City Council Work Session — March 24, 2026

! Yes, thank you mayor good evening everyone. ! We have three items scheduled tonight. ! The first is an update. So we want to do a staff report on the transport optimization study and some really good Council Member on the transport optimization study and some really good work the team has been doing to move toward implementation on that. Next, we want to align on our council priority around affordable and sustainable growth. So I'm jumping right in with that one to make sure the scope of work is on track. And then finally, a check-in on the downtown parking strategy implementation roadmap. And again, confirming that we are on the right path there or any adjustments that might be needed. So with that, I am going to turn it right over to Kaylee Zysel, who is our Transport Director. She is joined by Steve Zapparo, who is our Senior Operations Manager at Transport. And I will just also note, because there may be some finance questions, we have Monica Martinez, who is our Planning, Development, and Transportation Senior Finance Manager here to answer any questions. Kaylee?

Great. Thank you, Kaylee. So, over the past year and a half, we've been working to develop a system optimization plan that aligns our service with community needs, travel patterns that have potentially changed coming out of the pandemic, and our current fiscal reality. So, tonight we want to share the outcome of that work with you all as well as the plan for implementation. We've provided handouts with three maps. The first map shows the optimized or future system. The second shows our current service levels. And the third reflects full service levels. So just to note, full service levels have not been in effect since 2019. So we're pre-pandemic. These are intended as a reference as we move through the presentation and discussion.

So I want to start with a quick snapshot of key changes.

At a high level, this plan reflects some difficult tradeoffs, shifting resources away from services that are currently suspended or underperforming and reinvesting those resources into more frequent and reliable service on our core routes.

We heard clearly through engagement that frequency and reliability are a priority. So this plan really aims to better align that while still balancing system access.

So I won't go through each of these in detail here, but we'll walk through a few of the key changes that have been made to the map since October.

So this slide is intended to ground us in why the optimization plan is necessary. Across the transit industry expenses have grown between 50 and 70 percent. Here in Fort Collins we're anticipating about a 50 percent increase. So if we compare 2019 full service levels, if we were to run those today we would anticipate that costing about 50 percent more. In line with national trends our largest cost drivers are personnel vehicle, excuse me vehicle repair services so maintenance equipment fuel. And then our contracted transportation services. So that's our paratransit program, our dialer aid service. On the revenue side, we have seen some increases, and those are primarily at the city level. Overall revenue has not kept pace, though, with rising expenses. We've also experienced reductions in key revenue sources, such as the Flex Partnership and the faster operational funding. The positive news is that beginning this year, later this year, we anticipate receiving between $2 and $3 million annually in a new state funding through Senate Bill 230, which is generated by fees on oil and gas productions to help expand and improve public transit statewide. So that anticipated funding is shown on the chart there in green and it's already been built into our financial assumptions for the final scenario. The bottom line is we are at a place where we need to right size our service levels to our available budget.

So there were three key elements that shaped our principles and network design priorities.

These included feedback from the public, staff, and stakeholders, evaluation data, so we really took a deep dive look at ridership, ridership down to the stop level. We evaluated travel patterns throughout the city to see how those have changed.

And we evaluated areas in the city with the greatest potential for transit use.

And then finally, best practice research. So we look to agencies that have had really successful recovery in terms of ridership coming out of the pandemic to learn what they've done.

Those three together formed the inputs for our design principles. So over the past five months, we've been operationally testing the draft network to make sure that it's efficient, it's realistic, and it's feasible within our available resources. We've also conducted since October a final phase of public outreach. We wanted to get feedback from the community on that final scenario. And so the operational results combined with what we heard from the community have shaped the final map that you'll see here today.

So before diving into the final network, I want to briefly highlight what we heard from the community.

outreach has been a priority throughout this process we've held meetings open

houses attended a variety of community events we collected more than 500 survey responses along with feedback through online channels and presentations to

boards and commissions so across all of those conversations a few key themes have emerged first and foremost we heard concerns about equity and access

particularly along around the potential elimination of routes 6 9 and 10 and the impacts that those could have on transit dependent individuals at the same time

many community members expressed a preference for higher frequency service over broader coverage emphasizing the importance of service reliability on

those core routes but taken together this really highlights one of the central challenges of this work. We heard strong interest in maintaining coverage for riders who depend on transit while also hearing a desire for more frequent and reliable service. So those priorities can sometimes pull in different directions and we've worked carefully to try and balance those needs and navigate those trade-offs as we've developed the final network. And then third, through conversations with CSU we met with Front Range Community College and

CSU students and staff along with insights from us Poudre school district

specific survey we heard that access to and access between so like connections

between Poudre school district primarily the high schools Front Range Community

College and CSU are critical especially for students that rely on public transit

to get to school. And finally, communication and safety were reoccurring themes with community members emphasizing the importance of clear and accurate information and safe, accessible transit service. So this feedback really shaped, Steve will talk about these changes here in a minute, but really shaped the changes that we made to the final network. And so he'll walk us through those operational changes.

Thank you, Ken. Here's the final network map. We're going to highlight the changes that we made since the October Council presentation. So Route 7, we heard strong feedback from CSU about the need for a connection into CSU. This connects Drake to CSU. We have made that change based on the feedback. To do that, we've had to reduce the frequency from 30 to 60 minutes to stay within our budget. Route 2, which runs along Prospect, apart from CSU, the connection on lake versus Prospect was a better connection. We were able to make that change easily enough within budget, within timing, so we made that change as well. The next two changes required a more creative approach. This is 6 and 9, but these were prioritized based on strong public feedback that

McKaylee was talking about earlier. Routes 9 and 6 are being retained in this network

as they provide critical service for transit transit dependent riders. For

Route 9 we repurposed a connection between the CSU, sorry CSU Transit Center and Downtown Transit Center. Riders are able to use MAX to make this connection anyway so we figured it was a better use of resources to reinstate Route 9 and then as we went through additional operational testing we found

that we had an additional bus basically in the network when we did all the operational testing and we use that bus to keep route six and service as the fixed route network is adjusted I need to be noted our dial-a-ride service area

will also change EDA guidelines require paratransit service be provided within three-quarters of a mile of any fixed route with a revised plan the impact to the community is reduced and with affected clients dropping from 39 to 10

in the new plan and those 10 are going to be legacy then and continue to receive

service to offset the loss of Sunday dial-a-ride service into Hans overall

access the dial a taxi program is being expanded eligible riders can take trips within the growth management area any day including Sundays using a $15 voucher about 26 vouchers will be available daily and for context in 2025 dial-a-ride provided about 25 trips per Sunday to minimize impacts to the community and provide consistency for incoming student classes, the majority of the changes are going to be implemented in this August, August of 26. This includes most route changes as well as planned frequency and service hour adjustments. All but two route realignments, 14 and 18, both of which require additional bus stop infrastructure, are expected to be implemented at this time with the remaining changes anticipated for 2027. August 26 will also mark the formal discontinuation of routes and services that remain suspended since the pandemic this including Sunday service in routes 11 and 12.

And we're ready for questions or discussion. Great thank you. Does council

have any questions or comments? Yeah Julie. Yeah thank you this is great work I like to see how this has evolved since October so appreciate all the work you've

done since then. My questions are maybe a little off the cuff. And I know I asked this one last time, but it didn't stick. What are the operating hours and the peak hours again?

It's kind of, it's a route by route. So we have had to reduce the overall service day.

Most routes start between 6.30 and 7 o'clock in the morning and run until about 8 o'clock at night.

max service is going to run about 5 45 till 11 30 at night so a reduction of

about an hour on max and then most routes are between an hour and two hour

reduction on that the peak hours are somewhere between seven and nine hours route specific in the mid part of the day say the nine to five time frame when

we looked at the numbers of ridership it was very hourly dependent the early morning and late night late night had the Lost ridership per hour so So focusing our resources on the times when most people are traveling is what we ended up doing with the plan.

Okay. And still no Sunday service? No Sunday service. Okay. And then my off-the-wall question, where do the route numbers come from?

They've been historically, they're the route numbers from the beginning of time.

Yeah, because you've got like 1 through 12 or 18 and then you have 81.

Yeah, and I'll just to add that we've started having conversations about a more intuitive naming system and

With with the rebranding so for example route 7 might be Drake and so to try and make it a bit more intuitive

That's probably a longer-term plan in terms of like a rebranding budget, but it is something that we're exploring

Thanks, I think that's a great idea. Thank you. Other council members

Yeah, we'll go and and then Amy That's fine So I think you said it but I I didn't catch it Do we have a sense of the number of people that will be impacted by the dial-a-ride service?

You said 39 and 10, but I yeah, so the map that we brought in October would have had 39 individuals outside of the service area with the adjustments and the inclusion of route 9 and 6 that numbers dropped to 10 okay, and those 10 individuals will be legacy to end of the system and we'll work with them directly we'll do mailings we'll call them make sure they're aware of the changes I

I understand that that is above and beyond, and I really appreciate going above and beyond for that population. Then, what, so I was looking at the engagement numbers and curious about the overall ridership of transport in general. Do you have those stats? That is not something that I know off the top of my head.

So I think we ended 2026 just below 3 million, and I believe our anticipated ridership with this plan should get us up to

Director of Public Works. Associates. Associates. Associates. Associates.

that we had, but we did gather that data, so I think we could probably get that if you're interested.

Another thing just to mention about ridership is it typically takes about two years for a route to mature for us to see the full potential ridership come to fruition on a route, so we might not see that right away.

Do we have a sense of how much, and again, I might be able to do the math, but maybe not. Do we have a sense of how much we're spending per rider? Like, we know the ridership and the total budget. With the proposed plan, we're looking between $6 and $7 a passenger.

Just for reference, our current system is around $9. Okay.

That's very helpful to know, too. Thank you.

Okay, I think that's all of the questions.

I had not thought about the, I also was curious about the numbering and why that exists. I would support something slightly more intuitive. I think that helps communicate that to people.

So I think that's a great idea.

I'm glad that you guys have thought about that.

And again, at this level of investment per passenger,

I think, again, you have done so much with the constraints that you're working within, and I really applaud all of those efforts and just how thoughtful you have been with the redesign. So thank you.

Amy? Oh, you're good? Okay. Melanie?

Hi. Thank you so much for all the hard work on this. I'll echo that. And thanks for doing so much outreach.

I was wondering when you spoke with the Disability Advisory Board, if there were additional concerns that they had brought up or maybe areas for future growth when our budget loosens to add

accessibility, or were they feeling pretty comfortable with the dial-a-ride, dial-a-taxi options that we have available?

I think there's always a desire for more service and a larger service area and an understanding of the constraints in terms of resources. Our hope is that the Dial-A-Taxi program will bridge some of those gaps. And, you know, in the future, as we continue to expand our fixed route, our paratransit service will expand with that as well. Okay.

Thank you.

And then my second question was just, I know that there are folks, and again, I understand the need for constraining routes, but I know concerns have been raised about the southwest, far southwest corner of the city not having regular coverage.

And I know that's going to be a hardship for some folks. What are the criteria that would go into determining if bringing back a route in that part of town might be feasible at some point?

Is it looking at usage on the six? I'm just wondering in the absence of a route, how do you gauge whether or not you would ever add one?

Yeah, that's a good question. And it's something we've been talking a lot about internally. So slide four, we talked a little bit about the design principles. So those five, it's frequency, productivity, equity, simplicity, and efficiency. So our service development team, our data team, we've been working with them to really find a way to measure how effective a current and potential future route might be weighed against those specific principles. Because those, in our mind, they were really formed by the community and through the feedback in this process. and so our hope is for future service changes we will have a way to truly measure the effectiveness of how well a route would perform in relation to the principles we've established through this

process okay thank you that's helpful and again really appreciate all the hard work you have put into this i know it's it's been a tough journey thank you other council members yeah chris

Could you guys just talk a little bit about the trade-offs you faced when thinking about keeping six and nine?

