Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay.

Did you meet Colin? Yes.

I've got a problem with my volume here. Come on.

No, I think we're good.

Yeah.

We've got six.

Seven. One on my friend is on there. All right, everybody. It is 6.30. It is July 21st. This is the meeting of the Englewood Planning and Zoning Commission. I would like to call us to order. Can we get a roll call vote for attendance?

Ms. Austin? Here. Mr. Adams is not here.

Ms. Hupka?

Here.

Mr. Montiel?

Present.

Ms. Cesario? Here. Mr. Kaplan.

Present.

Mr. Renson. Mr. Haggerty.

Here.

Mr. Ruddle.

Here.

And Chair Martinez.

Present. Thank you, Nancy. First item on the agenda is the approval of minutes from the July 7th meeting. Those are available. on the meeting page. Hopefully everybody got a chance to review those. Even if you were not here, if you got a chance to review the minutes, you can vote for approval. Did anybody have any additions, corrections, or amendments to the minutes from July 7th?

I do, actually.

Yeah, Brenda, go ahead.

I would just like to add to, I think it's number five, regarding the presentation we were given. If you wouldn't mind adding that the April 13th council study session materials were not provided to the planning and zoning commission prior to the July 7th study session.

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to include those in the minutes of the meeting since it wasn't actually presented.

That's right.

This is a record of the meeting.

No, council needs to know that we heard the materials without the April 3rd piece of it, April 13th piece of it. And we made a decision on residential non-conforming uses without having heard that piece that was included tonight. We didn't get to hear, it wasn't part of our study. Council needs to be informed because there's going to be a hearing on this and we will have not heard this piece of it.

Chair, I would recommend you defer to city attorney.

Jackson, you have something to add? Yeah, you've correctly identified the purpose of the findings of fact to place in what was presented. If you feel as a commission that council needs to hear separately any other bit of information for them to make a decision themselves, you can, as a commission, send a communication to city council stating that separately outside of the findings of fact. Yeah.

Oh, it's not a findings of fact.

It's the minutes.

The minute. Yeah. So council heard it. We did it. And then council needs to know that we didn't hear. We weren't given something that council was given. Do you understand the point?

Again, I don't think it's appropriate for it to be an omission to be recorded in the minutes We can send a separate communication a separate action by this Commission to notify City Council that we did not consider those minutes. They were made publicly available to all members prior to

That's if they were in the study session, if you knew that. But we weren't even told that they were available as part of that hearing, part of that discussion. I wouldn't know that was even there unless you went looking for it like I did. But that's okay. I will let the council know that we did not make a decision for either option one or two. That was up to council. Now, legally, we don't have to make a decision on... option one or two of that, that's fine. But we were not given the opportunity to do so. We were just only given the opportunity to decide about construction time. But I can let council know separately. That's fine.

No, I think it would be most appropriate to bring that up in the Commissioner's Choice section of this agenda, and then we can discuss it there and talk about a separate communication.

No, I don't need to bother. I just wanted something on the record. Thank you.

No, we can put it on the record. It's just not in the meeting minutes from the last meeting. It would be in this meeting's Commissioner's Choice.

Does that work for you?

I'm going to let the attorney. I'll defer to the attorney.

That would be my advice. Thank you. Did you catch that, Brenda? He concurred that that would be the most appropriate section to have that discussion and discuss amongst us if we want to make a separate communication.

All right.

OK. Any other additions, corrections? or discussion on minutes from July 7.

Oh, hi, Carl. I think you made it before any public hearing or public forum. So he's good to join, right? Yep. Changing it up this week.

Alright, while we're changing signs, can we get a motion for approval of the minutes? So moved. Thanks, Michelle.

Second? Second.

Ms. Austin? Yes. Mr. Adams?

No.

For the minutes, approval of the minutes?

Sorry, Carl, I'll give you a quick recap. We're just voting on approval of the minutes from the July 7th meeting.

So the vote is to you right now for approval.

Approving the minutes from the last meeting.

Yes.

Thank you. Ms. Hupka?

Yes, sure.

Mr. Montiel? Aye. Ms. Cesario? Yes. Mr. Kaplan?

Aye.

Mr. Renson's absent. Mr. Haggerty?

Yes.

Mr. Ruttle?

Yes.

And Chair Martinez?

Aye.

Thank you. Motion passes.

Thank you. We're going to move on to public forum. It's an opportunity for the public to address this body on any issue that is not on the agenda. If it's on the agenda, we'll have an opportunity to speak then. Is anybody in the room or online that would like to address? No. All right. No public forum. We're going to move on to the study session. We don't vote to open this right now. We don't vote to open a study. No, no. OK. Thanks for the reminder. Yeah. So I'll hand it over to staff. Thanks, guys.

