MOTION BY Boardmember Jennifer Barber, SECONDED BY Boardmember Patricia Kingsbury to approve the draft minutes of the General Plan Committee meeting held on April 5, 2023. Motion carried by the following vote:

AYE:

Boardmember Jennifer Barber, Boardmember Keith Drunasky, Vice Chair Gregory Brown, Boardmember Kimberly Hill, Boardmember Lynette Keating, Boardmember Patricia Kingsbury, Boardmember Kristin Mercado, Chair Don McBrayer, Board Member Jeremy Sawyer, Board Member Carlos Santos, Board Member Jeremiah Smith, First Alternate Elena Ross

Other:

Boardmember Michael Fulton (Absent), Boardmember Gregory Lehmann (Absent), Board Member Javier Vega (Absent), Ex-Officio Mark James (Absent), Board Member Daniel Grimwood (Absent)

Passed - Unanimously

A speaker card was received by Karl Havlicek, Co-Chair of the Citizen Advisory Group. He spoke to the committee regarding the Super Fund sites. Mr. Havlicek advised the committee that the Citizen Advisory Group holds quarterly meetings that the public can attend. 

Matthew Klyszeiko, a representative from Michael Baker, had a brief discussion recapping the April General Plan Committee meeting. 

Matthew Klyszeiko, a representative from Michael Baker, explained the approach the committee would take to cover all of the Fundamental Strategies in the allotted time for the evening's meeting; the strategies were paired into three stations. 

• Livable & Connected
• Healthy & Sustained/Resilient & Safe
• Inclusive & Diverse/Prosperous & Innovative/Responsible & Accessible

Mr. Klyszeiko instructed the committee there would be two 30-minute rounds of conversation with 4-6 committee members and one staff facilitator seated around a table at each station. At the end of 30 minutes, each group member would move to a different station. 

After the two 30-minute rounds of conversation, there will be three 10-minute rounds of report-outs where the table facilitator will share the comments or feedback that was provided during the small group conversations. Mr. Klyszeiko explained that during this time, committee members would have a final chance to offer closing observations based on the discussion summary. 

Mr. Klyszeiko gave the following review guidance to the committee:

• The current General Plan 2025 was provided at each station for reference as needed.
• Utilize the companion "Comparative Goal Placement 2035" packet to see where existing Goals, Objectives, or Policies are addressed in the Draft Goals & Policies.
• Utilize the Complete "Fundamental Strategies - Draft Goals & Policies" packet to compare what other strategies as needed. 

The committee broke out into three groups and had discussions for two 30-minute rounds regarding each of the six Strategies along with the facilitators.

Mr. Klyszeiko, a representative from Michael Baker, reported the key points for the two strategies below. 

• Liveable & Connected 
  • Good design for our roadways
  • Greenways with different off-street trails with varying mobility options to allow residents to connect to activities centers and destinations and require utilizing one of our roadways to get to their recreation of daily needs
  • How does technology impact areas that we are planning for employment 
  • Complete neighborhoods that offer services such as schools, parks, art, commercial
  • Light industrial issues regarding a lot of big box or tilt-up buildings discussion about potential overlay that could help put some bumpers on warehousing in our business, commerce land use type
  • Village centers that can promote mixed-use and alternative modes in certain nodes of Goodyear
  • Mobile - ensure residents feel they are a part of Goodyear and potential overlay to allow the residents to continue their rural lifestyle
  • Complete streets
  • Transit - We Ride is great within the community but does not do enough to connect residents to serve areas outside the community
  • EV corridors - golf cart alternatives
  • Shade - possible incentives to provide shaded parking, which gives an opportunity for more solar
  • Gaps in sidewalks and bike paths should be covered in our policies 
  • Utilizing volunteers to achieve some of these suggestions

Mr. Klyszeiko asked the committee for suggestions. A committee member mentioned Village Centers would allow for city services such as paying their water bill, not just retail. 

Guadalupe Ortiz Cortez, Planner for the City of Goodyear discussed the key points from the focus areas below. 

• Healthy & Sustained
  • Gila River growth and development within the ten years
  • Connectivity to parks
  • Recreation Campus expansion and recreational opportunities in neighborhoods like those offered at the parks
  • Kid's safety - a collaboration with schools and other agencies to educate kids on safety measures
  • Internet access
  • Fresh food and local farmer's market throughout the year
  • Community gardens for fresh food
• Resilient & Safe
  • Water usage - planting more native plants, encouraging more zero scape, and providing more public information about the city's water conservation plans and incentives offered
  • Community notification system where messages can be sent out in emergencies
  • Mental Health - need to be more proactive than reactive 
  • Response time - setting an acceptable goal for emergency response time based on state and national estimations

Matthew Gomez a representative from Michael Baker, discussed the key points from the focus groups below.

• Inclusive & Diverse
  • Creating a sense of place 
  • Character areas within the city
  • Address tension with multifamily and commercial areas and make it more contextual within the community
  • Specific policy language for group homes, Air B&B, and rentals
  • Arts and Culture
  • Performing arts center
  • Designate a certain percentage of the city to art
  • Historical education of the city and tours
• Prosperous & Innovative
  • Flex space to account for the resiliency of space in market shifts over time as the city develops, so the city doesn't develop something that may become obsolete in the future
  • Develop areas for co-working and fostering local entrepreneurship
  • Expanding the library
  • Foster language programs earlier
• Responsible & Accessible
  • Services for the retired, elderly, disabled, people in the foster care system, and service workers
  • Concierge unit to educate on the services the city offers
  • Volunteer community action groups to help facilitate some of the implementation of plans that may be harder to manage from a city perspective 

Matthew Klyszeiko asked for thoughts and comments from the committee members. A member said they liked the suggestion of historic tours. Another member said that we should be grateful for the businesses already established in Goodyear. We should have a balance between the businesses we want in the future with businesses already established. 

Mr. Klyszeiko explained that the state-mandated 60-day review, where we put the plan out for request feedback, is scheduled to start in June. He explained that if the committee members wanted to get together to continue to discuss more of the goals and policies in detail, they could as long as they didn't reach a quorum. Mr. Klyszeiko suggested possibly having another meeting in July to continue this conversation.

Don McBrayer addressed the committee and asked members to raise their hands if they want to meet in July. By a show of hands, the committee agreed that they would like to have an additional meeting in July. Matthew Klyszeiko said they would get something on the calendar for an additional meeting. 

 

Don McBrayer, Chairman of the General Plan Committee, let the committee know that the next scheduled meeting is August 9th, but there may be a possible additional meeting in July. 

The next scheduled meeting of the General Plan Committee will be August 9, 2023, at 6:00 PM at the Goodyear City Hall, located on 1900 N. Civic Square, Goodyear, AZ 85395.