Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

[Laughter] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] Natalie.

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[Music] [Laughter] Hello everyone. I now call to order the city planning and zoning commission regular meeting Monday, September 15, 2025 at 6 p.m. Commissioner here. Just as a reminder to all the commissioners and for those of us who might be new and not listen to the microphones, you do need to pull them a little bit closer to you and speak into them before they turn green so that they can be picked up by the live feed. Our first order of business is to approve the minutes for the meeting held Monday, August 18, 2025. Do any of the commissioners have any corrections or additions to the minutes from that meeting? All right. I move to approve the August 18, 2025 minutes. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. All in favor? I I unanimously carried. Our next order of business areformational reports and updates from staff. Mr. First thing I'd like to do is welcome

and to say if you'd like to. No pressure. My name is Beth Kennedy. I am a resident here in Cottonwood. Been a resident for over 30 years. I'm excited to be here and hopefully can add something worthwhile. Thank you. And then we also have Kathy Helman joining us.

Hi, I'm Kathy Helman. Um, I'm just really looking forward to being part of this commission and getting to work and knowing getting to learn the codes and all the things that that are associated with working on this commission. So, thank you for this opportunity. We're very glad to have you. We always appreciate new faces on the commission. I'm handing it back to the director. Unfortunately, the commission with some bad news. This is Clover's last meeting. She will be leaving us. Make sure you say goodbye. I don't see her. Thank you very much Mr. We are opening a presentation. Heat. Heat. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Clean up again.

Yes. Heat. Heat. I will point out to you that as you know the general plan was done in house and we beat out other cities that had consultants do theirs. It's a really welldeserved award while I I'll vamp for the video, but our staff is incredible and they work very hard. [Music] Yeah. Heat. [Music] Heat. Yeah. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here.

Heat. Heat. Thank you all very much for sharing that with us and congratulations again to staff who worked incredibly hard and congratulations to the commission as well. You have a lot of improvement. So now we have to get to work. We have two items of old business tonight. And just as a heads up to the crowd, we have a slightly unusual situation where we're going to be combining one old business item with a new business item, which is the first business. I'll announce it at that point, but just give you a heads up. And with that, I pass it off to staff to introduce Z-25-006, amendment to the city of Z1, section 404, general provisions, article 2, section 201. Thank you, Madam Chair, Commission 198 for City of Cottonwood. Please bear with me while I try to get out of this enlarged view. So, tonight I will be presenting on the revisions to the proposed tax number that we brought to this commission in July. Um since that meeting we had a plan to bring it to before the council but some additional revisions were indicated so we had to bring it back before you guys for another recommendation. Uh so I won't go over the whole slideshow that I did last time if you have any questions. I have those slides available. I'm just going to highlight the changes that were made since you

last made that recommendation. Uh the request moves that with recommendation of approval for text amendments to section 404 general provisions and our article 2 section 2011 definitions. The purpose is to clarify ambiguous language enhance standards and criteria where applicable and enhance readability and flow. So the summary of revisions here uh first we made additional syntax changes to both section 201 and 404. A lot of these changes were recommended by legal counsel like Goodwin here. Uh regarding section 44G, we wanted to allow for accessory structures to be located closer than 10 ft to many buildings subject to a list of standards to ensure safety. Uh for subsection 404H, uh this is regarding building height. We wanted to reinforce that buildings exceeding three stories and allowed to deviate from using non-combustible materials are still subject to building code requirements fire rating walls. Uh this subsection 44H uh regarding u wireless communication facilities I do have marked I apologize I failed to put this into the attached document um that quick reference guide changes. Uh here we are creating an additional provision for the evaluation of wireless communication structures with regards to public safety within Liberty Valley area. And this is just another mechanism for council when they're approving towers that exceed 60 ft up to that 90 ft mark. Uh this is just another means for them to evaluate the proposal. And then the last change here in subsection 404J, we're indicating that the term fence references either a fence or wall for this subsection. Otherwise, gets very reiterative. So previous time throughout the window,

