City Hall.

Don't even attack them on the shoulder.

We need to tell him Jeff.

Jeff, we ready, bro?

We good.

All right.

We'll go get started then.

Welcome everybody to the September 4th meeting of the City Council Business and Community Affairs Committee.

Today we have two items on the agenda.

The first being a presentation and discussion regarding the Westwood Master Plan.

I'll be uh Mr.

Jason Olsen is here to give us a presentation.

So I'm going to turn it over to you.

Jason Olson, Director of Parks and Recreation.

It's been about it's been a little over a year.

We engaged uh GSB.

We put actually our RFP out for uh Westwood Master Plan to talk about what the future of the park would look like.

And this was mainly to focus on the golf course, the tennis area.

Uh GSB, uh, which is out of Oklahoma City, they were the architect that was selected.

Uh we have gone through a full process of this and um uh went through a steering committee, uh, worked with them for about a year uh off and on, and then uh ultimately went through part board.

We have presented this to council one time, but we uh just wanted to come through here.

We got a little cut short that night, so we just want to come here to do a little bit more in-depth discussion, and that was with the consultant.

Uh I think there's some stuff that I can clear up on.

There was questions about on our own the the kind of a viewpoint of programming and where things might lie uh and how we would um develop a business plan and a programming plan if this ever did come to fruition.

Uh so first picture here right now is this is Westwood as a as it currently is right now, satellite picture right there.

Uh we do have the floodway and the 100-year floodplain uh that was highlighted right through there.

That is Markle Creek.

Uh that kind of highlights right there.

And uh we do take a lot of water off of the airport, and uh that kind of eventually goes to our irrigation pond that's right there.

Uh we do have an irrigation pump house that that does eventually pump that out.

Uh we even filter and and uh somewhat pump some chemicals in there to kind of take out the negative stuff that would affect the golf course to kind of get it uh better where where it would more add nutrients and and things the golf course that the grass would need.

Uh and we do a pretty decent job in the past uh few years of keeping everything off of the the water system, but but the pond is starting to get a little old and it's starting to silt, so it does need a little bit of work.

Uh not to mention the the early 2000s is the last time that the Westwood, the golf course as a the course itself, not any of the buildings there, had a a uh capital improvement plan.

It was about a two million dollar project and went through there and re um changed some of the holes, we did some of the irrigation around there.

Uh your lifespan on any irrigation systems max is somewhere around 20 to 25 years.

So we're we're hitting the end of a life on there, and if anybody knows a lot about golf courses, the golf course lives and breeze off of its irrigation.

Uh and uh when you talk start talking about greens, certain greens, if they do die at a certain point, it either takes a long time to grow them back or it's about about a two to three hundred thousand dollars per green to get get the bent grass um shipped in to replace that.

So uh it is a living, breathing animal, very expensive to to uh maintain and um keep looking good.

We have a skeleton crew out there that keeps the golf course looking really really good for what what we got and uh big thing is to us we have about 35,000 rounds that go through there a year.

We like to uh take a lot of pride in being a very affordable option.

Um sometimes when people start thinking about golf and tennis and the things that are associated with that.

Sometimes um not everybody financially can afford that.

That's what's perfect about uh uh a concept of a municipal course or Westwood.

We want to make sure that everybody, no matter your your age, demographics, uh where you live, how much money you make, or what part of Talian.

Westwood's a great place for you to come and learn and play golf.

Our our green fees for kids are about seven dollars, and um, that's very affordable.

If you start talking about uh adults with cart, you're right right around uh $50 if you don't want to walk.

So also very affordable.

This is to give you a kind of comparison um trails, which is private and owe you uh well over $100 to play 18 holes.

So we want to make sure we maintain that and uh the affordability and also have a good product to provide to our public.

Uh when you start looking at the older infrastructure, especially our golf uh clubhouse, it's over 50 years old.

Uh it was designed at the same time of Oklahoma City golf courses by the same architect.

They all had the same form shape look.

Uh Oklahoma City is now, they don't have any of the old clubhouses left or renovating their last clubhouse.

So we're we're we're getting to that point where we're like the last of a dying breed here in the metro area, and it's not necessarily something that's to brag about.

So kind of want to go over uh as we worked with our steering group, and that was our main input we got from the public.

Uh our part board appointed the steering group.

So usually when we do a master plan, uh we do a uh a system where where the the council member in that ward nominate somebody along with the the park director.

Uh then we also let uh the user groups nominate somebody and along with the park board, and then we ended up with seven people that that we think was a pretty well-rounded group that had a lot of input on it.

This is the final uh design that we got back in through them.

This has been approved all the way through uh or given a recommendation from part board.

Uh when you start looking at our our older layout, uh you see our big tent right there, which is our indoor tennis that has two courts.

Uh, we think by the time we get to that, that was replaced in uh about 2018-2019.

By the time we probably get to this project, uh, if it is a norm forward uh two, just making a lot of assumptions there.

If that does get passed, we think we probably in sometime 2032, 2035 range of actually doing this.

So uh we're kind of at the 15-year point where that old tent structure is as probably about the beginning of its end of its lifespan.

