Flagstaff's Climate and Housing Priorities Under Fire as Council Weighs Regional Plan Conditions

All right, we're ready to get started. Today's Thursday, October 9th, 2025. This is the city council's special meeting. Um, and very special. And we are calling this meeting to order and giving notice that at this meeting the council may vote to go into executive session which will not be open to the public for discussion and consultation with the city's attorneys for legal advice on any item listed on the following agenda. Can we have roll call? Mayor Daget here. Vice Mayor here.

Council member Alen here. Council member Garcia present. Council member House. Council member Matthews here. Council member Spence here. Thank you. Council member Alen, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? My pleasure. Please stand. With liberty and justice for all. The mission of the city of Flagstaff is to protect and enhance the quality of life for all. The Flagstaff City Council humbly acknowledges the ancestral homelands of this area's indigenous nations and original stewards.

These lands, still inhabited by native descendants, border mountains sacred to indigenous peoples. We honor them, their legacies, their traditions, and their continued com contributions. We celebrate their past, present, and future generations who will forever know this place as home. Thank you. All right, I'm going to open the public hearing and ask uh staff to please show us their um presentation. Thank you, Mayor Daget. I'm Sarah Dector.

I am the comprehensive and neighborhood planning manager for the city of Flagstaff. We're very excited and thank you all for coming for a special meeting tonight um for the Flagstaff regional plan update. This is the accumulation of four years of work um and so I want to make sure that I thank um all of our partners. I especially want to thank Melissa Shaw from Cookanino County who's co-led this process with me and she is here tonight to answer any questions.

Um, we want to thank the regional plan committee, the 70 plus staff from the city, county, and other government and nonprofit partners, our community ambassadors, the 20 plus commissions that have been have graciously given us time on their agenda, especially acknowledging the planning and zoning commission, which just in the last two months has spent 13 hours reviewing and discussing the regional plan and our consultants, Avenue who helped create the document layout and design and Cascadia which helped us with outreach and scenario planning.

And then of course, thank you to council and the board of supervisors who I know have had to track a very long and slowmoving process. Um we're happy to be at a place where you have a draft that is ready for final edits. for those who might have um not joined this process earlier on. I'll just do a few warm-up slides of what is the regional plan. So, this is our policy guide for the region and it's focused on many of the key topics surrounding land use.

Um it is particularly used in annexation, zoning, map amendments, dedications, and other land use decisions made by the city and county. Um, tonight we are focused on adopting it as the general plan for the city of Flagstaff. And in order to do that, not only does council need to pass the resolution adopting it, but in a few weeks, um, there's a deadline for calling the special election that will be needed to ratify it with voters. This is only a ratification vote for city residents and voters.

the amendment uh to the Cookanino County comprehensive plan that will follow this will be the board of supervisors method of adopting it. But at this hearing, of course, we welcome both city and county residents to comment. A reminder that the geographic boundaries of the Flag Staff region follow our metrop plan boundaries.

So Belmont, Fort Valley, Timberline, Fernwood, Doni Park, Winona, Cosnino, Kacina, and Mountaire all fall within the region in addition to the actual boundary of the city of Flagstaff. I want to take a quick tour of the document if you will let me. Um, because I know as we are talking about things, um, people may want to navigate to the information. I might say this is found on page 414. people might want to go see page 414.

Um, one of the key things that we have upgraded from the current plan is that the document is highly navigable in addition to being printable. So, for instance, if we and this will look a little different if you are using a phone or using a different device um but generally where you see the page number count, you can come in and put a page number.

So, if I said um we're that and I was talking about something that was in the guidelines for all land use categories on page 414, I can type 4-14 into the little panel next to the page numbers. It takes you right there. So, this is a great way if you are trying to follow along or search for something to get this information. In addition, you'll see there's a lot of blue underlined words on any given page in the plan.

And clicking on something like affordable housing will take you to the glossery um so that you can find the definition that you were looking for. So I just want to make sure people are aware of that. That is also the reason it is a very large file. And if you want to be able to use these features, you would download it from the website as the full document, which will take 5 to 10 minutes if you're on a phone probably, and especially if you're using our Wi-Fi, which is a little slower maybe.

Um, but if you are um interested in just looking at a part of the document and not using these features, the website also has it broken up into smaller files. So um for anyone who's following along, I just wanted to do a brief tutorial of that. So, um, you can look up things as we're going. It's important we remember tonight what the plan is and what it is not.

Um, it does provide this collaborative community vision, which is why we have had hundreds of hours of public engagement and surveys and community outreach that go along with the plan and its focus is guiding future development in the region. Um the plans for our infrastructure and other things certainly are broadly brushed in this plan, but they are not final.

This is not our capital improvement plan where we're talking about how wide the sidewalk should be on a given road or our safe streets master plan. It is a less detailed plan than many of those other documents that people have spent time working on. Um, and while it provides this framework for general planning and for updating our zoning code, it does not replace those steps that are needed of updating code, getting getting things incorporated into the city budget.

And it does not obligate council, this council or future councils to execute any specific action item in the plan. But it is a roadmap. It is a way forward and it is a temperature taking tool as well. And so part of what I want to remind people when we talk about the plan is and is not is that we will report on this plan annually. You'll hear about what we have been able to move forward and haven't and what is making good progress or what maybe has had unexpected outcomes.

So, um, an additional thought on this is that it's important to know that while we are adopting a wholly updated plan tonight and sending it to the voters, it is not an unchangeable plan or law. There have been 17 plan amendments to the regional plan in the 10 years that we have been managing the the Flagstaff Regional Plan 2030. So, we're averaging one or two a year, keeping it as a living document. And that is another important part of understanding what the plan is.

The plan sits in a unique place in our framework of many different policies and codes. And so it can be complicated. And I think when people read it sometimes they think it is complicated because it is foundational for so many other documents and policy efforts that the city or county might undertake. So it has to speak to both jurisdictions and it has to speak to these two sides of what we call the planning pyramid.

Um first the side that is maybe familiar to people who show up at zoning map amendment hearings which is development review which is a very specific use of the plan. Um means this is what we use when there's a discretionary decision of a certain nature before council to make what's called a finding of conformance.

It also is used regularly by city staff when we are working on broader planning that covers things that both might end up in our programs but also might end up in a capital improvement plan or in the budget. And that vision side of the triangle is less um less structured but equally important.

And so the plan sometimes reads as complicated because it has to speak to all of these levels, not only in our existing condition, but in potential future scenarios of how the community might change and grow over 20 years. Um, I challenge anybody to make that a reader digest version. So the findings that you are being asked to make tonight in adopting the plan are really simplified into two findings.

First, in reviewing the staff report and the packet, which I know was very lengthy, um you need to find that we have met all the procedural requirements of the city code and the Arizona revised statute. Um I'll go over those much more briefly tonight than I did at the September 10th planning and zoning commission. um meeting it was there. We went over it in very great detail, but I'd like to make sure we have a lot of time for discussion and public comment.

Um we also have to make sure that this plan complies with all the elements of the statute from the state. So the state lifts about 15 elements which we have organized into different chapters and parts of the plan. Um and so this is part of what we will ensure is covered tonight.

So the way I'm going to go through this is I'm going to talk through the procedural requirements which are pretty narrow um compared to some other parts we'll be looking at and then as we go through the planned elements I would like to both then describe what the element is and then focus on what the planning and zoning commission has recommended as a condition of approval.

Um, we went over at the planning and zoning commission hearings broader, more introductory ideas like what's in the plan and what parts do what things and where they would apply. And we'll go over that in a more brief fashion today. So, first the procedural requirements. The first requirement is effective early and continuous public participation. Another part is there's a whole series of required notices that are above and beyond what we usually do at a zoning case.

That includes um sending it to the Arizona State Department of Commerce and the Department of Water Resources for review. Um sometimes those people change and so we have we have to navigate and find the right person to send that to. We also have to conduct a citizen review which in our code has translated into a specific citizen review session which we held with the planning and zoning commission on August 27th.

And then there are requirements for the hearings and ratification of a plan um which includes calling a special election scheduled at least 120 days after adoption. And then the last part of the procedural requirements is coordination specifically with Cookanino County, which is an easy box to check when we are both adopting the same document. And then with the Arizona State Land Department, um we coordinated quarterly with ASLD and regularly worked on comments and revisions with them.

So both of those have also been met. In terms of our early and continuous public participation, our process has been broken into four phases. Um, and we're in phase four. Congratulations. We are at close to the end of this road map. Um, but this road map while it is, you know, graphically simplified includes almost a hundred touch points with the public.

So, reaching out and having one-on-one conversations, having public meetings, repeating public meetings, meetings with small groups, um, and really all the way up to the beginning of the hearing process. That was a regular and ongoing part of the work, as well as formal notices. We try and go above and beyond in public participation when we're running a city process.

It included at least three times sending everyone in the region a postcard um which is expensive but we felt worthwhile and sometimes that postcard was really someone's first introduction to the process. Um so we made sure to continue that um at each of the phases. phase two and three and four all had at least one postcard mailing in addition to all of the required notices like the newspaper um or um the the city website to give you another look at how this continuous process went on.

I want to focus on phases three and four because three and four is really really where there was a document to look at. phase two, we were still working on pieces and conversations. Um, but the regional plan committee was really the beginning of document production and they held almost 43 hours of meetings over 10 months.

So, I really think we have to acknowledge the excellent work of these 20 volunteers who spent many evenings up till 9:00 or 10:00 meeting and trying to go over a lot of discussion and material and having a really robust conversation. Um, that robust creation process led to our 60-day public review of the draft plan having 2400 comments. I can't tell you how jealous I have made other planners in the state of Arizona um by being able to share that number with you. Um, but then it took time. there.

Getting 2400 comments is um a labor of love to make sure each and every one of them have a response. And you saw in your packet the almost 80page response to comments document that show we considered and understood every comment we received and thought really hard about how to incorporate it. Sometimes comments are conflicting as you can tell from your email inbox this week.

Um, in addition to that, we had a check-in with you all at the joint retreat on May 2nd, um, which was a full day with the board of supervisors, city council, and both the city and county planning and zoning commission, and a follow-up work session with city council.

When we released the draft plan on July 18th and informed people that the hearing process was beginning and that we were moving into phase four, we received more comments that resulted in a description of at least 280 potential proposed changes to the plan. So averaging again about one per page or a little more than one per page.

um of that the planning and zoning commission at their four meetings which lasted over 13 hours um discussed 115 of those potential changes and I don't know how many duplicates were in the portion that were not discussed. I don't have that number. Um but this narrowing down from 280 to 115 resulted in the 31 conditions of approval that you have in your packet. There any questions about that? Okay, so that's our effective and continuous public engagement up to this point.

Um, the commission has had a big task in front of them looking at all of this material and all these pages and really wanting to make sure they were thorough and in addition just finding some other little tweaks and edits that needed to be made. So we organized the commission's work into an aada which only which have you have and that was also amended for a slight reason this week.

These were often questions people had reading the document that were really just a minor thing to address and were non-substantive. So these only included grammar, spelling, and nonsubstantive changes. and then also a tracking document that looked at all of these comments and how the commission recommended they be incorporated as their condition of approval. Um, so this was a very thorough process.

Um, and we want to thank everyone who provided comments and the commissioners for hanging in there. They even had to hold a special meeting in addition to their three scheduled meetings to finish this work for you on time. So now I'll start talking a little about the substantive elements of the plan and the requirements. So the first thing required in the plan is a statement of community goals and development policies.

The draft you have to review tonight started with this universe of priorities which you all first saw at your May 2nd retreat. Um and we reviewed it and asked if this was an endorsable way to move forward. At that time, we had not gotten into all the details of how we would structure plan reviews around this universe of priorities if it was the direction you wanted us to go.

So, we had the June 24th work session with you all and we got your feedback which is the next few slides are how we have heard your feedback and tried to incorporate it.

when the planning and zoning commission has saw this approach that staff brought forward um they had some concerns and so they are re they're conditions of approval here are a little complicated so bear with me their kind of choice one is that they recommend you adopt an alternative approach to incorporating the priorities and not have two tiers that you just have six priorities and that they are evenly weighted and that and that they can be incorporated in a different way than staff is proposing.

So staff's proposal in the draft plan that was sent out on July 9, July 18th, excuse me, keeping a lot of dates in my head, uh is that zoning map amendments on their own would consider the material in chapter 4 of the plan, which is really written for that development review side of the triangle. and that if a if an application for a zoning map amendment further required a plan amendment, so it wasn't able to meet the criteria in chapter 4, only then would a goal and policy analysis be required.

And that's different than the applications you see under the 2030 plan. The 2030 plan kind of starts this backwards. And when we went back and looked at the state statute, the state statute says that for a finding conformance, you must first conform to the land use element and then goals and policies are if you don't conform to the land use element or if there is a conflict with the land use element. So we're trying to get this process more um in conformance with that state statute.

What we do now is we start almost with the goals and policies analysis and we have 97 goals and over 500 policies in the current plan. This plan has significantly fewer goals and policies and they will really only be looked at if you are off course from our land use and transportation framework. The reason that is available we believe is that we've really spent time calibrating the the land use and transportation framework to the goals and policies.

So it should be that if you are working in the right direction that the plan is pointing there shouldn't be an extra analysis unless you're requesting some modification. So that's what that's the rationale behind the original proposal and what staff had presented to planning and zoning. This is my rough some people are visual some people are word readers. So this is the rough um diagram for how I would describe that to people.

So coming in you start with these chapter 4 materials of the compatible zone compatible zoning categories guidelines for all land uses category guidelines and the transportation framework. If the answer to do you conform with these all is yes that's it. You're done. We're not going further.

But if the answer is no and we need to require a plan amendment then we will start looking at goals and policies and the proposal from staff is that one core which is housing attainability and equity and climate action should be considered in the application and that one complimentary priority should be considered and that is a minimum. If someone bringing forward an application wanted to look at three or four we would not prevent that.

It is also key to note that the language on the last slide said you also cannot be obviously contradicting other priorities. So if you didn't analyze a priority like natural and cultural resources, your project can't have some significant reason that it is um harming natural and cultural resources. So that's the proposed change in process. planning and zoning's change to that change is that they would like you to flatten the the priorities, make all six equally weighted.

Um, but then because of that, require that three of them be analyzed. So, three out of six, but you can pick any three out of six. The consequence of that could be that a case would come forward that considers neither climate action or housing attainability and staff would still say it conforms to the plan. So that is the difference really between the staff recommendation from July and your September recommendation from planning and zoning at its core.

staff also thinks that three is not a magic number and two is not a magic number. So, it's really up to council how much. We just don't recommend it not be all six because not every case would necessarily be furthering all six priorities as been typical of the last 10 years, but we sort of had a different process of addressing that. Also on this page, staff has a small AATA amendment that we made in the last few days, which someone asked about this city only section on page 24.

And when they saw it, they said, "Well, where's the county only part and which they asked a lot of great questions um about which parts go where?" So, we just want to add a few more onlyies to this page to make sure people don't um accidentally try and apply two frameworks to the same kind of decision. It's meant to be one framework, one decision, not both.

Planning and zoning recognize that um council might not want to take their recommendation and might choose to go with the staff's original recommendation. Um and so they said if that is council's preference, they still would like to see some changes to page 3-1 in chapter 3, which describes core priorities.

Um, there's a controversial word that I didn't think would be controversial, but people have strong feelings about it that says core priorities make up the non-negotiable objectives that define the plan. Um, people had a strong reaction to that word non-negotiable and there was several alternative words um suggested during the um planning zoning public hearing. um staff just recommended taking the modifier off if non-negotiable was an unacceptable word.

