City Council Workshops

0:00 Good afternoon, welcome to Vancouver City Council, today is Monday, March 16th, 2026. This afternoon we'll discuss community forums and comp plans... again. City Manager, do you want to kick it off for us? Yeah, just wanted to welcome Joy Falgar and William Cooley to the workshop this afternoon. This is leading into the first of what is, how we kind of reimagined the community forums coming up for the following year.

0:59 This is something we discussed last year and Council really wanted to see those continue. Our first one will actually be next week, so Joy and William wanted to have a chance to talk with you about how we've re-envisioned how they'll work. Hello. Hello, well good afternoon, we are very happy to be here. Joy Falgar with Engagement and Access and William Cooley also with Engagement and Access, our Community Engagement Manager. Just want to share a little bit about what we'll go over today, we'll talk about the community forum overview, our rationale for reimagining Council community forums, as well as what the proposed plan is for 2026, as well as what's to come for next week's forum and then we'll have some discussion if you also choose. As you all are aware, community engagement transitioned to the Engagement and Access Department as of January 1, and as a result of that, we knew that we wanted to look at

1:57 all of the things that William took care of and was responsible for, of which community forums was one, so we came together and had some discussion with each of you throughout the month of February around what that should look like, how we could reimagine it, and the setup for the forums, and then hearing your feedback, we incorporated the requests into the updated document, and then a lot of it also was what we gained from community feedback, so we heard things, everything relating to, they wanted opportunity to connect, they wanted the ability to hold us accountable for the things that we talked about and that we did, they wanted to make sure that we were updated and aware of things that were going on regarding safety in the city and all of that, and so we wanted to also incorporate their thoughts as we reimagined the community forums. And then William and I spent some time talking about council priorities, and so we focused

2:54 them on the things that were really critical and important to all of you around Vancouver for All, talking about equity, safety for all, as well as Environmentally Sustainable City, which is around climate action, and so all of that went into all of the things related to what you have had regarding community forums. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to William, who will then walk you through kind of what the forums look like and what you can expect as we head into next week. Oh, thank you, Joy. As Joy said, really as we're thinking about sort of the next phase of work, we've been building on multiple years now of community forums, so I had a chance to go back and look at what we had heard, what we've learned from community members, as Joy said, trying to understand what folks want to get out of it, and also, of course, it's been extremely valuable hearing from all of you about what you want to get out of it. And so as we think about forums during 2026, we kind of pointed toward three kind of key goals that we're driving toward.

3:52 The first one is to increase engagement, so bringing in new voices, welcoming in folks who haven't maybe engaged with the council in the past. We've had a pretty kind of consistent group of core folks who've come regularly, and while we of course always welcome them, we want to bring new people in as well to add to the conversation. So what we want to think about is sort of that opportunity to build trust. This is a time for community members to engage with you as council members directly, and so as we think about opportunities, often what we're looking for is we hear from community members that they want something beyond the standard ability to come and join the council and testify, right? We want it to be more of a dialogue, have that opportunity for back and forth. And the other thing we've recognized through participant feedback is a lot of folks wanted to also listen and learn what other people in the community are experiencing. So as we kind of build our forum and meeting designs, we're thinking about not only that experience of helping folks to interact with you and to be able to have the opportunity for dialogue, but to listen and learn from each other. And then lastly, the thing we want to make sure we're doing is also sort of validating

4:50 those community contributions. We've had a lot of different outcomes from past forums where we've kind of been able to point toward an action that's been taken or where council members have been able to then refer back and say, "Oh, I heard this during this forum. How can we address that?" In this case, we also want to be thinking about those kind of core policy areas for the city. So as Joy said, when you think about council priorities, we have lots of different projects that align with those. So we're really keen to be able to incorporate some of those insights from the community. Thank you, Joy. So as Joy said, we're imagining those to be topic-focused forums. So of course, during the year, we'll be doing is bringing you meeting designs that are based on those topics. We'll have the opportunity to work together to kind of make sure we're making as many kind of updates and changes based on what the council wants. So that's a really great opportunity. One of our challenges, I think, in the past has been occasionally we've gotten information coming in kind of late that, you know, "Oh, there's a group that wants to talk about this topic," or we have to sort of integrate and make a change at the last minute.