All right. Can you all hear me okay? Yep. Yep. Okay. Cool. So, hi everyone. My name is Dylan McBride. I am the new long-range planner for the city. So, I haven't gotten the chance to present in front of you all yet, so this is my first time. So, it's nice to meet you. I'll give a quick spiel on just myself. I'm coming to the city from consulting. I got to work with a lot of different communities on long-range planning efforts, comprehensive plans, things of that nature. Started my career with Jefferson County, and I also work for the Denver Regional Council of Government. So, kind of a A broad mix of public and private sector, but I'm excited to be here and getting to work with you all. So tonight, myself and Colin will be talking about the water supply and strategic growth elements for comprehensive. So kind of an overview of what we'll kind of discuss with you all tonight. So background on these two required elements. We'll delve specifically in each of them, water supply and strategic growth. So the background is, In 2024, the state of Colorado's legislator put together a sweeping set of laws related to land use, housing, growth, and development. So things that you might be familiar with that other folks have talked to you all about in the past are housing needs assessments, parking minimums. These were all kind of things that kind of came out of that sweeping set of legislation from 2024. And so one piece of that puzzle are these two elements. So the strategic growth and water supply elements. And municipalities and counties are the responsible parties for the implementation and compliance of this legislation so For these two, Senate Bill 24-174, from that sort of sweeping legislative cycle, mandates that a water supply element be added to a comprehensive plan by December 31st, 2026, and then updated every five years. And then that same bill requires the adoption of a strategic growth element added to a comprehensive plan by December 31st and then updated every five years. So what is the compliance framework for this? Compliance for both of these, the strategic growth and water supply, will factor into the scoring and grant prioritization for 34 different opportunities across multiple state agencies. So think Department of Local Affairs, the Office of Economic Development and International Trade, the Department of Transportation. So various planning grants or funding sources that they have, this will kind of factor into our competitiveness for this application. So it's kind of worth pausing for a second and just noting that by choosing not to comply with this, so not doing a strategic growth element or not doing a water supply element we could still apply for these funding sources but we would just be less competitive because we would be deprioritized by comparison to communities that chose to go into the compliance so that's kind of the trade-off of the compliance the compliance is measured from the state by completion of specific analyses so they kind of outline specific kind of boxes or components that you have to check but they leave a lot of latitude in these particular elements for communities to kind of determine the analytical framework in a way that makes sense for their particular community so we'll kind of walk into that a little bit more specifically So for the water supply element, the purpose of this is to clarify water supply and capacity constraints to inform future land use decisions. So basically what the state's trying to ask communities to do is map out their water supply with their projected growth and development and need to make sure that you're not overgrowing past your ability to supply water. What the outcome of a water supply element would be, so what would the final product be, would be an appendix to the comprehensive plan. So it'd be something that we would tack on to the current comprehensive plan and then if the city of Englewood chose to update their comprehensive plan, then the water supply element would just kind of transfer over to the new plan. And then every five years from the adoption of the element, it would just go and continue to be updated as a part of that amendment process. So the path to kind of getting to that outcome is completing these sort of three buckets. So the infographic kind of describes what are the required pieces. So the step one is consulting water providers. So that's just making sure that planning staff and are coordinating with the water suppliers and so for the city of inglewood we're really lucky that the city is the water supplier um so it's the utilities staff that are the water suppliers for the community so it's a much more easy coordination process And then from there, it's including the kind of documenting water conservation policies from the comprehensive plan. And this can also include other long-range planning efforts that have happened. So think about the updates to the Unified Development Code from Title 16 recently around the water landscaping standards or the water efficiency standards. And then the last piece of the puzzle is to assess future needs. So this is where you kind of get more into the analytical side of things to estimate the range of water supplies needed to kind of meet growth. Next slide. So where are we now? Still pretty early stages. We've had some initial conversations, that being the planning staff with utility staff, just to kind of understand the landscape of the requirements of the water supply element to say, do we have the capacity to kind of meet these requirements? What do we know? What do we not know? the good news is is that the city of Inglewood would be starting from a very strong baseline should we go complete a water supply element the 20 in 2023 the city completed a water efficiency plan it was led by the utility staff and was also informed by other staff And that particular plan happens to cover a lot of the required information, especially the water forecasting and kind of looking at water conservation policies. So the city would be able to pull pretty directly from a lot of that plan and then update some of the analysis to meet more current conditions. There's also been some recent policy work. So code updates, landscaping requirements to Title 16, and water use and restrictions and water waste clarifications to Title 12. So just to kind of wrap our heads around this a little bit before we came to you, we wanted to kind of map out what a potential sort of phasing would look like if we broke this down to complete the required elements. So the process could look something like this. So phase one, kind of the coordination piece, starting to establish a more formal coordination between planning staff, utility staff, just to kind of understand and document what we know and what we don't know. um checking in with you all planning commission and then city council and this could probably take about one to two months to kind of get up and running phase two would be more of the assessment piece of starting to quantify and document water supply and demand and then documenting the existing water policies that were described in the comprehensive plan the efficiency plan etc and this might take about two months And then from there, phase three, this is what I've kind of described as goals and policies. This is more of the optional piece, but it's something that could be considered as a part of this process, which would be outlining potential water goals that the city might have. and then outlining any new policies that the city either has not entertained, but maybe want to as part of this process to be in an area where the city can explore new policies. And then phase four would be just starting to outline the estimated water need and doing that future projections piece. And then the phase five would basically just be adoption. So since this would be an amendment to the comprehensive plan, the adoption would look similar to the adoption of a comprehensive plan. So we would be coming to you all for your recommendation for approval and then going to council for approval. And of course, we wouldn't want to just have this conversation now and then come back to you all some months later and hope that you all approve it. We would want to have decades with you along the way. Okay. So for strategic growth, there's some similarities in terms of the process, but the outcomes are very different. So the purpose of the strategic growth element is to describe existing and potential strategic growth policies Analyze vacant or underutilized land near transit or job centers for infill and redevelopment opportunities. And then incentivize communities to plan for more compact, sustainable growth patterns to minimize sprawl and maximize infrastructure and transportation investments. Just pause and say, kind of the layman's way of thinking about strategic growth or what the state's trying to get at with strategic growth is prioritizing infill and reducing sprawl. And the outcome for the strategic growth would be similar to the water supply element and that it would just serve as an appendix of comprehensive plan. So in terms of what's required, there's several factors that could be considered. There's a lot more of sort of an optional piece to this, but there are three sort of required pieces. And those are the policies and tools, so kind of describing a landscape of the city's existing policies and tools that the city uses to sort of prioritize infill and reduce sprawl development. Analyze vacant and underutilized sites. So again, this is a more targeted analysis. So it's not just looking at vacant parcels all across the city. It's more kind of around transit centers and job centers in the city. So it's a more focused area. Then start to kind of describe what potential benefits would be for potential development of those vacant and underutilized sites. I'll pause and just say that underutilized sites is one area where the state gives a lot of latitude for cities to kind of come up with that definition. So a common definition is the improvement value or building ratio or building value to the land value itself. But we would want to come back to you all and kind of understand what your potential definition would be for underutilized because we would have the ability to kind of describe that in context that makes sense for the city. And then vacant parcels, that analysis is a little bit more straightforward where we can pull parcel data from Arapahoe County to overlay against our existing city boundaries. And so the state kind of has two different pathways that the city can choose. One is more low tech, where it's a lot more conversational and qualitative, kind of describing what the existing landscape is. And then the other is a more high tech approach, where you're doing a little bit more of the geospatial analysis. Just to kind of get our feet around this a little bit, we've kind of dipped our toes into the type of data that we would need to look at a more high tech analysis. And the city has the data on hand to go with that approach. That's something that would be of interest to you all. So where we are now, this is a situation where we're starting not necessarily from the same strong baseline that we would be if we chose to go with the water supply element. The city is in such a great shape with the water supply piece that we would be starting from a much stronger baseline and would be able to move a lot faster. For this particular piece, it would be a lot more, to use an analogy, building the plane while we're flying it. where we're trying to kind of source the data, work through the conditions, come back to you all, have conversations, describe what our definitions for certain vocabulary is, and then get our arms around the process first, and then start actually doing the work with the work. And so Just to kind of get some initial footing around this, our team has had some conversations with DOLA just to kind of understand the process and the timeline to compliance. So this particular process, it could go in a lot of different ways. So it could morph and become a little bit more complex. And so that compliance deadline of December 31st seems like it would be coming up pretty quick. And so the state understands that we're kind of getting this started when we could or as soon as possible. And if we choose to go for a strategic growth element, they'd be open to giving us a compliance and deadline progress to give us more time to work through this process in a way that gives us more latitude to do it correctly. And then we've started just to kind of, similar to the water supply, we outlined an initial scope to understand what the steps would look like and what a rough estimate of time would look like. Before we get into that, though, I do want to just kind of say that, you know, just from a high-level piece and just kind of looking at this from the planning lens, you know, the strategic growth element, while it's kind of this required piece from the state, there's also the possibility for it to be sort of locally informative. Because of the context of the city of Englewood, we're not necessarily in a position where the city can grow out in some major way, right? So a lot of the strategic growth element from the state size, we're really focused on, you know, think of like Aurora's or Thornton's of the front range that have kind of the ability to grow out, you know, kind of as far as they really can. And I think for, you know, a community like the city of Inglewood, it's kind of an opportunity to look at what would infill development look like in a community that is a little bit more landlocked. So it could, should the city decide to update the comprehensive plan at a future time, this type of analysis could really help fast-track the existing conditions piece that you would normally do. So there's kind of an opportunity component to this analysis as well. And then there's also the opportunity of convening cross-departmental stakeholders. So, for example, maybe our affordable housing manager, the new redevelopment manager, our team, public works, to kind of come around this type of analysis to understand where infill opportunities might make the most sense. conserve the city and others. And so just to kind of walk through what we saw as sort of a high-level process, sort of similar phase one, starting off with the coordination piece, conversations with you all. This is just kind of putting some terms to some loose definitions of a core team, which could be folks that are maybe more involved with the analytical piece, and then a technical advisory committee of people that are maybe more involved across different stakeholder groups in the city to kind of be a regular check-in body, so maybe folks that are representing affordable housing or the redevelopment perspective that may not necessarily want to be involved in the calculations piece but have a lot to say about this particular analysis phase two would be coming up with the definitions and describing a baseline so documenting existing strategic growth policies and the way that the community has already decided to put a thumb on the scale with regards to policies and just starting to document that piece And then determining a definition for underutilized parcels. And then step three would be the initial analysis. So starting to analyze vacant parcels, analyzing underutilized parcels based on that definition. And then discuss this type of analysis with you all and with council. And then step four would be identifying potential opportunities based on that type of analysis and any new strategic growth policies that the City of Inglewood would want to consider. And then the last step, similar to the water supply, would just be the option piece. Okay. Now, I just threw a lot at you. I'm really sorry about that.

