Tempe advances 651-unit Banyan North annexation, recreational marijuana framework in first readings

here we go i'm going to turn my camera on here all right welcome to the tempe city council special counsel meeting for thursday january 28 2021 the time is now 4 32 p.m and due to concerns over covert 19 exposure the city has implemented measures to protect our community including the closing of council chambers and limiting public attendance to electronic means only members of the public may view the live beating proceedings on tempe channel 11 or attend the meeting virtually through cisco webex events by visiting tiffany.gov clerk for more information item number one here is the consent agenda all items listed on the consent agenda will be considered as a group and will be enacted with one motion by the city council unless an item is removed for separate consideration council members may remove any item for separate consideration or to declare a conflict of interest if a council member would like to declare a conflict at this time the city clerk will provide the council member with the disclosure form all right the council the consent agenda is as read item resolutions item 1a1 does anyone here this one here is to adopt a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a pre-annexation agreement with north tempe propco llc and seven property owners from the proposed annexation area in the north tempe county island let's see is there any uh comments or statements from council on this item all right if there are none uh i would entertain a motion move uh i think that was councilmember adams okay i will go ahead and do a roll call vote uh councilmember navarro hi councilmember cubie hi councilmember garland hi vice mayor keating yes councilmember arredondo savage hi councilman adams hi and i vote i as well item 1a1 passes unanimously seven to zero next up is item number two here the non-consent agenda all items listed on the non-consent agenda will be considered separately agenda items scheduled for introduction and first public hearing will be heard but will not be voted upon at this meeting council members who may have a conflict of interest may abstain from voting on a matter and the city clerk will provide the council members with a disclosure form at this time second hearings and votes for the ordinances and items for introduction and first hearing are scheduled for february 11 2021.

first up here is item 2a1 which is to introduce and hold the first public hearing to adopt an ordinance extending and increasing the corporate limits of the city of tempe maricopa county state of arizona pursuant to the provisions of title 9 chapter 4 article 7 arizona revised statutes as amended by annexing 17.332 plus or minus acres of properties located in an area south of east curry road west of north miller road and north of east gilbert drive the second and final public hearing is scheduled for february 11 2021.

uh madam clerk were there any comments received from the public regarding this item nothing for this item mayor okay great thank you i'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing cancel any comments or discussions on item 2a1 all right hearing none i just want to reiterate that the second and final public hearing on this item is scheduled for february 11th 2021 so no votes going to be taken tonight next item of this section is 282 which is to introduce and hold the first public hearing to adopt an ordinance for a zoning map amendment from ag to mu4 and a planned area development overlay to establish development standards a public hearing to adopt a resolution authorizing a general plan projected density map amendment from medium to high density to high density limited and a development plan review for a new four to five story development containing 651 dwelling units with commercial for banyan north tempe located at 1255 east curry road the applicant is hume mantle affiliates the second and final public hearing is scheduled for february 11 2021.

uh madam clerk were there any comments regarding this item from the public yes mr mayor we have a request from fabio tasoti and i believe he's in the audience all right sounds good mr tsotti you are uh free to speak whenever you're ready uh can can you all hear me yes yes we can sir very good uh first and foremost thank you very much for hearing me um this is the first time i've ever been part of anything like this uh it's kind of compelled to be part of it i i recently moved to tempe in august with my fiance 35 years old she's 28 i also work in tempe so we're all tempe now and uh moving here uh was this uh first on our agenda this uh past and uh we we believed we made a great decision in purchasing a property in bellavida which is uh i believe north west of miller and curry uh since moving we've kind of had a little troubling of an experience unfortunately uh it appears the the homeless population is growing directly south of us and uh now occupying both sides of miller and under the freeway and safety unfortunately is becoming a huge issue so leading back to me talking about i was compelled this time around to be part of this uh hearing uh as soon as signage went up i i started calling every single phone number i could to figure out how i could be part and show my support for this potential project you guys in the future will be voting on um i think it'd be an incredible a win for for tempe as well as for the area in question and i know i speak for myself my my fiancee and my future children and as well as more importantly uh several of my neighbors in bella vida uh in in love to see this project become a reality mainly for safety issues i can't tell you how many times i've had to worry of my fiance just getting the mail because of my mailbox is directly on the street there's been unfortunately some some uh shady individuals uh some some