5:48 What we'll have is we'll have all those meeting designs for you a week out of every council meeting this year. And then if something does come up, we have that opportunity to then talk to say, "Hey, we might need to pivot a little bit." And then one other thing that had come up in our conversations at the sub quorum level with the council was also just wanting to make sure that folks continue to be welcomed no matter what their starting point is. So even though we have topics for this year, we also want to make sure people are welcome to talk about anything they want to do. And so the way we would do that from a facilitation standpoint is for facilitators to, of course, invite everyone to be part of the conversation, to try to make sure there's time to get through sort of the core questions that we're asking everyone, because we want people to know that they're welcomed into that conversation as well and they're included, but to create some space for them to be able to talk about their own topics if needed. So the way we're proposing to do that is to have a dedicated table or space at every meeting for folks that really feel strongly, "I want to talk about something else." And then what we're going to ask those facilitators to do at those tables or that table is to make sure that when we're kind of coming toward the end of that conversation or when the groups

6:45 had a chance to talk initially about some other topic, that they're invited again to rejoin the topic for the rest of the room. The other thing that we're trying to do on trying to include new voices is really to expand our outreach. So not being as passive, but being a little bit more proactive and making sure community groups know that they're invited, that their members are invited, trying to take advantage of some of those partner channels in the community. And then making sure that after each forum, we're following up. So we're not only sharing a summary with all of you, we're sharing that with staff who attend, but we're trying to make sure that's a little bit better understood in the public. So for example, we might share that, of course, across social media, the city's channels, but also sharing it with the groups who attend. So one way we're trying to do that this year is to ask for folks to share their email address with us ahead of time. So we're asking for an RSVP for each forum, and that'll make it much easier for us to follow up afterwards. And you see on this slide, I don't have to read the entire thing, but I wanted to highlight a couple things. When we think about the agenda for next Monday's forum, we will be here at City Hall.

7:45 And so as a result, what we'll be doing is setting up earlier in the day in the Aspen Room, and here, of course, for the council meeting and hearing, as well as in the lobby. Our primary space for Monday will be in the lobby, so we'll be having tables in there, also working with staff right now to clear that space out earlier in the day. And then trying to make sure that we're basically fully prepared so that when folks arrive, whether they arrive earlier for the special session or they arrive right before the community forum, that they're seated and able to be in a comfortable spot. And then in terms of meeting expectations, this is something we've used throughout forums in the past, but we're gonna try to make sure that our facilitators are really mindful of this year. So reminding folks about sort of what we expect of them, how we want them to interact with one another. And when we think about those, there's really four core themes that have been returned to over and over again. One has to do with the way we communicate with each other, so making sure that we're communicating respectfully, allowing space for other people to contribute. Another that is not talking over one another and interrupting, but is another part of that

8:44 which I think we've all collectively experienced, is making sure we're not using language that's abusive or it's making people feel uncomfortable. So those are things that facilitators will be really focusing on. We're also asking anyone who participates to just be aware of their time. There's some of us in conversations who like to speak a lot, others who might wanna be in that space of listening. And for our facilitators, one of their kind of core jobs is gonna be making sure there's space for everyone to contribute, and so we're asking all participants to be part of that as well. There've been some times in the past where we've had folks, of course, stray a little bit from the topic, and while some of that can be welcome, if the group wants to go down kind of a different pathway, we wanna make sure there's always that opportunity to bring people back as needed. So we're also asking folks to try to stay on the designated topic as much as they can and to be an active participant. As I said, that looks different for each person, but what we wanna do is make sure everyone has that opportunity to listen, to ask questions, and to contribute in ways that are meaningful to them. Oh, one thing I just wanna note on that, we've gotten some feedback from the community that there are times where people want to share something, but they may not want to speak.

9:44 So verbal might not be the way they wanna engage. And so what we wanna also do is continue to have opportunities for feedback through writing. So we'll continue to have feedback forums, of course, to let folks know if we need to connect with us also in a smaller group setting, like a one-on-one conversation, we're always welcome to do that before we leave the forum. And then I think we're coming to our draft here, so you'll see on the draft meeting design we shared, we're thinking already of the questions that we might ask in the room on Monday. The first one is a question we've used actually a lot over the years, not recently, so it won't be one that folks have just talked about, but it's really designed to help get people in that space of listening together and thinking about how they relate to the broader community. So we wanna ask them about a time that they helped someone in the community or that someone helped them and what happened as a result, so that's gonna be sort of our icebreaker-type question. I hesitate to call it an icebreaker necessarily, because what we're trying to do here is to really build a foundation for the rest of the conversation, so ideally what that does is it helps prep the group, and our facilitators will spend some time, of course, just as we've