So we're not necessarily doing something that's uh too crazy or taking out a new structure.

Those those temporary structures or tent structures are made for about 15 to 25 years.

Uh our clubhouse, like I said, it was put in, I believe, in the late 60s.

Uh so kind of expiring on there.

We also have way expired on that.

Um, we also have our golf maintenance, which is right next door to our clubhouse, which um I'm not sure if you can see, but uh you start getting up there just south of the the tent and tennis courts, that's where maintenance is and where clubhouse is.

Typically, you don't see your maintenance area by the clubhouse.

You want to keep that separate.

There's a lot of noise that comes along with it, kind of a lot of uns, you know, in your maintenance yard, you don't typically want people to uh see all the stuff that should be happening way in a hidden corner into a golf course.

But uh as we started working with our group, this is kind of what we uh this is what we came up with with a lot of input.

We we toured three different golf courses, including Kicking Bird, a couple of uh the new Oklahoma City courses.

We went there to early line right before it opened.

It was the same architect group which we used uh on this one.

As you can see, that if you start off at the upper right-hand corner, that's where golf maintenance is our proposing or to go.

We did have the old juvenile center there.

It was there for ever.

Um that recently got taken down uh about three or four years ago.

So we have an open lot right there.

There will be some work that needs to be done.

That's kind of on the corner of the floodplain, and we do have a little bit of a creek there.

So there um might might be some work that needs to be done in that course, make sure that that we still have water flow coming into the property.

But the main um focus on everything would be over here towards left.

Uh new pickleball uh facility right there on the top, right next to an indoor tennis that's four courts.

We have uh I believe eight pickleball courts that we go inside there, new uh clubhouse, same somewhat general area, but also tilted to uh uh angled to go back and towards a the driving range.

Uh golf cart storage, which we've talked about, uh even possibly having uh a place where you can go grab a beer or a sandwich directly out that window.

Uh in the clubhouse, uh discussions kind of gone back uh and forth between do we want a banquet area or do we want a restaurant?

Uh kicking bird when we went up there, they uh did have a restaurant.

They worked with a local restaurant tour up in Edmund that uh does a meal and a few other well-known restaurants around Oklahoma City.

Uh they uh they actually told us they're uh they pay about $50,000 a year in lease and then give back another 5% of the total revenue back to there.

So it's very good lucrative area for this uh the city, which is kind of would match somewhat similar in a neighborhood of what we more and what we produce off of uh uh net revenue right now.

But we would uh if we did that, we'd love to talk about the restaurant.

We put that to out the bid if we actually did put a restaurant in there.

Uh talk to council member Peacock about it.

He thinks uh that with a neighborhood being really close, that'd be a great advantage having a neighborhood restaurant in there where they can walk to.

Also, when you start talking about uh 24th and Robin's right there, that is uh one of the busiest intersections, of course, in the city.

So we get a lot of traffic, and as uh as we rearrange and kind of reposition the facility as a whole, we would have a new main entry, which we don't have an entry use.

You can clearly see right now from anywhere of Westwood.

It kind of got eventually tucked behind all this office development that happened in the 70s, kind of give us a new entrance and something that's actually viewable from the street view.

Uh have 12 uh 12 tennis courts uh right there, which is what we currently have have, which would keep us qualified for a lot of USTA events, um United States Tennis Association.

Uh uh everything else uh we'll kind of go over a little bit more as we kind of go to this next slide and you kind of get a little bit more close up shot of it.

Uh we'll have covered hitting T's uh for the driving range.

One of the cool things that that we recently found out uh uh they've had at Erling Line, which is uh the latest renovated course up in Oklahoma City.

They in May they did $60,000 in sales just for uh driving range tokens and just kind of give you a reasonable idea.

Uh $60,000 in one month is what they did previously before the renovation.

The biggest change that they had there was um covered tennis or excuse me, covered uh hitting ranges along with uh a the ability to light up the driving range at night.

We've kind of talked about that, and we don't know if that will enter, but if it does kind of enter, we uh or have the possibility of a lit driving range.

We would work with sports lighting, like a Moscow or or some kind of specialty sporting light company.

They are very good at uh at getting light in and kind of minimizing lighting light pollution.

And I meant to now that I'm talking about, I meant to add one of the pictures in there, but I can show everybody a little bit later, or I might be able to bring it up as we discuss.

But like when you go look at football fields or baseball fields or soccer fields or stuck middle neighborhoods, the the ability of you getting directional light from these sports lighting companies and how little light pollution that they're able to produce.

Well, I I mean it's amazing.

And I mean, very directive light LEDs, low-powered, and the way that they are able to guard it and not put light out onto a neighborhood it's kind of mind-blowing the technology of lighting, sports lighting that's kind of advanced over the past uh 10 years.

And the same thing uh over there when we start talking about uh tennis, uh currently it is right up against Robinson.

Uh moving it down and having indoor tennis and indoor pickleball uh up there.

It does give a a little bit one, it blocks the wind.

We have a lot of wind problems that kind of tear through our uh wind covers that we have out at uh tennis right now.

