I don't mayor.

Yeah.

We don't excuse absence from committee, correct?

All right.

Then uh moving right along on our agenda.

Our first item is a resolution.

Uh Mr.

Clerk.

Resolution approving the fiscal financial year 2026, 2020 20, excuse me, 2026-2030 consolidated housing and community development HCD plan.

So moved.

Support.

And Ms.

Bohach.

Good morning.

I was just chatting with staff that I figured out that this is my seventh five year plan.

And so could be my last, right?

So you can go run Russia.

If you're lucky, if you're lucky.

But today, yes, we're asking you to adopt our five-year plan.

So the consolidated housing and community development plan is required by the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development for our federal resources that include the community development block grant, the home investment partnerships, and the emergency solutions grants programs.

This plan would cover July 1 of 2026 through June 30th of 2031.

And we incorporate our other resources that the community development department administers for within this plan as well.

So that would include the Burr Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, opioid settlement funds, and then other resources that we might bring in that competitively as well as when requested, the Affordable Housing Fund Board resources as well.

So again, this plan identifies um community needs and strategies to address housing and community development issues.

So this allows us to move forward through your adoption with uh those eight outcome areas in particular and start our funding process um in the first week of January.

Do you have it?

And we of course held all the appropriate public input, public hearings, and public comment periods as well.

Yes, and this is as the case with many of these resolutions.

This is about our fourth look at this product, but this is the point at which we're actually deciding.

So uh any questions or comments, Commissioners?

Uh Commissioner Kilver.

Yeah, I just want to thank uh Ms.

Bohach and her team for the work on this.

It's been very nice to see within community.

I want to highlight that at one of uh our public hearings uh group um that I'm happy to work closely with this year.

The Fair Housing Center of West Michigan was very pleased with this plan, and as folks who work with our frontline communities in terms of housing, I'm very uh comfortable with moving forward as they are given two thumbs up to this plan.

Uh Commissioner Belchuk.

Yeah, I just want to uh say thanks to um there was quite a bit of feedback that was provided, and um it was really great to see the community engaging in that.

Um I do think that there are continued concerns about how do we address the lower end of the spectrum in terms of housing for those who might be at 30 percent or 40 percent AMI, which again depends on your family size and all that, but um the community generally seemed very um impressed by the work, and this is a guiding document, so I look forward to those who want to take pieces of it and implement it, look at our area specific plans, look at all the other things and how they can come together.

And I particularly want to just say that this is a unique opportunity to in the next month, right, to get some funding potentially or apply for some funding to make some change, some housing and emergency needs met, right?

Correct.

So I'm I too am in favor.

Uh any other discussion.

Okay, all in favor say aye.

Aye, all opposed.

Motion carries, brings us to thank you, Ms.

Bohach.

That brings us to our next resolution, uh, which is on 127 Ottawa, one more time.

Um can have a motion.

So moved.

Support and Ms.

Runaro.

Good morning.

Yes, this is uh 125 Ottawa, so CWD converting uh that space downtown floors two through four for 36 apartments.

So you'll see this one more time in January for the exemption, but this is the final step for the zone.

So the district of the building itself for the exempt uh for the abatement.

Great.

Um discussions, colleagues.

Seeing none.

Um I did get a motion, right?

Yep.

All in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

And that brings us to your next item, which is uh Brownfield Plan uhuthority for seeds of promise redevelopment.

Again, something we got briefed on.

These are the individual uh 14 different uh houses that will be developed.

Support.

Thank you, thank you.

This is the last step.

You won't see this anymore.

We're gonna send this to the Michigan State Housing Development Authority next to consider the work plan.

Great.

Any questions, comments?

Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mr.

Manal.

Um this brings us to uh our uh resolution authorizing publication setting date to consider amendments to the noise ordinance.

Um and Mr.

Strom is probably gonna take discussion here, but yeah, a motion and support.

Support.

Okay, uh Strom, you don't need to leave the diasp, but okay.

Thank you.

Uh this uh in the memo, I've laid out kind of the history that this item has had before this committee and uh some of the feedback that we had as a reminder.

This was kind of a community-led initiative.

Uh you've all provided great feedback to get us to where we're at today, which is publish uh authorization to publish this.

That will open up some additional public engagement, and you'll see this item come back in January for deliberation on final adoption and uh when it should be effective.

Uh right now this is uh to be published to amend our noise ordinance and prohibit amplified sound within 100 feet of a health care hospital or clinic.

Uh those two terms are defined in our zoning code, and we would uh use those definitions to define hospital and clinic.

Um that's where we're at.

Great.

Um future discussion.

We've had a fair amount of robust discussion of this.

This is to authorized publication.

Yes, Commissioner.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Mr.

Strom, for this.

Um, and I also want to just say thank you for following up, Mr.

Strom, with those that you know, different it's not one individual group, but different people who had approached this issue and um communicating with the city.

And I know that there was a question that you had in particular, Commissioner Um Purdue, about um individual patients and what is that perspective, and I know that um one of the individuals who's a business owner who's who's close to the uh facility has been in communication with that facility and does plan to I think attend tonight to share some of that in in public comment related to agenda items.

So I just wanted to share that as well.

Thanks.

Um any other discussion.

All in favor of publication say I oh did I get a motion?

I'm sorry, I must have.

Yes, okay.

Uh, all in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

Uh and that brings us to the second half.

Can you want to differentiate this for us?

Yes, attorney.

First, we need a motion though.

So moved.

Support.

Go ahead.

Okay, this is uh to carry forward the recommendation that there not be a criminal misdemeanor uh possibility for this, uh, even in aggravating circumstances where there's multiple offenses within a certain time frame.

So if you look at the chart, which is page 27 of the committee of the whole packet, you'll see uh what looks like an Excel spreadsheet.

The reference to 1519.63, which is the second uh row down in that chart, removes the parentheses note one or note to uh reference.

Those notes at the bottom of that chart provide a option for a misdemeanor if there are multiple offenses within a prior six-month period.

We've removed the reference to that note in the civil infraction side of this, uh, which will not make this a misdemeanor.

Great.

Under any circumstance.

Great, thanks.

Uh so this is also for publication of this, so parallel track, but one issue.

Um any other discussion?

Colleagues, seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

And that brings us to our next resolution uh regarding water and uh sewer rates.

Can I have a motion?

So moved.

Support.

Uh and Mr.

Verbrug is a.

Yes, good morning, commissioners.

The first item for you today is specifically regarding the proposed water and sewer rates for the city of Grand Rapids and just the City of Grand Rapids.

These were first presented to the commission back in November, November 13th.

They are the exact same.

The preliminary preliminary rates have stayed the same.

No changes have been made since then.

So for the City of Grand Rapids, approval of these rate adjustments would result in a 6.8% increase to water rates and a decrease to sewer rates of 2.67%.

We did have 20 days of public comment after that initial presentation.

We didn't receive any direct emails, phone calls, or letters.

But through our public tabling at the main branch of the library, as well as commission night out, we did speak with 26 individuals.

Most of them just wanted more information about why their rates were changing and how much and what their bills would look like.

A handful expressed concern about rising costs and affordability, and then a handful did express support for these rates out of a desire to see continued investment in clean and safe drinking water.

Mayor.

I'm gonna ask Mr.

Verbrugge to remind us of the holistic impact based on usage when you take the combined increase and decrease.

Yes.

If you are living in the city of Grand Rapids and you have both water and sewer, which are most of our residents, your quarterly bill is increasing if I'm remembering correctly by a little bit under five dollars.

Percent wise.

Oh percentage-wise, it's about two percent.

Right.

Which is sub-inflationary, I think.

So uh thanks.

Uh uh any discussion colleagues.

Um I will just flag that I think that there's a longer conversation to be had here about uh late fees and uh where that money goes.

Uh that's not properly part of this discussion, but I do want to keep it on the front of forefront of everyone's minds because there's about a million dollars in late fees uh that get pulled out of this system, and um I personally would like to see that money allocated to uh folks in need rather than the current way that we send it out, which is to do a little bit of leveling of uh rates across the system.

And I'm more concerned about people who who are getting their water shut off than I am about leveling rates.

Um but that's a longer conversation, and so I'm just throwing that in gratuitously.

Um seeing no further discussion, um I'll ask for a vote.

All in favor of the of uh these rates say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Carries.

Thank you, Mr.

Robert.

Uh and that brings us to I'm sorry, we had two items for you, and they look they look like the same, like they often do.

Um so uh can have a motion for the second resolution on water and sewer rates.

So moved.

So forward.

And you can differentiate this for us, perhaps.

Yes.

So this resolution is specifically regarding the proposed water and sewer rates for all of the other communities served by our systems outside of the city of Grand Rapids.

Um again, these are the exact same as they were presented back in November.

No changes since then.

None of the communities have asked to change the way that their rates are calculated or make contributions to buy them down.

Um every community has their own distinct rates.

Um so it's too long to go into each of those, but if you look at the systems as a whole, the water system on average is going up 6.38%, and the sewer system is seeing a total decrease of 3.09%.

Um communities per our contract with them have 30 days to share their feedback, ask questions.

A couple of them took us up on this.

Um in the past month, I've gone out to Caledonia Township and Cascade Township and presented individualized rate breakdowns for their specific communities.

And at this point, I do think we have adequately addressed any uh questions or comments that they had.

Um and then lastly, I'll note the utility advisory board, which most of our partner communities have a seat on, did vote in November to recommend these rate changes to this body.

Okay.

Any discussion, colleagues?

So uh I have a question for you then.

This uh broader group, that's the group that specifically at least one of them got their got their increase softened by application of late fee dollars to their to their part of the system, correct?

Yes, this year, yes.

And who is the beneficiary of that and how much money?

Uh it was mostly Caledonian Cascade.

Okay.

So um basically we took I'm gonna I just want to point out I am not gonna abstain here and I'm not gonna vote no because uh I want to keep continuity in our systems.

Um, but I am not gonna be inclined to vote yes on this next year um if we keep that uh mechanism in place.

So I'm not doing it this year because I don't think we had adequate discussion of how to how to make our water system uh more equitable.

But I think that there's a real need here.

Um and so I hope we can have that discussion as next year's rates as that conversation is going forward.

And frankly, um if this body uh can do some discovery of that and maybe with the city attorney's help and see what our uh we may be constrained in ways that I don't understand, and that's why we have a uh city attorney.

Um but otherwise I want to explore the possibility that we can more equitably apply those late fees um because after all my intuition is that late fees predominantly come from people who are under financial strain and to take their late fees and uh use them to affect rates for people in a Caledonian cascade doesn't fill me with joy.

I would uh rather have people pay for the services they're getting.

Um and if Caledonian Cascades rates went up for reasons that are applied to the system, they don't have anything to do with uh the uh imposition of late fees on system-wide customers.

So there's my long framing, but I just want to lay that out there.

I I'm gonna vote for this this year, but I do not intend to vote for this next year without some robust conversation and some real inquiry into the application of those fees.

