CBJ Comprehensive Plan Update | Community Listening Session on North and West Douglas Issues

When will you post that on your site, the recording? We will. Um, it, it takes a bit, um, because we have to convert it to YouTube and then reconvert it, so it's probably not going to be tomorrow, um, but it'll— or any more than that, it's gonna Straight on the dot. All right. Welcome.

My name is Mintha Montalvo. I'm the project manager for the Comprehensive Plan Update project by WorkForce ZBJ. I'd like to introduce you to our team members. This is Satya Rakalov. She's the project manager on our consultant side with Cascade Partners, who is here from Portland area.

Forrest Courtney works with me at Community Development. He also is part of the project management team, and he'll be running the Zoom portion today. Chris Myrtle is a local consultant on our team, works for, for this is the full name. He'll be taking notes to help us capture what is said here. In the way back, we've got Scott Chandler, our planning manager, who's also part of our team, and he's a bouncer.

So if anybody gets a little late, he's just here to help. Did I get everybody? Yeah, so that's our team. So welcome everybody. This is a community listening session.

Part of—. This is the 5th community listening session that we've held as part of the Comprehensive Plan Update project. What's special about this meeting is that unlike the previous meetings, which were general, this meeting is specifically to get input on issues that are important to North and West Douglas. So it's open to the community and we're thrilled to have everybody here.

And I just want to reiterate that the purpose of this meeting is for us to receive and gather input from y'all. And folks online, we understand there's a lot going on out here. I live out here. I know what's going on. A lot of projects happening and we just want to reiterate that each of those projects that you may be aware of, they each have their own public process with their own meeting notifications and requirements.

And we're not speaking about any particular project. This is our project comprehensive plan update. So our public process is to reach out to the public as often as we're able to and ask for your thoughts. So that's what we're here to do today.

And Sachi will— I'm going to turn it over to Sachi, who will run you through what to expect. Yeah, and I'll just say to kind of add to what Nintah is saying about our public process for the comprehensive plan, which is also called R Juno. So if you see R Juno, our future, on any of the materials you were given, that's referring to the comprehensive plan. And that's a 20-year plan for Juneau. So as part of our public process, we have several opportunities to weigh in for the public.

This is our first phase of public engagement, which we're calling Listen and Learn, and that is what we're doing today is listening and getting feedback. We'll have other opportunities throughout the next 2.5 years for folks to participate. So this is not your only opportunity.

Tonight, what we have is about an hour and a half to talk about, to listen to you. We have an opportunity for folks to give public comment, which means you have 3 minutes to speak. And the public comment is structured in 3 main topics, and we'll have 20 minutes for each topic. And those topics are housing and infrastructure, transportation and roads, and tourism and recreation. So we're asking that folks talk on those topics during those topic times.

You can speak on more than one topic. However, if we have a lot of folks wanting to speak on a topic and you've already spoken on one, we may ask you to sit that one out because we only have so much time and we want everyone to have an opportunity to speak. So if there is a topic that is a particular priority to you, make sure you let us know or you, you know, like, make us aware that that is the topic, your highest priority topic that you want to speak on. Because we see that a couple of people are wanting to speak on all three. We're hoping that we can get everyone in for all topics, but we'll see how it goes and how much time we have.

I want to acknowledge— oh, and also we will, if we have additional time, which we're hoping we will, we should have maybe 10 to 15 minutes, we can take additional topic comments on any topic. For additional comments on the 3 topics that we already have. I also want to acknowledge that we have folks online on Zoom with us. For those who are in the room, and just so the folks on Zoom know, we had a sign-in sheet here and people indicated to us what topics they're interested in giving public comment on. The folks on Zoom did not have the opportunity to do that.

So before we start each of the topics, I will pause and ask folks on Zoom if they are— if anyone's interested in giving public comment, um, and you can just do a raise of your hands, um, or you can mention in the chat that you're interested in speaking. And Forest is here, um, kind of moderating Zoom for us.

Any questions on the format before we move on?

Okay, so again, everyone will have 3 minutes. I am going to be timing, and when the timer goes off, your time will be up, so please wrap up your comment as soon as you hear the timer. Actually, can I just add? Yeah. For people who don't like speaking in public, I know that, no, not everyone does.

We do have comment sheets in the back you can fill out, and we also are going to have an ability for you to comment, and that's going to be open through September. So if you don't feel, or if we run out of time, your voice, your concern still matters. So you may not be heard in the public forum, but there are two other ways that you can provide comments. And you can get all the links and opportunities to provide comments through the city webpage for the comp plan. Yeah, yeah.

And someone had that question, you know, if I email a comment in, will that be kind of taken seriously? Will anyone look at it? Yes, it will. We're gonna combine everything that we've heard today, including, and all the emails that we get during the public comment period for emails, which will be, I believe, through September 7th. So if you don't want to speak today or think of something after this meeting, you're welcome to email us your feedback.

We'll also provide a meeting summary once we have all of the feedback from everyone. So after that public comment period is closed. Let's see, anything else? All of this, or most of this information is also on the agenda sheet that we have. Correct.

So I don't want to take up too much more time because we want to start giving people the opportunity to comment. So I guess without further ado, let's jump into our first topic, which is housing and infrastructure. We've got about 20 minutes for this. So let's see. I guess first I'll ask in Zoom if there's anyone who's interested in giving public comment today.

Verbally during this meeting, right now, or during this 20 minutes?

Raise your hand. We'll go ahead and get started with the in-person folks. Of course, let us know if we have anyone on Zoom. So it looks like the first person I'm seeing on my list is Bill. Latif.

And apologies to anyone for mispronouncing. Where do you want me? Um, please, this chair here. You're welcome to stand, uh, but this is the mic here. Okay.

Do I have to turn my back on the people? You can stand towards the mic. Okay, much better. Yes. I'm Bill Lees, 53-year funeral resident, small business owner.

One of 7 directors of the Leedy Foundation, founded by my father back in 1985. Nancy and I are co-directors of the Earth Protection Program within the Leedy Foundation. Protection from what? Humans. So we have an opportunity here for Juno to be a laboratory whereby we can explore some things that address the top priority in our thinking, our planning, the comp plan we put together, which is Earth protection.

You've heard the word used glibly, perhaps, an existential problem, climate change, global warming, climate change, existential, what the heck does that mean? Means Earth becomes uninhabitable. It's well within the realm of possibility that that could happen. So a top priority of Earth protection. I did a presentation, uh, back on April 15th in my hometown, Waterloo, Iowa, as an advisor to my father's philanthropies back there.

