On the agenda today, starting with the approval in the minute.

Do have a motion to approve the minutes from December 22nd.

So moved.

We have enough people to leave.

All right.

We'll postpone the minute for a moment.

And then we have forum.

Next up are the chairs announcements.

I only have one brief enactment.

You'll notice the rearrangement of the room.

I wanted to make sure that the first and second chair were up here with me so that we have opportunities for everybody to start up experience leading the meetings.

And if I happen to be out, we're having a good place to switch.

So folks, let me know if you like this as this goes on.

It will mean more of us have to shift a little bit when we have free invitation.

So they're all good in life.

But that would be only update from me.

And now we can go to the director's house.

As you all probably followed, the city, the uh new members of the city council were recently adducted.

Um and so as part of uh that process, um uh the mayor's office is uh sort of taking a lead on uh topic-based briefings.

Um and so PED is getting pulled in some of those.

Um one of those that I'm aware of coming up soon is there's a housing, sort of everything housing related uh briefing, um, and that is um being spearheaded by uh Department of Safe Units of Actions.

Uh so there's a presentation emerging uh that will be um have reports from um from DSI from um Office of Technology Communications from you know PED variety of departments.

So I'll be uh participating a little bit in that as well as uh obviously the housing director in our department.

Um another announcement is uh we work closely with the Capitol um area architecture and planning board, the CAP, uh which has jurisdiction uh for um planning and zoning in the CAP area, uh which is includes the Capitol uh Marion to remember the other boundary on the east, up to Pennsylvania down to the northern part of downtown.

Um and you all have probably followed that uh they uh the CAP uh uh area received uh quite a bit of funding this last session for a variety of different activities, everything from infrastructure related to Rice Street, Lower Rice Street to a capital area vitality task force.

Um uh and all of that is beginning the whole of those processes, but one of them is uh related to the Capitol Mall.

So they're creating a um a design framework for the Capitol Mall.

Uh so have a consultant on board, um Sasaki, and um they uh given the nature of the funds, they have to do all of this work very quickly.

Um they have to have basically the the design framework done in May.

Um, and they just came on board uh the latter project last year.

Um so um to to sort of find a way to incorporate public input quickly, uh they've decided to do uh a design charette, essentially uh a series of workshops over the course of just a few days to um pull in community um uh technical kind of experts, agencies, state agencies, uh representatives, um, and uh of course the city of St.

Paul.

And so um that uh design charrette is going to be held February 5th to February 8th during the day.

Um I've been told uh the most important day uh is February 6th in terms of uh participation.

Um and it's actually uh not just uh up to St.

Paul thing, but given that it's the Capitol Mall, it's there you know, like the goals to get input from people throughout the state.

So there's opportunities to do a survey and participate online, there's opportunities to go there in person.

Um there's a charette, there's a session in the morning and session in the afternoon.

So staff were trying to figure out how to attend that and participate in different ways.

Um we have been kind of plugging in as we can throughout the process.

The kind of theme is connect, preserve, and activate uh and grow the Minnesota Capitol Mall.

So thinking about you know design features and sort of again activation of that going forward.

Um so um I can send you more information about that um if you're interested.

Um just take longer than I thought.

So then on uh January 24th um coming up week next week we have um there'll be a city council meeting and as you all know I think uh Peter Warner who's been our um scientist city attorney for planning zoning and heritage preservation is going to be retiring at the end of the month so we are going to be um honoring him at that meeting uh with the city council and uh just wanted to share that in in the case you wanted to show up and sort of um celebrate his uh his career uh officially with the city council um uh the three what does council start we say three 330 330 okay thank you yeah thank you for that on uh january 24th in the council chambers um then um uh I've also been in communication with our um our former chair uh Luis and Morales he is as you know on paternal leave uh given the the arrival of their baby um we had uh had a pending item to sort of have a celebration of of his um service and contributions um and so uh he's told me he's very flexible given that he's on leave uh pretty much any afternoon uh was was gonna throw out a couple of dates uh February 15th or February 20th in the afternoon so one the first is a Thursday February 15th the second is Tuesday February 20th um I don't know if folks have their calendars handy I can send this out and or we can do a dual poll to see which would work better or if there's another uh option we can we can explore that but I wanted to bring that up again um see um uh if folks are interested in that and then lastly um just wanted to remind everybody our next meeting on February 2nd is our annual meeting so we have um we have normally uh normally that's a pretty full meeting but we have especially full meeting this time so we have uh two um committee recommendation uh two comprehensive neighborhood planning committee recommendations um uh to to release for public hearing we have the bike plan public hearing uh that has been set and we have um the annual report our 2023 work plan program that we're evaluating and then our 2024 work programming to uh talk group uh so um just wanted to let you know that ahead of time so um you could plan accordingly that is it sorry chair that's what no those are wonderful updates um i think i just have one note on the the february 20th because it's the week of the holiday i don't know if there are lots of parents or other people that might be out of town um so that might just be something for us to think about uh for that what holiday is that uh president's day is that week so if schools are closed I know county offices are closed um so we could check in on folks for that um and then if you have other um calendar updates or you have notes on the the February 15th please let me snow um all right and then we're gonna go back to item number one approval of the minutes from December 22nd um can I get a new motion for a minute so moved second okay second night hood um so the minutes uh have been motioned and seconded um do a vote all those in favor all those opposed all right uh the minutes are passed and then we're going to move on um so I know for zoning committee a board item um the new business was laid over um I don't know if the chair um let's see we are we are light on zoning committee members today um if the former chair would like to give brief update I was not able to be actually at the meeting but we're having some province can or district um I will look at commissioner hood um I know the item laid over so this should be a brief update as the one sole member not wanting to lay over the item I will happily discuss so we have a a small auto shop that's across from roosters on Randolph and Chatsworth.

The building has been vacant for over a year so they need to update their conditional use um staff recommended um approval um I guess it would be a continuation of the conditional use um of use that is approved in RM2 which I believe is the zoning but uh zoning committee members wanted to add some conditions to that the property is somewhat deteriorated and there's some issues with um potentially the site um such as a driveway um there's some issues with the fence a budding next to the uh the a neighbor's property as well as um just running adjacent to the sidewalk or the public right of way so uh the item was laid over to discuss further and uh that will be discussed at further meetings so you'll see it in a few weeks probably thank you commissioner hood excellent update for someone unprepared to give the update thank you uh commissioner or sort of just a novice question so a property that's been uh over year how did that attention come to the committee was the city guad and

So uh the item was laid over to discuss further, and uh that will be discussed at further meetings.

So you'll see it in a few weeks probably.

Thank you, Commissioner Hutt.

Excellent update for someone unprepared to give the update to that.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Ortega.

I sort of just a novice question.

So a property that's been uh vacated for over a year.

How did that attention come to the committee?

Does the city guad know all the properties that have been vacated for over a year and don't get attended to, or does it how does it come to us?

Commissioner Ortega, normally I would take uh the opportunity to try to answer here, but because we have uh the zoning administrator here, uh it might be a convenient time for me to provide the comment.

Thanks, Commissioner.

Um so the use is non-conforming in the district where it is, so the auto use is located in a residential district.

Um at some point in time that use was allowed in that location with the zoning changed.