And then there's also a last sentence in that paragraph they would like to see deleted for lack of clarity. I think that's the end of that one. Would are there any questions clarifying questions about that before I keep moving through other recommendations and elements? Council member Garcia. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for the presentation so far. You've done a great job of kind of encapsulating everything that we've had to go through to get to this point.

It's a very monumental day, and I'm so happy to see so many citizens and and um friends in the audience. But my question goes back to the having um the core priorities established with either the core priorities and one additional or having three priorities with no core priorities. Uh you mentioned that staff doesn't have a preference whether it be two or three. Um can you elaborate on that?

And what what I'm asking I guess is would it be prohibitive to have core priorities um the the two established core priorities and then have two additional priorities to accompany them for development? Thank you. Council member Garcia. I think that staff's goal in recommending the one andone approach. Let's say that there's kind of the one inone approach, there's the flat three approach and then the flat two approach, right?

The goal of the one-on-one approach was that it is really hard to have a project that's the language is actually furthering the priority and so two seemed like kind of a most cases will be able to find two. We would certainly encourage anyone filling out a zoning map amendment application that if they could make their case stronger that they could do so.

They could add, but we wanted to make sure that there was a good strong narrative that maybe wasn't 40 pages long for council to and the commission to be reviewing in the future. Um, currently that's about the size of a regional plan analysis. And when I mocked up and I did mock up some example analyses when we were working on this, I found that if we picked one and one, we could get it down to about 10 or 12 pages um and still have it be really meaningful.

Um so that is that's the hard part, right? Is that if you ask for more, people will spend their time and money writing more pages for you. Um just on a practical level. And so that's the that's the balanced spot. There's not a perfect answer. There's just a an answer that works for Flag Staff and that works for me. Thank you. Okay, I'll go on. Start right here. Okay. The another thing that we do in a regional plan is we have to make a determination of plan amendment categories.

And there's sort of some described space of this and then there's kind of some negative space of this. So the first is we defined six major plan amendment categories. Um these are adjusted from our current plan but really we've thought through them um and said these would be the things I like to call it the big deal. Like if someone is proposing this it's a big deal.

We would want more notification more analysis and more justification of why someone should be request someone's request for these kinds of changes should be approved. And then something new that we didn't have in the current regional plan is we found there's a lot of reasons to allow for some minor administrative changes over time. Um so updates to formatting.

One of the reasons the current plan didn't have um URLs or website addresses is because there was no way to update them without a plan amendment. And so if we want to have a highly navigable document, we probably need to allow for websites to be updated administratively.

Um, another uh catch we had was that sometimes the county or the city would adopt a change to the future growth illustration within our jurisdiction and then the whole if the county or the opposite agency wanted to update it, they had to go through an amendment process too.

So, we recommend an administrative change be allowed so that if the county changes the regional plan in Belmont or we change it in the Milton Road corridor area, the other jurisdiction can look and add that to their map administratively. Um, we also said that sometimes a piece of land we didn't anticipate being a park or open space is dedicated to the city and we'd like to be able to display those on the future growth illustration.

There is already a state statute that says parks and open space cannot be identified on a land use map in the regional in your general plan unless you have property owner permission and almost exclusively that's the city or county that give that kind of property owner permission. So that seems like it should be an administrative process as well. Um, we also would provide that there's an important table of zoning compatibility for each land use category.

And we would like to allow council that as you're passing ordinances that might rename or create new zones that they can be added without an additional amendment. You'll just include that in your zoning ordinance. And then any factual updates to information or map appendices. So what that would be is things like in the significant natural resources map. Sometimes other agencies get better data or newer data.

For instance, um prairie dogs, which are close to the heart of city hall lately, have a lot of mapping at its over a 10-year period of what colony extent looks like. And those are sometimes we want to be mapping those. Um and that kind of thing could be adjusted administratively as well. We're usually not the steward or creator of that data. We're just using data that's created by other experts. So when we look at these recommendations from staff um PNZ said they had two requests.

one um this is what this came from staff and a conversation with friends of Flagstaff's future um the first one which is that the future growth illustration in the 2030 plan and the 2045 plan have this year and a half sometimes a little more of overlap where you might be presented with 2030 amendments even after the 2045 plan has been adopted and ratified because the cuto off date for switching from one plan to another is based not on when the application is before you, but when the application is deemed complete at the staff level.

So, there's kind of this overlap period. And we wanted to make sure that you could amend both plans at the same time. Um, and then also we would add a statement clarifying how any conflicts between the map and text will be addressed. This was a recommendation of one of the commissioners. um we would add a statement to chapter 2 that states if there's a conflict that the text overrides the maps.

Lastly, the commission in this area um tabled a topic um that a commenter requested that instead of all six of these major plan amendments applying to everything that we set an acreage threshold that any project that is less than five gross acres be allowed to be processed as a minor amendment. Um staff at the time of the hearing had some concerns that this could create a loophole and people could split lots to get under five acres.

We also looked back at the categories and there's really only one category this makes sense to apply to which is category one and I'll go back to show you that one really quick. Um which is decreases in intensity or density within the urban growth boundary. So that means that you're in the urban growth boundary. You have water and sewer, but you want to produce less density or lower or a lower density zoning category than the plan calls for.

Um that could be a big deal even at 5 acres and it cumulatively could result in a loss of density and housing units that could move against the key priorities in the plan. So staff is thinks there this might be something that council would want to discuss. If you want to include it in the plan, the plan's living document. If you adopt it and don't like it, we could come back and amend amend it later.

Um but our our recommendation is if this is something you want to move forward with that you just footnote category one with some language that parcels of five acres or less will be processed as minor plan amendments. We don't really think it applies to two through six. Very well. Any questions about plan amendments and administrative changes before I move on to land use? Keep going. The land use element is of course the key required element.

It's the ba real basis for findings of conformance and um it has been broken into these building blocks of center, district, landscape and neighborhood and then specific land use categories under this. What you'll notice is that the current plan has these categories and then it also has scales of neighborhood and regional and then it also has existing and future. We took those scales and um existing and future categories out of the map. There's really only a couple small changes to this.

First is the planning and zoning commission recommended expanding the urban center along Milton on both sides further south. It currently shows in the draft plan stopping at University and Fresca's right here and they recommend it go all the way down to Forest Meadows as shown in this alternative map that we pulled together.

In the second thing is that in the first guideline in chapter 4 which is on page 414 um there is language about how infill should be built where there is existing infrastructure and they wanted to add the word and planned infrastructure to that because they feel sometimes there's something in the c CIP and they'd want us to have more flexibility than just already in the ground. So that one's pretty simple.

uh circulation, transit, bicycling and growth are other elements that are required and they are mainly in the chapter 4 end of chapter 4 as the transportation framework. So you can see there is a street network map, an urban trails map, a regional trails map, a bikeways map, a great streets and gateways map and those are what makes up these sets of um requirements. So, there were quite a few edits recommended by the commission to these.

First, they'd like to see a new disclaimer on the regional trails map that's based on a forest service letter basically describing that the regional trails on the map have been determined to conform with the forest plan for the Cookanino National Forest, but that um they have not all of them have yet been authorized. Authorized trails is kind of a interesting concept on national forest lands because you can walk anywhere unless there's a closure on a national forest land.

You can bike anywhere in a non-motorized way that is off of a road or a trail. So, um authorization really means we can construct them and we can manage them as trails. We can name and number them. um and that is got the lowest bar for um NEPA analysis. Now almost all trail construction is a categorical exclusion. So um that disclaimer can be written up based on the letters from the forest service and if um when they are back in the office we'll consult with them.

Um the new they also requested a new disclaimer for the bikeways map which would state that if a new collector or arterial is created that um we could administratively assign a bikeways level to it. And then there was requests for revisions to some definitions and the addition of a new gateway internal city gateway designation at fourth and route 66.

A new policy is recommended under transportation systems policy TS7 which you'll find in your packet as well as information a little more information just a sentence or two on trail design and alignment in chapter 4. Um there's also request that we double check that the existing trails on the regional trails map match the most recent decisions for the dry lake hills area and observatory mea. So, the urban trails map also has two other recommended changes that may um require some discussion.

The first is that the commission requested that planned forest access and trail heads be added to both the urban trails map and the regional trails map. This is information that's currently in the active transportation master plan. Um and so here it is displayed on a mockup of what these two recommendations might mean.

And then the second request is one that goes back to the May 2nd retreat, which the commission recommended that the map distinction between trail alignments for properties over and under 400 acres be dissolved and that all plan trails be shown as a dash line as they traditionally have been. So this is what you see reflected on the slide. This is not the map that's in the plan. It's a mockup essentially from staff.

So you can see what the the full um look and change of these two recommendations would be. Any questions about transportation? All right, I'll move on to parks open space and conservation. So this map is map 3-1 and it is in the open it shows open space and conservation areas that are in need for the community. Um there is one change being requested to this map through the conditions of approval.

Um there is a large box with a very long disclaimer about this map on the page after the map appears in the plan. But the open space commission felt some people might print that plan on its own and then they would lose the disclaimer. So they asked us to make a shorter disclaimer on the map itself as we have done on some other maps. So, that's really what the map disclaimer one is.

And then they asked for a revision to P.1 um to add the 10-minute walk um criteria, which is a national criteria for park accessibility to the policy. It already existed in the guidelines, but they wanted to see it here as well. A few other minor changes are that there were some additional information they wanted to see on the typical practice and placement of new trails in chapter 8 and then some small changes to the high priority action items.

One is that um there's a there is an action item that talks about leveraging money to purchase land for open space and they asked that some information about dedications being purchased and that um it be targeted to the priority areas that the open space commission identified and also to move it from midterm to short-term. Another action item um has some slight rewarding as well. action, high priority action item number two.

And then they asked that a regular action item be added to require the city to do a citywide tree inventory so we have a better forestry information for the community. Any questions on open space? Council member Garcia, I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea of placing the 10-minute walk piece in two separate places in the document. And I was wondering what staff's either uh outlook on that was or and or what the goal of the committee was trying to achieve. Thank you, Council Member Garcia.

I think I could not directly speak to the goal that the committee was trying to achieve. Robert Wallace, um who either joined us online or in person, I think he's here. Yeah. Might come up and speak to that.

But um staff did try to avoid having metrics in the goals and policies because they really um you know what if it's an 11 minute walk is that good enough like I think there should be some flexibility for staff because t these these are objectives so as long as we continue moving forward looking at this as a goal statement and not a hard criteria that's yet that sets the yes or no line.

I don't think it's problematic, but I'd ask Robert if maybe he could speak to the discussion the Open Space Commission had on this. Mayor, Council, Robert Wallace with the Open Space Section and I'm the liaison for the Open Spaces Commission as well.

Um yeah, the Open Space Commission did actually discuss this quite a bit and they uh opted to include the language in their pros one, which is a goal specific to open space and parks to make the apparent how important the 10-minute access walking time is for the community for moving forward those goals to provide that 10-minute access walking time for all residents.

So, we do um as you mentioned, council member, it is stated in other places in the plan, but they wanted to bring it to the forefront here with this particular comment. Thank you. That's sufficient. Any other open space questions before we move on to energy? Okay, the energy element of the plan is another required element. Um it really the state statute requires two things be discussed about energy and then whatever else we decide to discuss on top of that is optional.

Um they say we have to talk about energy efficiency of buildings and then renewable energy promotion. So um these three policies CA2, CA3, and E1 really best summarize um how that's been incorporated into the plan.

I've highlighted some words here that in addition to just talking about reducing the energy consumption of buildings of new and existing buildings that due to our carbon neutrality plan, we added additional language that talks about reducing the reliance on fossil fuels and the carbon footprint. The commission had two recommendations about this element.

The first is that um and this is really a recommendation staff made to the commission is that APS has changed its carbon reduction commitments and there's a lot of language in chapter 10 about that. And so I think in your packet it included a markup that um the sustainability staff did of this material in chapter 10 of how they'd like to update that before adoption so that it reflects the current situation a accurately.

Um and then the second recommendation which came from um Commissioner Sharp was to revise the plan to move away from the abandonment of natural gas and instead strive to maintain two energy sources um and to maintain resiliency, redundancy and affordability. The two places where this is really discussed not in the background material but in the actual actionable parts of the plan are here where I highlighted under CA2.

Um, and then it's roughly alluded to in the action item that states we should update the city's sustainable building resolution, which you've already adopted a version of, and the sustainable residential building incentive, which is part of the zoning code to further implement net zero energy standards. These both of these things already appear in our carbon neutrality plan. So staff expressed at the time this was proposed the concern that this would be divergent from other city policies.

Um that concerns us for a couple reasons. The the regional plan is the only plan and and applicable specific plans are the only plans that can be considered when reviewing development cases.

the however if there are emergencies and other plans and priorities that aren't reflected in the regional plan in a consistent way I think that could create some um difficulty in determining what the expectations of council or a future council might be when someone is trying to come through the process and get an application approved.

Um, one of the things that helps really reduce the cost of housing and I want to bring it back to that is when we have predictability in the process of discretionary decisions.

when because that certainty or that um not the the the the ability to explain and predictably have people have the outcomes that they expect from the process help people make investment choices which either lead them to develop or redevelop a property or maybe sell it or maybe hold it as it is in a state that might be deteriorating and we see that in many communities.

So, it's it is difficult for staff to to um recommend changes that create two policy narratives that don't align, but the commission felt this needed to move forward and be considered. Any questions about that before we finish up the last few? Okay.

The other required elements which I'm just lumping together because there weren't many conditions about them are cost of development, water, recreation, public services and facilities, public buildings housing conservation rehabilitation and redevelopment of buildings and urban places safety element which is really a public safety element and then neighborhood preservation and revitalization. There's only a handful of recommended conditions for this one is a good one.

Somebody caught that we missed an abbreviation that was in a graphic but never appeared in text. So, thank you for careful readers out there everywhere. Um, and then page 11-4 characterized something as a dam failure that was actually a levy breach. And so, we need to correct some language there so that um our partners are not alarmed. Um, the staff was asked in many comments to look and create a unifying definition of flood plane which we found very challenging.

So like that affordable housing um definition that I showed you earlier, we would propose you allow staff to come up with kind of a overall definition of flood plane and then subdefinitions based on context because it does mean different things in different contexts.

also um in a location in chapter uh four where we discuss um I'm sorry chapter five where we this is incorrect on the slide um in chapter five where we discuss medical health facilities there was an a asked to add our additional our mental health facilities and partners in the community on the other guidelines in the that might relate to these sections is that um the commission asked to add a new best practice This is under a section in chapter 3 called best practices for creating a sense of place which if you'll remember from our May 2nd retreat was part of our discussion about community character and what language to use around that more commonly used topic in the plan.

And then to add a new guideline to urban center which as you saw in the map covers Milton and downtown and some of Sunnyside and Route 66 really the central part of Flagstaff. um to require that buildings have an activation of street fronts and that blank or inactive walls be discouraged. This language appears in other places and is consistent with our current architectural standards. Um and that's why staff didn't feel it was necessary, but it is perfectly fine to add.

So the recommended motion is to read and adopt the resolution number 2025-56 with conditions that we update the plan per the attached and amended aa and with the conditions of approval either as the planning and zoning commission placed it or recommended it or as council would like to see it amended.

I also want to note that the resolution um we're you're not asked to move on this part of it, but it does include language that follows up on information in the plan that we would like to resend the Woodlands Village specific plan as part of the ratification. The rationale for this is that that area is almost completely built out at this point. Um there's just a few lots left and the regional plan actually has conflicting land use categories for those remaining parcels.

Some of them for instance are shown in the Woodlands Village plan as spe as business park but we identify them in the current regional plan as an urban center. So there's a disconnect that's goes back this plan was originally adopted in 1996. So it's pretty old um and outdated for that reason. So the ballot information and your resolution would include information to tell people why that is being proposed for being rescended. It's to basically remove conflicting specific plan information.

