Chandler City Council Meeting 12/7/23
Summary
Summary:
- The council approved the consent agenda for December 7, 2023, consisting of items 1 through 33, with a unanimous vote, noting a conflict of interest from Council Member Ancenas on item 21.
- A public hearing was held regarding the update of the system development fees (SDFs), which are essential for funding growth-related infrastructure in Chandler, with a report due by January 2024.
- The council discussed updates to land use assumptions and the infrastructure improvement plan, highlighting the importance of ensuring growth pays for itself without burdening existing residents.
- Residents raised concerns during unscheduled public appearances about police conduct and noise from environmental remediation efforts, prompting a request for further investigation and assistance from city officials.
- A timeline was established for the adoption of updated SDF fees, with a public hearing scheduled for February and final adoption expected in April, effective July 2024.
Overview:
During the council meeting, the consent agenda was unanimously approved, and a public hearing focused on updates to the system development fees necessary for infrastructure funding. The council emphasized the importance of these fees in supporting growth without impacting current residents. Residents voiced concerns about police actions and environmental noise, leading to commitments for further investigation. A timeline for adopting the updated fees was outlined, with key dates set for public hearings and final approvals in early 2024.
Follow-up Actions or Deadlines:
- January 11, 2024: Adoption of the updated land use assumption and infrastructure improvement plan report and the notice of intent to modify system development fees.
- February 2024: Public hearing on the proposed system development fees.
- April 2024: Final adoption of the new fees.
- July 2024: New fees to take effect.
Transcript
View transcript
council member Harris they're calling him right now okay council member posted here we have a clan thank you our invocation tonight will be led by Reverend Sarah Oglesby dunigan from the valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation and our Pledge of Allegiance closing us out for the year will be council member in cenus whether you've recently celebrated dwali or beginning the observances of Hanukkah or bod day or you're preparing for a solstice Christmas or Quanza celebration let this season be a time and that each of us might hear the voice of the Holy calling us to the work of community to care for each other with kindness and patience to be present to the challenges each of us face face whether they are spiritual Financial familial or personal to look for opportunities to make the community and this planet a place where all of us may lead whole lives where our basic human needs are met and our humanity is honored for this we pray and while each of us may name the holy differently or even perhaps celebrate important religious holidays another time of year may we know and serve the love and possibility that comes to us in this season with humility and courage Blessed Be amen and may it be so please Jo in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance States one justice for all thank you Reverend thank you council member Council we had opportunity on Monday to look at our consent agenda there are 30 plus items on there uh would anyone uh care to uh make a motion to approve may may council member Stuart May I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda for December 7th items 1 through 33 okay we have a motion second second by vice mayor mayor believe one uh council member and cenus uh due to a conflict of interest I will not be voting on item number 21 very good so clerk please note his recusal on that particular one Council any comments related yes I want to thank uh city manager and City attorney for working with me this week on this language in here on item 2 everyone certainly appreciate it and I believe the council members all had a chance to look at it so thank you very much may Council memb Stuart thank you I and I want to thank vice mayor Orlando for bringing that forward I mean it's a nice little catch not little it's kind of a big deal but it's ensuring that we have visibility when we're doing eminent domain things like that is important and that uh as a group we are um cognizant of protecting our neighbors so it's good that you brought that forward so thank you for doing that all right Council please vote Council member Ellis yes council member Harris yes motion carries unanimously with um council member and seen us declaring a conflict of interest on item 21 all right thank you so much next in our agenda tonight is a public hearing regarding our system development fee and uh that would be met good evening mayor and councel uh privilege to be here with you tonight to talk about some of our updates to system development fees uh the land use assumptions and the infrastructure Improvement plan as I Was preparing for tonight I was looking up some of the kind of known humorous anecdotes about assumptions and I decided to forgo some of those but there was one interesting fact that I found and that's that there are two types of people in this world those that can make an assumption based on a previous statement all right as we get ready for our agenda here uh tonight we'll be talking about our system development fee background uh our program requirements some fee categories and service areas our land use assumptions infrastructure Improvement plan some of the public Outreach that we've been able to accomplish and our remaining project timeline so first off we want to talk about why system development fees and what they are used for and useful for uh