And these are the 4 books that inspired me to make that presentation. And therefore I have 3 suggestions for us here. First, I've given you the first one. Second, rethink, reinvent, repurpose the visitor industry. Which uses a very large amount of fossil fuel in addition to its other impacts.

There are many ways we can do that. We need to be imaginative. Of course, we need to include the industry itself, whether it's the cruise ship people or the airlines, to become restorative. Think about that definition was bandied about years ago, that tourism should be restorative. People should go home with a new appreciation of who and where and what we are and our responsibilities to the planet.

Finally, and as a consequence of that, CBJ should immediately announce that we will not approve any facility or change in operations if there is a visitor industry that allows the increasing use of fossil fuel. We will support the Green Corridor and other programs that are in place to reduce the amount of fossil fuel that we are burning, replacing with benign fuels when they become available. Approaching zero. Finally, consider that Juneau is an often a primary, uh, refuge, potential refuge city for people fleeing sea level rise. Within a few decades, people are going to be forced out of the coastal areas.

People feeling deadly heat, fires, floods, severe storms in the lower 48. Where are they going to go? Why not come to Juneau? Well, maybe we don't want 60,000 or 90,000 people here unless we learn to run this community much more efficiently than we do. We have 25,000 or 30,000 registered small vehicles here in town.

At an annual cost of ownership of about $7,000 per vehicle, that's $200 million that flee the community every year. So that's enough. My time's up. Thank you. Thank you for setting a great precedent for time.

Appreciate that. All right, just wanted to make sure the folks on Zoom are able to hear our speakers and hear us. So we good? We're seeing some thumbs up. Great.

Just double-checking. All right, so moving on, I see Jim Powell next on the list.

Yeah, that should be under—. Oh, we can wait. You put it, you put all, so—. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're going to— Um, looks like next Ellen Ferguson.

Ellen, did you want to speak on housing and infrastructure? No, I'll wait. Okay, thank you. All right, then I have Kathy— is it Cowgirl? Cowgirl.

I'll wait for the traffic safety. Okay.

And Tanya Moser. I'll just put my comments online. Okay, great.

And then we have, let's see, oh, Brian. Brian Holst. Brian, where is he? Brian, right here. There he is.

Oh, hi Brian. Oh, you're right, sorry. This is Rhonda. Rhonda.

I think that's Rhonda Mann. Yeah, Rhonda Mann. Forgive me, I have a lot to say, lots of concerns, a lot of— just troubled by what's happening and the overdevelopment of Juneau. And I didn't realize I signed myself up to speak. So, oh, I'm speaking from my heart.

I'm worried about Genoa and population. I'm worried about those of us who are from here, born and raised here. It's just getting demolished. People are moving here. I don't— I think we need to rethink what growth means.

We don't need to be I don't know, like cancerous, and just multiplying, growing, and knocking things down and building more and more houses. We can do something special and more elite and keep our land the way it is without over-infrastructure and mega complexes and highways and roads. It would be a lot more quaint. I have so much more to say, and I didn't realize—. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

I know it's hard in 3 minutes. We remind anyone who, you know, didn't have a chance to or did not sign up for whatever reason, don't forget you can also email if you have more thoughts later. Okay, I think that's it. Is anyone else interested in speaking on housing and infrastructure? Actually, I'm sorry, I didn't want to be involved, but since there's not a whole lot of time, just a really quick point.

It seems to me that I haven't seen anybody talking about the connection between the summer workforce that gets imported to Juneau and the housing crisis. And there's just, there's a huge connection there. And so these different topics are not independent. Siloed topics. They're very interrelated, and I'd just like to ask that the planning group thinks about why we have such a housing crisis.

And it's because businesses are buying up housing for their seasonal workers, and locals— local businesses that work year-round are having a hard time hiring upper-level executives and staff because they can't find a house in Juneau. So housing is being very dramatically affected by the summer seasonal workforce that we bring in each year. So that's that. Thank you. Thank you.

And it looks like we have a raised hand from Barb on Zoom. Are we able to unmute Barb?

Can you hear me?

Perfect.

Um, I just wanted to comment on housing and existing neighborhoods. Um, since we're talking about Douglas Island, there seems to be quite a bit of piecemeal development going on here. Um, and I would like to see built into this community planning some protections for the over, what, 500 residential driveways along North Douglas Highway and also down into Douglas. We have suggested and in the middle of being permitted projects that will add greatly to our existing infrastructure and highway traffic, and it's already— we're seeing just a ton of traffic. So it's made it feel kind of dangerous for neighborhood out this way.

I'm out North Douglas. So I'd like to see some kind of discussion or planning for the enormous amount of traffic along North Douglas Highway as we move ahead.

Any other folks on Zoom who would like to speak on housing and infrastructure before we move on to transportation roads?

Anyone else?

Good evening. My name is Mike Stanley. I'm a resident of North Douglas and have been involved with the North Douglas Neighborhood Association for well over 2 decades. One of the main things that we've asked for all that time is for an area planning process for North Douglas, not unlike there's been area planning processes for Lemon Creek, Waterfront, West Juno. And we've been asking for this for a long, long time, and it's actually been mentioned in the 2013 Comp Plan that there should be an area-specific planning process for enough Douglas because the topic here is future development.

Well, there's a lot of future development going on, and it's not in the future. It's happening right now, and it's all happening without any guidance, without any parameters, without any understanding of the impacts overall to our neighborhood. And it's imperative that we have an area planning process for North Douglas. And every time we bring this up, you know, we get, oh yeah, that's a good idea. We should do that.

We should do that. Yeah, we know it's in the comp plan, but they pat us on the head and send us off. And then they tell us, well, we're going to redo the comprehensive plan first, and then maybe we'll get to your area planning process. Well, that's unacceptable. We've got to have an area plan where you involve the residents and others affected on North Douglas so that we can at least have some kind of framework for how development is going to take place on North Douglas.

And, you know, it's just—. It's way overdue. And I really encourage you to— I know there will be sections of the comp plan about North Douglas, as there are in the current comp plan, Section 8, I believe it is. But that's not the same. What we're talking about is an actual planning process for North Douglas.

And I don't want to come here in 10 years and be asking for the same thing. So please, you know, heed what we've been asking for, again, for 2 decades or more. And it's something that everybody agrees should happen, just hasn't happened yet. Thank you. Yes.

All right, we have time for one more. I saw one hand and then we're going to move on to our next topic.

Unfortunately, the way you have separated these topics out misses the fact that they're all intertwined. So I want to speak to some of the intertwined issues. I'm Douglas Mertz. I'm a resident of North Douglas. I have been for 25 years, have been a Juneau resident for 40 years, an Alaska resident for 50 years.

