um
[Music]
so
[Music]
good afternoon mayor you are live okay
good afternoon everybody welcome to the
joint meeting of the las cruces planning
and zoning commission and the las cruces
city council
today is tuesday april 13th 2021 it's
approximately 303
pm before we get started if you would
please rise for the
pledge of allegiance
pledge allegiance to the flag the united
states
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation
under god indivisible with liberty and
justice for all
god blessed america
and so i'm going to turn it over to uh
our
director of community development mr
larry nichols is going to kind of start
off everything so
larry you want to do that and also for
our city council
and planning zoning members i'm going to
ask that
the presentation in its entirety and
then we'll have questions
okay all right larry
thank you mayor for the record larry
nicholas community development director
and i want to recognize and thank the
city council
and the members of the planning and
zoning commission for
attending this meeting today uh the
meeting is going to be
a kind of an update and a report on the
progress
that has been made on the east loma
development plan
and in particular what has been uh noted
in your
agenda as the preferred plan and meaning
that
this is the one that the consultant has
taken in
and developed into what we believe will
meet
folks desires and expectations
the city staff in attendance this
afternoon will be
myself tim pitts dave ware
catherine harrison rodgers
and um and mark miller
we have our consultant with us at site
southwest
and i'll ask them to introduce
themselves and
begin their presentation and with that i
yield the floor to
side southwest thank you
good afternoon larry good afternoon
mayor and city council
and all of the planning and zoning
commissioners that are here
we're really happy to have you here uh
we've been working hard
on excuse me sir i'm sorry can you just
state your name again
i'm sorry uh mayor uh my name is george
radnovich and i am a principal with
sites southwest
we also have with us and i'll let
everybody introduce themselves
starting with danny good afternoon
everyone
my name is danny wilson i'm a planner
with sight southwest
and i apologize if there's a bit of an
echo on my end
i'm sorry that was sandy uh danielle
wilson
oh danny wilson okay
welcome next hi everyone my name is
mario nino whalen
and i'm on the landscape architecture
team here at south southwest
okay thank you hi i'm jay narina i'm on
the sites of this team i'm at the firm
called civic plan
studio we are planners urban designers
working with site southwest on this team
i'm michael houston i'm an architect and
urban planner with civic plan studio
also
and part of the site southwest team
i'm sorry michael your last name again
was houston but it's spelled h-u-s-t-o-n
not like the city okay
thanks everyone and thank you uh mayor
and city council
and planning and zoning commissioners
we're really excited to show you
where the plans come uh we're gonna kind
of whip through
uh very fairly quickly the background
since oh got it
sorry about that through the background
uh slides and
really get to the meat of the matter
which is uh
the preferred scenario plan and again
this is in draft form
so for those of you who are seeing this
in the public
uh as well as city council and and uh
plenty of zoning commissioners and the
mayor
it is a draft you'll see that it's
sketchy and we wanted to keep it that
way purposely at this point so that
we could still hear comments on it i
know it's the first time you're seeing
the plan
since you saw the three scenarios the
last time we met
and we really want to get your input on
the plan
so the goal and danny if you could
go to the next slide
the goal of today's presentation is
really to present you with this
preferred plan
and to hear from all of you the
the what we're going to do on the on the
entire presentation today is
is briefly go through the project
context and the
process summary that we have made for
you
we're going to review the community
engagement community engagement
that we've had to date and go through
some of those preferences that the
community of las cruces
had on the project thus far then we're
going to show you the preferred plan
and then we'll have next steps and
discussion from that
so the first thing we're going to do is
just provide a little context for anyone
who
hasn't seen the plan as of now and and
uh
we'll go through this briefly as i
mentioned
so this slide shows the context
of the community that will make up this
east loman
development plan area it's very close to
a lot of amenities in las cruces
including
the las cruces dam which is walking
distance and that open space behind it
the las cruces airfield and air park
as well as the composting center and all
of the other amenities that the city
provides
in that open space to the east of the
project area
and it's also walking distance and very
close to the new
east mesa public recreation complex
which will be
actually going to bid in the next week
um
very close also to uh the communities to
the south
and the north in terms of neighborhoods
and it's kind of surrounded by uh
by the city on the west the north and
the south
next slide
this plan wasn't developed in a vacuum
we did review at great length
elevate las cruces which you all
approved last year
and the plan area was shown on the
elevate las cruces plan you'll see it
right where it says project area
on the right-hand side of this slide
what we took from
elevate las cruces and in and included
in our planning
was a mix of of residential uses from
uh the very uh the very densely
populated to the least densely populated
residential neighborhoods um
we also took that we are going to be
going to be providing a buffer
from existing communities in our land
planning
and that along with the mix of
residential uses will also provide a
mixed use
uh in the entire area for
not just residential uses but uh other
land uses such as retail commercial
and health related
improvements next slide
we also looked at the lowman avenue plan
which was developed in the year 2000
i know it's old but it still has quite a
bit of relevance and
we've highlighted our plan area in
orange
or that kind of uh ochre color on the
right-hand side
what the loman plan did do is establish
this
area as a gateway district it also
established design guidelines and they
were for
architecture they were also about the
landscape
and visual interest and then the massing
of building
buildings within the area and we've
taken that to heart
as well and that it create a real live
work and shop environment
with a mix of land uses and we've also
taken
that to heart as well in our planning
this slide looks a little bit like the
first one the differences are
that it's really relative to
transportation and so what we're showing
in this slide
is existing transportation and approved
transportation corridors and proposed
transportation corridors
and the corridors are both for active
transportation
like bicycling hiking and walking
but also vehicular transport
and even bus transport and you can see
by the little blue dot
that's at the far west end of our
development area
that is the transfer center uh for the
uh
uh busing that will uh the public busing
that will
arrive at the site and we'll show you a
little bit more about that
uh in a in a little while um
another thing we took from the active
transportation planning that the city
has already done is that 50 57
of the people appreciate bike lanes and
want bike lanes
on east lowman so we took that to heart
as well in our planning efforts
this plan shows in a little more detail
and
in a zoomed in kind of
view the area that we've mostly been
planning
what it's showing is opportunities for
the area based on the land itself
and what we know about it so those red
areas those red polygons
are showing steeply steeply sloped sites
so
those are those kind of hills and and
the slope going up to the top of those
hills
around the site both on the south near
the little dam arroyo
and on the north near loman the other
thing it's showing is that we will
provide a buffer
and that's shown in that kind of kind of
uh earth color
to the south along the edge of the
arroyo
and it also acknowledges that the little
dam arroyo is there as well as the south
las cruces arroyo it also shows that
foothills drive is already
planned into the site however we'll show
you how we're suggesting it be modified
and it shows you where those views are
towards the organ mountains which are so
supreme
and it didn't get to this slide but the
views towards the roblox are also
a really important part of the site the
orange line
shows the existing alignment of
foothills drive so
you can see we're not proposing to
change it very much in our planning
and then that lighter lime green color
right in the middle of the site is
showing that kind of
hilltop area along the top of the hill
uh where the village center uh will be
for our our land uses and the suggested
land uses
that we'll have for the for the area
so this is kind of a combination slide
and what it's showing
is some of what the team
on the retail and market analysis side
developed
and some of what we took as our kind of
goal or our vision for the area and you
can see it's divided
into three pieces those pieces were
developed based on that market study
and the market study told us that twenty
percent of that site should be devoted
to retail office and or hospitality
like hospitals excuse me like hotels
um so that twenty percent primarily
and in a very general way is is towards
the
lowman side of the project another thing
it told us
is that 80 of the sites should be
residential
and so what we've developed are two
types of residential
for the most part but they're divided
into four sale
pieces and then for rent pieces and
what we decided on with your help is
that about 50 percent of the site will
be devoted to the missing middle
a little bit higher density we're not
talking about four and five stories but
we're talking about a higher density
than
typical residential and we've got some
ideas for that
and then about 30 of that 80 percent
that's left would be detached
residential
more similar to uh uh the
subdivision to the south and those
neighborhoods to the north
so those units are shown at the at the
left hand side
of this slide and those were all based
on the uh
the market study that rc elko provided
for us
so now i'm going to turn it over to
danny and she is going to describe
the community engagement that we've had
so far on the project
danny thank you george appreciate that
um
so in addition to conducting these
analyses
excuse me danny i know he's he
introduced you but can you just state
your name you just need to just say your
name you don't have to say who you're
with but just your name by all means
i'm danny wilson uh and it is really a
joy to be here this afternoon presenting
this plan
um and really excited to build on what
we've already engaged
which i'll summarize just briefly here
so we wanted to make sure that the east
loman plan is a plan that is
for and by the community and that their
goals
their needs are really embedded into the
outcome that you'll see
today so to summarize some of those
pieces of engagement that we've engaged
in so far
back in august we had several
stakeholder meetings with key folks from
the area including businesses and
realtors
developers economic development
representatives and neighbors
this culminated after we conducted the
existing conditions analysis with a work
session which was held
with city council in november building
on this
it segued nicely into a community
charrette that we held
in december over the course of three
days and then finalized in
a shared plan on the fourth day shared
three plans on the fourth day in january
um and also happening concurrently
during this time
we launched our project website planning
schloman.com
where we would share regular updates
with the public about plan development
ways that folks could engage and then
finally
as we begin to move further along in the
process we'll share updated plans as
well
um in addition to this we we had a
vision survey that was open through the
month of december and into january
uh over 370 people responded to that
survey
and you'll see a quick summary of the
results from that survey here in the
next few slides
so starting quickly some of the feedback
that we heard during that community
charette again this was a pretty
intensive four-day period where we
quickly took the ideas of the community
iterated onto them
and developed three design scenarios
which you'll see shortly
so these were the three ideas which may
be familiar to some of you who
participated in those days
the first scenario really centered on
this idea of population health so
creating a plan
that revolved around a healthy village
concept
providing lots of services to folks for
that enabled healthy living
and movement through the space it's
building on again those adjacencies to
the mountain view regional medical
center there
the second idea was more of a
traditional neighborhood
so this one was really structured in a
way that promoted a lot of missing
middle
housing there was a central green a
promenade that really
acted as a spine for the plan itself so
that people could gather
and use that shared space and then the
third scenario
was the conservation neighborhood which
was really