But this is questions.

Can you just give us maybe a short history of, you know, we were talking about strategic plan about a year ago, kind of got put on the back burner, and then now we've got to get these things in place before the end of the year. Can you just kind of give us timeline and what brought us to this point? Is it just the December 31st deadline that's really re-engaging us now? Are there other motivations? Yeah, just give us a little background on that.

That's a really good question. So for that supplemental update, that was paused prior to either of us working here, essentially. Then there were some staffing changes, which kind of delayed things as well. But we're now in a position where we want to start that process again. We're going to be going to council at the second meeting in August as well to gather their interest in these two elements, as well as potentially updating the comprehensive plan in whole, so starting that process again. So a lot of it's staffing, and a lot of it's just the timing of when we could get back and come into compliance. Luckily, these two elements seem to be fairly straightforward, especially for the city of Englewood, as Dylan outlined in his presentation. So that goals or that deadline is fairly achievable. And in coordination with DOLA, if we go over that a little bit more, we can work with them on still being in compliance or working with them.

And we can just attach these two elements to the current plan while we complete sort of the refresh of the rest of the plan. Eric?

When you're talking about looking at underutilized and vacant infill parcels, you mentioned that that's going to be DETERMINED BY THE PROXIMITY TO TRANSIT CENTERS. ARE YOU SPEAKING SPECIFICALLY OF THE LIGHT RAIL OR IS THAT ALSO BUS STOPS AND SO FORTH?

NEW SPEAKER SO IT WOULD BE BOTH BUS STOPS AND LIGHT RAIL. You might remember from other conversations on some of the other kind of state requirements that there were, like the transit-oriented communities bill, the state kind of created these buffer zones around transit areas. So this is kind of like the initial starting point for kind of helping describe the geographic context of where we would want to focus that. Just to kind of like get started. Earlier, I used GIS to kind of overlay our existing vacant parcels from our county assessor's data, and then put those to the state boundaries. And so from there, it kind of gave a list of existing vacant parcels. Really, there's not a ton, but there are some. And so it kind of is a more narrow focus, so not trying to look at vacant parcels all around the city, just more targeted around those transit areas. But yeah, bus and light rail.

And what distance are you looking at to have those? Quarter of a mile.

Quarter mile? Yeah. Noah.

