Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Call to order and roll call. Chair Goss present. Vice Chair Swap present. Commissioner McCoy here. Commissioner Noble here. Commissioner Sarkeesian here. Commissioner Sixa here. Commissioner Waters here. We have a quorum. Thank you. Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right. The first thing we have is the approval of last month's minutes. This is the regular meeting minutes of the planning and zoning commission for March 12th, 2025. Do we have a motion? Move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a tie for a second. Can I get a roll call vote? Chair Goss, approve. Vice Chair Swap, approve. Commissioner McCoy, approve. Commissioner Noble, approve. Commissioner Sarkeesian, approve. Commissioner Sixa, approve. Commissioner Waters, approve. It's been approved. Thank you. All right. Next, we have a call to the public. Those wishing to address the commission should fill out request forms in advance. Comments from the public will be restricted to items not on the agenda with the exception of those on the consent agenda. There will be no comments allowed that advertise for a particular person or group. Comments should be limited to no longer than 3 minutes. The commission may not respond to speakers during the call to the public. The commission may direct the staff to study the matter or request the matter be placed on a future agenda. Uh I see no one in the audience so I will open it and close it. Next we have action items and we just have one item today. This is the GP25-00001 the minor general plan

amendment to amend the acreage thresholds for minor and major general plan amendments and clarify the time frame in which a general plan amendment shall be heard by the council. Do we have a presentation? Thank you. Get this set up here. I think I did this backwards. My apologies. Share. There we go. That looks correct now. Well, good evening, Chair Goss and commissioners. Before you this evening is a proposed uh general plan text amendment for a change in the acreage threshold for minor and major text uh excuse me, minor and major amendments along with clarifying the time frame for hearing the amendment applications. This is zoning case GP2500001. In November of 24, voters ratified the city's general plan 20 240. The previous general plan did not contain an implementation plan within it. And it was believed at the time that the consultant and the team working on the 2040 plan was unaware that there was an implementation plan existing within the municipal code. As the 2040 plan came forward, was adopted, and then ratified, it then created an implementation plan within that document that created a conflict with the municipal code. The goal with this amendment is to uh align the general

plan with the municipal code and allow that to be the sole source, the general plan to be the sole source document. At the January 7th meeting, city council uh directed staff to bring back a city initiated general plan text amendment to change the acreage threshold to 320 acres. Staff is also recommending additional amendments to clarify the time frame for general plan amendment applications to be heard by city council. Staff does recommend the amendment be recommended to city council for approval. The amendment before you this evening specifically amends the acreage threshold uh that requires a general plan amendment from 40 acres to 320 acres for residential property that is changing to another residential land use and for 60 acres to 320 acres for residential property that is changing to a non-residential land use. Additionally, it requires that the general plan amendments be presented to city council within 12 months of the date of an application. The minor text changes will align the general plan and the municipal code for clarification and readability. As you may see here in the chart, not only is it defined as uh changing the nonresidential classification to be commercial, but also adding in open space for that readability and clarification and un understanding. The proposed amendments remove the restrictive acreage thresholds and implements new thresholds that encourage additional commercial and residential development, clarifying the time frame within the general plan uh and stating that applications are to be heard by

city council within 12 months. Aids with expediting the development process. Previously, the general plan stated that these amendments would be heard, major amendments would be heard once per year, which could indicate that an application would take longer than 12 months to be heard. And it will facilitate the timely implementation of the 2040 general plan. A neighborhood meeting was hosted on April 2nd, and a notice regarding this request was posted in the Kingman Minor on March 19th in accordance with state statute. No agency or other public comments have been received regarding this item. Based on the findings and analysis presented, staff does recommend that the planning and zoning commission recommend to city council GP25001 for approval. With that, be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Heather. Um, does anyone have any questions for Heather? Uh, Chair Goss, I do have a question. Why did we pick 320 as the acreage? Was there a study done or something to indicate that that was, you know, half section is the the amount of acreage we should be using in this case? Uh, thank you, Commissioner Goss and Chairman Waters. Uh, there was extensive conversation at the January 7th council meeting regarding that option. uh director Jason um proposed several options based on uh review of other cities uh looking at the county and its acreage which I believe is 1,800 uh looked at cities like Lake Havsu looked at cities like Prescott other uh rural communities and the options that they had also looking at I believe you looked at Surprise as well in a more urban environment uh the conversation was uh between do we go to uh 640, a full section, uh 320, a half section,

