Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

6:30. I'll call the meeting to order. Please rise and join me in the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Cheryl, would you do a roll call? Bortini, present. Right. Yes. Fry Hoer. I would uh accept a motion to approve the agenda. Second. There's a motion in a second. Did you call for the vote? Call for the vote. I I do. We need a formal vote on that.

Yes. Motion to approve the minutes. I had a second. Okay, that was kind of confused there. Bryhover. Yes. Bright. Yes. Orini. I uh then we have the planning commission minutes from October the 7th of 2025. Cheryl

Ortini. I Fry Hoverver. Yes. Bright. Yes.

And now we have our public participation section of the meeting. There's no limit to the number of speakers, although public comments will be held to an overall time limit of 30 minutes. Uh individual speakers will have three minutes each and may only speak once and may not seed time to another uh speaker. Is there anyone here who would like to speak in the open public participation section? Seeing none, we'll move along. Public hearings. The public hearing we have on the agenda tonight is resolution one series 2026.

Jason, evening commission. There we go. Okay. Um, so my staff report is up here for you guys to take a look at. Um, so this evening, uh, we're bringing before you a application for a conditional use permit and a application, Jason. Yes, sir. If I can encourage you to speak close to the microphone.

Yeah. Is it kind of Okay, let me try this. Okay. So this evening we bring before you an application for a conditional use permit for religious land use and a uh application for a special exception minor deviation for off- streetet parking requirements. Uh this application is submitted by the bishop of PBLO St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church. Um so bit of background on this project. uh the Catholic Church uh came to us and uh they were interested in doing a uh lot consolidation. Um they have a few properties there and I'll pull up a map here so you guys can see that. Um so we we began the process of going through that minor subdivision and um getting public comment and uh we realized that uh the church had not sought a conditional use permit which is a requirement for uh for that zone in single family. Um so we suggested to the church that uh we go through this process um just to kind of clean that up for them. um it will provide them with um some assurityity around future site development. Um one of the things that they're proposing to do in the future um is to demolish which I believe they've already done, demolish a building that was located at 40 um East Monizuma and um they're going to rebuild that. So, um, a couple of things, uh, that have happened, uh, since we, uh, since I submitted this staff report for you guys. Um, we did, in fact, approve that, uh, application. So, those lots are now consolidated and that building is no

longer in existence, the one that's that's circled here to the east. Um, additionally, um, to the, uh, conditional use that we are seeking, and I did provide you, uh, with some items for consideration in my staff report as to why, um, cities typically seek uh, conditional use permits for religious land uses, and some things to think about as you uh, decide whether or not to recommend this for approval by city council. Um, one of the uh things that we need to uh determine is the off- streetet parking requirements for this property. Um, one of the one of the um impacts to the community from any religious use is traffic flow um and parking uh in surrounding neighborhoods. And so, um, we've been working pretty closely with the applicant, uh, to determine what parking is currently available. So, if you look at that map, you can see that there is parking, um, uh, in the in the rear of the property. There's a alleyway that runs along the north side here. Um uh the applicant uh did a count of uh the parking spaces and determined that there were enough parking spaces including ones that were accessible uh for 20 vehicles. Um the land use code is pretty prescriptive in terms of how you determine uh the parking requirements for this religious land use. Um and you do that by determining max maximum occupancy load for the buildings. Um so uh in the middle of January, January

15th, uh we went out, uh with the building department and we did a fire inspection to determine that what those maximum occupancy loads are. Um doing the uh calculations using the land use code. Um the requirements for all of these buildings should they be full all at the same time which is unlikely is 125 off- streetet parking spaces. They have again 20 available. Um so this is one of the things that we need to consider uh in terms of um in terms of the special exception minor deviation to the code. Um, I guess what I will say is that over time and again this this use has been in place since the uh early 1900s as the church has expanded expanded its offerings um the surrounding neighborhoods um have demonstrated the capacity to be able to handle the traffic during these events. So um with that said um I provided you guys with the agency comments. We didn't really get anything. Uh our city uh project engineer and public works did not have any concerns at all with approval of this uh conditional use permit and uh deviation, minor deviation. Um, so your alternatives this evening as the commission, you can recommend to the city council to approve the conditional use permit and special exception minor deviation for the religious land use on property located at 28 28 East Monizuma Street Zone single family R1. Uh the you can um recommend denial of the application uh for the conditional use and state it state your reasons. Um,

you can ask for more information and continue the application to a date certain or uh you can recommend that council approve the conditional use permit and special exception minor deviation and state any conditions you feel would be necessary to ensure compliance with the land use code. Um my recommendation is to uh to approve uh alternate four um approval of the conditional use permit through P through PNZ resolution 1 series 2026. Um and uh we have a standard condition that we put in place um which is right there for you guys to take a look at. And um before I wrap up, I'll mention that the applicant is here this evening if you have any specific questions you want to ask. Um Doug is the agent for the Catholic Church.

