Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I open this meeting of the Littleton Planning Commission on 08/25/2025 at 06:30PM. Clerk, could you please call the roll?

Chair Reynolds?

Here.

Vice chair Allmend? Here. Commissioner Coronado?

Here.

Commissioner Neely? Commissioner Radulovich? Present. Commissioner Rothlesberger? Here. Commissioner Santana? Commissioner Goodman? Here. With commissioner Santana absent, commissioner Goodman moves into a voting position. Chair, we have quorum.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is the pledge of allegiance. Please, if you're able to, rise and join me for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance There are no noted changes to the agenda this evening. So we'll move on to item four, minutes to be approved. I'd call for a motion and second on the certification of the June.

I move to approve based on the clerk certification that 07/28/2025 regular meeting of the Littleton Planning Commission.

Second.

We have a motion by Rudulovich. And a second by Coronado. We'll set up the vote from for the minutes.

The vote is six in favor. The motion carries.

All right. Thank you. This portion of the agenda is if you would like to address the planning commission on something of general public interest, something that is not scheduled otherwise on the agenda this evening. This is an opportunity, as I mentioned, for issues that aren't part of the agenda. Those will be heard later this evening. Each speaker will be limited to three minutes, and we expect comments to be civil. And I will also note that the Planning Commission is not authorized under Colorado Open Meetings Law to discuss, comment, or take action at this meeting on any issue raised by public comment that is not a part of tonight's agenda. So first up, we have Andy signed up.

Andy Barba, District 1. Last week, I commented at the city council meeting, and I was told that you guys might be a better platform to hear me out. So here I am. I'm here to talk about the Gables project. It seems to violate a handful of measures outlined in

the transportation master plan, but so far when I've raised these concerns,

they are not being acknowledged. In short, the Gables developers expect 92 cars a day to use the local streets in Bowmer South to access Bowles East because they have not designed the new development with accessibility to East Bowles. This may not seem like much, but the street they want the future residents to use currently or currently only services 65 vehicles, is home to 25 children under the ages of 14 and has no sidewalks. This is not a minor inconvenience. This is a measurable threat in the form of an a 150% increase in traffic on a local street that was never designed to support cut through traffic.

So I'm sorry, Andy. This item is actually, at some point, scheduled to come before this planning commission by way of preliminary plat. And what that is is it means it's kind of a quasi judicial, which means they have to act like a judge and base it upon their decision, whatever they decide to do that night, on what they hear at that hearing. And so commenting on that item before it's actually in front of our, planning commission, we we can't have your comments on this specific item.

Oh. Can't So I should sit down? Sorry. No. That's okay. So I should be done?

Yeah. Oh. Okay.

Never mind.

On on this item, unless you have anything else?

No. Just the gables. So I can't talk about the gables.

Not not about the gables.

Oh. Well, then never mind. Sorry. I thought I could. Sorry. So

to my understanding right now, just in terms of that project, there's I believe there's still internal reviews happening with the site plan. It has not actually been scheduled yet to come back before planning commission. So I actually do not have a date. I'm looking at Matt Knight to see if anything has been scheduled. He is our community development director in charge of planning.

That's correct. That has not been scheduled for public hearing at this point.

Okay. So we cut out later. Okay.

And So here you go.

And Yeah. Or look what The planning department can explain how the public notice works for preliminary plats.

Yeah. All those are posted throughout the city. A little to report online is the best way to find those currently or a little to report as well. But those will be posted for public notice. Ten days, I believe, ahead of that is the minimum. So yep. Like I said, that project is still in review, so we don't currently have any schedule for that at this point.

Alright. You can always contact the city clerk's office and ask for me, and I will if it's on the schedule, I'll

know. What's your name? Wendy. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Thank you very That's all

I want. Yeah. Oh, well, I

We just

have to make sure it's fair so that the person whose project it is who would be asking for it is here to hear the testimony as well. So that's why we wait until the public hearing.

All right. Well, thank you for making the trip down.

And

again, there will be an opportunity to comment when this comes before us as an officially noticed public hearing. Next person I have signed up for general public comment is Pam Chadbourne.

Hi, Planning Commission. My name is Pam Chapburn. I have a little block or two from here. So my comment tonight is at a higher level. We're all residents of Littleton, and we have an interest in Littleton as an institution. It's an enterprise. It's something that has a bunch of projects to execute and tasks to do. We hire people with our tax money to do those tasks. And then when they're done, we get the benefits of those tasks theoretically. I'm going to point out to you that it's my opinion and assessment, and I've gone to a lot of meetings over a lot of years, so I'm not saying this lightly or without foundation.

Is that the city has bitten off more than it can chew. It is committed to too many projects, and it cannot do them. Not only with the staff it has, but with the staff that we can afford in any reasonable universe. Cities our size are not big. They can't do everything all at once. They, in fact, can't even do a lot all at once. And I'm gonna suggest to you that the unified land use code in twenty twenty twenty one twenty two. And the transportation master plan. And suddenly somehow project downtown. And then Oh, no North Gateway and selling the building were in Geneva Village.

To build something new. Not to mention or I guess I will mention because I'm mentioning it the 3A work in public works, which we are two years into and are not accomplishing. The city staff is overworked, and I am sympathetic to the staff's workload, even though I complain about the individual products, and that's part of your job and mine to assess those products. I'm going to tell you that at the high level, the city has overcommitted. And I would like you as citizens to start to think about what you in your positions as planning commissioners can do to help the city pull back and get us out of the mess we've gotten ourselves into.

So we need a comp plan update. We need a historic preservation plan to incorporate into that and into the UOUC. And we need a UOUC update. And the UOUC was never integrated with the transportation plan. There were two separate standalone wish lists. So those need to be integrated functionally. And those are two fundamental jobs of cities which you, Planning Commission, must care about and be responsible I'm going to say be responsible for. That is what you signed up for. It is your obligation to the city, to the future city, and the people here and now. So we're not even doing those or putting those off.

We're talking about going into millions, tens of millions of dollars of debt to accomplish two crazy tasks, I think. And I'm not even mentioning the public hearing items tonight. So please consider at the high level, the city has bitten off more than it can chew. What can you do to fix that? Thank you, Planning Commission.

All right. Thank you. Also had Brian Salazar signed up, but it does not appear that anyone else remains in the room. Seeing So nobody approaching the podium, we'll move on to the general business portion of the hearing, of which there is none. For public hearing items, we do have PC resolution 10 dash twenty twenty five, a resolution recommending approval to city council of code text amendments to title 10 regarding certain greenscape provisions and tree canopy fee.

And staff is asking for us to continue this to a date certain of 09/22/2025 at the meeting, which begins at 06:30PM. So I'd ask for a motion and second.

Okay. I'll go ahead and make a motion that we continue PC resolution 10 dash twenty twenty five recommending approval to city council code text amendments title 10 regarding certain greenscape provisions in the tree canopy fee to date certain and that date certain being September 22.

Second.