So, if you don't want to move the way the planning and zoning commission recommended, our recommendation as staff is that you let us help a little bit and that we would um we'll type up what you're discussing. Um, and that you focus the way you discuss things on either approving a condition of approval, like going along with it, or wanting something different or for something to be struck from the conditions of approval that the planning and zoning commission provided you.

That's kind of how we think it would be clearest to move forward because this can be complicated. You have 31 conditions of approval. Do you want all of them? Do you want some of them? Are there some you disagree with and you want done differently? That's really the after public comment has concluded, that's really the um core of your discussion tonight. Are there any other questions for me? Council, any questions before we take public comment? Doesn't look like it. Thank you.

So before we take public comment, I just want to thank everyone who has been so involved in this plan for so long. Um the number of hours that were calculated on the screen um are significant and the fact that our community is committed enough to spend that kind of time working on this plan says a lot about our community. And I know that we're all very very appreciative of um all of that work. And uh before we get started, I just want to remind people that we're always respectful in here.

And so don't indicate um we ask that you refrain from indicating support or opposition to anything that is said up here because we want everyone to feel comfortable to to state their opinions without hearing um anything in the back of the room. So Tom Pearson Thank you, Mayor Daget, Vice Mayor Suite, and council members. I appreciate this opportunity to voice my support for the planning and zoning commission's conditions of approval.

I especially recommend you approve conditions number 47 and number 64. Condition 47 revises the plan to move away from abandoning natural gas and instead strives to maintain two energy sources. Uh this will make for better resiliency, redundancy, and affordability. Currently, the draft plan promotes electric only homes and the elimination of natural gas. This is a dangerous option during our frequently frigid winters.

Homes without backup heat can be life-threatening during prolonged power outages. The danger is especially severe for the elderly or those with disabilities. Condition number 64 gives equal weight to the six regional plan priorities. Equalizing priorities avoids relegating the importance of our economy to a secondass status. As you recall in a recent poll, Flagstaff residents place the economy as their number two priority. A vibrant economy is essential for Flag Staff's sustainability.

Currently, climate action or carbon neutrality in Flagstaff is a top core priority in the draft plan. Recent national and international developments indicate a dramatic decline in support for carbon neutrality. For example, federal funding for renewable power and other carbon neutrality programs is rapidly being withdrawn.

APS has reversed its carbon neutrality policies, scrapped the 2050 zerocarbon goal, dropped the interim 2030 clean energy targets, and extended the coal plant retirement timeline. Why? These changes were driven by the rapid expansion of AI's power- hungry data centers. They drastically increase the demand for stable and reliable power. Renewable power cannot provide the quantity or quality of power required by data centers.

Last April's massive power blackout in Spain and Portugal left 60 million people without electricity. Experts cited a cascading overvoltage in the 70% renewable power grid as the cause. Europe is stepping away from renewable power as its base source of electricity. In January, the world's largest renewable energy battery backup facility in Moss Landing, California, failed catastrophically and was destroyed by fire.

These events clearly demonstrate that the carbon neutrality plan should not be a core priority in the regional plan. Thank you very much. Thank you, Laura Kesler. And then Patrick Wickstrom. Hello, Mayor and uh council. Uh again, uh I haven't talked down here in a long time. You know how much I love to come down here and talk. Uh I'm being sarcastic, of course, but um I'm going to piggyback on what Tom Pearson just said, but with a focus on safety.

As you know, I'm a I don't like to wear this on my this badge of honor, but it's not. But I am a flood impacted and fire impacted uh resident. So that's why I think of safety uh especially when it comes to uh 47 and 64 and the importance of keeping that.

So I'm going to try to get this in 30 minutes here uh three minutes, but I strongly request you approve the planning and zoning change proposals 47 and 64 which I which aim to improve our economy and allow reliable heating for our homes and during power outages. I want to briefly briefly share a few experiences and some advice that highlights the importance of adding these to the regional plan. For six years, I lived in two different all-electric powered communities, both in very warm climates.

Our communities were utterly dependent upon electricity generated by diesel burning plants. On many occasions, the plants would shut down due to storms, power fluctu fluctuations, surges, or human error, negligence, or repairs. At one point we were without electricity for over a month. Over the years the com those communities adopted various methods of ad adaptation to survive power outages.

Large businesses and government services uh had to equip themselves with millions of dollars worth of large capacity generators that were gasoline and diesel powered. Large industrialsized batteries were very expensive if you could even find them. They were basically not available. for perspective, just a few places that depended on massive industrial-sized generators that kept those communities safe and functioning.

And they were they needed uh these are the places that needed those generators, all schools and colleges, hospitals, airports, police department, water department, the banks because the ATMs didn't work, grocery stores, even though they had those large generators, most much of the frozen food still spoiled. There were food shortages because of it. Gas stations, the power, the pumps didn't work.

Most government buildings, outpatient surgical and testing services, cell towers, all hotels, and the largest shopping mall all had to invest in these industrialsized generators because of power outages. Restaurants and small businesses without large generators had to close until the power was restored. Only the largest chain restaurants and businesses were able to afford the large generators needed to keep doors open.

You can imagine what an extended power outage during a cold flex staff winter could do. I truly believe residents would will perish if we're in that situation, God forbid. I attended several regional planning meetings um and every time I didn't attend all of them, but I did attend some. And I just want to say not one planner understood the magnitude of what could happen if we lost power for a few days or longer. So please put Flagstaff safety first and keep those proposals in.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you Patrick Wickstrom and then Michelle James. Good afternoon honorable mayor and council members. My name is Patrick Wickstrom and I'm a climate science and solutions master student at NAU and professionally specialize in climate action and adaptation planning for local governments. I'm here to voice my concern about the proposed changes to building fuel switching in the energy and climate chapter through uh condition number 47.

I would like to be clear for the record that according to the Arizona state law, Flagstaff cannot prohibit the use of fossil fuels in buildings. But what the city can do is promote and incentivize building fuel switching away from fossil fuels and towards full electrification. The city must pu push for fuel switching in both existing and future building to protect citizens from harmful pollution caused by gas burning appliances in homes and businesses.

It is not only a good public health policy but a responsible fiscal one too. We know it is cheapest to electrify buildings when they are built and it is cheaper to maintain one utility connection from electricity than adding two utility connections including gas. The technology for affordable electricity for homes and businesses already exists and we must take full advantage of it.

In closing, while I support the overall Flagstaff regional plan, by changing this by changing the plan using this recommendation in the energy and climate section, this council will be allowing residents to be locked into decades of exposure to harmful pollutants. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle James. And then S Best. Hello, mayor, vice mayor, and council. My name is Michelle James. I'm executive director of Friends of Flagstaff's future.

FCCubed is opposed to the acceptance of specific conditions of approval that will result in significant changes to the draft plan. We urge you not to accept the conditions of approval numbered 64, 21, and 47. Adoption of condition 64 would result in the removal of climate action and affordable housing as the two identified core priorities of the regional plan 2045. These are the backbone of the plan and address our community's emergencies.

Implementation of this proposed change would lead to less direct action by developers to address these important community needs. Serious consideration of this condition would require returning to the community for discussion of consequences um that with this significant modification. FQ recommends that condition number 21 be rejected as well. Core priorities should remain non-negotiable even as we take action to address the four complimentary priorities.

Adoption of condition number 47 would result in the regional plan's non-compliance with building fuel shifting policy allow outlined in the regional uh excuse me outlined in the carbon neutrality plan encouraging the shift to electric building fuel sources as stated in the carbon neutrality plan is appropriate given the goals of our city to reach carbon neutrality by 2030. Our community will not support a regional plan 20 245 that does not implement the carbon neutrality plan.

FQ provide count provided council with an additional request yesterday to consider adoption of three comments received by the planning and zoning commission but rejected from inclusion in the conditions of her approval. That letter has more detail than I'll give you tonight. Comment number five, this was actually from FCubed. um proposed strengthening the language of requiring um to require a major plan amendment in category 3, page 2-7.

FQ believes that any provision of water outside the urban growth boundary should require a major plan amendment. We should not be encouraging development outside the urban growth boundary by making it easier to get water services. Comment number 29 received from the open space commission provides a positive and simple modification of this open space goal number two. I'll just keep it at that. There's more to it.

And finally, comment number 99 provides an excellent recommendation to consider the importance of native plants and a high priority action item. Native plants should be used in most situations to reduce wildfire risk and should be considered in any invasive plant planning efforts. Okay, good. Thank you so much. Thank you S Best and then Russell Randall. Good evening Mayor, vice mayor and council. I'm S Best.

Um I think that uh we've been working very hard on two plans, the county plan and the city plan. And I'd like to suggest a few things that bring them together. Uh one is responsible tourism. Responsible tourism is a relatively new but a strong theme in the county comprehensive plan and it it's a land use priority that recognizes that millions of people come here as tourists that they uh would have their experience enhanced by education about our ecology and history.

and at the same time uh they can be taught how to move through our ecology and our landscape without doing damage. A great example is the uh the uh snow play effort of a decade ago made a huge difference in how people uh move through Flagstaff on snowy weekends and instead of leaving a huge mess uh we have a whole different experience today. very positive. So, I propose the following new policy RS10 on page 313.

Develop responsible tourism programs that will educate area visitors about our regional environment, recent history, and indigenous history, and encourage them to respect and protect area resources. I uh want to second what Michelle said about native plants and suggest that we add uh under action items page 712 currently says uh coordinate invasive plant plans and I would say coordinate invasive and native plant plans.

This is basically the uh San Francisco Peaks weed management area uh multi-jurisdictional effort and in the county we have included native plants in it. I encourage us to do so in the city as well. Uh obviously plants uh are an ecosystem. You you don't just think about pulling out invasives. What's going to come in? We need healthy top soil and healthy native plant communities. that is the best defense against invasive plants.

When we include native plants, we bring in a whole array of research and organizations and volunteers uh and a lot of expertise uh that we don't quite touch if we're only talking invasive plants and going and spraying things. So, uh, I, uh, want to advocate for those two changes and I agree with Michelle James about, uh, retaining our core priorities and, uh, not going for, uh, conditions of approval 4764 and 21. Thank you very much. Thank you, Russell Randall, and then Stefan Summer.

Good afternoon, mayor, members of the city council. Today, I'm here representing two different advocacy groups, disability advocacy groups, uh, Barrier Free Flag Staff and the Northern Arizona Community Practice Transition Team. First, we would like to acknowledge the efforts made by Sarah Dect and her team and building a more accessible, inclusive Flagstaff community by developing a plan that promotes access and inclusion for all.

We would also like to commend the planning and zoning commission for listening to our concerns. concerns from the Flagstaff disability community and for its part in enhancing the plan. Upon review of the initial draft of the regional plan, we found fewer than a dozen acknowledgements of the needs of people with disabilities and/or mention of accessibility, inclusion, or universal design.

When the disability community reported this to the city council and to Sarah Dector, our our suggestions for improvement were heard as this draft, the public hearing draft, now includes dozens of statements of accessibility, inclusion, and universal design. Um, now the planning and zoning commission has also recommended the potential addition of another handful of statements. Um, this is very much appreciated by Flagstaff's disability community.

With that said, we do recommend to the council the following. Number one, following the follow the planning and zoning commission's recommendation to include an additional statement of specific mental health facilities in chapter 4's public health section. Also in chapter five housing consider a reision revision of the statement housing and security can include by adding the phrase lack of ADA compliant accessible housing.

Um next uh we would like to see the definition of paratransit in the glossery u refined to add for people with disabilities who may be unable to use standard bus service. And then lastly, as part of the interactive map creation, we would like to see the charts and maps updated to be accessible, as accessible as possible for people with visual disabilities. Lastly, thank you, Mayor Daget.

You've always listened to the disability community quite well, and we appreciate that, as well as members of the council for listening to the concerns of Flagstaff's disability community. Thanks folks. Thank you, Stephan Summer. and then Bruce Spock. And um Oh, you're right in front of me, Sarah. The a lot of these comments came to planning and zoning as well. Correct. That is correct. So, I could look up um the PNZ holding space, those two documents. Correct. Yes.

The holding space has some of the comments people are providing in writing this week and at the dis you can see how they were whether they were discussed or not by looking at those two documents. Thank you. Please proceed. Thank you. Dear mayor and city council members, city staff and Flagstaff community members, my name is Stefan Smer. I'm a retired professor from NAU and I serve on the board of directors of the Northern Arizona Climate Change Alliance.

I live in the University Heights neighborhood and have been there for 23 years. I just want to point out, as you all know already, climate change is now accelerating and it's affect us in Flagstaff in many ways. And I'm just going to quickly go through a few just to keep it in our frontal loes. Climate change has made our summers hotter and our winters warmer. It has put our city at greater and greater risk from wildfire to the point that home insurance is more expensive and less available.

It will continue to undermine Flagstaff's housing crisis as it drives more and more people out of the unbearable summer heat in central Arizona. And it will continue to drive up food prices as crop failures worldwide, particularly in the United States, continue to get worse, etc., etc. You all know the long long list of the effects of climate because climate change affects everything. That is why the city has declared a climate emergency.

The only way we have to slow or reverse climate change is to reduce emissions. There is no other option. That is why the city has developed and passed the climate action and adaptation, carbon mitigation, and climate neutrality plans with the goal for the city to reach net zero emissions by the year 2030. This really is an emergency.

Commissioner Ian Sharp has authored and the Flagstaff Planning and Zoning Commission has forwarded two conditions of approval that are designed specifically to undermine the net zero by 2030 goal. And I ask you to please reject these two conditions of approval, number 47 and number 64. Reject condition 47. This condition would require the city to keep promoting propane natural gas in new construction.

This condition makes the false claim that propane national natural gas is cheaper when in fact heat pumps are more efficient and less expensive for both heating and cooling and they work very well in Flagstaff. counter to some misconceptions. Please take a look at the new Mountain Line building as a prime example. Many homeowners already own heat pumps and they work perfectly well here. Reject condition number 64.

This condition would remove climate action from being a core priority and weaken the priority of reducing carbon emissions in the city's decision-making process. This shift would slow Flagstaff's ability to reach its net zero by 2030 goal even as climate change accelerates. City surveys have clearly shown that the top two priorities for the citizens of Flagstaff are climate action and housing affordability. Do not let condition number 64 undermine the community's top two concerns.

Please reject these two conditions. Thank you. Thank you, Bruce Fox. And then Haley Kraton. Thank you. I'm Bruce Fox. I am currently the vice chair of the Open Spaces Commission and a long-term Flagstaff resident uh 40 years and three months to the day. Um that said uh I highlight two points uh from the recommendations of the uh planning and zoning commission and our own open spaces commission analysis of the plan.

First, we are concerned about the recommendation that all six planning priorities be assigned equal weight and for two reasons. One, we're concerned that trying to achieve such a large set of priorities simultaneously could lead to difficulties in making any decision making. And second, given our understanding of the planning and zoning recommendation of any plan amendment would have to meet uh um one or more of the six priorities.

We believe this could lead to a situation where priorities some priorities would never be selected. And if indeed we are serious about climate action and housing attainability and equity, we must ensure that these two priorities received their priority. um and the other four being secondary as the staff recommended.

Secondly, we support the planning and zoning commission's recommendation for conducting a tree inventory, but we believe it much more valuable to develop and implement a comprehensive urban forestry riparian area and heritage tree initiative. Such an initiative would provide solid science-based information to help in the planning efforts. My experience as a land manager and planner has has confirmed to me that decision making uh without such good information is both fruitless and frustrating.