and ultimately the council uh was able to land on an agreement of 320 acres in in their discussion. Was there any metrics used to to I understand they they just kind of tossed some numbers around, but was there a reason for choosing 320? I'm not as familiar as Jason might be. Chair Goss, Chairman Waters. With respect to the the general plan amendments, the acreages ranged across the valley. When you look at anything from being a rural environment versus a suburban environment, most of the rural communities were at either a full section or a half section, which was the 320 acres. So, keeping with that, it made sense based on the development that we're seeing or potential future development here within the city of Kingman. Major general plan amendments typically would fall into that line with a larger uh acreage uh being proposed. That's where you end up with your master plan communities and so forth. Anything less than that really is it would fall under the minor. And so from a metric standpoint really is just looking at the rural the rural agencies. Got it. Now, was there any metrics on how many how many parcels that fit within that what is it 40 through 319 acre range that would would suddenly fall from being a a minor to a or sorry from a major to a minor? Chair Goss and Chairman Waters. No, there was no specific looking at acreages within the city that we have currently or any of those half sections looking at the parcels that may be applicable to that. Again, this is typically if if I were to look at a few of the potential developments that are forthcoming, they fall right at that 320 acre mark. Got it. You're referring to Rattlesnake Wash, I believe. That's correct. Thank Chair Goss, I have another question, too. Um, was it was there any attempt was there any attempt to look at like

instead of basing this on acreage, perhaps basing it more on uh the amount of of density that changed? like say if it's doubling the density, then we take a closer look at this rather than just looking at a a single threshold. Um it just seems like it it's kind of a an arbitrary thing like how big this thing is. Obviously, a lot of us on this this commission are probably concerned about like huge cookie cutter subdivisions, you know, like maybe if the proposed um oversight for for some sort of a change would result in a like a doubling or tripling of density in an area that could trigger a closer look by us. Again, being a commissioner, I'm kind of concerned that maybe we'd lose some oversight, you know, some input. Chair Goss, Commissioner Waters, completely understand where you're coming from with that from that respect. When we're looking at density, we were looking at actually keeping in line with what the voters ratified, which was the acreage threshold. So, we did not look at density. We looked at the acreages in accordance to what the voters voted for back in November. Thank you. Um, I believe that's all I have for right now, but thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Um, does anybody else have any questions? No. Okay. Thanks so much, Heather. Chair Goss, Commissioner Waters, if I could add one one additional thing. The general plan, although it sets a density range, your density would come into play when we're looking at a reszone. That reszone would have to be consistent with the underlying general plan designation. So, if they were to come in with a major amendment to the general plan, it would still be followed with a reszone that would have to go forward uh before both planning zoning commission and the city council. So from a discretionary standpoint, uh a legislative standpoint, the reason is is what would establish the density.

Thank you, Cher Goss. like we're making the threshold here and the chant it it seems like it's introducing the opportunity for like a developer to suddenly create two different subdivisions of like say 200 acre you know stack them right on top of each other give them a different name you know the villa is at whatever and and get around it easier whereas before we were looking a little more closely at this you know uh I I mean, we're not looking at the aesthetics to know close enough to know if these are in fact different subdivisions. It seems like they're just going to be two different projects with probably the same name. I just see some issues with with increasing the size that maybe we're not thinking through. Chair Goss, Commissioner Waters, I think the mis misconception might be here is that you're not going to see it at all. You would still see it. You'll you would see a major amendment and a different version. It requires different noticing. It requires a different timeline. A minor amendment still comes before the planning and zoning commission and again it would be accompanied with a a reszone or a change of zone. So you'd be able to see what type of uh density would being proposed at that time. Got it. But we Okay. There'd be more there'd be more time that this would allow the city to react. I mean, we're a compressing the amount of time the city has to respond to these developments, you know, to give give input and b um you know, if somebody because we had the limitation on just one time a year to approach the commission and the city council for this, we're in effect allowing people to, you know, approach repeatedly until they get the job done, you know, with with duress because basically it has to be done in 12 months. So, it seems like we're we're we're throwing another favor to the development community, and I get that. That seems to be what the city wants to do, but I mean, maybe we should probably think about this a little more