Right. We have a motion by Coronado, second by Almond. I will set up the voting to continue this to the 09/22/2025 planning commission meeting.

The vote is six in favor. The motion carries. Thank

you. The other public hearing item we have on tonight's agenda is PC resolution 11 dash twenty twenty five recommending approval to city council of an amendment to title 10 unified land use code chapter nine administration section 4.1 rezoning slash zoning map amendment. I will hear from the applicant slash staff who are one in the same this evening.

Thank you, chairperson Reynolds. So this item I'm looking for a clicker. Real quick. So this item comes before planning commission's attention based upon well, it started from an ordinance that was considered once by PC, but also by city council. So back on January 7, our city council this year was considering passing an ordinance that had a number of changes to the ULUC.

Some of the more significant changes was adding some types of residential uses to some of our single family residential zoning districts, in particular, the SLR, MLR, LLR, and ACR zoning districts. Specifically, the thought was to add duplexes and potentially all the way up to four plexes, which we refer to as multiplexes in some of those zoning districts. In around that time, we started receiving a lot of public comment culminating in a few 100 people showing up. Most that were opposed to council's consideration of this ordinance. Some of the complaints that were presented at that time was that they had no notification that this was being considered.

We heard that a number of different times and part of which got the city reflecting upon how we go about notifying persons of important events such as our land use and zoning codes. I know that planning commission is well aware of the considerations that our city council had been making as PC was also involved in those same considerations over many months. With that said, there were a lot of individuals who were not aware that this was going on and were upset with that. So upset to the point that a group of citizens got together to circulated a petition to amend our city charter, which we do allow to do. And normally, what we would see when when individuals were upset with code or something set forth in our ULUC specifically, they could do basically a petition to advance their own ordinance.

And that ordinance ends up in our code, could be voted upon, it could be amended by our city council. And that allows a little bit more flexibility in terms of changing that. I don't believe I don't speak for this group, but the ability for our city council or future city council to make changes to the code was not something that they wanted to do. So they went through the process of circulating signatures. They ultimately got over 1,800 signatures that were verified by our city clerks, which was enough for that item to be referred to our city council, which they will consider for public hearing on September 2, which will be a week from Tuesday.

Pursuant to state law and the code, there is no ability for our city council to simply not refer it to the November election. They're essentially stuck with that and stuck with the language and the fallout. If there is fallout, that entails if it were to pass. This is how the current petition reads, and I'm gonna go through it because it will explain this ordinance that's before you tonight. But, essentially, I'll probably paraphrase some of this, and hopefully, I don't do too bad of a job.

But in subsequent conversations with some representatives of the petitioners, the intent or their intent is to lock in the allowed residential uses as they currently sat on 01/01/2025. So it's that second sentence basically saying that the uses that were allowed in SLR, MLR, ACR, and LLR as of January 1 are the uses that will remain, and that will end up in our city charter. I'm not aware of other jurisdictions that have land use provisions within their city charter. Obviously, that's challenging in terms of the city adapting over the years and making modifications to it. One of the issues that we have talked about, I have talked about that still raises a little bit of a concern or perhaps a big bit of concern is it seems somewhat contradictory in the sense that the second sentence says, these are the uses as of January 1.

But then the following sentence, which is the third sentence seems to provide that city council can indeed do comprehensive rezonings and official zoning map amendments or text changes provided they give first class mail or first class notification to all property owners. In subsequent conversations with the petitioners, I don't believe that they intended to leave a door open or have there a question. I believe that they they would allow for comprehensive rezoning so long as it's not in those SLR, MLR, LLR, and ACR. But it's not necessarily how it reads, and words are important. But the final paragraph is nothing prevents a property owner from seeking their own rezone if they wanted to come in and do that.

So talk about some of the concerns. So it's a little ambiguous in terms of whether or not we could actually whether city council can still comprehensively rezone. Talked about placing the zoning into the charter. So if PC recommended something or city council wanted to change something to our residential land uses ten years from now, twenty years from now, whatever, Something a new product type comes out and we need to make some refinements. The way that we would have to make refinements if this is read how the petitioners intend is we need to have an election.

And we need to have an election to amend this new charter provision to remove the language that says 01/01/2025. And then go through the whole process of the public hearings and comprehensive rezoning. So there's also concerns about what's called ex post facto. Ex post facto essentially is having a law that is retroactive in its application. So the best example is PC approved or recommended for approval the addition of ADUs.

And the addition of ADUs was in part directed by a state mandate that was passed, which required all home rule and and otherwise jurisdictions to allow for ADUs any place that allows for single family residential. So that's an additional residential use that got added. One of the challenges that could potentially happen is if the if the the charter amendment passed is that this would be in conflict. We would have because it says 01/01/2025 is that date. This was passed after that date.

So is that nullifying the ADU requirement? Or any other state mandates. I bring up that one specifically because that's probably the easiest to to kind of consider. There were other mandates that PC recommended that our city council adopted such as some of the density requirements. Right now, that's basically submitting some information to DOLA.

And at some point in the future though, it is anticipated that we may have to increase density along certain corridors within our city to be in compliance with state law. One of the other challenges that has arisen is that the governor, governor Polis, recently issued an executive order, basically saying that those cities that aren't complying with some of the land use decisions, land use legislation, aren't gonna be avail aren't gonna be eligible to receive certain grants. And he directed some of these state government organizations to come up with a list of grants, mostly around transportation that local governments would not be allowed to receive. That was clarified about a week and a half ago. He kind of issued an amended executive order, which listed by way of department a number of different grants that cities would not be eligible for if they were not complying with it.

So just it it provides a a concern in terms of, you know, our current compliance with state law. A lot of those were went into effect at the June as well as anything in the future that could come about. I don't know what the state legislature is is considering or will be considering next January, but it is possible that we could see something similar, being as how they have chosen to start legislating in matters that were historically and are historically matters of local concern. So we can hide behind the home rule or we can use that as a shield, but that has not stopped our state government from seeking to impose their will on local jurisdictions, especially as it comes into land use and zoning. So all these options or concerns were presented to city council as well as some option options, and council provided direction on a few different things.

One, which is why we are here tonight, was to take part of the ballot question that was being circulated, the charter amendment that was being circulated, and see what we could do to perhaps allay concerns that members of the public might have that they may not have notification of certain changes happening within our code and see if we can put something forward. It sounded like a good idea to them as they believe that notification was important. I know we have spent a lot of time, and mister Knight would agree as it largely affects his own department of talking about the notification process in terms of large projects. You know, we're going through the corridor study over on Littleton Boulevard and how we can reach more individuals. It's not all online.

It's not all digital. How do you meet individuals where they are, where they get their information? And that's challenging. And so the communication aspect is something that our city is currently spending a great deal of time and ensuring that individuals know what's going on in their city. So it's kind of a work in progress, but it's certainly something that we're taking steps to help.