first of all the city of Chandler is the first in Arizona to implement a full range of assistant development fee or impact fees that was done in 1997 and really the intent of that was to ensure that growth can pay for growth so that other residents of Chandler that are existing residents aren't paying for the new infrastructure required for new residents moving in so these development fees were implemented uh for that growth related infrastructure and those fees were paid by the developers at the time of Permitting now if not for system development fees Chandler would have had to find some additional alternative Revenue sources for example we could have used bonds uh related taxes increase in taxes to fund the needed infrastructure Citywide as we grew and continue to grow so sdfs have allowed the uh city of Chandler to keep taxes low over the years uh they've provided a capital funding source in L of selling bonds and then to the far right are some examples of things we've been able to accomplish over the last many years uh utilizing system development fees so arterial Street improvements of fire stations police facilities libraries Parks uh utility projects and then there's a list underneath of several of the different things including if you notice fire stations 2 through 11 so the majority of fire stations throughout the city of Chandler uh were built us utilizing system development fees uh water mains Wells other infrastructure uh major arterial streets and widenings so they've been very useful throughout the years to ensure that we have good infrastructure throughout the city a little background on system development fees uh this process is governed by Arizona revised Statute uh the developers pay these fees during the building permit issuance process and this is onetime funding that's for growth related Capital infrastructure and there are some specific Provisions that the state statute says that we cannot use these funds for they cannot be used to fund repairs or operations of Maintenance of existing infrastructure they cannot be used for Capital that's not directly attributed to growth and they must be for infrastructure that's a necessary public service and that directly provides a beneficial use to the development the revised Statute also requires us to do uh three key items uh depending on which item how frequently we have to do them the first is to complete a land use assumption and infrastructure Improvement plan report as a precursor to any fee up dates based on methodology outlined in State Statute this is required to be completed every five years and for us legally required by January of 2024 the last land use assumption and iip adoption was in January of 2019 it includes an updated fee schedule and there's public Outreach and Council approval processes dictated we also on an annual basis must report prepare an annual report and post that online which we have done since Inception of the sdfs we also complete a biannual audit every two years we bring forward the results of that audit to Mayor and Council and the results are um presented in a public hearing they're also posted online as well it's interesting to note the first two the actual report that we're updating and talking about tonight and the biannual audit uh they must be prepared by qualified professionals so it's not City staff that prepares those it's an outside uh consultant firm that prepar those for us or our Auditors Citywide Auditors for the fee categories that the city of Chandler has we have several fees which are charged by what's called equ equivalent dwelling units or edus or square footage depending on the permit type and those include our arterial streets parks for which we have three service areas fire police and public buildings and then there are sdfs which are by meter size for water Wastewater and reclaimed water again these are all paid for when the building permit is issued uh it's important to note that for most of those fees let me go back to that slide most of those fees there are there's only one um area or service area and that's the entire city uh but for two of them there are unique service areas where if you're pulling a permit in those areas you're only charged those fees if your permit is in that area so for Arial streets you'll see here uh the brown CER area that's the area in which uh the arterial streets system development fee would be applied uh we do have some remaining projects for our arterial streets and those are indicated at the blue lines we have Alma School Road and we have get my list I can't see it on there so Elma School Road from Germaine to Queen Creek and from F Fred to posos Chandler Heights Road from Gilbert to Val Vista and lindsy road from okoa Hunt Highway for our Parks we have three service areas in Parks we have the Northwest Northeast and Southeast and these were really uh the purpose of having three different service areas for this specific um SDF is to allow for smaller Parks which benefit those in a specific geographic region to have those in that geographic region region pay for those Parks so we currently do not have any future parks in the northwest or Northeast service areas but we do have two remaining parks in the Southeast service area uh we have the mosqu Groves Park and Lantana range for our land use assumptions the update goes through and looks at the general plan any updates to our general plan any zoning changes and any development patterns and incorporates those uh Trends into the land use assumptions it also includes any Ed use which include housing units and non-residential square foot which are updated based on city projections and then it looks at a buildout of our edus equivalent dwell units uh those are updated based on the Maricopa Association of government's development