Public Works and Utilities Committee Mon, Oct 20, 2025 · Public Works and Utilities Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/307 == Executive Summary == The Public Works and Utilities Committee meeting covered a wide range of topics, including significant discussions on the city's living wage ordinance and a comprehensive update to the Land Development Code. The committee heard extensive public comments advocating for a higher living wage, with personal testimonies highlighting the struggles of low-wage workers in Santa Fe. Staff presented survey results indicating strong resident support for increasing the wage to $17.50/hour, while also acknowledging business concerns. The committee ultimately passed an amendment to raise the minimum wage for City of Santa Fe employees to $17.50/hour by January 1, 2026, and another amendment to raise the general minimum wage to $20/hour while removing exceptions for nonprofits and student workers/interns. A major portion of the meeting was dedicated to Phase One of the Land Development Code update, which aims to simplify, clarify, and modernize Chapter 14 of the city's code. Staff outlined numerous proposed changes, including increased building heights for green construction, streamlined administrative approvals for infill development, enhanced affordability incentives, and updated parking and environmental standards. While the committee acknowledged the extensive public engagement, some councilors raised concerns about the number of 'substantive' changes in Phase One and the potential fiscal impact on the Land Use Department's staffing needs. The meeting also included an update on the River and Watershed Program, highlighting successful stormwater management projects and future challenges, and recognized the Public Utilities Department Employee of the Month. The Public Works Director announced her departure, and the committee expressed gratitude for her service. == Key Decisions == - Approved the agenda. - Approved the consent agenda as amended. - Voted to return to public comment after the River and Watershed Program presentation. - Passed Amendment A to increase the minimum wage for City of Santa Fe employees to $17.50 per hour, effective January 1, 2026. - Passed Amendment B to raise the general minimum wage to $20 per hour and remove all exceptions for 501c3 non-profits and student workers/interns. - Passed the main motion regarding the minimum wage, as amended. == Motions & Votes == - Motion to approve the agenda — Passed. - Motion to approve the consent agenda as amended — Passed. - Motion to return to public comment after the River and Watershed Program presentation — Passed. - Amendment A (to increase City of Santa Fe employee minimum wage to $17.50/hour by Jan 1, 2026) — Passed (Councilor Castro: Yes, Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes, Chair Chavez: Yes). - Amendment B (to raise general minimum wage to $20/hour and remove exceptions for 501c3 non-profits and student workers/interns) — Passed (Councilor Castro: Yes, Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes, Councilor Chavez: No). - Main Motion (regarding the minimum wage, as amended) — Passed (Councilor Castro: Yes, Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes, Councilor Chavez: Yes). - Motion to approve an unspecified item (likely minutes) — Passed unanimously (3-0). == Public Comment == Public comments primarily focused on two main themes: strong support for increasing the living wage and concerns/suggestions regarding the Land Development Code update. Several individuals shared personal stories about the financial struggles of living in Santa Fe on current wages, advocating for a higher minimum wage to improve quality of life, reduce reliance on social services, and stimulate the local economy. Some business owners expressed concerns about the impact of wage increases on their operations and the need to address rising rents. Regarding the Land Development Code, comments urged the adoption of affordable housing initiatives, while one resident raised concerns about unexpected substantive changes to historic sections of the code in Phase One. A new nonprofit, Bull Circle Santa Fe, also introduced its efforts to revitalize the river corridor. == Topics == - Housing Affordability Initiatives - Land Use Department Efficiency - Stormwater Management - Living Wage Increase - River Corridor Revitalization - Employee Recognition - Neighborhood Engagement - Public Works Director Transition == Full Transcript == We are live. Thank you so much. I call to order the Public Works and Utilities Committee meeting. It is Monday, October 20th, 2025, and it is 5:03 p.m. Could I get a roll call, please? Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Castro. Presente. Councilor Michael Garcia. Present. Councilor Lee Garcia. Excused. Councilor Romero Worth. Excused. And Chair Chavez. Here. You have a quorum, Madam Chair. Thank you. Next is approval of the agenda. Are there any changes from staff? No changes from staff. Get a motion, please. Move to approve. Second. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? I see none. Motion passes. Next is approval of the consent agenda. We had two items removed: items 7S and 7C. Is that accurate? Anything else need to be pulled by committee? If not, could I get a motion to approve as amended? Move to approve as amended. I have a motion. I have a second. Could I get a roll call vote, please? Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you very much. Next is public comment. Do we have anyone in chambers that would like to line up and speak to us today? You will have two minutes to speak, and we will get a timer. Do you want me to do the timer? Would that be helpful? All right. So, I will tell you when to begin if you want to just make sure your mic is on. All right. Go ahead and tell us who you are, and you can get started. Can you guys... All right. Okay. Now it's working. Yes, it is. So, just make sure you're close. So, councilors, my name is David Thompson. I live on Cordoba Road in District 2. I want to speak in support of the increase in the living wage that's being considered by your committee. I'm a vice chair of the County Democratic Party, and we voted unanimously to support that increase. And for those here who are Democrats, you know how hard it is to get a bunch of Democrats to agree unanimously on anything. But it's important that the people who do the work here in Santa Fe be able to afford to live here. And with the cost of living, especially with the increases in housing costs over the last several years, this is a step we need to take. Of course, this won't by itself solve all of that. So, we also have a lot of work to do as a city to address the housing issues. Thank you very much. Hi, welcome. Go ahead and get started whenever you're ready. Hi, my name is Charles McNeel. I'm a resident at 633 East Alameda. I just want to first thank the council members for the opportunity to speak. My partner and I have started a new nonprofit here called Bull Circle Santa Fe, and we are working on revitalizing the river corridor. And we are currently working on John Grigo Vietnam Memorial Park and also from Siler Road to French East Field. First, thank you for the opportunity from local government to give us that opportunity to work over there, but also to invite people to come on out and actually enjoy it because it's pretty nice now. So, we hope people actually come see it. And if anyone's interested in volunteering, please look us up at fullcirclesf.org. And I hope some of the council members will come out, take a look at it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, members of the committee. My name is Anne Watkins. I live at 2138 Kendallo Street in Santa Fe. I'm here to speak about item T, the long one. I'm not sure what we're supposed to call it, but anyway, the... As a member of the Community Development Commission, I have become even more painfully aware of the desperate need for housing, as well as for affordable housing and workforce housing in the community. And you know, at those meetings, we, as anybody trying to make decisions about this, we're always faced with very painful decisions: lack of money, lack of resources, lack of direction. And I think tonight is really an opportunity for you all to adopt this package of affordable housing initiatives, which I think can really move the dial on that issue. It's been in the works for three years. Public input has been extensive. Staff on this is just truly incredible at almost every level. The Historical Review Board recently recommended adoption. That may not be the exact words for their motion, even though they had some technical reservations, they thought we needed to move forward with this. The Planning Commission, I swear they were all smiling when they unanimously approved moving this forward because it's going to make their job a lot easier. So, I urge you to take similar action tonight. This is really not the time to delay this. We need to move this forward so Santa Fe has the tools to address our growth and development challenges. Thank you very much, and thank you all for the time and energy you put into our city. Thank you so much. Is there anyone else in chambers that would like to come up and speak? And it sounds like we have individuals on Zoom. Unfortunately, our public comment only includes in-person in chambers. However, if you are on Zoom and you are listening, I do encourage you to email us. We will get your comments that way, consider your comments that way. So, please feel free to email council members. We want to hear your voice. All right. So, we are going to move on to presentations. We have two presentations this evening. Our first presentation is Public Utilities Department Employee of the Month, October 2025. And we are going to be celebrating Bernardo. I'm going to probably say your name wrong, so please correct me. Arao Ortiz, Heavy Equipment Operator, Environmental Services Division. It took a lot of work, but I think I did it. Okay. And I will turn it over to you to present that award. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the committee. Thank you for giving us this time to recognize Bernardo Arao Ortiz for the October Employee of the Month. I just want to say a few things about Bernardo before I bring up Esedro Senna, who is an ESD supervisor in our section. Bernardo has worked for the City of Santa Fe going on four years, close to three years with ESD. He is currently an ESD collections equipment operator and works our sideload truck in our residential trash routes. Bernardo is an exceptional employee. He not only motivates his coworkers in residential trash, but he also does with the employees in recycling and our commercial routes. Being an ESD and employee operator is a tough job, but Bernardo pulls it off with ease. He works his shift Monday through Thursday, 10 hours a day. Then he'll come in on Fridays and do miss collections. Then he also will ask if we need help on Saturdays when he assists with washing of the trucks. Bernardo always has a positive attitude with his fellow coworkers and constituents. He treats everyone with respect and is a huge asset to our division. I'd like to introduce Aidro Senna, who is the recycling supervisor. Matthew Luhan could not be with us tonight, but he wrote something that he would like Ajo to relate to Bernardo. I have some few words that I'd like to say about Bernardo because he's a really big asset to the recycling site. Also, last week I was so short-handed, he volunteered his time to come in at 5:00 in the morning to come and help me pick up route as I was short-handed. So, here goes Matt, what the few words that Matthew had to write down. We are thrilled to recognize Bernardo for his silver under... start again. Little nerd. Take your time. You're fine. We are thrilled to recognize Bernardo for his un-reviving dedication, approachable demeanor, and kind-hearted nature. Bernardo constantly spreads positivity and joy throughout the workplace, creating a supportive environment for everyone around him. He not only takes on new challenges with enthusiasm, but also demonstrates dependability and willingness to go above and beyond. His contributions make a long-lasting impact, and we are grateful for the positivity and communication he brings to the team each day. I apologize that I can't be here today to read this to you in person, Bernardo, but please know that your effort does not go unnoticed, and we are truly appreciative of all that you do. Congratulations, Bernard. Thank you for being an inspiration to all of us. Respectfully, your supervisor. Thank you. And Bernardo, would you mind coming? Could we shake your hand? And thanks for all your work for our city. And then also we want to give Bernardo a little token of our appreciation from the division. Good job, Bernardo. Thank you. Bernardo, I don't know if you want to come up and say anything. I don't want to put pressure on you, but we would love to hear from you. Some people don't like to, so it's an open invitation if you would. I just want to say thank you, and it's an honor and a pleasure to be part of the team, and I just want to do best for our city, you know. So, thank you so much. Thank you. And I appreciate that. And I want to turn it over to our committee members. Would anyone like to say anything to Bernardo today? Councilor Michael Garcia. Thank you, Bernardo. Keep up the great work. You're part of a great team. So, keep being that shining star you are. Good job. Yes. Thank you so much. And as somebody who is on your route, thank you so much. It is always amazing. You're very consistent. Mucho gracias. And I think a lot of our community members don't understand the people that help keep our city running and clean and moving and functioning. And it's people like you. So, thank you for being such a dedicated team member, but also going above and beyond just because you want to serve our city. It's really honorable, and I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that celebration on. Great. Our second presentation this evening is River and Watershed Program Update. Zoe Isacson, River and Watershed Manager. And I will turn it over. Yes. I'm so sorry. To amend the agenda. I think that if I have any members up here that would like to amend our agenda to return to public comment after our presentation, I would consider that motion. Second. I have a motion, and I have a second to move back to public comment after our presentation on the river and watershed program. Could I get a roll call on that? Certainly, Madam Chair. I'm just capturing the motion. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Chair Chavez. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. So, we will return to public comment shortly. Thank you very much. All right. So, back to our presentation. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Zoe. Excuse me. I wanted to make a little introduction. Thank you so much. This is a really, I'm so glad that we're getting a chance to present to the Public Works Committee about the stormwater utility at the City of Santa Fe. It's an extremely well-run, very, very technical, and extremely important part of our business. These are the, this, it's led by Melissa McDonald, a licensed landscape architect and a longtime dedicated professional to our parks and our open space, obviously as a Parks and Open Space Director. And Zoe Isacson is the River and Watershed Manager now for some years since Melissa took the position as the division director. It's a very, very technical bit of work that manages our flows of stormwater through our arroyos and our river and how to manage that, how to keep the volumes proper, how to keep the erosion down, how to keep the private property protected. And this is a particular area that's becoming really heightened importance to us with these intense rainfalls that we get now multiple times a year. So when you exceed the 100-year flood, which used to be the gold standard for design, a 100-year flood, which most of our things are not designed to, and now we get 500-year floods almost every summer, you really have to this team has been very responsive, Melissa and Zoe, to looking at the issues and developing plans to address them. If you remember, in 2019, we passed the comprehensive stormwater management plan. Councilor Ives was on the council at the time, and we doubled the stormwater fee from $2.50 to $5 a month per household. And that has really allowed us to execute, and Zoe will be telling you about this, some really important projects in the river, in some of the arroyos, and then to kick off some of the very important arroyo projects like Arroyo Tone, where the erosion is taking away land from private property owners. So, I just wanted to thank you so much. You have the best people you could have: very technical, very careful, very diligent, and I'm really excited for you to hear more about this program. Director Wheeler: Thank you, Director Wheeler. Thank you. Can you hear me? Uhhuh. Oh, there we go. Thank you, Director Wheeler, councilors. I really appreciate you giving us the time to present today and let you know what we've been up to since the passing of the 2019 Stormwater Strategic Master Plan. So again, I am Zoe Isacson, the River and Watershed Manager for Parks and Open Space. Today we will go, it doesn't look like, I apologize. Can we? Oh, there we go. All right. So, today we will go over that groundwork that the Stormwater Master Plan covered in 2019. We'll talk about the projects that we've completed so far to date. We'll also go over our operational strengths, I should say, how we've enhanced our regulatory compliance, secured outside funding, and are building critical partnerships within the community. And then we'll look to the future and discuss our strategic outlook. So, first I'd like to just talk about that 2019 Stormwater Management Strategic Plan. That plan was spearheaded by Director McDonald when she was in my position. I came to the city in 2020, so I was really lucky to have had this framework or the foundation kind of laid before me so that I could pick up this plan and help bring it to where we are today. There were about five key objectives that were outlined in that plan or identified. That was not only to improve our stormwater asset management through mapping and strategic planning but also to ensure sustainable program funding via third-party opportunities. As Director Wheeler mentioned, we also, as part of this plan, it became very evident that our stormwater utility fee was being underfunded, and so we were able to raise that utility amount and almost double it. We also needed to set a plan and implement a plan to meet the existing regulatory requirements that were set in place by the federal MS4 permit and compliance. But we also needed to anticipate and still need to anticipate what those future regular requirements are going to be. We also