I think I... would like to encourage you to not limit that view as much when it comes to vacant and underutilized parcels. Englewood is not a large city geographically. And if you think about where those transit corridors are That's basically all of our major thoroughfares. And then the space between them is a lot of single-family residential. And I think if you... limit the analysis to only a quarter mile from those transit corridors, I think there's the potential to miss other places in the city. And I think in a city of our size, the difference between doing an analysis on a quarter mile from a transit corridor versus just looking at the entire city IT ALMOST SEEMS LIKE IT COULD EVEN BE EASIER TO NOT HAVE TO IMPOSE THAT RESTRICTION VERSUS TRYING TO IDENTIFY WHAT THOSE CORRIDORS ARE AND WHAT THOSE BOUNDARIES ARE. I THINK THERE WOULD BE VALUE IN SEEING THE ANALYSIS ACROSS THE ENTIRE CITY RATHER THAN ELIMINATING IT TO THOSE CORRIDORS JUST GIVEN KIND OF WHAT THE WAY ANGLEWOOD IS LAID OUT. THE OTHER THING I WANTED TO ASK IS THESE ARE NOT THE ONLY BILLS FROM 2024 THAT WE ARE NOT YET IN COMPLIANCE WITH, AND I WANTED TO GET A SENSE OF WHETHER THERE ARE OTHERS THAT ARE ON YOUR RADAR AND WHETHER WE WOULD EXPECT TO HAVE FURTHER CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ANY OF THE OTHER 2024 HOUSING AND LAND USE BILLS THAT WE ARE NOT YET IN COMPLIANCE WITH SOON.

I can answer that last part. And we're doing pretty well on compliance. And the one that we're targeting next is for the accessory dwelling units. We just went through a zoning amendment to make some changes to Title 16 to be in compliance. But there's still one neighborhood preservation overlay that's hanging out there that prohibits ADUs. So that's a fairly easy amendment potentially that would get us into compliance with that state bill. So we're going to start that outreach process with that community just to ensure that there's no opportunity for that. But that's the next one in line after this strategic growth in water.

just want to add one other piece so our predecessors were also working on the transit oriented communities though prior to us joining the city and so I got to start a little bit before Colin and so when I was when I was started it was kind of handed over to me to kind of help ensure that we kind of meet that process and so there's kind of pieces of that there's the housing opportunity goal and then there's Yeah, making sure that we've kind of described our ability to kind of meet that housing opportunity goal through any of our changes. Our predecessors did a really good job with that calculation. So I basically had some outstanding questions that were left for me to submit to DOLA to make sure that we're moving in the right direction. So I'm waiting on DOLA to kind of get back to us with their review of that initial work before we would feel comfortable coming back to you all with any major updates on that.

parking minimums is that that's a that's not part of the transit oriented communities bill right that's a different bill yes that is a tougher one so it's on our radar for where we we had a pre-application meeting recently for projects or if that moves forward we'll be going back to council quickly to have an update on their position but

Okay, thank you.

Colin.

Obviously these two pieces are really connected together. Can you talk a little bit about how the water supply plan will kind of feed into the strategic growth plan and how those will be related and whether, you know, redeveloping infill properties feels more efficient than, like you said, sprawling, adding more people, but we're still adding more people. So how do we know that we have the water supply? We've asked this question before, and I think we've got good answers, but making sure that we're all on the same page, that we are thinking about these things really together. And I'm guessing that's why you're here right now together.

That's a really good question. Yeah. So, I mean, a few pieces of the puzzle, just from our initial conversations with our utilities colleagues, we're doing pretty well in terms of the water supply. And we've got pretty good data from the 2023 water efficiency plan so that we can kind of continue to map that out. And my understanding is that the city is in really good position, both from a water rights perspective and from a supply and demand forecasting perspective. But another thing, so if you read the water efficiency plan, there's a piece of that where it kind of talks about potential policies or potential ways in which the city can, you know, kind of meet their target of a 6% reduction in water use over the planning horizon they had forecasted, which was 10 years. And one of the pieces of that was that multifamily and or more dense land uses tend to be more efficient in their water use. I'm not an engineer, so don't ask me to explain the math behind that. But that's kind of one of the calculuses that they came up with. And so, you know, when you overlay that again with the strategic growth analysis, which is, right, kind of trying to prioritize a more infill and redevelopment type of land use scenario, there is sort of that kind of crosswalk between the two where that, they're kind of feeding back with each other where a more efficient use of land is also using water more efficiently. And I think that was part of the state's calculus for trying to have these two considered simultaneously. So I think if we choose to go with these elements and conduct these processes, then having a similar cross-section of staff involved in the development of both would help be informative for both pieces of the puzzle, I think.

Carl. So does this have any restrictions on what Inglewood can sell water to other cities? Like we've sold the Highlands Ranch, Aurora, Denver. Is that going to continue that we can do that? I'm not really sure.

Yeah, I don't have an answer to that one, but it's something we can look into and get an answer back to you all. Unless, Jackson, if you have any thoughts on that.

Michelle.

Actually, the forefathers couldn't see into the future of right now. Right now, the water is a serious issue. The whole state. And we're pulling water out of Chatfield, which is 59% full. And we're also pulling water out of the Denver Aquafo, which is going down 2 to 10 feet a year. So our water sources are drying up. And Denver is pulling water out of Dillon, which is 77% full. So everybody's having problems. So there's five years. What does it take to do it in three years? I mean, if things change drastically, we need to change it.

I think a lot of your points are one of the primary reasons for this strategic growth element and why it's a mandatory requirement from the state at this point is to get cities to work with their water providers and have a plan for future growth and conservation of resource. On the timeline, our timeline, if that commission supports it, would be essentially immediately and try to get these done prior to the compliance deadline, which is the end of this year. And then after that, it is a maximum of five years that is looked at again. Of course, our public works departments, Inglewood Water are doing their analysis. as they do their typical business. But this element would just be for essentially the city's growth and the coordination with that one.

It seems like I remember a requirement that developers, if they wanted to develop in an area, and for them to do that, the water, sewer, or storm drain, if it's not adequate, they have to make it adequate.