Um datafree decision making seldom works out very well for any of us. Again, thank you. Thank you, Haley Kraton and Robert Brun. After Hello. Good afternoon, Mayor Daget, Vice Mayor Suite, and council members. Thank you so much for the chance to speak with you today. My name is Haley Kraton. I am the Northern Regional Director for the Arizona Students Association and a member of the Northern Arizona Interfaith Council's Climate Action Team. Couple mouthfuls there.

I deeply commend all of the incredible work put into this plan and many of the things found within it. In particular, ASA and NIC appreciate the focus on housing attainability and equity and climate action as the two core goals of this plan and ask council to uphold these as top priorities. Like many in this community, we see these two things as incredibly important.

We understand that in order to create a thriving Flagstaff, we must uplift our communities, provide affordable and accessible places to live, and protect the beautiful natural environment that makes the city great. As a representative of the students here at Northern Arizona University, I want to speak a bit about their unique experiences when it comes to housing and climate change. Young people today have grown up with very little hope.

We have been told of a crumbling housing market that we may never be able to afford and a dying planet that may not be habitable in 100, 150, 30 years time. We have debated ever having children, not wanting to bring them into a world that cares little for their futures. And like many others, we have seen the erosion of protections for the environment and their ever growing attacks on low-income and other marginalized groups here in Arizona and nationwide.

Some of us have become resigned to what this means for the world we are inheriting. While I of course empathize with this outlook, I am here because I am not one of the resigned ones. Myself and others from ASA and NIC are continuing to fight for the common good, for advancements in housing and climate policy in this city, and for the prioritization of equity in all things. I ask that you do the same.

Continue to be champions for the people and the futures they are hoping to create here in Flagstaff. Listen to our concerns and act on them as you have been. and keep these principles and the realities of all people in this community in mind as you discuss and vote today. Thank you so much. Thank you, Robert Bernig and Jim Schwikert, Mayor Dagot and Vice Mayor and members of the city council and fellow citizens of Flagstaff.

I come here today to support the draft regional plan land use plan 2045 developed with with the review and input of the regional plan committee and vetted by members of our community at a variety of public events. I was dismayed, however, to learn of several recent recommendations from the city's planning and zoning commission that would fundamentally alter the substance of this plan.

These recommendations included a proposal, this is condition number 64, that core priorities be eliminated or deprioritized and instead be grouped to be equal to the existing four complimentary priorities. The original core priorities um were first identified by previous city councils as emergencies. a housing emergency in 2000 and a climate emergency in 2021. They form the heart of this plan.

To make this change almost at the last minute, I believe is disrespectful to the staff and committee that developed the plan over many months and to the citizens who commented on this plan over nearly a year of public feedback. Such a significant change is unacceptable. The original draft of the plan as illustrated on page page 112 of the draft plan describes the core and complimentary priorities as the plan's north star an opportunity to set a bold direction for the region's future.

It said in describing the plan's priorities, the original draft document states, "Developing this regional plan included extensive community outreach, input from the public agencies, the business community, nonprofit organizations, civic groups, and others that shared its focus and define its quote universe of priorities. The core priorities are those that are more central to plan implementation. I'm reading directly from the plan, draft plan itself.

The priorities work together to create a community vision for a sustainable and equitable region. I oppose the change to the original draft plan. Thank you. Thank you, Jim Schweikert. And then Marcus Ford. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members. Hello to the community. Um, well, first I approve I I ask you to approve conditions 47 and 64. Uh, I couldn't ask more strongly for you to approve those.

uh CNP should not and must not be uh the top priority in the regional plan or even top two. I would argue wildfire uh prevention is far more important than anything I can think of. As I listened to some of the others speak, um I was I was thinking I don't mean to minimize the the hard work and the number of hours put into uh policies or um or plans. Um but having said that, the number of hours put into something has absolutely no merit, no no basis on on the merit of the thing.

Uh, I could argue to you for a $600 million tax right now toward, let's say, the goal of a reduced carbon footprint. And at the end of that process, I cannot show you one measurable daily impact that's beneficial on your lives. I cannot show it to you. I cannot give you science on it. But I can show you the impact of $600 million taken away from your your tax dollars, taken away from your community.

And when I suggested the possibility that funds diverted from something like wildfire um towards something along the lines of climate change, um one of the council members rolled her eyes at me and said that that was disingenuous. No. Uh if you there's only so many dollars. I studied economics. I got a degree in economics and it's the study of the allocation of resources among limited end users. That's what we're facing here.

Anyway, um the number of hours put into a program have no bearing at all on their merit. Um I have an hourong talk on the merit of CNP, the lack of merit. Uh let me not even try to broad brush that. But the takeaways are the zoning code contains mandatory standards for developers, new residential projects using all electric systems and installs EV charging in infrastructure to receive density incentives.

The CNP's quantitative targets for reducing fossil fuel use set benchmarks that would lead to future mandates or financial tools like rebates, fees, code changes driving its adoption. uh language in both the plan and commentary suggest a missiondriven shift towards citywide electrification and reduce car dependency. All these to me I I hear a lot of liberty. I I've read the carbon neutrality plan. All of it a few times. And I see a loss of liberty. A lot of loss of liberty.

I see a lot of mandates. It scares me. Reminds me of another regime. Thank you. Please approve 47 and 64. Thank you. That makes sense. Marcus Ford and then Phil Goldblat. Dear mayor and city council members. My name is Marcus Ford. In the past when I've addressed the council, I've done so as a private citizen. Tonight, I'm addressing you on behalf of Friends of Flagstaff's Future, a local grassroots organization committed to achieving a sustainable, just, and thriving Flagstaff.

The Friends of Flagstaff's future is adamantly opposed to the adoptions of condition 64 and 47. Individually and jointly, they constitute a backsliding in our city's commitment to address climate change. Let me address condition 47 specifically. Condition 47 proposes that the city will quote strive to maintain the use of two energy sources, one of which is natural gas. Natural gas is a euphemism for methane.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, 28 times more powerful than CO2 in terms of warming the Earth's atmosphere. Our current carbon neutrality plan has four strategies to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. The first is to reduce or remove natural gas from municipal buildings. The second is to encourage new buildings to rely on the electrical grid for their main source of energy. The third supports fuel switching away from gas in existing residential and commercial buildings.

And the fourth is to provide training and education on fuel switching away from natural fuel natural fossil away from fossil fuels. Adopting condition 47 undercuts all four strategies, which is to say it renders our carbon neutrality plan completely impotent. A plan that has no strategies for achieving its goal is not a plan. It's just verbiage. The citizens of Flagstaff have repeatedly spoken out in support of our carbon neutrality plan in opposition to those who object to it.

Adopting either or both of these conditions thwarts the will of the people. Our downtown connection center demonstrates that we can build carbon neutral buildings that are sustainable, functional, and beautiful without natural gas. On behalf of the friends of Flagstaff's future, I implore you to reject conditions 64 and 47. Thank you. Thank you, Phil Goldblat, and then Jacqueline Thomas, Mayor Daget, Vice Mayor Sweden, city council members.

That was a little hard for me to say because I'm practically Sarah Dector's next door neighbor and I know how hard she worked on this plan and the staff and how many hours have been put in on it. But I have to say what I believe is the truth and what is best for the u welfare and prosperity of the people of Flagstaff. So, I also support um recommendations 64 and 47 of the planning and zoning commission.

And I just want to say something about recommendation 47 um having to do with climate action and so forth that until the the electric power companies in the state of Arizona, namely APS, SRP, and uh Tucson Electric really get their act together as to how much carbon uh fossil carbon is emitted into the atmosphere. And until the uh refineries, nationwide petroleum refineries um get their act together with regard to producing fuels that produce carbon um and and make sustainable fuels.

What Flagstaff emits is really just a drop in the bucket and therefore it should not be a priority as it is in this regional plan. Um, I'd much rather see a healthy e economy and resilient public services and facilities be the core priorities with those two being complimentary priorities. Um, if there has to be two, you know, core priorities as Miss Dector seemed to indicate uh previously.

So, um, therefore, I'd recommend that that you, uh, take to heart number 47 and 64 that planning and zoning recommended. Thank you for hearing me out. Thank you, Jacqueline Thomas, and then Susie Garrettson. Hi, Mayor, council members, and Sarah. Thank you for all your work.

Um, I'm an individual who's also on the Open Space Commission and I would like to refer, it's not been pulled up, but the future growth illustration map, just a side note, um, we recommended a change to parcel APN 106-10-00003. It's the southern brown spot on that map. Um, it's currently called a suburban center. We suggest it's changed to a um, a suburban neighborhood.

PNZ did not carry this forward and I feel strongly about this, but I also really appreciate the conditions that were put forward from the open space commission. We've identified this area as an important segment of a top priority trail corridor between the Rio Flag Water Reclamation Plant and the Forest Service land to the south.

The area is identified as a crucial riparian corridor for wildlife by Arizona game and fish directs surface water to the sub to supplement the Rio to flag riparian corridor and is an important connection for hikers and cyclists to forest service land. Additionally, the corridor provides an important viewshed platform and connectivity to Fischer Point. This area along the future John Wesley Pow Boulevard already has minimal public access to public lands.

As this location develops, public access must be secure to support development, ensuring that neighborhoods have legal access to recreation, which is imperative to support health equity and the 10-minute walking access standard identified in the urban plan. This quarter topography and location already provides that access to meet those requirements and would not need to be carved out later if it had a um classification of suburban centers stuck on top of it.

Um we would it also it meets the newly suggested comments about um the language for a community sense of place by providing this corridor. The suburban center classification and development goals for this zoning type includes medium to high intensity of people, residency, jobs and activities and has been located directly on the trail corridor and does not reflect the inherent natural benefits of this corridor and likely does not reflect a community vision.

Infilling like moving in dirt which would have to be done in this kind of topography would eliminate all these benefits and the ecological services provided cannot be replicated elsewhere.

The open space commission has been involved with this specific landscape for 20 years and most recently with this pro process during the alignment of the John Wesley Powell road location by making comments to the drafts um the plans drafts in December and in July regional plans and speaking at the August planning and zoning planning meetings and now again the comment given for not removing the suburban center and changing it to a suburban neighborhood is that there is no land use basis to makes this change.

I hope I've just described to you the current and existing land use basis and future benefits of this corridor. I would suggest a field trip. Um, and we do appreciate policy OS.2 being um, moved forward. Thank you. Thank you Sarah. To clarify, so this was a recommendation from the Open Space Commission that that the PNZ didn't discuss. Um, thank you, mayor. The planning zoning commission did discuss it and it was a split vote, but voted not to move it into the conditions of approval.

I can pull it up and go over it when we're done with public comment. Please do. Thank you, Susie Garrettson. And then Doug um G or Gee. Good afternoon, Mayor Daget and Vice Mayor Suite and all the council members. Um, I'm the president of Friends of Flagstaff's Future and I also served on the Flagstaff Regional Land Use Plan 2045 committee. Um, the city and county did a good thing by having this committee review the plan.

We met for over a year and I was impressed by the process and the diversity of the city and county residents who with who had um diverse perspectives um who were also serving on the committee. We are not planners and we don't speak planner lang language. So it took a lot of questions and hours of homework to understand how we were to attack this project. I also want to say I admire the staff, Sarah, Michelle, Melissa, um, who had the patience to go through it with us. It was long and grueling.

Um, we had a good exchange of ideas with often intense discussion, but the process that was set up helped us to come to fairly good um, compromises. FCub's uh regional plan committee have made several recommendations to the recent plan that were submitted and I fully support them. One of them is condition 64 which um was a surprise to me.

Um it waters down the two core priorities climate action and affordable housing and was just added to to the plan in this recent virgin version and um it was a switcheroo as Robert Brun said in our committee meeting and it was a surprise to me as I don't recall that we had a big discussion about this when we were on the regional plan use um 2045 committee. I think this change should be sent back to the citizens for discussion if you are planning on accepting the commission's recommendation.

I appreciate the work you all do and your consideration of all of FCub's recommendations. Thank you. Thank you, Doug G. and uh Walter Dempsey. How far off am I? You got it. You nailed it. Yeah. So, good afternoon, council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Doug G, and I'm here as a representative of the broader Flagstaff community and as a community volunteer working with the Northern Arizona Interfaith Council Climate Action Team. I was born and raised here in Flagstaff.

Um, and I love this place and this community, its diversity, its character, its beauty, and its opportunities. My personal faith as a Christian compels me to care deeply about the people who call this place home and about our stewardship of its land and its resources. As a scientist and an active community member, I have seen many of the changes and challenges over the years that have been accompanied by growth, tourism, economics, and climate change impacts in our region.

Over the course of my 30-year career here in Flagstaff, working for Gore, I have seen how housing availability and affordability have been major obstacles to our ability to attract and retain a highquality, fully staffed workforce in nearly every sector of our local economy. I've seen how too many of our neighbors, particularly the most vulnerable, have struggled with housing costs.

too often having to make significant sacrifices in other areas of life such as clothing, food, and transportation simply trying to survive and make ends meet.

I've seen how the effects of climate change on forest health, wildfires, floods, precipitation, and local temperatures have overwhelmed the capabilities of our local infrastructure, resulted in substantial damage to local neighborhoods, created major new economic costs, raised the risks of insurability for many in our community, and have marred large swats of our local forest and wildlife habitat.

For these reasons, I strongly applaud the work of those who developed the regional plan and particularly the elevation of climate action and housing attainability and equity as the two core priorities in the plan. I believe these are in fact the preeminent challenges we face here in the Flagstaff region to long-term human flourishing to our local environment and to quality of life in our community and that their impacts extend into every other facet of our local lives.

To me, this is also independently validated knowing that these two core priorities align with two of the specific focus areas in which NIC has been actively working in recent years.

From this perspective and from my own longtime history of living in Flagstaff, I believe believe these properly represent the most critical focus areas for this plan and that the four complimentary priorities identified in the plan are ancillary to these core priorities while still being important to serving the various interests and needs of our diverse region within the context of the overall plan. No plan is perfect.

Every plan must naturally involve trade-offs between competing and interrelated interests, needs, and constraints. This requires all of us as shared stakeholders in this community and region to be willing to compromise with those whose interests, needs, and values may differ from our own. I believe the manner in which this plan was developed. Thank you. Thank you, Walter Dempsey. And then Irish Noble. Good afternoon, council and mayor. Thank you allowing me the opportunity to speak.

I'm here to support the recommendations of 47 and 64 and looking over these recommendations, especially 64 that came in as a change last into it. I'm really hoping that these changes came about from the surveys that were done from the citizens because I know that in speaking listening to the surveys in previous meetings that one of the final surveys put um climate action as one of the bottom priorities citizens and it seems that their priorities might be changing in the process.

Um item 47, the revising the plan to move away from the abandonment of natural gas and strive toward maintaining two energies is wonderful to see. I very much believe that that is a safety issue for people in Flagstaff being able to provide within the temperature climate that we have. um the safety issue for heating, especially in winter, as well as the increasing heat that we're getting, electricity to be able to run air conditioning.

At the same time, the cost of when appliances go out and housing costs is much greater for electric appliances than it is for um gas appliances. And that's going to mostly affect people that are incomestrapped on standard incomes, not that don't vary every single month. And subsidizing them is a way to go. However, that is an additional burden that our taxpayers would end up footing. Something that might not be the best way to go.

Um, when electricity does go out, our power plants a lot of the time are powered by natural gas anyways. So the power that's coming to these houses is coming a lot of the time. 43% of the power in this country is run off of natural gas as it is right now. And natural gas is putting the electricity into the houses. So we're using it one way or another as it is anyways giving people that option.

So if one shuts off and they have the other option that is something that is so important to the people here. Um, item 64 for making the six priorities equal I think is extremely important as well right now. The two priorities of climate action and housing attainability, affordability, as I'm sure is what you guys speak with your friends and family and your constituents throughout the area, being able to live in Flagstaff where they're from is such a priority for so many people throughout here.