Yes, Commissioner.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I just wanted to state um yeah, I think we had that discussion at our mid-year review about what are some ways that we can look at um different mechanisms and Commissioner Belchak shared from our Kent County community action that the water system, which um spoke really highly of our water department and uh Miss Skiffle about um just the interactions in terms of utilizing state dollars to help with uh water bill fees, um, but also a recognition that some of that might change at the state level, and so they wanted us to, you know, certainly we'll have our conversations, but I think that's a conversation for us.

But to know that we're not sure where that safety net of supporting water bills will be at the state level in the future.

So I'll just add that to the mix.

I think you know, there are a lot of unknowns.

Um and so while they have been applying those grant dollars first and foremost, which is smart.

Um we have to probably project and understand what that will be at the state level.

And so I don't I think just proceeding with caution um to make sure those previous safety nets will still exist.

So thank you.

And sorry, I just wanted to real quick, I misspoke.

It is uh Cascade Township and Grand Rapids Township, not Caledonia.

Okay.

Thanks for uh and I withdraw my statements about Caledonia then.

Um so um uh I've got a motion.

Any further discussion?

Otherwise, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Uh motion carries.

Thank you, Mr.

Verpardi.

Uh, and that brings us to our last resolution of the morning, and that is uh resolution um updating the MOU between DGRI, Ferris uh and the city uh regarding Art Prize, and I'd like a motion.

So I think Mr.

Matthews is gonna introduce this mayor.

And I believe we have a slideshow.

We do have uh Catelyn Whittington here to uh give a rundown of our prize 2025.

Um this item is in regards to the agreement that we have with uh Fair State University and DGRI um to serve as the the guiding organizations for our prize.

This came this was created uh back three years ago when we stepped in to develop a new model for our prize as a program.

Um and this is not to exceed three years as they work through their strategic planning process to ensure that they've got the backstop and the guidance that they need um over the next three years.

And with that, if well, first do you have any questions?

Do you want to take questions now about the uh agreement?

Okay.

Well, I'm gonna introduce uh Catelyn Whittington then to give a rundown on this past year's event.

Good morning, commissioners.

City manager, members of staff, it's great to see you.

I'm Catelyn Whittington, executive director of Art Prize.

It's a pleasure to be here today.

Uh so I wanted to give a brief recap of not just this year's event, but the successes of these last three years.

Um I will keep it brief and high level, but this overall was a very successful year, and I really want to underscore um what I have seen that this event can mean for this community if done with intention and directly and with the support of the community at large.

So this year we had uh just under a million visitors, 967,000 visitors as uh quantified by our partners over at GVSU.

Um these are visitors that are either dire um primary visitors to our prize or secondary visitors to our prize.

Uh we saw an increase in user engagement with the arts uh through our voting platforms.

Uh the participants that really make art prize what it is.

A hundred and fifty-five venues activated throughout the city uh hosting eleven hundred artists uh that came from 18 countries in 42 states, I believe.

Um this is uh a representation of where those visitors come from.

It is very apparent that the Great Lakes region continues to be a primary driver of attendance.

But we see all the major metro areas or most of the major metro areas around the country do have visitors that are coming out to uh be a part of this.

This really shows the the value that this brings from a tourism and visitor perspective, but also the uh collaborative approach to culture and and what we are creating here with Art Prize through the support of our partners.

So what does that mean?

82.6 million dollars into the regional economic uh into the regional economy.

This includes over 7.1 million in city, county, and state fiscal impact, and the creation of 629 jobs.

You'll see a few quotes uh not just from uh one of our state representatives, but also one of your peers from Medford, Massachusetts here in this presentation who came to visit Art Prize and was really impressed.

This number here really underscores uh the impact and the return on the investment that the community sees through this good work.

Uh through our partnership with the city, DGRI, Fair State University, but also Mobile GR, uh, Kent County, the Convention Arena Authority, um, and other partners all come together really to underscore what we are doing here and and provide um some of the support that allows this to continue to occur under this new public-private partnership model that we have seen.

Over these last three years of this model, so 2022 was the last year of the la of the previous previous organization.

2023 is the first year of this model.

You will see continuous growth, and we have seen a hundred and thirty-eight percent increase uh from 25 compared to 2022 in the economic impact that takes place during Art Prize.

Uh, this is a significant growth, and it's one that uh I am really proud to say that we collectively have brought 208 million dollars into local economy and created so many jobs across all different sectors in the creative sector specifically.

Uh Art Prize EDU uh is our education program, and this really underscores the uh the community impact and the social impact that our efforts have.

We hosted uh we we distributed uh 11.2,000 magazines that are used as curriculum in schools year-round to teach uh art concepts and theory using art prize artists and their work as exemplars.

This were distributed uh to all of the students that came through field trips as well as to uh GRPS and other public school districts through partnerships and agreements that we have.

We hosted 300 uh 3,000 students on our field trip programs.

We hosted 16 workshops.

These are everything from K-12 make and take all the way to artists continuing professional development programs.

This really uh creates more activity during our prize, but also helps to underscore the uh the education program broadly.

We provided bus grants to help those students those schools uh bridge the gap that might need a little bit of assistance in participating.

I will say that on top of that, we also have a paid internship program.

We do portfolio reviews, uh by and large, we really think that our education program is a well-rounded and and complete uh system that we have created over the last three years.

Our signature events, it was lovely to see many of you out during our signature events, opening celebration, halftime show, and our closing awards all saw significant increase in attendees.

Uh, and they were a lot of fun.

And this is the fun part about art price, right?

Uh, social media, you see continuous growth in our marketing presence.

Uh, all this really just underscores the uh the significant value that art prize brings beyond just the economic in representing Grand Rapids in a public light uh across the world and across the globe through our presence and our marketing and media.

Uh I just want to highlight a 70.4% open rate on our newsletters, which is very high, and it really shows that people are interested in what we have to say.

Uh, and we have to be very intentional about how we cultivate that message and continue uh to share uh the news, not just about what our prize can be, what our community rate of community can be, uh, and also how awesome the city is.

I can't leave without thanking all of the city departments that helped make this possible.

It is very uh important that it's part of this partnership, uh, the logistical support, uh, the community support and the public support that our uh our partners at the city uh provide in creating this huge citywide event and being able to be good hosts for almost a million people.

So uh Art Prize 2026, it's coming up, it's around the corner.

I can't wait to see you all out, and thank you all for your support these last three years and moving forward.

Any questions?

Uh Commissioner Kilgar.

Thanks so much.

Uh really happy to see this year.

It's uh Art Prize, really enjoyed the visibility award specifically for our frontline communities, disabled artists, BIPOC artists.

That was really impactful.

But as we know, the third ward is our most diverse part of this city.

Uh, I know that this year we sadly weren't able to have more than one venue that was located in the heart of the city at Link Up, which was beautiful.

Uh, I'd like you to speak directly to um your plan going forward to th for with 2026 uh on how we are gonna have more venues in the south part of town, hundreds of jobs, hundreds of thousands uh of visitors in direct or directly.

Um it's just it's such great resources and investment in our community.

Um, and I want to continue to support it, but I really need to see it for the constituents that I represent.

So can you speak to that?

Yes, uh, I mean, I I believe that how Art Prize works is through intentional relationships with community partners.

And I'm going to continue to reach out and continue to engage with community partners in the third ward to figure out how we can best um find presence that is meaningful and impactful, but is also not disruptive to activity that might be taking place there, but that is created with the intention of bringing value that reflects the community's needs and maybe not what reflects the needs of a downtown community or other business districts.

And I think that that is a very important part of the fact finding and kind of the feasibility of trying to make something work is you have to have a core density of businesses, but also make sure that they can participate in the way that works for them.

And so uh I've continued to put forward ideas on how we can do um destination driving events and destination driving activations that might not necessarily put the tax of have being open for 16, 17 days straight for 10 hours a day, which can be taxing for small businesses.

Uh and also it it creates a way to um drive attention and participation to very select uh specific um business districts within the third ward uh while not over impacting the single family communities and the working communities that are down there in a residential neighborhood.

Sure, yeah.

So yeah, I I do recall that from last year.

So is there and I uh Eric excuse me, earlier this year uh when we saw you uh is there a specific as of now, I also recall you saying you were working with South Town, a corridor improvement authority.

Um is there a plan in motion?

Um with everything that you just said, is there a plan in motion as of now to um implement what you just stated?

I sure hope so, and I'm gonna continue to have those conversations.

It's December, and uh the plan right now is to continue the MOU and get past this so that we know that we have a working body and a working governance body.

But I do intend to continue those conversations.

I have had some conversations with GRCCT and some other community members uh that are trying to bring together a working body down there that is a cultural body, and uh the hope is that that uh group can um help guide what this might look like moving into 2026.

Mayor manager thank you, uh Commissioner Kilgore and maybe Commissioner Purdue also has some insight.

But yes, there was an intentional planning effort with South Town that unfortunately didn't materialize um this year.

So I hope those plans can be resumed, but uh our prize cannot do that uh by themselves.

It has to be a partnership.

So we hope the CIA will be willing to resume that effort and hopefully have that materialize uh in 2026.

Thank you so much for your answers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I can just confirm that that is the plan, and we've been in conversation the last few months about what that can look like.

Uh we have some changes in board members over the next two months as folks come off and come on and the hiring of a new corridor manager.

So that's certainly part of our work plan for next year.

So I appreciate you kind of keeping this conversation front and center.

Great.

Um Mayor, can I ask our final question?

Uh good morning.

Thank you for uh a little bit more about the recap for 20 2025 and a little bit of a preview for 2026.

Um, what's before us is the memorandum of understanding and I'm just curious if you might speak to kind of what's been working well within this partnership and if there's anything you need differently from the city to allow you to do some of the kind of big work envisioning that we've been talking about.

So right now we're going through a uh strategic planning process, which we hope to wrap up in June or July, and part of that is thinking about how what it means to be a public-private partnership and kind of where the private intersection is in that, because obviously you see in the economic development that this is very impactful for the private sector.

Uh but it's also very important for the public sector, not just from a cultural and social standpoint, but also from the standpoint of having a rich and thriving uh not just economy, but community, uh, an active community.

And I think that we see I think that during our prize, it really reflects what this community can look like when it is very vibrant and active, and you have a rich pedestrian activity downtown, et cetera, and throughout throughout the districts.

Um I would say what is working well is we have a strong community partnership with the city in terms of not just the uh fiscal underwriting but also the uh support and the technical support, which is incredibly necessary in order to produce something of this scale.

Uh I would say another thing that is working well is the ability to uh bring other government and quasi-governmental partners uh to bear with this, so that this is uh this is a group effort, as I mentioned earlier.

Kent County, DGRI, the Convention Arena Authority, Experience, Grand Rapids, all strong partners.

Uh and uh especially if you look at the destination marketing approach, and that's through our partnership with Experienced Grand Rapids, that is a huge help, and it is a huge driver of our national and even international reach.

Um I would say that really that uh being able to come with intention of what the next five, six years look like and where we want to go, and that's what we're working through in the strategic planning process.

And then back in and saying, you know, this doesn't work as a standalone entity, and it has to be a community partnership in my mind, and I see that.

Uh, but what does that look like in terms of in terms of investment and how do we continue to drive towards impact?

What has worked, obviously the numbers speak for themselves.

