Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. It is 06:30. It is August 19, and this is the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. This is a call to order. Can we take attendance, please?

Okay. Mister Hagerty is not here at the moment. Miss Austin is going to be absent absent. Mister Montiel?

Present.

Steven Ruttle is not here yet. Mister Adams? Here. Miss Hupka?

Present.

Mister Renson? Mister Kaplan? Oh, I'm sorry. Mister Kaplan?

Here.

Miss Isaro? Here. And chair Martinez?

Here.

Quorum is present.

Thank you very much. Before we do the next item, approval of the minutes, I trust everybody had seen the email from a city attorney about sort of the rules and normal procedure for approving minutes. Just because you weren't here is not necessarily a reason to abstain. So please review the minutes every time, and now would be the time to bring up questions or comments or edits. So with that said let's move I need an approval for motion for approval of the minutes from the July 20 I'm sorry I'm looking at the wrong one August 5 meeting Can I get a motion?

I make a motion to approve the minutes from the August 5 meeting.

Thanks, Eric. Second. Thanks, Steven.

We'll take a vote.

Mister Montiel? Aye. Mister Adams?

Abstain.

Ms. Hupka? Yes. Mr. Renson?

Yes.

Mr. Kaplan?

Yes.

Ms. Cicero? Yes. Chair Martinez?

Yes.

Alright. Thank you for that. Moving on to the

next item, approval of the findings of fact. So I hope everybody had to get a chance to review the findings of fact. Hello Colin from the PUD amendment that was presented on August 5 you can find a link to those on the agenda does anybody have any comments questions revisions for anybody who took a look? Any questions? Okay. Then I just would love a motion to approve the findings of fact.

I'll make a motion to approve findings of fact.

I'll I'll I'll second the motion.

Thanks, Brenda. We'll take a vote.

Oh, before I take the vote, I just wanna state for the record that mister Hagerty has entered the meeting. Alright. So mister Hagerty, how do you vote?

Sorry. Can I ask a question

Sure? Before Yeah. Vote on the findings?

This is probably for city attorney's office. Is a vote on the findings of fact like a vote on the minutes that were saying what is in that document reflects what we discussed at the last meeting? Or is it saying, I agree with the findings of fact as they are stated in that document?

I would say it's it's that. It's I agree with the findings of fact that are stated in that document.

Okay.

Actually, what was the I'm sorry. The first one was that these were the fine as if if

the Yeah. So when we discuss when we had the hearing Mhmm. Right, a lot of what is in that findings of fact document was was not actually discussed really in the meeting. Right? Like, the findings of fact were presented by staff and we talked about a lot of the specifics of the, you know, the proposed amendment to the PUD and and all that. And then voted, you know, to move it forward with a recommendation to counsel.

Okay.

But the findings of fact document has a lot of statements of fact in it that were not necessarily, like, like I said, heavily discussed.

So Okay.

That that's what I'm asking is, am I just voting to say, yes, we voted to approve it and this is Mhmm. Like the discussion or Mhmm. You know, the support for that?

Yes.

Or am I saying, agree that all of those statements of fact are correct?

So I guess a clarifying question. The evidence presented that while maybe this wasn't discussed in oral testimony or it was still information that was submitted in part of the packet from which you're nodding. Yes.

I think in general

In my understanding, the findings of facts are these are the facts that we use to consider to make our recommendation.

Yes.

And they are, yes.

So whether they were orally presented, thoroughly discussed or not, we were given these facts that we all used to make, you know, to come to our decision.

Yeah, these facts support the decision, yes.

I I guess maybe just to build on that because they kinda triggered another question. So if you say we had a split vote, would you just say that, yes, I agree with those even if you voted nay to the actual findings of fact originally? I'm sorry, not the findings of fact. If you voted nay to the original motion moving forward, just make sure does that make sense what I'm asking?

Yeah. I mean, it's a different a different vote. So, yeah, if you voted differently regarding whether or not to approve the PUD, this would be something separate.

So, again, this is just documented. Alright. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. With that, can I get I think we already had a motion and a second?

And I just wanted to also say that mister Ruddle has joined the meeting online.

Great.

Okay. So here we go. Mister Hagerty? Yes. Mister Montiel?

Yes.

K. Give me one second to get Steven. To talk. Steven, how do you vote on the findings?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Mister Adams?

I hope so.

Miss Hubka? Yes. Mister Rensen?

Yes.

Mister Kaplan?

Yes.

Miss Cicero?

I don't know how to vote because I didn't watch the meeting. I mean, I read through everything.

If if

you don't feel confident that you have the information to vote one way or another, I think abstain

Abstain then.

Is fine. I

think that the the yeah.

And Chair Martinez. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. Just a reminder, for folks that yeah. Take a look at that email from the city attorney about, you know, just being absent from a meeting or not being a part of the discussion isn't necessarily a reason to abstain, but if you don't have the information to make a decision at hand, then yeah. But we ask that, you know, folks take a look at at the minutes at least, and, you know, you can still vote in favor of this. Moving on to the public forum, is anybody present online or in the room that would like to present information not related to the agenda this evening?

There's no one online.

Okay. Great. Then we

will move forward to the study session. Brian.

Good evening, commissioners. If you're alright, I'll probably give this presentation from here because I have a feeling I'll be taking a few notes from this group. So tonight, what we're here to talk about, if you're not aware, over the course of the two last last two legislative sessions, the state has passed some pretty big housing reform laws and then two other laws that are related to landscaping practices that will that affect our code how we operate in Inglewood. So we'll go through this is actually the list of all every law, all eight of them. We're really only gonna talk on five, the five that affect our development code.

The other three do have an effect on the city, but they're they're more policy generated by our you know, driven by our city council. But for these five, we'll go through tonight and try to get some high level direction from you all sort of like we just did with nonconforming use. We'll get some high level direction, and then we'll go back, get some high level direction from council, and then our team will go back and start drafting amendments and coming back to discuss them with you all. So these are the five five laws that we'll be talking about tonight. I'll go through each one, and then we can pause after each law, talk about it, then move on to the next one.

The first one is probably the the biggest one, so we'll just rip the Band Aid off. This is house bill twenty four thirteen o four. This is the minimum parking requirements law. In short, what it says and and we sent you summaries of all these laws ahead of time, all of what we discussed with counsel and presented to them. So, hopefully, you've had a chance to read through some of that because we'll be really short on my end of talking and really listening to what you all have to say.

So this law says that a city can't enforce parking minimum parking requirements for multifamily residential development within essentially these blue boundaries that you see up here. Those are quarter quarter mile from bus routes and from transit stops, so our two train stops. And it would be any kind of multifamily development, whether it's ground up, new construction, adaptive reuse of an existing building. I think the long as at least 50% of that is residential or mixed use development as long as it's 50% residential. The city can enact a one unit one space per dwelling unit exception only for projects that contain more than 20 dwelling units or for projects that are part of an affordable housing project.

So what our standards look like now are on the screen. So one bedroom multifamily, and there's multiunit house and multiunit dwellings. One bedroom is one space per unit, two bedrooms are one and a half space per unit, three bedrooms are two spaces per unit, and then we require guest parking one space for every five unit. So what kind of options do we have? What we did was we looked at different municipalities across mostly in our area, to see what they're doing with their codes.

It kind of runs the gamut, so you have folks that are just amending your applicability section. So it would keep our parking requirements and our parking table, And in our applicability section at the top of that chapter, it would just say these certain uses get an exception in these specific areas designated by this law. What you could also do is some similar that says, we would remove all residential parking rates within that area or remove all residential parking rates across the city, or you could go as far as the city of Denver and remove parking rates for every use across the board. And so this is the examples that we've got in the area. The Littleton removed parking requirements for new residential developments within the Dola identified areas.

Denver removed minimum parking requirements completely, and that was pretty recent. Sheridan has given no parking requirements for multiunit 19 or fewer units, and then kind of leaves themselves open for that exception of one space per unit for a certain project. Centennial has made no changes to their existing code. Cherry Hills Village has made no changes to their existing code, but they have a very unique exception that they have no multifamily in Cherry Hills Village, so they don't have to change it. Greenwood Village has no change to their existing code.

As you may know, they're a litigant in the ongoing lawsuit against the the state and the govern governor. And then Lakewood has proposed to remove minimum parking requirements except that they would keep their guest parking rates. So I don't know what their rate was, but ours again is once pays for every five units. But they removed the parking rates that were geared towards the actual dwelling unit. So I know that was a lot really fast. Does anybody have any thoughts on kind of high level direction that you feel like we need to go or what we need to think about as we're moving forward through this process?

I have a quick question. The can you go back to that map with Oh. The

Sorry.

Can you go back to the map with the blue? Yeah. So, if I'm understanding correct, a good chunk of what that blue overlaps is R1 of various options. And I'm guessing that there's probably more pushback to ideas like this because it's not really showing where you can't actually have multifamily development currently, if I'm not miss missing that. Is there a map that blends the two where it shows what's currently able to have multifamily and within the blue zone?

So it would really only affect what's in those areas. So if it's if multifamily is not allowed, it's not like saying this law will now allow multifamily. But if you look at North South, have Broadway. Multifamily is allowed up and Down Broadway in MUB 2 and MUB 1. So that may be an area that's highly

then you have Hope your mic's off.