We'll pick on you first. Yeah. Very well. Are there uh any questions of staff? I just want to make one comment before proceeding that I'm a parishioner of St. Margaret Mary and I spoke with the city attorney and I'm going to proceed with voting tonight or there would be an absence of a quorum. I'll I'll just comment that this is a long established use. Correct. Yeah. Yeah.

And it uh the parking is pretty much on uh typical church occasions.

Yes. Yeah, I I mean again if the applicant wants to weigh in, they do not anticip Well, I will just make a brief comment that St. Margaret Mary's has been a foundation of our community for 75 years and is a uh wonderful place where people can go to praise God. And um I wholeheartedly support this permit. And there is plenty of parking on Market um up and down uh Market Street at the intersection of Market and Monizuma. And so, yeah, there's going to be times when it's busy, but there's a lot of there's a lot of parking on Monizuma as well as on Market. So, uh, that I think that will handle any parking concerns that the community might have. Any other comments from the commission? I'll open it up to the applicant. Does the applicant have any comments? My name is Doug Sparks. I'm the project manager for the building. Um, what I wanted to emphasize is that like Jason said, the conditional use permit is to clean up an existing use. It's not we're not adding um any additional use to the to the land. The the buildings typically are never fully occupied. So that it's just basically the church church's occupancy that we're dealing with. The the building that that has been demolished was unserviceable.

That's why we're rebuilding. It was was it was basically abandoned. An old it was the old nunnery from years ago. had railroad tie walls in it and you couldn't do anything with it. It was pretty much a non non-serviceable building. So that's how the process started. And then when we went through that and talked to the city, we went with their recommendation to consolidate the lot so that in the future we're not having to deal with a separate lot issue, you know, split up. So now it will be going forward memorialized that way. So just that's kind of how the process started.

Are there any questions for the applicant? You are in the process of tearing it down. What's that? You're in the process of tearing that building. We actually demolished the building already because it it was becoming a liability to us because you don't want to have an abandoned building in town. I mean it it's hard to control, you know, people getting into it and it was dangerous. No, it is it's it is now gone. That lot that's there is just a blank lot. And we have a we have a design ready to go to the permitting process for for a replacement of that building.

And is parking being parking replacing that building? Is are parking spots replacing that building?

No, the parking is going to be exactly the same. It's going to be a si slightly smaller building in footprint because the other building was very convoluted. It was a built-on add added on kind of house of seven gables. But now it's going to be a simple rectangle rectangular building. Um but the parking issue will not be will not be taking up any if anything will be less um of a building footprint there. So we'll be able to have a little more clean area there. But no, we're not adding or subtracting parking that's been existing for eons there. Thank you.

Okay. I just want to say I I I commend our the church. You know, it's very difficult to take a uh a decrepit a a um a building with asbestous and all sorts of problems. And it cost the church a lot to knock it down, level it. And uh it will be a great addition to the community once it's built within the next year. And it will it'll be a modern place where the children can go to learn and community members can go and come together and uh and celebrate. So, I just want to thank the church and it's it's cost a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of effort to level the old building and to start the process of getting the new one up. And I think it's going to be great for our community and um again, I think there's ample parking in the area.

And one of the things I'm sorry, one of the things we did do too is to make sure that it's not going to be an a different looking building. It's it's going to blend into the architecture of the of the other buildings there. It's just going to be cleaner looking. That's all. The other building had a lot of different things built on it. It's just going to be a very clean, simple building. Um, but it's going to look very similar to the other buildings in that area. So, they'll all be kind of blended right in color-wise and texture-wise and everything. Any other questions? Any other questions? ready to ready for action. Okay, back to the commission.

