District 6 Advisory Board

District VI Advisory Board Minutes www.wichita.gov Wednesday Evergreen Resource Center July 19, 2017 2700 N. Woodland, Wichita, KS 67204 6:30 p.m. Conference Room The District VI Advisory Board meeting was held at 6:30 p.m. at the Evergreen Resource Center conference room, 2700 N. Woodland, Wichita, KS 67204. There were six District Advisory Board members, three staff members and three members of the public in attendance. Members Present Staff Present Joel Weihe Robert Layton, CMO Gregory Boyajian Kathy Morgan, MAPD Denise O’Leary-Siemer Brandon Findley, OCS Angela Martinez Lorenza Snyder Linda Matney Janet Miller Members Absent Guests Cindy Claycomb Listed on last page Deborah Sanders Gisela Peña James Deckard Shaun Rojas Call to Order Vice Mayor, Janet Miller, called the meeting to order. Approval of Minutes The minutes for July 10, 2017, were approved. Motion passed (6-0) (Matney/O’Leary-Siemer) New Business ZON2017-00024 Kathy Morgan, Metropolitan Area Planning Department, presented an application requesting a zone change from the existing LC Limited Commercial and GO General Office zoning districts for the property located on the east side of North Edwards Avenue, 300 feet south of West 13th Street North. The applicant owns two lots at this location. The northernmost lot is zoned LC, and the southern lot is zoned General Office. The property is vacant. The zone change was requested to allow for the development of a new building for Johnson Garden Center that will serve as a food-processing facility for packaging and canning of fruit and vegetables for retail sales at their stores. The Board asked/made the following questions/comments: DAB: What does the clause pertaining to keeping things stored out of site from first floor view mean? Kathy: They would have to put a visibility screen around the items being stored to protect the items being stored from public view. DAB: What if storage containers were stored there? Kathy: They would have to store those according to City code, however fencing might not be necessary if they bring those containers in at night. DAB: How is nuisance use addressed? Kathy: They would have to meet KDHE requirements and regulations and make sure that mechanisms were in place to mitigate noise and environmental pollutions, which all falls under the permitting process. Kathy: Staff will work with the applicant to make sure that they are amenable to any restrictions that would protect the public from future uses that were undesirable.  July 19, 2017 Action Taken: Boyajian/O’Leary-Siemer made a motion to APPROVE zone change with the following guideline: The property not be used above and beyond the means intended by the current applicant. Motion carried (6-0) CON2017-00027 Kathy Morgan, Metropolitan Area Planning Department, presented an application requesting a Conditional Use Permit for the expansion of an existing electrical substation located at 3509 North Hydraulic Avenue. The site abuts I-135 and is zoned GI General Industrial. The purpose of this application is to allow for Westar to upgrade and expand the equipment in the Coleman Substation. According to the applicant, the existing equipment is aging and it is starting to limit the station’s ability to provide reliable service. The applicant stated that if approved, this expansion would allow for both better and more reliable service to the current businesses and residents of the area, as well as increased capacity to cover any growth that may occur in this service area. The applicant proposed beginning construction in the fall of 2017 and to begin operations in 2018. Staff requested additional landscaping along both the east and west property lines and the applicant responded by sending a Landscaping Plan that shows additional plantings along both property lines. The Board asked/made the following questions/comments: DAB: What’s the difference between a minor utility and a major utility? Kathy: It has to do with the type of utility. In this case it is electric which makes it a major utility. Katie Walbridge, Westar Energy, 818 S. Kansas Ave. Topeka KS: This substation was built in the 1970’s. Now that we want to expand, we need a conditional use permit due to restrictions including height, square feet and other things. We exceeded all of those conditions which is why we need to get the permit. The current transformers are operating at peak load so we want to make sure we are set for the future and have room to grow. Also, we want to provide greater reliability and service to our customers. We added the landscaping at the planning staffs request and also plan on upgrading the fencing to black vinyl. Action Taken: O’Leary-Siemer /Weihe made a motion to APPROVE conditional use permit with amendment to accept the vinyl fencing. Motion carried (6-0) Preliminary Budget Overview: 2018-2019 Robert Layton, City Manager, gave a presentation on the development of the 2018-2019 Proposed Budget. The Board asked/made the following questions/comments: DAB: Is there currently conversation going on or a plan to collect revenue with a 21st century method? Manager Layton: Yes. I was recently at a conference of City Managers and we talked about this. Kansas City has recently negotiated an agreement with Amazon to collect sales taxes for them. So I have asked staff to prepare an initial letter that we will send out to the top ten online retailers putting them on notice that we expect them to collect that revenue for us. I know it will take some negotiations but this is one way we can address the subject. We are also addressing how we charge for cell phones and the use of the right of way for cell towers, to ensure that all users are paying their fair share. It’s also important