I thought I might have been loud enough. The Hampden Corridor in most of those areas multifamily is also allowed except for South Of Hampden in this area that's primarily Zone I 1. But if you're looking at City Center and Broadway are probably the two biggest chunks that would be affected by this this law.

Sure. I'm just wondering if if it's beneficial to show the map like this as opposed to blocking out the spaces that are are one for example That may be

a good one that we look at is creating a map that actually shows the areas that are probably going to be affected more than anything else, especially as we go forward and start looking at policy.

Can you talk about what the state is threatening to do if we don't go with if we don't agree to these changing our code?

So there have been a series of executive orders filed by the governor. The first one said that, short Vicki, you may have to correct me if I say anything wrong. In in very short order, the first one says that if let me see how we say phrase this. Cities will be ranked for grant and funding opportunities, and cities that fulfill these laws or are compliant with these laws or in process of compliance with these laws will get priority for grant funding, and cities that are not compliant will lose points in those those different grant funding opportunities. The second executive order that came out, I think, six days ago actually lists all those funding opportunities and says these are the ones that will be prioritized based on these state laws.

And we know of at least one, which is the enterprise zone that we do get funding or we do work with, that we would be in there may be an opportunity that we could lose funding through that funding source. We sent the list out to various departments and are waiting to hear back from all of them on what things they they may be pursuing or have pursued in the past based on those lists.

Wasn't transportation in there? It's not just housing funding. Right? I'm sorry. It's so changing so fast that

Yeah, have the executive order, the one that was on August 13 in front of me. And yes, some of it is transportation funding.

You

know that city centennial is not making any changes. Is that because they've already removed any parking requirements or are they just saying they're not gonna make the change?

The they just haven't made any changes to date. Okay. So they still have their parking requirements in place.

And just to confirm, an option could be that we just have a notes that states number one on the next page of your presentation. Yeah. Just basically have that note added if that's something that we wanted to do.

Yeah. That certainly I think Littleton basically did just that. They went to their applicability section which tells us this is how this chapter applies to development and in there it says, okay, everything in this chapter applies except for. For these specific development types located in these very specific areas, nothing applies. Or the parking quantity doesn't apply. So if somebody builds parking, we can still require them to design it the way that our code says, but we can't require the parking spaces associated with it.

So there's really no guarantee, though, that if we met the state halfway, we would still we would qualify for grant funding. Right? This is I mean, to me, it seems like there's three choices. We comply all the way, we comply partway, or we don't comply. And the partway is something that may or may not achieve the results of getting funding. Am I right?

I would say you probably won't. There is this compliant or you're trying to comply, there's no partial compliance. It's you're doing it or you're not. Right. Or you're trying to get there, meaning in this interim time, one of the other laws, we were given the opportunity to request a, six month extension so that we can continue to work with you all in our council on adopting, ADU requirements, different ADU requirements. So, you know, we're in process of, but we're still waiting on that final direction to start the final adoption process if that's the direction we're told to go.

No. I would encourage us to look at following in Denver's footsteps and removing parking rates citywide. Minimum parking requirements are a an intervention in the market. Right? We for other aspects of development, you know, we want developers to build what they think is going to be profitable.

And when you have a minimum parking requirement, you're essentially, you know, requiring a cost that often the developer can't recoup that cost, and it makes it more difficult to, to have a housing development be profitable and artificially reduces the amount of housing development that we're gonna have. And, you know, I think that is and and it essentially subsidizes more affluent households that have cars at the expense of often poorer households that don't have cars and rely on public transit because the price of the parking gets baked into all of our housing. So I think we should highly consider getting rid of parking minimums and, you know, let the market decide if parking is required for any particular development.

Are you suggesting that in the transit corridor or Citywide.

Citywide. My recommendation.

Okay.

Same as what Denver?

Well, philosophically, I agree with that. We spent a lot of time in the code next updating and agreeing and arguing and getting to where we got to. So I think my preference would be that we keep it except for where DOLA is requiring it. That's just where I would lean towards even though, again, philosophically, I actually agree with your assessment. I just know that we spent a lot of time on this and feel like that's a better compromise at least from where I would

be at.

I think a lot of that time was spent focused on r one anyway. Yeah. I mean, I I agree with Noah. Developers, if they want to rent units, they need to provide parking of of what they I don't think the I don't think we need to add in another intervention, as Noah said, when, you know, if the demand is there, then developers will provide it in order

to sell their product. Brenda?

Well, I'd like to believe that they would build us parking spaces if the demand was there, but the thing is that we have about 80 units that have been approved to be built over there on Galapagos. We have the large units on Galapagos. We have the Elk Lodge that hasn't even been torn down, and we have two properties behind me, and the developers have chosen not to build those for going on three years now. So we can't even get developers. We're we're making room for developers to build, and they won't they won't do that for, I don't know, interest rates or the the lack of labor.

But the the point is is that we're not creating barriers for them in the in the first place. We've grown by three to 400 units in the past three years, two to 3% increase since 2022. And overall, this is a this violates our home rule constitution of of community input at the end of the day. And we did make a lot of changes and streamline approvals and expanded flexibility in our code to allow for more growth. And if we let the state hold hostage these mandates over us, it sets a precedent.

I know that today's legislature might appeal to our ideals, but it was only twenty years ago that this was a red state. And if we allow the legislator to do this today, I can't tell you what's gonna happen tomorrow. We are a homeroom municipality, and I would support joining the lawsuit with Arvada, Aurora, Glendale, Greenwood Village, Lafayette, and Westminster, and to against just 13 o four and thirteen thirteen as we move forward. The rest of them, I think, are an easy code update, but that is the parking minimum and thirteen thirteen, the traffic parking area. I forget what it's called.

Noah? I think, I just wanna emphasize what I was saying before about the way that parking minimums distort the profitability of development. So if you take, for example, the Elks Lodge site, it's not a huge site. And if the developer has to provide, you know, one space per one bedroom unit, one and a half spaces per, you know, two bedroom unit. That's fewer units that they can put in that space.

And so each individual unit costs more and is more difficult to sell or rent depending on, you know, how they're marketing it. And that's where, you know, if, they identify that there's a significant enough population of people who would be willing to buy or rent there with immediate access to, high frequency buses to the train, and then they could put more units and each unit costs less. Like that so when we're saying that the problem we're facing right now is that developers are not moving forward with development, parking minimums are one of the burdens that makes that more difficult to do. And I think the other thing I I just wanted to add is that the first bullet here is comply with the law at the minimum. Right?

I think I, you know, I I don't think noncompliance should be on the table at all. There's no reason for us to potentially sacrifice that funding to, you know, take on whatever cost would come with joining a lawsuit. This is, you know, fighting a lawsuit over being able to mandate parking is not the way we need to be spending city funds.

And just for context, a structured parking space costs about $60,000 per space as a development cost.

Well, you're not saying that there are the people these developers aren't building it because they gotta build a garage or a part or a parking space. I mean, you know, it's it's not a barrier to what they've already committed to do. It's the interest rate is what they don't like. And they're not demanding not meeting demand. There's a demand right now for housing.

And it's been really bad in the last three years, and they're still not building it. So that's the point is that they've they've put in their designs. They've been approved. They've been there there's no other reason than fulfilling their own doing what's in their best interest for them, not the city. And they will do the same thing if we don't allow them if we don't put some bare minimums.

And and, you know, it's not just about parking. It's about the state telling the city that it doesn't matter that you've already passed your own laws. It doesn't matter that you had community engagement, which by the way is in the charter. The community engagement is in the charter when we change zoning. The state is saying, too bad.

You can't have community engagement anymore, and their decisions about your city will tell you what to do today, or you don't get any money. It is not too far off what the federal government is telling the state right now about their immigration laws. Today, the federal government told Colorado that if you do not comply with what we want you to do as far as rounding up immigrants, we will not give you funding. Now should the state comply with that because they like that idea? This is about self governing governments.

All due respect, I think that is a limited view of the challenges of housing development. I think cost of insurance is probably a lot higher and one of those barriers. And also, the barriers to development are myriad. And if we want more accessible, equitable, affordable housing in our community, we need to look at every opportunity to support that to happen. Any other comments?

I've got

a question.

Oh, David, go.

I'm hearing all these arguments. I think there's sense to all of them, frankly. I'm curious. Is there a world where if you've got units that are let's say that this carat passed through, right, and there's somebody building a 19 unit apartment building with no parking. Theoretically, the, you know, the market should dictate what the cost of those units is are, what the design is, what the rent is.

In theory, a smart developer would not be overbuilding these marketed towards someone who has one or two cars, theoretically. But if the intent is that this policy encourages affordable housing, is there any ability for the city to require those units to be affordable and for residents to not own a car while living them? Because I think my my guess is the biggest pushback is someone who lives across the street from a zone where, let's say, they build three nineteen unit buildings in a row. There's now potentially 40 to 60 cars on a block. It could happen.

Theoretically, I know this is a worst case, but I'm guessing the pushback is primarily from people that are worried about all these people renting because the unit is cheap but still having a car. How do you protect the interests of the neighbors with all these things in mind? I I understand all that. I don't think the reality is gonna be quite that extreme, but I think that's the concern that people have that's causing a lot of pushback.

