Good evening, good evening everyone and welcome to the April 15th City Council meeting. It is now 7 p.m. And I call the meeting to order. Miss Hall would you please call the roll. Council member Bethel. Here. Council member Moore. Here. Mayor Scaro. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Green. Here. Council member Sutton. Here. And Council member Council Member Aubrey. Mayor, there is a quorum and the required charter officers are present to conduct the meeting. Okay, thank you. Item number three is our Immigration and Pledge's. Please rise. Heavenly Father, thank you for this beautiful day. We are so blessed in the city of Portland and every day I see your praises for all the glory that you have bestowed on our city. Let us keep in mind this Easter season of what the sacrifices you have made for us and may we continue to lead on with sacrifice and sacrificing for others. Let us be safe this Easter season, be with our family and friends, and honor you in always, but in a special way. And that we pray, amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to for which it stands. One nation on the road into the visible literally being justice for all. On the Texas squad, I will take you to the Texas one state under God, one and it is all. We'll move into item number four, which is our formal announcements and recognitions and tonight we have two proclamations. These are for me two very special proclamations each year and I look very forward to to doing these every year. Our first one is declaring April 13th through April 19th as Public Safety Telecommunars Week. And I'm also going to announce the second one so we can go right into that one. And it's a proclamation declaring April 13th through the 19th as Animal Care Officers Week. So we're going to get the proclamations. Let's go ahead and start with the telecommunicators with all those that are here representing our telecommunicators. If you will come forward. I'm going to go to the next slide. All right. Look at this very, very special group of people. You know, we, we see our first responders, like our police and fire every day on the street, so we recognize them, but there's another group of people that are behind the scenes. And without this group, the other wouldn't be effective in their jobs because they wouldn't know where to go or who to speak to or even really what was going on. So this is a proclamation in your honor. Whereas by presidential proclamation in 1994, the second week of April for each year has been designated as National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. And further by proclamation signed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott on the 26th day of February 2025, declaring April 13th through the 19th, 2025 public safety telecommunications signed by Texas governor Greg Abbott on the 26th day of February 2025 declaring April 13th through the 19th 2025 as public safety telecommunicators week. And whereas dedicated public safety telecommunicator work 24-semin to answer emergency 911 calls for critical help during emergencies. And though they are not as visible to the public, they too serve as first responders. And whereas telecommunicators are a silent service that residents seldom know about by whose lives may depend on during an emergency. And whereas public safety telecommunicators are trained to coordinate emergency rescue and law enforcement operations and to provide vital behind the scenes communications during emergencies. And whereas they must gather critical and accurate information in life and death situations with compassion, understanding and professionalism, operating with a quiet and calm efficiency, providing the single most vital link for our police officers, firefighters, and paramedics by monitoring all emergency activities by radio, providing first responders with information to ensure their safety and creating vital links between local responders and other state and regional agencies and related services like our own animals, services, co-inforcement, street parks and utility apartments to address the broad needs of our community. And where as the city of Portland wishes to honor the dedication of its own telecommunicators, now therefore I, Kathy Scarrow, Mayor of Portland, Texas, do hereby proclaim the week of April 13 through April 19 as public safety telecommunicators week and urge all citizens of Portland to join us in honoring the unseen men and women working behind the scenes to keep our community safe, whose hard work and commitment ensures no call for help goes unanswered. In witness thereof, I hereby set my hand and cause the seal of the City of Portland to be a fix of 15th day of April 20 25. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give them a huge round of applause. I honestly believe that our dispatchers of the backbone of all emergency services for every community. They dispatch roast police Police, Fire, EMS, they organize their responses from our tow truck companies and then resources outside the area. They don't hear it often enough, but thank you for what you'll do. And then I'll let Ms. Becky introduce everybody. You know, do you speak? You want to introduce yourself? Okay. Hello, I'm Becky Stewart. I'm the division coordinator of the department. So I'm over communications. So I'll introduce everybody and hopefully I won't mess up too bad. First of all, this is Christina Boudreau, Sandra Silver, Amber Pettis, Halle Harrison, and Cheyenne Rodriguez. Total here, they have more than 50 years of experience. 75% of our dispatchers are master communicators. Halle is going to get there as soon as she can. She came to us all the way from Colorado. So she's bringing experience from another state as does Christina, who also worked in Louisiana and then locally before she came to us. So we have a big wide variety of experience and some really awesome people. They love each other, they all get along, it's really been great. Well, not all the time, you know. I mean, they're stuck together for 12 hours, you know, in that room, but they do. They get along really well and they work so well together as a team. It's been a very humbling experience for me to work with them. So thank you to all of you. He's going to accept the proclamation. All right. What we're going to do, then, council, you want to come up? Let's go split it right here. All right. Somebody needs to, okay, there you go. You're the chosen person. I don't know how they do that job. So's certainly their demeanor and how they answer that phone and keep people calm. That's just an amazing, amazing skill set that they have. We have another group that is behind the scenes keeping our animals in check and we'd like to also honor our animal care and control group. So would those individuals come forward please? Only one tonight. Okay, I'm it. Okay, here we come. Whereas the National Animal Care and Control Association, the NACA, is committed to setting the standard of professionalism in animal welfare and public safety through training, networking, and advocacy. And whereas NAC has designated the second week of April, each year as Animal Control Officer Appreciation Week, and whereas animal control officers known in Portland as animal care officers dedicate themselves to the health and safety of animals by rescuing them from injury, disease, abuse, and starvation. And by promoting animal adoptions, spay and neutering, microchipping, proper pet care, and compassionate treatment of animals into protecting citizens of the city of Portland, providing essential community functions, including the enforcement of animal control laws, protecting the public from zoonotic diseases, such as rab rabies and by working with residents to create a community of responsible pet owners for now and for future generations. And whereas the city of Portland wishes to recognize support and commend its own animal care officers along with area rescues including last chance rescue, P.W. rescue, golf Coast C Coast Humane Society, the Cataries, K9s and Kittens Rescue, Love and Puppy Paws Rescue, National Rescue, Best Friends Rescue Organization, the Humane Society, the United States, Portland Animal Hospital, and Dr. Fulipi Kuhar, Quica,, thank you for invaluable help and guidance and of course our own foster families. Now therefore, I, Kathy Scuro, Mayor of Portland, Texas do hereby proclaim the week of April 13th through 19th as Animal Control Officers Week and call upon all our citizens of Portland to join us in honoring the men and women of our animal care services division and all animal care organizations for their hard work and dedication to the animals and citizens of Portland. In witness there I hereby set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Portland to be affixed on this 15th day of April 2025. Thank you very much. Applause. Thank you. Can I say we stand in another picture? You might have been able to do something first. Sure. I was going to do that. I was going to go right ahead. Hello, I'm Jacob E. Menes and I like to introduce my animal control officers for the city of Portland First we have Isabel Salasad Isabel came from Public works I'm sorry Mr. Banks. We had a steal it from you, but she came with great attributes I'm sorry She's definitely is she came from another city department and she's helped us out in a with great opportunities With nearby rescues and collaboration with Gulf Coast Humane Society. Really set the stage for us to have some of the chances that we got now with our shelter. Officer Lada Petrochenski, she comes with a lot of experience rescuing animals. She's the one who you'll find with a possum in her pocket. And I mean that quite literally. All the rescues that she mentioned on the proclamation is exactly what it is. It takes a family to run the shelter. And both these officers have rate. The bar is set so high now. I don't know how we're going to get above it next year because of how far we've come. No other city or municipality can touch our lyre leash rate right now in this area. They do amazing by helping getting the animals out, so they really need some recognition in that. That's the stuff that happens behind the scenes and the stuff that nobody wants to talk about when we get animals in our shelter. These officers go above and beyond even when they're not working, they're still texting and asking and trying to figure out something to get these animals out safely and into good homes. So I look up to them when it comes to that aspect because I'm the animal control and the law side and they're the adoption and rescue and everything else in between to feeding babies and taking doing fosteres of their own. So I think they really need a lot of recognition and if you ever want to come down and see our shelter please do. A lot of people don't know what happens behind the scenes but being transparent with everybody and showing y'all what happens at the shelter and that it's not just as easy as picking something up and bringing it to the shelter. There's a lot that goes into that and would be happy to show anybody. So. Thank you Jacob and I know that you handle all the law enforcement. And there's been some really sad stories that you've had to deal with. And people don't realize that it's not just about, playing with the cute little animals at the shelter. I mean, y'all are highly trained. As a matter of fact, I get quarterly newsletters all about statewide rabies and all the things that you really have to think about in disease and your community And y'all like I said y'all are highly trained and and when you're having to deal with potentially rabbit animals and You know not only domestic but also you know wildlife We do have quite a bit of wildlife in our community and so that's a whole other. So thank you again for everything you do. I do have one other person I mentioned, I apologize. Yes, of course. I apologize. One of our officers is not with us. His name's Jose Flores. He comes from another city where he was supervisor there. So he comes with a lot of information. He's actually representing Portland right now. He won a scholarship and he's in Las Vegas at the HSUS conference. So he's getting to good knowledge there, all at free cost to us because of how good we work in that collaboration. We're able to get free scholarships to do stuff like that. So it really goes a long way with the, how much these officers put into it. I can't explain it enough. So. We also have to take time to thank our community for allowing us to spend their tax dollars in developing this animal center that we have in our community. And it's something to be very proud of. And we just actually invested some additional dollars to help y'all. We listened to, you know, our employees and the animals. We needed to add a little bit more air conditioning into the building, you know. And so that work has been done. It's a beautiful center and encourage everyone to go out there and even if you can't adopt an animal, you can take one home for fostering. There's all kinds of programming and be sure to also get your pets in microchip. That will help them a lot. Council, you want is standing behind us. Thank you. We'll move on to council comments. Let's start all the way down the end with council and all brick. I just really want to wish everybody a happy and safe Easter and also just kind of second your comments mayor around the Proclamation. There's a lot of work and kind of every organization that goes on behind the scenes But a lot of times people forget some of that connective tissue that is our telecommunications group or the animal care group We are absolutely vital to make sure that we do have good public safety Response and and just being in the city. So thank you. Councilman Sutton. I would like to echo Councilman Albrecht's comments about, you know, our first responders or telecommunicators so forth in our animal shelter. It's phenomenal. The work y'all do, it's not always in the forefront, but it's necessity, especially in our community. So thank you for everything. I did wanna add one more thing. You may or you highlight some of the things that we do in our community, in our county on certain occasions. I wanna highlight something that two of our council members participated outside of our community. And it was for a Ronald McDonald House, charities of South Texas event, Councilman Albrecht and I, although we were competing against one another, it was all friendly. This is an annual event there. It's one of their biggest fundraisers. Haven't gotten the totals yet this year. Last year it raised $675,000 for the house in one night. So it's a wonderful thing if you don don't know a lot about the wrong down on the house, look into it. It's a great organization. It really is. But it was a fun event. That's it. Mayor Patten. Echo, there remarks as well. You know, from the telecommunications group and the ANOPUL group, I don't think people really understand the compassion that these people have and the attention to detail that it takes to guide the safety where it needs to go. And I personally appreciate it very much. I've had a couple of experiences of animal control in the past. Of course, I don't have an animal now, but I hope I never have to use the dispatch office. They have to use it on me. We really appreciate what you do. It takes a special person, a special kind of person to do what you do. And it is hidden behind the scenes, as was mentioned earlier, and you don't get enough credit. I think the true credit comes within. And that communications is vital to people's lives and people's safety. So thank you. So