City of Chandler Study Session & Council Meeting 11-4-2024

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got
council members would you please make
your way to to
days good evening everybody uh Welcome
to our regular city council meeting of
November 4th uh I'd like to call this
meeting to order clerk please take the
role mayor Harkey here by Harris here
council member enus here council member
Ellis here council member Stewart here
council member Orlando here council
member Poston here for
him thank you so much our indication
tonight will be brought forth by pavine
F and our Pledge of Allegiance by
council member Ellis Miss f
oh my Lord my Defender my help imper
lowly do I intreat Thee ailing do I come
unto thee to be healed humbly do I cry
out to thee with my tongue my soul my
spirit oh God my God the Gloom of night
has shrouded every re region and all the
Earth is shut away behind thick clouds
the peoples of the world are s in the
black depth of vain
Illusions while their tyrants wallow in
cruelty and hate I see nothing but the
glare of searing fires that Blaze upward
from the nether M AIT I hear nothing
save the Tundras Roar that bow it out
from thousands upon thousands of fiery
weapons of
assault while every land is crying aloud
in its secret tongue my riches aail me
nothing and my sovereignty had perished
oh my Lord the lamps of guidance have
gone out the Flames of passion are
mounting high and
malevolence is ever gaining on the world
malice and hate have overspread the face
of the whole earth and I find no souls
except thine own oppressed small bands
for rising up this cry make haste to
love
make haste to trust make haste to give
to guidance come come for harmony to
behold the star of day come here for
kindliness for ease come here for emity
and peace come and cast on your weapons
of Wrath till Unity is one come and in
the Lord's true path each one help each
one we leave with extemely joy with
heart and soul do this oppressed of dine
offer themselves Up For All Mankind in
every
land thou seest them oh my Lord weeping
over the tears thy people shed mourning
the grief of thy children condoling with
humankind suffering because of the
climes that beset all the denness of the
earth oh my Lord Wing them with victory
that they may that they May sword ofer
the Salvation straighten their Lo in
service to thy people and their backs in
servitude to thy threshold of
Holiness really Thou Art the generous
really Thou Art the merciful there is
none other God save thee The Clement the
pedal the Ancient of
Days from the writings of the bahay
Fai please join me and recting the
Ali i al to the flag of the United
States of America and to the rep for
which stand one nation under God
indivisible with libery and justice for
all thank you Miss F thank you council
member Ellis next on our agenda tonight
is scheduled public appearances we've
got service
recognitions and uh City recognition so
I'd like to invite um council member
Stuart join me up
front all right city manager service
recognitions thank thank you Mr Mayor
members of council we do have two
Employee Service recognitions this
evening and for the first I'd like to
call forward our Public Works and
utilities director John
cansen thank you Josh I'd like to ask
Christel dystra to come down for her 20y
year service
so after growing up here in Chandler and
attending Chandler High School Christel
began her career with the city as an
intern under the Coe program The
Cooperative office education in 2000
this internship lasted a year and with
and was with in the police department
she then rolled directly into a temp
position with the police department
after her intern program was completed
Christel became an official full-time
Channel employee as a records Clerk in
the police department in 200 3 at some
point later in her time in Chandler she
met and married her husband Robert who
is a member of Chandler PD and now they
share two young daughters together as
Christel Advanced her career with the
city she has worked in several
departments over the years including
neighborhood resources development
services and then after taking a short
vacation working for the city of
Avendale she returned home to Chandler
in
2022 and accepted her dream job with the
best department of all public works and
utilities and she serves as our
utilities administrative support manager
where she leads utilities Administration
team as well as the meter services
division Christel is an example of the
Chandler employee who embodies the
values of our organization which she
demonstrates in all that she does each
and every day thank you Christel and we
need about 20 more years thank you
[Applause]
mayor and councel if I could just add
another thing about Christel is that she
actually was one of the key pieces of
our airport master plan completion which
we just talked about a few minutes ago
so thank you christelle
mayor and Council for our second
recognition and final recognition of the
evening I'd like to call forward Corey
povar our assistant Community Services
director thank you Josh appreciate it
and I'd like to call forward Jeff
Stanton for celebrating 25 years of
service today
and I would like to point out that all
25 years of Jeff service were at the
Chandler public libraries so he didn't
move around but a huge congratulations
to Jeff Stanton on 25 years of service
with Chandler public library in the city
of Chandler Jeff's positive attitude and
First Rate customer service are highly
