those in place to maybe prioritize those streets that are directly around those types of services?

So, yeah, um in our uh, you know, matrix for matrices for how we we rack and stack projects.

Uh, often if if you are adjacent to a school or serving a school or hospital or other community resource that will provide a higher ranking for that project, and during construction, we do coordinate with those specific entities on what would work best for for how they operate.

Um, obviously, we'd like to do all of the work around schools during uh around schools during the summer.

Uh sometimes we just, you know, their work will take longer than the three-month break that we have.

Um, so we're definitely well aware that uh both ourselves and the contractors would not like to be working in a school zone uh specifically during the start of the school year, uh, and that is something that we definitely look program-wide uh to to try to schedule as best as possible.

Well, I I was glad to see that there was you know the remedies that were in place, and I didn't realize um the the amount that these contractors were charged per day for going over the the required time.

So I appreciate you putting this together.

Right.

So as part of our our remedies, uh each contract is assigned a liquidated damages.

Uh so if a contractor goes over their their contract time allotment, uh they are assessed up to a six hundred and dollar six hundred and fifty dollar fee per day.

The other questions or comments from council.

Thank you, Laura.

I have one, Lauren.

And this if I if you click on the website, by the way, and the way comms has integrated with TBW is excellent.

You can click on every project, meeting notes, you can even watch if you want to, pre-construction meetings, um, it's all there.

I think there's a disconnect between what we with the information we have, how we're holding contractors accountable, and how we communicate that to constituents.

And oftentimes I'll let my council members speak up.

Your council members are often the one holding that, and they're the ones that get angry phone calls of frustration from constituents.

And so to the extent we can be helpful, do you need more support?

Sometimes signage that's on site is lacking.

It may say it's a bond project, but to the average driver that's coming through there that doesn't tell them anything.

And so as a city, because we have so many projects under construction, and now we're thankfully gonna have more because of this bond election.

I think we just need to think differently about how we're doing that.

And and you know, Michael mentioned Westchurch, just one example.

When you have a project, things are gonna happen, and that's understandable, but people feel sort of um they're victims of their of our own growth and progress in their homes and in their and their in their neighborhoods, and I just don't think we're there yet.

And it's not really a blame, it's more what resources do we need to provide differently and better partnership to make that communication better.

Yeah, absolutely.

We we recognize that challenge.

Um, you know, we have been experimenting with QR codes on the project signs as well as um a text for a text system for project updates, um, but you know, those all require that person engaging with that QR code or or phone number.

Um, so yes, we are always open to to new strategies.

I know we've long contemplated just a simple click and zoom map to see the projects, right?

Uh, because really I'm I'm focused on the project in front of my house.

Um, and so that's more of a technology constraint, if you will.

Uh, but those are definitely things that we are thinking about and trying to work towards.

And then when things really do go wrong, are do you do you feel like you have a handle on things get elevated to you when needed so that you're the one on point handling it?

Or sometimes it may be Chris Harder and the water department as well.

Correct.

And you know, I I think we really rely on the neighborhood associations and uh the strength of those to get that message out to their neighborhoods.

Um but also, you know, when folks attend our our pre-construction meetings, we take those those email addresses, and when we do have significant issues, that's one way with which we can push out that information.

This is maybe a question from my council colleagues.

Do each of you feel like in your respective offices and your district directors have a proactive relationship where you know ahead of time, hey, we have an issue versus you get an angry phone call from a constituent saying you've messed up again, it's now 20 days delayed or whatever it may be, and and every office may have a different relationship, just making sure that they feel like they've got the right information ahead of time, which I know is really helpful.

So I'll chime in.

I feel like we have a great relationship with our transportation department.

If we do have a complaint, we know how to define the project manager or get their name.

Um, but I love that you brought up that sign because I drove by a sign and I was gonna drive back, go back and just to didn't have the opportunity to to see if like a name or or an email or a phone number was on there.

So I really like that idea for just a generic email where people can complain, but um we don't of course we have a lot of established neighborhood associations, but there are other areas where there's none.

And so uh most of the time people don't speak up right.

Um I sent a letter to a school, and that's how I knew there was an issue with with the school because they responded they needed help with that, but um I I feel like signage uh that additional information on the signs and and not I feel like not all the projects get a sign.

I don't remember seeing one.

And there is a difference between, you know, maintenance projects which are quick uh versus a a capital reconstruction.

So so there is a difference, and there's a difference in how we communicate those.

So um do the bond projects get those signs?

