Good evening, Rockville. Today is September 16th, 2024, and we'll begin meeting 22-24. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God in the visible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We'll now move on to agenda item three, agenda review. Miss Taylor for all do you have any announcements to make? Yes, Madam Erin council members, we had several items added after the agenda was posted. Item 5D, a proclamation declaring National Hispanic Heritage Month. Items 9B and C under consent. Adoption of a resolution for employment agreement and a adoption of correction of ordinance for the 80 use and on agenda item 11B adoption of ordinance to amend chapter 17 of the Rockville City Code and title procurement. And with that, Madam Mayor, I'll turn it over to you to announce to the public of our new changes for our meetings. Thank you. We have some new changes, Rockville residents, that we'd like to announce. We have developed a new six-month agenda plan in calendar. It's to help you stay informed about upcoming agenda item meetings so you don't deceive the very next one. This calendar will be updated weekly to provide the latest information, but please remember that all items are tentative and subject to change. It is just meant to help provide guidance on things we're planning to discuss in the near future. You can also stay informed and up to date on your local government by checking the calendar regularly at rockfillmd.gov-mayor-counsel. Also, starting on Monday, October 7th, Mayor and Council meetings will begin a half-hour earlier at 6.30pm. We're trying to do this to help people get to bed a little bit earlier and also to help our staff get home earlier. We're going to try this and see how it goes. We may have future adjustments. In addition, proclamations where we recognize and honor special events, causes or individuals will now take place from 5.30 to 6.30 pm before the first meeting of each month. Also, drop in sessions which are available so that you can meet with myself and a member of the council. We'll continue to happen monthly. You can discuss any issue on your mind and those will be held from 515 to 615 before the second Monday of each month. Of course, you can always email us directly to schedule other meetings. And don't forget, our meetings are broadcast live on Rockville 11, Channel 11, and on the county cable, as well as live streamed at rockfillmd.gov-rockfo11. It's also available on demand the day after at rockfillmd.gov-video-on-demand. Thank you for staying engaged in our city and we look forward to trying these new changes. All right, we'll now move on to our city managers report, Agenda Item 4. Mr. Mahalek. Mayor Asher, members of City Council, ladies and gentlemen, good evening. We have a long work session later on tonight, so I'll be very brief. I only have one item, but I'm pleased to tell you that we have fantastic news. The results are in from the latest S&P and Moody's bond ratings. Please tell you that the City of Rockville has earned once again a triple A bond rating. You guys know that buying rating is the highest that any municipal government can receive. It's fantastic news. It just means that our dollar is going further. That people will likely buy those municipal bonds, which means we have a lot more value. Go into our capital projects and will have lower cost overall for our tax payers. So it's fantastic news. I do want to read one line really quickly from the Moody's report. So I think it could be pleased by it. It says I quote, the city's financial position has historically been healthy and in recent years reserves and liquidity have seen additional improvement, a trend that is expected to continue given management's conservative budgeting practices and adherence to formal fiscal policies. So that's a really nice quote from one of the raging agencies. So congratulations, Mayor and Council. I also like to point out in congratulations to our finance department. That does all of our work. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions or comments? I just wanted to add, this weekend, I had the honor to be participate in the first responder parade for a fallen firefighter in paramedic. It's named John Henderson. I know that he was a constant supporter of the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department, including supporting the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department in their most recent situation where they lost over $200,000 to hackers who came online. And so I think this is a wonderful time to note. And I was in contact with the volunteer fire department out of the two over $200,000 they've lost. They are now due to the wonderful support of I know members of the council here in numerous public, under $48,000 to go, to fully replenish the funds to purchase the two ambulances. So, I think this is a wonderful time and I'm out of mayor brought it up a few months ago. Anybody here can contribute. You can just go to their website. It's very easy to remember, rvfd.org. They've got a link there. They've also got to go fund me if you search on Google for rockville fire volunteer fire department. And it's fun. There are numerous ways to contribute. There have been a number of fundraisers are looking to do more. If you can help, it'd be wonderful because we need to support those who are helping to keep us safe. Thank you, Eddie. Any other comments or questions? Council Member Valerie. I just wanted to note that many of us were present to wish the Lincoln Park community a very happy 133rd anniversary. It was really a terrific event and I just wanted to elevate and highlight their community and formally wish them a very happy anniversary and hopefully everybody can come out and join them next year as well. Fantastic. Okay. All right, I have a few quick ones. One, it is fantastic that our city's fiscal health is so strong. I know that is a coveted bond rating and thank you to the entire team for helping us to keep it that way. We want to continue to be good stewards. I also just wanted to note, and I let the city manager know that we do have a budget survey that we want to, it's not a budget, you don't have to have any finance experience to do this, it's not a true budget survey, but it is a survey to understand what your desires are, what you want us to fund. And so it's really critical that everyone listening and all your friends take this, because we need to know what matters to you. We are here to represent the city. And so please tell your neighbors and friends, it takes no more than five minutes. And always we try to beat our responses from the previous year, so help us do that. I just wanted to also acknowledge the Twembroke community. They had a great, two great events this weekend. And then we had some great things happening around Townsend and other parts. Hard times is reopen. They had their grand opening and Lincoln Park celebrated 130 years and then also some town center businesses opened, I think two over the past week. So lots of good movement. I just also wanted to note that on the 17th, that is tomorrow at nine, we'll be doing our state of the city sponsored by the Rockville Chamber of Commerce. We'll also have the Taiwan Bubble Tea Festival, the Saturday, Pee Stay on the 22nd, and there's some other events happening on the city as well. Please feel free to check out our calendar. The last, the other big, big one I wanted to note is on the 28th, we have three big events, the F. Scott Fistar, a literary festival, rock-tobor-fess, right-and-town center, and then there'll be opioid awareness trainings at the police department, and you can also get your own Narcan, if you'd like to be someone who helps fight opioid addiction. Opioid use, and so that is something that you can get as well. All right, so we'll now be moving to proclamations and recognitions, and we have have I believe four for today. So I'm going to ask my colleagues to join me. Dr. Miles, you are first. Awesome. Good evening. Thank you all for the opportunity to read this proclamation, feeling with voting. I don't need to tell those watching that we do have an election coming up in November. And it's more than just the presidential race, which is important, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention all the things that are having downvaled members of Congress, third of whom are up for re-election, Senate race and others. And generally speaking, participating in the voting process is important for many people who have died trying to vote in the struggle for equality and voting rights. Women have just gotten right to vote, you know, just in recent history. So it's something that we should not take for granted. But if that, I'll read the proclamation. Whereas the right to vote is a cornerstone of what it means to be a free people. It represents a bedrock tenants of equality and civic participation on which our nation was founded and may many have fought to obtain and protect. Now therefore, the mayor and council of the city of Rockville, Maryland. Hereby proclaims September 17th, 2024 as National Boat of Registration Day encouraged everyone to register to vote. Review their voter registration, update their information, and be able to exercise their most basic American right to vote. With that, Madam Mayor, move the proclamation. Thank you. Do we have a second? Councilmember Shah has seconded. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. It is unanimous. And I believe we have members of our esteemed board of supervisors of election who are tremendous volunteers. If you will join us. Please feel free to say a few words. Thank you. Yeah, I would like this. You know, I'm not going to say no. Thank you. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you very much for this proclamation and for your recognition of the importance of voter registration. And I also want to thank the mayor and council for their unwavering support of the democratic process in Rockville and its groundbreaking use of vote by mail. I'm sure that you folks know that there are places in this country where officials are trying to erect barriers to try to make it more difficult to vote. But here in Rockville we have been removing barriers to try to make it easier for people to vote. And the entire Board of Supervisors of Election to of Womar here with me takes pride in the fact that voter registration in Rockville increased in the 2023 election both in terms of absolute numbers and a percentage of the population. That fact is in part due to the hard work and the dedication of my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors of Election, including Steve Weiner and Steve Fisher, who I will mention still needs and deserves reappointment, plug there for Steve. But to continue that progress, tomorrow we will be at Town Square from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. providing information on voter registration. So if folks need to register or if you need to update your registration information and in a city that relies on vote by mail, having updated voter registration information is extremely important. So if you need to do that, come by. If you just want to chat about elections or a voter registration come by, we're happy to talk about that. It's all really easy to do. And I hope that we see folks tomorrow. So thank you guys very much. Thank you. Oh, OK. very much. Thank you. Oh okay. Oh over there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I have the honor to talk today about the National Service Dog Month, which is going to be this month. I can tell you personally the degree to which surface dogs can create a lasting not only bond but assistance is huge. I've got a family member who uses a service dog, and I've seen them in actions. I've seen even a family member who's helped train service dogs and the degree to which they can provide assistance is unbelievable. And so for us to proclaim a month is absolutely wonderful, necessary, and a wonderful thing that we can do to recognize how these animals can assist those in need. Whereas service dogs play a vital role in enhancing the lives of individuals with disabilities in our community, both visible and invisible, including visual impairments, hearing impairments, mobility limitations, autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, and seizure disorders. And whereas service dogs demonstrate extraordinary dedication and are constantly alert and ready to perform tasks that mitigate their handler's disabilities, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing unwavering support and assistance to their human partners. And now therefore the mayor and council of the City of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby proclaim September 2024 as National Service Dog Month in Rockville and urge all residents to celebrate service dogs and be respectful of the rights afforded to the adults, children, and veterans who lead more independent lives because of their assistance. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. Second. Thank you, Councilmember Jackson has seconded. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. And now, and now we have a member of the Rockville Human Rights Commission, along with Nigel to come up here and talk a little bit about the proclamation and accept. Come ahead, Bert. I hope I have time to talk. I'm back at you. You're right. You're not. Hi. I don't think he's up for talking to Dave Luddie. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Service dogs transform lives. They are not mere pets, but vital partners in our journey towards independence. Through their unwavering dedication, these animals break down barriers and open doors that once seemed forever close to us. This proclamation stands as a testament to our city's unwavering commitment. Every individual, regardless of ability or disability, deserves to live freely, authentically and with dignity. On behalf of the Human Rights Commission and Service Dog Handlers across Rockville and Nigel, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to the city and accept this proclamation. It's more than words on paper, it's a commitment to education, awareness, and the recognition of the profound impact these animals have on our lives. Together, let's continue to build a Rockville where service dogs are universally recognized and respected. Where the bond between human and service animals is celebrated. Thank you. Should we get around like yes? Close buddy. There we go. Oh look at that piece. He's mine for the picture. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm very glad you're all that happy to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good job, Magic. You're all good dogs. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good job, Magic. You're all good dogs. They're all good dogs. Okay. I have the honor of reading the Car-Free Day Proclamation. This is a very important day. I know a lot of people might laugh or giggle a little about it, but if we can just not take use a car just one day in the year, even that little makes a significant difference for the environment, for congestion around here, which is always a struggle. And anyway, to elevate the importance of public transit and our pedestrian infrastructure is a good thing. So let me proceed. Whereas the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board is the Metropolitan Planning Organization for the Washington region and whereas the Transportation Planning Board through its commuter connections program promotes and organizes the annual car-free day event along with its network members throughout the Washington area. Now therefore, the mayor and council of the City of Rockville, Maryland, hereby proclaim Sunday, September 22, 2024, as car-free day throughout the City of Rockville, encourage all residents to go car-free or car-light, carpool, vanpool, shared rides, and pledge to be car-free or car light by visiting www.carfreemethodc.org. Metamere, I move the proclamation. And Councilman Van Grack seconds, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. All right. And we have, I believe, the chair of the Raffle Bistical Advisory Commission, if you'd like to come up and accept the proclamation and say a few words. Thank you for, Mayor and Council for giving us this proclamation. Car free day is important because it helps highlight that while cars are very important and very useful and then they enable us to do a lot, there are all kinds of other ways to move around. We can walk to the grocery store, the library, or walk to one of our friends in the neighborhood, or ride a bike somewhere that might be a little far too far to walk, instead of taking our car and just kind of enjoy the outside air and see people around in your neighborhood and just kind of help out that way and think of how much less traffic there would be if some people didn't do that either. So I encourage everybody to think about this sometimes, think of another way to get around aside from driving and see if that can benefit you. Thank you. Oh, I could do that, sure. Thank you. One more thing as Merissa stated I am the chair of the Rockville bicycle advisory committee and this coming Sunday we're going to have the Carl Henne Millennium ride starting at Thomas Farmer Community Center. It's a we host group rides throughout the summer and through the fall where we just kind of guide people around the city. It'll be a very you know mellow ride it's not racing nobody's It's a we host group rides throughout the summer into the fall where we just kind of guide people around the city It'll be a very you know, Mellow ride is not racing nobody's gonna be going that quickly everybody's gonna be kept together So we wouldn't invite anybody wishes to come this Sunday 10 o'clock in the morning at Thomas Farm Community Center I would also like to invite the council to come on Sunday as well and join us for the ride. It'll begin at 10 o'clock. I know there may be some conflicting events, but I think we can make it work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So we are celebrating Hispanic Latinx heritage month and started officially as one of the months that goes from September 15th to October 15th. And we felt it's important given that Latinos and that next community members have contributed greatly to our country and continue to. And we want to continue to strive to be an inclusive city that makes everyone feel seen and welcome and honor their contributions. And with that, I'll read the proclamation. Whereas the observation of Hispanic Heritage Week started in 1968 and was expanded into a month-long observation in 1988 and whereas this year's theme is pioneers of change shaping the future together. Whereas approximately 15% of Rockville's population is of Hispanic Latinx, a Latino identified origin, those who identify as Hispanic Latinx can be of any race of any religion and represent many cultures and countries. Now therefore, the mayor and council of the city of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby proclaim September 15th, 2024, to October 15th, 2024, as National Hispanic Heritage Month in Rockville, and we are certainly proud to celebrate the resilience, contributions, and culture of Hispanic Latinx and Latino-identified individuals, groups, and communities. And I will note that this Rockville Senior Center will be doing a Latino festival this Friday. So please, for free to register and check that out. Will someone move the proclamation, please? Madam Mary, move the proclamation. Councilmember Larry moves. And Councilmember Jackson seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Hi. It is unanimous. And I would like to welcome, we have some members of community reach today and I want to give a special plug community reach does an outstanding job of supporting all people they do serve a very large Latinx population and provide so many services from language outreach to affordable healthcare to housing really an all-inclusive approach to thinking about the whole person and with that please come up and accept this proclamation. Thank you very much. My name is Andrea Campner-Wink. I'm the managing director for for Community Reach of Montgomery County. We serve everybody in Rockville and the Montgomery County, but we are especially proud today of our Hispanic and Latino clients and staff and board members. The Latino community brings so much rich culture to our community. There are so many of them have such strong family values that help us to remember our family values going back generations or people support their children and their parents and their grandparents. I love the food. And there's just so much more that they give to the community every day. There's such hardworking people with so many different cultures that are supported by South America and Central America. Thank you. Thank you. I'll see you in the next one. I'll be back. Sure. Thank you, Manny. Our Mansfield Casement Health Clinic, which serves primarily Latinos, about 85% of our patients are Latinos at the, at man's field casement health clinic is having our gala on October 26. You're all invited to come. It's one of our more important fundraisers of the year. Thank you. All right, that concludes our proclamations and and recognitions for this evening. All right. So now we'll be moving on to agenda item 7, which is community form. We welcome folks to be able to share their thoughts, ideas and concerns. All persons should address the mayor and council and we will of course have a civil and courteous discourse with members in the audience to be respectful of others as well. Each person is allowed three minutes and we ask that you stick to the three minutes allowed. There is a clock up here so you can see how much time you have left and there'll be a little buzz at the end of your time. Please state your name and whether you're part of the city or from the city of Rockville when you testify. All right, we do have some folks who are scheduled to speak in advance and then afterward we'll be opening the floor for those who would like to speak as well. I'd like to welcome Misha DC, followed by Jake Jacobk. Hi. My name is Misha Klyve. My pronouns are they have them. I am a proud resident of Rockville. I live in the Rockville Town Center area. And I wanted to add to my, add my feelings of celebration to us celebrating a car-free day as a car-free local resident who loves to be hyper-local and shop hyper-local. So I was one of many people who was absolutely delighted when little minor taco opened their doors. The mayor and some of our council members were there for their ribbon cutting. It was a really wonderful experience. They're a delightful addition to the community and it was great to have you all there, encouraging everyone to shop local. At the same time, I received our rent increase and our landlord told us that our rent was going to go up by 6% if we wanted to stay for one year and by 10% if we wanted to stay for two years. So where am I going to find that taco money? Then I was really looking to find. There's two other great new restaurants that have just opened up and these are all expensive restaurants. Is my taco money going to go to Little Minor Taco, or is it going to go to a corporate landlord with a $14 billion real estate portfolio who doesn't care about my family and our ability to stay in the city of Rockville and live here and support local businesses? I felt that the 10% for two years was a particularly sharp attack on our family as local renters because that's the landlord saying We don't want you to lock in a rental rate and stay here for another year We want to warn you. It's gonna get worse and this came not too long after This council Had a vote on rent stabilization as to whether or not we would continue to talk about this as part of the Affordable Housing Agenda. Now we have two champions here, council member Shaw and council member Miles, our champions of rent stabilization and supported this and care about renters. Our mayor and other council members did not support continuing to have this as a critical item that we need to keep on our affordable housing agenda. And I am one of nearly half of the people of City of Rockville who are renters. And of us renters, 56% of us are burdened by the cost of our rent. My family definitely is. It's like half of our income. But we stay here because we love it here. We really, really love Rockville. We really, really love investing in Rockville and local businesses here. We can't go get an MPDU because there's 21 MPDU properties listed in the city of Rockville. And only one has units potentially available, the Milton and Twinbrook, which isn't open yet. So I know that there are, that the mayor and four of the council members here want to stop talking about rent stabilization. But those of us renters are going to continue to live with the consequences of not having rent stabilization as a critical part of our affordable housing agenda. So we're going to keep talking to the next slide. Jake Jackaback. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Jake Jackaback. I'm the chair of the Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee. And I would like to restate my formal invitation for you to come. Join us on our bike ride on sunny morning. It'll be in memory of Karl Hen, with whom we're all very familiar. Some of his family will be there at the beginning of the ride to say a few words and just kind of, you know, have a little morium for Carl and then we'll begin the ride. The ride will start a Thomas farm, head through, going in the tunnel under mail and avenue through some of the neighborhoods of the south and then around on the Karl Handman Lenin-Mitral Eastern side. Through King Farm, back to Thomas Farm Community Center. It'll be about 12 miles, I think, very slow. We'll have pointers and we're relatively organized. So I would like to formally invite all of you to come on this Sunday and join us for the ride. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome Liz Ortizad, followed by Stacy Capowicz. Hi, good evening, Marin Council. My name is Liz Ortusar, and I am a proud lifelong resident of Rockville, Maryland. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Cultural Arts Commission and the Artists Navonation Committee in support of Paul Santillary for the Outer Recreation, Pool Art Project. You may ask why Paul Santillary. Paul is not just any artist but a visionary. His proposal entitled Wave, a celebration of Maryland's biome, reflects the sustainability and beauty of our aquatic environment, perfectly aligning with the goals we set forth in this project. It connects our community to nature while raising awareness of Maryland's endangered species. Through community input, it was clear that our residents wanted art that honors Maryland's Flora Fana landscapes and water ecosystems. Paul's design beautifully captures these themes resonating deeply with what matters most to our swim center members and residents. Paul's portfolio speaks for itself. He's had installations prominently displayed in airports, parks, and other prestigious locations around the world, and his ability to create large-scale public art is well-known. The durable glass mosaics he's chosen will not only create a striking visual, but will stand the test of time and weather enhancing our pool for generations to come. What really excites me about Paul's proposal is the community engagement aspect. Paul plans to conduct a mosaic workshop where residents and members can actively participate and learn about creating mosaics. This isn't just about making art, but about bringing people together, fostering a sense of pride in what we're building as a community. It's important to highlight that Paul's proposal received unanimous support from the nomination committee and the Cultural Arts Commission. The strong endorsement reflects the shared belief that his vision will enhance the beauty of our new pool and create a deeper connection and sense of identity with residents and visitors of the Rockville Swimming Fitness Center. In closing, the Marin Council's approval of Paul Santillaris' selection is more than just choosing an artist. It's about embracing environmental stewardship, community pride, and artistic excellence. I encourage you to support this project and look forward to seeing it and enhance Rockville's cultural fabric. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good evening Madam Mayor and Council Members. I always get nervous. I'm Stacey Kaplowicz. I'm a resident here in Rockville. I am, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I am Vice President and Managing Regional Partner with Lincoln Avenue Communities, a mission driven of national owner and an operator of affordable and mixed income housing. A resident of Rockville, I also proudly serve as chair of the Rockville Housing Enterprises Board of Commissioners and I'm a passionate advocate for affordable housing. I wanna briefly share a few thoughts about supply based on my experience as an affordable housing practitioner. Well, we are facing a serious challenge. I'm exceptionally optimistic that with this particular body in place and with the team assembled in the city's housing and community development office and the dedicated staff at Rockville Housing Enterprises, we are poised to lead this region and implementing a multifaceted approach to lead to meaningful and impactful housing outcomes. of housing, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments reported that we need to add 41,000 housing units in the next 10 years, 75% of which needs to be affordable in order to meet current demand. Now we all learned in Econ 101 that supply and demand have an inverse relationship. And when there's a lack of supply, it drives up demand. So when there is an increase in supply and demand is met, then we give renters the power of choice. And owners and operators, in order to stay profitable, must invest in capital improvements, must only enact reasonable rent increases, and must invest in excellent customer service to remain competitive. Unfortunately, increasing supply is really hard to do. From a new construction standpoint, Rockville has been one of the most difficult markets to enter with extremely high barriers to entry. Right now, Coastart only shows seven vacant parcels on the market in Rockville, three of which are already under contract. One for acre site that could maybe yield 60 to 80 units is listed at $5.9 million, which for an 80-unit project is $73,000 per unit before you even get to building. That's the same land cost for a market rate developer who can jack up rents to cover that cost. Affordable developers are capped at area median income rents. So if we need to pay that land cost, we have to turn to the city or the county or the state for subsidy. This is a problem that we can overcome. Another challenge is an extremely protected pre-protracted pre-development period. When you have entitlements and you have financing periods and you can't close on land for 12 to 24 months, sellers are not going to want to wait. They're going to move on to a more lucrative opportunity. So we're faced with a lack of available buildable land, a high premium to purchase land, and pressure to close on land quickly. And that's just to get a site under contract. I am running out of time and I have probably 45 more seconds to go. So I just want to say thank you when I'm excited to engage on all of the brainstorming. Great things we can do as a city to improve affordable housing for everyone. Thank you. Thank you very much. Welcome Claudia Sacramento, followed by Tyree Davis. Hola buenas noches, miembros del concilio. A me llamo Erika Martinez Benites. Vivo en los apartamentos de Filsa Apartment. Hace siete años soy residente de la Ciudad de Rogueville. Y estoy preocupada por los constantes, aumentos y las condiciones tan malas. the city of Robeville and I'm worried about the constant aument and the conditions are so bad in those that we are living I am a person who has paid precisely with my rent and it is not just that they charge me so much of rent and they are sending me to court three times they sent me a court and also today I am already in the stop to greet me. When this is the last one that my children have been to, and I need them to come because I don't have where to come from with my children. I have proof of the payments that I have made. I don't understand why I say that I owe. When I'm with my rent today. Now, the same place, the maintenance is specific. We still don't have to pay for the payments we owe. And we also pay for the grue A una si no sigan cobrando pagos que no debemos y también nos mandan justamente la grúa para que lleven el carro de mi esposo y a dos veces para pagar un dinero que igual no me sobra, verdad. Despido que por favor me yude yo a hoy día es mi último día que yo puedo estar ahí ya mañana yo tengo que estar saludando. Yo no tengo a donde ir con mis hijos. Gracias. Gracias. I have to be alone. I don't have to go with my children. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Her name is Erica Martinez, and they live in the field of permits. They are residents of Rockville for the last seven years. They are very concerned due to the fact that the rent increase has been tremendous. They start paying $1400 and right now, they're asking for $1700. They increments their asking, they can afford at this moment. The situation they're actually leaving is horrendous. They've been asked that they owe over 27,000 dollars in rent, which is according to Martinez, she has proofs on her mobile device, a famous maid to the landlord. They've been asked to go to court for three times already. The judge has told her that she only owes $30, $500. She has proof of that. If that's a matter of well-proved, she brings to the landlord, they refuse to accept her response. Right now, they are being asked to leave the apartment. The last day for them is tomorrow. They don't have no work to go. Right now, her husband, her kids, very much are going to become homeless at this point. Right now, what she is asking is for any help that a mayor and cancer can do to where's the landlord. It's unfair for a family of four that she has been as regardless of proof that she has submitted that she is still, they still ignore the proof that they have it. At this point, she is asking for some kind of help whether from here or from the city itself. Too much, they have loved Ragville for the last seven years. They would like to continue to live here in Ragville. I think it's a great city for everything that it shows and it proves. For this reason, they are begging to the American Council to do something about her case, whether somebody here in the community that can actually handle this case because there's no way that they can afford to pay $27,000 in rent. Even the judge has admitted that that's incorrect. But the landlord refuses to. Headpoint is that she believes that she will be kicked out regardless of this point. Thank you very much. I'm going to just pause community forum just temporarily to ask our city manager to help given this timely situation of someone from staff can meet with Ms. Akramento to be able to help her. We do have a Department of Housing and Community Development who advocates for tenants. There are rights that tenants have in terms of notification and their opportunities to file formal complaints. And I would like our staff to see if they can help Miss Akramenta with that. If someone would meet her at the back, please. Thank you very much. And I will pass that information to the staff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please make sure someone speaks with her. Thank you. Thank you for indulging. Next we have Tyree Davis, followed by Erica. Thank you for the news. Good evening. Thank you for an opportunity to speak tonight about an issue that touches not only the economic well being of our community, but also our racial and socioeconomic fabric being allowed to stay in our community. As we all know, housing calls have skyrocketed and rent prices continue rising, placing significant pressure on most families, especially those that are middle class. But this issue is more than just about rising rates. It's about fairness, equity, and ensuring that all members of our community, regardless of income, have a stable place to call home. A study from Montgomery Planning found our middle income population in Montgomery County is disappearing and Rockville is not an exception. Historically, housing markets have not been kind to historically excluded communities, particularly people of color. For decades, discriminatory practices like redlining and exclusionary zoning policies have been at Black, Latin, Asian, and other historically excluded groups from accessing affordable, stable housing. Restabilization is a powerful tool to counteract these legacies of inequity. We can prevent displacement and ensure that middle class families from all black backgrounds, especially those who have been historically excluded can remain into the neighborhoods we helped be. Moreover, risk stabilization supports socioeconomic equity. We, the middle class, are increasingly squeezed by stagnant wages and rising cost of living, leaving families vulnerable to certain rent increases. For families of color and those in low to middle income brackets, these increases disproportionately led to instability and even force relocations. Rinse stabilization helps to close the gap by ensuring that housing remains affordable and accessible to everyone, not just those with higher incomes. As a former employee for the City of Rockville that assisted in justice equity, diversity and inclusion efforts, I almost had to move outside of the city twice because my rent increases were initially so high. The first a $249 increase a month, the second a $200 increase a month, but with no upgrades or new amenities. As someone who was a first-generation college graduate and the first in my family to start in the middle class, I do not have the same resources from my family at my disposal as others. At the July 8 meeting, it was noted that rent stabilization would advance racial equity and social justice. Assinumid that this body has talked about and this is a chance to be about it. Rent stabilization is one of the few housing policies that will genuinely affect me because I make too much money to qualify for certain programs in can't afford anything by myself outright. It'll take years to see a supply increase that will be needed to bring rents down. Critics may say their rent stabilization stifles growth or discourages investment, but this is a false choice. It's not about restricting progress but about creating a path forward where equity is at the heart of our decisions. When we support rent stabilization, we are taking a stand for the kind of city we want to be. A city where families of all backgrounds can thrive, a city that values long-term stability, over short-term profits, especially those of corporations. We also emulate that the city believes that housing is a right and not a privilege. Less than the message that our city stands for fairness, equity, and opportunities for all. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Erica Martinez, followed by LC Levine. LC Levine and Emily Tobey? Mayeron Council. I've lived in Rockville, my whole life, and I learned that Rockville comprehensive plan 2040 caused the development of walkable, sustainable smart neighborhoods in commercial areas throughout Rockville. I live in the West End, and our neighborhood is within walking distance of Rockville Town Center and Rockville Metro Station, not to mention multiple schools and parks. I like living in the neighborhood as it currently exists. However, many new homes in this area of cost and excess of one million dollars. The quality of life in our neighborhood is undoubtedly a privilege reserved for the very wealthy. Single family zoning in Rockville is wasteful forces that over-aliance and driving and excludes new residents who are in neighborhood due to high house prices and cyphold growth. Plan 2040 calls for a reconsideration of the residential detached sites of the West End and raises the possibility of denser residential attached housing such as town homes, duplexes, and triplexes. Dents are in more productive housing options would improve access to trans and services, make commercial businesses in town center more valuable and reduce vehicle traffic in Rockville. Many citizens say that they'd like to be able to walk to amenities or take turns to work, and they want their rent or housing costs to go down, and they want Rockville to be inclusive. I firmly believe that these goals are achievable, even at market rates. But we need to make sensible choices on zoning and housing policy. It's not economics, but the law that is forcing property owners to build inefficient low-density, automobile, boobial dependent neighborhoods. It's true that residents worry that neighborhood character will be impacted. But I'd like to address in this case that one can simply cross Maryland Avenue and see a row houses in neighboring Newmer comments. No residents have explained, have complained that there is a noticeable difference in neighborhood character between these neighborhoods, and they don't seem to mind the housing that is already in place. Parents are worried about stresses on existing services such as schools. However, without new property tax revenue, it is impossible to build new schools and expand their public services. This cash 22 means that we currently cannot build anything. The single family detached housing they wish to maintain is actually one of the most wasteful and costly forms of housing for the city. Local and state governments spend more on infrastructure, spread over a wider area to serve fewer residents than they would in a higher density area. And now we're finding that we do not have the money to maintain our public services for more people. In order to meet our development goals in Keybrock-Fullstrand, I urge your mayor and council to continue their redevelopment of the West End. Thank you. Emily Tauy followed by Zoe Polak. Good evening. Thank you, Mayor Ashton and Council for giving me the opportunity to provide testimony tonight. My name is Emily Tauy, and I'm an outreach coordinator with the Montgomery County Renner's Alliance. Since our founding in 2010, we are the only regional organization dedicated exclusively to Renner Outreach, Education, Advocacy, and Organizing. Today's agenda packet includes a UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies review of academic literature around neighborhood level impacts of market rate housing development. We noted the researchers' recommendation that market rate development be prioritized in higher resource communities where the risk of displacement and other potential harms is lower, and that complementary policies such as tenant protections remain essential. We must heed the researchers warning because by no means are Rockville or Montgomery County renters immune to displacement despite the additional resources that are available. Sadly, we often see this firsthand. As just last week, our staff was onsite in King Farm and encountered a father of three on the side of the road, frantically packing furniture and a small mountain of black trash bags into a U-Haul by himself. While this area is fortunate to have more funding than other areas for social workers and rental assistance, this alone is not enough to stop the displacement of renters. One reason is that stopping displacement often comes down to need to relocate to a more affordable apartment, a virtually impossible task for low income families in this market. A common scenario we encounter are families who qualify for county relocation funds, but are essentially just provided a list of rental communities in the area with little to no navigation and cannot find a place that will prove them for at least before the sheriff comes. While the runners alliance certainly does not oppose a strategy that seeks to increase the affordable housing supply, we must emphasize the short-sightedness in the falsehood of the notion that more supply is the sole or overarching solution for low-income runners to avoid displacement. We cannot build our way out of this crisis. Realistic consideration of the timeline of affordable housing supply becoming available, even in best case scenarios, demands a comprehensive solution of meaningful rent protections in combination with supply strategies like the MPDU ordinance and housing on religious and public lands. We reference UCLA in today's agenda again as they identified complimentary tenant protections to be essential. We hear the scare tactics from landlords that development will suddenly stop if rent civilization is enacted, but the public knows better and won't be scared out of asking their elected officials for reasonable protections against price gouging. County Council member Natalie Fanning Gonzalez pointed out during our recent town home meeting how key development projects remain in the pipeline debunking the myth that building will halt an event stabilized area. We hope all members of this body listen to the public when they say they are being priced out of their homes and need renter protections to feel safe and secure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome, Zilli Pollack, followed by Lisa Brooks. Hi, thank you, Mayor and Council. My name is Zilli Pollack. I'm a Rockville tenant and a long time on Montgomery County resident. I wanted to speak in favor of the council re-taking up rent stabilization policy. As many others have spoken to very eloquently tonight, I think that this is an issue that is urgent. It's a life or death issue for some people in our community. It's a urgent quality of life and well-being issue. It's a disability justice issue, just as much or more than the very adorable disability service dogs, which we have applauded earlier. And I wanted, I have spoken to the council on this before, but I wanted to address an additional point. We've heard some dire warnings that any kind of rent stabilization cap will halt all development. and I think that the policies in Montgomery County at large really show the opposite. Montgomery County has been nationally recognized at the county level as a leader in social housing policy and the Laureate Building Project has been recognized in New York Times and has been recognized all over the world as a new shining example of new construction that is very efficient to build and is actually affordable for new tenants. On the other hand, the kind of developer-friendly policies that involve 10% rent increases year over year and make working families homeless would only serve to exacerbate the current crisis that we are in. I don't think that many of my community members, my friends, my loved ones, have the time for what the largest study from on desoning and developer-friendly liberalization policies from the urban institute found that, quote, we find that reforms that lose in restrictions on development are associated with statistically significant. 0.8% increase in housing supply within three to nine years of reform passage, accounting for new and existing stock. This increase occurs predominantly for units at the higher end of the rent price distribution. No significantly statistically significant evidence that additional lower cost units became available or became less expensive. That is to say, increasing rents or increasing building in developer friendly way causes very minimal and very slow and high income only benefits for supply. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. That concludes those who have signed up in advance. Would anyone else like to speak? I know these are gross. And I think there's a good question. Thank you. That concludes those who have signed up in advance. Would anyone else like to speak? I know that it works. Yes. And I think there's someone else. Okay. Justin, you will be after. Thank you. Welcome Lisa. Thank you. I'm Reverend Lisa Ray Brooks. Welcome. I'm establishing a new congregation here in Rock Rockville Maryland. I'm long term Montgomery County resident and three years here in Rockville, which I love and I'm also a service animal and I vote and I walk. So thank you for all the accommodations today. I was here for the I saw all that was being shared and everything that my beautiful, wonderful elected officials whom I vote for, who are faced with an unprecedented number of loyal voters who are reaching out in pain and anguish about their untenable rate situations. It is incumbent upon those whom they elected and put into office to act in accordance with their constituents, appeals for relief, and from the dreadful, dispassionate rent increases, such as what I personally experienced with a rent increase of 5.8% and to clearly serve the community. This doesn't serve anyone. This situation doesn't serve anyone at all. Imagine yourselves in the situation in their place. If you have a variable mortgage that, let's say, is $5,000 and you can afford the 1 to 3% interest increase and that you signed up for, you know that that's the increase that you're going to have. Yet this situation that we're in, we do not know the amount of the increase that is coming toward us. We still have the same situation. We have college tuition for our childrens. We, you know, several people who are not renters have other vacation homes. And you plan for all of that. You know what you are expected to pay because of the amount of your increase based on what you signed at closing. What I'm asking for is for the council our mayor to listen to your constituents and offer a rent stabilization solution. Thank you. Thank you, Reverend Brooks, and we have another speaker. Hello. Thank you, Mayor and the Council for the opportunity for me to speak with you today. My name is Justin, and I am a new resident here at Rockville. This is my first time speaking to you. And I'm here to express my support for rent stabilization as well. I gradually, from college, just this spring, and I moved to Rockville last month to begin my career. I've grown to really enjoy Rockville. I love the community here, the libraries. I was surprised by the amount of good Chinese food options here, the red line, so convenient. But hearing that, the city voted to not discuss rent stabilization in the July 8th meeting, worry me, as I'm sure it would for many other young professionals, as we're pretty sensitive to cost. what for many other young professionals as we're pretty sensitive to costs and sudden unproductive run increases can make it impossible for us to continue living in the city. Run stabilization will provide a sense of security and predictability for us to plan for the future and establish roots here. I want to help build Rockville's future, but I don't know if I can do that if anyone can just hike rent to unreasonable amount. Passing rent's liberalization will mean retaining the energy, innovation and enthusiasm that young people can contribute to the city, I believe. So I urge the mayor and the council to reconsider your July decision on rate symbolization. And thank you for listening to me. Thank you very much. Thank you to all who have spoken. Is there anyone else who would like to testify? Okay, we have two more speakers. Okay. Hello, Councillor. I did not come prepared to speak today, but from everything that I've heard today, my family was one of the originals in Scotland, Maryland. The praythers and the doves are who raised my mother and many of my family members. Properties that were taken from them, properties they were talked out of. And now I can stay in here and say that I live in Rockville, Maryland, where my family started out here. They bought their first homes here. When they couldn't do anything else because of segregation. And we're sitting here today having a conversation around around stabilization for people that just want to live. We have literally become the halves and the And we wonder why people in the community don't get involved. And we wonder why people in the community don't trust government. And we wonder why people are still struggling with the educational systems and funding. I was sharing earlier today where I rent. I've been fighting them for four and a half months to get a refrigerator. And I pay over two thousand dollars a month. And I'm fighting with them to get a refrigerator. I could have gone to Home Depot and bought it myself. That's why I sold my house. I made a choice to rent. Because I didn't want to do the house thing anymore. I wanted that responsibility to be on the landowner. I didn't want to do it anymore. So I shouldn't have to pay a crazy ridiculous amount of money and then still have to wonder if I'm going to have a working refrigerator and for the people that I elect to still treat me like my original family members who literally built Lincoln Park. I just wanted to point to our city manager, Jeff Mahalak, just to note that if there are specific landlord tenant complaints and landlords are responsible for maintaining property that there is a they can come to to get the contact to help with that. Thank you. Welcome. Maria Cruz. I'm here. I live in Rockville, not in the apartment of the Loco Lman Park. I live for nine years here in the situation we are living us. The residents are very difficult. So, Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Council. Her name is Maria Cruz and she lives at the Goldman Park Apparament. She's been a city single rugby for the last nine years. Her main complaint right now is the increase of the rent that's happening, I guess, through every rent here in the city right now. Her rent in the last three months have gone from $1,600 a month to $1,750 a month. Unfortunately, in December, Ms. Cruz got COVID and bronchitis in all kinds of stuff. Regardless of that, she was as a taxi driver to leave her apartment. She's been up to date with her rent. She has no idea why they want her out of the building. As the previous person who spoke, the appliances that she has in her apartment don't work. She has gone multiple times to have somebody to fix it. They refuse to acknowledge her. They don't come. They ignore her complaints whatsoever. She is asking for mayor and council to put a staff on their own increases. As person wants herself is by herself. She has no family members here with her whatsoever. So if she's asking for anyhow that the CD can provide, she's not begging, but she is asking for some kind of support that the CD can provide to her in other people, other citizens as well. can provide to her in other people. I would see this in Saskerelle. So with that said, she can hear from somebody from the city and take her case as well as the previous person. Stay there. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm going to ask that someone, I think there's one more, but I'm just going to, who else is going to testify? Okay. Thank you. Please, while you're coming up, please come up. I just want to say the number of land law and tentative fairs is 2403148300 and the email is LAT info at rockfullmd.gov. If there are landlords who are not following rules and not replacing things that are important, you can file a complaint. And I just want to make sure I share that number again 2-4-0-314-8300. There's a process to file a complaint as well as his seek mediation services. I also want to note that Rockville does have an emergency assistance program, and I will just again point to our city manager who can share emails and numbers for that for anyone who needs it. Welcome. Hi there, I'll keep it brief because others have spoken much more eloquently with more direct experience. I understand this council's trepidation in passing rent stabilization. It is a change, but it's a change that we sorely need. And there are range of policy options when you implement this policy that it doesn't need to necessarily be this extreme draconian thing. There are a range of policy options. And all we're asking you to do here is just meet us in the middle and listen to the need that has been expressed to you. I've been born and raised in Montgomery County and I've seen people in my generation move out. This county for over a decade has been having a net loss in migration of the middle class, especially people who are 25 to 34 years old, which is the average home buyer here. And they can't even rent here to build the capital, to build the equity, to become home buyers here. I don't want to, and my friends are teachers. They are, they're studying to become doctors. These are people that you want to be able to afford to live here. And again, I think you, for your case, if you're proactively listening to the people who have come here and expressed need to say, let's connect these people with resources. But there's lots of people who can't come here to make that claim who can't make their voices heard. And in addition, there's going to be a lot less need for case management if people, the root of the issue is solved in the short term of just being able to know their future. And I'm super in support of a broad spectrum the kitchen sink of housing policies that we need to address this crisis. But as has been said before, at least in the short term, we need this now. It's going to take too long for supply side to meet the need that we have. So I understand all of you care. We all want to live in Montgomery County, where businesses that can thrive in residents long time residents can thrive. So please consider rent stabilization. Please discuss it, because please meet us in the middle here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Feel free to come up. You leave me in your council. This is Ruby Thimos' and thanks everyone that shared. I'm gonna try to be as brief as possible. I know in the past on July 8th when we came, it was so many people that came in support for rent stabilization. And the way that things ended, Council Member Adam Van Grack, you opposed rent stabilization, but you're one of the same people that said that your own friends were priced out at the city of Rockwell in one of the hearings, one of the public forums. And I myself, I'm asking, I've been asking for rent stabilization for us. I'm here. I represent the underrepresented community. We don't want the Rock with the city of Rock will to only be for the elite. Because it seems like that's what the mayor council is trying to do. Except for councilmember Zola and Dr. David Miles. We urge you to pass rent stabilization. Put it back on the discussion. Someone like myself, a vulnerable adult, somebody that's disabled and also a trafficking survivor, I'm in great risk of being displaced. And once again, please pass rent stabilization, Mayor Hashton. Applause Thank you all for your testimony. Does anyone else want to speak before we close community forum? Thank you for all of your testimony. We will continue our housing workshops and discussions over the next several months. We will now be moving on to our next agenda item, which is consent agenda. And I'm just going to note that a member of staff will meet you outside if you would like to talk about your situation and would like to get support or that renters emergency assistance or a land more tenant complaint. Staffimer will be able to direct you to how to file such complaint and get support. On consent agenda item 9 we have several items. 