And is that still in effect? Yes. It is?

Has that ever been used?

Yeah, so for example, there's a lot of improvements going on at the Swedish hospital currently. So a lot of the public infrastructure that's serving that site needed to be upgraded, so they're currently working on that right now. And development sites throughout the city, if If they require an improvement of public infrastructure to serve the projects, it would likely be their response, depending on whether their project acts it.

If they have to replace the water main clear back to the water plant, they're not going to do it. I mean, they'll find some way to get out of it, or they'll move on. One of the two.

Depending on the scope of the project. Michelle?

Yeah, I wondered if you have any insight on how this all came about. The Senate Bill 174 is a 45-page bill. And it's mainly about, in fact, 99% of it's about affordable housing. So do you have any insight as to the tie between affordable housing and the water supply in the bigger scope of things?

Yeah, so I guess a couple of things. The long answer is that, so in that particular bill was, if you remember the legislative cycle before that, they tried to pass kind of everything all at once. And then, so in 2024, they kind of broke out a lot of what they tried to pass all at once into various bills. And Senate Bill 174 was probably one of the media ones of that, where they included a few things that felt kind of connected into one larger bill. And so you're right, the big... uh, thing that a lot of people associate with that bill was the housing needs assessments and housing action plans piece. Um, so that's kind of underway, right? We, we, uh, went into Dr. Cog's housing needs assessment, um, for their regional calculation and we did the 2022 housing needs assessment in the city. Um, and then right as of now, uh, Seth, our affordable housing, program managers starting a long-range affordable housing plan which kind of serves that housing action plan what's really interesting about that is so i got the chance to work with beth on setting up our rfp to hire consultants to work and support support us on that housing action plan And so in that housing action plan, we have some funding from DOLA, which was a local planning grant. And so in that, because it was DOLA funded, they reviewed sort of our scope of work that we'd put together for this action plan. And one of the things that they asked us to consider was, do we have the utility, water, and infrastructure needs to meet the housing development that we're going to try to scope for in this housing action plan? So it's actually kind of interesting because when my read of that is that by doing the strategic growth element and water supply element and getting started on it right away, we can actually use that process to help inform some of those pieces that Bill was asking us to look at for this housing action plan. So they all kind of end up coming back together and kind of sort of overlapping sort of circles.

Yeah, I guess I I'm a little wary because We're lucky. Part of the reason I bought my house in Inglewood is because of the water supply. I mean, seriously, that was really one of my considerations. In fact, I bought it so long ago, I don't have a water meter. I can water as much as I want. I don't, but I can. And plus, I'm only just me, so I don't use that that much. But you also indicated that I'm just wary of eventually the state saying, oh, look, over here, Englewood's got lots of water. So we're going to essentially, maybe not, they can't make a specific bill for Englewood, but basically say, you guys that have lots of water are going to get our grants to create more infill-dense housing because you've got the water. What are your thoughts on that?

I mean, we don't know what's in people's heads. I can sort of hypothesize or speculate a little bit, but I kind of see where you're going with it, to be honest with you.

Because they're going to be handing out grants, so they're going to want to hand out grants to people that have water, obviously.

There are opportunities for Englewood, purely from an academic standpoint. No bias here, but Englewood does have opportunities to densify or see new infill development. So I see where you're coming from. you know, if there's a city that's rich in water and rich in space for new redevelopment opportunities and a place that's well-connected to transit, I can see how it could kind of fall within those crosshairs. But, you know, I think that, you know, maybe an economist would say that, like, the market pressure will kind of help alleviate some of that to some degree by, you know, people will kind of relocate to where they're, you know, where they're willing to relocate to based on their access to their opportunities, their jobs, their connections to their family ties and social ties and things of that nature. But it's hard to say. I mean, I see where you're going with it. I do think, though, that having that information that we can glean from the analysis could make us more equipped to handle whatever scenarios the future throws at us, though.

Yeah, I just want to make sure that Englewood gets to decide what they want to do down the road. And just as Carl said, we all don't have the ability to look into the future. And who knows? Obviously, I mean, the state demographer is saying that the population is going down. And I anticipate it probably will continue that. So there will be a lot of pressure, I think, lowered on the affordable housing market. So that'll be a good thing. I just don't want... I don't know. I get nervous about the state pushing things on us. I really believe in local control. And so I just would like for you to keep that in mind when you draft this stuff.

Colin.

Similar to how you moved here for the water, I think part of why I moved here was because I feel like Englewood has a lot of opportunity for it. And whether that's the portal housing or more density or all those things, I think we need to make sure that we're planning correctly. So it's interesting that I think we all have our own reasons for moving and the benefits that it provides. One of the questions, I have a couple more, but one of them was it talked about having a consultant helping with some of those other studies. Are we planning to have a consultant help with these? I'm just looking at the timelines again. If we're talking five months, would you plan to do this in-house or are we planning to bring people in to help out on this?

Our plan would be to do this in-house.

And that we've got the capacity to do that?

Okay. Yeah, so I've completed one water supply element before when I was a consultant. And that was actually much more complicated because this particular community had five special districts that were their water suppliers. So coordinating all of those people was much more difficult than going across the hall to our utilities colleagues. So from my vantage point, I'm in a much luckier position by being here. So I would be a little less concerned about the timeline for the water supply element. I do think just from conversations with DOLA staff and their willingness to offer compliance and progress. So they understand, kind of to Colin's point, that our team has kind of seen some turnover in terms of our positions, kind of the primary bodies that would be kind of leading this particular process. And they also understand that, you know, We're having conversations with council, or we anticipate having conversations with council in August about potentially updating the plan. If that comes to fruition, this could be something that would inform that process too. So they're more concerned that we do the process and do it well than they are about us meeting the timeline of December 31st. And so to that end, I would say that for the strategic growth element piece, I would push that we walk it out properly and do the process and coordinate with our internal staff to make sure that we all have the buy-in necessary and that you all feel comfortable with it. And then when we get it adopted, we get it adopted. But the water supply element piece, I could be eating these words in a few months, and please hold it over me if this ends up coming to the case, but I would feel pretty comfortable with the December 31st timeline.