For years we've been asking to be listened to, and it hasn't happened. Right now we know that the North Douglas Highway is overcapacity, is dangerous, and that it will get worse with the End of the Road developments, with the casino, with increasing tourism. We see dangerous traffic. Those of us who live here, we see it every day. We've asked for a study of the bench road possibility to alleviate traffic on the neighborhood highway.

We've asked for speed and safety types of alleviations of the danger. Nothing has happened. We've asked for guns to be restricted in North Douglas. Well, they put up a sign. But it's still happening.

We've asked for and actually got a hearing about 15, 20 years ago on the busyness out of the dock, North Douglas Dock, and a big study was done, plans were hailed, drawn up, and nothing happened.

We've asked for coordination among all the agencies. That have a role in what happens here— Department of Transportation, the police department, the troopers, Docks and Harbors, the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Basically nothing has happened, and consultation with us hasn't happened. What I'm asking is— and by us I mean the North Douglas Neighborhood Association and any other way to approach the neighbors who live here. What will it take for you folks to listen to us? Now, I apologize for having said that. It sounds accusatory, and some of you weren't even born when this process started.

But we're still waiting, and we, as Mike said, we hope we won't be waiting another 20 years. Will it take accidents to happen? Will it take deaths to happen? How much worse will it get before you folks decide, yes, we need to listen to North Douglas residents?

All right, and is the microphone working? It is hot, it's live. It doesn't, uh, project out here. Project you, doesn't project So it might be a better idea to move the chair to the other side. Yeah, that's what— yeah, yeah.

So the audience can hear. I like the idea.

I don't know.

I think to the table. So they would let everybody choose which—. We want the staff in the front row is what we're saying. Listening, don't worry, we're listening. All right, we're going to move on to transportation and roads.

Um, and I see that Rhonda has also signed up for that. We can start with Rhonda. Rhonda, now I am—. I didn't know I signed up. Um, oh Lord, I need like Davids.

For—. I'm in North Davids, born and raised on the— I've seen Tuna quite a bit, but it's pretty stable and I like it that way. 20,000 To 30,000 people remain, that's perfect. We can make our town remain that way. We don't need to expand it.

We have so many roads. I do understand roads, that is necessary, it seems. I like that idea of a Tiger Bench Road in North Bethesda. So you're not affecting all the homes along the road there that have been there for a very long time. It's called the Union State.

What else to say? Tourism.

I love tourists. Love tourism. Love Juno. I love showing it off. I love telling people about it.

I think that should be a patch. Thinking outside the box. Somehow do this much with them and not let it be an endless flow of ships and buses and such. And it could be a lot of— it could be, you know, people have to wait a year before they can come up here. I mean, that's totally feasible.

I don't think we can breathe like whatever from the lower 48 is up here to get away from all this. And then they come here and create it and leave the rest of us to live.

Thank you. So can I request that we keep to the plan that everybody speaks once until the rest of time? Well, sure. I mean, yes. Um, okay, let's move on.

Actually, oh, and speaking of plans, yeah, let's make sure that the Zoom, uh, folks have an opportunity to raise their hand and let us know if want to speak, um, um, if— oh right, on, uh, transportation and roads. Anyone on Zoom, you can raise your hand if you would like to speak on transportation and roads. In the meantime, we'll move on, and we do have a speaker who has not yet spoken, so let's, um, get to Patricia Collins.

All right. Oh, okay. Oh, I'm kidding.

I stand, so I'm speaking to everybody. Is this the hot side? Yeah. So basically, I just want to speak to the bench road. You know, the bench road basically, in my point of view, answers a whole, like, all of the things that are CBJ's main priorities at this point in time.

Housing. The Bench Road has— North Douglas has a ton of buildable land. It's just about getting to it. And the Bench Road provides us with that ability. As far as traffic goes, North Douglas is busy.

We all know that. The best way to solve that and make it so that North Douglas, which has so many driveways, practically, it is a neighborhood. Should be 30 miles an hour. You know, the best way to solve that is to build the bench road and have all the buses up there on the bench road, limited accesses to the neighborhoods, your thousands of houses that could be up there. Yes, that'll take a second bridge, you know, because I know our bridge is at capacity, but that solves that.

We're going to have even more traffic. It's just a fact. And I cannot agree more with Sorry, I don't remember your name. With Mike, what Mike, I think, said in that North Douglas should be, should have its own comprehensive plan. It really does need looked at as an entity, especially with all the things that are absolutely happening as far as casino and the docks that are going to be out there.

Even if they say all the tourists are going to get on boats and go elsewhere, all the goods All the employees, all the toilet paper, that's all traveling down North Douglas Highway, you know. So the bench road, I cannot emphasize enough how important I feel it is for CBJ to put that as a big priority. It's not gonna flood, it's not gonna have landslides, it's not avalanche prone. Tons of buildable land that CBJ owns already waiting for you. That's my two cents.

Um, I'm gonna— did you have a quick— I had a very quick question. Could someone please explain what is a bench road? I'll explain bench road. I'm the one that just talked about it. Yeah, you know, basically it's a bypass road.

The idea behind the bench road that came about many, many years ago here in North Douglas was that people come off the bridge and instead of traveling down North Douglas, they go up to another road that's up above it. And that road can be another Egan Drive with, you know, on and off ramps that then go to the neighborhoods that then are 25 miles an hour. There's a lot of buildable land up there. It's about building a second highway, making North Douglas into a neighborhood road. And putting your 55-mile-an-hour highway up there, more or less.

Does that make sense? So we can't build the Douglas Highway? Exactly. That's the bench part. Okay.

All right. All right. That's called bench because it's steep, and then there's a relatively large, sloppy, flat land that forms like a bench before it gets steep again. Thank you, everybody. All right.

So we have— everyone else who has signed up has spoken. And so we're going to call on— we have a Zoom participant, the Chartrans, who have not spoken yet, so we're going to have them speak next. And then Barb, we see your hand up as well, and if we have time, we'll get to other folks who have already made comments on other topics. Um, so Chartrans, do you want to go ahead and speak? You've got 3 minutes.

Hi, this is Robin Marriott, Chartrand. Yes. Okay, so, um, I grew up in Douglas We have lived in North Douglas for 7+ years. We moved out here for the peace and tranquility. I'm going to respectfully contradict and disagree with the prior speaker on the bench road.

I don't want a bench road. I don't want all that traffic up in the meadows. I kind of like the deer and the bear coming down. If there's a bench road, it's going to open it up for so much more development, which I don't think North Douglas needs, and I don't think Juneau can handle more— too much more development, personally. I can support better traffic control on North Douglas.

