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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes_PAREB_02.14.2019Minutes of the Meeting of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board City of Georgetown, Texas February 14, 2019 Regular Session (This Regular Session may, at any time, be recessed to convene an Executive Session for any purpose authorized by the Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code 551.) A Call to Order - Jim Hougnon, Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Chair The meeting was called to order by Jim Hougnon at 6:00 pm. B Roll Call - Jim Hougnon, Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Chair Board Present: Jim Hougnon, Wayne Beyer, Larry Gambone, Michael Simpson, Danelle Houck, Katherine Kainer Absent: Scott Macmurdo Staff Present: Kimberly Garrett, Eric Nuner, Arica Kolb, Jill Kellum C Parks and Recreation staff member introduction and presentation - Kimberly Garrett, Parks and Recreation Director Kimberly Garrett introduced Arica Kolb, Program Supervisor, who works out of the Recreation Center. Arica Kolb stated she is a supervisor at the Recreation Center focused on programs. She stated she attended Texas State University and graduated in December 2014 with a degree in Recreation Administration. She interned with the City of San Marcos from October 2014 - March 2015 and after that she started with the City of Georgetown as a Recreation Specialist at the Recreation Center when the center opened with Sunday hours in April 2015. Currently, she is working on summer and spring break camps, program enrollment numbers and she is in charge of the Youth Advisory Board. She is working with the Youth Advisory Board on various events and they did a teen event over the Christmas holiday and had about 50 kids there. It gave the kids something to do as they had a half day at school. The Youth Advisory Board volunteers at Parks and Recreation events like at Cupid's Chase they were stationed a barricade, Movies in Park they work the popcorn and helped Melissa set up and various things like that. Kimberly Garrett stated Arica Kolb is over the programming at the Teen Center. Aric Kolb stated she works with Robert Staton, Senior Program Specialist, in charge of senior programming. She works him on his senior programming and enrichment programming with Brandi Williams. There are a lot of contractors, that we contract out various camps and classes such as School of 8 Directions and are starting a mommy and me music class. She stated she signed up with her daughter. Private Dance lessons are extremely popular as well as Country Western and Western Ballroom dance classes with Kerry Kelly. She is in charge of USA dance which is really great because she gets some of her dance teams to come out to the senior dances that we host at the Community Center. Eric Nuner stated Arica Kolb is up and coming as she started as a Recreation Specialist and was then promoted to Coordinator and then to Supervisor. He stated she has done an excellent job for the department. Michael Simpson asked how many people work and support the Recreation Center minus the contractors. Eric Nuner stated there are 23 FTE's. James Hougnon asked what her biggest challenge is. Arica Kolb stated since a lot of her experience the last couple of years has been with camps she stated her biggest challenge has been working with the 11-12 year old kids. She stated Joe Armstrong offers a great adventure camp program for the kids but sometimes families cannot afford that or they want to send their kids to Camp Goodwater because the kids have grown up there. She is looking for a different role for them this year at camp. They like to help and is looking into activities for them to do. Also, transportation is challenge and finding space to keep them away from the younger kids and being able to do something new that they can get excited about. Katherine Kainer asked about a CIT program. Arica Kolb stated we do have a Counselor in Training program and it is for 14 — 16 year olds. She stated a lot of the campers decide they want to do the CIT but that one year age gap helps with some kids getting out of camp and they see it as an actual CIT and not as a camper any longer. The kids enjoy the program and have had quite a few of those become counselors. James Hougnon asked where Arica Kolb grew up and if she was part of a city rec program. She stated she is from LaGrange and she was a lifeguard and a camp counselor and did that all through college. James Hougnon asked if she was able to draw on some things she saw there to either do or not do now. She stated there were a few things and they had a lot fewer campers and she was just a counselor, so she never understood that big picture to see overall. Now she sees that and understands why they did things a certain way. She stated she went to San Marcos for a job fair recently and she stopped by the Parks and Recreation office and it was the last day of their director there, so she was able to tell him goodbye and thanks for doing an internship there. D Update from the Friends of Georgetown Parks and Recreation - Danelle Houck, Parks and Recreation Advisory Boardmember Danelle Houck stated the Friends met on February 4 and they are currently looking to add more board members and looking for Daddy Daughter Dance co-chairs. Both of those positions are open. The group had been tasked with finding new members and getting new people to come to the meeting. They had 2 new people come to the meeting in February and there are 5 that are interested in coming to the next meeting but they only meet quarterly. The next meeting is May 61h. Assistance has been pretty slow after a really busy Fall. Recreation Center memberships have been really slow and they just did 3 soccer team registrations. The Friends Group also helped with a water table at Cupid's Chase. There were some new ideas brought to the meeting such as social media presence. Kimberly Garrett stated they talked about sponsoring one of the Movies in the Park and getting some advertising out. It would be a good opportunity to get their name out and associate it with things that we do. James Hougnon asked if they considered putting a blurb in the monthly newsletter that comes out. Kimberly Garrett stated they could do that. It can also be put on the Parks and Recreation Facebook page. Katherine Kainer