DSNA Meeting Minutes: November 2021 Meeting Minutes

Minutes Date

2021-11-15

Agenda for November 15th, 2021 Meeting

Call to Order 7:03 pm
Sign-In (9 min)
1. Karen Greene
2. Damian Rawoot
3. Flor (ward 1)
4. Michael Becherer (swaim associates)
5. Natasha Winnik
6. Sky Jacobs
7. Cedar Warman
8. Abra Bentley
9. Collin Chesston - City of Tucson
10. Nancy
11. Leah Marty Pima Council on Aging
12. Lisa Scoblink
13. Dino
Approve October Minutes 7:09 (5 min)
1. Faffs moved
2. Sky 2nd
  1. 6 yes
  2. 1 abstain
Treasurer’s Report (1 min)
1. Abra - About 960$
Announcements 7:15 (5 min)
1. Roll Off Dumpster Cedar
2. Pima Council on Aging - Leah Marty (5 min)
  1. Vaccines
  2. pcoa
3. Homeowner Assistance Fund (faffs will post)
4. Downtown Links Deck Plaza Pianophone meeting- Wednesday 11/17 6:30-730 on zoom
5. Karen -You can pick up your own covid test at the library.
6. Karen - Chuck Marone -Strong Towns- reformed traffic engineer talk at MSA annex tomorrow night
7. Karen - couch available - contact karen
Discussion 7:20
1. 9th Ave Bikeway Update - Collin Chesston, City of Tucson Dept of Transportation & Mobility (5 min)
  1. Make it more comfortable for walkers/ bikers/ drivers.
  2. Speed humps, traffic circles, markings on pavement
  3. Collin would like to join the discussion about the 9th ave plaza with downtown links that we are discussing on wednesday.
  4. Discussion (5 min)
    1. Sky -
    2. Natasha- fine with the new alignment on second, really want an improvement to the intersection at 10th and first.
      1. Speed humps on 9th Avenue added in on the plan, have we had a discussion about that with neighbors on that street? A discussion is needed
    3. Damien agrees about intersection at 10th and first
    4. Cedar - propose speed bump between 9th and 10th on 2nd. Also, are we talking about adding stop signs as the intersection improvement?
    5. Karen - 10th and first needs better solution
      1. We would love to have fresh eyes looks at the plaza! Come! Join us! Welcome Aboard
    6. Sky - really important that we have a stop sign on first. Really important not to have stop signs along the bikeway. Could do a stop sign for first but not for the bicycles on the throughways
    7. Natasha- we used to have 4 way stops and they got changed to 4 way yields because they said we couldn’t have a solution that was a stop for cars and not for bikes.
    8. Collin- four way yields are now not allowed by the city/feds.
    9. Sky- so you can’t give a yield one way and stop the other?
    10. Collin- we can’t have stop and yield combo cause of MUTCD
2. 9th Ave/5th St. Proposed Building Project - Michael Bechere Swaim LTD (developer) 7:30 (5 min)
  1. Alberto owns the business at south east corner of 9th and 5th
  2. Currently zoned for Industrial I-1
  3. City added aninfill incentive district that allows some zoning relief
  4. Requires some public review and input
  5. Under existing zoning, no residential
  6. We will have to have a public meeting, historic review and design review board.
  7. IID would allow 56 residential units (bedrooms not specified)
  8. Total of 6 stories or 75 ft allowed height (including 25 - 30 ft 2 story stepback)
  9. Allowable uses: residential, retail, office
  10. 1 stall parking required per unit required for residential use
  11. It’s early in the design phase and nothing is set in stone
  12. Want to incorporate the design of the bike plaza into the building design
  13. 57 parking stall on 2nd floor
  14. 15 units per floor (right now) (some mix of 0,1,2,3 bedroom units)
  15. Discussion (10 min)
    1. Lisa- affordable housing?
    2. Michael - if we go with GPLET we will have to have some affordable housing
    3. Natasha - all market rate housing would be hard for the neighborhood to stomach
      1. We didn’t choose the paving pattern that is used in the design
      2. We would like senior housing
      3. The massing of the building seems monstrous, very tall, not in the scale of the neighborhood
    4. Karen- Hope you can come on wednesday, wondering about sound. They say don’t worry about sound with downtown links, we don’t trust them
      1. Parking: lots of people park there that don’t want to pay downtown
      2. Parking will be an issue for the businesses
      3. Also, el groupo is right there, so there is lots of bikes some times
    5. Lisa - native landscaping?
    6. Michael - yes
3. Proposed fence around basketball courts and playground at Dunbar Pavillion - IDEA School (5 min)
  1. David- right now the fencing is a concept, not yet a reality. We want the fence because of safety concerns (needles and feces)
  2. We are requesting that from the dunbar pavilion
  3. Dunbar Board is considering it
  4. We would want this to still be accessible to the neighborhood so families can play there so we are proposing a combination be distributed to the neighbors.
  5. Discussion (5 min)
    1. Sky- It will feel really different when the fence is there and will be hard to swallow considering that the neighborhood has spent so much time and energy on the playground and garden.
    2. Lisa - I was told there would be “park hours”
    3. David - I don’t know about that
    4. Natasha- Want to share something that SusanHutzler wrote: the garden is a grassroots effort to create an organic garden to create and strengthen community ties.
      1. The playground was put in around 96 or 97 as a joint effort with the neighborhood.
      2. There may have been a CBDG grant?
      3. Doesn’t feel like a collaboration anymore (may be just my opinion)
    5. David - we are in the 4th year of a 5 year lease. We would love to stay here if possible
      1. Dunbar used to be completely volunteer run and is now renovating and bringing the buildings back into use
      2. For the first time, they are now an org with tenants and more income. It’s a different business model. Now a non-profit that provides space for lots of orgs.
    6. Lisa - liability was an issue and it kept it from being turned into a prison
    7. Damien speaking as a parent, we really like having the playground, and some of that is related to Esteban not being so welcoming to kids.
4. Natasha - I am upset that the committee reports are not included.
5. Lots of discussion about this
6. 11th ave parcel - natasha - anne Chanekaehas reached out to the U of A design build program
  1. Sky - let’s put some more pressure on them
  2. Abra - i live right there and it’s always a mess, it would be great to put pressure on them
  3. Karen - The city keeps changing focus so now wants to do different things with affordable housing (such as a land trust model) so they need to put structures and processes in place which slows everything down even more.
7. Historic 4th ave coalition
  1. 28th nov - made in tucson
8. Karen-it is way too much to ask someone to be president and act as secretary and if Bill isn't able to follow through with being secretary, it might be helpful if he resigned so someone else could help out. We need to check the bylaws on that process.
  1. Faffs- good idea! I’ll talk to bill
  2. Add an open discussion time to help grease the wheels and make this work easily.
Adjourn 8:35