Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Boom. All right. I call this meeting of Arapahoe County Planning Commission September 15, 2026 to order.

Chair Miller.

Present.

Chair Pro Tem Sabe. Present. Commissioner Howe. Present. Commissioner Coran. Present. Commissioner Saul. Present. Commissioner Wolf. Present. Chair Miller, we have a quorum and Commissioner Boren is absent and excused.

All right. Thank you very much. All right. Good evening, everybody. We are streaming this meeting on our website, arapahogov.com. Please note the website broadcast is delayed by 20 to 30 seconds. First thing we're going to do is the approval of the minutes. Does anybody have any changes to the minutes they wish to bring forth? All right, seeing none, I can accept a motion to approve the minutes.

Chair Miller, this is Commissioner Save. I move to approve the August 18th planning commission meeting minutes.

Thank you. A motion has been made by Commissioner Save. Is there a second? Commissioner Saul, I'll second. Thank you, Commissioner Saul. We have no discussions. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anybody opposed? All good. Ayes have it. All right. We're just going to go right into our study session on LR26-002, the Comprehensive Plan Amendment for Water Supply Element.

I don't know where we're getting the feedback there.

That's a little better. All right. So we got rid of that feedback. So presenter tonight is Loretta Daniel. Ms. Daniel, you may begin.

