Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We are live.

Good to go.

Alright. I call this meeting of the Arapahoe County Planning Commission of 05/19/2026 to order. We'll now call the roll.

Chair Miller.

Say again?

Chair Miller.

Present.

Commissioner Howe?

Present.

Commissioner Latsus?

Present.

Commissioner Saul? Present. Commissioner Stave?

Present.

Commissioner Wolf?

Present.

Six members present and a quorum.

Thank you. Alright. So good evening, everybody. Tonight's planning commission is available live in person or live through the call in number. We're also streaming this meeting on our website, arapahogov.com. Please note that the website broadcast is delayed by twenty to thirty seconds. If you're not in the meeting room and you would like to speak regarding any public hearing item, please use the call in number to participate live via phone. Just call (855) 436-3656. Alright. So the first thing we have is approval of minutes, but we didn't receive any of the minutes in the packet.

I don't know if they were posted online. Can we table the minutes until the next meeting?

Yes. You can. You can just wait and do the next meeting.

So we don't need any extra motion. Alright. I can just table those. We are look at that. We're, like, already past page two. That's moving. Alright. We're gonna go straight into the study session on what is a ten forty one. Please, whoever is going to thank you.

My name is Sherman Fair. I used to work full time with the county right now. I'm just working part time. And I've been asked to give a brief overview of the ten forty one regulations. I think most of you are aware probably aware of the environmental movement that took place in the nineteen seventies, during which time substantial environmental regulations were enacted by the federal, at the federal level including the Clean Air Act Amendment in 1970, National Environmental Policy Act in 1970, Clean Water Act Amendments in 'seventy two, and plus a couple of other ones.

During this time, the Colorado State Legislature was looking to help local jurisdictions have some control over environmental issues. This was accomplished in 1974 when the Colorado legislature and governor passed the, quote, regulation governing areas and activities of state interest, commonly referred to as the ten forty one regulations, which is taken from the House Bill ten forty one. Local jurisdictions were given the option of whether they wanted to adopt any or part or all of the ten forty one regulations that were put forth by the state. And there are in that original state legislation, there were four primary areas of permit regular ten forty one permit regulations were one, mineral resource areas two, natural hazard areas three, historical natural or archaeological areas and four, areas around key facilities for development may have a significant impact. And then there were a number of different general activities of state interest.

These included water and sewage systems, waste management, transportation, public utilities facilities, and development of new communities, water usage, and one that I have to smile when I say it is underground nuclear detonation. I don't know whether any jurisdiction chose to do that, but in the 70s, I think that was a big issue. There were underground nuclear detonations taking place in other parts, and to my knowledge, not in Arapahoe County. But it always intrigues me that that was one that got thrown in there. Arapahoe County did not show any substantial interest in ten forty regulation regulations until the early 2000s.

Then the BOCC adopted ten forty one regulations in 2004 and later amended them in 2006. And as stated in the regulations, the purpose and intent is the purpose of the enactment of these regulations governing areas and activities of state interest, commonly referred to as ten forty one permit, is to ensure that growth and development in Arapahoe County occur in a safe, efficient, planned and coordinated manner and further to ensure that adequate community services and facilities are provided in a manner consistent with the constitutional rights of property owners, community goals, and protection of the public welfare, and are consistent with legitimate environmental concerns. The BOCC adopted specific activities of state interest. Most of them are subsets of the original general activities that were passed by the state legislature. These include site selection and construction of major new domestic and water and sewage treatment systems two, major extensions of existing domestic water and sewage treatment systems and three, site selection and construction of major facilities of a public utility.

That will be the one that you'll be dealing with tonight. Four, site selection and development of solid waste sites five, site selection of airports six, site selection of arterial highways and interchanges and collector highways seven, site selection of rapid or mass transit terminal stations and fixed guideways and number eight, the last one, site selection and development of new communities. One major change has been taken place, and I think you're you're probably aware of this, in the October regulations occurred because there were more private companies since that have come forth since the original October regulations that were building major electric and gas facilities, some of them for XL and other electric utilities or some as private ones. And so under the USR regulations, regulations were added the ten forty one requirements for major electrical, natural gas and petroleum derivative facilities of a private company. Now you recently dealt with one of these projects with the Magellan pipeline case, And that was one that was done through the USR process because it was a private company.

So this that is a brief summary of the background of the ten forty one permit in the state of Colorado and Arapahoe County. Do you have any questions?

Any commissioners with questions? Looks like we're all good. Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Alright. So next on the agenda are public hearings. The public is invited to participate in the public hearings this evening. Public hearing items are quasi judicial in in nature and the Planning Commission must limit their consideration to the matters that are in the record including the staff recommendations, the applicant presentation, public comment from the hearing and those received before the hearing. Before we begin, does any member of the commission have a conflict of interest to disclose or prohibited interest in any matter before the commission tonight?

Alright, seeing none, we'll continue. Alright, tonight we're scheduled for three public hearings. For each case, the staff will introduce and provide a staff presentation. A presentation from the applicant will follow. After that, the Planning Commission will receive public testimony on the matter. I'd like to remind everyone that all presentations, comments, and questions are to be directed towards us, the Planning Commission, and not to the presenter or the gallery. So yeah. We'll just keep going on this one. Alright. So case number PM23002.

Will our county attorney confirm that the board has jurisdiction to proceed in this matter?

Yes. The item has been public posted and mailed and meets the dose requirements of section five dash 2.2 of the land development codes of the board sorry. The commission has jurisdiction to proceed.

Alright. Thank you. So our staff presenter is Molly. Molly, if you'd like to introduce the case, that's fine. And can you just go ahead and confirm that we are making a recommendation to the board of county commissioners?

Okay. I'm having technical difficulties trying to get this up.

K.

I'm not sure what's going on. And maybe this was Yeah. Message. Let me

Okay.

Okay. Good evening, commissioners. Molly Rourkeld Larson, principal planner with the Public Works Department. What's before you tonight is the Rattlestitch Ranch filing number one. It is a minor subdivision, PM23Dash002.

The applicant is Lennar, Colorado LLC, and they're proposing to create a 2.511 acre parcel. The project is located at 24560 East Jewell Avenue, and the case engineer is Sue Lu. So if you have any questions for her, she is here tonight. This is a vicinity map and also the zoning map of the area. What's outlined in red is the subject site, and it's zoned RRB.

And surrounding it is the city of Aurora, which has been developed with single family homes, which is to the west and south and also to the north and to the east, you have more single family attached homes. This is the minor subdivision plat. And what you're seeing here is the total in the outlined area of the 2.511 acre parcel. Right now, there's two parcels, 1.97 acres, that's to the west. And then the hatched area is the 0.539 acres.

So a total of 2.51 acres. A little history on this property. The property owner filed a complaint with the Arapahoe County District Court to acquire a portion of the property back from Murphy Creek Metropolitan District number court order, the district was to finalize with the city of Aurora the de annexation of the eastern portion of the property, the hatched area, and grant it back to the property owner and for the property to be platted. So to bring the property into conformance, the two parcels were combined or to be combined through a county subdivision process to create one lot. This new lot will be 2.51 acres in size, which satisfies the zone districts minimum lot size of 2.41 acres.

Presently, the property is served by a water well and on-site wastewater treatment system, and there is an existing home with a garage on the property. This existing well is being used by the Lowry Landfill Superfund Site as a drinking water monitoring location, and this is to monitor the effectiveness of the remedies in place used by this agency. So part of our review, we do look at how it complies with the comprehensive plan and also the land development code. Under the comprehensive plan, the land use category is urban residential single family detached and detached, which the use of the property adheres to with the existing single family detached residents. The density range for single family detached is one to eight DUs per acre, and the proposed density is 0.4.

However, since the zoning is already in place, staff will not object to this planning process. The applicant does comply with the land development code. It meets the minimum lot size, has adequate access off of Jewell Avenue, and is compatible with the surrounding area, so the residential. We do send it out for referral and bring in their comments and look at that. Also, take in public comment.

Referrals that were received. We did get a letter from our Arapahoe County Public Health Department who wanted a condition of approval added to the plat that states if there is any future change in the land use, redevelopment, or connection to a public water and wastewater system, that they be notified. And at that time, the existing water well and on-site wastewater treatment system components may be required to be promptly abandoned in accordance with the applicable Colorado statutes and regulations. We also received a comment back from the state water engineer requesting that the property owner file a location amendment to correct the location of the well permit. And the applicant has done that and the state is satisfied.