Like when that came up as, okay, those are like local network routes and they're relatively low frequency.

What do we have to give up to keep those routes, I guess is the question.

So those two routes, they're actually a bit of an opportunistic save. Route 9 is specific in the proposed plan.

There was a small connection between downtown transit center and CSU,

kind of duplication of service. We were able to reuse that routing to go up La Porte and be able to cover that service.

Route 6 came from, as we tested out the route, even post our October presentation,

we found we had an extra resource.

We had an extra bus, and we were able to use those resources, stay within our overall budget, and put it on Route 6 as well. So they're kind of budget-neutral additions.

I guess it just means there's no trade-off at all.

They were originally on the list of things to take a closer look at because of ridership, I assume.

And so there must be some kind of options that you guys were looking at. I guess I'm just asking, is there a frequency trade-off? Is there a ridership trade-off that we're making with those?

I mean, yeah, I think that there are trade-offs. those additional resources that Steve was talking about. So nine, nine was a little unique because the way that we actually operationally run that route is a bus goes and does a loop of the 81 and then they were going to go do a connection to campus. So we needed something like that particular resource couldn't go up and do a loop on Harmony. So that's when, when Steve talks about opportunistic specifically for Route 9 it was really like okay timing wise can we make this work so that that bus can still get back and do 81 for Route 6

once we realize the timing is what told us so we had an additional resource available so what we put on paper initially in the proposed the proposed plan didn't require as many buses as we thought that we needed. And, you know, that particular resource could have gone to other places. And so when we look at the principles, frequency is one of the design principles, and so is equity. And so in this scenario, everything that we've heard from the community. Also looking at more recent ridership trends for Route 6, it's interesting because previously it was a Lor performing route but we are seeing over and when we started this project we were looking at 2023 ridership data because the project started about 18 months ago as we've continued to look at data we're seeing ridership increase it's one of the higher higher um quick quickest growing ridership routes that we've seen in more recent years So that combined with the public feedback, we felt like it was an important service to maintain.

Thanks. Yeah, the only reason I ask is because I know that there's always trade-offs in these things.

And just thinking about, like, how, I guess I'm just on board with the general optimization plan in general,

where, like, frequency is really, like, such a high priority for ridership and, like, will drive ridership.

So I just want to make sure we see both sides of the equation.

But one question that I got from somebody in the community was, was there ever a consideration about a connection from those West Elizabeth routes to the Max line?

Or how did the thinking go around that?

We have, and it is part of the West Elizabeth project. There was a connection between the two. It's an expense. In order to do that, you have to add two buses to that route in order to keep the timings. sorry that route is a 10 minute route so we have to add two buses to that route so it ends up being a seven to eight hundred thousand dollar annual increase that's the only reason that we didn't implement it it is on our a roadmap as kind of as future funding becomes available it's been

identified as something we would certainly look into um and then what kind of ridership loss do guys expect to see from reducing the max lines frequency during it is reduced during peak hours

right it is it goes from 10 minutes to 15 although we are spreading out to 15 minute service the entire day yeah so currently it's it's 10 and 20 now it's going to be 15 through the entire day we should there could be that's kind of to be determined when it comes into it i'd be interested

in keeping an eye on that. And then I guess the last thing is, do you guys have a prioritization? What's your wish list of, okay, a little extra money comes in? What's the next most important thing to add buses to or to make more frequent, things like that?

Well, we're getting pretty close when I talk about a measure for the principles. We're almost there in terms of finalizing that. And I think we need to run a couple different scenarios against the principles and against the data to really understand which one is best meeting all of the criteria that we've established through this process so i think that could be anything from frequency on on the routes that are going to be 60 minutes or max getting max back to 10 minutes or you know service in the southwest portion of the of the community but i but i think we need to do due diligence and really run those scenarios and understand which one is most closely aligned to

the to the principles so i just i just want to echo what everyone else has said i really know that this is like a tough nobody wants to be in this position and i really applaud you guys for making some of these tough decisions about that are really going to shore up our system for the long term and make sure we have the ridership we need to like have a functioning public transit system and I think frequency is kind of everything a lot of this stuff and so I thank you for the work you've done thank you I just had one additional

question and I it's just because I can't remember so we are not doing the BRT along West Elizabeth because of funding but I do think we talked about not doing the infrastructure part but just doing more rapid buses is that part of this or

is that separate? So I might let Steve talk about what we've done. The first phase we've tried to do is operationalize some of the elements that were identified in the plan. So that's where you'll see currently Route 3, it stops prior to connecting all the way to Overland. And so that was one of the investments that we made was to get Route 3 to have connections between both campuses

and Route 2 to have bidirectional service. So those were operational elements that were identified in the plan

as kind of a first step toward, without the infrastructure,

first step toward that level of service. In terms of wrapping the buses,

we're still having discussions internally because Federal Transit Administration puts a cap on the number of buses that we can have based on our level of service. And so that puts us in a position operationally where if a bus is down and it's branded, it's really hard to deploy those resources on different routes. So we're kind of evaluating internally based on the number of buses we have and the level of service, whether or not it's risky. So we've got like a couple flex wrapped buses, for example. And if those, you know, if we need to use those bus on another route, we really don't have that option because it's so confusing for the community.

Do you have to wrap the bus as BRT if you want to use it as frequent service?

Do we? I don't think we have to brand them. Oh, okay.

So I guess is there a plan to move into the more, you know, because the max is 15 minutes, And then I think the one on Elizabeth is every, hold on, I have to look at my map now. Every 20. So are we going to, is there a plan to move that to more of a max 15 minute, 10 minute service?

So in the optimized plan, Route 10 is actually going to, Route 3 is going to be at a 10 minute frequency. It's in the 20 minute or less category in the bubbles, but it's actually a 10 minute frequency. So we're working on using the equine center parking lot as like an interim solution as a foothills transit center comes to reality So we're trying to operationalize as much as we can the high frequency on three route to being bi-directional So as many of the operational parts of that plan that we can we're working on. Okay, that's great news. Thank you

I'm glad we got there. Okay. Um, well, I just want to echo everyone else. I don't think it's

I don't think we want to be reducing our service, but I think with the budget and what we're capable of, I think that you all have made a very informed recommendation and lots of outreach

and making sure that we're serving the needs of our community for those who use the bus and rely on the bus the most. So I'm in support of where we're going, and thank you.

Thank you. Do you guys have everything you need? We do. Thank you. Thank you.

move on to our next item.

Yes, we will go ahead and switch out our teams. And again, thank you, Kaylee and Steve.

So we'll give them just a second to get set up here. So, we'll give them just a second to get set up here.

All right. Well, they're bringing up presentations and getting set again. presentations and getting set again. This is really a conversation around aligning expectations and scoping one of the council priorities that we know is going to be a really important body of work over the next couple of years and also some work that has already been underway in this space. So I'm going to introduce Karen Champine, who's our director of planning, development, and

transportation to kick us off. And then she is joined by Lori Schwartz, who is with planning and Development Services, Clay Fricke also with that department, and Sylvia Tappman-Burros with City Manager's Office. So Karen, I will turn it over to you to get things started.

Thank you. Good evening. So grateful for the time this evening. I just have a few things that I'll share and then hand it off to the team. They'll be doing the bulk of the presentation. But I

certainly wanted to highlight the roles that we have represented with the team. We've got, in addition to who we have represented here from our planning development services team and our city manager's office, we have a significant team of multiple departments represented behind the scene. So we have folks from economic health, environmental health, our community and housing teams. We've also pulled in our One Water and Light and Power friends, parks and forestry, and of course all of our transportation friends and I'm sure I'm missing folks

so just wanted to highlight that Clay's role in particular is going to be kind of lifting up out of planning development services as a department and really looking at the whole scope of the project work across the departments

Lori's role is really going to continue to manage and lead a significant amount of internal work that we've talked a little bit about standing up a program, getting new

rules and expectations in place for the development services program. So they're going to be working hand in hand on the council work as well as the internal

work. So you'll be seeing a lot of them as the bottom line.

And they're wonderful and brilliant, and I'll leave the conversation to them. But the last thing I do want to mention is that, as Kelly said, our goal here is to align on scope, align on milestones. We know there'll be lots of questions around scope. What we want to do is get through the presentation quickly so we can devote the majority of the time to unpacking the details, not only of the scope, but also the timeline. And we expect those things to change over the course of this conversation as well as over the course of the next couple months. So just know that we will capture the conversation today make all the relevant updates that you all direct us And then we'll keep iterating as we continue particularly once we get into the work with the ad hoc committee that could really shape Scope and timeline going forward. So let's just kind of take our best crack at this tonight with the team and then Take it from there. So I'm gonna hand it off to Laurie

Good evening Excuse me. The Cottonwoods are getting to me. So not Cottonwoods, the Bradford Pears, those. So I just wanted to very quickly align some of our questions that we have for you tonight. And first question is, does our proposed work plan align with council expectations? Then also, does council agree with our staff plan for engaging with the ad hoc committee? So those are our two primary first sets of questions. So under the council priority on March 3rd, city council adopted priorities for your term with the 2026 through 2030 strategic plan. So one of council's priorities is to promote affordability and sustainable growth by making development predictable, efficient, and cost effective. And staff is seeking direction on the work plan to make progress on this council priority.

So, early on, we started looking at what were our key problems to solve. Some of this was identified last year through just feedback from our community, also from council, discussion and direction at your work sessions, and also the retreat. But just some highlights that I think are very closely aligned with what we're discussing tonight. One and our top one here is multiple complex and sometimes conflicting regulations and fees which can cause delays and increased cost for a developer or a business owner. Looking at making sure that our expectations are clear and not having some discontinuity between all of the different departments. trying to do better with our collaboration for the departments across the organization to ensure that they are not so challenging and inefficient. Looking at a better and more cohesive strategy and empowerment and ownership. And then also recognizing there are some inefficiencies and inconsistencies with the program resourcing, training, and technology. So, this next slide really kind of outlines how we see the work going forward. This proposed work plan aims to consider regulations and processes in their entirety rather than individually. There are really two main components to this for reviewing development projects, the processes and the regulations. And so therefore, staff is proposing two work streams that are related to the council priority. So the development program work stream has been ongoing for the last year. It really is focused on those internal systems and administration and how this all works together. Looking at how do we create success criteria for the program, ensuring that we've got clear decision making across the board, and then really understand the customer's experience better and starting to better support our clients. And then looking at a technology solution, many of you already know about our FC Clear project, which is replacing our legacy development review software. And we are deep in the midst of that right now. And most of you have received updates over the last year through a development approval memo. We plan to still continue regular updates to council to ensure that you understand what that work is looking like on the backside. And making sure that we are meeting with the ad hoc committee and giving frequent updates to both the committee as well as council as a whole. The next part of our work plan is exploring code updates. And you will notice that in between we have fees and we have an expectation that the work of the internal programming as well as the ad hoc committee, we are really going to see a lot of communication back and forth, especially in this area. And the purpose of the regulatory work is really to align the regulations, fees, and systems that are related to new development to better meet the goals set forth by city council and the city plans. So as part of this work, we are trying to have all the departments work together to remove, replace, or fix the systems that are currently presenting some of our biggest challenges. I am going to turn this over to Clay Frigge, who is going to be able to touch more on the regulatory work and those code updates that we see here.

Thanks, Lorraine. Thanks, counsel.