I know Pago does because I I've seen those, but I hadn't seen yeah so so bond projects within our contract specifications uh they will have a prescribed sign that the contractor has to place when they start working so I guess my charge on you is if there's a project currently um that is being worked on now that doesn't have a sign maybe we can get signs on there yeah absolutely let us know um and again we let me check to see the details on it it may be a project where we anticipate being out there for for less than a week.

So there might be circumstances with which you know a full sign to get mocked up wouldn't be necessarily uh worth it and then my last little comment Jess helped me on this one is it pouring down rain days just an example Ryan Irvin's under construction there's site barricades all over the place.

Okay.

We know they're not doing construction that day but they've got all the lanes shut down there are barricades literally floating down the road we want our contractors to take ownership of their projects and communicate that should not be on the city.

And we can fix it when we see it because we can text somebody but I don't know how to get that message across to contractors so they can also work with barricade companies that just is not acceptable.

I mean you know when weather's coming let's think ahead of time for for those are the calls we all get and I understand it's really frustrating and it does look silly and I just happen to be driving down in the middle of it to be able to fix it.

So maybe that's just a message back to contractors.

Yeah point well taken and and I would say that's the majority of our inspectors duties on a rain day is just checking traffic control.

So traffic control is designed has to be designed and sealed by an engineer and it has to stay that way until the conditions change and that is uh mandated by the state thank you I'm done.

I'll just chime in because I know we had talked about the issue we had with um the funeral home they were blocked off and they had a funeral session that was happening that day.

So I think it's important that specific businesses that operate outside of Monday through Friday on Saturday and Sunday.

So I called you off on the weekend looking for help but thank you for the help but how we can communicate uh our office directly with those contractors to because they was unwilling to work with just the funeral home so they called me I thought um time in on what the mayor just said.

Yeah and part of our notification process is is to actually go door to door um and if we're not able to make contact then to to leave a door hanger right but that has problems in itself sometimes people don't use their front door they just go straight through the garage um and you know often when we're knocking on doors it's it's 8 a.m to 5 pm where most folks are at work.

Thank you Lauren and our last IR water customer information system replacement and Jan Hale is here to answer any questions from the water department.

Okay.

Any changes boards commissions zoning cases we want to flag or M and C items before we move into our agenda item.

Okay.

Looks like Eric Flatiger is up to talk about our comprehensive plan alongside MIG consultants.

Afternoon Mayor Parker and city council members and uh city manager Chopa.

We're here to give you an update on the status of the 2050 comprehensive plan.

Uh I'm gonna introduce uh Jay Rankins from MIG to go through the presentation here in just a moment but just to set the stage I know we've got some new council members that haven't gone through this whole process previously the city's comprehensive plan is its guide for growth and development looking out in the next 20 25 years.

We've had a plan that we've been updating on a regular basis but it's really now time to create a new one our our city is doubled in size, it doubled in population uh since we initially created that first plan, comprehensive plan in in 2000.

So it's been updated, but it really needs to address what this community wants to be, wants to do going forward.

That's really the point of the the coverance of plans.

So it's guiding decisions that the city makes on a regular basis, whether it's zoning commission, whether it's city plan commission, or the individual departments.

It guides uh you know projects that get into the bond program, get into the CIP, uh the operational budget, all of that goes towards implementing the vision of the future of Fort Worth that we're all seeking.

So we've been active and working on this for uh a little over a year now.

Uh and based on the comments we've heard from you all, we've really invested in a great deal of community engagement.

We've had fantastic input from the community from uh stakeholders groups, uh like the real estate council, uh university presidents, ISD superintendents, business groups, uh community groups.

Um we just finished, in fact, uh about an hour, hour and a half ago.

Uh joint technical advisory committee meeting and community advisory committee meeting, had great conversations there, a lot of terrific feedback.

So you'll learn a little bit more about this, but we we've been out in the community, meeting them where they are.

We've done over 110 pop-up uh activities.

Uh, we've had 45 focus groups, we've had all kinds of different opportunities for people to be engaged.

So I'm gonna introduce Jay Rankins from MIG, and he's gonna walk through the presentation for you.

Thank you, Eric.

And hello, mayor, uh council, uh city manager and staff.

Uh really excited to be here.

Uh Jay Rankins with MIG.

I'm a principal, I'm a chief practice officer.

Uh MIG is a planning and design firm.

Uh we assist communities of all different scales, but tend to be um asked by larger communities that are growing quickly uh to help them sort of manage that growth in a way that uses market direction, uses data in a really uh meaningful way, but also a lot of community input and stakeholder guidance.

So I'm excited to walk you through where we're at right now.

Um as Eric said, um, the comprehensive plan is a roadmap for Fort Worth's future.