homeless people who tend to hang out in our community we have a couple of outdoor seating areas that they occupy often and rather than a confrontation it's more or less we try and just take safe haven in our home and kind of leave it at uh at that that being said i can't tell you all council members enough and mayor woods how much we would love to see this project uh move forward i know i'm gonna be as as vocal as i can be in this project i i don't know anyone in the project or a part of the project but again living across the street and seeing the potential um for tempe and for that area specifically it it really did compel me today to want to speak to all of you and really hope that uh it resonates that this area is uh it's a beautiful area it's got a few problems unfortunately at the moment uh it'd be an incredible feeling to see them getting better as opposed to uh you know taking a turn for the worse and and having a bigger problem and potentially more uh acts of criminal nature but uh nonetheless i i just wanted to say i i really hope uh when the vote does take place in the future the correct decision is made and we can see this project take uh take to light and really uh help improve this area and for safety reasons for bringing more services down here and and really uh really help the community kind of grow and flourish if you will so i'll leave it at that mayor woods and and council members thank you so much for hearing me i i look forward to the future as a citizen of tempe and and i look forward to seeing the progress it it's beautiful city and it keeps getting more beautiful and it's an honor to be a citizen now of tempe as well as a working member in tempe as well so thank you all and that's that's really all i had to add to today's meeting thank you very much sir really appreciate it first of all i should say welcome to tempe we're really glad to have you here and i just appreciate you taking part of your first council meeting well you know you hope it's not your last so uh really apprec and hopefully the next one uh perhaps we will actually be uh in person at some point so uh so thank you so much really appreciate your time next up um i'm gonna see if the applicant's prepared to make a statement is misty fuel mantle in the audience mr mayor this is charles can you hear me i sure can sir uh go ahead whenever you're ready i will uh first let me say thank you to fabio i think he has covered many of the points i would like to i've had a chance to talk to him over the last several days as part of our outreach and i appreciate him taking the time to call and give the perspective of a nearby owner if we can go to the next slide please i i'd like to talk a little bit about exactly what fabio said which is uh this is a problem in a place where there's great opportunity and it everyone on council knows well that that one of the challenges with this site is that it's a county island and people at home may not understand what that means so let me just take a second to expand on that this means that although this feels very much like it should be part of tempe it's not and it's not because it's never been brought into the city of tempe and so part of our request today is to bring this piece of land which has its challenges into the opportunity of tempe so we're asking for an annexation a general plan amendment a pad and a dpr but i'd like to talk about what this this land is today if we could please move to the next slide and uh alex thank you very much for i think you're the one running the presentation you've been so helpful to get this prepared so thank you if we can play the video that'd be great while this is going through i just want to talk about the fact that this is a piece of land in the county that has been with outside of the jurisdiction of tempe's code compliance outside of the fire protections and the police protections outside of the zoning and you can see over time that a number of things have happened it doesn't meet the standards really in any way that tempe has come to expect you'll see later on that even as the roads have been built they haven't been built to tempe standards even in terms of um engineering so that you'll have flooding problems and other problems as we move through the video is i think transmitting a little bit slowly and i apologize for that i know each of you from our conversations has had a chance to drive around next slide please and these are a number of pictures i'll ask you alex to please this is one more video to play again you all had a chance to drive around but this area town hasn't really seen any advancement because it's not in the city of tempe for many many years and we have worked very hard to get a number of property owners and frankly not all of who are on the same page to work together so that we could build something different here it's also worth noting that much of this site is a landfill and i'll get to that in a little bit but you can see that as close as this is to tempe it certainly doesn't meet the standards for our community that we've come to demand of property we're almost through with the video so i'll just wait a second in addition to changing what will happen on the property the um the streets themselves will will and be enhanced significantly we'll build new streets to tempe standards we'll have additional connectivity we'll have a public dog park and we're almost there as we're coming around what has been recently labeled by some of the folks down here is dead man's curve i don't know if that's an official city name it looks like that's done by some local residents but it certainly has its issues if we could move to the next slide alex that'd be great that's enough and if you can galaxy if you don't mind just going through those just a second or two at a time while i continue to talk again this just shows you the current