I don't like walking my dog on North Douglas. It's very, very, very dangerous. The trucks, the speeders, the curves, the animals, the tourists. I can't even take a walk up at Eagle Crest in the peace without being bombarded with segways and tourists everywhere. It's, it's gotten a little out of control.

So, um, I'm not for a bench road. I'm not for more development out here. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we've got about maybe 5 minutes left on this topic. Let's see, I have— looks like Kathy and Jim.

Ellen and Barb online. Um, so let's do one in person. We'll go to Barb and, um, okay. Yes, my comments are oriented towards the out— the person that doesn't live here, so I'll face you. So my name is Kathy Coghill.

I've lived on Douglas for the past 24 years. I'll be expressing concerns identified by the North Douglas Neighborhood Association's Subcommittee on Traffic and Safety. The North Douglas Neighborhood Association, as you're learning, incorporated as a nonprofit in 2001, currently has over 100 active dues-paying members. We have a hot, very high level of concern and interest, and this level of engagement has been here for decades. Our number one priority is the safety— this is a subcommittee— our number one priority is the safety of residents and visitors who use the North Douglas Road.

We draw attention to the fact that along this first 9 miles of road, it is entirely composed of residential homes with the single exception of the helicopter facility. The shoulder of this road is crowded with walkers, runners, bicyclists, dog walkers, inline skaters, roller skiers, as well as several folks who travel the shoulder in motorized wheelchairs. We also have kids waiting at bus stops. Tonight on the way here, there were chickens on the shoulder. In 2013, the comprehensive plan listed the following priorities in Section 8.8, I.A.

21. Quote, "Reduce safety hazards related to the increased traffic on North Douglas Highway due to continuing residential development and increased recreational infrastructure on North Douglas." It goes on to list most multiple means to achieve this end, including, quote, "Separated pedestrian and bicycle pathways, reduced speed limits, pull-off areas for buses." These are great ideas. It turns out the entire North Douglas section of this 2013 plan was copied and pasted verbatim from the 2008 plan. Now, 17 years later, with double the number of tourists and no improvements to the North Douglas Highway, we still have the same needs, but with vastly greater urgency. We have tourists in clusters on bikes and Segways.

We have vans carrying wide racks of kayaks, other vans carrying racks of bikes, and we have growing number of massive industrial trucks loaded with rocks and gravel. These heavy trucks can't stop quickly, and the consequences of any collisions are grave. The dangers have escalated beyond comprehension since 2008, and we are in dire need of these previously proposed safety measures being implemented. Finally, the last 3 comprehensive plans, '93, '08, and 2013, all recommend a bench road. This is an excellent idea which would decrease congestion and improve safety by moving through traffic out of the north Douglas neighborhood.

This would further support the 2013 Comp Plan's goal stated in Section 8.8(i)(a)(23) to, quote, maintain and enhance the existing character of the North Douglas community. Finally, in closing, as we ponder the impacts of more West Juneau tourism, which they've already clear-cut out at the end of the road if you haven't looked yet, and the housing development, let's remember that the Tourism Best Management Plan goal for, quote, finding a balance between tourism needs and the rhythm of local life. You're hearing about the rhythm of local life here tonight a lot. So the bench road would do just that while easing many of the traffic and safety concerns. Thank you.

And Mr. Allen? Sorry, I'm Kathy Coghill. Thank you.

All right, we're going to go to Barb. Barb? Go ahead when you're ready. You have 3 minutes.

Mute. Here I am. Thank you. I want to speak in support of a bench road, um, and I understand, you know, neighbors that would have that impacting them would care a lot about that, but I think the safety of North Douglas is at stake here, and what we're seeing is this unbridled allowance for tourism gets completely unbridled. And so a bench road would alleviate— you could have large electric buses would be one idea.

All of the tourism vehicles should be electric and should be sent up to a bench road. But in concert with that, what needs to happen from CBJ, and I hope this ends up in the comprehensive plan, is some kind of limit on the development of tourism. And I, I spent quite a bit of time this week trying to understand why it keeps growing even though so many of us are speaking against the additional growth. And that is because in looking at this complex that's looking to be permitted out at the end of the road, um, who is in charge of that? Well, it's owned by Native Corporation, which is Fabulous, wonderful.

But when you start looking at the permitting, you've got Army Corps involved and then a number of other permits that they will have to receive. But once that's in place, who's actually managing that? Who is managing the traffic on the ocean over to Auq Bay? Who is managing the safety of that traffic? Who's watching out for whales?

Who is watching out for traffic on North Douglas? I mean, I found out nobody's in charge, basically. The Marine Exchange can only track marine traffic. They don't have any control over it. The harbor is a public government city agency.

They'll permit anybody who wants a boat out on the ocean. They just— they don't have any caps on those. They'll permit everybody. The Coast Guard is in charge of safety on the ocean, but they don't have any limit. And NOAA is in charge of whales— well, if you can be in charge of a whale— but they're not going to cap anything as far as whale watching boats.

So the only way to stop this unbridled development is for the City and Borough of Juneau to step up, to decide 5-boat limit is it, and enforce that. And in addition, we need to look at the number of people in town on any given day. I was looking at cruise ship numbers— what is it, an additional 10,000 people every day, 6 days a week more? How much infrastructure are we, um, letting them have? Our wastewater, our sewer system, our landfill— they were putting mattresses in our landfill.

For years. Barb, that is time. Thank you for your comment.

All right, I'm going to move us on to tourism and recreation so that we have a little bit of time at the end, um, for more open comments, um, or if anyone wants to circle back who had signed up for multiple, um, topics that wants to go back to those topics. So the only person I have on my list that has not spoken on any topic and signed up for tourism and recreation is Jim Powell. But I also want to give the folks on Zoom an opportunity to raise their hand if they are interested in speaking on recreation and tourism. It's—. I haven't spoken and I wanted to speak on—.

Oh, sure. I'm Helen. Ellen, I'm so sorry for missing that. Go, let's go ahead to Ellen and then we'll move on to Tourism and Recreation. Thank you.

And you have 3 minutes. Thank you. Okay, thanks for hosting this. I'm the current president of the North Douglas Neighborhood Association and a 40-year resident of North Douglas. I'm compelled, compelled to comment about the current need for a North Douglas area plan.

40 Years ago, North Douglas was a country road where I walked my two dogs without a care. It is now a busy highway with constant traffic, including both numerous tourist buses and very heavy trucks with rocks and other building materials for new construction. I am wary of walking a half mile to Five Mile Creek or further up the road towards Six Miles to see my friends. Sadly, being a pedestrian along the highway feels dangerous. Whether it's in summer light or winter darkness.