Amy. I think, again, I I would agree. All of these comments are good and valid. I think I think parking has just changed so much over the years. And I'll just say as my experience in Downtown Denver of five or six buildings where there were thousands of thou you know, about a thousand units, and more than half of the parking spaces are empty.

And nobody else can rent those parking spaces because of the bylaws of the HOA. And how that changed from 2000 to 2025, it's drastically different how people used cars. They bought they bought condos downtown, had two cars within six months. They were one car didn't even work anymore because the battery was dead and eventually would let go of one car and eventually would let go of another car. And I think it's really important along all of our, especially along all of the transportation lines that the developers have the opportunity to build without parking.

Now if anybody does in their any of their homework in downtown, there's the building that was built without any parking in it for million dollar properties all the way down to affordable properties, the building sold out. But without but there was it appealed to the person who didn't necessarily need two cars. Right? So that type of building appealed to a different person than you or somebody who wants to live in a a single family house. Those people figured out how they would use either, public transportation or they would rent a car or they use their bikes or their scooters or whatever.

It it's a different way of living, and it doesn't mean it's a bad way of living. And I think that developers are smart enough to figure out if their product is gonna sell or not. And I think the market will continue to change like that. And especially if we want our public transportation to be used, here's an opportunity.

The comments, Colin?

I I guess question for today for what we're trying to get to is recommendations, Brian, or are what are we trying to get to today?

Kind of. I think what we're looking for is just some sort of direction, meaning I understand where a few people kinda land is, you know, I think Brenda is on the nope. Keep it as is. Aaron and Noah are go all the way. Everybody else seems to be kind of in the middle somewhere. And so that's where I wanna know is, you know, do we have kind of a a bigger consensus from the group? Some of you all remember this exercise from Code Next and all that fun stuff. So it's kinda similar to that. So if we can get a little bit of a consensus on a direction, we'll start working that way. Otherwise, we'll go to council and just say, hey. We we didn't get any consensus from PNC. Well, here's where where do you guys wanna go?

But to be clear, we're not making an official recommendation.

No. No. Not at all. We're just kind of going through high level what direction do we wanna go as a city, And then we go to council, ask them the same question, let them know what we heard from you all, and then we'll get their direction, then we'll go back and start drafting changes and and work from there.

Yeah. I would just like to add another one of my comments here. As you know, we have since the middle of the last century been designing our communities and neighborhoods for vehicles and not for people. And this is a I feel like one of the, you know, the state taking the initiative to addressing that. Yeah. I'm sad that for now. Brenda?

Yeah. We just have to think about our neighbors. That we're already it's one thing to build a new unit like Galapago with nothing around it, but it's very real reality that I could have a 55 foot tall, four unit building next to me with no parking on a already very crowded block. Up to 19 is is a bit much. So I'll let it go. They've got you know what I you know how I feel. Thanks.

I have one other question. Is there any world where the city could choose to enact their own version of this without being in violation of the state, or is it, like you said, you have to either follow it or not follow it?

Do can you repeat that?

Is is there a world where, you know, per to Brenda's comment of, you know, the 19 unit limit, you know, if if the unit limit was five or six, I think it's a lot more tenable for people. 19 is probably a number that scares people, and I'm just wondering if there's a world where we can adjust that without being in violation of the state thing to not finding a risk.

To my knowledge, no. There's not really a lot of leeway.

Got

it. And even on the 20 unit and above, that exception, we as a city have to prove that there's a negative impact of that development and how their parking is being proposed to even require that one unit per or one space per unit. So even that is written to be it's it's fairly difficult. On our end, we'd have to hire traffic engineers or use our own traffic engineers to come up those studies to map those out. So even the exceptions aren't really just quick exceptions. They're they're work on our end as well.

Okay. One more. Sorry to jump in with another exception question. You know, as I was pointing out before, there's certain areas on the map where it's not gonna happen anyways because you can't have multifamily. So I think it look the the sort of potential worst case looks magnified beyond what it actually could be. Is there any scenario where we could add rules that say if you're you know, one side of the street is r one, the other side is multifamily, that a building that's facing an r one could not do zero parking? Like, is there an additional rule that we could add in that sort of still meets the the law without putting someone

know, looks across the way you're thinking. But, no, if they're in that area, nope. There's no Trading. There's no other rule. But I love watching the wheels turn. Believe me.

Oh god. Steven, anything online?

Nope. I'm good. I'm listening.

Okay. I have a question, Brian. Can you give us any sort of, anecdotes from maybe the past couple of years of where parking requirements have been a challenge for developers to build what they wanna build?

Yeah. I think a lot of our recent PODs have gone through request to reduce parking. Our old code was pretty excessive. I think it was 1.7 spaces per unit on average. And that was just, you know, whatever size unit you built, you had the same parking requirement.

Yeah. The new code adjusting it to our new code adjusting it to a per bedroom standard has made it more palatable, but we still have discussions from developers, which they they can't make it. Or right now, we have one just South of Hampden that we've been working with from a on a very preliminary perspective, which they're trying to use a shared parking scenario, but the shared parking is too far away by code. So they'd have to go to board of adjustment and get an appeal. They'd be above the 20 units, but, yeah, that's that's one where it's we have directions to go, but it's just it becomes strenuous for small developers.

So there's there's difficulties in all of it. I mean, I get it. I don't know that I don't know that I have the silver bullet for this one. Trying to appease everyone. Yeah. I think this is one where not everybody's gonna be happy, to be honest. This one's gonna be very difficult.

One thing I did wanna add on as this is being considered so this applies to multifamily and new multifamily. One thing the city could explore, is potentially, other ways to manage on street parking, such as parking permits in certain areas. So that's something that we could look into, as we're kinda grappling with this.

Carl, did you have comment, question?

If a build with no parking available, and like five people, five eighty people want to move in, how do they where do they park? They have to be able to park somewhere.

The city can still, I mean the ADAs would still apply, so we can still enforce accessible parking space requirements, That that's something different with having to accommodate folks with disabilities. Another

thing is that what is what's the name of it now, Bell Cherry Hills? They they have paid parking in in their building, but half of the people in the building prefer to park on the street. Cheaper, I don't know, easier to get to, but anyway, that's what what's the if if they do go with no parking for the apartments, What's the expense for Inglewood to do permit parking and pass out permits and put up signs and whatnot?

I do not have an answer for that, but that's certainly something we could look at And as we go forward, what what the cost of a per parking permit plan or, something like that would would cost the city. Yeah. I don't have a good answer for that one.

Carl, I think that's example is a good I think that is a good example of how things are not working. You know, developers build that amount of parking because they're required to, and they sit empty, and people park on the street anyway, so they don't wanna pay the monthly rate for parking. And that's space and expense that could have been more units.

What brings to mind something is that parking spaces will become a premium. And there is a lot by the McDonald's where that's all he does is charge for parking. We identified that lot as something where we would like to see we put it in a comp plan where we would like to allow him to change the zoning easier and make that housing. But in my neighborhood, in this Galapagos area, McDonald's, Taco Bell, if we were to stop building parking units, he would then have the motivation to keep his parking and make money that way. He would lose his motivation to turn it into housing.

He would make just as much, if not more, charging for parking spaces. It there is unintentional consequences. The other one is we have a woman on our block who on occasion just parks on the yard. There that is legal. If you don't have a lawn, you can just park on the the weeds and the and and all that because it doesn't require a driveway.

And our lawn our block is kinda particular too because we have the fire station at one end, and you're not allowed to park in front of there. So the excess parking goes out to Kenyon. It's very difficult to see around. I mean, I know that one day you want to get to a place where everybody takes public transportation to work. But my renters in my little ADU outback, they work in Aurora and Parker.

So we're not there yet. Maybe we'll get there one day, and then then we can when we have a public transportation infrastructure that gets people to where they need to go in a in under an hour and a half, maybe we can revisit code here then. That would be something that the community would probably be more welcome to, and we will revisit this code because we are but we do every is it twenty, ten years, something like that?

As you've seen, we we come back with amendments.

Yeah. All the time.

Every now and change it. Then we have housekeeping amendments or other times we're coming back to amend because state laws or federal laws. So the code gets touched quite often. It doesn't just sit stagnant for twenty years.

Right. Thank you.

Noah.

A couple of things I wanted to add. One is to just emphasize that this wouldn't change anything about the building code or the, you know, what can be built in the particular zones of the city. So I just I I I feel like there's a little bit of, a mashup of fears about, like, one, people are gonna park on the street, but also, they're gonna build a massive apartment complex next to my house, which, again, that you know, those things are not changing. Not saying they shouldn't, but they're not in this. The other thing I wanted to emphasize was something that I forgot because it was wild.

So I'll hold whatever that second thought is until it comes

Would it helpful be maybe a straw poll on where commission commissioners are at? Maybe just, like, for minimum compliance. I mean, we've talked about going all the way to something like Denver, but, like, just minimum compliance with what the state is asking. Just maybe get a temperature check on everybody of of who would be in support of that or who would be against that.

I think I'd be in support of that and I think mostly because if that does change, you know, if that's if the state decides that maybe this isn't what they wanna do, it reverts back to what we had decided. But I I think it's the minimum that we should do is is meet the state requirements. Yeah.

