Call a meeting of the committee of the whole to order.

Um, and the first item of business, apparently, our city manager is gonna do some interpretive dance for us.

Or is it liturgical dance?

Well well, happy happy new year, mayor, commissioners, and staff members of the public, and um in keeping with our tradition that somehow we did not do last year, but we had to bring back the original disco kid John Connor, John O'Connor to help us this year.

Um we want to take a wellness moment to uh start the new year, and uh here today we have our wellness coordinator Lynn Dre with us.

But and and putting this in perspective, um we really value community wellness in uh parks and recreation system with all the outdoor and indoor recreational opportunities.

You were there at the groundbreaking scribner, and you saw the community room that was there, and we have uh all types of outdoor activities along with our trail activation and over 10,000 participants engaging in free outdoor fitness and family and youth activities, senior and adult wellness programs, but also our employee wellness program internally is uh very popular.

Almost uh 70% of our employees are participating in wellness program that's good for their personal life, quality of work life, as well as we get the residual benefits of lower health care costs.

So, to set the model, uh, we're going to ask Lynn to come and lead us in a couple activities.

We ask for uh the diocese participation as well as audience participation, and I'm gonna ask those in the control room, make sure you scan the audience periodically to see how our audience is doing.

All right.

Aren't you glad you showed up today?

Okay, hi, and welcome again.

My name is Lynn Dre.

Thank you for having me here.

Um, just gonna take you through a couple of stretches today, just to give you a few tools in your toolbox if you need something to relieve a little stress, especially if you are someone who sits a lot during the day.

This will give you a couple of ideas of how to relieve some of that neck tension, shoulder tension.

First thing I'm gonna have you do is just close your eyes for a moment.

This is the best part of the day, I understand.

Just focus a moment on your breath, taking that breath in and out through your nose.

And we're gonna try to take that inhale and exhale at about five seconds.

So breathe in, two, three, four, five.

Maybe pause for a moment if you're able.

Exhale, two, three, four, five.

And if you take nothing else from today, maybe it's just that little pause in your breath.

It's that little extension of your breath that helps you settle whatever stress you might have going on.

So go ahead and open your eyes, and again, if you're able and want to stand up, I'd love you to join me.

And we are going to first of all take our shoulders, draw those shoulders all the way up to our ears.

Pause for a second.

Exhale, let them drop.

Inhale, take those shoulders up.

If this position feels comfortable for you, then we need to relieve some stress.

Exhale, drop your shoulders.

Let's take that up one more time.

Exhale, drop.

And then I want you to squeeze your shoulder blades to the back, like you're pinching a pencil between your shoulder blades.

Maybe feel some stretch across your chest into your shoulders.

As we exhale, we're just gonna pull the shoulders in, kind of round the upper back, feel that stretch.

Inhale, open that chest, maybe look up a little bit.

Exhale, round, and let's do that one more time.

Inhale, open up.

From here, maybe clasp your hands behind your back.

If that's pain-free for you, give a gentle lift out of your low back, open up the chest even more.

Let's go ahead and release and a little roll of our shoulders.

Gonna kind of focus on that same area, chest and shoulders, just because we often carry a lot of stress there.

So I'll have you clasp hands behind your back, kind of grab at the wrists near the elbows, and shift your elbows over to the left.

Maybe feel some stretch across the shoulder already.

Drop it down toward the shoulder.

Noticing a feel of stretch maybe in the neck.

Again, we want to work in a pain-free range of motion, so if this hurts, don't do it.

On your next exhale, tuck the chin forward just a little bit.

Notice maybe that stretch changes to the back of the neck.

Good.

As we inhale, we're gonna come up through center, release that side, shift over to the other side.

Take a deep breath in.

Right shoulder drop, or excuse me, right ear drops down to the shoulder.

Take a breath.

On your next exhale, let's tuck that chin down just a little.

Nice.

Alright, let's inhale, come back up through center and release.

Again, a little roll.

Okay.

That would be next time.

Next time, I promise.

Okay.

Um now let's kind of work on hips a little bit.

Also an area that um we tend to struggle with.

So let's take left foot out in front on your heel.

That might make your right knee bend a little bit, and that's what we're going for.

So I just want you to keep the hands on the hips.

Get that little pinch between the shoulder blades, squeeze that pencil, exhale, hinge forward.

So we've got the long back, long spine.

As we inhale, lengthen the spine.

As we exhale, maybe you're able to lower just a little bit more.

Feeling some stretch in the hamstrings, so the back of your left leg.

Inhale, let's come up.

Take that left leg, step it back, bend both knees.

Good.

All right.

Reach up through the top of the head.

And I just want you to think about tucking your tailbone down to the floor.

So it's really just like a pelvic tilt.

Might feel some stretch.

I do not know what's happening.

Might feel some stretch in your front pocket.

All right, now lean those shoulders back just a little bit.

Feel that front pocket, left side, open up a little bit.

And let's release.

Alright, switch legs.

That right leg is going out to the front first.

Heel up.

Squeeze those shoulder blades together.

Exhale, hinge.

And you can support on your bent leg here too if you'd like.

The more you pull those toes up toward your face, the more you're gonna feel the back of your legs stretch.

No, it's not good.

Let's inhale.

Come on up.

Sweep that leg to the back.

A little bit bigger step back.

Bend both knees.

That might be some stretch for you already.

You can tuck that tailbone under, just a little bit of a tilt, reach the tailbone to the floor.

More stretch in that front pocket on the right.

You lean those shoulders back.

That's even gonna be a little bit more stretch.

And release.

Alright, if you have space, let's take the hands up.

Woo.

Bend that right hand.

Give yourself a pat on the back.

Nice job.

Thank you for having me.

Okay.

And are you keeping yoga at the building?

Yeah, I am not, but I am gonna remind everybody noon on Wednesdays at Scribner is yoga for everyone in the city.

All city employees.

Thank you.

Back to DJ LeGrand.

DJ Legends on me and me and Joe Trig on squats.

That would have been more fun.

So if anyone wants to have some side action on me and Deputy Chief Trig on uh who can do more squats, we can do that after the meeting.

Okay, that brings us to our first non-musical item, and that is um uh resolution approving a request for Commissioners Belchak, Saucy Knight, Purdue, and Kilgore to travel to the MML Capcon and Lansing uh March 10th to 11th.

Um I am going to be present at this, but I'm not gonna uh pay MML.

I'm gonna go for a couple of functions, but I'm I'm not paying for it, so that's why my name's not on there.

Um if I could uh so moved.

Support.

I have a movement.

Okay, great.

Any discussion?

Otherwise, this is fairly routine, I hope.

And you all are getting I should be the only no on this since uh since this is for all of you.

Um all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

Uh next is the resolution approving Commissioner Purdue's request to go to a policy link uh 2026 summit.

Uh kind of motion.

So moved.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Uh and that brings us to Ms.

Renero is maybe here.

Uh yet another item of action uh item of business on the 125 Ottawa project.

This is uh proving submission of a neighborhood enterprise zone exemption certificate.

Ms.

Renero.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Good morning.

Uh this is the last step for 125 Ottawa before you.

Uh this is again the conversion of the office at 125 Ottawa into 36 residential apartments where eight will be at 60 percent AMI or less.

Thanks.

Happy to answer any questions.

Did not get a motion yet, sorry about that.

Support.

Thank you.

Um this is pretty familiar to all of us by now.

Any questions, colleagues?

Otherwise, uh all in favor, say aye.

Aye, aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

That brings us to our briefings.

Uh first is an update on website migration.

Mr.

Green's coming up uh to talk with us.

And I we probably have a handout since everybody loves a good handout.

Yep, there we go.

And a slideshow.

Good morning, Commission.

Um, I'm here this morning to just give you a brief update on our progress as we uh as we work towards a website might migration.

You might recall that back in August we entered into a new agreement with GovStack uh to transition off of our open cities platform.

And so this is just going to talk us through the um talk us through a little bit about where we are and why we're doing it.

The first thing I want to make sure that everybody understands that this is a refresh, not a rebuild.

Um we're migrating from one content management system to the other.

All of our content was was relatively strong uh already, and so right now what we've been doing is focusing on getting those content, those core services over to the new site with a strategic goal to you know kind of address any legacy issues because the uh the the content was strong, but it's some of it was outdated.

