August 26 council meeting: $197 million workforce housing development detailed; $500,000 AI contract approved
Los Alamos County Council during its August 26 meeting heard details on a new development slated to bring 380 housing units to the county-owned A-8-A parcel on DP Road.
The county’s Housing and Special Projects Manager Dan Osborn and representatives from Servitas, a Texas-based workforce and student housing development firm, presented their proposal for a four-story high-density apartment building between the Canyon Rim Trail and The Bluffs Senior Apartments, as well as a series of lower-density townhomes and “flats” that will extend east along the mesa, south of the TA-21 site.
While 260 of the units will be leased at market rate, 120 will be subsidized through deed restrictions for residents earning 60% to 100% of the Area Median Income. In Los Alamos, the AMI amounts to $116,700 per year for a one-person household.
The total cost of the project is estimated to be nearly $197 million and will be funded through tax-exempt municipal bonds. Los Alamos County will bear the $7.5 million total cost of the permanent deed restrictions, which works out to approximately $23,000 per bedroom.
The best-case scenario for the project timeline is that the first units would be available in 2028. However, part of the site was used as a radioactive material disposal area (MDA B) from 1944-1948. After an extensive remediation campaign by LANL around 2010, the land was declared safe for use and transferred to Los Alamos County, but a small amount of radioactive debris was again unearthed during utility installation work in 2020, resulting in a second remediation campaign by N3B.
In a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management dated February, 14, 2024, the New Mexico Environment Department declared that N3B’s remediation efforts were successful and that “the two Tracts A-8-a and A-16-A do not pose an unacceptable risk … from hazardous constituents to human health and the environment under the residential, industrial, recreational, and construction worker scenarios.” Dealing with any future environmental issues will, of course, be the responsibility of DOE.
In somewhat related housing news, the council also voted 7-0 to approve the 20th Street development agreement with RBMM LLC.
AI coming to county website
The county’s fall 2023 website upgrade cost nearly $300,000 and promised a “new and improved government website designed to better serve and engage with the residents and stakeholders of the community.”
Two years later, many residents and county employees agree that the new website has missed the mark, but council took a step toward adding new AI features during its August 26 meeting by voting 6-1 to approve a fifteen-year contract worth up to $552,000 with Rep'd Software Inc. (pronounced “repped”; short for “Represented”) for its “video engagement platform for municipalities powered by AI.” Only Council David Reagor opposed.
Cathy D’Anna, public relations manager for the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities, said the software would help the county keep the community informed in a timely manner.
“We recognized a need to record and share short video messages quickly, easily, and before rumors and wrong information can take over,” she said. “The Rep’d platform would help us to increase our reach and transparency with the public, and it would give us an edge in getting the facts out before speculation and guesswork gain traction.”
D’Anna said the Rep’d platform also included a chatbot that could answer residents’ questions, which would reduce calls and emails to county staff.
Mark Friese, the Chief Operating Officer at Rep’d, told council members that the software would be trained on the county’s website and its data. The package would also generate talking points, and even full scripts, for short videos that county management and staff can post in response to issues and questions raised by the public.
Councilor Randall Ryti worried that inconsistent information on the county’s website could lead to AI hallucinations, an industry term for when an AI produces a response that contains false or misleading information.
Friese said the Rep’d system was designed to only seek answers within specific documents and data sources. If the AI cannot find the answer to a question within sources provided by the county, it won’t try to look for an answer outside of those sources — like elsewhere on the internet — limiting the possibility of a wrong answer, according to Friese. Any failed queries would also be used to alert the county to the inconsistent information on the site.
Bingham Creek, New Mexico?
The council also viewed a presentation from Linda Lindstrom and Cory Styron of the Community Services Department on the latest revisions to County Policy 1735, “Use and Rental of County Facilities/Lands,” which includes such locations as Fuller Lodge, the ice rink, and county parks, and pavilions.
What's notable is that the presenters, the county manager’s office, and even the council members themselves did not question why the presentation’s cover photo – a beautiful pavilion with a playground and mountain views – was not of one of the numerous parks and vistas around Los Alamos, but instead featured a widely distributed stock photo of the pavilion at Bingham Creek Regional Park in South Jordan, Utah.
Despite this oversight, Council voted 7-0 to approve the (relatively minor) changes to the fee schedule.
Also approved
The first revision in 27 years to the county’s pedestrian plan was approved 7-0. The consent agenda, also approved 7-0, included a number of long-planned upgrades to airport facilities, the contract with TLC Plumbing for Phase 2 of the Denver Steel Utility Project, and a $30,000 amendment to the golf course renovation contract to fund four one-night visits by design consultant iCon Golf Studio to continue monitoring the growth of the new grass.
The complete August 26 council meeting agenda can be found here, and the draft minutes can be found here.
The Los Alamos County Council is scheduled to meet again at 6 pm on September 9, inside the council chambers at 1000 Central Avenue in Los Alamos. The meeting will also be streamed on Zoom.