Committee Co-Chairs Charles Nadler and Ean Tafoya convened the meeting. The following items were discussed.

• Ean Tafoya gave quick updates about a) the progress of the Blueprint Denver planning process; b) the Neighborhood Planning Initiative and c) the proposal to allow 2 tall buildings within the Larimer Square Historic District. In future months, the committee will learn more about these items.

• Michael Henry gave a brief summary of the work to date of the city’s Group Living Advisory Committee, which has 9 members from registered neighborhood organizations and about 35 representatives of providers and/or advocates of shelters for homeless persons, community corrections. Group Living Rules Update

• Kevin Priestly and Brad Calvert of the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) discussed DRCOG and its Metrovision Plan. (DRCOG) DRCOG is a quasi-governmental public planning jurisdiction with representation from 9 counties and 50 cities and towns in the Denver metropolitan region. Most regions in the United States have somewhat similar organizations, which perform functions under federal law as Metropolitan Planning Organizations. DRCOG has 2 members from Denver, City Councilman Kevin Flynn and Crissy Fanganello from the Public Works Department (who has recently announced that she will soon retire from city government). DRCOG was organized in 1956 and developed its first regional plan in 1960. It developed its Metrovision 2020 plan in 1997, which included “urban growth boundaries” to reduce urban sprawl) and adopted an updated Metrovision Plan (with no year mentioned) in January 2017. DRCOG does much research and modeling of population, employment, housing, traffic, etc. trends. Kevin and Brad said that population and traffic are “growing by leaps and bounds in every quadrant of the region” and “there is a lot more congestion coming in a fiscally constrained environment.” The DRCOG transportation planning process allocates some federal transportation funds to cities and counties. DRCOG estimates that through 2040 there will be a gap of $47 billion between the transportation needs of $152 billion and reasonably expected revenues of $105 billion. The transportation planning process is now focusing on improving the regional mobility infrastructure and also transportation services for vulnerable populations. Kevin and Brad both stressed that DRCOG works entirely through collaboration among its jurisdictions and that it cannot require any jurisdiction to do anything – “all carrots and no sticks.”

NOTE – NEXT MEETING DATE CORRECTION: The committee will meet next on Saturday May 19 (a different date than usual in order to avoid the Memorial Day weekend).