focusing on how to preserve and maintain
the natural habitat and drainage flows
within the site so you'll see
it's rather small but this arroyo and
then also these drainage
sections that sort of finger up into the
site in a way that allows us to maintain
those
even around the existing development
so this slide here in addition to the
three scenarios we introduced nine
ideas for different design concepts that
we could incorporate to any one of those
plans
and these ideas you'll see listed here
very lightly looking at again that focus
on health
this pedestrian village concept so
enabling
uh the housing and and uh commercial
features to be mixed in a way that
people could easily walk and bike
throughout this space without having to
access their car
similarly the micro mobility loop is
another method that we thought might
help to
move people throughout the space without
having to access their vehicle
jumping down to the promenade again
that's that idea of creating a green
shared space
that allows us to also preserve those
really nice linear views
of the organ mountains off to the east
this terraced entry was an idea where we
were beginning to
address that steep slope where the site
meets east loman avenue
in a way that allows us to both preserve
that and not
just cut right into the the side of that
slope and also create a really nice
usable space out of it
um the missing middle housing i won't go
into too much detail because we're going
to talk about that a bit more later but
again it's that idea of incorporating
this housing that's sort of somewhere
between an apartment complex and
single-family residential
the habitat preservation is again that
maintenance of the arroyos and drainages
and the environment that is so lovely in
that
natural desert landscape and then the
detached residential is more
single-family housing more traditional
that we see there
and then the neighborhood center is this
idea where you're bringing people
together
in around a commercial development that
perhaps
takes the parking and relegates it to a
different area so you're pulling the
buildings up to the street and creating
uh really lovely shared spaces and
community spaces that can be used there
by pedestrians and not
just emphasizing the needs of the
vehicle within that space
and these preferences were ranked
actually during the community meeting so
the five was the highest preference
score where i love this idea this is
this was the idea and the one indicated
that people were not too crazy about the
idea
and you can see that all of these ideas
ranked over that neutral position where
people were in favor of them
um but then a few rows to the top
including
this preservation of the uh the arroyos
and the habitat
looking at the neighborhood center the
missy middle housing and then also the
pedestrian village
and then finally we wanted to see if
this i this site was a good idea for a
few other
ideas that we had um again that mixed
income housing ranked high for
folks middle missy middle and mixed
income housing
and people really wanted to make use of
that natural topography again
and then we asked for an overall ranking
of those scenario ideas and we saw that
that population health was really the
winner here
followed very closely by the
conservation neighborhood
and then very briefly i'm just going to
summarize a few highlights from those
vision survey results
which was open for just over a month and
we received uh
370 responses there from community
members
and so this is just a quick summary of a
few of the
uh open-ended suggestions that we had
from
folks and it really reinforces some of
these ideas that we've already talked
about where
we're thinking about drainage we're
thinking about traffic um we're creating
meaningful
places for people to gather and hang out
safely
we're focusing on that missy middle
housing and you'll see that show up here
in the next few slides
so when thinking about safety in
particular
people are really in favor of having
buffered bike lanes and sidewalks
separated from the streets especially
along east lowman
and when asking about pedestrian
facilities what makes the most sense to
allow for that safe crossing people are
in favor of the lighted crosswalk with
the refuge
to ensure a safe crossing
and then when just thinking about the
appropriate scale of development
especially as we're getting closer to
the lowman corridor
um folks are in favor of a mix of
stories so one to four stories but
making sure it's sort of stepped back
um to really be sensitive to the street
front
and then also adjacent development
and then finally when it comes to
different types of development and
amenities that folks want to see
restaurants with outdoor dining was the
overwhelming
favored response here
and so finally this brings me to uh the
vision that we've arrived at for the
east loman area
and it's really to do a few things here
a few goals um
one is to build on those existing
medical uses making
uh use of these adjacencies with our
neighbors and the hospital developments
to the north
the second is to provide that mix of
housing types and really make sure that
it accommodates a range of
a range of um incomes and then also a
range of ages so different life stages
will be able to
find a place within east sloman we're
integrating with the existing terrain
and creating
natural trails along those um and then
finally of course
we're building in a way that is healthy
and sustainable
to overall create this mixed-use
neighborhood center that serves both the
area of resident needs and also those
regional visitor needs
and with that i'll hand it over to mike
to talk a little bit more about that
preferred plan
thanks danny
great thank you danny once again i'm
michael houston
and uh next slide please
so this is our our current plan and and
again this is kind of a work in progress
in fact we hadn't planned on kind of
having this intermediate uh meeting at
this point but
folks at the city wisely thought that it
was good for you guys to see this
plan even though it's in progress and to
give us some comments before we
get too far so the plan shows uh the
streets in
in white and then we've color coded some
of the general uses
and i want to point out that because
you've got a very well connected street
uh grid and open space grid the the uses
can kind of be a little bit
flexible and they can move from kind of
one zone to the other so
even though we've color coded the plan
it's not necessarily set in stone
next slide please and then these are the
ways that we've incorporated elements of
the
the vision statement that danny just
read so you know connecting to the
existing medical uses so we've clustered
those purple areas our medical related
uses
kind of clustered those as close as
possible to the existing
hospital next
we've really focused on housing options
the missing middle and some detached
residential
thinking that the higher density housing
could maybe go
kind of on top of the ridge or the mesa
if you will
and then we would transition to smaller
scale as we move towards the
neighborhood to the south
next and then incorporating the natural
environment so
utilizing the arroyo and kind of
extending it up into the plan was very
important
and you'll see that we've drawn in
sketched in some trail networks
that could be used so you could actually
be on a bike in the arroyo and
and bike ride or walk right into the
neighborhood and connect through the
neighborhood
next and then creating this uh
neighborhood center and we think uh
paseo de oniate has a lot of potential
to be kind of a really nice neighborhood
gathering place
that could serve the neighborhoods of
the south but really to to all the
neighborhoods around the area
next and this is just an annotated plan
so i'll i'll
go through it really quickly starting
from the west
so you can see down on the on the far
west end we've extended road runner
and thought that that was the good
location for the
the transit uh center uh the transfer
center and we used
utilized uh one of your existing
facilities to determine the size of that
so that's what we've shown there and
also you could put the building kind of
on the end and as you come down road
runner you would have a nice civic
building there
at the end of the axis you'll see the
we have three potential hotel sites uh
we don't know if we're gonna have one or
two hotels
uh but we thought that the hotels needed
to be around
uh lowman clustered around loman and
onyonte where they'd have more
visibility
uh moving up uh to the east and north
you'll see
again the the medical uses there
and we've we also had in some of the
other plans this
idea of a terrorist gateway which we
think is really important instead of
cutting into the hillside if you
remember we're proposing to do a nice
landscape entrance drive that would
actually go up to the top of the hill
and you would have most of the
development kind of sitting up there
kind of looking down on lowen which i
think would be really nice
another element that we've incorporated
is is what we've labeled an urban block
so we don't think there's enough you
know retail to do
blocks and blocks of kind of mixed use
and sense of development
but we're thinking if we could get one
really nice uh urban block that maybe
has some sandwich places and
restaurants maybe on the ground floor
and something else above
that would be really nice and it kind of
hooks into the green space
and then to focus on the the central
green space so
this was an element that kind of
transformed from the promenade scheme
if you remember the promenade scheme had
a very long linear green
that was uh oriented towards the
mountains so in this version we thought
in terms of implementation it might be
better to kind of condense that
into a small park or a square
but it still has you see it kind of
flares out towards
the east so we're looking at the views
of the mountains so when you come into
that green space you'd actually have a
nice
view of the mountains there
next slide please
and then uh up in the upper left are are
some of the programmatic elements that
the marketing study
identified so starting with the health
services 20 to 40 000 square feet of
health services
i think actually we've shown a little
bit more than that on our plan but again
those uses can kind of fluctuate
because of the block structure that
we've set up um
120 to 240 key hotels so that's either
one or two hotels
some mixed use uh or some mixed
commercial
so we really kind of concentrated the
commercial
down on onyate and and the corner of
onyate and
and loman but also there's a potential
there's the large site up at the
northeast corner they could also have
some of this commercial activity
again the transit center is there the
missing middle housing
and the detached housing are in the
orange and yellow
and of course plenty of open space to
kind of tie it all together
next and then if you remember the
the nine big ideas so we had three big
ideas per plan
and since everybody liked all of those
ideas
we were tasked with kind of combining
those nine into this plan so i think
we've done a pretty good job of taking
those ideas that people liked and
finding a place for them
in this new plan so everything from the
neighborhood center
to the terrorist entry to the focus on
health the missing middle
all of those elements i think we can
incorporate into this
final version and i believe that's where
i hand off
yes thank you thank you
thanks mike um my name is mario nuno
whalen
and i'll be talking about plane identity
a little bit and what we want to do in
this section
is highlight some of the layers to the
plan and some of the ideas that we think
are really unique
to this to this development could be
very unique to this planning area um and
if move forward really provide
an identity for the east london area and
just to remind
uh reiterate a lot of these were came
from those big ideas
that we presented to the public and then
really worked
um moved forward with the ones that
worked well with the site
so we'll go through some of the oh yeah
let's just jump into it
so this shows um what some an example of
what that
missing middle housing could look like
and especially in the area that mike
identified as the
pedestrian village or the the village
neighborhood
so you can see this could be composed of
smaller units either one or two story
clustered around these pedestrian
passages um
with uh and this is showing four
different four different housing types
on
just a 30 by 40 foot footprint
and so just on that small footprint you
could
these could be you could get everything
from a 900 foot
cottage all the way to 2000 square foot
home
so using a very small small
development space a lot of options with
the missing middle housing
next slide please and then this showing
some views of what that pedestrian
village might look like
and you can see the the various housing
types clustered together
um and in this this one like what we're
showing at the north of the site
the field would be if we kept cars to
the sides or maybe cars at the
rears of the buildings that allows for
these ample open spaces
you can see the sort of small private
open spaces in front of each building
and then these large gathering areas
that are
well shaded and provide a lot of
community space
next slide please and then here's a
just a few examples of other
developments
that have uh that show a variety of
housing options
um so one we have the sivano community