condition keep going there's a cell phone tower on site that stays but the rest of this will be bladed as quickly as march we have submitted at risk for permits and our goal would be to start immediately getting rid of some of the unsightliness of this property as soon as we get into the city of tempe obviously this is the first of two hearings and the next is on february 11th for those people in tempe who might be watching at home uh this is very different than the feel and the rest of tempe and again to remind people it's not in tempe this is a really important exhibit this shows you the site that we're trying to redevelop but the red shows that the different areas of fill that are needed to make this a reality it's a very expensive project in addition to the new roads and the new infrastructure we have to to remove up to 20 feet of fill or find ways to work around it environmentally so this site has some pretty big environmental challenges so we've we've had to work both to assemble the property for owners that frankly weren't that excited to be brought into the city of tempe and that were maybe not like-minded we've had to assemble them we've had to work through the environmental issues that you can see here today next slide please and we've had to work through and one more slide please we've had to work through the significant infrastructure conditions this is just a couple of days ago when it was raining but you can see unlike the other parts of the city this is not built and designed to tempe standards and so the streets when there are weather issues flood or have other issues and those are some of the things that we'll correct on the part of the site that we're correcting next slide please and we're adding in as i mentioned a new street scoville will connect as it doesn't now to gilbert and we'll have a little bit of a public dog park there which we think will not only be good for our residents but other residents in the area next slide please keep going one more place and this is ultimately the product uh that we're trying to create we're trying to create great sidewalks and pedestrian space in an area that's really now an industrial wasteland really changing the area so that we're connecting the neighbors most of whom are north of us some of whom are south of the freeway but to all the amenities along town lake and keep going please you can see again we've we've tried to provide lots of walkable space and landscaping let's move ahead if we can to the elevations and you can see here this is the finished product i'd also like to say that as challenging this as this has been to bring all these owners together to bring them into the city of tempe we would not have done it without your staff specifically the city manager has been directly involved so has donna kennedy we would not be here without donna sam aerosmith has done great work to help us get through the legal challenges that are necessary for us to bring this into the city and albania and suparna have certainly worked with us to create a design that would work with the challenges of the site specifically with the significant issues environmentally but to also make sure that we created a great pedestrian environment this is the first of two hearings i'm happy to answer any questions or to go more in depth i know councilman arredondo suggested an hour presentation i think she said might be appropriate so i'm happy to take more time if that's uh that's necessary such a good listener mr humantle thank you you're fired robin you're fired oh this is good all right so uh thank you mr humans i really appreciate it um i'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing and i'm gonna go to uh councilmember adams to uh start the public statements if they're already so councilman adams thank you mayor woods really appreciate it uh first of all i want to thank council member keating and councilmember navarro uh for the support with this annexation uh i also want to thank corey um mayor woods uh for your support um and your leadership on this project i want to thank charles humantle for having the foresight and quite frankly guts to uh bring this uh project forward and also for paying much of the infrastructure that is not uh that that is very important and really appreciated that's that's not a small undertaking so thank you charles for that and also for cleaning up the dirt uh obviously it was a landfill so i know that you have to bring in some dirt and clean up uh the landfill so i'm really excited about that for um protecting our sustainability and and uh and also cleaning up our neighborhood and i um would not it would not be appropriate if i didn't thank you for the dog park so council member cubie and i are working on more dog park parks throughout the city so we'll be able to put this one on our list and check it off this project will improve our very special and beautiful north tempe we have spent our year um over a year talking um to the residents of north tempe to ensure their wishes were followed and we will continue to do so as the few as the project um evolves and and and future projects evolve we'll continue to really work with our neighborhoods that's so important and get them what they want in that area uh a special thanks to city staff for all of their hard work and dedication especially to donna kennedy and sam aerosmith um who put it all together so really appreciate that finally thanks to all the property owners um who sold the property and believed in this project and uh cooperated and will help improve uh our city of tempe and just really really appreciate it and thank you to all that support this project it will change our north tempe in a positive way so thank you mayor woods thank you councilman adams appreciate it appreciate your leadership on this with the county island and with this project uh vice mayor keating