We have to replace those on a pretty regular basis.

Also, it'll help out a lot with the street noise.

It gets kind of loud as you can imagine.

Uh trying to play, you know, do your sport or your leisure thing out there as uh right next to uh ongoing traffic.

This is a kind of we like to try to connect this as well as we can.

We kind of wish that that uh that we would have if we can go back in a time machine, we would have loved to do a Westwood master plan before we we actually did the the swimming area, but uh we're trying to fit in everything in there as um good as we can.

Um we don't know what the architectural will necessarily look like to match what's going on at the swim.

Uh also uh we do have some challenges if we're talking about pedestrian traffic, trying to connect everything there in as you probably could figure out at the swim, especially during the summer.

We're packed out there over a hundred thousand people walk through those doors every summer.

Uh and most of them are kids, so we want to make sure that we figure out how to do this and protect protestrian traffic as much as possible.

Uh, when you start looking at that possible parking area on the back, uh, extra 138 spaces.

That was thought of as an area maybe to park some of our employees for both um golf and tennis during the what summer months, which is our super busy month, that have them parked and save as much parking as possible uh out there in front for for swimming or out there for tennis.

Did uh did go over a few other scenarios if needed.

Um, just kind of show you to when we do a master plan.

This is just a a concept basically to get us to uh an election if we have one, uh, and to fully give us a little bit more background and full knowledge of if what the public wants, and to a uh somewhat accurate cost estimation.

That was some of the stuff that when you remember back to some of our projects during the original Number Ford, our biggest problem is like construction was uh way more expensive than what we anticipated.

Uh lessons learned, we want to go through here and master plan for 30 to 50,000 dollars and go over a bunch of these projects and have a full concept and understanding of what the public wants, how it's gonna be built out, and then along with that, uh accurate cost estimation.

Uh the 30 to 50,000 that we spend on these plans um is a heck of a lot better than being 10 to 15 million dollars off when we actually uh draw this up and put it out to bid.

So it's part of the reason.

So uh just kind of showing you a little bit more options.

Uh it is possible to for more pedestrian flow, we could uh possibly move these tennis courts and have the 12 stacked right next up to the uh aquatics area, uh a little bit more on street parking.

Uh when you start talking about fairway drive right there on your your left side, and then that would open up a little bit more parking closer to the clubhouse, and I think that that might satisfy some of our golfers, which we've heard a little bit of uh feedback on that.

And two, it's also possible to do a little bit more rearranging to make sure that the flow between um golf, tennis, and swimming uh might work out a little bit better.

And and and two, as we start talking about, and I'll show you on the next slide, uh, that it's not necessary or a hundred percent as as we work through these projects, even though that this comes with an estimated 54 million dollar price tag, we haven't done a master plan yet where we've gotten fully funded uh for the whole project.

Usually these things will come in a couple of phases.

So uh just for instance, if you have 54 million dollar project, if a Norman Ford II as that goes to the election, or as we go to election, if there's 30 million dollars attached to that project or to the Westwood project, that's what we will build to.

So certain of the areas that this won't get completed on the first time, we would just kind of put that, do what we can for 30 million dollars just using pick numbers, by the way, it's not really what we're uh actually going to attach to this.

I have no clue.

But if it was 30 million dollars, we attach that 30 million dollars through there, and then we understand what we would need if we had another bond election to either finish this or whatever a delta would be.

Uh, this next slide is kind of making the the full assumption that if uh we did fully build out everything that showed up there in that corner, uh, there would have to be some slight changes on the golf course to kind of uh make sure that we satisfy whatever we have designed.

Uh the first one when you start talking about the practice range, uh, when you build a practice range in the late 60s in technology with golf changing now in the late 60s.

Uh if you were hitting 220, 250 yards, you're doing pretty good now.

Now I can, which uh I'm very amateur.

Um, if I get lucky every once in a while, I can easily hit 250 yards uh with the driver.

Um people that are really good are now knocking the uh hidden balls easily 300 yards.

Uh the practice range is not long enough, is basically the simple what I'm saying.

We have people that are flying over the range and going on to what is our our third hole right now.

So we would like to extend that range a little bit, make sure that there's a proper room that would have uh for how long people are hitting it now with the technology have with um golf clubs.

So a little bit of rearranging on some of that, so that would change a few of our holes.

We would uh swap one uh and and ten uh to kind of map match the fun shui that we would have with the golf clubs or golf club house being there, so we'd have one and eighteen um ending right next to the clubhouse.

And if we did add that additional parking, if we did, we would have to readjust number nine, which would still be a par three, and uh now instead of hitting towards the water park, we would hit um from east to west, or my bad, south to north.

Uh they also one of the big things that when we start talking about what would be ideal in a golf course if we got a little bit of redesign done is uh our maintenance group is very small.

We we have six full-time people out there that takes care of 120 acres, so it's very difficult for those six people to keep up with how much grass grows and um you know, mowing the greens on a daily basis, uh raking bunkers, keeping those bunkers up to up to a par there's drainage and all those, you have to go out there and rake it, you have to weed eat.

There's a lot of things that go with this.

