Thread by @shayshinecastle

This seems like a good time to talk about how we got here. Ppl were upset bc there wasn't a public hearing before the OZ was designated.

Staff did it bc of the Diagonal Plaza; council had a goal of incentivizing redevelopment there. It was implemented in March/April ish.

It was made public (still no process at this point). But it didn't blow up until the fall, after the announcement of the Macy's redevelopment: dailycamera.com/2018/11/28/ske…

So that's where the criticism comes from: Public wasn't involved in designating it, and members of council argued they weren't either.

Young asks how to accomplish permanently saving existing affordable apartments.
Carr: You could do a demolition ban. But I'd urge you to think that through.
Young: Just in that area?
Carr: Yes, but I'd urge you to think that through.

Carr: You'd have to define demolition: Is it one wall? Is it the whole thing?

Clever ppl would find a way around it.

Young: Could an investor come in and buy a mobile home park and displace all the ppl, replace all the homes?
Carr: It has to stay a manufactured housing.
Young: But could it happen.
Carr: Conceivably. ... but is it actually possible? idk.

Brockett: Aren't there regs against arbitrary evictions?

Morzel suggests another moratorium on sale(?) of mobile home parks?

Carr: That's an excellent q. There might be legal challenges to doing that. Telling someone they can't own a property is a big step.

Jones: what we want to do tonight is figure out a list of things we want to figure out. Some sort of "overlay zone for the OZ."

Brockett defending staff against the public speakers. They do take input, he says; they work hard.

Carlisle: Staff isn't perfect, but they worked really hard on this. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

She wants info on cost per sq ft of efficiency apartments.

Brockett and I discussed this (I think it was him; it was a city council candidate) and that they are costlier per sq ft, but in "real" costs (how much they rent for) they are typically cheaper. bc they're so small.

Morzel: Could we increase inclusionary housing requirements? Could we increase linkage fees? Could we include affordable commercial space?

Weaver: I want to know what our options are for an overlay zone.

We also need to keep working on the office space suggested changes.

They keep referring to it as L17; Jones asks Weaver to say what it is. It's that suggestion that buildings be limited to 25% office space in Biz zones.

Protecting existing market-affordable housing is "critically important," Weaver says. "I don't want clever ppl getting around" whatever we do here.

We need to ask qs about the OZ program design to figure out when it ends, Weaver says.

Jones: Setting aside OZ stuff, what other feedback to we want to give staff on use tables?

Brockett asking about 29th St mall owner feedback why they can't get a permit to re-finish the store for a new tenant.

Chris Meschuk: They can't convert the space from retail to office (or anything else).

That's exactly what they want to do. Bc it's hard to find a new tenant for that big of store, given the retail environment.

Carlisle: I thought they started their process before the OZ was dumped on us.

Morzel talking about how property owners aren't being contacted. Or they say they haven't been, anyway.

Morzel: Can we incorporate 9-step engagement process into this?
Jones: We're in the home stretch of this council.

She suggests a working session with relevant parties.

Meschuk summing up feedback. I don't have the energy to sum it up for you, too.

Sorry.

But he says he wants to "huddle" with staff before bringing back new stuff that was just thrown out tonight. (I'm not sure exactly what.)

Jones: The whole reason this started with Diagonal Plaza, and we at one point talked about, can we get anything useful out of this?

Carlisle: Why has BURA never done anything? It's a blighted area.
Brockett: It's council's discretion. We'd have to kick that off.
Carlisle: It is. We could.
Jones: Maybe we should start that process.

Weaver: We have community benefit project coming. If we left moratorium in place through that project, how would that play in? Is there a way to use that to have an impact in the OZ?

Brockett: Can we pin down if we can change our requirements if they are using this program funding?

Carlisle: I would like to incorporate the community into these discussions. We talked about meeting with biz; what about community members? So ppl get to talk to our planning staff; and there are ppl who actually like these use tables.

Weaver: We can decouple use tables from the OZ moratorium.

These suggestions are good, he says, staff worked hard on them. Everything but the efficiency units "is a further restriction."

Young: Neighborhood retail is a loosening.

"It would be great to get this wrapped up bc most of this is an improvement," Weaver says. "I don't want to lose sight of the progress we've made."

Jones: We're pretty dang close to being done if we figure out office space and efficiencies, especially if we decouple from moratorium.
Yates, Brockett protest: That's not the deal.
Brockett: These things were put together for a reason.

Young asking if the use table changes will apply citywide or in the OZ only.
Jones: This started citywide, applies citywide, and aside from efficiencies and office space, there's largely agreement.

Jones: Go citywide, but figure out those two things.

Meschuk adding for feedback on efficiencies: No changes? Higher threshold? Use review?

"We're looking at changing land use regulation" around allowance for how many, Meschuk says. Do we want to change it or not?

Morzel: "I would be OK going a little higher than 20% before use review, but I'm not interested in going much higher than 40%. If they go up that high, I'd like to see a certain % of that be affordable."

Carlisle not interested in going above 20%. "There has been such a rush to building rental units in this community that become very, extremely expensive. It's a way of gentrification."

Young: Leave it alone, like Planning Board says.

Brockett: Planning board did NOT have consensus. 3-2 split; majority wanted to drop the use review requirement.

There were 3 goals on this project: Incentivize additional housing. This is the only piece that addresses that.

"While a small unit may not be cheap, if we're going to look at what's the price of this, what's the price of one twice the size, bc that's what it's replacing."

He, Jones and Weaver could "go up to 40%."
Young gets on board, though she says it "seems kind of arbitrary."
"So's 20," Weaver says.

Carlisle started to protest about something, saying taking away use review was taking away the public's ability to comment on things.
Then Weaver told her that it was about not allowing housing to convert to offices. Suddenly she was OK with not allowing the pubic to weigh in.

I think that is wrapping this one. But there's still more to come, with some salary stuff. (V interesting)

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