City of Aurora did comment that they were would not require the property to connect to their system since the site has an existing well and on-site wastewater treatment system, And we did not receive any public comment on this application. So there is two conditions of approval, one for the applicant to address public works and development staff comments, and then also add the plat the note from Arapahoe County Health Department to the plat. Based on the findings in the staff report, staff is recommending approval of the minor subdivision. And that concludes my presentation. Do you have any comments or questions for me?

Any questions for staff?

Yes. Question about this. Hi. Have a couple of questions. So since this it already has a single family residence and well in septic. Is it currently occupied?

Yes, it is.

And I guess my other question is on the public health note. Wouldn't that property, if it had to go wouldn't it go through the county if it were gonna have a different use Then being RRP currently, I mean. You'd be upping the zoning or doing something that would require that to be submitted as a case to be rezoned and replanted most likely right?

Yeah, we would make that note necessary? Well, think they wanted to make sure that because it is part of the Lowry Superfund site monitoring, they wanted to make sure that it was treated properly for continued use as residential or another use if they were proposing to shut it down and connect to the city's water and sand. They wanted to make sure that they're involved with that or notified of that. Okay.

I would expect as an external referral, they would be notified regardless. Right? They probably would. Okay. Thank you.

I have a question. This is Commissioner Wolff. As it relates to the Superfund water monitoring, is that ongoing monitoring that's occurring, like, the Superfund, do they need access to that site to continue monitoring?

Well, I think it would be shut down. If they closed it or abandoned it, it would be shut down. But other than that, I don't have much more information.

Okay. Because I'm just wondering if the condition of approval needs to state that there needs to be access to this wander monitoring, like, wherever that's occurring, if they need to provide access to them to monitor.

We do have the property owner here, and she probably could give you some more information. And the applicant does not have a presentation, but they are here to answer any questions.

Okay.

So if you would like to That'd be great. Yeah. We could pursue that

with the

with the applicant.

Okay. Thank you.

Else? That's good.

Okay. I will Jessica or Is Joe here?

From the applicant. Here too.

I mean,

I don't need to, but she was saying Jessica.

So that's fine.

I am Joe Huey with Lennar, Colorado. 9193 South Jamaica Street, Englewood 80112. And as Molly said, we don't have a press we do not have a presentation, but I'm we're glad to answer any questions.

Yeah. I guess just the question is, is there ongoing monitoring that's happening there on

That I don't know. Yeah.

Yes. I'm Jess Kareem. I am the landowner. My husband Dave Reed is here also. And they do check our water once a year. It's actually gonna happen tomorrow. They also do the property on Gun Club and Jewel, so they do two of them with that super fun side.

Okay. And is there gonna be continued access for them to monitor, or does that need to be a part

of the condition of approval?

And I'm not sure. I mean, we've always just voluntarily let them come in and check the water, and, I mean, they do it every year. So

Okay. I just wanna make sure that that can continue because, obviously, that's an important aspect.

So I mean, and we want it to continue. Yeah. And we Right. Attended meetings probably fifteen years ago over this. They had said they would they guaranteed us that they would come check the water once a year. Got it. And so, I feel like it's a service they're doing for us. I mean, I know it's with the super fund and everything, but Right. That was their agreement to us when they first started realizing the one four Diox sign. They're trying to figure out where it's going.

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Yep. Thank you.

Any other questions? Alright. I guess, it shows the is the property going to remain the way it is? Is that the plan? Okay. To move forward that way. Very good. Great. That's all I have then. Okay. Thank you for your time. Alright. Thank you. So the Planning Commission will now hear from any members of the public who wish to testify in this manner. So please refer there was a card that told you how to come up here and you get three minutes. So looks like we have just one person in the room, which is David Reed. Very good. Come on up, David Reed, and introduce yourself and what's on your mind?

Good evening. I just wanted to say is my name is David Reed, and the my address is 24560 East Jewell Avenue. I am property owner and landowner as well as my wife, Jessica. And this has been a very long and daunting process to get to here to today's meeting. My wife and I have been heavily involved in this matter.

And as the landowner, property owner, it's been a very long, daunting process. It's been very tedious, very stressful process for us, for my wife and I both on this matter. And so at this point, as I I definitely believe that all points and details of this process have been thoroughly completed to the point of execution with all of the Arapahoe County staff involved as well as Joe Huey with Lennar Homes and Westwood Surveying Company. And my wish for today's meeting is that we all see the light for approval today and move forward.

Very good. Thank you. You. Do we have any callers?

There are no callers on the line.

Thank you very much. Do have any additional questions for staff? Alright. At this time, I will accept a motion in this case.

Chair Miller, this is Commissioner Lathes. I'd like to make a motion.

Go right ahead.

In the case of PM23Dash002, Rattlestitch Ranch filing number one, minor subdivision, I reviewed the staff report, including all exhibits and attachments, and have listened to the applicant's presentation, and the public comment is presented at the hearing, and hereby move to recommend approval of this application based on the findings in the staff report subject to condition one.

Thank you. So motion was made by commissioner Lasse. Do we have a second?

Yes. This is commissioner Savay and I second the motion.

If there is any discussion about this?

Would just like to

make one comment. And

that's to the property owners and the applicants. I'm sorry. This has been a long laborious process for you. I can see from the case number PM23 that you've been at this a while. So, you know, hopefully things will be better moving forward.

Right. Thank you very much. Yeah. If you look at the original when it was originally condemned, I mean, we've been dealing with this for twenty five years, actually. Thank

you. Alright. So if there are no further discussion, then mister Reynolds, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Yes. Commissioner Howe.

Aye.

Commissioner Lattice.

Aye.

Commissioner Saul.

Aye.

Commissioner Saave.

Aye.

Commissioner Wolf?

Aye.

Chair Miller? Aye.

The motion passes on a vote of six to zero.

Thank you. All right. So we're going to hear two cases together, although these cases will get voted on separately. So we're doing a location and extent and then we're going to do a ten forty one. Now before Molly gets started, I just want to say that what we have available to us as options, if I work these backwards, we have the ability to do a continuance, okay?

So that continuance can be because we might be struggling to come up with wording for another condition of approval or condition of denial. If we're struggling with that wording, it is best to just get a continuance and then the attorney's office can help us with our wording and how it needs to be done. So we're not gonna be we don't have to be forced to try to come up with something on the fly. Right. We can also just ask for a continuance because we need more information from staff or from the applicant.

So if we just don't feel like we're getting quite enough, we can do a continuance for that as well, which then means that we do have the ability to do a denial. But I will just say just what we saw earlier from the attorney's office is we just need to make sure we're really clear about what it is that we're going to deny so that it's fair to the applicant that if they wish to appeal, they know what they're appealing. Alright. So then we have conditions to approve. There are only one condition for the L And E because the L And E is pretty clean. There's not a whole lot there to do. It is just location and extent. Is this a good location? It may not be. We'll find out.

But you know, it might be. It might be a great location. We'll see that develop through presentation, I'm sure. The 1041 has a lot of conditions of approval. We may need to review those, which means we may also need time to do that a little bit further and get clarification. So again, we can do a continuance. We can add. We can subtract. It's our board, our decision. Okay? So as we go forward, I just wanna make sure we all kinda understood what we what we can do. Alright? Molly, take it away.

Alright. Molly Rakel Larson, principal planner with the public works department. What's before you tonight is the Colorado's Colorado's Power Pathway three forty five kV transmission line.

Molly, may I interrupt for one moment? Sure. I did forget to ask the attorney if we are are we okay to do this? Yes. How's that?

The the location and extent has been noticed in accordance with, section five dash 2.2 of the Arapahoe County Land Development Code of the October has been published a notice as required by the Arapahoe County ten forty one regulations.

If I stick to the script, I'll get it all in. Okay. Do we have any planning commission members? Many oh, we're not even there yet. Okay. Staff can now go.

There This we is for a ten forty one application and also a location and extent. ASI 20 five-one and LE 20 five-three. The applicant is Public Service Company of Colorado, also known as Xcel Energy, and they're proposing to construct a three, four, five, Kelovote transmission line. It's to be located along East Quincy Road and East of the Colorado Land Board property. Our staff that's here tonight is our case engineer and also Sherman Fair, Sulu and then Sherman Fair.

This is a vicinity map to give you an idea of where this is located. So on the left hand side, you have the Harvest Mile substation that's existing. And the red line is the transmission line that's being proposed. So it'll go north and then go on the north side of East Quincy Avenue, travels about 11 miles, and then we'll turn south about five miles, and then we'll hit County Road County Line Road, and then goes about 1.3 miles until it terminates and then heads south to through Albert County. So as Commissioner Miller had mentioned, this is being reviewed through a location and extent, and you will be making the decision on that application.

So that's in your wheelhouse. It's also being reviewed through the ten forty regulations for major electric facilities of a private utility, and the Planning Commission would make a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners on that. This ten forty one regulation, they do have to comply with the approval criteria that is cited in Section five, Parts A and C. So just some project details. The Eastern Plains region in Colorado is one of the best areas for wind and solar energy, but presently doesn't have a way to connect to the state's grid system.

The Colorado Power Pathway Project, also known as just Pathway, will support Xcel Energy's clean energy plan, which the applicant estimates will deliver as much as 85% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and add approximately 5,000 megawatts of new wind, solar and other resources. Pathway is Xcel Energy's efforts to meet the Colorado's legislature's statutory clean energy targets as well as Colorado's growing electricity needs. Pathway consists of five segments, and this application is part of the fifth or segment five, which starts at, as I mentioned, Harvest Mile Substation and extends to the proposed Sandstone Substation located in Pueblo County. So it's about 18 miles in Arapahoe County. There is a one mile section that is within the city of Aurora.

They're proposing temporary construction areas that are needed for construction along the transmission line. They have steel poles, and they'll weather to a steel brown color or a rust color. The typical height is 105 to 140 feet in height and a maximum height of one hundred and ninety nine feet. The typical span between the poles is nine fifty feet, but can go up to 1,400 feet, and that's usually when they're trying to avoid like a wetlands or waterway or something. There is a lay down yard that is proposed at the northwest corner of East Quincy Avenue and South Brick Center Road, and that was reviewed through our zoning division through a temporary use permit, and I believe they already have the permit in hand on that.

Very good.

They're anticipating a maximum number of 95 employees working at twelve hour shifts or shift Monday through Saturday. They're gonna have portable toilets, and they will be using bottled water. And they originally came in with one alignment but moved it further to the east, and that was to avoid low flying helicopter exercises that was occurring on the Colorado State Land Board property. So they've made an attempt to move that further to the east. They also we also looked at comprehensive plan.

The applicant did provide quite a bit of policies and strategies that they adhere to. I list nine, but there's more and as indicated in the application material. We do send it out for referral and taken public comment. And applicant reached out to the Bennett Watkins, Aurora Fire Rescue and also Sable Altura Fire District, and they are able to serve them. Colorado Army Aviation Support Facility in the Buckley Space Force Base wants to be notified before and during the construction of the transmission line because of the maneuvers that they're doing on the state land board property, and that is a condition of approval.

Let's see. Arapahoe County Open Space Division, they're going to be working with them in reference to traffic control along Quincy, and that's mainly focused around Fairgrounds area, and they just want to make sure that things work well and flow nicely, and the applicant is willing to work with them on that. This division is not going to pursue a trail within the easement at this time, but they could have that option if they want to pursue it in the future. The public health department, the Arapahoe County Public Health Department did have some concerns on the impacts of the line with existing water wells and septic systems and also landfills in the area. The applicant did work with the health department, and they are satisfied.

There is one poll, I think it's six ninety four, that is a condition of approval to make sure that there's appropriate setbacks and it's protected. And the applicant is more than willing to do that. And the Colorado Parks and Wildlife did comment on it and how to reduce impacts with their comments. We also received some input from CORE, and they indicated that the proposed access routes are within CORE's transmission easement, but the applicant is working with them to prevent conflicts. And we did receive one early on from one individual from the public, and they wanted the alignment moved further away from Box Elder Creek so there wouldn't be impacts on that creek and then training exercises for Buckley.

As I said, the applicant has moved the alignment further to the east, and this individual is okay with that. They did hold a neighborhood meeting on March 18 at the Fairgrounds. And seven people attended, and they only had one comment that was received. And they just said that they appreciated that the experts were at hand to answer their questions, and they were it's great to see the private sector working so proactively to get information out for this future expansion. There are one condition for the location and extent, and then there's 12 for the 1041.

Actually, there's 12 conditions for the 1041. And they're listed here. And so in conclusion, based on the findings of the staff report, staff is recommending approval of the location and extent in the ten forty one applications. And that concludes my presentation, if you have any questions for me.

Any questions down here?

Mr. Ladis.

Please go ahead.

Just a clarification, Molly, because my package shows 14 conditions.

That was revised, and so it was uploaded to the the website. So and and Kim sent it out the information on Do you

know which ones were removed?

Yeah. In an email.

Okay. Do we know which ones were removed?

Let me look and I can check. Number three.

What was that? 11? 3 11. Thank you. Thank you.

And we did share the conditions of approval with the applicant, and they provided us comments on our conditions. And we met with them or had a meeting with them on last Thursday and talked about it. And we moved forward with those conditions that were agreed to, and it would be in the revised document that Kim sent out.

Any more questions down here? Okay. We have questions down this way. None? Okay. So I'm sorry. Then I got lost here a little bit. I'm sorry. Why was number three taken out?

Because it's a duplication of one.

It's a duplication of one? Yes. Three, where the applicant shall obtain all property interest necessary for and operation.

Because that was mentioned in the email that was identified in condition one.

Okay. Then why was 11 removed?

Because it was covered in the condition above it. And if you're looking at the old staff report, that's probably gonna be confusing to you. So you should be looking at the

Did you give us a new one?

That was sent out in the email on Friday.

Okay.

I I to be honest with you, I missed that whole email. So I don't know where that would have gone to. Did anybody else? I guess we're all kinda confused because we don't remember that email.

But we we can make we can make Pat you know, print that off if you wanna take a look at it.

So

That'd be great, actually. Okay. So I do have a question. Sorry. Commissioner Lantz.

No. Go ahead.

As far as the conditions, most of these actually apply to, like, the procedure of construction. So, I mean, it's assumptive that they're approved. Right? I'm just I'm curious why we have you know, if I read them, like, if construction is to occur, when construction occurs during this period, I I don't know. It having gone through this process, it seems like a lot of these requirements would be covered in some of your permitting process, but that's just a comment.

Well, it's based on CPW's comments. Correct. Yeah. And it was focused around times that it's more sensitive for certain species. And that's don't think Sue, the engineers would be covering that with construction and grading specific to species.

Thank you.

Ask again, anything down here? Okay. Anything over here?

Well, do

you want to take a short break and have me print these off for you so you can look at it?

Please. Okay. We don't need to go to a recess. We're just going to take a little breather. We don't have to stop anything. We're just good, right?

I think you can just say you're taking brief break.

Very good.

Oh,

I see. I'll see. I'll just go. So this is Okay. And then I have to do because they said secure

it in a hundred years. Yeah. Okay.

I I gotta get the secure thing. Okay. It's not Yes. Yeah. Sue's picking it up. Don't know. She's does.

Mhmm. She's

doing that. Very consistent.

But do

I just go there and shut off? I mean

They'll they'll Yeah. They'll ask you to

I haven't seen any of their presentations any of these grids like this, which would

be helpful. But, again, this is what was mailed to me

by the If you want

me to give you a video. Okay.

Okay. I sent it to the printer for the 10:41 and l the l and e also. Mhmm.

Yes.

Molly, is your presentation done?

My presentation's done. I will pull up the applicants.

Go go right ahead. Okay. Is is everybody ready to get started again? I'm just calling this back to order. We're gonna go ahead while we wait for the the printed material to come back. Let's go ahead and proceed with the the applicant's presentation.

Sorry. I think our community relations person who's gonna handle the first slides might have stepped out of the room. Let's just keep going here. I will introduce myself. I was planning to pick up a couple slides later. So my name is

Oh, I

will let Nathan take it from here for a couple slides.

Sorry about that. A lot of things going on in Arapahoe County, working with your staff on, making great progress. So my name is Nathan Seal. Community relations manager for you guys here in Arapahoe County. Here to introduce Siding and Land Rights.

He's gonna go into a lot more detail about the project to make sure you guys get all your questions answered. So we got myself, Jen Chester, who's senior manager of Siding and Land Rights, and Corey Miller is working on this project in this parcel for part of it specifically. We're gonna go into Excel as a company, all about the power pathway to make sure you guys have the context in the background, and then county specific project, and then make sure you guys have, all the answers to your questions. So just in Colorado, we have one and a half million electric customers, 1,400,000 natural gas customers, and an electric reliability at 99.9%. And as you could see, when staff was talking about this project, these lines are also gonna serve CORE, and United as well, which I think has a little bit of Arapahoe County.

So it's not just for us, it's for the co ops as well. It's really crucial to making sure we hit those state mandates that are required. It's about a $2,000,000,000 investment, all told, to our new double circuit three forty five transmission lines, about 550 miles total, and potentially another 60 miles. I think that's still up for debate with the PUC right now. But for right now, it's just those five segments.

And then to get into more of the regulatory details and what we're doing with the PUC, Jen Chester is gonna come up and talk about that.

Thanks, Nathan. Now I get to talk. So as Nathan introduced me, I am the senior manager of our Siding and Land Rates team that, does all of the permitting work and land acquisition for our projects here in Colorado, including this one. So as noted on the slide, this project, we were required to file for a CPCN, a certificate of public convenience and necessity, if you don't like letters and prefer the long words, with the PUC. And we did that filing in 2021.

The PUC, as our regulator, approved that filing in June 2022 with a number of of findings that are outlined on this slide, related to the, amount of renewable generation that will be put on the system or the capacity to put on the system with the addition of the line, the resilience resiliency and reliability benefits. And then, maybe one that's probably of note for for, jurisdictions is that undergrounding the line wasn't in the public interest due to cost and other factors. So that's why you see us bringing forward the above ground line. We've provided on this slide a link to where you can go see the information in those proceedings if you'd like to look at a lot of words on pages. Am I able to advance from here, I assume?

Yeah.

Okay. You want me to

do that?

You can just do

that. Thanks.

Pathway is a project that we're very proud of. As Nathan noted, it is nearly $2,000,000,000 investment in the electric transmission system here in Colorado. That provides a number of benefits both short term and long term to local communities. We are a state assessed tax entity. So there's tax revenue that comes to the counties from facilities being located in them.

So we currently pay Arapahoe County taxes, and that tax amount will increase with the addition of Pathway when built. We serve a number of customers, nearly 300,000 customers in Arapahoe County alone as Xcel Energy. And then in addition, as mentioned, the the renewable generation projects that could connect, as part of the project, whether that's here locally, or further around the loop, We have a number of projects out in Eastern Colorado that will connect to Pathway already. Some of them already interconnected, and some will do so in the near future. So who doesn't like graphics and numbers?

Wanted to put up, for everyone what we've been doing with the pathway project since 2021 when we first kicked this off. We have been very busy working with a lot of jurisdictions and a lot of communities, as we did our routing study, proceeded through permitting in a number of jurisdictions, and started construction. We have, at this point, constructed and placed in service segments two and three, which are the furthest out east, out of order. And then this week, we're very excited that we energized segment one as well. So we have segments four and five under construction currently.

We went through a very lengthy routing process to get to the line on the map that, is before you all today and presented in our l and e and ten forty one applications. That process began in 2021, actually, with our CPCN application. Even though the PUC does not, regulate or approve a route, we provided in that application a high level review of endpoints and 20 mile wide study areas and things that we thought would be considerations within there that would affect our routing. And that's what you see represented, on the graphic on the right hand side. So we started with those study areas.

We identified and mapped a lot of information, much of which is listed on the left hand side of the slide in there, defined opportunities and constraints. That's the green and red and orange shading that we use to identify a number of route alternatives. We narrowed those 20 mile wide study areas to focus areas to narrow the area that we were looking at. We visited with the public through a number of public meetings to talk about routing, collect feedback, make adjustments, present it to the public again, and iterate through that to get to the very last step where we have our preferred and proposed route. Segment five was difficult.

This segment covers a lot of counties along the Front Range. It starts down south, as Molly mentioned, in Pueblo at our Sandstone substation and Tundra substations in that county and moves all the way north up here to, Arapahoe County. I mentioned we started with 20 mile wide study areas. That's what you see in the left hand kind of column. And over time, we iterated based on public feedback, jurisdictional feedback, public meetings, meetings with agencies to get to where we are today.

Unlike most other segments, segment five, we actually changed our study area and expanded it a number of times. So it expanded and contracted based on that public feedback. You see in the second column that it looks like we moved further east generally with segment five, which we did. That was based on a lot of feedback in the El Paso County area about, training areas associated with Air Force Academy and other, squadrons in that area that limited our ability to place her out there, for example. We continued to look at additional areas east and west, and that includes a portion up here in Arapahoe County where you see a hatched area to the east that we added to our area for consideration and then ultimately selected the route today.

Over that number of years, we evaluated thousands of square miles of study area and also, thousands of miles of route alternatives to get to where we're at today. Nearly 200 miles of route alternatives were evaluated in Arapahoe County. So now to the part you're probably most interested in. What specifically here in Arapahoe County? And Corey will come up and talk about that with you all for a little bit.

Thank you, planning commissioners. My name is Corey Miller. I'm a Siding and Land Rights agent with Xcel. I oversaw the processing of this application and the submittal and worked with Molly. To continue off of what the Siding and Land Rights Manager indicated, I'd like to talk a little bit more about routing, specifically in Arapahoe County. As she mentioned, over 175 potential miles in the county were identified as get a we're

going

going to be

we're do adjacent to other linear facilities that can be

something able like a railroad corridor, a railroad right of way, other existing transmission line facilities or roadways. And I think it's important to note that approximately 66% of the 18 miles that we determined for a preferred route in Arapahoe County are located along and adjacent to these other linear facilities, so areas of like disturbance. For the remaining six miles where we were unable to locate adjacent to one of these facilities, we start to look at where we can avoid sensitive land uses. And probably the first and foremost that we think about are developed residential uses when locating a transmission line. It may be a little difficult to see, but the green blue coloration that you see in this slide represents developed residential lots.

But there were also a number of other developments within this geography of Arapahoe County that we knew we had to avoid, things like a developed solar field, etcetera. We also need to take consideration of elements of the natural environment as well. And although it isn't shown in this slide, just to the east of this geography, there is the West Bijou National Natural Landmark, the NNL, that is oversaw by the National Park Service. And this area is 7,613 acres in total area, and it has the ability to expand beyond that. So we knew when looking at Arapahoe County, it was going to be very, very difficult to route the line east around this to maintain prudency with the Public Utility Commission.

So from there, as Jen mentioned, we analyzed all of those 175 potential miles, and we determined a route of best fit or a preferred route, which you can see in this yellow or defined by this yellow line. It enters the county from the south from Elbert County. Originally, the line, as mentioned, was going to head west down County Road 194 Moore and be located directly adjacent to the area that you see hatched in blue. That's properties owned by state of Colorado administered by the state land board who typically allows us to co locate facilities in their property. However, in this particular instance, on the eastern side of that blue area, the US Army operates helicopter training schools and programs.

And when we met with them at Buckley Space Force Base, they did indicate that the type of training they do requires very aggressive maneuvering throughout this area, which would be precarious when located adjacent to tall transmission structures. And as we get further to the West, we start to run into elements of the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds, other facilities where it would be very difficult to route around. So we decided to shift the line a little bit to the east. We're still sort of maintaining a best line of fit to the north up to Quincy Avenue to avoid residential uses and other facilities to the greatest extent possible. The route then shifts to the West adjacent to Quincy Avenue before it interconnects with the Harvest Mile substation.

Harvest Mile is located just along Harvest Mile Road, close to the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds. There aren't any proposed improvements as part of this application to the Harvest Mile substation, but there are some developments that are being completed as part of a older October application to fully build out that facility. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. Other than that, with our ten forty one, we do have to request what are called temporary construction easements, and those are specifically to facilitate construction, and they basically amount to temporary access where our construction contractors can get into the proposed right of way or transmission line corridor to construct the line. And as staff mentioned, we do have one additional temporary use, which is identified to the northeast of that yellow line.

It is our construction lay down yard, which we did obtain a temporary use permit for from the zoning division within Arapahoe County. However, once construction is completed, all of those temporary uses will be reclaimed to preconstruction conditions. We have submitted engineering permits to comply with revegetation. We will monitor for noxious weeds that might occur during the revegetation process, and we will continue to reseed until we have gotten to the county standard of what they consider appropriate reclamation for temporary uses. This slide shows the same geography, albeit we've removed a lot of that visual information so you can get a better look at the line.

As I mentioned, we are moving up from Elbert County. The northern lateral of the proposed transmission line is located between Brick Center Road and Tom Bay Road before it, as I mentioned, interconnects or excuse me, heads to the west along Quincy Avenue and interconnects with that Harvest Mile substation adjacent to Harvest Mile Road. When it comes to the transmission facilities itself, staff did hit on this. I appreciate that. But just to reiterate, the proposed transmission line right of way corridor is when permitted a 150 foot wide transmission line right of way.

And within the middle of that 150 feet, so 75 feet on either side of the center line, the transmission line will be constructed. It consists of a series of steel monopoles and conductor wire that is strung between each pole. The average height will be for the poles anywhere between one hundred and five and one hundred and forty feet. The height is largely determined by the unique geography where the pole is planned to be located. And what we need to do to maintain appropriate conductor sag height above any element of the built or natural environment.

So what that means is if you have two poles on either side, if there's a hill or it has to go up a hill or it has to pass over a very large right of way like a highway, that space may require the poles to grow because we have to make sure that, that conductor is sagging a minimum distance above any element of the built environment, if that makes sense. So if a hill grows, we may have to grow the poles, that kind of thing. As staff mentioned, the span length will be anywhere between nine hundred fourteen hundred feet. That allows us to span over riparian areas, sensitive areas, gives us a lot of flexibility. And then when constructed, the poles are constructed of steel, but we'll take on sort of this muted brown rust color once exposed to the elements to give off the appearance of wood.

All of these designs are regulated by the National Electric Safety Code. It is a federal regulatory document that we, as a regulated utility, have to adhere to. All of those buffer distances away from built environments, buildings, natural environment features is all regulated by those standards. To provide you a perspective of what this might look like once it's constructed, we did provide a couple of renderings. This image shows a before and after.

The photographer is standing just to the South Of Quincy Avenue and appear or, gazing to the east in this image. So you can see that the pathway transmission facility is adjacent to other facilities, but located on the North Side Of Quincy. And then likewise, we've got a perspective, again, standing South Of Quincy Avenue, albeit at this time, gazing west. You can see the facility constructed on the north side of the roadway in this location. Should we receive approval, we would hope to begin construction as soon as possible in the summer.

Since 2021, segments two and three of pathway have been fully constructed, and they are in service. And then I believe as of this morning, we got word that segment one has been fully constructed and is also in service. Segment four is currently under construction, and we hope to have it in service this year. If approved, Segment 5 would then move into construction, and it's anticipated that it would need, at least through the spring of next year, to be fully constructed and then put into service. We understand that to construct this project, we have to go through the ten forty one process with Arapahoe County and receive approval.

There are several points of criteria that we have provided responses to. I will not go into detail of every single one of these criteria. Our responses are provided in the packet. I'm happy to answer questions on any of them. For the purpose of time, I will, though, move through these slowly, for the for the purpose of the record.

If you have any specific questions on any of these as they flash across the screen, I'm happy to answer those questions. As staff mentioned, one of the components of compliance with comprehensive plan is that we try to maximize the amount of space available for the county to develop that isn't inhibited by utilities and other areas and activities of state interest. So we would like to reiterate the fact that we are co locating next to linear facilities to allow for that development to open up within the county. So with that said, that does conclude my presentation. I would like to invite Mr.

Peckler up here from our legal division to sort of close us out, and then we're happy to answer any questions that you may have and address any concerns as well. Thank you.

Hi, thank you, Commission. So as Corey said, John Peckler. I am outside legal counsel for Xcel Energy. And just really wanted to end on kind of a quick discussion of the proposed conditions that you have in front of you. So as we kind of went through, there are 12 conditions in the revised staff report for the October.

And there's only one condition on the L and E. I'm just going to make a couple of comments about the conditions on the ten forty one, not the L and E. The ten forty one will go on to the Board. I believe it's in June later in June, June 23, that one will go up before the Board. And so as staff mentioned, when they provided that initial staff report, Xcel Energy reviewed those conditions, provided some written comments back to staff.

We did have the opportunity to meet with staff and the county attorney to sort of talk through those. And that's how you ended up with the revised staff report. There are three final conditions. I think Xcel Energy and the county are in alignment on the intent of these conditions, and they're really all related at CPW mitigation measures. But there's some tweaks to that language that Xcel would like to make to those.

And the tweaks that Excel is proposing are to have those conditions map very closely with the guidance that we received from CPW and the mitigation that CPW has approved and recommended here. And so we appreciate the opportunity to work with the county and that the county has written down these three conditions the way they have. But Excel would really like to keep these conditions as close to that CPW approved language as possible because a lot of effort went into working with CPW on these three conditions. And so I'm going change this slide. These are the three conditions.

And I have four written copies that I'm happy to hand out. You might have to share. We don't have enough, but I have four copies. And if you'd like me to hand them out, I will. And so when you're looking at this, the numbering here on these conditions ties to the updated staff report.

This is the one where there's 12, not 14, conditions. And in the column on the left, you've got the language from the staff condition or the staff report and the condition. The middle language is the language Excel is proposing as an alternative. And then at sort of the end, we have a rationale for that change. And happy to answer any questions, talk through these.

Like I said, really, the I think everyone is in agreement on the intent of these conditions. It's more getting this language to match what's been discussed with CPW and what CPW is recommending. And there's little nuances and differences here, but Excel wants to make sure we're really sticking to those CPW recommendations and following them so that when this gets implemented and you know, Excel has to comply with the requirements, the conditions are clear, and they're very consistent with what CPW is expecting from Excel for this entire project because it, of course, goes outside of Arapahoe County. And there's a real desire to have this be uniform and consistent for this project because when discussing with CPW, it's done on a project basis, not a county by county basis. So I'm happy to if we want to talk through each of these or if you want a second to sort

of look through this. So let's just hold off for just a little bit. Yes, of course. Okay. So go ahead.

Yeah. Commissioner Savay, let me be sure I'm understanding what you're saying. I'm hearing you say that even though we have these 12 conditions that you guys worked on, that you're saying you're suggesting that there still needs to be a little tweaking, although the intent is in alignment. But you're suggesting tonight that those are tweaked or that you're you're recommending some tweaking to what we are looking at with what our staff has proposed as conditions. Is that what

Yeah, that's correct. So we're asking the commission to kind of weigh in here. And when it recommends its decision here to the board, that it would include these tweaks that we're proposing as this moves on to the board.

Okay. Thanks for that explanation. And I don't know if this is proper, but I'd like to refer to our attorney. This seems odd to me. But could you elaborate? I mean, when we have an application, we are looking at certain conditions, and that's that. But to me, it feels a little bit like it's not really complete yet, or it's not really totally complete for us to be voting one way

or the other. I I think in this case,

if

if there is, I think, a proposed motion in there that allows you to continue this for more information that basically would allow you to so for example, if you prefer one condition to another, the idea is that we don't typically draft these conditions on the fly. Right. So what we would do is if you say, okay, we perhaps like this condition here or that condition there, we would come back with to you with a new motion at the next meeting. We would continue this to the next meeting and say, okay. Based on what you told us at this meeting, here's a new motion for you with the language that you all prefer.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for this yeah. Thank you very much. We're gonna we're gonna stop there for well, go ahead. I'm sorry.

I have a question. This came up in a similar case a few months ago. And I guess I would say to you as the applicant, are your word changes important enough to you that you would prefer continuance, Or are you comfortable with the language presented by the county if you want to get to your next meeting as scheduled?

Yes. Let me I'd have to consult with the Excel team here behind me, and we can answer that question for you.

Thanks.

Appreciate the the question on that. I think we could certainly move forward with the conditions as written. I think we just wanna note that it's a little hard for us to understand how to actually comply with those, but we could certainly move that forward, and be in front of the board of county commissioners.

There you go.

Christian's down here.

I mean, I guess I'm curious what makes it hard for you guys to comply with

the way they're written. Sure. So condition number six requires us to conduct a survey for Pronghorn as an example. CPW doesn't have survey protocols for Pronghorn, so we don't know how to conduct a survey that would meet their requirements. So we work with CPW across the state on fifth 550 miles of pathway to date, and work very closely with them and have no issues with complying with their recommendations.

Conditions six and seven and twelve are just a little different than what we've seen for CPW requirements on the rest of Pathway. So we're just trying to bring them consistent. As Corey mentioned, getting this to construction is very important to us, but we want to do that in a collaborative way with you all. And timing matters. So we're not looking to continue, but wanted to present these potential revisions for consideration. And if you all choose not to consider them, I think that's certainly within your purview, right?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'd like to make a comment. Yeah. So six and seven in reference to the survey. CPW is is more than willing to work through things. So I think if they could provide more delineation of what a survey is, I think we could work that out. In reference to 12 for bird what was it called? Bird Bird diverters. I I did talk with them on that, Travis. And he said that he didn't want number 12 in when I talked to him.

So so maybe we do this real quick. So we have a meeting to conduct that we need to get through. We're talking about a lot of things that should probably come up at the end after, I think, after public comment. So I think we've had a presentation. We've got some questions. I think we are seeing some inconsistencies that we don't know how to deal with right now. But I think what we need to do is kind of finish our meeting if everybody agrees to that. We'll get public comment going and then we can come back to both staff and the applicant and go over questions that may even come up from here. Alright? Does that sound Yep.

Like we got that under control? Yeah. Alright. So let's do that. Let's go ahead and I'm just trying to make sure I know where I'm at on the pages. Otherwise, get lost. Alright. So planning commission will now hear from any members of public who wish to testify on this matter. So please refer to the card. It tells you that you have three minutes.

We will start with those in attendance in the room now and then anybody that's on the phone. So we'll go we're gonna go to the list. Okay. So we really just have one person that's on this list and that would be George.

Yes, sir.

Would you like to come up George and introduce yourself and tell us what's on your mind?

My name is George Lai. I live at 44545 Analogue Gaia. That's on 1 of the notifications. Unfortunately, this is not going through my property, and I do appreciate the excel because at one time it was. So thank you for and I have gone to the Arapahoe County Commissioners, the County Fairgrounds.

So my first concern is the well and the water. My well and I've been on in that property since two thousand January, February when I got to CO. My well is at 700 feet. Pumps at 600. And twenty five years ago, the line the water level was, three seventy five, three fifty.

But just in over the last couple decades, Colorado is, every year, asking me to give up my water rights on the surface. And they told me probably and I'm an old man, but it was probably before I was born, there was a pond there, and there is an area going down there. So that's telling me the water level has gone down. And, you know, I'm a computer programmer. I know facts.

I'm not an engineer. So the one concern was, you know, if these things go in and you're you're later, all of a sudden, instead of 15 gallons a minute, my cistern is fully going on like in Texas. Is that concerned? Is that something? I can't speak to that.

The second was just the location. And, again, I do appreciate Excel. What they've been have listened. But the County Road 50 down there, they and Arapahoe County is dying nice to off, which they brought the road up a couple feet because it goes through a dry creek. And I've been there long enough to when kids were there, there were canoes going through there. And they've put this on the north side again. Not going through my property, but some neighbors. There's a dry creek there that they're putting these lines through. And in one of these Arapahoe County meetings, they said that they're going to avoid trees. We don't have any trees there except for we have like a 100 year old growth tree that's right on County Road 50.

So you imagine the height of that. And then what the description is over here, how is that gonna affect it as compared to on the south side of the County Road, which is Elbert County. It's plotted, and they sold those plots, like, a year or two ago, but there's no building there. Plus, the Dry Creek goes from Albert County north to Arapahoe County. So they're putting these lines right in the middle of a dry creek.

And, again, it's a dry creek. Anybody who knows Arapahoe County, they might not have water for two years. But the one was twelve, eighteen inches of snow, and then it was 60 degrees two days later. And everything coming across the road. So that was the one thing. And plus for maintenance, again, they moved it west, but I have no perk rate. So that what that means is I got about 12 inches of soil. And, you know, geologists call it clay. I'll call it cement. So when it rains like it is now, our common road is like the old Chevy commercial.

So if they're putting this out there, you know, in the vertical line, that's an open grazing area. But when it starts hitting people's properties and you have a problem, you're not getting you're not getting a truck through there. So that was my three. The well, how close you are to houses, where if you went south again, I hate to mess up anybody else's parcels, but they haven't built there yet.

Sir, you

have time.

Your time

is now

But so anyways, I have this if somebody has any questions. I did not see a great outline there. So

Thank you very much. Thank you. I do appreciate that. Everything else I see on here says applicant. So I would ask if there's anybody else in the room who did not sign that would like to speak. I don't see any. Mr. Reynolds, is there anybody on the line that wishes to talk?

We do not have any callers on the line.

Very good. Thank you. Skip ahead a little bit. All right. So if there's no more public comment, then I'm going to close public comment on this case. So I'm going to ask we can go back now, I think, and ask questions of either the staff or of the applicant. Do we have any down here?

Have lots of questions.

Go ahead. I

have lots of questions.

I'm sorry, what was that?

I have lots

of questions.

Oh, you do?

Yes. Would

you like to lead the way then? Go right ahead.

Thank you guys so much. This is Commissioner Wolfe. So a couple of questions I have. The first is from the lay down site to the open space, would the construction trucks be traveling along an existing road?

Yes. Okay. Public roads.

Okay.

That is correct.

Okay. Great. I don't have any other questions on that. I don't

know if that is anything for anyone. The other question I have is about the floodplain, actually. I did notice that the line is gonna go through some areas that do have floodplains. So my question is, what does happen if it floods from a safety perspective and a function perspective?

Well, all the facilities are designed to accommodate that based on how they're integrated into the ground. But from a compliance standpoint, so long as we do not increase the base floodplain level, I believe, by more than one foot, we are in compliance with Arapahoe County standards. No. But we did submit floodplain permits and had some back and forth submittals with the county engineer, and perhaps she's got a better answer than I do.

Sully

Engineer Division. Actually, I need to correct this

one. Sully with

with the Engineer Services Division. I need to correct the answer. Actually, the latter is called no impact ladder to the floodplain. There shouldn't be any impacts to the base flood elevation or how wide the floodplain is going to be. And their engineer does demonstrate that with what we call the floodplain DDD issue study.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. And

then the last question that I have is if it was approved tonight with the proposed wording in or sorry, with the original wording, condition number six, instead of the proposed wording, how would you guys proceed with the survey that you mentioned you aren't sure how to conduct? What would that look like?

I think that we would attempt to meet with CPW staff from Arapahoe County and Xcel Energy to figure out what they are looking for with regards to a survey. I mean, typically, when

it comes to

deer, CPW will state so long as if there's one or two deer that's approaching construction, you can continue construction. If they start to congregate in mass, we will send a bio monitor out there. They'll observe construction. And then if they foresee a reason why the animals would be hazed, they'll shut construction down. I think the issue with these conditions is that it indicates if there's a survey and you observe deer, then no construction within the 18 mile footprint.

If we're constructing on mile one and the deer on Mile 17, does that mean we can't construct on mile one where they wouldn't be hazed, so to speak? And does that mean we have to submit continuous surveys as we continue construction down the line? This is very flexible language, but flexibility can sometimes be a double edged sword. And we just want to refine better how we can proceed with construction and then alert CPW appropriately if the matter does arise. But like my manager said, we would like to proceed.

And if the condition is written is what the Planning Commission would like to take forward, we are happy to comply with that. There are instances where we've gone through Planning Commission, and we were able to make adjustments on the fly, but that's not how you do business here, and we respect that. And if given the option, we would like to proceed. We can move forward with the conditions as written.

Thank you.

Anybody else? Down here. Go ahead.

Commissioner Savi for Mollie. Mollie, one of the options would be for us to have a continuance. And then would it be realistic to just have one more meeting to iron those things out? And I I see that the board of county commissioner meeting is June 23. And if we did the if you did that and if we had a continuance and then had our meeting in two weeks, is that viable?

It'd be hard to go June 2. Would be more realistic to have it June 16 with you in front of you again and to work out the conditions of approval so that everybody was comfortable and come back to you and discuss them. But then that would bump the Board of County Commissioners hearing to July. And there is an opening on July 16, which I don't think the applicant wants to do. We

Molly, just as a sorry, Commissioner Ladz. My understanding is that the board requires twenty one days to review anything submitted to them, which essentially precludes you from having a meeting here in the evening and then making a subsequent BOCC meeting. So it's at least a four

to six week month. Correct? Yes. Thank you.

Okay.

So, Molly, were you saying you're suggesting that we would have a continuance to the sixteenth and then It to the

would

be going to the June 16. I think June 2 is too soon to work out everything, and then we have to rewrite the amendment to the staff report, get it into our staff for printing, but meeting with the applicant and iron out these conditions might not be realistic.

And are we because we're time constrained.

We have thirty days to make a decision on the L and

E. Then So

the L and E

The L and E.

We can make the decision tonight.

Yes. And We can make

push the 10:41

off. But the October with the conditions will take more time.

Okay. All right. Or we could push the L and E even off to the second if we need some sort of more if we need any more input. Yes.

And there's only one condition on that.

Unless somebody comes up with one around here. Right. That's true. So alright.

Would it be possible? Sorry. I just chime in. If it's helpful for you all because I think you're maybe struggling with the timing and continuing, really, our request was to to put those up there for consideration. Time is probably more important to us as a factor right now. So we would really prefer not to continue to discuss the conditions and push the BOCC meeting into July.

Understood. Thank you. Well, no. Not yet. I actually have some questions still for the applicant. I I just I do have some questions just even about it. You know? So to go back to the l and e portion of all this a little bit, the location extent. Sure. We did talk about this route and why it's here. Mhmm. K? I do drive Quincy quite often. So the map's not up there, but just to the east is Brick Center Road, which has power lines along it. Was that route considered? And if it was if it was and but rejected, why was that route rejected?

I believe that that route, I'd like to see precisely where Brick Center Road is. Do you have a response Bob? I do. Very okay.

I'm sorry. I I was, involved in the routing early on, so that, gives me a little more information. So we did look at a route option down Brick Center for exactly the reason that that you described, not only, an existing linear, road, but also has transmission down it. And as we were looking at that particular route alternative, I'm a pointer. So I'm gonna try and point.

I don't think I can get the cursor here. So Brick Center is here. As we were looking at that, the solar that was being developed up there at Quincy And Brick Center in the Southwest Quadrant and then adjacent to what is known as the Brick Center substation that Core has. We couldn't fit through and around there. And then as we went further south, that existing transmission took the only available space essentially between the road and the homes that are built further south. So we just physically couldn't fit without potentially taking people out of their homes, which we did not wanna do. Mhmm. So we looked at it.

That's right. So so then let's talk a little bit about setting and placement. Is there you know, maybe this would also be for Molly. Is there is there room in there that, you know, in the L and E, the way it is it's written that if you need to move a pole to, you know because we we talked about visual impacts. So if we have a visual impact problem as you're going along, is there a way is there a mechanism for the county to work with you to stretch longer, go less?

I mean, I, you know, I understand we have to have some sway in these lines, but it's a you know, and I'm not the engineer for that. But I I mean, I would imagine that there is some way to be able to move or I mean, I don't wanna add to the cost of your project by adding more poles by any means. But I'm just saying it might be necessary one or two times if we talk about visual impact, which I think would fall underneath the l and e. So we have the location and then the extent of where the pole placement is. So I'm actually actually, I'm asking about micro placement or setting setting.

Well, the location and extent shows the locations of the poles as they are proposed now. Mhmm. And we're going by what they're showing us with the visual, you know, diagram that they provided through the the material, this middle material. So we're just going off what's in the L and E plan set is what we're Okay.

So but I guess what I'm asking is is there flexibility?

At this point, there would be very limited flexibility. Each of the poles and the foundations that they're set on are designed for the the location that it's proposed to be placed in. We do geotech studies and things like that. So any shift, short of it being, you know, relatively small would have effects up and down the line for the engineering and would require redesign and reengineering. So not a lot of opportunity at this point. Is there are there specific areas that are of concern that you all are thinking of at this point?

Well, I look at it because I drive Quincy all the time. So I live out east. Mhmm. Even east further east of that. So I look at it and, I mean, the the gentleman that was here, he's talking about a tree. There is like one tree. Truly, there's one tree. And it has to be a really old tree. It's just a growth tree that's been there in the low lying areas we've got around our house. And I'm just looking at this trying to go, you're going right through a very pristine area. I mean, where I see that the sign is placed right there, I look behind the sign and I see a home. Mhmm. Now I'm gonna guess they're not here. I don't know if you've worked it out with them already and that's why there's nobody here. Could be. Is that

Yeah. We in in regards to the

Could you do it in which which row of homes I'm talking about? The one driveway that goes goes to the north?

Yeah. I I believe I do.

It's That's how we do directions. You know where the tree is? Yeah. On the mailbox? Yeah. Just the north

The one tree. That's right. I'm from rural Ohio, so that's how we, provided directions too. Turn at the Blue House.

So so that that's what I say. When I stand at that sign and I look right behind the sign, there's a home.

Yep. Yeah. Understood. Certainly, there are a couple of places like that. In terms of the easement and what we've acquired in Arapahoe County, we have acquired all of that and worked with all of the private landowners. We have a small section of easement to still complete with Arapahoe County and then with the landfill. But all the private landowners, we have our easements in place with them.

Okay. K. What about future circuits on these actual poles? So when we part this location extent does have like some EMF talk. But I mean, are these poles considered maxed out? Or is there room to do expansion?

Not on these poles, no. They are designed specifically for this use.

Okay. Yes,

you have to come to the mic always. There's no record So of what you

transmission poles can accommodate up to two circuits typically. It's pretty rare to have like a triple circuit line. We have two circuits on this line already. So that's what Corey is, I think, referring to when he says it's maxed out for that.

Okay.

Yes.

No. No more questions. Sorry. But I do I will be getting back to your questions here in just a minute. There's all clarifying conditions. You addressed those. That's all ten forty one. We'll get to that in just a minute. Alright. So we did have an applicant come up.

His questions are probably more towards the ten forty one side of that. But he did talk about it or not an applicant. Sorry. A citizen did come up and and ask about well waters and things like that that could be affected. I did notice in the in the literature, I don't know if it's his well, but there is a well mentioned that you are developing a barrier for. I think I've read that right. Correct. Correctly under somewhere.

694.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. That's actually located along Quincy Avenue. That's a monitoring well

Okay.

From the division of water resources. We are within 100 feet of it. They've asked us to put construction fencing around it so that we don't impact it. We wholly intend to do so. Okay. We do geotech analysis with regards to ground. Most of the poles are directly embedded into the ground. They're excavated, the poles dropped, and then they're just backfilled. We don't anticipate any impact to well waters. And if they we did, we would have flagged it and considered that when it comes to location of poles.

Okay. Do you anticipate anything actually going over the proposed 105 to 140 feet?

The average, no. If that's the average, then we don't have anything currently modeled to be higher than that.

Okay. Alright. That's what I had on the LME. Do you guys have anything on the LME that you want to bring up? All right. Anything on we can go over to the 10:41. Any extra questions on the 10:41? Okay. Thank you. I guess we'll be kind of done for now. Okay. Great.

Thank you.

Molly, what do we have for, guarantees for the work to be done, like a performance guarantee? For the what? Well, like for roads, for vegetation.

I'm going to let Sue address that.

Thanks. I just want to get it on record.

Sue Liu with the Engineer Services Division. I'm going to just start with the role. What we normally do is county will require the applicant to enter what we call the roadway damage agreement with county. So that means the applicant has to be responsible for our roadway if damaged during the construction. And we require videotape or photo of the roadway prior to the construction.

And the applicant has to providing a construction route. So we're going to go over that route and take a picture or video it. So we keep it. And we compare with after the construction. Or probably there's something happened during the construction. Our inspector is going to go there to make sure then if there's any repairs necessary, we will call the Excel or their contractor to have those repaired as soon as possible.

Okay.

And then to the of the site, we have what we call GradingRoche in the settlement control program. We normally took the first word, so GESC program. So you guys probably know. The GESC program does involve GESC permit and associated GESC plan report. So the plan pretty much demonstrating all the construction measures, how they're to prevent erosion and the sediment during the construction.

And also there's a gas collateral will be provided by the applicant. That gas collateral means the cost of the construction measure during the construction. So that collateral is required with the Gadska permit. So we keep that collateral until all the seeding mulching, the vegetation be established. So that process can take multiple seasons. But that collateral will not be released until county has the final acceptance.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Thanks. Any last questions? I'll run it again. All right. Then at this time I can let's see this. I just wanna make sure. Is that the right case? I'm gonna make certain that we're that we do the location and extent first. So is that why is that 001?

