Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Guy's coming to say he's saying his farewells. It just like one day didn't show up. Good evening. Welcome to the Planning and Zoning Commission regular meeting for January 21st. Can I have a roll call, please? Chair Humeman, here. Vice Chair Koshel, here. Commissioner Quinn here. Commissioner Ga here. Commissioner Schwarzer here. Commissioner Billstein here and Commissioner Ducharm here. All right, we have corn.

Thank you. I don't see anybody for unscheduled public appearances unless Dwayne wants to talk but she's talking to somebody else. Okay. Uh first item on the is the consent agenda which is the minutes from the December 7th 17th and January 7th meeting as well as the notice of cancellation of the February 4th meeting. Any corrections, changes to the minutes? I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you for catching that. I always do that. Who's got the mic? No mic.

Okay. Thanks. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisibley, justice for all. I think I have to have staff put that in bigger print because I for some reason I spaced that one over time. That's okay. No, I think thank you for correcting me. I appreciate that. Okay, so we have the consent agenda. Any corrections or changes to that or if I have a motion for the consent agenda, please Rick, we don't want to do a motion yet for the Oh, never mind. Sorry. Actually, yeah. Huh? Disregard me. I was thinking our general plan was

Should we start the whole meeting over again? We start with we'll get the roll call, then we'll do the pledge. And then that pledge just threw me off. Yeah, I know. No, we're good. Sorry. Disregard legal counsel. Okay, thanks. Okay, so do we have a motion for the consent agenda? Chair. Yes. Move to approve the consent agenda. Okay, I have a second. Second. Second. Okay, I have a second. All those in favor say I.

I oppos. Any abstensions? Okay, motion carries. Okay, the action item. We have the general plan update. Two weeks ago, um we did get the first public hearing that we had to do um over at the museum. Staff did a great job. Um so tonight, if you want to do a uh update again and then we can move on from there.

All right. Thank you, chair. Good afternoon, commission. I um I'm excited to come before you today. I know I was excited the last meeting, but I really am excited because today we actually do take action. Um and you know, I do have a tailored down version of the last presentation just because if there were any residents that missed our last meeting, we want to ensure that everybody understands what a general plan is and what we're doing. Uh before I get started though, I do also want to start off by thanking everybody who's been a part of this process. Uh the amount of residents that have came out and spent Saturdays through workshops and the amount of input that we've gotten from residents, people who really care about the community they live in. Um the staff that took the time to really vet through to ensure that all of the policies are still relevant. um our consultants, Logan Simpson and subconsultants. You know, they've been great to work with. Um but more specifically, I wanted to thank uh David Deator because David's done like the last he has done the last two general plans and I think he thought he was going to get out of this one, but I'm pretty sure I was in his office at least once a week like maybe crying. So, thank you, David. So, uh, we come before you this evening, uh, with item three, PL210, Chandler general plan update. In this presentation, I'm going to give you an overview of what the general plan is, the process that we took in order to uh, update our general plan, the proposed revisions, and our recommendation. So, what is a general plan? A general plan is a comprehensive set of broad policies that help guide development. Uh the image before you is our future land use map. Uh we've identified four

different land uses within the future land use map. Neighborhoods, uh regional, commercial, employment, and recreational open space. uh it's within the text of our general plan where it talks about how intense uses could occur within our general plan. When we talk about general plans, think of it as the ultimate blueprints for what we want our city to look like at ultimate buildout. Chandler's general plan, it's a strategic plan. Uh and we don't it's not parcel specific. It's very broad. As part of general plans, it's important that we engage with the community to learn their goals to be part of the general plan update. Our current in place general plan was approved in uh 2016 and was ratified by the voters with an approval rating of 85.8% and no amendments have occurred since then. Due to our population exceeding over 50,000 persons, uh, state statute requires that we look at 17 different elements. Uh, a general plan is not just a land use document. We have to take into consideration circulation, open space, public safety, housing, water resources, and a whole list of of items. Um, and so we it was important that we worked with the other departments to ensure that we capture all of their visions for the city as well. It's important that we update our general plans um because the state statute requires that municipalities do it every 10 years. Uh either they could just readopt the current one in place or they can make revisions or completely rewrite it. Uh it's important to note that any resoning that comes before the planning and zoning commission and city council, it must be consistent with our general plan.