10:44 done in past conversations, going around the room, asking folks to share, but that'll be after they've had an opportunity to talk with one another. Then we wanna spend a little bit of time talking about what makes people feel connected in the community. Through past conversations, we've heard a lot of things about community events, cultural activities and cultural events, the ways in which people feel connected to their neighborhood. And so what we wanna do is we wanna build on some of those earlier conversations, ask folks, we're now in 2026, what are you feeling, what are you thinking about that? Next we're gonna spend a little bit of time talking about barriers. This is one where a team or a group could choose to go in a very different direction and that's okay. If folks, for example, point to barriers that they've personally experienced or that family members or friends of the community have experienced, if they point to barriers that they've experienced interacting with certain programs or projects, those are things we wanna hear about, 'cause a big part of our work is really building that accessibility, make sure people feel fully included. And lastly, what we'll do is we'll talk a little bit about belonging.

11:42 This is a topic that came up a lot in our conversations around the comp plan, and so this is an opportunity for us to sort of, again, build on that foundation, asking people again, what makes you feel that sense of belonging? How can we include everyone in the community in that way? And with that, I think we'll turn it over to everyone for questions or any discussion. - Great, thank you so much. Councilor Fox. - I appreciate this preview for our meeting next week, and I'm hoping members of our community will have a chance to watch this as well and be ready for our meeting. But I'm wondering a couple things. One is when attendees arrive, are they going to be assigned a table, or are they gonna be able to choose which council member they wanna sit with? - Great question. What we've done in the past is allowed folks to sit where they want. I will say though, Councilor Fox, if there's a group that's larger that comes, and this is something that we've encountered at past conversations as well, so let's say a group comes and there's five folks from the same organization.

12:42 What we've often done is ask them if they're willing to to sit at different spots across the room, just so they have a chance to kind of listen across conversations, but we would otherwise let folks sit where they want. - All right, and then the kind of, I'll call it the miscellaneous table for those that show up and say these are not any of the topics that I wanna talk about tonight, there's something much more important. Will we have a council member that will be sitting at that table? - Great question. So I think one thing we're monitoring right now is RSVPs, so trying to make sure there's enough space for everyone. As it's currently designed, we have six tables planned for the lobby. Each of those can accommodate up to 10 or 11 chairs, and then we'll have some space in this room on sort of the other side, the south portion of the room behind me. And what we would do is we would encourage councilors, if we end up having a large enough group, to circulate. So there's some time for you, for example, to be at a table out in the lobby and then spend some time in here with folks. The other thing we wanna make sure that folks in this room have an opportunity to do, if they're talking about a different topic, is know that that feedback will all be shared with all of you and be shared with the community.

13:41 So what we'll be doing is we're trying to prepare our notes in a way that doesn't just focus on only the themes of the topic of the night, but includes everything that comes up in this conversation as well. - Okay, thank you. - Thank you. - Councilor Perez, go ahead. - Thank you. I love it. I think it's gonna be a great plan. A couple of thoughts, thinking beyond or what the outcome for these community forums could be and linking that to our strategic plans. And I know that there's gonna be topic-focused forums and I love the ability to ensure that our public is able to come and speak about whatever they may be experiencing or whatever they may be thinking about. So part of that is the post-forum outcome with this and thinking at the end of the year,

14:35 what possible community-led strategies, some of the information that we hear from the public that it could lead to, what opportunities that could provide to us as well as potential public-private partnerships as we think about all the topic themes that we are thinking about. And I love the discussion questions because I think it's important to set the tone. So I wouldn't call it rules of engagement but more of a tone setting and how important that is to be able to ensure that members of the public know that they could speak with us one-on-one or in small group and that it's really a place where you're able to share your thought, whether it may be different from others, which is what we want. We want to show an appreciation for the differences of thought and thinking from our public.

15:31 And so that tone setting is so important and Will, you do such a great job of that. I think just you exemplify that sitting there and talking to us and going through the plan here and Joy, you as well. So that tone setting, I think, is going to be critical for us, especially when we do approach themes or topics that we do have such a wide spectrum of thought and perspective. And we want to honor that and placing that tone is going to be important so that us as decision makers and policy makers have that rough role of taking all that information for ourselves to be able to be good, well-informed decision makers. So I applaud this, this is great. And I think I wanted to find out a little bit more about the youth and young adult and how you see that fitting into this plan or if I missed any of that before.

