Finance Committee Mon, Mar 24, 2025 · Finance Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/739 == Executive Summary == The Finance Committee met to discuss several key financial and development matters for the City of Santa Fe. They approved amendments to a construction contract for water utility repairs and a contract for aerator rentals, both aimed at improving city infrastructure. A significant portion of the meeting was dedicated to the city's transition to a multi-year budgeting system using new Questica software, which is expected to streamline financial tracking and improve planning, and the committee unanimously approved this initiative. The committee also received a comprehensive update on the Midtown property disposition process, including the breakdown of available acreage and the strategy for attracting developers. Discussions focused on ensuring affordable housing, addressing 'missing middle' housing needs, and the transparent RFP process for developers. The schedule for the upcoming FY26 budget hearings was also confirmed. == Key Decisions == - Approved Amendment Number One to Price Agreement Item Number 21-0378 with AAC Construction LLC to increase compensation by $542,187.50 for citywide water utility construction and repair. - Approved a General Services Contract with New Terra Corporation, Inc. for $249,984 for the rental of six aerators for a six-month term. - Approved the implementation of multi-year budgeting using Questica software. - Approved the Midtown development process, including the strategy for developer outreach and the RFP timeline. == Motions & Votes == - Approval of the agenda — Passed (unanimous) - Approval of the consent agenda as amended — Passed (unanimous) - Approval of Amendment Number One to Price Agreement Item Number 21-0378 with AAC Construction LLC — Passed 4-0 - Approval of General Services Contract with New Terra Corporation, Inc. — Passed 4-0 - Approval of the item related to the implementation of multi-year budgeting — Passed (unanimous) - Approval of an unspecified item related to the Midtown development process — Passed (4-0) == Public Comment == No public comment period was noted in the provided summaries. == Topics == - Midtown Redevelopment - Affordable Housing - Staff Recognition/Loss - Wastewater Aerator Rental - Water Utility Construction - Annual Budget Process - Ordinance 2025-7 == Full Transcript == Do we have the ability? Oh, sorry. Do we have the ability to go live? We are live. Awesome. All right. What time is it? Five o'clock on the dot. I will call us to order. And if we could get a roll call. Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Cassid, she's excused until she gets here. She's in the building. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Falner is excused. Councilor Falner is excused. Councilor Lee Garcia, here. Chair Romero. I'm also here. Madam Chair, you have a quorum. All right. From here, we are going to approval of the agenda. Do we have changes to tonight's agenda? No changes from staff, Madam Chair. All right. And if there aren't any changes from the committee, if we could get a motion, please. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the agenda. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? That motion passes. We do have a number of items pulled from consent. And maybe if you just want to give us the letters, Director Oster, that would be great. Certainly, Madam Chair. So the items that we have pulled from consent for this evening are item G, item H, and item K. Okay, we have G, H, and K. Anything else the committee is interested in? And if not, is there a motion? Second. Motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as amended. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? That motion passes. All right. Presentations. We do have a presentation this evening. So I'll turn it over to you, Director Oster. You counselors. So we are going to do staff recognition this evening, but it's going to be a little different than we've done it in the past. Make sure, I know this is a solemn occasion, but make sure that you're speaking into the mic so you can be heard. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Madam Chair. So again, starting for those in the audience that may not be in the room, I'm Emily Oster. I'm the Finance Director, and we are going to recognize a staff member this evening as we have in several previous Finance Committee meetings, but this one is a little different. This is a little, a lot more sad. And so this evening, I am joined by David Harmile, who is the manager of our Fleet Division. And David's group recently experienced the loss of a colleague, our friend and colleague, Bernardet Romero, who was our administrative manager in the Fleet Division in her current, in her most recent role. So this evening, we're going to recognize Bernardet in memoriam, in her honor. So as I mentioned, Bernardet was an administrative manager in our Fleet Division. Armenia is our administrative manager for the kind of part of finance that's here at City Hall, and I know you all work closely with her and you know what a key role administrative manager is. It's really central to our operations. In addition to administrative manager, Bernardet also held a number of other positions and was promoted several times during her tenure with the city. And those other roles included administrative assistant, paralegal, public records custodian, and she worked in our Risk and Safety Compliance Office. So she was a dedicated city employee who had served in a number of different departments for many years, and her loss is really felt deeply throughout the city. She had been battling an illness for some time, and even with that challenge, she was one of those individuals that impacted everyone she interacted with in a positive way. You know, she was a valued team member and a good friend to many city employees, and we're very sad at her loss. We're, you know, doing our best. The Fleet team is doing their best to get through each day, but definitely feeling that loss and missing her a great deal. And we wanted to take this opportunity to extend our deepest condolences and our thoughts to Bernardet's family and friends and express our gratitude for her years of dedication to the City of Santa Fe. You know, it's hard to know what to say during these difficult times, but Bernardet was known for her direct and