Looking for

Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, before you uh uh go to the vote, remember to open the public hearing, the public comment portion of the public hearing. I don't believe we have any public, but you need to open it and close it. Thank you. At this time, I will open the public comment portion of the hearing. Seeing none, I will close the public comment portion of the hearing. And now back to the commission. The chair is looking for a motion. The staff has presented us with a suggested motion. Sorry about that. Yes, there is a suggested motion um in the staff report.

Could you flash that up on the screen again for Can you display that, Jason? Thanks. I I'll make a motion if you're ready for that. Bob, I move that the commission approve resolution number one series 2026, a resolution recommending that the city council approved the conditional use permit and special exemp exception for religious use on the property located at 20 28 East Monizuma Street zone single family 1 R1 through planning and zoning resolutions number one series 2026 with the condition as stated in the resolution. Is there a second?

I second it. There's a motion and a second. Is there discussion?

All I'll say is that uh in my view that this has been a a longestablished use in the committee and been an asset to the community for many decades. And uh I intend to uh vote in the affirmative on this. So I think we're ready for a vote. Cheryl, would you take the uh take the vote? Fryover, yes. Cortini, I Bright,

yes. Okay, next item of business. Number five, unfinished business. There is none. Number six, new business. There is none. Uh, other items of business, there is none. So, moving right along. That's going fast. Administrative approvals. Jason Armstrong will be presenting the admin.

Yes. Um, as requested previously by the commission. Um, at each one of our meetings, I will present to you the administrative approvals um that we've that we've done through the planning process here. Um, as you can see from the list of approvals, they are uh all minor subdivision applications. Um, since we made the changes to the land use code last April, uh, to make those administrative decisions, um, they no longer need to come before this body for consideration and recommendation. So, um, if you guys have had a chance to take a look at those, uh, I'm here to answer any questions you might have about them. Is there any questions for staff on that? Thanks, Jason. Permits issued. Uh 7B, that's review only. If you've had a chance to take a look at those, uh item eight, discussion items. Uh we'll bring up Nenah's uh resignation. As you're all aware, Nenah has resigned from the commission. I believe Jason had something he wanted to talk about. Uh yeah. Um not in regards to Nah's resignation. Um so I have a couple of items. Uh first um we had a request from um the commission chair uh to participate tonight uh virtually in in this meeting. Um currently, uh we do not have anything in code, uh that allows for remote participation. Um last year, uh city council passed an ordinance and I'm going to bring you a copy of that ordinance right now and give it to you.

So really what I wanted to uh bring up is that um there if if you guys are interested in talking more about this as a option for planning and zoning commissioners Um, we would just ask that you request that staff put that on uh the next agenda and staff can can prepare a memo with some background information. Um, or if you guys want to deliberate on it right now and discuss it um, for a few minutes um, and determine you don't want to proceed with that discussion, you can let us know that as well. I

I think I would just want to know more about it. How what would be the mechanics of that? Yeah. Um well uh we we have the technology in place to uh remote people in for city council meetings. So we would use that same mechanism in terms of our IT department to get that set up. Um really it's it's uh it's a question that the city council deliberated on quite a bit to to come to a decision. Um, as I said, if you guys uh want to read through the ordinance, uh it's pretty prescriptive in um how they set that up for uh the accountability that they desired for their members.

So, a commission member would log in and participate from their home computer with software provided by the city. Yes, we would um upon request uh our ID department can provide them a link um and they would be able to participate remotely. This is something they could presumably I don't mean to hog it. Sorry, but uh they could presumably do from vacation in Hawaii or something here. That is correct. Jason, is there a ballot a question about remote participation on the April 7th ballot? No. Is that something that

Go ahead.

Yeah. So when council was debating this uh ordinance, there is a provision in the current charter that says city council shall meet at city hall. And of course that was written back in the 1950s where when it said city hall that meant here physically. Um, I provided council with the opinion that I felt that remote participation would qualify as meeting at city hall. And it certainly during CO that's what they did. Uh, and they didn't amend the charter to accomplish that. And it's it's fairly common for governing bodies to have this ability. Uh and so what council decided to do was adopt the ordinance, operate under the terms of the ordinance and it's not unlimited. You only a certain number of council members can do it. There's two at a time. So you can't have the whole uh whole group and whoever is chairing the meeting has to be physically present. Uh so if the if for instance if the if the appointed chair to the commission can't make it they could participate remotely but the vice chair would have to chair the meeting if the vice chair was present physically present but u we decided that uh some some of the council members were a little skeptical on whether or not the remote particip participation actually qualified as