Uh not so much in in the information that was available, but just the way it was presented.

You know, taste change, the way that people consume information changes over time.

And so this is giving us an opportunity to refresh that.

So one of the things that we're going to do is really focus on being user-centric.

Um, this was the original vision for the website about a decade ago when they first started this process was to make it kind of a digital city hall.

Um unfortunately, over time that became uh kind of bloated and difficult to navigate.

And we we fell back into what is often referred to as an organizational structural content model, which is um basically you had to know what office in City Hall you needed to go to.

Well, the same thing happened on the website.

You had to know what particular department handled what function in order to find the information you were looking for.

What we're doing is we're changing it to you know, we're gonna reset that and go back to a more user-centric design that centers on services and functions that people are are actually looking for on a regular basis.

Um and then also uh the way that they navigate the site.

So a lot of that information will still be housed within departments, but we're gonna be focusing on taking users on a journey.

So for instance, if someone says, Well, I want to build something, instead of having to know exactly what you need to build or know that the development center handles permitting or whatever, you'll be able to go to the site and just say, I want to build something, and then we will take you through a journey uh kind of like and provide you options on where to find that thing.

Um I have a few screenshots that are included.

I unfortunately don't have the ability to pull up the the working uh staging site here, but um I have a few screenshots, and so that's our new front page.

That's essentially what it's gonna look like, and a couple of things to give you an idea of this of this resident journey.

Um you'll notice that there's a top menu that you know we're gonna break things up into you know things for residents for living here, things for people who might be looking to do something active or go and you know, or or visit.

Uh Grow and Thrive is gonna be where we're gonna work on our economic development opportunities and things like uh like job training programs and so forth.

And then we will still have the standard government section where you will still find your departments, you'll still find uh maybe a lot of those reports and so forth that residents are still interested in, but maybe not the first thing that they're hitting the site for.

Uh just below that you'll see a research bar.

Our search uh function is now gonna be available using the Google back end, so it'll be a very similar experience, but it'll be uh customized to our site and will give us a lot more um a lot more ability to impact like what keywords present you uh uh the information they present you.

You'll also notice a series of tiles.

This is based on analytic data that will rotate uh potentially seasonally or based on user behavior, but these are the things that the residents have been hitting the website to do the most.

So it's quick, it's fast, it's right up front.

You get there and you can click on it.

Um and then further down we'll have a series of tiles and other different journeys and things that we can market and highlight uh over time.

So like elections might get its own special tile during the life, you know, during the election season and so forth.

So as we talk about the strategic transition and why we did what we did when we did it.

Uh the decision was really driven uh by timing for one.

Our legacy contract expires this year.

Um we needed a secure and reliable replacement.

The previous version was very secure and reliable, but as we transitioned into a new site, that was gonna be paramount of things that we were looking for.

And then finally delivering the best value to the taxpayers.

This is gonna be a significant reduction in our our uh year-over-year operating cost to run the website.

I think something like 85% less.

So it is considerably cheaper uh for what we're getting.

Um and then what we what do we get?

Well, obviously, we get the fiscal responsibility and the cost savings that are generated from that.

It gives us a lot more operational control.

One of the things about the the site that we are currently on is that a lot of the uh a lot of the controls over a lot of the functions of the website are on the vendor side or on the server side, and they have to control those things.

This particular platform gives us much more control, not all, but much more control over aspects of the site.

Um we're like I said, the residents' needs, we're gonna focus the navigation on on functions and not necessarily organizational charts and make sure that people can find the things they're looking for.

And then finally, this is gonna give us a chance to make sure that our content's future ready uh for an AI-driven future, because as many of you know, um, you know, now you're starting to even get those in search results.

So AI is summarizing information.

So we're gonna try to make sure that the content is uh is presented in a way that makes it easily digestible for those machines, as well as because of that operational control, the ability to um potentially integrate functions like that in the future ourselves.

So our rollout timeline, we're just a little over 30 working, we're just right about 30 working days from going live on March 2nd.

Um, and that'll that that'll begin with the modern layout and our core service access.

So essentially, if you can do something on the website today, you should be able to do it on March 2nd, just in a different place, laid out slightly differently.

Then we're gonna go through a second phase, which is refinement, because this particular platform is really robust in the way that it allows us to present information above and beyond our current one.

And so through that period, like I said, the first thing was make sure that everything you can do today you can do on March 2nd, and then through the you know, uh over the next several months we'll be working with departments that might be interested in taking advantage of some of the new display options or some of the new functions.

Um some of the departments have already done that.

Our parks and rec, when you see it, you'll be probably very, very impressed with uh some of what they've done.

Um, you know, the clerk has already gotten all of his uh election materials over and it's it's a little more streamlined and easier to find.

And then finally, once that's all done, probably uh probably starting in in the new FY, we're gonna go into what we're gonna call a continuous improvement strategy for the website anymore to try and keep us from having to do this kind of work again, this kind of a heavy lift, by basically saying, you know, every day, every week, every month, what new materials are there, what can we do, what's the analytics showing us, and integrating and updating that that as it comes along.

So a few key features at launch.

Um you're gonna get a modern look and feel, it's gonna be cleaner and more accessible to our users.

You're gonna have advanced uh enhanced search and menu options.

Like I said, we we have the ability to do that.

Um there's gonna be a much better calendar uh integrated into this, and we've actually broken that into two parts.

We have one's gonna be our public meetings calendar, which is like the business of the city, and then a really really nice uh uh one for our special events that can market that much better.

And then finally, as part of the back end of this, this is one of those things that really um the user shouldn't really notice much difference, but it'll be much you know much more streamlined for us is uh just our tools for how we use uh web forms, um, our current web form solution is part of the package, both with the current site and this new site.

Oh, why okay?

Let's just click that.

There you go.

So a few key notes on the go live details, March 2nd.

Like I said, you should be able to do everything that you did today on the website uh on March 2nd.

Uh with the one exception that you know, due to the architect changes, there may be some, you know, some things may break if you have bookmarks, for instance, right?

Because the the naming convention.

We're trying to mitigate some of that by routing things uh, you know, as we can, but there may still be those.

If you get to something that isn't there anymore, you'll get a 404 page that not only tells you that you know how to you know how to find what you're looking for, but also is gonna uh provide a link for people to provide us information and say, hey, I was looking for this and I can't find it anymore.

So if it's something that you know somebody was looking for and they are they're having difficulty to find it, our team will be able to address it, or if they find a broken link or something that's just not working, we'll be able to triage that quickly.

The idea being that by giving the users the ability to tell us that maybe we hit it after the second time we hear it as opposed to the 50th time we hear it, right?

Um that refinement period, like I said, we're gonna do some one uh one particular thing that this particular one particular thing that this uh platform does that we're kind of excited about and is it actually does have the function of availability for people to turn on subscriptions to particular pages so they'll be able to subscribe to pages or or you know, I uh or uh things that they're interested in so that when that content updates or changes, they'll be notified.

Um we'll continue to analyze the website, adjust it based on trends, and then there's gonna be like I said, some enhanced integration options for external data sources, uh things like GRS uh or GIS, Esri, some of those functionalities that the other departments use will be able to hopefully display in a much more consumable way that the user will find useful.

And like and then finally, yeah, once we interphase three, it's gonna be it really is gonna be continuous improvement.

We have the staff and the uh in the capabilities now to really you know hone in on how are users using our site, what information are they looking for, and how can we best get them to where we're where they need to go?

And with that, I'll take any questions you might have.

Uh um just one question on that last um I think the slide where you said people will be able to subscribe to certain things and get updates on it.

So does that interact with kind of um that will will this interact with kind of how the 311 system is if people call in and they have an issue about something, will they be able to track where that's at or subscribe to what's going on in the city around uh improvements and things like that that are happening in their area, or is it just for certain basic services?

Uh well we we haven't turned it on yet, so I can't I can't definitively say how it will function.

Um but the the idea is that say, for instance, if you go to a uh construction project web page that the you know you know, and that's up when new information is posted there, you would be notified that there's new information available to you.

Yes.

So Commissioner Belcher.

Um thank you to your department and everyone who's been involved in this.