in tucson
and in sivano they they really built in
or leaned into this idea
of being a desert community um
prioritizing open space and trails
sustainable architecture and at the same
time they integrated mixed use with some
commercial areas and civic areas there's
like
there's a such as a school in the
community
and then there's the montessio
development
in el paso another live work
play community that successfully
integrated mixed use
and they have options like condos
townhouses
apartments and then they have various
options some for rent and some for
purchase
cul-de-sac is one that's currently in
progress
in tempe just outside phoenix and
they've really leaned into this idea
of a car free community so there it's um
they've kept all of sort of the streets
and parking on the exterior of the
community
and then created these completely
pedestrian
walking communities and live work areas
within the interior
and then the last one here holidays in
boulder and
the plan graphic here at the top shows
what holiday looks like
and as you can see with holiday what
they've done really well is
really tried to provide a mix of housing
types for various income levels so
on the graphic here you can see the red
is the commercial
yellow is mixed use the blue is attached
residential housing and then the lighter
green areas are the single family or
more traditional single family so
they've really mixed it
mixed it together and built these around
these sort of shared open spaces
next please
and then uh the last or one of the other
layers we
wanted to talk about that we think is um
a strong asset to the east lowman area
is this idea of connectivity so
to show the active transportation plan
again here um
you can see the east loman slated for uh
separated bike lanes and
um improvements there's already quite a
few trails in the area
and then there's our plans plans for
expanding those that trail network so
improved trails along the south las
cruces arroyo
um in the las cruces dam and then
there's already
a multi-use path going up the north end
of sonoma ranch
so we wanted to really get a sense of
where the connectivity exists currently
and then bring that into the
the planning area so you can see on the
next slide
so zooming in this shows sort of an
overlay of the street network
and the active transportation network
that we're envisioning for the east
loman area
so along east slomon you'd have the
separated bike lanes
and then coming along paseo de onate
which goes down to the canyon point
community
proposed bike lanes along there and then
that central corridor
that runs right through the sites also
having bike lanes and then really
providing an extensive network of
multi-use trails and this can be
a range of options so very naturalistic
bike path type trails along the uh
arroyo to the south
and then using the existing arroyos as
open space providing trail networks that
really connect both
the community to the south and residents
and users within the sloman area
to the central and commercial corridors
next please and this section shows
what that might look like so this is a
section of east loma but this is
applicable to
some of the um many of the shared
streets in the planning areas you can
see
really trying to integrate the
topography of the site and capture storm
water where possible so green medians
in between lanes and then using the
sides of the streets for bio swales
with landscape improvements providing as
much shade as possible and then creating
these safe buffered bike lanes and
walking areas
from the outskirts next slide please
and then as we talked about in the uh um
big ideas scenario this is
big ideas that were presented in the
three different options um
we wanted to show what that micro
mobility loop might look like overlaid
on the preferred plan and um
this this sort of builds on the a
growing trend of
folks having a kind of a growing
appetite for transit
and alternative transportation options
and
maybe less attachment to personal cars
and
needing to drive everywhere so thinking
about autonomous vehicles and small
shuttles within the site
as well as these scooters shared bikes
e-bikes
and so this could this shows where
how that might work on the site so we'd
have stops at the transit center
these commercial shopping areas
commercial corridors hotel medical
center
and then bringing it over into the more
residential
components of the site next slide please
and the idea with this is the micro
mobility loops these can expand sort of
as development expands within the site
so
as things move northward or as the as
the plane grows
extending that loop to include walmart
and the medical offices
north and east of the existing medical
center and then future shopping areas
along sonoma ranch
and then lastly just wanted to highlight
the layer of
open space areas in the plan and i think
we going through the different draft
scenarios
and getting feedback from folks and how
a lot of people really liked
having density on the one hand but loved
what the
the conservation um the conservation
plan
did in terms of building around the
existing drainages and the uh
preserving the the
healthy landscapes we tried to
cluster housing the the detached housing
around these arroyos and build these
communities so that they
responded to that and allow trail
networks to go in there
so you can see the largest royal down to
the south and then various green spaces
using the smaller drainages that come
down from foothills drive
the sort of central gathering park the
central park of
the mixed use area and then folks really
responded to the
terraced entry and so using that as a
as a mix of green spaces this could be
pocket parks this could be small little
gathering areas that maybe the
medical center staff and visitors could
use and then the last one being the
existing drainage basin
building upon the existing drainage
basin that runs along roadrunner
and taking that a step further into a
shared green space
and i will hand it over to jay thank you
thanks mario uh again my name is jay
narayana
i'm going to be presenting uh the zoning
framework again uh we have this great
vision for this
development on east sloman a lot of the
property is owned by the city so the
city does have some control but
the idea is that we don't want this
vision to just
remain on the shelf we want to make sure
that it can be implemented
through a zoning framework um that's
based on
uh you know leveraging the market
potential allowing some flexibility but
really balancing
the need for some predictability of of
development
because as uh as the city sells or
disposes of property you want to make
sure that everyone is playing from the
same
uh uh blueprint and there is
value that's added for everyone building
on
an overall vision so next slide
so a lot of what you have around here
is is very familiar it's what's on the
left where you have buildings that are
set back and parking is in front
of the building and along the roadways
so and the vision we want to achieve
is really what's on the right where the
buildings are closer to the street and
you have parking behind
so how do we get from what's on the left
to the right
so it's really about reframing how we
look look at zoning
and looking at the form of development
that's implemented
next slide so on the left you have
single use buildings that are set back
uh parking along the roadways it's it's
mainly auto oriented so if you think
about east loman right now it's fairly
auto oriented if you're
on the street uh walking on lowman most
people
maybe think that your car broke down
somewhere
and you really have no business walking
on the roadway uh but we want to make it
uh more easy to
to walk and attract multiple modes as
you talked about
this great investment of the
multimobility loop
and and also the trails and
and the city has a big investment on
this property and
and the need for realizing the potential
for a lot of users
and making sure that that's implemented
um
next slide so the idea of of
zoning uh we're looking at it more on
off of
a form based code a type zoning
framework
that establishes different character
areas or different
uh zones that have different forms the
whole east loman district is
uh is one district but not uh it's not a
one size fits all
zoning tool you do have different
nuances of different use types and
different intensities of development
uh based on where you are the
neighborhood center may take a different
feel um the the neighborhood that's
the detached housing may look different
and feel different
we want to make sure that there is some
street connectivity that's thought
of that as development happens you
actually end up with a connected street
network and
in pedestrian network there is a lot of
detail in our vision so we want to make
sure a lot of that
is translated through the zoning
tool next slide
um so you remember this is the preferred
scenario if you think about
how we would go about creating the the
zoning framework for this uh scenario
the next
sign um the so one area would be the
civic
uh that we are treating it a little bit
differently because it is a unique
um use that's a bus transfer station
which is
uh which is a public use we know that
there are some special needs in terms of
circulation
for the buses connectivity that's needed
uh
with the the light there at road runner
so uh next time
uh then the lowman gateway the reason we
are identifying this as a different
character area is because we want to
make sure that the intensity of the
development maybe this is where we
have the highest intensity of
development maybe it's five story
because it is kind of lower down on the
hill
uh we want uh this intersection to kind
of create
almost uh an interesting uh um um
um kind of landmark
uh for east sloman uh so people know
that you're in a special
area um so you'd want a mix of all kinds
of uses including the hotel commercial
health related mixed use and residential
next so this would be
the kind of development that we're
envisioning so when you translate the
zoning tool we would want to
make sure that the design standards
would implement
some version of this it won't exactly be
like this but we want to make sure that
the elements here are reflected next
and the health campus we know this is
going to be fairly unique
it may be one developer who comes
forward it may be
it may include senior living some
commercial office
doctors offices other health related
uses that we we don't
uh really have a crystal ball to
envision right now next line
uh again it could include some institute
institutional uses but also residential
uh these are some images of what that
kind of development could look like
next uh and the neighborhood itself uh
that's the mixed uh missing middle
neighborhood we talked about
the um the examples of tempeh arizona
and and uh with cul-de-sac or savannah
or or montesail we want to make sure
those precedence and the design
standards for that
are translated into zoning it may be
height standards for three story on top
of the mesa there
on the highest point of the site
um and then maybe some smaller scale
commercial development when mike
described the whole
idea of having restaurants and more of
an urban block
closer to the health campus that not
maybe a location where
you focus some ground floor commercial
uses in your zoning
next this could be
the image of what that the village
neighborhood could look like
it's a mix of missing metal and
commercial uses
next and the last would be the detached
residential neighborhood
the idea for this is to match the scale
of the residential neighborhood which is
single family but
allowing a little more gentle density it
could be one to four units
duplexes triplexes but still keeping
with the scale of the neighborhood maybe
it's a two-story maximum
having maybe some larger lots some
smaller lots maybe accessory dwelling
units and really having
a mix but that's more um compatible with
the neighborhood to the south next
so this would be the image of what the
standards would implement
next uh with that i'll hand it over to
mike to
talk about the next steps
thank you
that's me okay next
michael houston again here so i think we
have just
two slides but um what we did is
uh when you're talking about
implementation it helps
to break out the plan into its two basic
components
so in urban planning we always think of
the civic realm or the public realm
which includes the streets and open
spaces
and infrastructure and then the private
realm which is the development that
happens within the private
property boundaries so to help with the
implementation we've got one slide that
kind of highlights the different
components of the civic realm
and we've numbered those there so
really the next step needs to be or we
recommend
is that you think about doing some very
preliminary engineering and study of
these different
infrastructure components uh probably
the most important would be the east
loman corridor
uh where you look at the separated bike
lanes that have been
identified in the earlier plans and the
feasibility of this kind of terrorist
entryway and you don't want to obviously
go
directly into full blown engineering you
just need to do enough to get a handle
on
the feasibility and the cost and and you
know knowing the
cost getting an estimate on that is like
a big step in
in getting it implemented and then
another component would be uh paseo oreo
we've we've indicated a need for bike