Eric, what do you think?

Yeah. I would I would say we need to meet the the minimum minimum requirements as well. If we look at title 16, we got rid of parking requirements for ADUs, and we left that up to the homeowner. I think that the people that are developing their land know what is gonna be best for their property. For example, if you wanna build an ADU in your backyard, you have alley access, and you don't want somebody walking through your yard in order to get to their ADU, then you're gonna provide parking.

I think that that. I'm sorry to interrupt your No.

No. No. Let's not interrupt. Let's let Eric finish, and then you can make

your comment. I think that the the developers that are going to be putting in 20 units, and they're close to these transportation hubs, I think they know pretty good data on how many of those doors are gonna have a car and if they need to provide any parking at all. I can also tell you that it is, I have a little development going on building four small single family homes, and we have to provide two parking spots for each home, which is when you're doing a one third, two third split, or a courtyard development and your your lots are getting down to 3,800 square feet and you've gotta put 320, 400 square feet of parking on-site, it takes a lot away from the buildable area. It it just it it creates a lot of different things. So I would be in I'm in support of of doing the the the minimum, and, you know, I'd probably support going all the way in and getting rid of all parking requirements across the city like Denver did.

I'm just gonna keep coming down the line. Noah, thoughts?

Yeah. I mean, I've obviously been in favor of going farther than that, but I would be in favor of doing the minimum. I was reminded what my second point was, which is right now, we have a zoning code that has, you know, letters and then numbers and then letters again, and then there's a transit overlay division, and there's, you know, there's there's all these other things. And going with option one here just puts another layer on that we wouldn't even be writing into our code. The developer, if they wanted to know whether or not this applied, would then have to go to a completely different, you know, law agency to try to figure out what the actual parking requirements were.

And to me, that's another argument in favor of going farther than the minimum here, is let's try to make it easy. You know, it zoning and understanding the requirements is complicated, probably overly complicated, and this is one thing we have the opportunity to take off the table.

Yep. And agree. I I am in support of at least going to the state minimums. I think this is an opportunity to remove unnecessary regulatory burden, and and developers in the market, I think can drive this. Brenda?

Sorry to interrupt. It's just that I fought very hard to make sure that we didn't have to if you build an ADU, you're not required to build a space. And I fought very hard for that because that makes sense. Especially, you don't want grandma climbing the stairs over the garage. But it is a troubling thing for me that the exemption is for building up to 19 units.

The in cities like Englewood where street parking is already strained, this creates a pressure on infrastructure and livability. It removes the requirement for public hearings on qualifying projects up to five acres in size. Now there are building codes in place, but you can on a m r m MUR three b. You can't build over 40 feet unless you provide four or more units. Then you can go to 55 feet high.

And no parking would mean this. This means residents lose their opportunity to weigh in on traffic, safety, and environmental compatibility. It's a shift away from community based planning towards automatic approvals, and that is true. You will not get a PUD on 19 or less people. You will never hear this. This is just gonna be approved. Developers will be incentivized to minimize costs. They're allowed to build at no parking at will. You know, we revised title 16 to support housing growth. And we have streamlined approvals, we have expanded flexibility.

And these changes were made with public input and tailored to our community's needs. The idea that local zoning is a barrier housing doesn't hold up when you consider, like I said, we've grown by three to 400 units in just three years, two to 3% increase from 2022. With a 160 units right now in the pipeline where the developers have made no effort to get them built for over three years. And I am constantly calling the I every summer, I have to call code enforcement to get them to cut down the weeds, and people are also dropping off their discarded furniture and stuff in my alley because of invellesco homes, not wanting to build their duplexes, which they've already got two of them built. They just have the development in there, and they're not doing it.

Colorado, most importantly, it's a home rule authority. Colorado's constitution gives home rule cities the right to control their land use and zoning. These bills override that authority, centralizing land use decisions in this at the state level. And it's just not a poll policy disagreement. It's a constitutional issue. If we comply, we're losing the ability to shape our community in the future. It's likely that Englewood would incur lower lower legal costs, by the way, if we join the other cities in a lawsuit. And that's why I'm going to be pushing that with counsel. Thank you.

All right. David?

Well said, Brenda. With that said, I think I do feel that the, the minimum requirements are appropriate because I think the the, economics are not gonna lead to an extreme the way that Denver can get away with that. I think Englewood's a different community, and I don't see a savvy developer building 19 units with zero parking in most areas. If they're right on top of a train, that's one thing, but good luck to them if they build 19 units, you know, right at the edge of that half mile radius from a train

or

bus. I live half a block from the dining bus and haven't taken it in ten years. So I think the laws of economics will protect the concerns to some degree, but I hear what you're saying. I also just will say I do kind of agree with the not jumping on the bandwagon with the the city or, excuse me, with the state. I don't know that it's necessarily to the same extreme as the federal laws about, you know, immigrants and things like that, but I do see the I see your point about maintaining some element of autonomy. So

Thank you. Amy.

I agree to minimums, at least.

Carl. The question at hand is for or against complying with the state minimum requirements as presented? For what? For or against complying with what the state is asking or requiring cities to do for the parking minimums. Removing and maybe, Brian, just, you know, thirty seconds again. It's removing parking minimums from buildings 19 units or less within what's the distance?

Mile. The city would have an option or an exception to require one space per unit at maximum, one space per unit for any building that's 20 units or over or part of an affordable housing Yeah. Project. But again, that exception is we we have to create a study that so shows that there's some kind of detrimental effect.

Yeah. I don't think we should be forced into anything, I don't know why I I can see federal government doing these take away your your funding, but the state, I'm really disappointed in the state in doing that and we we need to stand up to that and not let them push us around like that. So take that as not in support.

Okay. Brian, would would you like any more clarity on sort of what Oh, I'm sorry. Steven. Steven.

Steven. Yeah.

I, I do support the state minimum, at least.

K. Thank you.

Brian, any more clarity that you'd like tonight from this body on support for the state No.

I think I've got it. We've got a general consensus of at least a minimum with some folks looking to go further. I think we've got some pretty clear direction. Okay. Thank you.

Alright. That's the big one.

The Rast disease.

Yeah. I like to say that it might all be downhill from here, so hopefully. The next one, we've already touched on ADUs. This one with Code Next, we did, I'd say about 95% of the legwork on this, allowing ADUs in every district where you allow single family. We as a city can't enact any subjective requirements, so we can't create anything that some it has to be very objective. It has to say if it's two windows, it's two windows. It can't say windows, that's subjective. Windows to me, maybe something different to somebody else. Or you can't use things that have a comparison between the ADU and the primary structure. Right?

So currently, our rules say that the the ADU has to look very similar to the primary structure. Well, who's to define similar? Me, John, Brooke, Eric, Will. That's who define it currently. This says that we had had that language. So, it's kind of a list. We submitted a an extension to the Department of Local Affairs to have an additional six months to gain compliance with this law. Otherwise, it should have been done compliance would have been done at the June this last year. We were approved we were actually approved last week through December 30, I believe now. Yeah.

December 30, and we were approved on August 13. Apparently, August 13 was just a day for good news. So what we would need to do to gain compliance is, one, provide a definition of an a ADU. Some of this is actually coming out of our DOLA recommendations. So the Department of Local Affairs created guidelines for codes and said, here's what you should do to show that you're in compliance.

So the definition of any ADU is not necessarily to define what it is, but it gives us the opportunity to define what an ADU isn't. So the state law talks about things like RVs, travel trailers, and other housing units that most cities say you cannot live in as a resident. This gives cities the opportunity to continue to say that. The second item would be to reduce setbacks for internal and attached ADUs. So the law requires that the internal any ADU has to have the same side setback of the primary structure or an accessory structure.

Same thing for a rear. Our internal and attached ADUs currently have the same setbacks as the primary structure on the side, which is okay. But on the rear, it's 20 feet, which is too much for the maximum. This requires either three or five feet, so that's where that next edit has to come in. Next one, we'd have to provide language in our standards that say that ADUs are allowed within all existing and future plan unit developments that allow single family, single unit detached dwellings.

We have two in the city of Inglewood, one of them already allows for all of them. The other one is down off Quincy, and I think there's nine units total. So that's generally all it would affect. The next one is that and this one, I I will preface this. We are having some ongoing discussions with the state about this one, requiring or allowing ADUs in conjunction with courtyard pattern homes and front and rear corner lot subdivisions.

So if you'll recall, those were two new subdivision types that were created with Codecnex that to us right now, you you have an option. Right? You can develop your home with your single family home and an ADU, or you can do if you're on a corner lot, you can do a front and rear corner subdivision, have two separate lot, two fee simple home. Courtyard patterns, you could do two separate homes on two separate lots if there's a courtyard connecting the two. And so there's options.

The state has come back and said no. They're all single family detached homes. They all have to allow the ADU. We're actually in some discussions currently with the state on that one, but we'll welcome any feedback from you all on that one as well. We have this next item was something that was requested at the last council study session.