uh we came to July for that recommendation. You guys made that recommendation for approval. Tonight we're having another public hearing requesting another recommendation. uh in October, we'll bring this uh the first city council for public hearing and a vote and if it's adopted that ordinance will take effect 30 days from the date of adoption. That concludes my presentation ready for any questions you have. Thank you very much Tina. So just because we have so many commissioners with us this evening, I'm going to kind of explain what we're doing as we do it. Typically at this point in the presentation I will go through and ask each commissioner individually if there are questions for staff. There will be a separate section uh not in this case because this is a is an amendment test but there will be a separate opportunity to ask questions of the applicant and I'll call us with the members. So uh commissioner do you have any questions for city staff? I do not. Commissioner Helman, do you have any questions for city staff? No. Commissioner Ros, do you have any questions for staff? Thanks for the hard work. And uh Commissioner Scott, no questions. All right. Thank you very much. At this time, if there's anyone here from the public who wants to speak regarding these proposed amendments, now is the opportunity to come forward. If you do want to come forward and speak, please follow the forms at the back. I'm not seeing anyone come forward, so I'm going to close the floor. And now we have an opportunity to go back to the commissioners and see if anyone has any like to share anything like

emotion. Uh, Commissioner vice chair this evening. Thank you. I'm going to recommend city council approval of Z-25-006 rel. Thank you. All those in favor. Unanimously carried. Next we have DR-25-012 mod. This is CTW helicopter request for modified design review and this is the somewhat unique uh business is going to be combined with the next set of new business. So commissioners will be voting on these one after the other after this presentation. Thank you madam chair commission uh presenting on joint application for design review and conditional use per quarters for hanger project that was previously approved in June of this year. The design review request is covering the modified building size and design, modified site changes to landscaping circulation and the parking proposal for unlisted uses tourism and accessory residential. The conditional use permit request is just covering the accessory residential use. Uh the considerations tonight, we ask that you consider applicants revised submit and staff reports with recommended findings and stipulations. some details. This is I2 zone heavy industrial. Here is our site map here. This is all one parcel. So the applicant has um leeland area here. It's about 7.5

acres. The project site itself is in the striped area. It's approximately 2.3 acres. Uh again in June this was approved under DR25006. Applicant does propose a variation to the approved parking requirements that were approved at that June meeting. Uh they also propose the accessory residential use subject to the CU approval. And then I have a couple slides kind of showing the before and after. What I've done is anything to the left I try to keep as the previous approval item and then anything to the right is the updated version. So here we're looking at the same plan here. Notice the new living quarters here and here. Uh changes to the fence outline here and then this new access road here at that gate. Those were the items that were clouded on the plans that were provided to staff. Here we have updated elevations. Uh so update it's going to be on top here. You can see the residential building from here and here as opposed to it's an absence there. Some renderings here again. We've got the previous item here with no residential units there. And here the added in here and here. One last slide of renderings. Here you can see the residential there and there and right there. And then the landscaping, they actually did increase some a bit in this area here and then some right here as well as right here for the addition of the living quarters. These are the proposed floor plans. So for suite one and two, which is a larger hanger building, uh they have three a threebedroom unit here. And then for

suite 3, uh which is a smaller building towards the southern portion of the lease area, they've got four bedrooms in there. The applicant has indicated that there will be one bed per bedroom, which aligns with the parking proposal. These won't seem familiar. These are the site views from the June signal here. So here we have our street views. We're looking at um intersection of uh and happy jack right here. Looking south here. Then we have our site views here. We've got a north view, another north view from further south. Then northeast looking across the way. And then adjacent sites we have the Cottonwood Springs RV storage units here. Uh so there is also an RV park further south. I think there's about 100 units developed and they have uh they got approval to develop up to 500 units subject to additional design review. And then we have some city buildings here along Mingus. So, just to recap on the design review considerations, we're looking at the modified building size and design, the site changes, and the parking proposal for unlisted uses. Uh, this chart is very similar to what's in the staff report here for the accessory office retail. Um, per the schedule and other ordinance, seven spaces are required. applicant proposes seven spaces for the warehousing and storage of aircraft requirement is five five applicants proposing that but for these unlisted uses that is subject to commission

