Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

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e e e okay I'm going to call this meeting to order please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the fire of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation indivisible with lice can we do roll call it's G to take a long time bright yes Waldren yes how yes and did we have any um changes to the

agenda can I get a motion to approve the agenda motion to approve the agenda second can we do the vote to yes right yes walren yes um next we'll look at approving the meeting minutes from our January 7th 2025 meeting did anyone have any um amendments or additions to the minutes can I get a motion to approve the minutes so move a second and vote please tell yes bright yes walren yes um and then at this time we will take public comment on any items not on tonight's agenda um so it's just general public comment did we have anyone okay so now I'm going to open the public hearing portion of this meeting um starting with resolution number two series 2025 Nancy will you present for us yes of course uh the re the first item on your agenda is a request for a condition use permit to operate a waste hauling business on a 1.3 acre parcel located at 215 South Broadway um the zoning on the property or C

um so we're at the south end of town here just to locate everybody um it is an area of General commercial zoning um there are however some different types of uses in the area that I thought I'd point out so this property here is the one that's proposed for the conditional use permit just north of that is um an auto repair type business south of it is similar Auto Truck type business um I'm going to show another property here across the street even though it's zone is the White Eagle Inn or an old motel and then just dropping off the edge of this photo I'm going to get better is a um residential subdivision we're right on the edge of City Limits here this is the City Limits line with the canyon and Counting property in the back the land owner of the property it before for you tonight also owns this larger parcel in back behind the property and here's a little bit more of an overall view of the neighborhood and um so the property sits right in here kind of shows you how County property drops off right um over in this area really would be hard to affect that there is some vacant land over here that zoned r one in our code which is residential but it's vacant um and then these Parcels down here commercial are also vacant at this time the arrowhead subdivision is an interesting subdivision in the county

it's a little um almost fully developed subdivision oh in the city yeah it's fully developed type subdivision it's non-conforming all of it um because single family is not considered an allowed use in the commercial Zone not really sure how that happened or if the zonings um was considered when it happened and why uh this is your site plan for the use the use itself really is almost um they have waste hauling of both solid waste and Porta poot so they it's essentially used only by employees um and there will be a bit quite a bit of storage of portapotty um and waste containers um they won't be storing much waste on site they will empty the trucks uh at the but I'll let them explain kind of how they operate the business when they get up um there I'm trying to think I want to go back and talk about a little about something but oh another important piece here is their access is off of an unpaved frontage road so if you've been out there SE do actually owns it but it comes in here and then further down on this side it I think there was an exhibit in your packet that showed where their access is it's actually owned by seed do controlled by SE do do and I don't know if it's maintained by SE dot maintained by much of anyone but dirt access Frontage Road owned by

SE uh talking about the site a little bit more so in the past they operated a sand and gravel type business that's what these storage bins were all about most of the site is graveled there is is some vegetation on the site that's scattered throughout there's sort of a decorative fence here in the front and just yeah the the reason it's a conditional use is that contractor storage or equipment yards which was about the closest listed use in the code that we could could compare to this is considered a conditional use in the highway commercial zone so just to sort of overgeneralize the more heavy commercial uses like storage yards that kind of thing are generally considered conditional uses that uses that maybe need a little bit more scrutiny or a little bit more um maybe buffering to make it compatible with the other uses in the zone so for a conditional use permit the criteria really is about whether or not it can be considered compatible with existing adjacent uses and other allowed uses in the zone um and it talks about how that compatibility might be expressed with the appearance architectural scale and features site design landscaping and how they can control noise smoke G dust Etc in this case given the area they are bounded on two sides by very similar type uses with similar levels of noise um shall we say