So what you're going to see on the next slide is an overview of how we approach regulatory

work. So this will look familiar for previous council members from the land use code work. So our purpose in developing these regulations is to try and implement all the various plans and policies that city council has adopted. So that way we are ensuring that the outcomes that we see in our community in the built environment are aligned with our goals and objectives. And so you'll see a selection of some of the plans. This is a non-comprehensive list of all the plans that we've adopted as a community. But you can see things like our comprehensive plan, city plan, housing strategic plan, our climate future, et cetera. And really the other thing

too is we also update our regulations over time because our community changes and our needs

change, technology changes, there's lots of reasons to make sure that our codes stay up to date. And so what we'll talk about on the next slide is just some of the codes that you'll be seeing updates for. So I think what council is accustomed to seeing is these individual codes coming before

you individually. So you'll consider changes to the land east code, you'll consider changes

or updates to the building code, which you recently just did. But what we have not done historically is taking a look at all of them together to make sure that they're all speaking

the same language, they're all aligned, and that's really the purpose of this work, is

to try and view all of these codes holistically and bring them to you as packages related to different contexts within our built environments. We've identified kind of three main contexts. One is infill, so imagine development downtown or in midtown, something akin to that where we have existing development, and it's changing to something else.

That's a really specific context that we're going to see a lot more of and we want to

make sure our codes and regulations are aligned in that context. Greenfields, that's new development where there is a field and the name is sort of obvious but anyway, I don't need to explain that.

That's really the way that a lot of our codes are written today is to really respond to that context.

Then the third is neighborhood infill. I'm going to go into some details on all those things on the next slide.

So one of the work streams is really focusing on the regulations and making sure all those different codes that we referenced previously are aligned in those different contexts.

And I think the goal here is to try and unify those as much as what we can.

And so what we've listed here are some things that we've heard as a priority from City Council, either during your retreat or previous work sessions so far, that we think is responsive to some of the overarching goals that Lori went through previously. Our goal here is to make sure that we are getting things through our process efficiently and making sure that our goal, that our codes are aligned. And so you'll see things here like trying to make sure that we right-size our parking, trying to make sure that we implement new transit centers to be responsive to state legislation, trying to make sure that we have a one-stop shop for starting a business. We know that folks that go through the development review process, development program, development approval process, whatever nomenclature you want to use one time,

it's a difficult experience for them. So how do we reduce those barriers?

For green fields, we want to really make sure that we have a unified approach to infrastructure

in particular because we hear that's a pretty big challenge. Lots of inspectors, lots of fees

associated with the new infrastructure so making sure that we have a unified program and vision for that. And then for neighborhood infill we've heard some desire for making sure that the 15 minute city concept doesn't stop at our commercial centers that it also extends to our neighborhoods. So what would it look like to introduce either a different use mix in our existing neighborhoods and also missing middle housing that came up at one of our previous work sessions as well. And then the second piece of this work will be related to fees and making sure that our fees are also aligned with the outcomes that we want to see in our community. We've heard that as a pretty strong desire from city council as well. So this would include our expansion fees, the fees that developers pay to the city to review their plans, and then fees for inspections. And so we just want to make sure that those fees are calibrated appropriately and that we're also looking at those fees holistically as well rather than just the capital expansion fees or just the development fees. So that's really the the proposed approach that we're that we're putting forward for council's consideration this evening And so with that I am going to pass it off to Sylvia to talk more about the ad hoc committee and how we plan to engage the ad hoc committee

Great. Thank you clay. Good evening council. I I'd like to take you through sort of our proposed timing and sequencing with the ad hoc committee Specifically and sort of those phases that we're looking to take you all through I'll say that what's in your packet right now is a little bit different We've gone back and forth a little bit on how much timing we might like to take on each of the topics So we'd love to get feedback from you tonight on that And so I'll talk through that a little bit here in a second So we're proposing that the first phase is really grounding in sort of our existing conditions We have a lot of this information already including our code audits, any barriers that we have, some of our city-specific levers that we might be able to speak about and change for those regulatory changes. We would also propose developing with the committee guiding principles for this work so that it really guides the work moving forward. And then really based on those guiding principles, then identifying, you know, what are those particular outcomes that you'd like to see, and then prioritize staff work moving forward. In phase two, we really get into those topics that Clay mentioned just a minute ago around the infill business, Greenfield and neighborhood infill. So we'd like to take you through those sequentially is how we're proposing to do that. And actually having a total of six meetings for each topic is what we sort of landed on. But again, open to your feedback there. I think that would give us good time to go through sort of the concept of some of those changes based on impact, some of those potential tradeoffs, really exploring the impact versus cost and time for those potential changes, and then reviewing fees and other pieces within each of those topics. Then finally, I think we could talk about some of those code changes coming to you throughout this process rather than all at the end. And so we call it phase three, but it could be phase three that happens sort of sequentially as well. And so we can talk through some of that timing here in a bit. But I think with those six meetings, what we could do is really bring in those stakeholders within those conversations. If there's any kind of community engagement that you'd like to... if there's any kind of community engagement that you'd like for us to be involved in. ! So that was the idea behind kind of extending each of those topics and then potentially bringing ! some of those code updates as we move forward. ! And so right now in your packet this is what you see of us having a topic per quarter. ! And while that's something we could certainly bring to you. ! We sort of end up with phase three two quarters at the end. And so we're also proposing potentially taking two quarters potentially taking two quarters for each topic so we can really dive in dig in think about those trade-offs and then setting that work plan for each of those topics moving forward and so with that that is our presentation for this evening and would love any questions or feedback thank you do council members have any questions or feedback

Julie? Well, just I think as a reminder for the community, the ad hoc committee is made up of

Mayor, Councilmember Nelson, Councilmember Conway, and I'm the alternate, I believe. Everyone have that on the same page, right? I actually, thank you for

mapping this all out. I don't have any real like in the weed questions i am kind of more curious what the ad hoc committee is looking at but i do want to ask because i know um the city has put a lot in general has put a lot of effort

into change management and that sort of thing how much in your opinions or maybe this would just be for the city manager um how much of what needs to change is going to constitute a real culture shift

um so i think that that's a it is a significant body of work for the culture shift to occur and

i would say and i'm looking at the team who's been working on that i also think that is work that is well underway already um so that's why what you're seeing in front of you tonight is we feel like that work is really happening um again i don't want to in any way imply that work is done but i think it

is happening. I can say we have strong support across our leadership team that is really driving some of that change. I think how we're, again, looking at sort of deploying some staff resources differently is reflective of that change. So there are a lot of spaces where that is happening. And so now where we're seeing the big need is where there are actual, like, again, code conflicts or maybe competition that we need to try and align some of that better. But the culture work is significant, and I think it's in pretty good shape. Great, thank you.

Anne?

Yes, thank you. first of all I know this has been a considerable lift for all of you and many other people who aren't here so much much appreciated and certainly I think feel heard from our the the retreat that we had just I don't know six weeks ago it not that long ago and so thank you thank you for your detailed approach and being so thoughtful about this. I am curious a little bit about the cadence. And I, this is one of those things where I swear I start like every other month in the, but I can't find it in the packet now. And so I'm worrying that, is that true? Is that somewhere that I just can't do the work session? Yeah, no, that's great. I think we had originally sort of

proposed every other month. But then, you know, I think there is some desire for monthly. And so I think it could be up to you all what makes the most sense. I think monthly we could bring to you to start really that grounding information that we sort of already have. And then you could decide from there. But we could bring work to you every month, if that's possible. Every other month would allow us to do maybe more work in between. So I think I think there could be different ways to do that and we could change it as we go. Yeah I mean and

I do think that you touched on something that I thought about as I was reviewing this that there's so much work I think for the committee to do that it's hard to give feedback right now on some of these things without getting into it. That being said I think we were all aligned at the retreat that this is a pretty pressing issue for our community and one of the biggest things that we wanted to devote time and energy to. So I would certainly support meeting more frequently and just looking at the number of topics and the number of meetings per topic. Like, I don't know. I feel like I'm talking a lot about math tonight and my inability to do it, but that feels like you can't squeeze that many topics into meeting every other month. So I would love to use the energy and the passion that I think we have in the committee and collaborate with staff on a more frequent basis. Can I just second that? Chris seconds.

Yes. I'll just echo yeah, I think that I would be in favor of meeting more frequently I think a lot of this ad hoc stuff we can work out at our meeting Next week, I will just say that I would like to see Stakeholder engagement and even phase one that they're helping to find the problem and where we should focus and almost I know we have a ton of information from our land last land use code updates that we can pull from so even just having phase one take place in one month Instead of you know stretching it out over two months just so we can get going on some of this would be my preference But I think a lot of the kind of nitty-gritty of the ad hoc that we're asked you're asking tonight We can talk about next week. Otherwise. I think that the Everything that you have I think you've captured really well What council was asking for where we want to see the work and kind of? Also helpful to understand what's going on internally and what's been going on for a year internally and how these two are going to Come together. So I think everything to me is on track about what direction we're heading Yeah, Amy

Thank you. Yeah, and I echo everybody's sentiments. This is amazing work and thank you very much as in regards to Reporting back to counsel the ad hoc committee How often will that occur?

I'm happy, you know, I I appreciate that question. I think that's something we're grappling with a little bit we're thinking it could be maybe after every topic. So if the committee is sort of working through infill and business and they're working with the stakeholders, then we can bring back a larger conversation for here are some proposed work plan or changes that could be brought to you. And so that could be brought to the full council. We can also plan on memos that occur on a regular basis or something like that. So it could depend, certainly.

Because I think just the findings in each phase is really will be interesting. It'll be interesting to me, you know So I think I'd kind of like to just stay in the loop from you know Distance so to speak but and then also Will the ad hoc committee be able to make? Updates or code changes or does that require counsel as well?

Many of those code changes are Would be needed to be counsel adopted by the full council

Yes, thank you. Thanks. Yeah. Josh?

I don't know if this is a question or a statement, but looking at the slide with all of the other plans and the changes you make that may bump into those, I think we talked a little bit about this at the retreat. But I'm curious if you have the mindset of you're not going to let those plans be a barrier to the changes you want to make. and hopefully if you run into something that's in conflict with the city plan, we can amend those things as we go too, as opposed to being like, oh, this butts up against the rule in the city plan, we can't go there. I assume that's kind of the mindset that you'll have, and I'd imagine the ad hoc committee would have too, but I just wanted to ask about that.

Sure, and I'll keep that short and sweet. The answer is yes, and I think what we're really trying to do is make sure that we leverage those points of alignment between all those plans, because really I think most of them are 95% aligned. And so I think we won't let perfection be the enemy of the good, as it were. And so, yeah, that is really the goal there.

I'll just highlight an example. Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt. But we had had a similar circumstance when we took the last batch of corridor and center updates. So the Harmony Corridor, I believe, we had to concurrently track a plan amendment so that the code change aligned with the plan. So we just did it, I think, almost in the same evening or something along that lines. So just wanted to highlight a recent example.

That sounds good. Thank you. And thanks to the staff for all this work. And thanks to the ad hoc committee, you have a lot of work in front of you. So thanks.

Didn't know what we were signing up for. Okay. Any other council members? Yeah, Chris, go ahead.

I was just a little confused about the sequencing, so I had a question about that. So in the ad hoc committee work plan, it's like infill business, greenfields, neighborhood infill, fees and programs. And then in the slide above, slide 10, it's like phase two has review of fees, credits, and their applications. I know you talked about this a little bit, but I think I just didn't quite understand. Are we going to be talking about fees throughout after we set our initial work plan, or are we going to save that to the end?

Yeah, thank you for that. So I think initially we had thought, oh, could we put fees and programs sort of at the end? But once we sort of talked about this as a team, it does make sense depending on the topic to really be talking about those fees likely within those topics. And so I think that's where we would prefer to go. What affects most there? That's not going to align perfectly. But turn it over to others for thoughts.