determination at the June meeting the tourism use was proposed uh for nine spaces applicant is changing that to two spaces and then seven spaces for the accessory residential for the design review stipulations for different I'm not going to read them word for word I just touch on the highlighted areas here so for stipulation one the project's developed in conflance with the development plans is approved at the J meeting and then the subsequent meeting stipulation two the project is conforming to the code board comment letters that were issued stipulation three this says that the proposed accessory residential use is not approved of this design review it's Subject to our section 302 conditional use permits. Uh stipulation four project shall comply with all applicable sections of the zoning ordinance specifically for the residential while the property is zoned I2 and is subject to R3 property development standards. Stipulation five or signage indicated on the plans is for reference purposes only. Stipulation six, the office, retail, and residential uses are considered accessory. Stipulation seven, uh, building permit application must be submitted within 24 months of this approval. And then eight is a little unique where these are the parking requirements for the unlisted uses. Um, it's kind of a fill in the blank section for the commission to state how many spaces for the tourism use and how many spaces for the accessory residential use. Moving on to the conditional use permit portion. In order for the commission to approve a conditional use permit, they have to make three sets of findings. The first one is general findings that the proposed use shall not be detrimental to the health, safety, and welfare of the surrounding properties or occupants. Uh

in the staff report the staff does propose that the res residential use for flight crew is not expected to be detrimental to the surrounding properties and occupants. We have the RV park that's across the way. Uh and then also the use is considered an accessory solely for a flight crew. It's not a multif family residential or single family res for compatibility with surrounding uses. uh the project shall be compatible with surrounding uses in the vicinity. The residential use is considered a low intensity use compared to the high intensity permitted uses of the I2 zone and then the aggregate building area intended for the use of the um residential is approximately 3,900 ft. This is about 25% of the building area and 4% of that 2.3 acre portion of the site. The last fun fact is regarding traffic in circulation that there's adequate access to public streets and highway and that it shall be provided which is adequate, safe, efficient and convenient. The main drive will be aligned with a driveway on the other side of happy driveway as you can see the proposed site plan and then the second driveway is proposed for access by flight crew and emergency services. Now this one applicant is proposing to have um with to phase out with um further development of that northern section that's closer to Mus. Uh so that won't be subject to these approvals. And then in this staff report for the conditional use permits, here's the recommended stipulations. Stipulation one, the project's developed in confirance with the plans approved tonight. Uh stipulation two conforms to the code review board comment letter that was issued for this proposal.

Stipulation three the residential use is considered accessory. Stipulation four this one grants the extension for the conditional use permit. Typically it's uh applicant has 6 months to pursue a conditional use permit from the day of approval since you know they have not submitted permits or broken ground. This just allows them to pursue the use once they get certificate of occupancy. And then stipulation five, the use is subject to the parking requirements indicating with design review approval. That concludes my presentation. I'm ready for any questions you may have. I also have the applicant present for any questions as well. Thank you very much, Tina. I'm going to take this moment to very briefly reclarify even though you already stated it that what we are deciding tonight is whether the accessory use of the residential is allowed. We are not deciding the helicopter placement and also the number of parking spaces. Um with that uh commissioner do you have any questions for staff? I do not. Commissioner any questions? No. Thank you. Commissioner any questions? No questions. Commissioner, any questions? No questions. All right. Thank you very much, team. Come forward. Please introduce yourself for the record. Thank you for coming back. I'm going to open the commission to ask any questions they have. And if they don't cover what I want to cover, I have some Uh, Commissioner C, any questions for the applicant? Please make sure you pass it. No questions. Commissioner Helman, any questions? No. Commissioner,

is the um what's the purpose of the living or the facilities so people can be sleeping there? Yes. So, we're moving uh over to uh this facility. This is the which is the aircraft association and this is the two shur 12 hours per day and those people eating mostly He's sleeping. 169 people. So they came in the market. The response times were pretty bad. 35 minutes since they entered the market. 14. Yeah, this is this is going to get us into that 10 minute mark you can come So that's obviously