9a approve the artwork as recommended by the Culture Arts Commission to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with Paul Sontaletti for the outdoor recreation pool innovations art project as part of the art and public architecture program the adoption of a resolution of proving an employment agreement between the Mayor and Council of Rockville and Tara Eglstens duert the new director of recreation and parks the adoption of a corrected ordinance to grant zoning tax amendment application TXT 2019 00255 to amend the zoning ordinance to allow detached, accessory dwelling units and residential zones mayor and council of rockful applicants. And that concludes the consent agendas 9a. I think that was one more. Up in the world, handle that later. 9a through C. Colleagues, are you okay to take them all or does anyone need to pull? Okay, all right, I'll entertain a motion. Council member Van Gregg. Madam Mayor, I move to for us to approve consent agenda's items A, B, and C, as noted in our agenda briefing booklets, and as you stated for, you know, Ms. Cedon. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Councilmember Jackson seconds, all those in favor. Please face your hand and say aye. Aye. All right. It is unanimous. I want to thank city staff for these. There's going to be a beautiful artwork coming up in our Rockville City pool. Recreation in parks is critical to quality of life in Rockville. And I'm glad to see that we have leadership starting. And then we just made one modification to the work that we did last week to support housing supply through a detached accessory dwelling unit. So thank you colleagues for the votes that have been made today. We'll now be moving on to agenda item 11A, discussion and instruction, possible introduction and possible adoption of an ordinance, to MENCITY Code Chapter 13.5, Toddelt, Model E prized dwelling housing to require that all housing developments with 20 or more dwelling units provide Molly price dwelling housing. And I would like to welcome Jane Lyons Rader. And I don't think we've had Mr. Trout present before. Do you just want to say a few words? Excited to be here. Thank you guys very much. I'm going to turn it back over to Jane. Thank you. Mr. Trout is the director of the Department of Housing and Communion Development. If anyone has any needs on Lionel-O-Tenative Affairs, he leads that department. I wanted to make sure that folks are aware. Thank you. Welcome, Jane. Great. Thank you. We are very excited to have Ryan on board. Again, Jane Lion's Raider Housing housing programs manager with housing and community development, and I will dive right into this agenda item. So tonight I will provide some introduction to this topic and let you know with the requested feedback that we're looking for is. I'll provide some background on this topic. Let you know what our staff recommendation is. Talk about the next steps for moving forward. And then we'll circle back to the requested feedback for tonight and you'll be able to share any questions that you might have. So as you know, housing is one of the three focus areas for the Mayor and Council. The moderately priced Dwell and Unia program was established in 1990 and is really the main source of new deed restricted affordable housing within the city has been since it started back in the 90s. residential development projects that 15% of the total units, both rental or for sale, be set aside as moderately priced dwelling units for households making a certain moderate income. Currently that MPD requirement only applies to developments with 50 units or more. So the requested feedback for tonight is do you support decreasing that threshold for requiring MPD use from 50 units to 20 units? So a little bit more background here. So the reason that we are talking about this is because there are some comp plan action items related to reconsidering the MPDU ordinance in order to support the production of MPDUs. One of those is to explore and study requiring MPDUs for residential developments in 10 units or more. There are lots of other comp plan action items related to MPDUs as well. And with those, we hope to delve more into them with the comprehensive MPDU ordinance rewrite. But with that comprehensive MPD ordinance rewrite, we want to take our time and do our due diligence to research the best practices and the recent research that's come out around these types of inclusionary housing programs. And with that, it might take some time to get that policy right. So in the meantime, we're at risk of losing potential MPDUs while that ordinance is rewritten. We might have more development applications come online for projects between 20 to 49 units. So how does this compare to other local MPDU programs? So both Montgomery County and Gathersburg have their own MPDU programs and they are essentially a mirror of Rockville's program in almost every way. They have the same 15% set aside. The main difference is that their threshold is 20 units rather than 50 units. And so not only does this mean that we might be losing out on MPD use, but we might be incentivizing applications to lower the total amount of units so that they come in under that threshold. And with that, that begs the question of how many projects have there been with 20 to 49 units within the past 10 years? And since 2014, there have been two development projects approved with 20 to 49 units. If the MPDU threshold had been 20 units at that time, the city would have approved an additional 12 MPDUs. And there are currently two projects with 20 to 49 units under review. And the city, if the requirement had been lowered, previously the city would have received 13 additional MPD use. So how would this impact development staff do not anticipate any negative impacts on the development environment? And part of this from talking to developers are understanding is that with Montgomery County's MPDU ordinance being so long standing that that requirement is essentially baked into the land prices, same in Gathersburg, same in Rockville, and with Rockville having that higher threshold we haven't seen significant differences in land prices or in development being incentivized because of it. If anything it might mean that we're incentivizing lower housing construction for folks to come in under that cutoff of 50 units. So that leads to our recommendation, which is to decrease the threshold for requiring MPDUs from 50 to 20 units. And the next steps here, if you would like to adopt this tonight, the ordinance would first need to be introduced and then motion should be made to waive the layover period. If that motion is approved, then a motion to adopt the ordinance, then could proceed. The change would become effective immediately upon adoption, although caveat that it would not apply to any housing development for which an applicant has submitted an application for a building permit preliminary plan of subdivision record plat project plan or site plan. And then again, we plan to comprehensively consider changes to the MPDU ordinance and the MPDU program and that upcoming ordinance rewrite that were in the very early stages of at the moment. With that, I will go back to the requested feedback, which is pretty simply put forth of, do you support this decrease from 50 to 20 units? And with that, I will leave you with any questions that you might have for us. Thank you. I want to just start by saying thank you to staff for bringing this forward. The Comprehensive Plan, as you noted, was approved. I want to just start by saying thank you to staff for bringing this forward. The comprehensive plan as you noted was approved. I believe in 2021 and it was our intent to allow more affordable units to be developed with smaller projects. As you noted, there were two projects that came for that had no affordable units included. I want to particularly thank our city manager because that was one of the first things he did to get this on agenda We've been wanting this for some time and I really appreciate your efforts to make this happen as well as our Housing team and I'm glad to see mr. Trial here as well as Jane There have been a number of things we have done historically that I just wanted to mention before we open discussion So people have a sense of our evolution on the Mowley Price dwelling unit program. Last term, in addition to requiring, well, we changed the requirement from 12.5% in some parts of the city so that now any new development over 50 would have to do 15%. That means that we're getting net new units across the city. In addition, it used to be that the units only had to be affordable for 30 years. And we did see some situations where someone could move in and have to move out as a senior in that heartbreaking. So we changed the time period that something is affordable, that unit is affordable from about 30 years to 99 years. So that was another effort we took to make sure that we're trying to maintain our affordable housing stock. In addition, there is an income requirement, as has been noted, for the Molliprice dwelling unit program. And when you graduate from that, it used to be that you had to move out, I think within 60 or 90 days. We increased that time to allow a more humane time for someone to find a new home. So those are some of the changes that have been made by the previous body. And I'm very delighted that this body isn't moving forward a number of other strategies to change the MPU program. We also changed how much rents could go up. So there was a chance that rents would be 13% for the MPDU program and we adjusted that to align with some formula based pieces so that now that that is also a bit more stable. With that, I'll open the floor now that I've shared some history to see what my colleagues think and I'm looking forward to personally supporting this. Council move, Larry. I am fully supportive of making this change and would love to introduce the ordinance and move this process along. We've already missed too many opportunities because of the threshold. So is that your official introduction? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Make it that. All right. I's make it that. I'll do that. I'll do that. All right. I see Dr. Miles. Thank you, Madam Mayor. But also I wanted to echo the things to staff for bringing this forward. And I've spent a while in the making. Welcome our new housing director as well. As the mayor pointed out, there's been some significant history behind this one. And I am generally supportive of it. I do want to manage expectations. I appreciate the numbers given in terms of the total number of housing units that would be affected and generated based on previous and current projects. And generally speaking, I think the MPDU program is one of many tools, but as you see, the numbers are so small in terms of meeting the overall need of providing housing that's affordable to all. To all support this one, I just do want to make sure that we are looking to all aspects and ways to address the housing affordability crisis. And with that, I'll stop speaking. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Miles, Councilman Van Grack and then Councilman Bershaw. Who had your hands up for us? I didn't see Councilman Bershaw, please go ahead. I also wanted to as my colleague council member Dr. Miles noted that MPD use barely scratch the surface of the need of tens of thousands of residents in Rockville. I think during the June 3rd presentation, I think the total number in the pipeline was something like 1,030 if all of them get through. So this is definitely needed. I would also say in addition to MPDUs, also rent stabilization would actually have much of a further reach based on the need. And I was going to see if it would be possible to actually consider increasing the percentage from 15 to 20 and I wanted to get staffs feedback on that. So it would be 2020, 20 years, 20 percent. That's something that we could certainly consider in the comprehensive MPD ordinance rewrite about what that correct set aside percentage should be. Okay. And then my other question was I know that Madam Mayor did mention the increase in time like if a resident receives a promotion or increases their income The time was extended. I wanted to know How long was the time extended for the city of Rockville exactly and how long is that time in the county? It was extended to six months within the city of Rockville and I am sorry that I do not know off the top of my head What it is in the county although with the county they have a bit more flexibility I believe you're allowed to go up to 120% AMI, but I'm not sure if when you go over 120% AMI, what the time period is for how soon you have to move out. Okay, thank you. So that's something we'll also be considering with the ordinance rewrite is, should we have more of a buffer there with the incomes? Council move and crack Thank you We clearly have an affordable housing problem here in the county and here especially in the city And we've got a rental price problem here in the county and here in the city We've got to do as much as we can to help that. And the data that I know the staff has put forward in numerous briefings over literally the past three months on the show that one of the best things we can do to directly help that is increase the supply. And what we're doing here with the MPDU rewrite and to change the number is one of the things we can do. I agree with what my colleagues say that's not enough. When you do more and I know we're gonna have a discussion on further ways that we can increase its supply, but I think this is a good step in the right direction to try to increase its supply, decrease those numbers, and so I do fully support with the staff as put forward. So thank you very much, staff for your work and the briefing you've done. Thank you, Council Member Larry. So Council Member Ringgrak touched on something that I wanted to note, which is while a very much respect of variety of viewpoints on housing. It is a variety of factors that got us to this point. So it's going to be a variety of factors that get us out of this point. And I think looking at the item at hand and going in with a negative feeling about it is not really helpful. I think we should move forward positively that it is one thing in many, many tools that we need to do. And so I am for one. I have a preaching of the MPDU program for a variety of reasons because they are not just rental units. It's also to encourage ownership as well. So if we want to remain true to the tenets of our commitment to DEI, I firmly believe that allowing for generational wealth through home equity, if that is what somebody wants to do, I don't see anybody else proposing that option. I'm open to other ideas to do that, but I honestly I struggle to see because as somebody who does not have the generational wealth that many others may have, the multiple houses and so forth, I know how important and I feel that very deep in the heart of me. So I just wanted to flag for my colleagues that we're talking about a couple different things and that we really need to be open to positive change. Thank you. Councilmember Jackson is next and I'll go back to Councilmember Shaw. Thank you, Mayor. I'll be brief, but first thanks to staff for the work on this. As has been mentioned, I think this is a small step in the right direction. We're gonna have a discussion later tonight and then numerous others in other meetings. We're gonna actually tackle the bigger problems in housing. And hopefully we're going to come up with a step-by-step plan for getting more housing. But I would be remissed to say that I'm really optimistic about coming up with a plan. I know that this council has energy, has the will to make the decisions that are necessary. And I think this small step is really a good sign because it's been something that's been on the table for a good while. And this city manager and staff and this council took it up and we're going to I hope approve it and then go on to other things. So thank you for doing this and I really think I'm optimistic that this is just a first step in what it's going to be a larger plan for the future. Thank you. Councilembrichal. I just wanted to echo my colleagues and also just share that I'm really excited about the conversation that we will have about supply we need it all. And I think one of the positive ways in which we could move forward is instead of removing items from our toolbox is actually adding items from our toolbox. And so I'm really excited about moving forward with the conversation with supply, subsidy, and stabilization. And I do hope that we can actually increase the amount of tools that we have, particularly around stabilization, because as what we heard today from a number of tenants and from a lot of the emails that we have received and a tenant myself in the city of Rockville, we also need to think about immediate solutions beyond long-term solutions around supply. Thank you very much to all my colleagues. And again, thank you to staff. I did have before we move forward on any motions. I know we have to do the layover and then make an official motion. Since other folks have shared thoughts, I wanted to note that we are looking in the Rockville Town Center Master Plan ways to get to 20% of affordable. We're also looking at bonus density heights and maybe, you know, thinking about how we leverage parking reductions to support affordable. So I just want to know that this there's a lot of conversation to come. And so I, and there's an opportunity to also look at how do we get to higher MPD use. Since folks have noted that we do have some MPD use coming online, so the Milton is a Molley Price dwelling units for rent and they will be having a grand opening at the end of this month. I believe it's the 26th of the Thursday. Last Thursday of the month at two and if you're interested in doing that, you can go to the city website and look at Molley Price dwelling units. It has the contact and specifically asked about the Molley Price dwelling units. I also wanted to note that there are some coming online for sale. Most immediately is a King Farm Stead that will have Molly Pricewell units for sale. So if you're a home buyer and you want to have more affordable unit, those would be available. And then in the future we know that rock shire is something that we just approved as well. So there are other and on our website you can see other projects. And I know that if anyone reaches out to our department that they can find more about the program, I know there's some brochures that you have as well. The two other comments I wanted to make is, in light tech, people can go up to 140% as they graduate incomes. That is, since we've talked about some other folks I've mentioned, policy proposals to explore. I just wanted to mention that. So that right now, it goes from, I believe, is 50 to 120 percent of average median income. Once you exceed 120 percent of average median income, you have about six months to then graduate out of the program and find another place. Lightech, I believe, allows people who are already in the units to go up to 140, so they're not displaced. And they have a little bit more time. So I just just another policy tool to explore. In addition, I've mentioned this to the city manager, but LightechCH, which is low income housing that's funded through federal and state, they also have income restricted housing. So in addition to MPD, Molly Price dwelling units MPDUs, there are also LITECH properties within the city. They do not have the six month graduated time frame. And as we talk about legislative priorities, I'm just giving a heads up that something I'm wanting to see if we can advocate so that people are more humanely treated when they do have to find another place to live so that they also might have six months. So I just wanted to raise those points for additional exploration. All right. Colleagues, do we want, Councillor Schauder, do you have another comment? Yes. Please putt. You mentioned a number of the MPDUs. Do you know when they'll be available for moving? I asked that because I received that. Yes. So September 26 is the grand opening. I don't know if Jane, you have this specific opening date. I know that by the end of the month, some of the units are already done and they look like they're going to look. They're almost leased up. So if somebody is interested in a MPDU at the Milton, I would encourage them to reach out as soon as possible. Yeah, there were 60 available. I know that there were at least 25 available when I last checked. So if you're interested, please reach out now. And then there'll be more developed soon because I know that there are other projects that are being planned as well. Thank you for the question. Okay. Does anyone want to make a motion? Councilor Van Graek. Madam Mayor, I move to Wavelay over period for the adoption of an ordinance to a Man the City code chapter 13.5 to a moderately priced housing to require that all housing developments within 20 or more dwelling units provide moderately priced housing as noted in our briefing booklets with the ordinance beginning on page 98. Thank you. Do we have a second? Okay. Dr. Miles seconds. All those in favor please face your hand and say aye. Aye. Council Member Larry, do you want to make the motion? Oh, sir. I would like, I just lost my spot to a new year, you're going to ask me to do that. I don't think you may. I moved to adopt the ordinance to amend City Codeode Chapter 13.5, titled moderately priced housing, to require that all housing developments with 20 or more dwelling units provide moderately priced housing. Do we have a second? One first. All right. Council Member Jackson has seconded for the record. All right. Councilor Jackson has seconded for the record. All right. All those in favor. Please raise your hand and say aye. Okay. It is unanimous. Thank you so much, staff. And I appreciate this additional step to find ways to increase access to affordable housing. One point I'd like to just someone can get back to us is when chapter 13.5 will be coming before us. That's a I know a longer term thing that we talked about but we'd like to make sure we get it on the agenda at some point. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So next we'll be moving on to agenda item 11b and this is a continuation of our discussion from last week on adoption of an ordinance to amend chapter 17 of the Rockville City Code entitled procurement to revise certain provisions of chapter 17 of the Rockville City Code to amend procurement spending thresholds and to ad reporting requirements. Welcome to Jessica Lewis. We appreciate you coming back to us. Good evening Madam Mayor, members of council. So the proposed amendments for City Code Chapter 17 was introduced on Monday September 9th to 2024 and the layover period has passed. The proposed amendments in this item that was introduced on September 9th did not include the addition of Section 17-39D awarding authority requiring the city manager to annually report on contracts awarded and changes and modifications to contracts involving more than $100,000. But it did include 17-40C contract modifications, change orders and price adjustments requirements for city manager to annually provide a report for contract changes above 250,000 and 17-84F emergency procurement the council to be notified of emergency procurement exceeding 250,000. The item before you tonight is a revised ordinance as provided in your agenda packet today where staff recommends adoption of this ordinance to keep 17-39D as revised keep 17-84F as revised and to remove section 17-40C as this requirement is already included in the revised 17-39D. Thank you very much. And for those who are watching in layman's turns, we are allowing the city manager to be able to approve contracts up to 250,000. And the mayor and council will approve everything at 250. And beyond that point, however, we wanted to make sure that there is transparency for the public on all these contracts and that they would be included in the annual procurement report. So that is a brief summary, and I know that Ms. Lewis will come back and present the procurement report, and that is always available and publicly online. Some of us had discussions on some changes to last week, what was proposed on Monday and on Friday and today. So I just will note that we intended to continue to keep the threshold as we noted for the 250, up to 250 approval by the City Manager, but we did want to make some adjustments to make sure that we were having the transparency. So I know Councilman Van Grack, you wanted to share some things on this as well following our discussion today. Yes, I just want to follow with what Staff had said. I support this amendment and with the changes, the additions that we've got in the most recent briefing booklet, as well as striking section 1740c, so that there'd be no superfluous. So, Madam Mayor, I would move that we adopt the ordinance to amend Chapter 17 of the Rockville City Code, entitled procurement to revise certain provisions of Chapter 17 of the Rockville City Code to amend procurement spending thresholds and to add reporting requirements as is amended in our briefing booklet with the one exception to strike section 1740C as noted in the proposed ordinance. Thank you. Do we have a second? I would suggest we forward to our check. You're my just on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. changes. All right, my colleagues would like a brief break, so we'll take a six-minute break and be back shortly. 