Uh there is a mandate uh from the state of Texas uh for communities above a certain size, which uh being over a million people now, uh Fort Worth definitely uh triggers that uh to have a comprehensive plan.

It mandates certain elements are included within that comprehensive plan, meaning different topics are covered.

Um some of those are on the screen here land use, housing, economic development, parks and open space, transportation, arts and culture also included would be other utilities, infrastructure, environment, um, public facilities, uh, other components, and the community does have the ability to add elements or topics to the plan.

It just has to meet sort of the minimum threshold within those.

Uh it is a community-driven effort.

As Eric pointed out, the last uh significant plan development was done in 2000 or the plan was adopted in 2000.

And so the plan that you have today, uh that was adopted in 2023 is uh basically saw incremental updates of that 2000 plan.

And to Eric's point again, uh that's why we're looking at a larger kind of revamp, both in terms of some of the approach, um, thinking about the outcomes that are desired, uh much more thinking about uh placemaking, walkability, things that started to percolate a bit maybe in 2000, but I think are definitely top of mind for folks today, uh, thinking about diversity of employment, diversity of housing, um, and really importantly, fiscal health.

Uh, how do we ensure that uh the development that occurs over the next 25 years uh is in such a manner of a mix of such in locations that make sense that the city can afford to maintain the quality of life and services that the community expects already today and desires moving forward, so we are um this makes it look like we're right at the beginning, but uh we've been developing the plan growth framework uh for uh probably the last eight or nine months, uh kind of turning the corner towards uh the scenario development, which is the equivalent of the future land use map, uh so the kind of color uh paint by number colored map that uh you see in the plan and most comprehensive plans.

I'll explain how we're updating that uh approach to that map, uh, but that's largely what the scenario piece is.

It the plan also includes a lot of policies, a lot of recommendations.

Uh, we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

Uh, we're definitely carrying forward uh those policies, directives in the existing plan that people just told us were priorities in 2022, 2023, but also supplementing that where we see gaps and integrating ideas from recently adopted plans and those that will likely be adopted before the comprehensive plan comes before you for review and adoption.

So integrating all those pieces, connecting the dots.

And then we have this return on public investment, that's what the ROPI strategy and public investment plan is, thinking about fiscal health.

That's a major component where we where sort of target areas for economic development, for growth, for infrastructure investment, and how do we ensure that the public investment that is a part of that is actually making the city maybe more right side up than in the past.

And then looking at transformative strategies and actions.

So we want to make sure that it's not just a policy document.

It's not just, you know, something that sort of sits on the shelf, that this is very action-oriented.

So that'll be a key piece is identifying what are those big moves that we can take action on in the first year, first five years, so we're not waiting until 2050 to really see the changes that the community envisions.

And then it'll be, I know that's a long timeline on the far right there for plan review and adoption, but of something of this magnitude, particularly with something with so many people providing input and feedback on the process.

We want to make sure that there's adequate time for review and feedback once there is a public review draft plan.

And so that December to May time frame of May 26 to May 2027, that's really what that's for, to ensure that there's adequate time for community feedback and review as well as for you all to fully digest the plan, beyond these updates that we'll be giving you periodically.

So engagement to date and community priorities.

Definitely want to give a shout out to the city's communication and public engagement department and the planning staff, as they've been really instrumental in achieving some of these numbers.

We've been utilizing what we call a high touch and high-tech approach, sort of a balanced method.

So the top half of the screen, what you're seeing is what we'd call high touch, so in-person engagements of different types.

The 9700 plus engaged in-person is we actually had conversations with folks.

They put stickers on a poster board, they wrote comments for us, and then the 211,000 plus event attendees, that's all those different events that Eric was alluding to.

How many people attended those?

And so our best guess is that we at least raised awareness with those folks that were attending those sessions, and hopefully, it directed them to maybe an in-person event where they actually engage with us or online engagement, which brings me to the bottom half of the screen.

Twenty, four hundred uh plus online survey respondents.

We've been doing a series of different surveys and questionnaires throughout the process.

So we've reached over 2400 folks that way.

And then where we've seen the greatest uptick actually of late is on the website visits and email recipients via uh several different social marketing campaigns, uh getting the word out again, use it utilizing and leveraging your great in-house staff with communications and public engagement.

So we hope to just increase these numbers.

We're trying to re-engage folks so that's not just one touch point that they're tracking along the process.

And we're getting to the point I think also where the beginning part of the process was more of kind of talking about big picture vision and goals that are a little harder for people to wrap their arms around and see how it impacts their day-to-day life.