Currently, our ADU regulations say that or or it's actually our accessory building requirements say that an accessory building, a garage, can only be 16 feet tall. If you put an ADU above it, it can go up to 25 feet. Then below that, in some additional standards, it says, in short, that the ADU has to be considered secondary to the primary structure, and which means height to us. So the ADU couldn't be taller than this primary structure. So we would remove that that phrase so that, yep, an ADU above a garage could be taller than the the primary home.

We can also look at things like sight lines to ensure that you would never actually see the ADU from the street. There's other ways to to tackle that one. I already mentioned the remove primary design compatibility requirements. And then the very last one, which which is one that we missed originally, is remove the ADU prohibitions from the neighborhood preservation overlay district. That's a couple of blocks just East Of Broadway, I think North Of Gerard in that area.

I don't have a map with me, but it's a very small three or four block area that had some provisions for essentially what they don't allow in that area. And the state says we we can't do that anymore, so they would have to be allowed there too. So I'll open it up to any questions that you might have. Colin?

Did you say our current setback for the ADU from the rear lot line is 20 feet?

Only for ADUs that are internal to the structure, so like a basement or ones that are attached. Detached ADUs are are compliant right now.

Okay.

Alright. I mean, I feel like besides the structure height limitation, I mean, I feel like there still needs to be some limitations. I'm fine removing the subsidiary language, the design language, all those things, but I I I don't agree with the council request to remove a total height limitation for ADUs would be the only thing I think I would

It wouldn't remove the total height limitation. It would still be limited to 25 feet.

Okay.

It just Oh, just the primary right now, it's just saying you're limited to 25 feet, but you can't actually be taller than this building. This new rule would say, well, if your your your limit is 25 feet no matter what,

and that's it.

That's a good change. Agreed fully with that change. You mentioned something else that there might be another path to limit ADU heights as in like view from the sidewalk or something. Can you say that again? I want to make sure I'm not

misquoting So some cities in the past have looked at it more of a sight line issue. So what you would have is somebody an an architect would go in and draw a schematic of the house, like a sectional view that says, if a person is standing on the street here, would they actually be able to see a 25 foot tall building behind, you know, an 18 foot tall building that's 30 feet closer to them? Right. Likely, you're not.

Okay. I I I that makes sense. I I was understanding it correctly, I would say I disagree with that also. I do deal with that type of thing, and it's it's sort of kind of like what another rule that, adds to you know, it's subjective and depending on your lot layout, it might make someone basically unable to build an ADU in a practical way because it can be seen from the sidewalk. Who cares if you can see it from the sidewalk? I think it's a nonsense rule.

Yeah. The only areas where it would affect and there are some parts of Englewood that might be affected by that sight line type of rule because we have some very interesting slopes Mhmm. In areas where, you know, we rewrote the bulk plane standards to give people kind of that benefit of, you know, if your lot slopes more than 10 foot from back to front, you should have a a different tier that you're looking at. This could be if you looked at the site line standards, that could affect that. Yeah.

That that's what

I'm saying.

Yard, you'd able to see that way.

I'm just saying, I don't think we should have the site line standard. I think the the bulk pumping covers it, and you shouldn't differentiate between the height of an ADU versus a developer who can build a gigantic house three times bigger than all of it because it's attached. So I think just limit the rules on this stuff.

The, only reason it's limited to 25 foot now is because that's the second tier of the bulk plane in the backyard, and that's where that 25 foot comes from.

Yeah. I think there's plenty of

other things I hate seeing in people's yards other than ADUs. Any other thoughts, Colin? Just real quick.

Is that in conformance, though, with the state requirements that we have our book plane in the backyard of 25 feet or do they stay silent to that?

There wasn't any real regulation about height. It was just that you couldn't you can't have codes that are more restrictive setback wise and design wise than what the preliminary structure was. We had actually talked to the state on this one already, and they said that it it wouldn't be restrictive. It wouldn't that even the way our code is written now wouldn't violate that state statute. This was just a request from a council member during our last study session. Yeah. Felt like this needed to be removed. And I can tell you, anecdotally, we've probably had five or six ADU DRTs that the project gets stopped because their front structure is only, like, 16 or seven foot tall Yeah. 16 or 17 foot tall. Mhmm.

And they're really believe me when I tell you that the architects around here are very, very, very intelligent and can figure out a lot of things. They couldn't figure out a way to get around 17 feet

Yeah. The garage doors.

They can do 18 feet and maybe, like, you know, sixteen eleven. Yeah. But I think sixteen five maybe their limit.

Agree. I think that's a good removal. Could you go back to the previous slide there was a comment you made about the end lots and courtyards you said you had a question in with the state can you just give us a little more detail about what the conversations are?

The question with the state that we're discussing is you know, would these lots technically qualify as single family detached? As I think most of you are probably aware, the discussion of two to four units on corners all over the city did not go very well with Go Next. This would now allow essentially two units. It would allow primary structures and ADUs on front and corner lots, which would then allow two primary structures and two ADUs. And I I I don't want that to be an argument that, you know, happens again.

So this is one that we're asking the state. Can we relook at this? We have a lot of questions that we need answered before we go back to our council.

So the small end grain rear lot houses that are separate, they would have the right to have an ADU as well.

Yeah. Right now our code says that if you separate that rear third, you can't build an ADU. You you can build that new house, be simple, it's subdivided, sell it separately, be our guest. But if you do that, you lose your opportunity to build your ADU. But to us, we look at that as you can have the ADU or you can do this. Or internal law, you can have an ADU or you can do this courtyard pattern. So to us, it's an option. We're just providing extra options to citizens and to the community, and they're looking at it of, oh, they're all single family detached. Everybody has to build one. So that's kind of where we're Yeah.

We're having that discussion is. We're not sure where that discussion will go, so we're trying to think of every different scenario along with them before we go back to

council. Agree.

We're hoping to get some more information before we came to you all.

Understood. Noah?

It it seems to me that in that scenario, you'd still I mean, the options for having a primary residence and an ADU on a subdivided lot like that is still gonna be limited by things like the lot coverage or, yeah, the the the bulk, height requirements we were talking about before. So I I don't know. I guess my position on that would be I'm not super worried. Like you said, if somebody is a really smart architect and they can figure out how to include a primary residence and an ADU on a subdivided lot while still complying with the the other, you know, building rules that apply, then great. That, you know, that seems okay with me.

Eric? Yeah. I think that's, the I think that's a good rule as well. And if you look at what is really doable from a from a architectural standpoint, that ADU on a split one third, two third lot, or courtyard arrangement would have to be internal. There's just not enough way to to there's there's not enough coverage there.

So you'd have it either on your in your basement or or in your attic, and I I think that's a I think that's good. I also think increasing the getting rid of the language that says that you can have an ADU up to 25 feet tall as long as it's not any taller than the primary structure. I think that makes a lot of sense as well. And we we just had a pretty good conversation about parking and this allowing an ADU above a garage taller than the primary subject, I think that makes a whole lot of sense in in keeping our streets clean of of parked cars. It is some of our neighbors' concerns.

Thanks, Eric. Any other thoughts on this

one? Any other heartburn?

Alright. Brian, you feel

like you have a pretty

good consensus of, like, we're all good on this?

I think so. Okay. Okay. So once if once we make the changes to the code, then we now have to look at whether we're a supportive jurisdiction, which means we have to implement one of 10 supportive strategies, which we already do. One of them is do we do we regulate ADUs as far as short term rentals, which we already regulate them as far as short term rentals.

So we do meet that provision, and then that helps open us up to grant funding for short term rentals that can help us write, you know, plan books, things of that nature. The next one and I I know we had Oh, go ahead.

Sorry. Can I go back? Two things. Because one, the short term rental, I think I'd like to ask one more question about, but I I forgot about the overlay district. Is that Arapahoe Acres? No. Okay. So it's some other historic district that we had limited that you couldn't have ADUs?

The neighborhood preservation overlay came out of one of the the second round second or third round of the medical district overlay or medical district rezoning project, and it was an area that the Planning Zoning Commission wanted to rezone part of it to a higher density level, and there is a lot of opposition to that. And city council was initially in agreement with that. The opposition to that made many council people persons turn around and reject that, and they started to look at this idea of down zoning. And but we prevailed in preventing down zoning. Instead, we came up with this net neighborhood preservation overlay, which would allow for apartment buildings to be replaced with a certain amount of increased density, but then it would also limit single and two family units to only be replaced by single and two family units.

So it's that's what neighbor preservation overlay is. I believe it covers primarily Grant Street from Floyd to Old Hampton and also includes the the 3300 Block Of Sherman as well. And the the zone the main the base zone district is M U R 3 D.

And and so just to confirm because it sounds it made it seem like we were it was an accident to leave that in that maybe we had an issue, but it sounds like that was actually kinda developed with council's input at a later time, and that's what was decided. So, you know, I mean, I I don't know why we would have a different requirement in that district. I mean, it doesn't seem like it should, but it sounds like there might have been some other factors involved in that decision.

I I it's an it's a little district that's very easy to forget about. Nothing nothing really, really happens there. It's very stable. And so, yes, this it has its own language somewhere in the code, and, yes, it just was overlooked. And no one thought thought everyone probably thought that every place in MUR 3 B was covered by this, but there is this exception for this little overlay district, and so it's unintentional that it was left out.

When do we expect these changes to go into effect? They're being presented to city council, what, next week?