same thing kind of echoing everyone else's comments, really appreciate the behind the scenes work that's out there from the radio communication, animal control, I unfortunately have dealt with animal control before, but that's all right. We got through it. But on glad we do these proclamations to bring this to light, because truly these are two groups that they work behind the scenes. And I greatly appreciate everything that you do. I am kind of curious about who won between you guys on this cookoff. You're gonna answer that right. I'm gonna talk about that in a minute. Well, what suspense. I'll piggyback on everybody's comments. I appreciate you all being here as well this evening. And I'm sure, at least for the dispatch team, there's probably either somebody back in PD or somebody that's gonna be running there very quickly or somebody else that's not here. So they mentioned the 12 hour shifts. It's a, at any time, day or night, 365 days a year, if you need help and you contact, there will be a person there. And so again, I think often overlooked and taken for granted until the point when you need somebody. I also wanted to just give Dr. Banks and team a shout out. A couple of weeks ago, we got a sizable amount of rain. And as much as we needed it, we all know that with that comes mosquitoes, but I've been noticing just generally the lack of mosquitoes. And I know that that's due to proactive measures that your team is taking. And again, something that you don't think a lot about until they're bothering you a lot, but very much appreciated. All right, well, I've been following the Easter Bunny all weekend, so we started out on Saturday, with some breakfast with Jelly Bean. And I don't know, Kristen, you had a big old egg. I don't know what the egg, you have a name for that character yet? The egg bunny, yeah. The jelly bean is our one. Yes, then you had another character and you character emerged this year. We'll have to name that. We'll have to. What is this? So, and then of course this morning, we had another egg hunt at the library. So great times for our kids. Really enjoyed those events. And again, I wish everyone a wonderful Easter. All right y'all too down there. I actually was very fortunate to be able to make a donation to both the your teams and who won was who raised the most money I think so but John have a little bit of lead because your team, it's my understanding that your team is the team that has been doing this the longest in history and that so you had a little advantage over Zach because of your notoriety, but Zach, I mean you came in pretty strong too. Y'all, both your teams I think were both in the top 10 or maybe in the top five. I mean y'all did very, very well. You know, we, I don't wanna say we take for granted the services of Ronald McDonald House, but we will never know if we're gonna need that in our community. So just to think that we had two Portland City Council people doing something in our region that could benefit somebody in our community. And the giving back regionally is what makes this council so special to me. Everybody in this council, everybody, sits on something outside of our city. And we are regionally connected. And that's what makes us a strong city. So thank you for that. Now you can say whatever you want to say but it was fun. I was watching y'all on that. I was watching to see how it was going online. Honestly, I think it was kind of a tie. His team won the Social Buzz Award. My team got third for the most money raised by a team. But if I had to pick between the food that my team cooked in his, I would actually have voted for his. It was off the charts. Very, very good. Thank you all for that. Thank you. I'll also say that's the first and only lettuce wrap I think I've ever had in my life but it was also far the best one. It was very good. There was a lot of great food at the event and also just on the regional aspect of it. It's something most of us don't think about, but with it being there at Driscoll, the Ronald McDonald House really serves the area, probably more so than even serves corpus, because it's there for families in need of a place to stay when their children are getting care. If you're living there in downtown corpus the south side side, that may or may not apply to you. So even though the Romack-Down House is in Corpus Christi, it really does serve a regional focus in one of the things I find. So inspiring about it is just how broad the cause is. If you have a sick or a her child, they're there to You know, there's no, it's not specific, just one and all. So, one even mentioned. One real quick adder to that, when when Councilman Aubrey talks regional, they service a lot of the top half of Mexico as well. They have a lot of families that come in from Mexico because they don't have the, I guess, the medical resources down there. So really, really pretty phenomenal. Perfect. Thank you. Is there right? Mayor, thank you. A lot of people don't know that my first job with the city at age 18 was a police dispatcher. That's how I began with the city and kind of run the gamut through the city. So I certainly appreciate all that you do. Animal service officers do a wonderful job and we appreciate each and everything that you do. Mayor, I want to tell you that back in March, as you know, the city of Corpus Christi adopted their drought contingency plan. Last week we received the corresponding plan from San Francisco Municipal Water District. We're under contract to mirror the requirements of the plans directly with San Francisco Municipal Water District and kind of indirectly with the City of Cor San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, understand how those two fit together and whether or not our plan needs to be amended as a result of what corporate Christy has done most recently. So I know Dr. Banks is working to try to analyze all three of those plans to make sure that we're in compliance and we'll have a report back to you next council meeting to let you know whether we need to make modifications, to clarify things and to you know I even noticed on our website it's different than what the City of Corpus Christi says. So we're going to have to reconcile all those things and until we do I would just encourage citizens to do their best to try to conserve water as we try to work through these new rules and kind of a moving target as things get worse and worse we may be moving into a more serious stage very shortly so I really encourage people to conserve water wherever they can. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Item number seven is public comments. I do not have any speaker cards at this time. Is hall did we receive anything online? Mayor, there were no comments received online. Okay. There's a couple of people in the audience. I don't know if you're here for an agenda item tonight. But if there's anybody that would like to speak on an item that's not on the agenda or during our public hearing, now is your chance. I don't see anybody. If you have not and you are planning to speak during the public meeting, public hearing, would you please fill out a card? They're out in the lobby area and bring it around and give it to the city secretary there. As of right now, I don't see that there's anybody signed up to speak. So we will now move on to our action items, minutes of the previous meeting. City Council will consider approval of the minutes of its April 1st workshop and regular meeting. I'll entertain a motion. So a motion approved the minutes of the workshop and the regular meeting. Second. I have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Green, secluded by Councilman Centin to approve the minutes of the April 1st workshop and regular meeting. Is there any discussion on this motion? Mary Nell will begin about the Council in Bethel. Or. Or. or. Four. Or, or, or. Motion is approved. Item number nine, the public hearing. City Council will conduct the public hearing to solicit comments from citizens and other interested parties. Concerning the adoption of the updated City of Portland Unified Development Ordinance, we're going to have a presentation by our Director of Development Services. It is now 7.29 p.m. We're going to recess our City Council meeting and go into public hearing. Ms. Monos. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening. The upcoming presentation will cover agenda items 9 and 10 relating to the revisions to the Unified Development Code Or code ordinance. The revisions for your consideration this evening stem from a few major items. The first is the city's comprehensive plan which was adopted in 2023. The comprehensive plan was thoughtfully prepared from years of community input and council input. The proposed revisions aimed to include changes from state law as well and our presenters will touch on a few of those changes. And finally, the proposed changes also seek to reflect development patterns that we see in our city. You will see that reflected through our zoning and use regulations. Tonight's presenters, Mr. Dan Cefgo and Miss Erica Craigcraft with Freason Nichols will outline some of the significant proposed updates. Ms. Craigcraft? Great, thank you, Ms. Minyaz. Again, my name is Erica Craigcraft with Freason Nichols, and I am joining you to present on the EDO amendments. Are you able to see that my screen changed to the agenda slide? Yes, we can see it. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you for that. Okay. This evening, I have an overview of the proposed amendments to the UDO, starting with the background and purpose of the amendments, a summary of the major changes, a preview of the next steps and then time for Q&A. The UDO refers to the Unified Development Organiz, which is the City's zoning and subdivision regulations. The zoning regulations apply only in the city limits, whereas the subdivision regulations apply in both the city and the ETJ. On the right side of the screen, you can see a screenshot of the current chapters in the City's UDO, which is hosted on the Munich Code website. The UDO update has three main purposes. It's ensuring alignment with current state law. We're looking for opportunities to streamline and clarify the development process and, as Ms. Wendio has mentioned, implementing the comprehensive plan that was adopted in 2023. Tonight, I have a summary of the top 20 or so most significant revisions that are proposed. All of the edits are shown in the markup draft that is included in the council packet and also available on the city's website if you would like to see all of the changes that are proposed. First, starting with site plans. Today's site plans are only required for non-residential development, so the UDO amendment would expand site plans and middle requirements to include both multi-family and mixed-use developments to be sure that the COS requirements are being met by future development. The outlined a four-step process to clarify the planned unit development or PUD process and remove the minimum size requirement for residential PUDs to allow for more flexibility. You'll notice more significant markups in the subdivision procedures chapter. In this chapter, we removed the specific information that's required on a plat to instead include that information on a checklist that would be maintained by city staff in case there are updates needed to that checklist over time. Next currently all of the city's plots are reviewed and approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission. In the last legislative session, the state authorized cities to delegate that plan approval to city staff. So the updated UDO would authorize city staff to approve any plant that meets the requirements of the code. So only four plants where there are no waivers or other deviations needed. All of the standards aren't met. And also staff could always opt to defer the plant planning and zoning commission for any reason and applicants can still appeal denials. This change is consistent with what we're seeing most cities do as they update their codes to help streamline the planning process. They also made some changes to the maintenance bond language. The purpose of the maintenance bond is to guarantee the quality of public improvements after they have been installed and inspected by the city. The current code says that the amount of the bond is equal to 100% of the cost of construction, but that it can be reduced to 25%. The amended UDO changes that to always require 25% across the board. That reflects the city's actual current practices best and that also aligns with what we're seeing more commonly in other cities. And we did add some more detailed procedures to outline how those public improvements are installed, inspected, and accepted by the city. One of the other more significant amendments is the addition of a new leisure and entertainment district zoning overlay to align with the city's vision for the LED district. I did wanna note that these changes do not affect the standards that were related to the alcohol sales and hours of operation that were originally adopted with the LED district in 2022. Those are carried forward in the new video. These are in addition to that. The main purpose of this sounding overlay is to limit the types of uses that are permitted in the LED area supporting the city's vision of a vibrant LED area that increases the tax base. The proposed amendments would also eliminate minimum off street parking requirements for all non-residential uses to help encourage infill development and walkability in this area. Off street parking would still be required for residential development. Also, this is an overlay district, meaning that the underlying old town to or OT2 based district that's already in this area, those standards would still apply in the area unless they are modified by this overlay district. The city hosted a meeting with the LED area property owners on April 2nd to talk about how this overlay well more directly affects them particularly in relation to the non-conforming uses. So the list of uses you see here, this information is specific to the LED overlay and the uses that you see listed on this slide are uses that are permitted by right today in old town too but but would no longer be permitted in the new LED district. Some of these uses are existing today. For example, the professional office and storage facilities, I'll talk a little bit more about what that means for them to become nonconforming in just a moment. But as I mentioned earlier, the LED district is envisioned to be a vibrant area. So the uses that we're reviewing, we're really focusing on uses that create more foot traffic and generate activity outside of just regular business hours. The district's intended to spark economic growth and lighten the tax burden on residents. And so these uses may not necessarily support either or both of those goals for the district. Next, the uses in the left column are uses that are permitted by right today in the Old Town 2 district, but would require a special use permit with the new amendment so they would require planning and zoning commission and city council approval for new uses. uses and the right column are the added uses. So these are uses that are not permitted in Old Town 2 today but would be permitted by the LED. I did want to note that the LED area also includes a number of existing residences, a lot of single family homes or some single family homes rather. There are no changes that are proposed to the permitted use status of those residential uses in the LED area. So, no nonconformities there. The only