So, one of our things when we start talking about the possibility of redoing that is how can we minimize maintenance?

Uh, one of the things that our the golf course designer was working on this project talked about is uh uh back in the uh 80s and 90s, it was a big trend to try to hide all of your creeks and everything because you start talking about a little bit different uh type of maintenance because you have to go down there and knock down the weeds and the grass growing on your creeks and ponds.

What they've discovered by burying everything that actually made it more difficult because you can't see where and you have a break.

You also um this ground is you're constantly driving over um in all kinds of wet conditions, dry conditions, you're driving over with golf carts.

It it is not good with what is happening underground.

So you have a lot of breaks and grounds shifting, you have a wet season like you did today.

There's a lot of things that that change naturally, which you can't really have a whole lot of saying.

So they're saying it's actually better to have all those creeks and um things where they're viewable.

So they're saying, Hey, let's take out on all the underground drainage and make everything um back to how it probably was originally.

So we were uh take out all the underground piping, open up our creeks.

We also talked about uh redoing our pond, basically doubling the size of water capacity that goes along with that, um, retrudging it, make sure that we're good for another 40 or 50 years along with that irrigation pond, and once again lessen our dependency on actually using Norman water with this.

Uh as much water uh so you imagine every time we irrigate, uh about 60 to 70 percent of that water, of course, goes in the ground, but we still have runoff that goes back into the creeks, and the idea of making sure getting everything going the right directions and draining the right way and getting slopes correctly, we were capture recapture a lot of our irrigation water and recapture it all the rainwater and a bunch of water that's coming off uh of the airport that ends up draining down towards Westwood.

These are this kind of a couple of the aerial looks that that go along with this, uh the not necessarily what the buildings will look like.

This is kind of uh matching the somewhat the metal roof look that we had going on at the aquatic center.

Uh this is uh if we had all the courts running uh east and west, kind of talking about a different configuration, if that's how we go in the future, uh completely different angle for that.

And kind of threw this out.

Uh, I think the last time we were there, if we did everything, we're talking about about 54 million dollars to redo everything in there.

And once again, uh there's not been one single master plan that that we did, at least with Norman Ford one, that we covered the whole cost of it.

We were all doing we did uh you go back and look at Griffin, which is probably if you third percentage on it, that's probably our highest percentage that we completed on any one of our norm four projects at the first time, and I would say we probably get about 60 percent of that.

So I would say, even in a best case scenario, um if we catch this up and you know, it does fall on Norm Ford 2, and we get 30, 35 million dollars attached to this project.

There's I don't think it's realistic to think that we're gonna get all 54 million dollars, even if we got 54 million dollars in 2030, you can kind of see where the escalation kind of kicks in.

You can kind of count on three percent of your your escalation on construction costs uh happening every single year.

So, and that's on a that's on a tame year.

I mean, when you started talking about 2020 when you went through COVID and then uh other world conflicts that happening, and you saw 30% going on in one year.

So we're trying to be conservative and hope hopefully it doesn't go too nuts.

And then when we talk about everything that would happen, um, just like any other facility, parts and rec would um keep on operating this internally, as that would happen, we would work with the neighborhood, we would work with user groups, uh, we would come up with a brand new business plan, uh, figure out how many people, because we think it would change because by investing all this in there, I think that you start talking about your revenue, start changing uh the amount of people you need to work there, we'll start changing uh everything from operations to maintenance.

We would redo a business plan, try to figure out as best as we can of what that business plan would look like, and then when we start talking about an operations plan that would fit inside of a uh business plan, would how would we operate?

What would our hours be?

What would it look like if we had a lighted uh driving range?

Um, would we uh what events that we would have?

What can we do to make sure that we don't conflict or disturb our neighbors that live around West?

Would uh what fits in better?

Is it a banquet hall?

Is it a restaurant?

This is all stuff that we don't know yet.

But as we start looking at this, we um and if it does come fruition, we want to make sure that we work with council and work with our neighbors and we work with the resident groups and user groups to develop a business plan and an operations plan.

It's me talking for way too long.

Um love to take any questions.

No, I appreciate you uh coming back and presenting some of this.

I mean, I think you and I met privately, and I expressed some of my concerns, but I'll just I'm gonna throw them out there so everybody kind of knew what where my pressure points were.

But um, from the neighborhood perspective, they were concerned with sound and light coming from the driving range or anything that's you know operating kind of after dark, so making sure that we put reasonable hours on those and some guardrails around it to ensure that yeah, there's it's not intrusive to the neighborhood.

Um the parking that was uh just south, I guess southeast.

Um that additional parking that we talked about staff, there was concerns about that, and so I pitched the idea to you, uh Jason about maybe shifting that to on street parking along uh fairway drive there, you know, same amount of parking spaces, just kind of pulling them out away from the soft edge between the water park and you know the golf course there.

Uh personally, I really would like to see a stronger pedestrian connection.

You know, I mentioned that if you line up the front door of the pickleball facility with the front door of the swim complex and made that kind of a pedestrian access that went north and south and then doubled that with an east-west access that led basically between the tennis courts to the golf club house, trying to keep all pedestrian circulation in the middle, all the vehicular traffic to the outside.