attractiveness and um some significant storage also with those uses and then we've got vacant in the back the other criteria to maybe point out is whether adequate public services such as streets Etc ex are available to the site whether there's Provisions for proper maintenance of the building parking Etc landscaping and whether the use conforms W will continue to conform with the hours of operation policies and requirements for parking loading access Etc so I've given you a little bit of a summary of the development standard I'm going to put the the criteria for approval up there it greatly exceeds most of the criteria and development standards as far as the lot size setbacks uh ex lot coverage uh height of the building parking significantly exceeds uh the two things I sort of want to make note of however is that their existing parking spaces are all graveled so they don't meet the the code requirement for surfacing of required parking in this case seven spaces would be required based on the size of the building and then Landscaping open space our code requires 10% of landscaped area this is an existing structure with no new disturbance the Landscaping is a little difficult to judge there is some vegetation on the site the fence um is somewhat decorative which we have used in the past as

Landscaping uh I could not really I can't tell you that they meet the 10% requirement however so uh I think we went over the discussion a little bit no new disturbance the area is heav although it's mixed with the motel vacant land and um and then a little bit further north are the single family homes in the arrowhead subdivision so the really the biggest concerns really with this use would be along the lines of the storage yard being completely gravel with uh no surfacing of the parking area the other important item for discussion is that the unpaved C dot access to the site we have sent comments to C dot but they have not answered us as far as if the access is adequate the other point in the Lan use code to make note of is that it section 5.07 J requires that there be no open storage located in front of a building the proposed OS site plan does not locate any storage in front of the building it's on the side but they're keeping the front open so they do need to continue to comply with this site plan to meet that requirement as far as comments um we received comments back from our GIS coordinator Cortez Sanitation District and our new contract engineer

the only really one of notes are from the city engineer they're talking about asking questions about the site plan and whether it could be better labeled there is a question about whether there are any hazardous materials on the site from previous uses we'll let the applicant and the owner speak to that and then uh specifically a note about the C do referral and whether or not they have any comments or conflicts with the development respect to with respect to C dot standards so with all of that staff is recommending approval of the conditional use permit we're suggesting four conditions number one that they meet all requirements of utility provider cities departments what's most important on that is seed do if they come up at with requirements for the use uh the next that they meet all requirements of Cortez Sanitation District who we did receive comments from that they were working with and believed they would meet all their requirements pay attention to C it's the property shall comply with all code requirements including storage landscaping and surfacing of parking areas prior to initiation of use and D that they comply with their submitted narrative at all times do you have any questions chair uh can we expect the SE do comments before this goes to council I can't really tell you when to expect seeda comments they've been slow generally I got to tell you that when you're changing uses from an existing use to a

new one and you're not generating much more traffic they probably would not make new requirements but I I need we need to let them answer that question they do have the ability to enforce on their own regardless of what you do I suppose no other questions okay the does the applicant have have um a presentation think you have to push a button push the button or is it on oh it sounds like it's yeah if it's green you're good to go sorry uh I'm Chris Trosper I'm with brew and waste management um yeah I think I think she pretty much covered everything there I don't think that uh the use that we have is much different than than the people north or south of us the businesses that are currently there um other than the the storage of containers that will be in and out of their daily so it's rolloff containers three three and six yard trash containers residential type containers and the portapotty themselves um and the traffic is minimal employees um going in so we have in this area now um five six employees and uh the trucks leave at uh 6:00 a.m. and gone all day long they dump the landfill return Park their trucks um that property is where we're

going to do our truck and equipment maintenance in the shop and uh so yeah I don't I don't know that the use of it really changes from what it was or or anybody surrounding us um as far as C dot I don't know what they would have to say about that maybe they would do a count in and out um but I would say that that the area uh the businesses north and south of us probably have you know quite a bit more traffic than we plan on having we're not open to the public we we don't have an office out of there at this time um so there's no payments accepted or any reason for the public to come in thank you um do either of my fellow Commissioners have questions I have a couple questions um so I noticed that the um Melo melmo Creek is right behind you um are you going to have any measures to make sure that there's no runoff into the creek from your location um since you're going to be like having equipment repair stuff um lubricants fuels uh potentially like liquid waste yeah no there's there's not going to be any liquid waste on the ground any any maintenance is going to be done in the shop which is clear at the at the east side or the front side of the property away from that back side haven't looked at that um I don't know if you can speak that my name's Dennis gesler and I own the property basically where it's going to tie into the sewage line that goes down in the back it's barely it's right there about where the property line is maybe just barely behind it but um if you've