And so the open house that we had yesterday evening, uh just upstairs.

Actually, we had over 150 people, really diverse audience, and people engaging in really meaningful conversations, giving us a lot of feedback because we're starting to talk about the places where people live and work and want to go shopping and go out for entertainment.

We're talking about the way that the city grows and the choices that we're creating, not just for the people who live here today, but unborn children, for people who may move here, and people are really starting to engage in that discussion.

These are some photos of some of the in-person events, the online where our work doesn't photograph quite as well.

So you can see the intercept events, workshops, again, a lot of different ways for people to engage and a lot of different folks engaging.

Some of the top community priorities that we've heard about, these are ranked in order from top left across and then over to the bottom right.

So public safety being one of the top priorities that we've heard about.

Transportation, we've been coordinating with the moving a million effort and the master transportation plan pretty extensively, preservation open space, housing affordability, responsible growth.

All these topics are going to be addressed in the plan.

It's not as if arts and culture in comparison to these others only got 15%.

We're going to exclude it.

There's still going to be a meaningful, robust piece on arts and culture.

But we wanted to convey to you what we've been hearing.

Some of those priorities are with the folks that we've been engaging with.

One of the fun things we've done recently with engagement is this reimagined city personality quiz.

We are brainstorming how to gamify things a little bit more to try to just change it up.

For those people who do engage with us frequently, give them something new, but then also try to engage a younger population, maybe a little more social media savvy population.

And so we've gotten well over a thousand respondents to date.

I think it's over 1,200 at least now.

And it's this is still live.

So I have a QR code here and a couple of slides that if you'd like to take it and haven't yet, or anyone in the audience, you're able to as well.

Just don't let Charlie name any of the city cities.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For our maybe for our scenarios moving forward, if you have any suggestions, we could take those.

But these are the uh the options that basically on uh people take us uh respond to a series of questions or forced choice.

In a lot of cases, people may want both, actually, but they have to choose which one they want more.

Um, and through that series of questions, uh we've been able to discern things like uh what types of places do people want to live in, uh, where do they want to be able to go shop, what sorts of recreation do they prioritize?

Um, if they had to make a decision about uh maybe being able to drive unimpeded to you know a location versus having a walkable environment where they could kind of walk around to shops and restaurants, which one would they choose?

It results in one of these eight primary cities, reimagined cities that sort of responds to that, and then a secondary that they're uh most similar to.

Uh so the results so far, and we pulled this probably about a week and a half ago.

So, as I said, I think we're well over 1200 responses now.

This is based on a thousand three hundred or a thousand and three uh total results.

Uh Walkersville was the top.

Uh, 25% of people who uh responded to this uh personality quiz, responded with Walkersville, which is the connected city.

So it prioritizes walkability with neighborhoods that combine housing jobs, shops, parks, and cultural activities, focuses on revitalizing underused areas by bringing local businesses and housing into abandoned buildings and aging streets.

Uh, which I don't think this is that surprising based on some of the community input that we had and conversations that we had, where people were saying that they felt as though a lot of the newer development, particularly as you get further from downtown, tends to be pretty homogeneous, meaning that you know you have a lot of single family detached housing, or maybe even a lot of um walk-up apartments with not a lot of amenities nearby.

Uh, and so uh I think that idea of walkability, neighborhoods with housing jobs, parks, uh cultural activities makes a lot of sense.

And similarly, I think there's a perception at least, and I know it's not the case, we can look at the CIP, you know, sort of demonstrate this, but there's a perception that there's a focus of investment only in new development areas and not on places that already exist.

So that sort of makes sense than revitalizing under you underused areas being a priority.

Uh Linkston, I was just behind it at 24%.

Uh so this is the transit connected city.

So it concentrates new development around major rail transit hubs and high frequency transit routes, meaning, you know, the bus or the train is coming at 10 to 15 minute frequencies.

And then higher density housing jobs, shops, and public gathering spaces are clustered near core transit areas.

And then the third most is Green Haven, the green city.

About 20% of people have this as their sort of top choice based on those responses.

So parks, trails, rivers, and green corridors shape how neighborhoods grow.

And housing and development are thoughtfully placed to protect and expand natural systems while allowing for infill and reinvestment.

One of the things that we've been hearing from folks is really the value of sort of the open space within Fort Worth and wanting to make sure that that continues to be integrated throughout Fort Worth and not just concentrated in certain areas.

Then also creating more access to those amenities by sort of thoughtful strategic development that doesn't, wouldn't be in the floodplain, for example, but might be nearby, so there's good access to trails, river corridors, green space.