uh meeting at city hall. And so they asked that we put a ballot question to make the language in the charter uh comply with what's in the ordinance. And of course, if the voters vote down that change, then council will have to review whether they want to keep that ordinance in place in light of the voters's decision on the uh charter amendment. Uh but uh there is no such charter amendment for uh planning commission or no such charter provision for planning commission. So it it but it's something that I think planning commission would have to adopt a resolution uh similar to what what city council did with that ordinance and you could come up with the same rules and guidelines or different ones. Uh but there there are limitations that council thought were appropriate to uh prevent somebody from get getting elected and then never showing up and just participate remotely full-time. And that that was the

from Hawaii. Yeah. So uh

that's that's what I worry about is you know we live in a very small town and we can do a lot of things remotely. banking, commerce, you know, news. Sometimes we rely too much on computers and it's good to have face-to-face contact. And I think it is a small a small sacrifice that we pay to be, you know, to represent the people and to try to make Cortez better. Um, I I think that there there might be some exceptions if somebody uh is immobile or, you know, if they're sick or ill, they don't want to spread something to other folks. They're there's a place and a time for people to remote into hearings. But overall, I think it should be we should show up and um you know, it's good to see other people and to to meet people face to face. And I think sometimes the internet it takes that away and it also makes our society a little bit more, you know, angry and and nasty. And I think seeing people face to face is a good thing. Well, I think it's a courtesy to the public too for us to physically be here to listen to to the public. And I guess for tonight's purposes, I think Jason's just asking that do do you want to just drop it completely or do you want staff to bring back and do a presentation and solicit input on ter on what types of rules you might want if in fact staff brought forward a resolution at a at a future meeting for you? And it would be a, you know, there would be a public hearing on that resolution. So, you know, the the public could come in and comment on it as well.

Well, you you don't have to do it. And I think Jason's just asking for Yeah. Well, we all preference we all have to be gone from time to time for family events or or whatever, business trips perhaps. Um, pretty limited. Maybe

I would say we try to meet in person if there's some extraordinary event. You know, I think somebody should be able to attend remotely. We we want to have full participation here. So, even if it's remote, it's a good thing, but I don't want somebody to just like like Pat was saying, just uh attend remotely every single time. I guess that's the danger of it. uh when you open the door and you allow it and then maybe people ar maybe the representatives aren't that as connected to the community as they should be, you know, so that so there's times to be able to you employ it, but I definitely don't think it should be like a default. I don't know if if if it's appropriate. Uh I would like to wait until after the April 7th vote and see what the public has to say about it. I mean, it's not just a matter of whether we want it, but I think it's also the people that we serve.

That's a good point. Let the people decide and then we'll have we'll have more knowledge after that. If they if they vote to allow remote hearings, then, you know, then we can go from there and I think we just pause until then. I like that point of view. Maybe consider it not ripe for a discussion yet.

Okay. Very well. appreciate your feedback. Um maybe after the uh the next election cycle, we'll I'll bring it back up again and see if you guys want to entertain a conversation at that time. Um the only other item I wanted to bring up this evening, general awareness, um so uh state uh legislature passed um a bill last year that requires all uh municipalities with these qualifying conditions and Cortez definitely qualifies due to its size. um we have to make specific amendments uh to adopt new items to our comprehensive plan. Um planning and zoning is uh the keeper of our comprehensive plan. And so um I'm working right now with uh DOA, Department of Local Affairs, on a funding mechanism to help us hire a consultant. And um if successful with that grant application, which we think we are, um we're going to start engaging probably in the middle of this calendar year in a public process with that consultant. So the two elements that we need to add to our comprehensive plan are what's called a strategic growth element and a a water supply element. And these were all kind of focused Um just broad strokes for each one of those. The strategic growth element is about um making uh plans and goals around infill development and preferred areas of the city for that sort of development and preserving open space and surrounding agricultural areas. Um the water supply is just like what it

sounds. We need to have a good comprehensive uh plan with some scenarios around what the future of our water supply looks like. Um our public works department right now is working through some master planning around water. Um they've done a lot of infrastructure planning as well. And so all that will be kind of pulled into um into these two elements of the comprehensive plan. Um, we are supposed to have those two elements adopted in our comprehensive plan uh by December 31st, 2026. Um, realistically, um, I I'm not sure that's going to happen. Um, the city of Cortez will not have any negative repercussions from the state level. Um, in fact, Dola has told me that we're kind of ahead of the curve in terms of trying to get this completed. Um there's just been a lot of different um legislative acts passed in the last couple years and there's new requirements all the time for municipalities and we're all kind of just trying to keep up with that. Um but this is one of the projects that we should probably really take on in the coming year, year and a half. Um leading into uh the larger rewrite of the entire comprehensive plan. Um that's a really big project that's going to take, you know, a year and a half, two years to complete. Um but I just wanted to kind of put it on your radar uh that that those projects are coming up and that uh will be coming to planning and zoning to help us a lot with working through those through those elements.