Um it's a good healthy check to, you know, um go back and review your general plan because there's new development trends and factors within cities. Uh 10 years ago, we didn't have self-driving cars. Uh there's been a change in how people move throughout the city, where people purchase their goods. Uh so it's important to come back and engage and see what the trends are. Um it's a good check to uh come back and check with the community uh to ensure that our visions and our values are still the same. And ultimately the city of Chandler is approaching buildout. Uh the slide before you shows uh how much vacant land we had at the time of the approval of the 2016. We were at 85% built out. At the start of this general plan update last year, we were at uh 94%. Of that 6% of remaining land, over 70% of it is envisioned for nonresidential uses. So, we really needed to take a consideration of of how we want those parcels to develop. It's important to note that as part of uh our general plan update, we also ran concurrently a comprehensive housing study uh so we could understand uh the need for housing within our community. So our general plan timeline, it really started in October of 2024, but it's been a whirlwind of a year. Uh you know, we started off with meeting with the consultant. We met with uh planning and zoning commission and city council for a joint meeting to discuss what our goals were for this update. Um we started uh reaching out to the community through the first survey. Um and then come uh May, we started our

public outreach. Um we were really tasked with trying to figure out an innovative way to engage with the community versus the standard uh open houses. Uh Logan Simpson had some great ideas. We hosted a series of of panel Chandler talks uh to engage with the community to get the information out. Um and so from there uh the consultant then also started meeting with uh stakeholders. There were 54 one-on-one interviews that were held with community members throughout the community. Um and then it just it went really quick. Um, and so October 1st, uh, we had our our final draft prepared. State statute requires that we, uh, post that for 60 days for the public to review. Um, and then after that, um, we met with our resident advisory committee. Um, they met seven times. Uh, they were a recommending body. they were there to um make recommendations to the consultant and to city staff. So, as we come to the end of our timeline, you know, throughout this whole process, we've engaged with nearly uh 4,500 community members through a series of drop-in events, Chandler talks, questionnaires, um rack meetings. Uh we had a web page dedicated to it. We had social media postings. Uh and then our last uh our last public event was our mobile immersion lab. Uh it was an open house all day where we took all the feedback that we heard throughout this process and Logan Simpson was able to put it into a 2D model and project it onto a 10- foot 180 degree screen uh for for residents to experience what that could look like, what their future could look

like. Uh we had a great uh 200 people attended that event. So, what's changed since the 2016 um the 2016 general plan amendment? Uh we have some minor housekeeping, you know, just the layout of it. You know, we worked with all the different departments to ensure that the uh policies in place were still relevant. Uh we had to update our timelines and um just information within it. But our more significant changes as you know we updated the vision statement in 10 years you know uh we wanted to ensure that we were still guiding development and ensuring that we were creating a community for the residents. Um we did make some changes to our future land use map um and then I'll walk through those changes. So before you is our future land use map. Um, we have our 2016 and our 2026 plan. As you can see, we we didn't add any additional land designations. Uh, we kept the four. Um, and so only a couple of properties changed. There was a property in the downtown area uh that was uh purple. It was for employment, but we changed it to residential to align with the recently approved downtown regional area plan. And then uh along Price Corridor, there were some single family subdivisions that mistakenly had purple put over them. So we cleared those up. We also um reduced the amount of growth areas. We had under the 2016 we had six different growth areas. We removed two of those because we currently have two area plans in place which give further guidance to how those areas are to develop. The downtown regional area plan and the air park area plan which were

