Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Has been noticed in accordance with open meeting law, ARS 38 dash four three one. Agendas are available within twenty four hours of each meeting in the Maricopa County Planning and Development Office and are also available on the planning and development website one week prior to hearing at www.maricopa.gov/planning. The staff reports prepared for each agenda item shall become a part of the permanent record for each case. With respect to hearing process, cases will be considered in the order they appear on the agenda unless otherwise agreed to by the commission. For each case, the applicant will be given a set amount of time to present.

Anyone wishing to speak on a particular case shall fill out a speaker's card for in person attendance or raise your hand within the GoToWebinar. The amount of time allowed for speaking shall be at the discretion of the commission chair. Staff will provide the chair with the names of persons who have registered and noted a desire to comment and those registered participants who have raised their hand. The chair will call on each named participant one at a time. The chair will conduct the hybrid in person and virtual public hearing accordance, according to the bylaws and according to the rules established by the chair regarding public comment. Votes will be done by roll call vote only. The chair will verbally identify the specific members responsible for all motions and seconds.

Okay. I'll start with the roll call. Thank you. Commissioner Dan Zeissen?

Here.

Commissioner Finter? Vice chair Hernandez?

Here.

Commissioner Lawrence?

Here.

Commissioner Layton? Here. Commissioner Lindblom?

Here.

Chair Mulhavn? Commissioner Rockwallak? Here. Commissioner Thoma? Commissioner Whitney? Here. Chairman, we have a quorum.

God, we probably should have done that before I read the announcements. I'm pulling up the agenda on my computer. Give me a minute. I'm a little out of breath. I ran from City Hall, if you couldn't tell. How's everyone's morning going so far? Good. Great. Looks like we have item one on the continuance agenda. Thank you so much.

Perfect. Z2022077. So that's the continuance agenda, Z2022077. On the continuance or on the consent agenda, we have, looks like, three items, Z250032, z two five zero zero three seven, and z two six zero zero zero four. Are there any commissioners online that have any questions about any of the continuance items or excuse me, the the, consent items?

Hearing none, is there a Mister mister chair, yes. For they all remain on consent, those three items. However, with regard to z twenty six zero zero zero four, there's a handout memo today where we are correcting language in condition c, but it remains on consent per that handout.

Are there any questions from the commissioner commission members online? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved, commissioner Lawrence.

Do we have a second?

This is commissioner Layton's second.

We have a motion and a second. Roll call.

Commissioner Dan Zeissen?

Yes.

Vice Chair Hernandez?

Yes.

Commissioner Lawrence? Yes. Commissioner Layton? Yes. Commissioner Lindblom?

Yes.

Acting Chair Rock Wallach? Yes. Commissioner Whitney? Chairman, we have a motion recommending approval of the consent agenda by a vote of seven to zero.

Mister chair, as a point of order, we need the minutes need to be approved. And if there's no questions from the commissioners, you're able to note them as approved by the chair. Are there

any questions on last meeting's minutes? Then they are approved. Next, we will move on to the regular agenda item, item number five. This is the Maricopa County comprehensive plan. Staff, thank you, everyone, for coming down. Congrats on a pass. Staff.

Thank you, chair Wakwawak and commissioners. Adam Cannon, planning and development. We are very pleased to present to you today the framework 2040 Maricopa County comprehensive plan. Before we begin the presentation, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of our staff and our consultant team at Michael Baker International for their work in developing the draft plan and coordinating throughout the process. Today's presentation will cover the current schedule and process, give an overview of the draft plan, review feedback from the sixty day review process, and talk about next steps.

As you know, we're in the final phase of the process. And while we briefed the commission several times on the plan and its development, today, we're asking for the commission's recommendation to the board. The plan reflects input gathered over multiple outreach phases, including engagement with residents, stakeholders, and agencies. That input has been incorporated into the goals and policies and strategies contained in the draft. The plan is composed of nine elements covering various topics related to growth and development.