This is a um long overdue maybe process.

It's hard when we're wrangling a lot of information, and that's what we have here at the city.

Um so thank you for undertaking this.

I'm really excited by some of these technological changes, architecture changes, and the you know, look thinking ahead to the AI and how we might use it as well as how the bots are looking at things.

Um but um a couple of things on the continuous improvement aspect.

I I think I've reached out to you before about um maybe some improvements we can make to um sharing what commission commissioners are sitting on in terms of our committees, as well as maybe a little brief description of who we are.

Um so that would be just some ideas of as we're thinking about content.

Um and when it comes to like construction projects and these updates on the individual pages, because I think it is important to distinguish that you still need to sign up for our newsletter and all these other there's like I don't know, I feel like there's like a hundred newsletters in the city that maybe some consolidation or journey direction in that route would be helpful.

But who's responsible for making sure we have up timely updates when someone subscribes to a page, even and and and that goes along with the calendar, especially for meetings.

Right now, it's been a little confusing for people looking for packets and like even what what our 2026 ag um meeting dates are and some of the websites right now for some of our committees have you know information from 2022 on there.

So these are all things that happen when you're dealing with a lot of things.

I'm not blaming you, but I'll let you talk to a little bit about that.

Yeah, so the the first thing I'd say, Commissioner, is that who's responsible for content?

Yeah, the departments are the subject matter experts are.

I don't know everything that's going on as much as people might like to think that I do, because I'm the communications guy.

But um we let the we we let the departments handle their content.

We advise them on how best to display it, how best to make sure it's in in you know, plain common spoken English, it's easily understood, and then and then the resident journey aspect.

We will help people understand how best to direct folks to the content.

So um, so there's that aspect of it.

Um the the issue that you brought up with like the meeting notices and stuff.

Hopefully, this calendar helps out a little bit because you're right, there are a couple of different tools that are used to manage things like meetings and agendas, and this hopefully would be a calendar, that main calendar, when you click on something, then it will take you to whichever thing wherever it is, all in one place, even if it's on multiple different tools in and and different platforms.

So I think that I think those were the primary things you brought up.

Yeah, I think the only other thing was the journey of getting onto all the right newsletters if someone's interested in that.

Yeah, that that's uh that's that's somewhat related, but partially a separate project that we're working through.

Um you know, right now, uh just like with the content, the departments kind of have the ability to you know to use our platform or not use our platform.

Um and there are some costs associated with that, and it's been one of those projects that uh once we get the all the foundational work done, we can work on that.

So that that is in the background, it's something that we're aware of.

Thank you.

Commissioner Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thanks for the overview and presentation.

I think I just wanted to take a second and just uh recognize the overall journey that we've had in terms of communications with the city.

Um and you and the team, I see many of them out there have have continued to elevate that.

Um so thank you because I think we and I my past colleague is out in the audience, and so I think you were on the commission when we I think hired the first person to sort of do some of the communications, and that wasn't that long ago.

And so I just want to I think sometimes to recognize what is that communication strategy, how do you how do you take it in?

Like you said, you're not doing it, but you're providing that guidance, you're that sounding board to individuals.

Um so I think sometimes we we see what's in front of us and we don't recognize everything that came before us.

So I want to say thank you for that.

Um I think this looks really good because I think uh at our mid-year review I had talked about sometimes I feel like I need to go on the website because even sometimes I might not know what is the right action, but if I and I would probably know more what I'm looking for, and then I can you know share it out with a constituent.

And so to your point, this helps people with their you know, the the thinking that they might have.

They don't know this department or that department.

So one, I think that just makes it more accessible.

Two, you're gonna be launching this on my birthday, so thank you.

You're welcome.

Um I will accept that.

Happy birthday.

Any gifts on that day.

No.

Um, but I also think that the way you know people are communicating, it's really up to us.

I I think this investment is great because we know, like to me, I've continued to say misinformation is one of the things that is is very concerning to me.

And so having a city um, and then the department that's being led to say, you know, here's information, here's here's it coming out.

Um, so that's more comments.

My one question is obviously this is one vehicle that people use to communicate and has a lot of information that's held.

What's the difference in terms of how many people are coming to the website to find information versus and and I'm not a communications professional, but how many people are going to you know, Facebook or any of our other social channels, and some departments have you know stronger presence on different social channels, like parks has really funny stories sometimes, or all those sorts of things.

So, and I just wondered, you know, to me, Facebook is where you get like the most up-to-date information or something that could be happening, like a street closure or street lights down.

Um, but is that do people sometimes go to the website for that information, or explain to me how that might work and how that fits in with the overall other overall communication strategy.

Yeah, without getting without getting too too high up there with this, the so in essence, in in a perfect world, it's actually an ecosystem, right?

It's and so uh things you put on Facebook, Instagram, uh uh Twitter, Blue Sky, which uh you know, whichever those those platforms use, those should be, you know, in many cases, uh, you know, shorter turnaround, real-time information, um, perishable information in your web your website should be static stuff.

Um if they're if we're doing our job well, um, when there is something that you put on Facebook, say for instance, all of our election materials, it then points you to the website.

Um I will say we get a substantial amount of our traffic though from Google that goes to the website.

The people are just Googling questions and Googling uh for stuff.

Um, and so then that or search engines, I guess I should say people use other search engines.

Um, but they go straight to uh and then that's how they're accessing the the website.

So in a perfect world, there's symbiotic, I guess is what I would say is that you know you might tell people, for instance, on your web page, follow our social media for the most current updates, and that's fine.

Um but yeah, for for the most part, your website generally is a strategy, should be your m your static information, uh stuff that doesn't change all the time.

And then we also are working in kind of in the background, as some of you are aware, we also have a uh a community engagement platform called um uh engage dr to run off public input that we're also as we start to get people more comfortable with with that internally as a staff, that may be a place too where I have you know midterm type stuff.

So the website becomes your static stuff, your project kind of update information goes over here, and then your real-time like short quick hit stuff goes over on social.

That that's one way that the ecosystem could be built out and used.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Burr.

Thank you.

Thank you for the update.

Really excited to see um us move to a user-centered uh structure.

Um, I think that'll be really helpful uh for folks right away.

Um, I have a peripheral question related to the calendar and the integration of agendas.

Um I know that's a different platform.

Um so one of the things I was looking forward to the most with that new platform is being able to search back meeting notes and find the exact clips.

And I don't think we're quite there yet with that platform.

Do you do you have an update on that?

Can you talk about how that relates to this?

Uh are you referring to so you're referring to the one meeting platform, but are you referring to the the indexing of the meetings and the reading the agendas and stuff?

That functionality should be there and be available.

I can read no, I can access that.

I'm speaking to uh initially we there were supposed to be like search functions and ability to view videos in multiple languages, like on the city commission videos.

I yeah, that that that I'd have to refer that over to Lou or in the executive office.

I I don't manage that platform, so we can provide the conduit to the platform, obviously, and pull some of that information out and get it on the website.

But yeah, that's a I don't really we can follow up on that.

Okay.

And then just one point of clarity related to the calendar.

Um, do you see that being a uh something that's constantly updated with like parks and in rec's uh classes and community engagement sessions or uh can you talk a little bit?

I mean there's a lot always going on.

Is that going to be like a master calendar?

Um it has it has the ability to basically create create um tag like types of meetings, types of events, types of things, so that it'll make it easier to search for that stuff.

We haven't yet wor uh worked through how exactly it's you know, people are going to submit the the data to it, other than what we're currently like I said, we're what we're currently doing.

So that's probably a question we'll work through, but I absolutely that's the idea though, is if there's a public meeting that would be up there.

If there's a community engagement event, that should go up there.

If there's uh all of our special events stuff, you know, we'll go up there.

So um so that that's that's certainly a functionality that's capable.

Uh we'll still have to work through with the departments exactly how they feed that, how they update it, how often they do it.

Yeah.

I'd be excited to see that.

I mean, you we hear all the time how do I get involved, how to know what's happening, there's so much happening.

So an easier way for folks to view that and sort through things that are relevant to the Yeah, and the little bit we've populated in so far that we've we've been kind of testing, like we even broke one out.

I think it was for uh for fitness activities on the special events calendar.