valued assets to the city and we're
grateful for his commitment and hard
work co-workers can always count on you
for assistance a healthy dose of
friendly
conversation capped off with a smile a
quarter Century of dedication is rare
it's a testament to your character along
with your celebration for Jeff's
accomplishments tonight I'm also honored
to announce that Jeff has decided to
retire in
January oh everyone not Jeff all
right while this is a loss for the city
of Chandler we wish Jeff happiness and
healthiness on his second act thank you
for your service and enjoy your journey
ahead on your bike and many travels
thank
[Applause]
you my boy
mayor and Council that concludes our
service recognitions this evening thank
you
and next on our agenda tonight is
recognition of the American public works
Association accreditation can we call up
the Public Works
team so tonight we are glad to have the
opportunity to recognize our Public
Works team for the important work that
they do to maintain the recycling and
trash transportation and water and
wastewater services for our city
our Public Works team has received
accreditation from the American public
works Association for this sixth year
and this team is always looking at
innovative ways to improve the services
they provide for our community and is
welld deserving of this
recognition man they keep coming and
coming you sure none of you are Public
Works people
okay all right and John who's goingon to
share something
here
right well first thank you mayor and
Council for your tremendous support of
of our department uh we couldn't do
anything that we do without you and I I
certainly appreciate everything that you
help us with um this award uh American
Public Works Association accreditation
it's not the sixth year it's the sixth
reaccreditation so we've been accredited
since
2004 uh we are one of only six
organizations in the entire state that
are accredited for American Public Works
um the the really great thing about this
process is it it requires us to
re-evaluate 336 different programs and
procedures uh that we do every day and
this group here in front of you
represent our our team from our cost
centers and our divisions and they
worked hard for an entire year every
time we do this every four years it's a
one one year process they meet about
weekly uh Liz Denning and Christel over
here were the two instigators of all of
it and uh Liz I think Liz has decided
it's her last time uh doing this and
you've done it how many times now five
times so she's she's passing the the uh
the Baton over to Christel to carry on
with that but tremendous group and I
just want to thank all of you for all
the great work thank you right
right thank you
[Applause]
all thank
you all right all right that includes
our scheduled public
appearances Council next on our agenda
is the consent agenda of our regular
meeting how would you like to
proceed mayor mayor council member
Orlando I moved uh that we approve the
consent agenda for November 4th 2024
regular meeting items one through three
second that mayor all right we've got a
motion by council member Orlando a
second by council member Ellis I don't
see anyone uh signifying that they need
to obstain or do anything so Council
please
vote motion carries
unanimously thank you so much with that
that concludes our regular
meeting but
wait Welcome to our November 4th 2024
study session like to call this meeting
to order clerk please take the role
mayor heartkey here by Harris here
council member enenas here council
member Ellis here council member Stewart
here council member Orlando here council
member posted here we have a quorum
thank you Council three items have been
called in for presentations and um I was
the first like to call up Nikki Tapia
for uh presentation and U how has this
being received and expanded with the
multilanguage translation technology
item number one
one okay good afternoon mayor and
Council thank you for the opportunity to
present today on the instant language
assistant translation device or Isa I
was I will be referring it to it in the
rest of this presentation these devices
were designed with one overarching goal
to to improve communication and customer
service across our diverse
communities first a background on the
ISA device um and what they can do it's
a powerful language assess access tool
that allows Real Time On Demand
conversations in over 200 languages and
dialects both in person and
remotely each device combines hippoc
compliant AI preset phrases and access
to live ASL interpreters which means
they can support individuals with
language barriers Mobility limitations
and other accessibility needs we
conducted a Citywide assessment from
August 23 to February 24 in which we
rotated four devices across 10
departments these devices help City
staff engage directly with residents
regardless of language or disability
some of the additional goals we had for
these devices were um to remove
communication barriers improve customer
service and also support the city's
limited English proficiency program
under title six of the civil Rights Act
title six aims to provide timely
meaningful access to all programs and
services for persons with limited
English
proficiency now let's understand the um
insights from the DAT assessment data
during the assessment we rotated four
devices across various departments for
one month each you could see the top
users in that order Library city clerk
police records and and um City Court we