And I believe, and I have heard anecdotally, that art prize is uh something that people in the community look forward to, as one of my favorite volunteers says, it's better than Christmas.

So thank you.

So thanks for this.

I mean, you're right, the numbers do speak for themselves, and I I also um appreciate how you're framing it.

Um maybe not the slides as much as your language, um, which is to say um, you know, we I s I, we see study after study after study, which tries to solve a math problem of show us that our money makes money.

Um and you know, there's nothing wrong with economic analysis.

Um, but at the end of the day, the thing that I always point out to people about art is that art is not something we do so we can make money.

Art is our reward for being civilized.

It's the it's the thing that uh it's the thing we get from coming together and doing economic activities so that we can afford a community that has, if we're all subsistence farmers, we wouldn't have poets, we wouldn't have visual artists, we wouldn't have novelists, uh we'd all be scrabbling to you know make sure that we had enough wheat to make it through the winter.

Um and civilization allows art.

So this is something that I think fundamentally you can't ever and shouldn't ever think about primarily in economic terms.

But um, I know you get that and you said it in the presentation had had the economic numbers, but from my perspective, that's not really why we do art at all.

Uh we could it's nice to be able to backfill and point out the the economic uh benefits of something like this, but I think that's all secondary.

Uh the primary reason is to is to celebrate our humanness.

I mean, the question art answers is what are we doing on this planet as human beings?

Um and that's a question you get to ask if you're civilized and not if you're not.

Um the uh you know the other thing that I think is worth pointing out again and again and again, which you touched on briefly is if we take a 20,000 foot view and ask ourselves like who's heard of Grand Rapids and why?

What makes us unique?

I mean, there are nobody is traveling here from Albuquerque because we have a library.

They have Albuquerque, they have a library in Albuquerque.

Um nobody's probably traveling here because we have many of the things that we all love and consume on a daily basis.

But when you think about what makes you New York City unique, well, they got the Statue of Liberty, nobody else has one of those.

Um when I think about Grand Rapids and the things that make our city unique, for me, the two things that jump out are always there's there's two.

One is uh Meyer Garden, because I don't know any other Meyer Garden in the world.

Uh but our prize is is the other one.

So I think it's absolutely uh foundational to answering the question of why would you buy what is Grand Rapids?

How is it different than any other place?

Um not that our libraries aren't important, not that our parks aren't important, not that all that stuff's not important, it is.

That's the that's the bread and butter of our community, but the the uniqueness, the uh you know that answer to why are we here, how what kind of community are we?

Um price is an answer to that question.

So thank you for putting your blood, sweat, and tears into it.

Uh it is awesome to see these numbers, but I will also say those of us in the dais know this, and many of us in the community know this started out as a non-city initiative, and it and it transitioned into something that needed city help.

And I think that it's really clear uh to me at least, and I think to all of us that that this is something that the city should appropriately support, invest in, make sure it continues to thrive.

So thanks.

Commissioner Usaus.

Thank you.

Um I just want to share a couple things.

Yes, thanks for the update about the third word.

I heard that kind of in detail about as a project was going on from a past colleague about some things that wanted to happen but didn't happen.

So I know there was a lot of effort put into that, so thank you for that.

Um I want to say too, what we don't see on here is all of the residual um engagement that happens in neighborhoods.

So I was trying to go back on social media to see, like in the Creston neighborhood or East Town or other communities where you know they may come to one of the signature events, but people were also hosting things in their own neighborhoods and and doing their own pop-ups, and we have a lot of businesses who already you know feature different art throughout time, you know, it's just that uh Palate.

Palate another day.

And you have art and they've had art in there for a really long time.

I remember going in there for the when it was the first art prize.

So I wanted to highlight that as well.

Um that um we're seeing this, and and to your point, Mayor, it's you know, there is an economic, but it doesn't have to be the economic.

Um but there is a lot of activation that's happening, as you mentioned, that just is is free form.

Um it's other people supporting one another.

I was also happy to see a number of local individuals who you know were part of the competition as well.

Um, and just some of those, you know, variation and and pieces and things like that.

Um so yeah, I I just wanted to say I I was able to go to a number of things.

I was able to I didn't get to one of the places you told me to go, and so I'm I'm I'm still disappointed about that.

I think it was one of the um I know it doesn't matter, but um I didn't get to it, and um, but there was so much to do, and I I think that yes, this is something that has been exciting.

I think a recognition of how structure needs to change is really positive because we're living in that environment where funding is getting prioritized in other ways.

So, you know, what does this look like?

Um, but just thanks for the efforts and thanks for um the efforts in our different you know corridors outside of downtown.

So thanks.

Thank you so much.

Thank you all.

Any other questions?

Thanks thank you all very much.

Thanks.

So uh great discussion.

Uh let's take some action.

So um uh all those in favor of the resolution on the MOU?

Say all those opposed, motion carries.

Thank you.

That brings us to uh request for a um uh moving us into closed session following our next two briefings.

Uh and that the reason for that is to discuss a legal opinion from our city attorney.

Uh I take a motion.

So moved.

Support.

Uh okay, and city clerk.

Um I think we need a I know we need a roll call vote for this.

Commissioner Kilgore.

Yes.

Commissioner Robbins.

Yes.

Mr.

Asassi, Commissioner Purdue.

Yes.

Commissioner Belchak.

Yes.

Mayor LeGrand.

Yes.

And we'll be meeting in room 601, colleagues, and that'll be after our next two briefings.

So that brings us to our next two briefings.

Uh first is briefing on parks and rec.

Um, Ms.

Claybole.

All right.

So uh good morning.

Commissioners, mayor, uh Laura Claypool with the Parks Department.

We are here today to bring you our 2025 annual update as part of our millage investment uh that the community overwhelmingly approved back in 2019.

We come to annually just to discuss some of the really great successes that we're seeing as a result of these investments.

Um these have given us the opportunity to really transform spaces and provide recreation programs beyond what we would have been able to do um prior to that investment.

Um so this first slide just demonstrates our primary funding sources.

On the left, you'll see our millage revenue allocation.

That is the property tax evergreen from 2019.

And on the right is our park maintenance of effort.

That is the investment that the department receives from the General Operating Fund.

And it is calculated given coming out of our millage investment guidelines.

So I just want to take a quick second to talk about 2025 impact.

Capital projects and pool operations, we'll talk about in a couple other slides.

But all of our recreation programs across the board, we continue to see significant growth both in our fee-based and in our free programming, which just shows the need and the desire for the community to have those really safe, accessible programs in their neighborhoods, which just is a really an incredible opportunity for the community.

Something I want to talk on with regards to park maintenance.

So prior to the 2019 millage being passed, we had about 30% of our parks across the system that were rated A and B.

And we had been striving for 75% across.

This year was the first time we had 80% of our parks across the system that are at an A and B.

And that is the result of continued investment from the city, continued investment from the community, and an incredibly generous community of philanthropy, but also state and federal grants that have made possible a lot of investments that we've done.

So I wanted to highlight that.

Every year we provide the opportunity in partnership with GRPS for hundreds of youth in our community to experience the Grand River, many of them for the first time through our Grand River experience, which was formerly canoe, which has been renamed, our family paddle nights, and then just um other kayaking activities that we offer.

I wanted to share an update on our pool pass program.

This was the first year that the city and the department decided to undertake issuing pool passes to the community to provide free youth swimming.

And we issued 7,000 youth passes so that our community could access our outdoor swimming pools across all the ward, all our wards.

We were absolutely thrilled with that.

We had some hiccups along the way with uh with our streaming and our workflow of bringing people in and out of the pool, but we've worked through those and we're looking forward to another successful season.

And finally, um, before I turn it over for our capital update, I wanted to give you an update on the MLK Community Center.

After literally years and years and years of community engagement and planning this facility, this gorgeous new facility, we will have the ribbon cutting on Saturday, February 21st.

And so uh we would welcome the community to come out, take tours of the new space and really celebrate um this incredible opportunity.

We will be hope whole holding job fairs throughout the month of January on site at a local community church.

That information will be posted on our website in the upcoming month.

So we're really hoping that we can get a lot of community connection in the positions for that department or for that new facility.

Um so with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Carrie Enriquez, and she is going to give you some project updates.

Good morning, everyone.

We wanted really to focus on our leverage funding that we have for our park improvements across the system.

So we are working with over 51 million dollars of leverage funding, and it comes from a variety of sources.

Some of it is state and federal funding, so we have money from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources as well as the downtown Grand Rapids Inc.

Greenway funding, and then we also have some private funding as well.

So with fans of Valley Field, the Mitten Foundation, as well as the West Michigan Trails.

Looking at 2025 and our park projects, the ones that we've completed in the past year, looking at the East River Walk.

So those are improvements to the river walk just north of the Blue Bridge.

The picture on the right is of the Houseman Field Playground, the community build that we did in partnership with the neighborhood association and others, and then also some parking lot reconstruction.

And we've also started projects that are on a larger scale that are still in construction and will um travel into 2026 as well.

So to highlight some of those canal park, that full park reconstruction as well as the Oxford Trail.

Those are reconstruction of the existing trail from Wealthy to Oxford and then extending that down to Hall.

A list of um 13 upcoming projects that will start construction in 2026, some of them into 2027 as well.

Um I spoke of that MDR, our partnerships with them.

We do have a grant for bike park.

So looking at improvements at that park at that park, which will include bike trail improvements as well as a new uh picnic shelter, and then also that parking lot.

Also looking at Lincoln Park, making improvements to the existing playground and splash pad, the building that is there, and doing some consolidation of the parking lot.

You'll notice parking lots have a have a big feature currently.

Um we have a lot of deferred maintenance with our parking lots, and so we're really trying to focus on making improvements there.

And then that picture there is shown Sullivan Fields.

So we do have a contract with our contractor to move forward with phase two, and that work is starting, obviously pending the weather.

So looking at our five-year capital plan to highlight a couple of different projects, looking at some new park spaces.

So 32nd Street, that is a new park north of 32nd and east of Kalamazoo.

And that we've partnered with Mobile GR for a pedestrian beacon to cross 30 seconds safely to get pedestrians to that park space.

Um and again, there's some highlights of some parking lots.

We've got um parking lots coming for reconstruction at Huff and Aberdeen, McKay C, as well as Riverside, and then a new dog park, which I know some people are very excited about at McKay C.

So looking at our emerging opportunities, there's currently an RFQ out for the Indian Trails Golf Course.

So that is looking at that entertainment project that was completed a year or so ago and looking at ways that we could do a phased approach for that work.

We are currently working on a master plan for Bell Knapp Park.

There are a lot of different uses in there.

So we've partnered with GRCC, GR Pickleball, the GRIFs, special events, as well as other large-scale event planners in that park space to determine the best use for that space.

Also looking at the potential for future investments along that greenway corridor as that continues through the years.

And then again, looking at our completed 2024 dog park study and looking at ways to implement permanent dog parks throughout our park system as well as temporary dog parks.

So celebrating our success, as mentioned, over the $51 million in leverage funding combined with some of our bond funding and our parks millage funding.

We have about $64 million of projects currently that are happening in the planning, design, and construction phase.