residential change is adding a triplex and quadplex as an SEP that you see in the right column. So, I mentioned that some of these uses are existing today. So, I wanted to summarize summarize the city's existing nonconforming use provisions that would apply to these uses. And this can all be found in chapter 8 of the current UDO available on the city's website and on Mini Code. There are no changes affecting the nonconformities chapter, so no differences there. So in summary of some of the frequently asked questions related to non-conformities, if you have a use that exists today but it is no longer permitted under the new overlay, the use can be continued as if there's no change needed and it can continue indefinitely as long as the operations are not stopped for a period of more than than one year. After if the use was abandoned or vacated for a one year period, it would not be able to resume except in compliance with the new standards. If you have a use that is currently existing and it's permitted now, but the new code would require an SUP or special use permit. It's considered conforming. So there are no changes needed to any of those uses today. If you did want to expand that, then at that time an SUP would be required. If you have an existing non-conforming use that you would like to change to a different non-conforming use. So for example, you have a professional office that's going to change to a different type of office that That's still allowed. You can change to other nonconforming uses as long as they're not more intensive and current use. And lastly, if you have a use that's no longer permitted that you would like to expand it, it can expand within an existing building if you wanted to expand the on the existing building and a STUTP would be required. So moving on, this is back to the overall UDO amendments, not specific to the LED. In terms of permitted uses, you'll see some edits to the permitted use table, including the triplex and quadplex that I mentioned earlier. Those have been added in several districts intended to help support, or we sometimes call missing middle or medium density housing variety. That's something that we've talked about a lot during the comprehensive plan process supporting attainable life cycle housing options. In addition to allowing these uses, we did include some new standards for them to be sure that the quality is consistent with Portland's neighborhoods. Also we expanded the locations where bed and breakfasts are permitted for BMEs to allow them in more locations by right as long as they are meeting some supplemental standards that are included in the UDO. Some example of those standards that would be minimum 500 foot spacing between bed and breakfast, a maximum capacity for the guests, the off-street parking required payment for the hotel occupancy tax, a registry maintained by the city, and also regular inspections. The amendments also specifically address short-term rentals, or sometimes called STRs. These are also known as Airbnb use, and we're seeing those come up more often. Similar to the bed and breakfast, we established some standards like including a registry, requiring annual inspections, and some other restrictions like requiring an owner to be on site if there are single-night rentals. We've also addressed accessory dwelling units or ADUs with supplemental standards. No more than one accessory dwelling unit would be allowed per lot. It could exceed 50% of the square footage of the main house and similar standards like that. Again, supporting the Lifecycle Housing Initiative where maybe an older parent could live here or adult children to help support livability in our neighborhoods. We specified that the city can require a developer to oversized infrastructure, but then that the city would also have to reimburse that developer to be sure that they're paying only for their fair share of the impact. In the street standards, we added a connectivity index requirement, which is what the graphic is shown here, it measures the frequency of inner sections to help encourage connectivity both for pedestrians and for vehicles. And we've added a traffic impact analysis or TIA requirement to be sure that future development is mitigating its traffic impact on the immediately surrounding area. We out of provisions for a stormwater pollution prevention plan, which is required by TCEQ to help prevent pollution from construction activities or industrial operations. The city currently requires park dedication for any major subdivision. The video and the meant would add a requirement for those dedicated parks to not only be dedicated, but to be improved in accordance with the city standards for other parks. And also the trails to be dedicated in accordance with the comprehensive plan, which is the map that you see here. The amendments would encourage shared driveways for adjacent sites to reduce the number of curb cuts along major roads and it would require cross-access between adjacent sites. You can get between two adjacent parking lots without having to get back on the road to get next door. We added provisions to allow residential clustering where smaller lots can be used if open space is preserved. It would result in the same overall number of residential units in the development if at least 30% of the site is preserved, where there's a 10% bonus in the number of units allowed if 40% of the site is conserved. We've added design requirements for mixed use development similar to those already existing for multifamily and non-residential development, but focus more on a walkable urban form. And added a residential proximity slope to limit building height near residential areas to help support compatibility around neighborhoods. And lastly for the revisions, we made edits throughout the sign provisions in the code to help support compliance with current case law. The case law generally says that sign regulations cannot regulate by the content that's shown on the sign but rather by the sign type, size and location. So you'll see a number of updates throughout that section. So that is an overview of the proposed amendments in terms of in terms of the process the city has already held several meetings recently on the UDO amendments, including a roundtable meeting with the development community, a city council workshop. also an LED neighborhood workshop or community meeting that I mentioned earlier and the Planning and zoning commission public hearing last week. Tonight of course is the city council public hearing and consideration. And if it were to move forward may six would be the second reading of this ordinance. So with that, I'd be happy to help with any questions from the council. Thank you. Councilor, we're still in a public, public caring phase. So at this time, is there anyone in the audience that would like to make comments regarding the amendments to our unified development ordinance? Anybody would like to make public comment? Okay. So what I'm going to do is Eric and we're going to go ahead and close the public. I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing. It is 7.44 p.m. I'm going to go ahead and announce the next agenda item which is consideration of ordinance number 2306 unified development ordinance revisions. The city council will consider the first reading of ordinance the 2306 that provides revisions to the city of Portland unified development ordinance. All right council, any questions for Erica? I have one question. Under the leisure entertainment entertainment district, one of the bullet points was private civic organization. Do we have an actual definition of what that means, what that is, maybe some examples. Just one second. Let me see if I can pull up the definition. I believe that would be used as similar to a rotary club or Lions