Um that should come as no shock to anybody who's knows me.

Uh, but other than that, I mean I think it's a really solid plan.

Um I love the idea of providing a restaurant amenity.

I mean, I mentioned you know, I live close to here, and I would walk to this restaurant whether I'm playing golf or tenants or not.

I think it would be used by the neighborhood and other people uh quite a bit, regardless if they're there to play golf.

So um I think that I do think the hitty the covered hitting tease would be really popular and also a great thing.

Just gotta make sure we put the kind of guardrails on it that keeps the neighborhood happy or keeps them from getting upset.

I guess is the bad way of doing it.

So um outside of that though, I mean I think it's a great plan.

I just there's there's some things to be teased out, and we actually do the full uh design of it, but that's where I was coming from.

Happy to take uh any questions or thoughts from anybody else.

Council member Peacock, at the uh one of the things that we wanted to talk about too, is when talk about fairway drive.

When we redid the water park, uh there was talks about taking uh fairway drive back through the neighborhood and uh and taking traffic through there to another light.

Just want to know, want everybody to know that that there's zero percent chance of us ever bringing that up again or talk about that again.

Can you repeat the percentage?

Zero.

Thank you.

There it is not gonna happen.

Um the uh everybody thinks that they've been this scary neighborhood meetings.

I would promise you as a staff member that was one of the scariest ones I've been to.

So I alluded to you how one of the reasons I ran for council originally six years ago was that issue right there.

I got a lot of a lot of hot neighbors on it.

So when you start talking about uh the possibilities and uh and exiting out of the park, uh one of the ones that we kind of look at is right here, like T Drive.

Uh, we do have a lighted intersection right here.

So hopefully at some point in time we can figure out how to gain this access and take out this roundabout and connect that back to Fairway Drive, and it'll be a possibility to have a safe south exit from the park.

And you start talking about everything else.

I would um we still need a traffic uh setting.

And I got all of our all of our friends from public works in here, and I will I like to say I'm an engineer, but I'm a fun engineer.

That means I have nothing to do with math.

Um I would make an assumption that this would be a right turn only, and we would have an entry over here.

Still discussion trying to figure out uh how this turn in right over here between uh the bank and uh mattress store, how that would work out, and we still have your traditional entry into uh the park or main entry, or what is the main entry right now?

You know, the main entry once again would shift up to Robinson.

But traffic study has not been done yet.

Thank you.

Customer Grant.

Um, yeah, I was doing a little late.

I don't know if you talked about it.

I don't know if you talked about it, and I know I sent it, and there was some discussion back and forth between a word to constituent about restoring Merkle Creek as much as possible.

Um still in the plans to do that.

I think what cool thing, I think to that you start talking about, especially being a parks department project, we want to get back to everything being as natural as possible.

I think that you you went through a different kind of trend 30 years ago where they were um not so much worried about natural looks, they were worried about efficiency.

I think we found out that there's not a whole lot of efficiency being saved by doing some of the underground stuff, and we prefer and our we know our constituents prefer um as much as possible the natural looks.

So, yes, as much as we can restore our creeks and waterways as much as possible.

Yes, we want to restore this.

We can't think he was honing in on the fact that kids used to play in the creek, and he'd like to see that happen again someday.

So, again, for the neighborhoods, and that would probably be off site because we don't you know you don't want kids running around with golf balls flying in the golf course.

My kids definitely play in Merkel Creek.

Yeah, mayor home button homes called you council.

Um so I do like the idea of the street parking along fairway there and not doing that parking lot down there if possible.

Um, and then yeah, reorienting and having tennis courts right there at the south end, and maybe having having more parking there in between.

But if we do that, I think I definitely agree that prioritizing the pedestrian connection between all three of the facilities or tennis golf pool pool.

Um, and uh being able to go from one into the other and trying to line up the entrances a bit that I think is a good idea too.

And then uh wherever possible, having the raised, I think that's what those lighter raised crossing there, uh crosswalk.

Um so really just prior prioritizing pedestrian um connections through the whole park, and uh um and then you mentioned before that the orientation of the tennis facility.

I mean, it does depend on the MSA station and um uncertain whether they will sell it or give it up or anything like that.

There's we own it.

There is uh that property belongs to to Westwood.

So the the uh lease or agreement with them.

There's back again.

There's we've went went through and tried to find an agreement that best we can tell there was a handshake agreement at some point in time, but being a good partners and with them being uh you know, normal region being a trusted city, we would definitely be working with them to find a solution to replace the MSA station somewhere else.

Um so that isn't something we'd hold it up, other than we don't want to just kick them out uh in other spots.

So okay.

I would think uh ambulance service is a higher priority than so the connection to Robinson right there on fairway.

Um that would just be a matter of whether traffic engineers think it's something we should do.

Correct.

Okay, uh, I definitely like the connection to the um T's T circle, the cul-de-sac down there.

I think that's good.

Um I mentioned too, I know the current plan or idea would be to remove the playground at Westwood, but it'd be cool to still have one somewhere around in there in the middle of our kids sit on.