So the emerging vision framework, we say emerging because the vision statement in particular, I think, will continue to be tweaked, edited, adapted as we move through this process.

This is probably, if I had to guess, our 11th iteration of the vision statement at this point.

So I'll just I'll read it and then emphasize a couple key points.

So Fort Worth is a world class city of thriving and connected neighborhoods, innovative businesses and industries, in vibrant places that enhance quality of life and provide opportunity for all.

The city's continued growth and evolution is guided by its frontier spirit, commitment to people and community, and thoughtful integration of green space.

So we've tested this probably let's say over the last four months or so with different audiences, including our advisory committee, and then last night with the community.

Definitely, it wasn't we had a board with the uh with this vision statement on it, and then a board next to it where people have post it notes.

It wasn't just a bunch of thumbs up on the post-it notes.

I'll let you know that.

But we have not had a chance to fully uh sort of absorb those, digest those suggestions.

But we will uh we'll continue to tweak this, make sure that it's reflecting uh the whole community's vision.

Um but that does bring me to another point.

While we have a vision statement that we want to really sort of uh harness the community's desire for all of Fort Worth, there's when we're thinking about the types of development that can occur when we're thinking about the different types of investments that should take place, even in certain cases, development incentives and things like that when we think about economic development, uh, if we just try to do everything the same everywhere, uh, we're not necessarily responding to what we're hearing from the community and what they want.

They want choice, they want diversity, even in their own lives, right, as they move through the and progress through life stages.

Uh but we also there's an opportunity to create differences uh across the community, so we do have choice and can cater to the diversity that is inherent in a million plus people, and you know, 1.3 million people potentially by 2050.

The vision elements uh that we're sort of emerging from that, so different components that we're pulling out from the vision statement that are then driving some of our work as we're starting to dig deeper after today into policy, into transformative strategies into some of those actions, include complete and vibrant neighborhoods, uh really building on a key emphasis from the 2023 plan, which was written as we said and adopted in 20 or in 2000, excuse me.

Uh strategic growth and development.

Um, this has been emphasized over and over, particularly by our advisory committees, but also by city staff, and uh I don't just mean the planning department.

Um we've been engaging with as many departments uh as possible, making sure that this is not just the planning department's plan uh or just URL's plan, but uh you know the entire city's plan.

Uh connected mobility and infrastructure.

Uh so that comes in two kind of two components of that.

One is around transportation, connectivity, mobility, uh just what probably most people think, but there's also this idea of infrastructure.

So that's the pipes under the ground, but it's also thinking about quality of life infrastructure to support support our community.

Number four, economic opportunity and vitality.

So key component.

I think a lot of people when they engage in a planning process like this, they're kind of thinking from that resident lens, which is great.

We definitely want to support the people who are living here, but we also want to think about where are people working.

How are we driving the economy?

How are we ensuring again that fiscal health of the community moving forward?

And then finally vibrant public places, which is not just a kind of residential component, a nice to have for people who live here.

We talked about it with the advisory committees this morning.

It's something that when you look at number four economic opportunity and vitality, employers, employees are looking for more and more.

When they're deciding where to locate, where to expand, where to stay, they're looking at what are these amenities?

Public places kind of play into that and attract great employees, which then creates a workforce that attracts employers.

I mentioned way earlier about the color by number map, the place types approach.

If I well, if you think about those vision elements on the last slide, a land use map in and of itself is not going to address all those different components, public places, thinking about connectivity between, right?

It's just saying what use can go on what parcel.

So one of the things that the uh the staff had uh I think enlisted us for in particular at MIG, we're not the only ones doing this, but we are sort of the front edge of this, is a place types approach, which is an alternative to future land use.

So it still addresses land use, but it also thinks about the built form, uh height, density, massing, the way that buildings relate to each other.

It thinks of a scale larger than just a singular parcel.

It thinks about a grouping of parcels, think a district, a neighborhood, a corridor, and how those different pieces need to come together to create a meaningful whole.

And then what is the infrastructure, kind of the hard roads, pipes, those sorts of things, but also quality of life infrastructure, green space, trails, parks, to support those places.

So this is an alternative approach that we're adopting as part of this new plan again that addresses land use, but expands that with some of these key components that are reflecting what the community has told us, is part of their vision.

So the place types, we've organized loosely around live, play and work.

Uh there's 12 in total.

Uh so uh neighborhood place types are predominantly residential but not exclusively residential.

As I told you earlier, the community has told us that they want to have places to go to near home.

They don't have to drive 20, 25 minutes just to get groceries or to get certain services.