Eight of these elements are required by state law. Maricopa County also recognizes the importance of economic growth and added a ninth element just for that specific topic. Our outreach campaign was very effective. We held 13 public meetings, including 10 in person meetings, two for each supervisor district and three grand virtual meetings. Our online outreach generated significant responses from stakeholders, including 154 mapping activity responses, 577 IDEA wall posts and comments, and over 2,400 completed surveys.

We also saw over 12,000 visits to the framework 2040 website. Lastly, we held five technical advisory committee meetings composed of various federal, state, county agencies, and groups. The technical advisory committee advised staff on the development of the plan throughout the process. The outreach campaigns produced strong themes that we incorporated throughout the plan, including prosperity for a thriving and flourishing county, stewardship for responsible management of our resources, opportunity for good employment and housing. More specific findings from our outreach efforts included preserving natural and rural areas, water resource considerations, encouraging high quality development or aesthetic development, producing economic opportunities, infrastructure and service availability, and supporting improvements in safety coverage and response times, particularly as it pertains to the sheriff's office.

Also expanding access to recreational lands and opportunities such as trails. This next slide just summarizes the elements we've included with the plan that we've already discussed. The importance of the slide is just to note what we did with the feedback we received, which was to create goals and policies for each of these elements, and then the numbers of goals and policies are listed under each element on this slide. In addition to the goals and policies, we've also developed various strategies or tools to help us evaluate plan amendments and rezoning. The current plan vision 2030 designates most county land and county islands as rural development area.

Recognizing that not all county land islands or land are necessarily rural, we sought to provide a policy to deal with a variety of county islands, particularly the ones occurring in urban areas. This map on your screen classifies the three types of areas we see, including county islands surrounded entirely by municipalities, areas at the rural and urban fringe of development or edge of the urban development, and then rural areas that are outside of urbanized development patterns. So with this in mind, the framework, which is the signature and namesake policy of the plan, was created. The framework recognizes that there are these various areas of the county, some that are under a rural influence and thereby appropriate for rural development, and those that are under an urban or municipal influence and may be appropriate for urban development provided appropriate urban services are available. Applicants, staff, and decision makers will use this tool along with the goals and policies of the plan to determine the appropriateness of amendments or zone changes.

On your screen are the steps or process by which these sites will be evaluated. Using these steps, sites will fall either within a rural service area or an urban service area or within an area plan, which area plans have their own sets of goals, policies, and strategies for evaluation. The framework is an elaboration of our existing urban solutions for urban development strategy. This strategy is a long standing policy for development in unincorporated Maricopa County. The strategy considers what services and infrastructure are needed for urban residential, commercial, and industrial developments.

It also ties into chair Brophy McGee's priority to address rapid growth and infrastructure needs. The comprehensive plan is the first foundational layer to analyze and determine if development's appropriate with analysis of land use, infrastructure, goals, and policies for decision makers on infrastructure readiness. With that said, it's important to note that this chart is not a hard checklist for development approval or denial, but one of the many tools in the plan we will use to evaluate development. Lastly, we'd like to update you on the results of our sixty day review process. Per state statute, we are required to hold a sixty day public comment period on the draft plan prior to moving the draft plan forward to the commission.

This next slide gives an overview of the numbers associated with the comment period. We received 230 public comments on the draft with over 2,300 unique views of the draft plan. Agencies were also notified during this period. We received a 108 comments from agencies, counties, and municipalities. We noted one positive comment from Pima County that the description of the municipal rural framework is well distilled and easy for citizens to understand the importance of land use planning in both settings.

Most common themes we saw in the comments were infrastructure readiness, water concerns, continuation of rural development and lifestyle, and preservation of natural habitats and landscapes. These themes are generally in line with the prior feedback we received throughout the process. We took the comments we received and refined the framework, made adjustments to goals and policies, adjustments to the text and maps along with technical corrections. So that's what brings us today where we're asking for the commission's recommendation of approval with the changes outlined in the memo included in the report attachments. This plan represents nearly two years of robust feedback from the public.

We believe that citizens, agencies, and stakeholders are well represented by the plan and that staff and decision makers have stronger and more helpful policies and strategies to properly manage development over the next ten to twenty years. Following the commission's recommendation, the plan will be presented to the board at the May 20 Board of Supervisors hearing. And with that, I'm available for any questions you may have.

