Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We're going to go ahead and call to order the Longmont Planning and Zoning Commission January 21st, 2026 meeting. Roll call.

Vice Chair Polin. Here. Commissioner Edgley-Wells. Here. Commissioner...

I'm sorry.

Blang. Sorry. I spelled your name wrong on here. Commissioner Boone. Here. Commissioner Saunders. Here. Commissioner Earle. Here. Commissioner Jordan. Here. Council Member Popkin. Here. Chair, you have a quorum.

Thank you very much. Next is the land acknowledgement statement. We acknowledge that Longmont sits on the traditional territory of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute, and other indigenous peoples. We honor the history and the living and spiritual connection that the first people have with this land. It is our commitment to face the injustices that happened when the land was taken and to educate our communities, ourselves, and our children to ensure that these injustices do not happen again. This was adopted by the Long Island City Council July 13th, 2021. Next, communications from Planning and Development Services Director Grant Penland. Good evening chair and members of Commission only to say Happy New Year and glad you're all here Next is public invite to be heard initial This is a chance for the public to have five minutes to talk to us about anything that is not on our calendar for they are coming before us as a quasi judicial item Seeing there's nobody on the list, seeing nobody stepped forward, I'll go ahead and close out. Public invite to be heard. Next item is the 2026 New Year Business. First item on the agenda is election of the chair and vice chair. I will open it up for nominations for the chair. Commissioner Boone.

Thank you. I would like to nominate... current vice chair Poland to be chair.

Thank you. I will accept that. Are there any other nominations?

Commissioner Lang, I'd like to nominate Harrison Earl to be vice chair.

Oh, we do that separate. Oh, but I will, I will keep you for the next. I'll make sure. So any others? If not, Jane, how do you want to do this? Do a roll call?

Do you want a second?

Do we need a second?

I don't know. Do we need a second for this? No.

Roll call.

Commissioner Edgley-Wells?

Yes.

Commissioner Lange?

Aye.

Commissioner Boone? Aye. Vice Chair Polin? Yes. Commissioner Saunders? Yes. Commissioner Earl? Yes. Commissioner Jordan?

Yes.

Congratulations. That passes unanimously 7-0.

Thank you very much. I'm honored. Next is the position for Vice Chair. And we will go with Commissioner Lange.

I'd like to nominate Harrison Earl as vice chair.

Thank you. Do we have any other nominations? Seeing none, Jane, let's go ahead and do another roll call.

Commissioner Edgley-Wells? Yes. Commissioner Lange?

Aye.

Commissioner Boone? Aye. Chair Polin?

Yes.

Commissioner Saunders? Yes. Commissioner Earl?

Yes.

Commissioner Jordan?

Yes.

Congratulations. That passes 7-0.

Very good. Do we need to do the switch? Yes. a chair switch.

We should have asked you on that. Yeah. Record this. Yeah. See you later. Sorry. Uh-oh. I didn't catch it.

It's been real, Jerry.

I know. I don't know how to do left-handed. Oh, now you have to teach him how to do that.

You know, Jerry, you just move this to the other side. You see the direction? Are you left-handed? All right.

Are you left-handed?

I don't know.

Okay, next item is approval of the 2026 meeting schedule. Does anybody have any comments? Any motions? Okay, Vice Chair Earle.

sorry, just real quickly. Um, it came to our attention and we just wanted to bring it in front of the commission that there is spring break the week of March 18th, uh, for St. Rain. So wanted to at least pose that, uh, see if there was one, any conflicts. Um, I believe in the past we have shifted that meeting, uh, just to accommodate one commission schedules, but in general, um, other schedules. So just wanted to float that for consideration if you'd like to discuss.

I have a feeling we're okay since we also have the fourth Wednesday marked as a potential meeting. And since we sometimes float to the fourth anyways, I think we're okay with that. Does anybody have any? I guess, though, does anybody is going to have a conflict on March 18th? Let's go ahead and take note of that. Commissioner Jordan.

Yeah, I definitely will have a conflict. So it would be great if we could avoid that week in particular or an alternate can sit for me.

Fame.

Okay. And we can go over, we'll have a meeting next month. Potentially. Potentially, okay. And it can also be handled with email also. Okay. Okay, we have a motion to approve the 2026 meeting schedule with the note that the third Wednesday in March falls during spring break and we may flex that to the fourth week. I'll second that. Let's go ahead and take a vote.