efficient approach. The Fleet team has told me that those of, those of those folks who worked directly with her really appreciated the warmth and kindness that she expressed to them. She was a reliable colleague who was always ready to lend a hand both personally and professionally. And beyond her work, she created a space where colleagues could share their challenges and talk about their lives both at work and outside of work, and bond over one of her unforgettable desserts, which I did get to experience on one occasion. She was a very good, very good cook. She was really talented. Like David said here, her cooking skills were truly legendary. So that's another thing that we'll miss about, about Bernardet. So at this time, which is one of loss and challenges for her family, we just want to remember her dedication and service to the city and extend our deepest sympathies and best wishes to her family during this time. And they were not able to be here with us this evening, but they did allow us to share that they will be holding a memorial for Bernardet at San Ildefonso Pueblo Church this coming Thursday, March 27th, at 1:00 PM. So with that, I'd like to present a certificate of appreciation in honor of Bernardet Romero to David. And the certificate reads that the following award is given to Bernardet B. Romero in appreciation for performance, dedication, and service to the City of Santa Fe. Thank you so much, David. We are really sorry for. Thank you, David, for coming and accepting on behalf of the family and your, your Fleet family. And please send our best to her family as they process and move forward from a great loss. Thank you. We'll move on to the items taken off of consent. And we will start with the first item, item G, which is a request for approval of Amendment Number One to Price Agreement Item Number 21-0378 with AAC Construction LLC to increase compensation by $542,187. Wait, did I get that? I got that wrong. $542,187.50. Used to dealing with millions around here. For a new total amount of, there we go, $1,626,562.50, including New Mexico gross receipts tax for an on-call citywide water utility construction and repair. And I believe Councilor Lindell, you pulled this item. Thank you, Chair. Thanks for being here. I just, you know, when I looked at this in the packet, there were pages and pages of items that were itemized as per cost. And my, my wonder is, do we ever in these kinds of contracts say take a, I don't know how many items were listed, but it was a lot. It was pages of them, maybe hundreds of items. Do we ever take five, just randomly choose five or 10% of these listed items and make a market comparison as to what this contractor is charging us and what these items are available for on the open market? Okay. Well, I'm, I'm glad to hear that because I don't want us to be one of those places that someone goes through and finds out, like we always hear from defense contracts, that we paid $550 for a hammer. I don't want that to be the case with any of our contracts, that these contractors feel like they have a blank checkbook to just charge a government entity what they want to charge. I, I really hope that it's within what the market price would be. Can you make sure your mic is on? And if I, for tall people, sometimes it's good to put it up on the ledge. Apparently, you can't be heard. You, we can hear you in the chamber just fine, but people who are watching can't. Is that better? Councilor Lindell, all of the bid items were competitively bid almost four years ago when the contract was wet. And so we do have a good idea what each contractor's rate per bid item was in a fairly accurate market base at that time. And yeah, it's, it's not a blank check that we have to assign the bid items with a certain quantity to any contract. This one does deal with emergency response for main breaks. And so those are done a little differently in that they call a contractor out and they repair the damage and then they bill us instead of writing a work order beforehand. Great. Thank you, Chair. Are there other questions? And if not, is there a motion to approve? Motion and second to approve this item. Can we get a roll call, please? Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Cassid, yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Lee Garcia, Mworth, yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you for being here tonight. Okay, we are on to item H. Request for approval of General Services Contract with New Terra Corporation, Inc. in the amount of $249,984 for the rental of six aerators for a six-month term. Joining us via Zoom is Mike Doer, our Wastewater Management Division Director. And I believe Councilor Lee Garcia, you pulled this item. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Director Doder, for being available. And I, you know, I just as I was reading through the item, I don't see, or I didn't see, maybe I missed it, any indication in regards to when we will be, we will have aerators that, that we own fully functioning and not have to go out and rent or, yeah, I guess we're renting. Correct. Chair, Councilor Garcia, yes, we are renting those. They're supplemental added air. So while we're working on the aerators that are ours in the system, we're using these to add additional air in the single basin that we're using because our current air system, it wasn't meant to run just one basin and can't put enough air into it. So these are a six-month extension just to have the aerators running while we're doing the work. And I believe we're about a month and a half to two months out for getting our other basin back online when we'll swap and drain the other basin to repair the aerators in there. So does it, how long, what's our time frame for getting all aerators functioning and working appropriately? We won't have to be renting or leasing this equipment. So the rent and lease of the equipment, Councilor Garcia, is for six months, and we're trying to get the aerators completed before that amount of time. And again, we are using contractors to help us deal with that. Correct. Yes, sir. Okay. And their estimate is they'll have aerators and all our equipment back up and running hopefully within that time frame. That is the will of the wastewater. We're trying to get that completed within the six months and also purchase some added aerators that are installed, not like these temporary ones