lanes and sidewalks as part of the
redevelopment there
if we get some neighborhood commercial
along there
foothill drives is kind of a different
animal
you could go ahead and do some very
preliminary engineering and design on
that
portion now or you could kind of put
that off
and let's say one developer comes along
to do this
whole neighborhood area that could come
later as part of that private
development so it's kind of in the in
the middle zone
and that would be the same with the
arroyo i think
you could do some preliminary
engineering now or you could kind of put
that off until the residential
component of the development happens um
so so again loman and onyate are kind of
the two
key elements that we think needs more
study in the short term rather than the
long term
next
and then within the private realm this
kind of goes back to
what uh jay had just talked about um so
it's putting in place
a zoning code or a plan development
some sort of performance criteria so
that as you
either sell off portions or you lease
portions of the site
there's some guidelines there on not
only the way the buildings
might look and what materials they would
have but
picking up on the street connectivity
and the trail connectivity
because most times in conventional
development you have a developer come in
and they just look at their own site
and they really don't connect to their
neighbors so that would be a big
component of the code would
be requiring these again performance
criteria
so that one development has to connect
to another um and i didn't point it out
earlier but
uh when we were looking at the preferred
plan but you see little lines there
especially in the
in the purple areas and so there are
just kind of notional ideas of how
lots could start being partitioned off
and
and uh you know in the let's say two
acre
segments or one acre segments you might
have a variety of sizes
but we want to start thinking about
designing
uh streets and so that they're based on
on real criteria of what a developer or
building developer might be looking for
and is there another slide or is that
there's there's one more
and i was going to take that one mike
and this is the last slide everyone uh
we just wanted to give you a quick
rundown of of next steps excuse me i
take it that's george speaking
i'm sorry george radnovich again sorry
mayor
and uh george rodney site southwest
so we're almost done with the planning
uh
we'll be finalizing the draft plan in
the next month or so
uh in may and june we'll be presenting
the final plan
uh to city council planning and zoning
and obviously to the public for last
comments
and then we'll present the plan in final
form for adoption
in june july time frame um
the the plan that we have right now is a
final draft
and uh we'll be we'll be working on
the sections that we presented to you
today
over the next month and as we receive
feedback from you
both today and in the in the near future
so with that we'll leave it up for
discussion
uh and uh comments questions and
anything you might have for us okay
thanks george um before we go to council
on pnz can you go back a couple slides i
just want to clarify a couple things
please
uh one more there you go right there oh
no can you go back again
there you go okay so on number four
um the north side of lowman
i think you have it designated as blm
property
so immediately to the
left i guess when you're looking at it
immediately
west of that you know that used to be a
landfill
also were you aware of that
we were okay so you feel that
that item four could still be
you i mean because that that now that
side i have to admit
versus the other side where what we call
what the city cleaned up
now that site is is really really really
bad
um there's a lot of stuff there that's
why we didn't
i don't think we cleaned it you know
it's just it was just a lot and so but
you feel that that's still buildable
though
it would have to be mitigated the
landfill would have to be mitigated in
order to do that mayor
but yes it could be and the other side
is as you know a lot more buildable and
one of the past
plans i believe it was the east loman
plan designated that number four on the
north
as uh and i think they that you knew
this when you designated it that way
as a community garden and a
uh desert landscape garden
so it could be that the reason we
saw a hotel on that site if uh
if the market uh required it was because
this hotel wherever it ends up would be
close to the
to the medical center and be there for
people that might
be there visiting loved ones and of
course right right
and then the second thing is and i don't
know if
larry or david can chime in on this but
i seem to recall
oh gosh at least 15 years or ago
that there was a limitation on the
number of stories
i think it was 36 feet or three stories
now that may be just
applying to residential like an
apartment complex but i thought it
applied to
both residential commercial because you
you all would put three or four stories
and so
um probably to keep that commitment to
to the residents because
we may want to just stay with three but
again that's
council can always change it but it was
implemented
back in 2000 and
2003 2004 around that area
and it was to protect obviously the
beautiful view of the of the organs and
so
the council at that time thought that
okay three stories was the maximum
in fact there's a there's a green
building on road runner parkway that's
probably no more than three stories and
i often wonder if that was the reason
why they did it that's you know three
stories
okay that's all i wanted to say now i'm
going to open up to
members of the council and commission so
it looks like we have councillor stork
and then counselor
basis foodie thank you mayor
uh counselor stewie can go first if she
would like
okay counselor thank you councillor beta
stubby
thank you uh and thank you um to
site southwest and civic plan um
everybody for the
great presentation um a couple of
questions uh related mostly towards
uh pedestrian and transportation
and transportation
one of the items that you were looking
at
was that of the bike lanes the
walkability
and i know that we have had a resolution
for complete streets um and
larry this might for you too does our
coding now
reflect those changes um
which would go into the stuff that we
have here or would we still need to be
working on that type of coding
and uh mayor and council uh
major stevie larry nichols
you know that we are at this time we are
going through a
zoning update uh with our consultant
and it's uh interesting to know that we
have the sea sloman plan developing as
well as that review
coming forward and i think
the number of those items are going to
be addressed concurrently
we're chime in on this because uh he's
been working with
both of those both of these plans but
dave what say thank you larry
mayor and city councilors the the coding
does not have specific requirements
for complete streets that's a policy but
what's unique about
this particular property or a couple of
points one it is owned by the city
so as development goes forward you can
um
put requirements on how you'd like to
see it and two it's in uh
it's currently zoned plan unit
development without
basically a holding zone or open space
so
as you go forward and entitle what we
call entitle this property
you could incorporate those standards
and have
requirements as called out in the plan
for pedestrian
bicycle transit microtransit
elements uh in your actual zoning or
development standards for this property
and that was david ware speaking
thank you no problem
thank you i appreciate that um i also
wanted to know i like the idea of making
sure
if we do have any community centers
those types of gathering spaces open
if there's ability to have that middle
the missing middle or if we're able to
do any sort of affordable housing
to have those kind of connected together
so that um
individuals are able to walk uh easily
to those areas um especially if we're
gonna have
senior sites too um
and the only last thing that i wanted to
bring up
and i just recall it from a different
meeting we had
um the existing community right um to
the south
i remember that there was some concerns
about traffic flow
um in areas i believe and so
um i i really appreciate having some of
the other
neighborhoods for their place because i
think that would have a higher traffic
and so it seems to separate things out a
bit more so i do
um really like seeing that and that's
all from me mayor thanks
thank you okay counselor sword rial
thank you mr mayor
and thank you to southwest uh for
the presentation and and um it looks
like you've done a very good job
um i think we can make this uh 20th
21st century city 23
21st century planning which is something
i'm looking
forward to having all these aspects such
as storm water capture
uh missing middle housing affordable
housing
in fact we should have a target of 20
of all the housing in this development
being affordable housing
um habitat presentation presentat
preservation rather uh the act of
transportation
including tod orientated development
um form based code i'm so glad to see
that here too
um i was looking for the connection
uh for the existing neighborhoods the
ones to the south
uh for bike and and foot traffic and
and i see there's some nice connections
you have put in there
um but also if i hope we can kind of
squeeze in uh other neighborhoods to the
north
and to the um west or southwest
of this development get a connection
there somehow to get
to this development um
a couple of things that came to my mind
that i wasn't mentioned
in fact more than a couple um
we talked about in the in the uh um
public uh input uh uh
that we held possibly having a
pedestrian bridge to go across
loman to the hospital and
and the medical offices there um a
pedestrian
bridge i should say did i say that
bridge i meant to say
where um people wouldn't have to fight
traffic to get across
especially in cases where people might
be in in
wheelchairs or or or so forth um
and then when you show the slide that
had
those on the hill uh showed those
steps that were kind of uh
contoured up the side of a hill brought
to mind
a street in san francisco san francisco
called lombardi street i would think
it'd be
awfully cool if we could put a lombardi
street in there on that hill
um we could have it our own las cruces
lombardi street
and um but there is
there is one more unique opportunity
in this development that it would be
like no
other development uh at least not in las
cruces maybe in
a lot of places across the southwestern
nation
we could have this be a net zero
community for all the buildings that are
built there
that's a net zero uh energy community
um and so just to give you an idea what
i'm talking about here
uh a net zero home for example is a home
that creates all the energy it uses
in short it means there is no electric
bill the net zero home means that when
you take
the amount of energy a home creates then
subtract the amount of energy
the home uses it equals zero um
and we could make this whole community a
net zero community
where we would not be putting any
greenhouse gases
into the air in this community um
because we want houses that are all
wired for
total electric use we want them to have
uh wired for uh solar
pv uh installed on the top of the
buildings or anywhere else that
it can be and we want
all the uh buildings to have outlets for
electric vehicles um and so i think this
is what one thing that would be
quite unique and i would encourage this
the the council and the staff and and
the mayor here to
uh support a net zero community um
one last thing uh you have on the map
there
uh a street called foothills drive
um don't we already have a foothills
drive in this city
question for our staff yes we do
okay staff that that was council that
was counselor florida's
right oh no that voice just sounds like
me it's not really
mayor i i'm kind of curious in how
the name foothills drive got put in
there mayor and city council this is
david weir again
that's a remnant the old foothills drive
used to go through this property out to
the
another landfill site and so all the
maps still as the ride away from
foothills but
that has that right of way has been
redirected and it actually
passes heads north of lowman and comes
out on roadrunner parkway so
as we we'll correct that as um the the
plan is updated and finalized
okay okay i assumed you would i just had
to bring it out so we
all know getting back to the net zero
uh buildings you can make net zero
buildings even on affordable housing
uh when i was visiting uh austin texas
for a national league of cities
convention we were taken to a net zero
development uh not a development but a
small
i guess there was three or four units
that had
i think two they were like duplexes and
they were all net zero and they're all
affordable housing
and uh so it can be done and so
therefore i'm
encouraging our council to support a
uh net zero community okay mayor
if that's all for right now maybe more
later
okay thank you counselor ben cuomo thank
you mayor and thanks everyone
um it was great to see the presentation
again they were at our housing prc
um either last month or the month before
zoom time is weird i'm not sure um but i
did just have a couple questions
i'm curious in terms of the conversation
we just
had yesterday um
at our work session with the water
impact fees and that changing and the
split being 50 50.