Commissioner Edgley-Wells? Aye. Commissioner Lange? Aye. Vice Chair Earle?

Yes.

Chair Polin? Yes. Commissioner Saunders? Yes. Commissioner Boone? Yes. Commissioner Jordan? Yes. Chair, that passes unanimously 7-0.

Thank you very much. Next is approval of the 2026 Planning and Zoning Agenda posting locations. Nothing's changed on this. Do we have a motion to approve it? I'll make a motion to approve it. Do we have a second? Second. We have a second. Jane, let's take a vote.

Commissioner Edgley-Wells? Aye. Commissioner Lange? Aye. Vice Chair Earle? Yes. Chair Polin? Yes. Commissioner Saunders? Yes. Commissioner Boone?

Yes.

Commissioner Jordan? Yes. Chair, that passes 7-0.

Thank you very much. Next item is the discussion approval of the 2026 Planning and Zoning Bylaws. With the note of discussion there, is there a particular item that is up for discussion with it?

I don't believe so. Open for discussion if anybody has any proposed changes or, again, just wants to discuss any element. But no, no staff-recommended changes, et cetera.

Okay, thank you very much. Does anybody have any items they would like to discuss of the bylaws? Or does somebody would like to make a motion? Commissioner or Vice Chair Earle?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Really just one quick item for discussion. When we talk about work session formats, at least in the last year, we've also invited alternates to participate in work sessions, which is not something reflected in the bylaws. I don't know if it's something that we might want to adopt in there. Similar to the fact, like, right now, Sorry, this is section nine B. We have the proceedings of the work session saying it's a policy of the chair to allow public input. It could also put in there it's a policy of the chair to allow alternate to participate, but it's at the discretion of the chair. Just wanted to throw that out there.

Does anybody have any comments?

Commissioner Jordan. Thank you, Chair. Just to comment on what you brought up there, Commissioner Earl. I would say, yeah, I think it'd be great to either have them as part of study sessions because I think we have alternates as a feeding mechanism for this board so I wouldn't imagine for a study session we wouldn't want alternates there but discretion is fine I would say that despite the lack of language I think I was still able to attend all of these study sessions as an alternate so I don't know if we have a problem to solve but again we might want to clarify that Commissioner Earl would you like to do you have

something you would like to add then to that do you have it written out or mr chairman i do not have anything written out i mean we can

you know, come up with something pretty quickly. I agree with what Commissioner Jordan said, though. It's not a problem we have right now. It's just codifying our practice that we've done. So it may not be something that's urgent, but it was the only thing that when I read through this, it came up as something that really wasn't written that we've done.

Okay. And since we can make adoptions to the bylaws at any point of the year, would you like to maybe have a month to think about it and see if you can come up with something put in there? And then we can vote on it in a future meeting?

I will write a draft and circulate. But for now then, unless, is there anyone else? I'll move to approve the bylaws as presented.

Okay, we have a motion to approve the bylaws. Do we have a second? Second. We have a second. Let's go ahead and take a vote.

Commissioner Edgley-Wells? Aye. Commissioner Lang? Aye. Vice Chair Earle? Aye. Chair Polin? Yes. Commissioner Saunders? Yes. Commissioner Boone? Yes. Commissioner Jordan? Yes. Chair, that passes unanimously 7-0.

Thank you very much. Next is approval of minutes. We have two to approve and or discuss. The first one is the December 10, 2025 meeting minutes. Are there any notes, any questions, or would somebody like to make a motion? Commissioner Jordan. I motion to approve the December 10 meeting minutes. We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? Second. We have a second. Jane, let's go ahead and take a vote.

Commissioner Edgley-Wells?

Aye.

Commissioner Lange? Aye. Vice Chair Earle? Aye. Chair Polin? Aye. Commissioner Saunders? Yes. Commissioner Boone?

Yes.

Commissioner Jordan? Yes. Chair, that passes unanimously 7-0.

Thank you very much. And the next is approval and our discussion of the December 17, 2025 minutes. Does anybody have any comments, questions, or would like to make a motion?

Commissioner laying I'd move to approve the minutes.