are sort of on a pontoon, sort of float device. We're looking to purchase some that are mounted in the basin for if we ever have any issues with the aerators, we just turn the other ones on and they'd be like a movable unit that can be moved into the basin or moved around a basin for any reason that we would need added air. Okay. So, and what we are renting now is sufficient to sustain the effluent and obviously we are operating in a compliant area. Yes, sir. Those, those are efficient enough to provide the air needed. Okay. Thank you for being here. I know it's just, we don't like to see these rental, rental of items, you know, indefinitely. Hopefully that we get everything back on track as quickly as possible. And it sounds like you are. So we'll be keeping, keeping tabs on the rest and again, thank you for being here. Any other questions on this item? If not, is there a motion to approve? We have a motion, a second to approve this item. Can we get a roll call? Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Cassid, yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Lee Garcia, yes. Chair Merworth, yes. Motion passes. Great. We have one more item on consent before we get to our discussion agenda. That is item K. This is, let's see, it's straddling two pages. Consideration of Bill Number 2025-7. Adoption of Ordinance Number 2025, yet to be named, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber. A bill regarding annual budgets, including multi-year appropriations, amending Section 11-2.1 to conform with the city's charter, establishing multi-year appropriations for capital outlay, grant-funded projects, and special appropriations, and effective December 31st, 2025, amending Section 11-2.4 to sunset the finance director's budget amendment authority to carry over certain unexpended appropriations into the next fiscal year. And we have our Assistant Finance Director, Alexis Lero, with us tonight. I pulled this item because I thought it would be good to hear a little bit about what's happening here. I think this can be characterized as modernizing and improving the way we function, and this is a good thing. I wanted everyone to hear a little bit more about how this works, why we're doing it, and what it's going to allow us to do. I think it's going to free up some staff time so we can have staff focusing on other more important things. But really, I just wanted to highlight that this is something positive for the city. So, Director, if you could maybe give us a thumbnail sketch of why what I'm saying might be accurate and what this is going to do for us. Thank you for being here tonight. **Madam Chair:** Can you, yeah, and make sure you really eat that mic so people can hear you. So, this is a pretty common practice. It's done at the state; it's done in a lot of other municipalities. Historically, we haven't really had the ability to do multi-year budgeting because Munis will only allow you to do annual budgeting. So, it's part of our efforts in purchasing Questica because we can do the multi-year appropriation in Questica, and the information on an annual basis will be fed into Munis. So, you'll still have the annual, you can see the annualized what it should look like kind of year-to-year and in real time, but it really is about the purchase of Questica and creating a more, I think it's going to provide us with a better tracking and reporting mechanism for these projects. Right now, everything gets dropped into the operating budget, and in some cases, it's very difficult to pull it apart, so to speak. So, at the state, when you have special appropriations, like we do our one-time appropriations, it gets a special code, and then you can just, when you're trying to get what's the status on this, how much have we spent, do we have contracts in place, are we progressing like we thought we should be? It's really hard to do in our current environment in Munis. Purchasing Questica and implementing multi-year budgeting will really help. We've really, you know, right now we put everything in the operating budget, and it also creates a situation where when we're preparing the operating budget, we have to pull these things out because we know they're built in, and it's really non-recurring dollars that are put in the what we call the mid-year budget. And that's what we're looking at to see where the departments are and what makes sense to budget going into the next fiscal year. So, we'll eliminate that step. And then right now, Regina's actually here in the audience. Regina does a really good job of tracking the capital appropriations. But this will provide access to that information to the finance staff and other city staff that, you know, she has it, and she does, and we can ask her for it. But this way, we can just look at the reporting ourselves. **Madam Chair:** Great. I think that's helpful. And according to the memo or the material in the packet, essentially these capital projects or one-time expenditures often take more than one year to accomplish. And so, when they're passed, it'll give a year to, well, I think actually it outlines how many years. I think capital projects, I see three years. And so, instead of having to do paperwork every year to renew that money so that it can be spent in the new fiscal year, we're basically saying, "All right, you've got this much money, you've got this much time." And then with the Questica software, we'll be able to watch to see how that money is moving along, how it's being spent. And to your point, if it looks like it's being spent too fast, we can ask questions about that. Maybe the project's proceeding more quickly, maybe the costs are running amok. Or if it's proceeding too slowly, we would know, we'd be able to ask questions about what was causing the project not to move along at a clip that seemed appropriate. So, we'll have better real-time information to ask the questions that give us better status on this one-time money and these capital projects. Am I following that correctly? **Director:** Correct. And the other thing that it will eliminate, one of the exercises we go through at the beginning of the fiscal year is we do a series of carry forward bars under our current system where it's just annual appropriations, and that takes time on behalf of the department staff as well as the finance staff. And then there are restrictions around that, and does it fit into the