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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN 10.08.2013 CC-WMinutes of the Meeting of the Governing Body of the City of Georgetown, Texas Tuesday, October 8, 2013 The City Council of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met in Regular Session on the above date with Mayor George Garver presiding. Council Present: Council Absent: Patty Eason, Tommy Gonzalez, Rachael Jonrowe, Steve Fought Jerry Hammerlun, John Hesser Staff Present Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager; Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer; Jessica Brettle, City Secretary; Laurie Brewer, Assistant City Manager; Jim Briggs, General Manager for Utilities; John Sullivan, Fire Chief; Andrew Spurgin, Planning Director; Jordan Maddox, Principal Planner; Jennifer Bills, Housing Coordinator; Matt Synatschk, Historic District Planner; Chris Foster, Utilities Financial Analyst A Discussion and possible direction to staff on existing multi -family conditions and regulations -- Andrew Spurgin, AICP, Planning Director, Jennifer C. Bills, AICP, LEED AP, Housing Coordinator and Jordan J. Maddox, AICP, Principal Planner With a Powerpoint Presentation, Sprugin provided a multi -family housing report to the City Council. He summarized the presentation overview for the Council and he reviewed the existing conditions of multi -family housing in Georgetown. He spoke about housing demand and said future housing demand will be driven by the millennials (1977-1996) and boomers (1946-1964). Gonzalez asked about the age brackets and said it seems the middle bracket has very little impact on the housing being provided. Spurgin said the 2000-2030 demand is for apartments, loft apartments, townhomes and midrise. He said homeownership peaked in the US in the year 2005. He noted traditional households are decreasing and singles and child -less couples are 62% of households. He said non family households outnumber traditional families, even in the suburbs and rural areas. He continued to provide statistics on housing and said poverty and blight has shifted to the suburbs. He said in 2011, for the first time in 90 years, major cities grew more quickly than their combined suburbs. Bills reviewed when the Council approved the Housing Element of the Comprehensive Plan. She spoke about the Housing Advisory Board and said they found there is a potential shortage of affordable housing units in Georgetown. She said in their study, they considered the perceptions of multi -family affordable housing in the community and whether it has a negative effect on schools. She said another problem that is perceived is that high density residential competes with commercial development in the real estate market. She noted that is not necessarily true. She spoke to Council about the City's current status on regulatory plans. She described the current UDC provisions affecting housing in Georgetown as well as multi -family zoning. She spoke about other cities and said few cities develop firm ratios to limit multi -family zoning. There was much discussion. She said, in their research, the Board came up with three options to consider when addressing multi -family housing: to remove the high-density residential from commercial districts, have variable density and design through development standards or utilize the 2030 Plan and Future Land Use Plan as a policy guide. Eason spoke about the options and said utilizing the 2030 Plan may be a more difficult option as that plan will City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 48 of 351 Pages need to be amended over time. Eason described some options for how to move forward. She said she has never viewed the 2030 as the ultimate managing document for any of the issues it covers. Eason said she does not think Council should manage housing by continuing to edit the comprehensive plan. Hesser said one thing that concerns him is it seems that it would be easier if the Council had some methodology and criteria to help Council arrive at a decision. He said having all of the apartments in one area of town creates a problem and he would like to know a strategy for where to place the apartments. Spurgin spoke about someone could use commercial zoning to develop multi -family housing. He said using the first option would be the best way to have more control. Hesser said we need to be more definitive on where we need to place apartments throughout the City. Gonzalez said he thinks it will be important to stipulate what high density and low density multi -family means. He noted a 200 unit apartment is much different than a 800 unit apartment. Spurgin said moderate is up to 6 units per acre and high density is over 6 units per acre. Hammerlun said he is a participate in the multi -family housing in Georgetown and, clearly, the occupancy is high. He said he lives in Two Rivers and it is amazing how quickly that fills up. He said that does not qualify as affordable housing but noted it still fills up. He said he has been amazed by the demographic of Two Rivers and the reality of who he neighbors are. He said what is outlined is absolutely what he is experiencing. He said he is in favor of looking at C-1 and C-3 zoning and how it can relate to multi -family housing. He said he would like the City to become more firm with respect to the 2030 Plan. Hammerlun asked and Bills said staff has been working on looking at a number of employment centers and commercial centers in order to strategically place where they think multi -family housing should go. Jonrowe said she agrees that the City needs to de -couple C-1 and C-2 from the high density housing and make it be a special use permit for approval by Council. She said it is important to recognize that not all multi -family housing is the same. She said we need to have the same kind of scrutiny on age restricted communities as well. Gonzalez said he thinks the Council needs to have a better picture of where the current family is located, the types of housing, where the city needs different type of housing, etc. He said he would like to see a City map that we can zone to let developers know where we can put multi -family housing. He said there is room for all of these type of development but noted