February 2014

1. Call to Order – 7:00pm

2. Sign in and Introductions

3. Treasurer Report – $955.73 (Reflects all last month’s votes, except for remaining balance to Dunbar Coalition.)

4. Announcements

(a) House Bill 2379 would greatly limit budgets of libraries. Ten branches would be closed if this passes by June 30, 2014.

(b) Downtown library will be hosting wellness lectures this month. There are garden plots available in front of the library. April 12th “bike-in-movie” a library plaza about urban gardening (partnering with Tucson Gardens?)

5. Discussion

(a) Urban Overlay - Background handout available on DSN website. – Jonathon Crowe’s work on infill district will impact and are included in the plan. New language will be used and needs to be determined – language would be different by area of neighborhood. The stone corridor study is a plan that could be used if the neighborhood likes it. Some incentives include parking (this is an issue for the neighborhood as additional parking can impact current neighbors and if there is too much parking available in the neighborhood then we will have a lot of traffic in the neighborhood. – La Entrada was discussed as an example). The zoning for the Urban Overlay is C-03 zoning (7 stories, 73 ft. – some feel that the max should be at 3-stories, others disagreed. If we want the overlay zoning then we will need to look at adopting more stories so that it would be an incentive to get infill.) Most do not appreciate parking lots and would like other options. The neighborhood needs to develop a list of things we would like to see and share that with Corky. C3 incentives are hard because once you are zoned to that a lot of different things can be built and it is difficult to change zoning away from that in the future. The new infill incentive district will need to have design review to make sure it supports neighborhood design. More discussion to follow, with a fall 2014 adoption. More neighborhood discussion at the meeting in March.

(b) Walkability – Neighbor concerned about walkability in neighborhood, would like something in the newsletter that right of way is kept open. Map was used to discuss points. This will be looked at in greater detail after the living street alliance performs an assessment. Would be interesting to look at other neighborhoods.

(c) C2E Grant – Brad Lancaster has a list of people who are interested in participating. The grant is up to $7,500. One possible idea is to start on a piece of the 1st street green belt for a block or half block.

6. Committee Reports

(a) DNARC – office of integrated planning came. An effort is underway to try to increase transparency of goals around improving quality of life. They are soon to have a calendar for groups that meet regularly. The whistle free zone continues to be an integral part but city has to make crossing safer. It won’t happen if the Downtown links project doesn’t happen.

(b) Downtown Links – Several points: 1) Difficult to have a safe crossing at Church because of the way the road opens. Due to this the neighborhood requested hawk at main, however, the city felt it was too close to Granada so they are not doing it and are still going to do it at church. Next month we will vote on a letter to Ann Cheneka about the importance of the crossing (COT bike coordinator). The engineers seem to be responding to the pedestrian and bike needs (they answered our last letter point-by-point). The 75 million for the project is there, questions do remain if they have money for deck park, etc.

(c) Neighborhood Garden – A work party is scheduled for March 8, 2014. Work will be done on the irrigation section of the nature park. No decisions yet on garden, but the group is discussing.

(d) Dunbar Coalition – No meeting to report on.

7. Approval of Minutes from January – Unanimously approved

8. Adjourn – Adjourned at 9:00pm