So what the ordinance before you tonight will do basically says that anytime that our city council decides that they would comprehensively rezone or do any zoning map amendments or or even text amendments that change or remove or add residential land uses to the ULUC, we will be required and we will send out notification via the mail to every household that is impacted or affected by that. That is not without cost. It certainly is going to cost more money, but it's probably a small amount of money when compared with individuals having notification. So I know that the the charter amendment says first class mail by USPS. That's 73¢ per mailing with about 12,000, 11,000 homes.

If we were gonna do something or city council was gonna do something, you know, it's probably a good, I don't know, math. It's $10.11, $12,000 just to have one of those public hearings. Of course, there's two public hearings because there's one in front of PC, and then there's one ultimately set in front of our city council. So it's kind of double the notification or double the cost. And so that's the item before you tonight.

Just for purposes of reference, they also asked to seek judicial determination on this ballot or this charter amendment. Sorry. I keep using those interchangeably, but, the charter amendment that will be going in November. There was recently a house bill that was passed through this current legislative session, which is called the I don't know what it's called, but it's basically the anti anti growth. So the state of Colorado has a law prohibiting local jurisdictions from adopting legislation that basically makes it antigrowth.

So in particular, some cities around the Denver Metro Area had various ways that they went about doing that. So the city of Lakewood, the city of Golden, the city of Boulder had their own kind of growth limitations. Specifically, in in Lakewood, was the city cannot issue more than a certain amount of residential building permits every year. I think it was like 1%. That's how fast the city would be able to grow.

Obviously, impacts a lot of projects, when you're dealing with multifamily or anything else in a growing city. So the state basically passed a a law that says cities can't do that. You can't put in these artificial quotas in terms of growth. And so it negated or voided some of those cities' antigrowth items. But the other thing they did this last year is in an effort to keep items potentially like this or similar items that would be anti growth.

It allowed for cities to seek judicial review of proposed ballot questions prior to them actually going on the ballot. And so that went into effect about two weeks ago. Maybe it's three weeks ago. So I wanna say it was August 6 that so right now, currently, I'm drafting up the petition to find out what we're gonna do with this if it passes, if it's constitutional or not. And, hopefully, I'll have that filed perhaps at the end of this week.

It's not completed yet, and we'll see. There's a couple of different just concerns from from a legal standpoint. I'm a little concerned that the state may not want to hear it, whatever the court. So the whole purpose behind this was to actually get resolution prior to items making it on the ballot. So to forego that cost and confusion, let's get a ruling quickly.

In this case, our city council did not wanna use this as a way to stop the item from from being on the election. They wanted to make sure that, look, we can go get review, do whatever you need to do, but don't stop this from actually going. And so it is possible that a court could say, well, this is this is moot now. It's moot in the sense that the purpose of the ordinance or the purpose of the legislation was to per was to stop this from actually making it. Now that it's on the ballot, you don't really need us anymore.

If that's the case, we would probably seek another judicial determination, which would be a declaratory judgment or a deck action in court. We would probably have to wait until after the election because a court would most likely say it's not ripe if it has you know, if this was filed prior to knowing whether or not it passed or not. They would say, well, you know, let us know when it passes, and then we'll spend time taking a look at it. But there's no point in taking a look at it now if it's not gonna pass. So kind of in this little limbo where we're trying to get some clarity.

Next slide. So, yeah, the whole comprehensive rezoning, we adopted this process back when we did the ULUC. And the reason therefore is because we had basically rezoned the entire city at that time. Gone were the r ones, r twos, r fives, and those types of zoning districts, and we added whole new acronyms for us to get confused about and and throw them around willy nilly. But the whole comprehensive rezoning has a a normal process in terms of how one receives notification.

So we had to do this process, one, because when you're gonna rezone the entire city, it is you can't you you could send notification to everyone, but you can't go through the normal process. That normal process would be posting signs on everyone's, you know, lot, not something that I don't I think people would enjoy and obviously not practical or economical for that to happen. So going into the adoption of the UOUC, as PC is aware, we spent a good two years on that UOUC process. And so going into city council's adoption of the UOUC, you know, a thought was, well, everyone has to know that we're working on this. And there and indeed, there are some people that had no idea that we we were adopting a new zoning code.

I understand that, which is part of our communication and outreach strategy that we're working on now. But, essentially, a comprehensive rezoning process where you're just, you know, posting notification in the paper and doing the two hearings, that's not foreign. That's not unique to the city of Littleton. In fact, every other jurisdiction does the same thing. I'm not aware of anyone else doing anything different.

And so at the time, I said, is probably the only time that we're actually gonna use this as I get quoted on from time to time. And it was true. It wasn't really contemplated as something that we necessarily go about doing our I mean, it's been how many years in the city of Littleton since we've actually comprehensively rezoned anything? I mean, ever? I don't know.

I don't know the answer to that. So what the current ordinance in front of you does is not only does it allow for those two public hearings, before planning commission, one before city council, but it also requires that individual notification to those property owners at least fourteen days prior to a public hearing. So that's the expanded process that is for you tonight. There's two parts to the ordinance. They're basically the same, but they affect different sections.

In blue, it is what it is. In addition for any comprehensive rezoning, zoning map amendment, or text amendment that changes, adds, or removes the types of residential land uses allowed within the SLR, MLR, LLR, and ACR zoning districts, that mail notification shall be provided through the USPS to all affected property owners. That section is copied almost word for word under the text amendment section as well in the whole 10 dash nine dash four. One more. I think this is just the the next section.

It it's the same thing other than I just said in addition for any text amendment. So it doesn't say comprehensive rezoning or zoning map amendment. It just says for text amendment. So within our ULUC, within our our zoning tables, there's a section that that says residential uses. You can actually go through and it will tell you, you know, by way of zoning, like, you can build and what zoning district. And so this was kind of the compromise, if you will, that our city council asked for me to put together in terms of that expanded notification, and that's why this item is before you tonight. Any questions?

Okay. Any questions for the presenter?

It looks like does it still drive up to seven

Oh, I'm sorry. The 700 feet that property owner or property it's not just owners, but affected parties are within that 700 feet. Does it expand that?

It does not.

Expanding the the notice time frame. No. Basically. No. No. Neither.

It does not expand that.

K. So does it doesn't affect then the way it currently reads the code where it says it's 700 feet, that a property is affected that property within 700 feet is affected by a rezone or a change.

Correct. We would still we would be sending notification to those properties within that 700 feet of those properties that are affected. Correct. We didn't expand 700 to a different number.

No. I didn't think so, but it's fourteen days. Is that Correct. Still what it

Fourteen calendar days.

Alright. That's all I have.

Other questions? Certainly. Rothesberger.

Okay. So I I do everything paperless myself. So I am a big fan of paperless statements. I check my mail maybe once every couple days because everything important comes to me via email. Is it possible to add an option for people to opt into a email notification instead of a physical mail notification.

Yeah.