projections so all of that information is updated throughout the report um and presented to Mayor and Council through this report process here's a look at some of those assumptions that were changed from the 2018 report to the 2022 report the existing average equivalent dwelling units has increased uh we've seen an increase to the buildout average edus an increase to existing square footage on non-residential and a decrease in our buildout square footage for non-residential on our land use assumptions for our arterial streets we have also seen an increase to our existing edus for residential an increase to our buildout average edus for residential an increase to existing square footage for non-residential and a flat uh buildout square footage for non-residential also included in this update is the infrastructure Improvement plan we look at three key areas when we're updating the iip uh first we update any remaining growth projects and their related costs so the street projects and the park projects that I identified earlier as being part of this iip those costs have been increased uh to show the the true costs that we would anticipate moving forward on those projects we also update our 10-year revenue forecast and estimated Financial need for each category and we update any outstanding debt for each category so we can make our calculations again in that green box we do talk about some of our future growth projects um for parks and for streets and all other categories besides parks and streets are simply collecting fees to repay debt when we talk about SDF debt we it's important to note that this is internal debt this is debt that's owed Within the city uh where we have funded capital projects in some other method whether it be cash funding or Bond funding uh in order to build those projects due to lack of revenue from the SDF funds and those FDF funds when they come in through buildout will be utilized to pay back the outstanding debt in total we have about $29.25 debt that will be collected through buildout of the city of chanan through State Statute we are required to have public Outreach throughout this process including this uh hearing this evening but we've also done a public Outreach process where we held stakeholder meetings in October uh which included representation from each development category uh we sent notifications that that that this meeting was happening and we had uh people both in person and online included was a presentation uh and the updated Lu iip report uh which is also available online there was one request for a followup meeting meeting with the central Arizona Home Builders Association which we also held in October and that meeting went well from a project timeline uh we are currently have completed both the public Outreach and a work session with mayor and Council related to this subject uh tonight we have the public hearing on the Lua and iip report that report uh is scheduled for adoption to be brought forth to Mayor and Council in January on January 11th uh with that adoption would also be the adoption of a notice of intent to modify SDF fees which as of this report updates those fees based on all of the new data that flowed into the report that would also be January 11th there would be a public hearing on the proposed fees in February and the first read of an ordinance that would change uh the city code for those fees and then final adoption would be in April and these new fees would be effective in July and with that mayor and Council be willing to answer any questions you may have thank you Matt for the great presentation um Council any questions or discussion vice mayor yeah Matt we just want to uh don't want to leave any doubt in the those that are watching this or get the feedback that the 392 million is the internal um budget sheet we're keeping in regards to these impact fees and according to the plan according to the way we do this which we be doing for the last 20 6 years the last permit that is pulled in the city I think that's the word you H the other day the last permit that's pulled in this city will the zero balance the the fund correct yeah through the mayor vice mayor that's absolutely correct uh the intent of why we do these updates is to ensure that as we're pulling all of those permits remaining permits that are left by the time that last permit is pulled all the debt and all the current needs for funding have all been met and if you look at the tables in the book I think you we were looking at this the other night you'll see over the time period of frame where this debt is then absorbed and then obviously is is you know zero balance yeah correct great all and this is I can't another thing I want to emphasize this is um State Statute uh for these updates correct yeah through the mayor vice mayor the state requires us to have an update at least every five years which which is fine I mean but the point I'm trying to make is it's a it's a it's a robust process that we have to get an outside consultant to make sure that everything is um that we're saying we're we're we're we're publishing we're saying we could do based upon these assumptions correct great okay thank you mayor I think some of the highlights for me just for the audience to know too is that um this is only considered debt on what is a benefit to our community that is not existing so there's any improvements to Parks or to other City buildings or our libraries which we have no intention at this point of building anymore those are not included to those and this really allows if someone shows up now for a development they they really enter into to pay for something that someone else and the City previously paid for hence the debt that that vice mayor mentioned so it really is an equitable way of of uh allowing