Just wanted to take the time to really um thank the residents of Grand Rapids for voting for the millages that have allowed us to support our improvements in our park spaces, as well as the partnership with the parks and recreation advisory board.

And then a lot of our key partnerships that we have have either aided to that leverage funding that we have or just some of those community engagement and connections into the community as well.

So with that, I will pass this over to my colleague Joe Sulek.

Good morning, Commissioners, morning mayor, city manager.

Um been asked to give an update to our forestry division.

Um wanted to start out just saying that you know, forestry is dedicated to ensuring public health and safety while maximizing the environmental benefits of the Grand Rapids Canopy.

I'm pleased to say that we did a recent recent uh tree canopy study, and we found that our canopy in Grand Rapids has increased from 34 to 37 percent, primarily since 2014.

Uh we have been implementing a successful public-private approach to managing our uh priority work in the in the city uh as it relates to trees, um, starting with our priority one project, which saw close to 6,000 priority one trees addressed, uh removed and pruned.

And uh we also have a 1400 trees planted per year.

Um however, we are primarily a reactive management system uh currently, and because of that, we have we gained a $50,000 grant from the community forestry um and urban and community forestry uh at the DNR to do a forestry operations and management plan.

And so I was gonna report on some of that today.

Um project update as far as priority two work that we started pretty much immediately after we did our priority one work.

That was a plan that we did an in-house and a private contractor plan started out with in-house crews doing pruning, where our private contractors were doing removals.

Uh, in June of 2023, we decided to do a pivot on that because we had fallen behind on the um pruning comp portion of that.

So then we pivoted to have our contractors doing pruning work uh and our in-house doing removals, and you can see from that time we've done close to 5,158 removal or uh prunes.

We have a balance of about 929 trees that were currently underway, and we're we're looking to have that done by June 30th of 2026 in this fiscal year.

Uh yeah, as you can see, we've exceeded the amount of removals that we needed to do because as a living asset, uh trees age and they do graduate into needing removals.

And so we have done that, and we're doing that very efficiently with our in-house crews.

Um we also have uh in fiscal year 26 an investment of over 200,000 dollars, almost 250,000 to do the backlog of stumps that we have currently.

As of right now, we are 310 stumps within that backlog.

Um I wanted to point out is that our in-house forestry crew is highly trained, uh dedicated crew.

Uh, when I came on as a city forester in 2014, I was the only certified arborist within the department, and currently we have seven certified arborists.

Um, and we uh our primary response to storm, storm damage and debris pickup.

Um, that is one of the main functions that we do, and you can see in this graph that since July of 2023, we have completed over 2500 storm response work orders, and you can see that wind events directly core event correlate with high amount of debris pickup that we have.

So there's something that we have a vital responsibility in the forestry department.

Uh we had Davy Resource Group come and do our uh operations and management plan working with us.

Um, and some of the critical components of that was that sport storm response is a critical component of forestry.

Um risk potential increases as trees age if we don't have proactive management.

Um we have a need for an up-to-date inventory.

Uh the inventory that we've been working on and the priority work has been was done in 2016.

Um, although we have updated the inventory as we've done work in-house, um, their trees do age, and we need to get a better assessment as to where we are as far as priority work.

Uh large component of our canopy in the city of Grand Rapids is maple trees.

Uh I would say the majority of those maples are Norway maples planted mostly in the 60s and 70s.

They are all aging at the same rate, and we're seeing the same problems citywide.

And you can see in this graph to the lower right that um 24% uh Norway maples is high above the standard 10% rule that you'd want as far as uh genus um allocation in the city.

Um proactive management saves money in the long run.

There is an initial investment that's usually needed to catch up on that work as we've seen over the last few years with our priority work.

Um but the one thing that we did see in this is that we have over 17,000 young trees, which is about 25 24 percent uh that need some kind of uh training prune.

And so this graph on the lower left shows uh the difference between the number the types of pruning that take place in the city.

Uh, you can see that over 50% of that is routine pruning, um, and then the training prune are our younger trees, and then the gray area is priority prunes, and that's where we've been focusing a lot of our effort in forestry over the last few years is to address those priority prunes.

But as trees age, they age into different categories.

Um the recommendations that came out of our management plan are to initiate a proactive public tree maintenance program, build the capacity of the forestry division, leverage data for informed urban forestry management, and that would be in the form of a new tree inventory.

Um increase the diversification and resilience of public tree species, meaning that we want to uh increase the diversity and also plant trees that are gonna be resilient to climate change, storm, higher storms, and things that are being predicted for the future.

Conduct an updated tree inventory, as I stated to support prioritization and maintenance and removal needs, coordinate citywide forestry efforts across departments.

Currently, we are doing trimming and and some other departments as far as making sure that we're uh clearing, have proper clearance for snow removal equipment and and whatnot.

So we want to make sure that we're keeping all of that within the same uh database.

And then keep Grand Rapids on a pass for for tree canopy growth.

If we keep on this current path we're on, we're predicting that in 2030, we should hit that 40% canopy goal that we have in the city.

And I believe that is we lost that.

Ah, there we go.

So thank you very much.

Um, and I think we're open all of us open to questions for that.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Commissioners, uh Commissioner Robinson.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

Um, good to see you all.

Thanks for the the presentation.

I had a cool question.

I want to say this was back in 2023 when Commissioner Moody was around.

There was talks of um like a cemetery master plan.

Is that unless it's something that occurred and just flew under the radar?

Um I'm not sure if there's any updates of that.

I I guess specifically on the west side.

I know there's a community organization that's trying to raise money to um just better invest in our cemeteries and make them a place where people can you know walk their dogs and just enjoy us as green spaces.

So um just curious if there's any updates on on that process.

Yeah, um, as the superintendent, I also over manage the cemetery, so I've been selected to come and answer this question.

But um we are we are in the process of um of determining how we want to go about the cemetery master plan.

We do have uh an increased amount of capital investments within the cemetery, and we're looking to uh engage that uh process probably in the next in the next fiscal year.

I have worked closely with Friends of Greenwood Cemetery.

We have a great uh group that's starting to emerge in Oak Grove Cemetery.

We have uh Woodlawn Cemetery and then the uh Arboretum Committee that oversees the Oak Hill Cemetery.

So we really want to engage all of those constituents in that master plan process so that we can not only have a an overall plan for cemeteries but individuated plans for each uh specific cemetery.

But yeah, we have a lot of public interest in our cemeteries for an area that's uh designated to uh commemorate death, it's teeming with life.

So we really want to make those important green spaces within the city as well.

Great, thank you.

Thanks, Commissioner.

I think that's a great point.

I if you look at a map of Grand Rapids, um, and I have them up on my wall in my office.

I often get excited when I look at this big green patch, and I'm like, oh, that's a cemetery, so nobody can use it.

Um and I think having a conversation around how to get actual activation of cemeteries as useful green spaces and not just as um tree repositories or um corpse repositories is uh is a great idea.

So I'd love to see some thought around you know uh walking paths and signage and uh the question of how we get people to use those cemeteries as uh green space assets is I think uh a really great one to have.

Uh Commissioner Cober.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh in line with my colleagues' comments.

Um yeah, I I believe if you don't count the cemeteries, the third ward is down about around a dozen, am I correct?

Like of green space in terms of total parks.

So I'd love if you all could speak to uh some of the direct investments that we're seeing with um the capital investment plan in the third ward.

Um I'm also very happy to see a complaint that I've gotten for many years, even before I was ever thinking of public office with my family celebrating uh reunions and things at Garfield Park and that uh parking lot.

So very happy to see that.

But as we know, we are lacking green space that is as my colleagues have noted able to be used uh for all different sorts of things, including dog walking, that's important that constituents reach out about.

Um so thank you for that note on that.

But uh this sort of reminds me of with our Vital Streets plan where we knew that we needed direct investment in terms of sidewalks, then shoot your pairs in the third ward, and we started there.

So I'm happy to see that type of equity focused uh reflected in this capital investment plan.

And if you could speak to the direct um new uh green spaces that we can expect in the third ward, I'd appreciate it.

Yeah, I when I appreciate your love of the parking lots.

I do like that.

Um so um with in the next five years, we do have the funding for the new park space at 32nd Street, so that'll be some new green space.

We've also been working in Boston Square as well for the potential for new park spaces there as well, and then also with our Southside Creekways project, so looking at ways to make improvements to the existing plaster creek trail and kind of to bridge some of those gaps in that trail system and also develop a new trail system for Silver Creek that would you know connect from Boston Square West to Roosevelt and up.

So really trying to highlight some of those, you know, potential new opportunities.

We also have funding set aside for acquisitions specifically in the third ward.

So we're always strategically looking at the potential to add park space, but as you can imagine, it's hard, right?

There's a lot of you know, balancing of um priorities for housing and and just trying to ensure that we're not just acquiring property just to acquire it.

We're trying to be strategic in that placement of those locations.

Yeah, thank you so much.

And uh may I ask you for the Boston Square development, is that gonna be near the new housing development?

Is it more of a like a pocket park design?

Am I correct in the case?

Not necessarily a pocket park park, no.

So we have been working almost where the modern fire or modern hardware facility is for a park space there.

So wonderful.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And I did want to um touch on Commissioner Robbins, your question about um the master plan for the cemeteries.

We have completed an asset management plan for the cemeteries about a year ago.

So that is informing the improvements that we're making.

So just trying to roll that into a higher scale master plan that um Joe was talking about.

We also we also increased our investment in cemeteries uh in the last budget, I believe, as well.

Yep.

Commissioner Saucy.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Miss Enriquez and the whole team for um sharing this update.

And I was leaning over to Commissioner Purdue, and I said, Oh, so next year we can have an activation for our prize in the new MLK MLK Lodge.

So we're gonna speak it into an existence.

Um but uh a couple of questions that I had because we are now almost at 2026.

And back in 2020 and 2021, 26 seems so far away.

Um, but that was the ARPA deadline.

And so I wanted to ask a question about any of the projects that you talked, obviously, some things that were started, um, any considerations or concerns.

Obviously, I know we've moved and cities manager, this might be for you to move some money in different spaces so that we could use it up in case there was a consideration, right?

But just to make sure we didn't lose out on any ARPA dollars.

Um, I was also interested in a little bit more detail on the status of the Leonard and Trail, um, just where we're at with that.

Um that's that was kind of a comment about ARPA, then the question about Leonard Ann.

Um thank you for the updates.

It was good to see um the leverage funding, and I think this is another example.

Many departments, and this and today we're talking about you all of a leveraging those public and private partnerships, different obviously.

We have friends of GR parks, but you noted a number of them, and so um just from another, I think from our perspective, and I've seen this like on our civil service board designing this department of what are the resources that we need because parks is it's it's the fun things, but there's also public safety considerations.

Last week, whoever cut that tree down, you shouldn't have cut the tree down, right?

That was all that was all on the news.

That was that was the headline.

And so there's a lot of different things to consider.

You know, I think we think there's a great event and activation happening, but there's a lot of other like safety considerations in different departments that you all are engaging with.

So that's a comment, not a question.

Um, but ball Perkins Park, thank you for a number of efforts there.

