January 2019 Meeting Minutes

Treasurer's Report: $1216.67

Announcements:

Downtown branch credit union is closing. We have our neighborhood fund account at this credit union. There’s another branch on 22nd. Do we want to stay with our current credit union or move to another credit union? Not voting on this yet. Looking into First Credit Union on Stone Ave. first.

Board Elections are on April 15th and all positions are open. Karen is interested in stepping down as president if anyone else is interested. If no one does, she is willing to stay on board another year (term limit) but then will step down from the board to take a break.

The newsletter is due March 18th - the articles are due earlier (based on when you need them to get in to the city in time for March 18th). If you're interested in writing something for the newsletter get it to the secretary (Eva-Marie) as soon as possible. Email is evamarie.hube@gmail.com

Property owner of 902 N Main does not live there but is letting homeless people stay on his property. There’s a concern about waste on the property. There is a phone number the city has for homeless protocol. Karen is currently trying to locate that number. In the meantime, Karen has gotten in touch with Steve form the ward office. He’s done research and code enforcement has been on the property before for a variety of violations. He will be asking code enforcement to visit the property again.

There's a proposal to build a hotel at 141 S Stone. A Hampton Inn.

Wed Feb 13th at 6 pm at city hall there is a meeting of the historic preservation zone building height code amendment. Trinity property, the trinity church at University blvd. The property was in a historic zone. They wanted to build higher than the zoning allowed, so the property got taken out of the zone. This was not to set precedent but now it is setting precedent in other historic zones. The historic preservation is looking to amend the code so that there is flexibility but a limit to how many properties can be taken out of the historic zoning.

The seed library is celebrating their 7th anniversary by having a seed swap on Saturday Feb 9th from 2-4 pm at the main library.

Kindred Committee is doing a “One Book” with Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and will be having a discussion. They’ll start programming at the Dunbar School soon.

Tour de Biblio, bike tour of Tucson libraries on the Friday of Rodeo break. Doing a longer ride on March 9th.

The library has tax assistance if you need help with doing your taxes.

Davis is the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood school in Barrio Anita and is welcoming incoming kinders for registration March 6th at 9:30 am.

There will be a Popeyes opening on the north corner of Stone and Speedway.

Update on Downtown Links: Daniella is reporting on this. TDOT didn’t budget correctly and so everything that is being seen as superfluous i.e. bicycle/pedestrian safety, art, lighting is being looked at to potentially get cut. However, TDOT realizes that the deck plaza is important to the Dunbar neighborhood. They are taking a section out of the deck plaza that would have cost a lot of money thus reducing the intent of the deck plaza but maintaining connectivity. They will be utilizing the end of 9th for the park potion/green space of the proposed deck plaza. They will maintain the pedestrian walkways and bikeways. Karen spoke to the new TDOT director and asked her to come to the neighborhoods February meeting to go over the updates with the neighborhood.

Speedway and Stone Update:

Dutch Brothers proposal is out. The city manager’s office knows that the neighborhood must be involved with whatever does get developed on the Stone and Speedway property.

Townsend and Kaine, a real estate solutions company, is interested in purchasing the Best Western and is looking to building another hotel on the property. They also own or are part owners of the L shape parcel on Stone and Speedway. Steve from the ward office confirmed that this conversation indeed is taking place. Because this Best Western is on private land, the neighborhood will have no input on the development. Karen will look into the zoning of the L shape parcel and the Best Western.

Planning and Development has a new program where you can sign up for email alerts you any time a new permit is going in. You can do it my neighborhood, Ward or region. Karen will find out what the name of the program is.

11th Ave Update:

Keith from the housing department is our new contact for the affordable housing project. Keith proposed that instead of an RFP, the city would like to sell the 11th ave property with Dunbar neighborhood requirements attached.

Block aide project discussion:

Proposing to have a go to person for each one or two blocks of the neighborhood that would take responsibility for material distribution, event info, etc to neighbors. They will know all their surrounding neighbors and be the “go to” person for each block. Karen asks if there’s interest. There's a discussion about defining responsibilities and physically mapping out the blocks for the proposed block aids first.

Committee Reports:

DNARC: Keith Gregory came to the meeting. Keith acknowledged that workforce housing initiatives have been lacking. The community needs to go to mayor and council and ask for incentives for workforce housing from developers. Low income apartments like the ones at Coronado and on Herbert are low income for thirty years but after that, the landlord can charge market rate. There’s a 1.3 million planning grant in the Oracle area focused on the Tucson House. The city has 1500 low income housing units across the city.

Discussion of freezing property taxes in a geographic area. In terms of age and/or owner occupied.

Charro Del Rey is a new seafood restaurant from El Charro that will be taking over the now closed Even Stevens on Broadway.

Visit Tucson is moving into the 2nd floor of the courthouse after they’re done with renovations.

The Flynn apartments under construction at la posita will bea six story finished this summer. Rendezvous flats 100 unit will be proposed next to the unsource building on Stone. Parking lot behind the Grill will be a 12 story building. 2 levels of retail, 5 levels of parking and 5 levels of office.

WAMO: No updates

Neighborhood Garden: Nobody as of yet wants to be the new facilitator.

Dunbar Coalition: Updates will be written out and shared on the list serve.

Neighborhood Foresters: They have been busy. Doing a lot of tree planting and digging basins. There’s a pruning workshop February 24th.

Approving of the minutes: Three months of minutes will be approved in February. Robert's Rules states that there doesn’t need to be a motion to approve minutes.