Over the last 25 years, North DNA has created several surveys for its members regarding issues in this area. This year's survey asked residents about the second crossing option, possibility of a bench road, increases in tourism, traffic and safety, and the need for an area plan. The responses from our 100+ people membership can be diverse, but also show the North Douglas Neighborhood Association board and committee that residents here on North Douglas care deeply, and when asked, offer sound options with the knowledge, the history of this road that we live along. Its quiet beauty and access to the water, wetlands, muskag, glacier viewing, and mountains is unbeatable. We know that tourists love it too.

We know that new development in North Douglas is in North— is in Douglas Island's future. The 2 final items on our survey were not controversial. On our membership survey, we found that residents have increasing concerns about the amount of traffic on North Douglas Highway and all agree there is a need for a North Douglas area plan. The safety of commuters and pedestrians is at stake. Please take this moment to anticipate and develop an area plan that will satisfy both residents and future development.

We need your support. We appreciate that CBJ heard residents last fall when CBJ was rezoning large parcels of its property for D3 and new housing. The Fish Creek site was not approved due to the nonexistent sewer and water infrastructure. We're glad you listened. Now we foresee a huge 250-acre West Douglas development that will require so much infrastructure.

I hope to find there will be an extension to the Army Corps permitting application. Comments are due at the end of this week. One month is not enough time to review the 50+ document, 50-page+ document. I hope that CBJ will join with North Douglas Neighborhood Association in asking for a comment extension and public hearing on this project. Development is inevitable, but must have conditions that do not harm the residents who live along North Douglas Highway.

North Douglas Highway is a conduit for many development projects planned in the future of Juneau. I believe North Douglas Highway road structure is not meant for continuous vehicle use. It is not built like Egan Drive. North Douglas Highway was meant for residential traffic. Please conduct road and traffic safety to ensure the safety of its residents.

Thank you.

Did we have a question? And you have not spoken yet, so go ahead. We've got 3 minutes. Whenever you're ready.

I'm ready now. Fred Hiltner is my name. Fred. The 40-year resident of North Douglas. I've 3 times assisted or pulled out people from cars that crashed off the road on North Douglas over those 40 years.

And North Douglas Highway is clearly overcapacity. Huge trucks carrying rocks or development. Out towards the end of the road are speeding, and sometimes they're double-trailer roads filled with shot rock and that sort of thing. And the thinking that that truck can stop safely if a kid's riding their bike out there is beyond imagination to me. And that's— I'm very concerned about kids on that road.

My son learned to ride his bike on North Douglas Highway. That's something we would not even imagine possible. Now. I don't think anybody here would want their kids riding on that highway. A new plan needs to protect the people of North Douglas and visitors.

I agree that the bench road is the most logical alternative given the local terrain. It is steep out there by the boat ramp, but I remember once asking somebody about the road to Skagway. He was one of the road builders. He said, we can build a road anywhere, and I believe that's possible to get— go out past the boat ramp. Lessen the traffic issues.

It's important that we see this as an immediate need and not wait for years and years before a plan is developed.

As an airplane pilot, there's a term called the power curve. And the power curve, if you're ahead of the power curve, that means as you come into the runway, if you have an engine failure or carburetor ice, that sort of thing, you have enough altitude to land on the runway. Right now, uh, Juneau is way behind that power curve. We can't land on the runway now with this way planning is happening now. Uh, we need to get as close as we can though, uh, by, uh, planning.

And I appreciate that you're here helping us with the planning. We parked across the road tonight and walked up the driveway, and as I was walking towards the driveway, this huge bus came by. That little shoulder is 4 feet wide, and I was scared by that walking along there. The dust whipped up next to me. This bus was going, you know, probably a bit over the speed limit, and I was scared already just taking a walk on this road that I've lived on for so long.

So I just think it's got to be an immediate priority, uh, to make it safer for residents. Thank you.

All right, I think we are ready to move on to tourism and recreation. And so I'm going to just once again remind the Zoom folks that if you are interested on speaking on tourism and recreation, you can raise your hand now or indicate that as we move on. And I see one hand being raised. We're noting that. And I did say that we have one person in the room that's not had a chance to speak yet who indicated they wanted to speak on this topic.

So we'll start with Jim Powell and we'll move to Zoom. And then if other folks in the room are interested in speaking on this topic, we will. I think we have a few folks who have signed up and I think we will have time, but let's get through these first two and then we'll go from there.

Okay, good afternoon. Thanks for holding this meeting and thanks for the opportunity to speak. My name is Jim Powell. I've been a resident of North Douglas for 35 years, living at 10601 Horizon Drive. I've also been working with the North Douglas Neighborhood Association on a bunch of issues.

I'm also a research professor at UAS and a member of the research team that studies cruise ship impacts and communities here in Juneau and also across the Arctic. Excuse me, got a terrible cold. Additionally, I served on the assembly for 9 years, including deputy mayor. I would like to make 3 points tonight. You've heard a lot of points here, and I would support many of them.

First one: cruise ship impacts need to be managed at the neighborhood scale. Different neighborhoods have significantly different impacts. Currently, at the community-wide scale, They're managed by a variety of agencies and regulatory rules. However, at the neighborhood scale, Juneau largely relies on non-regulatory PBMP, if you know what that is. Currently, only one guideline exists for North Douglas out of 111 guidelines.

We're really not present in that document, and we need to be. Um, more guidelines need to be established. In North Douglas for sure.

The association, North Douglas Neighborhood Association, is ready and able to identify first the impacts in our neighborhood from tourism, and then based upon those impacts, develop measures, or you might say indicators, and ideally come up with a dashboard so we can monitor them. Right now we don't do that. The only folks that are doing tourism managing are the regulatory agents for air, water, and other things. We don't look at all the impacts, and we're certainly not managing them that way. We need to do that.

Perhaps that could be part of a comprehensive plan. And I know that some are thinking about the comprehensive plan being used more indicators and more of a live thing. I support that. Number 2, increase the dialogue between the neighborhoods, the neighborhoods, DOT, CBJ, and the Native corporations. Based upon conversations with the public, CBJ, and DOT, there are gaps in information.

I mean, how many people in this room know that there are 2 MOAs that have been struck? I mean, the information about tourism is just not out there. We've got to do better on that. It leads to misinformation and frustration. The North Douglas Association again stands ready to organize, meet, and attend these meetings to get these folks together to do stuff.

Building on neighborhood local knowledge, we can better build the comprehensive plan. Third, my last point, tourism, cruise tourism issues ranked by the neighborhood associations in 2019 and 2025. And when we brought all the neighborhood associations and they discussed neighborhood impacts, the impacts were ranked by the ones that were getting better than ones that were getting worse. And just to let you know, overcrowding number 1, whales 2, third noise, helicopter noise is rising again, and then lack of control by the government. And also the ones that got better, air and wastewater discharge, because they got better because they were regulated.