Well, that is an excellent question. If I knew the answer to that, I'd be playing the lottery right now. We don't know. So we're we have a study session scheduled for the twenty fifth. We have an extra one scheduled for the eighth in case the one on the twenty fifth runs over.

That agenda has gotten quite healthy, and there's a lot of items on there. From there, it it depends where we have to get direction from council on what they wanna see amended, and so we need that's what we're that's really what we're looking at right now is we need to get direction. From then, you know, we can start the amendment process. Just just by virtue of the ADU law, we would want that one to be in effect by the end of the year, because that's when our extension runs out. Other laws have different timelines.

Some of them we have until the 2026. Some portions we have until 2028. The parking law should have gone into effect at the June this year, so we're already noncompliant with that. So there's everything has a different timeline. And if like I said, if I knew when they were coming, I'd tell you, but I don't.

And then I guess just going to the short term rental, you're saying our policy that you can have a short term rental in ADU because it's owner occupied occupied main residence. That short term that policy makes us in compliance with the state. Is that was that the only part of that last note about these short term rentals?

It's because our policy on short term rentals says you can rent either the house or the ADU, but not both. So that one is actually our policy is not what they use in their example, but they use a city with a very similar policy in their policy guidebook, as an example. So we feel that that one will be satisfactory.

Two, two quick comment comments. I'm curious to know what the other supportive strategies are to promote construction, but I'm also against the preapproved plans for ADUs. I think that commodifies something that can end up in Peel's backyard. I know it saves money for people on the development side, but I think ultimately it leads to a diminished city aesthetic that I think is detrimental to your neighbors. I think people can choose to use a preapproved plan that kind of ignores the local context that should be considered on design. I disagree with that piece, but I'd be curious to know about the other 10 supporting strategies.

I've got them right here. So they are, you can waive, reduce, or provide financial assistance for ADU related fees that are incurred by low, moderate income households, enact local laws or programs that incentivize the affordability of certain ADUs, including ADUs used primarily to house the local workforce, providing preapproved plans for the construction of ADUs, implementing a program to provide education and technical assistance to homeowners to construct or convert an ADU, implementing a program to regulate the use of ADUs for short term rentals, that's the one we've mentioned, enacting local laws that incentivize the construction and conversion of accessible and visible ADUs, assisting property owners with ensuring that preexisting ADUs comply with local laws, enabling a pathway for the separate sale of an ADU, enacting local laws that encourage the construction of ADUs that are factory built residential structures, and any other strategy that is approved by DOLA that encourages the construction conversion or use of an Carl.

How many ADUs do we have in the city And how many permits are out there? Do we do you know that?

So I I can give you some details on what we've got in the work. And if you give me a minute, I can find out what we have non conforming that we know of. I'm kinda nerdy, so I keep track of all these. So as far as what was approved prior to code next, I think the number was so far, our total number of completed since the ADU laws were changed in 2019 is 14. We have another one, two, another dozen or so in process.

And then now what we're seeing with these new rule changes from Codecnex, we're seeing duplexes and triplexes. So, like, if you think parent homes and townhomes, they weren't allowed to build ADUs previously. They are now. And we're starting to see some new construction project coming through with, you know, two townhomes upfront and then two ADUs above the garage in the back. So we're starting to see it those numbers go up. And then as far as was nonconforming before.

I'm just surprised that we're talking about regulations on ADUs still and I mean, it's been going on eight, nine years and still talking about how how to build them. Seems like you can lighten up

on the the require Right.

And you guys are our first step into lightening up those requirements. So we we did we did change quite a bit with Codecnex. And just for the record, a 104 existing nonconforming ADUs is what we're at. So there were a 104 somewhere before Codecnex that have already been built back in through history, and then we're probably around 30 or so right now that have either been built built since 2019 or kinda working their way through. So honestly, I think those are really good numbers.

We've like I said, we've had a few that that height limitation has kinda ruled them out. I know we have one that needed an exception for a setback on the rears rear rear property line that they've got their board of adjustment exception, and now they're working their way through our other process. You know, there's funding. Money is all always a big part of it. What I understand is that getting a loan from the bank for the construction of it in ADU is much more difficult than getting a loan from the bank to build a brand new house. And I don't know why that is. I'm not a banker. I just know that that's what I Alright. No. I just

wanted to say, even though we don't need it for the supportive jurisdiction status, I would still encourage us to look at the adoption of preapproved plans. I think the planning and architecture expenses can be a significant burden to somebody who's trying to make an ADU work financially. And I think any piece that we can take out of that to grease the skids and make it easier, we should do. So I think preapproved plans would be a great idea.

All right.

Any other ADU comments? I think, again, general consensus of support. Eric?

I was just gonna say that the, in regard to your comment about it's easier to finance a new single family home than it is an ADU. Part of the reason there is because they've been financing new single family homes for a long time, and ADUs are a little bit different. We're starting to see some creative ways to get ADUs financed. And it's been by the end of the year, there'll there'll be a probably two or three really good options outside of cash or a home equity line of creditor and things of that nature. Great.

Thanks.

I'm just told that some local jurisdictions have also worked with local bank to help get some different financing opportunities available for their residents. If directed, we'll we can do the same.

Yeah. I think all of the above, I think, to encourage. Steven, any comments online?

No. I'm good.

Alright. Thank you. Let's go to the next one. Do

you know what the water tap and sewer tap is

right now? For an ADU?

They're required to

For an ADU or a house or whatever. The primary. Because they an ADU has to have its own water tap.

No, it doesn't.

It's not. It's actually required to all be on the same system as the primary structure.

Really? That's all I had to have its own tab?

No, sir. Actually, our code specifically says that they have to be on the same.

Okay. Well, good. Yeah.

Okay. This next one is not a new conversation. If you were part of CodeNEXT, I think we spent many a many a night talking about this one. This one is our our residential occupancy limitations, essentially saying that a city, as of 07/01/2024, can no longer regulate the occupant the occupancy of a home based on a familial status. So if you'll recall, prior to 2023, our role said no more than two unrelated.

Then after much much discussion, we got up to no more than four unrelated, and now the state says, can't do that. So what we can do is we can we can we can regulate occupancy in a few different ways. The one, we can do what we're currently doing and essentially delete the definition of household or leave it and just rely on the property maintenance code. Property maintenance code, I I don't quote me on this. It's in your packet.

I think it's, like, one person per room up to a certain number of square feet, then you can get up to two people per bedroom, and then other areas can have more. It's a very big math problem that our building official gets to work out. Then there's other ways you can do it. The state's guidance says that you can well, so the first one we would have to remove the definition. So sorry I said we wouldn't.

We would have to remove the definition of household, and then we the regulation would depend on our property maintenance code, which is what we do right now, Ari. Second one, we could look at, revising the definition of household to remove the, references to familial status and add just the reference to that code that we're already using just so people know, oh, definition of household, here's how they rate. The third one is you can remove the definition of, the familial status and add square footage requirements for occupancy. So there are certain HUD standards and other standards that say two people per bedroom, four bedrooms up to a certain square footage. It's very similar to what the property maintenance code standards are, but we have different ways that we can regulate it.

Honestly, it generally gets you to about the same number. In most ways, I think the math that we worked out previously, I think one got you to yeah. I can't remember what it was. One got you to just one occupant higher than the other, if I'm remembering correct. This one, I I think I know this group had a lot of discussion about it. I remember putting together the occupancy definition for almost every city in in Colorado that I could find in cities across the country. That were first tier suburbs of major metropolitan areas that met our level of density and our population. So they run the gamut.

I think Michelle

is probably a little upset that she's not here. I think she had the most thought process on it. But, I mean, I think I'm for removing the familial status and if we can rely on the existing maintenance codes, I'm

down with it. Brenda?

Yeah. I was gonna say I argued for something like what the fire department would use for what's the safe level of of human beings in there. So whichever one that is is is fine with me.

Yeah. I I I agree. The fur which I think what you're referring to, Bren, is really the first option there, relying on property maintenance and building codes. Yeah. I don't think there is any need for the city to define what a household is in regards to familial status. Any other thoughts? Carl?

So that's that covers residential ADUs and apartments.

So the definition of household would really only fit, generally would affect all development, but, yes, they're gonna all be limited to the size of the buildings that are actually built there. So instead of giving you a blanket number, you're looking at the number of bedrooms and how much habitable space is within this dwelling unit. And then you say, okay. Multiunit developments already are pretty much defined as having multiple family units or multiple households that are allowed to live there together. So really, it's really only affecting single family household.

Amy.

Does this law affect lease agreements?

This law says that the city can't dictate the definition. But what what happens in the private world, I I I don't have any recommendation. But as far as the city is concerned, we could no longer define how many people can live in a in a in a

Yeah. I don't have anything to add to that. That's completely right. Any, property, though, that was being leased within the city would still be subject to, our building codes, so the international property maintenance code would still continue to apply to something like that.

General consensus on first option sounds, agreeable to most.

Yep. Good.

Alright. These last two we've just kind of wrapped together. The first one is state bill twenty four zero zero five. Second one is house bill twenty five one one one three. So the first law put in place a prohibition on cities for allowing allowing or installing, nonfunctional turf grass.