What about data centers and infrastructure because that's a big issue right now I know Elon wants to put them in space but for now they're using up a lot of water so what happens if they put one in Englewood?

It's cold in space. Currently our code which is three years old at this point, did not contemplate data centers. So it's not a use that's defined within our code, which we would consider as a prohibited use. So currently, it wouldn't be allowed to come into the city of Englewood. However, yeah, data centers potentially could use a lot of water, along with other .

Colin?

One of the things you kind of discussed or touched on was the underutilized site definition. I guess, is there thoughts on how you want to define that? And then is there zoning considerations that we need to kind of be assessing as we're making these definitions or?

Well, I'll take the first part if you take the second part. Okay. So from the definitions piece, so I think probably the best way to tackle that particular definition for underutilized, so the state kind of came up with underutilized as a means of describing, like, are there parts of your city that you know, maybe you'd like to see this land performing at a higher level, right? And whether that's, and I think the reason why they give localities the determination to, you know, come up with that definition is, you know, how do we want to define underutilized, right? Is it that we don't think that that particular space is serving the community's best interests, or do we think that it's not necessarily providing the right, the proper amount of, like, tax ratio um from the land so a common definition that you'll see for underutilized from like economics spheres is that the improvement value so what what the building is um to the land value is in such a way where the land value is much more valuable than the improvement value so a really quick example that's commonly cited is a parking lot in the downtown space right you know it's not necessarily providing a whole lot of value in terms of the land value for what people could be using with that space it's kind of one purpose and it's not providing a lot of like taxable improvement value to the city so therefore the land value is much more valuable than what the improvement is on that land. And that's kind of a common one, but it could not necessarily meet what is at the best interest of the city of Inglewood. So I think a way of kind of working towards a definition would be to convene our team, public works, utilities, folks that are kind of involved in sort of the day-to-day development and redevelopment process to kind of come up with a few recommendations of what we think would be for describing underutilized and then coming back to you all to have conversations about what we talked about and seeing if there's anything that makes the most sense to move forward with. Does that answer your question?

That's going on right now in Denver.

Yes. From the zoning perspective, we could analyze it looking at the underlying zoning and say, hey, this particular site could have, let's say, a mixed use development of stories, but there's a parking lot set. That would be considered by site because it's not convenient. That's certainly an option. Since this is the comprehensive plan and kind of a guiding document, we don't have to consider that.

We can go on any definition or analysis and say this could potentially guide

Yeah, if I could just follow up on that. I think when I heard Colin ask the question about zoning considerations, one of the things that I was thinking about was this is currently a parking lot, and it's zoned industrial. But we've seen a lot of our industrial sites come through for PUDs and things like that. So when we're thinking about underutilized, I THINK WE SHOULD THINK ABOUT BOTH THE POSSIBLE USES UNDER THE CURRENT ZONING BUT ALSO THE BROADER GAMUT OF POSSIBLE USES AND LOOK AT WHAT THE KIND OF DIFFERENT VALUES THAT COULD BRING IN. AND THEN ONE PARTICULAR THING THAT I WANTED TO BRING UP WAS WE TALKED WHEN WE WERE GOING THROUGH THE BUDGET PROCESS A FEW MONTHS AGO ABOUT THAT A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF OUR CAPITAL BUDGET COMES FROM VEHICLE USE TAXES. WE HAVE A LOT OF AUTO-ORIENTED BUSINESSES, IN PARTICULAR CAR LOTS IN ANGLEWOOD, AND IF THOSE CARS ARE BEING SOLD TO PEOPLE THAT ARE NOT USING THE CARS IN ANGLEWOOD, THEN ANGLEWOOD IS NOT GETTING ANY TAX VALUE FROM THOSE TRANSACTIONS, AND SO i would just like to you know put a star next to that as something for us to look at when we're looking at underutilized properties is not just is there commercial activity going on but is it commercial activity that benefits the city of englewood

I mean, I would just like to add, and I'm sure we can talk about this more, but for a fairly sophisticated definition of underutilized properties, not just density, not just vacancy, but like you mentioned, community benefit, maximizing use of available infrastructure that's already in the area. And yes, we could just put a blanket, like a default list of car dealerships can be defined as underutilized property. So yeah, again, a lot of work to be done there. my personal perspective is to advocate for really a nuanced and comprehensive definition of an underutilized property. Michelle.

I'd like to push back a little bit on that because I also really am a strong proponent of property rights. And just because somebody, some property owner is leasing it out to a car. I mean, that's what the market wants. And he can, otherwise it'd be, you know, completely empty. So I just want to make sure that we put a little, I want to put a little star about property rights in there too.

Don't disagree, but you know, the market doesn't always want affordable housing, but we do, you know, so that's just, yeah, we're just defaulting to market pressures. Anybody else?

Carl. Sorry. Would you like to check in with

Oh, sorry. Brenda, I haven't seen your face pop up on screen. Is there any questions or comments you would like to add to the discussion?

I do not. Thank you for asking. I'm good.

Thanks, Brenda.

Carl. On the cars, if the buyer is an Englewood resident, then we get the taxes on a sales tax. If they're not driven in Englewood, then we don't get the gas sales tax, but I'd just as soon have them sit in the driveway anyway, as we got too many cars on the street. But what I was concerned about is if we don't have regulations on our water for development, they may or they may It may be a big target. Englewood could be a bullseye of a target. Englewood's got a lot of water. Let's go in there and we'll build an apartment in there. And there's plenty of water there. We don't have to worry about the water. We used to be targeted because of low tap fees, but I think they raised the tap fees a little better. uh now we make a little more money on that but uh i'd like to see some kind of regulation keeping uh larger developments away or charge them more for for water and the sewer whatnot eric

Yeah, during the 2024 Colorado legislative session, many of the bills, including what we're talking about today, the parking one, House Bill 1152, all of those are talking about creating affordable housing. Is there a common definition of what affordable housing is?