restrictions? Is it the project? You know, there are all of these pieces that go with that that it will just be the reporting and not having to do these annual carried forward bars. I think it'll make it a much cleaner process. **Madam Chair:** Yeah. And I think it will help with our operating budget as well since we won't have these projects commingled in there. The operating, maybe you can characterize for us how the operating budget should look. I mean, when we go into building a new budget, we use the operating budget from the previous fiscal year as sort of the baseline from which to work for the next fiscal year. But if it has all this one-time money in it, you've got to pull all that out, which has been a lot of staff time. So, there are some efficiencies there. But maybe characterize for us what the operating budget looks like when it's pure, when it doesn't have these things in it. **Director:** Correct, Madam Chair. The operating budget should really only be what our recurring expenses and revenues are. So, it's things like salaries and benefits or specific contracts, the things we know we're going to do year after year after year. The capital budget, and what we call our one-time budgeting, is non-recurring dollars. So, they by definition should not be included in the operating budget, but because of our current system, they are. And when it gets very convoluted and a little bit tricky for the budget team is what we use as our base budget for the next fiscal year is actually the mid-year budget. Well, if we've done some one-time bars and some capital money has been, those things have been put in that mid-year budget, then we have to pull them out, right? So, we're going to save a lot of time for the budget staff in doing this. **Madam Chair:** Yeah. And I think it's just a good opportunity also to highlight, as this committee has talked about quite a bit, what Questica is going to do for the city in terms of professionalizing and modernizing our financial systems. And this is a great example. And I think the software will do a lot of this work, freeing up the staff so we don't have to have the staff pulling out one-time money out of the operating budget. We also don't have to have the staff preparing the bars to carry over the ability to spend the money one fiscal year after the other when we know a project is going to be a multi-year project. **Director:** Correct, Madam Chair. And by definition again, if you're saying, "I want staff, I want you to do this specific project, and I'm giving you $300,000 for it," you know that, especially the bars we just did a few weeks ago, that money is most likely not going to be expended by the end of the fiscal year. So, we're going to be back doing all of these bars again for these same projects that you just heard a month ago. **Madam Chair:** Right. So, that's a great example, and it doesn't, again, just in terms of using staff well, you know, you all will be able to focus on other things, and we'll be able to better track the status of these things because of the tracking and reporting mechanism that Questica can provide for these kinds of appropriations. **Director:** Correct, Madam Chair. What I'm hoping as part of our process going into the next budget cycle is that part of the budget hearing is we provide a report to the council, the mayor, all the interested parties, that here are all the one-time appropriations that we've done, or this is what the capital budget looked like, and here's where we are at this point in time. And that becomes part of our budget hearing process. **Madam Chair:** Yeah. And then just one last point that I think is an important one, and I think we see this not just at the city and not just in this city, but I think all government, capital money is sometimes the easiest money to come by. We can build things and do it, you know, I mean, they're expensive projects, but then planning out for the program needs and the program expenditures is often the real and ongoing challenge for many of the things that governments do. And so, I think this also helps us better understand the timeframe and the timeline for when that program money will kick in or need to kick in in order to actually use the capital expenditure in a way that is seen and needed. **Director:** Correct, Madam Chair. What my vision for what should happen sometime, let's say in the fall, the budget team takes a look at the capital, and you know how close, you know, the teen center is probably our last big project that we completed. Are we on track? Are we going to finish it for this fiscal year? If so, we need to start planning for the $4 million we're going to need to operate. Right? It really is helpful to plan. It's not, you know, we're guessing, and then we're trying to establish that. Well, maybe it's not on track, maybe it's a year from now, and we don't have to worry about that $4 million, but we know it's on the horizon. It just gives us more real-time information, and it's not us constantly reaching out, "When do you think you're going to get that done?" We can see what the progress that's being made, right? So, it becomes at that point a planning tool to really help us craft our budgets to meet what we know will be the needs. And the flip side of that actually is, and what we're always talking about, deferred maintenance, right? We should be, you know, we know we have all of these things on the deferred maintenance, and we should really be looking at when we can schedule those things and start doing some of those projects. So, it will also help in those activities. **Madam Chair:** Yeah, that's a great point because, and maybe keep up with it in a little bit better way because we'll be able to see sort of when the window is that we really need to start acting, planning, providing the money, the revenue sources in order to do the work in a more timely fashion, I guess. Okay, those, I just, I really wanted to highlight this. I think this is, and I think, Director, you're very responsible through your national or regional affiliation with bringing this forward, and I just think this is a great modernization of the work you all do, and I wanted to talk about it a little bit and certainly allow if the committee has other questions or points, open to that as well. Okay, thank you. Thank you for being here tonight. I do need a motion to pass this item so we can actually use this. **Speaker:** Move