We had to work really closely with consumers energy.

Well, I didn't, but Carrie did, um, and just finding out different things.

So that is coming to fruition.

Um, I know as we're having conversations with second ward about the potential redevelopment of the county site at Fuller and the the overpass that our Nika neighborhood, you know, of course having Ball Perkins Park, but are there some other opportunities for um you know different types of park in that neighborhood?

You know, we've talked about dog parks, but also to your question, Commissioner Kilgore about where else do we go?

Is we're gonna have you know, we we have our GRPS city liaison meeting, but they're gonna be schools that are obviously gonna turn into something, but really through those relationships in the past with friends of geo parks to keep that green space.

How do we engage in that?

So I think that's an opportunity about what might be in the future and just you know, different relationships.

So I'll look forward to that with GRPS.

Um then really the last piece I had is is really about the forestry.

I probably just more of a comment of support.

Um I shared this in the mid-year review.

My predecessor, this was something that she worked on pretty closely back in 2019.

COVID happened, a lot of things got pushed off.

I was able to go to a um urban forestry committee with some neighbors.

Gosh, I think that was in the fall or you know, in the fall end of summer.

And so I think all of those pieces that got brought up, whether it's you know, changing severe weather events, which we do call with which we did call out in the cap, um, and just you know, uh some delay in how do we be more proactive to reactive.

And so I think about that as our core services, and that's been a sort of a mantra for me as we go into 26.

There's a lot of things that we can do, but I think that we need to be focused on what are our core services and delivering value.

So thank you for providing the the the recommendations overview, Joe.

So some comments and some questions.

I guess my most just to recap it, Miss Enriquez is really about the Leonard and Trail and then the ARPA dollar considerations.

Thanks.

Yeah, thanks.

So for the city ARPA, um, for that funding for the projects.

So for Oxford Trail, we've already spent the funding for that we had for the city ARPA, and that is currently under construction.

Um, Plaster Creek Silver Creek, that planning um that we talked about, that is currently underway, and we're on schedule to spend that ARPA funding by the end of this year.

MLK is under construction, it'll be done, you know, in in February for the grand opening, so that is spent.

And then um, let's see, I think the other one is the Leonard to Ann, I think that's the last one.

So Leonard Anne, it has been split into two different projects because of the funding.

So we have Leonard to the railroad is one project, and that is going to be let by MDOT, and they have their letting or their bid opening date of February 6th.

And that is set.

Everything is moving forward with that.

And then the northern portion, which is the railroad to Anne is going to be bid by the city, and we are currently working on those bid documents.

They've been approved by the DNR, and we anticipate bidding in the next couple days.

So we will be back in January for approval of that contract.

Yeah.

Yeah, uh, and the commission.

Sorry, Mayor, can I just supplement that response?

Sure.

Just because Commissioner Yossi gave us an opportunity.

Uh just a flag that 2026 is going to be a very pressure-filled year for uh our engineering staff, our parks engineering staff, capital improvement staff, and the contractors we are working with because of the criticality of spending those dollars by the end of 26.

There's also some ambiguity currently about how that will be interpreted.

So is it going to be enough that the work is done and the liability exists for us to pay, or do we actually have to have pushed the money out the door?

Um and those kinds of decisions are going to be impactful.

Uh so just wanted to, and we also have uh the big amp theater delivery um for opening in May.

Uh and that is again something that that is very uh visible and important to the community and something we're really focusing on.

So we are gonna have to be flexible and adaptable for uh project timelines that that aren't implicated by ARPA or some of those other very highly impactful and uh lots of planning and people traveling in from out of town to be at those kinds of events.

So again, appreciate you raising the issue, and I just want to take the opportunity to speak to how that will impact how we prioritize and uh use staff time, and it will probably require from some flexibility in 2026, and we all do our best to communicate to everyone sort of if we have to shift resources around to complete those projects.

Obviously, that's uh number one priority for us to be able to use those dollars and not uh have any issues with that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um and I just want to pick up the baton, the relay race here on forestry.

I appreciate all the comments everyone's made about uh parks and and cemeteries so far.

Um I I have uh actually had the opportunity to look at the forestry operation and maintenance plan.

Um is that gonna be presented before the entire commission at some point?

Or is that something you want to talk a little more about?

I can I can respond.

No, that wasn't that's not on the plan for a commission uh update.

Okay.

We have not typically briefed on the operations plan for forestry.

Um well, I just want to reiterate that um I do see the significant need in the neighborhoods for more proactive management.

I think that we are behind possibly um five to ten years in some of our pruning, but I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Um and what does pruning actually entail?

How much of the tree are you guys cutting and where the clarity on wires and whatnot would be for homeowners as well as consumers energy?

Because I get a lot of questions about that in our neighborhoods.

Well, um a couple things.

Um so um to answer your questions in the order I heard them.

So the first is uh the pruning.

Um I would say that we uh are I would agree with your assessment as to the number of trees that need pruning, especially in the training and young pruning category.

The uh component of that uh plan of um boosting the in-house would be to address those young trees.

Um, you know, forestry is a long game, so if we can focus on young and and training trees, uh we will save money in the long run.

Um as far as uh the specifications for pruning, we were focused currently.

Um we wrote a lot of those specifications to focus on clearance above sidewalks and streets, clearance away from houses, and uh with some structural pruning done.

A lot of the structural pruning we do is in-house uh just because of the amount of training and expertise we have within our in-house staff.

Um then your third question was again, I'm sorry.

Uh the clarity on wires between a homeowner responsibility, city responsibility, and consumers responsibility.

And um, and then maybe we could add on since the structural pruning is done in internal, like how quickly what could a resident expect return response and stuff like that.

Well, um response on um components as far as those uh are strictly based on inspections after people uh request um something done to the tree.

So we'll go out and we'll do an inspection and we'll set a timeline on that, and that's how we base our um KPIs and that on how quickly we're getting to those type of things uh based on priority.

Um we have uh a very close relationship with consumers energy currently.

We uh have an annual meeting uh to determine where their work is going to be in the city, and then we work to get ahead of that to notify as best we can as far as what type of pruning is going to be happening.

Most of that pruning is on primary lines, and that's where uh that's focused.

Now, if it's on a city tree, then we would be working in conjunction with them as far as um filling any gaps and notification.

The consumers does most of the notification on that uh based on an agreement that we have uh with them as far as two weeks ahead of time anytime something is being done.

Um but uh responsibility for city uh uh trees within the right-of-way fall with to the city um and then we defer to consumers to do their their pruning.

Um I think the biggest issue with that is that some of the pruning uh cycle has been so elongated that people aren't are they've never seen consumers come in and a lot of the work that's done is pretty stark.

Um I can say that you know, as a uh certified arborist, none of the pruning cuts that are being done by those companies are faulty.

It's just the amount of material that has to be removed because they have not been proactively managed, same of the same situation that we find ourselves in at times.

So we try and get ahead of that and communicate as best we can about what is coming.

If there's trees that so much would have to be removed that it should just be removed rather than pruned, we'll be proactive and have them do that for us, and then we can work to get new trees planted in there that are more wire-friendly.

One thing that I didn't show in that study, and you probably saw in the uh maintenance replant is that we have a uh very high percentage of trees that are small canopy trees because we've been proactively planting underneath power lines so we can avoid those conflicts in the future, trying to plant the right tree in the right place as well.

So what happens with the wires between the main primary line into the building or house?

Uh some of those those are more um uh feed lines to the house, those fall within the uh responsibility mostly uh with the homeowner.

If if it's a city tree that's causing a conflict, then we'll we'll make sure that that we have that on on our list as well.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, Commissioner Purdue.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, thank you all for the presentation.

Um to start.

Uh so first uh I want to speak to uh kind of the first section of the presentation around parks and activation.

Um my understanding is that only public buses only go to two of our three parks.

Is that true from your understanding?

And is that something on your radar or something to kind of address with the rapid to make sure that all of our parks are accessible by everyone in our city, particularly given all the good work that we're doing about you know passes and uh youth programming and the like.

Um that that's a great question that I'll have to follow up with you on.

Um I can check in with our mobility experts and get you some better answers on that.

But you know, obviously in every program that we do and at all of our park spaces, we want to remove as many barriers as we possibly can to access.

Absolutely.

Um related to that, uh I mentioned this when we talked about the potential fee schedule for MLK Lodge.

Um, but really want to make sure that our rental fees, our space fees, uh both for our our buildings on our parks, but also the parks themselves are really accessible.

Uh so for example, we've mentioned Friends of Grand Rapids Parks a few times this morning, um, and they're kind of part of the city in a way.

Um, and if they want to activate our parks, bring people to our parks, kind of really as an extension of the city's work, they have to pay us for all the rental fees and everything, as if they were outside entity doing kind of a private um event.

So I think that there's an opportunity to kind of in some of the conversations you mentioned earlier today, Mayor, about how do we utilize fees?

Um, I think there's an opportunity to go back and to make sure that our public parks and our spaces are truly accessible to community members, regardless of their um situatedness and their in their income level.

Um so I wanted to flag that and be curious if other folks are interested in that.

Um finally I just want to comment um just on our spaces in general.

I think um we have been thinking about this, but there's an opportunity to go further and really questioning and or defining what users we're designing different spaces for.

Uh so we did a walkthrough on the South Southeast side about where that potential Silver Creek Trail might go.

Um, and you know, we're walking through some of our existing parks, and um that with the one I'm thinking about in particular is great for folks with young kids, but it's a beautiful park, very walkable to the Garfield Park neighborhood and and Seymour Square neighborhood, but there's not a lot of attraction outside of like young kids playing.

You know, I'm uh I'm a get a blanket and read a book kind of girly at the park, right?

And that's not a good space for that.

Uh other folks want to walk, and so just want to challenge us as we think about these spaces to think about very diverse users that exist in our community and design and activate for that.

And then relatedly, particularly as we think about major potential investments or changes like a new trail, um not waiting until those points to make investments in our parks and our current amenities.

You know, we walk through Dickinson Park.

There's so much that we could do for it right now to make it a better asset to that community and to the city as a whole that shouldn't require us waiting until we kind of have this huge new uh master plan about a trail system.

So I want to make that point, um, encourage us to continue to do that.

Um and then lastly, more of a question.

Um we know that severe weather is going to continue to increase.

So I'm curious.

Uh Joe, you you you shared the the chart of kind of increases over the last few years and what that has meant for trees.

I'm curious if your department has looked at what that means for cost increases.

Is that something you're thinking about as we think about the next budget cycle?

Um so that's A, and then B, are we thinking about fruit trees uh in our parks?

And then lastly, want to know what the connection is, I think urban ag is that the urban agriculture committee is that in with planning or what is your connection to it, parks and forestry.

So that's a three-parter.

Severe weather projection, fruit trees, and urban ag so let's dissect all of that a little bit.

Um as far as urban agriculture, it is um it has historically been under parks department, it's transitioning over to the sustainability department.

Um but I I guess this is a great opportunity to introduce two people we have here because we were lucky enough to receive an uh $500,000 Eagle grant for urban agriculture development, and we have um Angelica who is our urban agriculture coordinator.