needed, it was identified that we needed to enhance our public education and outreach and then also again foster these collaborative partnerships across the community. And so, just starting with what we've done over the last six years, we've really strengthened our asset management and our mapping capabilities. So we've to date mapped close to 7,000 unique assets of kind of the piped stormwater system. We've also improved our system mapping. And what I mean by that is we are starting to connect these individual assets so that we can understand how stormwater is moving through the system, and that helps just refine our approach to understand if there's any, you know, identify gaps in the management or really develop key strategies to improve that stormwater conveyance throughout the city. We've also partnered with different divisions and groups within Public Works to buy our OpenGov asset software and also build a more robust kind of GIS system so that we now have the equipment and the software to help us kind of refine our database. And then we also have gone through and tweaked our condition assessment. We took what was developed in that 2019 plan and we've added to the matrix of how we prioritize the arroyos, taking into consideration equity, other master planning that's happening within the city so that we can build on and leverage other people's efforts within the city. Completed stormwater projects. So over the last five years, we've completed about $4 million worth of construction projects. So these dollar amounts don't take into consideration design monies. This is just for construction. So we've completed bank stabilization and channel repair projects, drainage and culvert improvements, green stormwater infrastructure and trail repair projects, and then vegetation management, which is a huge component of what we do. We not only manage vegetation because it's good housekeeping policy to have these arroyos that are unobstructed to stormwater flows and can convey the amount of stormwater volume that we need to convey in these channels. But it also helps provide a sense of place and provides an outdoor experience and open space for our community because we recognize that these spaces serve multiple purposes, some of which are recreation and quality of life benefits to the community. So we manage vegetation for a variety of benefits for the community. Again, we've spent close to $4 million on construction. And then we have projects in process. And so, we have about $18 million worth of construction projects that are currently being designed or are at 100% design as I speak to you now. We hope to get the Santa Fe River repairs at Crystalall Cologne project as well as the Arroyo Chamisos urban trail repair project completed or at least started and substantially completed this fiscal year. Those are both going out to bid within the next couple of weeks. We are doing our final E&N for the Arroyo Tone bank stabilization repair. We're at 100% design, and so we told the community we would come back to meet with them and kind of show them what we've developed. We also have large-scale green stormwater infrastructure projects. We have Ashbaugh infiltration, which is a large infiltration gallery that we are looking to implement at Ashbaugh Park. So we have design monies through a FEMA grant that we were able to secure with the help of the Office of Emergency Management. That project, and as well as the Mark Brandt BioWell project, are perfect examples of why it was so kind of forward-thinking and innovative for Director McDonald to bring the stormwater section into the Parks and Open Space division because we recognize that these open spaces are really where we can make a significant impact on our ability to manage and to mitigate the effects of these larger storms that Director Wheeler was speaking to. So again, we have about $18 million worth of projects. We cannot afford that in-house, so that is why we pursue outside funding. So to date, we've secured about $6.3 million in outside funding. The majority of that is our Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which gave us about $4 million plus or minus that we're, it's on an as-needed basis. So, we've spent about $2 million of that so far and have the other $2 million earmarked. And then we also have several hazard mitigation funding that we've been awarded through the Office of Emergency Management. And then some other grants that we've been awarded here, and we're constantly looking for new grant opportunities and kind of leveraging partnerships with other folks such as the Santa Fe Watershed Association where we can match funds and work together. So, the other kind of leg to our program is this MS4 permit and regulatory compliance. So, for those of you that don't know, MS4 stands for Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System. And so, basically, municipalities over a certain size that have a separate kind of stormwater system to the wastewater system are then issued a permit from the federal government through the EPA. And that is basically what allows us to discharge our stormwater to waters of the US, our areas being the Santa Fe River and the Arroyo Chamiso. So in order to be allowed to do that, we have certain metrics that we need to meet. We have six minimum control measures that we need to meet every year. And within those six minimum control measures, we have a bunch of different things that we kind of are tracking. We don't track this data alone. We use information from Land Use, from Facilities, from the Parks and Open Space, from across from ESD, from across the kind of city system to help report on our numbers. And so we are constantly trying to improve that MS4 program to have it be kind of a well-functioning, well-oiled machine because again, we're not the only ones that are collecting that data. So, anything that we can do to help streamline that process, not only within our group but across the city, just makes our reporting so much stronger and so much clearer and cleaner for the EPA. So, we do put together an annual report every year for that. And then a major component of that is strengthening our collaborative partnerships. So while, you know, over the last few years, we've been able to work with the county, the DOT, to create this kind of stormwater Santa Fe Water Quality Collaborative. We've worked with Director Wheeler and Complete Streets to help put together the Santa Fe Street Design Guide. We've been working with Land Use to work on the code rewrite. And we've been leveraging, again, Full Circle was here speaking, leveraging kind of these grassroots campaigns that are already happening with the city to help support and get work done along the river because there's a lot of work and we can't do it all. We have public education and outreach initiatives. So, we completely retooled our website. So, we've increased over the last four months website visits to our webpage. We went from 614 to 2,240 views. And that's not including close to 1,500 views for the River Talks alone. We've, sorry, we did the River Talk series. We just wrapped it up. We had 100 individual participants come to our River Talks. And that's including five of those talks that were capped at 25 people or less because there were tours, and we know that the interest in those talks was well beyond the 100 people that came. We also have been partnering with ESD and Keep Santa Fe Beautiful to do campaigns on amnesty days at the Buckman Transfer Station so that we can educate households on the hazards of dumping green waste into our arroyos because that's a major issue for us and often a source of flooding when we get those big storms. We also have put together new educational brochures for homeowners so that they can see what they can do, all of us can do, to help manage stormwater within the city. And then we've also been participating in technical conferences and presented as panelists. So Melissa and I gave a presentation at the Land and Water Summit. I've participated in panels as part of Site Santa Fe's Water Talk series. We, you know, paneled at Homewise Livability Series, given classes at Climate Masters. We're presenting next month at the Floodplain Managers Annual Conference. So, however we can get our word out there and then also network so that we can talk to kind of the industry leaders and learn how we can do our job better, and then where are we going from here? So, as you know, at the last legislative session, the state just passed House Bill 21, which essentially gives New Mexico, the New Mexico Environment Department, primacy to now manage their own waterways, which essentially takes that oversight of our MS4 permit and takes it back into the hands of the city. So, we are expecting more stringent, tighter oversight for our MS4 program. And then we also are expecting a new permit, a new MS4 permit. So, what does that mean? That means that we're going to have more stringent requirements, higher bars to meet, more water quality testing. And so all of that means that we as a community, as a city, have a little bit of work to do. And we've been able to be forward-thinking, and we are already in process of developing, for instance, water quality testing protocol that will help us meet those new mandates. That work is already in progress. We're also looking to expand Santa Fe's own storm-to-shade program, where we can streamline the ability for homeowners to get curb cuts, to implement rain gardens, to standardize, to have a standard spec so people can do some of this work on their own, which helps us. We can leverage those efforts because every little gain in the system in aggregate helps us tremendously. We're also looking for more sustainable funding. Again, we never stop researching and looking for areas that we can get more funding. And then capacity building. We provide trainings across the city, not only for our staff, but we also host trainings. And so we're constantly trying to not only level up our internal team, but also level up the city so that we can go into this next chapter better prepared. And then all of this culminates in our new update to the Stormwater Strategic Master Plan. So we are at five years. We're working to update the plan to identify these gaps in execution where we can be better, lessons learned, things that we no longer need to worry about because we figured it out. And so that's where we're at. I hope in early next fiscal year I can come back and present the update to that plan. So thank you. Great. Thank you. It's a lot of amazing work. Are there any questions or comments from the committee? Michael Garcia: Thank you, Zoe, for the update on that. And just to make sure I got it down, because my question was, when is the Stormwater Strategic Plan going to be updated? You said early next fiscal year. So, is that next July, August, that time frame? That's a great question, Counselor Garcia. I have tasked my staff to have a date of June 30, 2026, to get this done. I'm hoping we can get it done in that time, but we're doing it in-house because we have some. One thing I didn't mention is up until six months ago, we were not fully staffed. The majority of this time has been me and maybe one other person. We have finally been fully staffed for six months, which is super exciting. And we have some great people on our team. And so we think we can take this on ourselves in-house. And so we're going to try to get it done by June 30th. Awesome. Good luck. Yeah, thank you. Other questions, Madam Chair? Thank you, Zoe. Thank you, Counselor. Counselor Castro. Yeah, thank you so much, Zoe. And again, you've been great with all of the ENNs and the community input. Will you remind us when the Arroyo de los Chamisos ENN is? It will be November 6th. Beautiful. Thank you so much. And we just put the sign up today, so you'll see it on West Alameda. Wonderful. Thank you. And I know that there's a lot of folks that are really concerned about that. So, it is on our capital improvements list. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Could I? Yes, of course. I'd like to add a little bit. One other large undertaking that Melissa and Zoe really lean into and made a hugely impressive result for the city is the Midtown infrastructure. So, we just reviewed 60% design for the Midtown infrastructure. And we started that whole infrastructure project by studying the stormwater of the site because that was actually ground zero of the thousand-year flood in 2018. And there really isn't sufficient stormwater management on the site. So, we knew we had to start there. So, the design now is for the roads are basically rivers of stormwater underneath them. It's a very cutting-edge design that allows now the entire Midtown site to be developed rather than have a bunch of stormwater ponds and to use our roadways to conduct our stormwater for up to and beyond a 100-year storm. So, it's really impressive work. It's really good-looking, and so I'm excited to have the chance to build that and see it work. Thank you for sharing that. That's great work. And I too am looking forward to the strategic plan, and I love that it's in-house because you all are in the work. You've been in the work, and so coming from you all and hearing everything that comes out of that plan is going to be really incredible. So, thank you for that. That's exciting. Thank you, Counselor. All right. And thank you, Director McDonald. All right. You guys have a wonderful night. Thank you for being here. Our agenda did get amended. We are returning back to public comment because we got to it a little too quickly, and not everyone was able to speak. So, if you are in chambers right now and you plan to speak on any items, please line up here. You will have two minutes to address the committee. Please give us your name. Just make sure that green light is on the mic and you speak right into it because sometimes we can't hear you. And whenever you are ready, you could go ahead and introduce yourself. Okay. I'm Kathy Collins. I'm the Executive Director for Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity. First of all, thank you for extending the talk time. I have a few other people here that I think are thankful for that as well. First of all, as I have shared before, I'm grateful. I was not here for the work that went into this. But I am very much grateful for the level of effort that has gone into the process, the Citizens Working Group, the Technical Working Group, all of the different bodies within the city, and then the final review by the legal department. So, I recognize the amount of work that has gone into this, and anytime there's effort that is made to kind of align the code, make it more user-friendly, that is always a good thing for the work that Santa Fe Habitat does. I will say that we are in favor of increasing the building height because we do build net-zero homes and we put solar on our homes. So that added height makes a difference to what we are able to do and continue to do. We also believe that the flexibility of the parking will be something that will be helpful to our work as we look at different opportunities. And while the benefit of the proposed incentives for more affordable housing doesn't directly benefit us in the same way that it would for other developers, it does benefit us because we are 100% affordable housing builder. So, anytime we will have the opportunity to build more homes, that will be great. And because we service, we bring in families, we also hold the mortgages, all of that. We're kind of a full-service stop for affordable housing, homeownership opportunities. The gentle increase of density that allows clearly for duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, that is something that is very useful to the way in which we are thinking about our building. The process of administrative review would help tremendously in the work that we do. I'm going to just have you try to finish up because your two minutes are up, and I want to be fair to everyone. So, I just want to say that while we may not benefit, we understand, in the same way, we will benefit, and we understand that we cannot do all of this alone and that we need these incentives for there to increase the inventory in general of affordable housing. So, we hope that you will consider the work that has been done and adopted. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Good evening, counselors. My name is Veronica Toledo, and I live here locally, and I work in affordable housing at Homewise. I urge you to recommend the urgent passage of the Phase One update to the Land Development Code. I'm grateful for the Land Use Department's robust community input process on this update through the advisory working groups, the public meetings, online opportunities for input, and the council process. As you know very well, we are already a year behind on the original adoption timeline for this phase, and we must act urgently to support those most in need of housing. In particular, the increasing affordability incentives are a critical component of this update that can set the foundation for more substantive changes that promote housing in Phase Two. These must be passed as a package as all of the components are interrelated and create a foundation that we believe will motivate desperately needed construction of more units. As you know, there's already precedent for this here in the link overlay and in many other cities. I'm also thrilled to see the parking updates as part of Phase One, which will enable more housing and reduce costs and the very small building height increase to support modern building practices and green building. Thank you for pushing this update forward without delay. I appreciate you all. Thank you. Counselors, my name is Scott Buntton, and I live at 451 Avenida de Camira South in Santa Fe. I'm a member of the Food Depot's Board of Directors and its Executive Committee. Minimum wage workers in Santa Fe face an impossible struggle to make ends meet. New Mexico's United Way documented that Santa Fe's minimum wage for full-time workers isn't even half what is required to cover their essential costs of living. The totally predictable results: hunger, homelessness, untreated illness, and our low-income workers all too often have to live in Rio Rancho or Española outside our city limits. This is not good for our social fabric. Several key points. The gap between the minimum wage here and essential costs of living is growing. It's not remaining stagnant. That gap is going to get worse as the provisions of the so-called big beautiful bill are implemented. Eligibility for SNAP, Medicaid, and other assistance will fall back. The nonprofits here, including the Food Depot, are simply not equipped to take care of the additional gap that will develop. While $17.50 won't be a living wage, it will be something that makes a big difference to those who earn the minimum wage. By the time we get to its implementation in 2027, it will be approximately a 10% increase. That is not trivial if you're trying to live with a family on the minimum wage. Let me mention that carving out or exempting the smallest businesses would be a major mistake. There are multiple reasons for that, but I'll give you one. If there's a choice between working at a minimum wage job and working at a sub-minimum wage job for an exempt business, what choice do you think the worker will make? This is detrimental to those smallest businesses that have exempted themselves or which the ordinance has exempted because they will be the ones to suffer from additional turnover and from the inability to compete for employees. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. I urge the council to approve this. Right. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Jessie Estrada. I've lived four years in Santa Fe. I live and share housing with my family because it's too expensive to rent by myself due to the wages that I earn. I wouldn't be able to pay rent on my own. I work at a restaurant as a busser, and my wages are $13 per hour plus tips. This isn't enough for me because sometimes I am given fewer hours to work, and the basic food basket needs and rent in Santa Fe, the cost of living is too expensive, too high. I ask of you to please vote yes on raising the minimum wage because this would help us a lot. It would help workers have better opportunities and capacities to work and to have well-being and also be able to achieve personal goals. So thank you so much. Thank you. Hola, McDonald's. This is for Leticia. Gracias. Good afternoon. This is on behalf of Leticia. I've lived in Santa Fe for about 19 years, and I've contributed to the economy in the city. I have two jobs. I work part-time at McDonald's, and I also work at Pet City Delino. I earn $3.15, $3.50 per hour. I'm also a server part-time, and I had to take a third job to be able to make the cost for the end of the month. I have four minor children. They're 17, 16, 10, and 5 years old, and with special needs, they need more care on my behalf. My son is in school. While my son is in school, I'm able to obtain another job to make ends meet. We're a family of six, and both parents have jobs, and we both work just to be able to get the basic basket of food. Our costs, our bills are $400 per week just for the basics. My children are constantly growing, and they have different needs. So the services are also incrementing way too much, and rent has also been raised on us. So we are always asking ourselves how are we going to be able to pay for rent and food and the bills? Families like mine have to resolve and find a solution on how to be able to pay. So we work a lot just to live with the basic needs, and we're only just barely surviving. We need your support for families like mine so we can have a better quality of life and so our children can continue their education. So please vote for raising the minimum wage. Thank you. Good evening. My name is We also have to be mindful of the people. This deal is like putting a band-aid. No one's talking about how it's an issue when small businesses are being charged rent without regulation. Can you try to speak into the mic when you're translating because people online want to hear what she's saying, and they can't hear you? Yeah. Yeah. Raising the minimum wage is a band-aid on the wound. We also have to think about the small business owners in town who are paying rent for their businesses, and their landlords are not being regulated as to how much rent they can raise. Yes, raise the minimum wage, but also find a way to regulate the landlords who are renting to small business owners who are not being just with the rent. I understand that the state is in charge of regulating rent prices, but they are paying a fee to the city, and the city isn't doing anything to regulate the landlords. I'll let you finish that translation because I gave four minutes. Okay. So we're at four minutes, but go ahead. If there could be a way that you all could work in collaboration with the state to be able to regulate the rent for small business owners in the city because businesses like Walmart won't be affected, but the small business owners like the bread shop or the panadería, they might be affected. So beyond the band-aid on the issue, if you could please also collaborate with the state to find a bigger rooted solution. Thank you. Sage, could you tell me the speaker's name? Gina. Gina. Okay. Hi, my name is Osmar. I'm part of the working class that lives here in Santa Fe. I have a couple points to share as to why it's reasonable that you do raise the minimum wage here in the city. First is that it would impulse the purchasing power. It would help if people earn more. Workers would also spend more in local businesses, and this would create a stimulation in growth, economic growth for the city. There would be less rotation in staff. So people would stay longer at their jobs because salaries make workers stay longer, and it would reduce the cost of training for businesses. There would be alleviation with the social services because when people earn more, then the families would depend less on social programs and assistances, and it would liberate public resources for other needs that the city might have. Thank you. Hi, counselors. My name is Amanda Brigal, and I live in District 2. I work at the Food Depot, but I've talked to many of you about how much this wage would help the people that we serve. But tonight, I want to share just personally how much a living wage has helped me as a human being be able to give back to my community and take care of myself. I've been working since I was 14, and I have worked for jobs that paid in cash, probably a little sketchy, not in Santa Fe, of course. And I've worked for minimum wage in the South at $7.25 at a minor league baseball team. So when I moved here, I had been a teacher, and I was living paycheck to paycheck. Every teacher I knew had multiple jobs. We sold Doterra. We worked over the summer, and we always struggled to pay our medical bills. We struggled to pay our rent. My rent where I lived was $500 a month for a house, so much different than Santa Fe. But when I moved here, my rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $1,575. I live in the same complex, and now it's $1,750. So that was every year. That was three years ago. So every year it's gone up. But because of how much I make now, I am able to pay my rent. That makes a huge difference. So I know that it's been talked about how we need to solve the housing crisis maybe before wages, but because I have been able to work at a place that helps me pay my rent, I have been able to meet that increase every year. We can't control landlords all the time. We can't control the builders as quickly as we probably want to. But because I've been making that wage, I have been able to pay medical bills. I've been able to pay for my car when it's gotten broken, and that has changed my entire life. It's why I've been able to just work one job, which has made a huge difference emotionally, physically. So that is a desire I have for the people that we serve at the Food Depot, for my friends. I just encourage you to help other people in Santa Fe have that same life. Thank you so much. Hello, my name is John Paul Gano, and I'm here to talk about the living wage as well. One job, two jobs, four jobs, five jobs. All right, we all work the job. But when we're talking about the living wage, right, I got five kids. I do the same thing as everybody else. I have one business, a small business. It's only me. I don't have other employees. They've already raised the rent with the idea that you're going to do the living wage. You can say, "Well, that's greed or that's this or it's a feeling." Regardless of what it's already done, their motives have already started because of the living wage idea that's coming out. Yes. Do some people need it? Do we all need it? What you're offering, that 10% increase, it's hardly a living wage, and I get that. But if there's no solution to everything growing in the economic development part of that area before we implement the living wage, everything's going to go up anyways, and we're back at square one talking in two more years to be able to do the same thing. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Katherine Rivera. I'm a resident of District 1 in Santa Fe, and I'm here in advance of the hearing regarding the land use code update. I've been trying my best to follow the meetings that have taken place over the last few weeks. During the historic board review meeting, the historic board was surprised to see some language and changes to the historic portions of the code that's being presented for update and adoption in this phase one. The surprise was also because the intent or understanding was that phase one would not have anything substantive in it but a lot of cosmetic changes and of course the affordable housing incentives that we want to see sooner than later. My understanding after that meeting is that there was the desire for the historic board to hold back on approving those sections but saw no reason to keep the wider language and information from going forward and going to the planning commission, etc. What I would ask is that you as the council and members of this committee ask the questions as to what is being done to repair the language or make original the language for their historic board so that it is not substantive changes as was originally agreed to in phase one. Thank you. Thank you. All right. This is the final opportunity to come up if you are interested in speaking here in chambers. And again, to those in Zoom, we do not offer an option yet. We just introduced public comment in person to this committee. It is a new concept. So we are not at a place to offer that virtually. It does take some management that we don't have a team to kind of manage with our committee. However, we do want to hear your voice if you're on Zoom and you are planning to speak. So please email any of us counselors, all of us. We do want to hear your voice. I do encourage you to please reach out as we go through this process. All right. So we will close public comment, and we will move on to the first item that was pulled off of consent, which is a bill amending. So consideration of a bill number 2025-21, adoption of ordinance number 2025 to be determined, a bill amending SFCC1 1987 section 28-1.5 living wage ordinance to increase the city-based minimum wage and update the formula for calculating the minimum wage annually. We have Rod Gold here to present, and this was pulled by Michael Gar, Counselor Michael Garcia. So I will turn it over to you, counselor. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Gold, and Miss Montoya for being here. I know last time we heard this, we had postponed it to get some information. I don't know if you want to give any updates in regards to the final data through the surveys. I don't know if you have the survey results from the chamber, but I'll leave it up to you to give any updates. And then happy to have any discussion after. Thank you, Madam Chair and Counselor Garcia. We do have the updates on the conclusion of the city's survey as well as a summary of the Chamber of Commerce survey, and Alicia Montoya, our community development director, will present it. Thank you, Rod. Let me get set up here. And while she's getting ready, I'd like to also point out that we're joined by Dr. Riley White, who is an economist and the assistant department chair, the University of New Mexico School of Management, and he's also ready to answer your questions. I also just want to point out because I want to give this team credit. Our last discussion about data, I did voice concern because we did not capture the voice of families. I mentioned as a single mom of multiple kids, I do worry about cost. So I did want to get information on that. I was very impressed with the team. They immediately reached out to the school district, sent out a survey. They got a lot of engagement, so we do have representation of our families with children. So, I hope that we would hear from that, and I just want to thank you. I know there was a huge increase in responses, which I was very happy to hear from, and I appreciate how quickly you all did that. That was amazing. Thank you. **Chair Chavez:** And we thank you, Chair Chavez, because that did create a huge boost in participation and I think much better representation of the population as a whole. Thank you for that. **Chair:** Chair Chavez and counselors, let's see. I have my screen up to share, so I'm hoping it can hear me in the back. Duplicate. I just press duplicate. Duplicate comes to the rescue. Sorry. I am really excited to share with you all the final results of both the City of Santa Fe survey and also the Chamber survey. The City of Santa Fe survey, we had over 1,400 people participate and respond, and we also had over a thousand people leave comments, take the time to share with us, write in sentences, and share their ideas about how they feel about this. So we've done our best to condense those numbers and provide you this complete presentation. The Chamber survey, when we provided the update last time, we had 67 responses. Ultimately, they had 72. So here we go. Sorry. **Chair Chavez:** Thank you. **Chair:** So, I am going to just quickly run through with you all the City of Santa Fe survey and also the Chamber survey results. You'll get copies of these. We're also going to post it to the website. We're also going to share with you the Excel, the hard data, if you want to go through the data. So, in total, as I mentioned, we had over 1,400 respondents to the City of Santa Fe Living Wage Survey, in large part because of the Santa Fe Public Schools e-blast. Thank you, Chair Chavez, for that recommendation. It has served to open the door for us on future surveys to increase civic participation as well, so we're really excited about it. Over 88% of the respondents identified as residents of Santa Fe. So this number has jumped from the previous update. And then as you see here, the breakdown of geographically what zip code these folks live in, and then also who they are, how they identify, whether they're a worker, a business owner, a retiree, or you see the other options there. So it gives you an idea of the sample. We also wanted to better understand how many people live in their household. Now, this is a really widespread, pretty equally divided up between two-person households, four-person households, three-person households, single folks, and then larger homes. We also have much more diversity here in the annual household income of the respondents. You see this is a pretty even cut, fairly even along individuals who make $100,000 or more, and then about 20% between $50,000 and $75,000, similar numbers for $25,000 to $50,000, and then about 16% $75,000 to $100,000. So you see we also have numbers of how many total numbers of individuals identified in these buckets. How much of their monthly household budget goes to housing, rent, or mortgage? Nearly close to 50%, 43% of the respondents told us 25% to 50% of their monthly salary goes to rent or mortgage. But look at this, 31%, that's close to one-third of all respondents, told us that more than 50% of their monthly household budget goes to housing or rent. We asked how much their budget goes to childcare. So again, we did have a large sample of folks who either said it was not applicable or none. And then we have larger triangles here than we did at the update that shows the spread of, you know, nearly 80 people spend more than $1,000 a month on childcare. That's a lot. 123 people between $500 and $1,000. This is really, really good data for us to use in other efforts as well as we work to make Santa Fe a more livable community. We asked people how well does the current living wage meet the cost of living in Santa Fe. Over 85% of people, that's over 1,200 people, all said that $15 an hour is not enough. And then 70% of folks, over a thousand people, said they strongly support raising the living wage to $17.50 an hour. And you see the breakdown of the other respondent responses there in that chart, but 70% is a pretty significant number. So key takeaways: we found there strong community support. A clear majority of respondents believe that $15 an hour does not meet the cost of living in Santa Fe. Over 1,200 people, about 85% of the respondents, told us $15 an hour is not enough. Over 70% told us they strongly support raising the living wage to $17.50. There is a perceived worker impact. A majority, about 72% of respondents, expect the wage increase to improve their ability to live and work in Santa Fe. And there were a few, relatively few, who noted a concern about potential harm. There is also a concern, business perspectives, and this was interesting too, so I urge you to look at the Excel spreadsheet in the data a little deeper. But business views were mixed among the general population. But if we add the positive and the neutral views together, we have about 79% as opposed to the negative views, people who feel that raising the living wage would have a negative impact on their business at 21%. What this all comes together is it shows that we really as Santa Feans have shared community values. Respondents overwhelmingly view economic diversity, local housing access as core community values that are tied to wage policy. Many of the respondents used open-ended comments to express their concern that long-term residents, teachers, and service workers are all being priced out of Santa Fe. We went and asked them what they thought of as the main benefits. So we have nearly 300 respondents told us improved quality of life. They said that a higher wage would make the day-to-day living more sustainable, helping people cover rent, food, and childcare without constant financial stress. The local, we also had 157 respondents who noted that increased wages translate into more local spending, benefiting small businesses and the local economy overall. You see, I have some quotes here. A respondent said, "It keeps Santa Fe dollars in Santa Fe." Over a hundred respondents told us that raising the living wage will reduce displacement. Several residents tied the wage issue directly to housing affordability and preventing further out-migration of local families. Here's another quote: "We're losing too many people who grew up here. Higher wages would help them stay." Sorry. Equity and community well-being. Over a hundred specifically spoke to connecting the wage increases to broader values of justice, fairness, and community cohesion. Here's a quote: "It's a moral issue. People who keep this city running deserve to live here." We also asked people about the risks, what challenges or risks do they see could happen with raising the living wage? Inflation and price increases led with over 226 