Oh, good evening, Chair Miller and commissioners. So it's been a while since we've done an amendment to the comprehensive plan. So I'm going into a little bit of detail because we have some new commissioners here. So they're not so familiar with the water supply study since I know that several of the commissioners already have become familiar with that. So the purpose of this study session is to amend the 2018 comprehensive plan and add a new chapter, chapter five, water supply element. We're doing this because it's a requirement of Senate Bill 24174 to add a water supply element. I'm also gonna give an overview of the 2024 Arapahoe County water supply study, which I have here in the corner of this table. Then I'll also describe the organization and content of the water supply element and then identify the next steps in the approval process. So first of all, Senate Bill 24174, the main theme of it is an Affordable Housing Act. However, it does have a section that does identify the water supply element must be included in a comprehensive plan for a local jurisdiction. And there are requirements that are set out in the law. that it be developed in consultation with water providers and special districts. It has to identify future water supply and facilities infrastructure needed to support that supply and also to take a look at demand And then it also has to support the broader goals of the Colorado Water Plan, which was updated in 2023, and specifically the conservation policies within the Colorado Water Plan. And then another thing is that the chapter or the water supply element has to be updated every five years. and we have to have this inside, or folded into the comprehensive plan by December 31st. So just to go over the water supply study, because it really is kind of the framework for part of this water supply element. So very briefly, the goal was really to make sure ensure that land use decisions are made with the consideration of water resources. So it's kind of a melding of land use planning plus water resource planning. So the study was an update of an earlier one that was done in 2001. that was used as a basis for the 2001 comprehensive plan, and then there were also some water policies within the 2018 comprehensive plan, one of which was to adopt a 300-year rule for groundwater. That means that essentially the state's 100-year rule, which I'll get into a little bit later to kind of talk about this, but the plan, the 2018 comprehensive plan there basically said to adopt a 300-year rule. So when we started the water supply study, we knew that the 2001 study was out of date. It basically had a 20-year horizon. And we didn't want to just impose this 300-year requirement because it has an impact on density, particularly in the eastern part of the county. So we really wanted to do more of a thorough study. So we selected a consultant team, and basically the goals were to really take a look at future water supply and demand. We were looking at a future planning horizon of 2050 that coincides with the Colorado Water Plan, and we were looking at ways to sort of see if there was some sort of gap between the water supply and what future demand could be. So we also want to take a look at water use efficiency to address how any gaps could be ameliorated. And then another thing too is because the aquifers underlying this whole area, the Denver Basin, have been subject to withdrawals for well over a century, there's concerns about drawdowns on the various aquifers. So that particular document, the water supply study, was accepted by the board in November of 2024. And the term was accepted. So it was not adopted, not approved. It was accepted. And staff was given direction by the board to create the water supply study as required by Senate Bill 24. Sorry? Water supply element. Thank you. Water supply element. And have that included as a result of Senate Bill 24-174. So the water supply study has these 10 chapters. We did have quite a bit of extensive stakeholder and public participation that is outlined both in the staff memo and also in the water supply element. We also created land use and socioeconomic scenarios. We assembled two advisory committees, one made up of water providers and some metro districts within the county, and another one was made up of city and town planners. So we had the water providers and the land use planners, and we had separate meetings and we also had joint meetings. Our consultants projected water demands working with the water providers again to 2050. And then one of the most compelling and interesting things about the study is the groundwater analysis. And I'll get into that a little bit more. Then looking at water supply and demand to take a look at whether or not there were gaps. There's a fairly substantial chapter on water management strategies, which is basically conservation and reuse. Then it concludes with recommended policies and implementation. So these are the primary recommendations from the water study. You can see there were 10. The gray water systems has been stricken out because the board has made a decision not to include that and that decision was made fairly recently. But the very first one, and I'll just point this out, is AP1 Denver Basin Aquifer Specific Annual Withdrawal Production Factors. And I'm going to go into this quite a bit of detail because that's really one of the key elements of this water supply element. There are also 10 collaborative policy recommendations where the county doesn't lead but they collaborate with water providers, different agencies as well too on various things related to implementing water conservation reuse and other things. So for our water supply study, There was the one chapter that really identified the two growth scenarios because we wanted to have population projections to 2050. We base these on the Colorado Water Plan, which has five different scenarios, ranging from low to high growth. We were fairly conservative in our low and high growth scenarios. And so the population ranges were from, for 2050, we're anticipating to be 900,000 to 960,000 for the county. And then there are the employment numbers as well, too. So this particular chart is in the water supply element, and it projects the, by the water providers, water supply and water demand. So there's also a category here called no district, which is basically the eastern part of the county where there are subdivisions and individual households that are on wells. So the first column is the water supply in 2020. This is in acre feet per year. Total water demand to 2050. Water supply in 2050. And then these two columns are the total water demand for both the low and the high growth scenarios. And then with conservation, the low and high growth scenarios. So if you look down to the little box at the bottom, you can see that for the high growth without conservation, total demand is estimated to range from about 116,000 to 125,000 acre feet per year, and that's substantially more than the demand currently, which is 85. basically 86,000 acre feet per year. However, if there are some conservation practices put in place, as well as reuse, that drops down significantly to a range of about 102,000 to 108,000 acre feet per year. So, given the drought scenarios that we've been experiencing not only this year, but over the past 20 years. What is becoming increasingly apparent is how important conservation and reuse are to the future growth and economic success of not only Arapahoe County, but also the state. A few things to point out here in this chart. Aurora, Aurora Water, their current supply, you can see