asked if there were other Friends groups such as Friends of the Library. Danelle Houck stated there is the Friends of the Animal Shelter as well. She stated they discussed that and that the Parks and Recreation Department is so vast and they have had people come throughout the years where they are interested in the Dog Park but without specific measurable projects or constant volunteering opportunities minus the Georgetown Swims and the Daddy Daughter Dance that have successfully worked and the assistance, it struggles. Wayne Beyer asked the general age of the group. Danelle Houck stated there are various age ranges. He stated the homeschooler group might be a good group to reach out to. Danelle Houck stated they started this rebuilding process about a year ago. Katherine Kainer stated she understands that if you have a group and nowhere to put them in doing something they are just coming to a meeting. Danelle Houck stated this is their 10th year. Kimberly Garrett stated it is great that they have been able to keep up with their 5016. They are able eligible for grants and donations from different organizations. They are waiting on a donation from the Turkey Trot. Danelle Houck stated they normally get about $3,000. Kimberly Garrett stated they had received about $2,300 in credit card and online sales for the Daddy Daughter Dance. That would fund some Movies and that would sponsor the Easter Egg hunt, which is a huge community event that is free to the public. She stated people appreciate that and want to give back and they tie that to that the Friend's sponsor that in conjunction with the Parks and Recreation Department; so you have to put your name with it. E Project Updates and Staff Report - Eric Nuner, Assistant Parks and Recreation Director Eric Nuner reviewed the project update list. Garey Park is moving along. They are working on a few punch items and should be done on Saturday. In San Gabriel Park they are making good progress. Wayne Beyer asked how many large pavilions are there going to be. Eric Nuner said there will be 3 rental pavilions plus the large one. They had a meeting this week on the springs. The springs will be the last thing that is done. Wayne Beyer asked about the low water bridge. Staff is working on that now. They are pre-fabbing some of the steel. This is an in-house project. The parking lot at VFW now has curbs and are hoping to have asphalt tomorrow. The CIP projects for 2019, staff is working together to develop a schedule for those to get schedules for public meetings and consultants. Wayne Beyer asked where the 84 Lumber Park is located. Eric Nuner stated it is on Madison Oaks. He stated it is very small and there is not much we can do with it and funding. There is now a multi -family neighborhood close. There is not much to do there. Most likely there will be granite trails and small shelters. Kimberly Garrett stated there was to be an apartment complex but they scraped the idea and decided to go industrial and they had already dedicated this land. F Discussion regarding proposed changes to Section 6.06, Common Amenity Area, Section 8.02, Tree Preservation and Protection, and Section 13.08, Parkland, of the Unified Development Code (UDC) regarding Parkland Dedication requirements - Kimberly Garrett, Parks and Recreation Director Kimberly Garrett stated they have been working hard and see the finish line. They have been taken into consideration at the UDC board and some developers. Staff and the subcommittee have taken their feedback and one of the things they have done is adjusted the land requirement. The number of units have gone up for each acre of required dedication. In the past the number used was 50 units to one acre. That was when we had very few neighborhood parks and people were trying to get around code and we were trying to build our inventory. We didn't have any parks. Since then we have a good supply of parks and developers have had a hard time sticking to that 50 units per acre. So what happens is we are constantly negotiating improvements and amenities for less land. We are looking at that level service overall. In the masterplan it says this is an average of neighborhood and community parks; 5 acres for every 1,000 residents. So that is 1 acre for every 200 residents. We are converting the units to people. The housing coordinator has given us numbers that a single family residence has 2.46 people and a multi -family has 1.8. So based on those calculations we have come up with a new estimate that we need 1 acre for every 80 units to keep that same level of service. Our city attorney is pushing that we have rough proportionality; that we are not getting more parkland than our target from this ordinance; that is not the goal to grow the parkland greater than what you have. This is the easiest to explain with the masterplan. The masterplan is out of date but this is what we have. Hopefully, when it is updated in the next year or 2, if their numbers change we will come back and amend it; but we have to have a starting point. That will help with them making/meeting the land requirement. We are also looking at the fee in lieu which we were looking at a straight $500 which equated to $25,000 an acre. With the new calculation and the level of service and the household size the numbers go up a little bit. The median price is $52,000 an acre; which our real estate coordinator could back that up. You have some areas of town that might be $100,000 an acre and sell by the square foot and you have other areas of town which may be less than $50,0000. He said right now that is a good target. For the City of Austin the median price is $63,000 an acre. We want to make it equal so they don't want to give fee and not land. We are still working with the attorney on the development fee. It changes a little bit based on the 1 acre per 80 units. It brings down the fee per unit. We were at roughly $1,500 and it brings it down to $1,000 but it is also rough proportionality to that neighborhood. You are putting the amount of amenities and dollars with the number of residents in that subdivision. There was an update given to UDC Advisory Committee and they were supportive. The amounts of the development fee were not published as the city attorney is still reviewing everything. He is not familiar with the development fee. She stated those are some big things. The committee had a