Commissioner's online. Do you have any questions? Hearing none, I have a question. The you said two thirty eight agencies and other entities that you guys have communicated with. Does that include cities and towns in the in the county?

Yes. We're required to notify all municipalities within the county and every surrounding county as well as part as part of state law.

Okay. I know when this came up probably about sixty days ago to our commission, I had some questions related to some of what you considered area municipal areas of municipal influence in the North. And I believe the answer back then was, well, the city of Phoenix or the city of Scottsdale has those in their general plan, and so we are I guess my question is, are we still treating those as county islands, or are we just assuming that one day sometime the municipality is going to annex it in and and work work around it? Well, thank

you, commissioner, for that question. We can't assume that a municipality is necessarily going to a property. The what the framework does is it's basically just pointing out that we have these locations, these county islands that are being influenced by municipal influence or in in an urban area. The framework allows us to classify those better when we're making development decisions here at the county, whether something's appropriate for urban development if they have the appropriate urban services. Darren, did you have something you wanted to add?

Okay. Yeah. I think that's helpful for municipalities. I mean, I could give the example of up north. I mean, the city of Phoenix, while some of that area up north is part of our general plan, our general plan always isn't in alignment with a lot of, other plans our departments have.

Like, for example, we passed a drought contingency plan a year and a half ago, which limits the city of Phoenix for being able to annex new land outside of our water service line, which is smaller than our general plan line. And so I just wanna make sure that, there's not an expectation that just because the city is general planning for it, that there's gonna be some sort of concept that some that that you guys, as the county, aren't anticipating that that's gonna be rural county or sub or urban county.

Go ahead.

Exactly. Chair Aqualic. It is? Primarily, what it's doing is setting up that policy framework to have that discussion. When you're in a municipal influence area, it's primarily to, one of the policies that's setting forth is that we will engage with that municipality on what their influence in that area is to inform the decision on the development request that's in front of us. So it's not necessarily forcing annexation, but it's having that discussion with the municipality on what their future plans are as far as service to the area, development impacts on the area itself. But if you are in one of those municipal influence areas, you're inside of a municipal planning area of one of those jurisdictions.

So when a county when a developer comes on county land that's in an area that you have designated as an area of municipal influence, you will work with the municipality to ensure that said development in the county is compatible?

Yes. If our mind is breaking, we will be contacting that municipality to coordinate comments back to that developer. Sometimes if it's in a rural area of one of those counties and they have no or municipalities and they have no comments, we would relay that back to this commission and to the board. Sometimes they're in areas where they're planning future growth, but the timing of that growth may be off. That's something that would be important to a development decision in front of this commission or to the board. So what the framework is setting up is is the policy that those discussions will happen with all concerned entities as as development of certain intensities come forward.

Okay. That was the extent of my questions. I'll go back to the commissioners online. Do you guys have any additional questions? Hearing none, I will I assume this is for action, so I will go ahead and seek, a motion.

Mister chairman? Yes. It's, Warren Whitney. I would move, approval as presented. And just I'm looking for clarity from the the desk. Do we need to cite the number CPA260002 or just okay. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Whitney, do we have a second?

This is commissioner Layton. I second.

We have a motion and a second on the table. Roll call.

Commissioner Dan Zeissen?

Yes.

Vice chair Hernandez?

Yes.

Commissioner Lawrence?

Yes.

Commissioner Layton? Yes. Commissioner Lindblom?

I just wanna thank staff, for all their hard work on this and producing a great document and great policies, and I vote yes.

And acting Chair Rockwallak?

Yes.

Commissioner Whitney?

Yes.

Chairman, we have a motion recommending approval by a vote of seven to zero.

Perfect. Thank you. That concludes our regular agenda. Does staff have anything else additional?

Mr. Chair, your next meeting is May 7, but the following meeting, May 21, would be a zipper work session, but that is being canceled.

Oh, okay. So May 21 is canceled? Yes, sir. I will delete that off my calendar. Commissioners, is there anything else from you before adjournment? Hearing none, we are adjourned. Thank you.