had 560 face to-face interactions total
even with just a few devices the data
highlights how effective these tools are
for
communication on average each
interaction took just a little more than
four minutes these quick clear
conversations with a language device not
only prevent miscommunication but they
also make communication more efficient
especially on important topics like
passport applications Court information
and police
records another important takeaway
Spanish was the most common language
accounting for over 50% of the devices
interactions English was second most
frequently used with many residents
using the devices talk to text feature
to read along a huge help for those with
hearing
disabilities although we only had two
ASL
interactions those were both in the city
clerk's office um we had um a great
response with both the resident and the
employee saying how easy it was to use
as devices are stationed at
long term we hope to increase awareness
of this feature um for those who can
benefit these devices also offer options
to adjust font color size and background
to support low vision and color blind
users ensuring they're accessible to as
many people as
possible so as we move forward looking
ahead with our year one of
implementation our goal is to roll out
these devices over the next three years
starting with year one first year we
plan to distribute 20 desktop devices
and five portable units throughout the
city the next slide will show you where
those are going to are um drafted to be
uh distributed the funding we've
allocated will cover both the devices
and necessary accessories additionally
we'll continue collecting monthly data
on Resident interactions to measure the
impact and identify areas we can further
improve communication
Citywide so here is the list of where
the items or where the devices are
planned we have 20 Des toop devices that
will be placed in key locations
including those High users clerk courts
utilities libraries police records this
year we also have five portable devices
they'll give us the flexibility to
support residents directly in the field
for example code inspector or water
conservation specialist you'll see on
the graph that the water conservation
was not part of the assessment but in
the middle of the assessment staff
contacted us talking about how they
visit um people in their homes talking
about leaks and talking about water
conservation and how this device would
be very very useful to them so we are
very happy to um include them on year
one with a portable
device um as we gather more data over
the coming years we'll continue to
assess where these devices can be most
helpful to our residents the assessment
taught us a lot in four months but we
know there's much more we can learn with
this larger roll
out as we uh prepare to deploy up to 20
devices and Portables each year we have
the flexibility to adjust our deployment
based on res res needs and usage
patterns this approach allows us to
expand or reduce the number of devices
as necessary ensuring that the resources
align closely with the actual
demand um in closing I'd like to thank
the information technology department
for their critical support throughout
the assessment and working with
translate live to help finalize this
contract it's been great working with
them as partners in this project I'd
also like to recognize our
Communications Department for helping
make residents aware of these devices
ensuring they know know where and how to
access them will be utilizing them a lot
with this larger roll out and I'd also
like to highlight that Chandler's been
at the Forefront of implementing this
technology attracting in interest not
only from our local government neighbors
but from school districts and I've
talked to local government organizations
from the East to the West part of the
United States many have reached out not
only to inquire about the devices but
they want to know about our approach to
the assessment and our larger
deployment um with that thank you very
much and I'm happy to take any questions
you might have thank you Nikki I I
really wanted this for presentation
because I think this is an Innovative
program I recently spoke along with
along with our awesome staff in the back
there Our IT staff to a transverse and
Technology Group and uh there's just a
lot of positive uh inquiries and and
Buzz about this I I think it fits us and
our desire to both communicate well and
make sure that we're getting resident
input but also implementing Innovation
and Technology to do so so I'm I'm
excited about this program expanding
Council any questions or thoughts
related all
right council member Ellis would like to
thank you Miss Nikki for for thinking
through this whole process it is
important for us as a city that is so
diverse um that we provide things like
that where we can include all our
residents and they have feel that they
are part of this I love the idea of
being at the counter and speaking into a
device and the device speak to the
person behind the counter and then in
turn uh the voice speak back to the
person so it is face to face I can see
this even being used into the medical
field you know for us and different
things like that so looking forward to
see how it's going to spread out into
the City and U we were the first one who
started it so thank you for all your e
effort and your department also for
putting this forward thank you thank you
very much than yeah just wanted to um um