that obviously will impact this
development right
um is there any room
potential um waivers
particularly for the affordable housing
um development that could go here that
um
you know could be an incentive for
developers to to want to
you know build more of those affordable
housing units more of those missing
middle units
you know counselor let me just kind of
chime in on this one so
one of the things that kind of been
exploring
is if we were to enter into a public
private partnership with a developer
and then and obviously
one of the things the developer does is
they have to put in the infrastructure
you know the sewer system the water
system
all the different lines and then after
and then after they get it all done
um they give it to the city but they
first pay for it up front
so there's we what we may want to look
at
is we put in that infrastructure the
city
that's our contribution in return for
them to provide so much affordable
housing
because that's that much less money that
they're gonna have to put in
and so that may be a way to to to do
this and then they have to provide so
much affordable housing because we've
we've put in the infrastructure and then
um i can't tell you how many times i get
from the the deans of the university or
professors of
engineering school that they want to use
their engineers to help do
real life examples and so we might be
able to use them
as well um in in conjunction with our
engineers there at the city to help
install this so they can get real life
experience and so we may be able to keep
the cost down
on that as well does that yeah yeah
great ideas mayor i think for i mean i
think this project can be very
visionary and it can be very
collaborative in terms of
like really getting it done in the way
that we hope it gets done and so i think
those are great ideas i don't know if
um i heard someone
before i started speaking
is there another question yeah and then
my last question
is um i don't know if natalie is on or
even
our pio but i think it's really
important
that we start thinking now in terms of
um just like messaging strategies i
think that there's a lot of
misinformation i think that there's a
lot of misunderstanding
about affordable housing and those kinds
of projects from
uh a big part of our community i'm
afraid that particularly in this area
that might come up and and folks you
know pushing against
this kind of development here and so i
think it's important that we start
thinking about
messaging strategies that um you know
really
lift up the need for this that really
lifts up how thoughtful this process
is and and why you know why affordable
um housing developments are necessary
and so i've been talking to natalie
and not having prc about this for a
while but i i just
want to make sure and i don't know if
southwest consultants if you all
provide any of those kinds of things um
i just
think it's an important piece to
consider for the future
no uh telstra can you bring up a good
point and i think maybe
it will change the name of it from
necessarily affordable housing to just
make mixed uh income housing uh and and
i want to use the example of um
of southwest airlines and those free
tickets you know a long time ago i used
to get
some free tickets and and then you know
there are people who
when you go on on the flight there's
going to be some that pay full price
there's going to be some who got great
discounts and some are for free
you know because they they have these
coupons but the plane is a brand new
plane
and that basically when if i circle back
to what i was saying about that
public-private partnership
these are beautiful uh structures some
will pay the
regular price and some are going to pay
a very discounted price because that
developer
is that's the agreement that they'll get
to take with the city if we provide this
type of infrastructure
i mean you're talking hundreds of
thousands of dollars that they won't
have to pay
and in return the bottom line they're
going to be looking at the bottom line
you know you know when they build out a
project they want a bottom line but if
we
if we provide this then their bottom
line goes up and then how it comes down
so it comes back to where they first
started is
that's how they provide certain housing
at certain income levels
but you're not going to know because you
know the outside's going to be great i
mean everything's going to be good
and it's just going to be certain people
are going to get it a little bit cheaper
and then that's it and i think that's
really the way to go
you know as a kid growing up here there
was a place where
near lynn middle school that you knew
that was
that was an area and that's what we want
to get away from
you know you just want to be able to go
to an area that you don't know
who who lives there and how much they
pay for rent or you know
i think that's what you're getting at
and and mayor and council we did
consider uh mixed affordability in in
the housing and we've heard that
repeatedly
from the public uh and from council and
planning and zoning
and uh that that is part of the planning
effort that we've gone through and it
also is included in the market study
they
identified it as an important need as
well
when rcl code did the market study for
us so
we we do have it planned in uh as
uh as mixed use housing as the mayor
said so i just wanted to assure you of
that
thank you and so that was that was
george talking about i'm sorry
yes george ratner thanks mayor thank you
no it's okay and and um yes i think
these
so this is really great i think my point
is more in terms of
how are we communicating and messaging
this to the community so that it's
um so that we're getting rid of some of
those you know old school tropes and
myths about
what affordable housing is i think
that's a really good point counselor
thank you i think we have some
uh airline props at our movie studio
uh maybe you guys can do a movie and you
won't know
who pays what and that's how you kind of
translate it
uh before i get to um
commissioner thomas we have larry
nichols has a
as his hand up
we don't have a studio anymore
okay thank you mayor larry nichols for
the record larry nichols
uh and captain como i i would like to
answer a couple of your
uh comments uh there and you know we
have been
really heavily engaged in talking about
affordable housing particularly
the last couple of years and one of the
challenges that i presented to site
southwest when we first
initiated this project was
give us a give us a master plan
that offers a point of difference
let's not repeat everything that maybe
has been done
before because it didn't really address
the uh
instead of affordable housing i think
the mayor had a very good point
when he used the term uh mixed income
housing
because that's really what we need to
head towards
uh yes uh natalie green with the
affordable housing component
that she has in the uh now economic
development
department but has in the you know the
funding availability that that's one
thing
uh mentioned earlier is there some way
we could wave
i have to be perfectly candid with you
we
don't have a lot of ability to wave fees
but we can't find ways of of deferring
them
or or finding a different alternative
means of methods of addressing them
and so i think that's where we could
really spend our effort but uh
the idea of having a uh
development like this that has a point
of difference and
maybe the point of difference is what
councilor sorg mentioned
maybe we have a means of uh
our mixed income housing
in reduction in utility bills
you know it's not only uh affordable uh
housing or
uh multiple uh levels of income housing
the initial cost it's the operation
costs as well
so maybe we concentrate on that but
i think there's uh this plan this master
plan
is visionary you know uh when the mayor
first brought this uh
parson land to uh to us and said let's
do something with this uh
i got calls from all kinds of developers
and
and real estate agents and and folks
saying this is a very
attractive parcel of land for a
development
let's do it right but also let's make it
unique
the idea of mixing housing types
and uh availability of
of income housing types i think that's
our point of difference with this i
i think we really have an opportunity
there and uh i know that the
consultant is striving for that the
community development department is
striving for that
i think i think we have an opportunity
here
thank you very much thanks larry
councillor
bin como was that it yeah before i get
to commissioner thomas i just want to
take a quick moment to
and i know they're not listening but uh
former albuquerque mayor
r.j berry and um i call him the dean of
the developers uh
eddie bins it wasn't for the fact that
eddie didn't was willing to sell us some
land for the veterans park
and mayor r.g berry was able to do a
little swap and then he threw this land
in here
which we essentially paid like half a
million dollars for
um and and i have to tell you that land
went in 1999 for ten dollars a square
foot there's 110 acres
that puts us at over 50 million dollars
in value
for you know for a fraction of that so
just wanted to send those
those two gentlemen thanks so
commissioner sharon thomas you have a
question
yes um thank you mayor this is sharon
thomas for the record
um so i'm also concerned about the
affordable housing
i don't know if you can go back to that
slide but it looks on the
graphics like the missing middle is over
on one part and the single family is
someplace else
and um can we not have
uh missing some missing middle
integrated with the single
family i mean i've seen that in other
places
um and i don't see anything
actually about affordable housing i i
think
um what um councillor sorg said
you know a percentage that gets
integrated across the area i mean i
really like
as the mayor's talking about to see the
missing middle and the
affordable to be spread out across
the the whole development so that you
can't
as he said say oh that part over there
is where
those people live um i'm i'm not really
seeing that
am i missing something here or
i might be able to answer that this is
michael houston uh
again um so a couple of things one
uh as jay mentioned even in that yellow
area
we're proposing that multiple units be
permitted within a single lot
but we are suggesting that the scale of
those buildings still
look more like a detached structure of
maybe two stories maximum but it could
still be a duplex uh
triplex it's still basically a missing
middle
typology but we're um
showing that the scale of it is going to
be more compatible with the neighborhood
to the
to the south so and even though there's
a difference between the yellow area
and the the orange those things could be
in the
in a more detailed plan a more nuanced
difference so there's going to be more
interplay between the two as to
how you implement that i think that
would come in when you get into the
zoning aspect if you do a form based
code or
or a plan development and you establish
those performance criteria
that could be one of the components of
the performance
criteria that you have right now we're
focusing more on the
open space and the street network and
these transitions
but that's kind of an element of the
of the performance criteria and in the
best case scenario you would have a mix
you'd have market rate next to
uh affordable housing and you would
really wouldn't know the difference that
was the whole idea of the
the pedestrian neighborhood and another
thing i was going to mention about the
pedestrian neighborhood since we were
looking at that slide that had the four
housing types
is that uh you know that's a concept
that we kind of invented
for this project and we've taken it
inspiration from other projects
but we haven't done this exact idea but
we do think that this
concept could be tried out maybe in
other elements
in other locations in the city so if you
have land that's
deer downtown or or within the city
limits
that you want to do a pilot project and
and try out this
housing type uh you know might be a good
way to start
before you commit to doing a larger area
hope
i just wanted to add that uh i think
you're right
we haven't shown on any of this lives
i'm sorry this is george radnovich at
site southwest
thank you mayor that'll be the last time
you have to
prompt me i'm going to start finding you
a dollar
it's happened before um
commissioner thomas i think you're right
we haven't
posted on any of our drawings uh for the
presentation however we
have included it in the report um
a mixed income or an affordable housing
component and i think
i think we really need to add that to
the
uh to the presentation uh and to the
drawings to make sure that it's covered
so thank you for pointing that out yeah
i think that's what i would ask if going
forward if
if you could be a little more specific
about some of those ideas because
i that's what i hear people saying they
they want to see this mixed and not be
able to tell
what's the affordable and what's that
and you know i'm a fan of the holiday
development in boulder because my
sister-in-law's
sister lives there so i'm familiar with
that development
and you really really cannot tell even
though 30
of it is affordable housing you can't
pick it out
and i hope we can do that in this also i
didn't hear anything about
um
high-speed internet now that's all going
to be available here right
we we didn't get to that level of detail
in in the plan at this point
but high-speed internet would be uh
would be available i believe
uh we'll have to check that with uh uh
with our city partners uh and um
we can we can definitely include that in
the plan as well it's part of