I mean, it doesn't change how we currently do notification. Right? Which would be in addition to that, we would still post signs. We would still utilize the newspaper. And and I think we're looking to expand notification to Littleton Report online as well. And so utilizing those online options would still be available. I don't think at this point we have a current infrastructure to be able to send like a virtual email to everybody, but it's something we can take back to our communications team and see if there's an option to do that.

Okay. I'm just wondering if in the text of this ordinance rather than specifying through USPS services, right to say, you know, mail notification through USPS services to property owners unless or, you know, or and and put, I don't know, something at the end there that says, unless said property owners have opted for paperless notifications. Because I don't need more trees cut down. I don't need more mailers. Right?

I'd rather just be able to flag it in my email and see when that comes in. I understand that's not for everyone. Right? Not every not everybody's I mean, email's pretty ubiquitous. It's been around for twenty five plus years. I I struggle to think of anybody who doesn't have an email, but I mean, we all process information in different ways too. So If we I guess that well, that would give you the other question. Does it make sense to try to maybe put an amendment in here that suggests that owners, you know, unless affected property owners have opted for paperless notifications, Or should we wait until we have some kind of infrastructure available for people to opt in?

I think probably the latter. Okay. I mean, we could always come back and amend the notification as we develop that technology or get it online. But I don't want individuals to get a false hope, if you will, that they can just, you know, sign up for

Okay.

For email notifications and contacting the city to try to figure out how we do that when we don't have a way to

see I mean, because yeah. Like I said, I'd strongly prefer a paperless notification, but if it's not there yet, then that may also be

Our communications team also uses social media and other methods to put information out. I think this the purpose of this and the direction of counsel was to, as Rita indicated, through the text amendment that was provoked the charter excuse me, that was proposed was largely based on ensuring that every residential or affected property received a notice in relation to a hard mail notice. I think that was the direction council gave us to Mimica.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. I think that that's yeah. And I I get that that's that's fair. I just I I think that it's also I don't wanna have to be bound to a paper notification myself. I think you guys do a great job of communicating these changes. I was I myself was very surprised to find that so many people were surprised. I'm a you know, what's the, you know, the saying? Democracy is not a spectator sport. Right? But in this case, it's not it's it's something that you even have to spectate. Right? You have to read the Littleton report and you know? So I think you guys are doing a great job of getting information out there, of getting notifications out there.

It doesn't it there's always room for improvement, I will say. So other question for you real quick. When you say to those property owners within the applicable zoning districts, so would a change to SLR go to all four of those zoning districts or would SLR notifications go to everybody in SLR plus anybody within that 700 foot boundary?

The latter. It would just go to the SLR plus everyone within that 700 foot boundary.

Okay. Okay. So, yeah. So anybody sitting at the edge of those would still get notified, but it's not like I'm gonna get notified for something that happens on the North Side Of Littleton because I don't have an SLR lot within 700 feet of my house. Correct.

Right. Okay.

I think that's reasonable. I think that yeah. I mean, I if people want more information, I think that that's something too where the, you know, some kind of email notification, you know, where you could expand options so people who do want to get an email newsletter of changes that are happening in every zoning district across the city. But at the same time, yeah, again, I I don't wanna be spammed with well, I'm on the planning commission, so obviously I wanna be spammed. But I think there's plenty of people who don't wanna be spammed with, you know, things that are happening well outside their neighborhood.

You can tell me if this is not appropriate to ask, but I'm I'm curious. The judicial review, that's supposed to look that if this is in violation of that state law on anti growth. If that declaration or if that if a decision on that were to come back before the ballots were printed, would we still include it on the ballot? Or I mean, isn't the goal to try to get that before we have to print the ballots?

Yeah. Unfortunately, our date in which we we kind of lose control over that is September I wanna say September 6. So it's that I wanna say it's the final It's the fifth fifth or September 6 that we're required to turn over our questions and our information to the counties, and then the counties have it. I'm not aware of an ability to pull something back after they have it.

Okay. No. No. That's that's that's helpful too because I didn't realize that was September or that was so soon. I thought if it was something where we had a a little bit more time to get that back and then whether or not we're putting it whether or not it goes on the ballot, but it sounds like that time that turnaround is too short and just not achievable.

Yeah. I don't anticipate we would receive something back. The county requires, all the ballot information to be sent to them sixty days prior to an election. So that's that September

date. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, a few questions. Thank you for that overview, Reed. I appreciate that. One is we're a planning commission that we don't usually deal with the city charter. So I'm not really that familiar. I had to look into it. How does 65 section 65.5 fit into that whole thing? But I kind of equivocated to at the state level when you do a constitutional change or constitutional amendment versus doing a statute that could you talk a little bit more to the, I guess, the handcuffs that it puts on city's ability to do business by doing a charter amendment versus an ordinance?

Yeah. Obviously, you know, it's a it's a perfect relation what you're saying. So our city charter is basically our constitution, and then state statute is basically our ordinance. So it's very comparable. The challenges that we face is is just being able to to make any changes to our code would require that election.

So if you wanted to change, quote, unquote, one of those constitutional amendments or in our case, a charter provision, we actually have to go get permission from our voters prior to undertaking any of those other actions that we might through a code. So it it definitely is burdensome. It's costly. Last time we had a special election, it cost well in the $6.06 figure range, which is fine, but the ability to be nimble and adapt and change your code as you see changes that are warranted or required in our case by state law or federal law that may change. This process certainly hampers the ability to do so.

And the way that this ordinance draft is written, is there any I I guess, does it protect those folks that are concerned as much as the Charter Amendment would in terms of notification or ability for the council to change something without them knowing?

I mean, they'll have notification, but, you know, councils councils change. I don't know what the next council will do or what they'll be interested in. You know, I would say for those folks who may be concerned about something that council does, we already have a process in place right now, and that's a referendum, Essentially, and that has been used in the city of Littleton and other jurisdictions as council passes an ordinance or a law that, folks don't like, they can go get the necessary signatures and place the item on the ballot for the electors. It pauses that ordinance during that time, so it's not in effect. And the voters decide as to whether or not, you know, should the ordinance be basically repealed.

So there already is a mechanism for citizens to to, I guess, express their concerns or actually see change ideally, you know, in the political sense of they didn't like something that a council member was doing and they could find a candidate that had those, you know, similar mindset that that they would want to do. That's kind of how our political process has has gone for hundreds of years in in our country.

Okay. Thanks. Yeah. I I agree with the need for additional notification, and I agree with Commissioner Rathosberger's suggestion that we have alternative means to do it is, you know, the snail mail feels a little outdated to me. I mostly get junk mail.

There's not a lot of important things in there. So I mean, if there's a way to communicate better as technology changes, I I would support that. Looking at the language of this, it's obviously targeted at residential parts of the community, which feels kind of narrow and reactive to me a little bit. Like, could it be broadened by simplifying this language just to say, for example, here, remove the type of land uses instead of residential land uses allowed within all zoning districts, mailed it. So any kind of significant changes to any of the zoning districts, regardless of whether there's residential or not, then it's a more broad.