And we want to make sure that the climate action um requirements put on new housing and anything else isn't increasing those costs, which we know is increasing over and over again for mandates that aren't necessarily what the people want each and every time they're trying to purchase houses or make changes within the areas that they live. So, please support these amendments 64 and 47. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Irish Noble and then Charity Lee.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. My name is Irish Noble, and I'm here as a member of both the Flagstaff community and the Northern Arizona Interfaith Council climate action team. We would like to thank our city council members and city staff for their hard work on the Flagstaff regional plan. And I want to personally affirm the plan's emphasis on climate action and housing attainability as complimentary objectives.

While environmental interests and human interests are often viewed as mutually exclusive, I can personally attest that this is not true. And I'm glad to see the regional plan reflecting a creative and hopeful vision of flourishing for both humans and the natural world. My husband and I have lived in Sunnyside for three years now and feel very uh fortunate to be homeowners there, especially being in our early 30s.

Um, Sunnyside is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Flagstaff with over 10,000 residents per square mile compared to the citywide average of about,00 per the 2020 census. The density and availability of properties with small floor plans in this neighborhood were major factors in our ability to purchase a home um when we were in our 20s um amid the current realities of the housing market.

Living in a dense mixeduse urban area has also helped us to live in alignment with our values around stewarding our planet and loving our neighbors. They're doing that. We now commute to work, visit friends, and run errands primarily by bike and estimate that we've put over 1400 combined user or uh sorry, bike miles, commuter miles on our bikes since moving to Sunnyside. Um, which has probably offset around 1,000 pounds of carbon emissions.

And that's one way that we feel like we can love our neighbors well in this neighborhood. Um, it's worth noting that neither of us grew up riding bikes for transportation, but adopted this habit as adults when our surroundings suddenly made bike transit a logical and accessible option. Finally, we appreciate that Sunnyside's efficient use of residentially zoned land maximizes the opportunity to conserve open space for wildlife and make it accessible for human enjoyment.

Our neighborhood's easy access to the open space and foots trails on McMillan and Mesa contributes greatly to our collective health and well-being as a community and it gives access to people um to nature and the city for people without a vehicle. To me, Sunnyside is an excellent example of the natural correlation between housing attainability and climate action.

I would like to affirm once more the regional plan's emphasis on these two important matters which have the potential to create positive ripple effects throughout our community when they are addressed in tandem. Thank you again for your hard work on the plan and for taking these comments into consideration. Thank you, Charity Lee. Good evening, mayor, council members. Charity Lee with Capstone Homes. Um, my request is to please consider making changes to policy maps 4-3 and 4-6.

The regional plan policy map 4-3 shows rows across Canyon, Del Rio, and Jun Point classified as minor and major collector roads. However, our traffic impact analysis and land planning for these developments show that these roads um are either local roads or minor collector roads. the map across Canyon Del Rio um that shows Herald Ranch Road uh is showing it as a minor collector road.

Herald Ranch Road and Canyon Del Rio according to our traffic impact analysis is being planned as a local road and is um uh sorry the regional MA uh plan map is showing also a minor collector road across Point South. Our land planning is proposing a local road, not a minor collector road. And on Juniper Point North, the map shows a major collector road. Our land planning for Juniper Point North anticipates that this road will be a minor collector road.

Please either remove these roads from policym 4-3 or reclassify them as indicated above. And I also sent you this in an email. Uh please also consider changing the density range for suburban neighborhood from 5 to 29 dwelling units to 2 to 29 dwelling units. This change provides the most flexibility for development in the suburban neighborhood. On policy map 4-6, please update the proposed foots across Canyon del Rio to match our recent development proposals.

And on policy maps 4-3 and 4-6, please include a disclaimer for the roads and trails across private property stating that the roads and trails depicted herein are conceptual and subject to change. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. All right, we have some online commenters. Our first online commenter is going to be Lynn King, go ahead and um offer your comments to mayor and council. You can you can go ahead and unmute and offer your comments if you'd like. Okay. Uh hello.

Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, this is Chin Lin. I live in Pandora Trail. I've been residents of Fresa for 30 years. Um, so thank you Mayor Deckard and council members for giving me the opportunity to speak. I hope you're all doing well. So I'm here today to um urge you, the council, do not approve condition number 47 and do not approve condition number 64. Um the for condition number 47 um this condition is assuming that APS will be our only energy provider in the next 20 years.

However, a growing number of alternative renewable energy platforms have been adopted rapidly throughout the country. One of them is virtual power purchase agreement which has proven to be highly scalable, reliable and cost effective, especially for communities like ours. In addition, APS strategy shift is not only harmful to our climate but also harmful to its customers like you and me. Last year, APS increased monthly rate by $12 and another 20 will be raised in 2626.

If we depend on APS as our only energy provider, affordable housing will quickly become unaffordable living. Renewable energy has become the cheapest form of energy for consumers and the trend will continue in the future. Also the draft plan also emphasized on energy efficiency for uh in chapter 10. So page 20 paragraph 3 it recognizes that removing natural gas entirely would not be physible feasible for some households.

Therefore it would help household um household to improve energy efficiency through various means. So the regarding number number 64 this condition ask the council to remove the word core for priority of housing attainability equity and the climate action. These two priorities are the heart and soul of flagstep regional plan 2045. Without keeping them as core priority, there will be no guiding principle for our land use in the next 20 years and beyond.

By keeping the house and climate as core priority, we'll be able to preserve the characters of Flash we all love today and welcome anyone who wants to call Flash at home in the future. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next sorry our next online commenter will be Hillary. Hillary you may go ahead and unmute and address council. Good evening mayor and council Hillary Turby. Currently the regional plan applies the same amendment requirements regardless of parcel size.

This creates a disproportionate burden for small land owners and infill developers who often propose projects aligned with city goals but must navigate a fullscale plan amendment process. A minor plan amendment pathway for sites under five acres would encourage infill and missing middle housing projects, streamline city resources, balance oversight and efficiency. Many Arizona jurisdictions scale their amendment thresholds by acreage.

Scottsdale, for example, has a major amendment um theirs is triggered um at 5 to 15 acres depending on location. In Mesa, a major amendment is triggered in the downtown area um at 10 acres and 160 acres elsewhere. In Phoenix, no amendment is required, major or minor, if it's under 10 acres. And a major amendment is only triggered at 3 to five square miles. In Peoria, an 80 acre threshold is used for major amendments.

And in Gilbert, they use 160 acre threshold for residential um applications and a 40 acre threshold for non-residential applications. Introducing a 5 acre cutoff for minor plan amendments would bring Flagstaff into alignment with peer jurisdictions and promote clarity.

Um just uh to add on, I would also just say that um and remind council that this would speed up the resoning process just because in a major plan amendment process, you can't move resonings forward until the major plan amendment process is completed. Thank you very much for your time this evening. Thank you. And our last online commenter will be null Griezmann. N you may address council. Yes. Thank you.

Uh Mayor Dagen, members of the council, null Brunswmer, one East Washington Street in Phoenix for your record. um here on behalf of Little America Resort and uh as noted in my uh latest uh letter in this matter which I think should have gotten to you today. Um we worked through a number of items with your staff uh over this uh general planning pro regional planning process and uh generally supportive of the final version of the regional plan as as it sits before you today.

Um, I would like to reiterate the resort's uh, you know, continued opposition to the trails plan uh, where it shows specific pathways uh, over and through their property which we've expressed prior.

But with that said, uh in review of the two alternative trails maps before you tonight, um if the council uh is going to include one in the regional plan, uh Little America would prefer um the version of the trails plan showing four trail types with the over 400 acre classification um being applicable to the trails that would be shown on their property.

Um as that corresponding line work shows thicker softer conceptual lines um which is more closely aligned with the prior expressed concerns related to minimizing trespassing and associated littering and possible property damage as well of course our guest safety concerns.

Um so with that said uh final plan is very well done and again a thank you to your staff and your commission members and everyone who's participated in this very important uh long range planning effort and thank you for your time. Thank you and that was the last Okay. Uh Council Member Matthews. Thank you Mayor. I just um I'll probably have other comments later, but I just wanted to restate or state some facts just to um get us started.

Um several presenters have um mentioned the priorities that were given back when we were surveying the participants of the regional plan. Number one was housing attainability. Number two, healthy economy. I want to emphasize that that's important because without a healthy economy um the majority of our budget for the city to provide all the services that we do um comes from sales tax and BBB tax and few others.

Um natural resource natural and cultural resources were number three, walkability was four, resilient public services and facilities five and climate action was six. Um, so I just wanted to to remind there were some people that said these were the priorities and I remember the conversation with Sarah uh when then the U Northstar uh presentation was given. Sarah did discount um those community priorities by saying it was just a fluke in um the current events uh at that time.

Um that may or may not be true. maybe we should have reserveyed now that uh we've had a few months behind us. So, I just wanted to to put some more oxygen on that. And then um you know, I was thinking about this. We're in 2025. Uh we're talking about renewing our regional plan that is 2030 um to our next 2045 regional plan. um and you know the the technology as it is it's easy to research.

I thought it was really interesting that um both SRP and APS 45 to 48% of their electricity is uh produced by use of natural gas and um APS's future plans APS aims for 100% clean energy by 2050 but plans to maintain or upgrade gas plants uh for dispatchable power Um, SRP has the same, but I thought it was interesting when you research it.

It says both providers incorporate gas to ensure reliability, especially during peak demands from the state's hot climate while transitioning towards more renewable.

So my point is that um I I know we have we city council from um a few years back not not necessarily the public as a whole uh declared a climate emergency as well as a housing emergency but when I look at what we're doing today for a regional plan that we're going to be with um that starts in 2045 I caution that we don't get ahead of ourselves. the the major energy providers that are experts in these areas.

They're they're all going towards renewables and everything, but they recognize um the speed of technology and um reliability of where we are today. And I just wanted to um I just want to put a emphasis on that that we can emotionally want to get there um faster, but we need to not get ahead of ourselves. I met with sustainability. I do every month actually. Um we always have great conversations and I know that they're working on um pre presenting some building code amendments.

uh one of the options will impact um housing costs by almost $28,000. So I say that because no matter how you want to slice the top six priorities and if you want to discount the emphasis on one over another, housing has always been the top priority in our community and we have a lot of work to do. And so, um, I am hesitant, not hesitant, I I will not ever put anything over, um, housing affordability because it's already very astronomical the cost of housing.

So, um, I ask that I reserve the right to speak after everybody has had their time to, um, make comments, but I just wanted to highlight those facts, um, before we make a decision ahead of ourselves because there's some things that need to catch up with before we make some significant changes and make things mandatory. Thank you, Council Member Garcia.

I'll start off with a comment and then I will ask a question, but the question might um be in the process that we're that will follow the comment. And I really appreciate um Council Member Matthews finding out that one document that was voted on at one time um put the CMP as the sixth priority at the bottom.

But I also wanted to highlight that I have been part of this process as a um as a as a as a the a member of the committee that formulated this plan and before that for now about close to three years I've been working on this sat in all the meetings. I also uh um got notes from the public meetings on the importance of what what was being uh what the community wanted and also what the committee wanted.

And um the majority rule throughout that entire time hovered around the carbon neutrality plan and the affordable housing plan as key attributes throughout the process. Now don't get me wrong, there was a minority typically of folks who spoke to other things and we had very fruitful conversations.

I'm looking at a couple members that that we sat in those meetings with us and um and and we debated and in the end the majority makeup was still highlighting that these were the core facets not the things that I decided these are the things that well thousands of people thousands of community members put as top priority.

Now my question is um back to the um financial feasibility of Flagstaff and I was wondering if we're going to speak to that in the future then I I'll save my question for then but I wanted to ask Sarah if this was an appropriate time to ask where where that is focused at in the plan in a land use plan. How is um financial prosperity of Flagstaff uh highlighted and what is the importance of that in this plan? Thank you, Mayor. Can I answer the question at time? Thank you.

Um Council Member Garcia, I'd take us back to this planning pyramid um slide.

There is certainly on the visionary side the ability of the plan to suggest programs and actions for the city, but as we as I stated in the very beginning of the presentation, that does not obligate you or a future council to act on those if the timing isn't right, if there are changes to conditions, if they're financially infeasible um for whatever reason, or maybe the funding we anticipated would be available doesn't exist anymore.

Those kinds of things, they happen in a 10-year plan when you're when you're trying to implement something for multiple years. So, in terms of the financial health of the community, that will continue to be a part of your budgeting process. And once the plan is adopted, I bet that will be a um a budget year 27 discussion of how you want to integrate the regional plans suggestions into your process. Um that's what we did in 2015 when we were working on the 2016 budget too.

So, it's not going to deciding on things as priorities in the plan won't necessarily make them your highest priorities every year in your budgeting process or necessarily sway things. Your strategic plans have a like the carbon neutrality plan and the 10-year housing plan have an influence on that as well. Thank you very much for that commentary.

And um I guess just to it helped it helped bring me to a point and that is that the financial stability of the plan ran concurrent through all of the conversations. It never was a second. It was always with the uh CMP with affordable housing and the four others that we that are up there.

It's going to always be an underlying current that matches whatever the discussion is and a high priority to all of us because without, you know, financial stability, we're not going to make it in a capitalistic economy. That's all I have for now, Madam Mayor. Thank you, council. Additional questions. Sarah, would you come back up?

So, I'm I'm um you know toggling back and forth between the different documents as I have been since um they were posted and I have a couple of questions about a couple of points that were made. Um, so I'd like to ask those, but I'm also wondering whether you would like to um provide clarification on any of the points that were made. And I'd like to if you have some um to make, I'd ask you to do that before I ask you my questions because you may address the ones that I've starred.

Mayor Daget, I think the only one you asked me to dive into was the future growth illustration one. I'm happy to pull that up right now and look at it. So, this is our d first draft of the interactive map for the 2045 plan. And the area that was discussed by the commenter from the open space commission was this area right here.

Um, so the realignment of John Wesley Powell Boulevard, which you have had many, many discussions about over the last two years, um, is re is the alignment of a minor arterial. And what staff provided as feedback during the those discussions was that minor arterials um that are loaded on both sides by commercial and mixed use are the most economically functional. Does that ring a bell from the last year or two?

Um and so we worked with um the property owner who owns a parcel that you can't quite see on the map, but it looks like this. It's about it's a rectangle. Um was that we worked with them to discuss that as a minor arterial is coming for their property rather than bringing it along the edge of this property where it might impact the county islands and the county residents who want a more rural setting. Um that there could be an area of commercial and mixed use along the corridor.

And so what we developed with that property owner was that the more neighborhood oriented portions of the property would be to the west and that there would be some dis there would be the more commercial oriented and mixeduse ones along this corridor. Um, having spoken recently to the property owner, I know that they they have not considered that this brown square would be exclusive of considerations of open space.

They are aware that the Open Space Commission would like to have an ongoing dialogue with them about open space all across the parcel and are still open-minded about where that may be located and what resources might be best preserved through open space decisions. Um but they they feel strongly that that they they worked with staff on the location of the arterial with this particular layout in mind in a general way. Obviously this is a very conceptual activity center.

They have not yet figured out where it will be and so it may require some small amendments when they do finally have a development plan um which may still be a few years out for them. Okay, thank you. Um, before I ask you additional questions, council, do you have any questions about this particular council member Matthews? Thank you, mayor.

This may be for Michelle or Sarah, but um I don't think I'm clear on the speaker charity when she was concerned about how the map reflects what type of roads are going through their property. Um, how is that impacted? Like if we they've already got a plan going. They've already have a vision plan in this property. This is for regional plan 2045.