Um, and so those come in different forms though.

We want to make sure, as I said, this isn't with one size fits all plan.

So thinking about uh neighborhood low, which would be a little probably most reflective of uh some of the newer development that has occurred more recently, but ideally with some uses mixed in, which I'll show you on the next slide.

Uh neighborhood medium, uh which would be a little larger scale, um, maybe some missing middle housing, so attached single family housing, smaller apartment buildings, things like that, condos, and then neighborhood high, uh which would be sort of the higher density housing concentrated in one area, usually neighborhood medium to neighborhood high, just as sort of a guide or a rule of thumb is probably when you're switching from surface park to structured parking, kind of going between those.

In the play category, kind of our mixed-use designations, uh, we have a neighborhood, community, and regional mixed use category again, scale in terms of kind of the height of buildings and how much is happening in that sort of square footage, but then also the footprint of those places too.

So neighborhood mixed use center being the smallest, usually a couple of blocks.

Uh community uh mixed use center, usually three, four times that, and then a regional mixed use center.

Really our best example is downtown today of a regional mixed use center.

And then we have some work categories as well, or place types, commercial, campus, which would include educational, institutional, medical, innovation flex, which is a kind of creative office, light manufacturing, production, and then manufacturing logistics, more of our traditional industrial, and then two different types of kind of green space place types, preserve and conserve, which are places where we'd really sort of discourage development over the next 25 years, kind of save it for further out, and then regional parks and active spaces where we're formalizing that as a usable open space of some sort.

And then we have we're developing graphics, guidelines around these.

We just wanted to show you a few of the graphics examples.

This is a neighborhood low example, aspirational.

So you can see in the kind of the middle there, access, we have some civic and institutional uses as well as a few small commercial uses, really trying to convey that idea that we want to don't want to see just, I guess, yellow boxes all across a neighborhood low place type or place, and so and then showing how that's connected from a pedestrian perspective, from a roadway perspective, and also could accommodate other modes like transit.

Examples would be Alamo Heights, Fairmount, and Vintage Riverside.

One from that middle category of play, the mixed use.

We looked at the kind of the middle density, community mixed use.

So here we're talking, you know, mainly three to maximum eight story but three to five-story development.

Typically, those magenta buildings are representing the kind of mixed use concentration.

A mixed use doesn't just have to be vertically within a building, right?

With retail on the ground floor and office or residential above.

It can also be horizontally mixed use.

So that's what this is representing as well.

Where we have some multi-family development, commercial development, office development, all mixed in, and institutional development, excuse me, all mixed in in this community mixed-use place.

An example would be the South Main urban village.

Uh, we called out in kind of that work set of place types.

You can see here a lot of it is light industrial logistics manufacturing, but even these people are looking for greater amenitization when they're deciding where to build these types of facilities.

We did, and we need to do much more kind of digging in this front, or on this front, but I'm sure you all have been hearing a lot about data centers in your meetings and dialogue you've been having with your constituents.

We heard a lot about data centers and concerns last night.

Um, so something we'll definitely be thinking about which place types do data centers, you know, would they fall into and be appropriate and how what sort of at least design considerations?

There's a lot of other considerations, but design considerations would we want to kind of put forward in the comp plan to help guide that conversation.

Example here would be Alliance, Texas.

Um, also wanted to show the innovation flex since that is a newer concept, so another from that work category.

Um example, foundry district, North Montgomery Plaza.

Um, but you can see while there's there is light industrial within this, there's smaller kind of layout space, the idea of having mixed use, even some residential we're seeing in these kind of industrial mixed use or innovation flex areas.

Uh, and the trick is sort of striking the right balance, but it is achievable with form-based code sort of suggestions with different approaches to parking, loading, unloading, transportation, particularly coordinating with the master transportation plan to achieve this sort of mix of uses.

And uh preserve and conserve, example being Oakmont Linear Park.

Not a whole lot to say there, other than it is an opportunity to preserve and conserve.

Uh a couple slides and economic and transportation trends.

We've surpassed a million people, likely the 10th largest city, at least at this point, and expected to grow to over 1.3 million by 2050.

With that, we have seen a lot of job growth as well.

You can see in terms of just the new jobs added on the right side of the screen from 2015 to 2025.

We're a little behind Houston and Austin, but have surpassed actually Dallas in terms of the number of new jobs during that 15 or excuse me, 10-year period.

With that said, on the next slide, the left-hand side shows the total jobs.

I know those bars are a little shorter, but we're using a different scale there.

Fort Worth, when you look at the total jobs, even with that addition from 2015 to 25, is trailing Dallas, Houston, and Austin.