mechanics. That's what we do right now at the airport. So if you guys drive down the end as it's like 140° so they can get those response times down the proper facility to service us. Sounds like it's overdue. Be a great addition. Commissioner, any questions? Yeah, just with all the additions of living quarters and be prepared for like you know the garbage that they obviously facility I saw that you asked for seven and two parking spots for the two uses. What What math did you use to decide on that number of spots? Yeah. So, uh, if you guys look at SF back in that um, can I go to the web page where you guys go to if you guys go to SF SFL 1.0 zero. Look at the parking calculation. We always assumed that these were original 16 spaces. Um it did not show quarters there, but it's the same exact layout as you can see. Um we were always

considering those living quarters. We just want to go through the buy process first property. We keep things moving cuz we're already plans right now and so it just keeps things moving cuz these guys are the land was already approved. The ground lease was approved by council uh in November of 2024 and so the clock's ticking. We're spending about $10,000 a month just in ground lease and carry. So um yeah, that just keeps us moving. But it was always considered from a parking standpoint. If you look at parking calculations, we're technically still by four spaces. If you look at even considering res per res which is absolutely we're happy to do. Um and so if you go back and look over parked by 11 spaces then are still over parked by four spaces here. Thank you very much. Absolutely. Last call for questions from the commission. Yes. Go ahead. Um you say there might be tourism. Yeah. So that part of that parking is for tourists coming. Yes. North portal parking lot. You see that green space right here. Uh if you guys can see my cursor, this will be the retail area. And so you walk in, you check in for operating since 1992. So this right now right there right there moving 1,000 ft to the southwest reserv in there. This is cool. The kids get outside. So,

bathrooms and waiting area offices. So, moves up that space and they only pay like a couple hundred bucks I believe in rent. So, this moves over here proper uh space for offices uh in a retail area as well as the waiting room. And then obviously the purple hanger is where those those aircraft get operated on and and maintained. So thank you.

Thank you. All right. I believe that that's good. Thank you very much. We'll let you know if we have any further questions. Appreciate it. At this time, there is an opportunity for anyone from the public who would like to share thoughts about this project to come forward. I'm seeing one person. I haven't gotten the form yet. So, if you could just [Music] and you can fill that out and give that to us after you speak. Please introduce yourself for the record. I'm hoping that I can ask this gentleman further questions because they were not asked. So legally he cannot get who then can I my question would be the flight training practice patterns. I mean, I'm sure there's going to be that there's always practice in case there's no calls. And, you know, I find it odd because we said I'm from, you know, just bigger hospitals and each day was a different hospital for the trauma. I don't understand why they're not at the hospital because they always transport patients to the hospital. They take off in the hospital, they leave the hospital. So this combined with tourism. So my concern of course that victim of the con so now helicopters. Thank you. Thank you very much, ma'am.

I'll have you address that. We we typically do not do that.

Thank you though. Is there anyone else who would like to come forward? I'm not seeing anyone else come forward from the public. Uh since we're just going over operational stuff today, I will just remind the public that calls for the public uh are an opportunity for the public to engage in the civic process. We listen to what the public has to say and we are always very thankful for the public that come forward to speak in our meetings. However, um our rules of engagement prohibit us from directly responding to public questions. Uh and now we're going back through the commission to get additional thoughts and also a last chance for commissioners to ask any final questions. Uh we will start with Commissioner Candidate. This is for Mr. Kenny. So, it's not like a an additional amount of helicopters. It's the current helicopters that are pulling near the mic. That's correct. So if you report that was last published in May of 2024 with 159 operations of helicopter air traffic to 6,000 plus or minus package um about 20 uh operations for about 3 years and so that's 20 months. So um they leave 20, come back 20, so 40 total. Um and then Sonia Air Tours is aing 24 and again they've been operating since 1992 um in the ver valley. And so that makes up a total of about 1.3% of your existing uh air traffic total per month of the 6,000 plus which is obviously it's mostly flight training with that.