growth to pay for itself and to making sure that that those who have paid in and for different areas that they don't pay twice hence the the parks and the streets separation as well where we've completed this out so Council other questions or comments seeing none next part on our public hearing is discussion from the audience is there any questions or comments from the audience related to our public hearing of uh system development fee see none I'd like to close our public hearing uh thank you sta next on our agenda tonight is unscheduled public appearances I have three cards in front of me and I'm going to just call them in the order that I received them the first is from Mr Hussein when you come up you uh have up to three minutes to share your thoughts our concerns the light will be green for two and a half minutes when that light turns yellow please wrap up your comments and then uh end your comments when the light turns red Mr Hussein your name and address for the record good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is t Hussein I'm a resident of chandel for about 20 years this is the fourth time I'm appearing for the C for the council for the same case China police false falsely arrested me in front of my children charged me with horse neglect and animal cruelty seven felony counts dragged me through court for two years and closed my business took my travel rights traumatized my whole family August 20 August 2021 Chandler police raided my house in violation of search warrant the detective lied about everything on the initial report seize my children's horses which were healthy horses the state and then the state did not file any charges against me September 2021 city of Chandler sued me for the cost of their misadventure City magistrate denied their request I counter claim for the cost of my horses with City attorney said they will pay and then the city uh then the city's Risk Management Department declined to pay January of 20 22nd city of Chandler prepared 160 page report of Lies false fabricated information with replac horse and asked the county to prosecute me two years of Court reps County attorney tried six times to get me to accept the charges and they will dismiss the case then downgraded my charges from Felony to misdemeanor state attorney said give something and we'll give you something the judge said is the best uh offer the it's a very good offer I filed seven petition myself to the court for dismissal of the case pointing out every single lie that was presented by the city of uh chanler replacement of evidence planting of evidence and all the false accusations finally May of 2023 this year the County Attorney withdrew the case this is a criminal con conduct on the channel police I am not accusing of any the whole Channel Department maybe it could be one or two people that there's we all say there's bad apples everywhere and seems like I've been here four times requesting an investigation from the C of chanler nobody has ever called me I'm not even sure if there is any uh investigation done on this particular issue I asked for in nothing happened seems like the mayor he doesn't care and but at least Mr the wice mayor Matt Orlando he offered to help but I'm not sure if he can help in any case uh I accept it's okay for the police to criminalize I gave up on the idea of getting an investigation I filed a case for financial compensation and it was dismissed on the Financial grounds I will file again with legal counsel all I want now is to just walk away from here and compensate me financially for all the uh heartache you given me for stealing my horses and I'll just walk away so I am requesting one more time to the council for the benefit of the general public see if there is there needs to be an investigation in the police department for Miss kandak and I will present every single piece of evidence that me the Chanel police misrepresented and falsified and if you don't care just pay me and I'll go away that's all I care thank you thank you sir and and to our audience and speakers we cannot comment on any of these because this is unscheduled public appearance but but again um the city manager I always ask you to make sure that if there's followup to be had that make sure that it is and give back to us our next unscheduled public appearance is Tom first and I apologize if I'm pry your name wrong again sir you've got three minutes state your name and address for the record uh good evening my name is Tom fol 4923 West Gale Drive Chandler Arizona uh thank you for your time today I just wanted to uh take this opportunity uh briefly to kind of explain what me and my family have been going through for the past uh 10 days um alloud soil Vapor extraction unit was placed at 4980 West Railroad approximately 40 ft from our property line and near playground where children play at the Maxwell daycare uh Center there in the same mertile area it was turned on November 27th this was apparently to clean up a mess left behind by the now defunct Avalon Dry Cleaners located at suite number 14 that is apparently polluting the soil and contaminating our groundwater I called the mayor's office to get some information and complain about the noise I was referred to environmental um the gentleman I spoke to there uh informed me that um they had received another complaint from a resident um he gave me a lot of information including uh the number to the Arizona Department of Environmental control and a Mitch Williams with partner engineering and science Incorporated who was the contractor running this machine I spoke to Mitch Williams and was told that they were taking steps to quiet down the unit I asked if it could be moved he told me no I asked if it could be turned off until it could be muffled as I I suffer from migraines