We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? I'll go ahead and second Let's take a vote

Commissioner Edgley-Wells?

Aye.

Commissioner Lange?

Aye.

Vice Chair Earle? Aye. Chair Polin? Yes. Commissioner Saunders? Yes. Commissioner Boone? Yes. Commissioner Jordan? Yes. Chair, that passes unanimously, seven to zero.

Thank you very much. The next is other business, and we have one item, evaluating and improving the Planning and Zoning Commission staff reports. Don Burchette, Planning Manager, presenting.

Good evening, members of the commission, Don Burchette, planning manager. I want to warn you first, I'm feeling that my chronic cough might kick in tonight. So if I start really coughing, know that I'm okay, but I may have to step out of the room. So I can just feel that I might have an attack. So just giving everybody a warning on that. To all of you, welcome aboard. Great to see you all again for this year and excited to walk you through the proposed changes that we are looking at for the Planning and Zoning Commission's packet and the communication. As you all might recall, back in April of last year, we brought forward the current communication, presented that to the commission to try to get, one, educate you on some of the requirements that we have for the items that need to be in our staff reports. but then also talk about ways that we could improve them hopefully, not only for the commission, but even for the public who will pull these down from our websites and review them and try to understand what the decisions are and the steps and processes that are going to happen. And so what we did is we took the information that we gathered from the commission and tried to look at some other communities the way that they were trying to present their information. And tonight in your packet, you have a copy. Attachment one is the existing, the current version that we have been using. But attachment two, which I'll put up here on the screen, is kind of the newly formatted and the new version of this. If I can get this to go actually to a full screen. Let's see if I'm gonna be smart enough to figure that out.

Control L, okay, let's try Control L. Awesome, Control L.