to approve. **Speaker:** Second. **Speaker:** We have a motion and a second to approve this item. If we could get a roll call, please. **Speaker:** Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Cassid. **Speaker:** Yes. **Speaker:** Councilor Lee Garcia. **Speaker:** Yes. **Speaker:** Chair Romero. **Speaker:** Yes. **Speaker:** Passes. Thank you. All right. We thank you for being here. Appreciate it. All right. We are on now to our discussion. Let's see, to the discussion agenda. We do have one item here. It's approval of a proposed announcement of the sale or lease of Midtown site parcels pursuant to Resolution 2021-16. We have Daniel Hernandez, the Director of the Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency, with us tonight. And I think you're going to provide us with a presentation. Am I correct in that? And we have an opportunity to ask questions, and then I think you need us to approve this item. Is that the roadmap? **Daniel Hernandez:** Yes. I think that it requires a recommendation for approval to the governing body, and ultimately the governing body votes on it for approval. **Speaker:** Okay. So maybe you could tell us a little bit more about this. Okay. And I can start to... I just don't know how... Oh, you have it. Sorry. Thank you. **Daniel Hernandez:** Yeah, so you can go to the next slide. So yes, so there's a resolution that the governing body passed in 2021 that requires the announcement of any real estate property that's going to go for sale for it to be approved by the governing body. The next slide. Make sure you're really talking into that. Okay. Yes, I see now. So there's two pieces of that that are governing the disposition of property at Midtown. One is a community development plan on page 26. It describes that land will be disposed of either through a Request for Proposal process, and/or we can enter into direct negotiations with developers who give us proposals. And then there's criteria within the redevelopment, the Midtown Community Development Plan, that establishes the base criteria upon which we would evaluate and qualify developers for redevelopment in Midtown. And then on the right is the resolution that was passed in 2021 that describes the requirement of the governing body to approve it prior to actually announcing and/or sending out proposals or RFPs, Requests for Proposals, for redevelopment and for the disposition of property there. Next slide. So as part of the master plan, you see that, you know, we zoned the entire area based on what was allowable in a C2 zoning area and also what was allowable in the Link Overlay Zone. And so in the master plan, it describes the different uses that are allowed on the Midtown site. This was again, as a framework, so it was at the 50,000-foot level. And since then, please, the next slide. We've now created the tracts. We created the tracts specifically to identify the public right-of-ways where streets would be located pursuant also to the Midtown Master Plan, the street sections and the dimensions that provided guidance for the roadways and the infrastructure that would go in those roadways, which then created tracts. So from the master plan that there were historic tracts that basically had been cut up over time that accommodated different phases probably of development on the old campus. So now this is consistent with the Midtown Master Plan that creates the grid of streets and the blocks within them that are up for redevelopment. So this was done just last month. It was recorded. Next slide. So this gives you an idea about the amount of land that was available. So everyone knows that there's approximately 64 acres that comprise the Midtown site. This breaks down a little at a finer grain. Now that we have these tracts, we're actually able to understand what that 64 acres includes. So we now have entered into a disposition development agreement for the film studio area, which is about 11.7 acres. There's an area that's defined in the master plan called community use. This is where existing buildings are located, particularly for community uses: the Visual Arts Center, the Performing Arts Theater, and the Foggalson Library. Also in the master plan are civic uses, and those are the public open spaces. That includes the plaza and the Arroyo Parkway that's along the eastern edge of the site. So that takes us down to the amount of acres that are really up for sale or lease right now, which is about 24.8 acres. It does not include, and also part of the 64, it doesn't include the approximate 8 acres that is state-owned property, which we call Tract O. And it also does not include the approximate 4.5 acres which are the public right-of-way, the streets. So again, going back to the acreage, there's about 24.8 acres that are up for sale or lease. There are of that, there are 22 parcels in all of Midtown. And again, that 24.8 is about, it's not about, it is 8 acres again that are part of this public announcement, and those tracts are listed in the memo that was provided in the package as well. And they're according to that survey that you just saw previously. Maybe I want to... there's two additional slides, but I may want to stop there if there's questions about this acreage and the number of parcels. **Speaker:** Questions from the committee. Councilor Cassid. **Councilor Cassid:** I'm not sure if you have the answer to this, but just with Tract O being brought up, where are we with that? Is something I'd be curious about because I know that's been a big piece of conversation and the connectivity from Midtown to Franklin Miles Park and a lot of those components. So, it's not nothing. **Daniel Hernandez:** No, it's actually a really important site, and as you see, it's 8 acres, and that's a large portion of the Midtown site. We've been in ongoing discussions, and they get deeper and deeper by the week, with the Governor's office. They're interested in redeveloping it for affordable housing and for commercial uses as well. So they're looking at potential office, and we're working with them on identifying developers for both of those. So the idea then being, what we really want is it to be redeveloped. And so whether we develop it and issue RFPs and/or enter into negotiations, or if they do, we're trying to ascertain that right now. But we're in deeper and deeper discussions all the time for the financing and redevelopment for affordable