Club type organization. Is it an issue? Kind of. I will tell you that we're aware of at least two city organizations that have interest in that area. And what I have conveyed to them is that it's likely that the city doesn't have any intention of trying to MP And what I've conveyed to them is that it's likely that the city doesn't have any intention of trying to impede anything that they have currently in their plans. What we're trying to do is for the long term to try to encourage future sightings of those kinds of businesses. We're trying to create a walkability and a retail environment there but for those organizations that already are moving towards you know potentially citing there I doubt certainly the City Council on other staff wouldn't have any objection to them going forward that. Thank you Randy. Thank you Erica Other questions? Ms. Pignos, do you have anything you want to add on the agenda item? Yes, Mayor. I would just like to add that we held a public hearing at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting last week like Ms. Craig Kraft mentioned. We did receive one public comment during that meeting. The question was related to allowance of office warehouse and repair shops in the proposed LED overlay district. Staff was able to explain that existing uses, as Ms. Craigcraft mentioned, are considered existing nonconforming, but any new uses would be evaluated at the time of permit and would be evaluated against the principal use. So that's been the only public comment we've received to this point. Okay. Any questions of Ms. Minios? Hearing none, I will entertain a motion. A motion to approve the first reading of ordinance 2306. Second. Motion made by Mayor Procim, green seconded by Council and Vowthl to approve the first reading of ordinance number 2306. Is there any discussion on this motion? We now will begin the vote with Council Member Obrek. 4. 4. 4. 4. Motion is approved. Ms. Hall would you please read the caption into the record. adopting revisions to the Unified Development Ordinance, providing for the repeal of ordinances in conflict here with, providing a severability clause, establishing a penalty, for violations and specifically negating the requirement of a couple of mental stay, providing an establishing and effective day and providing for publication. Okay, thank you. This is the first reading of the ordinance. We will have a second reading of this ordinance at our next council meeting. Now we will move on to our Erica and they're going to stay for the next one. Okay. Thank you, Dan and Erica. All right. Thank you. Okay. All right. Item number 11 is another public hearing. The City Council will conduct a public hearing to solicit comments from citizens and other interested parties concerning the adoption of the 2021 editions of the International Building Code, International Existing Building Code, International Fire Code, International Residential Code, International Mechanical Code, International Plumbing Code, International Fuel Gas Code, International swimming pool and spa Spa Code, International Property Maintenance Code, and the National Fire Prevention's Association's 2020 edition of the National Electric Code, amending the code of ordinances for the City of Portland to adopt local amendments. Ms. Bignose. Hold on a second. Let me go up for you to your presentation. It's 7.49 pm. We're going to recess and go into public hearing. Thank you, Mayor. The presentation this evening will cover agenda items 11 and 12, including the public hearing and the discussion and possible action on the recommendation for code updates. The International Code Council updates codes on a three-year cycle. Most jurisdictions adopts codes around every six years, and the City of Portland is currently utilizing the 2015 additions with local amendments. We are looking at a total of 10 codes this evening, and these codes provide regulations that specify the minimum standards for design, construction, quality of materials, use, occupancy, safety, and maintenance of various buildings to protect life, health, property, and public welfare. Updated codes can also influence our insurance service office or ISO ratings. Lower ISO scores can reduce insurance rates for municipalities based on new structures being at a lower risk for fire and structural damage. The proposed local amendments for your consideration are nearly identical to those of our largest neighboring city. The city of Corpus Christi spent over a year of contractor engagement and we are adopting the results of that process to be consistent regionally. We also held a roundtable to obtain feedback from our development community and I will share that feedback with you at the end of this presentation. We have listed all of the proposed code amendments on our website portlandtx.gov for public review. It can also be found on our development services page under proposed code amendments. As the mayor listed out the 10 codes with our local amendments we are proposing for adoption include the 2021 editions of the International Code for Buildings, existing buildings, residential, fire, mechanical, plumbing, fuel and gas, swimming pool and spa and the property maintenance code. Additionally, we're proposing the 2020 National Electric Code. Over the next few slides, I'll highlight a few significant changes from some of these codes. In the building code, a few significant changes include a clarification that framing inspections do not take place of when-storm requirements. It adds flexibility for illuminated egress paths for high rises, and it clarifies the posting of certificates of occupancies in certain buildings. In the residential code, it defines homeowners permits and adds a clause for natural gas services. It better defines backflow testing and certification, and it updates the climatic and geographic design criteria based on recommendations locally. In the electrical section, it improves electrical safety for emergency responders at one and two family dwellings. It adds flexibility for the location of existing boxes and the use of wiring sizes and types, and it expands ground and fault arc protection areas. In the fuel and gas section, there's a prohibition for threaded bushings. It revises the minimum burial depth from 12 inches to 18 inches, and it prohibits a spring-type mechanical gauge for pressure testing. In the swimming pool and spa, there are design and safety requirements for splash pads, and there are requirements for construction fencing barriers. last but not least least, in our fire code, we've added a section for emergency disconnects for charging stations to be located on the main panel of the charging unit, and there is now a section for indoor fireworks or special effects. So at the beginning of the month, we held a developer and builders roundtable to solicit feedback on the proposed code adoption and local amendments. What we heard from that meeting is that most, if not all, area builders are already utilizing the updated codes as they are working with the city of Corpus Christi. It was a really good discussion and there were no fundamental issues expressed during that meeting. Shortly after, we held a workshop here with the city council and we too received a lot of really good questions. And last week we held a public hearing at the Planning and Zoning Commission and at that time we did not receive any questions or concerns. And with that mayor that concludes the presentation for the public hearing. Any questions for Ms. Minios? Okay. Actually, let me go ahead and close the public hearing. It's 7.54 PM. We'll close the public hearing. Move into item number 12. Ornid, number 2307. Building code updates. City Council will consider the first reading of Ornid, number 2307. Adopting the 2021 editions of the International