855. agenda item is 12 a housing strategies work session on supply. Welcome back Jane Lyons raider and Mr. Trout Ryan Trout. We're going to be getting a presentation on some of the housing strategies that they've been exploring and then we'll have discussion. Thank you. Mayor Ashton, I'm going to go ahead and start this one out. Okay, welcome. You're gonna lead us through? I am gonna lead you through. At least the first few slides. So we are excited to try out our new work session format with you this evening. And again, the goal is to just get broad feedback from the council on a number of different strategies that we have to address housing supply in the city. Next slide. Thank you. So we're going to introduce the topic again. We're going to request feedback to very specific questions and I'll show you those questions in a little bit. Jam will go ahead and provide some background and then we'll get into some of the details on the ideas we have for expanding housing supply. We'll talk about next steps because I'm going to you guys are always interested after this discussion. When are we going to move on getting some of this adopted? We will seek feedback for the questions that we need to move forward. Then of course, we'll pause at the end to see if you have any questions for us. Next slide slide please. So again, just to reiterate to everybody in the audience watching this, that housing is one of the three focus areas of the mayor and city council back in June, as most people remember. There was a briefing on housing crisis and the policy landscape, and today it was the first of three, let me stress three work sessions on housing strategies. This month is all about supply. October will be about subsidy, and November will be about stability. So if folks are wondering why we may not be addressing a particular topic tonight, I would ask for their patience because we may be covering it in October and November. I'm going to show you this very large slide that'll show all the topic areas and you'll very likely see the topic that interest you somewhere within the next couple months. And as I mentioned, these work sessions under the new format is to provide broad direction from Marin Council to direct staff. Next slide, please. So the feedback and I'll walk through this slowly and I'm doing this intentionally so you guys can think about these questions as we go through the presentation. Versus, do you agree that the identified strategies are the most important to increase housing supply? Number two, do you support the strategies outlined in the zoning ordinance update related to increasing supply? And again, we'll walk you through that. Also, the changes we're thinking about for fast two, fast two you guys should think about about our development review process streamlining and then also the town center master plan. All three of those areas have opportunities to increase housing supply. Number three, do you support the proposed areas for exploration on the MPDU ordinance? I think some of you are already telegraphing that you do that, but we want to unpack a little bit more today. And then do you support efforts to limit the impacts of short-term rentals and house flipping on housing supply. If you do, strongly recommend that we have a separate work session to get deeply into short-term rental legislation. And I think that's all I have, and I'm gonna turn it over to Jane Lines-Rater, our Housing Programs Manager, who's gonna walk you through some of the more details and get into the depth, and I'll bring it back again to Q up on the questions. Thank you, Mary. Thank you. All right, good evening again. So this is a slide that you saw back in June when we had the original housing briefing. So just to zoom out a little bit about where are we? How are we looking at crafting a strong housing affordability and stability policy? Right now we have the broken status quo where housing is not affordable. It's often not always in good quality. Tenants have challenges, but we have a policy toolbox that has a variety of different strategies and options to address all of these challenges. No one tool is going to fix the entire stool alone, but together we can put that stool back together and have the three strong legs that create a strong housing strategy and that is stability, subsidy, and supply. One of the things that we'll try to emphasize tonight is how this is not always super straightforward about what policy or strategy might go in which of those three buckets. There are some strategies that fall into two of them or three of them, but at the end of the day, you need to pull strategies from all three of those buckets in order to have a strong housing strategy. So this is the slide that the city manager was referencing where we're throwing up all of our ideas. They are subject to change, especially the ones first subsidy and stability since we are not talking about those tonight, but we want you to know that we are already getting started and thinking about what some of the things we will want to look at and consider, consider in the short term and the next budget cycle, things that we believe are the things that will make the biggest impacts and that we can do quickly. And then as you go down the list, get into those darker orange colors, some of the things that we are in the process of learning more about and will take some more time to pursue. pursue some of the questions that get a bit stickier and bigger like the end of the supply list there reducing construction costs. That's a really big question that will take some more time for staff to think through what Rockville might be able to do to impact something like that. So again, tonight focusing just on supply and to zoom into that even more. All 21 of these strategies are described more in the staff report but for the purposes of the work session tonight we're going to focus on these top 12 strategies that we have identified and as you can see many of these are already being addressed throughout the zoning ordinance rewrite for the ZOR. And these are the policies that we would like to especially focus on to get your feedback and input. So now to continue with some background here about what are we talking about when we talk about housing supply at its core. It's pretty straightforward. We're talking about the quantity of available residential housing in the market. So this includes rental housing, for sale housing, deed restricted, affordable housing, market rate housing, anywhere that somebody can live is what we talk about when we talk about housing supply. And this is important because it ties to affordability, economic growth, and access to resources with affordability when you have a low housing supply that causes people to compete for those units that are available. And if there aren't enough units for everybody, then the people who have more money can compete better in the market and essentially drive up those housing prices. So that's what we've seen. That people who have more financial means are able to pay higher rents, pay higher mortgages, and then we get housing prices that cater to those folks. And so this affects people throughout the income continuum. We have a problem at the lowest and lowest side of the income spectrum, but as has been referenced to tonight, more and more of middle income earners are also being squeezed out of Rockville in the surrounding area. Economic growth, a great stat here about how the construction of each home can create around three jobs and the fact that attracting new companies, they are looking for housing and housing as essential and marketing rockville as a place to locate or business and then access to resources. More housing and high opportunity areas improves access to essential resources like education, public transportation, jobs. These are all incredible resources. The Rockville has a lot of. That's one of the reasons why there is so much demand to live in Rockville because Rockville is a lot of. That's one of the reasons why there is so much demand to live in Rockville because Rockville is a truly great place to live that has a lot of opportunity for people. So then the last question here, who does housing supply benefit? New housing supplies most immediately beneficial to moderate and high income households who can pay the price of new housing that is often more expensive because it's brand new. But recent research has also found an overall positive effect on housing prices for low income households as well. Less competition overall leads to essentially less displacement of lower income households. And there is a lot of research that gets to all of those points that I just very briefly made. I could give you hours and hours of overview of all of the research and data about why housing supplies. So important and underpins so many other elements of the housing crisis. But I think that this one graph really displays the point that we're trying to make pretty clearly. So on the horizontal axis, we have multi-family units permitted per 1000 residents, so essentially housing supply. As you go further right, that means that a city is building more housing. And then on the vertical axis, we have year over year rent growth with 6% growth at the top and the negative eight at the bottom. So there are indeed places where rent growth is declining. And the colors of the dots you don't need to pay too much attention to those. Those are the corresponding to the regions of the country that that there is a strong correlation between housing supply and rent growth as more units are permitted, rent growth falls. This is most dramatically seen in Austin, Texas, which has really been leading the country in new housing construction and also subsequently in rents dropping, which is pretty amazing to see. All right, so now we're going to get into the actual strategies that we want to focus in on tonight. So the first is the zoning ordinance rewrite. And this is really the bread and butter when we're talking about housing supply and rock fell. And so what will implement the comprehensive plan from 2021, the town center master plan that we'll talk more about later, and large components of the FAS2 initiative to improve the development review process. You'll hear more about the FAS2 initiative on September 30th, as well as the ZOR in further work sessions that are yet to be scheduled. But some of the top strategies that are included in the ZOR that will help to improve housing supply are to allow missing middle housing types and single family zones, certain single family zones, I should say. And that missing middle housing types refers to housing types like duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, these small multi-family buildings that we often don't see in our housing supply anymore. And that's why there's sometimes referred to as missing. Increase building heights in infrastructure-rich areas, especially around places like metro stations. Streamlining the development process, and that's through the FAST2 initiative, which stands for faster, accountable, smarter, and transparent. Provide predictability and certainty with administrative approvals, reduce and or eliminate parking requirements near transit rich areas, parking costs as you heard and some of the ADU constructions can be very, very expensive and those tens of thousands of dollars that parking, parking costs to construct are then subsequently added onto the rents or to the housing prices. So there's a big connection between parking requirements and housing affordability. And then finally making office to residential conversions easier as we've seen the office market after COVID everywhere around the country essentially not rebound as much as one might expect. Cities everywhere are looking to ways that we can make it easier for office buildings to convert into apartments. Next is the town center master plan. So the town center master plan has many actions related to housing supply since that has been identified as one of the components that has been holding town center back from being as successful as it could be. So there's a goal within the draft town center master plan to construct 2000 new residential units by 2040. And with that, there's a really big focus on flexibility about essentially allowing what will the market support in town center? Yes, how can we make that happen? And with that administrative approvals. There's a concept for having a bonus height program for projects with 20% or more affordable units. There's a component endorsing redevelopment plans for the Rockville Metro station property which has the potential to provide over 1200 residential units. Again, reducing parking requirements in town center, especially as a transit-oriented destination, and then targeting properties for more intense residential development. There's a lot of older lower-density properties within town center, especially north town center, that could be redeveloped to provide a lot more housing units. And again, the town center master plan will be implemented throughout the zoning ordinance rewrite. Now to the moderately priced well and unit ordinance, which we already talked a bit about tonight, and we have already made a change to it that will help to improve the supply of moderately priced well and units and hopefully also help the overall housing supply. As was stated earlier, this policy is the source of almost all new and unrestricted affordable housing. However, it also has impacts on market rate development because essentially the reduced rents from the moderately priced well-in units are subsidized by higher market rate unit rents. So there is that component question of how can we best craft the strategy so that we can provide as many MPD use as possible as possible but also not impact the overall housing supply negatively. And then there are many current elements of the ordinance that have been identified as outdated or unclear or not in the best interest of the program's objectives or overall city objectives. And so as part of a comprehensive ordinance update, we would want to clear up those parts that we've identified. Do or do diligence with national best practices and there's a lot of recent research that has come out from the academic literature about crafting MPVU type programs. And then here's a list of some other areas for exploration that we want to look into. This is a starting list. There are more things as well that we will want to look into, I'm sure, but here are some of the top things for consideration that we would like to get your feedback on. The length of the home ownership term, right now it's 30 years. There have been previous conversations about reducing that since the average person does not tend to stay in their home for 30 years. The program agreement approval process, density bonuses. Right now there's a density bonus program with connected with MPDUs but the city does not use density. So figuring out how we can re-tool that to work better. There might be a pilot within the town center master plan of having that density height program. Flexibility for over-income tenants. This is something that we already talked about tonight of maybe having more flexibility that you could go up to 120 or 140 percent AMI. Fee reductions putting into statute that MPDU residents should not be charged to certain fees, income averaging, looking at different ways to what should the standards and requirements be for what the incomes are for moderately priced-well-in units, property tax exemptions, and then ensuring a quality with market rate units. All right, number four here is a housing needs assessment. So this is essentially a detailed analysis of a community's demographic, economic, housing market conditions, and informs future housing strategies. And there's a lot of different strategies that we had on that big list that was put up earlier that we feel would be very helpfully informed by housing needs assessment. So some of the things that we would want to consider including in that would be a household and housing demand forecast, inventory of available land supply, especially when thinking about things like affordable housing, if that could be located on publicly owned land, institutional land, places of worship, vacant and underutilized land, and then also considering that are their properties and places where we would want to see more growth in the city, but maybe that can't currently happen because it's underserved by infrastructure such as sewer. And then the last one that I will bring up here is preservation of existing housing supply. So creating new housing supply is one thing, but we also want to consider how do we preserve our existing housing supply. And here we talk about short-term rentals. So short-term rentals tend to reduce the overall housing supply, especially the rental housing supply, because people are typically taking rental units and turning them into short-term rentals like Airbnb's. And so that lack or that decrease in the overall housing supply can lead to increased prices. There's been a lot more research into this lately. And as you know, the city is currently reviewing changes that would legalize short-term rentals as a conditional use. So with that conversation, you may want to consider measures to limit the proliferation of short-term rentals. And then the next two here are both strategies that have some overlap with stability and subsidy, but because they do impact housing supply, we wanted to include them and bring them up here as well. So the first is a tear down or flipping, flipping fee. And this is to address the phenomenon that Montgomery County and Rockville is seeing more and more frequently. And that's the phenomenon of smaller, older, more affordable homes being replaced or flipped with larger, newer, more expensive homes. And so some jurisdictions are disincentivizing this by essentially charging a fee and that fee can then be put towards funding affordable housing programs. And then last here is pursuing strategies to be a larger part of the conversation with the stability discussion about how we can take places that are already market rate, they're not deed restricted, affordable housing, but they are still more affordable, how we could help those to not necessarily redevelop and maybe renovate and stay more affordable places to live. All right. up and maybe renovate and stay more affordable places to live. All right. So now for next steps, I will pass it back over to Jeff. Thanks, Jane. So if the council gives us firm direction today to move forward with a number of these programs, which I suspect you will, then we'll bring back final ordinances and programs for approval formally by the City Council in the not to distant future. Just to foreshadow a couple things again, the fast work session will be right around the corner on September 30th, housing strategies for subsidy on October 21st, the public carrying on town center master plan is scheduled for October 28th, and then housing strategies work session regarding stability would be on November 18th. So when City Council says that housing affordability is the number one priority, we're showing you we're hearing that seriously because we're gonna be having this on the agenda almost every meeting for the next several months. Next slide please. I'm not gonna read these again, but again, these are the areas where Jane and I and Ryan need specific feedback in order to move forward. And before we get into that feedback, Mayor, I'm sure that you and the council have questions for us. We'll entertain those now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for laying out the workshops that we requested and giving dedicated time to each of these areas. This is something that we said we're committed to housing, economic, development, public safety, our key priorities of this entire body and everything on one of my colleagues cares about affordability and sustainability. And so this is a critical step for us to talk through what that would look like in the city. I'm wondering if we can just to help us and guide the discussion. There are five key buckets within this section, and your slide is very helpful in terms of looking at each of those areas. I'm wondering if we can just go through the five colleagues so that we can give clear direction since I know that you want to know what to bring back. The next question I have is, I have a couple of ideas and things I want to discuss, but I'm going to open the floor. But there is a dedicated meeting on fast. So I'm questioning how much do you want us to go on to that tonight. I think we're looking for more than anything else is really just when we think about stream, minor development, if you process or one of our lenses be to do so in a way that encourages additional housing supply. That's all we need to hear. We know we're going to unpack. All the fast initiatives in the work sessions. So that's where we could probably have a more detailed discussion there if you don't mind. Okay. All right. So can we. Do you guys want to go by section. Do you agree with that. So we'll do section one, then two, question one, then the bucket's one, then two, then three, then four, then five. Just. Can we all see the copy of the presentation? It was sent to us the way. So, okay, number one is zoning ordinance rewrite. So they're looking to see, under number five, do agree with everything number five so that we can give them clear direction. It comes from a very great to do want to share anything. I mean, I was just going to say I guess we could because I think like my guess is we've all got nuances within each bucket and how they relate to each other. So it might be a little bit complicated to just kind of give a thumbs up to kind of a bucket or not. But I mean, I guess we could do a bucket by bucket. Okay, and I think there'll be some overlap in some of them as well, and we can make those comments. Council member Shaw. I also just had some questions just about like some of the sources and some of the grounding information as well, if that could be a bucket. Yes, absolutely. And I see. I can wait to be a bucket. Yes, absolutely. And I see, wait, to be the last. Yes. OK, no problem. Thank you. Council member Fulton. Thank you. I'm in favor of organizing it, obviously. But I had maybe a preliminary question or comment. In looking at it in total, it looks like it looked across all three work sessions we could end up with in the ballpark of 25 strategies. And I wanted to ask a preliminary question about feasibility. I mean, I think you've heard me say that like if everything's a priority, nothing's a priority, like I wanna ask to staff and the city managers think, if we said yes to everything that you're going to propose across three and maybe a couple more. Was that manageable or do you need a little bit less? It's my first question. Thank you, council member. Mr. Mahalek. Yeah. Great question. We were worried about the same thing. It's actually close to a 75 different strategies But I'm gonna say you put up a slide that shows all of them with the different color gradations And I was gonna also note that some of the things you may already be working on right so some of them are not brand new They were things that you you had can't for example fast Is something that you've been thinking about so there are some things that are in play. Some things would be totally new. Exactly. So as we walk through the different strategies here, you see all of them there before you. When we talk about supply, Ryan Jay and I think the top 12 on here are the items that we can get move, move forward quickly with direction tonight. Or there are already employees. And then items 13 through 16 will take us a little longer maybe you know six months to a year then item 17 through 21 will take a little bit longer and there's a really good chance that we'll have to come back with subsequent work sessions but um cons from a bifurcantier point with existing staff resources, existing programs, we're confident with good direction tonight that we can get moving quickly on those top 12 on supply. And then in subsequent months, perhaps the top eight on subsidy and then the top four on stability and so on. Then we'll be back to do the next gradation and then the final ones. This will take us candidly years to move forward, but we'll do this in what we think are manageable chunks and the manageable chunks, if you will, are what's shown on the screen there. So hopefully that answered the question. Councilmember Falcini. I just wanted to make sure that's amazing. One other follow-up, just as we go into how we do this. If there are items, well, I'm gonna say, there are items that I look at that are below your line, like below 12, that I probably would want to move up. Do you want to go through the ones you're recommending first? And then discuss if there's others, do you want to go through the body and say, okay, we've got 12 or 21, what looks most important to you? I just wanna make sure I'm raising the right things at the right time. Mayor, if it's okay. Yes, boss. The five questions that Jane had up on the board before are really the direction that we need tonight. If we get those questions answered, then the top 12, but even the areas related to ADU will move forward more quickly because those are the focus areas that this team needs to move forward. If I come back with different then timelines on how we move forward with them and you all want us to move more quickly on one or the other, then that would be the time to get that feedback. I had one other, just to piggyback on the prioritization. So when we get through the workshops, I presume that there will be some sort of outlay of all the things we discussed, and then we can maybe look at the prioritization based on what staff capacity is, and what we may want to enhance, and that we can see that I know most of these things will take time, right, just like the comprehensive plan tick time. This is really digging in specifically on housing. So would you then be coming back to us with some sort of micro plan, if you will, or some sort of straw man on, here's how we're, here's everything you guys discussed and here's anticipated timeline so that we can just hold out hold us up accountable and see what is going to be a longer term item. I couldn't do it in if I'm being candid I couldn't do it by month for you. I mean I can lay out things on the six month calendar which is what we have but I can definitely laid out as short term medium term long term moving forward and you'll start to see those things move up over subsequent months. And I hope that wasn't too vague of a question. But our goal is to get direction and start moving on these immediately, or for me to lay out all 50 of them right now, I would be able to do that. Absolutely. I don't think any of us are asking that. I think that the city is moving towards dashboards and microplans, if you will. And so what I'm wondering is, can we turn whatever, after all of our workshops, turn this into some sort of dashboard and micro plan that we can just look at. Some things again will be in year one. Some things might be in year five or beyond, but at least it helps with the road map as to how we're tackling these things. One word to answer gladly. Okay. Councilmember Fulton, did you have any follow-up questions on that? I just wanted to make sure we're closing. Thank you. Thank you for now. Okay. All right. I see Councilmember Larry and then Dr. Miles. My, my, my, it's just a super quick question when looking at the first 12 and the things that are noted as being part of our zoning ordinance re right. Um, in fast tube. And mostly I'm looking at'm wrong, wouldn't supporting the ADU construction in that kind of covered also by fast as well, like, okay, because I just wanted to make sure, because we do have a timeline on the zoning ordinance rewrite and those things. So I'm just trying to figure out, we'll touch on part of number 13 on the ADU construction as part of those and then there would be another component I presume. You got exactly right. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bauer. I was also thinking about the ADUs because I know when we approved it we talked about a technical assistance program. I know there's other things that you're looking at, like financing which we take more time, but I would hope that the technical assistance would be going with how we roll things out over the next year or so. Dr. Miles. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to follow up on the question that our colleague Council member, Hulton, raised with regard to the first point of the requested fee, that year, number one. The question I guess is, is this, are we limited to what is being discussed by staff, or are there other strategies that we may be aware of that aren't included on this, that we should bring up. I'm just trying to figure out how best to answer questions. Yeah, this is for us to be creative and innovative based on, you know, what we think as well as the research, I know all of us have done research. I have looked at the National League of Cities playbook and there's some ideas in there and I also sent some ideas that are not necessarily in this brief book to staff. And those questions and answers were shared with all of you just so you have a sense of what I was thinking in the questions I have. But yeah, feel free to. I was just wondering, yes, are we ranking? I guess again, back to the Councilman Fulton's point. So if we ourselves are bringing stuff up, are they automatically added or just trying to get how this is going before? So I'm wondering if we can go by the sections and then just get a sense of is the majority support about around them. And then within those sections, there may be specific ideas that we want to raise. They may also be another category that we want to raise. That's not listed here, but I think we should do those. I wonder though in terms of the ranking, because I could take a lot of time and we also need the input of staff to know what's on their plate. I'm not sure that the ranking necessarily could fully happen tonight, and I'm seeing the city manager shaking his head and saying he agrees. So maybe we can do the ranking with input later as he lays out, you know, staff capacity and all the things. Because something we think may take six months, make it take a year or something, we think takes a year, may take two months. So we want to make sure that we're giving staff time to huddle and process our feedback. Is that okay, Dr. Miles? Yeah, I think, yeah, I just threw out, Rengett was necessarily staying. We should do it. I was just trying to figure out what staff are trying to get at question number one. But yeah, I think we'll take it, you know, along my line to add stuff that we are familiar with and then going from there. It sounds reasonable to me. Excellent. Thank you. Council member of Engrac. I mean, I would just get to say because I agree with what Councilmember Fulton and Gutsman member, Miles both talked about because I mean, there could be like, I'm going to be honest with you, there's even some things in those deeper areas that I support even over some of the other areas and there might be different priorities. Like, and again, what we'll get to this, but for example, I'm clearly supportive of the zoning warden tree right and the fast program and even making it potentially even stronger than what's there and I don't necessarily want to just be counted as a thumbs up or a thumbs down when I think there's kind of a way to focus on what might be a priority so I don't know I want to make sure that we're not just going through buckets with a thumbs up or thumbs down and we can discuss some of our interest in some of the nuances compared to some of the other buckets, even though I might have a thumbs-up in another bucket. Absolutely. I would love to hear everyone's feedback as we go through and add additional ideas, and I agree there, as I mentioned, and Councilman Fulton raised. And others that there, and Councilman Valera Fulton raised, and others that there, and Councilman Valer, pretty much all of us, that there are things that we see below the line that we might want to move up. And we should share that, because this is staff's first crack at listening to us over the past few weeks and based on their research and expertise, but we may also have some additional ideas. Okay. Just looking to see if there are any other questions before we get started. Councilman Bashault, did I see your hand? No, but I will have some comments later. Okay, questions. Thank you. All right. I want to make sure everyone has had a chance to speak. Good. All right. Let's can we go through your bucket one? That's the one you want to start with, America, right? That's all the supply. Yes, I thought, okay, let me just look at your slide one that had, it was under zoning ordinance rewrite. It was much more built up. We want to do it topically, okay. Is that okay? Yes, and then we'll come visit that slide to see what's below the fold and things we want to push up, because I think some of my colleagues are saying we want to do that as well. Okay, so the first is the zoning ordinance rewrite and that covers missing middle