I would just highlight that the work we're going to do with fees as we did a deeper dive in terms of what are the goals, what are the expectations, what's the work. That is a work stream that we really want to put in the executive sponsorship of our CFO. So we were just talking in the last couple of days about how do we recalibrate our work plan, use the ad hoc committee, achieve what you're setting out to do, but put it in the right leadership space. space because we would want to look at review fees, expansion fees, you know, connection fee, all of the pieces of the puzzle. And central finance is going to be far more equipped to be able to lead that. So just wanted to give you that update. So you might see some adjustments in what that looks like. But guaranteed, it'll come to ad hoc committee. Guaranteed, it'll come through council. And yeah, we might want to get some progress on the regulatory work first and then bring the fees through because the context changes, particularly if review processes change or applicabilities. So we were kind of thinking there might be some front-end strategy work and then bring that through a little bit later in the process so that we have a better sense of the regulatory landscape. So that's kind of the proposal. Does that make sense?

Okay, thanks. Yeah, I just wanted to, when I was looking at it, I was thinking to myself that I feel like getting ahead of fees early was something that I was interested in doing.

And so I think we'll be looking at them throughout,

if I'm understanding correctly. And so as long as that's something we're working through as we go through the plan early on, then that sounds good to me. But I think earlier to me fees make sense, especially like capital expansion, things like that.

All right. Anyone else? Okay. See no one else. Do you all have what you need? Okay, great.

Thank you. Move on to our third topic. Your call. Keep going straight through.

Five-minute break. Okay. Five-minute break. And we'll bring up the team for the next item.

Welcome back and we are on to our third and final item of downtown parking.

All right, we have a staff presentation and as we do, I will just say this is a topic that we know there is a lot of community conversation about. And the last time we talked about this was with the previous council and really in the spirit of providing clarity for everyone. and including council to have the opportunity to weigh in. We wanted to come forward and just, you know, reconfirm what we see as the path that we were on in terms of phase one work underway and then when actual decision points will be made regarding some of the perhaps more concerning for the community conversation that's underway. So I will turn it over to Jeanne Sawyer, who is our senior policy and project manager,

to really walk us through this great thank you kelly good evening mayor council and community to follow up on some what kelly said there have been numerous conversations and presentations on

this but again we've crossed over councils so i included a lot of previous materials in your packets and then this is a more condensed presentation but we have all those backup

up slides and we have drew and Eric here with lots of information and so really again we're checking on feedback and questions folks might have and then really confirming the direction that we're going so with that some of these slides you've seen before parking is critical infrastructure we know that we feel that our current system isn't necessarily providing the right parking choices at the right time throughout and it's not addressing the demand nor is it fulfilling the sustainability model to really maintain it.

Across the community, I think we can say there is agreement that So across the community, I think we can say there is agreement that a vibrant and active downtown is a really important goal and something we need to be supporting. ! As a city, we want to be customer focused and all the services we provide including our parking and different modes of downtown and different modes of downtown. And to your priority, we want to be fiscally sustainable throughout. Got numerous activities outlined here, some that are underway, some that will be future, some that are a little midterm to help us really with ongoing improvements in the downtown.

to help us really with ongoing improvements in the downtown over time because it is a dynamic

environment. And so our first piece here, I'm going to cover some of our near-term tactics that are underway and should have a positive impact pretty soon. So first and foremost,

fees and fines. When we're talking about fees, we're talking about parking permits.

people pay a fee to buy a permit when we're talking about fines we're talking about violations typically for overtime parking but then there are some other restricted parking

and other types of parking violations for years people got a really lovely courtesy notice when

they were overtime parked and that was a zero dollar ticket so you'll see the proposed fine increases here and we are proposing that that goes away some of those other fines are increasing even more and so the permits we would look at increasing the cost of those but only upon renewal so whenever those come up a ten dollar increase on those permits in the garages of which

we have three we're looking at putting in automated automated license plate readers

so early on way back in the day the garage had gates when the gates came out we did see a decline in revenue we have expanded enforcement in the garage and so since that time we're probably

still down by about 11 from those original gated days so by putting in the automated license plate readers it's another another level of accountability and should increase

revenue within there so as Kelly talked about sort of decision points we need there will be an appropriation coming to council for that about two hundred thousand dollars to acquire that equipment and get it installed but we're looking at having that ready by Q1 2027 is when that could happen expanded on street enforcement obviously we enforce on the street the two-hour parking spoiler alert to

everyone this started yesterday so we do enforce on the streets but we are eric's team has been working diligently and staffing and schedules to to move folks around so that that enforcement will now occur six days a week so that includes saturdays and we're extending to 6 p.m in the evenings. Currently, traditionally, that enforcement has ended by five, which if you get good at math, you can park at three and you can stay a while. So we're adjusting that. And again, that just started.

Certainly, downtown employee parking is a big piece of this puzzle to solve weekdays. And when we're talking downtown, really, that's city, county, and then downtown business employees. um i think everyone agrees like it doesn't make sense for employees to be in high demand parking where customers who were looking to spend their dollars downtown could be parking with that we know though that that we see this two-hour shuffle that can happen around so doing a lot of internal work underway to really look at how those existing parking permits work because we do know we have employers that either purchase permits themselves for their employees or employees that purchase. So how can we make those more nimble and flexible? If my shift ends at noon and Eric starts at noon and we're both driving, we can share a permit, but right now we can't both be in there at the same time. So I'm going to work late or he's going to be late. So we're working on how can we adjust that. We're also looking at how can we incentivize employers to purchase those permits by offering a reduced rate that employers could purchase for their employees. You'll see there, too, we're looking at the reduced permit through the GetFOCO app. So we're working in our permit space to try to increase efficiency there and flexibility with that. We've also had this conversation around public-private partnerships. We will continue to pursue those. There are challenges with that, and we know we can't be reliant on that. That can't be the long-term plan to cover the demand because those are private lots,

and at some point those owners are going to get a better offer maybe than helping us with parking. And so we need to be pursuing a long-term solution in that space.

We talked about parking enforcement. those teams really rely heavily on these cars and the technology that's available inside to

track license plates and time and get around. That technology system is aging like so many others in the city and so we're working on a replacement and the replacement system and technology being

looked at really increases the efficiency because different officers can get in different cars and they still carry their information with them. This also helps in a complaint we've had around having to stop and back up traffic, particularly on college. So the goal we're working towards is the car can see it, but then an officer on foot can come by and write those tickets. So again,

gaining that continuity. And parking enforcement officers on foot are ambassadors of the community.

You know, we used to have more on foot and they are the can you tell me where and can you recommend, you know, face of our downtown, which is great.

So working on that, looking at later in 2026 to have that happen.

I know we've had a lot of parking studies and this you're like, what is this?

This is a demand and capacity study, which actually hasn't been done in over 10 years. And so that is underway with an anticipated report date in June this year to really help us understand, again, parking is dynamic of what happens, what is the demand, how many spaces should we provide, do we want to provide, are we able to provide, and where should those spaces be and of what type. So that is all work that is underway. way. When we talk about on-street pay infrastructure, I think it's important to note that right now,

like, we can't do this without a code change. So, we do need a code change. So, that is a decision point when we bring that forward. Right now, we are planning to bring that in May. It is a very small two-word, three-word code change, but that it allows. It doesn't require, but it would be the

allowing mechanism to begin on street paid parking the infrastructure piece that we need which are these kiosks which would be the parking app and it would be the same app that the garages use there would be some that would also take cash you can see the investment number there that will require putting

together requests for proposal going out taking bids selecting a vendor ordering

the determined equipment and then having that equipment arrive. And so there's obviously a lot of unknown and, you know, we can make a best guess on when all that could happen, but that is the process that needs to happen. And obviously before doing that, there would be another appropriation, so another council action of appropriating that money to move forward with that infrastructure.

Regardless of when, infrastructure installation, we would obviously give a period of time for a soft launch, right? We need people to get used to it. We need to educate people. We need time to

work out any kinks that might be in the system. And so then probably two to three months after

initial installation, we would really begin sort of a hard launch of that system. And you'll see the annual estimated revenue there based on some previous modeling and pricing

mechanisms. So given those unknowns, here's a little bit of everything that's happening. So you'll see in 2026, we've got a bulk of smaller level items, lever items, but things that I think will make a difference and will be interesting to watch behaviors and see what happens.

And then moving to on-street paid, we also want to call out the things we want to be very sensitive of, which include our waterline replacement that's going to go down College Ave probably January to May in 2027.

And then certainly our holiday shopping season is happening in there.

So we've got sort of two possibilities. I think the 2027 one is a little aggressive and optimistic, not having this RFP out right now and knowing where that's going to land.

And then certainly 2028 allows time for really honing in on where and how much and when and those kinds of questions.

so as we look really far out this is an area where of course we want to keep evaluating to

make sure it's achieving the goals that that we are after we want to be able to be nimble in that

system if there are adjustments that need to be made and this could really be an area where

a committee or governance group could really assist in that space bringing that together to talk about but we know that two additional outstanding goals are obviously the maintenance piece and ensuring that we are being diligent to that and then eventually hopefully some community

benefit pieces of of downtown activity that could be included there things we will focus on

throughout are the customer experience are we ensuring that that is high and easy the parking

utilization we have a lot of data collected at this point lots of studies we want to make sure

that that we are optimizing that utilization and what we're getting certainly want to be watching for spillover parking we've heard that from a lot of folks as we do this and make sure we're not pushing out and then certainly tracking the revenue generation as we go forward

some of you have seen this slide before we continue to update it with different touch

points of of where we're talking and and who we're talking with and how we're talking with folks and

then again back to what questions and and are we on track I know you got some beefy read befores

we also just got that information yesterday so i haven't read it thoroughly but wanted to provide

it and certainly we can answer as many questions as as we're able to tonight so with that i'll

turn it over to you mayor great thank you do council members have any questions or comments

melanie go ahead

i'm proud that i got in there early even though i'm online thank you uh thank you guys for the presentation and I appreciate the review, even though I know some of us have seen this before. It was nice to have the review. I just had a few clarifying questions. Is there a downside? I think

one of my biggest concerns is penalizing downtown employees. You know, I think about, I work in a public school. I get to park for free as an employee. I think people who work in retailers, you know at Target or Best Buy they get to park for free are there reasons that

we're not looking at free parking for downtown employees yes Eric Kessberg

again thank you mayor members of council a free model for certain employees downtown would not necessarily be financially feasible with the limited capacity or limited occupancy availability have downtown that's why we're looking at some alternative options such as like the discounted permit employer provided permits and also city and county get the the offset stipend um redux rate for parking the parking structures and then looking at the income qualifying permit but not for a free permit available option and then also i'll lean on the travel demand management multi-mode shift that we want folks to use not single office vehicles to get out of town of course but to make use of the public transportation system if they're working or live and work locally, that's a viable option that this model would support as well.

You know, I support all of those options. I just think about, you know, some of our folks who are maybe bartending or waiting and they're leaving at 2 a.m. and, you know, maybe ride sharing or the bus or walking or not options. And again, I just don't want to penalize folks for choosing to work in our downtown core as compared to another kind of employer. So I would love to see more information about how that would just more than nuts and bolts about what what those fees would look like. And then I had a question just about the fines. And I'm going to sound like a real jerk, but like our fines seem even even the increased fines for parking violations to me seem very low, especially for ADA and active modes. To me, like parking in an ADA spot should be a really hefty penalty. So I guess I'm curious about what research has said about maybe having more aggressive fines for parking violations.

Yes, thank you. So our fine structure, we recognize in the industry it's about $43 per restrictive violation type.

So parking in front of a fire hydrant red curb that that kind of violation and our incremental increase would be the initial

$35

Director of Public Schools. Director of Public Schools. Director of Public Schools. also plan to have three violation types that are vision zero centric that start with that $40 fine and then also increase that $5 in 2028. And then to the point of ADA specific parking violations, that fine, we are recommending a higher fine for that one as well. So wouldn't it be a $25 or $10 gain? It would be a heftier fine tied to ADA parking spaces or ADA access.