placement is key. He spoke about how banks are willing to pony up the money for multi -family housing. Mayor asked and Bills confirmed, regarding Gateway Northwest, half of the units would be one bedroom. Mayor asked and Bills confirmed the other 50% would be two or three bedrooms. Mayor asked and Bills said she does not know the average tenure of the people who live in apartment complexes. Mayor spoke in length about his opinion on multi -family housing and its negative effect on the schools in the area. Spurgin said there has also been discussion on how housing can better be incorporated downtown. Eason said she would like to have a clearer vision of what the next steps are and the order of the process. She said she assumed the City would also amend the 2030 Plan to bring it up to speed with these other issues. Brandenburg described the future of this process moving forward. Gonzalez asked staff if they are prepared to handle the projects that will try to come in and get done before these changes are made. Spurgin said they will come back to Council with the UDC Amendment Process and noted this will be one of the items the new UDC committee will look at, followed by the Planning and Zoning Commission. There was much discussion. B Discussion and possible direction on residential in -fill design standards in the Old Town and Downtown Overlay Districts -- Matt Synatschk, Historic District Planner and Laurie Brewer, Assistant City Manager W Ith a Powerpoint Presentation, Synatschk reviewed the residential infill design standards for Council. He said, right now, there are three historic districts in the City, the town square, downtown and old town. He spoke about the current infill opportunities in old town. He said the old town district contains 14 vacant parcels totaling 7,000 to 28,0000 sq ft. He said accessory structures, including garages, workshops and other structures on the property are not reviewed for infill other than existing building codes. He said another opportunity is to demolish existing structures. He reviewed the current infill standards and said all infill construction in the Downtown Historic Overlay requires a Certificate of Design Compliance from HARC. He described the process of obtaining a Certificate of Design Compliance for the Council. He described the infill required to get a CDC in old town is new non-residential structures, new single family and two family residential structures wishing to exceed certain requirements. He described the items that do not require infill review. He said, if a project does trigger infill review, the project is submitted for review from HARC and is conducted based on the UDC as well as the Downtown and Old Town design guidelines. He described the process of review for Downtown. He provided Council with some considerations for the residential infill standards. He provided Council with two proposals: 1A, to amend UDC to require design review for all infill projects in Old Town or 1 B, to amend UDC to reduce the floor to area ratio and require design review for more projects.He said proposal 2 is a much broader approach, which would create a new zoning designation for the Old Town Historic District that would also be available for adoption by future historic districts. He said this would be called a RS -H zoning district. He added this zoning would accommodate the historic growth of the district, while allowing new residential development to held to the higher RS requirements. He said infill review would be incorporated into this proposal. He summarized the implementation strategy for each of the proposals. Jonrowe asked the difference between floor to area ratio and impermeable cover. Synatschk explained this for the Council. Jonrowe said the city needs to do something about the footprint of the house compared to the rest City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 49 of 351 Pages of the lot. She recommended people goo vertical instead of horizontal. She spoke of compatibility and style and how HARC should come up with a short list of styles that should be disallowed. Hammerlun asked about the 14 open parcels and Synatschk said the majority are on the smaller size. Hammerlun said he has no problem with reducing the floor to area ratio. He asked about RS -H and how it could be beneficial to other areas. Hammerlun asked and Synatsck said the easiest option would be go to with 1 B. Hammerlun said that was his initial reaction as well. Hesser asked about the objectives of these recommendations. Synatschk said Council wanted to see some of the options to assure compatibility of structures with the rest of the neighborhood. Synatschk said we do not have any design oversight on accessory structures at this time. Brewer clarified and give a brief summary of this issue and why staff is coming back. Eason spoke about why she thinks it is important to consider this issue. There was much discussion. Jonrowe said the city should look at both as well as style and compatibility issues. Hesser said he does not want any more regulation than what is required. Eason said some sort of effort should be made in dealing with the issue of style. C Formal presentation of the Georgetown Fire Department Audit Results and Master Plan Results by Emergency Services Consulting International (ESCI) -- John Sullivan, Fire Chief Sullivan introduced Lane Wintermute who briefed Council on the findings of the Georgetown Fire Department. W intermute thanked Council and provided them with an overview of the study. He said he is not going to go through the entire study but noted he will hit on the highlights. He reviewed the organizational audit and the evaluation of the current conditions. He said, overall, the City has an excellent fire department that is very capable. He said the city has done well and added that is not the case in all communities. He said they have strong administration but noted there are challenges coming down the pipe. He said, when he talks about the organization, he is referring to the Fire Department as well as the ESD. He briefly described the topics that are covered in the report. He said there were five consultants involved in the audit, all retired fire officers or fire chiefs. He showed Council one of their incident density maps as well