So again report this is not a flight training project. this is this this phase that we're talking about um in ler phases we are not trying to turn to that's that's not that's not the goal here so um yeah that's that's the existing air traffic is is 1.3% um and that's not going to increase um and and those don't really go over Clarkdale that much they go straight east over house at 500 ft and decel ratings are about 85 dB which if you look at like a a Harley-Davidson chopper, those are like 100 dB. Um, if you look at a fire truck, those are like 120 dB. And so those are happening quite a bit more per day. Um, we're barely one per day if you average out per month. So, um, yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Absolutely. Uh, any questions from Commissioner Helman or comments? Uh, no. Thank you. Thank you. questions or comments from Commissioner? Uh, no, thank you. All right, Commissioner Rosco. All right. Uh, thank you very much. I will sum it up. I know that at times um, air traffic can be touchy in the Ro Valley. However, EMS is a very important service and this is not a new service. It's just a new facility for an existing service. And again we are not approving the actual helicopter facility because this is a heavy industrial zone. So the helicopters are by right permitted. What we are approving is the residential use and then the parking for the residential use and the very small amount of tourism use. So with that I would like to entertain a motion. I move to approve DR-25-012 to allow the proposed modifications to the previously approved DR-25-6 subject to the stipulations indicated in the

staff staff report and specialize specifying the parking requirements of stipulation 8 as follows. Tourism parking requirement shall be

seven oh two spaces. Accessory residential parking requirements shall be seven spaces. Do I have a second? I second. Thank you very much. Uh all those in favor I unanimously carried. Next we have to do the conditional use permit that is um adjacent to that. Uh I'm ready for a motion. So immediately go to the next one. Okay. I move to approve CUP-25-4 to allow a living quarters in I2 heavy industrial zone subject to the stipulations indicated in the staff report. Do I have a second?

I'll second that. Thank you. All those in favor. Unanimously carried. Thank you very much. That was our first item.

That was our first item of new business. We have one more item of new business this evening and that is CU-25-00005. Clover, is this your last item of new business? Yes, it is. attacks. All right, let's see. Slideshow. We'll start from the slide. Where is it? All right, there we go. All right, madame chair, commissioners. Uh, thank you for being here. from Clover Pinion with Community Development and tonight I will be presenting on conditional use permit 25005 uh for the Mo Care fence which is located in a front yard setback of a residential neighborhood. Um we just the request is uh the applicant's request is for the approval of a conditional use permit again to allow a 5 and 1/2t tall three rail uh black wood fence uh in the front yard setback. Um we ask that you consider the applicant submitt along with the staff report and um the staff report that has the recommended stipulations also along with our findings which I will detail later on in presentation. Couple details. It's an AR43. Um for those um areas, those parcels um in that zone, the minimum size is 1 acre. So this parcel in particular is just a little over the 1.06 acres. Um, again, it's a black three rail see-through um, wood fence, which, um, according to our ordinance is allowed with a conditional use permit. Um, not to go any higher than 6 ft, but as long as the top 2 ft are see-through, um, they can apply. They would qualify.

Uh, this is our site map. Um, you can see there it's located close to third and 10th Street. Um, all again, all the properties around it are also AR43. Um and all the uses currently for all those properties are single family residential. This is the site map. You can see in the bottom there the red line is uh indicates where the fence is along that front property line. It's approximately 150 ft long. [Music] Uh this is the colored elevation. These are the colored renderings. just some um views from the site. So, this is north downtown 10th Street and then this is to the to the east looking at the property and we have the south downtown 10th Street and then across the to the west. Um again we do have to um report our findings here. So the first one um we just want to make sure that um this project would not be detrimental to the health, safety or welfare of any of the surrounding properties or occupants. Um and we we have found that the applicants um project complies uh with section 404J4A um and the general provisions of the zoning ordinance. Um again, it's a 5 and 1/2t tall see-through wood fence and we do not think it would adversely affect um the neighboring properties. Uh required finding two or three uh the compatibility with surrounding uses. Um all the properties like I said before that are adjacent to or across from this pro um this project are all zoned AR43. Um, and again, we feel like this, um,

5ft tall see-through wood fence, uh, would be a compatible use. Oops. All right. Uh, so this is in regards to the traffic and circulation. Um, again, we do not feel like this fence would affect any traffic generation, access, or circulation. Next are the stipulations. Um we just asked that the project um be developed in conformance um with the site plan and letter of intent that were submitted and then hopefully approved at tonight's meeting. Uh fence permit application is required. And then we just ask that the project comply with all applicable sections of our zoning ordinance. And that concludes my presentation. If you guys have any questions, thank you very much, Clover. Uh, Commissioner Kennedy, do you have any questions for closer regarding the fence?