So the state defines what's considered functional, like playing field or, and the amphitheaters, things like that where people are using it on a regular basis. That's my short way of defining it. And saying that we could no longer allow people to plant that. So meaning, we have to create a prohibition on our code that says that, you know, commercial and industrial uses could no longer do that. It can't be done in the right of way, so no city can actually build a project that has grass in the right of way unless it's considered functional.

It doesn't really affect our parks because our parks are considered pretty functional. And we met with them as soon as we heard that this law was passed because it got a little scary for a little bit. Then in 2025, the state expanded that law to now include multifamily projects of 12 units or above. In short, what they have to do is provide native species plant, low water use plant, things that fall back into the law. I think this all ties back into the turf grass removal law that was passed, like, three years ago or four years ago.

So they're all kind of piggybacking on each other. So what we can do with this one really is it kinda runs the same gamut of parking. We can go from the bare minimum all the way to the max. We can look at just making this requirement applicable to all all identified projects. We can make it applicable to all multiunit projects with exceptions for detached homes, detached homes, and ADUs.

So basically meaning your single family homes can still plant grass. I know that was a conversation when we went to council with CodeX is we were kinda talking about xeriscape and non native or native plant. And council member really wanted to ensure that if homeowner wanted to plant grass, they should be allowed to. So this one would capture you know, single family can still plant grass, anything above that. So instead of having that 12 unit cap, we would start at essentially multiunit homes and going above.

That's an option. We can make it requirement just applicable to all the identified projects. We could add a new section into our code that's specifically in relation to the installation of turf. And what we would have to do or I guess the last two items are things that we'll have to do either way. We'd have to add a section that talks specifically about the installation of turf, and then we'd have to define a few terms that come out of that state law, like nonfunctional turf turf and artificial turf because that's part of it too.

Brian, does current building code in the city require installation of turf grass you know for for new construction of any level as a requirement a landscaping requirement for grass?

Sorry, I could barely hear you.

I'm sorry. It does the code currently require installation of turf?

So our code is really silent on what it has to be. It doesn't tell you that you need to plant grass or not need to plant grass for these types of projects, but because of that silent make it allow. Mhmm. It's not saying, you know, you have to have three three hundred square feet of grass for everything that you build. It really just says we want living vegetation, and so part of that is why turf is you see turf a lot. It's part of a living vegetation requirement. You're seeing it less and less. Honestly, we see it less and less in new home construction. They're doing a lot more zero escaping and a lot more using a lot more mulch, rock, things of that nature. But yeah.

And and the bigger projects, which, you know, for a lot a lot of these laws, Inglewood is kinda lucky. We're built out.

Yeah.

We don't see nearly as much development as greenfield cities where this is gonna be a big big shift. Like, new subdivisions are not allowed to do this stuff anymore. Mhmm. That'll that'll be a big shift for a lot of communities, but not one that we have to see because I don't think anybody's coming in to build a huge subdivision anytime soon except I think we have one lot that may see a lot of duplexes up on Baker Street in the Northwestern part of town. But that's the only area of town that we have a large vacant property, and it's not very big.

Yeah. Amy.

Oh, go ahead. I'll let her go.

Sorry. Functional, nonfunctional. Is a dog potty area a functional turf? What is what is defined as functional turf? And do we have any apartment buildings or condos that have dog relief areas with turf?

So it won't affect anything that's exist. It gives us a date by which we cannot allow anything in the future. So this law wouldn't affect what's already there unless they came back to, like, renovate or do something else, and it could affect them. So I don't have a clear answer on if other condo associations have that. As far as what the definition is, give me just a second.

And I have a feeling that they'll probably say nonfunctional turf is anything other than functional turf because

I don't know why

those they the definitions get written like that sometimes, but let me find it.

And maybe it doesn't need to be the SPET specific, but it just, I think, something to think out loud about.

What's that, ma'am?

I said, and maybe I don't need exactly that answer whether it is or not. I just think it needs to be thought about as okay.

Right. What our our intention to do was essentially copy this verbatim or just refer back to it. I mean, we were marijuana laws, natural medicine laws. We refer back to state law a lot. The state laws can change, and then if they change, we have our law office is different.

Yeah. Okay. Well Brenda.

That was exactly what I was gonna ask about because the Metropolitan builders on Galapagos are building a dog run is what you mean, and it's supposed to be grass. So can we use can we make our own definition of what's functional? Because that's functioning as a dog run.

Well what their definition of functional turf is. Functional turf means turf that is located in a recreational use area or other space that is regularly used for civic, community, or recreational purposes, which may include playgrounds, sports field, picnic grounds, amphitheaters, portions of parks, and all the playing areas of golf courses, such as driving ranges, chipping and putting greens, tee boxes, greens, fairways, and rut.

This this applies to developments, and we can't ask the developers to put in any grassy areas around their development. Is that what this says?

So, like, if you're thinking about landscape setbacks adjacent to the street where you would likely see a ton of grass, we could not not only could we not require it, we couldn't allow it. So we not only do we say you can't do it or, you know, I guess we're saying you can't do it, and then we would say you can't do it again when they submit their plans and it shows turf on there, unless they can provide rationale for what makes it functional.

And that's only for certain property types for multifamily of 12 or

more. Right?

That that's that's up to you all if you choose that the state law says 12 units or above and then nonresidential, like commercial and industrial property. All of that is kinda tied in there. Okay.

Colin, do you

have a Yeah.

I had a couple questions. So we've got seven bill twenty four dash zero zero five for commercial, institutional, industrial. Feel like that one makes sense that, you know, any of those don't really need don't have functional turf opportunities. You know, there's not people playing in those areas, think. The other one, I'm not sure if I wanna go all the way to multi unit projects like a a duplex can't do that.

You know, I I feel like it it should be more than more than a duplex could have these requirements to limit nonfunctional turf. But again, we're defining you can still have grass, it just has to be defined as a functional area. It can be a dog run, it can be a park area, it just can't be the space in between a sidewalk and the roadway. So if we are saying no nonfunctional turf, I'm all about

it.

So just for reference, five units and above for us for zoning becomes an apartment. So if you wanted to say multi unit house, whether it's single family single family attached or a multi unit house, two to four unit, then grass all you want if you want to, but once you hit five you could require it or if you want us to designate, you know, units and above.

Okay. So the state is saying 12 units, our multi unit is five?

Yes. When you become a multi unit.

So I think I would be prefer it to be for multi unit building a little bit more than the state because honestly, think that's actually it's a better thing but I think for single family duplexes, maybe up to four units and have a little more grass would be my thought but I could probably be convinced otherwise too.

You're saying more restrictive than

the 12 dwelling units with the state. Yep.

And I agree with that. I think it's just an utter ridiculous practice that we put Kentucky bluegrass in this climate. So, yeah, I would stick with that of just calling multifamily and and applying that, that across the board. Does anybody have other thoughts on that?

I'm curious. I I agree with what everyone's saying. I would want us to make sure that, you know, let's say a developer says that, oh, this five foot strip of turf in front of our building, not on the street side, is functional as a dog run or whatever. If they're gonna do that, I would ask that they be prohibited from putting in artificial turf because it just smells like piss the whole time.

Well and currently, it doesn't not describe a dog run as functional use. It gave a specific list there.

Right? Yeah. It gave a pretty specific list, but I didn't see dog run-in there. I this one we haven't delved into quite as much as we have the others, but we can continue to look at that whether dog runs would be allowed. We'll do some research into other folks code.

I mean, it just seems like they would make the argument that it is functional for that purpose, and so then you're probably battling a developer on whether or not it's functional.

The other alternative you could say is no artificial turf, period.

Yeah. Yeah.

But I could see someone saying, well, hey, I have a backyard, but I don't wanna waste water, but I've got kids and I want the open space. If you want do it on your property, private property, who cares? But I don't know. I think it's more when it just smells like a public bathroom.

And it again, this one, at least from the beginning consensus is five units and above. If you remove provisions for artificial turf, you could say this only count for apartment and above commercial use. If you wanted artificial turf to be allowed in single family, you know, that's something we could build into those provisions. Still allow for it there but not

yeah I mean I think the dog run issue is I mean most dog parks are I mean you can't keep grass alive and it's they use mulch and there's other solutions other than than turf grass.

So I don't think we

need to make a special carve out or have our own definition of functional uses just to include dogs.

I just think that we're being a little extreme with not allowing any grass at all. It's very cooling thing for people to be able to go on the grass and dogs. You know, having places that are all just rock and mulch, they do cause a lot of heat, and it's it's just not a very happy place to be, basically. You know, I think that there we put we put in some limits for water conservation, but I just feel like this is a little too extreme.

I mean, there's plenty of

other options other than just hardscaping or rock or, I mean, native grasses, native plantings

Well, and I I don't think anyone's saying you can't have turf. They're saying you can't just have, like, a three foot strip that no one's gonna use. I think to your point of a lawn that people can play in, there no one's prohibiting that. Functional It's just not wasting edges and requiring water and wasted water on like a little three foot strip of grass.

Our code still has living plant material requirement, but they would still have to meet just some other mechanism other than turf grass. So that means you'll have a lot more ground covers. You'll see a lot more shrubs and perennials and trees rather than just somebody going through and saying, no. Grass meets the minimum. I'm out. I'm done.

