District 5 Advisory Board

Page |1 District V Advisory Board Minutes March 4, 2019 www.wichita.gov The District V Advisory Board meeting was held at 6:30 p.m. at Fire Station #21, located at 2110 N. 135th St. W., Wichita, KS 67235. ATTENDANCE Members Present Staff Present Nancy Duling Capt. Josh Pavelski, Wichita Fire Department Jose Gutierrez Officer Robyn Douty, Wichita Police JV Johnston Department Rachel Murphy-Thomas David McGuire, Recreation Superintendent, Roman Rodriguez Park & Recreation Department Ben Kittrell Tracie Partridge, Senior Librarian Alissa Unruh Philip Zevenbergen, Associate Planner, MAPD Jill Kerschen Cory Buchta, Community Services Angela Breer Representative Trey Rios, Youth Member Council Member Bryan Frye Guests Evan Rosell, Project Wichita Members Absent Phil Meyer Troy Palmer Marylin Sharp Trevor Kurth Alan Kuiler ORDER OF BUSINESS Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by JV Johnston Approval of March 4, 2019 Agenda: Motion PASSED 9-0-0 Approval of Minutes from February 4, 2019: Motion PASSED 9-0-0 PUBLIC AGENDA This portion of the agenda provides an opportunity for citizens to present issues that are not part of the regular agenda for the meeting. There is a five minute time limit for each speaker. 1. Scheduled Items None 2. Off-agenda Items Any individual present that did not request to speak on the public agenda prior to the meeting may speak at this time. Recommended Action: Receive and file BOARD AGENDA 3. Updates, Issues and Reports None 1  Page |2 STAFF REPORTS 4. Fire Department Report Captain Josh Pavelski reported:  One small kitchen fire – cooking fire - $10,000 in damages.  $365,000 in fire damage for the month of February city-wide.  The current recruit class has 15 people and will be ready to start this summer.  The department got a grant to add a person and a truck with a bucket and a ladder on the east side of town. 5. Community Police Report Officer Robyn Douty reported:  Auto thefts and thefts from vehicles are a major problem at apartment complexes, particularly the Silver Springs apartment complex.  There have been several special assignments with officers handing out fliers to residents in apartment complexes – they handed out over 80 fliers in just a couple of days.  WPD is on the lookout for gambling machines, particularly at low end gas stations or convenient shops. These are illegal gambling devices. They are seizing these machines and charging owners. If you see one, call the Vice Unit at 268-4171. They are welcoming calls from citizens as these machines are not legal in Wichita. 6. Park & Recreation Department Report David McGuire reported:  The Pracht Wetland ribbon cutting will be May 11, on World Migratory Bird Day, at 9:30 a.m. The current phase has been completed and the park will be active soon.  They are getting ready to add Pour‘n’Play rubber flooring to four parks in the area to provide safer and better ADA access. They currently use tiles, but they never stay in place and are often vandalized. It allows folks in wheelchairs easier access to parks. The new rubber surface will be put in front of slides and swings.  Spring classes begin the week of March 18. Registration is now open.  Bunny Blast is scheduled for April 18 at Watson Park.  April 27 is cycling at Old Town in Warren Square Plaza.  May 4 is the fly a kite event.  May 5 is open streets on 21st around Nomar from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.  CM Frye provided the following update on the Wichita Flag License Plates: o The original design with white numbers and letters will be made by the state. Initially, the state agreed to that design, but made the plates with digitally stamped black letters, which were hard to see at night or if the plates were dirty. Chief Ramsay commented the black numbers and letters were hard to see. If you have one of the originally printed plates with black letters, you can exchange them for one with white letters. As before, all proceeds from the sale of the flag plates to Wichita Park and Recreation.  The carousel house at Botanica is moving right along, even with the bad weather. It should be ready to open by May or June. Q (DAB) – What made you change the location of Open Streets ICT? A – This event will be in addition to the one we have in September. It’s a popular event and people want to get in on it. C (CM Frye) – Do you have a suggestion for another street? Maybe South Seneca? Give a suggestion. C (McGuire) – I suggested North Maize Road. C (CM Frye) – This one will be on Cinco de Mayo. It should be a lot of fun. Nomar is a pretty neat plaza. Q (DAB) – This will be from Broadway to? 2  Page |3 A – The river. 7. Wichita Public Library Report Tracie Partridge reported:  During spring break week, there will be 15 special activities during that time period – Mario Kart Monday at Advanced Learning Library for ages 6 – 12, which will feature Mario Kart competitions.  