ever been down at Maverick and they've got a place for RVs to dump um it it'll be like that kind of it's it fact Maverick the amount of traffic that's in there using their dump facility will probably be a lot more than what this is but it's it's not dirty it's not um you know it's not a waste so it's it's not a big uh it's really not a hazard of any type it will all go directly into the to the sewage line um and so that Maverick one is like a concrete containment essentially where they're putting that the one at Maverick uhhuh the Maverick one also dumps into the sewer line so it's it's not contained and dumped out it it goes but I mean should there be like a spill or something I mean I know that's not ideal but spills happen all the time there's a pan that runs to it but there's also connection points okay for direct connection that that spill the deal that you're talking about the shut off that's for out on the pumps that's for where the diesel and gas are that doesn't have to do with um the sewage dump facility there at Maverick you you're talking about that that shut off right no no what I'm wondering about is like if the unfortunate situation occurred that you had a sewage spill is is there anything to contain that there's a containment pan that runs that just takes it into it okay great and it's it's not a it's not like a sewer deal that's running constantly no understood yeah cool um and then there was one thing that Nancy pointed out um in the aerial Imaging that were like those bins that were used for the previous um sand and gravel are those

going to be used or removed so they're just going to kind of be like hanging out left over what what area the concrete bunkers on the South Side those those I've got a plan for which I will be coming up to visit with you guys shortly on but I wanted to this kind of needed to be taken care of first so I didn't want excuse me I didn't want to kind of get it mixed up so those are going to be used and that's on on the total southern side of that lot cool okay good question though thanks um I don't have any other questions to either of you guys um do we have any public comments about the proposal can I add one more thing sure because a lot of people might think that it's going to be there's going to be a lot of odor or there could be a lot of dust there's actually neither of those and kind of the same thing even like if you ever go by Maverick and you pay attention to that backside um there's no order there there's not it's you know it's not a dirty place um so as far as as even like at Maverick there's schools right across the street from Maverick so it's not something that um people are going to be irritated by um I'll put it that way thank you thank you actually I do have a question um you said that you guys are going to have U up to six employees that will be parking um we were talking about parking spaces where do you guys plan them to park in the front of that building on the side behind the Gates where's the parking location behind the Gates on the south side of the building and around to the West Side okay the other thing I'd like to add to that too the first uh business

that was in there that I think they even built the building uh they had a uh dirt Construction company and that's what was the original deal that was there for years and uh with their uh trucks trailers dump trailers um cats excavators they had a lot more uh equipment and actually people going in and out of there than what's going to take place now it was a pretty busy spot with the amount of equipment that they had all right thank you guys okay thank you anything else for us um I don't think so thank you very much um so now we can deliberate or I would would entertain emotion um I would just suggest that we remove the um Landscaping in the surface of parking area just because the build there's no new structure there's no new it's just a a change of permit and um being that it is mostly graveled and it has been um prior that we they don't they shouldn't be required for additional landscaping or um parking creating new parking spots essentially like an entire gravel lot could be us exactly exactly is it are you going to include that in the motion or um that's my question is like do I just leave that out um yeah I mean I think that if that's your intent you would just leave out um condition C but I'm wondering are I would still like the code requirement including storage to remain oh yeah so you would just leave out the landscaping