Okay, thank you very much. Thanks for your work.

Um, all right, so we've— is there anyone who have not spoken who would like to speak on tourism and recreation? All right, we've got one in the room, so we'll go ahead. And what was your name? Thank you, my name is Carol Hart. I was a 10-year resident of North Douglas back when you could walk on the shoulders and it was [MASKED] Sorry, North Douglas.

I want to raise some issues that have come about because of things that were not included because they were consensus items, both in the Downtown Waterfront Plan and in the Off-Day Area Plan, which I was involved in. In both of those, there was overwhelming consensus for no cruise dock, on the waterfront plan and for no cruise tourism development in the Auke Bay plan, because there was such amazing consensus right up front, there was no discussion. It wasn't captured in the plan. Everybody was like, we agree, and they forgot to put it in the plan. So as authors of the plan that will be reviewed, please— When there's agreement on a really important issue, make sure that the agreement says there shall be no X in the plan.

And on that bent, I would say that making no new heliports and no floatplane tours or floatplane— don't let the West Douglas development have another heliport and more floatplane dock runway, however it's managed. Yeah, I'll have written comments, but don't overlook including what shouldn't be there that we agree on. Thank you for your comments.

Paulette, we saw that— is Paulette on Zoom? Paulette Simpson, we saw that you unmuted. Were you wanting to speak or was that accidental? If you're wanting to speak, feel free to raise your hand or unmute now.

See that you unmuted, but we cannot hear you if you're trying to speak.

Okay, well, Paula, if you have— if you would like to speak, you can use the hand raise function, um, or let us know if you would like to, to make a comment. We are not able to hear you currently. Um, so I'm gonna— while we're— while Zoom is thinking— Barb, we do see your hand. I'm going to see if anyone else in the room who has not yet had a chance to speak would like to speak on tourism Recreation. I saw a couple folks here, so feel free to come up.

Yeah, in the purple sweatshirt, or yeah, either one of you that just raised your hand.

And what was your name? My name is Gary Gillette. Um, I have thoughts on all of the topics that we talked about tonight. Well, my main concern of this comprehensive plan project is its timing. It says it's going to be a 3-year process.

We have development that's been talked about, will be well completed within that 3 years. Most notably the cruise dock on West Juneau. As somebody mentioned, comments from the Corps of Engineers, which kind of surprised me, they're already You only have a week left to comment on that. They're that far ahead. There's no— there's been no indication if there's going to be a conditional use permit by the city, which typically you would have for a something like this.

But again, the whole thing seems to be rushed. The community didn't even hear about it until essentially their plans were made, and they, um, they've been doing work out there. There's been a lot of comment about a North Douglas Area Plan. To me, that's a higher priority if we're going to even consider the impacts of this development. By the time— like I mentioned, by the time this comp plan is done, that will be underway.

There won't be much that can be done, and I'm not sure that the city has, based on past actions, are going to slow that project down. Personally, I would suggest a moratorium on that level of development in our community before this comp plan is done. As another— [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Another side of that is that we're also going through zoning rewrite, and the zoning rewrite is based on the 2013 comp plan. We're spending millions of dollars to rewrite the zoning ordinance, which is the authority to, uh, to control the comp plan. And now we're changing the comp plan.

Does that mean we're going to have to go back through and rewrite the zoning again? So the whole thing to me is kind of Timing isn't good and we need to take the time to do it right.

Thank you.

One other in the room has not commented yet, so—. Hi. Hi, and your name? My name's Danielle Brown Farrell. Thank you.

I live, um, I'm just past Eagle Crest and I'm a business owner over in that area. And I'm going to speak on a couple of points relating to roads and recreation. And I'll start with the most recent thing. The boat launch here on North Douglas, it's not uncommon for 5 or 6 boats lined up to get in and out of the launch. And so people are fighting to get out, people are fighting to get in.

And it was just a crab opener. And it's the first time I was really shocked each time I went to that launch and how frustrated every single person that you ran into, because you just couldn't get in and you couldn't get out. And there were shouting matches and all kinds of things, which I've never seen before. So the boat launch needs, it needs something. And as you would develop that area and, and make it more efficient for people, it would be great to have a seawalk go through because there are so many walkers and joggers.

I'm one of them. I jog with my 12-year-old child out there. It would be great if there was a seawalk put in to tie in with the boat launch down to the trails out there. That would be just wonderful. As a homeowner on North Douglas, I've gone to the city and met with the mayor.

I've, I've met with Robert Barr. Um, there are a lot of people that go up to the CBJ Quarry and they're shooting their semi-automatic guns rapid succession, uh, morning until night, all hours, and you never can do anything. And I call the police, I call the troopers, and I call the mayor's office. And I have every person that comes to the plant nursery and they're also doing it. And we can't get any traction.

There's places in town that are regulated and specific for hunters to sight in their scopes or just pistol shooters. We have that in the community. And the quarry up on Eagle Crest is not that location. And it's a huge liability for the families out there with their children, with the dog walkers, the berry pickers. And that is not the location.

To have people shooting semi-automatic guns.

The other item is, as a mom, I take my child out to the boat lot or out to the road for the school buses, and those cars are just going so fast, and we have no side medians for the children. They can't ride their bikes. It's just, it's really not safe. That would be really nice if something could be done to widen that, or like everybody's saying, the bench road, that, that's a no-brainer really.

And just in that same topic with the highway, it's a residential highway. In the winters, people are snowplowing, snowplows get stuck, traffic gets stopped. Thank you.

Let's check to see if we have anyone else on Zoom who has any comments that have not yet spoken. Daniel, we see you in meeting. Did you have a comment or was that accidental?

That was accidental. My apologies. No problem. All right. Kind of continue to offer to the Zoom folks that if anyone who has not given comment would like to give comment on the topic of tourism and recreation, you can.

I'm going to give a few more minutes for this topic. Is there anyone else in the room who has not had a chance yet to speak on this topic or any other topics that would like to speak?

If not, I'm going to go to Barb, who is online. And then I'll open it up to the room for maybe 1 to 2 more folks who have spoken on other topics. If they have any comments on tourism and recreation, you can raise your hand at that point. Let's go to Barb now. Go ahead, Barb.

Thank you. I think previously I neglected to thank you folks for holding this meeting and the others and for having a community planning process that involves us. So I do appreciate that very much. I also wanted to say I've lived out here 20-some-odd years, and I've been in Juneau 40, Alaska a little bit longer than that. So we've seen a lot of changes in Juneau for sure.