both recently approved, revised and approved within the last 5 years. We also changed some of the naming and expanded some of the boundaries to allow for more development within those areas. In the naming conventions, we wanted to align with uh economic developments uh naming conventions for branding. Uh within the text of the general plan under the neighborhood category, uh we increased the what urban residential density was from 18 dwelling units to a minimum of 26. Uh we didn't put a cap on it and under the regional commercial category land designation. Um under the 2016 it did say that there was a compatible mix of residential densities but because regional commercial are generally the areas where people come from outside the city. They're larger commercial hubs. We put some language in there that um urban residential density um could be provided within those areas as long as there was consideration for um uh the capabilities for uh water, sewer, streets, and uh it was a compatible land use with the surrounding land uses. I know at the last meeting uh Commissioner uh Bill Bilstein, you know, had a comment about transportation and we did take a look into it. Um if a development was to come in, you know, the public transportation that occurs within the cities on a fixed route. Uh so we wouldn't be able to require that somebody go get a bus to run through their development in order to get the density. And we need to remember that our um general plan is very high level. Um and so that transportation is just making sure that the roadways uh are

capable to handle the traffic. When checking with our traffic department, they said a majority of the roads within Chandler are fully built out and able to handle most densities. Uh our employment category again 10 years ago, you know, we didn't have distribution facilities. Uh I believe FedEx wasn't even built at that time. Um so we really had to take a look at our employment categories. Um it's important when we were looking at this we always remembered that you know when Chandler pardon me um so in 1979 uh Intel started construction on their first uh property on Chandler Boulevard. At the time our population within Chandler was about 30,000 people. uh fast forward 10 years um the population uh exploded to 90,000 people within a decade. So we always wanted to ensure that you know we're still trying to capture those uh innovated type users. So, we put some language in there that uh we will continue to um we will continue to welcome high techch manufacturing, uh pioneering research and emerging technologies, um advanced manufacturing, knowledgebased industries, advanced business services, next generation software engineering and healthcare services. We work closely with our economic development to craft this language as well as uh we use the uh 2026 council strategic framework for targeted industries within the city. We also added some language about how residential could occur within employment but it points to specifically looking at the growth areas for more defined policies. So for instance, southpric corridor growth area. This has always historically been reserved for

employment and residential has never been considered within our south south price corridor growth area. We did add a policy that um residential could incur uh as long as it was it included true vertical mixed use allowing for employee and residential uses centered on a common design theme. and proving that uh infrastructure was in place to support the the higher densities. Another thing that we took um a significant uh change from our 2016 to our 2026 uh general plan is we added an implementation action plan. Uh state statute requires that you know cities kind of check back and see how they're doing. So, we worked with the different departments to establish their goals for the next 10 years and so we can keep track of how we're doing as well. Um, we did have that 60-day public review period. Um, it was open from October 1st to De December 1st. Uh, we received 88 comments from the public from 19 different uh people. Resulted in 50 revisions. uh minor tweaks. Uh we had some comments made from staff uh which required 33 changes. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh 33 revisions and then six uh revisions from our consultants to update some images within the document.

And Lauren, a lot of those are just wording. A lot of it is just technical kind of stuff more than Okay. uh and that uh through the through the chair uh that list of all of the comments that were made were added uh as an attachment to your memo. I just for the public who doesn't really see that there was just a lot of commas and some other stuff grammar the grammar police so so to speak. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. And there, you know, there was a lot of a couple of comments regarding just uh ensuring some language regarding some bicycles and um food waste and um so we we took those into consideration and modified some of the policies. Half those comments from the public were from one person if I remember correctly.

That is correct. Okay. All right. And so um as I come to the conclusion of my presentation, you know, I I wanted to discuss a little bit more our resident advisory committee. Um they were appointed by the mayor. There were 21 residents within the community that came and met and they were our sounding board. Uh we went before them to meet on a variety of different topics. Uh if I could, I would like to uh invite up the chair of the uh resident advisory committee, chair uh Dunn to make a statement.