16:31 No, you didn't miss it. Actually, the youth forum is planned for the third quarter, which is September 28th. And we are actually in talks with what that will look like. We're hearing from people in community that are explaining to us what happens within the school system and how that can work with us. And so we'll have a plan for that. Probably the next time we come and see you, we'll make sure we incorporate that. Because just as a reminder, we'll be coming to you a week before every community forum. So we'll make sure the next community forum we come to talk to you, we'll include that as well with more detail. And I hope that we continue to create that space in every community forum rather than just say wait till September, but that we're also thinking of creating that space in all of our community forums. So this is a way to just get the momentum going of ensuring that we are bringing those young voices to the table. So I wanted to make sure we shared that thought.

17:30 No, thank you for that. And I think that's something William and I can definitely look to incorporate as we move forward through the year. And two more things. For our special needs, our blind and deaf, hard of hearing, ensuring that we are providing that ability for folks to do that. And then if there are folks who need child care, have we thought about that? I know that when we do the RSVPs, we will be asking anyone if they need an accommodation. We're also doing outreach to a variety of organizations as well, which will also ask about accommodations as well. The one thing we have not thought about was child care. So we can definitely talk about that. Okay. So it's an opportunity to partner with an organization that does -- can volunteer to help with that. All right. I think that concludes the majority of my topic questions. >> Thank you so very much.

18:28 We're looking forward to next week. >> Thank you. >> All right. That takes us into the comp plan. So we'll go ahead and take a look at the next one. >> Okay. Is Rebecca joining us? >> Yes. There she is. >> You didn't think we'd be so fast, did you? >> No.

19:27 That would be great. Good afternoon, council. >> Good afternoon. Okay. Let's see. I'm on time, sir. Well, I'll jump in. I think the slide is coming up soon. So we are here tonight to talk to the council about the last two draft chapters in the comprehensive plan that we haven't spoken to you about yet. Those are the community experience chapter and then the annexation chapter. And so then after tonight you'll have reviewed all the draft chapters that were published

20:25 in the full draft plan. Several weeks ago you'll have seen all the code -- major code elements and the plan -- we'll walk through this at the end, but the plan after this is to take all of council's feedback, feedback from planning commission, urban forestry commission, the parks commission, transportation commission, CCRA, community, all of our working groups and sort of collate it into a change log, refine that plan into a more final draft and bring that back to you at the end of April for your review and to the planning commission in mid-April and then for a workshop and then a public hearing in April. And then we'll be moving towards consent first reading in May and a public hearing on June 1 with the council on the full plan mapping code. So tonight we're here to run you through the -- these two chapters and we'll -- Dominique

21:21 will cover what she's done in the past, including sort of how we've organized these, why it's organized that way, what are the legal requirements. We'll be seeking your input and then again we'll go through next steps. Turn it over to Dominique. >> Hello, everyone. So kind of a quick reminder. We've talked about this during the last couple of sessions, but, you know, this is all guided under Washington's Growth Management Act. It specifies what elements were required to include within a comprehensive plan and which ones we don't. And the Growth Management Act is implemented through RCW 3670A and then the Washington administrative code provisions. So the biggest things to look out for tonight are internal consistency. We need to have data that supports the assumptions and the arguments that we're making and we have to demonstrate capacity to accommodate growth.

22:17 The biggest thing to know for both of these chapters are neither are required by law, but we find them to be chapters that are very necessary in being able to articulate the concepts. Community experience is non-mandatory, but it's one of the early asks that we had from our community partners in terms of framing the comprehensive plan. And it functions as a plan-wide lens to support internal consistency and reinforces a number of goals around quality of life, public facilities, health equity, environmental protection. And the requirements are that if we do have this chapter, it has to be consistent with the other chapters and it can't have conflicting information. Annexation is also non-mandatory to have as a chapter, but there certainly are statutes that apply to that, not within the Growth Management Act, but within RCW 35A14. So annexation is, of course, limited to territories within the adopted urban growth area.