all planning at this point that would be
great um you know we just have more even
though
we might be working our way out of this
dilemma with covet
you know we have more and more people
working remotely
and they're going to probably continue
to do so a lot of them so
we want to make sure that we're
providing that possibility
so thank you those are my questions and
thank you for your answers
yeah commissioner just a couple things
if i remember
correctly there is high-speed internet
because as you recall the hospitals
across the street
and they needed that for their you know
to be able to download
the things that they do for medical
x-rays and such
and then the second thing is um and i
and i
i would think that some of our
people on the on the on the team on site
southwest is
familiar with the sawmill district there
in albuquerque and it's possible that we
may be able to incorporate
on some of that land uh some of the same
principles
so that it it so that they can actually
own their own home there
at a relatively lower rate and then but
then also prevent them from selling it
at some huge
profit so that they just they get a
modest profit if they need to sell it
and then they
give it to someone you know they're able
to sell to someone else so we might be
able to incorporate something like that
but i think overall the the whole plan
it looks great
but um and then of course that's what
we're doing here today
is just kind of giving our input uh back
and forth
okay so we've got commissioner vasquez
and then um i'm excuse me counselor
vasquez and then commissioner gordon's
councilor thank you so much
thank you mayor um thank you to my
colleagues for their thoughtful
comments and questions as well as yours
mayor and
i'm excited to see uh how fast a
conceptual design and project can come
together
when there's some real motivation to do
so right i think
for me this has been one of the shortest
planning and design faces of this type
of development
since i've been here in the city and
rightfully so um you know it's a great
place to develop and
you know mayor i agree with you on the
uh on the public private partnership
opportunities
i think we want to maximize the amount
of drt that we can get out of this
property considering
um the investment that we that we just
really hit the lottery on
uh much credit to you as well for for
that foresight to get this
this piece of land here um so i think
you know taking off of
perhaps on a much smaller scale what
we've done
with the amador what we were thinking
about doing with the dona ana county
um courthouse uh you know this might be
on a much larger scale
but um you know i think we should
definitely pursue that option as much as
we can
and and we retain uh you know a lot of
the control obviously of what happens
there if we do that so
i want to say i support that um
in terms of in terms of the affordable
housing piece of things here
um i yeah i mean i say
i would say that you know the majority
of our population in las cruces fits
into the category of
uh being someone who needs affordable
housing and so
i just want us to remind ourselves of
that you know in terms of
our perhaps our per capita household
income
oftentimes the folks that are the most
vocal against affordable housing
projects
um they may be the most vocal but they
they are in the minority
and so we want to make sure that i think
we are serving the majority of our
residents
um as much as we can in these types of
developments and giving folks
access um to to in an affordable way
have livable walkable bikeable healthy
communities
is is going to make us stand out from
from other communities
you know i've seen a little bit of the
metro verde neighborhood
certainly sonoma ranch and how that's
been built out in its different phases
and some of those amenities that those
folks have out there are terrific
the walking paths the gyms the big parks
um you know that concept that we saw uh
i think out in metro verde for that
almost like a mini downtown that their
the developer wants to build out there
are terrific um and so i want to make
sure those same amenities and that same
quality of life is available to folks of
different incomes and so i think
this would be a project that would allow
us to do that so i fully support the
affordable housing component of this
um we've done it before you know i think
if you look at
um if you look at like south
tel shore from you know from really from
university
um up to lowman
and and if you look at the west side of
tel shore
uh you have a mix of i mean you have
yeah 700 800 000
houses with you know 600
uh dollar co a month condos on the same
street
uh on many of those streets and folks
coexist happily and folks
are respectful of each other and it's a
beautiful vibrant neighborhood
um part of my district is in there um
right there to the to the um uh i'm
sorry to the east of missouri
uh sorry i said west but really both
sides but on the east side of
loman and so it is possible it is
possible
and i think we can do it here as well
and we should do it
and so uh fully support that um
and then lastly uh yeah i think this is
a thoughtful process inside southwest
i think has done a great job for us as
as they have in the past on other city
contracts
of both engaging our community and
engaging
public and soliciting public input in a
way that i think is meaningful
that is easy to digest and that gives me
confidence in moving forward with this
project
lastly to guilt to counselor stork's
comment
uh i i would say yes let's promote as
much
of sustainable energy production and
net zero uh uses we can especially if we
do
um you know retain uh land ownership
status
uh in this process but certainly through
the zoning process as well
uh but i'd say also let's not let that
be the the enemy
uh let's not let the perfect be the
enemy of the good right because i think
um we want to make sure those those
those homes for people are at an
affordable rate
that we're able to actually attract
folks so so maybe there's a good happy
medium
in terms of led certification and other
types of requirements that we may
include
that may be less restrictive than
entirely a net zero community but also
get us to where we want to be so thank
you mayor those are my
my comments thank you uh counselor
uh commissioner gordon commissioner
gordon that sounds like from batman
commissioner this is this is harvey
gordon that's what they said the first
night that i
sat on the plane as owning commission
the chairman said maybe we should send
up the bat signal
and it's just been with me ever since i
guess um
i i just like to repeat once i've said
this before i just think another good
point
commissioner did i have you state your
name i'm sorry yes i did i said harvey
gordon oh okay sorry about it
i'm thinking about batman
oh you're muted
okay i had repeated this once before
about another access road i still like
the idea of having an access road
onto lowman if you look at the word on
this
uh display that we have here the word
east lawman
and just a little bit to the right of it
you'll see that there have been two
developments
of some real real business property that
have been put on
on the south side of lowman and in
between these two
are a piece of property that's been
abandoned now for
oh many many years you can just see some
steel girders that are there
it might be a good idea it's somebody to
think about
perhaps buying that piece of property
and bringing an access road down from
the south side where the white is onto
onto loma just down the hill it just
will give you another access
onto loma without having to summon it go
all the way around
if you could draw a line you put a
circle there just bring that up to that
little green spot
and you can see what i'm talking about
right there bring a line down there
that's that's one thought i've had and
it's just something that i would like to
see
and perhaps maybe in the future if it's
a good idea or could be done
and the other thing as far as affordable
housing i think the one word that people
have avoided saying today is stigma
and i don't like to use that word but a
lot of people think of it in that terms
but i will let that rest
but my question is if you look at the
this whole parcel that we're talking
about here this whole
roman plan if you look at the big there
are two
large parcels of land to the
uh to the west and to the north
one to the west southwest of of lorman
which would border alongside boulevard
you see the big piece of property i'm
talking about that's
it there are drawn in here some roadways
is that just for
a concept or is that is that the way it
has to be
that's number one number two on the
other side of the street
on the corner of roman and sonoma ranch
boulevard there's another large piece of
property
and i understand at one time there was
some interest there in putting up
a assisted living facility but i think
that idea has fallen through
but i like these two pieces of property
that would be thought of as
an anchor to a like to a mall
i think what could happen here i think
all that property is privately owned if
somebody comes in
and wants to develop that how they
develop that they drive
what everybody else is thinking about
doing on this east roman project
i don't know if there is any interest
there now but eventually i'm sure there
will be
that piece of property that very large
piece could very well go to somebody
like trader joe's
possibly even a costco on the other side
and maybe a little smaller i don't know
what they do there but
to me that's going to be a very very
important thing to happen to this
project what's going to go there
and i don't know if there has been
anything said or
what it actually means with those lines
drawn for roads
but you can see there's an access road
coming out of the project
that will hook onto one of those uh so i
don't know
exactly what it is so it's just a
thought of mine i'd like maybe somebody
could tell me
if this is just a concept or this has to
be what it's going to be when that land
is developed
this is george radnovich with scythe
southwest mayor
uh commissioner um commissioner gordon
um
we didn't do uh um
the charge for our for our work was
really to develop plans
for that primarily city-owned portion of
the property
and not so much the privately owned
areas that's why we haven't touched in
great detail
that area we do have some concepts that
we developed early on
in the project that we could take a
little bit further
for that area as you know it is
privately owned
uh and it's the only privately owned uh
strip
between sonoma ranch and loman and south
to uh canyon point
so um uh we just we just didn't have
that in our
in our scope and and hadn't uh hadn't
done much with that area
but we did want to show how it could uh
it could uh integrate into the planning
that we were doing
on the site that we did have charged for
well there's harvey gordon again i
understand what you're saying but it's
just
well i'm looking at this and just
everything goes through my mind as what
eventually could be there
i think what you've developed is a
wonderful plan i think i
i like the work you've done i want to
thank you very much for what you've done
but uh just a couple of thoughts
especially that i'm really concerned
about that access road i would like to
see that down there
it would make it a lot easier for people
to get out of the middle of that
old big parcel you get down to lowman
very good comments and uh and this is
george radnovich again and
and thank you commissioner
thank you uh let's see who's next is
um counselor flores
uh thank you mayor and thank you uh
danny
mike george mario and jay it's nice to
see you again i met all of you
i think it was in december yes december
and that was a very
successful meeting and we had a pretty
good out
turnout it was right i think right well
it was right between
thanksgiving and christmas it was during
the holidays
um it was close to christmas i believe
um but at any rate i want to thank you
once again and and george it's always
delightful to see the work that you do
outside southwest i first met you i
think it was last summer
late spring when you presented uh the
plan for
the park at the airport excuses airport
so
again thank you for your fantastic work
and i want to say that
um jay um for all of
for everyone who's concerned about the
housing issue
uh jay if i recall correctly in her
presentation last december
made it very clear that uh there would
be
different kinds of housing and
that it wouldn't be something that would
be a glaring difference
in so far as the plan the design
goes and of course it would be our job
to make sure that we get a builder
that has the design and excuse me the
architectural features uh if you will
i'm not an architect
um that would definitely uh
integrate all sorts of uh housing and i
i like to think
in terms of attainable housing and i
think
that uh whether it's rented or or
purchased
and so i'm very happy mr mayor that you
mentioned that perhaps it would be
a mixed what did you say mixed income
and um
and or somebody's puppy is happier than
mine
it's probably sharon's little dog um at
any rate
um i just want to thank you and also
um wanted to uh i wanted to bring
something up and
now i totally totally um
yeah i just wanted to mention that jay
did bring up
um the possibilities of of uh
our really you know the ball is going to
be in our
you know the ball will be um in our you
know on
on in our court
we'll be able to determine um how we
want those designs
and um and then of course natalie green
i hope will be working closely
all along to assure that um these
this housing is definitely falls within
the parameters of hud
uh for quote affordable unquote housing