Building Code, International Existing Building Code, International Fire Code, International Residential Code, International Mechanical Code, International Plumbing Code, International Fuel Gas Code, International Summing Pull and Spa Code, International Property Maintenance Code, and the National Fire Prevention Association's 2020 edition of the National Electric Code,ending the code of ordinances for the city of Portland to adopt local amendments. There's no question that will entertain a motion. Mayor, I motion that we approve the first reading of ordinance number 2307. Second. So motion made by Councilman Moore, seconded by Councilman Sutton to prove first reading ordinance on 2307. Is there any discussion on this motion? Hearing none, we'll begin the vote. Councilman Bethel. Four. Four. Four. Four. Okay. Motion is approved. Ms. Hull, would you please read the caption? Inordinates adopting the International Code's 2021 edition of International Building Code, International Existing Building Code, International Fuel Gas Code, International Mechanical Code, International Plumbing Code, International Residential Code, International Fire Code, International Property Maintenance Code, and International Swimming, Poll and Spa Code. National Fire Prevention Association's 2021 edition of the National Electrical Code, amending the city of Portland's Code of Ordnances to adopt local amendments, providing for the repeal of ordinances and conflict here with, providing a severability class, establishing a penalty for violation, and specifically negating the requirement of a couple of mental state providing an establishing an effective date and providing for publication. Thank you very much. This is the first reading of ordinance for 2307. We will have our second reading at our next city council meeting. We'll move on to item number 13 is annexation petition. It's public hearing. City Council will conduct the public hearing to solicit comments from citizens and other interested parties concerning the proposed annexation of approximately 18.2 acres of land being within the George H. Paul subdivision Coleman Fulton Pasteur Company part in E slash four section 84 San and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco and the San Francisco San Francisco company part in E slash four section 84 San Patricia County, Texas, mispaniose. Thank you, Mayor. The public hearing before you tonight is a voluntary annexation of 18.2 acres located west of Lackey Road and approximately 690 feet north of Buddy Gannon. Thank you, sir. Mayor, did you open the boat here? I'm sorry. It is 7.57 p.m. Thank you, Mayor. The property is located within the city's ETJ. The property is north of the city limits which is zoned R2 to the south into the east. There is a mixture of properties within the R2 zoning district within the ETJ to the west. In 2022, phase two annexation of approximately 1200 acres was initiated and it included the subject 18.2 acre property. At that time, the property owner desired to remain within the ETJ and entered into a separate development agreement. The development agreement requires voluntary annexation to be initiated if there's a change of use or application for a subdivision. In late 2024, during a request for a building permit by one of the five property owners, city staff learned that in the legal subdivision plot headroom had been recorded at San Patricia County in conflict with the annexation requirements of the development agreement. Council has been briefed on this situation and staff notified the county that the plat would be required to be vacated by the county followed by an annexation and a new sub new subdivision plat submittal with the city. Once the applicants and property owners were made aware of the requirements they took every step necessary to try to rectify the situation. Confirmation was received in early of this year that the plat had been vacated by the county. Most recently a new plat for five lots has been submitted to the county which is plending completeness. And it should be noted that there is a discrepancy of about two acres between the annexation and the plat. This is a result of a two acre homestead already annexed into the city in 2022 and assigned the R2 zoning district. The 18.2 acres is reflected on the image on the left, which is, and the image on the right reflects the anticipated lot configurations, the total of the lots total of the lots. The county has assigned property IDs which are shown and they are recorded from the plat that was recorded. I would like to mention when the plat submission is deemed complete, it will need to meet all city and state requirements and that will include the extension of a city water line. Texas local government code chapter 43 governs the voluntary annexation process which states that properties must be contiguous to the municipality. It also allows voluntary annexation of partition by the property owner. The code requires us to hold at least one public hearing prior to adopting an ordinance for voluntary annexation and our ordinance requires two public hearings. So local government code chapter 43 requires cities to provide written notice regarding any fiscal impacts caused by the proposed voluntary annexation specifically to impacted public entities as prescribed by state law. We have met this requirement and provided notice by certified mail. Additionally, we have also provided 46 courtesy notices by regular mail to adjacent property owners. The second public hearing for this item will be heard before the May 6th City Council meeting, and Mayor, that concludes my presentation for the public hearing. Okay, thank you. I have two individuals that have signed up to speak on this agenda item. First, we have Mr. Xavier Sand Sandaval. You'd like to come forward to the microphone over here. And I see your name. When you get there, can you give me your address please? You don't have to say you're you say street in city. Sure. Name's Javier Sandaval, 3-08 San Rafael Portland, Texas 7-8-374. Thank you. I'm the RPLS or the professional land surveyor that submitted the plat, and I was just here to introduce myself and open up for any questions if anybody had any. Glad to meet you all. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. Next person that has signed up is Mr. Kelly Mennick. You'll come forward. Hey, I was going to Kelly Mennick, 1128, Livermore Street, here in Portland, 7874. Just a couple of questions. We've all known that this has been going on, but is there an estimated timeline on, I mean some of them have started building and camp build. My parents are trying to buy the plot next to us and have been in that since January. They currently live in New Mexico. They're trying to move down here. They need a timeline that was a cash offer should have been quick. Is there anyeline between the county and city on what's going on when they'll be able to close and have a couple other questions If I don't know if that's one that can get addressed now or Put into anything. I think yeah, I think we can have some latitude in answering these are public hearing go ahead Miss Vignose yes So mr. Bennett we explained to the original property owner that to complete the process we needed to complete the annexation. The annexation is scheduled for the next reading is at the May 6th City Council meeting and then the following council meeting in June will be the final reading of the ordinance. I'm sorry May 20th will be the final reading of the ordinance. I'm sorry, May 20th. Will be the final reading of the ordinance. So once the annexation is complete, your family members will have to work with the surveyor to complete the water line installation for the properties and then they can submit for a building permit. So the installation as we understand it for