here is about 37,500, but by 2050 that increases quite a bit to almost 64,000. So they are forecasting that their portfolio will increase with either renewable or surface water. So that's quite a bit. Just looking down one line to Denver, you can see it's the same numbers for 2020 as well as 2050. So it's not to say that they won't have more renewable or surface water coming into their portfolio, but Denver Water was part of our advisory committee and these were the numbers they were giving to us. There are two of these lines that are highlighted, City of Englewood. and Inverness Water and Sanitation District. And these are the ones that have some challenges with future demand. Their demand, future demand is projected to be, either exceed or be very close to their supply in 2050. These agencies are well aware of the issues and they're working for different types of scenarios where they can either have more reuse or try to get more surface water into their portfolios. And then for our communities out on the eastern plains, for Byers, Deer Trail, and Strasburg, these communities are dependent on groundwater. and current supplies far exceed the demand. So the numbers are the same, so they really don't anticipate dwelling any additional wells based on population projections. So that seems to be satisfied for those communities. So I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Denver Basin aquifers, but I'll kind of go over these a little bit. The uppermost aquifer is called the Dawson Aquifer. It really is only in the most southwestern part of Arapaho County. So it just really doesn't extend over most of the county. Next aquifer down is the Denver Aquifer, then the Arapaho, and the deepest one is the Laramie-Fox Hills Aquifer. The Denver Basin Aquifer basically extends from Greeley to further south of basically almost Colorado Springs from the foothills, but it peters out several miles before the eastern boundary of Arapahoe County. So the most easterly part of Arapahoe County doesn't have any of the Denver Basin Aquifer underlying it. So this conceptual illustration is really to show that these aquifers are not like having a continuous band of rocks that are water-providing. There are pockets of sandstone and siltstone and various types of clays that produce the water, so much so that wells can be drilled within several hundred feet of each other and have different water yields, even if they're going to the same aquifers. So it's not as if there's a continuous equal stream of water that is able to be smoothly moving through an aquifer. So one has to keep that in mind as well. So the modeling that our consultants did was called the PETRA modeling. And this was something very unique for our study. I believe it was the first one, first water study in the state that used this PETRA modeling. And basically, they used both oil well data as well as water well data from the borings to create basically a three-dimensional picture of what those four aquifers were. You can see perhaps there's some little yellow and orange little flags in some of these pillars. Those are sort of the water bearing portions of the aquifer. So the sands, as I mentioned before, are not continuous, but they can really, the amount of water in a particular area can really vary quite a bit. So that PETRA model basically kind of converts to this graph that we see here. So this is sort of a presentation of the groundwater analysis from the PETRA model compared to the state's requirement. So the state has a rule which they call the 100-year rule or 1% rule. It was established back in 1985 by Senate Bill 5 And one can consider that underneath a parcel of land, if you went down sort of in a column or in a square underneath that parcel of land, the amount of water that can be withdrawn is basically 1% a year, which would provide a theoretical aquifer life of 100 years. So what this chart shows... is the water estimates for the Denver, Upper Arapaho, Lower Arapaho, Laramie-Fox Hill aquifers under both the Petra modeling and the Senate Bill 5. So Senate Bill 5 is the gray column. Petra modeling is the blue column. You can see that the Senate Bill 5 columns are substantially higher with a higher estimation of the water supply compared to the PETRA modeling. So this is a result of basically more advanced modeling, more advanced understanding since 1985 of what the aquifers are like. And there's basically a general conclusion that there's about a third less available water in the Denver Basin aquifers than was originally estimated. So what this translates into what is called physically available water in the aquifers. So in this column, the first column under the Petra groundwater analysis is the acre feet per year for Arapahoe County, for the various aquifers, the Denver, Upper Arapahoe, Lower Arapahoe, and Laramie Fox Hills. And then the... Senate Bill 5 computation, you can see those numbers are substantially higher. And then the last column is a percentage of the Petra modeling over the Denver Basin computation. So we have a percentage number and the little arrow points to a chart which shows the production factors. The percentages are just changed into a factor. So, you know, one question that we heard, of course, at the end of the study, is there enough water in Arapaho County? And this chart shows, yes, there is. You see the 2020 water demand. The second column is the 2050 demand with conservation. The blue area is the low demand, and the gray hatched area is if you add the high growth scenario. And then without conservation, you can see it does go above the 2020 supply number. However, there is still a consideration that there is Water, sufficient water in Arapahoe County for growth. However, one has to be cognizant that this, the Denver Basin Aquifer is what's called a confined aquifer. It's not renewable. The water, you can consider it as being mined. Once that water is pulled out of the aquifer, it is not restored, or there's very, very limited restoration of the water. So some of the other counties have what's called a 300 year rule. And that was where we initially started with a comprehensive plan was to look at whether or not the 300 year rule made sense for Arapahoe County. So this is a chart to sort of imagine as an example, a hypothetical area of land. So under the state's rule, which is the 100 year rule, you know, imagine that there could be 100 units, residential units on this parcel. If we had a 200 year rule, that would extend the life of the aquifer under that parcel to 200 years, but you could only put on 50 units. Under the 300 year rule, you could extend the life of the aquifers to 300 years, but you can only put 33 units. The recommended production factors that you saw in the previous chart basically would equate to 170 years as kind of a rule, if you called it that, but there would be a different length at that time for each one of the aquifers, and that basically would translate to 59 residential units on that property. So the other counties which do have the 300-year are El Paso, they've had their rule in place since the mid-1980s, Elbert and Adams County. Adams County has been doing a water master plan, master study, sorry, water master study. That document is not yet approved, but I believe they are still going to be keeping their 300-year rule. So that just kind of gives that context for some of the surrounding counties. So I want to get into the, I should ask for questions. I mean, I know this gets very technical. I'm not a water person. I'm a land use planner. So I learned a lot through this process. But do you have any questions at this point?