All right, now that we've shared secrets, hopefully you can kinda see what's up on the screen here. And what I'm gonna do tonight is I'm gonna kinda quickly just go through the layout that we're proposing. give you just a little bit of info of maybe why we've done some of the changes that we have, how we think this will address some of your concerns. And then after that, I just want to open it up to the commission to give us feedback. And we can jump back and forth between the pages if that's helpful. But first, let me just give you kind of, again, a quick overview of kind of the way that we've laid it out to try to at least let you know what we thought we heard from you. So to begin with, on the first page that's up on the screen, we have the typical items that the commission would need as well as any of the staff members or the public if they were trying to get additional information about the project. It contains, obviously, the title, the name of the project, the PZR number that the commission will be considering, but it also has the contact for who the staff planner would be and then information related to the parcel and also our project numbers so that if they wanted to look it up in our Acela system online, They could actually use the DV number under the project number to look up the project and see all of the plansets and information that have been looked at throughout the project. Also, before I go any further, this project is completely made up. I don't want anybody calling tomorrow and saying, I saw this on there. This is not real. I just selected a property that was un-annexed out in Boulder County, out by the airport. Great place to put a bunch of residential, I know. But it is made up completely, including the name. I made that up myself. So now I'll continue. The goal, obviously, to help everybody get situated was to provide a vicinity map on the cover within the document so that you didn't have to try to hunt to figure out where this was actually in the community. I think that was one of the things we heard loud and clear is, hey, can you tell us where this is before we start reading through everything? The goal with all of the maps so that you know is that the goal is that the size and the boundaries that are shown on the vicinity map would carry through for all the other maps in the document and that the property will be in the center and highlighted with and identified so that every time you go to that next map, it should be the same size and you know that in the center, that's where that property should be and it should be outlined and identified for you. So when you're looking at the zoning map, the comprehensive plan map, the aerial of the area, you'll have that continuous context to help you stay situated and not be going, okay, this is just, where the heck am I now, right? This is the whole city, not just this area. If for some reason we think that there needs to be greater context, then what we'll try and do is add those as attachments so that the commission can actually look at those separate but still understand where it sits within the community and in those other documents. So that's the thinking of how it would go with the maps. The first project summary, as you can see in the parentheses that we've provided, We're trying to let staff know what they need to insert in the project summary. And again, it's meant to be a brief description of the project that's being requested and the decision that we're asking the planning commission to make so that you have, right off the bat, you understand this is a preliminary plot. It's got so many residential units, so much commercial square footage, what the application is. that we need a decision on that application. And if there were, for example, variances or exceptions, that those would be called out as well so that you know. So that's the first page. After the end there where we talk about the planning commission here at the top, again, the decision that you're gonna be making, we've given you the options and so we have included a staff record of what the staff would be recommending in this section but what we have added which we've never really had in the past is We've always had options listed, but we've never explained really to the public what it means. You know, if you deny this, well, what does that mean, right? I mean, is it just done? Well, no, it actually would then enter an appeal period, seven-day appeal period. where it is appealable up to the city council. And so we're trying to provide a little bit of information for the folks who may be attending that meeting and have some concerns and want to understand the process. And we're hopeful that this will give them some context as well so that they can understand kind of what could be the next step depending on what decision is made at this meeting. So that's the outcomes and the options section. Then unfortunately, the example blocks a little bit, but we have identified a section where we will give you what we're terming available motions. The goal here is what I heard was sometimes the commission may want to make a motion. As an example, let's just say a motion with additional conditions. but you're maybe not certain on how to word it or how to frame it, we would try to give you the bones that you could start your iMove to conditionally approve sheep, mountain, preliminary, plat with the following conditions. Then you could insert your conditions and based on the following justification information, But we would try to give you the bones of that so that the commission has what we hope is a solid motion that's defensible. It's appealed it goes to counsel or if we were to end up in court with a with a project This Still needs to probably be flushed out a little bit with Jeremy just to make sure that he's comfortable with how we're trying to do this but the goal again is to make sure that you're comfortable that you feel like you if if you believe the application beat should be denied and evidence that was presented in your opinion and actually is that's the motion that should be made. We wanna make sure that you have the ability to feel comfortable and confident to be able to make that motion and make sure that you've entered in information into that motion to make sure that there's evidence and justification for the decision that you made. So that's kind of the thinking with the motions and the options that you would have to make. Next, we get into, at the very bottom of the screen, we have the project contacts. So we'll have the applicants team will be on the left, city staff on the right. And so, unfortunately, this kind of split the page. But the goal here is to give you an idea of the folks that should be at the hearing, so that if you have questions for them, you'll know who to ask for. And also just so that you can understand who's on the design team and maybe hear speaking to you from the consultant side and the applicant side. Then we jump again to the zoning map. Again, just understanding context. Okay, what they're proposing. It's on property that it's zoned appropriately. It's surrounded by other property that's zoned the exact same. Gives you kind of an idea of how that sits in the zoning map and the zoning realm. then we would present again, what does it look like on the comprehensive plan? Does it comply? What is proposed across the street? What is proposed down the road? How does it fit in with the overall context of the comp plan? And then the aerial again, just to give you the best, at least most recent image that we have of the area so that from a context standpoint, you can understand what's out in that area if you're not familiar with it. So the next page, project description, this would and should be what I would say a, More of like a narrative of the project a little bit more description than was in the front cover may give a little bit more background on some of the other things that have happened with the application. Trying