Thank you, Lauren. Do I have to make state his name and address for the record? Okay, just check with the city attorney. Don't want to get in trouble here. So, thank you, chairman, commissioners. Do you need my address? 2180 West Marlin Drive in Chandler, Arizona. I came here when the city was 29,000 people. So, I I enjoyed that comment. I I'll just be brief. I'm not going to go through the points, but I really want to brag a few things brag about a few things uh that has occurred through the process that I think will make this general plan probably one of the best in the valley. First of all, your recommendations that you made for the membership of the resident advisory committee. It was a great committee of 21 individuals. Some were short-term residents. Some had been here for a long time. Some were involved in small businesses, large businesses, schools, um the chamber. They gave great comments and they really participated uh in a way that that really impressed me. Um they asked difficult questions. Um they would give direction when necessary to staff and the consultant. Um and they they some you know we sometimes had to change the little direction of where we're going to preserve what we felt was important for the city. But I think all the members understood the aspect of buildout and what that means for the city. And at first you want to get a little depressed about gosh we don't have a lot more land to develop. But I think buildout gives you it gives you the opportunity to do things differently. Gives you the opportunity now to to go out and encourage unique development especially those remaining areas that are that are vacant but also for redevelopment opportunities which we discussed quite a bit. Um, we we just felt that it was important to protect our neighborhoods, to protect those plans that exist outside of the general plan, to really protect our businesses, and to emphasize, continue emphasizing the character of why people choose to live in the city of Chandler. We have

such a unique city. Thanks for your involvement in terms of development and and why people want to be here. And I think we just accepted the fact that we can't have everyone here, but we could have certainly more people here hopefully with more affordable housing, but with doing things a little differently. Um I also want to compliment uh staff and the consultant. Um they did a wonderful job and I um you know I've been involved in the city for 23 years uh behind this d actually three different dasis. I can go back and I was at, you know, I began with the planning and zoning commission. I've I've looked at a few general plans over those years as a councilman and mayor. Never did I see public participation at the level that we did at this time. Um, it was so impressive how staff came up with more and more ideas of making certain people would have input in this plan. um I don't think there was an opportunity that could not involve anyone who wanted to say what they wanted to say about the future of Chandler. So that was very impressive and the consultant did a great job um in directing in directing staff and and I I I can't imagine a better system for a general plan uh in this valley. The bottom line how we felt about the general plan was it works. There was no need to throw out this general plan. It has worked so effectively in the past and allowing the commission and the council to direct those developers to come before us. But we we need to tweet it and that's what we did. And uh and so I I um commend the commend uh their involvement. I don't see anyone here, but are there any committee members here? Okay. but um he chose a great committee and and I think it's an exciting general plan and I thank you for your review and approval of it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Laura,

thank you, Chair Dunn. So, at our final meeting for the resident advisory committee, uh you know, they ultimately had to uh vote on the draft and make a recommendation. So, our meeting was held on December 9th of 2025. Um and we reviewed all of the comments. Uh there were two major comments that came out of that meeting. Um you know we renamed growth area one. We had it uh called Uptown Chandler to align with economic development. But when you look at the screen the circle is the area of the growth area indicated. But in reality, economic development, their boundary of uptown encompassed all the way west to Alma School Road. Um, and so we decided to stay with the the current boundary and rename it to its original naming from the 2016 general plan as North Arizona Avenue. Uh there is language currently within our draft. If any of those underutilized commercial properties along Alma School Road were wanting to develop with a higher density, there's language in place that could allow for that as long as it was a transitional um a transitional um transitional development to existing single family developments that surround it. And then uh we removed any uh text regarding future light rail because that was not discussed during any of our meetings nor with the public and you know in discussions with transportation you know the city does not have the wrership in order to warrant light rail throughout the city. So, and at that meeting, the rack uh uh recommended approval and Chair Humeman did sit on um our rack, our resident advisory committee,

and he did recuse himself from voting uh so he could take part in this evening, this evening's vote. And so with that, you know, my final slide is, you know, staff comes before you with a recommendation to uh recommend that the planning and zoning commission recommend approval of draft PL210, Chandler general plan update entitled Chandler 2026 general plan, evolving the Chandler way. And with that, I open up the floor to any questions. questions for staff. Mr. Bilson.