If we were not to change that and not listen to the developer, how does that impact them to develop their property if we leave it on roads that they're saying are not the type of roads they're going to put in? Um, I'm going to take a stab at answering that, but I'm also going to take a moment to put either Jeff Bowman or Paul Mood on on point. They're ready to to fill in anything.

But my understanding um is that it does not because at the end of the day, whatever development they want to move forward with, that is what they do their traffic impact analysis for and that will determine kind of how that road is designed. And so if the um map says that it's a a collector but it needs to be an arterial then I think then they have to design it to an arterial.

If it says that it's an arterial but it can be designed as a collector there's I think flexibility for them to design it as that. So, um, I don't think that if we don't change the map that it has any impact because it really comes down to the analysis once there's an a specific project. And then I would like to just ask if Jeff Bowman wants to clarify anything or add anything to that. Thanks. Thanks, Michelle. I didn't run to the chambers quick enough. Sorry about that.

Uh, hi Jeff Balman, city traffic engineer. Michelle Michelle nailed it. I think I mean we've laid out these roads based on um applications that we've seen based on the functional class of these roads. Remember minor collectors are kind of collecting trips from the neighborhood and getting all of those local trips onto a road that is built and designed for moving cars out of the neighborhood. So on these minor collectors, we don't have houses fronting the road.

Um, and so I don't want to go through the full details of all the different road types, but that's the idea is that we have a certain spacing that we're looking for in order to avoid some of the mistakes of the past where we have just mazes of local streets and we end up having a bunch of traffic caling request. It's kind of the theory behind the minor collectors and the major collectors through these residential areas. But Michelle's right, we work with developments.

um as the TIAs come in and actually get approved, that's when we make changes um to the roads as necessary. We also have some flexibility with the actual alignments. I think Michelle may have mentioned that, but we're really trying to get from point A to point B for the most part. So there you'll see flexibility and you'll see changes as development um occurs on these sites. Thanks, Michelle. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

Does anyone have any questions regarding the open space parcel that I asked about? Okay. Yes, please. Thank you, mayor. I just I' I'd just like to weigh in. Oh, no. I I understood what you meant.

Um and and Sarah answered that brilliantly and I and I just want to add on one more thing that if the that parcel were to develop per the the land use designation, it's going to require a reszone which means that that um it has to come back through a very public process where there would be opportunity, you know, whether there's a site plan or not, there's still an opportunity as we discuss that to make sure that the open space considerations are um institutionalized through that process and codified.

And I just want to reiterate that the property owner to date has been exceptionally um open and willing to have that conversation, but they're just it's too early in the their design process to say what they could protect, but I think they've 100% been on board with those conversations and aware of that priority.

But um I hate to downgrade when I say downgrade that from a land use designation standpoint when we have a lot of opportunity to look at this site and I think both things can be true that we can both protect the corridor and have a commercial activity center um that's really good for that area. I think both things can be true. Thank you. Do you just want me to tell you things that I've starred or do you have anything else that you want to address? Mayor Dagot, I have nothing else.

Like I I specifically wanted to address, but I'm happy to address whatever council is interested in exploring further. Great. Thank you. Um, and some of this is just that the comments came so quickly and I was trying to um make notes um regarding native plants. Correct. There. I'm going to try and find that action item really quick if I can. Elsa might have to be like helping me to figure out exactly what page I'm supposed to be on for that.

Um but there is there is an so when the comments came forward about native plants there were three spots in the plan from um Sautfest's comments that he suggested adding it. Two were written into policies and in ways that staff had some concern were overly broad. However, um the I think this is I'm going for the natural resource chapter here. the action item addition.

Um I think staff was neutral on um but the planning and zoning commission did vote it down as not to be brought forward to a condition of approval. I'm going to try and find the right spot so you can see it in context. Thank you. 712 as I demonstrate my own document navigation. Yeah, I think it was right here of coordinate invasive plant and n it would be invasive and native plant programs.

Some of the things on this list are not don't have native plant programs or information in them, but the cooperative extension does and the department of forestry has some ability to assist with those as well. So, it's it's a little bit of a mix, but it's not it's not a bad place if that's something you're looking to add as a condition. And I watched the PNZ um discussions, but I'm not remembering the discussion about why they voted this down. Mayor Dagot, I don't remember the rationale either.

We discussed it. Staff said we were pretty neutral on it and then it was voted down. So, I don't think anyone said afterwards the why. And if I could be clear, um, Saut, can you come remind me what you said that you, um, were concerned about? Thank you, Mayor and Council. Um well my head is uh trying to bring together county and city because when we're looking at landscape scale obviously we want coordination among all jurisdictions. Um plants don't care about property lines.

And in the county, we've pretty much written that same uh it's a uh an implementation item, but it reads pretty much like uh that action item. And we've included native plant plant, the words native plant in it. And we've also included uh suggesting that we create a position to coordinate all this.

And I I know Sarah's looking at me now because we're not supposed to talk about positions in this plan, but um the idea is to have more or less the city and the county with the same language and then try to bring everybody together. Now, there is a a precedent and it is the San Francisco Peaks weed management plan which um has existed for possibly as many as 30 years uh at least 25 on and off because it's had no home. Um it's been very irregular.

If we think of game and fish, they've got generations of data and generations of expert research and scientists and they can answer with one phone call any question you have about animals. We don't have anything close to that with plants. There are no animals that exist without plants. Uh we don't want to be here without plants, the right plants. And so trying to bring all this together into one uh combined effort is what I'm after.

And so by getting uh native plants and invasive plants in this statement, we already have it in the county statement. That's a step forward. I would eventually love to see uh a joint position like we have for uh Dark Skies, but that's beyond the scope and I probably shouldn't be even saying that but that's twice. You said it and then said you weren't supposed to say it. That that's that's my vision. But this is a step to bring us together and it's a step we can take right now.

So coordinate invasive and native plant plans, programs, and resources. Yeah. And you bring a whole We have so many people doing so much at so many institutions. If we say native plants now we have NAU uh the arburetum the museum all perking up their heads and saying hey we're you know we study those things and they can provide expertise they can provide volunteers. Uh we just try to get everybody working together.

I mean, the the best again again the best way to keep down invasive plants and keep them from getting to landscape scale where we have no idea what to do. Millions of acres in the Great Basin are gone to cheat grass. Um, but the best way to keep that from happening is a robust uh soil, native soil, and native plants. Native top soil, native plants. As soon as you scrape away the top soil and kill the native plants, the bad guys show up.

Um, so that that's the big story, but the little story is if we can get native plants in this and in the county, bring it together, that's a step toward bringing it all together. It's that simple. And, uh, staff was neutral on this. So, I would support that. Is there is there anyone who doesn't support that? Okay. Thank you. One down. Yeah. And just just for information, Mayor Daget, that um we are as you're making those little mini decisions, we are tracking them. Elsa's in the back.

You'll see her at the table and she's making notes so that she can help you shape a motion because this may get complicated as we keep moving on. So, this is about comment 99, correct? Specifically. Yes. Okay, I have others, but if if another question has popped up into uh Vice Mayor, thank you. And I just want to first congratulate you on a great job and um I I can't imagine what this took. Just watching the P&Z meetings took a lot. So, um I just really am impressed.

I'm wondering I just had a question. Little America spoke on the the trails plan and I know we went over that at the re all day retreat. Can you pull that up and can we dive a little bit deeper into that? Um, yes, Vice Mayor Sweet. This is the the direction we received at the May 2nd retreat was to create a map that looks like this.

And the map for urban trails has um existing and remember I called this the sweet Mandino things amendment as you guys were working on collaborating between the planning and zoning commission and the city council. So the compromise that was reached because this map used to just have existing and planned, no other distinction was that existing could stay this purple solid line.

The purple dash line would become planned trails for which we already have the property rights or partial property rights in some cases. Maybe we just haven't constructed a trail yet. Um and then private trails on private land that may exist or may not but have no property rights on smaller parcels.

And then for the large parcels where we have a lot of flexibility to move trails around a landscape and for which kind of the development certainty is lower that we would have a different designation. And particularly the concern at the time was that um there were trespass issues as a commenter mentioned on the larger properties.

People could kind of get into their property through these trails and there had been a fire that was started on one property or people could kind of hide out and there was concerns that that was occurring in some of these locations. Um, so the reason that this over 400 acres looks kind of different is because it would not actually be a line on a map when we put it online. It would be a shape that has a centrid. So you couldn't just download it and put it in your Strava or your all trails.

Um, and that was the conversation we had in May. I think the commission's conversation was that they felt this was unnecessary because of the disclaimer here at the bottom. Oh, sorry. I touched something on the screen. I forgot this was a touchcreen. Um, that they felt this disclaimer that planned trails don't constitute a final location or legal access unless there's a legal trail easement was sufficient and that the distinction between 400 acres and less was not.

That was the planning and zoning commission discussion. Um staff in the slideshow showed you what this would look like. Um they also asked for a few other changes to this map. Um I think that going in this direction does not address the concern from the May 2nd retreat that the data could be misused. if we displayed it this way, it would be a line when the data becomes publicly available for other agencies and partners to use.

Um, and so I think that's that's the big feedback from staff about this. We would like to hear your discussion of it. So, it seems like we've hit maybe a a happy medium, but for if we wanted to dive into more of the concerns with Little America, is there something else that we can do that maybe aligns with what staff and PNZ is saying and we can do a little bit more for the concerns of the large property owners?

I I spoke with null who spoke on behalf of Little America this week and one of the things we did talk about was that maybe instead of going with the dash lines for everywhere, we could go with the soft not really lines that look like lines everywhere as another approach that we could use. So what that would mean is that this map has those kind of soft fat lines everywhere instead of the dash lines.

I think the planning and zoning's concern was the 400 acres seems arbitrary on its face and that um they wanted to see those two categories unified. Council member Matthews Sarah, um just so I'm clear on that, I I remember Little America specifically. you mentioned they've had some fires, some encampments, some other dangers to their um guest trails.

Um and if I recall correctly, the lines that we were putting on these maps, if they were solid, they would show up on All Trails or or the the other hiking um apps. So, is what you've proposed here going to eliminate that? because, you know, I do feel that if it's on private property, um, we should not self-impose because when I see when I pull up all trails, if I see a map, I don't look at any disclaimer or anything.

I just like, oh, I can go this way and with no regards to whether it's private property or not. So, do these changes address that what PNZ and staff recommended to where it's not going to show up on hiking trails apps? Um, Council Member Matthews, I I don't believe what planning and zoning commission proposed would address that, but I staff's position on whether we do not send our data to all trails.

I just have to keep like restating this, and Martin probably is is having thoughts about this right now, too. Martin, multimodal planner. Um, and so when data shows up in those places, it's usually because a third party has downloaded it from some kind of other source. It might not be that they're getting it even off the city website. It might be that, you know, one of our partner agencies has copied it to their data source.

Or it could also just be being generated by Strava data, which is user created data. It is really hard to track where all of that is coming from. And I don't know that it there's support for the conclusion that the regional plan maps are like a primary source of those kind that kind of trail data. just may happen to coincide because that's an area that's already being used or has foot paths on it.

So, it it it's a tough question because I don't think I could draw a straight causal line from we put a line on a map and it shows up on some other third party website. It's not that clear-cut. So, that's why this is a gray area where council's um overall thoughts and direction is important for staff in finalizing this map. I think we have the lines in the right places on the urban trails map.

I know the regional trails map there was a request for us to double check some things, but we haven't heard any comments that these these lines shouldn't be in the right place except for a few commenters early on in August and we responded to them and copied you I think on all of that. Did you want to did were you finished with your original question? I have more on my question. Go ahead and council member as So the the the option of doing the faint thick line, what is the what does that do?

I I don't mean to sound like I don't understand it, but maybe more clarification. I think it is a preference. Most of these lines are already or something similar are in our active transportation master plan which we've already adopted. So it would just be a preference on how these lines are displayed and how the data is made available to the public or not. Someone could still go find our active transportation master plan data possibly through our open data portal.

Um, you know, another way to manage this is to just not put this data on our open data portal and ask staff not to do that. That's a there are other ways to manage it that are more on the business practice side. I think how it is displayed and how we um create the geographies in GIS is um which is the difference between it having like a centrid and being a shape versus being a line.

And I know we went into detail and that may if you need me to go over it again, I will, but um is a more technical nuance that um it doesn't really affect the policy side of the document. It's really about preference and and what you would like to see on the map. Okay. My last question on this for right now, if we don't put it on the portal, is that a a practice that is common for for the city or what does that look like? there. I I don't think Rob Spear from GIS is on the call today.

We could follow up on that, but the um we do provide a lot of data on our open data portal for transparency. So, it's but the settings of it are not something I'm as familiar with because really only our GIS staff is um loading things onto that and deciding how the settings go. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Alen. Yeah, I just a thought here. I recall having an extensive conversation about this on a full day retreat we did here in the room. Was that in May? Yes, that was the May 2nd retreat.

So my recommendation would be uh that we go with whatever we came up with that afternoon um and just uh sort of not go with uh PNZ's reversal of that. Um and and because we invested a lot of time and energy in this conversation, it took up a lot of bandwidth that day uh for how large this document is and how specific this this problem is. That would be my recommendation. We just go with our original call. Council member Garcia, I have uh other star questions besides this, Madame Mayor.

So, whenever you feel appropriate for me to ask those, go ahead. All right. So, I highlighted some of our commenters tonight just to get some clarifications. And first of all, I wanted to shout out all of the public who came tonight and all of the emails that we got, all the people that meet me in the street, all the people that have been talking to me for the last three years for giving us all of this information and making this plan customized in your way. So, I really appreciate that.

Um, two two um added languages we heard from from for tonight was Michelle James and we also heard of Tyler Denim um in our emails. I want to thank them for continuing to try to refine the process even though we're really not here necessarily for that tonight. But if staff wanted to peruse those those two folks's um input, I think it's it's awesome. Okay, so I moved down to the next one. We're off that to um do we have re responsible tourism as a definition in our plan? Council member Garcia.

Um because the plan is so land use focused, we um we do not call out tourism specifically or focus on it because there are so many uses in our community that are for both locals and for tourism. The thought of responsible tourism would be a good one for a plan for the CVB maybe that's more specific than the regional plan is. A lot of what was brought up for that is very programmatic.

The county their comprehensive plan and maybe Melissa Shaw can who is here can talk to more about why that is incorporated and how it is different. Um but because we have a lot more sectionspecific plans. Um I think that we decided that would just be better dealt with in a something that was really focused on tourism. Thank you for that thorough and complete answer. Um, but I have maybe four or five. So, if you wanted to just kind of get to the point any quicker, that'd be fine with me, too.

Either way, I do like all the information you given, though. That's awesome. As usual, the next one was from a commenter about the um disability u the disability team here, uh, commission. Excuse me, I'm blanking. Um, adding language to chapter four and five. And also, so I'm not sure if that can be done or or what, but I I I was curious about their commentary. If if we don't address it tonight, that's fine.

I know we're not here for that particularly, but I also wanted to know how you felt about adding paratransit as a definition and if there's any importance to that for this land use plan. Adding paratransit as a definition. Council member Garcia was one of the Yes, it was number 67. It was one of the conditions of approval from the planning and zoning commission. Thank you. Um and then I wanted to talk about uh an open space commissioner talking about is it 29?

Um the Okay, so we're going to cover that. Okay, thank you. And then let me see. We already covered that one. Let me see. electricity thing. That's it. Thank you. Thanks, Council Member Alen. Thank you. Yeah. So, maybe I'll just go through um my list of recommendations, just get them out there and then, well, I'll start with my question regarding comment 29. Um Robert, if you could come back up here. I took poor notes when you were when you were talking, but I did take some notes.