It's fairly distributed across any type of land use. You're making significant changes to any land use in any district. Of course, there's more cost implications to that because there's more likely to be more of those actions. But, you know, the fact that it addresses the concerns of the groups that are advocating in the residential areas that could be addressed in the overview and the backup background information of the legislation or the ordinance. I'm just wondering if there's a downside to just broadening that to all zoning districts. That

was one of the the items that we kind of took a look at in terms of I mean, one of the challenges right now with with the the charter amendment is that question of, well, what is triggering this notification or prohibition on actually changing it? What is a what is a land use change? That's the ambiguity. I I'm not sure exactly what that is. I if I change the number of chickens or ducks that you can have in your backyard, is that am I changing zoning?

I mean, I don't actually think so, but there's argument out there in terms of what is what is actually gonna trigger a either a prohibition on changing this unless you get a another charter amendment to change the the charter amendment. Or what are okay with proceeding with in terms of providing the expanded notification? That that's one of the ambiguities that exists within the the ballot question and one of the things we were trying to address by having it very narrowly tailored in terms of land uses. So, you know, if setbacks were changing, one of those things, we were changing roof pitches, things like that that aren't really land uses, but really trying to narrow in on those residential uses that individuals are more concerned about in those particular zoning districts.

And then I wonder yeah. That that makes sense. And then I wonder go down a a rabbit hole here. Like, how the types of residential land uses is just the number of units on the property, or is it setbacks, roof slopes, you know, where does it end? How is that interpreted? It's a great question. Okay. All right. I don't have any further questions.

I think Commissioners Coronado's comments on this just applying to one is probably a very astute observation, to be honest. One of the things that came before us not all that long ago was an apartment complex on Dry Creek Circle. And that the area that had been rezoned had nothing to do with SLR or MLR or LLR. It the area on the hill that had been rezoned into multi Centimeters. That's what it is.

And that's kind of covered in the 700 foot notification area, which I think the 700 foot thing is more for when one thing happens as opposed to when you have a mass zoning change, which is what this would address. Those are sort of the way that I would parse it out, I suppose. This is limited to property owners, it says. So would we only be mailing the people who are on the deeds? Or are we going to mail it to the address? Or do we mail it to both to notify the renter and the owner in a in a rental situation?

So our current process when we're if this were, say, a typical just straight rezone of a an individual parcel, we would send it to the registered property owners, not necessarily the address. And again, I'm taking the language that was in the charter amendment and trying to take that in.

And it seems be generally like what our what what things tend to go to is the property owner. And it intentionally or not, cuts out the renter from being notified, which is something we may want to look into as far as, like, if you're going to send these notifications out, do we need to notify everyone? And my default answer would be yes, just because those people have just as many rights. They necessarily obtain the property rights, but they're the ones who could possibly be even more affected than the person who owns it. I'm assuming that we're going to continue to post things like this in, say, the Littleton Independent and things of that nature with public meeting notices, things of that nature, sort of the old school way to do it.

Correct. This doesn't replace that. It just adds an additional step.

And I am happy to hear that you're starting to use the Littleton report. That was something I think I brought up last meeting, that's a source that we should be tapping into in order to notify for these public meetings. And that's good start. Just I think that there's all kinds of other places that it could be posted as well online. And I don't necessarily think we need to codify those things. I think it's something that our city should just be doing out of courtesy more than anything else. If I'm reading this correctly, this this is specified therein as of 01/01/2025. Basically, that the city would pass would be null and void because the charter would take precedent over that? Is that how that would work?

That's the theory. Yes. Generally, when one is taking a look at the hierarchy of things, the charter controls and then ordinances and then So

basically, if someone came to us with, say, a short term rental problem and wanted something done about it. The answer would be, we need to change our charter. Sorry.

No. Because well, it depends. If it was an applicant with the short term rental problem, then, no, we could still go forward with that. If it were a neighbor of said short term rental that was having a problem, we'd have to find a different way around that. Perhaps the current enforcement mechanisms that the city has already adopted in our short term rental ordinance, which is But

if those weren't in place at the time, say the new whatever the new short term rental is comes around and in order to try and contain it through an ordinance or some other thing could be construed as a land use problem and therefore ends up in this. Correct? Could be.

Could be. Or it could be a licensing problem in title three. Agreed. Mhmm.

Yeah. Real quick. The intent behind this, it's not to do an end around on the charter amendment going to the ballot. Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay.

I understand.

And this is gonna go forward regardless of of counsel referring this on September 2 or the results of that ballot question.

Just real quick getting into minutiae a little bit. On the proposed PC resolution line 28 referencing the public hearing. I've got it as August 20 on the draft. I believe that's referencing today's meeting. Is that correct?

I'm sorry. The PC resolution says the twentieth as opposed to the twenty fifth?

On line 28.

Yeah.

So I just wanna make sure we can just do do we need to we just do it as an amendment when we bring the motion?

We can just chalk that up as a scripener, and we'll Okay. We we don't need a formal motion for that. Okay.

Again, in that same vein, on the proposed ordinance attached as exhibit a, I did notice in the presentation that one of these has been corrected, but not the other. We were looking at lines forty one and forty two. We've got a a double shell. As it reads right now on this copy, mail notification shall be provided through the USPS, shall be required to those property owners. I noticed that one of those was changed, but it's also repeated again in the next section.

Yeah. That the double shall shall the double shall should be Okay. Removed. Okay.

That's all I have.

Seeing no additional questions for our staff presenters, we will move on to the public comment portion of this public hearing. I'll open that at 07:29PM. And we do have one person who is signed up to speak, Pam Chadbourne.

So I'm still Pam Chadbourne, who lives a block or two from here. And first I want to say I love the old photo at the end. It's got two signs, drugs and bar. Nothing just changed. And wonderful buildings. So I believe in historic preservation. You're the planning commissioner. I'll just put a pitch. We need more of that and less of the new stuff, so love the old photo. However, I'm not sure I really understand this.

I thank you folks for asking the clarifying questions. This would pass regardless of the ballot measure, I guess, and it's what the city wants to do to improve notice. I mean, I'm shocked at how it fails to respond to what citizens have said for years. 700 feet isn't enough. Why don't you add an expansion of that?

Why don't you have an expansion of notice depending on the size of an affected zoning change? Why don't you add changes to other uses? We have two major redevelopments going on in NCR, 110 acres of Greenfield, pretty much, and the redevelopment of Lumen, 63, 64 acres, which residential folks need to know about who live further than 700 feet away. Why don't you add that kind of notice? That's what made people really, really mad.

Why isn't that in here if this is what the city is saying, Well, we can do something to improve our notification. We've heard that for years. I just don't understand the limit here. I also don't understand complaining about 10,000 or $12,000 for notice when the cost of redoing this kind of stuff costs us more than that in terms of staff time and administrative time and all of that. Also, we don't do mass rezonings often, and so if you spread that cost over all of the years that we didn't do this, I mean, come on.