I was told I can't do that by Mr Williams uh the only solution that we were able to work together was uh they would turn it off at night as they wanted to run this unit 24 hours 7 days a week for who knows how long um I also contacted my state senator for district number 12 Senator Epstein's office and the Arizona Department of Environmental control quality to file a complaint the reply from adq was to refer the state doesn't do noise complaints and referred me back to the the city of Chandler PD I spoke to uh Chandler PD several officers uh they were very empathetic to my situation but unfortunately at the end of the conversations I kept I came away with the feeling that the best I could hope for and it wasn't even guaranteed was that a small fin would be levied against Henderson Beltway the property owner the loud noise continued through the week causing me and my family anxiety and mental duress you could hear it through the whole house with doors and windows shut and we could not stand to even go in our own backyard we felt like prisoners in our own house my wife is especially sensitive to loud noises and she was home when there was a large gas explosion in the same Mercantile area about a year and a half ago I believe it was and she's now very jumpy when she hears loud noises uh continuing to investigate in search of some relief I called development services on Friday December 1st I wanted to see the site plan as to how this could be um located so close to our house um development services was very very helpful um and uh we do have some inspectors coming out uh to view this to see what's going on um I just want to continue to work with the city the state um also I'm going to reach back to they shouldn't just be referring me back to Police Department they should be letting us know a lot of people see this permit from the state of Arizona think everything's on the up and up to check and make sure that they've they've filed the sufficient paperwork with the city of Chandler and I appreciate your time very much thank you thank you again city manager see what if there is some additional muffling or whatever that we can put leverage on to uh alleviate this situation thank you our last speaker card is from Patricia Evans G Miss Evans you have up to three minutes to share your thoughts and uh state your name and address for the record when you are at the mic good evening council members in there thank you for the opportunity for giving me to speak um I'm going to speak on aerial surveillance and drones and fixed Wing surveillance aircraft all expensive has played a role in my air stalking hoovering over my home and communities and we should took a hard look in benefits and the cost of uh aerial surveillance and this is abuse this is happened to me 20 times where aerial surveillance of hover hovering around my home above my home 24/7 and I'm being gang stocked by different people if I go to fries Macy there's four and five people taking pictures and I don't know what this is all about but the aerial surveillance and drones have caused me and my husband anxiety and distress and Cho dis Patch Tuesday at 7:30 a helicopter scraped uh my roof I don't know what's going on and I need help to investigate to see what's see what this all about but the gangstalking has been going on with me for the past six months in aerial surveillance and drones and fixed Wing surveillance aircraft is 247 I went to Walmart today Maes and a aircraft followed me all the way to Maus back to Walmart I don't know what this all about and this is 247 so I don't know if anyone has heard about aerial surveillance and gangstalking it's real here in South Chan and I live at 4673 East chair Hills Drive sunr area thank you um again I don't know if I was making you aware okay mayor um are are you done then yes okay thank you um Chief please make sure that if if there's areas that she can file a complaint that would be get to the proper authorities that uh that she's heard and and whatever we can do with that that would be quite helpful council member Stewart thank you mayor uh city manager we talked a little bit a few months ago about a policy around drones um do you know where that is in progress as far as yeah Mr mayor council P we've been taking a look and updating our own internal drone policies for City owned drones we do not have that same level of control over non City drones so we'll have to kind of determine what exactly is going on in this situation okay thank you that concludes our speaker cards for tonight next on our agenda is current events comments from Council which I'll start we have our golden neighbors holiday celebration that's going to be December 14th from 9 to 11:00 am. at the Chandler Community Center residents can contribute a gift to a golden neighbor through Tuesday December 12th or directly from the events Amazon wish list to learn more about that you can visit Chandler a.gov golden neighbors for details secondly the Exchange Club of Chandler is hosting a wreaths Across America event they've been doing this for multiple years at the Valley of the Sun Cemetery to honor our veterans the event is Saturday December 16th starting with volunteers Distributing briefs at 9:00 am and then there will be a brief uh program and ceremony at 10: a. as this is our last council meeting of the year I do want to wish our community a happy Hanukkah a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year and councel I want to say it's been a pleasure to work with you this year and uh we're gonna we're gonna hit the year running next year with a lot of things happening so council member and Cen us there we go thank you may I just wanted to Spotlight a gathering of community recently um as neighborhood reinvestment is very important initiative to me