And then it just narrows it down to the two or three events that are going on in the next you know 60 days for you.

Thank you for all your work on the senior manager here.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I want to thank uh David and the communication staff for for their work and Doug Matthews also for helping to uh lead this evolution of this important function.

I do uh echo what Commissioner Sasi said.

I recall arriving.

We have one person in communications and we had a separate productions office, and now we have a full team with digital social media and we have communication professionals embedded in some of our more engaging departments, and the we recognize even the police department needed their own communication staff person.

So I do want to thank you for that and also give a preview uh today was uh, if you will, part one on the website enhancement.

Um we'll be coming back talking more about uh our engagement framework.

So we'll be hearing more from David and his staff in the future.

Great.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Okay, that brings us to our next update.

Um, Ms.

Turkleson, this is uh update on the ADU task force.

And I see you have former commissioner uh O'Connor with you too.

Who gets the microphone first?

Good morning, everyone.

Uh thank you so much for the opportunity to uh join you and uh talk about the uh ADU task force, uh the work that we completed uh and uh the recommendations we're making to this uh this body.

Um, you know, having sat on that side of the dies for a number of years uh talking about housing uh over and over again and uh excited about the work that we accomplished during my tenure as a commissioner, but it's important that you know the the the work of housing is work that doesn't end that you know economies change, needs change, uh, and the need for housing uh is continues to be there.

And so um, you know, at the beginning of last year, the the mayor and this commission asked to to create a task force to look at how we continue to move the needle on allowing ADUs uh to happen in our community.

Um we've made some changes over the the past few years, uh, but the number of them being created was still uh pretty small in their scope.

And so um through this task force, uh I want to thank uh Kristen Turkelson uh and her staff for coming to the table to bring their expertise, but all and not and not only their expertise, but an open mind.

And uh it was really great to have her and several folks from uh from the development center at the table uh engaged in the conversations and willing to think creatively.

And uh, you know, there's a number of folks listed on the on the the next page of the um document here who uh you know come from our community, whether they're social justice advocates, uh folks from the city, uh folks from the financial sector, folks who have uh real lived experience in uh building and and creating ADUs in our community.

And uh, you know, we had some some some tough conversations and some you know wild ideas that got thrown out uh that that you know push all of us.

Um, you know, I think there's a there's a tension that exists between uh you know how we do something uh and how we make it uh as easy as possible, but also make sure there's some guide rails there so that whatever the results are end up being uh being done well.

And um, you know, we're gonna leave you today with some recommendations that we uh we really encourage you to, you know, we we've I think we've done our work and now it's it's gonna be up to you to take these uh recommendations in whatever capacity you see fit and to actualize them.

Um do I think that ADUs uh in our community uh solve our housing problem?

No.

But do I think having ADUs in the in the the toolbox of housing tools that we have and making it easier for people no matter what angle they're taking to come to that, whether that's you know, because someone uh needs it for a disability purpose because they have a home and they don't want to leave, or whether they want to do it because they have an uh an aging relative that they would like to have close to them, or because there's uh yeah, again, uh a need for just housing in general, and so if there's ways to add uh rental opportunities in our community because of these, I think that's good too.

And they're not again, it's not the silver bullet for our for our housing issues in Grand Rapids, but it is a a certain tool in our toolbox that we uh we can figure out a strategy to um to allow them to exist in a greater capacity.

And we don't have um how do I want to phrase this here?

The the ADUs as they exist right now, um you know, it's it's it's not easy.

Um and so there's only so many levers we control, right?

I always said when I was a commissioner that you know we it's not our responsibility as a city to create housing, but we have the you know the framework that everyone must pass through to be able to create something.

And so, in a lot of regards, I feel like if if there are barriers to entry that we have the ability to change and control, we should be willing to be bold and make those changes and see how it plays out.

If something's not working or uh causes an unintended impact, it's okay.

Uh, you can fix that.

You have the power as policymakers to make those changes, but uh it's definitely worth the effort to try.

Um with that, uh I will turn it over to the real professional in the room uh to lay out uh the summary of uh the avenues that we explored and uh appreciate all of your time and your consideration to hopefully make some uh some some more bold changes that will help uh create more housing opportunities for people in Grand Rapids.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Yeah.

All right.

So thank you uh very much, and and thanks to all of you for uh your trust in me and my team uh to move the needle in terms of ADU uh production or accessory dwelling unit production in the city.

Uh the list of individuals here were led through a somewhat tedious process, uh, but that was done intentionally because we wanted to make sure we were very clear about uh what tools we have at the city, what can we advocate for, what can we change, and also figuring out ways that we can work with their individual organizations to help leverage their expertise.

Um so I sincerely appreciate the work, the thoughtful work that they all uh took upon themselves and participated in that process.

Um Doug is here today with GRAR.

Um, there's going to be a great partnership with them to help to leverage organizations like GRAR to help communicate what options are available in terms of housing resources and and housing um possibilities in the city of Grand Rapids.

So I think that that's uh really exciting uh process for us.

Um so what you have before you today or attached to your packet was the the report of the recommendations that the task force um created for you.

Uh that really serves as kind of the the conclusion of that work, and and so we're greatly appreciative.

So today I'm going to run through a little bit of uh the process that we went through and then highlight um a couple of the recommendations.

I won't go into every single one.

Uh the packet's quite lengthy as you can see.

There is approximately a hundred recommendations, but hopefully it'll give you uh a flavor for what we are uh looking at and kind of a guide for how you would use this document if you haven't already had time to go through it.

So the uh in short, uh we are looking at encouraging ADU production here in the city.

We've made we've made good progress.

I realize that the numbers may not be reflective of what we would like to see.

Um but back in 2024, the city did make some significant zoning changes, and um we were able to permit more than 16 units uh in the city.

Prior to that, I think we were at about nine units for the decade previous.

And so, number wise, I realize that that may not be as exciting as you know proportionate uh for for what the production we previously had, but we also obviously were able to easily identify the fact that there was a need for us to look at our current policies, our current codes, um, and then also what relationships might exist and just ways we can better communicate to uh individuals that live in our city or would like to live, and how we can get more production of accessory dwelling units in the city.

Uh so all of the um the recommendations that were created by the task force were broken down into these four categories, really focused on what is the customer experience.

So, how do people know that they can build an accessory dwelling unit in the city?

Um, where do they go for that?

What regulations or what zoning uh is in place when we talk about building a new or converting an existing area to an accessory dwelling unit or an ADU?

What building codes are in place?

Um and so that would also help in terms of uh guide the specific construction requirements, uh, and then financing.

How do we help people plan, budget, and access financial resources uh to facilitate their plan to construct an ADU in the city?

So historically, accessory dwelling units were very popular.

Um you can see, especially in some of our older neighborhoods, we have uh carriage houses, granny flats.

I I can't believe how many names there is to describe accessory dwelling units, um, but in the for our purposes we call them ADUs or accessory dwelling units.

So there were a number that used to exist in the city and some still do.

Um and so when we uh look at our our zoning regulations and such, we want to be very clear that an accessory dwelling unit is supported in nature.

Um, and currently we do permit it in association with either a single family dwelling or a duplex two-family dwelling.

Before you is a little bit of a history, I won't uh belabor that, but you know, as planners, we find it interesting to look back uh where we were uh prior to 1923 when we didn't have uh zoning exist in the city of Grand Rapids, uh we called it the wild west, meaning that there was no uh specific zoning regulations that said whether an accessory dwelling unit could exist or how it would exist.

And so we saw a great deal more than maybe what we have today.

As we started to plan and zone, not unlike other things.

Perhaps we were overly restrictive and we were not able to see the level of production that we had previous.

And I think we're pretty familiar with the history of zoning generally in the country.

But back in 2007, following the previous community master plan, we took a hard look at our zoning regulations and recognized that we wanted to specifically and proactively say in Grand Rapids accessory dwelling units are legal, they are permitted, and we want them to exist.

Clearly, we've had uh different planning and zoning efforts to modify those requirements to make it easier to build, and 2024 being the latest uh example of zoning reform in the city for accessory dwelling units.

So this was the schedule that the task force uh went through.

So understanding uh late last or early last summer, pardon me, what is the current process.

We explored what financial mechanisms and ways that community would know or residents would know.