and then um have other designs or
uh housing units that are
really viable and attainable for for
those who would like to live there oh i
know my question
uh might or um
well any of you but i think i think
george always opens up so i think i
should address my question to george
um so have you were you involved in the
um designs and and that you showed us
um in colorado savannah
tucson monticello and el paso
and then cul-de-sac and tempe and
holiday in
boulder were you did you design that
with was psych southwest uh
the designer uh thank you for the
uh good words this is george radnovich
with site southwest
uh councillor flores and uh we were not
the designers of cul-de-sac
or savannah um or the
monticello montezio
development in el paso we did work
with that developer in el paso on that
on that project
uh uh peripherally uh because we were
working on what was going to be called
aldea el paso that uh
uh didn't happen or hasn't happened yet
anyway
um but uh i would like jay if you're
uh if you're willing i'd like you to uh
talk
to that idea of uh mixed income
uh if you if you could
speaking jay narina
um again i think uh um
one of the things we want to make sure
is that the housing types themselves
provide the diversity
for different uh income types uh i think
the idea of
having the modules where you can go from
a 900 square foot
to a 2 000 square foot it gives you a
range a lot of times
the reason why housing becomes expensive
and uh and
unaffordable is the size of the lot and
so once we start kind of
working on eliminating some of those
barriers that
increase the price of housing we want a
market to deliver
a more affordable product
organically and then the city
participating in some of the
infrastructure kind of reducing the cost
from
developer to kind of also provide that
that balance of housing
the problem with a lot of times with
state requirements
for affordable housing that it has to
meet a certain
threshold 80 60 percent of uh
the median income uh becomes that they
have
standards for parking and it kind of
limits the city's ability to be
flexible and thinking outside the box
and doing a pilot project
similar to the cul-de-sac development
that maybe it's
it's you know a lot of times you end up
with 200 units that are you know
70 percent affordable and it looks like
a suburban apartment
uh complex because that's what the
that's what some of these developers
know from a formula standpoint they know
what works and how they make money
uh using hud and and the state uh um
you know affordable housing uh programs
so i would just kind of
uh make sure that um you know the
the vision for this is is allowing for a
range of
duplex town homes um of
granny flats uh kind of the range that
not just hits just one uh segment of the
market but really
um for people nurses and people working
in in
the hospital industry and looking for
maybe students
and um other uh folks who have different
needs
in their depending on their life cycle
where they are in their life cycle
thank you jay that's what you um covered
in december
and that was very well received if i
recall
i do recall it was very well received
thank you again jay
and thank you okay uh mayor pro tem
mayor pro tem gandera thank you mayor
sorry i
was having problems with my button there
um
yeah thank you so much southwest for
your presentation
um as i was listening to it i was
thinking
um a few things being a model
um sort of a
you know being able to do innovative
things in this
in this um and with this area um
i love the the three or four i think you
mentioned
um themes the population health the
traditional neighbors conservation
neighborhoods
um you know just building on the
existing
infrastructure i do want to
make note that i'm very much um for um
at least 20 percent of that being
affordable housing and
i think we're trying to move away from
using that term and
utilizing the mixed right amount or
mis income housing would be really
important
um i've seen um
the the renderings for the el paso
uh you know the the
the um thing you mentioned for with el
paso
and had um conversations with one of the
engineers or
designers i don't know what you call
them but
um it really was it interesting and
and i like to move into something like
that
and i'm i'm really interested in um
mayor's um great ideas mayor about the
private public partnerships and building
the infrastructure
i i you know to lower the cost i think
that's
something that we should really consider
and mayor i'm not sure what your
thoughts are around that would we have
simply a a different work session to
speak
specifically on on what that might look
like or you work with staff
to um you know get some pricing and
and whatnot um related to that as we
incorporate
sort of the plans moving forward now let
me reach out to the dean of engineering
school because um
yeah they've asked if there's projects
that their students can do
you know that's what they do i mean
they're they work on
some some civil engineers some
electrical engineers
yeah it'd be because i haven't after you
finished i was going to throw one more
thing in there that's why i threw it in
electrical engineers but the civil
engineers for sure
that they can start knowing how to
develop the sewer systems and the
and the uh water they know everything i
think it'd be great
right and you know mayor um gil and i
excuse me counselor sorghum and i
participated in in a
session with arrowhead and some of the
things that the engineering department
are doing
you know not just on the things that
you've just mentioned but the mass
development
moving forward right um i'm thinking
about solar
with dacc i mean i just think the ideas
are endless
um and and so i i want to just make sure
that
that doesn't get lost um i think it's
it's really important
um and then i i'm um i've been hearing
the form-based codes and the performance
um criteria and i think and i'm sorry if
if this has already been explained i got
kicked off and i had to
quickly get back on um and maybe larry
nichols talked about this now did you
say that
we're re i know we're revamping our
zoning but are those
areas that you're looking at as well
and would they be helpful in in this
with this particular um
scenario larry yes
uh mayor and counselor gandera larry
nichols for the record
uh yes i did refer to that earlier in in
today's presentation
and the uh the update of the zoning code
uh does have the uh uh a uh
look at the design standards and i think
that's what you're referring to
be part of that update and review and
upgrade
it hasn't been it hasn't been visited
since 2001
yeah we've had a lot of changes come
about and how we do things since then
the design standards are a part of that
review
so that so i'm thinking that that would
be helpful and would
when they mention um very interested in
hearing
more about the parking in the back
rather than in the front
you know some of those things that i
think
you know we just don't really see in our
community right
and and something we definitely want to
consider
um i think um
especially in those areas if we want it
to be pedestrian
and bike friendly if we were wanting for
people to you know get out
into the the natural wonders um
i i think all that would be really
important
and to construct this duvet's concern
you know we just heard
a uh
an issue with um traffic and and and
just above that area that she mentioned
um and and so all that would be um i
think an
important thing to consider
yes ma'am mayor and councilor gandra
larry nichols for the record
those are and i i think uh
counselor um sorg and
chairman thomas of dnc chairman thomas
well
they're disciples of new urbanism
and this plan incorporates a lot of
those
concepts and ideas yeah
i think you know the building set to the
street parking behind
you know those type of things we got to
take advantage of those i mean we
we know that there are improvements on
what we have done in the past
the plan talks about that yeah
so larry when you look at this some of
that and we're looking at
affordable housing um or that
mix income housing if you will i'll get
used to saying it the other way the
mixed income housing
um and and you're looking at some of the
limitations or like i don't know i would
assume there's federal state
guidelines specific to that um
or or is there would we have is there i
guess that's my question
is is those things we have to consider
moving forward when we are doing mixed
income housing
mayor and counselor gandra we do have to
consider those
there are very specific guidelines
on how those things are developed uh but
i believe
that we have the capacity
to to take those into consideration and
begin to implement them into our new
our new developments you know the east
loman is
is one of them uh we have other uh
projects that are are being spoken about
you know
we're talking about the uh el paseo
salona corridor
uh it's going to and i think miss green
talked about that this morning
about a project coming up in in that
area
so you know today's presentation
is on the east loma but we do have
city-wide projects that we would should
begin to incorporate
the thinking that you have just
expressed there and uh
we're we're keeping that we're ever
mindful of that we're going to keep that
okay cool thank you larry i appreciate
that um and then
lastly um mayor you made mention about
the
about the landfill in that area can
someone point out where that would
be and not sure that we've made it done
the work there
no we haven't we haven't
and then i can point it out yeah
uh this is george radnovich at site
southwest uh counselor and
hi hi counselor gundera hi
how are you good how are you doing great
good we we just uh danny just circled
that area
that hasn't been mitigated yet okay and
and i'm assuming that
we have definitely have to take that
into consideration and
that and the money and in order to
to do that so i would i would hope that
staff would have
i don't know if delilah or mayor you
know what
how many acres that is and what the
price would be to mitigate that
and in terms of of um
kind of the plans and how it what will
come first
if this is something that we should be
considering
now rather than later
yeah well mayor pro tem that's currently
owned by the blm
uh-huh and and it probably would be
i don't you know see the other land was
is is the cities right
right oh so that is something there that
we knew that we could
uh we get our return on investment on
but
blm land uh unless they gave it to us
and you know the goodness of their heart
i don't know you know so
i mean i don't know if that's that's
just the projected area
yeah i don't know if that's something
there that i bet you i would
imagine it would probably cost at least
a million dollars and maybe a little bit
more to clean up
yeah because it's very concentrated
there and there's a lot of
that's why if residents are driving up
there and the sun catches it just right
you see all these little sparkles
that's glass interesting yeah it's
something that may be stopping
and and um mr peeley should have
conversations with
our our our folks there at blm
and see what if there's an appetite
right for doing something
in terms of of giving it or selling it
whatever that
whatever that would look like and then
george you mentioned the foothills area
and and and um
that it's going to require more study
and you i thought you said
something like sooner rather than later
did you say that and and and
what are the plans related to that
in terms of studying it would staff have
to go back to the drawing board
and contract with you all or within
procurement code
um
thank you counselor this is george
radnovich and thank you mayor
um david did you want to broach that
subject
i i can mayor and city council this is
david weir community development
um i think a lot of the questions you
are asking about really slide into the
next steps and implementation of the
plan
once it's uh developed so once we get a
consensus and we go forward with this
development plan
for the area then the city will have to
make a decision on how they're going to
approach
developing that property is it something
that the city is going to
do in-house themselves in contract with
the different engineers is it something
where we're going to put together
a proposal for requests for information
or request for qualifications
to develop that are we going to market
it
for sale for one or multiple developers
to put a team together
and and build the plan um so that will
be the next decision point towards uh
implementation but first things need to
be done is to reach a consensus on this
plan
as that this is the land use mix this is
the transportation network
these are the housing mix elements that
that you want to see take place
and then i said there'll be another
decision point uh with implementation so
if i was unclear on anything uh please
i'd i'd be happy to
respond or answer any questions you have
no no no i
i just want to i'd like to just hear
sort of all the options or um i think
you were
you were pretty clear on that um
and sometimes we want we get ahead of
ourselves so
i i want i i think the way this was
presented is
really exciting um this could definitely
be where we can you know put a lot of
of creativity in the way in which we do
that
and and some of the ideas already put
forth are
are are you know from mayor and and
other city councilors is
is what i would agree and i definitely
agree with commissioner thomas that
we want to not single out the
mixed income housing that it it should
be evenly distributed right
throughout um and i did hear council
vasquez make mention of you know the
townhouses and if
you know mixed in with some very large
