Okay, we are on the air.

We only have one item on our agenda for this work session because we do have an executive session after the fact.

But for our work session, we have a council update on affordability.

And I guess we have some other people at the table, but Emma's kicking it off.

I'm kicking it off, and I was oh, I think we were just at a little camera issue.

So if anyone's tuning in and you just saw the empty dice, we are here.

Um, hello, council, um, and all watching us at home.

Uh for today's work session, we're gonna be giving a um update on our council goal around affordability.

It's our quarterly update.

The last time we were here talking about this topic was in September.

Um most of our goals have kind of one uh staff lead, but this one touches a lot of different uh parts of the city pie.

So I am joined by Assistant City Manager Joseph Brillo, uh, public works director Peter Passerelli and by instructor Michael Osborne, who are kind of co-leads of the elements of this goal.

I didn't realize when we started that our council liaison is a little late here, but we're gonna talk staff stuff first.

Okay, we'll get into um council uh discussion, hopefully, when Adam is here or council customer body is here.

So you've gotten probably pretty used to this um this rigmarole by now, but we're gonna start with looking back at staff accomplishments.

Um, because this is our third goal.

Um, we we kind of are going to look at two quarters.

It's it sort of spans the different quarters, and then we'll look ahead at what's coming up over the next quarter or so on the staff side.

Then we will turn it to Council Coastal Body to talk a little bit about the council accomplishments and plans.

This goal, um, we affordability encompasses a lot of things, and in our action plan, which was in your packet, you'll see that we really focus this goal on utility affordability and housing affordability is sort of two spheres that the city has the greatest direct influence on.

Um so as you do this presentation, we've organized updates into three buckets, general actions, things that just kind of help us understand affordability real large, housing actions, and utility actions.

Um the community survey off this when the year was over.

Uh we had to switch consultants.

Well, those will include a lot of the conversations that we've had around the community understanding of what resources are out there that provides when it comes to support for utility services, economic development, the type of resources we have.

All right on the utility side uh let's see Peter you want to talk through some of the updates that are up here yeah sure so uh last month I well actually two weeks ago for a few uh give an update on what what they've been what they've accomplished over the last year and what they have uh up in the future uh we are continuing to work on our utility rates study for for water and wastewater uh in November uh we had the rate consultant meet with our community utility advisory committee uh I think it was November third uh and walked them through a couple different uh scenarios on on water uh it one of the things I I think I've mentioned uh in past discussions is you know we're in this process of applying for this uh say drinking water revolving loan fund one of two sort of bins of funds available there uh and we're including these and it's rate revenue requirement scenarios to see what that does for the rates so we have a discussion with Quack uh we are continuing to uh work on right sizing our uh Jen and I have been meeting so we every Friday we can look at uh how we're programming these projects uh what are the funds that are available both from our utility funds our assistant development charges and the grants and other grant resources that we have and we're really trying hard to uh make the program realistic in terms of an execution uh sort of by the financial resources that we have and also the capacity of our staff to manage the projects and it's it's it's it's tough to do because we have all these projects that we've identified and there are needs and we're just prioritizing those and making sure that we're we're being real we're possible so as an example um we've got a couple projects mainstream uh that we had programmed earlier in six year CIP realistically being able to do all that work we spread it out over a couple years uh with all of the other work that we have to do uh to manage that so that has impacts on on that work um and it's an impacts to the rates generally in a in a in a good way right so uh try to spread that out so there's not large large pieces error uh we did meet early yeah also in November talk about the safe program with the council uh and the rate structure we need a recommendation uh to go more with uh uh program based uh safe program when I say program based sort of focused on our our spot program and uh safe streets enhancement program uh and we're going a whole lot on doing sort of large going out to do another large uh function we're not we're gonna come up with um and then you know we've been we've been working with our finance team uh over over the last year or so I know Mike did mention with Quack last night about some previous surface uh data that uh Amy uh is is looking at how we can uh how we can update update that data in our utility building system that uh that is more reflects more accurate uh what the service area is out there customer by customer and we've done that by utilizing um LIDAR data and uh using our GIS to update the information so like we have some licenses especially in the NMIA with a lot of unused parking lot and they probably haven't been paying what they should be paying well we don't uh I I think we we build based on the impervious service area where we've had a gap is when there's a change to impurse service area you know customers have come in and perhaps they've added more parking or removed parking or removed a building so those are the things that we we need to update that we've captured some changes there.

So those are the things that we we need to update uh that we've captured some changes there.

Historically, you feel like we've had a pretty good impervious service.

With the exception of those gaps, and I I would say it's there's a significant, it's a significant number.

Would you say, Peter, you know, when we first set it up and put the data in, it was it was accurate.

The problem is we don't have often the capacity or the SOP for how we're going to update the data when we are informed or not informed about a change in condition.

So this is where that change in condition.

I was told like the last time that we've got updated data was 2019.

And Nick is working, I guess, next year in spring of 2026 is when he's getting the latest package and council metro.

And then uh so once we get that, then we're gonna work with Amy and rolling out to take the new data and put it into the rate system.

So how co-prehensive is this?

Is this just the inventory areas, all commercial activities or the whole city?

Well, well, it it's reflective of the entire city.

That's like so that stays the same.

It's not really dependent on all the joint property impervious area.

Yeah, but there's more.

It wouldn't mean it makes sense to be residential.

No.

Yeah.

I will say that um, and this I think will come up a little more in the council section, but we've heard you that you're interested in looking at um incentives or potential rebates, you know, that could be related to things like tree planting gets you a stormwater discount, something like that.

But that's different than saying, you know, this lot has a bunch of impermeable surface one doesn't, but so be impossible for us to do that.

Well, and and commercial uh to remove impervious service area but not using it, right?

Well, that's what I would love to see us uh message out there is um especially along Johnson Creek.

There's a lot of parking lots that are coming right across Johnson Creek and that are not really used that much, and at least not the spot time spot time checking I've done over the last few years.

Um and so maybe if there's some incentive for them to de-pave.

I mean, that's the kind of projects people like to do.

People love to come out and hear out pavement.

So that's the thing we could even help them do.

So even an organization called PAL.

Exactly.

I just want to say before we move on from this slide.

We when we met with Councillor Cost Rodney to prep for this, he asked a great question.

He was like, How do you guys feel?

Do you feel like we're doing the stuff to them?

We're moving this goal forward, and I really appreciated something Peter said was I know like some of some of this may be a little less sexy than the Ect Dem goal or the Parks and Green Place Well, where there's these specific projects or grant program.

But I think what you've seen here is a philosophy shift, and I really appreciate all of these staff and their teams for you know, it's asking the question.