How do we build a culture to understand that accessory dwelling units are desired in the city?

Um then we further then from there we were able to identify some draft recommendations, and then we refined those through the fall.

We also uh had a prioritization effort to make sure that we were able to help the city or they were able to help the city identify what do we think, what levers would be uh could quickly produce accessory dwelling units and what might take a little bit more time to pull a lever but ultimately yield more production.

And so we wanted to make sure that we focused on how that change can happen.

So, what would be the resident experience, what is the process, and then what other rules and regulations might need to change as a result.

Um so here is is some of the the sausage making that you can see that we led the uh task force through.

Ultimately, the task force landed on 105 ideas.

We were able to bring those ideas into 20 themes, and that's largely what you'll see in the in the presentation today are those themes.

And then we were able to rank them by our impact, what we thought the impact would be and our ability to execute.

So this slide is a little bit busy, but I think it's really interesting because it does show all of the themes categorized, uh color-coded, as you can see down on the lower left side of the screen in terms of those categories that I've mentioned previously customer service, zoning, building code, and finance.

And then we had the task force rank that about what would be relatively minimal effort versus high effort, but then also evaluate that effort based on the impact, whether it would have a relatively low impact, and by impact I mean uh result in uh easier production of accessory dwelling units, or what would result in high impact, more accessory dwelling units being in the city.

Um so unfortunately, although I I think it's um maybe very easy to look at the building code, there are complexities with that that make it a very high effort to modify state building code.

Um, and with that effort, it was felt like maybe the impact wouldn't be as significant as if we were to look at the levers in the what would that be, the top uh left side of the screen, the low effort and high impact.

Um, so that exercise really allowed us to look at we called them tiers.

Um so we were able to identify where the tiers helped us with the prioritization about where our work would be.

So, for to make the presentation as uh succinct as possible for you, I'm just gonna focus a little bit on a couple of those uh tier ones, and then you can get the flavor for how it might work through the rest of the tiers.

Um, so before you, as I mentioned, you have that report.

Um with the tier one priority, we have development marketing awareness campaign and publish accessory dwelling unit guidelines, looking at our zoning ordinance, feeling like there was still more changes that could help yield make it easier to build accessory dwelling units.

And you'll know in other tiers there were um similar, there were still excuse me, recommendations within those tiers.

There's some zoning changes that were recommended by the task board task force, pardon me, but recognizing that there is a larger effort of zoning updates, and perhaps there's a short-term or easier modifications that could be made, and then longer-term conversations that could be part of a uh the larger zoning update strategy.

And so, as we start breaking down those recommendations, you can see a summary.

So, the ADU guide and toolkit was one that I pulled out here, so you can understand what we meant by that recommendation.

So, what specifically did the task force suggest as part of of that uh recommendation?

So when we talk about ADU guides and tool kits, the task force really felt like it would be helpful if we educated uh in within those documents on what are fair housing laws, having a sample deed restriction should that be necessary, um, looking at illustrations and including maybe even uh a separate permit for an accessory dwelling unit so that it's more intuitive to find uh how you would build an accessory dwelling unit and not just looking at a general building permit, for example.

Uh within each uh recommendation, we also uh looked at what would the implementation uh look like.

How feasible is it?

Would it be short term or long term?

Is it easy or hard?

Uh, how long do we think that might be, and then what resources might be necessary?

So some of that lower uh lower right-hand side of the screen, the implementation consideration, um, some of that is thing are things that we'll come back to you on.

Um so as city staff when we work with um the executive office to understand what uh staff capacity or resources might be available or budget resources might be necessary.

Um those are uh um can information that we will bring back to you at a later date.

Um one of the other priorities that we called out for this presentation was to revise site layout and building placement standards.

So again, are there little modifications?

I say little zoning is little, um, little modifications that we can make that might help it make it easier to uh build accessory dwelling instances in the city.

So you can see that that summary of the task force recommendation, and then the specific ideas that the task force had.

Uh so for example, one of the challenges um that came up was uh looking at the rear yard setback for accessory dwelling, and it's especially along alleys.

Are there ways that we can um re-evaluate what setbacks might be in place for corner lots because of the inherent setback challenges that corner lots present?

Um so there are very specific recommendations uh within this book that are going to be very helpful to planning staff specifically as we move forward, both maybe in the short term and the long term.

Um, and again, you have that implementation consideration that the task force um helped us identify.

So, in terms of of next steps from our process, uh clearly there's um some ownership and some support that we will be looking to from outside organizations.

Uh Doug uh specifically uh might be would be one of those partners for us.

Um but in terms of uh planning department, city next steps, we'd be evaluating those uh prioritized recommendations that are included within the report, looking at the feasibility of the recommendation in terms of the prioritization of it, uh whether budget is in place to support implementation now or whether it would be part of the budget considerations in the future.

Uh looking at staff capacity, um there are other priorities clearly that uh the community has provided that you've provided us, um, and so making sure that we have the capacity um to do what we said we were going to do, or where might it fit in our workload.

Um, and then I've mentioned specifically, since I'm a planner, I'd be remiss if I didn't call out the zoning ordinance that I've mentioned.

Um, I do think that there are opportunities for us to look at some short-term modifications if the uh city commission is is comfortable with that.

Um and then there are some longer-term uh considerations that I think are better suited for the larger update that maybe have greater policy considerations that that aren't quite as simple as uh a little line in the ordinance that will take far more discussion that would be um uh productive in my opinion to take part uh in the greater context of the zoning update.

So I believe that concludes my my uh presentation.

Uh I realize it's a little bit small, but I did want to make sure I I reiterated how those um priorities and recommendations are are all before you on this screen in case we uh needed a reference back.

Uh so thank you very much.

Great, thank you.

Um those everybody up here knows this is near and dear to my heart.

So um, and I probably most of the population knows that, I hope.

So um thank you for your work on this.

Um, and thank you to the to the group that did it, but also to the city staff and city manager for um making this a priority.

Um there's lots of exciting stuff here, and I and I think you nailed it in terms of you know the the categories and um at least a first draft on prioritization.

Um some things uh are hard in the sense that they're further outside of our reach, so like changing state law.

That's not something I mean, we could do a resolution saying we should change state law, but let ultimately it's not in our power other than as advocates, but um zoning soft right uh we can we can get on it and uh working with some of our community partners on this would be great.

I think that it's also worth pointing out like we don't have very many of these right now in the city.

And that means I think we have an opportunity, we have a problem and we have an opportunity.

The problem is we don't have very many.

The opportunity is if we lay the groundwork, we're not giving away the farm on things like financial incentives.

So for example, if we said anybody who builds an ADU and gets revenue from it will exempt that from your city income tax for five years.

Well, we're giving away a revenue stream that would that doesn't exist yet, um sort of like when we give property tax breaks.

And we could uh certainly it seems to me craft some uh property tax breaks for that would incentivize uh ADUs.

And again, given that there aren't many out there, um we'd be it'd be a con it'd be we'd be temporarily foregoing non-existent revenue um and hoping to stimulate things that would be long-term investments in the city.

So all of those things are I mean, if we had 20,000 of these and we said let's not tax them, that would be a fiscal problem.

But given that we don't have very many, uh if we could say in the anyone who builds one in the future, we're incentivizing uh investment in the city.

Um and so I think those tools are things I'd love to have this this body think about um going forward.

We've give property tax exemptions for lots of things, industrial exemptions, obsolete property.

We do a lot in the commercial space, um, but I think there's a lot of opportunity here to to incentivize people to invest.

Um I want to at least flag, remind everybody, one of the things that people are talking about nationally right now is when we have a housing price crisis, we also have massive, massive numbers of empty bedrooms in people's houses.

Um people in my generation uh when their kids move out, they keep their five-bedroom house or their four-bedroom house, and it's got a couple people knocking around inside of it.

Um that's a another conversation we can have some other day.

That's not this topic, but I at least want to point out that other c other cultures, you know, places that are scary and um you know, really foreign to the American experience, like England and Australia.

Um, having borders in your house is a perfectly routine normal thing to do.

Um and uh we might want to, if we're gonna be a more welcoming community, talk about like how can I rent out my apartment to an uh in a bedroom in my house to a nursing student or to a nurse or to an EMT tech or whatever.

