Yes, sir, I can hear you.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

We hear you loud and clear.

Thank you so much.

Do I have to use this one?

I have always wanted to do that.

All right.

So welcome everybody to our work studies session today.

Council meetings can be watched in real time via Cox Cable Channel 11 and at Tempe.gov forward slash Tempe11.

Members of the public may also attend the meeting through virtually through Microsoft Teams.

Guidelines for conduct at City Council meetings are on the table near the entrance for those in attendance at tonight's meeting.

We will now play a video with the proper protocol for ensuring the appropriate conduct at City Council meetings.

Behavior that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of any city council meeting is not helpful and is not permitted.

This includes behavior both inside and outside of the council chambers.

Should individuals inside the council chambers become disruptive so that city business is not able to be conducted.

If there is no cooperation after asking and two verbal warnings, then the mayor will ask security officers to remove only those individuals who are causing the disruption.

Security personnel should not engage in any way, but only escort them from the council chambers.

If individuals refuse to leave, security personnel shall warn them that they are trespassing and that the next step will be arrest by a Tempe police officer.

Tempe officers may have to arrest if individuals refuse to leave.

Charges for trespass and disorderly conduct may apply, as well as other charges.

Should anyone be asked to be removed, the mayor will recess the meeting.

Councilmember Woods, um, our mayor woods.

Good as I just demoted him.

It only took five minutes.

Sorry about that, Mayor.

Umorts is online, and Councilmember Keating um had surgery, and he will not be attending this meeting right now today.

Before we move um into the call for um to the audience portion of the meeting, I want to take a moment to address campaign-related activity, especially as we are now in the 2026 election season.

City council meetings are open to the public and are a vital form of civic engagement.

We welcome all individuals, including candidates to speak on matters of public concern during the public comment portion of the meeting.

However, because this is an official city council meeting that is both televised and live streamed using city resources.

We ask all candidates, including any current council members, to refrain from electiering or campaign-related activity while participating in this meeting.

That means no discussing your candidacy, asking for votes or signatures, or displaying campaign materials such as signs, t-shirts, or literature while you are speaking.

Thank you for helping us maintain the integrity and neutrality of our public meetings.

So the city council welcomes public comment at this time for the issue review session and committee of the whole items on this work study session agenda.

There is a three-minute time limit per speaker.

And as of right now, I have one speaker, David Sokoleski.

Do you have him online?

All right, David, you can go ahead and unmute and mute, unmute or moot.

Hello, can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can.

Okay, my name is David Sokoloski.

I live in Tempe.

Tempe's efforts to reduce homelessness won't be a long-term solution unless the city reduces the housing shortage.

Seniors are going to be 80% of the homeless population because Social Security doesn't meet the income requirements to rent an apartment.

Tempe's data shows we need to preserve 11,000 lone communits, and we shouldn't wait for people to end up on the street because they can't meet the requirement.

Tempe loves data until it's inconvenient, and then it's time to ignore it.

The city needs to reserve needs 15,000 loan communities today, and we need to prioritize it.

The city isn't planning for the future, but I'm estimating 15,000 more.

That means the city needs to preserve or create at least 41,000 units.

That's my medium estimate, but at least I'm trying.

That's more than the city of Tempe.

One thing is very clear.

Another thing, achieving the desired outcome is absolutely all about the money.

When the city accelerated pavement, we put 5 million, and then it was increased to 7 million.

Now the city is spending 200 million to pave every street, and some people still want more.

Council members Adams and Keating, do you want us to pave every street every single year?

I'm laughing when the city says we can't spend all our money in one place.

That's ironic.

Seven million is more than hometown for all.

And you voted to cut that in half.

The city needs to preserve 11,000 lone communits and create at least 6,000 more.

We're going to need 30,000 to 40,000 by 2050.

We need to create long-term low-income housing and prevent people from living on the street, particularly seniors.

Failing to do it will have a political cost at the state and national level.

Ignoring this problem is like filling buckets of water on a sinking boat.

You can continue dumping people in Mesa, but we're never going to fix the problem.

We have 11,000 households at risk.

Tempe could overwhelm all of Maricopa County.

Tempe has a responsibility to fix its own housing shortage.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Mr.