Thank you, Chair. Uh Lauren, you know, you and staff, thank you so much for everything you did. It's it's really comprehensive and it's exciting to to see all this, exciting for for this general plan. And um just a couple of general questions for some folks who aren't as familiar with the process and you guys had some great engagement, but we have a large city with lots of folks who who may or may not get into the weeds on this sometimes. And I think you had mentioned that in the previous 10 years of the last general plan there had been no amendments. Is that correct? Uh through the chair commissioner Billilstein that is correct.

So if a developer or wants to come in and and has a unique idea or something that maybe again it's a plan it's a framework that years from now is and I I get that we update every 10 years. What is the process to amend the general plan or what does that look like?

Yeah. Uh through the chair uh commissioner Billstein. You know, one of the things that's uh served us very well with our current 2016 general plan and our draft is it's very broad. Um and so there's a lot of workaround to allow for us to um it's not so uh sight specific. Um so it gives us a lot of guidance in order to help guide development. Um, but if somebody did want to, let's say, come in and change a open space, a green a green color to, let's say, employment or residential to yellow or to purple. Um, they have there's one time a year that they're able to file an application. It's in November. Um, and um, they have to meet the timelines and it has to be of a certain size. I believe it's five acres. It gets triggered. Um, we did have one Um, in the last 10 years, we had one that was going to file. Um, but we let them know that we would we couldn't be in support of changing an employment use to residential because it fell within our Chandler Air Park area plan and we had more specific plans in place that called that out for employment type uses.

Perfect. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then I think you you also mentioned which is really interesting about the um I I appreciate you following up with the traffic department about the infrastructure and what does that look like and I guess some of this a little bit more for my curiosity is hearing that almost every street has full capacity and that we are close to 94 or we're at 94% buildout. Um is there a plan for the city to look at those streets that aren't at full capacity and see what would trigger the city to get involved with that or are we waiting for future development to come in and and that would then build out those streets? Um because Chandler's done a great job where you know we do have nice wide roads for the most part but those maybe that limited amount that isn't at buildout. How would we address that?

Uh great question through the chair uh Commissioner Billstein. Uh there's a traffic master plan, transportation master plan that gets looked at every 5 to 10 years. Um and that's the place that they would determine if there's not a level of service being offered or the capacibility the capacibility it's not capable of handling the amount of traffic. Um, you know, that would warrant a widening and possibly taking of properties in order to widen the road. But a majority of the roads that run through our arterials are built built to the full builtout standard.

Lauren, let me jump into the commissioner Billstein. So, in the last bond election, um, that also came up. So, there are the mass transportation master plan. There are a few roads left like Warner Road, more on the north side of Chandler that there are plans to widen some of those roads. They're very very expensive to do. Yeah.

Um so the focus on this last bond election was making sure we repaving roads and things like that, but it is in the plan. Staff looks at that all the time and it's more north Chandler because really when you go south that was all designed uh the former mayors and council did a great job that all those roads are three lanes with bike lanes, turn lanes, all that kind of stuff is there. So uh but North Channel is the challenge because of limited space uh and the expense of doing it. But there are plans I know Warner Road's one of them that we pushed out probably into the 2030s to do. But those are being addressed.

Yeah. Know that's really exciting because you know that's one of the things you hear from folks all the time is traffic and so I think the more planning we do around it is fantastic. This will be my last question I promise. Um because I I do think it's great that we are discussing it, we're talking about it, and I know that uh former mayor Don had mentioned that a focus on part of this was also going to be affordable housing. Can you say what what area where are we focused that attention and um if we're if we're trying to encourage more affordable housing in the Chandler area? Where is that called out?