Westlink is having a Dogman Party for ages 7 – 11 on March 13.  Peep Dioramas for grades 6 – 12. Make scenes from your favorite book, movie, or real life with Marshmallow Peeps.  Sign up has started for the Teen Volunteer program. It is for kids entering grades 8-12. Over 9,000 kids participate in the teen summer reading and they need roughly 150 volunteers to run that. Westlink has room for 40 volunteers and spots fill fast. The program runs May 28 through July 26 – 6 weeks. It is not every single day. Teens will have two hour shifts a week. They can get credit for National Honor Society.  Spring gardening series to be held at Rockwell and Evergreen. Tuesdays at Rockwell and Thursdays at Evergreen. There are five different topics – one topic each week of the program.  Be Your Best You event at Westlink – top diets explained. Tuesday night at 6:30. Best diets out there and how to have a healthy lifestyle.  March 9, Saturday at 2:30, STEAM Egg before the Chicken. We will be putting the incubator together. We will have baby chicks at the library and there will be a reveal party March 31 at the library. For ages 3-11.  Young Collectors Display program at Westlink. Under 18 – share your collection with all people that visit Westlink branch library. 8. Public Works & Utilities Report CM Bryan Frye shared the following:  13th St from 119th St to 135th St finalizing easement acquisition – plan to get call for bids out there this month and start construction in April. The plan is to create a full intersection and three lanes.  Looking at updates to 29th and Maize. Looking at a temporary solution that would last for several years that would include a dedicated right turn lane northbound to eastbound. Westbound to southbound expanding the left turn lane. The right turn lane will take some time because of the ditch and culvert. The left turn lane is a fairly easy project. Cars that want to turn left are flowing into the lane of traffic and becoming dangerous. Could do that with just city crews. That’s half the problem. Will eventually need to rebuild the entire intersection.  A traffic light at Zoo and Hoover Road. That will probably happen this year. Great benefit for people using Zoo and coming down from Hoover. Q (DAB) – Did the County agree to pay for that? A – We’re still working on that. The County wants that light there as well because of the zoo. Q (DAB) – Back to 29th and Maize – on that dedicated right turn lane, is there talk about continuing that third lane all the way down to Chadsworth? If you’re already doing construction. A – It’s a better part of almost a mile. We’ll have to take a look at that. It has not been part of the discussion. It should have been dealt with a long time ago. I’ll ask them to take a look at it. If it would at least get to the light at Central Park that would be a benefit. C (DAB) – As that development fills in, that traffic will only increase. Q (DAB) – 13th Street construction – is the hedgerow going to get torn down during construction? A – We’re going to try and save as many as we can, but some will come out. And then we’ll add additional trees to replace those lost ones at different parts. It will not look the same as it does now. Action Taken: Motion made to receive and file all Staff Reports. Motion PASSED 9-0-0. 3  Page |4 NEW BUSINESS 9. Project Wichita Evan Rosell, Project Wichita, presented an update on the project. Leaders in the region asked how do we take advantage of growth. We spent last year bringing a lot of folks together. Lead by four volunteer co-chairs – we brought 94 organizations together. Even some regional cities like Newton and El Dorado. Big employers, small nonprofits. We spent many months in focus groups hearing from over 4,000 people. Not looking for agreement or consensus, but what things pop up the most. We built a survey around broad categories. Just under 14,000 people responded to the survey. The highest response other people have ever seen from a community survey is 6,000. Something is happening with so many people wanting to speak about the future of the community. We identified 5 major categories. Talent, lifelong learning, economic prosperity, strong communities and neighborhoods, quality of place. Just broad headings. Many more strategic initiatives under each one. Visit the website. You can even find the surveys and how people responded. Talent is one of the biggest things we heard from the survey. Be willing to change to keep and attract the next generation. Two big things came up – attract and grow talent, and grow talent that’s already here. How do we expand some of those networking opportunities here? Lifelong learning is education, but far beyond K-12 conversations. The concept of literacy. Particularly 3rd grade literacy. Tremendous