Sokoleski.

Do we have any other um con cards?

Kara.

Sorry, thank you.

We do have one more comment card, uh, but there is written the topic on here is not what we have on the agenda for the work study session.

Um, but we do have open comment at our council meeting at six o'clock.

So uh is David uh is the one.

Yeah, so we don't have open comment uh during the work study session, but if you can be here at six o'clock, we do have open comment at the beginning of our council meeting, and we can address your your comments at that time.

Thank you, sir.

So is there anyone else in the audience who would like to address a council meeting on an agenda item?

If so, get my attention.

All right, we don't have any other ones.

We will go ahead and move on to um item number three A, the results of our strategy tool for aligning resources for Tempe.

That is our start um program in Widell Homes for the Street Strategic Management and Innovation Director will give us a presentation.

Thank you, Idell.

Thanks, Jason.

I appreciate it.

That's it.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Vice Mayor Garland and Council, Widell Home Strategic Management and Innovation Office.

I am here tonight to share with you the results of your start tool, which is a tool that we utilize at the beginning of our budget process to start an early conversation for aligning resources for Tempe.

As you recall and as our community knows that we have five thematic strategic priority areas.

So I just like to remind people of those.

And our performance measures are what operationalize each one of those.

We have over 100, we have 101 performance measures that you reviewed during the start tool exercise that you did following the November 13th work study session.

We appreciate all of you completing that exercise on time so that we could do our analysis and calculations and provide that in your packet tonight.

Tonight, the uh purpose is to identify those measures that you would like for us as a staff team to accelerate during our performance-led budgeting process, as well as to move over into our TIMP accelerates program, which is putting a hyper focus on the strategies and the cadence on which we want to achieve the performance measures.

Performance-led budgeting is really about looking at the outcomes that we'd like to achieve as an organization for our community, our businesses, our residents, and our visitors, as well as creating innovative and predictive and influential, influenzable strategies that move us towards the outcome.

When an acceleration model is established by your identification of a performance measure, we work with strategy partners and the performance measure owners for collaborations and partnerships.

We also emphasize uh exercises and shifting resources, which as you know for a government is always very hard to do and difficult.

So, because of that, we are not putting an emphasis on additional funding.

So we don't always want to add funds where we actually maybe have different or smarter strategies that can be informed by data, by best practices, by innovation, and things that perhaps maybe Tempe has not tried.

So our team will work with the performance measure owners and their strategy partners as you direct us in regards to the accelerated models.

For today, uh our analysis uh resulted in five performance measures rising to the top five.

Uh, feeling of safety in parks, safety in neighborhoods, ending homelessness, tree and shade canopy, as well as quality of business services.

These were identified by having your collective highest totals, your averages, points from at least four council members, as well as highest median score.

So those are some of the attributes that are identifying these five as the top five.

As a reminder, um, we again will develop strategies.

We'll bring them back at the March 23rd work study session in the new year, and we will already begin integrating these teams with our TAP program.

Wanted to just share that the start tool is just the beginning of the conversation.

We developed this a few years ago for early discussion with city leadership and mayor and council and vice mayor, Garland.

Um, so the start tool results do not preclude you from changing the order of acceleration for the performance measures.

It is just an early tool.

Um, while we gave you a theoretical $100 to distribute across the 101 performance measures, these were not an allocation of resources at this stage.

And so I just want to remind everybody of that that this is really trying to give us some narrower focus on where you want us to direct our energies over the next few months regarding developing strategies.

One of the best practices is to narrow your focus to three to five, because then we can start to achieve them with excellence.

We will continue to work on achieving our other performance measures that aren't identified out as an acceleration model, but this is where a lot of our resource time in strategic management innovation will go in working with the teams of the ones that you direct for us tonight.

So I will pause there and move back to the five that were identified in your tool.

Do we have any questions?

Council.

No?

All right.

All right, so to confirm the direction from mayor, vice mayor, and city council is to accelerate the five performance measures of regarding parks, neighborhoods, homelessness, tree and shade canopy, and business services.

All right, thank you very much.

Have a good one.

That was really quick.

We should have timed that.

It's a great presentation.

So much information.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Wydell.

All right, we're going to go ahead and move on to item 3B.

Accelerate accessory dwelling unit, ADUs, the design challenge update.

And we have Lucas Jensen, planner in community development to give the presentation, I think.

Thanks so much for being here, guys.

Of course.

Good evening, Vice Mayor, Mayor, and members of the city council.

I'm Jacob Payne, Principal Planet with Tempe Community Development Department.

I'm joined today with my colleague Lucas Jensen to give you an update on a project that we're very excited to share some results of, that being our accessory dwelling unit design challenge, as well as to provide some updates on some new tools that we have in our arsenal when it comes to accessory dwelling units and housing in Tempe.

So without further ado, I'll hand it over to Lucas.

Thank you, Jacob, and thank you, Mayor and Council.

Lucas Jensen again, planner with community development.

I'm gonna share a background on ADUs and the accessory dwelling unit design challenge, dive into the design challenge details, and then show those winning designs what those look like.

That'll be just a very brief image.

And then some of those tools that Jacob had mentioned, the plan library and the ADU dashboard that we're launching.

Before we start, just to align this with those performance measures, it aligns with 2.15, the strong community connections.

We did some extensive community outreach and surveying as part of this process.

So participating in city decisions was important.

And then the quality of life, ending homelessness, and the age-friendly community designation.

As a background, ADUs in Tempe have been allowed since 2019 under regulations that allowed them on multifamily zoned lots that had an existing single family home.

Fairly limited in its scope, think like west of ASU maple ash type areas where that was eligible, and just four were completed in that time frame until 2024 of December.

As of December 2024, you all adopted ordinance mandated by the state to expand where ADUs are allowed on properties, allowing them on single family zone or on all properties that allow residential uses that have an existing single family home.

So it significantly significantly expanded the reach of where ADUs are permitted in Tempe.

After that ordinance was passed, staff got to thinking how we can help address affordability through ADUs.

One option that we had seen other municipalities pursuing was a pre-approved plan library.

The example in the images from the city of Seattle, that's what their pre-approved dashboard looks like.

So an image of the ADUs, some details.

The real benefits to this is that it can significantly reduce the permitting time.

It can reduce the costs associated with design and consulting fees, as well as drafting of those construction documents.

And it also helps provide residents with a reference or a starting point for ADU projects.

And if you're not familiar, the standard plans or pre-approved plans are ones that have passed a building safety review or building code review for compliance with the building code and still need to come back for some uh site-specific plans after that.

Jumping into the details of the ADU design challenge, this is the exciting part.

Um we applied for and were awarded a $20,000 grant from AARP earlier this year to host what they call a housing design challenge, housing design competition.

Uh, we named ours the uh accessory dwelling unit uh design challenge.

Through this process, the 10 selected or 10 winners were selected.

Um they'll receive up to a $2,000 award.

Um through council resolution earlier this year as well.

They're going to have their plan review fees waived to further reduce the cost associated with it.

And then we'll feature those in an online plan library available to the public.

So details about the submittal.

The first step in the process was to have designers submit their innovative ADU designs.

Um we had these come through in four separate submittal categories, um, that being the small footprint, sustainable, accessible, and low-cost ADU categories.

Um, the reason being we wanted a diverse range of options for residents to choose from.

Um we also evaluated all of these two five set criteria.

Those are the aesthetics and architecture, the look of the building, um the cost to construct, the sustainability, uh the context and versatility.

So, how can this fit on a variety of lots?

Um, and the accessibility as a very important aspect to Tempe specifically, as well as for the uh for AARP's mission.

Um additional requirements they needed to meet is we uh limited the licensing fee to $5,000.

So when a resident um approaches these designers, they will be charged no more than $5,000 to license the plans from them.

Um it had to be single story and then a maximum of three bedrooms and a thousand square feet that has to do with the provisions in our code to make sure that it's applicable to as many lots as possible.

The next step was evaluating the ADUs.

It was a three-step process.

Um it consisted of a jury evaluation.

We had uh five independent jurors of uh planning professionals and volunteers.

They scored those using those five evaluation criteria.

The second step was community input.

Um, we had a community meeting in I believe it was August to announce what we were doing through this process and to show them how this survey worked.

