There is a full agenda Thursday for an early Glenwood Springs City Council meeting before the meet-and-greet with the finalists for the city manager positions.

The regular meeting begins at 4 p.m. at City Hall, 101 W. Eighth St. The city manager finalists meet-and-greet runs from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Glenwood Springs Community Center, 100 Wulfsohn Road. 

Here is what is coming up on the City Council agenda: 

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YouthZone will be presenting on the assistance they offer the youth of Glenwood Springs and Garfield County. 

The organization helps an average of 115 young people in Glenwood and 282 in Garfield county annually, according to the packet they prepared for council. 

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The average cost to serve one youth is $2,000, the packet states. It costs families $150 to initiate services, while YouthZone relies on grant funding to subsidize or eliminate costs for families with financial barriers.  

Of the young people referred to YouthZone, 50% are referred through the courts. Diversion clients had a 100% completion success rate, and 97% of clients did not re-offend after working with YouthZone, the packet states. 

The next item on the agenda is the planned new detoxification center.

Now that the center has been approved, and Glenwood Springs is a member in funding it, they will need to appoint a council representative to the governance committee, according to the council packet.

Councilor Ingrid Wussow has volunteered to serve as the council representative. Councilor Paula Stepp was originally appointed but will not be running for re-election this coming spring. 

Code amendments to require drought resiliency landscaping on its second reading with council. 

In March, the city Planning and Zoning Commission voted to recommend approval of the code changes incorporating xeric-landscape principles into the development code.

City staff incorporated most of the Planning and Zoning Commission’s requested changes, which included over-watering or inefficient watering enforcement language with exemptions for vegetable- and edible-gardening areas.

They also added code for drought-resilient landscaping to apply to new development on single-family and duplex developments. 

Staff would like to come back to the topic of firewise landscaping to be added to the drought-resistant landscaping development code within six months of implementation, the packet states.

Heather Listerman, the city arborist, who is Qualified Water Efficient Landscaper Certified, recommended the code changes include the use of the term “climate adaptive species” in addition to native species to provide plant diversity while maintaining the benefits of native-plant species, according to the packet.

After council’s first reading discussion, city staff made some changes, including: 

• A definition for hydrozones with corresponding watering requirements to the definitions section and updated the penalty enforcement process to a tiered penalty that matches other water-restriction enforcement in code, the packet states. 

• A maximum size of street trees in the downtown core and within planting strips to 35 feet to avoid structural complications with sidewalks and large tree safety removal. 

• A Glenwood Springs Landscaping Plant list guide to be adopted by resolution of city council.

City engineer Terri Partch will be presenting on the 27th Street Underpass funding update.

The Roaring Fork Transportation Authority has been working to design, bid, and fund a pedestrian and bicycle underpass at the intersection of 27th Street and State Highway 82 by the South Glenwood bus station.

This is the city’s second-highest new infrastructure priority next to the South Bridge construction, according to the council packet. 

The project has received $4 million from multiple grants from the Colorado Department of Transportation. The project also recently received a $6 million federal RAISE grant, the packet states.  

In the last year, the bidding cost has increased.

Due to the need for construction management and a contingency fund for the project, the project is still underfunded, the packet states. 

RFTA intends to request that its board award the project out of the intergovernmental agency’s own funding reserves, and city staff is requesting that the council add $100,000 to the overall project funding to help offset the contingency and construction-management needs.

Municipal code for inclusionary zoning will be presented to council.

After a few changes made by the Planning and Zoning Commission, city council is being presented with a couple of options for municipal code changes for more inclusionary zoning. 

City staff is recommending to change the inclusionary-zoning standards of the municipal code from 10% to 20% of units to be made affordable within new development projects. They also recommend having it apply to developments of five or more units, instead of the current 10 or more units requirement. 

P&Z recommended changing the percentage of required affordable units to 20% but only for rental projects and not for-sale units. They also recommended not changing the minimum unit number to five instead of 10, for fear of it affecting local developers.