Welcome to the Mesa City Council study session for July 27th, 2026.

All of our council members are present.

Again, council item one's review the agenda for tonight's council meeting.

I know we went over this previously, but are there any additional questions for staff?

It seems like the microphone is a little different sound, which is fine.

I don't know how can you hear us okay out there?

Yeah.

All right.

Mayor, I know I don't know if we want the discussion here or upstairs about um the um fleet ordinance.

Okay.

We have to make a decision tonight, and so we need to have a discussion since we have a full council here to make a final decision.

Okay.

Do we want to discuss that or you want to go numerically to um yeah that's 8A and B.

So that's at the bottom.

So is there something beforehand?

Well, we can talk about um 5C as the Falcon Fields landing fee implementation date.

Uh I'm gonna remove that off consent agenda so that we can discuss that separately.

And if there's any not any questions on the landing fees, council.

Okay.

We can have that conversation upstairs.

And then 7A and B is the San Antonio uh tire shop, and then 8A is uh and B or the two different amendments to the chapter regarding uh fleet based services.

So Ms.

Duff, do you want to lead out on 8A or B or discuss options?

Um I I prefer 8A uh because of all I suggested the C UP for L C if we could do 100 feet, but I understand we're at 150, so we'll just leave it at that.

But I think it's a smarter use of our land and um allows to allows us to store or have fleets of drones vertically instead of using the land, and that's the land use I spoke about, and uh being able to use rooftops, which is an excellent use of space.

Um so those are the reasons that I prefer A, because on B uh I I'm going to vote no on B because again it prohibits rifttop charging.

Um I don't like the just at 30 feet, but here we are.

We have to have the uh have uh 30 feet, you know.

Um let's see.

I think as a city we should uh always evaluate the value per square foot to our city expanding parking areas um provides no value, sales tax, property tax, job opportunity, and reduces land available for economic activities.

This is the reason I don't want to see drones stored at grade on the asphalt, which requires screening, a fencing and such.

Um so there is a concern about that.

Also, I'm concerned the noise factor at people level at grade level is gonna be much louder than if it was a 30-foot, much higher.

Um parking lot light poles are at 30 feet, so they have drones, a poll having drones on it.

I don't think is any more much more of a uh eye sore.

And I think it's a good use of land, and of course we have the CUP on uh limited commercial districts to look at the residential impacts.

Um so we have that provision in A.

Um.

I think that's the majority of my remarks on why I prefer A over B.

Thank you.

More over you, you and Rachel, regarding the two differences between A and B.

8A and 8B.

Yeah, sure.

Happy to do so, Mayor.

You good?

Well, okay, so so since our uh our conversation a couple weeks ago, back on the 16th, I believe it was.

Um we did come back with two options as you're seeing 8A and 8B.

Um I think maybe what all what I can do is start with um what's the same in both of them now, which is both of them require that C UP.

This is different than what was discussed on Thursday morning, but it is now introduced.

They both require that CUP uh for light fleet in LC, and they both have a hundred and fifty-foot separation from residential.

Um where they differ is option two would allow the the height up to 30 feet only in those GI and HI zones.

Okay Clarify, so um option two is that grade except in the GI and HI.

Correct.

Where option Ail the difference then you have the vertical landing then on option A.

Yeah, so option A would allow up to that 30-foot maximum height in all the zones where that light fleet and heavy fleet are allowed.

Is some of this driven by the state legislature, some of some of what we discussed earlier?

So there is definitely a piece of this that um that does come into play when it comes to the legislation.

The legislation does allow uh for generally applicable provisions to be applied to drones, so long as that's done prior to um the general effective date, which I believe is September 12th.

Um what we are doing here is we are we're talking about fleets in general.

Um so that does include drones, but it also includes things like robotaxi parking, um, general fleets like delivery vans if somebody just has staging for fleets.