We see the scope of work on that before it gets set in stone. Um you know, honestly,

yeah. Um, well, yeah, right now I'm actually uh I have a draft that I put together for an RFP and I sent that up to Dola um to take a look at. They do courtesy reviews of all kinds of things because they understand the legislation's coming fast and furious for us. Um, and uh, so once I get back their feedback and we're getting closer to having an idea of how we want to propose that project for consultants to bid on, um, certainly, um, I'll be forming a committee internally across various departments to help me with that RFP process. Um, critique it, get it out the door, do the review, select a consultant.

Will there be a public process as part of this? I please say yes.

The well the RFP process um we do uh we deliberate internally. We set up teams of folks that score um on weighted criteria. Um it's very transparent and um we have you know our our review teams could include somebody from this this body if you guys wanted if somebody wanted to participate on it. We have city council members that have participated in other RFP processes. Um but at the end of the day um after we do all of the weighted scoring process um it yields uh the candidates uh that we want to that we want to interview and then um once that team has made a selection we come to city council um and we present all of the information that we've gathered and um make a recommendation for them to approve the contract. Corct.

Could we ask for a commission member willing to sit on this tonight? Sure. And if you guys want to do that, if somebody wants to step up right now, let me know. Um, just to let you know, um, we're probably I don't know. Uh, it's it's really hard to tell. Dola's procurement processes take a little bit longer than they anticipate, but I'm hoping maybe we could engage in a in our first initial meeting around this in about a month if that works for everybody's timing. Just putting Is this like a monthly thing then?

Yeah, once we get going, I mean, so really what we'll do first is we'll get the RFP approved and we'll put it out for bid. We'll leave it out for bid for about a month. Um, at that time we'll close the bid. We'll receive all of the proposals from wherever we get them and then we'll start breaking down um each one of those proposals based on the criteria that we've selected. Um so once that process starts happening, things start moving kind of quickly. Um maybe another month after we close that to kind of go through the scoring. Um then you know do some interviews, make our recommendation and then bring it to councel for contract approval. Well really they're just approving uh us to go into negotiations for the contract based on our record.

And Jason, this is for grant money from the state to qualify. Is that why we have to hire the consultant to qualify? Um well, we're legislatively mandate to adopt these two elements to our comprehensive plan and the state has a funding mechanism to help us do that project. Um so that's why we're work. So the state the state would fund the consultant

part partially uh grant is a 25% match and we appropriated the grant match um into the 2026 budget planning ahead. So um if we get awarded the grant that we've applied for and again we have every indication from the folks at DOA that we'll receive it um the city's position to to move the project forward and this would basically create a comprehensive map to show you know where the future where we put should have future growth or where the limitations are for the water supply basically to try to come up with a future plan for the next generation of Cortez is what the buildings will look like. Does he get into specifics on, you know, like heights and things like that or is it just more of like a general

No, it's it's really to uh help the city identify areas of preferred growth. It's not really addressing design standards. I see. So it's just more of like trying to figure out what what what smart developments development and smart growth should look like in the future for Cortez. It would help us strategically plan for the future what the resources would be like water to Exactly. Yeah. I'd be I'd be want willing to volunteer, you know, if

and I could uh sit in on some meetings with the consultant or when you get that take, you know, when you get all the project coming together and then I could report back here to the P&Z committee and that would be beneficial and then we could know what's going on for the you know, thanks Jason. Okay. Well, that's it. That was the two things I wanted to bring up to you guys this evening. Okay. Chair would accept a motion. I uh I move for adjournment. Second.

Second. Carol. Fryhover. Yes. Bartini. I right. Yes. Thank you. Thanks for doing that. I think it'll be interesting to see you know what the consultant.

Good seeing you. Good seeing you. Hopefully we can get some other