Yeah, great question. Through the chair, Commissioner Billstein. Um of recent, you know, we just had the the middle housing bill uh come through. Um, and so, you know, within a mile of the downtown center, you know, any property that has a single family home is able to build up to a forplex by right. Um, we're currently in the process of going, uh, creating pre-approved plans for a single family home, a duplex, a triplex, and a forplex, as well as an ADU. So, uh, if a resident wanted to develop a property, they wouldn't have to go and hire an architect. they would just have to pay for that plan and it it takes out the busy work of that so it gets more units into the market quicker. Um and then our housing department, you know, has been working, you know, to redo uh like Villas on McQueen that's, I believe, going to open in about a month. And so they're planning to move residents out of some of the older housing and into that one and then redevelop those properties uh with double the amount of units to allow for more affordable housing. Um, and I know that they've been in in talks with uh some homebuilders to possibly come in and and build some affordable housing within the city.

No, that's perfect. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I I think us as a city looking at that moving forward with the more diversity of housing creates a better diverse community and and and I I love the fact that we've taken so much time to think about that. So, thank you.

Any other comments? I got a few, Lauren. Um, work here. First of all, I want to thank Mayor Dunn for leading the thing, Jack Sellers and everybody else on the rack was it, as the mayor said, it was an amazing group of people that really had great impact. Um, the immersion thing I went to that that was really cool, was different. A lot of AI stuff that was used and so I I thought you guys did a great job on that. Um, one of the comments is this general plan is a general. I think we've done a great job. The fact that in 10 years we didn't have anybody come in for a general plan change was great. Um, another thing I like in this plan that I brought up during the sessions was the water and sewer capabilities. You know, we're we're saying you can possibly put something someplace, but do we have the infrastructure to be able to handle it? Um, which I think is super important. Um, and then the also about there's wording about quality jobs, the type of jobs we're looking for. I think when I was on council, we did a really good job of specifying lots and water usage and things like that. So when people look at the general plan, they understand that Chandler is really looking for that quality job. Um to Mr. Bilstein's point about affordable housing, we're kind of a um our own enemy in a way. We've created so many amazing jobs that people want to live close. They don't want to drive far. And when they're making the money they're making. I remember when Northrup was coming on Price Road and we had some neighbors concerned about their home values. I just kind of chuckled a little bit and like the Northrup guys said our people want to live close. They're making great money. So, we're kind of a our own worst enemy in cert certain things, but we've had great jobs. You know, channel's been successful. So, I just want to thank staff again, everybody. David, and this is his third one. You started when you were seven, seven or eight, I think, when you did. But, um, Lauren, you did a great job. I appreciate all the effort on this thing. And, uh, I think the residents, you we got 85%. We'll have to get our consultant who's doing this. We'll have to challenge them to get up

to 88 or 89. But it was well thought out and the public input was great to the mayor's point. We never had that before that many people. I think you guys did a great job reaching out. So, any other comments from commission? Okay. If not, we'll need a motion on the item. Sure. Excuse me. Sorry. Motion I move to approve uh uh the draft PL250010 Chandler general plan update. Okay. Second. Have a second. Okay. Any further discussion?

Any further anybody in the audience who'd like to talk on this item? So on that. Okay. All vote. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you. Motion carries unanimously. This will go on to council when you guys February what? Yes. So, uh, your recommendation will be on a council agenda on February 5th. Do they have to have two readings also? Just one. Just one. Okay. Um, it's going through a resolution and then, uh, at the city council meeting, they'll be voting on the draft and then also to put the draft on the ballot for the residents. Uh, and we're shooting for the primary ballot

in August. In August. Great. Okay. Cool. All right. Um, any other member comments? Okay. The next planning zoning commission will be held Oh, I'm sorry, Vice Chair. Um, yeah, just to, uh, remind everyone that this Saturday from 10 to 2, we're having airport days out at our amazing airport. So, anyone that can hear this, I hope you'll consider heading out and enjoying some time. They've got some really great um, engaging activities. And then of course you can fly in an airplane if you get on the list and get there soon enough. So I hope everyone will join us out there at the airport this Saturday from 10 to 2.

Those are fun events. So if you haven't, you know, it's a great event to go out to and get to see the airport out there and all the different stuff we have. So if not staff, any comments? City attorney. Okay, with that we are adjourned.