Yeah, I guess, you know, I understand that we don't want to have shock to the system. I guess I would support higher fines more quickly. I just worry that it becomes an equity issue where people who have the means, it's going to be the cost of doing business until we get to something that's actually going to impact their behavior. So I would support being more assertive there.

And then I was just curious also, I know in Boulder, it's not always popular to compare ourselves to Boulder,

but I know that they do, or my understanding is that they do have a 15-minute free period in both their street and their garages. And then they also have, I think, free garages on Sundays and holidays. is that something that we've considered? Because I know we've gotten a lot of emails from folks who are like, I just run down to pick up fLors at the florist, or I just run down to pick up my food. I'm there for 10 minutes or to go to the bank. And I apologize if that was in the read before info. I might have missed it.

No, to answer your question. So the parking structures currently have the first hour free. So the dollar an hour worth of first hour free, we're going to retain that free option. Okay. In the garage. Correct. And then also Sundays and holidays, our parking structures are also free and it would be the same on street. Regarding the grace period or the short duration of time ahead of parking on street, we researched that and we got some feedback from the community. And we're proposing an alternative option that have short-term spaces, about 50 in the downtown area of the 800, 900 spaces that we're proposing to be 30-minute free and only time regulated. So we went on to have enough parking spaces per block phase to serve those short in and out trips.

Okay. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. And thanks for reminding me that our garages are free on Sunday. I think I've, I don't know. I haven't noticed. My last one was just, and I asked this question about, I think, our transit conversation.

But when you spoke with our Disability Advisory Board and also the Senior Advisory Board, did they have concerns about these shifts? Because I support a lot of the strategies and the ethics behind this.

And I also do want to make sure that we are not impacting in a really negative way our folks who have mobility issues or other access issues.

Yes, so we did meet with the Disability Advisory Board on November 17th ahead of the Laos Council work session. And the dialogue, we didn't get clear direction about what they would recommend. We made a couple recommendations from industry of an extended period of time. So instead of the four hour max, maybe have a six hour max on the downtown paid area.

And then also potentially having a reduced rate for anyone with the ADA plate or black

mobility issues and then the other piece I'll just make mention of any time regulated parking space ADA plate or placards are already exempt from time restrictions in those spaces and that wouldn't change for the spaces that aren't paid parking

Okay, all right. Thank you for that. And thanks for reminding me of things. We've already talked about it's been it's been a while

I had a follow-up on Melanie's question about what what's the downside of doing a 15-minute grace period because I understand having one designated spot but it just seems overly complicated there's there's a down the

downside is if you parked in that space you would have to initiate a session for any any parking session so if you're only gonna be the 30 minutes you self initiate the session so that we could track how long the vehicle is there versus having a 30 minute space strategically placed in the block face that would be managed only on time without have to any any app any kiosk There'd be no session started so it'd be easier for the customer But how do you know when the session started like when I parked well go go back to the genie's point of having the dual officers to have a Ambassador downtown, so the walking route would be the one managing those 30-minute spaces So they would they would patrol them like we do now with the time restrictions

But it'd be that that person watching the 15-minute grace period. How would you know when I parked versus about the ticket like oh, I see okay?

Yeah, yeah, so So right now in the parking structure, I'll use that as an example because that's a system we're accustomed to. So if you park, even if we can only stay.

Just on street.

Correct.

But not in the parking garage. So just on street, 15-minute grace period. Correct. How do you manage for it? Okay.

Yeah, so I'm going to use the parking garage as an example only. So right now we have an hour grace period in the parking structure, but you still have to start your session. So if the park enforcement officers six scans your plate and there's no session started Then you wouldn't receive a citation for field to pay us a parking session So if you parked on street for that 15-minute grace period you still have to initiate your session or if the officer came by They would see that no session was initiated and then issue a citation. So there's no way to measure that 15 minutes Currently with with technology of that that use am I am I think it's also

30 spaces versus 800 tracking for an enforcement officer and knowing specifically where to chalk a tire and it's probably about a 30-minute walk around to to enforce versus every space being

a potential 15-minute grace period i guess i think it just takes me 15 minutes to figure out the kiosk so i'm just like why you know if i park and then i get out and i get a ticket because i'm figuring it out you know i just think about the customer experience and like how someone's going up and using this and how feasible it is i mean there's just like some there has to be some grace

period built in between parking and purchasing so yes so so to that question uh we already have some embedded now um and it has to do with scanning the license plate but prior to issuing a citation we have a bubble of time embedded um currently with the parking structures and it's It's not a long grace period, if you will, but it's a handful of minutes to allow that person to initiate a session. So the extended grace period is just a challenge.

Okay. It's not the sport I'm going to die on, but I was just curious. Hold on one second, Ann, because I did have – I have some other comments, but I just did want to follow up on Melanie's about the fines. So what is the industry standard?

For restricted citations, industry standards are about $43 right now.

And so we're saying $10?

We're increasing them initially to $35, and then in 2028, we want to increase them again to $40, and then incrementally bring them up to industry standards so that we, again, don't have that major shift. If directed, we can definitely look at the fine structure now and adjust them accordingly.

I guess I'm just kind of along with Melanie that, like, I don't understand the shock to the system approach because are these people getting tickets regularly that they would so regularly that they would now go from the small ticket to a large ship I mean I've got I don't think I've ever gotten a ticket downtown if I got a $45 parking ticket

I'd be like that makes sense so I yeah they're an industry standard for an overtime ticket not the restricted parking not not as defined it's kind of

municipality based of how they manage their system oh I see so it's $43 for

the restrictive ticket for parking like in 80s that should be way higher not not an 80 space

that's already a hundred dollars we're proposing a double so a two hundred dollar for ada spaces so the normal um restricted citations again um like a parking at a right curb parking in a not a bicycle and that would fall on that vision zero find that already higher um in front of a fire hydrant so the where you shouldn't park uh that way the restricted by violation okay i just

say I'm with Melanie I don't think we need a grace period I think we can just move into what it should be but oh and go ahead I have a lot of thoughts but

specifically right now just wanted to follow up on something that you were asking about but prior to that I will follow up to the follow-up to say that also I think I will absolutely concur that we should be charging in my opinion industry standard for those restricted parking. I mean, that feels like low-hanging fruit and against some of our other policies in terms of Vision Zero or absolutely double the ADA access fines. That makes sense to me. The overtime parking also feels like that could ratchet up faster.

So specifically what Mayor Francis was asking about in terms of the 15 minute parking this ties into something else that I was thinking about which is I mean, I think you're trying to hit that sweet spot of like 80 to 85 percent occupancy right and parking

I think I got that so 80 80 percent is starting to consider the unhealthy levels we want to keep the occupancy 85 or no, sorry. 80% or below, not negatively below, but below 80%. That's our target.

Okay. So is there a way to continuously monitor use so that you know,

like in maybe not in real time, but close to it, like where you're at? Because I feel like this sort of thing requires flexibility. And that would then also, if there was a system that enabled that, that also kind of ties into the when did the car start parking there has it been there for 15 minutes I don't I feel like the technology exists but maybe I'm

naive so so to manage the 80% occupancy on the block face right now we use that one tool of a citation and we know that the threshold exceeds it and that's why our block faces have those those capacities trains the the benefit of having a time regulated parking space is if we charge too much and the occupancy drops below that unhealthy level we can or charge too much it starts dropping below the healthy level we can dial it back a little bit to reflect that occupancy it won't be real time by any means we want to adjust the system so much that that we're going to be confusing but we can start managing what that on-street occupancy looks like and and dial accordingly with that that fee looks like futuring with a with a graduate or dynamic pricing of paid parking it'd be based on time of day day a week and then also like location demand but to start the system simpler we want to do a flat rate but again have that option to dial the fee to make sure the occupancy on street is is at that

right level but there's no way to Eric I just maybe to clarify we do not have technology within the current on-street system. We have had a period in our history where we tried to install some technology that would do that. It was not a successful project and that is not something that I would envision as an

investment right now that we would have to be able to do that kind of real-time tracking that you're talking about. Okay. We do have more ability in the garages right now but not in the street and I I don't know that that's a realistic thing for us to talk about.

So not the embedded system, but we do point-in-time observations. We do a couple times a year just to see what our duration of stay and occupancy levels are on the street. But that's a manual process that we do currently. Okay.

That background was very helpful. Thank you. Sorry, I missed that point.

No, no, no. That's fine.

So I'll ask maybe one or two other questions and let other council members weigh in, and I'll probably have more comments after that if they don't cover it all.

But I could not really figure out what the, what is, could you help me understand the funding deficit that we're facing? And what is the number that we're subsidizing out of the general fund?

Well, we're no longer subsidizing the general fund.

Okay, historically have we?

What's the goal number, I guess?

Of general fund subsidy would be zero. So our goal would be a true enterprise fund.

What is the goal number to fund parking services and its entirety to be self-sustaining?

So right now our operating budget is about three million dollars and that's That's basically a revenue and expense being equal so in order to make sure we Stay up on our maintenance needs on our technology upgrades on our system. We Ideally would make

about $1.2 million more than I looked at Drew, about $1.2 million to sustain our system without having to go into reserves or to potentially lean on general fund dollars for those larger projects.

I can add into this that historically, parking services has been able to self-fund the operation itself, but anything beyond that has almost always gone to the general fund. So when there were major maintenance, any type of repairs, vehicle replacements, equipment replacements, anything like that, technology upgrades, all of that was generally done through the general fund. So we're at a place where that general fund pressure is so great that we need to figure out how we can continue to fund all of the major maintenance going forward. We're probably just shy of a million a year in just what it would take to keep up with all of that maintenance. And that doesn't do that doesn't account for any type of expansion to the system. If we were wanting to build another parking structure or anything like that, we just are not banking any funds for any type of future expansion or upgrades to the system.

Okay. So, and I'm sorry, I get to use the I'm new here excuse for like at least another. And I'm sorry, I get to use the I'm new here excuse for at least another two weeks. ! I've been using it for eight years. ! Good to know. ! So parking services is already self sufficient. ! It's just the long term maintenance ! and any other capital improvements for parking services? That's essentially correct. Okay. And what is that number?

So we know that our maintenance costs typically we would need to put away about $500,000 a year per parking structure just to keep up with just per parking structure just to keep up with just regular annual maintenance of those parking structures. That does not account however for any type of major maintenance. So as everyone is probably painfully aware of the stairwell that has been out in the Civic Center for quite some time we're getting close. That was a 1.2 million dollar project that we did not anticipate and so those are the type of things that we need to be setting aside some dollars for because it's not really feasible for us to keep going back to the general fund for those dollars. So we need to be putting away, you know, creating some sort of reserve funding so that we can handle those type of maintenance issues that come forward. So additionally, probably another half a million dollars a year. That said, again, that doesn't account for any other type of expansion, any other technology upgrades anything else that we would we would want to do or need to do in the future okay so

gosh it just keeps coming back to math tonight um what is the final number like that we're trying to get to through on-street parking fees and additional fines and like i don't know maybe

i'm just seeing it differently the current operating budget to run parking services right now is 2.9 million dollars so anything in excess of that yeah we would put towards maintenance ongoing knowing whether that's expansion or major maintenance or whatever it is yeah

i think maybe if i can help yes thank you um please we're looking at through just the um on-street paid parking not the increase in fines a 2.5 million dollars annually Is that all going to parking is how much gap is there that we need to fund to be able to meet our operation and maintenance expenses?

Well, and I think that also goes to that maintenance first and then community benefit. But here comes Monica.

So since you all want to talk about finances, we're going to bring our finance manager up to the table. Monica, can you maybe add a little bit of additional context here?