thank you mayor i just want to echo some of council member adams statements i want to thank her for inviting me and councilmember navarro to this working group that was instrumental in bringing this project before council and i certainly hope it ends up coming to fruition i think it's a great project and as councilmember adams pointed out will um and mr humano pointed out will add um you know will help a an undisturbed area not of our city but of the county but will become our city but of course it is county island surrounded by tempe so it's definitely an underserved area within the borders of tempe if not tempe proper so i'm excited for this project and um you know i'm looking forward to voting to approve at our next meeting thank you thank you vice mayor keating next up council member arredondo savage right on thank you uh mayor much appreciated uh first and foremost i don't think any of us ever questioned the fact that charles who mental has guts i really appreciate that uh council member adams i thought that was pretty pretty solid statement um but i i too just want to echo a couple things um you know just an appreciation for the city council to uh vice marikini and council member adams navarro i think just for being creative and thinking outside the box and and trying to encourage others to do something a little bit different i know sometimes it's not always easy to accept but you guys you know took it on so great job and thank you um to mr hugh mantle for uh buying in and trying to trying to find a way to make this work and i think this is a really great project i actually like the way it looks i don't i don't have a lot of negativity or anything to say about it i do just have a couple of things and i i do want to say i really do appreciate how you actually listen to our staff and i know they've had some suggestions and maybe brought up some concerns but it looks like you've been amenable to um incorporating all of their suggestions so i certainly do appreciate that um a couple of questions i just you know want to think about and maybe you can get back to me today or i mean not today necessarily but before before the next second hearing is is and because it has so many units and i'm sure you probably know i'm already going to ask you this um and there are some that are four bedroom units i just want to ensure that when you do rent these one kind of would like to know a little bit about the management the management system and how that looks and and ensuring that you're going to be renting them by the unit not necessarily by the bed just in case some people might have some concerns about student housing or anything like that and as we all know you will most likely have students always i mean we're always going to have students in our projects and and um moving forward i'm okay with that but you know just hopefully you've had a conversation with asu so they know that it's there and you guys are on the same page i think that would be great and uh lastly i just wanna uh maybe you could touch on you know maybe at the next hearing just the security plan a little bit more and and i only asked that mostly too because i know this is a fairly large project i saw something from pd it was pretty minimal and then um garage security so i i don't know if there's a plan i just wasn't sure and i apologize i wasn't able to ask that earlier and i think the notes i saw were like on page 14 so other than that those are just a few things i'd like to get a little bit more information on before the next hearing um i think just to give everybody some peace of mind and make sure that we're being consistent with all of our projects but again i just you know i'm really excited about this opportunity and really changing things up in an area um like fabio said too i do appreciate you fabio welcome to tempe and i really do appreciate and take your words to heart so that's it mayor thank you thank you councilmember arredondo savage uh before i go to councilmember navarre mr hugh mantle do you want to address councilmember donato's uh questions now would you rather wait till the second hearing a little of both mr mayor um i appreciate all those comments we'll we'll certainly work through them i'm hearing her comments reminds me of some of the other folks we've worked with the city that also deserve to be mentioned julian dressing has been working with us to deal with the streets in the county as well in the county has been great to work with us as well but we wouldn't be where we are without julian and yolanda from the clerk's office but we've worked with the streets to kind of help create more of a network where the police could help work through some of the security issues we did spend time with the chief who recently retired but we'll spend some time before the next hearing with the new chief to make sure that we have uh worked appropriately with the police to make sure that they like and can work with our design i think that we're in a good place having had discussions before but we'll renew those discussions and again mr mayor and councilwoman adams we wouldn't be here without your leadership this has been a really really tough case in all my years this has been one of the longer cases to get to a hearing because we had to pull so much together and to really find solutions to so many challenging problems and we would not have done it without a staff that that really was responsive uh ryan levesque as well i didn't mention ryan either earlier i think but thank you for your staff and thank you for your leadership and i will respond to the rest in more detail in the next meeting thank you thank you mr hill mantle uh next up councilmember davaro thank you mayor now just really echoing everything that's been said thank you uh charles and the developer for coming in and dealing with this complicated piece of land and obviously