that we as a city focus on delivering our core services to make sure that we are managing resources wisely. DAB: Is this conversation going to include feedback from the public? Manager Layton: Yes. We will address the public in a number of ways. The more we can share what our problem is, the more we talk about possible solutions. DAB: What is the metric that’s being used to ensure we are providing effective costs? Manager Layton: The simple answer is that we have over 400 performance measures for measuring our effectiveness and efficiency in what we are doing in regards to service delivery. Dan Warren: Do you know what we are spending on dust control now? Manager Layton: I don’t remember. I didn’t bring those numbers with me tonight. Dan Warren: I think it’s around $20,000 to $25,000. Manager Layton: Yes, I believe it’s somewhere around there. Dan Warren: Will this budget allow you to expand that? Manager Layton: It’s an issue of street maintenance priority. We have multiple line items in the budget related to street maintenance. Some of which are handled by our own crews and  July 19, 2017 some we contract out. On the contract side we have been increasing that amount significantly over a number of years and we will continue to do so. So it’s just a matter of resources and how we use those resources. So the answer to this ultimately comes back to what we put together as staff and council members in terms of what our program is. We’ve emphasized crack sealing for instance. We also know we have a problem with unimproved streets and that some folks are reluctant towards paving them in a lot of neighborhoods. So I am going to bring this item to council and share what I’ve heard from the DAB and other meetings I’ve been to. DAB: Why the lack of enforcement on payments among business owners who took advantage of economic development incentives? Manager Layton: This would likely be due to a lack of staffing to enforce the requirements and a lack of institutional knowledge transfer when we have turnover. We plan on identifying all outstanding contracts in need of enforcement. Action Taken: Receive and file 2017-2026 Proposed Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Budget Robert Layton, City Manager, gave a presentation on proposed Capital Improvement Program Budget. The City of Wichita CIP outlines infrastructure improvements forecasted for the community over the next decade. It provides broad policy direction on priorities for improvements, and the amount of debt that should be incurred. The Board asked/made the following questions/comments: DAB: As a city, how do you differentiate between cheap and inexpensive? Manager Layton: We do some lifecycle costing for larger equipment. Criteria has to be established on the front end to ensure a fair bidding process. We went to a different decision making tool that we worked with Wichita State to develop. We now track maintenance records and adjust for predicted vehicle life. DAB: You talked about Stryker Field and bicycle and pedestrian projects, can you tell me what the City’s plan is for community centers? Manager Layton: We are probably not looking to add any more community centers, the issue is how dowe rejuvenate what we’ve got. That will be addressed next year when we review the condition of our buildings. We have recently made small investments and adjustments on the programming side which have resulted in large jumps in attendance at our rec centers and some of our facilities. This tells us that if we invest in not only the infrastructure of the buildings themselves but also in our programming, things will improve in the community. Vice Mayor Miller: Just to remind everyone that Stryker Field is paid for by a special taxing district where the increasing property values in that district will pay for those improvements. So in other words, the City is not taking money out of the Capital Improvement Plan, or money that could be used here at Evergreen for example, and spending it on Stryker. DAB: How is that affecting our park department attendance? Manager Layton: Our initial thought was that our league play would switch to Stryker because they are multipurpose fields and they aren’t weather dependent. But I’ve also heard that there are some teams and families concerned about taking games away from the neighborhoods. So I put a hold on that and am in the middle of a discussion with my staff over the issue. Some families are concerned because their children are on 3 different teams and it’s difficult for them to get to all the different locations, so the advantage of Stryker is it’s all one location and you can just run from one field to the other, but now I’m hearing the concern about leaving the neighborhood fields so I’ve asked my staff to go back to the coaches and reevaluate the situation. VM Miller: Does anybody want to share any thoughts about the proposed mill levy increase? Dan Warren: I’d like to see community policing increase. It has deteriorated since the 1990’s. VM Miller: Well the funding won’t go to community policing, right Manager Layton? Manager Layton: If you mean will it go toward funding community policing, no. However the positions to be filled will free up more time for officers to do more proactive policing. VM Miller: Manager Layton can you check on the dust control question and what is in the budget for next year? Manager Latyon: Yes. Action Taken: Receive and file  July 19, 2017 UPDATES FROM COUNCIL MEMBER The next DAB VI meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. on August 7, 2017, at the Evergreen Resource Center, 2700 N. Woodland, Wichita, KS 67203. ADJOURN Meeting was adjourned. Guests Katie Walbridge Zoe Drury Dan Warren Respectfully Submitted, Brandon Findley, OCS