and and the surface parking yeah um and I guess my only question then for staff is if we are able to disregard a code requirement or if that's a decision that has to be made at council's level well you're you're making a recommendation to council anyway so you can suggest conditions that you want to have applied to this and or conditions that you want removed from what the staff is recommending and then Council decides will go to council and Council can choose to accept those or modify them or ignore them but uh you certainly have that Authority okay you heard the man I I think so I'll try to say it as accurately as I can all right I make the motion to recommend that Council approve the requested conditional use permit for property located at 2105 South Broadway Cortez as submitted by Brun Waste Management through pnz resolution number two series 20125 with the following conditions all requirements of utility providers City departments SE do and affected districts must be satisfied as outlawed in in adopted city codes and other regulatory documents specifically all public improvements shall comply with minimum requirements of the 2009 city of Cortez construction design standards and specification and all requirements of SE dot for required Highway improvements um the applicant shall meet all requirements of the C Cortez Sanitation District the property shall comply with all code requirements um regarding storage um and the applicant shall

comply with the submitted project narrative at all times is there a second I second the motion um the motion has been moved and seconded can we vote bright yes to yes walren yes motion passes um we have no unfinished business tonight um but we do have a few other items of business the first one is um a Planning and Zoning commission proposal from monuma County that we will consider and Nancy is going to tell us about that okay so this is one of our requests in the county if it's barely in the county in this case in fact it's adjacent to City Limits located this is the high school you can see right there a okay so this is the high school high school Fields we've got a vacant commercial property this is slgo coming down here and this is 7th Street right here this heavy line is City Limits so we've got County Land here and oddly enough the city limit line goes smack down the middle of County Road J there I can zoom in in a little bit this property right here is the one that's proposed for a minor subdivision through the county so

they want to take the one with existing buildings here make it a three and a half acre piece and then the back portion would be its own separate subdivided off parcel so back piece will not have any road Frontage uh they'll have a driveway down this where the existing driveway is um this Zooms in a little bit better showing you how right now City Limits goes down the middle of the street uh and the proposed units will be served by Mazuma water not city water so they are technically I believe we could make it eligible for annexation but they're not proposing that given the size of the lots and I guess that they have mon Zuma Water available it's just a fun note here we couldn't I couldn't figure out why but at one point the city must have owned RightWay for County Road J here and there's a reception number where the city dedicated that right away back to the county so normally through the IG our concerns are do we need additional rideway um and you know any other comments that you want to make to County Planning in this case I I guess we didn't want to talk about right away cuz at one point we had it and we gave it back so I'm thinking we don't want to ask for more on this Southern portion but that's about it um will you leave that thank you um so the parcel is just the one on the east side of the map

that narrow strip yeah this one here and so they just want to subdivide it from one parcel into two yeah okay I think we we would want to talk about it looks like they're proposing only one driveway because they don't have access for the 6 and 1 half acre and given that our our plan shows that as J as an arterial and Seventh Street continuing on that we would want to ask that they limit it to just one drive if possible I would think yeah I mean it seems like a pretty minimal impact to the city if they're not using our water and if where they're actually turning onto the main road out of the driveway is technically a county road at that point right or it's like the it's the boundary yeah as Rachel have they turn left they're going to hit the yeah but but the idea is it's going to be like a single family home the it's not going to be a huge increase in traffic regardless way the interesting point is that we have I I don't know why the high school zoned R2 which is a multif family District but it is um and then this portion here is zoned this un vacant property is zoned R2 so it's possible and then across here we've got commercially zoned property so it's possible with an arterial with commercial with high density that they'll be in a pretty high density area with their three and a half and six and a half acre Parcels but um I guess they know what they're doing with that um I do not have any comments to

give to the county neither do I um I would be kind of concerned I think of um just that one driveway I think on the east side further is a NE another neighborhood subdivision is that correct yeah there's a little subdivision fairly new from what I understand located okay I'm just I mean I know there's only going to be a one home behind that house but in the incident of emergency uh such as fire or that that road would be blocked they would not have access to that home um so that that would be my only concern um I see that neighborhood on the right side on the East Side would be where they the fire department would get access but let's say the the whole H neighborhood is completely filled the subdivision is complete how would they get access if that one road yeah I don't know that they'd be able to drive across there together that would be my one concern and that's it um do you want to direct staff to provide that comment and if so like how do you want to say it I I do but I don't know how I would want to say it I just want to make sure that that that single family home is taken care of in the instance that that road is blocked for whatever reason um because I see no other access beside that subdivision next to it that the fire department or the emergency police um would have access to them so how is that okay yeah I I pulled up for you the oops happened come