23:16 And it has to occur in a contiguous orderly manner consistent with the GMA and countywide planning policies. So in addition to those specifications, we have to align with countywide planning policies and the language that we use within this. And I will just add that the city has typically over the last several comprehensive plans had an annexation chapter because we have such a large urban growth area. So this is not like new we're adding this, this is consistent with past practice for quite some time. And on top of that, so the way that these chapters are organized are thinking about context, strategy, and implementation. So we spend the initial portions of the chapters kind of setting the stage and talking about what's going on, what's the data, what are we seeing today, what's our strategy for addressing it, and then what policies are we proposing to implement to address the issues. So they go through sort of the historical context and current conditions. Each chapter has a vision statement, and then there's a number of key challenges and trends

24:13 that that supports too, and it really kind of focuses and ensures that policies are grounded in data and lived experiences. One thing that I'm not seeing on this slide that each of these chapters do have is a summary of community engagement that we receive that relate to each of the chapters. So we really link with what we heard out in the community when we've been engaging folks and what's showing up in the actual plan. So I'm going to walk through the first chapter here, which we put this chapter first for a reason, and I think the easiest way to describe what community experience is, is thinking about kind of end user experience. So when we're talking about, in kind of the tech industry, when they talk about UX or UI design or user experience, we wanted to have a chapter that really focused on reminding us that what you're experiencing in the community is what we should be focusing on as policymakers. So thinking about when you walk outside your front door, what sort of amenities and services

25:12 do you have and all that kind of stuff. And we really go through and talk about all these different aspects of what it means to be in Vancouver and what it means to live in this community and how we want to shape that in a way that's positive. So this chapter has the second most number of goals associated with it. So there are a lot of goals that relate to this. And the first one has to do a lot with social infrastructure. So we talk about sort of what are the networks of physical places and spaces in the community. And for folks that have heard of the term third spaces, so these are spaces that exist outside of your own private residence and then your workplace. So this is where the local coffee shops, these are all these types of things. And we really kind of connect the fact that there's a major opportunity to develop a number of community spaces with developing 38,000 new units of housing, the population growth that we're going to have. So it's really thinking about what is the infrastructure that is needed to support community

26:12 members in Vancouver. So it's thinking about active and engaged neighborhoods, social ties. It's thinking about all those types of things and kind of on a practical standpoint, there's policies that relate to it around like event programming, inclusive engagement, a lot of the work that the access and engagement department, there's a lot of directives that sort of support the work they do. There's also some connection to community art, so increasing access to spaces for artists and creatives. And then also just thinking about underutilized spaces that we have in the community and how we can maybe think about repurposing them to be like more interactive spaces. So I think the example of what we did on the Heights where we took the parking lot and converted it into that demonstration project, it's thinking about active ways to engage folks in the community. Inclusive environments is another major one, so this is thinking about and understanding that depending on your lived experience and identity factors like race, class, age, sex,

27:10 gender identity, ability, religion, and national origin, your experience in the community is going to differ and this goal really helps us break down some of those barriers and think through that. Just making sure that there's anti-discrimination things in here as well and making sure that we're being responsive to what the needs of certain communities are. So I think a good policy example of how this relates is culturally responsive design. So engaging impacted communities and saying what do we need to address in the development of certain types of buildings and things like that. Expanding representation in public art, so making sure that folks see themselves in their community literally through the development of murals and other community art pieces. And then also things like language access and culturally responsive services fall in here too.

28:08 And then community safety, this is an interesting one and there's a lot of overlap between different chapters here but this is thinking about the lines of the feeling of having, well this is actually one of the biggest things that we heard when we did community engagement is as you can imagine people talked a lot about housing and they also talked a lot about feeling safe in their community. So we had a goal on this that really aligns with transportation safety, so vision zero, that type of stuff and thinking about who's most likely to be impacted or killed during you know traffic fatalities in our community. It's also thinking about safety as a resilience component, so there's some overlap between the climate chapter and making sure that we're sort of a prepared community in general in the face of natural disasters and events and things like that and how do we adapt to certain things.

