Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Minutes - City Council - Meeting Date: 11/20/2017 City of Glendale 5850 West Glendale Avenue Glendale, AZ 85301 Meeting Minutes Tuesday, November 20, 2017 10:00 A.M. Special Workshop Meeting Civic Center Annex City Council Mayor Jerry Weiers Vice Mayor Ian Hugh Councilmember Jamie Aldama Councilmember Joyce Clark Councilmember Ray Malnar Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff Councilmember Bart Turner CALL TO ORDER ROLL CALL Present: Mayor Jerry Weiers Vice Mayor Ian Hugh Councilmember Jamie Aldama Councilmember Joyce Clark Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff Councilmember Bart Turner Absent: Councilmember Ray Malnar(Arrived after roll call) Also Present: Kevin Phelps, City Manager; Tom Duensing, Assistant City Manager; Michael Bailey, City Attorney; Julie K. Bower, City Clerk; Jack Friedline, Assistant City Manager WORKSHOP SESSION 1. COUNCIL POLICY GUIDANCE—SESSION 3 Presented By: Brian Friedman, Economic Development Director Mr. Friedman said Council had provided direction to staff to provide a more detailed presentation on infill. He said infill stimulated reinvestment, supported development, generated jobs and tax revenue, supported neighborhood revitalization, made use of existing infrastructure, reduced blight and helped the City adapt to changing needs. Mr. Friedman said the definition of infill included: • Development of vacant properties •Substantial demolition of existing structures •Adaptive re-use of existing structures • Major renovation or expansion of existing structures •Annexation of county islands •Significant new investment or reinvestment to the community Mr. Friedman said there were 800 parcels east of the Loop.101 zoned non-agricultural that were developable. For example at Glendale &75th, there was substantial vacant land and at Northern Avenue &59th, there had been demolition of existing structures to prepare for new development. Councilmember Malnar arrived at the meeting. Mr. Friedman said in order to evaluate or assess whether an area needed infill, the following had to be considered: •Market conditions that demonstrated trends in building activity •Vacancy rate or existing buildings in various categories • Population trend from census blocks or target areas •Crime &code enforcement to identify blight •Past programs previously drafted for the City • Mr. Friedman said there were comparable cities with infill policies such as Peoria, Scottsdale, Avondale, Mesa, Chandler and Yuma. Staff was using the City of Phoenix for best practices on infill, Mr. Friedman said the City of Peoria had a commercial revitalization program and identified target City Council Meeting Minutes-November 20,2017 Page 2 of 9 areas, provided a dedicated funding source, had a reimbursement program and focused on visual improvement. Mr. Friedman said the City of Scottsdale focused on its downtown area and relief was focused on zoning/land use. The applicant could request a fee waiver or expedited service with Council approval. Mr. Friedman said the City of Avondale had identified three specific areas for infill, focusing on both commercial and residential opportunities. It offered a 50%fee waiver for planning and permit fees and a 50% reduction in development impact fees (DIF)for new construction. There was an infill incentive program. There was also a list of ineligible projects. Mr. Friedman said the City of Mesa identified two types of districts based on size and need for development relief. Its policy established a private party's ability to request an infill district by submitting an infill incentive plan with relief from development standards. Mesa used a definition of"By-passed Parcel"to identify opportunities. Mr. Friedman said the City of Chandler had opted for an overlay district regarding an adaptive reuse policy. It defined adaptive reuse opportunities by building age and size, lot size and zoning. Chandler provided a streamlined process to make development timelines and costs more predictable. The focus was on retail shopping centers with a goal to decrease retail and increase residential or office uses. It emphasized the attraction of quality affordable housing by encouraging higher density and innovative redevelopment strategies. Mr. Friedman said the City of Yuma used state statute as the basis to develop a tool kit of 13 options to help promote infill development. It identified several target areas and key issues such as conditional use permit requirements, development fees, fire sprinklers, landscaping, right-of-way dedication requirements and utility connection fees. Mr. Friedman said the City of Phoenix had the most robust program and it had been in place for over a decade. Some of the incentives included: minimum fire lane sizing; combined site/landscape plan; existing driveway width and parking lot allowed to remain; alley access allowed if paved; waived public utility easement on plat; and low slope sewer taps were allowed. Mr. Friedman said Glendale was at a competitive disadvantage. He said staff was asking for direction on the following: •Consideration of infill and adaptive reuse policies •Consideration of revised flexible development standards for codes and ordinances •Consideration of fee waivers and other incentives to promote development • Establishment of geographic boundaries for infill focus •Support to spur timely investment in tenant occupancy of existing buildings •Support for infill of neighborhoods and residential development Councilmember Aldalma asked if staff was considering a needs assessment and the creation of a stakeholders committee. Mr. Friedman said there were a wide range of options available to Council and those were just two of the options. Councilmember Aldalma asked if neighboring cities had a stakeholders committee. Mr. Friedman said Phoenix used stakeholders, others used an outside consultant or staff or a combination of all three. Councilmember Clark would like to see staff pick a parcel and demonstrate to Council what was City Council Meeting Minutes-November 20,2017 Page 3 of 9 applicable in terms of incentives so Council could get a feel of what could be applied and if it would work for Glendale. She said it didn't have to be in downtown but should show how Phoenix's program would work. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the City had an existing policy. Mr. Friedman said the City had a residential policy in the downtown that was no longer funded. It had offered a rebate of 50% of the fees. That was the only program he was aware of. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if Avondale was the only city that had a list of ineligible projects. Mr. Friedman said some defined areas or zones where policies were applicable. Councilmember Tolmachoff said it was not a bad idea so that the City didn't incentivize things it didn't want. Councilmember Aldama asked if the City could look into what planning regulations were a barrier to infill, how long the property had been vacant and did it require more incentives because it had been vacant for 20 years. Mr. Friedman said, pending legal review, the City could tier it based on location and additional incentives for preferred development. Councilmember Turner said, looking at it from a cost/benefit point of view, if incentives were offered, the City should have an idea of the payback period. There were finite resources and anything the City was giving to one entity, it could deprive another entity. What was the fairness of that. For a major retailer, it made sense to have expedited plan review because the benefits were bigger but smaller projects would get pushed back in line. The City had to look at how it would do that. Councilmember Turner said another issue was providing incentives for a new business that was a competitor to an existing business. Providing incentives meant the City was picking a winner that could be a direct competitor to a business that already existed. He said incentives should be tied to a project that was happening in the near future, not twenty years in the future. He wanted to tie results to the incentives. Mayor Weiers said if a city offered substantial incentives and opened a new building but closed the old one, there was no financial benefit to the city. He wanted to make sure the City didn't do something like that. Mayor Weiers said an exception for impact fees should be made for small 1-home lots. It should include a time limit of 6 months to 1 year to pull a building permit. He said codes made it almost impossible for businesses to develop small projects on 5 acres or less. Councilmember Tolmachoff agreed with Councilmember Turner's comment about hurting an existing business. It required development of a carefully crafted policy to make sure that didn't happen. She said there was grant money available for development in historic districts and the City could help developers with applying for the available grants. Councilmember Clark said an infill policy wasn't just a matter of cost/benefit analysis. Issues had been identified with vacant parcels—blight, adaptive reuse, unsafe structures, etc.. She didn't think the analysis applied to all situations. The goal was to remove the identified issues and that could require an investment that didn't pay for itself. Councilmember Clark said at 59th & Northern, the development was tied to the Westgate City Council Meeting Minutes-November 20,2017 Page 4 of 9 development. The City was involved in the demolition of the old Valley West Mall. The sales tax generated had paid for the demolition. There were intangibles to consider. Councilmember Aldama said Council had talked about conducting an inventory of parcels and asked if a growth plan was being considered for the infill projects. Mr. Friedman said the purpose of the presentation was to educate, share and have Council roll out its expectations for staff in developing the policy. A policy would give Glendale an equal advantage with other cities with a policy. Councilmember Aldama suggested as the City started to create the plan, it also create a growth plan. He said with regard to community character, when looking at projects, it was important to look at smart design that was compatible with the existing community. Councilmember Turner said he wasn't trying to narrow the conversation but meant there were things that should be considered. He agreed that a cost/benefit analysis was just not about the dollar amount, it was also the social cost and he was addressing the northwest corner of 59th & Northern. Councilmember Turner would like an explanation of the greenfield aspect that was mentioned as well as examples of lost opportunities. The City should evaluate whether it should require how the project fit into the community architecturally. It needed to complement the neighborhood. Councilmember Clark wanted to keep it simple. She said the more layers that were created, the more a developer was dis-incentivized. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked how specific staff wanted Council to get. She was not sure what the expectations were. Mr. Phelps said the question was, did the City want to incentivize redevelopment? The policies for residential and commercial could be different for each. Were there areas Council wanted to focus on and/or was the focus on a size or location. A definition of incentives was needed. He said parcels were empty for a reason and the City should figure out what were the barriers. Was a policy a good use of taxpayer resources. Mr. Phelps said a certain amount of redevelopment wouldtake place even if the City did nothing. He said benchmarks could be set so that the City could measure the results. Did the City want to use resources to change the market absorption rate? He said the first step was to get an inventory of location, ownership and then prepare an assessment report. Council could then identify sites where the focus should be and put resources toward it. The City could provide gap loans. The first question was—was there a desire to change the current market. Mayor Weiers asked if there was a consensus on the desire to change. There was Council consensus. Councilmember Clark didn't want the policy to apply to vacant land east of 115th. She asked what was the geographic area. Mr. Phelps said staff was talking about infill, not annexation. If everything else was built out except for the parcel, that was the focus and east of the 101. Mayor Weiers suggested putting some type of requirement on it such as vacant or not built for 10 years. City Council Meeting.Minutes-November 20,2017 Page 5 of 9 Mr. Friedman asked if it included a fee waivers component. Mayor Weiers had no problem moving forward with everything. Councilmember Aldama said the fee waivers could possibly include right-of-way, sidewalk and road improvements. He was concerned about that because it would fall back on the City. Mr. Friedman said that was correct Councilmember Aldama saidthat could be very expensive. Mr. Friedman said eventually the City was going to improve the infrastructure. The question was did it want to incentivize development now. Councilmember Aldama was in favor of waiving the fees. It was appropriate to look at infill but he was concerned about right-of-way. Councilmember Tolmachoff said Council had to decide how it wanted to incentivize to get the development the City wanted. It should have a toolbox. It didn't have to be a fee waiver and could be other things. She wouldn't want to do everything discussed. It should be decided on a case-by-case basis what worked for a particular development. It was not going to be one size fits all and it depended on the type of development. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if Council would get a spreadsheet of the location, size, owner; etc. of the 800 parcels. Mr. Friedman said it would and there were 550 parcels south of Northern and 250 north of Northern. He said the policy could be designed however was appropriate. If Council was comfortable with the city manager being able to waive certain fees, it would let staff be able to make on-the-spot decisions. Councilmember Clark was very concerned about the continued erosion and usurpation of Council authority. Every time it allowed "at the discretion," it was ceding its authority. There needed to be some kind of check and balance and she would never accept a blanket statement. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if all 800 parcels were developable. Mr. Friedman said all of the parcels were developable but he didn't know if the parcels were of a minimum size. The parcels were all non-agricultural. Councilmember Tolmachoff said some cities were incentivizing by creating greenspace. Companies wanted to be able to offer that to employees. She said the City could offer other amenities besides waiving fees. Councilmember Aldama said, to some extent, the city manager had to have discretion to waive development fees. Council could put a dollar amount in place and anything above it needed Council approval. Council had to provide tools to the city manager. Mr. Phelps said one of the issues was return on investment (ROI) and what the expectation was. The challenge for residential was that it would be hard to do an ROI. Instead, the City could measure the negative impact of a vacant residential lot. He said there was a marginal cost model for infill because the cost of services was marginal. Mr. Phelps said the ROI for commercial could be different based on the location. Some locations might take longer to reach an ROI. Staff needed to know if it was important. Was there a benefit to incentivize a development where the same type already existed. Depending on location, a bank might not be willing to loan the total needed, so the City could provide gap financing to City Council Meeting Minutes-November 20,2017 Page 6 of 9 • address that. Mayor Weiers asked what the impact fees were for residential infill. Mr. Friedman said it would be $8,000 in impact fees. Mayor Weiers said it didn't have a lot of impact because the roads, sidewalks, public safety were already in place. The policy also needed a time limit. Councilmember Tolmachoff wanted more information on the gap lending. She asked how the proposal was evaluated. Mr. Phelps said probably by a committee of commercial lenders and staff and there would have to be a competitive interest rate. Councilmember Tolmachoff said the return on the loan would be better than what the City was getting on its own investments. She favored taking a look at it but it had to be the type of development wanted in the City. Mr. Phelps would have the city attorney look at it. Councilmember Turner said shifting from commercial to residential hadn't been discussed. He said some existing shopping centers might not have a future because of changing demographics. Mr. Phelps said the City likely had areas that were failing. Brick and mortar stores would continue to have stress and would continue to shrink. It might be an opportunity to evaluate the best use and look at zoning. The City was limited by the 30 units per acre limitation. It would be helpful to have the ability to waive that to increase the density. He said the demographic issues surrounding Centerline made it challenging for retailers to locate there. Multi-family with density could impact that. Mr. Phelps asked if Council was comfortable with staff coming back at a future session with policy recommendations or were there specific things that were the focus or were hands-off. Mayor Weiers was fine with policy recommendations. The City was not competitive right now. Councilmember Tumer said the policies from neighboring cities were helpful. He suggested looking at variations, element by element for those cities and finding what Glendale could provide relief on. Councilmember Malnar said there were areas in his district where the natural process would fill in the vacant areas. It was not advantageous for everything to explode at once. He didn't want to give away too much too quickly. Mr. Phelps said staff would prioritize areas and highlight the more challenging areas, such as what had been empty the longest and had a higher concentration of vacant parcels. He said it could be a challenge to get the information together. Mayor Weiers asked how much staff time would be needed. Mr. Friedline said it was a significant endeavor to understand on a parcel-based basis. It would take the GIS person at least a month to obtain parcel-based data and another month to compare to other cities. Mayor Weiers asked if the staff person would be pulled off other duties to work on it. City Council Meeting Minutes-November 20,2017 Page 7 of 9 Mr. Friedline said that was correct. Mayor Weiers didn't want to drag it out for another six months. Councilmember Tolmachoff suggested hiring a consultant to do the heavy lifting. She also wanted to find out if the parcels were on the market. Mr. Phelps said he hadn't been able to fill the real estate manager position yet so it made more sense to use a consultant to put the data together. Councilmember Tolmachoff said that meant there was salary savings to fund the consultant. Councilmember Turner said the geographic boundaries could come farther east than the 101, 83rd or 75th. It should be a case-by-case basis for incentives. Councilmember Clark said at the southeast corner of 91st and Glendale, there was a property that had been vacant for many years. Mayor Weiers didn't know why the Council would limit itself if there were issues and suggested leaving it to staff. Mr. Phelps said staff would create a recap and send it out to Council so he asked Council to provide any feedback or comments. CITY MANAGER'S REPORT Mr. Phelps reported Fitch had given the City a bond rating of AAA and that was significant. It didn't happen on its own. It happened by focusing on it. Council should be pleased with the direction it had set and the key benchmarks were going the right way. CITY ATTORNEY'S REPORT Mr. Bailey had no report. COUNCIL ITEMS OF SPECIAL INTEREST Councilmember Aldama invited everyone to the 5th annual Challenger Community Feast at Challenger Middle School on November 21st from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Councilmember Tolmachoff had attended a meeting of the National League of Cities' Public Safety and Crime Prevention Committee. A big point was that cities needed to look at public demonstration ordinances to make sure cities were prepared in case of a demonstration. She said the City of Charlotte was completely unprepared. Mayor Weiers reported that over 400 turkeys were collected for Hope for Hunger last Friday. A canned food drive was taking place and the goal was to collect 100,000 pounds of non-perishable food. ADJOURNMENT Mayor Weiers adjourned the meeting at 11:44 a.m. City Council Meeting Minutes-November 20,2017 Page 8 of 9 I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the meeting of the Glendale City Council of Glendale,Arizona, held on the 20th day of November, 2017. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and held and that a quorum was present. Dated this 5th day of December, 2017. lie K. Bower, MMC, City Clerk City Council Meeting Minutes-November 20,2017 Page 9 of 9