And to take that a little step further, we're also trailing not just in the total number of jobs, but the total number of what we're calling white collar jobs or higher paying jobs.

And so while we want to ensure that we continue to have a diversity of jobs covering that white collar, blue-collar and service sort of spectrum, the greatest opportunity to increase, we think is in that upper echelon.

So not only do we have fewer jobs, we have fewer industries, which would sort of correlate to each other in those premier industry sectors.

So only having one as compared to three in Houston, four in Austin, five in Dallas.

Because of that, we also have lower average earnings at large companies than the other three large cities in the state.

Looking at the development pattern, particularly on housing, well over 70% of Fort Worth's housing and is some sort of single family configuration.

So multiple bedrooms, most of those are single family detached housing.

A small percentage is attached.

And when we started look at this, there's two different ways we looked at it.

One was in comparison to peer cities.

So most of the pure cities are more in the 50 to 55 or 45 to 50%, I guess is what we say, or 45 to 50%, excuse me, on the slide, compared to the pure cities.

So we're well above that in terms of a supply of single family detached housing.

So it's not to say that that is bad in and of itself.

What we're hearing from community members is that they want more diversity.

One of the reasons that we think that is, in addition to just different price points and affordability, is the types of households that we have.

So if you look, I guess that's actually on my next slide.

I'm sorry.

So let's shift gears.

We'll focus on how you get around.

So the costs associated with having single family detached housing in large swaths across the city, that means generally you need to drive further to get what you need if we're not creating mixed-use places or commercial centers supporting that development.

And so while Fort Worth's average housing price is actually slightly lower than the larger or the other three large metros in Texas, the transportation costs actually end up being higher.

And so the total cost when you think of housing and transportation together are not as competitive as it would seem when we look just at housing price.

And the maybe the most notable on the right there is that 10% only of our neighborhoods are location efficient, meaning that there's opportunities to shop, opportunities for employment nearby in comparison to 22 to 57% for Houston, Dallas, and Austin.

Here we get to the mix of housing again, sorry.

So the housing supply, as I pointed out, is nearly 70% overall, and really designed for families, families with children.

Not that not to say it couldn't be multi-generational families, couldn't be households with multiple adults that are unrelated.

But generally speaking, kind of built for families, which has served Fort Worth really well for a long time.

But as you can see on the chart on the right, the household mix is shifting.

And so while we had less than 60% of families in 1970 or households in 1970 that were adult singles and couples without children, that has grown to 68% now.

And so the need has shifted.

And so I think the housing stock that we have currently can serve Fort Worth extremely well.

But as we move forward, we want to ensure that we're diversifying that housing stock as much as possible to be competitive with these other larger metros, not just in Texas, but across the country.

Which brings us to the my last section, growth scenarios.

Right now, these are at sort of a sketch level for this meeting last night with the community, and we're creating an online version of that that'll be live within the next week, week and a half.

We wanted to ensure that these were accessible.

We weren't getting down to sort of mapping every parcel.

So we looked at different types of growth, residential growth, employment growth, regional mixed-use center growth, looked at where that might be concentrated, starting with a business as usual scenario, which is kind of using existing development patterns, existing policy, how might the city grow through 2050.

You can see, you know, downtown continues to kind of be a stronghold for mixed use development.

But then a lot of separated blue and yellow circles or bubbles on the map, meaning that those are primarily housing developments and employment developments again separated, requiring a car to get from place to place, lower density development, really relying on the ETJ pretty extensively to accommodate growth through 2050.

We created three alternative scenarios, which we're calling scenarios two, three, and four.

The scenario two is monocentric core, really thinking about uh downtown again being that mixed-use center, but can we build upon that?

Uh, with the peripheral development with Panther Island, uh, continue with the medical district development, uh, so on and so forth.

Um, so a single dominant high density regional center, which is efficient in a lot of ways.

Uh, you concentrate a lot of employment there.

Um, hopefully, we can get more people back in office, thinking about transit connectivity to that center, uh, but it is a great distance from a lot of people in Fort Worth.

Uh, we've heard people from even from our well, last night, uh, people on our advisory committee, they're saying, if it wasn't for this process, I wouldn't even come close to downtown.

I'd kind of stick in my portion of town, and so what do you have for me?

So that brings up two additional scenarios.

Scenario three and four.

Scenario three leaning into the idea of the urban village, uh a network of villages, uh, identifying new opportunities for urban villages, and introducing potentially a new concept using that kind of neighborhood mixed-use center idea or development pattern that I showed you in the place types to create uh suburban villages as well.