as the resource distribution. He spoke about the breakdown in travel times. He said there is a good distribution of service in the City. He said 90% of the responses are done in 10 minutes or less. He moved to the second phase and spoke about where the City will need to be in the future. He said they also look at population density and what the population is occurring. He showed Council a map of community risk assessment based on future zoning and land use. He showed Council a graph of the workload projections as well. He said there are over 100 recommendations contained in the report. He said key areas include recommended improvements in response deployment planning, training program, fire prevention and public education, dispatch operations, emergency medical services, emergency management, administrative and support staffing, emergency response operational staffing, future fire station construction, regional collaboration, future EMS service delivery and long range planning. He summarized those recommended improvements for the Council. Hammerlun asked what the Chief is thinking as the next steps looks like. Sullivan said they did finish a strategic plan that reflects the findings in this study. He noted they have ten initiatives and they are trying to make the best they can with their given resources. He said they are proposing a reorganization of the fire department at which point they can plug the right people into the right spots. Sullivan said, within the next month or so, the department will be coming to Council with changes and strategic planning elements for the next three years. Hammerlun said he was alarmed by the education and prevention issue. He said he did not realize the city is serving an area without a fire code. He noted that is concerning to him. Sullivan said Texas and Missouri are the only two states that do not have a state fire code. Jonrowe agreed with Hammerlun about fire code rules and also mentioned how the 911 system is confusing. She agreed that the Fire Department needs to rethink the role they play in the community, especially concerning the fact they receive more EMS calls than fire calls. Gonzalez asked about the budgetary hit of wanting to implement this plan over the course of 12 months. Sullivan said they have preliminary projections and noted it will be about $225,000 to move the right positions around. He spoke about how the Department will be applying for SAFER grants to assist with this cost. D Presentation & possible discussion regarding the impacts of the Affordable Healthcare Act and the City's Healthcare Plan for 2014 -- Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer and Chris Foster, Utilities Financial Analyst With a Powerpoint Presentation, Foster summarized the Affordable Care Act as well as the City's Healthcare Plan for the Council. He noted, for plans like ours where we have the same provider for both prescriptions and the overall plan, the out of pocket maximums are still in effect. He said, this year, all prescriptions, co -pays and other medical expenses go to the out of pocket maximums. He said minimum coverage levels apply this year and individual penalties are in effect. He said most of the employer penalties have been delayed until January 2015. He said the city will have federal fees that are assessed to every plan. He said, right now, the fee is about $64 per person on the plan for the entire plan. He said all plans and exchanges should begin January 2014. He noted staff has been checking into the Exchanges but he has not been able to get in to see plans yet. He said they know there are four different coverage levels on the plan and most will still have to meet the out of pocket maximums. He said none of the City employees should have subsidies. He described the penalty levels for City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 50 of 351 Pages Council. Rundell spoke about some of the issues impacting the City's plan. She noted there was higher usage in 2013 which would have meant higher renewal costs in 2014. She described other factors impacting the plan. She said the city plans to help implement self-insurance to help mitigate the costs of these new healthcare changes. She said AETNA will be the plan administrator and there will be no impact to the employees. He said there are 154 HSA participants and the rest are on a co -pay plan or choose to opt out. She noted the fully funded rates are more than the salary increases, which will reduce the employee take homes. She showed the Council the current rates. She spoke about the expected claim amount and reserve funds in a self insurance plan. She noted staff worked to mitigate some of those costs. She said the City is going to utilize the existing fund balances to help lower the premium to fund only the expected costs. She said it will be repaid the following year through excess funds and savings. She showed Council a pie chart of where everything is being funded from. She said their long term goal is to eliminate the PPO options over time. She noted an HSA plan promotes ownership of the costs. Foster reviewed the proposed plans for the Council in great detail. He said the employee benefit committee met every week and noted they eventually came to this plan. He showed Council a comparison of this plan to Cedar Park and Round Rock. Rundell said they are asking for Council approval of the rate plan/design. She said the goal is to bring the contracts and plan documents to Council at their first meeting in November. She reviewed the next steps for Council. Mayor asked and Rundell said GGAF approved this but was very clear that there needs to be an education program in place. Gonzalez said the biggest concern with GGAF was the Exchanges and the questions of how they are going to work. Hammerlun and Jonrowe thanked staff for their work. They asked that staff come back to Council quarterly and let them know how it is going. Meeting recessed to Executive Session under Sections 551.071 and 551.072 of the Local Government Code -- 4:50PM Meeting returned to Open Session and adjourned -- 6:01 PM Approve Ma or George rve City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 51 of 351 Pages Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 06:01 PM. re Cit ecretary J sica Brettle