Any questions over here? Go right ahead.

Yes, hi. The commissioner saw the aquifers. I heard you, or you said one of them, the Arapaho one, is confined, meaning it won't be renewable. And that implies that some aquifers are renewable. And I thought I also heard you say that sand produces water. So why are some confined and some renewable? How does that happen?

Well, actually, all the Denver basins, the Dawson, Denver, Arapaho, and Laramie Fox Hills, all of those are considered confined aquifers. The only way you can, well, part of it that is renewable is closer to the foothills, where you have the granitic rocks, which can get fractured, and then rainwater and snow melt permeate into that. So you can have the very edge of the aquifers over by Jefferson County, Douglas County. That part can have some water renewed. But basically, under us, under Arapahoe County, as well as Adams and City and County of Denver, et cetera, that is a confined aquifer. So you have to think of the Dawson, the Denver, all the aquifers as being not renewable. There is no water that permeates into those aquifers to kind of renew them. Now, there are surface aquifers called alluvial aquifers, which are adjacent, say, to the South Platte River, you know, and there can be shallow wells that might go down 40 or 60 feet, and that's renewable. Those are alluvial aquifers. Those are renewable. But the deeper aquifers, we're talking 600 feet, 1,000 feet below the surface, those are not renewable. So we consider them as being mined. You know, the water is being mined, and it's not replaced. Just got a little notice here that I better put my computer on snooze. Where's my arrow? Oh, dear. There we go. Sorry. We had updates today to our computer system. So did I? Yeah, thank you.

It does make me think. What I'm hearing so far is the good news is that we have enough water through 2050 with conservation, et cetera. But the bad news would be that if so many aquifers are confined, that at some point we're going to run out of water. Is that a fair conclusion? I mean, we'll all be.

Our children and grandchildren will be here.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, I guess the point is that it is not, we cannot be flagrant users of groundwater. We have to be cognizant of really preserving it and being sensitive to ways to extend the life of the aquifers. Yeah, yeah.

Thank you. Hi, Commissioner Coran. I just wanted to confirm, so Arapahoe County is the only one who's drawing from these aquifers, or do other counties also have access to these?

Every county that lies over the Denver Basin aquifers pulls from the aquifers. So it's Weld, El Paso, Elbert. all the counties. So anybody who has a farm, a household on a farm and has a well, they get a well permit from the state engineer from the Division of Water Resources and their well permit is tied that they can go to a certain depth in a certain aquifer and they could pull out a certain amount of water So that is sort of some requirements on that. But no, the Denver Basin aquifers are very extensive, and various jurisdictions pull groundwater. There's also something called aquifer recharge, where there is water that is saved in years when there's a lot of water, and some of the water providers inject that water into the deeper aquifers basically as a type of storage. Okay, I'll get into the water supply element, which is the part to be included into the comprehensive plan. So there are seven sections. The introductory section basically shows the compliance with Senate Bill 24174. We're using the Water Supply Studies Foundation. We're following Department of Local Affairs, what they call a high tech pathway because we have done this 3D hydrological modeling. And also explains the stakeholder engagement we had in developing the water supply study. The second section deals with basically the water landscape. So it looks at three areas for the county. Basically the western urban areas, all the water there for development is provided by water providers. The eastern area, what was called region two, is really the focus of the water supply study, and then the region three is the far rural area, which does not have water providers in that area. The second section has to do with the growth scenarios that I went over, and also taking a look at the demand modeling and conservation, and introduces and provides the background for the production factors that we're showing to you. The next section, the fourth section, introduces the goals, policies, and strategies, which is really the backbone for the comprehensive plan. And in this section, this really focuses on long-term groundwater sustainability, aquifer protection, and managed service consolidation. There are three goals, seven policies, and 18 strategies in this section. Chapter five follows the hierarchy for goals, policies, and strategies as set out in other sections of the comprehensive plan. So there's a number of key actions here. One is to really encourage the transition to renewable water sources and reuse. And also to really switch the focus as much as possible into using groundwater for emergency and drought scenarios. This is where the annual groundwater production factors are recommended to be included in the land development code. This also, we're also recommending that there be another water supply study in 20 years because conditions change as well as there's been substantial changes in the technology to assess available water to the county. And also too, there's encouraging water provider networks and also some things related to development review. The next section focuses on water conservation efficiency. There's five goals, eight policies, and 21 strategies in this section. And this really focuses on ways to encourage conservation basically within this. Chapter five is really based not only on the water supply study, although that is the most recent information, but it also folds in a lot of the existing goals, policies, and strategies on water in different sections. So those are being pulled out and all consolidated into this one chapter. Currently they're in about three different sections, so we'll just have them all in one chapter now. Section six is the collaborative policies and actions. So some of these are things that we're already doing with various agencies, but there's three goals, three policies, and eight strategies in this section, and it's really setting up memorandum of understandings with various organizations, setting up a continuation of the conversations we had with water providers in the county, and meeting perhaps twice a year. So we will be setting that up so we can maintain the conversations on water because increasingly what we found out when we were doing the study is having the different water providers sit around the table and talk about particular issues was really very productive and it did lead to some of the recommendations and policies that are reflected in chapter five. And then the last section of the element is talking about the long-term tracking and adaptive management. So basically we will, as required, update the chapter five every five years. And then we also, of course, have conservation policies that are emphasized in this section to reflect the Colorado Water Plan. So, That is the new section that we're proposing to be included in the comprehensive plan. So the next steps, we'll have a study session with the same information presented to the board on the 21st. And then there will be the public hearing for the comprehensive plan amendment. And what you will see at that time are two versions of the complete comprehensive plan. There'll be the red line version which shows all the areas all the goals, policies, and strategies, which have been deleted from separate sections, it'll have the new chapter five. So you'll have the red line version as well as the clean version as well, too, which would be going forward for approval. So following the public hearing on October 20th, there'll be a public hearing at the board on November 24th. That's the date that we have tentatively scheduled for that. So you might recall the approval process has changed for comprehensive plan amendments since before, you know, everything stopped at the Planning Commission, but now items are basically approved by the Planning Commission with a recommendation to the Board, and then the Board does make the approval. So... The action requested, well this was a study session for your information, a sharing of information for what is in chapter five, the water supply element. We would appreciate any thoughts you have, any comments, and if I could receive those by October 1st, that would be wonderful. So with that, questions and comments.