We received almost 500 responses, which was incredible.

Um, they rated each design, and then they also answered a few questions to list their priorities and their preferences, like which category was there was the most important to them, um, which was really helpful in the final selection from city staff to look at both the jury and the community's input to help select those 10 winning designs.

The third step is where we're at right now.

Um, winners are going to submit construction documents, go through that building safety review, and once they're approved for uh stand use as a standard plan, uh they'll be listed on that plan library and then be available for licensing for for residents.

I'll very briefly go through these uh the winning ADU design submittals.

The first one was a selection for the best overall design.

This is the breeze house.

The next category was our community choice winner.

So this was one that was heavily favored by the community and was um selected as such, the desert mass.

The small footprint winner is the retreat.

Um multiple winners in the small footprint category due to those results of the community survey identifying low cost and small footprint as very important categories for them.

Another small one.

Our sustainable ADU winner.

The winner on our accessible category, so think open floor plans, accessible design, a runner-up again, as part of AARP's program and the aging population of Tempe, we felt it was really important to include uh multiple choices for this category as well.

The low-cost winner, and then a low-cost runner-up.

The last thing I want to share on this one is the the open house, extremely well attended.

Um, city staff, um, residents, designers were all invited to attend.

Staff gave a brief presentation sharing those winning designs, how the challenge uh was hosted, um, and then we kind of opened it up so that residents could speak to designers, have city staff there to answer any questions they might have about ADUs.

I think it was an incredibly successful event and helped get the community to interact with both the city and the designers for this project.

The couple of things that we have working on in the future.

So the first one is that standard plan library.

So if you go to uh tempe.gov/slash standard plan library, they are available to view now.

You'll see they all have the in-review stamp.

Um, that means they are not they have not yet passed the standard plan review process.

So uh a resident can't license these plans yet.

Once they are, uh, we'll remove that banner and then they'll be able to reach out to the designer to uh contact them to license the plan and submit them uh for construction.

The next one we're really excited about.

Um, we actually just made this live on our website, uh, believe it was late yesterday.

Um this is a new tracking dashboard for ADUs across the city.

So it's a color-coded map that will show the total number of ADU applications, and this goes back to 2020, so it captures all of the ADUs across the city.

Um, it'll show you where they're at in the building permit process, whether they're being reviewed, uh, whether they've been issued and have started construction and whether they're completed.

So this is what it this is a snapshot from maybe a week ago and what that looks like now.

Um 77 total applications since 2020, with the vast majority of those coming since the new ordinance or ordinance was adopted in 2024.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you all might have.

We appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Do we have any questions or comments?

No, I I would just like to say that I I love the idea of the competition that you guys had to do this.

Um, a few years ago when we were at National League of Cities, they um we were discussing ADUs in one of the breakout sessions, and one of the cities talked about how they had plans that residents could just go in at sped up the process to be able to be able to take part in the ADU process.

And um, and it so this is really wonderful that we've been able to do this, but we have designs that were divine designed by people in our community, and so great program.

I really appreciate that.

And I love the idea that we're using the dashboard with information.

So we get when we get questions about it, it'll be an easy place to send people to so they can get more information.

So thank you so much for doing that.

So we don't have any questions or comments.

All right, we'll go ahead and move on.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

All right, so the next item on our agenda is um call to the audience again.

The council welcomes public comment at this time for committee of the whole items on this work study session agenda, and there's a three-minute time limit per speaker.

Do we have any comment cards that you have?

City manager clerk.

Nothing official, thank you.

Okay, great.

All right.

Uh is there anyone in the audience who would like to address the council and any of the agenda items on the committee of the whole?

If so, please get my attention for committee of the whole.

That would be on our proposed um or current subcommittees for council.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the count the card that we have that we just received, it'll still be um that this is not an open call to the audience for open items.

Uh, this time is uh open for just the subcommittee, so we would not be able to address the open call for comments until six o'clock.

Thank you, sir.

All right, so the um next item on the agenda is a um this is the call to the audience.

We don't have any call.

Any all right, so here we have um per uh city council rule seven subsection to be any two council members of the council may propose the formation of a subcommittee at a work study session of the council by identifying the purpose of the proposed subcommittee and the proposed members of the subcommittee and obtaining approval of the majority of the council.