But I want to go back to what I was saying previously about the complex that is being built as we speak at the end of the island. And the lack of anyone really in charge of that. Again, Marine Exchange, Harbor, CBJ Harbors, Coast Guard, NOAA, none of those entities are really in charge. They're all in the business of allowing these things to happen. And I come to find out that our cruise line schedule for next year, 2026 season, is already in place when the cruise ships come in.

A captain goes out, brings them in, and parks them at the docks, and that is already figured out for next season. And the people doing that is the Cruise Lines of Alaska agency. So basically, they're in charge of our tourism. We are not.

I want to go back to the idea that We need to be in charge of it. The City and Borough of Juneau needs to manage those numbers and enforce those numbers because no one else will do it. The cruise lines will sell as many tickets as they can sell, and people come here and they, you know, they buy their tickets and do their trips because they're offered. It's not their fault. It is on us to provide some kind of a roadmap, some guardrails, some numbers that make sense for our town.

And so my hope for this comprehensive plan is that we can come up with those guardrails and those numbers, and that the city and borough of Juneau can sit down at the table more. I know they've already done it, but some more with the cruise lines and manage this situation. So right now it looks to me like there's a new dock, cruise line dock going in downtown. There are 2 more docks going out at the end of the island here. That puts it, what, 7 ships?

We're just going to let that happen. I would like to know who's in charge, and I hope the comprehensive plan can shed some light on that and some guidance on that and take into consideration what people are saying tonight, the concerns that are being voiced, transportation, infrastructure. Crowding too many, too many people on our road. So that's my hope for the comprehensive plan, and I do appreciate you folks listening to us tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Barb.

All right, so I'll take this opportunity then if there's anyone else in the room who would like to give comment. Yes, we have a I'm other. Other. Okay, we've got another comment. I think, yeah, we can.

Thanks. Nancy Waterman. And the concept of an urban service boundary hasn't come up in the existing comp plan. It exists, it's defined, but then it's wishy-washy. And I think a new comprehensive plan should be definitive about how we use an urban service boundary with no exceptions.

The new growth area also needs redefining. Modules, we all need to understand what that means. And again, No exceptions. They have to be adopted before any component of a new growth area exists. The comprehensive plan now doesn't do that well.

And I think our political entity, the Assembly, hasn't done it well.

Also, I'll follow up. I wonder how could a new comprehensive plan integrate Title 49 such that the rules that we live by are integrated into the new comprehensive plan. So immediate needs following the rules are also reflected in our comprehensive plan. That might also relate to Gary Gillette's suggestion of the zoning work that has been recently done. So will the maps in the new document be up to date?

Thank you. Appreciate your comments.

Yes, we have another, uh, in-person speaker.

Thank you. I'm David Epstein. I live on North Douglas, and I also sit on the Planning Commission. I just want to make everyone aware that tomorrow night's Commission meeting is going to be a committee of the whole meeting. We're having a little trouble hearing.

Or maybe face the people a little more. The Planning Commission meeting tomorrow night is a committee of the whole meeting. That a lot of the folks that are presenting here tonight are going to be there. And it'll be an opportunity to hear about the process for the entire city and borough. Everyone hear that?

7 O'clock at Centennial Hall, not City Hall. Centennial Hall in the main ballroom. They're accommodating people like me who don't hear well. The acoustics in the assembly chambers are no good.

Assembly chambers don't have the best audio. I agree with you there. Thank you, Commissioner.

All right, yes, and so I think, um, we can have comment on tourism or recreation or other. I think at this point, um, yeah, and, and we'll go ahead and let, uh, our next speaker speak. And then if anyone on Zoom has something that they would like to speak on outside of the 3 topics that we had for you tonight, um, we are going to have about another 10 or so minutes to do that. Um, so if anyone is interested in picking on any other topics who is on Zoom, please go ahead and raise your hand and we'll get to you after this. Hi, thank you.

Carla Hart again. Building on what Nancy said and then also on Gary's, the assembly in the past adopted conditions for the Hoonah Totem dock downtown that said it shall have shore power. I appealed that. It went through a formal appeal process. And it turns out that the law in the state of Alaska is anything that's adopted into the comprehensive Comprehensive Plan is aspirational.

So it doesn't matter if the Assembly said this shall happen, it's aspirational and they can throw it out. So I don't know if there's any way in terms of building some teeth into the Comprehensive Plan to take the aspirational part out of it and put some regulatory teeth in it.

We don't have anyone on Zoom yet raising a hand. Anyone else? Yeah.

3 Minutes. Hi, I'm just going to say something real quick. I'll submit email comments, but my name is Lisa. I've lived on Douglas Island for 20 years, and I guess looking at all of the topics together, the thing that comes to my mind is Do we want to support endless growth, right? Like, can the economy support endless growth?

No, we're finding it can't. And Juneau is a constricted place, and I just wonder, like, is that what we want? And so I've spent a lot of time digging in past comp plans for other things related to my business, and one of the things I really found was the integrity of a neighborhood is supposed to be maintained. And when I think about the integrity of North Douglas, I think about having large lots, not seeing into your neighbor's windows, not hearing when they're running a vacuum cleaner. Like, we have space to have our boats and have our gardens and raise animals.

And then we have space for recreation, which is, you know, available to the whole community, not just the residents of North Douglas. But that is intact spaces for hunting, for access to fishing in creeks, and berry picking, and foraging, and I think development— we keep thinking of high-density housing because that's what the city says our housing solution is. But the integrity of North Douglas is having larger lots, and the city does have 1,000 acres alongside Fish Creek Road where they could— maybe there could be development there. But I really think that maintaining the integrity of North Douglas for the peace— the, the reason why people live here is because of how it's set up. We don't want to replicate the valley.

With the Bentrop and off-ramps and high-density housing. And that's what I'm saying. All right, anyone else have any other comments? We'll open the floor for any final comments from folks online or in person. I'm sure we have one more in person here and we have 3 minutes starting here.

I want to respond to several things that were said. I think it was Martin perhaps that lamented that Juneau is out of control of the cruise ship industry. We are a monopoly here. We, the people, the CBJ government, have a monopoly on Juneau. There's only one Juneau.

We control it. We live here. Now we can't do that in violation of certain laws like the Navigation Clause in the Constitution. But there are many things that we can do if we only chose to assert our monopoly power. Secondly, we could completely reconfigure this town if we were brave enough to consider a fixed guideway transit system.

I've been trying to pitch this for decades. We could eliminate— if we could eliminate half of the personal vehicles that we think we must own, 2 or 3 per family, at $7,000 per vehicle per year. That's $100 million of our after-tax income that leaves town. That'd be very expensive to build a fixed-gas system. We get 1.6 million cruise ship visitors.