Maybe not next to Robinson like the current one is, but somewhere around there to still have some kind of playground that's not the pool destroy.

So I see some people out at that park sometimes on that playground.

So other than that, uh agree with Councilman Peacock that uh um pretty good plan overall and doesn't, like you said, doesn't have to be all done in one big chunk.

Maybe you know, multiple years of phases and stuff, so and it may evolve as that goes through, I assume.

So and is there, especially if we don't do that parking lot there on the bottom.

Um is that give some more room or possibility for expansion of the water park in the future before slides or something or that that's a really good question.

And if we were expanding, what would we be expanding the pool?

So we already when we did this renovation uh in 2016, 17.

We have uh underground piping that's already installed into the park in this area right here.

Uh the original idea would be some kind of slides.

Uh we've talked about the possibility of uh like a flow rider, which is the surfing machines.

Uh all that's possible.

And that would be in this little area right here, and that's even plumbed, and we have uh it's stubbed up inside the pump house.

So all you have to do is get the feature in whatever that is, and put motors in the pump house, and we're actually ready to roll on that one.

Um but yeah, any any expansion for for the water park would be right here in this little corner right there.

And but if we don't do it over here, if we don't put this over here, of course, we could there's always a possibility of adjusting it and putting some up on top there.

Yeah, I mean, I like the idea of rearranging the course some and having holes be different and changing it up uh as part of the plan to really play golf, but uh I think it'd be cool to change it up like that.

Um, and then fairway drive from the neighborhood where it goes to that cola second dead ends.

What is the purpose of that road?

Is it used for anything?

So that would be turned into a pedestrian.

David might be able to answer this a little bit more than I can, but they seven houses.

It face it on the driveway west side of it.

That's okay.

I wasn't sure if that was their old 24th, and I think that used to curve all the way back around up to Robinson.

Yeah, okay.

So we built the park, we cut it off.

Yeah, okay.

I also mentioned too the uh the and I forget to talk about this.

Like our six or seven maintenance guys, the plan the plan would be to close down the Westwood completely for uh probably around a year to do the renovation, but there'd be a lot of savings because we'd be using our our maintenance guys as a construction crew to go through there and work and put them to work doing some of the work, which is not there.

The golf course pool instead of yeah, the the pole does not stay up the golf course.

Uh it wouldn't infect the poll, the pole would be open in its regular schedule, the golf course would be closed, and we would also need to figure out a phasing uh time to make sure that we disrupt tennis the minimum amount of possible so uh probably start in the winter and move the court or move the tennis courts because we I we can get the tennis courts, outdoor tennis courts done relatively quick.

That's where we're right.

Uh yeah, I was gonna say speaking of like what the public would support.

Could we do surveys like we did for the bridge bond where we kind of give them a selection of do you want to pay it over 10 or 20?

Not quite like bridge bond, but you know what parts do you want to see first?

And what are you willing to support uh for this?

Yeah, uh I believe that would happen.

Uh there's a group that's working on North Ward 2, and they're trying to put together a what I would call a diverse package of all kinds of different projects, and before we would go to vote, I would hope we that we would work on surveying through the city to find out what's a priority because if you want to put together the best package and attach the the projects and the amounts to those projects that are most likely to get a yes vote.

We we would hope to do that.

I remember they did Westwood the swimming complex.

Um there's very much it.

They gave us a menu of items, and it was like, Do you want big slides?

Do you want a lazy river?

Do you want all you know, and kind of mailed in absolutely mailed in what the priorities were, and so and I think that informed I think we got what the residents voted for on that one.

So well, there's no other questions.

I mean, do you have what you need from us at this point?

Yeah, uh from what I understand that we're good to go, maybe add the slide in there that we this extra slide, and then also with the notations that we talked about pedestrian traffic, it needs to be a priority along with um connecting areas from pickleball down to the swim complex and maybe even a triangle of the golf course clubhouse connected to that.

Yeah, yeah, we'll make those notes.

Excellent.

I appreciate the presentation.

All right, um, item number two is a discussion regarding the small developer training sponsorship proposal.

And I don't know that we have a presentation or is this open discussion?

Open discussion.

Okay.

Hi, well, I'll go ahead, I'll launch this because this was an idea that I brought to the retreat.

So I'm uh I'm pretty familiar with what we're talking about here.

Uh essentially what this is is a proposal from the incremental development alliance, uh, which is a group that trains and equips small scale developers to go do um small scale development.

Um they have um a menu of offerings where they can do lectures, they can do workshops, they can do boot camps.

Um I am proposing that we do all three uh with the City of Norman being the anchor sponsor for the entire slate.

Um we would need to find a series of sponsors to make up the delta on the fee.

I've got a good handful already, um, feel really confident that we can make up the difference and whatever the fee is.

But really, the goal is um they would come in and they would do the first step would be a lecture uh for 200 to 300 people where we would talk about what incremental development is, try to equip people with some language, some common vocabulary to go out and you know start talking about this stuff.