Okay, I just have a couple of questions just to follow up So I know we talked a lot about aquifers and then you were mentioning groundwater as well And so this is just mostly curiosity But is there someone who owns the groundwater or does that belong to the state or we can do whatever we want with the groundwater?

The groundwater doesn't belong to anybody people get I mean, if you have a parcel in a house and you want a well, you just get a well permit from the state and that gives you the right to drill your well to a certain depth, to a certain aquifer, and then have a pump that produces a certain amount at a given flow rate. But nobody owns the aquifers.

Sorry, I meant the groundwater. So if it rains and I have a barrel on my property, does someone own that water that comes down?

Well, there have been changes. Did you want to address that?

I know it's complicated.

The answer is yes.

Okay.

So there's... The barrels for rainwater have been something that I know has kind of come into, used to be prohibited and then a lot of communities have allowed that. But basically all the water that hits your roof or hits the ground on your property, is all becomes part of the, if you will, the historical flows of that water. So it all goes back into the storm drainage system, back to the natural route that it would have taken if your streets and your subdivision was not there. And then people have rights to that water that ends up in that storm system that goes out to whatever drainage basin it is. So yes, it's owned by somebody. but the barrels have allowed for some of that reuse, so it still gets to its ultimate destination. It gets another use out of it first, typically. So does that answer your question?

Yeah, no, that answers, because I know there had been stuff about you can collect, you can't collect, so, okay.

It's been controversial over the years. It's taken a while to get to the point where you can have rain barrels in certain communities, and I know there's some that allow and some that don't, but ultimately, you know, water is more valuable than gold in Colorado.

And then do all of these calculations take into account the drought years or the years of plenty? Like how does that impact any of the data from the studies that have been done?

Okay, those production factors because the water, the groundwater is being pulled from the aquifers, you know, from 500, 600, 1,000 feet below the surface. It's not affected by the drought. Got it. Yeah. So what is affected, of course, are the renewable water supplies, the South Platte. You know, we have heard in talking to some water districts which get some of their water from Denver water that Denver water has been curtailing the supply to other water districts. So it's the surface water that is greatly impacted by snow melts and drought.