29:02 So safety I would say like overlies and relates to all those things and the policies that relate to it are you know coordination with fire and police and disaster recovery and emergency response and things of that nature. Innovation, you know we talk a lot about innovation in the context of like economic development but we're really applying this in this chapter to a number of different factors of just having this innovative mindset as a government and as a community and also allowing folks to take risks you know and one of the biggest things that we see is when we create an environment where people are supported to be able to try on new challenges and do new things. That's where we see really amazing innovations come in. Some examples of the policy of how policies relate to that for the comp plan, so thinking about the city like we have a policy in here about like pilot projects so you know trying

29:59 something new and taking a new step and evaluating it and seeing how it goes. There's policies in here that support that. And then the fifth chapter or the fifth goal is around community pride and identity and this is thinking about you know if somebody says I'm from New York or I'm from Philly like you have an idea of what it means like those places have cultural connotations and they have you know a sense of identity in place and you know we're really thinking about that. We've done a little bit of that with the development of the new flag and you know we're saying what does it mean to be a Vancouverite and you know that helps us as a community for you know just folks having an internal sense of pride and understanding and who we are but also it connects to economic development and people you know wanting to invest dollars in the community and that type of stuff so we think a lot about this and it was kind of an interesting goal to write and thinking about the policies that relate to that but some of the big things around that are just types the types of community events we have

30:58 policies that you know advance that type of stuff event programming. The art piece comes up as well in terms of like expanding representation and making sure that the folks that you know get to express their pride and their feeling in the community and all that and there's also a connection here to place-based investments so thinking about like you know different neighborhood corridors and in business corridors when you think of like the Alberta Arts District in Portland you know that's a place that has a sense of identity and pride and thinking about those types of spaces in Vancouver that we're building and relaying it with the work that we're doing on the code of like investing in these key centers in Vancouver and having them reflect the communities that live there so that's essentially what this chapter is and we wanted to put that right at the beginning to kind of frame up the rest of the plan and say like we're really thinking about people

31:54 as part of this. Great, and I think important to note that the community experience chapter is one and the equity chapter is two and those are really plan-wide lenses again that we apply as we think about investments and priorities and in the future that's one of the kind of pieces of the plan. I have a less fun chapter to cover but always interesting which is annexation so we've got just two goals in the annexation chapter again this is not required but it's an optional element we've consistently had it in our comprehensive plans over the years and that makes sense given that we have the largest urban growth area in the state and so the first one is to facilitate annexation of the urban growth area that is what the growth management act

32:48 anticipates that areas that are you know identified and then developed to urban standards will come into incorporated areas and have urban services provided to them and the second goal is around fiscally sustainable annexations so this is the idea that we're going to need to think if we if we proceed with the annexations we're going to need to figure out how to maintain level of service quality services for our existing residents as well as expanding those to future residents so this really is a framework I think important to note that unlike that some of you may be familiar with the 2008 annexation plan that had like a really detailed phase schedule of one different when different geographic areas would come into the city the blueprint plan is what we call it this is not that it doesn't say anything about what and when it just says under what conditions and what is the information that we'll need

33:46 to know so things like the you know infrastructure assessments like knowing what we're getting what is the state of that infrastructure we'll need to think about service areas logical service area boundaries for the provision of services how service transitions would happen right service transitions are sort of a complicated thing when you all of a sudden an area is you know preserved by the county everything from fire police permitting land-use applications code compliance garbage you know all of that and then the next day it's served by the city so how do you do that and we know how to do it but it is an undertaking and requires quite a bit of organization and coordination there are goals and or policies in here about coordination with the county and thinking about balanced annexations so annexations that balance some of the impacts to both jurisdictions so that we can kind of sustainably work together

34:43 in the future and then I think important is just one of the key provisions in here is to limit UGA expansions in the future so that we will conduct robust assessments of any county proposal to explain span the Vancouver urban growth area because that is just more area we're supposed to serve sometime in the future and so there is a policy kind of about that about managing future obligations liabilities related to the size of annexations again more very unique in the state and that we have a very very large urban growth area and it's extremely urbanized there's not like a lot of land left to be redeveloped so that's a pretty unique situation that comes with its own challenges

35:40 so this is this is what we got for you we're we've had a long six series of workshops since January thanks for sticking with us walking through both the plan and the code again we will be at the planning commission on April 14th to go through the revised the refined kind of updated draft of the plan and and the close to final if not final draft of the plan with them at workshop we'll be back to see you in late April for another workshop with that we'll then go back to the planning commission for a hearing and then we'll initiate the council adoption process in May with a targeted adoption date of June 1 the final environmental impact statement which meets the CEPA requirements for a non-project action like a comprehensive plan will be released prior to the planning commission public hearing