housing and for commercial use. **Councilor Cassid:** Thank you. **Speaker:** Other questions from the committee? Councilor Lindell. **Councilor Lindell:** Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Daniel, for being here. So what's the determination for for sale or lease? How do we decide what's for sale and what's for lease? **Daniel Hernandez:** So when we right now, actually, there's a lot of... We've been doing a lot of outreach already, and we're talking to a lot of developers. We haven't done anything formal until we actually get approval from the governing body. But we'll use the typical or the usual RFP qualifications, the proposal, the purchase price, the qualifications of them, the qualifications meaning capacity and experience of them to actually implement their concept that they would give to us. So we would use those, that concept that they would package, that they would issue to us, and evaluate them before we would even begin further negotiations with them. **Councilor Lindell:** I'm still not clear though. How do we know if the parcel is for sale or if it is just for lease? **Daniel Hernandez:** That so in the community development plan, it says that whatever benefits the city and the project. So we'll entertain both, and it we're agnostic about whether it's purchase or lease that can be implemented and that it benefits the project and the city. **Speaker:** Other questions? I guess my question, so what is, what do you think you'll see in this mixed-use 24 acres? I mean, it's very helpful to see kind of how the pie is divided or the property is divided in some of these other slots, but curious what you'll see in this one. **Daniel Hernandez:** So, well, it's all mixed-use. And even when we talk, we've been speaking with residential developers, they actually want to put commercial in the downstairs area. The community, the master plan has different zones that prioritizes uses, residential, commercial, and then along the main spine, it's more intense commercial with again, residential up above, and then there's some design standards around it. But the developers we're talking to right now are primarily mixed-use developers. So they they are interested in putting commercial downstairs. We do want to concentrate it along the spine, the main spine. So we'll talk to other developers about minimizing maybe neighborhood retail, the kinds of stuff that residents would use frequently. But along that commercial, more commercial corridor, which is the main spine, we'll look at different kinds of tenant uses. **Councilor Lee Garcia:** Thank you, Madam Chair. Just popped in my head just right now, and I I think that, you know, we obviously we we know we went through a resolution at some point that the fee in lieu of was, you know, it didn't pass the governing body to be eliminated on this on the on this Midtown campus. But can you talk a little bit about some of these areas that will be developed, and where are, you know, obviously we're we're targeting a 30% affordability, correct, on the total campus? Yes. And where some of the the areas that would be, obviously we're we're trying to see which developers will develop and actually develop some affordability into some of the whether it's multi-use areas or apartments. You can elaborate on that a little bit for me. **Daniel Hernandez:** Sure. We will prioritize projects that comply with the inclusionary housing program. So that's just going right out the door. And part of the way that we're, the way that we will be entertaining proposals is to negotiate those, particularly housing affordability, and the 15% or 20% requirement is for sale. The inclusionary program as a requirement in their proposals. So we'll be negotiating closely with that, and we'll make it clear upfront, and we have been making it clear upfront about the inclusionary program that we will want to see proposals that include it. **Councilor Lee Garcia:** Thank you. I think one of the concerns I had back when we were discussing this was that a lot of the affordable units would be kind of pushed into one area, not equally, you know, throughout the whole campus. And so can you speak to that a little bit just because, you know, as I'm looking at the site map here, it it almost looks like there is one specific tract that kind of shows a big development, and I I, Councilwoman Cassid, alluded to that is Tract O, large. **Daniel Hernandez:** Yeah. No, Tract O actually, you know, Tract O is 8 acres. A single project affordable housing project will probably take up an acre or less, a little bit more maybe possibly, depending how they lay it out. So there's additional seven acres for other uses. And the governor wants actually to put commercial development on the rest of the property. So we know that it will be limited to certain portion of it will be affordable. The rest of it will be commercial. And on our properties, they're big tracts. As you see, we've identified one tract that faces onto the plaza to the in within the arts and culture area of the of the of the development. It's in front of the library adjacent to the theater. And we've identified that as a potential tract for affordable housing development. We'll be issuing an RFP for that next month. So the other tracts, as you see, are large. We anticipate that we'll enter into negotiations with developers and tell them that as part of it, part of the disposition and the agreement for sale or lease, however we end up doing it, that we will siphon off a parcel and either they develop it for affordable housing or they give it back to, they don't give it back to us. We just don't include it in the disposition, and we save it for an affordable housing development. As you remember, in the community development plan, there were four parcels that we would identify, and we'll scatter them throughout the site. There's never been an objective to just use one big parcel for all affordable housing. That wouldn't be feasible for an affordable housing developer to do, and that's not a desirable thing from our perspective either. Thank you. No further questions. Councillor Cert: Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And thank you, Councillor Garcia, for bringing up the conversation around affordable housing. There was a little bit more to it, though, because we did go ahead after that discussion to discuss what would happen if people were proposing the fee