this is very strategic as we go forward with this section of area to try to enhance and take over and really make it we're essentially doing fabio uh welcome to the neighborhood um i'm glad you're going to be waiting seeing a project of this magnitude that's going to have an impact on tempe in a positive way and i want to echo your concerns about um trying to help out with the area and with homelessness and and trying to make sure that we are doing the right things but at the same time we are making sure that our residents are enjoying uh the value of temp being the value of what tempe is all about so thank you for coming up and talking about that and then uh council member uh keating and or vice mayor keating and council mayor adams uh especially councilman adams with her leadership on this um you know obviously this has been a great task for all of us to go through um but uh i have to give full credit council member adams um she really did take this one on and and try to get um things projects of this caliber and as we work towards the rest of the area um established so um this has been a great work group um and staff that has put the effort and the time in this man it's just uh an enormous um you know detailed issues and a lot of a lot of real problems to tackle and it's very complicated a lot of staff time has to be dedicated towards this so i appreciate um that work that has been involved in this i look uh towards supporting this project and obviously this is going to be a great start for a a great brand new area and uh once again thank you for bringing it to us thank you councilmember navarro uh any other council members with any uh comments or questions for mr huell mantle um mr mayor yes councilmember cubie yeah uh kudos to councilmember adams for her leadership and for councilmember keating sorry i keep doing that i don't want to let go of vice mayor i'm keating and council member navarro for all their hard work and uh this may be it's not a discussion for tonight but i would at some point like to talk about the impacts i mean there's going to be a lot of cascading impacts most of them good for the annexation but there will be some gentrification that results from the developments and that'll be north of nor north of the of where the developments will be so i want to be able to look at those neighborhoods they could use some revitalization and some loving care so just want to put that somewhere on in the back of our minds that we need to look at those issues i spoke with stephanie brewer from newtown about this in the fall and that was one concern that she had um knowing the project will go through and the annexation is is ultimately a good thing we need to just make sure that um it doesn't have negative impacts on the neighborhoods north of it but i'll be supporting it thanks thank you councilmember cubie uh let's see just uh on my own personal end uh and i'll save some of my comments probably as well for the second public hearing but just want to once again uh thank councilmember adams uh and vice mayor keating and councilmember navarro for their leadership on this project uh for a lot of the residents in the north tempe neighborhood association i know that for decades uh this county island has proven to be a real challenge for them and so i'm excited to see that this first project is coming in uh that i really do think could be uh cathartic to the area i mean i think this really could be the catalyst to a lot of other future great things that could happen on that county island which i know would uh continue to help improve the area surrounding it uh the thing that i'm really excited about too is just that we typically know that sometimes for an area like this that has four years experienced sort of monumental challenges uh it takes a lot for the first person or the first group to come in and make the decision that they want to invest in this area and frankly take a chance but i think we all know that uh if you know a group proves that you can do a successful project uh in an area that becomes the catalyst for other good things to come down the road so i want to also thank uh the applicant uh for being willing to invest in this area and for believing in tempe and believing in this county island and uh playing a huge role in the transformation of this area uh and also once again wanted to thank the the residents from north tempe for a lot of their support from this project i know we've received uh some emails around this and i've also had a few meetings with long-time residents of the north tempe neighborhood association and a lot of the discussions we've had so i want to thank them as well for being vocal uh in their support of this project too so um i know we don't have a vote on this item until the second public hearing which wanted to make sure that i got some of my comments on the record uh during this first hearing um let's see uh mr hillmantle any other comments you'd like to make okay hearing none any other questions i'm sorry mr madison no no other responses we appreciate everyone's support on staff on the council particularly so we will be back soon for a vote thank you great thank you so much really appreciate the presentation all right so once again want to reiterate that the second and final public hearing of this item is scheduled for february 11 2021 next item under the section is item 2a3 that is to introduce and hold the first public hearing to adopt an ordinance for a co-text amendment consisting of changes within the zoning and development code section 3-426 medical marijuana and other related sections for the regulation of recreational marijuana in compliance with the state with the smart and safe arizona act for marijuana initiative otherwise known as prop 207 the applicant is the city of tempe the second and final public hearing is scheduled for february 11 2021.