few minor changes to wording. Clarification on having the ability to take 2 acres if we want. We want 3 acres but in some instances there might be a situation where we want between 2 — 3 acres and changed the wording to reflect that. Larry Gambone asked if there is an option to do both where you can take so much land and so much money. Kimberly Garrett stated there is an option for that and you still have to meet all the guidelines and still have to do improvements or pay the improvement fee or do the land and/or money. That is what we do now. She feels it is important to have that flexibility. There are opportunities for alternative plans. The private park credit is worked out and will be able to give up to 50% to non-exclusive amenities. These are amenities that are outside the fence and things we are willing to accept if the HOA went under; not a swimming pool or something like that. As long as it is outside the fenced area we can accept that as partial credit. There was clean up for what the Parks Board and the Director have approval for with the recommendation of the Parks Board. There was discussion on the floodplain. She brought it up with the UDC Committee and they were fine with the wording. The biggest thing in the past with the way it was written is that it didn't have street frontage, we weren't' getting good land out of the floodplain. With the way it is written now we will get at least 2 acres out of the floodplain with street frontage and then we might get another 5, which makes the park look really big, and it might be usable 95% of the time. They thought it was reasonable to accept floodplain. That is what we presented to council. James Hougnon clarified that was floodplain up to 50% of the requirement, as long as there is a 100 foot frontage and 2 acres out. Kimberly Garrett stated we are going from 19 park zones to 4 quadrants. They will be called benefit zones. Kimberly Garrett stated there is a schedule. Staff meet with the UDC Committee and the Planning Director, and she suggested not hosting an open house. She suggested to posting the information and having office hours for developers to come in and meet one on one. She stated they do this a lot with other amendments and it is better that way. You can have an uninterrupted conversation and have a dedicated time. We will post on the website for public comment. Then that information will be used to tweak the document and then come back for one final blessing. It will then go to P & Z and then to city council. If it stays on track it can be approved by May 14th. James Hougnon asked who the meetings would be with. Kimberly Garrett stated it will be with her and a planner. One of the UDC members was concerned that we would be updating it to frequently but not more than once a year. From the developer side they can't plan if we are constantly updating the fees. They can't budget for their improvements. The goal is to stay on the fore front and at least talk about it annually. Kimberly Garrett stated they are looking at creating a park development manual that will be more specific. The new fees would be planned to be out 6 -12 months. Kimberly Garrett stated this isn't the end, this is just the guiding document in the UDC. We want it to be stringent enough but also have some flexibility and build the guidelines in. There should be something to come back in March with. Kimberly Garrett stated she liked that we have good numbers and a math problem on how we got there. Michael Simpson asked about the terms of units, dwellings, facilities and the definitions of each. He suggested having a legend that is more descriptive. James Hougnon stated this is a part of the UDC code and are very consistent throughout the code. He also stated the general public may not understand all the wording but it is written with the development community in mind. Kimberly Garrett stated she will run it by some people that aren't familiar with the vocabulary and clean it up. Legislative Regular Agenda G Consideration and possible action to recommend amending Chapter 12.40 of the City of Georgetown Code of Ordinances, regarding City Cemeteries, and adding Chapter 12.41 to the City of Georgetown Code of Ordinances, regarding City Columbaria. - Kimberly Garrett, Parks and Recreation Director Kimberly Garrett presented information and it is scheduled to go to City Council on February 2611,. These do not involve the fees at all; they are set up by fee schedule. Kimberly Garrett stated the Columbarium is a new chapter and will be a new process and the hours of the cemetery. The amended chapter of the Cemetery is updated and the wording cleaned up. Motion made by Michael Simpson, second by Danelle Houck to recommend amending Chapter 12.40 of the City of Georgetown Code of Ordinances, regarding City Cemeteries, and adding Chapter 12.41 to the City of Georgetown Code of Ordinances, regarding City Columbaria. Approved: 6-0-1(absent) H Consideration and possible action to recommend the annual approval of the Ordinance establishing standards of care that exempts the after -school and summer recreation programs from state licensing requirements. - Eric Nuner, Assistant Parks and Recreation Director Eric Nuner presented information on the Standards of Care. He stated this is the annual renewal of this ordinance. The main purpose is the protection of the kids utilizing our programs. This was one of the things last year that was brought back from the board that was tweaking the language a little bit. There are no other changes. Motion made by Danelle Houck, second by Larry Gambone to recommend the annual approval of the Ordinance establishing standards of care that exempts the after -school and summer recreation programs from state licensing requirements. Approved: 6-0-1(absent) I Consideration and possible action to approve minutes from the January 10, 2019 meeting - Jill Kellum, Administrative Supervisor Motion made by James Hougnon, second by Michael Simpson to approve the minutes from the January 10, 2019 meeting. Approved: 6-0-1(absent) Adjournment Adjourn - Jim Hougnon, Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Chair Motion made by Katherine Kainer, second by Larry Gambone to adjourn the Valentine meeting of the Parks and Rec Advisory Board. Approved: 6-0-1(absent) The meeting adjourned at 7:30 pm. r ,�. Katherine Kainer, Secretary C!'e, 2� Jill Kel , Board Liaison