housing, building heights, fast, approvals, parking as well as office to residential conversions. I have a quick question. So when you say streamline the development process fast too, I want to just make sure one of the things I've heard time and time again is predictability even on our permitting process. So sometimes it's something supposed to take six weeks. We may or may not meet that. Or sometimes they want their programs and other jurisdictions that allow expedited review. That program was put on pause. I know we're going to have a full discussion on fast, but just want to be absolutely sure that that is something we'd be willing to address as well. Yes. Okay, and I think I've heard from some of my colleagues on this topic that this is an area of interest in terms of permitting. I didn't see it specifically listed here, so I just want to make sure that that is absolutely critical. I see streamlined fast too, but it doesn't necessarily. No, I was pretty good. I'm sorry. Thank you. Councilmember Fulton, go ahead. Thanks. No, I'm just I'm ready to go. So it looks like one was allow missing middle housing in single family zones. So my comment on that is yes. And this was number one on the list. Number 15 on the list, if you go back or look, was expand that. I wanna do that too. So that's an example of how some of these things are interconnected. Right, one on the slide is allow additional housing types in certain single family zones. Number 15 on the list is expand where additional housing types are allowed in single family zones. Number 15 on the list is expand where additional housing types are allowed in single family zones. So I would vote thumbs up on one plus. That's how I just think some of the things are interrelated. Can you share the difference between allow missing middle housing and single family zones and this for staff number 15. Extamware additional housing types that they are related. Yes, so the 2040 comprehensive plan identifies certain areas in the future land use map as attached housing areas and these are primarily areas along major arterial roads and some of the city's commercial centers that during that comprehensive planning process were found to be appropriate for more diverse housing types and what are currently single-family zones. So that would be the city's sort of first step into changing certain single-family zones to allow those housing types in compliance with the 2040 comprehensive plan, what is meant to get at with number 15 there is to consider something that looks more broadly at perhaps all of the city single family zones, perhaps certain single family zones, a certain distance from transit, or another type of metric to determine what single family zones to look at, but with look at that type of metric to determine what single family zones to look at, but with look at that type of zone more comprehensively to allow those other housing types. Yeah. I could like the way I'm looking at it and sorry it's hard to not be in the room is one as currently on the list is do what the city already committed to doing the comprehensive plan in a prior body. That's what one is. It's keep doing what we already said we do. What I'm suggesting is we of course do that and also let this body think about whether that still limits what this body wants to go. Jay, am I thinking about that right? Like one is do what we already said we do. 15th reconsider. Yes, I think the major question there is should the Zor simply implement what is laid out in the 2040 Comprehensive Plan or are you willing to take it further and consider other items? And in the comprehensive plan you really looked at places with a transit-oriented sort of development rich areas, right? I five of a call correctly So we had some along various mail some along stone street around the metros, etc. So that is something that is in the plan. And then there are some additional transit like the great San Diego transit network that just got implemented last week, which may expand our thinking on that as well. So I just wanted to flag that. I feel looking at transit rich areas. That was intended in the comp plan to think about those areas as well. Councilman Vellari, then Councilman Van Grapp. So I hear that and I remembered I I believe I was president of TCA when this process, the shwets were going on. I think it's something to revisit, because I don't know that we'll meet our housing supply goals if we are constrained solely by the, quote unquote, transit rich areas. So I think, you know, and again, if we want to look at transit rich areas, then we're really only looking at a certain portion of the city. And that, I don't want to say burden, because it really is an opportunity in many ways. But let's spread the possibilities across the city. And I think being too tied to transit richness and however we want to define that is actually going to ultimately limit our ability to be more creative. Because even I'm thinking of, as you mentioned, like the sections along Veer's Mill, and that in part was also because we were all being very hopeful about BRT as well. And like, ooh, wouldn't this be fun? But things shift and plans change, and are there better spaces that might be farther away from Beers Mill or frankly just looking in other places and being just looking at it differently. I want to let us be I would like us to be more expansive and not be as constrained by the 2040 plan because I think that there have been some things that have shifted and changed like the BRT for instance. I'm going to look at a Councilman Van Grack and Dr. Miles, I think I saw you raise your hand as well. Is that a yes? You're good. Okay. I would just going to make a suggestion because I actually agree with what Councilman Refalton was saying there that I think there is some overlap and kind of some priorities and I agree that like some of my comments deal with even potentially going further than some of the we have and even in the master plans, I don't know if it's easier for each of us to kind of go through, kind of, and answer the questions with the context of one through 21 and some of the things that we do or don't like. I mean, what is the best way for us to get to you guys, the priorities and the new, like the idea that there might be some outside and there might be some outside and there might be something that we do or don't want. Can I just ask that is everyone okay with what's on this slide? Does anyone have a problem with what's on this slide? Well, nobody. But I hear what you're just saying, but I just want to make sure everyone's good with at least these first and then we can maybe flip to the number to the 21 to see if there's anything below the fold that you want to add. Well, I think that's the issue because like I'd like to focus on some of these issues because I'm happy to say yes. I support everything on one, but just like Governor Fulton said, like with regard to the missing middle and the single family zones, I think even regardless of where the 15s are on there, I'd like to go further than what we've talked about. With regarding the streamline of the development process, fast too, I want to potentially go further than some of the things that we've done. I want to see not only assistance with just the timing of the process, but actually a smoother process for the permitting in general for developers coming out that I think is even more streamlined that we were talking about in the previous fast program. So I think that I guess that's what I'm trying to get at because increase building heights in infrastructure rich areas. Absolutely. But I also agree with what Council member Valerius said. I'd like to increase some of the building heights, even not in the infrastructure rich areas, even though, and I know Mr. Barker's talked about before, we need to focus in with these transit areas where we have the infrastructure in the building heights, like town center, like in Twin Brook where we have these metro centers to even do more than some of the previous mayor and councils have discussed. So I guess that's where I get into that nuance of not just having a thumbs up or thumbs down because I support them, but I'm going to be honest with you. I think the fast two and the zoning ordinance rewrites that area is so critical that even over some of these other things like that are listed in seven through 12, which yeah, in a vacuum, I support, but I would prefer staff focus so much on these issues because these issues are going to get at the issue that I was talking about before. We've got a problem with rental prices. We've got a problem with affordable housing in Rockville. And I see the most critical way to solve, maybe not solve, but at least get at those problems through this first slide to the point where I'd prioritize it and increase just like Councilmember Fulton was saying some of these middle missing middle issues and single-family zones then we have even in the past. I think that's where I'm getting the new one. Yeah, I think you're doing exactly what we're asking is to look at these and say you know what this is nice not enough so that's exactly what we want to do. I guess I just want to make sure we're not just doing them. No, we're not. This is not just thumbs up. But as I mentioned before, like fast to me is not just streamline the process. It's enhancing the permitting and making it faster. You're doing exactly what we need to do. So that staff here is we like this. We want more of this more of that. So thank you. This that's a perfect start. And I know you've added and Councilmember Fulton's added Dr. Miles wants to go next. Oh, thanks Madam Mayor. I was just going to simply audibly confirm that I'm on board with the points on this slide with regard to the zoning ordinance rewrite. That's all. Thank you. Councilmember Vellieri. I just wanted to do it out on. I'm sorry councilmember Vancraque because I see this is like yes this is a great start but and I'd like to definitely be expansive but there is nothing here that presents a problem to me at least. Council Member Shaw. I also agree with everything on this slide and I think there are a lot of opportunities for us to do a lot more with all of these items on this slide. Council Member Jackson, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to reiterate exactly what my colleagues have said. I'd support everything on this slide and more. I think this is excellent work and this is a great start. So, we've in addition to what's on this slide, we've heard looking at going beyond the some of the comprehensive plan in some areas. You've heard that from us. One of the, you've heard about the permitting, we want to see expedited permitting included. And I know the county is doing its, its in development now where they're having something where people can, who are going to build know that I'm going to start this date and I'm going to end this date based on turnaround times. I think it's like a like a fast for life science. I wonder if there's a fast for housing so that I enter your system on day one, and things come back to me on day X. Just more predictability. And I've heard, I've asked some questions on why things happen fast in some areas. And they're saying some areas, even north of us in Maryland, they can build three times faster than we are seeing in this county and this city. So I think not only is it just, it's not just a streamlining thing, it's just predictability on turn of writing times and then allowing expedited opportunities. Maybe some increased fees with that, maybe not. But I do think that is something that we need to return to the city and maybe expand on in terms of that expedited permitting as well as predictability process. We've seen some projects that can take two to five years, for example. That is a long time. And it also has an impact on financing. Some projects have been at risk of losing their loans. And we also know that interest rates are high, hopefully that will come down, but there needs to be things that we can look at to just on our part be more clear. And in addition to that, I will just note that I think our staff when someone comes and asks us about and asks to meet, things go very well because you all meet with them and talk to them about all the things. But I'm wondering if there is just something that is more publicly available. People are more aware of the entire process so that you know you hear sometimes I get through door one, but then I find out there's door three and four. How can we be more transparent and what the process takes in making it easier? And maybe there's things like, you know, they don't have to submit separate plans for so many phases. That's something that the county is looking at as well. So I just want to make sure we're staying competitive. The other question I had is make office to residential conversions easier. What do you mean by that? Like what's the magic wand that you have there? question I had is make office to residential conversions easier. What do you mean by that? Like what's the magic wand that you have there? I might actually turn that over to Director Barker if he's willing to speak to that of some of the strategies that are being considered with the Zor. Thank you. Yeah, we just had a recent conversion That went through the process and that Took some time because it had to go through a It wasn't administrative for approval, but really all they were doing is is more taking the existing site and just changing the use inside. So making it easier would be saying, well, there's really not a big impact on surrounding areas. It's more just the interior work that you need to get it done. So does that really create value going through a longer process when it could be just approved by staff that meets all the criteria and technical aspects of it. Because you're not building a new building. You're just, you're, you could be adding on to it. It's just using the same floor plate and you're smoothing up. So those are some of the things we can do. Some of them, if they're not making much of a site impact, you might just do through a building permit process. So we just need to explore that if we've given permission to move forward on that. Thank you. Councilor Van Grack. Is there a type of financial incentive we can do for those who are taking that because of the speed that it would provide for the new potential housing and the conversion of being able to utilize the resources and the infrastructure that's there. We can explore that if that's the direction of the council if we want to. Is there any other incentives we can provide? Must definitely we'll do some benchmarking across the country and see if there's other things we can do. And all this has to come back to us in more depth, right? Because it's yes, it has to be as far as the zoning ordinance. Right? Yeah. Do you want to councilor Jackson? I hate to kind of open up another kind of worms, but please do. Well, so I see supply and stuff. The instability all kind of interrelated. So what we're talking about right now with supply, we're talking about allowing missing metal. We're talking about building affordable housing. And we're also talking about incentives for building, which is subsidy. And I mean, yes, it's great that we say we're going to allow additional housing in certain senior family zones. But I'll listen to the testimony tonight. And there was this affordability housing person who was speaking and making the point that it's really expensive to buy. And if you're building affordable housing, it really doesn't make any sense unless there's subsidies for the state or the city. So I just want us to keep that in mind that we can do all these zoning changes and say we want missing middle, say we want affordable housing, but unless we do something on the subsidy end, I don't think it's going to happen. I appreciate that, and I'll just note that there are some more private sector folks who haven't been just focused on affordable, that are now looking at light tech deals because interest rates are so high. I mean, that's just an economic trend that I've seen and heard of from multiple players. I'm seeing this Raider shaker head. Do you have anything to say about that? Nope. Nope. You nailed it. Okay. Thank you. Council and Bershaw. Also in addition to that, I know we haven't gotten down to that, but talking about co-ops and kind of shared land use. I'm not sure if that falls under subsidy. I think it's more under supply. I believe we put that under supply. Yeah, or yes. That's one of those that gets complicated because in order to incentivize that, the city might want to create some sort of subsidy program, but it's something that we certainly are interested in pursuing and would recommend to the mayor and council. Okay, thank you. some sort of subsidy program, but it's something that we certainly are interested in pursuing and would recommend to the mayor and council. Okay. Thank you. And I'm also aware I've done doing a lot of studying and, you know, talking to players in the industry that some cities will come in with a housing fund and say, okay, I'm going to put this first amount in and then they'll get a community development finance institution to go out and raise more funding. And so it's kind of that public-private partnership that facilitates those changes happening. But that is listed low on the list, public-private partnerships. So that is one to some of the comments my colleagues made earlier that I think needs to go hand in hand. Like you do need to look at public-private partnerships. For instance, Stone Street, there's a public-private partnership being explored for habitat for humanity, bringing opportunities for homo-norship, and then another private sector player looking at affordable rentals. So I just think that we can't take that out of the equation and put it too far back, in my opinion. Councilman Van Grack and then Councilman Van Grack. I would agree. I mean, I was one degree with Councilman Jackson said that there needs to be more, but I also want to focus in note that this is a housing discussion. It's not just affordable housing discussion because we actually can increase the housing, the people living here, whether it's rental units, whether it's apartments, whether it's increasing the density and certain areas that are just so in single family to support our businesses and to support the economic viability of our city as a whole. And so I see this apply not just about affordable housing because that's part of it, but also about housing in general and increasing around our transit centers to actually support our economic viability and economic development, which is another core priority this mayor and council, which comes hand in hand with, I think, everything we're talking about here with supply, especially, and especially with what we're talking about here with a zoning, ordinary, right, with a stream-minded development process, and everything that's in this first bucket which I think is pretty critical Councilmember Jackson councilmember Shaw I have and Then wait Councilmember Fulton did you want can she go first? Okay councilmember Fulton Thank you. I appreciate that A question and maybe a comment based on something Jane you just said I actually I agree with councilmember Shaw that there's a lot of value in exploring sort of the co-ops and the share in equity models. It hits a lot of the things that we're trying to do. I also tied it back to the conversation we had earlier. Like it's not, it's not going to, it's not silver bullet. It might not be the most bang for the buck, but given what we said that we care about, I think that's worth exploring. But I'm confused again because Jane, you said that you were recommending it, but I was I was understanding the recommendation to be those things above the line. Anything on that big list that we put up there is something that we as the housing department recommend. It's just a question of how high of a priority is it going to be and how sooner we're going to be able to get to it. So we looked at the challenges around shared equity models and we think that that's a really important thing to pursue, but it's something that's probably going to take a little bit longer than some of these other strategies. So that's why it's not one of the more immediate strategies that we're focusing in on here tonight. Okay, so but that, okay, no, I'll say it. That leads me to things that you do want for me a little bit more of what Council Member Ben Grack was saying earlier, not just a yes or no to things, but of what we want most. Yes, and that gets to that first question that we're looking for in the requested feedback of do you agree that these identified strategies are the most important to increase housing supply. Thank you. Okay. Councilmember Jackson Shaw and then I have a comment. Thank you Mayor. No I agree with my colleague then Gregg that we do need to do everything and that we need housing exploding in the city. So, somewhat. I know. That's a bad example. No, explain. But. Increasing. Increasing. OK, thank you. But my point was that we're not really going to get the missing middle and other affordable housing unless we do something to incentivize it because it's a different animal than building more expensive and more upscale housing, which we're going to get with the rezoning and changes that we're talking about. But I have a question for Jane and her colleagues. The housing needs assessment. So that hasn't been done before or has it? And what all goes into a housing needs assessment. And shouldn't that be the first thing that we talk about at least prioritize it higher than it is on this list? So housing needs assessment to the extent of my knowledge has not been, I do not believe it has been done for the city of Rockville before, or at least not in very recent years. And I will note that I believe it's one of, it's the first thing listed that is not currently already being worked on because we have the, the Zor, the MPD ordinance and the town center master plan. So that would be the first initiative that would need to be started. So although it might be listed as four, it's essentially the next one that we would like to start. So I was just going to add that in previous years, Rockville did a senior housing report that started at looking at what are the challenges with seniors being able to live in Rockville and what are their needs as it relates to housing and other matters. It's not a full assessment like you're noting. I would, as a betting person, I would think that this is something our body would think is essential as we're looking at creating our housing micro plan. Let me just say you can look at the next couple of bullets on this. We talk about inventory of land doing private public partnerships. This needs assessment allows us to inform future initiatives. It's something we need to do really quickly, but it's not one of these things where we stop everything until we get the assessment done. It just helps inform us and get us moving forward in a more efficient way. I had a few more items, I think, Councillor Hulley, did you want to speak? Next, exactly. And then I have a few more items on one, and then we can move on. Super quickly, I have a couple more questions and comments on the housing needs assessment. Is this just basically a larger version of the community needs assessment? Because I'm pretty sure I have a call correctly that there's a housing component in there. Having sat in on several human services advisory commission where they've been talking about the community assessment. It sounds like they're not going to have an overall community needs assessment without addressing housing because that is a big part of what they do. So, you know, I want to say that it may look different, but at least I know that they're in the process of building that out so I don't know as part of as a whole right so I don't know if there's a way to to be more expansive. I see it is probably needing to be a different. It's an own assessment. But I believe that housing has always been a component of that did want to touch super quickly. Two things just to be clear. Tare downs all four walls but foundation remains. That's a question that we would have to look out and crafting that legislation. There are different ways to set that definition for what counts as a tear down or a flip. Okay, yeah, that was my, I just wanted to level set. And then finally, something that we heard a lot about this evening is that the naturally occurring affordable housing has significant issues that have yet to be addressed. So I'm not a fan of preserving something unless it is the best possible. You know, if that makes sense, I think that concurrent to this is a lot of the other things I will talk about, but on first blush, I want to preserve quality naturally, occurring affordable housing, and look at even raising the bar on that as well, possibly through incentivizing, or stronger enforcement of the bad actors that may be out there. And that's my comments. Thank you. I had a couple more on one, and then I see Councilman Jackson, he wanna add something and councilmember shot? Okay. So I'll add something and then I see the next two speakers. Can you go back to one? So you heard from my colleagues about spending on sub bullet one here and permitting being added to expedited permitting being added to fast. There's something that the city of Salisbury did who Mayor Jake Day who is now are a secretary of housing. And he actually looked at the zoning ordinance rewrite in collaboration with some sort of permit waivers, if you will, with the idea that if someone builds by a certain time frame that they get a reduced to encourage more expedited build, we've had some projects, I'm gonna just say on research Boulevard that we approved when nothing has happened. So it's, they were successful in getting some projects to move faster by looking at incentives for actually moving forward on a project and not waiting for years. I just wanted to flag that as a potential area for exploration. And Sal's buried does, I believe they have some case studies on it and have worked on this. I know they presented it at the Merrill Municipal League. The other thing I wanted to ask about, it's the zoning ordinance we right now that takes time. We did implement floating zones. And with the floating zones, it focused on larger scale projects. I remember asking this question specifically. My concern is that the floating zone doesn't necessarily apply to smaller scale projects. So I'm aware of a meeting that we had with someone who wanted to put like six town homes in a place where there was like one smaller structure right across from victory. I'm just wondering is there a way to allow smaller projects through floating zones? Has that been discussed with staff? Or are you planning to quickly do something in the zoning ordinance rewrite that would help address those? So that those are not You know floundering if you will. I know those can be more affordable than larger scale buildings I just wanted to ask the question about floating zones for small scale projects And this was support item one in the first bullet so mayor. I think that's a great idea I'm confident we haven't studied it just yet Or maybe we have okay, and I know mr. Barker believed was in one of those meetings late last year or someone wanted to do a project but we didn't have a floating zone for smaller projects yet. That specific project the zoning wasn't allowed but I'm pretty sure the Laney's plan wasn't in support of that either so that was the issue if it was an area where the plan supported a change in zoning then the flooding zone doesn't have a limit on size so I can give you more detail on that. But flooding zones, there's not a limit on the size. As long as the conference of plans supports that use and the zoning doesn't allow it, they can go through a flooding zone of process and get it done. So. You're saying that particular area of land, which had a very small commercial use Could not convert to six six units because it wasn't allowed in that area. Is that what you're saying? Is that the one we're talking about where they want to Convert it and combine a couple of properties to or just one property. Yeah, okay Yeah, I would just remember at the Okay. I'll be happy to pull up the email. Thank you. Thank you so much. We did talk about permits. The other piece is we can zone and we can see the other piece of information. I'm going to go to the other piece. I'm going to go to the other piece. I'm going to go to the other piece. I'm going to go to the other piece. I'm going to go pull up the email. Thank you. Okay, thank you so much. We did talk about permits. The other piece is we can zone and change things, but unless we're proactive in telling the world of what we want to see where that it may not happen. And so I'm just curious as to when we do this and we've had the comprehensive plan since 2001, 2021, if there is a plan to do some more proactive outreach, it could be in collaboration with Ready or some other players, but I know that and talking to folks that are not paying attention to every change we make and may not be incentivized to come here. Quaker answers yes we can do that. Okay. All right. Council. I think you have another comment for us. Okay. Councilman Van Graek at wait. Shaw was next actually and then Van Graek. You want to go to still. Okay. All right. You'll be after that. All right. And I just want to because I know of the one two three items here. I think need to go further. There are