and provide some metrics as to what benefits our city rather than just hearsay or um conversation with the council. That's just my opinion. Thank go commissioner waters. Also, with respect to the 12-month timeline, that's actually a legislative requirement. So, we're actually implementing legislation that was implemented in 2023 that required cities to process within a year's time frame from the date of application as opposed to just one time a year. Uh, that's what the old code read. That's what the old legislation read. Uh, when it changed in 23, it allowed for that time clock to start from the date of application as opposed to being within a calendar year period. Thank you. Thanks, Jason. Um, okay. How are we doing? Any more questions for staff? No. Okay. All right, then. Um, this item actually does require a public hearing, so I will open it up to the public. Uh, however, there are no public, so I will now close the public hearing and open it up for um commission discussion. Anybody have any discussion or should we um make a motion? Um I do have one question. Is this another scrivener's error? Is that what this is called? No, this isn't a scrivener's error. This is just something that we didn't catch when they created the uh the the target master plan or what have you. Chair Gross, Commissioner Waters, I think when you look back at when the consultant prepared this general plan document at that time. Um, again, early 2024, uh, the staff that was probably overlooking it or overseeing it probably was not something that they caught. I wouldn't say it's a scrivener's error. I just think it's a very underestimated number of acres when you have a very

rural community. Okay. And is this you you have a lot more experience in this field than me, but you know this is the first time after we've done a general plan. It seems like every other meeting we're having some sort of a change to our plan that we have to ratify. Is that pretty common that there's a lot of loose ends that get tied up or is this just like a a major shift in how the city wants to approach development in this just in your opinion? Chair chair Goss and Chairman Waters with respect to the changes that you're foreseeing. Some of the changes that you're seeing are due to us implementing the actual plan. So, zoning documents as well as the general plan. We recognize that uh documents when they're created by consultants, not everything is caught. Uh you have different staff that's looking at it today, you have staff that is new to the planning field and as they're going through the zoning documents and the general plan documents, we're seeing inconsistencies between the two as well as that with the municipal code. So, these are cleanups. These are things that uh in a global scale hopefully should have been caught back in you know early part of 2024 and amended in the code before it be went to the v voters and a ratification but it's not uncommon to as you're starting to implement these documents to see where you need to make minor tweaks. uh you will always see minor changes coming back with documents because development changes how uh we look at things through the city's eyes, policy changes uh at the decision maker levels and the different types of projects that are forthcoming. So uh you can anticipate to see additional changes forthcoming more so with the zoning code as well as the subdivision code. And again, we're also adjusting and transitioning as each of the legislative sessions come out and uh new bills are adopted. We will be continuing to bring back forth changes based on those amendments as well. All right. And cherry, I just noticed all the changes are in one direction. It seems like in favor of the developer, you know, such as, you know, removing

our ability to to block cups, pushing that back to council, you know, uh this increasing the, you know, the size that these projects are considered minor. Um there's been a whole spate of them and it seems to just be one direction. just if I'm I'm pleased to see that it's not a scrivener's error this time because it seemed a little underhanded, but that's just my own opinion. So anyway, thank you. Certainly. All right. Do we have more discussion or do we want to make a motion? I'd like to make a motion to approve EP25001 minor general plan amendment to amend the ac threshold for minor and major general plan amendment and clarify the time frame in which a general plan amendment shall be heard by the council. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Can I get a roll call vote? Yes. Chair Goss, approve. Vice Chair Swap, approve. Commissioner McCoy, approve. Commissioner Noble, approve. Commissioner Sarkeesian, approve. Commissioner STA, approve. Commissioner Waters, approved. It's been approved. Thank you. All right. Do we have any more reports from staff? Goss none tonight. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Um, next, I just want to open this up to any announcements from commission members. Um this is um liaison reports or a availability or attendance at conferences or meetings. Do we have any? No. All right. Do we have any requests for future reports and updates from staff? No. All right, then I will adjourn.