Got it. And then, sorry, one last question. So some of the rules and things in here that you've mentioned in the different chapters, are those things like, I know that we had the Arapaho District come and present to us about putting up a pickleball court to decrease their water burden in some of those areas where they've got a lot of grass. Is that the sort of stuff that's in these, in this document?

Well, the things of the comprehensive plan are the goals, policies, and strategies. So it's the higher level document. Got it. Our landscaping regulations, Molly is here, does have restrictions that she could perhaps speak to a little bit more about surface water regulations.

So we have a plant list that we're drawing on more xeric plants and indigenous species. So we have a plant list which helps with the use of water that's needed. Also the reduction of turf and where you can put it. So that's a couple ways that we're trying to cut down the amount of water that's being used in the county.

Thank you. I'm just trying to put all the pieces together on how it all comes together and connects.

That's a wonderful example of the Parks District wanting to reduce the area of turf that they have and convert it to another recreational use that uses less water. We see that from a lot of entities, whether it's a Parks District or even Arapahoe County at the admin building. Two areas that used to be irrigated, basically bluegrass turf, were converted to more native plants, and that has saved the county a significant amount on its water bill and on its water usage. So there's a lot of actions that individual entities are taking in the conservation arena. Yeah, I think I'll leave it there.

I'll just mention briefly that there was a public hearing not too long ago in which a member of the public had erroneously indicated that the county encouraged in some way the planting or use of Kentucky bluegrass, and that actually was contradicted by the code. That's not what it says. But as indicated, those kinds of site details are at a different level, a more granular level in the planning and review process and address a different part of the actual code. than the comprehensive plan.

Can I just get a definition? I just want to clear something up. Is there a difference between surface water and groundwater?

Yes. Yes.

What is the difference there?

Surface water is, in Colorado, basically comes from snowmelt. And it's the water that you see in rivers and the ephemeral streams that are out in the eastern plains, for example. So that is the surface water. Surface water does sink into the ground, and it does go feed those alluvial aquifers I talked about before. But those are not very deep. The aquifers, the Denver Basin aquifers, are those deep bedrock aquifers that are hundreds, you know, over a thousand feet below. And those are the ones that are basically from quaternary tanks. That's old water that is underneath in those aquifers. So that is what... is pulled out as ground water. And they have two different legal systems. I'm just gonna touch on it very quickly because water law is very specialized. So with surface water, there's a doctrine called first in right, first in time. So you've heard about water rights on rivers, you know, calls and things like that. So surface water has this very extensive and complicated hierarchy of basically having rights to water. Groundwater is not like that. Groundwater, there's no first in right, first in time. It's just all through the well permits.

Okay. So surface water can be owned, right? But groundwater is not owned. In general.

The surface water, you can have a right to it.

Right.

So you can have a senior right compared to the farmer downstream, so to speak.

So Aurora Reservoir belongs to Aurora.

That's correct.

In general? In general.

That's because they store water for their water supply in a reservoir. Yes. All right.

So you mentioned one thing about people injecting water into the aquifers.

Yes.

Then that's going to make that water owned in the aquifer? Yes. Because it sounds like a storage thing. I mean, just a general question.

Yeah, it's called ACR, or Aquifer Storage and Recovery. So it's basically a way to store water underground so that you don't have the surface evaporation from a reservoir. So it's a way to have water, excess water, that you can inject into into aquifers, and it's all monitored as to what comes in, what comes out, and it's a way to store it without that evapotranspiration loss from a reservoir. So you save more water. And certain water districts are doing that. Not all of them, certain ones are.

Okay, very good. Anything else? Down here? All right. Thank you very much. I guess we can go into announcements.

Okay. October 6th. We have three items that will be there that night. Public hearing on the group living land development code amendment. There will be a study session on public land dedication and also your PC training. And that is it.

Okay. Okay. And that looks like we will probably have an October 20th meeting then too, right?

I haven't checked.

Any commission public hearing for the approval of the amendments to this?

Oh, public, yeah. Yeah, public hearing for this.

So it looks like we'll have two meetings next month.

Just roughly. Okay. And as an FYI, the October 20th meeting will be at the main admin building on Prince Street in Littleton. We lose this room for elections.

It's one of the election voting sites. Yep. Thank you for the reminder on the election. All right. Anybody have any comments or questions for staff? And I'm going to be done and call this finished.