uh is staff available to make a statement on this item mayor yes this is ryan lake hi ryan go ahead thank you um we have the first hearing tonight for the marijuana initiative and i just want to first thank you all for um for this item we work diligently with city staff in a working group and developing the ordinance we also did some stakeholder community outreach extensive public outreach they included over 800 responses to a community-wide survey for some questionnaires and basically the kotex amount we have before you is based on the direction we received back in december and basically it outlines the requirements in proposition 207 the marijuana establishment license procedures the requirements for marijuana testing facilities marijuana cultivation facilities and then we have the existing provisions of the arizona hemp program that are outlined in this ordinance so basically is we have our current separation requirements for medical marijuana dispensaries and we've applied the same separation requirements to also marijuana establishments now existing dispensaries as you may know today are currently allowed to sell marijuana recreationally in fact i think it just happened about a week ago where the existing dispensaries were allowed to begin selling to consumers this ordinance provision will allow the same to have dual license establishments for those same dispensaries and then anywhere else that it meets the separation requirements for a standalone marijuana establishment we have the marijuana testing facility regulations that are specific to only being allowed in industrial zoned areas and then our marijuana cultivation facilities are are the same requirements as a medical marijuana cultivation facility we also have provisions in the residential section that pertain to the provisions that are allowed by the prop 207 which allow the growing of marijuana as a resident the provisions allow for an adult 21 years of old to have up to six plants or if you have two adult individuals living in the same residence to have up to 12 plants and those provisions identify the safe keeping of the product in an enclosed area on the property um the the license process is basically an administrative procedure process we have a use acceptance review that's required we have both planning police department and building safety review those application requirements to ensure compliance with codes security plans and proper building code requirements before a clearance is made i'll add that we did receive some additional public comments at the development review commission which included a letter of support from harvest of tempe they provided a letter regarding the ordinance provisions and then we also received a letter from president michael crowe regarding the concerns for proposition i will note though too although he's recommended that we have a prohibition on the marijuana regulations i think if an ordinance is brought forward i think he wanted three specific areas to make sure that we were compliant with the code provisions and i believe that we are meeting the intent of those provisions to basically provide separations and buffers away from the asu campus area to not have any regulations that would bring site facilities closer to the campus and then restrictions on areas basically of having in in public environments and with that i'll answer any questions the council may have at this time thank you ryan really appreciate it i see councilmember qb's hand casper qb thanks so much ryan for your presentation so um i just have a question about the uh cultivation uh establishments because they're you can have a business and they have a cultivation facility and they have the retail the cultivation doesn't necessarily have to be right directly connected to the to the retail establishment right i mean even though they're the same business they don't have to be right next to each other yeah that's that's correct um we only have a couple dispensary locations that have a both cultivation and dispensary um most of the other sites are just dispensing only but most of our cultivation facilities are within large industrial areas they're allowed to cluster and have larger areas but typically the establishments are allowed to have one off-site cultivation location that doesn't have to be directly located on the retail site so i guess that's my question with the off-site cultivation facilities why have us why have a setback requirement because they are non-public facilities public can't enter and maybe it's a restriction put upon the business that will you know a zoning restriction that will cause them not to locate for some reason but i mean obviously with retail establishments you want to have setback requirements but why have them for cultivation if they are separate if that is a separate establishment from the retail location certainly a valid question um i'd say when we first developed the program back in 2011 we didn't quite know whether or not we would be more concerned with the medical marijuana dispensaries or the cultivation facilities and what aspects they would yield over time i'd say some of the dispensary separation requirements were got a little more restrictive but we kept relaxed the standards for the cultivation facility so they only require like say a 500 foot separation from residential and then they're also allowed to cluster um be in close proximity to one another so so it wouldn't be uncommon where you might find multiple cultivation facilities in a similar location or center so they so they're allowed to cluster um so there is the potential of more cultivation facilities to be within the city of tempe and we've also just last year removed the restriction on the size limitation which at that time was no more than 25 000 square feet oh so you're saying the max setback requirements 500 feet for cultivation it's not 500 feet from a residential zone right versus uh dispensaries are like a quarter mile okay is there any um will there be any benefit from economic development perspective to reduce the setback requirements for just