Um, those that were interested from that initial lecture, we would do a full day workshop for 100 to 150 people where we would take theme conversations and kind of expand on them a little bit.

And the final step would be to do a full-on boot camp.

And this boot camp would be from anywhere from 35 to 50 people where we would teach them zoning, teach them how to do a pro forma, teach them how to do a bank preparation, teach them how to do the pitch, teach them basically equip um, like I said, 35 to 50 small-scale developers to go out and do really cool infill projects in Norman.

And so um I always like to talk about Cameron Brewer and the standard uh because Cameron Brewer was a graduate of the Inkdev boot camp.

Um, and I think the standard was a product of that experience.

Going through that, being equipped with a small developer, showed him what you can and what you can't do, um, and we have the standard as a result of it.

And my kind of um very optimistic view if we could train 35 to 50 Cameron Brewers to go out and do 35 to 50 more standards in Norman.

I mean, I think we're really we're really on to something.

And so it's you know, this is the small scale developer, this is not the big home developer, this is not the guy that's gonna build, you know, 10-story condo building on Main Street.

It's the small infill kind of one-off projects.

But equipping our own residents to go and do those things versus hoping that an outside developer is gonna come in and do those in Norman, I think is a much better, more sustainable approach.

And um, if we only got 50 projects, it'd be a success.

But I think that these people would be doing project after project after project.

So council member Grant.

Uh yeah, I think this is really cool.

Uh one of the things I was looking at is the in-press and pitch session and optional supplier showcase.

Yes.

And I honed in on it because it sounds like it would help emerging developers encounter the full ecosystem, which includes financing.

And on that note, there are there's somebody in Tulsa that does a CDFI that is interested in central Oklahoma.

So I think that would be really cool because they really cater to uh social good projects, but also looking to help like the smaller developers, not for the big home builder.

Um, and I think it would open an opportunity to have a diverse pool.

That's I mean, that's really where I'm coming from, the diverse pool, because you know, developer, small developer A has got different passions than B, and you know, maybe one person does a restaurant, the other person does a cool, you know, small family housing type project.

I think there's a lot of a lot of opportunities, yeah, to get some diversity in the type projects we see, not just the same thing built over and over.

Yeah, so it sounds like that's optional.

Is that something like how do we just say we want to do it?

It just increased cost, you know, so we'd have to find probably find a sponsor to pick up that piece.

Um, I tried to really just pick the base three because I knew that was a tangible dollar amount.

Um, and felt like we got a lot of bang for our buck with that.

But I do think it would be super helpful to encounter the people that you could work with to actually make it happen.

I agree.

Like at the end of it.

Uh yeah, the ongoing support, yeah.

So how quickly are you thinking?

Like just as soon as we can locate identified funding or pretty much, yeah.

Um we had discussed or I had discussed with the Inkdev crew um potentially a mid-October kickoff with the workshop following four to six weeks after that and the boot camp four to six weeks after that.

So trying to build some momentum before the end of the year.

Uh so I'm gonna ask Jane.

So Jane, with the I know we have our RFPs that you guys are scoring next week.

Thank you.

Um, would there be huge?

Do you see a big difference like if we go now versus okay, we adopt all the new zoning and subregs a year from now or a year and a half from now.

Would we start all over again with the new process?

No, actually, I want to hear your answer.

But my thought on this is that you equip not just the 35 to 50, but the 200 to 300, and then we let that inform some of the updates to the zoning ordinance because if we teach all these skills and then our policies and ordinance don't line up with the skills that we've taught, we've basically wasted our time.

And so if we identify what the skills are and then set our policies and ordinance in such a way that I'm not saying removes the barriers, but gets out of the way a little bit.

Um can we back up just one step?

Who do you see organizing the seminars or that the workshops and stuff like that?

That would be the incremental development faculty.

Okay.

Because I'm concerned with the staff that I have that will be involved in what we're doing for the RFPs right now.

Right.

I don't have a lot of bandwidth at that point.

So I want to be a hundred percent supportive of this.

I just don't know who you want on this side to be supporting the incremental development alliance as they come in.

I think that would be at whatever level you're capable of, like whatever bandwidth we do have.

To me, this is not a to me, the city is a sponsor.

This isn't necessarily a city committee, and so I don't expect city staff to necessarily have to run it.

Um we would just be the anchor sponsor at the top of the pyramid in hopes that all the education and everything that we're doing helps us inform the things that we're doing in the city.

So I don't want to assign somebody something that you know, but I know we have somebody that's very invested in the community in the uh retail community that works for the city of Norman and would have a million contacts that could reach out to those individuals and stuff like that.

I think she would be fantastic.

I think that that would be an awesome support.

I agree, I agree.

Um but I would love to talk to Shannon and you know, we can figure out some more stuff that the whole idea here is to not overburden city staff.

I know we got just got off aim, you guys are probably still dealing with that trauma, and so like we gotta very cognizant of like we're moving this along, but not putting it all on your plate so far.

Yeah, I mean, I think that there's several people on staff that would be great to be that support layer as they come through, but I do think it would be them that would be taking the lion's share of um well announcements and recruitment and and so on and so forth.

That's where the costs come in.