just so we can have um I know we're g we
have a drafted list of where these U
could potentially go I just didn't know
we have uh if Council uh if there's a
device here today or will we start uh
keeping a device on site considering
that we do have like 88 compliance items
on our Walls by our exits and things of
that nature just wanted to make sure
that when the roll out happens that we
can make sure that there's a drafted
machine here all the time we have
Council meetings yes we can definitely
do yeah I think it at least when we have
Council one of those portable units
would probably if if it's available
would probably serve us well I I I think
in this case we don't know what we don't
know for here but uh that would be
helpful all right thank you
Council next item called up was item
number seven ordinance 5113 State
housing mandates if Lauren one of our
favorite lawrens can come forth Lauren
Schuman and council member Poston ask
for this
presentation thank you
mayor
up all right so item number
seven uh this is a city code Amendment
pertaining to uh State housing
mandates uh so earlier this year in May
of 2024 uh Governor Hobbs signed in a
series of house and state
bills uh with hopes to expand housing
options and to help mitigate the effects
of rising costs to make life more
affordable for everyday
arizonans um as part of this code
Amendment we have four different bills
uh that I will be walking you
through uh the first house bill 2720
accessory dwelling units uh under this
bill uh it would allow for single family
lots to uh permit an accessory dwelling
unit by a right under this
bill a lot with a single family home on
it could construct one attached Adu and
one detached
Adu uh and if the lot was larger than an
acre they would be able to construct a
third Adu if it was deed restricted for
uh
affordable the bill uh the bill states
that adus are limited in size to either
75% of the gross floor area of the
primary house or a th000 square feet
what is which has ever
less um this bill would preclude us from
uh setting setbacks greater than 5T for
a rear or a side yard uh it restricts
height um this the bill does not allow
cities to require adus to match the
primary unit or house um the bill also
does not allow for cities to require an
additional parking space for uh
adus and it prohibits uh allowing cities
to restrict short-term rentals within ad
years uh this Bill had a deadline of
January 1st of
2025 uh so we come before you with our
code Amendment uh for this accessory
dwelling units uh it would be amending
chapter 35 for land use and Zoning
earlier this year uh you actually
approved a code Amendment which
permitted adus within the City by right
uh that became effective this year March
of
2024 um so what was approved previously
is you were allowed to have one Adu on a
single family lot
uh but it would be considered your
accessory building and it would have to
meet setbacks of the property it was
limited to 15 fet in height and it had
to match the the design of your house um
under that code we required uh one
additional parking space either covered
or uncovered and there was language that
would uh prohibit short-term rentals uh
with this bill um we have to scratch all
that and amend our code uh to align with
it
um the next bill is State Bill
1162 zoning shot clock in a housing
assessment uh this bill is used to
establish zoning application shop clock
for administrative completeness and
processing timelines for residential
projects what does that mean so any
project that's residential uh if it re
requ re Ires a rezoning or a preliminary
development plan once they file that
application we have to get it to the
council within 180 days for a vote uh
the timelines included uh within the
first 30 days of that application staff
must deem if that application is
complete do we have all documents needed
in order to process it and uh
resubmittals for administrative
completeness is 15 days days um and we
have to have it either approved or
denied within 180 days uh the bill did
allow for a 30-day extension but it had
to be requested at the applicant uh
currently we this is like a policy that
we we have been following for for years
uh but you know per the state bill it
required that we codified it within our
code um under this bill it also said
that cities need to do a housing
assessment every five years uh we
currently Believe last um city council
meeting uh a r uh consultant was
approved for the general Plan update as
well as uh that consultant will be
taking lead on a comprehensive housing
study which should be complete on June
of next
year uh that report is needed to be uh
submitted to the Arizona Department of
Housing the next bill state Bill uh 1103
administrative review approvals and
developments um this would allow for uh
authorizing administrative Personnel to
review and approve plats without a
public hearing uh September of this year
we were before you in a work session uh
discussing plats uh preliminary plats
and final plats and as directed by the
council um it was deemed that a
preliminary plot should still go before
city council because generally they're
associated with a zoning case so for
this revision it's not a state mandated
one um but we are striking language
Within Chapter 48 subdivisions which
would not require final plats to be
voted on by a city council they would be
approved and signed by a city engineer
and development services director in lie
of the
mayor and lastly uh House Bill 2325