Yeah, so if you're looking for what gap do we need a fund right now, we really are just talking about a capital gap. And at this point in time, like we were saying, it's about a million dollars because we want to be setting that aside for any large capital investments that we are going to have. Once we if we go forward with this new parking system, we are also going to have to have a slightly different operational model. So that will shift things a little bit. But basically, the gap that we want long term is to solve that about million dollars at this point in time. everything we bring in, all the fees, all of the parking permits, all of that basically gets used up just on operational expenses. We are unable to truly build a reserve balance. So that is what's driving us back to the general fund on a fairly regular basis for any sort of capital expense. So it is really focused on that capital aspect. This is also going to become increasingly important as our parking structures continue to age. And so we are anticipating we'll have additional costs to rise through that. Does that answer or do you want a specific number?

A specific number would be great because again, we're talking about there are trade-offs. We've heard from so many people, which again, to where's the camera? Fort Collins, thank you for reaching out. I don't think I'm looking at the right camera. But really, this is a big community issue and we have people who care about our community and are communicating with us about that. We have business owners that are hearing from the people that are shopping at their stores, that they will cease shopping at their stores if they have to pay for parking. There are a lot of emotions that are tied into this. So any hard data that we have that we can use to make these decisions, for me, I think is helpful. So that's a long answer to yes.

Yeah, so when we're talking about what we need to look at in the reserve balance, we'll be using the industry standard for how much you should set aside per stall on an annual basis. I believe, help me out here, Eric.

So it's industry standard based on the age of our structure should be $400 per stall. For Civic Center Park Instructure, that's about $360,000 we should set aside just for maintenance alone. That's not counting any technology upgrades or system replacements or even new capacity of inventory. So we should have about 500 low over $500,000 set aside just for ongoing maintenance

For for the parking structures no for the for no not per structure that be for the the

The bare minimum of ongoing maintenance of the system now any add-on again

We use a stairways example or any separation of a twin T or whatever other maintenance needs

So this is just preventative ongoing maintenance not any one-offs, which is why

You know that that reserve balances is vital for our assets You're looking for parking maintenance reserves

and Then what another? 500,000 on top of that for Like technology upgrades and I mean all of these things are inevitable, right? Like we want a functional parking system. I just feel slow about how to get to that number.

Yeah, so we do have preventive maintenance already built into budgets, so we do do preventative maintenance. So in addition to that would be this 400 per stall, and it would be 400 per stall for the three structures. And I'm sorry, but I don't have that number right off the bat off the top of my head. But that is the gap that we would be looking to solve would be to be building a reserve on a yearly basis based off of that number for each of the structures.

And and then the other piece of discussion is any customer experience technology like the park guidance system is end of life. So that needs replacement that has a five hundred thousand dollar price tag on that as well. That's not revenue generating by us, but it does help the customer. And then again any inventory so the the price per stall of today's standards to build a parking structure is about 40,000 per stall and that's not counting land acquisition. So if we wanted to increase any Capacity in our system. There's there's an added cost there as well Sure, of course

Do you think we could get that number in a follow-up? Yeah, we can follow up with what that calculates out to

Thank you Okay, I'll pause for a second and let other people ask their questions.

Amy? Thank you. I first am just a little confused about the timeline as far as getting the results of the demand and capacity study after we do the RFP for the technology. I just don't understand that timing.

So the appropriation and appropriations for any technology moving forward address the system today. The capacity and demand study is really going to address how many spaces do we really need? Do we need to be adding spaces and how many and where? So I think the infrastructure isn't driven by the capacity demand. Correct me if I'm wrong

I'll just point out so the last demand study was done in 2013 and we identified about 910 additional spaces We need in our system. We did build firehouse alley parking structure in 2017 which 215 spaces So that brought us down to about 695 spaces that we still of the 2013 Study showed that we need in our system now anecdotally we we recognize we probably need about 1100 stalls additional capacity including on the river district expansion and That's the study will help us determine what that actual number is

So the numbers that we're talking about right now aren't totally baked yet Not yet

I Think what we're what we're seeing is is the capacity study is really just wanting to look at what the future needs of the system Will be as far as just how many parking spaces we need to provide that is probably I guess you would say a lagging indicator for us like we will that will be applicable for us to know you know what we're going to need to build in the future it's probably not as relevant I guess you would say to the to this current discussion if you will as far as whether or not we need to price on street parking if that makes sense I think that makes sense yeah

Thank you. My other whole question does have to relate with what you touched on as far as just the community sentiment about it all. And I'm curious how much in all of this planning have you taken into consideration the feedback and the great number of people who are very much opposed to this to the point where what do you do if we don't vote for it? What will be the backup plan?

I think in talking with businesses, I think those businesses, as much as you ask someone, do you want to pay for parking? Very few people say yes. And I think those businesses understand the importance and we're willing to keep talking. We've talked about the reduced permit. Can they do more to ensure that their employees are in the garages so the streets are open? some folks are you know offering to tax themselves that's a little more complicated it takes a vote of the people but I you know I think people are you know interested in potential other ideas we haven't done the feasibility on those

but yeah yeah and I mean I think it's it's worth just acknowledging that again And as we have gone out, we really were going under the premise of we're moving forward with on-street parking, and the engagement was going to be focused around what's the best way to do this, talking about some of the, again, technology pieces, the timing pieces, the overall footprint. It really was intended, the engagement was intended around how. And I think it's worth honestly acknowledging that that has been difficult to get that kind of engagement because people are stuck on, we're really worried about what this is going to do. And so I think, you know, what we are hearing that feedback, and part of the reason we're here testing tonight, I also think there's going to be some pain points where we need to really know, are we going forward? And then we'll keep working through that stuff. And in the meantime, there's been some very helpful feedback, again, around things like employee permits. We know that's a pain point. So we're working on some of those things in the earlier phases that we believe are very responsive to what we're hearing. And at the same time, we do know that there is, you know, this would be a big transition for the community. We still believe we can do that in a successful way. But again, I'll acknowledge that that is community feedback we too have heard.

thank you and i have other thoughts about it but i'll take it take it i'll gather my thoughts too but i appreciate that very much yeah thank you josh very much sorry i'm still stuck on the budget

and so i want to see if i understand this correctly and i don't know if maybe it'll help clarify some of the questions um looking at the adopted budget for fund 294 which is parking and that's basically what we're talking about, right? Parking enforcement here in downtown. The expenses and revenues are about $3.1 million on either side. In 2026, there's about $325,000 budgeted for capital outlay. Is that that $300,000 of preventative maintenance that I think in one of the email responses it said that's kind of where we're at right now and we'd like to get up higher to $500,000

like per year does that make sense yes it does I would need to double check on that but yes we did in the last budget cycle start trying to build out some of this reserve we did not meet the standard that we know we need to be at but yeah just from my knowledge of that budget that capital outlay is trying to help with that we do go ahead and appropriate it because in the offhand chance that we have maintenance above and beyond what we need within that year we would then have that available for use.

So the 325 includes, I don't know, basic maintenance that would be done every day just to keep the place standing?

There's an additional maintenance line within budget line items that is just basic maintenance. That's like in operating expenses? Within operating, correct. And the capital outlay is in addition to that. If we end up needing to use it, we can. If not, it would fall into a reserve balance to start helping to build that reserve. Okay.

And then as I kind of add things up, we're already planning on $75,000 when the license plate readers are installed coming in, $100,000 when the enforcement is increased, which started yesterday, and then $500,000 total from fine and permit increases that we're already planning to do, which are great things to help. So that brings in almost $700,000 of additional revenue each year. Does that thing get you, and I know it's not enough maybe to save for future parking garage or something like that, but does that get you to that amount of maintenance?

Director of Schools. Council Member

raise our our rates in the parking structures are we then other people then well that will not pay that rate and then park on the street and then that 80 to 85 percent occupancy on street becomes

90 or 100 and so so because we only have the one lever to pull which is kind of working with citate

well we have a couple of levers but there but we're missing one big lever which is the on-street parking paid piece we really can't control that and so while we we are probably are going to get closer to where we want to be financially, we may actually create other problems within the systems, kind of like squeezing the balloon or the tube of toothpaste. Nailing gel.

Yeah. Thank you. That's a really good point. I think I'm also curious, too, the additional $2.5 million of revenue would seem to be above and beyond what parking services needs. And so what's the purpose of those excess funds? and I think that's driving some of the discussion and feedback that I've been getting. It's just a money thing, what have you. So I'd be curious if we have ideas for maybe where that funding would go to help explain the need for it or things like that, above and beyond, again, the parking, paying for it. I have a similar sort of question as well that Amy had with the capacity study, and I had marked down, why don't we do that first before we do this, because, you know, as I was thinking of it, maybe that will show that we are way under what we need for parking in downtown. Presumably that might be the outcome. I don't know. But then that could also be a data point for the community to say, hey, look, we're so we're so we're so under capacity with parking in downtown. And this study shows that that let's build up those resources to add parking and then maybe the businesses will be more understanding of it. I don't know, you know what I mean? So I get why maybe the two are different, but I just wonder if doing that study and finding those results might help make the case.

So I will say that we want to do this study so that we have some very, I guess you would say, hard and predictive numbers for that.

Today, all of our parking, all but one of our parking structures is oversold. So that means that we are selling more permits than we actually have there at a very, very high rate. Couple that with what our on-street occupancy is. We kind of know that we're at or beyond capacity, but we want to really dial in that number and really know what the future need is. We haven't done it in a while. It was, I think, 2013 was the last time we've done it. So we want to make sure that we're providing you with really good information.

Thank you.

Julie? Thanks. I was just looking at my notes from when we met last November. Can you refresh my memory? Is this the first time a study has recommended paid on street parking?

No. Absolutely not. Just a little bit of history? Yeah.

There's been three, right? At least three.

Well, I know that the 2013 parking study recommended it based on thresholds, meaning if we got to that 80 to 85 percent on street threshold it was recommending it then there was also the um downtown 2017 downtown plan which had a robust section of parking

and embedded in it as well that recommended this yeah and there may have been studies before that

but i'm not aware of a specific one but i know that it's you know we we can go back historically probably over 30 or 40 years and see many many references to uh what we refer to as the upside down model and that that we have difficulty managing the system as a

result yeah well since we no longer have our historian on council with us have were those all rejected because of pushback from businesses I don't think

I could answer that I certainly was before my time I don't Kelly might know

yeah I mean I would need to go back and look I do think that there has been consistent i know there was a downtown parking advisory committee um that was formed um there have been multiple conversations i'm sorry i can't clearly answer that but i do think that it is fair to say that it has been based on like a concern okay so i just i just want

i wanted to make set the table that this is not new um i was uh disappointed that this wasn't done with last council because they did I think the majority of council was ready to move forward and so that's why staff has been moving forward I do want to it's more kind of answer some things or give some different perspectives from some of the questions so Melanie starting with some things you were saying when someone like works at Target and they get to park for free and Target's lot, they're not actually parking for free. Target has to keep that lot up to date. And so Target is actually paying for the employee to park there in a roundabout kind of way. And what was your other, oh, the school. So like PSD, same thing, right? They have to keep up the maintenance of their own lots. I know when I for a few years had a job downtown, I got a permit. that was just their cost of doing business I think that that's great not to put that on your employees personally I'm just something you had asked Amy I think if a major something major happened that that money would come out of the general fund and as I've seen in our budget cycles when in since I've been here some of the first things to go are like the small community benefits that we do. And so that's really painful when that has to happen. And then I think I'm mostly comments because I like the way you're moving forward. I do see plenty of off ramps if all of a sudden we're like, oh, wait a minute, like we have new, new data. It's a little longer than I'd prefer, but that's just me. I was downtown on Saturday for and this is like a lot of the stuff very anecdotal. But I knew not to park on the street, so I was going to be down there more than two hours. And I did get my last time I did that. I did get the courtesy ticket. Thank you. I forgot they did those. So I didn't have to pay. So that'll be painful for some. But I did speak to us down there for maybe about four hours, quite a bit of shopping and popped into quite a few stores, spoke to different owners. Not everyone is against this. Like, and to say so would really not be true at all. I mean, the funniest part was going into a store where she handed me a card and I was like, do you know what's happening in downtown parking? And I was like, oh, more than more than most, actually. So she didn't realize who I was. So that was kind of funny. um i uh just want to say i do support us moving forward with this timeline and um with updates would be great i think these are some great questions about the budget so hopefully we can get some of that stuff figured out and um it's really it's time it's been time for a long time um and i the great thing about the kiosks as opposed to the old time meters i think it's a lot easier to adjust if we have to adjust because of the technology I'm hoping so thank you for all your hard work and for probably being on the end of some not very nice phone calls sometimes so thanks thank you um Chris yeah um when and where

do you see like parking being over 80% of that 80% threshold?