I have no questions. I believe it's a really attractive project. I drove over there and it's really a nice addition to the neighborhood. Yeah. Uh, Commissioner Helman, do you have any questions? No. Thank you. Commissioner Lrock, any questions? No. Commissioner Glasco, no questions.

All right. Uh, does anyone from the public want to speak regarding this proposed project? I'm not seeing anyone come forward. So, I'm now closing the floor to the public. Uh, I do not believe the commissions the commissioners will have any final thoughts on this. No. Okay. All right. I am ready for a motion. I hope I am, too. You're doing great. I move to approve CUP25-05 to allow a 5 foot 5.5T tall free rail blackwood fence in an AR43 zone subject to the stipulations indicated in the staff report.

Do I have a second?

Second. Thank you very much. All those in favor? I unanimously carried. Now we have call to the public. This is the public's opportunity to come forward and address the commission on any planning and zoning related item that was not on the agenda this evening. If you would like to speak, you must fill out one of the forms located near the front door. And speakers will be granted 3 minutes each. And please introduce yourself uh with your name uh for the record. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. about it. Just thanks so much for working on the commission. Hope to do some work with you folks and God bless you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to come forward?

Okay. I do not see anyone else coming forward. So I am now going to move on and close the floor to the public. We do have one discussion item this evening. This is just this is a discussion of the Arizona legislative updates. Uh there are going to be changes to the city of Cottonwood zoning ordinance and subdivision ordinance in response to legislative updates. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commission. Just kind of a follow up from last month when we presented the commission over legislative changes that affect us and what we can do. The biggest one being the inability to bring design review projects to a public hearing. So we went through the design review section of the ordinance kind of did strike on anything that reference bring to a commission change it with staff. We also did that with the subdivision ordinance cuz as you know um that includes preliminary and final class as well. So we go through there. I apologize it is a mess right now. uh we tried to give you the section of the subdivision or witness that that's applicable to and highlighted um that takes away even city council's ability to approve plat as well. So they're not just skipping over this commission going straight to city council that all has to be done at staff level. So, I did include in your packet a guide from the league of Arizona cities and towns talking about design review standards and objective standards and examples. Run through the examples. They basically have to be measurable. um I don't know if you had a chance to or not, but but some of examples and we do already have in place uh some of the things with landscaping and open space and various things. But hopefully you

had a chance to look through it. um recommend to us any changes that that you might think are relevant for um design review or there's not a lot we can do kind of thrown around the idea. Of course, this is something we have to run by city council as well to get their take on it. Um just to get a plat in front of you so you can at least see it. You wouldn't be able to take action on it. um you know, could could a development agreement come before you and then you make a recommendation to council on a development agreement associated with a plaque? Uh gets us able to show you the plaque. Not that we couldn't do so after the fact after staff approves it, but just some ideas to talk about throw around out there. Um, we have a legal counsel here to direct some of that as well if he's got any concerns with with what might be suggested or any ideas in addition to what we talk about.

Oops. Thank you very much, Mr. Director. Because this is a discussion item, we can speak more freely. We're not going to go through and individually give opportunities for speaking. you can kind of just have a conversation with the staff and with council as needed to understand. Um, so at this point, if you want to turn your mics on, um, if anyone has any questions or comments, I know that the the existing sitting commissioners, we've already discussed this a little bit with staff, but we do have two commissioners with us tonight that may have questions. manager would like to throw in really quick as well. We're looking at bringing kind of more of a draft to approve at the November meeting just so we have time to work on it. Um, so we're not rushing to get something through for October, but that's not to say that we still can't bring something back in October that's a little more fine tuned than what you see right now to discuss. Also, um the only other thing is we had a meeting last week with all the different community development departments in the valley here and everybody's pretty much in the same boat. We're all asking, hey, what are your objective standards going to look like? I don't know yet what yours going to look like. So, we're all in the same boat right now. Is there any way that we can go back through I mean I know that we don't keep minutes that are this precise but go back through previous design reviews and look for common design standards that have popped up in approved design reviews to standardize those common approved standards. We could we might take some substantial staff time to do so. Um, but I can, you know, kind of just from my years here, I can I can say in my experience, um, we've had commissions that are really big on kind of a river rock look for some facads. Um, I know a number of years ago we made changes to