36:36 as is our practice our CEPA compliance documents are published prior to them voting so the council will have them in the community we'll have them for more than a month before we ask you all to take a vote on it and I do just want to know too we thanks to folks who came out for our community presentations we had two in person and two virtual and probably about 125 folks combined so we appreciate it it was a good discussion we'll be writing that up as part of our full engagement summary that'll be an appendix to the the final plan and also just want to note we've submitted all our drafts to commerce so their 60-day clock is ticking for them to get us comments so that's all we've got for you appreciate again the time in the last six workshops of sticking with us happy to answer any questions

37:29 thank you counselors counselor Perez go ahead thanks Rebecca I just wanted to get a more emphasis on the small business aspect as you mentioned the as it intersects with certain areas in particular I was looking at you said the chapter 1 in chapter 2 starts with community engagement and then equity and looking at the list of there's a social infrastructure and such and then when we get to innovation I wanted to hear more about the support or the framework to have more small businesses as they are half of well the backbone of our local economic engine here and it wasn't clear it didn't stand out as much that intersection

38:22 across everything to really promote and provide the support needed for small businesses to really excel in place so I maybe it's in there and I just didn't see it but if there was a better way to really emphasize the the small business ecosystem support for the long term yeah there is yes thank you there is a oh there's a lot of an economic opportunity chapter about small businesses but 100% recognize that representation in services and culturally specific food and all of that is like a huge role that small businesses play in the community experience and so we'll make sure to add it there yeah well beyond that as well I mean just their role with the local economic engine and in being able to innovate infusion of

39:19 all of that so it I just want to make sure that we acknowledge the role that small businesses play up front and center as well as leaving the door open to ensure that we are removing barriers so that we continue to promote that economic engine especially when we're looking at certain places of innovation throughout the city so yeah I just want to have that emphasized and then the the part of underutilized locations I think is key and how that intersects with this promotion of small businesses because we have a lot of underutilized spaces and so I'm not sure what we're thinking about that long-term wise but seeing how we can start addressing some of that you underutilization going and for example the height you mentioned the Heights Park and so that area where we have the bicycle for the young children to

40:16 go in and learn how to I mean is that going to go away are we replacing that and having a new bicycle path so just thinking the precedents that we're setting through these opportunities and not erasing them as we move forward that's it thank you cancer cancer Fox sure just focusing on the community experience chapter I kind of when I I guess kind of leaned out a little bit on that part that section I was wondering why I didn't see more associated policies with the parks and rec chapter it would seem especially for like social infrastructure you know calling out that connection as being those third places you know the different parks dog parks yeah all of those things so I'm just wondering what yeah why we shouldn't

41:14 be connecting those more and then the other policy that kind of caught my eye was the community pride and identity one because I was thinking about you used Dominique use the example of you know when someone says they're from New York what do they say and usually what they say is they're bragging about a sport team you know if you're from LA you're gonna I mean most of them have community pride around some major team right some professional team we don't have that here in Vancouver but I do know that we've received comments you know I remember there was a teenager who wrote a letter early on in this process to me and and told me that they loved soccer they were very involved in soccer and wanted to know why we didn't have more soccer fields throughout the city of Vancouver and I think my response to them was something along the lines of we don't have a lot of open space

42:09 left in Vancouver to build more soccer fields but I don't think that not having new soccer fields would be something that we would would be a reason not to include kind of that importance of sports in our community because when we call it out in a chapter like this we're saying we are going to make sure that the fields we have are maintained well and have those the infrastructure there to support these teams in the future right so that's part of the thing that was going through my mind was and maybe if we want to connect the annexation piece as we're annexing we might actually be adding areas where we could have a major league team playing in Vancouver someday I know that was that's been a hope every once in a while it kind of rears its head and someone wants to bring professional baseball here

43:04 or something else but you know maybe that should be part of our community engagement experience and that pride piece I want to just say thank you and acknowledge that there is a real connection between I think sports and belonging and one thing that came to mind specifically was the Chuukese community who love volleyball and we don't have public volleyball courts and so how could that be woven in here to really think about that so yeah we'll work on that thank you okay and then my other on this one piece too that underutilized spaces caught my eye too and I for some reason today would not load so I couldn't pull the exact wording up but what I was a little worried about with underutilized spaces so is maybe too many resources going to underutilized spaces and not to our current spaces if that

44:02 makes sense I know we took the opportunity in the Heights District to make use of of that space for many reasons you know we're programming a space where we want the community to be excited about a future park there someday but I wouldn't say that's the reason why we would activate other underutilized spaces they might not ever be a park right or they might not make any sense from a resource and financial standpoint for the city to make it a park one of the lessons from being a planner in a small town was always kind of a negotiation when someone wanted to donate park land to the city because the first thing staff would say is we don't have staff we don't have you know we don't have many things and so it was almost as if they didn't want the donation of the park land for that reason and so anyways I'm kind of bringing that forward to say maybe that particular underutilized