I might get into trouble by even weighting him in this, but I'll do my best. I often cite the HUD definition, which is that housing is affordable if your household is not spending more than 30% of your net income on housing. HUD costs alone, so that includes your rent and home property insurance, all that stuff. That's the definition I use, and I partially use that because HUD and CHAP are kind of the ones that often are the ones that are providing the subsidies for affordable housing to developers. When you think about the LIHTC low-income credits that go into property development for developers to develop affordable housing, they're kind of trying to meet those particular definitions. It kind of gets a little bit interesting. So a lot of communities kind of base their affordable restrictions or deed restrictions on housing. So around particular area median income brackets, so AMIs. And so often you'll see that an affordable housing might be for a household that's making 80% of the area median income. And that's a way of kind of making it a little bit more subjective to the local market as opposed to saying like, the state's area median income versus Englewood's area median income might be different. For instance, I got the chance to work in some mountain communities, and an 80% AMI in Steamboat Springs is going to be very different than the AMI in Craig. So this kind of like the sliding scale approach usually is either affordable, housing is considered affordable if you're spending 30% or less of your income Income on your housing costs and the restrictions tend to be around a line that can sometimes change Be honest the state's kind of been a little bit Going back and forth on that particular component. I think they typically used to cap it around 80% But there's been some pushback from especially mountain communities to up that a in my bracket in particular areas. So It's kind of a money answer. I'm sorry

So I guess it depends on for what purpose you're asking the question. It depends on what definition you get of affordable.

Right. Tell me what AMI means.

Area median income. So the area median income is kind of determined based on, in the area, what is the median income that households are making based on people's incomes. And then they make it to a specific locale. So let's just say Inglewood, for example. So in Inglewood, the census would be collecting data based on what your household income is, and they collect that for basically all of the households in the city. And then the midpoint of those incomes is the median. So then they just determine that that is the median income for households in this particular area. And I can't remember exactly what it is, what I knew at one point, but I don't want to give you the wrong answer.

For CHFA and HUD, we're grouped into the Denver Metropolitan Statistical Area. So it's just Denver AMIs were included in that.

Yeah.

Other questions, folks? Comments?

All right.

And I think we were talking about this a little bit earlier. How does this stuff tie to a bill about affordable housing? I mean, this is the stuff. If there's not infrastructure, the housing won't get built. That was Carl's point. And so we want more housing. If we have more housing, the housing becomes more affordable in general. And if we're smart about how we're growing and we're smart about how we're encouraging density in the right places around the right infrastructure, all of that is sort of a bedrock for producing that affordable housing that these bills are getting to.

All right. Well, thank you very much, gentlemen. Colin, Dylan, appreciate it. Thank you all. I don't.

Oh, you know what? One thing, before you guys get up, this was kind of the initial study session for this, but we do like to ask, is there any specific questions you have for us or direction that you would like from us at this time?

Yeah, if you would bear with us. We do have some questions for you. I think some of these might have been answered in our previous question and answer session. But yeah, if

if um you have any guidance for us that would be helpful um dylan do you want to run these questions do it one by one sure i think some of these we've kind of touched on so i i won't um make us endure those um but the first one is just how would you as planning commission like be both updated and involved in the development of these elements so you know what's like an appropriate cadence for us to come back to you and what kind of things would you be looking for us um come back to you with uh throughout this process

Colin?

Well, I noticed you said you were trying to kind of convene a core team and a technical advisory committee. Are those, have you started to put those nets out for that yet? Or how are you figuring out any of those?

And these are more like putting some thoughts on paper. At this stage, we wanted to, you know, kind of order of operations. We wanted to touch base with you all first before we started, you know, kind of bugging too many people. But, you know, my initial vision for like a core team would be probably Colin and myself and then our redevelopment program manager, Terry Ware, our affordable housing program manager, Seth, as for our strategic growth element. And for our water supply element, it might be both Colin and I, our redevelopment manager, Terry, and our utilities folks, so some of our engineering staff, and then maybe some members of our public works team. The technical advisory committee, I kind of view this as more of a opportunity to have an additional layer of touch points with other departments in the city make sure that they're kind of keeping eyes on these particular processes and informing the process so maybe other members of our public works division or traffic and transportation division folks that would be either impacted or have influence on this work over time to make sure that they're kept involved in the process but don't necessarily need to be involved in the day-to-day so you know potential uh process could look like you know the core team is kind of working through the analysis kind of coming up with some ideas and then initially touching base with our technical advisory community to make sure it passes the sniff test with them first and then from there maybe coming back to you all to make sure that you know we've kind of gone through their appropriate layers and then from there maybe going on council just to it's kind of an update cycle that would be like an initial

Yeah, I would say if council is getting any updates, I would want at least as often as that. So if they're giving you direction, we want to know what that is and be able to be reactive to that. Michelle?

Yeah, I would agree. And did DOLA or anybody send you some sort of framework or something or questions to send to all the communities?

Yeah, they did. I will say that there's actually a pretty robust source of information on their website, almost too much. And so they do have these kind of... sort of checklists and kind of developing a strategic growth element, developing water supply elements, sort of the steps that they recommend. So we can kind of use that to put together like a scope of work.

To guide you, okay. Yeah, that's good because I was thinking all these municipalities, I mean, they're going to get, you know, mishmash if they don't have some guidelines or something. Okay, makes sense. Thank you.

Does that answer question number one for you? Major concerns, we talked about some. I think mine is just, especially with the strategic growth element, that ties into so many elements of the full strategic plan. And I'm just hoping that those conversations are happening in parallel and are speaking to each other. I think it's a really important aspect of it, of what will play into when we get deeper into the rest of the strategic plan. So yeah, just that those things aren't happening in a vacuum.