freestanding signs. Have to look like monument style signs. We got rid of pole signs so you can't see them up on a pole anymore. They've got to be lower to the ground and more monument style. Um, so yeah, there is some standards that have taken place over the years, but we can maybe go back and track down some of the bigger design review projects and see what those look like. I just think we all we do have a precedent to work with and maybe we should at least look at it since that's part of creating standards. We may not now but we focus on probably some of the bigger projects. Not everything but but um you know other things that are coming to mind would be um like the wall on the circle cave is existing on the west side there to keep headlights at bay. We've seen that in some other projects as well. Some drive-throughs especially. I I think Dutch Bros has that requirement. So, we can we definitely keep that kind of stuff in there.

Yeah, I definitely think something that has come up before with almost all drive is striping in a wall. Mhm. We may as well standardize that, right? Yeah. I concur.

Yeah. I I realize that this is a lot of work and I'm looking at it and there's so much change that just speaking as a commissioner I don't really have a good sense of how it's going to look. So, and I'm sure that that's because it's sort of up in the air. And we can we can look more through um the league's guidance and compare and contrast what we already have. Exactly. And specifically, some of what's in here though is not necessarily going to fall in the design review section of the ordinance. that section of the ordinance more as process related for design review versus actual requirements. The actual requirements come in the form of a landscape ordinance or parking ordinance. U the development standards for the zone that they're in. So this isn't going to necessarily just be a change to the design review section. It's going to be a change to several other sections as well. I have a question. So, I'm reading I was perusing through this huge

Sorry, Commissioner. Could you speak to the microphone, please?

Nope. You can bend it. Oh, don't bend too easily. Yeah. So, um and I was looking at uh page 27. general provisions, performance standards, and it talked about uh maximum sound levels. So, can we apply this to uh vehicles on the street? That becomes a PD enforcement issue, so I can't speak on that. That's too bad. Okay. And um so what's going to happen here when uh 89 and V or some huge project like that shows up again

as far as the design standards or the plotting? You're not going to like the answer. It's not good. Cases wouldn't it just pass through staff only?

Yeah. So it pretty much all would pass through staff. Um, unfortunately that's just the way that project's going to go. Um, even even I don't remember as we mentioned last time when we bring a conditional use permit project to you. As you know, sometimes they're combined design review and conditional use permit. You're only able to look at specifically the conditional use permit aspect of it, not the design standards of it. So yeah, even 89 in mind right now, um once this all goes through, there's not really much that would come here. Can I ask a question?

Yes. So while you're reviewing it through staff, does it is it posted on any kind of a platform where the public is looking at it or so is looking at it or we have we've talked about that internally and we're going to start posting projects on the website uh from the time it's not set in stone how we're going to do it but We'll look at posting them as soon as we have an actual complete application that we consider complete. Means we have everything we need to start the review. Um, and we'll leave it posted until it's approved or potentially, you know, we'll figure out some kind of timeline after approval to leave it up. As far as comments go, um, I ask my to if if I say something wrong, but the way I see it is we won't delay a project to accept comments, but we'll put them on the website and as we're reviewing it, people comment on it. We'll address their comments whether it's responding to them or you know whatever they may have to say somewhere this meeting but we can't hold up a project.