responses. Many expressed concern that higher wages could drive up the costs of goods and services, potentially canceling out the intended benefits. The impact on small businesses. Nearly 100 respondents mentioned that there was concern for small, locally owned businesses could struggle to absorb higher labor costs. Also, nearly 100 respondents told us that there's a need for a holistic approach that we've spoken about before on this topic. Raising wages should be part of a larger strategy, not the only tool. It's one piece of the puzzle. This is a quote: "But we also need affordable housing and childcare." A significant number of respondents, close to 60 of them, talked about a concern for pressure on nonprofits and public services. So, respondents who work in the nonprofit or government sectors noted that these entities often rely on fixed budgets or grant funding. The quote here is, "Nonprofits can't raise their prices. They'll have to cut programs." So, let's jump into the Santa Fe Chamber Survey. We have 72 local businesses total responded. And here is just a sample of the sizes of the different businesses that represent the respondents. And here also is a sample of the survey participants. You see, it's a wide range of different businesses in town from Boxcar to Nothing Bundt Cakes and Esperanza Shelter, the Southwestern College, The Kitchen Table, Iconic Coffee Roasters. So, they have a real wide range of their membership responded to the survey. We asked, and they also all 72 answered all the questions and also left comments in the survey. So, I found that they care deeply. We asked, "Do you hire interns or entry-level employees and provide training for them?" Over 70% of them said yes. We asked if they would, or they asked, I'm sorry, this is the Chamber survey. They asked their membership if they would support a temporary training wage below the minimum wage for new hires during their onboarding period if allowed by law. Over 45% there said yes, they would. They asked if they're currently using the tip wage credit for any of their employees. And you see here it's over about 90% said no or it's not applicable to their business. So it gives you another sense of the kinds of businesses that responded to the survey. This was interesting. What's the current pay range for your employees? Over nearly 50% pay $21 an hour or more. That's quite significant. And then how many of your employees currently make under $20 an hour? And here we have over 50% say that none of their employees are making under $20 an hour. They're making more than $20 an hour. The Chamber wanted to better understand what employee benefits their businesses offer, and this is really interesting. It's a wide range of different benefits, which is really impressive at the 50% or higher than 50%. We have health insurance, dental, vision, paid vacation or sick leave. We're getting close to 50% with businesses that offer 401ks or retirement plans. So these numbers show that our business community is aware and cares deeply about their team members. And when I look at these numbers as a Community Development Director for the city, I think of working with our Economic Development Director who's here to look at childcare, housing assistance, the flexible schedule, remote work, although that number is pretty good, but like what are things that we can work with community to help increase? How can we advise and work with small businesses in our community? We asked what their biggest concerns are impacting their employees. And you see overwhelmingly, nearly, you know, easily over 60%, both affordable housing and cost of living are two priority concerns that they think about when they are thinking about the well-being of their employees. They asked businesses if an increase in minimum wage would cause their company to consider job cuts. We do see here that it's under 40% said yes and over 50% said no. There is that 10% unsure. So I'm hopeful that should this proposal pass through governing body that these small businesses who are unsure or who have questions about how the living wage proposal would affect their business, that they reach out to the City Office of Economic Development and take advantage and learn about resources we have available to help them. Would an increase in the minimum wage lead to higher cost for the price of goods? Nearly 50% of the business respondents said yes, it would. So in conclusion, we had over 1,400 residents participated in these surveys. More than 80% shared written feedback. So this really reflects a deep care for Santa Fe's future. Nearly 80% of the respondents to the city survey support increasing the wage to $17.50 an hour. They cite fairness, stability, and the need to keep pace with the cost of living. Residents also see the living wage as one essential tool alongside housing, childcare, small business support to ensure that people who work here can afford to live here. The Chamber survey clearly shows that Santa Fe's business community recognizes both the opportunity and responsibility of ensuring a living wage for its workforce. So while there's optimism about the benefits, stronger morale, lower turnover, more stable local economy, moving forward, our success will depend on pairing wage policies with practical tools of collaboration and investment so that workers can thrive and our businesses can remain competitive. Thank you. I'm available to answer your questions, as is Professor Riley White from UNM, a professor of finance, and Johanna Nelson, our Director of Economic Development, is here, and Rod Gold is here, and me. Mayor: Thank you. So I am going to turn it back over to Councilor Garcia now that he has that presentation because he pulled this item. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Ms. Montoya, and thank you, Mr. Gold, for the frequently asked questions. I don't know if that's something we can include as part of the packet. I think that's something that not only would benefit the governing body, but maybe the public. There's some good information there. Okay. Thank you. Mayor: And I just, I know you guys have a big team. I just want to remind everyone if you have anything to say, to talk into the mic. We do have media online and they want to make sure that they're hearing everything accurately. Okay. Thank you, Chairman Chavez and Councilor Garcia. It's my understanding that the FAQs, if they have not already been posted on our website, they will be posted. Councilor Garcia: Okay. Mayor: Tomorrow. Councilor Garcia: Great. Thank you. Thank you. So, I don't really have any questions around this. It's just, as I had mentioned, what was it, three weeks ago, whenever it was we last heard this, we wanted to make sure that not only the governing body, but more importantly, the public has more information. And going over these results definitely helps with that. And I think it showcases where not only the public stands on this matter, but also our business partners. So with that, I don't really have any questions. I do have an amendment that I would like to move forward with. I don't know if we want to have questions before I do. Mayor: I have a couple questions just before we go on to that. Sure. Yes, absolutely. So what I'll do is I'll go and yield the floor and then I'll, we'll bring forward an amendment. Go ahead. Councilor: Thank you. And thank you, Director. Thank you, Chair. I think we did have a little bit of questions. Director Montoya, if you could speak a little bit to some of the businesses and numbers that we have on your PowerPoint, particularly how many employees are getting more than $20 an hour. So if you look at the slide, we have $21 an hour at about 50%, and that's current pay range for employees. And then on the next slide, we have how many employees make under $20 an hour, and that's more than 50%. Can you explain the discrepancy, please? Director Montoya: This is Chamber of Commerce data, but it's my understanding, if we look at, so it was about 50% said $21 an hour or more is the current pay range. And right below that, there's a "how many of your employees" it's between $19 to $20.99 an hour, and that is about 15%. So I think that if we take a piece, the tail of that, if we take a piece of that statistic, $19 to $20.99, and we combine that with the $21 per hour and over, that's how they get to the over 50% of employees don't make more than $20 an hour. Councilor: So just to be clear, the initial question was $21 plus, and the second question is just $20. So that discrepancy of about, you said $13. Is that $20.99? Got it. Thank you. Director Montoya: Thank you for making my words sound sensical. Councilor: No, it's fine. I can dumb things down sometimes. I really just want to thank you all for the work. It was amazing that we were able to get input from all sectors of the community and also that we were able to get so many comments. So thank you. And I yield the floor. Mayor: Thank you. So, I'll turn it back over to Councilor Garcia for his amendment. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Madam Chair. And so, to go back to a comment I made when we had the study session, which was, if we're wanting to move forward with this proposal, we should as a city take action immediately. And so that's the synopsis of what my amendment is, is that should this package pass, that effective January 1, 2026, the City of Santa Fe will immediately implement a $17.50 minimum wage. The reason being is I want us to be the leaders. I want us to be able to showcase to the community that if we want to raise the minimum wage, we're doing so first, and we'll show the impacts that it might have on our industry. I know we're a bit different than small business, but I want us to be able to lead by the way of not only putting more resources in employees' pockets, but working to ensure that we're listening to the needs of our employees. So, with that being said, my amendment adds to page seven, line 18, the new language would state, "Beginning January 1st, 2026, the minimum wage for city employees shall be an hourly rate of $17.50." Pretty straightforward amendment. In that FAQs that was produced by Mr. Gold, it does recommend that we do such. There were no concerns if we were to take action immediately. So with that, I'll go ahead and move forward with introducing Amendment A. Mayor: If you want to. I wasn't sure it was a motion. Councilor Garcia: That's a motion. Sorry. Mayor: All right. So I have a motion and a second. I would want to hear from staff on this amendment. If I could hear from staff, just an overview of your thoughts, the impact. Staff: Certainly, Madam Chair. Currently, the city employs roughly 1,400 people. The vast majority make more than $17.50 currently. There are 12 probationary employees. They currently make $17.47 per hour. And they also enjoy a good benefits package, as you well know. We suggest bringing them up to $17.50. We also have some temporary seasonal workers that work less than a full year. And there we have 16 of them that make less than $17.50. Some of them make $15, a few make $16, some are also at that $17.47 rate. If you combined all of these and brought them all to $17.50, 50 cents, the impact on the general fund would be less than $60,000 annually. Mayor: All right. Great. Thank you. All right. So, I have a motion and I have a second. Could I get a roll call, please? Staff: Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Castro? Councilor Castro: Yes. Staff: Councilor Michael Garcia? Councilor Garcia: Yes. Staff: Chair Chavez? Mayor: Yes. Staff: Motion passes. Mayor: Thank you. And I believe we have a second amendment. I will turn it over to Councilor Castro. Councilor Castro: Yes. Wonderful. Thank you so much. So, I also have an amendment that I've been working on with community members. Thank you so much for being here in support. As you heard in our presentation, both the Chamber of Commerce and ourselves have done a lot of research and work, and a majority of our businesses are paying $21. And I actually have done some research on my own and modeled this in my previous business, and $21 is doable 100%. So, I am moving an amendment that would raise it to $20 an hour and also to remove any exceptions for 501c3s and for students because I've been working with folks at St. John's College who were students and couldn't live on the wage that they were receiving. I've personally been a 501c3 worker who has made less than the minimum wage, and I will tell you it is difficult to survive. And as we've heard today, there are nonprofits in the city that are doing really well in terms of supporting their workers. So, I will move to approve that amendment. Mayor: Oh, okay. Just for discussion, right? And do you, I, I have a lot to say, so do you want me to go first or do you want to go? Councilor Castro: I'll yield the floor to you, Madam Chair. Mayor: Thank you. And I appreciate the reference to data. I think that there is, there, we, we know it's clear that some businesses are paying over. But I do think that there's concern. I was shared something that some of our community members, a community member shared with me, a job opportunity lost already just because of discussions of living wage. They actually got a message from an employer saying that that position is no longer available until they see the impact of living wage. So, I think it's very important that we move slowly through this process. And I also think that it's not the minimum wage that is the only thing that we're dealing with here. And so, it is a piece of the puzzle, which means we need to work on the rest of the pieces of the puzzle before we get aggressive with this and before we know the impact. I think there will be impact. I do. I think that we will see cost increase. Will I think it's significant enough to vote this down? No. But I also am very interested in monitoring it because I do know that there will be negative impact. We're already seeing it, right? We're seeing possible job opportunities lost already, and it hasn't even passed yet, and that's concerning. So increasing it that much scares me a little bit. We have 50% of businesses that aren't paying that high. So, I think that just the fact that half that responded are isn't justification to move this aggressively. I also think that when we think of minimum wage, we forget about other costs that come along with that for our employers, for our small businesses, and that is something to consider as well. I'm already having a hard time with this piece of the puzzle without everything else being addressed. It would be very hard for me to support something that is that much more significant. Councilor Garcia: My turn. Sorry, I just looked at you instead of saying anything. I'm sorry. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Councilor Castro, for bringing this forward. I just got a question just, and I'm looking at it from a historical perspective of, when you're looking at interns and folks who might not have a skill set or a permanent position, and that's why they're interns in some instances. And so I'm speaking from the perspective as somebody who was an intern for two different entities. And I did receive less compensation, so to speak, than what a permanent worker would get because I didn't have any skill level whatsoever. I mean, and so it was an entry opportunity to be able to earn some skills and then potentially open up a door to move into full-time employment with the entity, which both I resulted from as part of that internship opportunity. And so I think when we look at it from the perspective of how does it potentially impact the City of Santa Fe, I look at our work-based learning program where we have, I think right now, potentially up to 200 young folks who participate in that program. They're high school students that they do earn a stipend. That's why they're not earning a wage, so to speak. They earn a stipend. And the intention is to allow for these young folks to get the experience, get the opportunity, and then maybe move forward in another step as a permanent employee. So I guess just if I can understand a little more why we would take out the carve-out or the exception for interns, just because I think I don't, I don't, what I don't want to see as an unintended consequence of lessening that opportunity from 200 young folks to, I don't know the answer to how much it might impact us. Sure, 100%. I might need a little help from Director Nielsson in talking a little bit about the program, but there are two things that I'm working on right now that would address this, and that's looking for alternative funding. So, we're working on a program where state funding can be matched, so it wouldn't all be coming from the City of Santa Fe. Also, the idea of unskilled workers is a little bit difficult, right? When we are hiring labor, it is people's time, it's people's energy. There are young people that are contributing significantly to the income of their families. I've been talking to community organizations who would love to have some of these young people be part of the program, but potentially are not going to be making enough like they would be at a McDonald's or at another place, and they're not getting the same quality of experience that they would be getting if they were at a job like the City of Santa Fe. I do want to address a little bit of that comment of the job loss because my understanding is that job loss was not at the City of Santa Fe, and it wasn't a minimum wage job. I also understand that there are a lot of places where employers are choosing to potentially pay folks because they feel it's an entry-level position, but still working them quite a bit, still giving them overtime, so they are paying over that eventually. What we're looking at is making sure that we level that playing field to really value people based on the time that they're investing, not necessarily the skill level that they have. But I think at the end of the day, when we're employing folks, it comes down to skill level. That's why you have folks making a minimum wage and some folks making a high range of $200 and some thousand dollars. We can't ignore that fact. I want to acknowledge that I gave the example of the city's work-based learning program, but there are a multitude of internship programs that will be impacted. I completely understand time is money and people's time is money, but those are the internships, and historically, they've been the entryway for our young folks. They're also education. Sorry, I just wanted to say it's also education. Yes, yes, through school. I mean, you can get earned credit, and I think that's where we, I don't want to minimize the opportunities we're providing to our young folks with it. It could be an unintended consequence. So, I guess let me ask the question to staff: Is there any other entity across the country, and I don't want us to just look solely here, but across the country, where they have mandated a minimum wage