So, I just wanted to to wrap back around on that and understand it better. And I've got comment 29 pulled up here. And um I'm having a hard time um figuring out what what the issue is and what the recommendation is. I think com 29 is one of the things that PNZ voted down. I think it's correct. Thanks. Perfect. Um thanks council member Robert Wallace open space supervisor and liaison to the open spaces commission.

Yeah, the uh the comment was to revise policy OS2 to the language um focus the purchase and dedication and management dot dot dot natural resources while integrating an open space network that supports compact housing climate action and a 10-minute walking access standard. and they they made this comment um because they thought that the policy as it was written indicated that open space was an afterthought to development pressure.

This uh revision they believe would support the integration of open space to support um compact climate aligned neighborhoods. Does that address your question? Yeah. Uh, no, that clarifies um the gap in my notes a lot. Uh, so it's it sounds like just for my own sensibilities that that while PNZ voted this down that this is something that I would personally support, I believe. Great. Well, thank you for the question. I appreciate it. Um, and uh I don't know if our commissioners are here anymore.

If they maybe they just left. Oh, our our chair Jackie Thomas is here. So, if you have a question for her, I'm sure she'd be happy to pop down as well. Yeah, Jackie, maybe you can just weigh in really quickly and make sure I'm correct in my thinking. I think it you all know me well enough to know which way I would go on this. I want to be clear.

Would it be helpful, Council Member Ashlin, since what you have on the screen here, just to explain is the the column next to the 3 29314 on page 314 is that's the open space proposal in that first column. I just want to navigate since we're this is the first time we're looking at that. Would you also like to see what the language is in the current draft?

That's that's really the decision that planning and zoning made was they said we like it wasn't they didn't like this language, it's that they liked the current language better, if that makes sense. So, I don't know if um we can pull that up and then maybe have Jackie come up and talk to the differences might be um helpful. That'd be great. Working on it right now.

Meanwhile, since it's kind of related, I'll just say uh that I I I agree with Jackie's um strong concerns around that southern brown spot and my my decision-m aligns with your recommendation there and the concerns that you have brought up. Uh and I I believe those are on behalf of the the entire open space commission right? Correct. Yeah, that is that we proposed that to planning and zoning and in multiple periods of comment.

Um and um yeah, was it and Sarah pointed out to us, you know, like it's difficult to move these things around at this time, but we just felt like it was it's an important thing that you're aware of that there's a natural corridor there for, you know, moving people and wildlife from one place to another. And it's currently used and it's currently recognized by another agency as well. You mentioned a field trip. I don't have to do a field trip.

I've been out there playing and I I recognize that resource and value it heavily myself. Thank you. Um, you know, like these points were all we the the first I mean I mean the open the plan was written and then it was brought to open space for input. So all the things that say like open space point 2 or parks wreck and open space, I'm sure you know how the plan goes, but all the all like the meat and potatoes of what represents open space was done before we got involved.

And then we made comments on those things. So, I'm I'm I apologize for like the nitpickiness of the language, but um yeah, we just really felt like it was really important to highlight that open space needs to be integrated into future development of the south of the 40. And a part of that comes from the fact that we got over thou we had thousands and thousands of comments as well in the trail management plan that we did for Observatory Mesa, which you've adopted.

And um the community is very very concerned about access and what trails look like and the natural space of Flagstaff and I in a way I feel like we represent that and I mean no one's you know none of the community has said that but they came to a lot of our meetings and gave us a lot of input all different users and so um that's why here's the current language focus the purchase and management of regional preserves and connector open spaces on protecting ing cultural significant natural resources while allowing for concentrated development in areas that support housing supply and climate action.

And so our proposed language uh our proposed language is focus the purchase add the word dedication and management of regional preserves and connector open spaces on protecting significant cultural and natural res resources while integrating an open space network that supports compact housing climate action and the 10-minute walking access standard.

And we just feel like since as Sarah pointed out in the beginning of the presentation that this is a tool for developers, community members, citizens, I mean it's one of the six or seven items she mentioned on her first slide of what this is. It's a tool. And so we want people to know that walkability and open space is to be integrated into our development of the future expansion of Flagstaff. Thank you. Thank you, Jackie. And um that kind of makes my point for me.

Whoever's put putting the tally marks down, be sure to put me down on a tally mark for reintroducing that. Okay. Language. Um, and then I'll just go through the rest of mine here real fast. Council member Oelen, can I can I ask for a clarification? Absolutely. I I don't I need to slow you guys down just a smidge. So, what you see on the screen here is that so that first column is as um as Jackie said was the open space recommendation.

The second column was kind of the workup from the planning and zoning commission discussion. And I want to point out that there's an important difference between the two. Um, we took out the word walking access standard here because policies should not have standards in them. That was kind of a, you know, what are you mixing and mass matching when you're revising things.

Um, and also we wanted to make sure it said to support a 10-minute walk to open space because my understanding, and Robert will correct me if I'm wrong, is that the 10-minute walking access standard that's from the National Association of Recreation, Parks, and whatever that one is, um, is NARPA is I can't say all the parts of it right now. Um, is for parks or open space.

And so if we say it this way, it sounds like every part of the community has to have a 10-minute walk to park and a 10-minute walk to open space when we make a lot of distinctions between those two. So that was a nuance that was the kind of thing we were discussing. So when you say like I support this language, are you supporting column one, which is the exact way open space proposed it or the way it was revised during the planning and zoning commission meeting before they voted no?

That's my clarification. It's still pretty confusing to me. Can I hop in with a question about this? Um, would in this instance would open space be considered it wouldn't necessarily be like an observatory messa, right? It would be it could be um a part I mean even though you said not park and open space but it doesn't have to be like a um wildlife corridor or some significant open space. It could just be um an area within w an Yeah, just some o some open space that's within walking distance.

I need to look really quick on how we defined open space. Um, so open space in the plan glossery was defined as undeveloped or minimally developed lands that have been designated to remain undeveloped, be preserved to protect natural resources, serve as a buffer, and provide opportunities for recreation that does not require facilities. So that's the definition.

I don't know if that fully answers your question, but this is where I would go or I'd have a future planner go in someday if we were trying to answer it. So, if if we added this, would it um because I I I know that there are areas that we want to make sure that we have this protection on. Would it prevent um other development that we'd like to see in other areas? Like is it conflicting? It could be.

Um I I and I'm sorry I was I was talking and so I didn't hear the exact answer on the open space but my understanding is that it would be open space that's provided as any part of a development like subdivisions are required to have certain levels of open space. So um I think as written it it would not affect areas that are dedicated for open space until those areas are dedicated as open space. I don't know if that makes sense. Right.

The broad definition of open space says they're designated to remain undeveloped. It does not say they are like as Robert would call it formally designated open space like Observatory Mesa. But if you had a 10-minute like let's say we're doing the pros master plan which I know is heading out to find a contractor to help us with that very soon.

when they are doing like an access map and saying who has a 10-minute access, they would yes identify parks versus open space, but really the standard would be across both. Does that make sense? So that everyone has a 10-minute walk to some piece of land that isn't developed to walk in, right?

which is why staff asked that the walking access standard language be taken out of this policy because it is already in the POS.1 which applies to both parks and open space where this is only open space specific. Does that make sense? So then did was was PNZ and perhaps staff thinking that because it is discussed in PR.1 that this was unnecessary. Mayor Daget.

Yes, that's so planning staff's thought is that reworking this either without the 10-minute walking standard or or with some softer, less specific language that doesn't include the word standard would be more appropriate because it is already covered in another policy that also applies to open space.

I have said repeatedly throughout the process and everybody who's here from the plan committee can like chant it with me I think that repetition is not emphasis and this is an example of where we were trying to find a balance between the comments from the very knowledgeable open space commission and that idea that repetition is not emphasis it's actually creating conflicting language I'd like to just sorry I'd like to interrupt um Alex Petrelli our current planning manager just came up and reminded me of something that I think is incredibly critical to this conversation and that is that we recently just updated our zoning code standards.

So that to kind of kind of provide that clarification on development projects the difference between common common space like and common space is kind of what I was talking about when you have a subdivision and they provide kind of a common area that's undeveloped for the people who live there and then there is actually open space.

So actually the word open space is problematic because if we leave it as that I mean there's the the walking distance and some of the stuff that's being talked about but the way it's written it would actually mean that it would have to be formally I mean it could be interpreted it's formally open space. I don't think that's the intent of the com open space commission or the council to have that. So I think we need to be very very careful what we what word we use.

Um, and maybe it's an undeveloped permanently undeveloped area. I I don't know how we say it, but we saying open space is actually very problematic. And I and I also I guess I just want to maybe make another point that I really think this is more important in our strategies and and um kind of directing code of how we directing staff of how we update code more so than than in these developments.

Because when you think about when this regional plan is applied for a development project, it's only when they're reszoning. So that means that we're really talking about the one-offs of the projects that we're reszoning and we're not talking about all development and infield development that we see.

So, it really is stronger in our strategies um and the strategy sections that's actually informing um staff of the actions we should take and that we really should be trying to implement this in our zoning code um so that it's across all developments and not just oneoff. Thanks. So, here's how I'll summarize this. Um I'm all in favor of making sure we're being efficient with our language and our bureaucracies.

So to the extent that all of this is covered in other documents that are um mandated for review, I'm fine with that. Um I so I I think I'm leaning towards the revised language here. Um but I just want to be clear. uh the way I'm thinking about this is I I don't want to be too rigorous or rigid about what kind of things are within 10 minutes of anybody um because we do broadly define those.

But I'm also in a position where I want, you know, open spaces themselves, small O, small S, um, can't advocate for themselves. Um, developers can advocate for themselves. I want to error on the side of protecting open spaces in the broad sense of the term. Um, and that's that's where I'm at and that's what I'd like the language to reflect, but I'm just one of seven. If I may. Um, thank you, Council Rasen.

One more thing that um Michelle's comment made me want to point out is that it it is it is a language piece where um what you can see is that the current language in the draft talks about regional preserves which are very large open spaces like Observatory Mesa and connector open spaces, not the undeveloped parts of a development that might be um remain undeveloped because they're under resource protection.

So the open space commission's um proposed edits really broadened they're a replacement but they actually replace the meaning with something else very significantly.

So they this one is very focused on things the city is owning and managing or helping manage and the revision focuses more broadly on things that might be held in private hands um because it allows for you know dedication which sometimes you're dedicating things to an HOA or to uh some other kind of uh conservation organiz organization like a conservation easement. So, it it broadens it. It t so it takes some of the specificity and narrowness out that the original one has.

Um, and yes, and as I said, the 10-minute walk is what really and the word standard because it's kind of mixing methods. There are zero standards in the regional plan. We actually just don't like that word in this document at all. Standard standards belong in codes and master plans. That's where we keep standards. So, it's just a misnomer period for this document, which is why we went with two.

Um, but staff wants to make it clear that this does change the meaning and broaden it significantly so that that's transparent. And then I'll just add um a little insight here too. When I'm thinking open spaces, what I'm really thinking about at the baseline is habitat connectivity. Um, and you know, the the 10-minute walk is kind of a it's it seems like a useful um and and appropriately sized um unit of of area in which in which to think about that.

But ultimately at the end of the day, I'm looking for um habitat connectivity uh of all sorts just so we have that transmission of wildlife and genetic flow that can proceed unhindered through through our region um through the midentury. So, m may I say I think I'm understanding you, Council Member Alen, is saying maybe you would like to see us replace the 10-minute walk with the words habitat connectivity in that sentence. No, not at all. I I think this is fine.

I'm I'm just sort of opening the hood of my own personal thinking about how I I think about this in the background. So I think how I'm looking at it is leaving the language that's in OS. concentrated instead of adopting the suggested language that was presented to planning and zoning. That was the recommendation of planning and zoning commission. I think that staff could live with either the modified version of what the commission said or the current language.

We planning staff likes the current language better because it's clear that we're talking about public open spaces, but this is at the discretion of council. And we've talked pretty cons consistently about how we'd like to, you know, we've had many conversations about how we also want to see um some of that open space that the open space commission is talking about in the south and to the east. Um, so I'm fine with the language as it stands, but what does everyone else think? Yeah. Okay.

Did you have another one? Sure. If we're going down the lists now, um, I'll just keep going. I've already spoken about Southern Brown Spot and, uh, comment 29 there. Um, I'm also in favor of comment 67 of updating the definition of paired transit in that glossery. Um, but that's just a a really of minor emphasis for me. Um, just mentioning it because this is a time to do so. Um, I'm in favor of of uh comment 99, which I think we already decided. Um, comment five uh about the water requirements.

Uh, uh requiring major plan amendments. I am in favor of that. Uh and I want to reject comment 21 um which removes the the term non-negotiable. And uh I'm also strongly in favor of rejecting comment 47 and 64. Can we go to um five? This was um this was the suggestion, right? That as it stands now, it just says water resources, correct? And the suggestion was to say water and sewer services.

Um, Mayor Daget, I think the the comment number five, which was brought forward by friends of Flagstaff's future, is a change to the urban growth boundary category 3. I know. Can we switch back to sharing this screen? I'm not sure how to do that. Hang on. I know there's a lot of material. We're we're working on it. I promise. Okay.

So the suggestion is that this this sentence expanding the urban growth rounded water and sewer services stop with a period right here and that this section of it be struck. That's the comment.

Um and staff explained um and I know um we probably have one at least one person from water services available with questions is that there might be there have been a lot of requests and I think you might think particularly of the Schultz waterline discussions from a year or two ago where wells may dry up in the area or development and growth pressure might become such that the econom eomic feasibility of private water might come online as a more economically feasible way of doing development outside the urban growth boundary um just because of the development pressures and water scarcity in Arizona.

But anything like that, anybody's well, unless you're hitting something that's like a perched aquifer, um, is pulling from the same sea aquifer, our water sources. and that the water services department wants some discretion to work to create some unity in the water system so that people aren't putting a lot of straws into a water source that we want to keep very clean because every well is a is a potential source of contamination.

Um, and also to work with maybe property owners who had a functional well, but it might have dried up um, because they weren't necessarily getting all the way to the sea aquifer and were using some intermediate source. And I think, um, I know the city manager is much more familiar with most recent conversations on this. Thank you, Sarah, and thank you, mayor. I was pretty vocal on this one and spoke in front of the water commission on this.

Um I believe um and I've had a lot of conversations with water services staff. You you know having the language about allowing an increase in intensity or density should calm fears that should there be an extension of city water and sewer utilities beyond the urban growth boundary. And a quick reminder, our urban growth boundary in places lies within our corporate boundaries of the city.

uh which is another way of saying there could be instances where we might be denying water and util uh sewer services to folks who reside within the city corporate boundaries. But the real issue here is the city's ability to solve issues problems with uh residents and Sarah alluded to this with failing wells, failing septic systems. These are common place. This is not too hypothetical. This happens in the real world. The city has the fix.

And if the city doesn't provide that fix, um we're leaving those affected property owners with with other remedies that may be much less desirable, i.e. forming their own package plants or alternative systems that might in turn invite more density. uh the city could be in the driver's seat here and help fix these issues. Uh and I think it's good stewardship to do so and there has been instances in all the jurisdictions I've served where this has happened including Flagstaff.

So I I think there's good grounds for it. I understand where FCQ's coming from but I don't think it's a pragmatic approach. I think this is something the city needs to be very careful with. Thank you. So, having heard that, I am willing to amend my thinking on this one. Um, but I I just want to say where I'm coming from here uh is a general belief and frustration with the state of Arizona's very liberal policy on providing uh water as an incentive for development.

Um, I want to make sure uh I think where FCubed is probably coming from here. I don't want to put words in their mouth. Maybe Michelle can characterize their their own thinking on this. I'll leave that up to you, Mayor. Um, but we we do want to make we do want to put the burden of getting extra water for development. Um, I want to make that process pretty rigorous.