The money should be spent. The money is not a reason to not do this. Anyway, also, affected property owners need to totally include renters. They are often the most impacted people. They need the notice.

The changes should be noticed to renters and tenants. Maybe you say long term rather than short term, I don't know, but it matters. Mail notice in the applicable zoning district no later than fourteen calendar days, You could actually do that earlier. You could do it beyond the notice area. I mean, if you're defaulting to the 700 feet again, that needs to be increased. All of the changes of uses should be included. Commercial, institutional, nonprofit matter. There's so many more things that this should do. I don't understand this at all. Thanks.

All right. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to comment regarding this public hearing item? Seeing nobody in the room, I will close the public hearing portion of this at 07:33PM. And I did have a couple additional questions for staff that I thought of during the course of the discussion. Are we aware of other communities that have a similar provision for notification regarding text changes?

I am not aware of any, but chairman Reynolds, I have not actually researched it. I have for comprehensive rezonings, but not just general text amendments. And I think that's kind of it's not really the rezonings that are potentially challenging. When we're talking about rezonings, talking about going from one zoning district to another. It is those actual changes within the zoning districts as it as we call them text amendments that I think could be more likely or more common coming from the city than than a street rezoning. So

And then how might this sort of notice interact with the transit oriented communities requirement coming from the state. So that's requiring cities to establish transit centers along transit corridors, and those transit centers might include portions of the zone districts referenced here. And if we're putting some sort of transit overlay along those corridors, would then the notice expand to, you know, those you know, would those become affected properties along the corridors?

I don't think it would necessarily apply to the overlay districts or any overlay districts that would go up on our corridors. So

Alright. And as far as we know, the the folks who are advocating for the charter amendment have no intention to pull it regardless of whether this ordinance passes or not. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Well, with those questions, any final questions for staff from any of the members of the planning commission?

I don't really have a question, but I have a comment in that. I just don't I don't think this goes far enough in terms of we did discuss that's why I kept asking about, are we expanding this beyond the 700 feet? Are we you know, is it changing the affected property owners? Or and I know we discussed a lot about renters and not the property occupant, not just the owner that they should have noticed. So I I just don't think this goes far enough. I don't really seeing it doing a whole lot, to be honest. Personally, I don't I don't get the relevance of it. That's why I look a bit perplexed. I thought it would be a little more expansive. So just a comment, and that's all I have say.

Alright. Other questions for staff? Alright. I will ask for a motion.

I moved to approve PC resolution 11 dash twenty twenty five recommending approval to city council of an amendment to title 10, unified land use code, chapter nine, administration section 4.1, rezoning zone slash zoning map amendment.

Alright. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Alright. Motion by Alman, second by Rothesberger. Discussion.

Start down here.

Sure. So to answer your question, Sherry, at least from my point of view as far as what this does, This basically changes what the referendum is asking you. If you've already got part of it codified, the part that about notification, it makes the referendum about do you wanna lock the zoning up or not from January 1. That's all that it will be about at that point if this ordinance goes through. That's at least my view of why this is in there.

I think it's something that should have been there from the beginning. Some sort of notification should have been in place when there are mass rezonings of things. I think that that's just a given. I do have concerns about just the normal ballot measure, which, as I pointed out with the short term rental example, is that becomes part of land use When the next whatever short term rental comes along that people don't like and the city can't do anything about it, this will be the will be the hurdle that we'll have to overcome, and you'll have to wait possibly up to two years to take something out of a charter in order to take take care of it. So that's just my 2¢ on it.

And that's it.

Okay. So I want to say that generally speaking, I think this is kind of unnecessary, because I think the the comms team does a very good job between the Littleton Report, the Littleton Report online. They're very punctual about posting, agendas for planning commission, for city council, all of these things. And I think it doesn't take that much effort truly if you wanna be dialed in in local politics and to know what city council and planning commission are up to. It's a pretty minimal level of effort.

And so I think but but again, I think there's know, it it doesn't hurt to look for room for improvement, and especially if people are stuck in a mentality that government comes by mail versus government comes by text versus government comes online or whatever, some people may be dialed into. So I think the expansion here, or the augmentation, I think we should refer to it as augmentation of notification, is actually, you know, is in good shape. Because I mean, yeah, again, you're you're covering the area that's bound, you know, or that we're talking about in terms of these one of these, residential zones, plus you're making sure that you're covering any border zone associated with those lots. I think that I think that this makes sense because one of the things that I, well, of the of the disagreements I have with the, with the with the citizen charter amendment initiative is that a notification process does not belong in the city charter. This is a procedural aspect for how we change and update and and do business.

And to put it in the constitution versus a requirement for state or for lawmaker or commission compliance. That's not where we put those things at any level. We don't put this kind of process in state constitution. We don't put process in United States constitution. Why would we put it in city constitution?

It's a very bad It's just a disconnect between what our government documents are, what our city government documents are, and what manages what aspect of our city government. Again, I think it does make sense to I think it would make sense if we can expand or provide a process for people to opt in to a paperless. This could also ensure that folks who are renters, are getting notifications as well. Again, it's not like we're but I I wanna note too that we're not locking renters out from the notification process right now either. Right?

Because we have notifications via Littleton Report, Littleton Report online, postings on the city website, all of these other methods, the things that we're talking about when we get into the standard notification of signs, of newspaper, of all of these things. So anyway, yes. So I'm I'm in support of this. There was one thing that I wanted to that I wanna change about it right now would be to to have an opt in for a paperless notification. I understand we don't have the infrastructure there yet, But I I think if we can get an infrastructure for that, then maybe we can even further amend this to suggest that if said property owner wishes to opt for a paperless notification, then that could be an option.

But, for now, I think, yeah, I will I will definitely support recommending this to City Council.

Alright. Well, yeah, I support this recommendation to council for this change to the ordinance or this ordinance. Because I think if we don't have this, if we don't float this, there's a good likelihood that that charter amendment will be support get good support and possibly pass. And I don't think we'll be very happy with the results of that, unfortunately. So I think that this is a much better alternative for the reasons discussed here tonight.

I did want to float a couple amendments to it that are basically tweaks to the language that I think address some of the concerns that I've heard here tonight. The first regarding well, I guess it's the concern that I have in our conversation with the city attorney. You know, what exactly is a type of residential land use that would be changed, added or removed to within the SLR, MLR, LLR and acreage ACR zoning districts. The types of residential land uses is kind of struggling with what that that means. So I was I wanna float an amendment to add the word types or quantities of residential land uses allowed within the SLR.

So I think that's more targeted to the concerns that the folks that have drafted the charter amendment have. As types of land uses would be multifamily, single family. Well, are zones, but the land uses within the zones would be a single family residence, right, or a residential use. So the types are I think the quantities was the bigger concern, like going from one to four units on a property, right? So that would be a quantity change.

So my well, let's float it and see if we get support.