more of a priority for me than almost anything else on this list, because I think it gets us that supply the economic development, the affordable housing. And so with regard to those three issues, I think they're a key priority. The other next three with regard to the administrative appeals, the parking requirements, and potentially some type of incentives to the office, to residential conversions. And if there's a, like those are also priorities, they're kind of second tier, but this whole area, like I said before, I put above almost anything else that we've got in the list with the caveat of going further, because I commend the primary and council for what they list with the caveat of going further because I I commend the primary and council for what they do with the floating zone process. I think it's great. I think we need to go further because a lot of that what the floating zone allows. I'd like to make part of the zoning ordinance so that we can even go further with regard to what building heights developers can put forward. What processes they can do, what type of parking requirements, as opposed to just a floating zone option actually include some of those further density options around our infrastructure rich areas as a more, and I guess that could be together with fast too because you're streamlining this process without going through a floating zone process. And I think the floating zones were really only an interim step because the zoning process was going to come later and take a long period of time. So it was the floating zone was to say we're not done writing the zoning code. But if you see something that's in the plan, we're allowing that to happen with these zoning, floating zones. Is that right? Okay, and Councilman Van Grack, did you, I think I heard you earlier, we're in alignment that fast needs to include expedited permitting. Without a doubt. Okay. Okay. So, all right, thank you. Councilman Bashan and Jackson. I have a lot of different issues, and I'm not sure when to bring them up. But so I agree with all of these, and I actually want to do all of these. I would say that I feel the strongest about 1 through 12 and then also 17 through really 21. And I also just wanted to address something that I think is coming up through a briefing book through the presentations. This thought about like increasing new housing and like rents go down. And I recognize that there's a lot of complications and nuances with that. And we're looking at several jurisdictions that are not Rockville. And I notice like for example on slide nine where you have Austin that I think has one of the lowest rents on Slide 9. They also had a massive reduction in their population after an increase of building housing. And so the land depreciated, which was tied to rent. So I think there's a lot in San Francisco, for example, has rent stabilization, the state of California, has rent caps. There's just a lot of different nuances within just understanding that it's purely supply. And I just wanted to share that because I do think there is a thought that once you increase housing, like rents immediately go down, and I can say from renting in Rockville for more than a decade, and I just want to be clear, not renting in Rockville a decade ago, but renting in Rockville for more than a decade, I have not seen rents ever go down as you showed in slide 12 on June 3rd. So I just wanted to be clear about that and that we're in a really high demand market. So even for example, like twin brook, twin brook quarters that an average to bedroom is like $3,500. And then I saw an increase, like, as soon as that went on the market, I did see an increase of $1,000 in town center for two bedrooms. And so I just, I want to be extraordinarily clear that supply alone does not lead to lower, well, a lower growth of rent. I don't want to say lower rent, because rent never goes down in Rockville. So I just wanted to be clear about that. Also, in terms of timing, because I know it takes a while to build new housing on all of this takes a while, will we have more, because I see a great list of things that I want to do like all of them, but will we have more information around, um, like your anticipated timeline for some of these items? So mayors, that okay if I address that, because that's been brought up multiple times. So I want to give you guys the most positive answer, and then I'm gonna do an end with it. So our goal is to get all of these things done. So so far, like on number one, I've heard you guys all say 100% go and do plus. I heard that loud and clear. So at the end of the work session today, and then in October and then November, we are gonna try to lay out how we can get this stuff done. But I want to stress to you that I do not think it's wise to take the hardest or the most impactful and do all of those first because you may not get anything done. I think you'd be wise to actually doing a combination of simple and packed full low-canging fruit, get it in, get it done, quick victories, if you will, in combination with some of the harder projects're going to lay how we're going to get them down and when. But I would recommend that you do a combination of things that you can get done quickly efficiently that will be impactful and some of the more complicated ones. So we'll do the best we can to come up with a schedule for this, but I can only go out so far. I have a few more questions but I can yield. That sounds good. Thank you for that. Councilmember Jackson. Thanks Mayor. First just let me say I agree with my colleague, Councilmember Shaw that supply is not the only answer to grant prices. So there's that. I want to actually ask about a question about number 17. And maybe have you kind of walk through exactly what a land value tax is and what it would do if we implemented it. And if we had it in place like 10 years ago, what if it has sped up developments on properties like Rockshire, so it could use like maybe a spound a little bit on what it is and what it takes to implement. I'm going to ask Ryan to jump in on this one. Good evening everybody. So the premise behind a land value tax is to shift the taxes away from the improvement on the land to the land itself and to try to maximize the best use and utility of the land. So take for example if we were to look at the number one allow additional housing types in certain single family zones. But you currently have a single family unit there, but we're trying to incentivize guarded style apartments or a quadplex on that property. Currently that one unit under land value tax model would be carrying the entire tax burden for their property. However, if there's an opportunity for them to redevelop it into a quadplex and put four units on that property, they're not being taxed on the improvement on the land. So each one of those would now have one quarter of the tax burden, lowering the tax burden and kind of maximizing the opportunity on the land. So that's the premise behind the land value tax. And so it couples well with trying to encourage and incentivize the redevelopment and increased density in certain properties. It also gets to something that the mayor mentioned earlier about land speculation or folks sitting on properties and not redeveloping them in a timely manner. They are carrying that entire tax burden themselves, but if they can turn that into a hundred units and split that tax burden 100 ways, it encourages them to do so. So it couples well with some of these other ideas. Thank you. Jane, did you want to add something to that? That's something I'd like to get more information about. At first blush, I'm a little bit concerned, but you know, because you always hear that adding attacks may discourage development, but that's something that could be shared with us in more detail. I also do wanna allow opportunities to people to own as well. So I just wanna be mindful of the impact that would have and would that still allow homeownership opportunities? If I may absolutely can get more information on that. I believe the preferred term is a tax shift that it's not a tax increase or an additional tax on anybody that it's shifting the tax burden from being split between the property and the improvement to all on the land. And so for homeowners who are currently carrying that entire tax burden already on their property, the tax shift would not impact them, but it may incentivize others to try to do more with the property. Yeah, I also know that some people move into our area and the house may be a lot more money to do an addition on other significant improvements. I know when I was looking, I looked at a place where I could, you know, that it only had one bathroom and I wanted to do something different and then I chose some place that was already done. I didn't want to deal with the construction. I just want to be mindful that some people do need additional space for growing families and that may be the only lot they can afford. So I just want to be mindful that some people do need additional space for growing families and that may be the only lot they can afford. So I just, I want to be mindful of the impact that might have on people who are just trying to move their family to the city. Council Member Larry. I think this will probably want to be the last thing that I say, but in looking at the Recful of 2040 plans specifically, we have an opportunity. I was looking at a big version of it. We have the opportunity along Rockville Pike, the part that is actually called Rockville on 355, where we have a lot of single-level surface lot retail. And yet, the zones are for OCRM, so it would not preclude anybody from doing mixed use. The same with, sorry, the same with the same with a certain single level surface parking lot shopping center. It's a long beer smell. What could we do? I feel like that's a lost opportunity for a variety of reasons not to mention we could you know maybe make our stormwater management of what we see coming off of Rockville Pike better for everybody. Since the flooding, some of the worst flooding has occurred around Congressional and South Twin Brook, it might also be a net positive variety of reasons. How can we incentivize, strongly encourage ideas that are in areas where height maybe not as big an issue or not an issue at all. abilities and I just every time I look at this map I'm like oh there's all these wonderful areas that we could but we don't see the level of ideas coming forward especially I think on the west side of Rockville Pike in particular so I just wanted to flag that as an opportunity. And frankly, on the east side of Hungerford and Frederick as well on that part of 355. So I think it's part of kind of all of this, but in particular just we still have a lot of single level retail surface parking lots and I don't know. Maybe we need a cool acronym for that or something to get that to be changed and really to maximize those spaces. Thank you. I completely agree and support that. There's a lot of service parking lot all along 355 that we could see become more mixed use. And I would like to suggest this be an area of focus. In addition to town center that we actually look at that, there's a lot of access to transit, either bus or train. And I think that would be a great place to add some more height and density. So I just, I know that it may be like, we may just change the zoning, but I think there needs to be a focus outreach and all the things to try to make that happen. Councillor Vangrack. Isn't that what we're talking about with number four, right? That's the housing needs assessment to determine areas of specific focus where we could potentially join together areas and developers and where the needs are in our city, right? Yeah, I think the housing and the assessment could take a lot of time or take some time. So I was just thinking that if there's a way to have that as one of the early areas for density in addition to towns and there and near areas near Metro, because that you could have a lot more height there and a lot more access to transit where we don't have transit in other areas. I was just kind of saying maybe not wait until after the housing needs assessment but maybe that's an earlier area of focus. I don't know if you agreed with that. No, no, listen, there's no question. I mean, maybe I'd even hope that if we did a housing use assessment, they would say, whoa, we can get to these areas quicker. And that's part of the triage within where the housing needs of the city are. But no, you guys are exactly on point. I would also say research Boulevard is an area that has opportunity. Offer more mixed use. We are seeing some trend changes in life science and people wanting to see more mixed use. And there's a lot of land there that's not necessarily being used effectively in my opinion. I'm seeing you shaking your heads. Alright, Councilmember Fulton. Thanks. As with all of us, yes, I want to do all of the things and I agree about the single service parking lots. But I also, I want to do all the things. And I agree about the single service parking lots. But I also, I heard the city manager loud and clear, and I agree that like we're now starting to get into sort of saying what to do, what and what order and what should be faster. I think it's, I think as long as we can say what we want to prioritize and what's our highest priority to get done sort of like letting them figure it out amongst these. Now we're going to have a whole lot more than 75 things because we've got new ones. It's probably the best thing for the fuck on actually getting things done. The other thing I wanted to just mention or maybe ask staff, the mayors suggested a really great way to organize this or another way to organize it, but I think we've been jumping all around and I lost track. So I'm not entirely clear on when I'm supposed to weigh in on which part anymore. Thank you. I think we're almost done with zoning ordinance rewrite section. I'm going to move on, but I did have two more things that relate specifically to what's on the slide. Got. OK. One is during the comprehensive planning process, I had suggested that we look at bonus density opportunities and then it was written as optional method. I know that's an area of exploration that's being more deeply discussed specifically to Rockville Town Center. I'm just curious as to how that will be discussed in other areas like the 55 or research Boulevard. But I just I wanted to flag that's an area of interest to like look at how do we explore that even further. The other piece, and I mentioned this in my questions before because it relates to the reduced eliminate parking, and it goes to some of the comments that Councilmember Shaw and Councilmember Jackson raises that sometimes you have to be very intentional about affordable housing and I'm wondering if there are ways to, and we've done this like, you know, another properties where we said, okay, you won't let this waiver or this reduction, we need more affordable housing. I wonder if there's also a way to tie some of the parking reductions or, you know, allowing, you know, requiring less to encouraging more affordable housing. Sometimes you may, and there have been projects where you may see that happen and it doesn't necessarily translate to the vendor or homeowner. So I'm just wondering if there's a tie that can be explored and I would love your research on that area, but I wanted to specifically mention that. Sometimes, you know, just like we have bonus density for affordable or green, can we have an opportunity where people can tie parking reduction to trying to increase more affordability that gets passed on to the tenant. That's all I have to say about this slide. Anyone else on this slide before we move on? Okay. All right. Thank you. Townsend and Master Plan, I just have one clarifying question and we'll open the floor. It says endorse redevelopment for council plan for Rockville metro station property over 1200 residential units. I know this is something that we already talked about with WMAT. Is there anything new that we need to do here? Okay. I believe so the mayor council has selected a design alternative. I know there were the discussions around sort of the ABCD options. As long as that has been selected, I believe that's been incorporated into the draft master plan and Well, W Mata be coming back to us Actually, I think you have it in a town center plan that you're gonna bring that back to us So before the end of this year correct that That's correct. And if we do 1200 residential units then how is our goal to increase 2000 to 2000 used by 2040? How because we already know that there's some other projects within a town center area that if you do 1200 you're going to also have more than 2000. So I think if there if there are more than 2000 units that would be excellent. We would love to be able to surpass that goal. Okay, you're just being conservative then on the numbers that we're saying. Okay. All right. And then your comments on flexibility and administrative approvals. Is there a way that we could assure folks that if something comes to planning commission then it comes to mayor and council. Is there an option to like say planning commission month one, mayor and council month three, that so that sometimes projects and all things started the planning commission don't even make its way to mayor and council until six months to a year or longer. Eighties is one of those of those options. But is there a way to expedite or commit so that we can get things on Mayor and Council and Planning Commission agenda? So there's still a public awareness process, but there's a very condensed timeline for an assurance that something's actually gonna get done. I would love to tell you there's an assurance to do that, Mayor. But if the Planning and Z zoning commission recommends approval with certain modifications and then developer has to take those plans and modify them to them around to get them to you for final approval we don't control the time that they have the plans so that's the only wild card there but if the idea is for an affordable housing project can we continue to expedite and let's just say top of the pile or make sure we have places on the agendas for affordable housing projects? Yes, we can do all that. Thank you. So that it's like, okay, we can't control when a developer gets back to us, but we can say, when you get back to us, this gets on a mayor and council agenda or applying the commission agenda within x time. So this at least less. Not fluff time, but less lag time among the processes. Yes. OK. All right. Councilor Van Gregg. And I was just going to say, I mean, I definitely support this. Again, I view what we're talking about here in slide 2, really going back to one through, especially one through 3 in our first slide. I mean, I think our goal should be to construct more than 2,000 units. I mean, by 2040, I hope we're doing more than 2,000 units. I hope we're doing double that. Bonus hype program, that's going back to the zoning warden, is rewrite. When we're talking about endorsing the concept of the Rockefeller Metro, I think that's a given. We've already really done that. And I think the mayor and council just about everybody is talked about bringing one out of back because of that. I mean, and even reducing the park requirements, we're talking about the zone and Jordan tree rights. So the town center master plan is going to be coming before us. And I think we're going to almost certainly have to approve it no matter what, but I think the priorities in the zoning ordinance rewrite that deal with town center and the infrastructure and want to be clear with councilmember Valerius saying that focus and those densities should be more than in town center. But in town center especially we need to focus on the zoning ordinance we write and just as the mayor was talking about in the prioritize the fast two with regard to the permitting let's get us above that 2000. Hopefully heck I think 2000 hopefully by 2030 we should be looking at that. And so I view this as something we definitely need to see. I think it's, but I think this goes to the supply that we can do what we were just talking about in Slide 1. And so I think it kind of runs hand in hand. So I definitely support everything here, but I think the avenue to get this done is with the Zoning Red White rewrite and the FAS2 program, they were talking about in the slide one. So I know that there's going to be a full workshop on this coming up. So I just want to pause and say Councilman Bershaw, there was a discussion about raising the MP to use the 20%. This is one of the opportunities that we might see with town center to get new developments with 20% or more. So that would be an interesting pilot trial to see how we can get that done. Again, I'll just note here I would also support parking reductions for ties to increasing affordability as well. In my opinion, I just want to make sure that some of those cost savings get passed on to tenants and potential owners. Councilman Basha. I know we keep saying tenants and I'm definitely fine with that, but I just wanted to also stress that when I said 2020 for MPD use that was also including homeownership. Yes, sure. Okay. Yes, and my comment said, and yeah, homeowners as well. Okay. So I totally agree. Yeah. Yes. And I my comment said and yeah, homeowner's as well. So I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know that we need to spend a lot of time on this slide, but Dr. Miles and Councilmember Fulton, can you please share your thoughts on this as well? Dr. Miles. Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was I recognize in virtual. So it's kind of hard to see on the previous slide was going to make a quick comment that as I mentioned, they were all of them. I just wanted to say specifically the terms of the, the, the point's three and four. I see that they're hand in hand providing predictability and certainly with regard to administrative approvals will certainly help developers be predictive and help me waste time. I imagine for developers, you know, time is my so anything we can do in that regard would be helpful. Similar to streamlining the development process as we will discuss in subsequent session terms up the town center master plan. I'm on board with all those bullet points as written on 2-5. That's all. Thank you. Councilmember, thank you, Dr. Miles. Councilmember Fulton. Yep, I'll be fast. I am on board with everything on the next slide on town center, but I wanted to offer since other people offered on the parking minimums. I don't see any detire that to anything else. We have a whole lot of reasons to reduce reliance on car culture, including our climate action, our vision zero and generally promoting economic development and making it easier to build for housing. So I know we'll have more to say about that, just some other shared I thought I'd share that piece too, but supporting everything on that slide. Thank you, Council member. I'll just explain my rationale is that when the COG goals were shared, it looked like yes, we need more housing, but we also need to think about affordability, so I was trying to find ways to get more, but I appreciate the maybe difference of a ping-in on how to get that done. colleagues anything else before we move on to three? Okay. All right. Do you want to present this one? I will leave it to you. So this is the Molly Price dwelling unit ordinance. It looks at, and I think this is much needed. The comprehensive plan talks about updating this entire chapter you have a basic cleanup plan here looking at recent research I think one area that my staff might need out weigh in on is the homeownership term as well I know that's been a question mark within previous mayor and councils and it would be good for this mayor and council to weigh in. So I want to specifically ask what people think about that. I'll note that you mentioned that currently there's a 30 year requirement and you're thinking about a 15 year and this is for homeowners who purchase a MPDU home. Correct. This is correct. The current term for the MPDU hold is for 30 years, but we see that the average MPDU homeowner holds on to it for, I believe it's maybe about 10 or 12 years. I don't have the number right on the top of my head, but it's for a much shorter time period than 30 years. So that would essentially if the time period was shorter, allow them to fully recoup on those costs earlier, whereas right now if they sell the MPDU while it is still an MPDU, they need to share part of that cost with the city. Thank you. So then we have density bonuses, which I think we all kind of agreed on. Flexibility for over-income tenants, which is a topic that came up during our previous discussion. Feed reductions, income averaging, property tax exemptions, and ensure equality with market rate units. And the ensure equality with market rate units, I have a question about that. Don't we require that in our code on what specifically would you be looking to change? So with that, the code talks a little bit about that, but we would be looking for a little bit more specific ethnicity there about the aesthetic requirements and the amenities and square footage to ensure that the MPDs are comparable with the market rate units. Thank you. And for the density bonuses, I know that talent center is one of the examples where we're trying to push ways to get to 20% versus 15%. And people will be able to go up and height as part of that program. As I mentioned, I'm also interested in just seeing what it would look like for a program that also ties to parking reductions as well for affordable. So that's something that I'm personally interested I would love to hear what others have to say about that as well as other things on this slide here. Anyone else on comments on MPDs? Or do you want to at least weigh in on staff's first question on density, on the length of homeownership term. Council member Shaw. So I have a lot of issues with MPD use. I like the program overall and I think we should definitely move forward with that. I know that it's not enough because of the just high demands and displacement crisis. I wanted to know if we would be able to get input from folks that experienced applying for MPDUs, both from folks that weren't able to get MPDUs and folks that were able to get MPDUs, there's just seems to be, I mean, it's a means testing program. There's a lot of barriers in applying for one. And I've even heard from community members that MPDUs are too expensive, that they don't make enough money for MPDUs. And I think that has to do with oftentimes, well, I think the property owner will be the one to administer the program and sometimes they can pick the families that are deemed less risk and sometimes they have the higher income than other families within that income range criteria. And so I just think there's a lot of different issues that we may not be hearing from our government end and getting more input from those that are actually experiencing a lot of these barriers. And folks that speak different languages because it's very hard. I'm glad you brought that up. One of the things that we would like to do with this MPD ordinance rewrite is to hold a series of round tables and outreach and have discussions with current MPDU tenants and homeowners and people who are potential constituents of the program as well as the developer super constructing the projects that include MPDUs. So as part of this. Would you think about having a community meeting or public hearing on MPDUs just to get additional community feedback? Yes, we'll be thinking through those community outreach strategies and with the ordinance that will also certainly be a public hearing opportunity. Thank you. Council Marshal. As much as I like public hearings, I do think I think that's a great opportunity to look at the public hearing opportunity. Thank you. Council Member Cha. As much as I like public hearings, I do think, um, were you thinking also of like more of a focus group or like, um, maybe Spanish, Spanish-speaking focus group or an area where you can really get more, um, more details and, and input. Well, there was specific community engagement strategy for this review, including all those items that you have addressed. Okay. Councilmember Van Greck. I'll just be brief. I do think we need to update the model, really priced dwelling unit ordinance. I think a lot of the updates that I think we need to update the mod of really priced dwelling unit ordinance. I think a lot of the updates that I think we need to have dealing with equity issues, dealing with ensuring equity with market rate units, even like the National Beck Proxies, deal a lot with subsidy and stability as well. And I think that there's an avenue of making sure that we're getting to the right people because for the most part part they're being filled. So, you know, I see this less as a focus on stability, although we did a one step towards stability and it's our towards supply. And what we did already today, and I hope that's incorporated in what we look for the ordinance. But at least if we're focusing here on supply, I'd prioritize what we talked about in the previous two at least if we're focusing here on supply, I'd prioritize what we talked about in the previous two buckets in what we're looking to do to increasing the housing supply and as well as bringing more units of housing to rock them. Thank you. I saw Dr. Miles and then Dr. and then Councillor Rajman Jackson gave you a degree. Thank you Madam Mayor. I had a question and then a comment. My