backyard foul um this bill would
prohibit municip municipalities from
restricting chickens within single
family lots in January of 2023 uh
backyard chickens became effective
within the city of Chandler the only
thing that this bill is changing is um
it increases the amount from five we uh
in 2023 it was approved to allow for
five hens the bill is stating that uh a
resident can have up to six hens
roosters are still prohibited and uh
there's no changes to the coupe uh
restrictions you know coups within
Chandler are limited to 120 square ft
limited to the height of the property's
perimeter fence and must be set back
from set back five feet from side and
rear
yards and with that I open the floor up
for any questions council member
Poston thank you for that presentation
mostly you know Council has worked uh a
long time as along with City staff on a
lot of these codes so I really
appreciate you bringing forward what's
different from what we approved and what
is moving forward because in these cases
our hands are tied now because of some
of the state mandate so I appreciate you
sort of explaining some of those
differences um and I know that it's
something that we talk about quite a bit
with our state legislators that we want
to keep that local control because I
think we had come up with some uh
processes that were very good with the
input of our Chandler residents and we
very specific to the city of Chandler um
in terms of some of them have more
effect than others my question my
biggest question is do any of these and
I actually the
Adu do they affect HOAs or is this only
going to affect our traditional
neighborhoods can our HOAs exempt
themselves uh
great question uh through the mayor uh
council member Poston um as we read
through the bill uh we believe that uh
HOAs if there's rules in place to
prohibit uh adus um they're not um
exempt or they are exempt from this bill
so yes uh traditional neighborhoods will
probably be more affected by this uh
House Bill than uh HOA regulated um
subdivisions okay okay and then in terms
of that shot clock you don't expect much
change that's pretty much standard of
what we're already doing that's our
current policy we generally try to get
applications to the council within six
months so okay okay well I appreciate
you pointing out those differences I
just wanted to make sure that we had
those clarified since we've been talking
about these codes for so long and now
almost the minute that we Implement them
they're changing so thank you very much
thanks May thank you um other questions
council member Stewart thank you so on
the on the last one our our code doesn't
run a foul to the current state code
does
it through the mayor uh council member
Stuart no no okay no on serious note um
can you tell us where the housing all
these housing initiatives came from was
it were these neighbors that came to the
state and said hey you know what we need
adus we need to have some some changes
in in our code so we can get all these
things done or was this initiated by
something else that's a great question
um
I guess my deeper question was what what
problem were we trying to fix here from
your your expertise maybe this is a Ryan
Peter
question you know I mean because I I can
understand like like the local control
and we kind of know what we're doing
around here but I'm kind of curious as
to what happened and what really drove
this forward and what we're trying to
fix here I if you would ask me I I'm
going to guess you know the mayor the
governor did say in order to create more
units for people to live in and
hopefully bring down the cost uh for
people to be able to live in Arizona but
there's more you're halfway here I gave
up on it mayor council member Stewart
we've all heard over the last couple of
years how housing is a big Challenge and
there's industry associations that have
really been the main proponents behind
this a lot of state legislators were
elected on this issue and so it's the
culmination of a number of efforts from
you know the community various industry
trade associations as well as lawmakers
themselves okay thank you and real quick
how many have how many applications have
we have we received so far for for this
yeah that's a great question is it going
to be an issue um you know so since uh
March of 20 24 so March of this year uh
we've seen uh 12 permits come in for
adus
okay so I've got two questions um with s
sp16 to um you mentioned that there is
180 days to approve or
deny are there any um handcuffs on on
conditions of denial on these is it is
that considered narrow or is this to be
if it just doesn't fit in the existing
neighborhood that this is being placed
it it sounded like council could vote to
deny that as well as p andz in our
current process is that is that process
still intact or have there been some
handcuffs placed on that on the freedom
of that mayor great question um no we
are not handcuffed to that so you know
as we work with applicants and if if
they're not meeting our comments um
we're still at a place where we can't
get behind making a recommendation of
approval you know we would make a
recommendation of denial and then so
forth the the pnz vote and then to the
council and so if this again either in
their design or or or you know just an
overall location or for whatever reasons
I know sometimes Council keeps in mind
uh what's the best use of this piece of
property so Council still has the
freedom to deny is what I'm hearing you
say that's correct okay my second
