Presentation of Specific Plan Work Program for Comprehensive Planning.

The purpose of the City's Comprehensive Planning Program is to implement the vision of the Flagstaff Regional Plan 2030 (Regional Plan). The program accomplishes this vision through regular updates to the Regional Plan, specific plans, intergovernmental coordination, coordination in long range planning for all City departments, and assistance with development review. Because of the public's response to staff's online polling, staff narrowed the list of plans to be considered from five to three: Milton-Road -Corridor Plan, Southside Neighborhood Plan Update and the High-Occupancy-Housing Plan.

COUNCIL GOALS:
7) Address key issues and processes related to the implementation of the Regional Plan.
8) Improve effectiveness of notification, communication, and engagement with residents, neighborhoods and businesses and about City services, programs, policies, projects and developments.

REGIONAL PLAN:
Policy LU.4.1. Develop neighborhood plans, specific plans, area plans, and master plans for all neighborhoods, activity centers, corridors, and gateways as necessary.
Policy LU.10.4. Develop specific plans for neighborhoods and activity centers to foster desired scale and form.
Policy LU.19.1. Develop a specific plan for each “Great Street” corridor.

Public Feedback
From December 15, 2015 to January 14, 2016, staff advertised an on-line poll asking citizens to weigh in on how they would like to see the needs for specific planning priorities.  The following list is the average for on- and off-forum respondents:
 
1. Milton Road Corridor Plan
2. High Occupancy Housing Plan
3. Southside Neighborhood Plan Update
4. West Route 66 Plan Update
5. McMillan Mesa Plan for City-owned property

108 respondents provided their priorities through the forum, which is equivalent to 5 hours and 45 minutes of public testimony, if each person was given 3 minutes to speak at a public hearing. 14% put Southside Neighborhood Plan as their first priority, 36% put Milton Road Corridor Plan as their first priority, and 44% put High Occupancy Housing Plan as their first priority. These responses made up 94% of the 1st priority choices made by respondents both on and off-forum. 52% of the respondents put all three of these plans in their top 3 priorities. Given this level of consensus, the West 66 corridor Plan and the McMillan Mesa Plan were not carried forward in staff recommendations. Staff would propose three options on how to proceed with the remaining specific plans. See attachment for more information about public feedback.

Options
Option 1: Staff Recommendation
High Occupancy Housing Plan in FY17
Milton Road Corridor Plan in FY18 and 19
Southside Neighborhood Plan in FY20

Option 2: Focus on housing and neighborhoods first
High Occupancy Housing Plan in FY17
Southside Neighborhood Plan  in FY18 M
Milton Road Corridor Plan in FY19 and 20

Option 3: Accelerate Milton Road Corridor Plan
Milton Road Corridor Plan in FY17-FY19,
High Occupancy Housing Plan in FY19;
Southside Neighborhood Plan in FY20

Evaluation of Options
OPTION 1: Two advantages of option 1 are the ability to prepare data, agreements and finances for the Milton Road Corridor Plan, and the ability to carry forward the recommendations of the High Occupancy Housing Plan more quickly.

In order to begin work on the Milton Road Corridor Plan, City staff will need to build a shared framework for public involvement, information sharing and funding with the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT). Staff estimates that it will take at least 12 months to negotiate and develop an agreement with ADOT and other government agencies. Starting Milton Road in the next fiscal year is not recommended, because staff would like to have a firm agreement about the roles and responsibility of the City and ADOT, before a public kick-off.

This option allows staff to quickly build on the first phase of public involvement on High Occupancy Housing Plan quickly. Staff would propose to develop the plan with an aspirational vision for how High Occupancy Housing should fit into the community at the same time as developing Zoning Code updates so they could be reviewed and adopted together.

Under Option 1, the Southside Neighborhood Plan would not be reconsidered by the City until FY20. It is hoped that the High Occupancy Housing Plan will resolve some of the concerns of the neighborhood but it will not replace a neighborhood plan. The delay may contribute to conflict over redevelopment in the neighborhood.

OPTION 2: This option would provide more time to negotiate with ADOT, and other partners. If we were to delay the start of the Milton Road project, the City could also save money in FY17 and FY18 to be spent during FY19 and FY20 on the Milton Road Corridor Plan. Completing High Occupancy Housing and the Southside Neighborhood Plans sequentially has merit because the issues in the scope of these two plans are interrelated.

OPTION 3: This option would reflect completion of specific plans in order of the priorities identifited by public feedback. It would push to accelerate the Milton Road Corridor Plan by beginning public involvement as soon as possible and working on the agreement with ADOT simultaneously. It is not clear exactly how much faster we could complete the plan under this strategy, and there could be pauses or miscommunications as a result of not fleshing out the work up front. Option 3 would also delay work on the plan for High Occupancy Housing and the Southside Neighborhood Plan.

Fiscal Implications
Typical Specific Plan
Both the High Occupancy Housing Plan and the Southside Neighborhood Plan would have costs and timelines typical for a specific plan completed by the Comprehensive Planning program. A typical specific plan cannot be completed without additional costs because of the enhanced public involvement and the need to have a complete project team that includes multiple departments with competing priorities. For the La Plaza Vieja Neighborhood Plan, carryover money from the Flagstaff Regional Plan was used to update the historic background of the neighborhood, rent meeting rooms, advertise and print multiple iterations of the plan for public distribution and comment. The City was fortunate to have collaboration from volunteer NAU interns with outstanding visualization skills or that service would have otherwise need to be contracted out. The La Plaza Vieja Neighborhood Plan was fortunately timed to assemble a nearly complete and experienced team of staff.  With future turnover and competing priorities, it may not always be the case. The $30,000 budget proposed as a recurring cost for specific plans of average detail and complexity would cover the costs similar to La Plaza Vieja plus allow for additional modeling capacity, visualizations or facilitation, and outreach assistance depending on the needs of project. An additional $7,000 would allow for one intern to be converted to a paid status, which would provide continuity for projects and allow students to stay and work over the summer. Currently, Comprehensive Planning is the only program in Community Development that does not compensate its interns because of lack of budgeted funds.

Milton Road Corridor Plan
The $250,000 for the Milton Road Corridor Plan would be devoted half to public involvement and half to updating models and scenarios based on public concerns and feedback. Because of the work of the Flagstaff Metropolitan Planning Organization, there is already a base model and a suite of possible scenarios that can be introduced early in public involvement. This will help us shorten the timeline typical of a corridor study (3-4 years). There will still be a need to refine the model based on public feedback and to provide visualizations in support of the preferred alternative. It will also cover some initial design parameters for projects identified in the implementation plan. The $125,000 for public involvement would spent over 2-3 years. This allows for a high quality facilitator to be retained who would work 3-5 days per month, on average, through the entire public involvement process.  This funding would also pay for travel, if the selected facilitator lives outside of the Flagstaff Region.

Corridor plans in other parts of the City were budgeted for consultant services, as follows: