Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, very good. All right, I call the meeting of Arapahoe County Planning Commission of August 4th, 2026 to order. Can we please get a roll call?

Chair Miller.

Present.

Chair Pro Temsazi. Present. Commissioner Boren.

Present.

Commissioner Howe. Present. Commissioner Corrin? Present. Commissioner Saul?

Present.

And Commissioner Wolf?

Present.

Has she arrived?

Just barely.

All right. Make a quorum.

Thank you very much. So before we jump into everything, we do have a new member. Kelly Boren. Sorry, I have it written down here. I just couldn't even read it. Do you want to just introduce yourself real quick?

My name's Kelly Boren. I live in Byers. I've been there for about 10 years. So it's east of Bennett and Strasburg. Was the principal at Byers High School for the last 10 years and just retired this year. So Kip, our REAP representative I work with, mentioned this and thought it might be a good good way to stay involved in the community so thank you for having me and i look forward to learning from all of you all right very good thank you very much

All right, so good evening, everybody. We are streaming this meeting live on the website, arapahoegov.com. Please take note that the website broadcast is delayed by 20 to 30 seconds. So our first item is to do the approval of the minutes, so tonight we will consider the minutes from July 7th, 2026. Planning Commission meeting, if there are any changes to the July 7th meeting, please include those changes in your motion. Otherwise, I will accept a motion to approve the minutes.

Chair Miller, this is Commissioner Save. I move to approve the July 7th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting minutes.

All right, is there a second?

This is Commissioner Howell. I second the motion.

Very good. We have a second from Commissioner Howe. Do we have any discussions on the minutes? All good? All right. All in favor of accepting the minutes, say aye.

Aye.

Anybody opposed? Ayes have it. Motion passes to accept the meetings as adopted. All right, we're going to start in on our study session. And the presenter tonight is Molly. And Ms. Molly, please go ahead and begin and introduce what we're doing tonight.

Good evening, Commissioners. Molly Orkild-Larsen. I'm the principal planner with the Public Works Department. And what's before you is a code amendment tonight for group living. And I'll go into more detail on that in a few minutes here. The reason why we're amending the code is because group homes presently in our code, the definitions are very unclear and very confusing. We have retained Clarion and Associates to help us draft the land development code amendment. And that's in order to refine and clarify these definitions of a group home. and also for it to align with the Fair Housing Amendments Act and apply a portion of the International Property Maintenance Code. And we do have Don Elliott. You probably heard him earlier. He is joining us via, you know, over the network, and he'll be able to answer any questions that you might have that I might not be able to. So our existing code right now has two types of group homes, and that's A and B. Maybe you've remembered that from past presentations that we've done. Type A group home is for the handicap, developmentally disabled, mentally ill, and elderly, and it's four to eight residents in a home. It can't be within 750 feet of another group home, and it is a use by right in the residential zone district presently. We also have a type B group home, and that just covers anything else that doesn't fall in the first category. So it's pretty vague. Sometimes it's hard to determine where do we put you know, process an application. Um, and it would go on, um, through a use by special review application or a plan unit development application now. So, um, basically, uh, it doesn't consider other group residential living situations. And I think that's one of the reasons we're here before you tonight. So what we're proposing to do is we're going to divide it into two categories, group homes, and also group residential facilities. And residential facilities would be for the group homes would be located in a single structure on a single lot and occupied by those experiencing physical or mental developmental disabilities who have the right to live together and would be protected under the Fair Housing Act's amendment. And then under group residential facilities, it's all residential land uses that don't fall into the group home definition. And these establishments can provide occasional medical support, assistance with daily living activities, special social services, or community living environment requiring custodial care. as well as a group living facility that do not provide those services. And this definition includes but is not limited to all forms of group living for individuals who have the right to live together under conditions that are not protected by the provisions of the Federal Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988 and by any similar legislation of State of Colorado. All of these group living facilities occupy can occupy more than one structure or have more than one structure on a single lot or on contiguous lots, operated as a single residential or operational entity. And it also can contain domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters, an assisted living facility. You can have a dormitory or a sorority or fraternity, excuse me, monastery nunnery, or group home elderly as defined under the Colorado Revised Statute. So we're also looking at occupancy, maximum occupancy levels. So in all cases, the group homes, group residential facilities, and all dwelling units, these occupancy of dwelling units would be subject to maximum occupancy levels as stated in the International Property Maintenance Code. And so we have a chart down here below that shows the number of people in a unit, in a dwelling unit, and then we have different type of room types. And as per that room type, there's a square footage, a minimum square footage that would be required for that. And this makes the limits applicable and enforceable through the county without adopting all of the international property maintenance code. So some of the proposed changes that you'll see in the code are we're updating the permitted use chart. So we're adding group homes, group residential facilities, health care facilities, and clinics. And what's in red is what's being stricken from the code. What is underlined is what's being added. So you can see there's a number of items that are there. So we added group homes, group residential facilities. We have a detox facility, hospital we added. And I'm sorry, this is so little. I can't see it. Let me go to mine. My handout. Freestanding emergency rooms and then also urgent care that would be under office. We're also removing hearing notices and procedures that are no longer relevant and that would be applicable to the group home type B. And then we're adding a lot of definitions, changing or revising definitions and I've listed 16 that we are either adding or revising. We did send this out for referral. Larry Mugler sent it out to several medical health departments, and we didn't receive, unfortunately, any comments from them. And we also sent it out to the mental health agencies. We have, let me get the names of them. Aurora Mental Health and also All Health Network. And we did get a response back from Aurora Mental, and they made some comments on the length of time that you could stay in a facility, and we did adjust that in our regulations so we had a line we wouldn't be in conflict. So our code adoption process, the timeline, so tonight we're before you for a study session. We're looking in the fall to be in front of the Board of County Commissioners at a study session, then coming back to you in the fall for a public hearing on this code amendment. And then probably more like in the winter, we'll probably have a public hearing in front of the Board of County Commissioners. So I know that's a lot to digest, but do you have any questions for me?

Commissioner Sade, Molly, You've done a good job of helping me understand the what, but I'm wondering about the where. And especially with the group home, are there going to be guidelines with regard to what neighborhood and how in a neighborhood might the HOA have have rights or a say-so in this. So I'm just kind of trying to get a better picture of the where in this.

Okay. In your chart here, it has for group homes, P is permitted. So that's a use by right. So we're looking at in residential zone districts and then in four of the business zone districts.

Okay. So any neighborhood... Um, any residential neighborhood could get a permit to have a group home. Um, I see Matt's taking a second.

Oh, I will go. I'll hand it off to you.

It's it's, it's sorry.

It's permitted. Um, according to the land use, the, the amended landing stable has proposed to you this evening. That doesn't mean it requires a permit. It means it would be allowed. It's a permitted use.

This is Don Elliott. Can I jump in and try to explain this? So that is right. If you go back to slide four, Molly, I think this one might help the commission understand this. It's a very good question. The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 basically says a group home for persons with mental or physical disabilities has to be allowed anywhere that A family, a traditional family not suffering physical or mental disabilities is allowed and on the same conditions that you would allow a home for me and my family or you and your family. That's in layman's terms what the Fair Housing Act of 1988 said. It said those group homes, if they look and quack, they're the same size as a home, a house. They need to be allowed in the same places under the same terms. That means if you don't require a separate special use permit or use by special use permit for a single family house for Don Elliott's family, then you can't require a separate permit for a group home. And that's why on slide four, we have tried to divide this into part one. What does the federal government require you to do? And part one is group homes. They require you to allow it anywhere a home would be allowed for people who don't have mental or physical disabilities. This is not a popular topic in many neighborhoods because they'd like to have a say-so. They'd like to be able to say no. But the federal law says you can't say no. And you can't add other hoops or hearings or conditions to it. If you would allow a family to move into this house, you need to allow a group home to move into this house. Part two is everything else. And that's a lot of things. So it's a long definition, but it's basically if the federal government's Fair Housing Act doesn't require you to allow it, then you can require a use by special review. And so everything, if you look at the use table, group residential facilities are all allowed by use by special review. You don't have to allow them. You're going to have a hearing. Do we want this in our neighborhood or not? Is it right place for the right thing? But in terms of group homes, you can't have a separate hearing unless you're going to have a separate hearing for every family who moves in. So you have to treat them the same. The second part of your question was, Commissioner, What about the HOA? And Colorado law and Colorado court decisions have said a group home must be treated by HOAs. HOAs cannot prohibit a group home that is permitted under federal fair housing law or Colorado state law. So yes, the HOAs will continue to operate as they have in the past. But this amendment has nothing to do with it. Long before this amendment, Colorado law said, okay, we want the state to stay on the right side of the federal law on fair housing. So long before these amendments were proposed, if somebody comes in and wants to buy a house in a neighborhood to do a group home that is protected under the Federal Fair Housing Act, the HOA can't keep it out based on the fact that the HOA conditions or their their restrictions say no group homes a private HOA for the past 20 or 30 years has never had the power to keep a group home out if Colorado and federal law says it has to be allowed in. So that's the second part of your question. So it may not be a popular answer, but that's why we've divided these into these two definitions. Part one is to saying, okay, Arapahoe County wants to comply with federal law. This is how we're going to do it. And everything that is not required to be allowed into the neighborhood will be used by special review.

Thank you. That's really helpful for the clarity. Appreciate it.

I have a question. Please go right ahead. I have three questions, actually. So the first question is, I have recently been made aware of this new type of, well, I guess it's not new, but there are several organizations that are applying for a new type of clinic where the patients can stay for 72 hours. And so it's part of the state regulatory, I was trying to look it up here, 6 CCR 1011-1 Chapter 9, And I just wanted to bring that to your attention because I think that when I was looking through the documents, the urgent cares and the emergency care centers indicate that there's no overnight stays or up to a max of 24 hours, which is absolutely true. But there are these community clinics that can allow up to a 72-hour stay, and a convalescence clinic is the other one that has to be associated. It's a convalescence center. It has to be associated with a ambulatory surgical center. And those facilities, if you have that special licensing, you can keep patients for a recovery period of time up to 72 hours. So I just want to make sure that you're aware of that because I do know that there's one going into Westminster. And if this is a popular... business model, I imagine, especially with the competition in Colorado, we're gonna see a lot of those coming up. So no known in Arapahoe County at this time, but it could be in the future. So no question, but just a comment. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention, and this is not as regulated There are these facilities called social media houses. I don't know if anyone's ever heard of them, but there will be groups of people, sometimes they're related, sometimes they're not related, who rent or live in a home for the purposes of making social media content. That's all they do. Sometimes they live there, but sometimes they just go there during the day for like a job. And they will do crazy things. Mostly it's like dances and stuff. But sometimes there's outdoor type stuff like parties or shoot off fireworks or whatever crazy social media thing you can think of. So that's another thing that I don't know if it applies here, but I just wanted to mention it. It might be worth exploring. And then the third thing that I just wanted to mention, there was a piece in there that talked about, I'm sorry, I forgot my documents today, that talked about noise making organizations. types of facilities, so daycare centers and things of that nature. And the thing I noticed that was not listed on there were doggy daycares, because I know that those can have a lot of noise. So I don't know if you wanted to include that in the documentation.

OK, I see what you're talking about, noise sensitive uses. Yeah. And I crossed that out because type B group homes was no longer in there, but we just left group homes. So you're saying doggy daycare.

Yeah, that's one that I've seen included in the noisy type facilities. That's it. Thank you.

Once again, Molly, can I jump in?

Sure, Don.

I'm just trying to be helpful here. Did you want to do something else? I can't see you guys, so I can't read body language. Is this an appropriate time to try to respond to some of those things or not?

No, go ahead.

So in terms of your first comment about the new clinical definition, one of the interesting things about this code is that because Colorado licensing of different facilities changes over time as new legislators come in and they make new rules, these definitions generally don't tie and try to align with those definitions because they can change. So what the code has always said is if you need a license to do this by the state, you've got to have one. Failure to have any license you need to operate is a violation of the development code. So the state could cite you for failing to have a license, but we could cite you because it is preconditioned for running any of these healthcare or group living things that if you need a license from the state, you will have one in effect at that time. So we don't try to align it, but that way, whether they need a license or whether Colorado decides to deregulate them and not rely on the license, It doesn't affect the land use category. From what you just described in terms of this new type of clinical procedure, and Molly, please interrupt me and correct me if you think I'm wrong here. If it is an overnight stay of 72 hours, that would push it into the medical facility. because it is a treatment center. And we've tried to separate in the definitions, things that provide primarily medical care. It's a healthcare institution. Yes, you're staying there, but you don't live there. You are there to be treated like a hospital, like a detox facility, a freestanding emergency room. And we tried to separate those two things. So what you've described, I think, in the new Colorado regulations is a medical facility that would probably fall under the definition of hospital. If it's not providing care, it would probably be under group residential. Either way, it wouldn't be permitted in residential zone districts. It would have to require an action by a hearing, a USR hearing, in order for it to go into a residential facility. I just wanted to clarify. That's how I think that would be handled under the current code. The doggy daycare, clearly, I got to tell you, the Fair Housing Act doesn't protect dogs. So that would be a USR.

Perfect. Thank you.

Any more questions down here? Any questions from over here?

All right. Go ahead. And I may have a partial answer. Thank you for those comments on noise sensitive uses. Part of getting the definitions a little out of context is not seeing what the intention of that is. Noise sensitive uses are affiliated with our airport overlay zones, which define uses that are noise sensitive and therefore should not be located in places where there's a lot of loud aircraft traffic. So that's the intent of that definition. So just thought I'd offer that clarification. Very good.

All right, do we have anything else? All right. Then we'll call that good. Any other questions or any other comments from staff?

No.

All right. Pretty good. All right, then. I guess we can move on to announcements.

All right. On the 18th of this month, we have a study session for transit-oriented communities, and that's for the rezoning. And then on September 15th, we have the water supply element, and that's going to be a comp plan amendment. So that would be pretty interesting. And that is it.

Yeah, go right ahead. Can you elaborate just a little bit on the first topic for August 18th? I don't...

Well, I'm going to let Jason elaborate on that.

It sounded pretty fancy.

Well, there will be a pretty fancy PowerPoint, I hope. So transit-oriented communities is something that was enacted by the state legislature in 2024. If you'd care to look it up, it's House Bill 24-1313, also known as transit-oriented communities. And what that bill requires, well, what that law now requires, is that communities with transit stations must meet a certain level of density near those transit stations. And that can also include bus lines that have frequent ridership. An example of bus lines with frequent ridership are the lines along ILIF in Quebec. So what the bill did was it sets a goal based on a buffer around those bus lines or those transit stations for communities to reach. And as our zoning exists today, Arapahoe County is not reaching the goal that is set by the state. So this will be a discussion about what is, where are these places as the state defined them? What is the goal that Arapahoe County needs to meet? How many units of zoning density are we short today? and where are some of the areas that we're looking to use to meet that goal. And we've had several neighborhood meetings, and we'll go into details at the study session. Thanks for elaborating. You're welcome.

It's sounding real familiar now. Yeah.

All right, that's it for announcements. Do we have any questions or comments from the board for planning department?

I do. Yeah. Jason, um, it's really wonderful to have Kelly. And so again, welcome. It's troubling to me though, that us as planning commissioners don't know about these swift changes and, you know, Catherine, uh, she's a one that has been around for like eight years and she was a marvelous contributor. And, um, I wished we could have, you know, done something, say goodbye, whatever. And so how can we square that up in the future?

Yeah, so that's something I talked with Public Works Director about. Yeah, talking with the Board of County Commissioners about trying to, you know, give sort of a runway that allows us to celebrate our departing members. And I will say, I personally called Commissioner Latsis to thank her last week and talk about how much I appreciated her nine years of service. Well, nine plus years of service because I believe her term expired in March or April. So just sincerely appreciated all of her contributions over the years. And yeah, I agree. Having a Yeah, a moment to pause and express our gratitude as a group would have been wonderful.

I think one thing maybe I would add to that just as a newer member, also there's a lot of historical knowledge, right, that those individuals have with them and a lot that we've learned from the folks who have been here for quite some time and so I think some sort of way to capture that also advocating again for some sort of like onboarding or orientation packet or something for those of us that are new and are trying to learn this on the fly.

And have we put together a plan for new orientation for new members? We used to have one.

We talked about this last time somebody came on board, but I just thought I'd bring it up again. Yep, shared. We're reviewing a draft internally. Beautiful.

Thank you.

Oh, look, we have a... Oh, look at that. Thank you. I love it. Thank you.

And if that is it, we are adjourned.