So where and when? So again, we do those point-in-time data collection with our mobile LPR system, and we see the trends are lunch hours and then dinner hours,

but that also we're starting to see in the afternoon as well. And then the inverse of that, so the 85% threshold,

um jenny's pulling up a map now so of our down 24 block faces that we do some assessments on 22

in the evening hours were at 85 80 85 or above and then the same study period 15 i want to say 24 during the launch period we're over that 80 threshold and then the inverse of the parking structures they they had some capacity availability we do see our parking structures sitting about 60 percent full minus some like Friday night, Saturday night or like a special event that happens downtown like Taste of Fort Collins, that kind of stuff when they might have limited availability, which is good for us. But it's not common.

Okay, great. And so I guess I just have questions about when our enforcement is. Like it seems like it starts at eight and goes to six and now it's six days a week, which is great. But my sense

from some reading some of the walker study stuff is that a lot of the real parking congestion happens in the evening into the nighttime hours so i'm wondering why we enforce from 8 to 6 pm

like rather than from noon to 8 or noon to 10 and hit those hours when we need when we actually

don't have the capacity that we need yes so right now the limitations are based on the signage So without updating the downtown signs which indicate 8 to 6 We'd have to redo the signs downtown and we wanted to wait to see what the outcome of the study was before we we adjusted those so our our Time regulated enforcement is set 8 to 6 and then the recommendation from the consultant with the paid parking would be that 10 a.m. To 8 p.m. For the paid area and we would adjust our hours accordingly there if there's another recommendation or recommendation from council made We would we would review or at least research what that may look like and then the other piece I just want to note is right now the park enforcement officers do off our enforcement not scheduled But for parking structure or egregious violations on Saturdays and also in the evenings that beyond that 6 p.m timeline I

guess I'm when I'm looking at these plans right like there's a book called The High Cost of Free Parking. It outlines some basic premises. And the idea is that you should charge the Lost cost that will still keep some spots available. And it seems to me that I'm worried that the current plan is going to charge both too much sometimes and too little other times. So me and Ann met with a bunch of business owners who run

daytime businesses yesterday morning. And I think they had a pretty good point, which is that

Um, the daytime is actually the time we have when we don't have as many issues, um, with having super full parking areas, accepting lunchtime and nighttime is really when we have the big issue.

And so I'm interested in looking at models where we start to enforce when we do have the biggest, um, parking crunch, right?

Which to me seems like, um, weekend evenings and evenings in general, and then maybe that lunchtime hour.

So I'm interested because what I really don't want to do is charge for parking when there is half the spots are empty.

And I do really think that that will hurt businesses. I would like to charge for parking as much as possible only when there really isn't enough spots.

Because for me, the goal here is to make it easier to park in Old Town and have more options.

and to me like the revenue benefits are really important as well,

but only in so far as they are supporting that first goal,

which is to make it easier to park for folks and give them more options.

So I'm interested in seeing options around that. Like could we enforce starting like 4-10 at night?

I know like College Station Texas in the walk report goes like stays till 10 and enforces.

or maybe like 10 to 2 and 5 to 10 or whatever it is, right?

Some other time that can maybe hit those times

when it really is impossible to find a spot in the most valuable spots.

Can I just ask about the cash kiosks? This was in the past report.

Which kiosk system did we go with?

I noticed that the cash ones are like two and a half times more expensive

than the ones that just accept credit cards and phones?

So our current system or what we're proposing?

In the proposal.

So we wanted to make sure that we served every user.

So right now in our parking structure, about 65% of our transactions are app-based,

meaning 35% are the kiosk, and then also to prohibit either cash or credit cards. So what we did was assess having a credit card

and bill acceptor kiosk on the block, and then also just a credit card acceptor or a kiosk on a block face. So that way we serve every user. And then our target would be that app-based.

So it's just to make sure that we provide options.

Do we have cash-based in the parking garages right now?

Correct. Bill acceptors, no change given, but also credit card and cash.

And do you know what percentage of people use the cash?

I don't know offhand. I know it's not a lot. It's very low.

like under 10%, under 5%?

I could get those numbers for you. Okay.

That would be good because to me, I understand.

I really appreciate the sentiment that we need to like try to accommodate every user.

But just knowing. ! But just knowing downtown businesses, I think

! Almost everybody who comes downtown either has a phone or a credit card in this day and age. ! And I know that there are exceptions to that.

! But that to me, just from a fiscal responsibility standpoint, just because they're $25,000 rather than ! $11,000.

Less availability and functionality. So we're willing to look at alternative options or maybe

we're willing to look at alternative options or maybe sparse them out a little bit more depending

on well i think the one that the ones that work is great i just think the cash ones being

two and a half times expensive just that just popped out i was like that's a lot and i don't know if a business that was thinking about having this would like go that direction you know what i

mean just because it's so much more um do we have a plan to get to dynamic pricing over time um

Or was there a thought put into getting the right kind of signage to get to that kind of system or digital signs or anything like that?

Our long-term plan is to go to dynamic or graduating pricing so that the time of day, day a week use, to your point, so the 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. pricing would be significantly different than the lunch period. To not overcomplicate the transition, we wanted to keep it at that flat rate just to get our general user accustomed to it and then eventually move to that dynamic pricing.

is there any thought that if we invest in the machines now and we miss the opportunity to like buy the the signage we need for dynamic pricing that we're going to have some like we're going to regret not buying it all up front or when it's cheaper now or things like

that or is that not a consideration whatever equipment we would buy would would support that yeah yeah so we would get we would get the the equipment that would support dynamic pricing in

the future. Okay, and it's not like sometimes they have a sign and the kiosk together or something

like that. No, I think what Eric is referring to more is that the signing that we have on street, that's what he's referring to. Oh, okay.

Another, I'm really interested, so, and this is just a

comment, I really think that we need to figure out a way to get back to the table with the businesses

and kind of figure out a way to reset this conversation.

And to me, part of doing that is making it really clear that all this money,

any money that we collect in this program is going to be reinvested back into Old Town.

And I understand that right now I think investing in the parking system is great. I think that's step one.

But I think we need to do more work creating some kind of dedicated fund

where this money will go into a fund that will only support old town uses and

engage and let the businesses know that they will have a say in how that gets used.

To everybody's point, we don't know how much money that will be over time,

but I think that's a really important thing to me.

When I'm reading about it, I read about things called parking benefit districts

where you put the money into a certain fund,

and then that's reinvested back into Old Town, whether that's subsidizing transportation for employees or things like that.

But when I'm looking at the list of public benefits, it's stuff we already have, right? Like lights, fLors. These are things we already do.

And so I think we need to show for the trust of the businesses and for the community that this money is new things,

and it's not just like backfilling things we already do from the general fund. I think the fLors and the lights are from the general fund. I'm not sure. Is that right?

Partially. Partially. Partially. Downtown Development Authority helps with both of those things as well.

So I think backfilling things we already have is not the right messaging.

I think we need to identify, look, your alleys are going to get refreshed.

You're going to have, we're going to expand.

Jefferson Street is going to be redone in a beautiful, whatever different things the businesses identify.

I'm not the person to choose. I think it would be the businesses themselves or maybe stakeholders as well.

One of the things that I heard from business owners or from folks at the DDA was that they were expecting, they were hoping that we could see some kind of pro forma that would give us an idea over time of what the full cost that we might expect into the future. do we have a do we have a plan to make such a document well we just received our final draft

of that yesterday so um and we did we include that in our distribution it is in the read before

but yeah we also haven't had a chance to fully vet it yeah okay great as long as that's in the

works that sounds um great to me um i'll just say to some other people's points as well i think I think Melanie's point is really well taken about transportation costs for employees,

but I guess I would hope that we would do it in a way that doesn't further exacerbate

the problem we're trying to solve.

If the problem we're trying to solve is that it's hard to park in Old Town and there's

too many cars, it's hard to fit all the cars that we need down in Old Town, making it cheaper

for people to drive to Old Town is incentivizing the opposite.

It's incentivizing congestion. And so I would hope we could do it in some kind of like mode neutral way, right?

Like so that you could still get the benefit if you bike or you could still get the benefit if you drive, which is typically what I understand is called like a parking cash out system.

So that if we were handing out like employee parking passes, right, you could redeem those passes for a certain amount of money, you know, so that if you wanted to bike or you wanted to carpool, then you're not losing out on that opportunity to get the discount.

And so that's something that I would hope we would look into if we decide that subsidizing transportation for downtown workers is something we're interested in doing.

So I guess I just want to thank you guys. I support the direction, but only if we are making it really clear that this money is being reinvested into Old Town and that we're going to give the people with the most skin in the game, like the business owners and people who live downtown, some say over how that money is used once we are self-sufficient in the parking system.

And also, I think I just go back to this idea that I don't want to charge people for when there actually is parking.

It should be free when there's not parking. So starting later than 8, probably closer to noon, makes a lot more sense to me. Because these daytime businesses that are getting a lot of their revenue when the parking isn't full,

they shouldn't have to suffer. That really will drive away customers.

whereas if we charge for times when it's really congested then at least you're getting the benefit of it being easier to park in my opinion so thanks sorry for

being so long-winded but okay yeah yeah

councilmember Conway and I have read the same book and I meant to bring like the

physical copy but I did not it is a good read and I think this is the person who has studied this the most.

I feel like at least some of you have probably read it. I assume Drew is shaking his head.

So again, it's the high cost of free parking by Donald Shoup.

He does say curb parking is a valuable public asset and underpricing it. But I think to Chris's point,

also overpricing it is fiscally, socially, and environmentally irresponsible. So I have seen it as backwards that we have been charging for the garages, but not for the prime street front parking where we have the biggest issues at times. I mean, great job, by the way.

Thanks for saying a lot of what I have been thinking about. Because I think, one, this has to be self-sustaining.

We do not want to take taxpayer money and just continue to fund capital improvements at that scale

and if we can make it self-sufficient. But that is not to say that I have not heard

the very real comments from many of the business owners that there is something to the experience of wandering around downtown without thinking about the cost that you're paying per hour and making sure that we work that into the system in some capacity.

So I'm not sure that every parking space should be paid for hourly all of the time.

And I do think it should be, it seems like we have two goals, right?

One is to make things self-sustaining and not having the taxpayers pay for some people's parking, whether or not they choose to drive themselves. Then two, I think it's a capacity issue, which was another thing that we heard quite a bit yesterday from business owners, just about the capacity, especially for their employees.

But I am concerned that if we're looking at the capacity and again, I think to Chris's point, if we make it easier and cheaper to park downtown, then it will be easier to drive single occupancy vehicles downtown. and then we will be out of parking spaces again.

And it's sort of the self-fulfilling, like I'm not sure that there's a, I mean, there's probably some peak point,

but I think we should also be looking at how to support alternatives to driving downtown, because I think what would be most beneficial to downtown is enabling more people to come whether or not they're driving, right? And so I would be in support actually not only of using the fees, any excess fees to support those downtown businesses and the areas. But also, I think it would make sense to allocate funding towards the first agenda item that we had

tonight, which is the fact that we have a public transportation system that we have to actually reduce because we don't have the funding for. So is there a partnership there where you're both alleviating parking capacity and also making it easier and more convenient for

people to patronize our downtown businesses?