Um I did also want to introduce Courtney Perkins, who is now new MLK Community Center manager.

Um so I I failed to do that during, but when you mentioned urban agriculture, it was a great opportunity to um introduce these folks.

Um as as far as um the long-term impact of weather, Joe can speak to this a little bit more, but I know that that was a consideration in developing um potential models for what uh a uh forestry operating plan could look like to bring us to to a sustainable place.

Um as part of our budget development for fiscal year 27, we will be introducing a couple different potential models that could help us get to um this place of being sustainable.

So I'll pass it over to Joe for the question on fruit trees.

So as far as fruit trees go, we are always considering fruit trees uh for uh plantings.

Um when they're planted along streets or in public property, we just want to make sure that when those are planted, we have an entity or group that uh understands the amount of maintenance and uh upkeep, especially during harvest that's needed uh so that we can maximize the benefits from those trees as well.

So it's uh as long as uh every time we plant trees, it's normally uh in conjunction with the group that's very interested in in having those and and getting the the fruit off of those trees as well.

With the graph that you shared of the type of trees in Grand Rapids, do any of those have fruit on them?

The majority of the trees that um where did uh that go?

The majority of trees that you see in this graph are primarily trees that are um either street trees or um park trees.

Uh the number of ornamental trees that we have is increasing because like I said, the amount that we're planting underneath power lines.

Um fruit trees make up a a small portion of this of the urban forest.

Um but we uh as um uh uh Laura introduced uh we do have a substantial urban agriculture grant that we are embarking on, and we we can imagine that some of those grantees, subresient sub-recipient grantees will be uh in incorporating uh orchard trees, you know, within that model.

Okay, and then just last sorry.

Oh, go ahead.

Um just a follow-up to Laura, you talked about the urban ag moving to sustainability.

Could you talk a little bit about the thinking behind that change?

It it has just been the oversight of the urban agriculture committee.

Obviously, the parks department is still very involved just because of the opportunities within our park spaces, which will be further explored um as we continue moving forward with the um with the grant that we received.

So it's 1120 now.

We've got uh another, I I think probably gonna be a very engaged conversation about zoning and planning.

Um so I'm just gonna essentially do uh make a couple thematic comments here rather than ask questions.

Um I I think fundamentally when we're talking about parks, um, it's always worth asking the question of whether we're talking about a product or service.

Um a lot, I don't want to challenge uh all of us to not think of parks as products.

Uh a lot of this looks sort of like a construction document.

We're doing we're building this, we're building this, we're building this.

Um, and you know, we're sp we're investing in this and we're building out parking lots, and um, you know, if we if we have uh a housing complex in town, we do community engagement, but fundamentally we think of that as sort of a product.

Um because I think of parks as fundamentally a service, um, and this is you know resonating with something, some of the points that Commissioner Kilgore, I mean pardon me, Commissioner Purdue was making.

Um I think that we really have to challenge ourselves to make sure that we're um seeing these uh parks are only valuable if they're used.

And um that is so they're not set aside lands.

We're we're not uh investing in Yosemite here.

Um we're we're trying to get things that that humans can use.

And so in those terms, um uh I know we've had a long standing goal of having uh parks within 10 minutes of everyone's house.

Uh frankly, I'd like to have usable uh amenities in parks that people can get within a 10 minute walk of their house.

Um and that probably means I mean I'd I'd rather spend money on that than spend a money on a whole lot of parking lots.

Um and I'd rather get things that have been betted in people's neighborhoods that they can actually use.

Um I didn't see any and and then you know the question of like survey of surveys of users.

Um if you're seeing as a product, then you can be like, oh, let's um, you know, let's see what let's see what we want to make.

Um but if you're seeing it as a service, I think that surveys aren't just something you do to see what product you make.

They're they're your core, their core function.

Um so in future I'd love to see uh reporting out on asking people what they want and an envisioning what they want because I think we're dreaming about uses, and so it's not as it's not like an apartment building that when you're done, you're just like, oh great, you know, we got all the input.

Here it is, it's done.

It's gonna be there for 40 years.

Um I think that parks are much more fluid and dynamic than that, and we should probably embed um conversations about use and surveys about use and questions about uh what the community wants really as part of the lifeblood of of what we're what we're providing for or or uh you know making for our residents, not just stuff, but uh engagement.

So I'd love to see that as as something that thematically all of us at the city work towards.

Um the other thing that I that jumped out to me was um that activation question.

Sometimes parks fail in their activation, and one part that I didn't see any um anything in this document um that I've heard a lot of comments about uh as a uh a problematic use park is hard side.

And um so the question of how you how you activate different uses in places where you're not seeing the uh the uses that you might want uh is something that I would welcome uh conversations about investment in.

So uh we're out of time.

I'm just throw I'm just doing a mic drop here.

So this is I just I would like to see conversations about about steering use, but also as as things evolve.

I mean, everyone in the world wants to do pickleball.

It's like the new Hari Krishnas.

Um, like pickleball users are almost cult members.

Um, but that means that um, you know, getting those folks just like just like I'm a I'm a member of the dog park cult.

Um we should uh we we can be thinking about how to make those sorts of things a lot more available in a lot more so I guess I'm I'm hoping we can move towards granularity and um I some of my favorite parks in in the city are small, they're not big, and they're really really heavily used.

Um so that's that's where I hope we can move with our vision.

Thank you for the feedback.

Okay, uh I think we will move on to uh our conversation about zoning ordinance.

And Ms.

Turklson was worried that it wasn't on the agenda, and it really is.

So there's your slideshow.

Must have had a a poorly written draft on our station back there.

So um it's okay to get go ahead.

Okay.

All right.

Uh good morning.

Uh thank you so much for this opportunity to be here today.

Uh an updated zoning ordinance is is pretty much on the top of every staff planner's wish list right now.

So you can imagine our excitement to be here before you today to introduce our planning consultants that will be helping the city as we embark upon this important process.

The team of Codometrics, Clarion and All Together, were chosen by planning staff along with the support of our technical advisory committee.

Because of their extensive zoning expertise, their creative policy approaches and their accessible and inclusive community engagement strategies.

And today we'll be detailing that work for you about what are the next steps that we'll be taking.

Also recapping the process that we've uh had to date since the adoption of the community master plan.

And so really we appreciate the support that's been provided so far.

And again, we're thrilled to be here today.

So with that, I will uh turn it over to Layla Zlani, our uh interim assistant planning director and project manager.

And she, along with the consultants, will provide the uh very brief presentation for us uh for you today, and then of course we'll be available to support any questions.

Thank you, Kristen, and thank you for having us today.

So, Kristen went over this.

We're gonna give you a brief um recap of the master plan since we haven't been here since March.

We're gonna, and then we're gonna talk about um what we've done so far on the zoning ordinance update and introduce the consultant team, and I'll hand it off to them to discuss more about the process and next steps.

So you've seen this before, but for people joining us at home, um, and just as a refresher, we have our vision statement from the community master plan, our themes, which are equity, safety, vibrancy, culture, and sustainability, our goal areas which form the chapters of the community master plan, um, which are great neighborhoods, vital business districts, a strong economy, balanced mobility, and desirable development character.

And each of those chapters have recommendations that weave the themes throughout the different chapters in the whole plan.

We get asked a lot about what changes are in this master plan versus the previous one, and we created this list of bold changes.

Um the first one is allowing ADUs up to quadplexes in residential zone districts by right, raising the maximum height of commercial buildings, um, requiring developments that meet a certain threshold or size to have a transportation demand management plan, and then expound allowing more uses in commercial and retail districts like 28th Street, um, maybe allowing more research and development and light manufacturing in areas like that, and then looking at our parking requirements and parking lots to encourage infill development and create more walkable and vibrant business districts throughout our city.

Since we've been to you in March, we've done a lot of engagement with the community.

We've been at commission night outs, we hosted a lunch and learn on zoning and what it is.

We've been at the neighborhood summit also to introduce people to zoning and the concepts behind it.

I know some of you were there.

Um we hosted three worldwide meetings in September.

We went out to each ward and talked about zoning, and this is all to prepare the community for the upcoming conversation that we'll do with the consultant team.

And then we've also gone by request to other neighborhood associations and groups, and in total, we've engaged um 400 plus people.

So that was exciting.

VET the recommendations before we bring them out to the public for further discussion.

We did a zoning ordinance user survey, so anyone that's used the zoning ordinance recently, um, we sent out a digital survey and asked for their feedback that we've given to the consultant team.

We also used to scope the proposal.

Um, and then we've hired the consultant team, and now we're in the onboarding stage.

So we're excited to be here today.

And with that, I will introduce um Leslie Oberholzer from Codometrics, who's the project manager from the consultant side.

Oh, Joel, can you make it in full screen in presentation format?

Oh, well, good morning.

Um, I'm really thankful to be here.

Um, I'm here to just introduce our team and just sort of kick off this project.

So it's very early stages here.

Um I'm just gonna keep moving forward.

So um our consultant team um was pulled together specifically for this project, um, even though I work with um these folks uh a lot and have over the years.

My firm Codometrics is the project lead.

I've written dozens of zoning codes for cities across the country, as well as really focusing in on downtowns or neighborhoods or commercial corridors.

I tend to write mostly form-based regulations, so I'm very much a designer as well as a planner.

I have on the team all together, who is uh a wonderful equity-based engagement leader in especially in the Midwest, but across the country.

Um, and then um you won't see them here tonight today, but uh Clarion Associates is a city uh nationwide uh zoning consulting firm as well as planners, um and they bring their specific zoning expertise in terms of procedures and those sort of difficult land uses.

Um I'm gonna turn it over to Abigail to introduce all together real quick.

Good morning, Mayor, Commissioners, and City staff.

I think it's still morning, so I think we're good.

Want to check on that.

But thank you so much for having us.

I know you have a pretty jam-packed agenda, so appreciate your time.

But we wanted to quickly introduce all together.

All together is a small but mighty woman-owned firm out of the Chicagoland area.

We are super excited to have the opportunity to partner with not only you but your community and your wonderful staff on this project.

We kind of have three areas of expertise, which are community engagement, communications, and placemaking and place branding.

We really stay true to those.

Um, and something that makes us unique because we're very multidisciplinary.

Even though we have graphic designers, creative writers, um, landscape architects, people that backgrounds in social works, all of us have an urban planning background.

So we are not just a PR firm that can't get past just doing those introductions.

We are so excited to be on this and build off the wonderful work that you all have done with your master plan.

Thank you.

Um, not just urban planning, but they've also worked on several zoning projects, and believe me, it's not easy to get people engaged in zoning, so we're excited to have them on our team.

Um, Codometrics is also a woman-owned firm.

Um I'm I am the owner, and I am the person that you will see on a regular basis.

I do everything, I touch everything.

Um, I do have people that help me, but um I am the major code writer.

Um I have been uh writing codes for over 20 years.

Um I was a landscape architect before becoming a planner, and so I sort of combine those into urban design.

Um I am also serve on the Center for Zoning Solutions with Smart Growth America as in terms of a steering committee to help sort of forward best practices in zoning in in our our our work.