things are happening in the community right now with literacy. In USD259 about 40% of kids are reading under a 3rd grade level. We need to cut that in half. How do we do that? Other piece in education – private sector wants to step in and help. How do we build scalable models for that? How do we expand workforce development? Strong Communities and Neighborhoods Anchor institutions – resources under trusted community organizations. Mental health is the #6 rated thing out of 50 on the list. The community sees it as a cause of several other issues. If we treat the underlying issue, we might see some success in other areas. A lot of police time is spent responding to mental health issues. Economic prosperity – it’s the backbone of all of these things. There are great groups working on these specific things. We’ve mapped out sectors of development in our region. Things like tourism, an enhanced ability to host conventions. Maybe like petroleum engineers – millions of dollars are being left on the table right now because we don’t have a convention center bringing in all of this outside money. Tech industry and talent. How best are we preparing for that? Quality of place – It’s an element of quality of life. We define that as uniqueness and attractiveness of a certain region. The license plates and Wichita flag are a good example. How we communicate that attitude and pride. These teams are all lead by public and private sector individuals. One example is a state of the art performing arts center. Also a convention center. It’s not just a Wichita thing, it’s a regional issue. The community wants to gather together. Look at Open Streets. People want to come together and celebrate different cultures. Going through Nomar is a perfect example. Comprehensive plan to harness the value of the river. What we’re doing now is working with that coalition of leaders. Working with anyone who will help push these things forward. Overview of where we are and our 10 year focus. Check out choosewichita.com and Iflywichita.com. Some of these things are already happening, some like mental health and education will take more time. C (CM Frye) – I would just like to commend not just Project Wichita, but all community members – this is the deepest dive for trying to take us to that next level. This is where it starts and we can build on it. The community is ready for that step A – This is a community deal. That question of who are we? We are continuing to answer. This can help us. C (DAB) – I attended a Wave event for young professionals. They had someone from Minnesota come and speak to us – she said they didn’t have anything like this. The young people that were there were very impressed. A – Anything we can do to help, we are sharing this stuff, so if you want to have us share 4  Page |5 Choosewichita.com – share with people who live here and don’t live here. Q (DAB) – Anyway to get the word out there? A (CM Frye) – This is still pretty fresh – just up for about two weeks. A – It’s a really focused marketing approach – we’ll get creative about pushing that into the right places. C (CM Frye) – They put together talent recruiters and HR people into this as well. Advertising for people to come here. C (Rosell) – They’re helping us not just sell our companies, but sell our place to people in these other areas. C (CM Frye) – Some of our best advocates are transplants. They’ve never heard of this place and then they come here. Action Taken: Motion made to Receive and File. MOTION PASSED 9-0-0 10. CUP2019-00003 Philip Zevenbergen, Metropolitan Area Planning Department, on City Community Unit Plan amendment to CUP DP-329 to allow for a car wash use on a property zoned LC Limited Commercial and generally located south of West 13th Street North and east of North Tyler Road in the Tyler Point Addition. North of Hardees – it is zoned Limited commercial, that doesn’t have to change. It needs amended to allow a car wash to be put in. When the CUP was put together, a car wash was not listed as acceptable to be put in. So this has to be an amendment. The CUP was put in place in 2012. Substantial development has taken place since then. A car wash finishes off that entire development. All around the cite is zoned limited commercial accept for this one area. Staff is recommending approval subject to conditions. Section outlines very specific requirements that a car wash has to meet. Noise, no amplified music or voices – lighting – Phil is the agent on the case and he is here to answer any questions. Q (DAB) – Has there been any community opposition? A – Dave Yearout has not heard anything – no calls or emails. Q (CM Frye) – It’s not showing now, but will there be cross-lot access to the north and south? A – I’m assuming there will be. They like to keep things connected. There’s a strip mall there as well. Hardees