I JUST BASICALLY WANTED TO SAY THE SAME THING. LET THE RECORD SHOW, MY LIGHT WAS ON BEFORE YOU SAID THAT. I JUST WANTED TO SAY WE HAVE A LOT OF PLANS IN THE CITY AND THEY DON'T ALWAYS SAY THE SAME THINGS AND THERE'S BEEN A LOT OF WORK OVER THE LAST SIX TO NINE MONTHS ON developing the strategic plan with all of the references to the different tie-in plans and all of that. And so this is already an addendum to the comprehensive plan. I think it's just a major concern for me would just be to make sure that you're paying attention to what is in all those other plans. And if other plans need to change to align with this, then let's do that. But let's make sure that we're not putting different things in different documents so that nobody has any guidance on what the city is actually trying to do. Just making sure that alignment is there is really important.

Your competitiveness is noted, Noah. I do have a question about the state is requiring this to be in compliance. But to some extent, these are sort of aspirational documents. How much do they hold us to these plans? Is there follow up on the back end? Is there any sort of post-compliance?

Not really, interestingly enough, or at least not my read of it. Yeah, there's kind of not really like a criteria that they're holding us against or sort of a way in which they're kind of making sure that we realize these. My read of this is that the state is trying to get us to do this process for ourselves. And I guess maybe the hope would be that as we go through this process, we'll take what we need from it and kind of make plans accordingly. But yeah, no, the main thing that they're checking on is that did we kind of do the analysis? And like I said, there's a lot of latitude for us to determine the analysis based on our conditions. But did we kind of fulfill the buckets that they asked us to fulfill? And then did we achieve it in a timeline that they agreed to? And then are we updating it every five years? And that's really all they're looking for.

Brenda, anything?

Oh, I'll just say, you know, I read it and looked at the background before the meeting. And really, the bill was intended to contain urban sprawl, you know, like Aurora going out and more and more. And Englewood's landlocked. So I don't have too many worries about anything that this is going to impact us, you know. But I would be curious in the process, like you said, if council's going to make any changes or throw any wrenches in it, I would like to be informed as well. Thanks.

Yeah. Great. All right. Last call. Colin, Dylan, anything else you need from us?

No. I mean, I guess the other questions were mostly just kind of catch-alls for if there's anything else that maybe came up for you all that we haven't covered and anything else that we need to be advised of.

Yep. Carl. There's a lot of issues with water. It affects everything. So watering in the parks. When can they water every day or once a week or whatever? Affordable housing, can they have a cheap tap fee so they don't overprice themselves out of the residence? Everything's connected to the water and sewer. So there's a lot of things going into this, and it really needs to take time to evaluate all of that. So it's a serious part of the regulations and stuff. So anyway, we've given it some time, so that's good. Michelle.

Yeah, I'll be very interested to follow this and have reports from you coming back. But just to what you're saying, Carl, I mean, I'm a Denver native. And so water is gold in Colorado. And most people don't realize that because most people aren't from here. But it's certainly a huge issue. And in some ways, it's encouraging that the state is going, okay, let's make sure everybody's got enough water. Tell that to Douglas County, though, right? So thanks.

I'm originally from the southeast where there's plenty of water. But I can tell you, I moved here 11 years ago, and I read Cadillac Desert, and it was very scary. So, yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much, Colin.

Dylan?

I have one last thing.

Oh, sorry, Amy.

I hope that wherever this goes, I know that we are... in this drought and in this whole serious scarcity kind of mindset right now. I hope that we're also thinking forward enough that if we do ever get changes to the Oh, my God. I hate when my menopause brain, like, forgets the word. But we're able to build condos again. What is that? Deconstruction defects law. I hope that we stay forward thinking enough that if that ever happens, that Englewood can be one of the communities that starts building condos again instead of building apartments. I want to just be careful that we aren't in scarcity mindset, that we are thinking forward, and that we are one of those attainable, sustainable cities that everybody is looking forward to. So that's my two cents.

Yeah. Great. Thanks, Amy. All right. Last call. And I didn't see your light because you're a water bottle. So sorry. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, guys. We're going to move on to the next item of the agenda, which is staff's choice.

anything else for us no we want to thank you for your time this evening um the one thing i could add um the next meeting is is canceled we don't have any items for it but we will have something on the second meeting in august great thanks nancy if i could just follow up on that your second meeting in august is august 18th and it will be a public hearing

for the residential non-conforming, which you just heard the study session on. So if you know you're not going to be at the meeting, please let me know as soon as you can.

Thank you.

That's all I've got. Thanks.

All right. And attorney's choice, Mr. Higgins. Sure, just as a quick point of clarity on the issue that was brought up during the approval of the minutes and related to the upcoming residential non-conforming uses public hearing. And again, feel free to have this conversation during Commissioner's Choice. But there was no formal action being taken at that meeting. It was a study session. We'll be sure that all materials are presented to you at this public hearing on residential non-conforming uses. That might be an appropriate time. to clarify anything that you felt was communicated incorrectly. But then also feel free to, if you want to, you can communicate to counsel, however you choose, but just to clarify that point. No formal opinion was made by you guys at the last meeting.

Yep. Great. Thanks, Jackson. Commissioner's choice. Let's start on this side with Steven. Michelle.

I've got nothing. Thanks.

Carl. Sorry about coming in late. I had about half a dozen things that delayed me, so things you can't avoid.

No problem, Carl. I just want to thank you and welcome both Colin and Dylan to the relatively new positions, and looking forward to working with you.

Eric, Noah, Amy.

Colin. All right. And with that, we adjourn. Thank you, everybody.

Sorry, Brenda.

Oh, I'm sorry. Gosh, Brenda, I'm so sorry. The Zoom is hard. Brenda.

It is. I'm sorry. You're sorry to do that to you tonight. No, it's okay. I had late meetings. Yeah, let me just say my spiel real quick. It's true. We weren't making a decision. But we were also left out of the decision-making process for option one or two. And although the document was available to council on the council meeting portal for the April 13th study session, the materials still being presented that night in a separate portal is not the same. And a lot of people thought we were making a decision about what to do in case there's a fire. So we still did not have all the materials we really needed to discuss that option that night. So I just want to urge everybody to read the documents prior to the hearing so that we can have a full discussion that evening. Thanks.

Thank you, Brenda. All right. And with that, we will adjourn. Thanks, everybody.