Um so that's another that's a broader, that's the the next horizon, I think, or a next horizon.

Um the other thing I think it's worth pointing out is this is really important work because often when housing affordability people talk about affordability, they just talk about income versus the cost of housing.

And I think the right basket is income versus housing plus transportation.

And the thing that the city is better at than anywhere around the city is we're denser, we're closer, we have more possibilities to uh get around with less transportation cost than you know, a housing unit that goes in and low.

So we can do affordable globally affordable housing easier than any other part of Kent County.

And so I think it's really important for us to realize like we have a resource, which is the density of our community already, and helping people fit into that is gonna help us uh get to a lot of our goals, our environmental goals, our um you know, affordability goals, just by building anything in the city, you're achieving those goals.

Um so this is great.

Um the other thing that I think is worth it's funny.

Um I went to a uh happiness expert, uh, the econ club had a guy uh talking about happiness, and one of the things that he decided was gonna make his life happy was month multi-generational living.

And so he's doing that.

And um when I think about loneliness as an epidemic in Western society, and I think about fragmentation and breakdown in community and everyone living in their phones.

I think all right, if we're gonna keep democracy alive, one of the ways to keep democracy alive is live with your parents or live with your kids.

Um and it's part of building a healthier community.

And so I think this this gives us an opportunity to to like lean into some of the real strengths of family sustaining and uh community sustaining.

So I just want to, I mean, I know this is big picture stuff, guys, but like I think that if we're gonna be a great city, part of our great city is taking care of our parents, taking care of our kids, uh living in community with them.

And so I think this is a uh uh this addresses some really broader, you know, thematic challenges our society's gonna have.

So I'm really excited about it.

Um I think the challenge is gonna be whether we talk about it and say, yay, that's a great idea, or whether we figure out how to get from 16 units to 160 units a year or 500 units a year.

Um and we're gonna have some work cut out for us there, but I I really hope that we can invest in it, and I think these are the right baskets.

Like I would love to see uh uh your department, for example, having a booth about ADUs at Commissioner Night Outs and like maybe um some staff people can go out to neighborhood associations and like spread the word about the viability of this.

But I think we also always have to be asking, like, if it's not happening, what are the barriers?

Why isn't it happening?

And so um I think we got a lot of a lot of work ahead of us, but I really appreciate the framework.

Um I think it's uh it's a great, great starting point for the work.

So thank you.

Commissioner Robinson.

Yeah, thanks, Baron.

Thanks for uh this presentation.

Um I'm super excited about this.

I think the group that was put together represents um a lot of good stakeholders with a lot of good knowledge going into some of these changes.

I guess um, you know, I I'm curious what the broader response has been.

I know some of the people on the um the task force kind of represent the lending world, and I I know you know we can make it as easy as possible for people to um build an ADU within the city, but curious to hear like if we're you know getting pushback from them or what sort of willingness it is.

Um, you know, I I don't have you know like $80,000 sitting around to sink into something like this.

So I I imagine a lot of people will um will need some sort of um you know lending on the the the onset to make something like this happen, which which could, you know, in the long run be a good financial investment for them.

But um curious to hear, just given that these are kind of more unconventional, like what the response has been from that that whole realm.

Sure.

I can start and if you have anything to add, but I would you know, we we intentionally did have uh representation from the lending uh institutions uh present on the task force.

Um I would say it was it was very collaborative.

There's definitely some additional work.

Um my glasses on, I think it was in in tier three that there's a recognition that that will take some additional conversation uh to uh better understand uh ways that we can support the lending institutions in our community um to uh recognize or modify some policies that are might be currently in place.

Um do you have more that you'd like to add?

Yeah, I think there's a um at the national level, obviously ADUs are a topic that's not just uh you know local to Grand Rapids that uh I think you know the the Freddy uh Freddie and Fanny, the major mortgage institutions, uh kind of working through some of their own stuff to be able to create this uh under uh under a federally backed mortgage uh product.

Um I think there's a variety of other products that you know, whether that's a home equity line of credit or uh um you know uh a refinance your property.

Also, just it's also will depend on how an underwriter looks at the property, right?

In a lot of scenarios, this could appear to be a duplex, right?

If you're gonna have a uh a main space that you live in, it'd be like me living in a duplex on one side and renting out the other versus I have my primary residence that's attached to an ADU.

Um, it's how to establish that income stream.

Um I think the income stream is something you know, some people are gonna build this regardless of the income stream, they don't care.

But if to your point of like how are people gonna get the confidence to go take on a project like this, um being able to justify to uh to a lending institution that this is a you know a marketable product that has uh the viability because it's legal in Grand Rapids that they can they can say, well, you know, it will bring in X number of dollars per month.

If I lease this out to someone, that is you know typically good enough to suffice to um uh back a back a mortgage product, you know.

We did put on here uh as a lower recommendation, but the uh short-term rental conversation around them, right?

I think uh, you know, we've uh we have a limited number of short-term rentals in Grand Rapids, not to say that every one of these, if if it's a new product, it's not taking a housing unit away from someone that exists now, um, how financially backable that is.

Uh but in the short term, if you're able to utilize the revenue from a short-term rental, I think a lot of people who, you know, I happen to own a short-term rental in another community, and it's it's a pain in the butt uh to have to manage that.

So, but if if the the carrot of being able to create a short-term rental uh gets the unit built, and then someone decides, well, I don't want to have to manage this every weekend and clean it every time someone's in town.

Let's just rent it for a year and call it good.

Um that's a pathway to incrementally build uh more opportunity.

But again, it's creating as many opportunities and you let the market figure out what you know what's the best path.

Sure, yep.

Thank you.

Commissioner Kilgar.

Yes, thank you all so much for this presentation.

Can you please remind me of when the zoning ordinance are we how far are we from that?

Yeah.

Uh so we would anticipate uh late this year, early next year, so early 2027, when we have draft language uh for um commission for planning commission to respond to.

So some of the more engagement and discussion um would take place over the summer.

Uh, but the goal is to have an ordinance before this body for consideration um by summer of 2027, but the the draft language will be early 2027.

Yeah, thank you.

So while we're sort of a little ways out, I'm wondering uh I have been I'd love to hear your feedback on a possible interim help for this type of work.

We currently allow for 2,000 square foot, uh, which sort of limits most lots to about two units.

Um it says even though we voted uh last year to allow up to six by right on certain treats.

Um but you know that's something in the interim that we could do and just looking at the feasibility of that and how we could possibly go about making some interim changes as we have because that's still a ways out.

So that I think that would be a great idea to in the meantime do, and how would we go about that if that's something we'd like to explore?

So I I think that that's definitely an option.

Um I'll be careful on how much I I bite off here.

But uh but in within tier one, there are some, I think some additional low-hanging fruits in terms of zoning modifications.

Uh so you've mentioned uh some already.

Um so I I think that that's definitely doable prior to the 2027 timeline that I've mentioned.

Uh there are other conversations.

Um Mr.

O'Connor just mentioned it as well around the short-term rental.

Those are larger zoning conversations that are far more complicated that I won't belabor today, far more complicated that are probably better suited for that 2027 process that I've mentioned, the larger update.

Um, but there's definitely some modifications that could be made that we've we've learned even since 2024, and that have been part of this recommendation here today.

Wonderful.

And so, how would that just for process wise?

How would you move forward on taking on some of those low-hanging fruits?

Thank you.

Sorry, I didn't describe that very well at all.

Um, so that would be kind of a staff initiated if I if I know that there's um uh positive feedback today on these these recommendations.

My next step would be to discuss it with the planning commission.

Um for something like uh what we're talking about uh in the especially in the tier one recommendations, uh, those are something that we would do internally, meaning planning staff uh is capable of more than capable of of writing the zoning text amendments uh that we would then uh put forward to the planning commission for public hearing and for recommendation.

Uh typically best case scenario from start to finish, that would be about a three month process.

Now, of course, it's going to take closer to probably five or six months because we do need some time uh to write the language, vet it with the city attorney's office, update the planning commission.

So I would say fall of this year, we could probably be bringing um some uh zoning updates to you around the uh recommendations of the task force.

Thank you so much for your feedback, and I'm very supportive of what we've been following this for a year now, very supportive of this.