44:55 space needs to have a few caveats there about resources just to add to the conversation I think you know the way that this is structured now that policy reads more as encouraged the thoughtful reuse and activation of underutilized lands and then it talks about what those might be so I think the way that this policy was envisioned is that when opportunities arise like rather than overlook them take that moment to to sort of think about whether or not there is an opportunity but I think we can provide a little bit more clarity that it doesn't mean direct resources away from our existing spaces okay I like that thank you and then under annexation one of the pieces that I'm wondering if we can weave in here somewhere and I recognize there's a couple problems with what I'm about to say we can't control Clark County but and I say that because we see what Clark County has built in our urban

45:53 growth areas and it isn't on the most part consistent with the type of development that the city would be permitting in those spaces they've had a historic issue with just plopping a lot of residential development in the middle of nowhere with no connection to services nothing's within walking distance they might not even have put in sidewalks so there's no safety whatsoever for children walking to school so we've inherited a lot of really bad development choices from the county and I was hoping that this chapter could address more of a role that we may have with the county to say as they continue because they're continuing you know you drive along out in the middle of the county and all of a sudden you see this whole entire new like you know apartment complex in the middle of nowhere you know next you know in the middle of you know cars and traffic going you know 50 miles an hour

46:51 next to it and and I think there it is there's another disconnected community in the middle of nowhere so could we include in this chapter some type of agreement with the county that their developments in our urban growth areas need to be consistent with our city development standards because we are going to inherit them someday and all they're doing is adding to that future bill that we will have to pay to bring them up to those levels of services. Yes we absolutely can I'm just looking because yeah the under the intergovernmental coordination of annexation it says coordination should include county adoption of development regulations and infrastructure standards for the VUGA that are consistent with those of the city

47:50 including agreements to maintain existing infrastructure prior to annexation community engagement and annexation planning and implementation and generally advance Vancouver as a provider of urban services and Clark County as a provider of social and regional services you're talking whoops just disappeared on me again gosh darn it you're talking about the intergovernmental coordination yeah but that says right there that it's with facilitate annexation so what I'm speaking about unless I'm missing a nuance here is us discussing what's happening right now yeah we can make that clear I do think it anticipates this idea that they would adopt standards in advance of annexation that would implement build new things to urban standards so we can clarify that that's what the intent is there yeah because I'm not reading that there that to me says you know we've made plans to annex and then we're working with

48:45 them versus right now we don't have any set time frame for annexation but meanwhile developments continue and like I said and they're just adding to the debt load on our part yep yeah and that's actually something the Planning Commission chair wanted us to clarify so we can figure out how to do that but but his point you know was that as time goes on the unfunded liability associated with sub substandard or non-urban you know standards grows essentially for the city so we can yeah very eloquent way to say just what I said in less words all right those are everything that I had thank you Rebecca is there anything in here that we should make sure allows us to discuss a regional fire authority

49:41 let us take a look at that and where that might fit I think you know regional service provision we should probably have a policy around it because we were talking about we have regional libraries we're talking about the possibility of regional parks regional fire authorities we have a number of different conversations that might be happening let's see if we can get the language in there that encourages it or allows it or expects it yes counselor go ahead thank you for bringing that up all I was also thinking about the recent issue for complication with the regional libraries and how that may conflict with our

50:35 language and our plan here and so just thinking what that would mean for us long term so I don't have an answer but I wasn't sure if you have given that any thought or would it matter if in the future some of these regional entities organizations come out with something completely opposite of what we would we're putting in our comprehensive plan and I'm using the example of the issue with the equity language in the regional libraries yeah I mean the comp plan isn't going to speak to future okay disconnects but not you know potential future regional service providers but I think the thing that annexation does facilitate is a consistent policy direction across a wider range of areas that has a lot of interdependency and so city policy city standards you know would would apply to those areas that come

51:31 into come into the city and that just provides a lot greater consistency in policy approach as well as kind of everything else okay all right thank you so very much thank you all right take care thank you Councillor we'll go ahead and excuse ourselves grab a quick bite to eat be back at 6 30 for our regular council meeting

52:18 you.