Can I I think I think I think we might be already have that, but I want you to clarify because if I understand residential land uses allowed within these districts doesn't cover all land use, so that wouldn't talk about like if you're going to change the number of chickens or ducks associated with the accessory land uses? It would only be the type of houses or the types of residential structures. Is what residential land uses means, is residential structure on those land on those land or on those zoning types?

Correct. So in the city's ULUC, it's our land use matrix. So it lists out all the 11 team or maybe it's 12 zoning districts that are present in the city. And it lists within that the types of uses that are allowed in those specific zoning districts. As part of that table, there's a section called residential uses.

So that's why the ordinance refers to residential uses so we're not getting worried about the chickens and the ducks and and those items. So within residential uses, we talk about where cottage court communities are, where multifamily are allowed, single family, duplex, you know, live work, multiplex, slot homes, tiny homes, townhomes, all that is contained within the residential uses table. And so that's what this specific ordinance is designed to address, I e, if we wanted to add duplex as an allowed use, if you will, an allowed residential products, you know, South Of Kaylee, that would be something that would then trigger these notifications to go out to all the affected property owners South Of Kaylee in our particular in that particular scenario.

So to confirm what you're saying and say proposal was floated to allow duplexes within for instance, that would be a change in the type of use, not necessarily the quantity of that land use.

I would say that would be a change in the residential use that would be allowed in your zoning districts if you were in one of those that was now gonna have this new use come into your zoning district, that was not allowed in the past, then this would absolutely that would absolutely trigger it.

Okay. Yeah. So I I think that question may come up. So I just do wanna make sure that we're covered under that type of types of residential land uses that that would trigger that notification. So, okay, I'll withdraw that amendment.

The the other one I had had to do with the the who these get mailed to. In the SLR, MLR, LLR, and acreage zoning districts, there aren't a lot of multifamily. There probably aren't any. There might be some that are special exceptions or nonconforming. So there's certainly some renter occupied units, but there's probably not a huge number, like some of the apartment complexes with three or 400, so the mailing costs wouldn't be that daunting.

So this is the reasoning behind maybe adding to the mailing portion of that, that I propose an amendment that says mail notification shall be provided through the United States Postal Service, USPS, to those property owners and occupants within the applicable zoning districts. And maybe just some comment, like, if we have any idea that would that increase the number of mailings by 5% or 50%? Or do we have any idea? Yeah.

I don't

think we have that information. Okay.

And I would just say, just just for clarification, currently within we don't allow for multifamily. Maybe there is, but it would be a nonconforming use in the SLR, MLR, ACR, LLR. So But they may

be within the 700 feet. They probably are.

Correct. And it and it's not a it's not Mhmm. Okay. Well Your proposal would be allowing for renters or or occupants of a of a household.

Right. So adding the words of those property owners and occupants within the applicable zoning district. So pose that as a motion.

So we have a motion to add occupants to the list of notified persons.

So Can I ask a question about that?

Sorry. So I know we have, like, a name on record associated with the deed. Right? Do we have a way to know who's renting their property out and who would need an owner notification and who would need an owner and occupancy notification because it's being rented?

We wouldn't have a way to to know that. So I guess a friendly suggestion would be perhaps just the the property address rather than occupants because we don't know who would be there.

So Okay.

I'm sure it probably says to the occupants of, you know, 1122.

I think we pulled the majority of our data for these. Our GIS team pulls that from the assessor, right, from the from the county. And so we would use that for the property owners of record is my understanding. And so I think the only way to ensure that the property owner gets it and the occupant occupant, excuse me, gets it would be to send one to both. So it technically could potentially double the number of mailings that you're sending. So if the if it's owner occupied, they would theoretically get two potentially. We we could work with our GIS team to see if we can filter that to if if the the addresses are the same, potentially duplicate addresses will not get one. But we could we could work with them on that.

And just for reference, section 10 dash nine dash 3.5 public notice for general, you know, land development applications says that notice by mail when required, shall be provided through USPS to all addresses, units, and property owners within 700 feet. So if we mirror that language, it would be, you know, addresses, units, and property owners, I suppose. So

so I guess I'll revise the amendment to to add to property owners the same language within the notification requirements that are already in the EUL UC. Not having them in front of me. I don't know exactly what the verbiage is there.

Oh, no. A male. Okay.

So in addition to so my amendment would be to revise the language to add those property owners. So notice by mail when required shall be provided through the u USPS to all addresses, units, and property owners No later than fourteen calendar days prior to the public hearing dates.

Alright. So we have a motion to amend the recommendation, based on what commissioner Coronado just said. Do we have a second to the motion to amend the recommendation?

Yes. Second.

We have a second by Allman. Any discussion on the amendment?

I I I support this idea that, However, when you read it back, it says that the original one says property owners within the applicable zoning districts. And that part was left out. It basically was addresses, units, stuff before it. I think it might be simpler if we were to amend or to just say them, to mirror the language in whatever we're citing as the other one. Would probably be the easiest way to do it.

Agree. Would that be acceptable, city attorney? Sorry. To me?

No. I'm sorry. I'm trying to

So when he read off the ordinance the first time, it left off within the applicable zoning districts that that phrase was not in it, what he said. And

I think the intent was to leave that in there, but really to insert that language as preceding Right. The applicable zoning districts.

Okay. So

At least that's how I'm taking it in my mind.

It it is. It is what we wanted basically to read like this, but add the add the extra ones. And I think that that's that's coming through, I hope.

The citation, which is? Yes.

So it's the notice by mail section found 10 Dash9Dash3.5 public notice c 3 is the notice by mail section for general land use applications. So we're trying to parallel that language here. Yeah.

I I I just wrote it out, so, hopefully, maybe I I can reread So starting with the notification shall be provided through the United States Postal Service, USPS, to those property owners, occupants, and addresses within the applicable zoning districts no later than fourteen days. Does that sound like? Second. Okay.

I think that's the motion Precise. Motion by Coronado restated and seconded by, yeah, by Almond. Any additional discussion on the proposed amendment? Call for a vote on the proposed amendment.

The vote is six in favor. The amendment carries.

Alright. And any additional discussion? No further discussion. Okay. Come And down here for additional discussion. Do.

I guess it I forget who brought it up. I think it was commissioner Coronado brought it up that we are restricting these notice requirements to residential land use changes in residential zone districts. I'm concerned that that kind of it's my understanding that the intent is that more people in the city understand when these large scale zoning changes are occurring, but the proposed language only says if you're in a residential zone district and it's a change in the residential land use. So I'm just concerned that then we're putting agricultural, commercial, office, industrial, all these other property owners are not getting the same notices, which it's not more, but it would have a a substantial impact on those as well. You know, if I'm running my business and I don't know that this massive comprehensive zoning change is occurring, I would like to know about that just as much as I would like to know if somebody wants to put a, you know, 1,000 unit apartment building right next to me as a as a homeowner.