Um and as I said, Clarion Associates has done hundreds of development codes, um, and they bring their expertise from both Denver and North Carolina in terms of helping us to look at your procedures and make sure that we're streamlining those as well as those kind of sort of sticky land uses that might require some legal expertise.

Um so very briefly, we have five phases that we've proposed for this project.

Um the first phase is orientation, which is where we are today, um, and that orientation is meant to sort of help us to gather as much information as we can about the community, try to get to know the community, so that we can then uh dive into the second phase, which we call discovery and direction.

Um, and that phase is a three-month phase where we intend to really get to know the community in greater depth.

Um I should say that when I started my career in code writing 20 years ago, the first project that I did was for the Grand Valley Met Council and doing a study on zoning within the community.

So that was that was really my sort of on the ground here in Grand Rapids.

And so I got to know the city quite a bit, but that was 20 years ago, and lots has changed, um and I can tell.

Um so at the end of that discovery and directions um phase, we'll create a report called the Directions Report, which is meant to, along with your master plan, um send us in the proper direction to write the zoning draft, which is phase three.

That initial draft will be mostly internal.

We're gonna work closely with staff, which we've already started doing, um, as well as the technical advisory committee, which we will be meeting with tomorrow, um, and we'll create this sort of pushing and pulling of a draft that we've created before we put it out for anybody else to see.

Um, so it's very internal.

At the end of that process, um, that's when we'll come back to you and and show you where we're where we are and see if that's sort of ready for prime time, um, which dives us into phase four, which is the public review period.

So that initial draft will get pushed and pulled internally, then we will get feedback, a little bit of feedback at the end of that, push and pull it again, and then put it out for public review.

And then after we go through that longer four-month public review process, then we'll go into the sort of formal adoption process.

So we will actually have at the end of each one of these phases an opportunity to engage with both you and the community as a whole.

This is a sort of line out of all of those engagement situations where we'll meet separately with you all or with a joint commission.

But in that public review period, that sort of phase four, that's when we will get in deep.

So how are we going to do this?

So the first part of that discovery and directions is really looking at the different layers of information that we have available to us.

And the first and foremost is your community master plan.

It is a well-written master plan.

Very rarely do I have the opportunity to work on a project that has such a nicely written master plan that gives us lots of good information that is indeed very rare.

But that will be sort of our basis.

But this is a zoning project, and so what we need to be sure that we're doing is we're implementing zoning.

Zoning is incremental.

It changes over time, and our goal is not to just change everything immediately.

Things will change slowly.

We're implementing that master plan slowly over time.

So we need to make sure that we're looking at the current zoning and overlaying the future land use as well as the current zoning.

But further, and a kind of a hallmark of my firm is I really get to know the community and the building forms within the community.

So I will do extensive survey and analysis and overlay that information as well.

Ultimately, our goal is to create a code that is easy to use, clear, very predictable.

We will be reorganizing the code.

We'll be maintaining its sort of hybrid, form-based and use-based sort of situation.

But we will enhance that quite a bit.

So if we can write very clear and predictable regulations, and if we can make that process more streamlined for their approvals, then we can make sure that the community is getting everything that they hope to see in their community.

We do need to make sure that we're folding in flexibility and adjustments to the code, but we also want to make sure that we're being very consistent in how we apply that flexibility throughout all of the different geographic locations, but also the different users of the code.

So I'm going to turn it over to Abigail to talk a little bit more about the engagement process.

Thank you, Leslie.

All right.

Well, we were going to start first with the five C's of a fair process.

So really thinking through this, you guys did a great amount of robust engagement with your master planning effort.

We are not going to start from scratch.

We want to build off that.

We want to know what was successful, what are the lessons learned?

Maybe where are those missing gaps that we need to fill?

What can we improve?

What we can build off and strengthen, what relationships have you made with your community connectors?

Where can we further that?

So we first want to convene the right people early on.

We want to communicate in a compelling way.

Zoning is super excited to me, but not everyone always thinks that, or they understand the impact behind zoning from their day to day.

We want to cut out complexity.

Zoning can be a little jargony.

I like creating codes, but it's not for everyone.

We want to create a variety of scales of engagement.

We want to think at the city level.

We want to think about ward-specific levels.

We want to get to neighborhood.

We want to get to even down to focus groups and intimate one-on-one relationships.

So we want to think strategically, or what are the tools, resources, strategies to do so.

And we want an authentic feedback loop the entire time.

We want to capture, document, report that feedback at meaningful points so people know that their thoughts are being heard.

And we're continuing the feedback that you received from your master planning effort.

So we're going to highlight two of these and dive a little deeper just because we are very graphic people.

If you haven't already realized by our slides, but we want to communicate in a compelling way.

Zoning is not as accessible as it could be.

Myth busting is a great way to do it, humanizing it is a great way, and almost to the impact level too.

So people understand it impacts residents, local business owners, first responders, builders, developers that are in the community, outside of the community, your staff, their capacities, their workload as well.

So we want to think through all the ways we can message this to make it compelling to build off the work you've done and making it exciting and professional.

So throughout the whole process, if they see anything related to this effort, they're like, oh, I've seen that before.

Oh, this is identical.

And thinking about making it accessible too.

And then creating.

This was the one that I really want to highlight was a variety of the scales and styles.

This is something that we're gonna work with.

Staff, the tack with by being very strategic about all the different audiences, groups, people, types of engagement that we can do, thinking about youth discussions, larger workshops, so those ward workshops that we want to further, having things living digitally, also the print and public realm.

You can see kind of in the middle bottom, the public realm, those are window decals.

That was a retail action plan in Evanston, Illinois.

We did a storytelling effort with a call to action within the first day.

We had 1500 survey responses, and we're not just about numbers, but that was pretty astonishing to me.

But people were like, oh, this is cool, there's something out there.

We don't have to just go to a gym or the police department, a community building from 6 to 8 p.m.

and not think about child care or people working or dinner and making accessible.

So we want to make sure that we are doing so many different pathways and opportunities for people to engage.

Pop-up events are huge.

I know that you all have been doing them.

We make them really exciting, engaging too, and meaningful.

So building off what have you already asked with the master plan.

Maybe let's not ask the same questions.

Let's further that and do it in a creative way so we can really get the feedback we need to make this regulatory tool what it should be, really shaping the feel, look of your community and the character.

And then community connectors is really big and exciting.

We've done this on different efforts.

I know you all have.

They will be part of our team and paid through our team.

This will be very intentional.

We want these to be facilitators.

We want these to be your ambassadors, your champions that have the tools, resources, and education because zoning sometimes is hard to explain, so that they are able to help us and support us and be part of the team to make sure the zoning tool is easier to implement, is more streamlined, is more meaningful, and people understand it.

So when you are going through different zoning meetings, different projects, people just have a little more background and their day-to-day, and it humanizes it.

And I will hand it back over to Leslie.

So thank you for your time.

Um, I know this was quick, but it again is just meant to sort of introduce you to the project and our team.

Um, our next step will be to uh develop our brand for the project as Abigail was mentioning, and to start those web pages so that we can get that information out into the community.

Um, we will be recruiting the community connectors with um with staff or assisting with it, that recruitment.

Um, and my job is to really start assessing your current code.

I've already started reading and um organizing my thoughts on your current code, um, but then we will be drafting the project uh project directions report.

Um, the project directions report will probably be an initial draft to staff.

Um, I would say probably around February, and then we'll work that um, you know, again, pushing and pulling that uh to bring it back to you all on probably March or April.

So thank you.

We look forward to any questions.

Yeah, Commissioner Sassy.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thanks for the presentation.

Um I think it's you know good to think about this whole process.

I told uh Ms.

Turklson that one of the kickoffs of the master plan was the best public meeting I ever went to.

I'm gonna stand by that.

So I guess it's up to us, you all to see what's the next best one.

Um but that was gonna be my question is how do we make sure, you know.

I think as a city that is thriving and growing, and there's people who feel like they're part of it, and others who don't, right?

And so you're always balancing different perspectives.

How do we make sure we don't have burnout from residents who are really active as part of the the master planning process?

And then and then just as more of a comment.

I know we had youth as a group when we met after the master planning process, and we met with the the joint meeting of us and the planning commission is really like making sure how do we engage that young group, and I think we were thinking like 18 to 24, but I saw it looked like there's like school-age children in there.

So I was kind of glad to see that.

So if you could speak to that too.

I'll let Abigail talk through maybe some strategies that they've used in the past.

But I think part of that is comes down to our project and the organization that we have to make sure that we, if we are going out to the community, that we are respectful of their time, uh, and that we are not asking the same questions that we've asked before, and that we are very clear and communicating what we need, why we need it, and how that will be used to inform the outcome of this project.

So I would start with that, and I don't know if there's anything you would like to add, Abigail.

I mean, we just like to think outside of the box too.

I mean, if it's either hiring local creatives to be a part of it, trying to think some gamification through things, trying to think make things more colorful, tactile, more for different users in different ages too.

And I think that is being more meaningful.

If like the waves of engagement, if like what is the call to action, what do you need feedback on, and not just doing engagement to do engagement, which it seems like you all do not do.

I've dove into the engagement thus far, which is very impressive.

But I think it's working through as a team to try to be super creative and meaningful and not waste people's time.

I think it's like this is what we need to hear from you if you need more information, but it can be hard when you just did an incredible effort with a lot of people.

Yeah.

I think it's you know, people are like, oh, we did that thing, and but this was and we said all along like this was gonna be the next thing.

I think the other interesting thing is next year is is going to be a really big election.

It's like what are all the things that are trying to capture people's ideas and attention?

So thank you for that.

Mayor, I I think it would be helpful if if we go back to slide 12, and I appreciate them doing it early, and we as much as possible forecast the dates and months, and not only make sure we get them on the city commission's um calendar.

I know some of them will be regular meetings, but there may need to be some that are half day sessions, special sessions, joint sessions with the planning commission, but also start to let our neighborhood associations and other community partners, business uh CIAs uh make them aware of this upcoming events to the degree possible.

I know we don't have date time location yet, but we can start forecasting that now.

Yeah, that's an excellent point.

So we as city staff have a very uh planning staff, I should say have a very intense uh two days coming up here.

Um and uh today we will also be meeting with our communications and engagement uh division uh with our consultants to start mapping uh that out, and we'd be happy to share that.

Thanks.

Uh Commissioner Cobar.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, Ms.

Turklon and uh everyone that uh did this presentation.

So I'd like to talk about potential zoning tools to regulate data centers and get some direct feedback on that.

As we know, data centers present a unique and growing challenge for local governments.

While they're often categorized as industrial or warehouse uses, their scale, energy demand, water consumption, and infrastructure impacts can far exceed those of traditional industrial facilities.

As interest in data center development increases across Michigan, many communities are recognizing that existing zoning codes may not adequately address the distinct characteristics of these facilities.

Rather than responding to proposals in a reactive manner or manner, several jurisdictions are proactively updating their zoning ordinances to create clarity, set expectations, uh ensure that data set or development aligns with community priorities like our master plan, related to infrastructure capacity, environmental stewardship, uh, and neighborhood compatibility.