question is can I get staff to give me a little more background on the density bonuses mentioned in the in the first presentation and salsa listed here. So I want to make sure I know what I'm talking about. Sure. So right now the MPDU ordinance has a component that essentially mirrors Montgomery County's program, where if you build over the standard requirement of 15% MPDUs, you get a density bonus that corresponds. It goes up as the increase number of M.B. I'm sorry. I'm not a lot of it. Do I answer this question? Yeah, I believe what James was saying is that as then they build more and more MP to use above their threshold number, then you get a equivalent density bonus to those additional units. I believe similarly, Frederick County did something with their MPD rewrite where for each MPD, the MPDU that you build, you get an equivalent unit in density bonus. So what does the equivalent unit and this ebonus mean? Was that do like so? We had an apartment complex near Metro. It had a hundred units. They are only required to build our half 15 of them be affordable, but if they put 20 in so they have five extra, what does that mean for them? So the challenge with this is that rockville no longer uses density. We only use height. So functionally the current density bonus is very unclear as to how it gets applied, which is why we would want to look at different alternatives as to how we could work that in, whether it's a high bonus or something else that helps to offset those costs. Oh, meaning that. So for example, if we did put this in and a place did build extra five units as in this example, we would potentially depending on how we wrote it, we give them the ability to go higher on their height requirement. Is that an example? Correct, yes. Got it. Okay. My overall comment then is similar to what colleagues said Council Member Shaw, I think that MPDU is a component certainly not the only component as we have certainly articulated in this first work session of many. I do think there are some need to change that need to be made. I think those outlined here make sense. We passed the earlier today, you know, reducing the number of units, which MPD use would be required. I wouldn't in the context of limited resources. I don't need to the context of limited resources, I don't need to speak, step in me. You all know what you all can do. So I'd say, yeah, do this stuff, but you know, in the grand scheme of things of trying to figure out where the biggest bank for our blockcase from an efficiency standpoint of work hours, I'd say perhaps lower priority, but I'm willing to co-sign all the things that are listed here. That's all, thank you. Council Member Jackson. Thank you, Mayor Abbey-British. I think Councilman Miles for those questions because I was curious about the identity bonuses as well. And I think you got to the root of the issue. I support everything on this slide. And I really have got cited about the DINCY book bonuses. I think it's an innovative way to increase the number of MPDUs as well as make it more dense. So that's it for me, but I think this is an excellent, excellent start to improving our MPD use. I have a question. So the optional methods last density bonus has already included in the comprehensive plan. What are you asking specifically of us to change? Just to ensure that we agree with what's in there or that you're, you know, should this still be put into the MPDU ordinance? Just generally agreeing that that's an area for exploration that we are still interested in offering that kind of exchange in order to get more MPDUs. Okay, thank you. So I have a question about property tax exemptions. So we offer pilots payment and lieu of taxes, to organizations like Rockville Housing Enterprises. And we do it on the whole property, and they are majority affordable units. What is specifically proposing here, because MPDUs are already a requirement, and how would that work? Because I know that you are taking away tax revenue. So what were you thinking on this one? So I think there's a few potential options. Some communities provide pilots to the percentage that are the MPDU units. I think as we heard earlier today, that type of subsidy can help make these units more affordable. So it can be difficult at times to build the moderately price units and the revenue lost from those units many times gets added to the market rate units. So while we're getting 15% more early price units, we're getting 85% units that all go up a little bit in price. So there is that type of market effect when doing inclusionary zoning. But what we're specifically talking about here is Portland, Oregon has tried a new effort to help provide property tax exemptions to, so they're helping capitalize the moderately priced well in units. So the developer will pay that upfront and then over a 10 year period through property tax exemptions on those units will essentially get recapitalized for their initial investment. So they're using that kind of financing model or kind of repayment to the developer to help encourage the growth of the moderately priced units. And what mechanism are they using to ensure they're passing on that savings to other renters, tenants, homeowners? I get this is an area for exploration. I think generally for clarification around this slide, what we're asking is for guidance from you all to allow us to kind of strip it all the way down and build the program back up using best practices from around the country and try to build, rock fill the best inclusionary zoning policy that we absolutely can. I'm in favor of, I've been in favor of totally redoing chapter 13.5 for some time, so I fully support that. I would need more information on the property tax exemptions because I do want to make sure that they actually result in savings that go to the ranchers tenants homeowners. So that's something that I have a question about. You specifically asked us about length of homeownership. And I wasn't sure that we got back to you on that. So I just wanted to make sure that I'm asking my colleagues if we could just weigh in on, do you want to change the 30 to 15? Do you all need more information on that just so we can get guidance to staff on the direction to go in? Does anyone want to speak? So what I heard from you is that it is harder for people to be able to move because of the 30-year requirement. They may stay in, I've heard that they may stay in a property that doesn't fit their housing needs longer because of that 30-year tie. So I'm really open to staff's expertise on this one to explore what works to make this a more equitable program. That's my opinion. Colleagues, I see Councilman Jackson says, Tom Rae's Councilman, Revend grad. I mean, like I said before, I see aman Jackson says, Tom Rae's Councilman, or Vendras. I mean, like I said before, I see a lot of this dealing with more what we were talking about, you know, with equity. And I clearly support the things we can do for equity, as opposed to, so yes. Councilman for Larry? I would agree with all of that as well. I would definitely like to tease out further the ensuring quality with market rate units, in particular, having kind of followed a couple of the issues within the last year. What is differences in design versus differences in materials? I have a problem with some of the things that have been in MPDU units and not been in the market rate ones, including maybe less bathrooms, stuff like that. Some very basic stuff, but again, there's no level setting and there's no clear, then sure, yeah, and then one less bathroom, right? Cause it's an MPD, but that doesn't mean that, you know, it's the best thing. So I agree with all the above, and personally I'd like to dive deeper into the equality from that end of things. Thank you. And I think there was one project, I won't name it, but that tried to put one bathroom for like a three level town home. And they were hard to sell. It just didn't work. But our code allowed it. So, and I think there was some lessons learned there. So I appreciate you raising that. I am interested in that as well. You were fine on the look at them looking at difference in homo-emorship length of requirement, right? Sure. Is anyone against that? OK. And I'm also very, as I mentioned previously, and I think some others as well, I am interested in the flexibility for over-income tenants and also seeing how we can stretch so that people can be incentivized to get education and pursue higher incomes and not get kicked out right away. So I appreciate that we have the six months, but I think that the 140% as LITECH allows, I think, is a good idea to explore. And then the other piece that I've heard some colleagues talk about is workforce housing. Are there any thoughts that you have on increasing, for example, I think it's home ownership and PDUs. It doesn't have the same flexibility on the 80 to 120 percent. Have you thought about whether we should be allowing 80 to 120 percent for home ownership as well? So one of the questions and I apologize for my earlier coughing. I hope it will happen again. You've been able to hear from my voice tonight. It's a little bit rough. But yes, one of the things that we would like to look at is income averaging, which I think gets a little bit to your question there about how can we ensure that we have a range of incomes, the more deeply affordable at the 15, 60% area median income, going up to 80 and 120% even. And right now, one of the sometimes challenges with the way the current MPDU program is constructed is it allows for a lot of negotiations between the city and the developer about how many units there will be of each AMI level. And through a policy technique like income averaging, you could say, okay, you're going to have 15 MPDUs in this building. They need to have an average income of 80% AMI. So that way you could have 120% that are 120% some that are 50% as long as it averaged out into, I'm just throwing out there for an example 80%. So that might be a way to get more of a breadth that takes away some of that element of negotiation that we're doing right now that introduces some reliability into the process. Thank you. I appreciate that. Isn't there a difference in the income AMI that's allowable for renters versus or are they both equal now? Because I thought that I was told before the homeownership had different hydro limits for AMI. For both rental and home ownership, my understanding is that it can go between 50% to 120%. We haven't had any rental projects that have been approved after that change happened though, which is why all current rental MPDs are 60% AMI. And home ownership as well can go up to 120, because that's something that actually was in some of the agreements that we approved and they didn't have up to 120. So maybe if you could just check that and get back to us to confirm. Can do. Thank you. And the county has different MPDU income limits than we do. It's interesting and I'm curious to see why that is so different. That is something that we will certainly be looking into more about something if that is something that we would recommend of becoming more like the county in that way. Okay. I definitely want to allow and attract and make sure that we have housing in the 50% but I think they have higher income allowances and previous glance. I just was curious as to why we're so different. They do allow for higher incomes they have a 70% AMI requirement for high-rise construction and the thinking behind that is that high-rise construction is so much more expensive that instead of the 60% AMI requirement they push it up to 70 just to accommodate those higher construction costs. Okay I think that's worth exploring. Okay. Anything else on MPDU? Just looking at hands on the screen. Okay. Staff, do you need any further clarification, something that we didn't specifically discuss on the slide? I think what you gave us is good. I think though the one thing would just be to, if you are supportive of taking out some of that, the current negotiations that we are doing to introduce more reliability into the process, if that is something that you would be interested in. Obviously with negotiations, we then have the ability to maybe negotiate for more 50% AMI units than we would maybe otherwise get but also at the end of the day It's a negotiation. We're not sure where where where we'll end up Can you share this is me only but I think I would need more information on that like is there anything in that that would reduce the prop that we didn't Hibit the project that we didn't have at the project at all. Sure. Yeah, I think if there's a direction to allow us flexibility to explore that only because, you know, in previous slides, we're talking about creating predictability and transparency for developers as well. And so making something a little bit clearer for them to be able to understand, okay, we know in order to meet this MPD requirement, I have to do X number of this AMI and X number of this AMI to meet whatever threshold requirement that I have that creates predictability, it makes it easier for them, and then they're able to get through the process with Rikisteen, sorry, Director Barker's team. So that would be something, I think as we are developing this, we'll be sure to keep you all abreast of our work and get, you know, seek further input, but if we can kind of have flexibility there, I think it will then help us align with some of our other priorities as well. I'm just looking to my colleagues. I'm open to the flexibility for you to look. I would just also ask that we look at expertise on the financing side as well. I am hearing that there has been some challenges on getting financing from multi-family. So that's an area that I do. I want to just make sure that we don't have unintended consequences. But anyone, everyone OK with them exploring? OK. All right. Next is the housing needs assessment. I think we all want it right? We all talked about this. The one thing I will flag is I believe I have heard in the past that we have some infrastructure concerns on research boulevard on certain strips. That could really have a challenge where there are some properties covered by WSAC, some properties covered by us, and if we give all of our access, then we wouldn't allow certain other properties to develop. I just think that research boulevard in particular might have an issue that we need to dig in on. Council Member Shaw. I just had some questions about the housing assessment. I know that currently for renters, they mostly occupy two to three bedrooms. I believe I saw that in the June 3rd. In the June 3rd briefing book that majority of renters currently occupy two to three bedrooms, units, two to three bedroom units. I believe that is correct. Okay. And then the majority of units that are being built are studio and one bedroom. That is correct. Okay. that we have to build our studio and one bedroom. That is correct. Okay. And will the housing assessment look at that issue? Because I think that is one thing that actually generates displacement in terms of what the new units are being, they're not really being built for rock bill families. Yep, that's something we could certainly have. How's the needs assessment look more into? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I agree and support that. That's also something to look at on if we're going to encourage redevelopment of garden style apartments. You're going to lose potentiallyvelopment of garden style apartments, you're going to lose potentially some of those larger properties. I mean, the larger properties that allow for two and three bedrooms, just because as noted in the past, that they tend to focus on one and two bedrooms. And then when you go up higher, they're very, very expensive. So I think that's, there's some cost benefit analysis to look at how do to protect naturally occurring housing that has those larger units and keep them quality. So I just, there's a rub there. And I have some concerns. Councilman Bershaw. I just wanted to ask a little, a little bit more about that. So the reason why, and this is just corrects me from around, the reason why developers are building studios and one, studios and one bedroom apartments is because they can get more profit off of, because isn't it where you have a limited amount of space and you're able to stuff those studios and one bedroom apartments into those, into that limited amount of space as opposed to the two to three bedrooms, which actually have a lower, although the apartment costs more, it actually has a lower rate of square footage than the studio or one bedroom. So my understanding from hearing from developers is that part of the reason why they build more studio and one bedroom units is because that is the, where the predicted growth and where a lot of the current growth in renter households is coming from, is that that's where the demand is, is that there is a growing amount of one and one and two person household who are looking to rent. The way I understand it is in fact that there's actually more profit within the studio in one bedroom. I think there was an example in DC back in 2016 where actually a number of tenants actually sued the developers because a lot of the developers were building the one bedrooms, the studio in one bedrooms, and they had larger size families, two to three bedrooms, and it actually led to a lot of displacement and pushing folks out. And so, considering that our current Rockville family size are two to three bedrooms, and developers can make more money. I'm not sure if that statement is... I mean, we'll be happy to look into this through the assessment. I think that over the past few years, like millennial households have shifted, right? There was a large growth in singles or, or like roommate style living arrangements in millennial households. And as they have formed more traditional household styles that you're going to probably see an uptick in the need for more multifamily or more larger bedroom typologies in the housing market. And then we're seeing similar household formation or multi-family or more larger bedroom typologies in the housing market. And then we're seeing similar household formation with Gen Z as they are now entering the housing market and also starting to look for apartments. And so you'll start to probably see a shift in the way developers build housing. And so I anticipate that an assessment like this can also look into those types of things. I mean, I do believe. I do believe that this is actually more profit driven than what we may appear to be. And I'm just concerned because if we are serving our rockville, current rockville families, they are in two to three bedrooms. And we're building for folks, for families that are not their size or for single people. And from what I'm hearing from a number of younger tenants, is that it's actually really unaffordable to even start a family because of housing cost. So I do, I really greatly appreciate exploring and getting some facts around this. Thank you. Council Member Van Greck. As I said before, I think this is a good idea and I really like to focus a possibility of an assessment of where in Rockville we can potentially, whether it's through potential zoning or whether it's through matching up developers, utilize what Rockville can bring, even whether it's through the fast-to-process in focusing on certain areas, whether it's surface parking lots, whether it's surface parking lots, whether it's certain underdeveloped the land that I know we've seen, you know, potential areas that Rockville can do more and provide more areas for housing. I'll be all for that, but I know I'm gonna go back to it again. If the housing, if the Rockville staff needs a priority of where they I would suggest they focus it's still back to the zoning ordinance rewrite it's the fast two program is things that we can do immediately to try to within all areas of the city especially with regard to the infrastructure areas try to get more supply in the areas. But I think this is a great idea at some point for us to be able to try to assess where in Rockville, we can encourage more development. Where in Rockville can we utilize the underserved infrastructure to do better? Love the idea of doing something like that at some point. Thank you. I'm just looking to see if there are any other hands before I say something. Okay. I agree that I do want to make sure that we're looking at other things and I don't want to, as I mentioned before, like I don't want to slow down the work on through 55 and Town Center for this. I know that you're thinking about some parallel, but I do know that there's limited staff time, so I just wanted to restate that as well. And then there is some abandoned properties or things that are not moving. And so I think I don't know if that needs to wait for a study to poke on, like for example, Town Center apartments is right in Town Center, has 100 units and has been vacant for two years. It's owned by HOC. To me, it's a travesty that we don't have that in play for affordable housing already. So I know that's something that I kind of want to make sure that we're periodically checking and moving things along. There are other places where there are lots that I just have seen sitting. I've seen some vacant houses. And I'll also just note the city has a vacant house on farm stead. A king farm farm said it is a house that is vacant. So I will put ourselves in that bucket to just look at what's vacant and what's not just so that we can move things along. Okay. All right. I don't see any other hands for this slide. Okay. So now you have us on section 5. Did you want to say anything on this? Nope. This is the preservation of existing housing supply. Yeah. The first one, short term rentals, short term rentals, turridome flipping fee and existing naturally occurring. One thing I was curious about is rock economic development incentives report on short term rentals and show that there are some happening that – and it must be that they are legal because we don't currently allow licensing. So I was just curious. It shows that there was some tax revenue associated with who's collecting that tax revenue. That's the one question I had. The second question is, I just know that there's so much, every time you look, every week there's something news on the news about cities that are grappling with the loss of long-term housing and battles on short-term rents. So this is an area for me I want to be very, very careful about because I know it's a delicate topic. And actually, it seems to be a policy thing that people are still learning from. So I wasn't rushing on this, but I just wanted to note that I recognize that this is a moving target. On the tear down flipping fee, I have some concerns about allowing not allowing people who want to add onto their house to do so. That's just my personal piece. I saw Council of Vancouver and Iraq and I see Council of the Larry. Yeah, I have similar concerns about the tear down flipping fee. I know that it's certain situations that actually is a better utilization of the property. And I don't know if that's an area that I'd necessarily want to focus. Council member Valerary and then Council member Jackson. This is definitely one of those topics where I am, I think I need to see a little bit more information because in my head is the home, it's our first one, the home in Twinbrook that was a tear down. At the tear down price point, it was hovering below 500,000 and then sold for over a million. So I'm very, I need to get more information, more data on this. I'm not trying to disincentivize renovations in many ways, shape, or form, but especially in some of the older neighborhoods, the tear down is essentially me doubling the cost of a home for folks where they're already increasing sky high. On the short-term rentals, yes, they are unregulated and there's a ton out there. As many of us ran into while store knocking. I'd love to sign your petition, but I live in New Hampshire. Okay, so why are you here? I think that's a really important part to you as well as actually the flipping fee or sitting on properties because I fear that that's what's happening in certain communities close by certain developments that are looking more and more attractive people are holding on to older homes They're waiting for that and then they may in turn renovate flip it tear down Which basically takes that home off the market. So I will stop there and I defer to my colleague Councilmember Fulton. Thank you, guys. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Then I see that to my wife. Sorry, sorry, Kate. Let me just go real quick. Thanks, Kate. Let me just go real quick. Thanks, Mayor. I share the concerns, the short-term rentals. I see both sides of it. And also, you know, I see the neighbors' perspective. They don't like living next to some property where people are coming and going all the time. It's a real concern. I know people who live next to a rental, short-term rental, whether it's legal or not, they're doing it and they have some problems and when people come up to their door rather than the one that they they they're in it. So there's also that concern. But I would definitely want to explore the problems and the the solutions of the search, short-term rentals. On the tear down flipping fee, first of all, I would say I would want data. We know from the county's data that the housing footprints have gotten larger and larger over time as people do this flippling. So I would want to know if it's really a problem in Rockville. And then I wouldn't be more information. Like my colleagues, I'm uncomfortable a little bit with a fee, but on the other hand, do we really want these getting bigger and bigger without a reason? And as Councilmember Van Grech said, there's some properties that it's suited for. But for this, I just need more information about what it is we're talking about and why we're talking about it. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Fulton, then Dr. Mil. Thanks. So on this slide, yes, I support exploring these issues, the short term rentals for the reasons everybody already covered. I do not support the tear down flipping fee. In the context of the question that was asked of us, which is, are these the identified strategies that are most important to a increased housing supply? So no, my answer to that question for staff is that's not, I don't think it is and I don't think it's worth pursuing and light it up everything else we have here. I will say that I did a whole lot of research on it over the past couple days to my you know There was a recently a bill in Montgomery County They were pretty clear that it doesn't apply to the dishes right it would be a more than 50% Territory like there's ways it wouldn't Impact some of the things my colleagues suggested, but you know my feedback to staff is no on that one Um, and I don't I need more information on what this Noah thing actually is at the bottom before I win, but that's my feedback. Thank you. Dr. Miles and then councilman Rishal. Thank you Madam Mayor. As a colleague councilmember Poulton stated, I think the grand scheme of things that I'm flipping fee as a way to address the housing affordability. Overall picture receives less import right now, but again, it's one of many parts that can, I guess, in some small way help in conjunction to address the overall crisis that we don't face. I think overall the part that I'm most interested in are two parts of this slide. In terms of short term rentals, I guess the question of that to staff would be, I think it's normatively good to regulate it from a safety perspective and oversight just to make sure that you know renters are themselves entering units that have some degree of oversight. So that's the sort of statement I have. The question I have is you know we you know charging fees. I guess a fee component in terms of the regulation short terminals with that fee component actually covered the cost of administrative the program. My sense is that it wouldn't, that isn't necessarily the case, the fact that we should do it. I think the short terminal piece is more about my perspective safety and standards more so than addressing housing affordability. But I guess, I guess, I guess I'll take up here for to have a see whether that cost of administering it is actually worth it or actually worth with the city to lose money on this bar. We could definitely price a short-term rental fee that would cover our costs and the cost would really be administrative fee is any cost to mine websites to make sure people are licensed, but the most important is really inspecting a unit to make sure it's safe to have as a short-term rental. We could absolutely price it to make is the final load portion that says existing national league occurring affordable housing. I think it's the, you know, I wouldn't say the, I think finding ways to do that. We have example Scarborough Square because of money in the housing opportunity, fine, which leads to a, I guess to a larger discussion that perhaps will have in subsequent work session about ways to, I think, staff-roading that in the slides, have a more stable, consistent source of funds for the housing opportunity fund. I'd have to be interested in having enough, if now, it's the appropriate time to have that discussion. But something in a subsequent session helped it. It is a topic. So instead of another naturally occurring housing unit is up for sale. We can exercise the first light or refusal. And then hopefully if we have a stable source of continuous income into that housing opportunity, so we can continue to preserve existing nationally current affordable housing. That's all I have to care. You can't see me nodding. So I'll let you know that I'm nodding. We will definitely talk about all of those things in some of the future work sessions. Thank you. And then council member Shaw, did you want to share a few comments? I just had some questions for the tear down. I'd like to learn a lot more about this, but for the tear down, has there been like an environmental impact assessment on this perhaps from the county? Go ahead, yeah. Sorry, so the conversations when the county just got having a tear down fee, the environmental impact is really about the additional lot coverage that comes from when an older home that tends to be smaller and cover less of the lot is torn down and then rebuilt. Then you have typically more impervious surfaces and so that impacts stormwater runoff. Okay. And then my other question about this, and we talked about this briefly, but I would like to see with some more clarity, like, and we can get into this later around the revenue for that support, supportable housing, if there's like some estimated amount. And then with the existing naturally occurring affordable housing, I think we definitely need to find ways to preserve. I know that there are a number of multi-family apartment buildings within the city that are trying to renovate at the same time are really increasing rent from 100 to 500. That's what I heard as an example in the woodmot from several residents there and they're really being priced out. Actually, there were a few evictions last week. So I do think it's really important for us to find ways outside of passing you on to the 10th. Just want to add on that. That is something that happens. I'm curious as to how a building can defer such maintenance costs. I mean, I know particularly I'm not going to name the building, but there are like pipes and fire hydrants that I mean water safety things that are not working because they never fixed it. I think it was there were like six tuberculated areas that were caught you know could cause safety risk. We know with another property that we did a right of first refusal that property was largely needs significant reservations and the the RHE that bought it has to not do a tax credit deal to try and get that renovated. But I'm wondering in our process, as we talk about what we call distress buildings, like how can we be better at making sure that they don't get to that point? Because what happens is they defer so much maintenance and then they have to do it. Like they have to upgrade these properties or there will be a quality of life issue but then it gets put on tenants all at once versus they could have spread that out over time. And you know that there isn't an option not to do the work because there's a quality of life issue that or a safety issue perhaps. So I just I would like to also see how we can identify those buildings and push more regular maintenance versus deferred maintenance that is very very costly all at once. I see you shaking head you just agree. Yes that is certainly something that we are already thinking about and we'll continue to explore. Okay and I know I think you've heard from some of us and I mentioned earlier session about like is can we explore the housing opportunity fund so that we can do collaborations with CVFIs and others and maybe even supporting right-of-first refusal opportunities. We do have a dedicated way to put money into art and I would assume that we can have a dedicated way to put money into housing in our city. That is the top thing that we would like to discuss related to subsidy because everything else will flow from that. Okay, thank you. All right. So if I can check in with this number five right here about what I'm hearing to make sure that I'm understanding the body's direction. So with short-term rentals, it seems like the body is open to win that item returns, to considering ways to potentially make sure that this does not have a negative impact on housing supply, to make sure that those short-term rentals are regulated in a way that highlights safety. With the tear down fee, I'm hearing that there's a lot of interest in more information, but that this is something that would maybe be deprioritized on that list of housing supply strategies. My question is should it be deprioritized on the list or is this something to take off? I heard from some of us that it's not on our list. I heard from some of us that people say they want more information. So I just know it doesn't seem like it's a high priority even among all the things. Okay, great. And then if I'm representing, please let me know. Okay, I see thumbs up. Okay, perfect. And then with preserving existing market rate affordable apartments, that's something that we'll dig more into as well with the stability section. Thank you. And I would just note with short term rentals, I think, you know, what you heard from several of us is that we don't want housing for long term rentals necessarily coming off the market to just do. And then that's one of the biggest pressure points that they're seeing actually they're antagonizing tourists in Barcelona on this very issue for example. So I think that's the area we have concern about. And I think more broadly there was a discussion about getting software to just also identify rentals that are not, that don't have proper rental licenses period. So I think that's a broader issue because there is a safety component. It's not in our system and we have an insured safe. That's something we need to look at. And that's not just short term rentals. That's all rentals. Yeah, I think we can work closely with our partners at ready and with planning to ensure kind of a balanced approach to short term rentals. All right, next. All right, so those were the five areas that we wanted to discuss as more immediate priorities. I'm going to go back to this slide with the full list of 21 of the recommended housing supply strategies and then wanted to see if there was any additional feedback related to the strategies that we didn't necessarily dig deeper into tonight about whether they are things that you believe we should be pursuing at all, whether they should be moved higher, moved lower, etc. Okay, I'm looking. I've got some brochure. I would like to explore supporting share equity models and land banks. I know this provides somewhat of a new model and concept for housing. Particularly, it provides a lot of opportunity for home ownership for renters and not having a relationship with I would say like a corporate multi-billion million dollar landlord type situation and so I think and this also I think there's a really great example of this in Greenbelt, the Greenbelt Housing Inc, which is really large, cooperative. I think that's a really great example. I think it's one of the largest co-ops in the country, or the oldest co-op in one of the oldest co-ops in the country. I just think there's a lot of opportunity around kind of the share ownership model. Thank you. I'm also curious about that. I do know that there's some shared ownership models in commercial real estate as well. I know of a couple of properties where that exists and allows people to own. So I'm curious about that. I also mentioned earlier the public-prior partnerships I think we definitely need to work with players like Habitat for Humanity and Community Development Finance Institutions because if we're trying to find ways to get affordability, there are key players in that and then more broadly like we want to encourage WMATA to seek public-private partnerships. If we let the process go as it is now, and this is confirmed when we talk to them, it will take over 10 years before we see anything at least rock film Metro. I'm happy that they might be an unsolicited proposal at Tuenbrook, and I've heard that there's some possibilities there, but that's still several years out and we need to push them to and work with them and encourage another kind of RFP for Rockville. So that's to me why I'm harping on the public part of partnerships are essential. I see. Councilmember Fulton and then Dr. Mouse. If I bring you up first, you've got your hand up for a while. You okay? Okay. So my thoughts on this are what I said earlier. Number 15, I think it needs to be moved up and become a part of one. I think Council member Van Graig said a lot of it earlier that I would focus on a lot of the zoning, the permitting, the housing types should be sort of a highest priority. So 15 as a part of one. I also actually agree with Council member Shaw and the mayor said it is two. Some of the shared equity models in my embankment really do pose the possibility to address a lot of issues and you know it might not be this silver bullet but I do think it's worth exploring as well so those are the main things that I would focus on that are below the why thanks Dr. Miles and then you put him here okay Dr. Miles and then you put in your end up. Okay, Dr. Miles and then Councillor Jackson. I'm Adam Mayor Mangle. After our colleague, Councillor Jackson, please. Yes. Thank you, that's my out of my mouth. Miles, I'll be brief. I think number 20, pursue private partnerships. I agree with the mayor. I think that one is a key and really important. So I just chime in and echo her thoughts. I'm actually really curious about number 17. I think that we should, I would least like more information about that, especially because you were talking about underutilized potential development, you were talking about speculative, just holding on to property and not doing anything with it. So for me at least, I think that should be higher. At least I would like more information, but I think that's a kind of innovative thinking that we need. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Dr. Miles, do you wanna go yet? I also see Council Member Van Grack. Yeah. Okay. First, thank you, Madam Mayor. I think as I mentioned earlier, I'm a priority perspective. I think number 10 is less of an issue. Again, if it gives us some money in a housing opportunity, fun sounds good. I don't think it should be a huge focus or a main focus right now. That's the tear down fee. Emission similarly, my thoughts in the regulation of short term rounds, I don't know that it will necessarily address the housing affordability thing it does to help with safety. I think number close should be higher up and we can talk about subsequent work sessions on ways to preserve naturally occurring affordable housing. Certainly, I like 13 and 14. I think 14 in particular, seen some examples of neighboring jurisdictions around housing on in conjunction with religious institution use that I thought was intriguing. As well as other uses listed in number 14. And I, you know, 15 we discussed as well. I think it's kind of similar at a magnitude to its only ordinance rewrites. And finally, I certainly 2021, so the partnership as our college vision, I moved that up as well as number 21, in particular, things that we can do safely reduce construction costs. This may be indirectly related to some of the changes we may discuss with regard to permitting and just making processes occur faster. At the end, from I imagine a development, a developer's perspective times my, so the extent to which we can decrease the time that is required to give them Permitted the you know working on the site the better to the extent that is done safe. That's a lab. Thank you I'm gonna be brief Below the law below the number 12 line. Just as Dr. Miles said, number 15 and number 21, I see as part of what we're doing with the Zodering Board and the Zeretwright. As we talked about before with regard to expanding where additional housing types are allowed, I think we can do that well within what I think needs to be a key priority in the first three, addition to which reducing construction costs, I think what we're potentially looking to do with FAS2 can absolutely do that. There's too much of a delay, the permitting process. I also wanna mention in looking at research and reading some articles, potentially establishing a land value tax and some public private partnerships could potentially be helpful. I think it's something to look into in the future. I also want to be clear even just looking into that should not take priority over some of the things that we discussed before but that's something that I'd like to down the road potentially look at because I know that the uncertain jurisdictions they've been helpful. Thank you. I had a question for number 13, support 80 construction. One of the things I looked at and shared around and the questions that was sent out to all my colleagues is there's some jurisdictions like NAPA that are developing technical assistance programs and also defining ways to support workforce housing. So I'm wondering, are you including that in this lower priority? Yeah, we can explore those. I know climate department is also looking at different methods of helping encourage accessory dwelling unit development by owners and then Jane and I have already started to explore a way to help provide potential subsidy in the upfront costs of developing accessory dwelling units for homeowners and so that'll be something that we can get into deeper in the subsidy conversation. I appreciate that. I would not want that to be so far down and below the line just because I know that we just adjusted our roles. And if we don't see it happen and doesn't actually support housing supplies. So that was one of the questions that I had. And then I was just curious, is there an inverse relationship between establishing a land value tax and supporting new and emerging small scale developers? I just wanna make sure that doesn't hurt the other. Those work together very well actually. Okay, because I do, I don't wanna make it so only multi-million or as companies can do this work, that small developers can as well. Okay, thank you. And reduced construction costs is that also include manufactured housing? Yes, honestly, that's more what we're thinking. You're certainly correct, Council Member Van Grack, that having a faster permitting process will contribute to that, but more of what we're getting out with that idea producing construction costs is looking at prefabricated modular manufactured types of housing, different construction materials, some of our building codes digging into more of those components. Well, wouldn't that go hand in hand with the housing type piece because it just seems like that is one of the state level areas that they're actually pushing and looking at is still on the manufacturer's house. And so I was just curious as placement is number 21 at the bottom. I think when we tried to look at these comprehensively, like what things would build on on each other, and we could learn from previous experiences to inform future conversations. And so having reducing those types of things or looking at building code changes, I think one thing in an early conversation between Director Barker and I was double stair requirements in multi-family up to a certain level versus single stair requirements, that additional stair well. But that's a conversation that we not only need to have about building codes, but with the fire marshal and with various other actors. And so that's going to take time to kind of get to that place we're ready to make those types of moves. Okay, I appreciate that. And I do think that we should be more open to manufacturing housing. It's not the same as it used to be and does really expedite the process and reduce costs. On the flip side, there are some things in the comprehensive planning process that I recall. For example, if we are wanting to see more mixed-use development, there was something about like windows that better protect against sound. And sounds and noises are probably here all the time and if we're going to have mixed-use, there's going to be more noise to shields. So I wouldn't wanna necessarily take that away, for example. We also, if you look at a lot of reviews on apartments, there's comments about the walls being paper thin. I just, I wouldn't want to encourage a situation where we're creating a difficult living situation for people who are in multi-family buildings, whether you're renting or owning. All right. Is there anything else on this list that we want to talk to? I'm just looking at hands on the screen. All right. Are we ready? Mayor, we're good. Okay. We've really this is exactly what we're looking for for feedback from Council. Please give us some time to put together timelines and ideas on what we might bring back this as soon as we can. A couple more work sessions to go, but we're excited to get going on this work. And some of us we can give you some ideas on what we might bring this forward in final form. Some of these elements will do that. Thank you. Councilor Moussa. Yeah I just had a few questions about the sources. They were very helpful overall in the briefing book. It just mentioned the UCLA study. It mentioned August 2024 but when I read this study, it was like 20 pages or so. It was actually, it looked like it was published in February, 2021, and I wanted to just confirm the date. And the reason I'm asking is because it looked like a lot of the working papers in there were done before, like pre-pandemic, like a lot of them were 2019, and a lot of the data came before that. So I was just curious about the date of the study. So it may have been a working paper in 2021, but I know that the most recent version that is linked here, or referenced here, was published in August 2024, but you're right that that is a survey of six different working papers and so those working papers are from various recent years. Well actually when I clicked on the footnote the paper itself like the review of the working papers was done it looked like it was done on the first page of February 2021 but it looked like it was actually posted to the website in August 2024, and then the working papers within the review were all before, or 2019, if not before, and I just wanted to confirm, because it looks like from the briefing book that that paper was published in August 2024. Okay, we can look in, see if that is correct or not. Perhaps we can send that as a question via email and then staff can respond just so I know that you don't have all the papers in front of you right now. Is that okay? Councilor Bruchelle? Could they get back to us via email? Yeah, that's fine. It just says that in the briefing book so I just want it to make note of that. I have a number of questions but I can just ask them via email. Okay let's ask them via email and then it's just anything that bubbles up we can raise it again during the next work session on this. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that and thank you staff. I really appreciate your work on this. Thank you. All right. So our next item is focused on MAC agenda. I know we specifically went through and made some changes to September 30 during our agenda review, like moving the special presentation others. I just want to see if there are any other comments on this. Okay. All right. So moving on to old new business. Anything? I'll just go ahead. Councilor Cha. Okay. This is just an idea. I know there is a lot of rhetoric, like xenophobic rhetoric, and anti-immigrant rhetoric right now. And I'm not sure if there is something that we could do a statement or some type of proclamation, just around supporting our immigrant. Councilmember Schell, again, you're turning my going dog. Oh, it's not. I'm sorry. So, recently, I think there has been an increase in xenophobia and a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric. And I wanted to just check with my colleagues to see if there is something that we could make a statement or some, because Rockville is such a diverse community to make a statement in support of our immigrant communities that live here in Rockville. Thank you. I think that is in line with some of our resolutions. Can we talk about which way to do that maybe? Just we can share some ideas on resolution versus a statement. I agree that I mean, I've personally been hurt by some things I've heard. And I think that we've also just seen a lot of hate increase. I do know that the county is going to be coming up with a toolkit for municipalities in an anti-hate approach and that's going to be rolling out I believe in October. So I'll also be good to check in to see what tools are going to be available to us but I think that's important and we as part of that talked about all municipalities doing a statement as well given some of the issues that we've seen across the county and nationally. And I also think it should also touch on particularly immigrants of color. Thank you. So I know this idea could evolve into something, and I'm not sure if it's a statement or a proclamation, but, and maybe I'm just looking to my colleagues to give me some of their thoughts on this. Dr. Miles. Thank you Madam Mayor. Yeah, that's a important concept. I think to the extent we're staying within our chartered, you know, being our pars partisan stuff, which I think we should always do make a statement of in this statement if Councilor Michele agrees with holding all of us, you know, elected officials accountable for our speech, you know. I don't know how to get at this, but there's things out there just outright lies and folks are reluctant even in the media to call stuff out. But when people don't tell the truth, it has implications. You know, school is being dismissed early. People haven't do class online. People receive in death threats. That's just unacceptable. And I support anything you all want to do and make it stronger if you want, but I'm on board. That's all. Thank you. Councilor Fulton, Councilor Vellieri. I wanted to say I absolutely see the problem and I think that we should do what we can to address the hate that's growing. I wanted to offer maybe a different And honestly, I don't feel strongly, but I just don't know if there's more we can do that's more effective or helpful than sort of, we as a body saying things. Like, can we, is there actual tangible support we can offer? Resources we can provide, like services we can put on or programs, sometimes I think that, you know, we think narrowly about we can provide, like services we can put on or programs. Sometimes I think that, you know, we think narrowly about we can do a performance or we can issue a statement. So it's probably required further conversation, but that's my initial reaction. Like what can we do that's more than this body saying words? Thank you. Yeah, I agree with that. And I appreciate customerional raising this. I would also want to see that staff follows up with the county because they are actually planning to do something where they're creating like a more robust response to hate crime bias, etc. And as I mentioned, they're working on some toolkit that's supposed to come to us in October. I think that helps to provide more meat beyond the statements, right? And helping our city drive awareness about those tools. Council Member Lary. No, I'm in agreement. It's always nice to have it in writing, to be able to refer back to you, but action often speaks louder. If we were to go in the writing way, I know that everybody has mentioned a bunch of different things, but Council Member Van Grack can correct me. This seems almost similar in tone to the resolution that we worked on around the rise of hate toward both Israeli-Americans and Palestinian-Americans. And so I almost see a lot of a relationship there. So if I had to say it, I would say a resolution would be strongest. That is essentially our statement. Plus it's something we can point back to in response to anything. But I also agree with Council Member Fulton that doing something would be great also checking in with the Human Rights Commission and if they are planning on doing anything that we could be supportive as the city and whatever they want to do. Council member, Shad just a quick question for you. Has the Human Rights Commission talked about this as of yet? No, I was going to bring it up in the next meeting. I was going to bring it up in the next meeting. I did talk to a few, I just ran the idea by a few folks and they're interested, but I haven't like formally introduced it. Okay. Yeah, I would be interested in a resolution also tied to supporting this county toolkit and awareness about, you know, how do we as a community respond to and address hate and bias. Comes from a grand grant. Yeah, this body has had a tradition of speaking up when there's folks in our community that have had prejudice and incidents of hate and this should be not an exception whatsoever. I, because I'm a Valerie said that we worked on a resolution when there was and still is unfortunately anti-Semitic anti-Islamic anti-Palestinian anti-Israeli hate that's unfortunately still going on. I see this as something more. There are there is anti-immigrant hate generally going on especially the folks of color around the country and us not speaking out and us not taking action as customer fault and said with regard to assisting our community is on us. So I fully support us speaking out like we've done before in support and seeing the degree to which we can help those in our community as much as possible. And whether it's with the county's toolkit or other avenues, it's important for us to act. Thank you. I'm hearing majority support for this. Councilor Jackson and then Councilor Scha. No, I would just associate myself with the comments that everybody has made. I think it's a really important issue and I support a resolution or a proclamation but I like what councilmember fourth was talking about it seems like if we want to do something we should explore other avenues to do actually more. Councilmember Shaw I definitely definitely agree with action particularly through making policy. And I think since we in theory are we're practicing under 10-21, under our care training, under all of these things, we are actually supposed to be applying it to policy. And I think there is more we can do. So we should be doing that anyhow. And I think we should recommit to doing that. And so that's why I brought this up in terms of a proclamation. And then there is the racial equity and social justice toolkit already. And we already, or I think what is coming soon is our Rockville equity toolkit, which I think we could also feature as a part of this. Absolutely. I just also wanted to know know because it ties back to a bigger broader strategy with supposed to be having a whole DEI plan. I did ask the city manager, you know, where are we on and rehiring our Jedi lead on this because I want to make sure that people don't anticipate that or think that we're backing anyway away from our commitment to this. And he said he is working on a new hire for long term planning so that we can develop more robust actions to support our goals and values. So Councilmember, would you be willing to talk to the HRC? And I will also follow up with the county as well. Also that we can maybe pair a resolution or a proclamation with just learning about the resources and I know that our city manager will also be looking at the broader Jedi piece as well so that we're continuing to move forward on that. Madam Mayor, thank you. Thanks for coming. We're full, Tim. I'll pass the mic start from miles. You know your, because your background is so light, it's hard to see in the small springy little hands. Like the yellow hands. Sorry about that. Thank you, Madam Mayor. The only thing I was born at is relevant to the points raised by you and Council Member Fulton in terms of actionable items. I'm not sure what the tool kit includes, but if it does not include something that we're going to do with, you know, if you feel that you are a victim of some sort of immigrant bias, these other resources that you can use or people that you should connect with, I think that would be something that we could do. Again, if this is not already included in what the county's doing, that's all, thank you. It's my understanding that that will be, but it's a good thing to flag. And I will send an email. I know some of our staff members have also heard about this effort by the county. So I will follow up directly and hopefully staff can help as well to just understand the timing. Councilman Brasher. to just understand the timing. Council Member Shaw. I just also wanna add that I could also follow up with the racial, equity and social justice advisory committee for the county. And there are a lot of representatives on there that represent several different immigrant rights groups on there. Thank you. I wanted to just flag that state of the city as tomorrow at 9 a.m. a few hours from now And also the testimony tomorrow on the noise abatement just try and see if rockville can Have one of the two pieces One of the things that the city manager Shared in the testimonies of possibility that Rockville might offer some support, financial support to if it comes into the city. So I just wanted to flag that so everyone's aware of what's happening there tomorrow. I'm looking for final hand. Sorry is anyone on the screen? All right, do we want to adjourn if so we need a motion? Councilmember Vellieri I saw your hand and then council member grac I think you on the second Motion made by councilmember Vellieri I'm going second second. All right all those in favor please raise your hand and say I Thank you all we appreciate appreciate the robust discussion. Thank you, staff.