So I think we've covered everything. But again, you all have done so well at taking an immense amount of feedback dealing with multiple councils, getting a lot of direction from a lot of different places. And I really, we both witnessed it yesterday, like the camaraderie and the collaboration that you're bringing to the stakeholders and those downtown business representatives that have real concerns. I appreciate just the friendly attitude,

if nothing else, and would hope

that those conversations will continue to happen.

So it feels like there is absolutely low-hanging fruit, things that are already actually enacted, and other ways to backfill what we need to. But these larger conversations, although I support them, I think there's room to talk further about how this looks and how it benefits our community in the long term to fit into some of our other bigger priorities.

Yeah, Josh. Sorry, I'll keep it going. This is hard because I agree really with everyone. I agree with Julie the most that this should have been done in the past. but and the the subsidizing of parking downtown by other taxpayers in the city is an issue for me I agree it should be self-sustaining to come down here and park on the other hand I recognize that Old Town is a bit of an economic engine and sales tax generator for the city that helps subsidize parks in my district and other other places as well so I'm still very much kind of on the fence about this. I do really appreciate the work that you've all done. I know this is a really complex issue, and I'm fine continuing the discussion, I think. Maybe there's other models, like Chris mentioned. I like those ideas a lot. I just have a hard time right now with our economic situation that we're facing, adding on one more cost for people. We

I know this cost is very low and the vast majority of us could afford to pay four or eight or ten dollars to park downtown for a couple hours.

We're seeing our government do things that we don't want done everywhere. And so we're getting this feedback from our constituents that a lot of them don't want to see this. So I want to respect that as well.

So it just makes it a really difficult decision.

But I'm fully in support of continuing the discussion and continuing on. So thank you.

Yes, I'm so sorry. You touched on something, Josh, that I don't feel I said explicitly, and I would like it to come from more than one council member, which is I think the one issue that I take with Shoup is that he does not talk about equity. And I think affordability is a big component of this. So again, there is premium parking, and there are plenty of people in the community who can pay, and I think we can adjust that. But to not have any parking that is accessible to people who want to come downtown and can't afford to pay, that's just not okay. I will stop.

Great. I'll just add my comments. ! I will remind people that the sphere of the paying is quite limited and we did reduce it based on feedback from the downtown community. ! So there are options that would be free.

! It would require a little longer walk. However, I understand the upside down model and the need to kind of, you know, catch up. I would say last council and probably carrying into this council, real focus on we need to really focus on operation.

and probably carrying into this council, real focus on, we need to really focus on operations and maintenance. We do not have the funds for operation and maintenance for a lot of our parks or from our buildings, and we are really trying to catch up. I fully support, yes, we do need to build a better maintenance because it was painful using ARPA dollars and general fund dollars to fix the parking garages. I will say that while fLors are from the general fund, And it is always contentious about how much we're spending on downtown fLors. And so being able to have more flexibility in the general fund from things like fLors and parking does free up more dollars when we're in a budget period where we are looking at additional cuts. So I understand that we need to build this and it's upside down. I am not 100% comfortable with the program implementation right now and how we are looking at rolling this out. I think that there are some things mainly just being able to communicate to the public what I would really feel more comfortable seeing is How much is the industry standards for maintenance? Like how much do we need to catch up? What should our fund balance be to have a healthy parking system? How much is that how long is it going to take us to catch up 2.5 million dollars just from the On street parking not including the increased fines and everything else we're doing. That's a lot of money I personally don't want to set up a fund to just fund another parking garage I didn't support the Civic Center master plan because I didn't want another parking garage So I am concerned that we're building a balance for another parking garage that we may not know we even need And I think there is a values conversation with council around capacity and where do we want to? What do we want to do with asphalt and is that parking or is that something else? And so I think that you know, we're we're just not quite there yet of being able to tell the story about how many dollars do we need to build up what is the annual cost that we need to maintain and then where are those other dollars going to go we have some ideas but I would love to improve active modes downtown if we have ADA issues we have active modes issues and if we want people to start not driving their cars we have to make it more friendly for people to be able to walk and bike downtown and that would be a great use of these funds fLors and you know the lights so I would just say like we're not there with being able to communicate the why clearly and where we're going with this and so I feel uncomfortable moving forward until we can do that can I just clarify are you

uncomfortable bringing something forward in May for consideration is that what

you're saying I wanted I think it depends on if staff is prepared to have all of that because I will say that last work session I did ask about the fund GAP and we still don't have an answer that was in November so I am concerned that are we going to have that information that A bunch of council members asked for By May are we going to have the program built out by May to feel comfortable moving forward with a decision

Yeah, I think give it I'm gonna just look to the team here I I think it's worth us considering given the fact that again the performa Really just came in yesterday day, and we knew that was a risk of coming into here, that we should take some time and look at, you know, what's it going to take to get that information in a more meaningful way back to some stakeholders and back in front of council. And maybe we're not talking about May. We maybe are talking about one more work session before we would actually bring that ordinance change forward to council. I don't, I'm just testing that. Because I don't know that we're going to be able to do all of that. I guess it would depend when in May.

Yeah. I mean, I think what I've heard and really first time fully engaged in this conversation. One, I think all those near-term items, I think everyone's good with, and we can even look at doing higher fines. Like, let's look at that. We do have a lot of off-ramps built in. So we can continue to move at a deliberative and intentional pace, knowing that we do have off-ramps. Since we've got a demand study, which might be coming by June, maybe we look for another work session where we can really combine a full financial picture with future demand, with potential additional outreach by then. and I don't want to overpromise either. But I think a slowing down perhaps, one more work session with that information. And then again, the ordinance change is small. So we can...

Yeah, I mean, I'll just speak for myself. I feel more comfortable with another work session. I hate doing this stuff on the dais when there's so much kind of missing information. And it would be, I'd feel more comfortable just being sure that we're all on the same page before. because you know I would also say that the downtown businesses they've been through this I don't know for 10 over 10 years and I'm sure that they're frustrated and just kind of want to know the decision so I don't want to go to the dais everyone come and then we have to postpone you know so I'd like to make sure that we're moving forward in a collective space first

good I'll just echo what Emily said too is that we need to try to have be able

to tell the story with the clear benefit.

I think that's where one idea about the parking benefit district comes into is like, what

else can we get? Like once we have the financial picture, like what is this big new thing that we can do

by making it easier to park and then also build something that people can use and love?

So I've heard multiple different things and I'm just going to wrap back around because I think earlier we heard from a few council members who were like stay the course with the roadmap that we're on and the timing I'm now hearing at least the mayor question is that are you all going to have the information you need? So I guess for the sake of clarity for the staff It would be helpful to hear More collectively from council. Do you want us to schedule another work session? in a timeframe that we would have more information both on future capacity needs and pro forma of current system, our current plan, before we would bring forward a code change. It would be very helpful to have more clarity from multiple council voices.

Can you remind me, the code change is just allowing us?

It allows us to do paid parking.

That's it.

Yes, it doesn't say what it will be.

It's not doing, it's just allowing. Yes. So I think that that is important just to not throw off the whole schedule is that the May would just be doing that code change to allow. And that's it. I mean, unless you see it differently, please.

That is what it allows. There's still then a lot of work that we've done around, again, RFP and implementation. And I'll say I think it's a fair point that the community is Again putting a lot of stake in this that if once that code change happens It's a pretty strong signal that we're on that path So I do think that it's fair that that's how the community is It's our saying it because it's a That and then the other vote that council will have is to appropriate the funding You will all have to appropriate the funding for us to actually purchase the equipment and the infrastructure so that would be another one of those possible off-ramp points I'll just throw

my opinion in the ring that I think I would like the financial a better financial picture and I hate to derail but I do think that that way we can bring kind of the community along with this as we make this decision and so I agree with the mayor and actually what Jenny was saying too so I agree with that idea of moving forward with another work session. Thanks.

I would agree.

I think Mayor Francis laid it out really well and having a comprehensive financial picture

of this would be really helpful.

Melanie?

Yeah, I agree. I just think having,

even though we would only be opening the door with a vote, I just think having these,

there are enough questions to be answered that I would like to have all of that information

before we are hashing things out at the dais.

Thank you.

Yes, I would prefer to have more information. I feel like I made it pretty clear early on that there's still some data gaps in my mind that I would feel more comfortable having before, even though, to your point, Mayor pro tem that this is like just allowing for it and I think based on the conversations tonight like we are probably all comfortable with it at some

level but to what level I think is important to understand like the data behind it before moving forward with that so having one more work session to

really understand the cost and then to go ahead the community benefit well yeah and I'm just curious will we time it to have the capacity study in that work

session too I think that would be most efficient yes that would be great thank

you yeah I would prefer to have all data no no we're good we're there the I was going to say wonder trends, but actually no, you already have. Do you all have what you need?

We do, and we'll work a couple options in the timing. I want to, I'm just thinking about, I want to be clear as we come back, I don't think we have June work sessions, if I'm remembering the calendar correctly, but that, right, we've got some break time. So I just want to be clear that it could push out a little bit further in order for us to actually have time to get that capacity study back and again have some time to process it so

we're probably looking at a later summer work session mid at least to later summer when we would be back but we will vet that a little bit more and put it in the follow-up memo for you all

great tonight can I just ask one thing too does that derail our timing because I know the timing

of actual like the plan to when to implement it because that was so far out anyway so maybe it

won't change that that was one thing we didn't um get feedback on right i think i had said that i 2027 implementation was probably assertive and trying to land it after pipe replacement and before holiday shopping season so then after that we're talking 2028 so i mean we i didn't hear feedback on those options as we push but i think 2028 gives us time for more data to do the rfp to do some outreach to really to your point look at the boundary the pricing the time of day like there's still some details to be worked out for sure so i'll just say as one of seven that um

i hope we can still get it in 2027 if we make that decision i think to julie's point like we've gotten like what 15 20 30 years of studies saying what we should probably do right and so you

know I think I hope we could look at the timeline given that we did put enough time between ourselves

and the possible implementation to maybe implement it if feasible so that's that's just my yes I

I would politely. Politely? Oh, my gosh. It's 835, and I'm already making up words. Politely.

Disagree, I think, just because looking at it, I mean, there are two very, especially the College Avenue construction, sandwiching, charging for parking in between that and the holiday season.

then I would be more comfortable maybe pushing it a quarter, like starting at the first quarter of 2020. I don't know. That only because we're going through it like once in a,

I don't know how often do we rip up College Avenue and repair it. Like I know that businesses are scared about that. The impact of their business.

Go ahead. just adding two cents that uh we want to be careful that this doesn't span a whole nother council because oh details oh yeah just to just to say you know if if this had been the same council we would probably be moving forward just from what we knew then um two years down the road if everything turns over again we just this could be a really bad feedback loop so just throwing that out there but we'll see we'll see what comes up right yeah I think that the

allocating the money and all that would already put us in motion and we'd have to then sink that would be a huge sunk cost if a new council was seated and then

reverse that yeah again I think that this this conversation has been helpful and it exemplifies again the the challenge of I think why we've been here multiple times over the years, but it has been helpful in getting some clarity again around what's important to all of you. So we can go back knowing that we're working toward one more work session. And then we'll, I mean, we'll bring forward clear trade-offs of timing options for implementation so that, again, you all have that information in front of you in terms of what So that again, you all have that information in front of you in terms of what really does make the most sense. ! I think, you know, continuity and sort of ensuring consistency once a decision is made will be part of that.

! Great. And I think, you know, making sure that we're bringing the community along, if this goes forward, having enough time for messaging. ! So I'm fine with however long it takes. ! Okay. Anything else? Do you all have what you need? I hope so. Okay. Does Council have any announcements? Okay. See none. Good night, Fort Collins. see you then. Good night, Fort Collins.