in lieu. One is that they'll have to give us the numbers to show us that it doesn't work, which is beneficial both in how we negotiate this, but also it does give us a lot of information as we continue to look at inclusionary zoning as a whole in the city. But the other piece of this was that if they were going to opt for the fee in lieu, they had to show how else they were going to be contributing to the numerous requests in the community development plan, the numerous goals in the community development plan that would not otherwise be very lucrative for a developer. So we do have a lot here that are going to be things that we need a lot of assistance in getting them built and would not otherwise be very viable if we were just taking a full capitalistic view of Midtown. So I wanted to make sure that we brought those up because I think that's important as we look at the whole picture of what that affordable housing conversation looked like and how we balance that incredible need with the other hopes and goals that have been pinned to Midtown. The other part of that conversation that I have brought up a couple times that I, as we're getting to this place, I want to remind/ask about, is the missing middle housing. So we are able to use our inclusionary zoning policies to get affordable housing or dollars into the affordable housing trust fund. However, the missing middle gets a little bit more complicated. Oh, wow, that's fun. The missing middle gets a little bit more complicated because it's not necessarily something that we can that falls under the state statute that defines what affordable housing is. It's much more than what HUD would define affordable housing as. So that's also part of these conversations in terms of meeting the community development plan. I don't know if you have anything else to say to that. I mostly just want to make sure that that conversation is still at the top of everyone's minds because we know that we need deeply affordable housing, but we also know that there are many, many, many, many individuals here that would not qualify for those and are being pushed out of our city because they can't afford market rate and they are not eligible for the affordable housing. So, I don't know if you have anything to add because I may have just said it all, but if you do, please do. No, it's a good reminder. And so we're creating a package for developers so that when we meet with them, they have a package of what our priorities are, what our requirements are. Many of the requirements in the Midtown MA master plan, but we've condensed them now into a few sheets. And we're still finishing that this week. But one of them will also be the community development priorities and requirements. And the priorities will definitely list this so that that 80 to 120% of area median income, that population of people, we'd love to see proposals that would address that. So that will go in there too. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I appreciate that slide. Thank you, Counselor. You have one more slide. Hold on, Counselor Lindell. Do you want to let Counselor Lindell jump in and then we'll do your last slide? So will this all go out on, is it an RFP? So, actually, that's good for the next slide if you can bring it up. If not, that's okay too. So we have begun putting all, pulling all our marketing materials together. We met with the Office of Economic Development, the Office of Affordable Housing. We're also working with ULI to host as a kickoff in April, if again, the governing body votes to approve moving forward with the sale and disposition of Midtown parcels, to have a developer presentation. So we'll do a tour, very brief presentation, and then a tour for as many developers as possible. We'll also continue to get the word out in these packages. So, we're also working with the Comms Department to update our MRA website, city website, for the documents for developers to access those. And again, they should be finished by the end of this week, and then we'll put them on the website and the link. So, wait, what was your question? Because they're going to be an RFP. Yes. So, the next step would be an RFP. And so we've been meeting with legal about how we create an RFP that is very condensed and so that we actually be a little bit more entrepreneurial and market driven in the way this RFP is structured so that we get some basic proposals. So yes, there will be an RFP. We'll be getting, we'll be getting proposals from developers for the development of these sites. So we'll have an opening time and an end time, and it depends again on whether we get an approval. The opening time we're projecting April 4th, and we're looking at the end of June for a close date. So, again, that's conceptual right now until we have approval from the governing body. So, will the RFP clearly let anyone that's interested know what the criteria of the master plan is? Yeah. Yeah, that those links that I was telling you about and those documents we're pulling together, they'll have access to that. But again, there's summaries of the master plan and there's summaries of community development plan, and we'll say, you know, these are summaries, but we advise you to refer, refer directly to those two plans. So, what if we get a developer, more than one developer or three or four that are all interested in the same piece of property? How do we go about who makes the decision on that? Well, ultimately, the governing body will approve the disposition development agreement. We'll work with those four developers, if it's all for one parcel, to understand a little bit more financing structure, whether there's any negotiation on increasing affordability or community proposals. We'll look at the qualifying criteria, which means their experience and capacity to develop to implement their proposal. We'll the typical ways that we evaluate an RFP process. Then before we even get into an ENA, the exclusive negotiation agreement, we will bring that to the governing body in an executive session to review them and discuss our recommendation for whom we should select for a particular track. So, in that situation, would the governing body just see the recommended proposal or would we see all the proposals? The proposal would be, the proposal would be that you would see all the proposals. Okay. I think that that's a good idea. Yeah. And we've addressed the affordable