They'll do all the marketing, they'll do all the scheduling, all the all the travel, all the coordination, everything.

So yeah.

Okay.

So we can get with Anthony and Daryl.

Okay, awesome.

That's my great.

Okay, and then just thinking about it a year from now, like people that they have gone, gotten formed, now they're going home doing their homework, then we adopt new zoning and subregs next July or after July.

After July.

Okay.

Yeah.

So but I I think, and I could be wrong.

I mean, I was reading reading this and everything, um the things that they'll be teaching and educating isn't so much zoning, but it's all of the layers that are outside of that, and hopefully the zoning and the subregs that we get are going to be very easy.

That's that anybody would be able to pick it up.

And so if they have that financial information, if they have the plating information or whatever they needed on that side, they would be able to pick up the zoning code and it would just really mesh easily for them.

Right.

So I'm thinking, you know, and just during the boot camp when people are right.

So in the boot camp, you will be working through an actual project.

You'll have a piece of land, project type, they'll put together the pro forma, help you go sell it to a bank, get financing and everything.

And so during that process, if 15 of the small developers in that group say, well, we're running up against this.

This is the thing that's keeping us from doing our project.

Then we come and tell you, well, maybe we need to really look heavy at that one piece of the ordinance.

And so we're the red flags that are coming up over and over again, and this is what we need to get.

What are the roadblocks?

And you know, we only know that by teasing them out in reality.

We can talk about it in theory all day, but you know, it's like the guys, the the people doing the work boots on the ground.

And you know, it's no secret.

Um Norman has gotten a reputation being difficult to develop in, and we're doing everything we can to fight that narrative.

So yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, we may we'll do some kind of a a rebate for the the additional sponsors we find to help fund this.

Like if they do a project in Norman, kind of give them some of their some of their money back, um, as a refund if they're you know, to really incentivize doing these projects in Norman.

Is there's would we have any kind of a mechanism?

Um I think there is a way that you can yes, I don't have the answer, but yes, I think that there is a way to do it.

And the idea is that we are training Norman residents.

Right.

It's not we're not recruiting people for more or city to come down here.

This is we're gonna have an open application process.

You know, these it starts with the two to three hundred people in the lecture, then you whittle that down to the hundred, and then you will that down to the people that are really serious and really want to do the projects.

And so at that point, if you do a project in Norman, I think there's a way to do what you're describing.

I just don't have the answer for you.

But with the way I I've kind of reconciled it in my head.

Um, I think whatever money we spend on this process, we will make that back in the sales tax generated by the materials alone on the first project that gets better.

Yeah, and then we would make money on the second project and the third project, and you know, then they're bringing amenities and then those businesses or whatever's in those buildings, they're creating sales tax.

It's just spend money to make money with customer group.

Uh on that note, maybe they're if they take it and we're talking about all the processes of the city.

Uh we could talk about TIFFs and we already have uh implementation plans coming on the center city one, but that's one where if somebody was taking this, they would have an in where maybe others don't understand how they could get some of that money.

Yeah.

So even if they don't get a rebate, they have an opportunity to get in on a pot of money that other people are overlooking.

Right.

You have to be willing to do a project to access the money.

And so, like if people are if we have more people doing more projects, then I think that's totally viable.

All right, anybody else?

I I think the idea is a great idea, and it's really cool.

Um, but I do the uh anchor sponsor press tech gives me a little bit of part burn.

So I'll just put that out.

It's uh it's a large amount of money.

Uh it's $50,000.

I mean, not gonna don't need to hide that or anything, but uh like I said, I think it's money invested in ourselves.

So also I was curious about the community, because I was writing down it's like investors, lenders, those are all Norman people that we're hoping to bring in community members.

I was reading through their stuff on their website, so that could be neighborhood leaders.

Um could you where would the overlap be?

I mean, just as a neighborhood leader, what do you think they would get out of it?

Uh I think it's like I said, it's anybody that's wanting to develop a small project.

You do not have to be a developer or a banker or an architect or any have no formal training.

That's the idea here is that we will equip everyday citizens to go be that, you know, so somebody wants to do an airbnb.

Well, I mean, seriously, it's eight ADU is a great small infill project.

I mean, I think that's absolutely I have heard from the community that the cost um and even knowing how to like go after that financing is uh stumbling block for them because that's not their background, right?

So it's really hard to come by this knowledge if you how do I say this?

The barrier to entry is very high.

I'll just put it that way.

Yeah, whether that's financial barriers, physical barriers, knowledge barriers, um, skill barriers.

Like this is the whole idea is to knock down all of those and make it easier.

So October.

That's the trying to aim.

We that's the next one, isn't it?

I re I look I think there's one coming up in October.

I think so.

Yeah, we we tried to balance with the football schedule, and I think October 15th, 16th was a week that there was either not a game or an away game that didn't match.

I shouldn't say that.

An away game that might not be heavily attended by Norman residents.

So it would be something to do in town.

So all right.

Well, if anybody uh nobody else has anything to discuss on that, um happy to talk next steps with staff, kind of figure out what you know what that looks like.

But um if that's