and
higher income um homes and and then
and i and i think those are things that
that um that are really important to me
and again that um and i think
commissioner um gordon did have a great
um suggestion about that
that particular piece of property that
has been vacant for
so many years and looking at the
opportunity
of an exit entry
way right out of the area i i really
like that idea it makes sense to me
um and then um i want to put a pitch in
for counselor florida she didn't make
mention it but if when we have
affordable
housing committee housing prc meeting
she makes mention of this
quite a bit and this is about um
you know the city sort of
leasing land or or you know the lots if
you will
and buying and people putting property
their homes or whatever
right there um i think here's a great
opportunity
that we might you know maybe model and
some of that
um and and i again i think
this property here this is is a way is a
is a great opportunity to to put in a
lot of concepts
that we've been talking about at least
since i've been here and longer vermeer
and gill
so um i think this is again um
a great great um concepts and thank you
georgian staff sites
thanks mayor thank you uh before i get
to counselor store
i have a quick question so on the on the
green space
that's um um you know
i guess where paseo de onyate is now
that's that high heel correct
that is actually a a low point
um in the uh drive from
uh loehmann down to uh canyon point
uh before it before it crosses the uh
the um
uh uh the the arroyo um
there's a there's a high point as you go
from there
towards the uh north and
uh east and then there's a high point
i'm sorry i guess i didn't mean that
that is
uh the next street uh i guess or that
one right there all that green
that green area no no no no no foothills
right right here right here yep yeah
that's that's the high area
correct about i'm sorry mayor the
highest point on the site george
radnovich with site southwest
uh is that roundabout uh like
uh point in the middle right there yep
okay but but i'll talk about that green
area
so what i was trying to get at is uh if
there was a way to incorporate at the
time you guys were doing this
it hadn't been passed yet as law
but now there's um an opportunity for
community solar
and you know you want to put it out of
the way and what better place
than is this because it's so high up
there and we're not gonna we're not
gonna
you know reduce it but if we could kind
of get it to the point where
we build it inside that that area it's
out of the way and then we can help
uh lower um the electric bills to the
residents 20 30 percent and that just
makes it that much more
attractive especially again going back
to the mixed income
that just adds more affordability to
them
so yeah okay so that was one thing the
second thing is
at the very in the royal area the the
buffer
um those little small white lines those
are are those walking trails
they are oh perfect wow that's great
that's that's excellent
and then the last thing and i see
adrienne here i don't i
think she's probably covering for um for
delilah
is during the excavation uh adrienne
were you aware did you guys
come across anything i received an email
from a professor
about biology professor i think
from the university uh wanting to know
if uh or or thinks that there may be
some prehistoric
sites there or bones there and i know we
can get with them after once we start
doing the excavation but
were you aware of anything that they
discovered anything while they were
cleaning out those particular areas
that's adrian because i didn't see
delilah on the on the call that she's
there
but adrian are you there
i thought i saw you
well maybe i didn't okay well okay who's
uh who's over the utilities
this is george radovich i don't see her
on the uh
list when they were cleaning up
i mean did anyone come across anything
um anyone saying
you know did utilities tell you
give you any reports of any bones that
you know prehistoric
anything there um if i wasn't aware of
any
but that doesn't mean that there wasn't
there so
we'll get with that professor and and he
had asked if
if when we start doing more excavation
if they can just be
on site in case they're you know they
come across something
that could be kind of interesting
okay that's that's all i had uh
counselor sword
yes thank you mayor um
yeah utilities isn't in this meeting
today
i noticed all the people there i didn't
see anybody representing utilities
actually actually this is flores keller
flores uh adrian whitmer was on
um earlier in the meeting yeah okay
fairness to adrian in that department
well i just wanted to emphasize again um
to council vasquez in particular i hope
he's listening carefully here
uh the net zero uh buildings uh
can be built in an affordable or a
low-income
building uh it's done all the way across
the southwest
from austin to phoenix and and into the
california
um so there's many different examples of
that
so we don't have to be afraid uh when
you put all electric homes in
that they will be priced out of uh for
low income
or mixed income housing um
the key to a zero building of course is
energy
efficiency you've got to build these
buildings so that they
uh don't lose heat in the wintertime and
they don't
bring heat in in the summertime that uh
insulation and efficiency is a key to
make a net zero building work of any
kind
whether it be housing or not but so
casa vasquez just imagine as larry
nichols was saying
um you're living in a home and the only
utility you have to pay
is your water waste water and trash you
have no natural gas
uh bill and you have no electric bill
uh so this makes it quite attractive to
low income
any income people in fact so
um i emphasize again we could make this
whole project
everything in here net zero buildings
whether it be commercial buildings or
homes
apartment buildings what have you it can
be done
and just imagine uh what uh
that will mean to the city of las cruces
and excellent example for other
developments all the way across
the city and of course it lines itself
with our
our planning for uh phasing out of
natural gas
um and so this is perfect for us
absolutely perfect um there is one
part of this map here the uh street
uh is it el paseo no el dor uh unate
uh that street that goes to that
neighborhood to the south
just to the west of that there was some
trash in that part of the
ground there too i don't know how much
trash
something tells me it's not as bad as it
was on the east side of that street
but anyway that's something to keep in
mind for the future
um so
that area was cleaned up counselor the
only area that
that isn't ours is that little blue area
i think that's blm still
where it says transit according to the
utilities department
no it was not it was
potentially thinking of putting a park
in there in which we didn't have to
clean it up then in that case
well maybe that's the part that's blm
because there's some blm land still out
there well
yeah the blm is on the north side of
east loman
that's definitely blm but then the south
side we we have that that's part of the
whole
purchase from albuquerque i think that's
still blm right there
where that little roundabout i'm pretty
sure but this is true
this is michael michael houston i think
i can clarify that dashed line there
represents what we understand that is
blm
property okay um and you see we're
looking long term at
maybe you acquire that and you put the
two properties together and develop it
but the dashed line is just to remind us
that those are the two different areas
anyway all i wanted to point out it was
some trash in that part
land two at one point and
unless they changed their mind and went
ahead and cleaned that up without us
looking
uh this is george radnovich at site
southwest uh
uh uh councillor sorg we uh
we did and mayor um we did
uh map actually the area that was
mitigated
as part of our planning and all of it uh
so far anyway is uh east
of the um of paseo de oniate
yeah okay thank you
thank you um
i mentioned the pedestrian bridge i
suppose that's getting a little ahead of
ourselves here
that's something we can always put in
later i suppose you know what i just
i just realized something uh counselor
uh blm falls under the department of
interior and guess who's in charge of
the department
yes very good so she's not a problem
maybe i'll email her and uh okay
okay send her an email and ask her if we
can just have the land to have
you darn right yeah i'll do something
housing
and lastly um just thinking out of the
box completely here
let's see if we can't put uh since this
is a big hill we're talking about
put a waterfall in like i have behind me
right here
that would be cool i would really set
the whole property off from
everything else i thank you mayor that's
all i have
okay well that would be counselor that's
a great idea but that would be facing
lowmen
okay so somewhere yeah that would be
actually that would be real nice
okay well i think that answers all the
questions um
unless you know i'm assuming that all of
you forgot to put your hand down
unless you guys want another round of
questions uh george ratner mature mayor
i think
uh that commissioner thomas has had her
hand up for a while since the first time
she spoke
uh commissioner mike am i correct there
i think she just took no i didn't i just
didn't put my hand down
okay but but i i do want to say i'm
i'm just so pleased with the planning
you've come up here it's something we've
talked about for so long
and we've been so anxious to get
something on the ground so people can
see what it looks like so
thank you thank you very much and i
understand that
adrian thank you commissioner i
understand adrian whitmer
is on the phone adrian if you're there
the question was i received an email
from a i believe a
biology professor
and thought that they want to know if we
had discovered any um
artifacts when when they were cleaning
up the area
and if not if they could still have a
chance to
when we do further dirt work if they
could
kind of be available to just check out
things
it would be called mr mayor they would
survey it
yeah adrian are you there
okay so she's not there so i'm just
talking to
oh there there you are go ahead
adrienne
hi there um so um i'm just having some
technical
difficulties so could you just repeat
the last question
i received an email from a professor at
the university want to know if we
discovered any artifacts while
when when we were when the you when your
department was cleaning up the
the the area for you know
when they're remediating the area and if
not
uh whether or not that they could still
have a chance to
look at uh further dirt or
you know whenever they do more movement
of dirt and by that time it probably
will be turned over to whoever we
in charge the development with but but
did you come across
were you aware of any artifacts that
they came across while they were
cleaning up the old landfill
um no um i don't believe so because
usually if you run into artifacts then
you have to stop work
and the new mexico historical society
has to come down and take a look at it
but if you will forward that email to us
then what we can do is make sure that
they're in the loop
sounds good i appreciate it thank you
absolutely
you're welcome thank you
okay so george does this pretty much
conclude today's presentation
it does it does mayor uh george
radnovich slight southwest
uh and uh happy to answer any other
questions or uh
provide any other information that you
need
uh this was a really great session i
want to thank everybody
for participating and uh for giving us
some great comments and
uh a great direction and uh i think
we're right on track
uh we will look forward to also getting
any public comments for those of the
public
who are on the call and who might have
their comments as well and
i thank uh the mayor and and all of you
uh
counselors and commissioners thank you
councillor flores and
gandra and and everyone that we've and
uh councillor sarg and
everyone that has spoken to us yeah
looks like mayor pro tem raised your
hand i did mayor just um
lastly is your website still
active for this particular
uh george radnovich with site southwest
mayor uh
counselors yes it is it's it's still uh
still the same
same location yep okay can you
um repeat the website sure thing this is
danny wilson site southwest um i was
actually just going to jump to my last
slide here
um i plan to link to this recording once
it's post or once we have it available
on youtube
uh with an update on the project website
and even though the survey is closed um
it will remain
active as we publish the draft final
plan
once uh community development has had a
chance to review it
and uh planishloman.com is that website
[Music]
thank you what was that what was that
danny i didn't quite hear that
sure thing danny wilson it is plan
eastlowmen.com
oh thank you oh what all one word uh
councillor flores
thank you george
okay well thank you again for your
presentation and and
uh our planning zoning members who
joined us thank you as well as my
colleagues on the council
if there's nothing further i need a
motion in a second so we can enjoy the
meeting
so moved by flores and ii
made by councillor florida second by
mayor pro tem gandana
we adjourn uh christine are you there
yeah can you call
roll please yes sir
this is on the motion to adjourn the
meeting
counselor abandons duby yes
counselor vasquez
i think he adjourned earlier
counselor bancomo yeah
counselor sorek yes
councillor flores yes answer gandada
yes mayor yes
okay it's 5 15 pm we are adjourned thank
you again everyone
enjoy the rest of the day thank you
mayor thank you everybody
arrivederci ciao
you