is directly south. This will be between the Kwik shop and Hardees. C (CM Frye) – This is new to this community. Tommy’s Car Wash chain. A – Yes, they are bringing 3 or 4. They are newly designed. Looking at a few other sites. Action Taken: Motion made by Jose Gutierrez to ACCEPT the application with the Staff Report conditions. Seconded by DAB member. Motion PASSED 8-1-0. Q (DAB) – I have a question about the site – I don’t know how long since Hardees has been open A –About a year. Q (DAB) There’s a huge dirt pile, 30 feet high. How long do they have to make that look nice? A – I don’t know off hand. I will look into that. C (DAB) – It’s an eye sore. I wanted to bring it up. It’s very close to the strip mall area. The car wash might add more dirt there A – I’ll talk to our director to see where they are with that. 11. ZON2019-00002 Philip Zevenbergen, Metropolitan Area Planning Department, presented an application on behalf of 777 Management, LLC (Applicant)/ Mary Odbert (Agent); Maize USD 266 (Applicant)/ Dr. Chad Higgins (Agent). The applicant is requesting a City Zone Change from SF-5 Single Family to NO Neighborhood Office. The subject property is located at 2811 and 2815 North Tyler Road, on the west side of North Tyler Road approximately 1,000 feet south of West 29th Street North. With this request, 5  Page |6 the applicant would like to rezone the property to a NO district to use the existing 2815 building as a chiropractic clinic and the 2811 building as a personal residence for those operating the clinic. The lot directly south of the subject property is zoned NO and is a dental office. This is a good precedent example of an appropriate use of NO in a residential area that provides a service that can potentially benefit the neighborhood. The applicant – 777 management LLC – is in contract to purchase from the school district. Just south of the property there’s a dentist office zoned NO as well. We’re using that as a precedent. They will not have to do anything to the exterior of the building. There is sufficient parking and building size. They will only have to remodel the interior. Landscape reserve is not in the zoned area. It will act as a buffer and is for storm water management. They will not be able to touch it. There is a two family residence to north of this property. To the south is a dentist office. To the east is zoned NO, but it’s a single family residence. That property owner called when he got the letter. He was fine with it. People were concerned it might be an oriental massage clinic. Its intended use is nothing of that nature, it’s a chiropractic clinic. The site is set up really well for it. There were no questions or comments from the DAB. Action Taken: Motion made by Alissa Unruh to ACCEPT the application. Seconded by Angela Breer. Motion PASSED 9-0-0. C (CM Frye) – You’ve probably seen a lot of press about baseball – the newspaper didn’t get the story exactly right. The agenda report didn’t get out on the website. We will hear it tomorrow, but I doubt we’ll vote on it. We want people to have time to digest the information and understand it. You hear we’re selling the land for $1 an acre, well that’s not the whole story. If this development group doesn’t meet the timeline and development constrictions, we get the land back. Private development they will build will more than make up for it in property tax and sales tax will generate enough revenue to basically pay for the stadium. Commercial development will pay for it. It doesn’t include the church parking lot area to the north. That will be sprinkles on top. So we will hear it tomorrow, but we won’t vote. I’m happy to talk about it with anyone. Another issue – Century II. They’ve always said to do nothing is not an option. They made the recommendation we need a new performing arts center (world class). We need to look at all of the space and decide how it comes together. They did not recommend tearing down the blue roof. They said we need to look at how all the space works together. Asked for RFP to be issued within 60 to 90 days to hire a company to help get that integration look. Think we’re looking in that direction first before making a decision. Allows for more study as well on true cost of renovating. Building new is close to $200mill. Preliminary estimates at renovating is much greater than that. Evan talked about anchor institutions. We’ve been doing research on branch libraries after Advanced Learning Library opening. Westlink branch is too small and numbers haven’t gone down since ALL opened. Westlink we have a great problem – too many people using facility that is too small. We have the land to expand and double it in size. Working on a plan for that. Study rooms, meeting rooms, triple the number of computers, having an outdoor children’s learning environment. And it would be affordable