housing issue. I just think it's really, really important that we've got one shot at this. We need to get the word out and get as many people interested in it as possible. I mean, we've seen other situations where it's like, oh, we got one person that's interested or we got two people that are interested, and neither one of them are very exciting. I'm not talking about this project. Yeah. But I think that it's really important that we have some choices with this and that we don't come back and say, well, only one person's interested. And you know what? Maybe only one person is interested, and they're still the wrong person. I think that that's something that we need to be able to make that assessment and say, yeah, we only got one person interested in this plot of land, but we don't think that this is the right fit or that the right project's coming forward on it. Just because we only have one person doesn't mean that person gets recommended. Yes, I hear that. I think there was a lot of lessons, many lessons I learned from this, you know, the process that we went through with these three initial RFPs that went out the door. But I think you've brought up two of them, and if I may sort of take my understanding of them. Transparency was really important in outreach, trying to get this word out as much as possible. So again, that's why we're working with ULI. We'll work with the real estate association as well, but ULI has broad reach. So, we wanted to do, we're working with the ULI region, their regional office, and their local office is based in Albuquerque, but we're also going to use their national office as well, and Urban Land Institute. They have broad outreach to developers. So, we're excited about working with them. The other one was just making sure that as we receive proposals, that we present all of them to you on an equal basis so that you understand how we evaluated and if we're making a recommendation for moving forward. And also, unlike these other RFPs, we're trying to make this RFP very, very, it's not a mini RFP, but it's an RFP that actually tries to remove a lot of the challenges that we've heard from developers about responding to the standard template RFP that the city uses, but still getting the same criteria and proposal information from them so we can properly evaluate them. Developers will spend anywhere from $50,000 to $75,000 on a proposal on those packages that you saw last time. And for many developers, they're like, we're not going to respond to that. We need something that's a little bit clearer and ones that, you know, we know how to actually put a proposal together because we work with investors and lenders all the time. So those are the kinds of proposals that we want to get, and that's kind of the outreach that we want to do. We want to be much more market driven in the way that we get proposals from developers and present them to you. So this outlines a little bit about that process. So again, once the governing body approves, that's that first arrow. The second one is marketing. We'll continue to market throughout the process, the timeframe for requesting proposals. We'll bring the proposals, the third arrow, if there is a recommendation to the governing body in an executive session for discussion and approval. And then we will start negotiating, like we did last time, to really massage the proposal and develop the terms for a disposition development agreement, which then gets brought back to you for final vote. So that's what we're proposing. Councillor Lindell, did you have anything else on this? Thank you. Not at this moment. Okay. So that was a nice, thank you for the segue into the last slide. That was perfectly timed. Okay. Other questions on this? Councillor Cassid, this is actually just a request. It would be really helpful. That document that shows us where all the tracks are is a little fuzzy. So one, if we could get one that's a bit more clear, clearer, more clear. Not sure. More clearer. That'd be great. But also, maybe it'd be better, more better. There you go. If we could just highlight where those tracks are that we're putting up, that would just be really helpful. I know for me, for just a visual of where things are and how I orient myself on the campus. Okay, we'll do that. Yep. Yeah, thank you for that. All right. Other questions on this item? Anything else? Director, thank you for your time this evening, though. All right. Thank you for being here. Do we have a motion? Move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve this item. And we need a roll call. Councilor C? Yes. Councilor Lindell? Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia? Yes. Chair Romero? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Okay. That we are on now to matters from staff. Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have one update for the committee in regards to our dates for budget hearings. I did send these out by email, but also wanted to share these in the committee meeting tonight. So, our planned schedule for FY26 budget hearings has us starting on Thursday, April 24th at 11:00 a.m. here in City Hall in the Council Chambers, continuing Friday, April 25th, and then all of the following week, Monday, April 28th through Friday, May 2nd. And generally the start time is going to be 10:00 a.m. The end time on most days is proposed to be no later than 4:00 p.m. A couple of days, for example, the Wednesday, April 30th, which is a governing body meeting day, we're proposing to end by 2:00 p.m. to allow a little bit of time in between meetings. And then we have two proposed overflow days scheduled the following week on May 5th and 6th. We're hoping we won't need those, but we want to have them as an option just in case. And then we would like to have the FY26 budget presented to the governing body at the regular governing body meeting on May 14th at 5:00 p.m. If we are able to do that, we will be on track to submit the budget on time to the state by June 1st. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's everything from me for tonight. Thank you. Matters from the committee. Councilor Cassid, I'm not seeing the budget hearing dates in my inbox. Can you— When were they sent? Friday. Friday afternoon, I want to say. Oh, found them. Never mind. My bad. That was all. Okay. All right. Our next meeting is Monday, April 7th. And with that, we're adjourned. Thank you all.