So I've got I hate that we're that I have to do another amendment, but I've got a proposed amendment that so there's there's gonna be two places that this is going to occur in the proposed ordinance, section ten nine four point one d two a. The portion of the sentence beginning with or removes the types of residential land uses allowed within the SLR, MLR, LLR, and ACR zone districts, be amended to say or removes the type of land uses allowed within any zone district continuing on. And then that same change to be made in ten nine four point three d one. Similar language there beginning or removes the types of residential land uses allowed within the SLR, MLR, LLR, and ACR zone districts be amended to or removes the types of land uses allocated within any zoning district.

Alright. So we have a motion to expand that to additional zone districts, as stated by commissioner Goodman. Do we have a second?

I'll go ahead and second. I'm not sure I support it, but I'll second that.

Okay. So motion for that amendment by Goodman with a second by Coronado. And any any additional discussion on the proposed amendment?

I think that I had my intent there. If anybody has any questions, please.

I think taking the residential land use chunk of this really expands to the land use at that point. That's when you start getting into the ducks and chickens of the world because that's the entirety of the code for the most part. And I think that's why it's hard to do this for something that's outside of the unless we wanna do it just for the residential land uses that are inside those particular zone districts, which is not the intent. We want to make sure that people are getting all the notifications. But this is, as the attorney Mr.

Betzing stated earlier, this is really meant to target one section of the code apparently, where it's supposed to be just those residential land uses inside these particular districts. And by removing that keyword residential use, it turns it into land use, which is literally the entirety of the code, it feels like to me. And I think that that is not what we want.

Yeah, I'm going to agree with Commissioner Rudulovich here on that, because is probably the biggest problem or one of the biggest problems I have with this charter amendment that's being proposed for the ballot is that it is all land uses. It says land uses. It doesn't talk specifically about, you know, residential land uses or the types of residential structures. It just says land uses. So every single land use, accessory or residential, would then drive an additional charter vote.

I kind of get what you're getting at here too in terms of some of these big, these larger scale changes. So like the apartment complex that we were looking at on Dry Creek Circle or whatever. The problem is too is that the way this is written is what you're getting into then is if you're changing a land use with like, CMU, then you're sending something to all the other addresses within CMU, not to the residents. Right? You'd be sending them to all the businesses, which is not, I think, the intent.

I I don't know that that's what anybody who lives in the neighborhoods or the concern was in terms of the residents of Littleton getting notifications about things that are happening in their neighborhood. So I think it makes sense to I like it the way it is, you know, to keep it contained. Think the you know, to making sure that we're getting everybody who's a resident, right, per the commissioner Coronado's amendment, I think, makes sense. And, again, like like I said before, I don't my opinion was that this isn't really necessary because I think the comms does job does do a good job of notifying what's happening in the city. You do have to put a little effort into it sometimes, but I think it's a very low amount of effort to understand if, you know, there's a 62 acre Costco development or if there's, you know, a 140 acre residential mixed use commercial development that's happening.

That is stuff that makes front page news too. So I don't know. I I think that I think we're yeah. I think we're we're trying to get to a very specific concern about neighborhood, I think, land uses and neighborhood notifications of those residential land uses because that seems like that was the concern that was raised. So yeah, I think trying to expand it I don't know that I'm I'm not opposed to other ways to expand notifications to folks, but I don't know that I think what I'm hearing on this front makes sense right here. That's okay, if that makes sense.

And, yeah, I think it's a well intentioned and is a good idea. As I mentioned before, broadening this would make sense if we were, you know, back when ULC was written. It seems like it could have been written in a broader way of communicating. However, I think staff addressed that really well when I brought that up, that they're doing other things to communicate throughout the city and the activities that are happening in all zone districts. And this keeping it targeted at their residential land uses seems to be an appropriate response to balance the needs of the charter amendment concerns.

And so I I I don't support this amendment.

Okay. Well, with with that, I'll bring up the vote on the proposed amendment to add nonresidential land uses to the list of affected land uses receiving notice. The

vote is one in favor with five against with Almond, Reynolds, Coronado, Roethlisberger, and Rudulovich voting no. The motion fails. The amendment fails.

Alright. So, any additional comments on the the main motion? Nope. Okay.

I have a comment on the motion that expanded the notification to residents of the units, but thank you for finding that citation. I knew that we had talked about that, and I did not find it in there. I didn't look real hard for it, but I knew that we had. And so I was very concerned about that. Okay. So thank you. Alright.

I appreciate all the discussion tonight and, you know, the the concern for public notice. Yeah. And some of the discussion that you know, about the 700 feet of the jurisdictions that I've actually personally worked in or lived in, that's the largest notice that I've seen. So Littleton is fairly generous with its its notification radius just on general land use projects. And I appreciate that some folks feel that it isn't enough.

But as someone who's administers zoning codes a lot, I disagree with them. I will say that I I I appreciate the context where this is coming up and the desire for additional notice In my career as an urban planner, complaining about notice tends to be what you do when you cannot debate the merits of the proposal. And I think, the the folks who are bringing the charter amendment forward succeeded in their opposition despite complaining that nobody knew. Hundreds of people actually showed up to city council to let their wishes be heard, and the city council heard them and acted upon those wishes. So in my humble opinion, the system is working as designed and as currently drafted.

And I will share one additional story. I have literally sat in a public meeting holding the certified mail card signed by the person testifying who is claiming that they received no notice of that hearing. So complaints about notice in general frustrate me because it obfuscates the merits of the proposal being discussed, and I will be a no vote on this, despite understanding the context. But with that, I will bring up the vote.

Sorry. The vote is five in favor with one against, with Reynolds voting no. The motion carries as amended.

There we go. Hit the accept button, and we're on to item number eight, comments and reports. Do we have reports from community development director or staff?

Yeah. I got a couple things here. So first of all, I just wanted to clarify a statement I made during public comment. I indicated that the Littleton Report was where you could find information related to public notices, but I want to clarify the primary way to do that is still through the Littleton Independent. We are looking at opportunities to utilize some of those other methods a little bit better, but the Littleton Independent is still the primary source of that. So just to provide clarification there. You heard also that Littleton Boulevard sub area plan, that contract for that consultant is going to council, I believe, next Tuesday for approval. So you should see that on that agenda. And then just Jared wanted me to remind everybody that the next meeting is canceled. That's all I got.

City attorney, city clerk. No report. Any members of the planning commission?

Oh. Yeah. Just real quick. I got some sad news in my email this week that Break Bread will be shutting its doors, I think, in October. They're just gonna serve their last meals on October 25, I think it is.

If you're not familiar with them, they provide a lot of meals to people in sort of the Northern districts, Northeast District of Littleton. They do it in, like, a family style where people come in, and they they eat together. One of the unique things about them is that they would have people just at tables eating together just to get the social aspect of having a meal with someone, as well as the physical nutrients as well. Plus they sent out a ton of to go orders as well. I've delivered a few times. I've helped them cook a few times, things like that. And it's sad that they're shutting their doors after eight years of operation. I think it's kind of a loss for our community.

Thank you for sharing that. It truly is. Sorry to hear that. And, I have particular amounts announcements, so I adjourn this meeting at 08:10PM.