to interns? Whomever can help answer that, because again, this is something that's relatively new to me. I've always seen internship opportunities as that. It's the way for a young person to gain that skill. You acknowledge you're going to make less money. Another perfect example is when you do stipended work. I was part of a national service program called AmeriCorps VISTA. I did not earn a wage, and if you actually came back at that point in time, I was earning, this was 2005, I was earning $700 a month. I entered into that program knowing that I was taking the vow of poverty. I willingly did that to give back to my community. Again, I don't want to undercut nor underpay our young folks, but I want to ensure that we're not entering a step where there are unintended consequences. That's my fear. I don't want to lose out on the opportunities we're providing young folks. So, whether it's Dr. Riley White, Ms. Montoya, Mr. Gold, anybody. If we don't have the answer to this now, I don't need it now. I think this is something I think from face value, I'd be open to, but then again, I want to make sure we're not hurting young folks. Madam Chair, Councilor Garcia, Councilor Castro, before I ask Professor Riley to address your question, I just want to point out that under the current living wage ordinance, the intern exemption applies for interns who are working for academic credit. Hello everyone. Riley White, Professor of Finance, Associate Dean at the University of New Mexico, former intern as it turns out as well. So, a good question, and I appreciate you all being here and being enthusiastic in your discussion about the minimum wage. Again, I'm here not to... Just get really close to that mic. I got you. I can also shout using academic. Thank you. I'm not here to support a particular legislation other than to state the facts of the situation as they are. So, back to the question of internships. Internships are one of those ways that, so they have, there's two prongs to them, and I want to go back to Councilor Castro's point, being labor, being labor. So, internships are generous and excellent, and they're wonderful that corporations provide them, but they also reduce recruitment costs for corporations, don't they? So, corporations that end up hiring interns or having internship programs do so not always necessarily out of one point of view where they are trying to perform a service, but because they know that educating individuals this way into the way the company is run and how it's managed makes them better employees. Paid internships result in twice as many job offers as unpaid internships. This is from a 2022 National Association of College recruitment surveys. So, in this debate, and this is an interesting question about carve-outs in general, and I also want to kind of go into that question. It's very hard in engaging carve-outs to look at the employment effects that happen as a result. Some states, Minnesota being the most notable one, got rid of their carve-outs in 2024. Carve-outs are tricky because they're hard to enforce, and they create other lasting effects. An example being, so let's say that you carve out internships, and employers say, "My goodness, I need to hire these people to perform this task. I'll hire interns instead, or I'll hire training wages for them at that same level," and without certain ramifications. You imagine, of course, that level of difficulty it is for enforcement going down to the question and saying, "Okay, what keeps a corporation from maintaining a training wage or an internship indefinitely? What keeps them engaging in a pathway that prevents that worker from engaging in larger and greater opportunities within the firm?" It becomes very difficult to legislate. But I appreciate the point that's being asked. It is very challenging. Labor market effects are, and I want to also appreciate Councilor Chavez's point about the labor market effects in general, and the things when I'm answering with the Q&A and everything, is not that there is a zero effect on this, or it's 100% sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. There are other effects involved, and the question is the levels and the magnitude of those effects that are important to address. So, in addressing things like minimum wage, for instance, we talked about a few things, and I touched upon, we talked about price effects, heard from the audience about rent effects, heard about other things. The magnitude of the increase is greater than these effects, and this is data after data point after data point. So, regarding internships in general, it's challenging to build effective carve-outs without creating other labor force or challenging issues with other unintended consequences. And just a quick follow-up question for Director Nielsson, and I don't know if you know the answer. How much, what is the wage that the work-based learning program students earn? And just for pure example, I don't want to say this is the average across the board, but it's one that the city has a strong partnership with. Councilor Garcia, thank you for the question. To confirm, the current interns in our work-based learning program earn minimum wage, so they earn the $15 per hour. Okay. So, raising it to $17.50 will have an impact on... Exactly. Less opportunity. Yes. Okay. And so, again, I think it always will come back to enforcement, no matter what, whether it's who's paying the minimum wage or who is trying to skirt the system by hiring an intern to do a job. I think that's where, in those instances where, and maybe the way we can approach it is supplanting of services. You know, you cannot hire an intern to do an existing job. That's where you can get away from saying, "Well, we had a position doing, making widgets, and we are going to now have an intern to make those widgets to be cheaper." It's, so I think that's, I don't know, Mr. Gold, you stood up, maybe you got some of this. Thank you, Madam Chair. Councilor Garcia, I can empathize with your early employment because I also was a VISTA volunteer in 1979 at 50 bucks a week in San Francisco. But, to your point, I'd like to look to the past to get a sense of the future. I sent you today the Bieber study, which was commissioned by the city in 2007 to determine what were the effects of the original living wage ordinance. One of the concerns then was that it would affect youth employment, particularly young people coming out of high school would suffer less employment. What the study showed in 2007 was that young people, particularly high school graduates, benefited greatly from the initial living wage at $8.50, and that there was no deleterious effect in their employment. Right. So, but one caveat to that, Mr. Gold, is that that was employment versus, did they differentiate internship versus employment? Because I, again, I don't, I'm of that same mindset of it doesn't have the negative unintended consequence on employment. It's, but this is specifically towards internships. Understood. And your suggestion, Councilor, that we then go in and enforce whether or not employers are using internships to supplant permanent employees requires a whole different level of enforcement than we're currently doing. What cities are finding across the country, and I defer to Dr. White on this, is that a consistent living wage across the board is far easier and more equitable to enforce than having certain groups that are one wage or another and then determine whether or not businesses are playing games to avoid the living wage. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Gold. I just want to chime in because I actually was a huge advocate of the internship program, and I spoke to a lot of businesses and tried to get a lot of businesses to participate. Many, and there is this fact that it is very hard to employ an intern that is not skilled because it takes away from the workforce. So, businesses have to be willing to offer the education and the skill building and have the financial means to do that. There were a lot of businesses, a lot of friends of businesses I knew, who really wanted to do it, but they're like, "We are already stretched so thin, and to be able to teach this skill while I'm also paying this individual would be very difficult." They believed in the program. They were passionate about the program, but it's an obvious fact, right? Especially when we have small businesses that involve trades. There are learned skills, there's education that are going into those internship programs. It takes individuals that are already employed in those businesses to teach those skills that go into that trade. So, in having conversations during just the takeoff of the internship program, because I was a huge advocate, it's an amazing thing that we have here. Any hesitation that came from a business that I spoke to, and I didn't speak to them all, but I spoke to a lot that I knew came from that. And so that's a real fact. And I love that they make minimum wage. I think that's great that these students get paid minimum wage. But I think that there's a skill, especially if we have businesses that involve trades, that are coming from this opportunity as well. And it becomes another component of the job for the employees that are already there in order to teach that skill. Yes, perfect. So, I just had a couple questions in terms of the sentiment of the living wage since we're talking about the initial passage currently. And I know that there are different opinions on this, and the Food Depot has used this MIT research, but a living wage would be considered $24.42 by the MIT calculator. So, we're not talking a minimum wage ordinance. Why is this called a living wage ordinance? What was the sentiment originally and the ideology around a living wage? Mayor: Madam Chair, Councilor Castro, the city of Santa Fe right now is in a very challenging situation where over the past decade we've seen housing costs rise. We've seen rent rise by 70% and over 80% respectively, and we've seen income rise by only 35%. And that's not even taking into account inflation. So, we've wrapped our arms around this opportunity to raise the living wage as one of the tools, in addition to increasing access to housing. And Professor Riley can speak to how we came to calculate that the $17.50 amount is actually a sweet spot economically where it will help individuals. It also will not be overly burdensome on most businesses in Santa Fe. So, a very good question. And so, in analyzing this, this is a very, this is a real question about the balance between what represents a fair and minimum wage increase and what represents one that potentially creates greater disemployment. And so, we could imagine for a second if I opened up the question and said, what would the minimum wage or what could the minimum wage be? I could say, you know, tomorrow the minimum wage is $100,000 a person. That would create disemployment effects, would create significant. I think most people would probably look at that statement and say yes, it would. And when we look at the magnitudes of certain increases and decreases, we know that. So the question is how much is too much, basically? And so, an economist by the last name of Kaits, K-A-I-T-Z, had this notion that basically once you approach that 65% or so, two-thirds of a minimum wage, if your minimum wage is set at two-thirds of the median wage of a region, it creates disemployment effects. So the median wage in Santa Fe last year was about $29.50 according to Census Bureau per hour. And so about 60% of that is very close to that $17.50 number. So if we go up to $20 for instance, that would be about 68.8%, 69% or so, and then you create greater potential for disemployment effects, and that's why that variation happens. The other piece is that the adjustment time. We do know from data that the amount of minimum wage increase followed by the time firms have to adjust to that minimum wage increase is substantial. Right? So if you look at a number like 30% or 40% increase in wages and offer businesses a lack of time to adjust to those increases, those employment effects tend to be greater. So, in other words, it's a Goldilocks spot, or attempting to be a Goldilocks spot, that operates between a level that's meaningful enough of plus 10% increase in wages, but is not too high to potentially create disemployment effects in the city of Santa Fe, particularly among industries that rely more heavily on minimum wage workers, for instance, hospitality, other places in town that are. So it is a compromised position that's designed to reduce the negative effects while also involve sufficient positive. And I did have just a couple questions now that we're talking about service industry workers. This minimum wage doesn't take into account tips, right? So this minimum wage, you would, if you are a tipped worker, would have to meet this minimum wage, but generally my understanding is most service workers in this city make above $20 an hour on tips. Is that your understanding? Mayor: Yes, that is correct. So, and I do want to just mention that one of the carve-outs was left in there for community service. So, there would still be the ability for folks to contribute through community service, which I think is a way that we could maybe look at getting school credit. There are ways that we can work around that. But at this point, I feel like we have spoken at length about this amendment and my concerns and why and whom I've worked with. And I would like to call the question. Can I get a roll call, please? This is for the amendment. It's to call the question. Oh, sorry. Yes. On the amendment. Does there need to be a second on that? Oh, call the question. I'm not just because there was a point I want to make and then, and then we can go to amendment. So, Councilor Castro, you did say there was a carve-out to keep in community service programs, correct? But the language here says, "persons working for a business in connection with a court-ordered community service." So, it then mandates it somebody who is conducting community service on behalf of a judge. So, I think because again, I look at it and I go back to, you know, when I was in college, I did a work-based learning program. It wasn't a, it wasn't work-based learning. It was, it was some community service program where I went and interned at the Hispanic Cultural Center. And I got some credit. I actually got a certification, etc. And again, I don't, I don't want these type of opportunities to be minimized for our young folks because this is, and I think this is where I'd like to talk with the community college to see the impact on the programs that they operate because again, from face value, I agree as a former intern, I would love to have made minimum wage, but I went into it knowing that I was getting paid less because I was, it was like a twofer for me because I was getting paid, but I was also getting college credit. And I don't want to have any unintended consequences that would impact our young folks from improving their lives. So, I think that's where I'd like to learn a little more of how we can see the impacts of this. Sure. And, oh, sorry, point of clarification. I just want to let folks know that this is the first in a couple stops. So, we do have two committees and the governing body where we could still do amendments. And so, I'm working with my colleagues to be able to, if we want to add some language around specific types of work-based learning or we even want to readjust the amount. There are several opportunities to do that. But in particular, I think that it's really important that we look at the data that we've gotten specifically from the Chamber of Commerce and also from the organizations that we worked with. $24.42 is a living wage. A minimum wage needs to be closer to that. I don't think we, we didn't have a second on call, call to question. So, we will just go to vote on the amendment. So, we're looking at amendment B. If we could get a roll call, please. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Chavez. No. Motion passes. Sorry, I'd like to explain my, sorry, I meant to, forgot to mention that. Go ahead. And, and so, Councilor Castro, I know this doesn't pass. If we can work to get maybe get some more info because I do want to figure out how we can support our young folks but not have an unintended consequence that would lead to less opportunity for them. Thank you. All right, we are going to our next item. A main motion, Madam Chair. The main motion. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Could I, is there a discussion on the main note? We could go ahead and do a roll call. There's no main motion. Move to approve. As amended. Move to approve as amended. A second. Okay. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. So, we're moving to our next item, which is 7T. And it's going to be read into the record through a recording that our director will be playing right now. Thank you, Madam Chair. This will take about five minutes, it looks like. But it's a required, this is from the City Clerk. Consideration of Bill Number 2024-17, adoption of Ordinance Number 2025 to be determined. Sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber and Councilor Jamie Casset. A bill repealing and replacing SFCC1 1987, Chapter 14, Land Development Code, clarifying and consolidating various references to code violations into one violations section, specifying that the applicant or the property owner have the burden of proof for establishing legal nonconformities, reducing the early neighborhood notification requirement for city capital improvement projects to those exceeding $250,000. Renaming special use permit to conditional use permit. Removing historical district review boards HDRB authority to recommend personal property acquisitions. Requiring archaeologists to hold a New Mexico State Burial Excavation permit for certain work. Removing waivers of qualifications for archaeologists by archaeological review committee. Increasing permitted building heights for residential districts and non-residential development. Establishing densities and height by right for certain residential zones exceeding 10 units per acre. Creating a parks and open space zoning district. Permitting additional flexibility for certain structures and situations regarding setbacks. Eliminating residential suite hotel/motel and ecological resource protection overlay zoning districts. Reducing the length at which an archaeological clearance permit is required for sewer and utility main construction. Removing alcohol sale regulations in the airport road overlay. Identifying a strategy to review and approve land uses not specifically listed in the summary table of allowed uses. Clarifying that duplexes, triplexes, townhomes, and residential complexes are permitted uses. Creating use categories and subcategories and reorganizing some existing uses into new categories within the table of allowed uses. Requiring trees to be integrated into storm water infrastructure in the airport road overlay district. Removing certain prohibitions for vehicle parking at residences. Allowing accessory dwelling units to be the maximum allowable height of the zoning district. Establishing design and dimensional standards for residential compound development. Regulating in-ground and above-ground pools. Regulating agricultural home occupations. Reassigning the use laboratory research or testing from industrial to commercial. Regulating outdoor dining. Updating telecommunication facilities code to be consistent with federal standards. Establishing new subdistrict regulations in the historic district overlays. Specifying primary facades for significant structures and the strategy for identifying primary facades on contributing structures. Updating definitions for facade and elevation. Prohibiting enclosure of existing porches and portals on primary facades of contributing structures. requiring window depth and other characteristics of windows and doors be preserved in historic districts; increasing affordability incentives, including administrative review and density bonuses; specifying that open space requirements in the C-2 district are per dwelling unit; expanding options to reduce on-site parking and exempting the Business Capital District from parking requirements in Table 7-4; reducing required off-street parking spaces; requiring electric vehicle charging stations for all new developments; distinguishing parking regulations applicable to bicycles from those applicable to vehicles and requiring long-term bicycle storage and parking; eliminating content-based sign restrictions; imposing a variety of new regulations protecting the city's terrain and stormwater management; imposing new landscaping standards for plants and trees; eliminating allowance for high and low pressure sodium lamps and mercury vapor; adding LED as the permitted lamp type; and decreasing the permitted incandescent watts from 160 to 150; sunsetting the Business Capital District Design Review Committee and Long Range Planning Subcommittee; defining numerous terms; embedding graphical depictions of processes; and making non-substantive chapter organizational changes. **Mayor:** Great. And we have Maggie Moore, Assistant Land Use Director, and Heather Lamboy, our Land Use Director, present today. So, I will turn it over to you, actually, Councilor Garcia, because I believe you were the one that pulled this item off. **Councilor Garcia:** Thank you, Madam Chair. And I didn't know if Maggie or Director Lamboy had a presentation. I know we had the brief introduction and the presentation given during the public hearing, but happy to yield it to you before I go into any question. **Director Lamboy:** Thank you. Yeah, Chair Chavez and Councilor Garcia, we do have a little bit more of a presentation tonight if you'll give us that time. We appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, coming up on the screen. Do you guys want me to move this big one so you can see the Okay, we just moved the screen so the counselors could see the presentation in the room a little bit more directly. Well, yes, thank you. Good evening, Public Works and Utilities Committee, Chair and Councilors, and members of the public. We are excited to bring Phase One of the Land Development Code before you tonight for consideration. This has been a monumental effort between the Land Use Department, really departments across city government, in Public Works, Public Utilities, our Fire Department, city leadership, and certainly members of the public. And so I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who's contributed to this effort to bring it to you today. And so the update that we have is the culmination of over two years of public engagement and engagement with city staff and engagement with our working groups. That began in the spring of 2023 with a kind of a virtual open house that we had to make virtual because of a snowstorm. So, we had a virtual open house and then we actually scheduled another in-person open house a little bit later to just really kick off the project, kind of lay it out, the phases that we wanted to do, Phase One, Phase Two, Phase Three, what that meant, and really just get that initial kind of interest and feedback from the community. Following that, we had a number of events and solicited input online through our website, through surveys and those sorts of things, and additional open houses and Planning Commission meetings. We launched our advisory working group and our technical advisory working group to kind of help us in the drafting process and to bounce ideas and get input from kind of the broad community that we have and diverse community we have here in Santa Fe. And we got a lot and we kind of put that all together in the assessment report, which is part of your packet, the Land Phase One Assessment Report. And that really outlines what we heard, what our goals were for the project, and helped us kind of move forward into the drafting process. Through that, we had meetings with TOG and our COG and our Historic and our Planning Commission Subcommittee to review the draft of the code update. We additionally, about a year ago, when we felt like we had a draft, we held additional open houses to get additional feedback from the public. We posted it online. We used this software called Conveyo to get comments from the public and also comments from our technical working group members and stuff like that. So we integrated and spent some time integrating those and evaluating those comments as well. We held three drop-in sessions where we had staff kind of parked. We did one here at City Hall, one down at the Southside, and maybe at Chavis Center. I apologize. It's been a year, but we had three of those at different times, so we could try to capture different people coming and going just to see if they had any thoughts or comments for us as well. And we did a few presentations in front of the Planning Commission as this is really their primary section of the code that they deal with for the governing body. And then, we're here. So, it's really exciting. We have really worked with the City Attorney's Office to very thoroughly review this and really appreciate their attention to detail and critical eye. I think in hindsight, as we really kind of jumbled up 700 pages and moved some things around, it was a lot to take on and make sure that everything still connected, all the dots were still connected, and we didn't drop anything that we didn't mean to. And so it was really a very thorough process to make sure that all of that was done. And we are, it's not perfect, but it's worth it. And I think we're, we're, we're still, we're just excited to get everybody's eyes on it and really start to understand what this new piece of legislation might do for the city. And so our adoption timeline began on October 8th with an introduction of the governing body. We heard our first public comment on October 9th. And then we were at the HDRB. We had a joint meeting of the Historic District Review Board and the Archaeological Review Committee on October 14th. And then we were at Planning Commission on October 16th last week. We are here tonight with Public Works and we will go to Quality of Life and Finance over the next week and a half and then finally intend to bring forward this for an adoption hearing on November 19th to the governing body. And so I just want to take a step back and just acknowledge that the last time that this was done comprehensively was in 1997. And it's over 40 years. There have been numerous amendments and changes and additions to the code. And this has created kind of a layered, some people call it an onion, this complex, sometimes contradictory, web of rules and regulations. And it's become difficult to interpret, to enforce, and for the public to understand where the right rules are found. And so in 2023, the Land Use Department, at the direction of the governing body, we initiated a contract with Clarion and Associates to do this three-phased, comprehensive update, looking at all the sections of Chapter 14, all 600, 700 pages, depending on how many images you have in there, and really try to give it a once over. And so that is what we've done and our kind of overall goals for Phase One: organization, clarity, and user-friendliness, really trying to improve those core standards. And so I also just want to highlight a couple tools that we've given to you to kind of analyze this major piece of legislation. We have the disposition report, which is in the packet. And what we've created is a kind of a table, a crosswalk of where the old code lives. In the far left column will be the old code citation. In the middle column is where that new section of the code lives because things did get moved around a lot. And then in the far right column is kind of a short, brief narrative description of the change that we are proposing in Phase One. And you'll see some areas where there might be a blank or a gray, and that might mean this wasn't carried forward or this is new because it didn't exist. So those are also kind of highlighted as well for you in the disposition report. And we have chosen to highlight certain things as substantive, which we acknowledge is a really subjective term, but we did want to kind of take a more broad approach and really highlight some changes for you all to consider and for the public to consider through this update. Okay. So, in addition to the disposition report, we've also included the LDC Assessment Report. So you can see, read about the public engagement and understand what our efforts and our goals were for Phase One. And then I've also included the Enhanced Affordability Incentives Report in your packet. And that will, that goes into a bit more depth on the proposed enhanced affordability incentives program that's within the Santa Fe Homes Program. And so it kind of, it goes into more detail about how Santa Fe and other communities have used similar techniques such as development, streamlined development review, density bonuses, and dimensional flexibility and fee waivers to incentivize affordable housing. Okay. And so some of the major improvements that we've made in Phase One include our zoning districts. So this really is a great example of how we've achieved the goals of clarity, user-friendliness, and just kind of overall readability of the code. The image on the left is the old, the current code, very text-heavy, and information is on our zoning districts is kind of scattered around the code. And so what we've done is move all the information onto one or two pages. We have added tables where we could. We've kind of cleaned up those tables a little bit and added images as well, which I think is really important to improve the user-friendliness. And it just, it helps what's the setback. Not everybody understands what these terms are. These are very technical terms. And so we're trying to use more common language, but we also want to show people what it means if they live in a zone district, what are their requirements. So in addition, we've kind of consolidated purpose statements and dimensional standards. We've added those new illustrations to represent development for each district. And we've simplified and reduced repetitive table notes. Even there's still some table notes, we have reduced those. And you will find one of the substantive changes that we've made or proposed is increasing height by 2 feet to accommodate green and modern construction. You will see that reflected in all of these, in the zone district tables. That's where you'll find that information. So, I think it's a, it's a good example of how we've achieved those goals there. Some other changes that we've made to our zoning districts is that we've added a Parks and Open Space District. We, that just, parks and open space is huge in Santa Fe. A lot of our parks are zoned R1, which is kind of weird. And it's like, well, what is it that? So, I think we, we're, we're excited to kind of lay this as a foundation and then in Phase Two start to develop with Parks Department and the public, what are the standards for this district and where do we want to apply this on the map? So, we haven't actually applied it anywhere yet. We've also removed a provision that required a development plan or a special approval for high-density districts to achieve their zoning designation above or their zoning density above 10 units per acre. This has impacted a lot of small or a few critical small infill projects in the downtown area where you see R12, R21, R29 in the downtown area. We think this will lower the barrier for some of those projects and allow them to be approved administratively essentially at their desired density. In our overlay zone districts, we have added images as well. The images on the screen are of the archaeological overlays and then the escarpment overlay as well. So we've added those to the text of the code so people can start to connect these regulations that they're reading with something on a map right in front of them. We're hoping to make some adjustments and update these maps in phase two, but we wanted to start to lay that, make that connection there. We chose to not carry forward the residential suite, hotel, and motel overlay and the ecological resource overlay. We found that neither of those had been applied to the ground in Santa Fe, so we thought that was a low-hanging fruit thing. With the introduction of the parks and open space, we thought that that could serve the ecological resource needs in a way. We also looked at the escarpment overlay and really, again, with the goals of simplifying language, reorganizing, and editing it to make it a little more consistent with how the other overlays run: purpose statement, applicability. We really tried to have some consistency, and when you go to the different overlays, you're going to find the same kind of information again and again. In the Airport Road overlay, we eliminated restrictions or proposed to eliminate restrictions on the sale of alcohol. These were preventing some desired uses within the community, maybe like a grocery store. We've also passed some other alcohol prohibitions, like on minis and things like that, that maybe accomplish some of the goals here, but in a more citywide approach. There was also a working group that looked at the historic district overlay, and upon their review, we made clarifications, added descriptions of architectural character for the historic districts, and removed the public view limitation on application of standards. For our use table, we made a lot of revisions here. We renamed the special use permit as a conditional use permit. It more aligns with what that request is. There's really nothing special about it, but it does come with a lot of conditions. It can. So, we wanted to just clarify that, just turn it into a little more of a standard terminology for the community. We added new uses, kind of combined and moved around existing uses. We added things like brewery and doggy daycare, which are kind of newish, but they're everywhere now. So, we really wanted to start to add things to the table that we see out in the community that are just not represented in this. We also added accessory and temporary uses to the table where they were kind of in an appendix. We really emphasize adding a lot of different housing types. I know you guys have heard a lot about missing middle housing types, and those were not explicit. While they were explicitly permitted or allowed in the city of Santa Fe, they weren't expressly listed in our table, and so we added those. You'll see duplex and triplex and quadplex and things like that. So, we wanted to really add those explicitly. In the far right column, certain uses have, not every use, but some have use-specific standards that we've developed. So, we have those, kind of the code section listed for the user in the very far right column. So, we think that'll be easier to navigate to if you're looking at a particular use. You can go to those standards and see, "Okay, well, what additional standards apply for me if I want to do a brewery, for example?" Okay, and I will hand it off to our Land Use Director, Ms. Heather Lamboy, for the rest of the presentation. Heather Lamboy: Thank you, Maggie. I really appreciate your guiding us through the initial part of the slide presentation. I'm going to lead us through some of the other incentives that we have provided for and then do a bit of a deeper dive on some of those things that are highlighted in yellow in the disposition report, just to highlight those things and let the public know exactly what we're doing so there won't be concern about missing something. As Maggie mentioned, all sections have been edited to use simpler language, getting rid of the legalese and planner terms that aren't really user-friendly to the public. For landscaping, there are updates to perimeter parking lot standards, including lowering the threshold for applicability to promote xeriscape types of planting, but also promote beautification of our community. Walls and fences have more information on the permitted fence materials, as well as an explicit prohibition on barbed wire, which we discovered we don't have today. The parking section is a big one. Right now, in the current code, it is an appendix to the Land Development Code. It's not part of the Land Development Code, and that can cause confusion. So, all the information from the appendix has been relocated into the code. The ratio of required parking is not generally reduced, but there's an emphasis on providing options for flexibility on the number of spaces provided. So, on-street parking can apply in certain instances. Off-site parking, so parking within a certain distance, can apply for required parking. Shared parking, we run into that a lot with shopping centers and even live-work type of scenarios where there's office activity during the day, residential activity during the night, allowing for that shared parking to happen as it does in many urban areas across the country. Proximity to transit and trails, really encouraging those other modes of transportation, as well as provision of a transit facility, provision of structured parking. So, there's a reduction that's available if structured parking is provided. And of course, my dad, I really don't like him driving because he's 90 years old. He lives in a senior housing development, and typically, if the kids have control, then we can reduce the senior housing parking requirements, and classically, that is not as much of a high threshold as there are other market-rate housing or affordable housing as well. There have been studies on that. As Maggie mentioned, we have electric vehicle requirements added as a requirement. Certainly, that's very much part of our mobility and sustainability efforts here in Santa