I along with um a few Community leaders um got together got the community together um here in the P Vio neighborhood which is right here in downtown Chandler um we had a great turnout of residents um we got some great feedback and a lot of participation of the neighborhood listening about their concerns their issues and the things that they like in this area and I want to thank especially the neighbors that came out for participating in this and being a voice in their neighborhood I want to thank the council members that were able to attend Council member Harris and council member Ellis uh for being there and um also I want to thank our city manager and our staff that have already started working with these residents to solve some issues and also to educate and to activate this neighborhood um for their future and as well uh I just want to say as wrapping up my first year on Council it has been a pleasure working with you guys it has flown by so quickly it went by so fast I'm ready for 2024 um and I want to wish all of our residents here in Chandler a very merry Christmas happy holidays and that our blessings continue in 2024 so thank you BL mayor I want to wish everyone happy holiday as well and I just want to compliment you on that jacket very few people could pull that off I know I couldn't but you pulled it off very well so congratulations well thank you it U you'll see it again around St Patrick's Day okay fair enough council member Stewart thank you mayor have to I that's a great jacket a great tie vice mayor I mean you guys pulled it all out I think I was saying to somebody earlier I can't believe it's already the seventh and Christmas is right around the corner and of course I have zero shopping done but that's pretty typical until the 24th so uh you know I had the the pleasure of representing Chandler mayor and council at the ASU poly Technic uh Grand Opening and groundbreaking this week um it's a huge campus expansion for them and uh it'll be turning out and now it's turning out about 6,000 Engineers a year and anything from um Aviation to robotics to cyber manufacturing uh to semiconductor manufacturing energy sector but in the next few years they'll be turning out another 15,000 students a year which is absolutely incredible um and I think what's important about that is we've got some amazing employers here in our area and as Dr Crow said during the groundbreaking you know those students will be solving problems that we have today uh in the future and ER we need to continue to be endorsers of higher education education in general because uh again those are important things that need to be done so um we're excited about that grand opening and then I think I had another comment uh about something that's extremely important to U Chandler we were recently I'm looking for my notes here um oh it's on the back side I usually don't have two pages of notes thanks Matt um Chandler is the first and only City to receive triaa ratings on our excise tax revenue bonds from all three credit ra rating agencies and so what that means is that when we go out and uh build infrastructure for water uh waste water and things like that when we borrow that money uh we're borrowing at extremely low rate and thanks to our federally induced inflation right now it's actually lower than the rate of inflation so it's uh it doesn't cost us anything to borrow the money and we can use that for for projects so that's great um so I want to commend our finance staff Dawn and your team and everybody else on the team for for making that happen year after year after year so thanks very much and be the only one the only one in Arizona that's pretty good thanks mayor council member Poston thank you mayor well H I would like to join everyone in Wishing uh Olive Chandler happy holidays and as you are celebrating please remember to shop Chandler and Shop local I actually had the opportunity to interview on my show the general manager at the Chandler Fashion Center along with the small business owner kind of getting both sides of that coin and the small business owner owns momento Cafe a very small coffee shop very personal both of those are important so we've got everything you need that is so important to help um your city do the things that um they do for you for your Parks um the streets all of those things so when you are out shopping on the 24th council member we will not not see you in any other city um and again especially for the fact that these are these are the businesses that employ our kids that employ our families the small business especially support us in so many ways I have a special place in my heart for small businesses because they are so much a part of giving back in a fabric of the community so just that little reminder you know just come on across the board of to Chandler don't stop for your groceries or gas anywhere else um but again wishing you all a happy holidays and as I'm finishing up my first here too I cannot believe it's been a year thank you everyone thank you Josh and all the city staff for all the support and information that you have provided us and my fellow council members for being so supportive and helpful when I needed it it has flown by and here's to 2024 thank you very good city manager thank you Mr members of council wanted to also wish you all a happy holidays and has been a wonderful 2023 and on behalf of Staff we tremendously appreciate the vision and Leadership that you bring here to Champ we're looking forward to a very successful 2024 as well and also wanted in particular to mention tonight is the first night of Hanukkah so happy Hanukkah to all of you and uh again we'll look forward to a wonderful holiday season and a bright 2024 thank you thank you thank you all with that close out our meeting good night