That's really 25.

That's 25. Yeah. Well.

Yeah. We're looking backwards in the script.

If it's if it's easier, if you guys don't mind, I would do the location and extent first.

Yeah.

Sure.

And then we can deal with the 1041. Yep. Alright. Alright. Is there any anyone want to accept a motion?

Did you close public testimony?

I did close public. Didn't I? Yep. I did.

Thought you

had to. Yep. That's fine.

Yep. Alright.

Okay.

Chair Miller, this is commissioner Latsus. I'd like to make a motion.

Please do.

In the case of LE twenty five dash zero zero three, Colorado's Power Pathway 345 kV transmission line location extent, I have reviewed the staff report, including all exhibits and attachments, and have listened to the applicant's presentation and any public comment as presented at the hearing. And hereby move to approve this application based on the findings in the staff report subject to condition one.

Very good. So a motion was made by commissioner Lattice for approval. Is there a second? Commissioner Saul, second. Very good.

Do we have any discussion before we talk about I mean, anything at all?

For the

Anybody wanna make a yes or a no to their

Proclamation. Fair enough. Alright.

And we're just talking about the LED, the one that she just made a motion for. Right? Yeah. No.

I don't.

Okay. Alright. If there's no further discussion, then mister Reynolds, will you please conduct a roll call vote?

Yes. Commissioner Howe. Commissioner Lattice.

Aye.

Commissioner Saul.

Aye.

Commissioner Savay?

Aye.

Commissioner Wolf? Aye. Chair Miller? Aye. The motion passes on a vote of six to zero.

Thank you. Alright. So we'll back up.

Would you like a motion

I for discussion? I do and I don't. So I guess I guess as we go into this, I would like to see if there is any interest in in in doing a extension on this so we can get better clarification to what we were just handed tonight because I didn't have any of this, and I haven't had a chance to read while during the meeting. So So what are we that are here.

So we can get a motion on the table, and then we can have discussion.

Okay.

And then we can vote accordingly.

Wanna do that? Okay.

Great. Okay.

Alright. Go

ahead. Batter up. Okay. Anybody. Chair Miller's, commissioner Lattice

Go right ahead.

Like to make a a motion. In the case of ASI 25Dash001, Colorado's Power Path Ray three forty five kV transmission line ten forty one, I've reviewed the staff report, including all exhibits and attachments, and have listened to the applicant's presentation and any public comment as presented at the hearing, and hereby move to recommend approval of this application based on the findings in the staff report subject to the following conditions one through 12.

Is there a second? Commissioner Saul, I'll second. Very good. Alright. So we have a motion, seconded by, commissioner Saul. Do we have any discussion around it?

Yeah. Commissioner Lattice, I'll throw out some discussion. So I do think the applicant has indicated time is of the essence. I also in reviewing the majority of the comments or the conditions, they're related to CPW and how to proceed once they are approved and under construction. They're more about timing and addressing the wildlife. And I I don't know that as a planning commission, we're adding value to delay their process. So that's my 25¢ on that.

This is commissioner Howe.

Good.

I agree with commissioner Latsus, and I believe the applicant is amenable to the conditions for approval. It works good.

Very good.

Commissioner Savay? Please. I I'm torn because I think in the ideal world, it would be best to have one more meeting and to get everybody on the same page with regard to the conditions. However, I respect in what Molly's saying about how far that would postpone things. If it was as easy as we just meet next week or two weeks from now and then it doesn't change the board meeting, to me that would be compelling. But since it's not, and I I I will I will be voting to approve as as as has been read.

Very good. Just commissioner Saul, I

just agree with what commissioner Latsus was saying.

Could you repeat that? I didn't hear it. Oh, I just Oh, you got your yeah. I just So I did yeah.

No. I just, commissioner Saul, I just agree with what commissioner Lantz was saying.

Alright. Very good. Yes. I was pushing for a continuance. I I definitely think it would be worth a time to just look at it again. I think that approval is appropriate. I just wanted more time with the material so we can make that decision. But this is what we have. Is there anybody else that wants to make a comment?

I think I just want to clarify that we would be approving the conditions as written, not the proposed revised conditions. Right? Yes.

Correct. Okay.

The one through 12. K. Correct? Correct. That's what you said? Yep. Alright. Then let's do this. If there's no further discussion, then, mister Reynolds, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Yes. Commissioner Howell?

Aye.

Commissioner Lattice?

Aye.

Commissioner Saul? Aye. Commissioner Salve? Aye. Commissioner Wolf?

Aye.

Mr. Miller?

I do approve. Thank you.

The motion to recommend approval to the Board of County Commissioners passes on a vote of six to zero.

Thank you very much. Before we wrap up, do we have any announcements from staff?

Yes. We do have announcements. June 2, we have the Box Elder diversion structure in Remora Connections. That's a $10.41 USR. And then June 16, we have the sub area plan comprehensive plan amendment. And that's it.

Alright. Is there any questions from commissioners just in general for staff, I'm gonna try and start offering that up here at the end. Nothing in particular? Maybe you just have a question about something? Anything? I you know what?

I let's just see what happens.

Alright. Go on. Commissioner Savi, this is gonna be after we we ended. But to me, the the sound sounded very muffled tonight. Is that different than what it usually is, or do I need to get a hearing test?

What are you talking mainly about Jason? He's remote.

Well, Jason, but also, say like you, you sound Yeah. More muffled And I couldn't I mean, does anybody else have that issue? All right. I was just going to say

that we are having some issues with our microphones, as you are all paired up and having to share now. So I will make the recommendation to our AV team that we would like to try to tweak, especially these mics, to help with you.

Okay. Thank Okay.

You. Molly, just real quick. So does the Strasbourg plan have public comment, the meeting there?

Are we receiving public comment? Is that

sorry. I mean the one that you're asking about that's coming up on the sixteenth.

That's for the amendment

course, of the I'm looking for an opportunity to hold this meeting out in my town of Strasbourg.

But I

don't want to create such a large burden upon the county to make it happen.

I'm going to let Jason, he's been looking into that. Jason, do you want to give a little bit more detail on that?

Sure, thank you. And apologies if I do sound muffled. First off, I have a cold. And secondly, my phone set up may be different than the one that uses for when she called in. So sorry if I'm a little muffled.

Yeah. I checked in with our audio visual folks on how we might be able to do a remote conduct a remote meeting. And a couple of the the critical components of doing the remote meeting are not just having an AV system that works in the room, but also having live streaming capability and the ability to manage call ins. And with the system that we with the platform named Granicus that we use for the the broadcasting, it's just not something that we can do remotely with the resources we have. So we're pretty much stuck with either the Arapahoe Room or the West Hearing Room as options.

I am, however, communications folks to ask about the possibility of, you know, is there a way we could maybe put that as a budget item? Or, you know, is there a third party we could hire that could perform all of those functions in cases where we have a desire to be remote. So I'm following up on that, but the answer for the Strasbourg plan, yeah, is a no.

That's that's why I say I'm looking for that unique opportunity. The the library out in buyers actually does have cameras in the room for online meetings. But I don't wanna like try to have to drag a whole bunch of other AV stuff out there just to hold public comments. So things like that become a little bit more difficult. So I'm looking more for that opportunity when there's no public comment. You know, a learning session or, you know, something like that or, yeah, I guess that's what I was looking for. Alright. Well, I I appreciate that. Is Okay. Is there anything else from from anybody?

I was just wondering since our chair pro tem is no longer a member. Do we have to Yep. Handle that?

Yep. Hi. I yeah. I do. Well, I I do have a yeah. One other announcement is that last week, the board of county commissioners appointed a a new planning commission member, which, you know, because commissioner Morehouse's term had expired last fall, it took effect immediately, which is why I was not able to attend this meeting. And that member will be joining us at the next meeting. And I apologize if I pronounced the the name improperly, but Carissa Coram will be joining us and hails from District 1 over by Platte Canyon and Christensen Lane.

Okay. So I think commissioner saw had the the the question though of what do we do about an election for pro tem?

You could do that at your next meeting.

You can just pull it off. No big deal. Alright. Anybody that wants the job?

You just have to be.

Jump in. Alright.

I think that's it. Everybody, thank you very much for your time this evening. We are adjourned.