Some of these changes being considered are creating a specific definition for data center to distinguish these facilities from general industrial or warehouse uses based on energy energy demand, cooling systems, and operational characteristics, identifying where data centers are permitted by limiting them to certain zoning districts that require special land use approval or restricting proximity to residential or environmentally sensitive areas, establishing performance standards so we can uh talk about uh building size, noise, uh you know, from the generators and cooling systems, setbacks, buffering, um, and then incorporating environmental and sustainability considerations such as water use and heat discharge, as we know we just passed our climate action adaptation plan.

So I think that it would be good for us to make sure this is in alignment in alignment with uh the community master plan and our CAP as well.

So these tools provide for predictability for developers and protection for our communities, especially our most vulnerable.

So my interest is in understanding whether our current zoning code includes uh similar clarity, and if not, whether we could explore updates as part of our zoning work.

So I'd love to hear about the current assessment if we have this defined and if you can speak directly to uh our actions uh our zoning measures right now in relation to the data centers.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Um I'm I'm not prepared to provide you with my analysis thus far.

Uh know that myself, the city attorney's office and sustainability department are in the process of that analysis for what is today.

I think more importantly, as with any new use or trend that comes forward uh in in our community or for our community that has impacts, certainly preparing uh appropriate policy or regulatory framework is something that we do frequently and we will continue to do.

So, specific to data centers, uh yes, evaluating current policy is part of the process that we have before us, and and will challenge the uh consultant team to support us.

Um, but that won't be dissimilar from any other um newer type use that's that communities are uh grappling with or trying to understand what is best for their community.

So that will all be part of our process evaluating what is today and where do we need to make any uh appropriate modifications for how we wish to regulate in the future.

Wonderful.

So that could be a potential conversation at we uh the city manager talked about like a joint meeting with the planning commission and commission or through community, we could get further.

I know a lot of constituents have reached out about this as we see, for example, the village of Sparta just recently proactively updated their zoning.

Uh, one of the consultants said they recently in Mr.

Fulson as someone who's familiar with our zoning, so you're not aware that we currently have anything on the books that specifically speaks to data centers.

I do not believe we define that as a separate use.

That's not the same as saying we don't have a regulatory framework in place to regulate similar uses.

So we have um some broader categories in our uh use definitions or a use-based category, excuse me, in our category of uses, and that's strategic because we want to be nimble and flexible and really focus on what is the impact of a use and how might the most related zoning category apply.

So it's not uncommon for the city of Grand Rapids not to have a specific use regulation for data centers.

It may fold under a separate use category, and again, that that's consistent with how we've structured our ordinance and um and that's in some ways very intentional because it allows us to be more nimble.

Wonderful.

Commissioner Cohore.

I mean, pardon me, Purdue.

I don't know why.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you, you all.

A point of clarity, I I wasn't here for the first few minutes of the presentation.

Um, so is the purpose of this work plan to essentially implement the or the zoning ordinance updates that we approved last year, or will there be some extensions and additional content potentially interwoven into the plan that we didn't improve last year?

Yep.

So fundamentally, the the process will really hyper focus on implementing the recommendations of the community master plan.

However, there are uses and challenges that we face administrating and enforcing the zoning code, um, or we have experience with a particular use, and our community is becoming more comfortable, and therefore we can change the process.

So there's certainly a variety of other amendments.

Um I would say that this would be a fairly uh comprehensive update that will be done to address current needs, recommendations of the community master plan, and some of those staff level frustrations were like, wish it was worded a little bit differently.

Yeah.

So ultimately it would be kind of a repeal and replace because it will be extensive.

Okay, thank you.

Uh yeah, Commissioner Belchick.

Um thank you, Mayor.

I don't want to step on your toes, but um I just want to say that this is a very exciting launch, and I want to encourage that there I am aware from going through the master planning process as a community member, there was a lot of discussion at various tables about these are there are certain areas that it's like these are great ideas, but how how will they be implemented?

How will they be done?

So um paying attention to those and engaging those um conversations, I think is gonna be great.

And um I'd be curious to know if you would like assistance, the thoughts from us about community connectors.

I assume the answer is yes.

And um my question would be for our consultants, um, we have some neighborhoods that are particularly resistant to change.

Um, what is your outreach plan or thoughts when dealing with those kinds of neighborhoods?

I'll start with the community connectors.

Um typically we would look to both the planning commission as well as the technical advisory committee, and importantly uh our community neighborhood associations and our community connectors that were um that were supporting us through the community master plan.

I think that that would be kind of our our go-to.

Um we've learned a lot of lessons through that process to make sure that we um have any sort of expectation or misunderstanding that we are asking our community connectors to be subject matter experts, but rather leveraging some of their their social capital, their access to communities that maybe city staff hasn't been as uh as present in uh historically.

Um, and so that that's what I would say to the community connector piece.

Um, and I guess I'm not sure why.

And what while she's coming up before you I think it's important because we're assuming the city commission understands their role because we've done a lot of uh zoning amendments before, but just as a reminder of the process and the importance of allowing the planning commission to um be very intimately involved, leading, making recommendations to the city commission, then for our deliberation and consideration and not trying to get ahead of our own planning commission.

Can you speak to that, please?

I think you did an excellent job of that, City Manager.

Uh so yeah, so obviously we've used the community master plan as the guide as the policy guide that was set by the community and adopted by the city commission.

But when we go to implement that, I I think of it as a tool that we use that is um perhaps a little bit more uh used on a day-to-day basis to make development decisions.

Um and that process really is charged by the planning commission as your your land use uh experts uh for the community that city staff of course works alongside with to implement that to develop those recommendations that then are brought to you as the decision maker.

So um typically we look at um the development in partnership with the city staff with the stakeholders that use the ordinance as well as the planning commission, who then uh we then provide that recommendation to the city commission.

Mayor So I I want to point out I mean I think there's an ethical tension that needs to get named, and I think that there's also a process concern, and that is um one of our one of our stated values as a city is to be welcoming.

And so even framing the question of like what was it?

You talked about it being fair, I think.

Um so there are two groups.

There are people who currently live in the city, and there are people who might live in the city in the future.

And uh how do you give voice to a group that that isn't as readily available?

Uh and how do you articulate the values of allowing people to join our community?

And if all we do is survey the people who are already here, um we're necessarily um biasing the structure of the conversation in favor of uh existing residents.

And I guess there's a foundational question, which is if we you know, we I guess we have decided as a country that we don't like international movement anymore.

Um, but uh I hope that we still allow movement inside the country.

Um and so the question of you know how if Grand App is going to uh thrive and prosper going few going forward that necessarily involves the prospect of new entrance to the community.

And we often focus on children as a proxy for new adults, but again, if we only focus on the children who are here, uh we haven't really escaped that dynamic.

So I'm wondering if your team can talk about that.

Sure, I I can start, and Leslie, if you want to supplement.

I would state that I think we had a very robust engagement process that was inclusive of both residents and stakeholders or organizations that do look beyond those that are currently here.

Um and so whether that's through uh the right place, Chamber of Commerce, Experience GR, uh, Grand Valley Metro Councils, um, MDOT.

So I think we had participation and uh thought as part of the development of our vision, a land use vision, um, and where we go next relative to how we would implement that.

So um I would say similar entities would be participating in the um in the zoning ordinance development that would think beyond our our jurisdictional boundaries, um, which is something that uh is uh added within the planning and zoning enabling legislations to rely on the West Michigan Regional Planning Commission.

Uh we are required to um share our community master plan and we would welcome input on our zoning ordinance by our our neighboring uh jurisdictions to make sure that we as a region are thinking regionally relative to our land use patterns and not just what's best for the city of Grand Rapids, although clearly that's at the forefront as well.

Yeah, and yeah, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on this.

I mean, I guess again, often things can lapse into an economic framework.

So talking to the right place, well, they're concerned about getting more jobs in the community.

Um, if you talk to treetops collective, you're gonna give get a very different perspective.

Um that you know, if you're talking about groups that work on migrants, new entrance to the community, uh, those kinds of voices is a different sort than than simply asking groups who want our community's economy to grow.

So I hope that they would be included systematically and structurally into this into these discussions.

Yes, we did have treetops collective serve as a connector for the community master plan process to get those new voices into the process, and we did also do demographic surveys, they were voluntary for anyone that participated in any of our engagement for the community master plan.

And one of those questions was where do you live, like ward one, two, or three, or outside of the city?

And I don't have those numbers with me, but they're all in the appendix, so we could um get those for you to tell you what the participation was from outside of the city.

That's still regional, so it doesn't account for somebody moving um from across the country or from a different country, um, those potential future residents, but we do have those numbers.

Yeah, and I'm I mean this is a forward-looking conversation, so I don't I'm not that concerned about what happened in the past.

What I'm concerned about is that as we move into this next stages that those that that question and that ethical tension gets becomes part of the framework.

Mayor sorry, someone say mayor?

Quick question.

I d how about we I'd like to hear a little bit more.

I just want to respond to say um, you know, zoning is an implementation tool.

It's one of the implementation tools that you have in your toolbox.

Um, and we are very aware of the process of your master plan, and we will rely on your master plan to um sort of set the stage for those kinds of policy directives.

And I think that your master plan did an excellent job of looking at the future of Grand Rapids in terms of its goals and its its stated objectives, and we will follow that.

We won't sort of revisit those kinds of things, but we will be diving in deeper to put more sort of meat on the bones of you know the the regulations.

Again, it's an implementation tool.

Yep.

Commissioner Cowler.

Yeah, I want to go back to uh the data center things for just a moment here.

Uh city manager, thank you so much for reminding the commission uh about our place in terms of zoning, and of course, you never want to circum try to circumvent or uh disrespect the planning commission as a separate entity, but there are things as the elected leaders that we hear from our constituents that are very timely, and I think that data center zoning and language is one of those concerns.

And you know, we uh don't often use our city commission resolutions, so these are resolutions deliberated by the city commission uh but which don't curr directly come from one of our standing committees, Washingal County uh did this and passed a resolution regarding this type of zoning to urge uh their staff to be proactive, right?

To not say yes or no to data centers, but to make sure that the elected leaders who serve the people are putting the values that they're hearing from community forward in terms of zoning and just at least saying um as we do in lots of our documents, such as our legislative agenda, where we stand, uh of where we want we want to protect the environment.

We want to make sure folks aren't exposed to extreme noise.

Turkleson uh when would this uh these a possible update like that with data centers is that something we could see possibly in the future is this something you could as a commissioner could I say to the city uh to the planning commission hey could have you all thought of this what's the best step moving forward or is it in line with what we're talking about today will we see some of that throughout their assessment let me just interject I think we got there was no objection to considering that as part of the process so we I will take that as feedback and then have the consultants consider that and integrate it in the process and hopefully doing updates um whether it's the initial direction opportunity or later code rewrites you'll be able to hear some of that but I don't I'm not hearing any desire to manage that outside of the comprehensive zoning code update.

No okay any uh I think we are now at 12 1206 um any other comments otherwise thank you for the presentation looks like we've got a process here and I'm glad to see the calendar up there so we will all stay engaged I'm sure thanks thank you thanks okay that adjourns this meeting and we are rolling into uh what do we call it closed session six oh I don't want to call it private session six