the water line is a conversation between the property owners and the original property owners of how that will be installed. Okay, even though it was annexed before any of us bought those and didn't know anything about that during the purchase process, that's still gonna be on. As a clarification, it wasn't annexed at that time, which which is why we're going through this process so it was a plat was submitted to the county illegally and that county has vacated it so the process we're going through right now is the voluntary annexation. So likely won't be till June before they can even close. It could happen but a requirement of subdivision plating is to have have utilities to that lot which is why the water line needs to be extended throughout the properties. Okay. And I'm happy to talk to you offline if you want to get into depth of any more questions. Since it's going to be moving into city limits we'll add exemptions, carry over into that because that's coming up at the end of this month for us to apply to maintain that. And be productive with agricultural out there. But being within city limits now, will that cover if we decided we wanted to do bees? Can we do bees within the city? Yeah, yes agricultural exemptions will still need to be filed with the county But what I mean is will they carry over? Once it's city yes, once it's annex we can keep that aggings The city doesn't issue the exemption the the appraisal district Determines agg exemptions so sure if it's if it's currently agg, you'd need to contact the appraisal district to ensure that that's gonna remain so. Sure, it shouldn't have any to do with the city. Okay, it sounds like they will, but the county also is kind of in limbo and unaware of what's going on too. I talked to the tax assessor multiple times over the last couple of weeks and he still is unsure and he said it We're just nobody really knows on what's going on Or they're not telling them one of the I mean that could be an option All right waterline that was my last question so well to talk to you more after question. I would encourage you to stay in touch with Ms. Munoz. Thank you very much. Is there anybody else here tonight that would like to make public comment regarding the voluntary annexation of this property? There, hearing now we're going to close the public hearing. It is 8.05 pm. There is no city council action on this item tonight. We will have the first reading of this ordinance. Next city council meeting. So tonight was just the public hearing. So no action tonight. And then there will have to be two readings of this ordinance before it become effective. Then the plat has to be approved. ABRUDO will be approved by then, so city staff can do that more quickly, going through the P and C process. So that's a good thing for the general minister, Mennick. All right, we'll move on to item number 14, public work vehicle purchases. The city council will consider approving the purchase of two Ford Maverick pickup trucks And then not to exceed a amount of $61,780 Dr. Banks Good evening mayor council members the item before you this evening is a purchase of two vehicles for the public works department We are looking at to 2025 Fordric XL Super Crew pickup trucks. These are an all wheel drive vehicle and what we did in looking at these vehicles is really kind of assess our entire fleet and determine between our larger trucks, our small mavericks that we bought a couple of years ago and just the overall inventory, what are the best type of platforms that we can buy that will be efficient and still meet our needs. So these all-wheel drive vehicles will fill that performance gap between our existing Ford Mavericks which are two-wheel drive vehicles, pickup trucks. They're going to give us more crew capacity and the ability to travel off-road. They will be replacing a Dodge Journey van and Chevrolet Short-Bed pickup truck that are in the fleet right now, which have both exceeded their service lives. We did obtain pricing from three vendors, the lowest quote that we received of 30,890 each was provided by the TASB by board cooperative contract. These vehicles are estimated to arrive in early fall 2025. We wanted to take the opportunity to move as rapidly as we could on those because there are some uncertainties in the new vehicle market at this time. The financial impact is that the combined vehicle cost is $61,780. We did have $65,000 in the budget for the purchases of these vehicles in fiscal year 2024, 25 and I'll be happy to answer any questions anyone might have. Any questions or Dr. Banks? You're in that I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve the purchase of two Ford Maverick XL Supercruel pickup trucks in the not to exceed amount of $61,780. And authorize the City Manager to execute all necessary contract documents. Second. Motion made by Councilman Sutton, seconded by Councilman Albright to approve the purchase of two Ford Maverick pickup trucks and the not to exceed a amount of $61,780. Is there any discussion on this motion? Hearing none, we'll begin the vote with Councilman Albright. Four. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 42 deliberation regarding real property 551.073 deliberation regarding prospective gift 551.074 personnel matters 551.076 deliberation regarding security devices and 551.087 deliberations regarding economic development negotiations. This 8.09 PM, we are going to recess our city council meeting and go into executive session. We do anticipate an agenda item after our executive session, so we will be coming back on the record at the conclusion of our executive session. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Okay. No, not with blue. Blue. Sorry, thank you. Okay. See it is 9.18 pm and we have a conclude our executive session. We're going to go ahead and reconvene our city council meeting 9.19 p.m. And it's not working All right. Thank you. All right Okay, we'll go into item number 16 resolution number 930 multiple use agreement with flat camera system. The City Council will consider resolution number 930 that authorizes a multiple use agreement for the installation of automatic license plate recognition cameras and Texas Department of Transportation right of ways. Mr. Elliott. I have Council will be here. Mayor Council, we are seeking approval to enter into a multiple use agreement with the Texas Department of Public Safety for the installation of the ALPR camera systems. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you have related to it. Any questions from Australia? So I think just for clarification for the public, can you just kind of say what this isn't and what it's not? Okay this is not a camera continuous surveillance system. It only records license plates and images of vehicles on our highways and some of selected streets and used for investigative purposes related to criminal investigations. So some of the similar like what's in the mall and Corpus Christi right now, something happens. You can go back and review. This is not like we're not going to be sending out tickets for people that go through red lights. No, no citations or tickets would be issued by this. They don't record vehicle speed. They're not being used for registrations or anything along that line. It's purely for investigations of serious offences. Thank you. OK, any other questions? That'll retain a motion. Motion to approve. Resolution 930 that I'll second. So motion made by Councilman Sutton, seconded by councilman Bethel to approve resolution number 930. So any discussion on this motion? Here we now will begin the vote with councilman Bethel. Four. Four. Four. Four. Okay. Motion is approved. Thank you very much. Okay. There is no further business before city council is 921pm and I call this meeting adjourned. Good night everyone.