Happy that you all brought this to us.

And my hope, colleagues, is that we can do just that of sort of fast track some of the things that we can do uh that are low-hanging fruit that are accessible to us now to jump start uh this process.

So that's my hope, and and that's my feedback.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Uh um uh commissioner uh I think you saw she was first, but I'm never perfect on this.

Thank you.

Um I appreciate everyone's comments, and I do really want to emphasize how much work this was.

So thank you very much to the planning department, all your staff, um former commissioner O'Connor and all the people involved on the team uh from the community.

But um I have a couple of like clarifying questions, but generally speaking, it's terms of my feedback.

I agree that we should be expediting and fast-tracking whatever these policies andor changes, financing, and and to Mayor's point, um, I believe one of the recommendations in one of the tiers was to explore like um property tax or you know, in lieu of the pilot program for ADUs like um uh in lieu of taxes and stuff.

So I do think that there's some financial things there to consider.

And I think you know, in terms of growing the numbers, I would like to know what is what is realistic.

Do we have a sense of how many ADUs would be possible or achievable goal?

You know, is it really 500 mayor or um a year, or is it some, you know, and then you know, thinking about that funnel of like generating the interest, you know, starting there, and then uh regarding the question, other question I have to have is like if what and you've kind of answered it, but what if any of this might be incorporated into this year's budget process?

Um those are a couple of my big questions.

Okay.

Uh so starting at the top, the the payment and lieu, um, that's uh a tier three priority based on this recommendation.

I think part of the next steps that I've mentioned is working with the uh city manager to identify uh what budget might exist uh in the current fiscal year and what budget might need to be considered for the upcoming fiscal year.

Um and so I I think that that's one of those elements that I would bring back before you.

Um and shoot, I lost your your are the just the general sense of scope and what's realistic to set, you know, what is possible in the city and how much what oh thank you, thank you.

Um so we did talk a little bit about that as a task force, whether it was appropriate or helpful to uh set a number or a goal.

Um I I think from a planning perspective, I've I've been a little bit hesitant or reluctant to do that.

Um, because while I can make the process, I I don't think the result is always indicative of the progress that we've made in terms of policy uh changes.

Um and so for me I I feel like it's a bit of an arbitrary number.

I think where we we work with uh strategic partners to identify what barriers might exist.

Uh, we do our best to eliminate those barriers, um, allocate resources to make sure we're uh we're present in the community so that we can help residents understand that accessory dwelling units are legal, and here might that process be.

Here's maybe even uh pre-permitted plan sets that could be used.

To set a number when um I don't control whether you build an accessory dwelling unit in your yard, um, feels like a very um it to me it's not a metric that's aligned to the effort or the work that we put in.

Um so I've been a little bit reluctant uh and the task force I I guess maybe heated that reluctance on um that conversation that we had and and did not put that.

Yeah, I I appreciate that.

And not and if we took it out of this the goal setting and just in terms of scope, like if we were to say everyone everywhere wanted one, how many would even be possible?

Is it like several thousand?

Is it like a couple hundred?

Just a generalized Oh, um, yeah, we did no idea.

Okay, that's fine.

That's just curiosity really.

Um my other question before I I relinquish would be just um is there anything what is it that's preventing us from having rumors or borders right in our homes right now?

Is it a zoning code thing?

No, no, you can have up to uh six unrelated individuals uh living in a home.

Uh and so if you choose to have uh unrelated roommates, I guess if you will, and there's nothing illegal about that.

Um there's some controls that don't aren't specific, but in terms of how many individuals can reside in a home for you know housing code uh safety reasons.

Um we do have uh uh boarding houses, rooming houses, um, group living uh facilities that we did make some significant modic SROs, gosh, I'm sorry, um, that we did uh make it easier to allow more SROs, single room occupancies um in the city back in 2024.

Um and it was a tiered structure, so small SROs of up to six individuals that are either um home sharing, maybe there's one kitchen, and each room has a bathroom.

Uh that is a what I call by right or allowed in residential zone districts.

As you tier up and add more individuals, I think the next tier is seven to twelve, if I remember correctly, um, that would require uh planning commission consideration.

Um, and then more than 12 individuals is also planning commission.

So we made significant progress in 2024 in terms of allowing SROs at different tiered structures in all areas of the city, all residential districts, I should say of the city.

Um, but there is still a process for some of the larger ones so that the neighborhood that it's in has an opportunity to uh evaluate impact.

I I no thank you very much.

It's a a scale.

City manager, you wanted to I was just gonna reply to the the resource questions.

So the part of today was just to get the feedback and uh give the report accepted, but several of the things are interdependent, so that ADU resource center of having a staff person dedicated to help someone, you would have to have the volume of demand for that that to occur.

So while that may be a short-term fiscal thing that we can look at, it may not be sequentially um viable at this point.

It's early in the process.

But there are a lot of other things that I'm really really excited about and being more aggressive on uh the size of ADUs and number of um units within ADU as well as looking at other things we can do, like reducing green space requirements as well as I know a long discussion we've had, and this is more legislative and not staff administrative, but uh the sanitary sewer requirements for hookups, and that will require us to really do some work with uh uh the building code and and and do some work in Lance and get that change.

And so that's more of a legislative policy effort.

So there are lots of things I think we'll go back and evaluate and then begin to prioritize uh both in policy as well as uh resources, how we can begin to operationalize some of this.

Yeah, and another one of my least favorite ones is the uh fire requirement for windows proximate to lot lines because lot lines aren't flammable.

Um if we could modify that so it was proximity to other structures, but that's again a building code uh change, which means legislative doesn't mean anything we could do with the city.

Um Commissioner Usasi.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thank you, uh Kristen and John for uh giving this overview.

Thanks to all that served on this body.

Um this I really like the slides where it, if you went back, you don't have to go back, but just had the detail and then the timeline.

I think that was really helpful for decision making.

Um these were sort of the themes that I had as I was preparing for this is safety lending and and economic development.

One, my question was what were some of the safety considerations, or was there obviously there's a building call dynamics, but did we cross-reference this with our fire department um to just talk about any of those concerns, you know, something new coming online, how do we identify, you know, a location that I mean I have a very small lot, so you would be able to find it if I had it in mind, but maybe for others.

So just some of that um uh cross section of departments.

Um, and then I really appreciated the dynamics on lending because I think there are um, you know, to have that up front.

Um, I think there's some opportunities with some state statewide CDFIs um and other parts of the country where I've seen some different lending tools that are available, and that we can uh potentially, you know, a pilot, and then with economic development, so that's more a comment than a question.

Um, and then in terms of economic development, you know, I'm very much in favor of yes, we offer a lot of abatements that are very large, and I think you know, there's a lot of feelings about those.

Um, you know, why are we doing it here?

Why we why are we not considering that?

And I think that would be, you know, to me, it's always like, well, we do want to increase the amount of you know, income and residents coming in and income tax, but how do we help balance that?

And so I think this is a good way to sort of recognize that and to be able to to create some more equity in that system of um, you know, passing on those savings.

And then I think even for us, I would probably even go a step further because you know, I'm sitting here like, yeah, my I have a family member who's living with us because of a precarious housing situation that they found themselves in.

Uh I'll be gone for 15 hours today, and I basically most of the week I sleep at my house, and that's what I do, right?

And so um, and and a lot of us may be like that.

And so to be able to say, like you said, some of it is cultural, some of it is you know, shifting that, like, you know, being able to share costs.

Um, but um kind of looking further, I guess, downstream of what might be preventing people from being able to access um funding for something like this, which would be obviously a lesser financial investment than a standard uh single person, you know, typical home like many of us live in, um, is also looking at where people are situated in terms of credit.

So one of the things I wanted to highlight, and I'm not saying that the task force needs to do this, but I think we need to think about like housing commission is working with an organization, Project Green, to report individuals' rental payments so that they can establish um strong credit history.

And so I think it's just for us to think about what is that next level look like out in community, what are organizations faced with when they might be trying to seek out a mortgage.

We're in a very untenable like world situation right now.

Every time we wake up, and so I I appreciate your comments of like it's hard to say what this might be in the future because we don't know what else might happen in these next couple years.

Um certainly people just yesterday, two businesses, small businesses in in Grand Rapids, they announced that they were closing.