So, how are we kind of retrofitting and in uh existing neighborhoods as well as equipping new neighborhoods with those places to walk, places to visit, places to shop, places to go out and eat and recreate and socialize.

Um, opportunities for missing middle housing, neighbors neighborhood scale development around that.

Um, and then obviously some of our existing employment centers and residential centers would still exist, or those that are already approved would, you know, kind of be implemented.

Uh which brings me to the last scenario in one of my last slides, the polycentric city.

Uh, the idea here would be not to not to compete with downtown by any means, but to think about is there an ability to create uh multiple centers of a scale approaching downtown that could be complementary to uh downtown and it's sort of cultural hub and significance that does have employment that does have hospitality, that does have residential.

Maybe there's others that are more entertainment focused, more employment focused, more residential focus, or have other aspects of their identity, but creating three, four, five of these sort of regional centers around Fort Worth, and then that would be complemented and connected to by uh community centers, uh transit, and focusing a lot of the new housing growth, which would, you know, help swing that pendulum a little further away from that 70% single family detached housing towards medium and higher density housing.

So uh we're we've been in meetings basically since eight o'clock last night, uh when we wrapped up the open house.

So we need to dive into the the feedback a little bit more.

But generally people have told us that they like the alternative scenarios more than business as usual, uh, that they like downtown, but want to see opportunities for maybe at least one or two additional center, larger centers within the community, and then a lot of excitement around this kind of village idea um that would maybe expand beyond the existing urban villages.

But again, it's early in getting the feedback on these, but wanted to give you a little taste of what we've heard thus far.

And my very last slide I promise is next steps.

So we had the open house uh yesterday evening.

Uh we're gonna be synthesizing that feedback.

We're creating that virtual open house.

Uh folks in actually access uh the connect for uh worth site now or in the next couple of days and see the boards at least that were uh presented uh last night.

But the virtual open house will allow people to actually be in a virtual space just like upstairs in the lobby, interact with the boards that we had and provide feedback and input.

Um that'll be live through May.

Uh the reimagine Fort Worth personality quizzes still live, which the QR code that I promised is there on the screen.

Uh and then we'll concurrently, while we're sort of digesting and synthesizing all those inputs and creating a draft preferred scenario with using the place types.

We'll also be developing policies, uh priority actions looking at the return on public investment and fiscal uh considerations of uh these different development ideas being in June.

Again, aiming towards a public review draft of the plan by December or so.

I was prepared to do that in 10 minutes, but I was told that I had a little more time, so hopefully I did not go too long.

Very helpful questions or comments from council?

Council Rebecca?

Uh yeah, I just want to take the opportunity to really thank staff for the public engagement piece of this.

Um as we went out through that and I was moving about the city, I noticed um staff in places that we don't normally see them.

I think often we rely on our emails and our social media to get the word out.

Um, but we did a really great job of meeting the people where they were.

I noticed in some of those pictures, I saw Le Grand Plaza there.

I know you were out at Arts Goggle and different fairs and festivals around the city to get this input.

So what is exciting about that to me is that we're not getting the usual suspects.

Um we are really getting a good cross section of the city to see what they want.

Um, so thank you for that.

And I know David Cook is not here, but this took a lot of doing to get David Cook on board with um updating this and finding the value in it.

And um by the time it was it's not over, but I think he got on board and I I can't wait to sit down with him.

I know he's just itching, but to to go through it and see uh really how we can be better informed as elected officials knowing what um what our residents want.

Any other questions or comments from council?

Great update.

Very much appreciate, thank you.

So much.

Um council, before we go to feature agenda items, I think council I mean, assisting manager, whatever you are.

Who are you?

Jay Choppa.

I did I just wanted to did leave one thing out of the announcements, uh, it's really good news.

SP has rated our water department's bonds at triple A.

It's the first time.

It's the first time that um, as far as I can remember, and probably a few up to 10 years before I came on board in 1994, uh, that the city has had a triple A.

So I don't know if we've ever had triple A in any part of our finance side.

And so I think it's a a great start to hopefully over the next few years we can maybe achieve that on the general fund side.

But I just wanted to let you know, because SP made it public, and we're gonna go ahead and put out a an announcement about it.

Thank you, Jay.

Okay, council, future agenda items from any of you?

Carl?

Uh Jay, I think you took it down.

I'd like to get some information about the call volume to the assisted senior living centers when it comes to firing EMS, so that we can assess whether or not there's uh uh potential, you know, there for uh not just cost savings, but maybe some uh appropriately, you know, ascertained uh fees.

I want to gather out before anybody else says anything.