So we are on 5A1, the federal um state and advocacy reviews council committee.

Councilmember Amberg.

Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um, I am proposing to establish that we um that we establish a subcommittee to evaluate, modernize, and realign the federal and legislative priorities that uh city of Tempe adopts every year, uh, the council adopts every year, and uh Vice Mayor Garland and Councilmember Randy Keating have agreed to be on that one with me.

All right, we appreciate that.

Uh so do any council members have any comments or questions regarding this item?

All right, do we have consensus to move forward to approve the proposed council subcommittee?

Yes.

You have consensus, all right.

We have consensus.

All right, thank you very much.

You will move forward on that one.

Um, and then is there any other uh council members who would like to propose a new council subcommittee at this time?

Oh no, all right, thank you very much.

We will move on to item 5B.

Council subcommittee status updates is needed.

Recommendations for council direction.

I will no get now go down the list of council subcommittees in the order listed on the agenda and ask the subcommittee chair if there are any updates.

So first we have my council committee, age-friendly Tempe sounds uh temp age-friendly Tempe Council subcommittee.

Just a moment, let me get my notes here.

All right, the age-friendly council subcommittee continues its work to update the five-year age-friendly Tempe Action Plan.

We received great feedback from the senior survey and listening sessions, and I want to thank um our residents who participated.

Your input will be incorporated into the plan, and our next meeting is scheduled for January 27th at 4 p.m.

at the Pyle Adult Center.

The next item I have is is 5B2, which is animal welfare and cruelty tempe sub council subcommittee.

Yes, thank you.

My next uh our next meeting is January 23rd, um, Friday, January 23rd.

So all right, I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

All right, item 5B3 is a community engagement and connection subcommittee.

Uh the that meeting, the next meeting is on January 20th at 4 p.m.

at City Hall.

As part of the process, we are evaluating how we engage and connect with our community.

What's important to our our work will be public feedback, and we'll be hosting several public listening sessions in February and in March.

More details to follow soon on our council subcommittee webpage.

So I'll go ahead and move to item four five B4, and it's a drink spiking education and prevention prevention council subcommittee.

Councilmember um Keating is not here, so we do not have an update for that.

Um 5B5 mixed use space uh council subcommittee.

Councilmember Chin.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Uh no updates at this time.

We'll have we had to reschedule our December meeting, and we plan to schedule it in January.

All righty, thank you very much.

Next we have 5B6 motorized and electric mobility device subcommittee.

Uh Councilmember Adams.

Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor.

I just wanted to remind everyone that our first council subcommittee meeting on motorized and electric mobile mobility device safety will be held on January 7th at 2 p.m.

on the third floor of City Hall.

I hope to see you all there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Adams.

5B7 is revitalization of Tempy Town Lake Council Subcommittee.

Councilmember Amberg.

Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor.

We met on December the 1st, and Craig Hayden and Sean Wagner from Community Services had a great presentation on the special events that are going around that we currently have on the Tempete Town Lake.

And we talked a little bit more about the RFP and the RFQ and the Arizona cycle boats coming to the lake.

So thanks to staff and stakeholders and everybody that was there.

We are not going to be meeting until probably February because we've got some exciting things coming down that actually the council is going to be talking about in January.

All right.

Thank you very much.

5B8 is a Tempe term limits policy review council subcommittee, and Councilmember Keating is unable to be here today, so we will not have an update at this moment.

So we'll move on to agenda item number six.

Members of the city council may request that an agenda item be added to a future issue review session in accordance with the open meeting law.

There will be no discussion on the item other than to clarify the request.

So do we have any future agenda items recommendations?

No.

All right, thank you very much.

All right, so we'll go ahead and close that discussion.

We're gonna move on to item uh number seven.

Announcements from the mayor and or city manager.

Mayor Woods, do you have any announcements?

No announcements at this time, Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Mayor.

City Manager, do you have any announcements?

No, Vice Mayor, thank you.

We are just whipping through this agenda.

All right, so we are on to item number eight, which is adjournment.

Um the next work study session is January 15th, 2026, and the meeting is adjourned.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, I get to do it.