because we wouldn’t have to buy more land. Evergreen could be an anchor institution. Need something in the south part of town. Linwood is really not a library. It doesn’t have the resources we need. Looking at other locations and options. Maybe even Clapp golf course. Fire – we talk about that all the time. This station doesn’t have many fire calls. Station 1 has so many. The recent effort to reclassify calls and cut down on lesser medical calls (someone fell down, someone needs an aspirin). Looking at Colorado Springs and Tulsa have done well, critical response teams, CRT. Three people assigned to a vehicle, Police, EMT, social worker. Number of low calls. Getting people connected to the resources they really need. Acuity. 6  Page |7 Still making progress on a dog park at country acres. Q (DAB) – The Fine Arts Center needs a parking garage, but the baseball stadium doesn’t? A (CM Frye) – When you start adding all of that, a new performing arts, new convention center, new baseball, a parking garage will help with all of it. Parking garages are very expensive properties. People are using Uber and Lyft. Fewer people are driving. So if we can multi-purpose something. Q (DAB) – A big blue roofed parking garage? A (CM Frye) – That was suggested. One firm recommended that 2.5 years ago. I think that still has to be a consideration. Q (DAB) – Are we still looking at tax increase to fund this? A (CM Frye) – That’s a possibility – you can also do things like naming rights, public-private partnership, existing tourism tax, using existing CIP capital dollars means less other improvements in the city, a sales tax with a sunset, some talks with how to make it less impactful on the lowest income because a sales tax is the most progressive form of tax on low income people – maybe an end of year rebate to help offset. We’re a long way from funding sources, but those are all in play. Don’t think we’d see a property tax, but we want to look at multiple different sources not just one, and we want some private dollars attached to this. Q (DAB) – Bob Brown center was supposed to cover our convention needs for 50 years. What happened? A (CM Frye) – Century II was already outdated before it even finished construction. Challenges with Bob Brown is convention needs have changed. We don’t have the ability to create different rooms. Today’s conventions need 30 foot high ceilings. Those are two of the big changes in conventions needs not envisioned when they built Bob Brown. Things change. What the demand is now, we don’t have it. Q (DAB) – Will the vote be this fall? A (CM Frye) – Probably not until spring – keep it away from other elections. Standalone issue vote. Still need to figure out options before that. Q (DAB) – how many years was the Intrust naming deal? A (CM Frye) – Not sure, maybe 20 years. Q (DAB) – How expensive would the ballpark be? A (CM Frye) – I heard generalities that it was 10 years $10 mill. Not sure. Looking at having a bigger footprint. C (DAB) – Intrust was 25 years for $8.5 million. A (CM Frye) – We’ve had a lot of interest on baseball. Saw plans for the old state office building and old Henry’s. What’s she’s asking for on that project is to special assess to remodel. Wants to remodel and get rid of asbestos to put in a medical school, a technical school, a hotel, and residential. Q (DAB) – Is her timeline still 2021? A (SM Frye) – I think so. Q (DAB) – What does KU Med think? A (CM Frye) – They don’t like it but its privately funded. Q (DAB) – Question about the old library – I saw rumors on Facebook about it. A (CM Frye) – Last fall, Mayor came to us with an idea – we met with reps with KPTS, and thought the ideas was over and done with. The paper’s story wasn’t driven by any of us, probably one of those other players involved sparked it around discussion of Century II. KPTS is not our issue. They need to figure it out. The idea was to put the Museum of World Treasures, The African American Museum, and KPTS. Q (DAB) – Isn’t that space a little small for that? A (CM Frye) – We did a study to see what it would take to bring that building up to minimal standards. In 2013, you were looking at 6 million dollars, today probably 10 million. Who is going to pay for all those renovations? Then you leave Museum of World Treasures empty with no tenant. Let’s see what other ideas we can get. I like that building, I think it’s worth saving. But I don’t’ know what’s right for that yet. Look at the overall bigger picture of that area. The nice thing is we’re having these discussions 7  Page |8 to make this a better community. Talent retention and recruitment. It’s happening to the north and south of us. Meeting was adjourned at 7:58 p.m. The next DAB V meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m., Monday, April 1, 2019, Fire Station #21, 2110 N. 135th St., Wichita, KS 67235. 8