the cultivation part of the building you know if there was an independent cultivation not independent but a cultivation facility that was separate from its main retail establishment yeah i think if the separation requirements are relaxed any further it just brings up the additional properties that might be able to support that type of request so certainly if there is more businesses that are interested in in cultivating marijuana products in in tempe then that opportunity could present itself well i guess um mr i would propose that we uh we get rid of the setback requirements for the cultivation facility obviously if they're connected the retail establishment it's gonna that's gonna override and it would need the setbacks the same setbacks but if it's independent separate from the retail establishment i would like to remove the setback requirements of this consensus to do so just for the cultivation when it's separated from the the retail thank you councilmember qb uh i'll make a note of that we'll circle back around to that at the end um councilmember adams yes thank you mr mayor i just have a real quick question and i'm just uh for ryan ryan are you looking at also uh the the other cities that are real close to us um as far as their dispensaries i had a constituent ask me about that that if if we're considering that as far as spacey thank you yeah um we've been trying to follow and monitor what the other cities are doing for the recreational marijuana initiative um we understand there have been multiple um jurisdictions that have placed a proposed prohibition on marijuana establishments but but also allowing the dual license for allowances meaning that existing dispensaries could also sell marijuana recreationally but not allow any additional marijuana establishments we heard that from mesa gilbert chandler and some other western valley cities like glendale that have been proposing that prohibition okay thanks so much ryan i appreciate it certainly thank you councilmember adams next up councilmember arredondo savage thank you mayor i just i i just wanted to reach out to ryan and tell him thank you so much for his work i mean i know you and your staff have uh really done some thorough research not only just comparing what's going on with other cities but what's really good for tempe so i i just wanted to take a second and tell you thank you for that i know this is something that we've been working on for a really long time and it continues to come up and we try to uh do the best that we can and and i and i appreciate what uh council member cuba said and understand that i guess my thought process is more of a process thought just i'll just answer that now is i'd rather go with what staff has recommended i feel like you know they've done their homework and their research and it doesn't mean that we can't change it in the future if it does become a problem or something that we need to adjust but i understand that but yet at the same time i feel very comfortable and i think you all know how i feel about this this topic anyway um but i think this is a good stepping stone for us right now and uh i know ryan too if this is something that we need to adjust down the road that wouldn't be an issue and besides that i'm good thank you mayor thank you councilmember rodondo savage uh to circle back to councilman cubie's point since we're not voting on this until the uh to the next meeting which is february 11th ryan i was wondering if you could examine uh what it might look like or what the potential impact might be of removing the setback requirements for cultivation facilities uh i would be curious about it but i don't think we need to necessarily make the decision this evening given the fact that the council is not taking a final vote but if you could research that and provide some uh additional information to us prior to that uh second and final disposition that would be really helpful in helping me make up my mind thank you mayor we all certainly do that great thank you councilmember qb is that okay with you that's handy-dandy thank you sounds good thank you any other council members any comments or questions all right hearing none once again i want to reiterate the second and final public hearing and this item is scheduled for february 11 2021.

the last item under the section is item 2a4 which is to introduce and hold the first public hearing to adopt an ordinance for revisions to the tempe city code by adding a new chapter 22a for the regulation of marijuana on public property the second and final public hearing is scheduled for february 2021.

is staff available to make a statement on this item thank you mayor members of council judy bauman from the city attorney's office uh here this evening for first hearing and just a very brief overview we are proposing a text amendment to the tempe city code to prohibit smoking and consumption of marijuana on public property within the city to include city properties as well of course this is consistent with state law and with other local jurisdictions including chandler gilbert mesa and scottsdale there may be others but those are the ones that we had reviewed prior to this hearing and our police legal advisor vanessa cuevas is also available should the council have any questions or would like information with respect to the prohibitions or enforcement thank you madam city attorney any members of council uh actually i should also ask really quickly before i keep going uh madam clerk were there any comments received from the public on this item no mayor there were no submissions for this item okay just wanted to double check don't mess anything up over here um council members any comments or questions or for uh for our city attorney all right hearing none i'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing and since there are no more comments i'm just going to reiterate that the second and final hearing on this item will also be scheduled for february 11 2021 with that we are at the end of our agenda so this meeting is adjourned at 5 17 pm have a great night everyone thank you