on I'm afraid to go any closer because I'm going to lose it but if you can see on this very small image this is our existing Master Street plan oh it's not I like that I wonder what that is um I wonder what I have to do to make it show up Aaron this one oh my gosh I've got another one after this oh you're getting there there we go well that's not I was trying to show that one but it somehow now is blank well how about this one no it's showing now I can use that one okay okay thank you thanks Aaron uh this is not our current Masterpiece plan but a that oh darn it it doesn't show the

street well take my word for it um on the existing Master Street plan where we have multifam development to the west of this parcel there's a proposed Street connection that would dead end right at that parcel I if that ever happens we'll see but there would be discussion that would that way provide City street access right up to that parcel thank you that answers my question um so I don't think that we have any comments to give to the county okay so yeah no comments from the Planning Commission for the county um we have one discussion item tonight which is a discussion on the intergovernmental agreement for Road and Street management between the city of Cortez and monuma County Nancy again okay we're back um and this is showing so great um what oh

no it just went blank on me well there's the other one now I have to search for it you know what you have these in your packet can we just talk through them I do so as you at your last meeting all here the consultant was here to talk about a they're working on a transport a plan um in this case though we've got some other things going on where the county was working with a consultant to revise their the IGA with the city they we do not have a draft we're comfortable with at this point and there's been no public comment on this but they have re provided for us a revised map um for the IGA so when we were talking about projects like we just did with the crusan one there the county is looking at revising the map that you that we would consider projects to be within our area of influence and comment um what they're proposing to do is is a little bit interesting as oh on the previous map the one we had up there that one you can see two different level boundaries there's that pink and black line which

is do you have your uh poter no um the pink and black line is the limits of the master street plan or areas where we have proposed through streets and areas where we would comment on streets in the county that might need Improvement that black and yellow line the sort of can you see that one it's really it's further out is the area of influence line so we have two separate lines uh where we comment about streets or projects in general so the proposed new map we'll show that now pushing yeah is basically a combination of the two so [Music] now the I think as you can see on the North it follows the exact same line as before combining both the master street plan and the area of influence line so that you don't have a pointer um this little loop on the top that area was not in the master street plan it used to be a straight line at the top but it was within added that in if you get my drift there on how they edited the line the other edits are to include if we follow it around clockwise from the top so over to the East boundary line they've actually added in a little bit more uh instead of

going a straight line they're following Totton Lake there um and the street line around there so we've added a a little bit more into our area of influence down there to the along the South Line they it gets significantly larger to add in our area of influence all the way down to the airport and they've included the airport in our previous area of influence sort of cut off the top of the airport but this includes all of it in and then interestingly enough a little bit to the West is it pulls the line in somewhat significantly we did have an area of influence off to the West on the wrong side of melmo I guess um on the county side of melmo really that is so physically separated from the city that we thought it seemed reasonable to not include that into the area of influence um we did just talk about that a little bit tonight though and the environmental impact on it so that's the changes that are pro proposed sort of in a nutshell the the county would appreciate any comments this is not a public hearing it hasn't been in front of the public yet um we've asked the county to make sure they do that but if you have any comments on the changes we'd like to be able to just provide those to County staff at this time thank you um I know that I would second staff's request for the county to make sure that there was the opportunity for public um comment or involvement in