Otherwise you would be inundated with people calling or emailing or coming to your office um to ask questions

and they may they may do so. I think we don't really have much of a mechanism other than posting a project portion on the website to put these on. And if I may shed a little more light on that, if we step back and we look at, you know, why do we have this now? How did we get here? Part of it is because of the public process, um projects that get slowed down by it. um confusion, any any sorts of ambiguity, all those things that are thought to slow down the process to go from, you know, nothing to something built. And in living in is considered what we're trying to avoid here. And so um keeping that in mind, a lot of the work comes in and most of the work comes up in the front end where we're setting these objectives design standards and whatnot so that there's less ambiguity later. Now that won't avoid all the public comment or anything like that, but that is part of the reason that that we're going this route. And it's not that we've decided to do it, it's that we're being told that we must. Um, so this has happened a couple times before. Uh, and just to give context to our newer commissioners. So, anytime the Arizona State Legislature makes a law that applies statewide, that filters down and we have to abide as a municipality by that law. And we don't really have any wiggle room. Um there's a little bit of interpretation for some things but for this particular thing there is very little interpretation is my understanding. Council can correct me um about that. That's about right. If it if it applies to us, we've got to abide. Yeah.

So, uh, for I know that these meetings are broadcast and I know that there may be, um, some questions about why this is happening. I I want it to be really clear that this is not coming from Cottonwood city staff. It is not city staff who are proposing that they take upon themselves all design review and plow approval. It is actually a directive from the state legislature and staff are um responding legally as they should to that directive and they're informing us of that change and preparing us for it. Another question.

Mhm. Um, can we do things uh such as require or offer um perks so to speak, maybe increased density uh and in return if the development uh has water retention um capability, porous roads, parking um yeah in other words uh we provide had an incentive to have a better development made. Is that something you want to do? Uh I won't address specifically what we can and cannot do as far as incentivizing development because that's a a whole different process. But for large projects and things of that sort, it's not uncommon for development agreements to be the thing that's controlling a lot of this from the outset. Um I think we've had projects come before the board here for the design review portion that were all part of a larger development agreement. You know that's been years in place. Um it and as things change more of those things will shift to being considered upfront potentially not necessarily but maybe and become part of that process so that um that is already dictated or there's some other you know details of that dictated. And again this is a just a possibility. I'm not saying we can or cannot do that. Um but in sorts of agreements like that, we do have mechanisms to incentivize things for the public good. Um and so when it comes up, we'll address it more specifically or we could do that at a different time, but that's that's beyond the the scope of this. Um there are ways to do that, not necessarily through the design review process or the administrative review process, though.

Thank you. Thank you. Actually, Bob, did you notice that in the document that was provided to give us examples of yes no standards, they actually included a water-wise example in there uh talking about landscaped areas of single family, residential, and multif family and mixed use. It's right here. Yeah. Well, I have to say Oh, yeah. Just this morning, I didn't get to uh get to read it one word for word. That's okay. I just thought you might like it. You can go look for it. Um because it is an example of one of the things like when the director is talking about things that we can propose be set as standards. You know, you could look at that or I could or any of us could look at that and propose it as a standard and work with staff to come up with a standard that maybe uses that as inspiration and is appropriate for Conwood. So, as much as this kind of feels like um it might have some negative aspects, I do think that there is an opportunity to craft standards that are clearer and will help developments move faster. And in general, Cottonwood staff have done a good job working with developers for the good of the city. So, I think we're in better shape from some other municipalities. Are there any other comments from the commission regarding this discussion? Please always feel like you can say whatever. Just um obviously this is going to put more workload on you guys. Mhm. Um I think I asked this last time. Are you going to work something in the budget? that new staff.

Probably not this time around. We'll have to see we'll have to see what happens with this first. So, moving forward. Um, Madam Chair, Commission, please chime in if if you'd like to see something else. So, what we'll do from here is, as you suggested, uh, go back and look at some other design review projects maybe over the last couple of years, see what consistent comments have been made. We'll go through the league's guidance here. Um, see what we have, what maybe we can adjust, and then bring something back to you to further review and and we get this finetuned for that recommendation to council in November. Okay, thank you very much. Uh, now we are moving on to suggesting topics. It's just an opportunity for commissioners to suggest topics for future meetings.

No topics. No topics suggested right now. I make a motion to adjurnn. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Hi I journed.