If we increase the per-person tax from whatever it is now by another $100, that would be $160 million per year in addition to the $100 million that we save of our personal architecture income, we could do a lot of construction here. Finally, it's hard for us to imagine as humans how urgent the climate change problem is. There's no excuse for the CBJ not saying to whoever wants to build something at the end of the North Douglas Highway, you will not do that. We will not permit that. We will not permit burning more fossil fuels anywhere in the cruise ship industry or the visitor industry in this town.

This is our town, our planet. Our primary obligation, responsibility, and opportunity is to Earth. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Yes. Yeah, I just wanted to say I'm so happy that so many people came out to this tonight. And I mentioned that the Army Corps of Engineers is doing that permitting process. And so just for people on Zoom and people here tonight, just know that the comment period is over on August 28th. And we are asking as North Douglas Neighborhood Association to extend that as hopefully 30, um, 30 or 90 days, 3 months, and, uh, also have a public meeting on it because that is also in on page 10 of their document.

And you can find that document, um, you find it several places, I'm sure, but it is on our website, norddouglasneighborhoodassociation.com. You can go there and we do have a tab on West Douglas and we're going to be trying to put more there. And join us if you can send a note to them. The address is there. And you could also say something about what's going on out there as well as ask for an extension.

I know I am really concerned about the humpback whales because when that dock goes out there and more whale watching boats are out there, we all go out on North Douglas, out there to North Lyndick Canal, and we're down to Stevens Passage. There are a lot of whales out there. And there's a lot of whale watching boats chasing after them. And this is only going to be more of that kind of activity. And I know the Environmental Protection Agency will be looking into that.

But I think we can start commenting on several aspects of this beforehand. So come to our website and check it out. We're trying to be informative too. And we have a Facebook page too. Thank you.

And thank you.

All right, thank you for those comments.

Any last comments, uh, that folks want to submit verbally for this meeting? Anyone on Zoom want to comment? Any last in person? We have one taker for perhaps our final comments.

My name is Margo Waring, and I'm a 55-year resident of Alaska and a 50-year resident of Juneau. So I've seen a lot of changes in our community.

Some of them good, some of them not. And one of the things that we've really messed up is not thinking about the infrastructure that it takes to do the things that lots of people in our community want to do. And specifically, the North Douglas Highway is so limited as a neighborhood highway and so unable to deal with commercialization of tourism. I don't know that a bend road would save that problem, would solve that problem. But I do know that it's a problem.

If anything is going to be happening in North Douglas, and I hope that the comprehensive plan is going to address it. I'm not convinced it will, because I've seen So many times that the community backs away from saying things like West Douglas has to be isolated. It cannot use a residential road as a place for commercial vehicles going back and forth and servicing an entirely new board. Um, I hope I'm wrong. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

All right, well, I believe we're going to wrap it up there. Um, so just as a reminder to folks, we will have public comments on the topics from this meeting open until September 7th. So that gives you about 2 weeks. We will be posting the recording from this meeting probably next week. Oh, yes, sorry, Barb, I believe I did promise.

Barb, Barb, Barb, do you have another comment or do you have a question? Or was that just the end? I just have one last comment. Sorry, I'm kind of monopolizing. I apologize, but—.

That's okay. This will be our last comment and then we're going to wrap. I think listening tonight, important to note that, um, just a lot of— I don't know, I always feel like I complain too much and don't come up with solutions. But I would hope we could envision in a comprehensive plan for North Douglas things like places for our children to play, for instance, parks and recreation for our own families. Our own children, safe places.

Because we've been using the highway, it's no longer safe. Can we talk about electrified tourism vehicles? All buses, all of those vehicles must be electrified. That would make some sense. So I'd, I'd like to see us try and envision the things that we do want instead of talking so much about what we don't want, because that's already happened.

So that's my final comment. Let's have a visioning of what it could be for us who live here. Thank you.

Barb, she's taking us out on a positive note there. So just again, for these reminders, then we will have a recording of this meeting posted likely maybe early next week. It does take a little while to process that and get it on YouTube. And then we'll have public comment available via email. If you need that email, it's on the sheets that are in the back of the table where Minta is standing.

It's ourfuture.juno.gov is the website and [email protected] is the email. So please send in any further comments you have. Once those comments have been processed, and we will also be kind of, you know, taking everything from our meeting notes that Chris, thank you for taking such great meeting notes. We're also recording so we can capture everything everyone said. We will be doing a meeting kind of synopsis, a report back on the key themes that we've heard here.

This is just the beginning. This is our listen and learn phase 1 of this project. It's a 2.5-year project, so we will be back. We'll be back likely in late fall, maybe late October, early November to do more public engagement. And then again next year, probably in the spring.

Spring, um, just in the next couple phases here. Um, let's see what else. Um, thank you to Juno Makerspace for hosting us tonight. Um, we appreciate your space. Do we have a question?

I just have a question about the process. A gentleman mentioned the planning meeting tomorrow, Planning Commission meeting. What is that and how does that fit in with what you're doing? Yeah, so Planning Commission and the assembly are being in informed of what we're doing throughout the process. We want to make sure that they know what's going on, that they know what we're hearing from community, that they understand what our process is, where we're at, the work products we have, because ultimately those elected groups are going to be helping us, you know, adopt the plan.

And they're involved, you know, involved members of this community. So we're going to be reporting out to them throughout the process. Um, tomorrow night you're mostly reporting out and explaining what's going on. Um, it's not going to be a ton of like receiving feedback from them. We are going to do some short exercise with them.

Um, but that's, that's what that is about. And we'll have touch points with them and with the Assembly throughout the process. And that is open to the public, and those are public events. Yeah, and they'll be recorded. Um, I don't know if there's any opportunity for public comment because I don't believe I got Yeah, so we're supporting CBJ staff throughout the work.

Um, so we are doing public engagement and outreach, obviously, that type of stuff. Um, we're doing— we're helping with, uh, scenario planning, which I'm going to explain tomorrow night at planning commission. So if you're interested in hearing more about that, and we will be doing a scenario planning workshop in the fall, uh, remember It's a way to help us test policy, and so that's work that we do all over the country.

And then we're helping with policy and plan writing. So everything— Chris is a local, so he's helping us a lot with engagement. He's also a landscape architect, designer, so thinking about design. And he also is a land use planner, as am I, so we bring just Extra expertise to focus on staff who are not part of this committee. Be a lot of planning and having a drink or a bite in a bathtub to share and really bond, maybe.

Interaction with the advisory committee to the planning process. Yeah, so We're meeting, we're meeting.