Can't walk on that. It's not a walkable space. It's just, you know yeah. I'm saying it's I I I get what you're saying. We don't want these nonfunctional spaces between sidewalk and building, but this doesn't sound like to me that it defines that it sounds like to me that there that if it's 12 or more, you're not putting it along, period, unless you can prove that somebody will use it for a sports facility. It doesn't sound like, yeah, this gotta have a real functional area, and you defined it. You said it was sounds like it's just for your sports features. If there's if no one's gonna walk on this grass ever, I mean, you have to do you have to prove it? It it just just seems a little weird.

They said picnic. I mean, if if an apartment building has a grill and some grass in front of it, think it would comply as functional turf. I mean, I don't think it's overly restrictive. Mean, I

It just sounds like you need to clear

that up.

I think Brian

because everyone's making a lot of suppositions. Like, a picnic area is functional use. Right?

No. It defined that as a functional use. And, I think Brian's point is correct in that, you know, the easiest, cheapest way to comply with current code is to roll out some sod from Home Depot, and that's the worst solution. Other thoughts? Steven?

I I agree with the the solid solution. I think that's the best way to go, but I am concerned about the smell and stuff. So I don't know. It's it's a complex mix.

So I feel like we're split on this one. Brian, do you have any specific points of this that you'd like our input on one way or another?

I think at least as the group is concerned, it sounds like that we're okay with, you know, pulling turf grass, defining nonfunctional. Not everybody's okay with it, but as as a whole, it's okay. Leave out room for single family detached, detached, and multiunit house. And then maybe have us go back and look a little bit deeper about how we define functional and not functional, because not functional just meant anything is not. Anything is not. That one's easy.

No. Would encourage, along the lines of what we've been talking about with some of the other laws, to figure out how to do this as cleanly and easily as possible. And I think the more that you have to get into defining these terms and having subjective interpretations of I mean, we've we've heard, you know, disagreements about what should and shouldn't count as functional. And so that's where, in in my mind, I think we should and I I'm not sure where exactly the right place to land is, but I think I would encourage staff to think about it from the perspective of, like, what's the cleanest way to do this to make it obvious what the rules are and not, you know, super subjective and requiring a law degree to figure out whether or not you can have a lawn.

Yeah. And the burden of compliance and regulation and keeping that as simple as possible.

So I'll give you a little bit of how I operate in in all of these. The way we kind of work on our code is so that whether John, Brooke, Will, Eric, or myself are here, and it's the next generation of planners, you should be getting the same effect from them that you're getting from us. We try to take as much subjective interpretation out of the code as we possibly can. Codecenix did a really great job. They're still we still find you know, there's always areas we're gonna find where we might have missed something, and we, you know, yeah, we're we're we're keeping tabs on all those, writing them down, taking note on what changes would look like.

But even when we go through these new steps, we're really looking at it, trying to make sure that there's no subjectivity left in what we do. It's really just we give the developer the rules, the builder the rules, president the rules, and hears the rules. Now go do.

Okay. So similar to before, maybe a straw poll on this one would be helpful of, you know, we had talked about being going down to five units or more to match our current definition of multifamily, and and other than that, following what the state has proposed. We just go down the line, maybe we'll start down this side on Carl, is that something you would be in support of? Of applying what the state has required in this legislation, but being more restrictive of HB two five one one one three that currently is stated at 12 dwelling units or more, we would bring that down to five dwelling units or more. Would be this would be applied to.

Mean, saying no strong feelings one way or another is an answer, if that's how you're feeling. Yeah. For the turf grass.

Yeah. You

turn your mic on.

I'm kinda in the middle on it. I well, you gotta you wanna save water, but you wanna have turf and I don't know.

That's Okay.

Well, ambivalence is fine. I mean, that's a fine answer. That's what Brian's invoice feedback of whether we feel strongly one way or another. Let's go to Amy. I

don't know why we would go down from 12 to five, but I don't have a real strong opinion on it either. So

My only thought of going down to five was just to match what not creating another layer of, you know, definitions because currently the city uses five units or more as a definition of multifamily.

Okay then. Yeah. I would agree with that.

Agreed with five units as well. Brenda?

Oh, yep. That's the only issue. Just smash. It's fine. I was confused too.

Oh, for the number of units?

Yeah. I know that was the

Oh, yeah.

Time. Yeah.

That's that's cool. Yeah.

K. Noah?

Alright. Eric? I agree with five. Steven?

I'm okay with a five.

And to be clear, what I had asked originally was, yes, reducing the number to five units, but also complying with what these two pieces of legislation are saying.

Okay. Brian, does that get you

general consensus there?

It does, and it brings us to the end of my presentation.

Yes. Thank you. Alright. Well, thank you, Brian. Carl, do you have some?

What about affordable housing? Is that not a issue?

What's that?

Affordable housing is is that's not gonna be covered?

So those are there's like I said, there's three other laws that don't have any effect on the zoning code, the titles that feed. Those would be sustainable affordable housing assistance, transit oriented communities, and local government rights to property for affordable housing. So those are all council policies.

Mhmm.

So we're gonna leave those decisions to council. Okay. But we will be presenting them starting next week. Their theirs is broken up a little bit more because we anticipate that we'll need two meeting. So the first one will cover sustainable affordable housing assistance, minimum parking requirements, and ADUs. And then the second meeting will cover the remaining one, two, three, five. Unless they decide to break it up in any way form that they choose.

K. Well, thank you, Brian. Let's move on to staff's choice then. Right back at you.

I don't think I have anything.

Alright. Attorney. Yes. Oh, sorry. John.

Thank you. I just wanna make an announcement that that you might be interested in. There's going to be a a walking wheel, kind of open house meeting that is being sponsored by councilman Anderson at Sunitas Brewing on Thursday, August 28, and walking wheel will be a topic of discussion, and I will be there. And so if you have interest in that, please attend.

Thank you.

Alright. Attorney's Choice.

I don't have anything tonight. Thank you, though.

Thank you. And now commissioner's choice, we'll start on this side with with Carl.

The walking is done a lot easier with with a new hip. It does help. Side, what is it called, think this Saturday.

Block party?

The block party, yeah. That's Saturday nine to ten. Starts at four. Or ten to

Four to ten.

04:10. Okay. Four to ten.

And the history group will have a booth at Girard And Broadway across from Oneborough.

Cool. Thanks, Carl. Amy.

I'll see you at the block party.

David, nothing.

Brenda? I'm good.

I'm good too. Just thank you for the discussion this evening. You know, we don't always agree on everything, but everybody's voice and opinions are welcome and heard and valued and appreciated, so I thank everybody for the discussion this evening. Noah?

Everybody already stole my thunder. So, Vibrant Englewood, which is a community organization here in Englewood that I'm part of, will be at the block party. I think our table will be I think we're, like, in front of Zomo. We'll be in the main part. And then we are cohosting that event with, councilman Anderson. So hope to see a lot of you there at Sanitas on the 20

Colin. I hope I can see you all there inside. Eric.

See you at the block party as well.

And Steven.

Yes. I I actually wanna bring something up and ask the commissioners. I unfortunately lost my job, and I've had to do a lot of consulting work, and that's why I haven't been there in person. But I'm not a quitter, So that's why I haven't left, the commission because I've learned so much from you guys and appreciate everything you do for our community. And I still own my house at Englewood, but I just happen to travel every time, that the meeting is in place.

So I'm willing to stick it through. I just don't know when I'd be I'll be able to be in person depending on my travel schedule and work. So, anyways, I just wanted to bring that up and and let you guys decide on on my fate, like the Romans would say.

Well, thank you, Steven. And I I really appreciate your continued presence even if online. I know it's a lot harder to sit through long meetings when you're staring at a screen rather in person so than in person, so I I really appreciate your your commitment to that. Nancy, I know the council had made requests or requirements for in person after, you know, we we stopped doing the, remote from after the pandemic or

I'm gonna ask, Vicky to address it since she knows the city council policies better than I do. Thank you for

Sure. Yes. So in, city council policy, there is a requirement or, an actually, specific policy on electronic participation. It does state in applying to, board members that is except as required by applicable law, electronic participation at regular meetings is intended to be an infrequent or occasional substitution for physical attendance by members. So council does have a requirement and certainly a strong preference for in person participation.

Okay.

Yeah. I don't I mean, like I said, I really appreciate your, Steven, your attendance and participation, and I don't feel strongly about changing anything.

Colin, you have

When is when are appointments what season is that? I don't remember when they're actually coming up, like, in the spring.

Yeah. I feel like it's February. Yeah.

It's It alternates with some boards and commissions, but the planning commission terms end in February 1, and I'd have to look to see when Stevens ends. I

don't have any desire to push for any changes until the end of Stevens' term. We may get flack or feedback or direction otherwise, but I don't feel like we need to take any motions contrary to that if anybody else feels differently.

Alright.

Well, thank you, Steven. Best of luck to you. I know you're in a that's that's tough when you're having to travel around as much as you are to you know, for work and for consulting. Again, really appreciate your participation on Tuesday evenings. Alright. Thank you. With that, I think that brings us to adjournment. Thank you, everybody.