question any I I found it interesting
your last comment related to HOAs that
HOAs have more protections than the
cities they reside in is there any any
thought on that as opposed to why
particular I realize they have covenants
and laws but so do we that in terms of
ordinances in Charter cities so there's
certainly the the ability to override
cities but is it is it just by law
they're not able to override uh the the
covenants of HOAs if I may mayor City
attorney so HOAs are a contract among
the property owners on how they're going
to develop their property and that is
protected under the state law
state law could change some of that and
has changed some of that by different
things like parking on streets um but
through this bill um they did not impact
the HOA so the HOAs can still have more
strict requirements and regulations than
the cities um at this time yeah that
that's my understanding I guess I'm just
I'm just
wondering why in particular but I guess
we don't fully know okay well and my
guess would be it's because people buy
and agree to that contract among the
property owners so I guess the
legislature wants to keep that intact
that agreement intact but when you agree
that when people move into Chandler they
also buy and agree to certain covenants
in terms of the law of the land so it's
I mean there's y absolutely they're also
liable to noise to what they can do on
their property uh so okay is correct
I realize I'm I'm just curious whether
there is some special consideration
counil any additional questions on
this all right thank Youk you our last
item called in item 30 by council member
Stewart on water system
upgrades so um item number 30 through
the mayor council member Stewart I
believe uh you were the one that asked
for this one yes John um this uh item
number three is uh really kind of a
culmination of about a Year's year-long
worth of work uh from our consultant
Hazen Sawyer and our staff at the uh
water treatment plant um over this past
year they've done a considerable amount
of study and assessments of the plant um
and we have just we believe that we've
come up with about five different
projects that will improve the output
and efficiency and decrease the
trihalomethane formation that we've been
having in our system that causes this
difficulty and will also improve the
taste of Chan's water so uh improve
quality improve taste improve the
efficiency of the facility so our plant
is about 35 years old uh it's um it
needs a little bit of work and so we
hired Hazen Sawyer to come take a look
um one of the very first things uh that
was discovered um the plant is rated at
60 million gallons per day and we've run
the plant at 60 million gallons per day
for about two weeks uh and that the
plant really struggles to hit that 60
MGD so and it's important for that to
happen so first thing that hayzen soyer
came in and did with our staff was they
conducted a study of all the filters
which was kind of the the bottleneck and
determined that the filters could
actually have a higher throughput than
what we were rated for and so we were
able to increase the throughput in those
filters uh and by doing that we've
eliminated the need to add an additional
four filters to that plant which would
have been probably close to $100 million
worth of cost so and we've now gotten
those filters rated with State and so it
really has uh it's made that plant a
real 60 million gallon per day plant and
in in the end saved us money from having
to expand our filter galleries which is
a great thing so that's one of the items
that was done another was uh determined
that we were going to be adding another
unit process it's called the a
granulated activated carbon contactor
which is a postfiltration process it's
at the end of the line and it acts to
finally clean up the water just that
little bit extra uh we began to have
problems in about 2005 after the big uh
fires up on the Salt River Project
Watershed and we began to get a lot of
Organics into our water system and the
Organics and the turbidity and that
Canal is what causes difficulty and so
the plant wasn't really originally
designed to handle that type of water
and so these improvements uh which item
number 30 is the design for those
improvements uh when the design work is
completed construction will begin uh and
construction uh for all of this work
will be right about $100 million uh that
will come to council for later approval
uh will probably come through uh in
three or four different phases for this
work but it's really a a fantastic uh
step forward for that plant and a great
way to uh improve uh the city of
Chandler's water at a very affordable uh
price
tag thank you John I I appreciate the
rundown I kind of get nerdy about the
water stuff um and and kind of the the
the specifics about it especially when
it's $1 million you know we want to know
where that money is headed but what I
like is that we continue to invest in
that infrastructure for our water you
know we've seen we've seen things that
have happened in other states and other
cities and uh we've got to stay ahead of
this so I appreciate you and your team
continuing to bring these opportunities
forward and if it's going to taste
better right that's a good thing so
thank you very much Council any
additional questions or
comments seeing none thank you Mr kutson
Council those were the items called in
tonight we'll see you Thursday where we
will be voting on these and the rest of
our agenda have a good night