Yeah, something I know Erin Young is here and can answer some more specific questions about this if you have them, but one of the things we talked about at the planning and zoning commission is that today the city's water policy would need to be changed if we move forward with this language for category 3 as it is currently written.

And so nothing would change until council has reviewed and revised the actual water policy that sets up those business practices and thresholds that water services uses, which would be part of the next utilities master plan. So c nothing will change even if we left the two allow an increase in intensity and density until we would continue to hold those accountable as not compliant with our water policy until council took action on that. Is that correct Aaron? Yeah.

So we do have that um that power in essence uh at any given time to to revisit this and um and lift it up as a as a metric. Correct. Council would just have the um ability to set those standards with water services in a more flexible way.

And for now, if you're not increasing the intensity or density in providing water services outside the urban growth boundary, for now that still would require a minor amendment to move the urban growth boundary because there's no criteria for doing it without a plan amendment in the water services policies currently. So there there's like this iteration that this sets us up to have a conversation, but it ultimately will come back to you. Okay. Yeah.

And spoiler alert, I'm going to have a fair item, not immediately, but down the road here a little bit that that sort of incorporates a lot of this thinking and can probably bring a little bit of clarity to this issue specifically. And Council Member Garcia, were you finished with your starred items? I still have a couple. All right. Okay. Where did Sarah go? Um, Erin and I were whispering. Okay. So, um, Mr.

Randall, I have number one, follow P and Z, chapter 4, chapter five, lack of, and I'm not exactly sure what that means. Would you like Mr. Randall to come back? Could you restate what you were asking for? Sure. Ask me again. Um I have number one follow PNZ chapter 4chapter 5 lack of in chapter 4 the addition of a statement of specific mental health facilities. Um there is none and uh the disability community think there probably should be.

And then with regards to chapter 5 housing, there's very little mention of accessible housing throughout the document or ADA compliant housing. Um so in chapter five, um the disability community would like to see the statement housing insecurity can include but then add the phrase lack of ADA compliant accessible housing. So kind of two different issues, but Okay. Thank you. Um, so, so let me state, Mayor Daget, that the the first item that Mr.

Randall discussed was part of the planning and zoning commission's conditions of approval. So, that's done. Um, if you agree, of course. Um, and then the second one was left out. I don't know if I'm going to like ask Elsa to try and like hustle and share a screen again. Um, the location where the the information about lack of accessible housing was asked to be added is in a sentence that is from a citation. And you will notice that there are hundreds of citations in the plan this time around.

Nobody can get nobody has to guess where we got the information from. It's clear. Um, and when we went back to the source, the source did not talk about accessible housing. If council would want us to add something additional to chapter five, I think it would have to use a separate source. It couldn't just be tacked on to an existing sentence. Um, and that was generally planning and zoning wasn't um very interested in moving forward on things that required new research or new things like that.

But it is it is not impossible to add. It's just not possible to add in the way it was requested. Does that make sense? Is there a way to add that language um without additional research elsewhere in one of the policies? Uh Justina Costa from housing and I hope she was paying attention during this part. Um and Jennifer Michaelelsson are online. Um so I don't know if Justina or Jennifer could talk about potential sources for discussing this. Thank you. Absolutely. Okay, thanks Sarah.

Um, yes, we could absolutely add a sentence um, wherever Sarah feels that it would work. So, um, our thing with housing at a minimum is it's wonderful when we can build affordable housing or housing of any kind that's at least visitable by someone with a disability. However, obviously, um fullon accessible housing would be wonderful. So, we're happy to work on that. I would like to see that. Is there anyone who disagrees with language being inserted?

Okay, that might be um that might be all that I had with the um exception of I'm um not in agreement with planning and zoning in terms of 47 and 64. So, I would um I would suggest that those not be conditions that we approve. Can you pull those up, Sarah? This is number 64, which is the one about flattening the priorities from having two tiers to just one and then requiring three instead of two for a finding of conformance.

Yeah, I mean this has been discussed um at great length and um and has been looked at by the public since the draft was released for public comment. And um I would prefer to see it um as it has been supported up until you know this last two weeks. Can we see that language? This is the current language in chapter prior to amending it for comment 64. Tell me when you want me to go to the post comment 64 language. So if I can jump into mayor.

So that is saying that um the way it's written right now is that one from the core and one from the um the others minimum have to be met. Correct. That is correct. That's the current.

So for instance, going back to this uh someone who comes in for a plan amendment application, remember not all zoning map amendments will be plan amendments would look at either housing attailability and equity or climate action as one of their main priorities that they are furthering with their project and then they would also select one of the four complimentary priorities.

They could select both, all six, four, but this is just a minimum threshold to get you from our internal process into the hearing process essentially for a plan amendment. Thank you, Madam Mayor. This will be very brief.

Um, while I completely support, for all the reasons I stated at the beginning of this meeting, um, this the way that it was originally produced, I wanted to thank um, the planning and zoning commission who gives us lots of good information for being creative and thinking up something that for their li I'm not saying limited, but they did reference the amount of emails that they got, which wasn't limited.

It was 150 pages of emails, but compared to the amount of input that we got from the public in general, it was kind of a small amount. I'm I'm happy that they took that information and did something creative with it that would have made sense if that was the um if it was concurrent throughout the entire process. So, I wanted to just make sure that we thank them for that. And I agree with the mayor. Thumbs up. Let's change it back to the way it was.

And I think that hopefully staff and planning and zoning and the regional plan committee which you were co-chair of council member Garcia um hears our um extreme gratitude for the sheer amount of information that um they've all gone through all the commissions. Um, yeah, I mean, we're very very grateful for that. And so the other is um member Spence. Thank you, Mayor.

Um I uh do not accept condition 47 uh because the plan has fuel switching as a recommendation or a guideline not as a requirement. Uh this this uh plan uh does not require anyone to give up natural gas. So it uh as a recommendation it leads us in the right direction but it's not a requirement. So I do not favor accepting condition 47. Council member Garcia. Just a brief comment. I want to echo the support and um not accepting number 47.

But from a personal perspective, I am happy that we still have choice for natural gas, for electricity, and I'm also happy that we are pushing for um for electricity and the plan due to the carbon neutrality plan. But the fact that we we have that choice, the utility is still out there. The utilities kind of are set and make, you know, their space here for us to connect to. And as long as that's a thing, I am I'm happy that everyone gets to have their own choice in this matter.

Um, Vice Mayor and then Council Member Matthews. Thank you. And I too want to echo what um, Council Member Spence said. It isn't a mandate and if it were, we'd be having a different conversation. Um, I have a gas stove in my house and I I love it and I am glad that we have choices. But I think, you know, we are talking a lot about fuel switching. It's in our our plans and that is the direction that this community and council has voted we would like to see us go. Um, so I am in support.

So Sarah, um, once again, can you, so what some of the council members are saying is that they don't want to accept this revision. And so what is, how is it written correctly or how is it written currently? I can ask Elsa to pull up on the screen where this language is currently in chapter 10. Um but I I agree with the sentiment that um staff and I know maybe Genevieve is on if there's question.

We found this motion a little confusing because our opinion is also that this does not require people to give up natural gas or require all electric for future development but instead talks about incentives and recommendations which we felt was a legal way to proceed, a legally sportable way to proceed and also um didn't necessarily um eliminate a second energy source.

Um maybe Nicole can speak a little more to that, but I know Elsa's gonna pull up some language and zoom in so you can see what the action items currently say. Thank you. Because I I just want to be clear on how it's written because I've talked to developers um and of course it's they're happy just to put one utility line in and not be required to do two um because it's less expensive for them. But um you know going back having choices.

So, I just want to I want to read again and refresh my mind on how it's written. So, we I know legally in the state of Arizona, we can't require it to be all electric. Um, so I just want to see how it's written here and I will speak a little bit to that. Hi, Genevie Perry 3, senior sustainability planner in the sustainability division. So, basically, it's referenced quite a bit in chapter 10. Um, it doesn't talk about abandoning natural gas.

um it does talk about the benefits of electrification, but it also talks about the benefits of of energy efficiency in general. And so during PN the PNZ um meeting when this decision was made, Jenny Neman was there and did request specific references for what language we were talking about because it doesn't actually say abandoned natural gas and that wasn't provided. So I think it maybe is a general sentiment. I'm not sure.

Um, I don't want to put words into PNZ members mouths, but it um, it never said abandon natural gas. So, um, how it's written in the proposed general plan for 20 45, what is it encouraging? Does it incentivize? I mean, how is it referenced there is what I'm getting at. Yeah, let me just let me just pull up the pages real quick so I can give you an accurate answer. I don't know, Elsa, if Yeah, Elsa has it pulled up there, too. But let me pull it up here. Oops. All right.

So, there is um so in chapter 10, there's kind of general language around um let's see, I've highlighted it here. It's like five pages, so I'm just going through that. Um yeah, basically talks about um kind of background on electricity and natural gas and then talks about what building fuel switching is. Um the process of switching from natural gas to electric.

Um it talks about some of the benefits of electrification in terms of lower costs, increased resilience, reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It also mentions when natural gas when fuel switching is not feasible or cost-effective just focusing on efficiency. So when when we if this uh regional plan as it's written is implemented I guess what I'm getting at is how does it impact the developer? Yeah, leaving that verbiage in there. What does that create? So this is just in the background narrative.

Um so it's not that's not one of the goals and policies. Um this would be analyzed against if well if a regional plan amendment happened. So there is one policy that says reduce energy consumption reliance on fossil fuels and the carbon footprint of new and existing buildings and public facilities through efficient building construction orientation and appliances.

So, if a regional plan amendment were to come through based on council's previous decision to keep climate and housing as the core priorities and someone chose to analyze against climate, they would have to show how they were meeting that. But that's if they choose to analyze against the climate priority and we just discussed that they could do one or the other of the core priorities. Okay?

because I you know I going back to what I stated earlier and the dependence that our electricity companies are reliant on natural gas I don't want to create a situation where we have made it near you know pretty much impossible for a developer to do anything but and then I mean I've already had lost electricity just in the last like two months um it was short but you know the weather's good outside so I just don't want us to be put in a position where um we're not there yet to ensure that we have reliance um on our energy source when we have such rigid cold temperatures.

So if it's just stated in that um and we left it to where they could pick one of the two priorities and then one of the other uh ones then I'm fine with that. Okay. Yeah, that's correct. All right, council. Are there any additional items you wanted to Oh, Council Member Alen.

Yeah, I just on this topic in particular, I just wanted to add um I went on the APS website and there seems to be a perception out there that APS is abandoning its its its energy um goals or just moving on from uh those aspirations.

uh but I'm just reading from the website here uh directly verbatim our aspirational carbon neutral approach means that by 2050 for any greenhouse gas emissions still produced by our electricity generation resources we aim to offset these emissions elsewhere a balanced and diverse energy mix will power Arizona's remarkable growth and help serve our customers with reliable and cost-effective electricity our diverse energy portfolio includes clean carbon-f free energy from Palivver generating station one one of the largest nuclear plants and producers of clean energy in the country.

Renewable resources including solar energy paired with battery energy storage and energy efficiency and demand management programs that help customers reduce energy use. So, uh you know, even our energy providing partners up here in Northern Arizona um are keeping their eye on the ball. We have a much more aggressive approach by trying to get to carbon neutrality by 2030. But APS and other companies like APS are not abandoning uh their commitments to uh uh decarboning our economy. Okay.

any additional um points that came up that you want to discuss or do you think that we are ready to make a motion and do this? Staff has been tracking in the back where you are. Would you like to pull that up on the screen see it? Great. I think Lauren or Elsa can share it. We're hopping between computers to help keep it moving. So right now these are the five changes you have requested. I think I have one question for clarification.

So condition 11 is the one that states to change the urban trails map symbology and you said you wanted that one removed but was council still okay with the planned access and trail heads being added that was I think shown on the same slide and the same map. Does that do we remember this? Maybe we have to go back to the slide. It was condition. It was condition approval number 34.

So, I just wanted to make sure we were talking at this and you said go back to the map the way we talked about it on May 2nd, but were you only speaking of number 11 or were you also speaking of number 34? I think I wasn't clear when we concluded that part of the conversation. All I remember is the word centroidids, right? So, I mean, I think if if it were 11 but not 34, then I think we would go to the original map and then just add the triangles and squares.

That's the simplest way to explain it. If it were both, we would just go back to the map the way it was originally laid out without the triangles and squares being added. I like the triangles and squares or the The triangles and squares are comment 34. 34. Yeah. So, does that mean we were when we were talking about this, we were talking about 11 only? I mean, it makes sense to me that we'd add we would add planned forest access and trail heads. Thank you. I just wanted to be sure.

Oh, and so your recommendation was not adding these for readability at this map scale. The con thing that was considered was adding all of the existing and planned and what staff recommended was taking the existing off of this map and only putting the planned ones on. The existing exist and they're fine, but there are like four times as many of them as there are planned ones.

And so it just it made it hard to read the map when you tried to put them both on the same map, which is why they are separate maps in the current plan. So we were fine with just the planned ones and not the existing ones being added. And then I'm also um good with leaving the um the trails on on private land, the faded yellow golden rod, whatever that is. Did we all support that? The original. That's right. Full circle.

As long as we're clear on what changes you want over the next 30 days, it's just fine with us. Does someone have to read that? Does someone have to read read that? The the motion will just be um to accept the plan. You had it all written out, didn't you, Sarah? Somewhere I moved title only with the following conditions. Make changes to the plan listed in the conditions of approval prepared and reviewed with the following modifications. Then yes, but you don't have to read the modifications.

Mayor, I second your motion. Yeah with we're still in a public hearing, right? We don't want to be making a motion, but that after the public hearing is closed and you go there, um it would be making that motion referring to them as displayed um would be the easiest way to do it. Okay, public comment. Okay, I'm closing the public hearing and I'm ready for a motion. Madame Mayor, all I have to do is the resolution, right?

Follow I would like to read the resolution 2025-56 by title only with the modifications displayed. Is that correct? That's good. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I uh city clerk, it's nice that my reading is a little shorter than yours. A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council adopting the Flagstaff Regional Land Use Plan 2045 regional plan as the general plan for the city of Flagstaff. And a motion to adopt the resolution.

Madam Mayor, I would like to adopt resolution 20 25-56. Second with the modifications as displayed. With the modifications as displayed. I'll second. Any discussion? I I do. Go ahead. All right. Um, again, as a co-chair of the regional planning committee and somebody who's been invested in this process for years, I want to again thank the public. For as long as I've been up up in this room um investigating things, um this was the most robust um public input that I've that I've been a part of.

And it was phenomenal to watch staff and how they worked it into the plan to make a plan that is specific to the p to what the public actually wants. I also want to thank staff all the time that we spent together in all of those meetings. Sometimes we would have very heated talks, sometimes they were more cooled off.

But in the end, staff always made sure that everyone's voice was heard and that everything was um understood clearly so that way uh the plan would come out to exactly what was said in those rooms. So, excellent work on staff's behalf. And I also want to thank the council for being so supportive of the process and also asking the tough questions when it was necessary. Thank you. And it looks like council member House has a comment. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you so much.

Um I just wanted to make sure I uh was dialed in so that folks know I was not able to participate through much of the meeting, but I was listening in and um listening for any of the concerns or questions that I had and am glad to have heard them all answered.

And I'm just wanting to express my gratitude as well um to echo council member Garcia with just the amount of work that has gone into this plan and um the efforts of both the committee, everyone who participated in the listening sessions, staff obviously and just everyone who was part of this process. It has been long. It has been robust. And it has been laborious.

And it is um just with very very deep gratitude to everyone who's been part of this process that I um am happy to be able to support and see this move forward. Thank you. All those in favor? I I Any opposed? Thank you. All right, we're adjourned.