Fe. Additional Americans with Disabilities Act standards, including highlighting how to design those spaces. Daniel Lopez from the ADA group in Public Works really helped us with that section and gave us a lot of feedback, and I know when I had my scooter, I was zipping around, I learned a lot of lessons then too. Removal of parking requirements in the BCD. One of the questions that recently came up is with outdoor dining, what are we going to do? They have extra dining. So, do they need to get extra parking? That was a big issue that could have arisen, but we were moving towards reducing the required amount of parking, especially downtown. And so we have eliminated that altogether because we have structured parking, we have public parking, and other parking opportunities on the street. Significant updates to bicycle parking standards. That's been untied from the vehicle parking standards, so they have their own class of parking. It is based on the guidelines through the assistance with the Metropolitan Planning Organization of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals. So, you can see that there are different types of spaces required for different uses. So, for residential, for community and cultural facilities, educational facilities, acknowledging the school scenario, as well as healthcare and human services. There has been a lot of talk about content-based regulation with signs, and it's considered a matter of free speech. It went through, there was a court case that went to the Supreme Court, and so we found in our current code that we do have some content-based regulation, and we need to comply with that standard. So, we removed some of that, or all of that. There's a structural reorganization for impact fees to make that content more accessible. There are no changes to the fees as they stand today. The street design standards, that has been a project of the Public Works Department as well as the Metropolitan Planning Organization, Aragoni. Those are coming soon. So, that's going to be the first tranche of phase two. But we acknowledge that's something that needs to happen, and we're currently working with Public Works to pull together a text amendment to allow for the adoption of those street design standards. So, it's not part of phase one, but will be very soon, beginning of the year. And there are no substantive changes to architectural design, the point system in phase one. That will be a phase two item. We have reorganized our common review procedures into a table so it's understandable. So, if I need to go to the Planning Commission, or if I have a certain decision, like I have a subdivision, and I know that I need to go to the Planning Commission, what are the steps? If there's a two-lot subdivision that doesn't need to go to the Planning Commission, what are the steps? And likewise for all the decisions that we have in land use. And so that's clearly outlined with flowcharts and information. Just to then transition to affordable housing and the affordable development housing development, no enhanced development incentives report that's in your packet. We've discovered through the general plan update process that we really truly are in a crisis now when it comes to affordable housing. 67% of our housing is single-family detached residential units that accommodates certain people. It doesn't accommodate other people. And so in terms of the diversity of housing, that missing middle housing that we were talking about, allowing those uses to the use chart, we also, so we not only need to think about cost, but we need to think about mix of housing types. 49% of renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing, versus 39% of homeowners. Average rents increased by 74% since 2016, which average salaries do not or have not. And the median price of a house is $572,000, which is within my price range, which is, you know, certainly as a manager, I can do that. But if I were a senior planner or a historic district's case planner when I first worked here, that would have been way out of my range to be able to afford, amongst others too. So, the current regulations are not adequate. We're not keeping up with the need. There's no diverse housing options, and we're trying to make progress on the living wage and getting people not only in a scenario where they can live to not work to live, but live to work, or well, not exactly, that's not right, but anyway, but to give them an opportunity not to have two or three jobs like I listened to earlier this evening. Currently, the affordable housing requirements are 20% of dwelling units for for-sale projects and for single-family detached, 15% of dwelling units for rental projects would need to be affordable. There's a density bonus opportunity of 15%. Rental projects, I'm sorry, with a single-family development, there's no opportunity to opt out of that percentage. So they do need to build affordable housing units on-site. The only opt-out option is with multi-family development. Rental projects can be eligible to pay a fee in lieu. There's no incentive for building additional affordable units beyond these requirements. As a result of feedback from our community, both the Citizens Advisory Group as well as the Technical Working Group, we gathered together, and I'm really grateful for all that were involved in this process because there were a lot of good ideas that came out of it. So, the density bonus now scales relative to the percentage of affordable units. So, in the 30% to 39% category of affordable housing, the ratio will increase to 1.5 dwelling units per Santa Fe density bonus units, I'm sorry, per affordable home. So you can see in the graph here, with that 30% to 39% scenario, there with 14 market homes, six affordable homes, if they are built, will render nine additional density bonus homes that are market rate. So you ask, why just market rate, or why are you allowing for so much market rate? First of all, it's very expensive to build an affordable home, and typically there's a loss that is experienced by the builder when building an affordable home, or just when it comes to the infrastructure costs and all of the needed preparation of the site. That's an expensive process as well. So even if the unit can be built so that it pencils out, the infrastructure serving it can't be. So there's a lot of things to consider. In addition, there is a scenario where naturally occurring affordable housing can be priced out just by the fact that there's not enough market rate housing. So if there's a large rental community and there's not enough market rate housing, then they're going to be pushed out by demand, and so that's important why we have those market rate opportunities. So in total, 29 homes could be built under that scenario. Another large infill incentive is the allowance of having a density bonus of three units on a one-acre lot for one affordable unit. So technically, in this scenario, with accessory dwelling units, you could accommodate up to eight families on a one-acre lot, which is powerful because there are, when we think of our family compounds in the city and how things developed over time, it sort of lends to that pattern a bit and allowing for, you know, this really what Councilor Cassett calls gentle density, but really serves a need in our community as well. So the affordability requirement is lower in order to incentivize this infill development. From a municipality standpoint, it's also less expensive to serve this infill development. Sprawl costs when it comes to building new roads and maintaining them, all sorts of slew of services and everything. If you have infill development, you have those trail networks, you have the infrastructure that's available to serve, and the community centers, that social infrastructure as well. So, it really is important to think about infill housing as an important piece of our battle to find affordable housing opportunities. And then other incentives include administrative review, which is a precedent that's set in Midtown, and flexibility with parking requirements and dimensional standards. All right, there's a lot of text on these slides, but I'm going to try to highlight the big points. The disposition report is really lengthy. There are some things that I would like to highlight. This isn't a perfect summary of what's in your report. What's in your report is best to look at, I'm just going to say that, but I'm going to speed through a couple of things here. So, the Long Range Subcommittee of the Planning Commission has been disbanded, and we have an ad hoc committee. For instance, right now on the General Plan update, we have an ad hoc committee to deal with that. We also had, when Councilor Faulkner was part of the Planning Commission, an EN regulation review ad hoc committee. So it's topic-based, and the Planning Commission likes that flexibility, which includes both long-range as well as current planning issues. So that has been removed. There's a simplified EN requirement for city capital improvement projects greater than $250,000 with reference to ENN. Right now, there's no expiration when it comes to an EN meeting and a project being presented to the public after it's an indeterminate time in which they can submit their application, and all of a sudden, the community is, "Oh, I thought that went away." So we have required that if you haven't presented an ENN within six months, you have to have another ENN before you can file an application just to keep it current. There is a one-year limitation on a resubmittal on an application that has been denied, instead of having to hear cases that have been denied over and over again. Hopefully, it gives the applicants incentives to redesign, rethink things. A one-year requirement between requests to annex the same property that has been denied, and a new requirement for a pre-application meeting and an ENN for all annexations. We don't currently have that. And based on lessons learned from the potential annexation with the Agua Fria Community Village, it's important that the city take those steps and really put ourselves out there to hear the community as well. So some of these things that you'll see here are repeat things Maggie has already said, so I will sort of skip through those. But with the Archaeological Review Committee, there are a lot of historic cultural resources in our town. In utility mains, there's a lot of unexpected discoveries as well as ancient Pueblo sites in areas that over time we have learned a lot since the Archaeological Districts Ordinance was adopted in the late 1980s. And so now we generally know where those sites are and can expect things. So, we've reduced the length of utility main extensions to require archaeological clearance permits on the Airport Road overlay. There were a lot of great intentions with the prohibition of alcohol sale. I was a senior planner when this was going through, and Carmichael Dominguez's heart was in the right place. But we also have felt unintended consequences, and so that's why we're removing that limitation, and state laws really helped us to deal with a lot of the concerns that he and other councilors had at that time. So on the summary table of allowed uses, there are other more specific use standards regarding ground-level and roof-level urban farms. Religious educational uses and charitable uses are allowed in all districts, not just, I'm sorry, residential districts, which they weren't previously. Police or fire stations are subject now to use-specific standards to mitigate those impacts. A hospital heliport is only permitted as an accessory use. Now it's a permitted use in the hospital zone district, and it's not something that we really want to expand, especially when you have residential districts nearby with both of our hospitals that we have in town. In-home daycare facilities for residential districts, that has been incorporated. Also, in industrial zones, there are a lot of industrial zones that have less rents that cost less. And daycare businesses typically have a fairly low bottom line. And so we have run into requests for daycares in industrial districts, light industrial districts. Siler Road, Pacheco Street, think about those areas that are light industrial but not bad. So we have use-specific standards for that as well to open up the door on that opportunity as well. And then on the summary, some of the other highlights on the table of allowed uses is seasonal sales for Christmas tree lots. We really didn't have anything. So a lot of the stuff as we've developed this going over the past 40 years, because the last comprehensive update was in 1987, we've just sort of done by, "Oh, let's put it into this category," and all that, but it was never really formalized. So that's what we're trying to do now. Acknowledging for food truck rodeos, for instance, as well as campground and RV parks, and fast food drive-throughs now allowed in the BCD. So that's not necessarily something we want in our BCD. Laboratory research and testing right now is not permitted in C1 in hospital district zones, which, you know, there's a lot of laboratory and research uses associated with a hospital. So we really do want to allow for that and also in the commercial districts as well. And telecommunications, we had to do some updating to comply with federal law. We have small cell facilities now, which is something that's new. Well, it's been around for about five years, but we really need to come up to date with those federal standards. Also, there's new terminology like a shot clock, which is the bane of my existence when reviewing a telecom application, in that we have a certain time frame in which we can review applications per federal law. So, we're incorporating that in as well. And we've moved the waiver review and approval criteria under the variances section. Also, we removed unenforceable provisions in parking with reference to parking encroaching onto public right-of-way. That is a major concern in residential districts. But with reference to how people park on their private property, we're not regulating for that anymore. Typically, there's not a concern, and really, it's not enforceable as well. Accessory dwelling units right now, they're only allowed to be 15 feet tall. And so when one thinks of the casita, well, that makes sense. But if there's a garage on the property and you want to build an apartment above the garage, or even an apartment on the second floor to provide for an accessory dwelling unit, we want to allow for that to happen. So we increased the height to 26 feet to allow for that sort of second-story accessory dwelling unit. There are new use standards for residential compounds under the commercial uses. We have new categories and sections regulating hours, pedestrian access, sound application, and planters and fencing. The conditional use approval criteria was added for outdoor dining to make a more clear path for those businesses that want to have outdoor dining. And also, we have some terrain and stormwater management improvements. We worked with Zoe Isacson and her team on making those changes, as well as Dan Gner, our city engineer, to really clearly outline things like adding special flood hazard areas as designated by FEMA to be submitted for minor developments. If an HOA assumes responsibility for a facility that is a drainage pond or some sort of stormwater facility, if the HOA dissolves, then there needs to be a third party designated to continue the maintenance of those facilities. Lots of times the city will find itself in a situation where these facilities are not maintained, and it gets to be a concern as to who does it. So, and then plant material standards have also been updated for 100% affordable housing developments. There are reduced sizes on minimum plantings of trees to help with that bottom line once again for plantings. There's a three-year requirement for irrigation. Right now, we have a one-year requirement for irrigation to get species and plantings established. This doesn't typically work in Santa Fe, especially if there's a drought. So, we do allow for temporary irrigation in the new code, which is not allowed for now. I've gone through a lot of the parking and loading stuff, so I will skip that. Outdoor lighting: We've created definitions for light, trespass, and glare, and we've added methods of measurement. That's not in the code right now. We've also updated the standards to align with New Mexico's Night Sky Protection Act. This is way too small. Sorry. Right. Well, it might be that too. So, it eliminates the allowance for high or low-pressure sodium lamps and mercury vapor and does allow for LEDs now to provide for more energy efficiency and sustainability. Affordable housing: We've gone over quite a bit, but I do want to say on projects that are subject to agreements prior to the 2005 adoption of the Santa Fe Homes program, we have allowed a trigger for them to be able to comply with or take advantage of the increase in density and apply affordable housing incentives. Right now, they don't have to comply with affordable housing criteria whatsoever if there is an agreement prior to 2005. So, it only stands to reason that we need to have this in all areas of our community. Fee-in-lieu projects may not get a density bonus if they don't build the housing on-site. So, they can pay the fee-in-lieu for those units they would have expected to be paying for affordable housing or expected to be affordable, but they won't get a density bonus. So, that is a way to sort of bring balance to that and hopefully incentivizes developers to at least build some of the affordable housing on their site in that scenario. Finally, we're getting there. Nonconformity: So, there is a clarification on the burden of proof for establishing a non-conforming use, and that standard applies to the property owner or to the applicant. The city can't do all the research as to determine whether a use has been there and does not conform. So, we don't have all those things at our fingertips. We've also reduced the period of vacancy of a non-conforming use from 365 days to 180 days, a half a year, just because it is a use that's not conforming, and if it goes away, then conforming uses should come in unless they really do have an active use going on there. So, there's a new violation section related to formalizing another accepted PRA practice that we do. Right now, there's no explicit language in the current code describing what constitutes a violation. It pulls together the language from disparate parts of the code and puts it all into one section. And of course, we've added lots of new definitions in the definition section. So, and you know, just one of my favorite quotes: "We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." And so that concludes staff presentation. Mayor: Thank you so much. I'm going to turn it back over to you, Councilor Garcia. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the thorough presentation. Really appreciate that. This is kind of to go back to when we had the public hearing. This is why it would have been perfect to have this then, that way we didn't have to reiterate it now and then the next committee and then the next committee, because I do see you unfortunately having to do this three times because we'll have folks on those committees. You know, it's a lot of work ahead of us and a lot of work in this proposal, as exhibited by the 43 substantive updates to this. But 43, that's a lot. When originally proposed, Phase 1 was supposed to just be cleanup. Now we've got 43 changes, and I think we're already starting to hear concerns, especially as mentioned earlier from HDRB, how they would like to see maybe those updates not move forward. And I counted 10 of those system of updates that might be impacted by them. So, I think a question for you, because when we get into what I really look at the meat of what we're trying to get done right now, which is, and I'm wholeheartedly in support of, which is updating processes so we can get affordable housing built. A lot of those changes are in what is currently Chapter 26, not Chapter 14. So, are we trying to blend Chapter 26 into Chapter 14 now? Chair: Member Garcia, no, actually a lot of those changes have been incorporated in Chapter 14 but don't conflict with anything in Chapter 26. We are very careful about that. So, it's really more about the program in Santa Fe Housing Program. This is about how it's applied in Chapter 14. Councilor Garcia: Gotcha. But it still applies to a lot of the theory, especially in Chapter 26, when we deal with fee-in-lieu. Chair: Correct. Councilor Garcia: Because I've been trying to change fee-in-lieu for nearly three years now, and unfortunately, this project has stopped my work from moving forward. And what I essentially would like to do is almost get rid of fee-in-lieu, really change how we utilize that process because it's not working in regards to promoting affordable housing development in our community. It's only promoted the developer paying the fee, and we don't get the unit. So, maybe I'll work with you offline to figure out how we can change that in this bill because what I would like to see is that structure right now of a fee being able to be paid out of a developer paying or not developing that required 15% be minimized drastically and the fees be lowered drastically. And I think we can get that done here if we're looking at touching what Chapter 26 is already. I mean, let's get it, in my opinion, let's get it done now for really trying to encourage affordable housing development. That's to me been a biggest prohibitor over the last four to five years is the fee-in-lieu. Chair: Chair Chavez and Councilor Garcia, we did hear that as well, you know, those concerns from the community, and I think there's a lot of, you know, a misunderstanding about the fee-in-lieu and where that money goes and how that works. And with the enhanced affordability incentive program, there is no fee-in-lieu. You can't benefit from those incentives without providing affordable housing. So, we did, you know, kind of not allow a fee-in-lieu for that enhanced incentive program. And then as Director Lamboy mentioned in the presentation, we made like a slight change to the wording of the existing program so that, you know, only when you provide affordable housing on-site, whether that's, you know, obviously the for-sale, but in a multi-family setting, can they take that 15, the existing 15% density bonus. If they don't, you know, provide some affordability housing, they don't get to benefit from that because we heard a lot about that. Well, why do they get to benefit if they're not providing? And so, and we are, you know, really, I think, in Phase 2 prepared to have additional conversations around, you know, this policy issue. Councilor Garcia: Well, and so just to make sure the public is well aware, when it comes to for-sale homes, there's no fee-in-lieu. It has to be developed. And when it comes to rental, the whole intention around fee-in-lieu was to help spur development after the economic crash that happened in the late 2000s, early teens. We're not in that situation anymore. So again, I think now is the time we update this. We should not wait till Phase 2. It took us many years to get here. I don't want to wait many years to update that process. Let's get this done now. I've been trying to get it done for three years. I do not want to wait another three years. So, I think if we're touching Chapter 26, then let's go full at it. And I'll work with you offline to figure out how I can at least propose an amendment to restructure the fee-in-lieu program. It's absolutely needed, and as you mentioned, residents are concerned about it. Now, when we look at some of the changes, the updates here, and I think this is where we need to be crystal clear with the public, and I've had conversations with members of the public around this before this was ultimately brought forward, but now that it's public, the height, an increasing height in residential areas is in particular. One thing that concerns me is that we did not have any neighborhood association representation unless I'm missing it on any of these working groups. None. There was none. There's a lot of developers as representation, but I do not see any neighborhood associations at all. And so when we look at raising the height limitations from 24 to 26, it doesn't sound that extreme from the onset, but when you look at it, the potential now, you now have the potential of developing three-story homes in residential areas. Am I correct? You could, we, you can't really develop three-story homes on 24 feet, but you can develop three-story homes on 26. Chair: Councilor Garcia, I disagree with the current construction standards related to spaces between floors and minimum space in rooms in of themselves and other standards. The 26 feet will not accommodate three stories. It could accommodate a loft, maybe, but in this particular case, and that's not what we're aiming to achieve. And when it comes to the Citizens Advisory Working Group, that was the expressed reason we had that Citizen Advisory Working Group, not just the technical. We involved the Old Santa Fe Association. Chain Breakers was part of that. Maggie probably remembers some of the other groups, but there were a lot of community advocates that were part of that as Citizens Advisory Group. Councilor Garcia: So, I'm looking at the Citizen Advisory Working Group members. We got the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Santa Fe Watershed, a planning commissioner, Friends of Architecture, you've got Homewise, you've got Conservation Trust, you've got Old Santa Fe Associate, as you mentioned, but they're not neighborhood associates. They do not represent neighborhoods. They're their own organization. Earthcare, Senior Housing Policy Advisor, got Mr. Warwrath. Santa Fe Association of Realtors, Green Chamber of Commerce, and Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce. I do not see a single neighborhood association here. And I think that's where there is some frustration that when especially when we're trying to work to promote development and in particular in neighborhoods, we need to ensure neighborhoods are at the table. And I don't see that here. And I think one recommendation is that moving forward, we do that. I mean, we should have in essence with the City of Santa Fe a neighborhood coordinator position. So, I know that the city used to have one and was trying to have one, and it's now become a senior advisor to the mayor position. Somehow that position morphed into a senior advisor position to the mayor, which is quite frustrating. Last question is around the FIR because it says it's not going to have any fiscal impact on the city, but I'm having a tough time understanding that because whether it's at the public hearing or even folks speaking tonight, a lot of the comments were around spurring development and really getting things moving through the land use office. And so as the Land Use Director, I'm going to ask you, Director Lamboy, with the current capacity you have with staff, are you able to accommodate more development? Because one of the things that I've heard time and time and time again from not only staff, but residents, is there's not enough people power to get the work done. And now if we're going to add a new opportunity that would spur development, I would ultimately think we would need more people. I want to help you. I want to make sure that when you have this wave of new development coming, you have an army of workers behind you to get the work done, right? I mean, at the end of the day, that's what you're going to need. And so I find it hard to believe there's zero fiscal impact when we're ultimately working to spur development, which is going to require more people power on your team. So I would rethink that FIR maybe a little bit because at the end of the day, it's going to help you when you justify bringing forward a budget to us that, "Hey, look, in the FIR, we told you we're going to need so many new FTEs," and that way we can include it in the budget. I'm just trying to help as we move forward. So maybe let's figure out how many FTEs you envision may be needed as we see this potential new wave of development coming, because I again, I want you to be set up for success and your team set up for success. I want the homebuilders, the applicants, everybody to say this is working like a smooth machine. So just one thing to reconsider with that. This is a big lift. So I think there's a conversation we can continue offline, but no other questions. Madam Chair, thank you for the thorough presentation tonight. Thank you. If I may add one thing, thanks, members of the committee. So we do consider process as well as people. And so we are working on trying to, Maggie and Tom Graham and I are working on trying to improve getting rid of paper plans and getting electronic plan review processes done. And that's part of our efficiency, but we do need people, and I really appreciate your stating that. And so that's going to be a critical thing. One other thing I absolutely forgot to mention, and I was listening to Katherine Rivera's comments during the initial part of the meeting, the Historic District's Review Board requested that the changes to the design standards not take place in phase one. They actually be delayed to phase two. So they're asking the existing district standards to remain. The rest of the work that's been done, they were very happy with, but they just didn't feel that they felt like that was a step too far at this point. So that request is going to be made of the governing body. We are also, Maggie, she's been an amazing person to really pick up this project from Daniel Alvarado. We'll be producing a supplemental memo. And I invite every counselor to come meet with us one-on-one and with your ideas and all of that. And so in that supplemental memo, we can list the proposed amendments and have that available for the governing body in advance, and so that the governing body can really truly think and consider everything and hopefully make that hearing go more quickly for you because it'll be an intense night, November 19th, God willing. Castry, did you have any comments or questions? I didn't. The presentation was very thorough. Thank you so much. I did have some questions about the subcommittees, and you addressed that beautifully. So thank you. And I actually just have, well, I have, I don't know if it's a question, it's late, we're sorry. Maybe a comment, maybe a question about similar to what Counselor Michael Garcia brought up, was just this is super exciting. This is really wonderful, and I think this is going to be received in a very positive way from community members, but there's the component of just how land use functions, right? And it will only be as good as making those changes within how we operate in land use. And you all, I think, do wonderful with how complicated the job has remained, let me say it that way, right? Like there hasn't been updates to, we haven't been very, very innovative in how we manage our land use department, and you all work very hard in just dealing with that. And I agree that in part of having these changes made, we do have to look at how do we invest in land use, because these changes aren't going to be felt significantly enough unless we put money there so that we have the human resources and we, you know, step into the future a little bit and how we process and work with our community members through what is a very complicated and can be very complicated and become more complicated when we're not efficient in how we do things. And I just want to emphasize the staff we have in there works great, but unfortunately, they're having to work great with what they have. And I don't necessarily agree that we are setting up staff for success there. And I think it's out of the controls of land use and even you, Director, I think it goes beyond. And so, you know, I agree that we, and I'm going to keep mentioning this as this moves, this is only going to be as successful as how much or how little we invest in land use and building that department so that it's just, it functions in a more efficient way, because it's just, I don't think we're setting you up for success necessarily all the time with what, how we've operated. And that conversation needs to be held as we're doing this work. So I, I guess it's just more of a comment. I will say you have been a great advocate in getting to a place where, you know, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about your work from going to paper to electronic, that's a huge, that's a huge thing, but it's also going to be a huge process as well and transition. And so, I think you're advocating in a wonderful way in getting there. But I, I also think it's accurate that there's going to, you're going to need some leadership support and financial support in getting it where it needs to be. Chair Chavis, that's music to my ears. Deputy Director Moore and Graham, they both really bring a lot to the table. So it truly is a team effort. We're super excited with OpenGov. The team that's configuring the program is coming Thursday and Friday, and we're embarking on that right away. And we're able to make true progress involving all the permitting division, the inspections division, and all of those. So, you know, those part of our process is really to improve how we operate. Just because we did it one way doesn't mean it's the right way. And sometimes staff knows that, and it drives them crazy, and can't we change this? So why not now? So that's what we're looking at with our development manual project. And part of that is sort of a lean six sigma style process of re-evaluating how we do things. And so Maggie has, I'm sorry, Director Moore has been really leading the charge on that together with Director Graham. And we are close to getting a contract signed for that so we can embark on that right away in 2026. So, but yeah, it's a lot of work. It really is, and it does require a lot of people, and I really appreciate your thoughts and appreciate you. Yeah. And land use is huge, and I think that how it's represented in a city needs to mirror how important it is outside in our community, right? It really drives all we are and how we build and how we grow and how we evolve. And so we need a department that's set up for success in that same way. And so I just, you know, you have our support in that. I've also, I also appreciate that movement. I know I talked to some people about us switching to electronic, and they're like, "Wait, you're not like," like they're shocked by it. In fact, they're like, "Oh, well that is exciting." So, you know, continuing to make those improvements, and we really do like to celebrate this work truly is to set you up for success so that our community could truly feel the impact of the improvements. And so I think that that's just a conversation we have to continue having. It would be great, you know, with city manager here to be part of it as well and hear his ideas because it really is going to take support of leadership outside because it, in my opinion, is that big. So, it will be something I will continue to mention. I'm sure Counselor Garcia will be mentioning it throughout these conversations. You'll be talking to us a lot. But yes, so great work. You have our support, and I appreciate your time tonight. I know it was late, and you're exhausted, so I will stop talking and thank you for being here. Thank you. That means a lot. Yeah. All right. So, we don't... Approve. Second. We have a motion. We have a second. Can I get a roll call vote, please? Certainly, Madam Chair. Counselor Castro? Yes. Counselor Michael Garcia? Yes. Chair Chavez? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. All right. Next is straight back to you, Director Willer. Matters from staff. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, members of the committee. I'll make it short, but I believe this is going to be my last meeting staffing you as the Public Works Director. The city manager is putting, Sam Burnett will be acting Public Works Director as of November 1st. So he'll be taking this role, and my last day of work is November 21st. So it's been an honor and a pleasure, especially to work with you, Madam Chair, and thank you so much for the opportunity. We typically don't, well, we go to matters from committee. I was, so we typically don't go back and forth, but we're going to go back and forth because I'm sure we all have something to say. I don't know who would like to go for Counselor Castro. Yes. Just thank you, Director Wheeler. It's been a pleasure. You've done some amazing work. Super responsive, very helpful, always on top of everything. It was an honor. Thank you so much. Counselor Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Director Wheeler. I'm sure we'll be connecting all the way till your last day. That's one of the things, you're so responsive. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I don't know what adventure is next, but hopefully it's fun. Hopefully, it's exciting. And make sure to send us a postcard. And matters from Chair, thank you. You have been very responsive. I'm always impressed how quickly you resolve problems because I've called you on a few, and it's like within an hour you have things in motion. And I also have really enjoyed working with you as Chair on Public Works, and appreciate the knowledge you've shared, the example of work ethic. So, thank you for that, and good luck with everything. And with that, our next meeting is Monday, November 3rd, 2025. Thank you to all staff that stayed late. I know this is a later committee meeting than usual. But we appreciate your knowledge and insight and being here with us this evening. And with that, we're adjourned.