And so we're we're seeing this and we're talking about it.

So that's less for the for the body, but more of us to think about how are people situated to credit and being able to extend that.

Um and then lastly, I'll answer the question that city manager also wants to know.

I don't want to just hear what you think about this, but what are you telling us in terms of support?

I am supportive of these actions.

Um I do think we should um move quickly.

Uh, quite honestly, I think we have moved quickly on this.

I'll just be, you know, mayor, this is your first meeting of the second year.

So I don't think we haven't moved quickly.

I think it's just one of these other things um that uh needs to be, you know, focused on, and I think we'll all have to combat that.

Um, you know, as we have different housing types, unfortunately, you know, a lot of things in my inbox are people who will say things like, I don't want this type of development here, I don't want these kind of people living here.

We saw some of that in uh quite honestly, a development that was happening in the first ward and article that some of the comments about the development were just they were cruel, uh, quite honestly, and I think they were not true.

And so I think we just have to be able to colleagues understand that there will be a lot of different feelings about you know a different form of housing because we're all set on whatever the standard is, and I'm prepared to support that.

Um I think we've done that in the past.

You know, we've had unanimous votes on things like community land trusts.

Um that was a couple years back, and there was a lot of feelings about that.

That project's able to move forward.

I see people now there living so I think there's a bit of that, what needs to happen, but also the change management that's happening in our community about the different types of housing and how again I appreciate this is not gonna be the solve, but it is another option, and it might be um a good option for many people.

So thank you.

Thanks, Commissioner.

And I think you know, to highlight some of the points you raised, um, you know, I I hope that a lot of this investment is going to be local investors, it's gonna be small investors, it's gonna be an opportunity for some of those, you know, first-time contractors that we spend a lot of time focusing on because this is not you know building a 300-story building.

This is um, you know, a modest thing that you can build with uh a fairly small crew, usually.

Um I mean, my first my first investment in my construction company was a 450 dollar pickup truck, two saws and a circular saw.

I mean two two shovels on a circular saw.

It didn't take take me a lot of money to become a contractor.

Um, but I wasn't building uh 30-story skyscrapers either.

Um so I think this is I I knowing a lot of people in that community, this is the kind of thing that that first-time contractors can get involved in, uh, emerging contractors can get involved in.

It's also something where, yeah, if we give people, you know, property uh income tax breaks, we're not giving it to Black Rock Capital, because we're talking about people who actually live in the city investing in the city.

Um and so we can, you know, there's national conversation about like, you know, the fear that Black Rock Capital is gonna start buying individual houses.

Well, this is the opposite.

This is us and individual people in our in our community investing in in neighborhood projects.

Um and the other thing to your point is I think it's you I can't we can't overemphasize, I think that true devent diversity in our community doesn't just mean gender diversity or racial diversity, it means diversity of homeownership styles and it means diversity of opinions.

And so um I always use the example of my next door neighbor who has an ADU behind his building and clearly makes their life better because uh the person who lives in their ADU watches their dogs when they go off on the weekend.

And um, so having more neighbors gives us more people to be friends with.

Uh and having renters interspersed with homeowners can maybe get uh get out of some of those really troubling reactions that people have.

I I hear too of people like condemning renters as though renters are bad parts of our community.

And boy, I do not want to live in a community where we have a uh two-tiered vision of the city, and you know, people who own homes are the real citizens.

Um people who rent aren't full citizens uh or full residents of our community.

Like I, you know, I I hope, you know, I I'm sure we all completely reject that that framing, but it's out there and people jump to it.

Um and I think maybe the experience of having a renter in your backyard makes the whole idea of renters a little less scary.

Uh, because if they improve your quality of life, then you're like, wow, this is great.

I never thought of this before.

But um, I mean, and again, I tell the story of my my uh daughter renting in Glasgow in Scotland, who's now like really tight friends with the person that rented an apartment, and so are we.

Like we've stayed in their house for free when we went to Scotland because they were out of town and you know, they liked my daughter, so they let us use their house when we were in town.

Um so interactions between renters and homeowners can can be awesome and almost always is awesome.

Um, you know, we all live in cities because we like people.

If we didn't like people, we wouldn't live in cities.

Um so movements to have more positive interactions in our community, beautiful thing as far as I'm concerned.

So thank you for the presentation.

I'm excited about everyone's enthusiasm about this.

Um I've heard nothing, but if you want to add something happy and positive, Commissioner, go ahead.

Yeah, I just want to name something I don't think has been named.

Um, really appreciative of all the work um that took place that went into this um and excited to pursue the recommendations.

Um there was talk of kind of a navigator or a potential person to help bring people through this process.

Um, and and though numbers might not support it, I think if if we look big picture when I think about all the emerging developers that need help navigating our process as well, I see kind of some similarities there.

Um, and was certainly uh would love for us to consider some sort of role, maybe joint between planning and economic development um to really help people through the process as I talk to folks looking to develop their properties, their commercial properties, their mix their mixed use properties.

Um if it's our first time, it's really, really difficult despite all the resources we have available.

And so uh we'll love to pursue something like that as part of this plan, but also um our priorities around emerging developer and in and economic development.

So thank you.

So I just want to just clarify.

Uh department, is that still in place?

Yes, Darrell Singleton.

So until in in this ADU assistance, can could that be part of the ongoing work that's being done by that person or is it more capacity needed?

Um I mean, to fulfill the recommendate, the full recommendations of the task force, I I think that there would be some additional resources uh needed in the short term, uh, definitely between our customer ombuds person and um planning staff and coordination with economic development.

Um we've sort of been taking on uh those existing rules.

Um I'm sure there's mixed feelings as to whether or not that's uh sufficient, but we do the best uh we can because and genuinely have a heart as planners uh to want people and support people to fulfill their their projects.

Thanks.

And actually I was with somebody and I forget where said, well, you know, when someone comes to us and they've got this dream in their in their mind, we're like that's a great dream.

Why don't you go talk to uh planning before you get too excited about your dream?

You've got to see if it's achievable.

So some of these things, I mean, c I think your your point, Commissioner Purdue is like cross-pollination and cross-departmental communication and even cross-sector.

I mean, the the fact is that you are not scared of the idea of a construction loan, it's not something that's new a new concept for you.

It's the world you live in.

Um any contractor understands construction loan mechanisms, but a homeowner who's never gone through a construction loan project uh might only see a home equity loan as an option when they might perfectly well be able to get a construction loan.

I mean, if they're maxed out on the equity of their house, um, but they can go and say, well, I think I can put this thing in my backyard and my neighborhood average rents in my neighborhood are X and it'll cash flow.

Um that's a conversation that a bank's able to have.

And you know, and then there the whole concept of construction loan is you tear out the money, you know.

When you want the money for the foundation, you release a certain amount of money.

When you want the money for the sewer connection, you release a certain amount of the money so that the money doesn't get spent on you know, vacations and beliefs.

Um so you know, construction loans are a very useful product, um, but not something probably the average resident in our community has ever had experience with.

So those kinds of folks play you know, ideas when someone on our staff can be like, hey, have you thought about a construction loan?

If you thought about this, like you don't have to be a banker, you just have to be in this space, and that's where I think our staff uh can really help if we if we if we facilitate them building a culture of yes of getting to yes, right?

And and uh you're great at it, but but I think that being the being able to say, well, we I heard that fifth third banks can offer this product or whatever, like that's gonna get to you before it gets to the average person on my block.

And so the ability to communicate effectively.

I mean, our I think our staff is a is a critical information disseminator as as much as anything else.

So thanks.

Okay, well, thanks for that.

Um seeing no further comments, I am going to move us into I uh got a request from our city attorney for closed session on on litig ongoing litigation and some property discussion.

Uh so I would ask for a motion for us to move into closed session to this part.

So moved support.

Uh can you call the role, please?

And this will be immediately following the meeting in room 601.

Commissioner Kilgar.

Yes, Commissioner Knight, yes, Commissioner Robbins, yes, Mr.

Asassi.

Yes.

Commissioner Purdue.

Yes.

Commissioner Belchak, yes.

Mayor Legrand.

Yes.

Thank you.

That adjourns this part of the meeting.

We'll move to closed session.