some way um do you guys have any I do not and do you guys have any questions about what you know an area of influence is um so my understanding is it's if it's not within the municipal boundary of the city that the county will still uh like interact with us on projects that are within that area of influence even though it's not like our jurisdiction technically yeah so so we you know since it is close to the city um and and our IG kind of lines it out how we interact with the city but we um let them know or they they let us know if there's a project that's happening there and and give us an opportunity to comment like you guys just did on that project but we we don't have jurisdiction or control in in any way in the area of influence other than we could we can make requests is my understanding okay and and really it's more of a a way um to coordinate roads it it also has an influence on annexation so that if it's not in your area of influence you really you shouldn't be annexing it I mean it's it's difficult anyway because in Colorado we require contiguity to Annex you can't just jump over Parcels they have to be next to City Limits so although there's some ways to go down a road or I don't want to rule out the airport here um but there there's ways to make it happen but yes you shouldn't Annex if it's not within your area of influence if the city does annex does

that also move that area influence out not necessarily um I the the statute speaks to uh three mile plan and a three mile area of influence and I believe the annexation statute says you can't extend more than three I don't know how far it might be three miles um in an annexation but it it's not an automatic thing I mean it looks like what they did before was just sort of drew a line that was approximately a mile around all the edges of the city but it doesn't have to to be that it's more important is to is there a a a neighborhood is there um I'm trying to think of the words and I can't but um for example is there some sort of communication between the areas and that's why it makes sense to me to take the far side of m Elmo off because you really can't get there in a reasonable way without going way down and out and around so um is there an that's what you is more important thank you um no comments no comments no comments all right um with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn may may I make a comment before or more of a question than a comment that both for staff and for the other commission members on that item where we reviewed the county project that I it's it seems to me a

little seat of the pants that how we handle it is there a way to formalize that or would what would what would you people think about formalizing that a little bit something like we handle a a a regular case with Rec recommendations from staff where we make a motion would that be appropriate I'm asking a question now yeah well so my understanding is that the the formal Arrangement is that we receive the application proposal plan from the county and have the ability to direct staff to provide comments and then staff has the appropriate um channels that they send those through and so that's kind of the formal process if you will so if we had had comments so that's why I was kind of saying like do you have a specific comment does the attorney have a comment on that yeah the the agreement requires they give us advanced notice I was just trying to check n Nancy are you aware of the the number of days it's not very long and I know that's been a problem it's a little confusing because it says like they have to give it to us 10 days before and we have to make comments with 10 days be 14 days before and and and the problem that runs into is you all only meet once a month so if Cheer Time you know if we get noticed tomorrow uh you won't have a meeting before the deadline for us providing comments so I get it and and I think the staff provides comments from a staff level in that so we really really don't have time to do that review yeah and it's you know it's probably something we should look at to make it workable considering the the meeting schedules

and the timing and everything but unfortunately they you know the county doesn't want to put a an extra couple weeks on of time on top of their entitlement process just to accommodate the city noning non jurisdictional comments uh so it's and it's not just here that it happened I mean it's it's a problem uh in other jurisdictions and i' I've heard the comments from planning or planning Commissioners and County Commissioners and city councils of why do we even have this requirement they don't listen to us anyway and half the time the deadline passes before we we get to review it anyway uh but it it is certainly something that at least we're aware of it so that if we see something that is a significant problem at least the staff can uh provide the county comments and and even informally contact the County Planning staff and raise issues with them uh so but yeah it's well I I guess I would like to be useful to them than just shoot from the hip I I think the the the statute was designed for large communities where the Planning Commission meets maybe even every week and so you don't have these time crunches that that we deal with here yeah and it's interesting it is on our work program to work with the county to clarify that intergovernmental agreement if you read it now right now the one that's in place it's

very confusing and it appears to be limited to comments on roads only and Road capacities and then the the county itself and the county staff they'll kind of want more General comments and so it would definitely it it's on the work program to try and get a a clearer process and a clearer understanding of what kind of comments they're looking for um and that what kind of things they want to comment on on our projects exactly I think it should be our goal to be useful to them agreed um do we have a motion to adjourn so move there a second I second um do we vote on adjournment I don't remember okay all in favor all in favor I do you want me to call it or are we good I think we can do a verbal can you guys give me an yes I what was a question all in favor of adjourning yes okay we are adjourned thank you everybody great job