to think of some of the other things that might be in this, but. Really, it probably will be a little bit more robust than what was on the original on the cover sheet for you. It's truly meant to describe the project in a little bit more detail and help you guys understand overall the whole project and give you some information that if you need clarification or have questions on that you could ask. Next section then is the general information. This is typical of what we provide in our current cover sheet for the communication. One of the questions that I have is whether or not the Planning Commission believes that this analysis that we used to do for the land uses and the zoning, if you have the maps, and the comp plan, the zoning maps, do you still want us to fill that chart out and provide that information? And if so, we can do that. But if you feel like that might be redundant, we're also willing to take that out. But I just wanted to point out that from our standpoint, we wanted to for sure hear what you thought of that information being provided. Below, we were looking at and gonna give you a summary of kind of context as to the comprehensive plan designations not only on the property but adjacent. So for example, the property may have on it a Greenway designation. So the property should be showing that they're going to donate through the development process a Greenway to the city. But you may also want to make sure that you understand that there's collector street that goes through this property. You may need to know that there's an arterial street that's gonna be widened to five lanes on the south side of this property, that it's within the airport influence zone area. Trying to think of some other things that we might see on the comp plan that would be applicable, but that is where we would talk about aspects that could impact this property specific So that as you're reviewing the project and looking at it, you may go, well, wait, Don said that there's supposed to be a greenway through here, but I'm not seeing it represented anywhere. Where is that at? So that we can have that discussion. And it might be that it's an outlaw that is designated, but it should have a designation on it that it's being dedicated to the city as a greenway. So that might need to be a condition of approval. So trying to give you that information so that you can look at and confirm that it is in compliance with Envision Longmont and the comprehensive plan. Also below this in number five here, what we would be looking at is trying to again provide you information from the comp plan related to the land use designation and the applicable sections related to that. I think it is important to understand the descriptions of those land uses and what the intent of those were when Envision was adopted so that you understand kind of How does this fit into the overall goal of the city of how the city is supposed to develop? Are they actually incorporating what was talked about? Does it truly comply with the designation on the comp plan so that you have that information? The next page, which I jumped to on, there we go. Section six is the neighborhood notification and posting. This is, again, one of those where we get questions from the public sometimes where the commissioner will have to make a determination of whether or not we gave adequate notice, whether we followed our own rules. You've had to do this a few times. Almost every year comes up a few times, and you have to make that decision. We're going to keep the chart, obviously, where we state the dates that we've posted, the dates that we've done our mailings. We're going to make sure that we also fill in the blank as to how far we did. So if the code says that it's supposed to be 1,000 feet, then we'll note that. If we made a decision, which the code allows, that we actually went beyond 1,000, and included the entire neighborhood, for example, maybe a complete subdivision that was created to not leave people out. If we also made the decision to notify renters within the area versus just the property owners, we may also put that in there for you too to have context as to what we did to make sure that notice was received based on how that neighborhood actually is laid out and where those lines either include or exclude people based on that dimension that the code requires us to do. So we want to provide that. Under the neighborhood comment section, We want to make sure, one, we're going to include a link to any neighborhood meetings to the YouTube because we record those. So that way you can go and click on that and watch that if you want to. But we're also going to try and give you a summary, not only of the meeting, but of the comments that we've gotten during the review process. So if we've had people who've written us emails, we're going to attach those emails. So if you want to look through them, and sometimes we have hundreds, I think you've all seen those. But we also just want to try to summarize for you too, traffic concerns, impacts on the schools. Drainage. You know, name, go through the litany of the list, right? But we will put those in there so that you have an idea of kind of what the flavor is. What are people asking about? So that you can also review and look at it and go, okay, well, they're asking about schools. Is the referral here from the school district? What'd the school district say? So that you can kind of understand that. If there's questions about traffic, you can go look back at the staff and go, well, Caroline's gonna be here. I'm gonna ask her some questions about how does this traffic study, does it meet city standards? Is this within the parameters of what is allowed under our rules? but it'll help you hopefully understand context and be able to have questions and things like that that might address some of the concerns of the citizens and residents. Let's see. The next section is an attempt where through our DRC process over the years, I don't know that we have truly given the commission or the public a good understanding of the number of reviews and the number of people that look at these projects. And I think you see it as we bring them down. But it's not evident if you just looked at the staff report. Usually it says the application was turned in December of 2022. City did three reviews on it. They made changes. There was concern about drainage. They made changes. Now it meets it. It's okay. The goal here is that what we're going to do is we're gonna ask that the departments give us basically what we're thinking of is kind of three almost examples of ways to give you an idea of what happened. So for example, let's say that we're looking at the environmental sustainability down here at the bottom. Zach's comment may be that the applicant submitted all required environmental and sustainability plans for review. Staff reviewed them and found them in conformance with the city standards. It may be that when he reviews it, that he finds out that their consultant is recommending three conditions. You must do a nesting bird study if you start development between these time periods. There is an eagle's nest within a quarter mile and it must be determined by the Division of Wildlife that there's a no impact to that bird or that nest. There might be another one that there's prairie dogs, and before you can begin, you've got to go through the city's prairie dog process. So Zach's comments there would be, the applicant submitted the required plans, city staff reviewed, and is recommending the following conditions. One, prior to construction, nesting bird study must be done if development starts between these months. Two, The Division of Wildlife must determine whether or not the eagle's nest that's within a quarter mile of the property needs to go through any additional review process. Three, any of the prairie dogs that are on the property have to be relocated because maybe of the size or that they have to pull a minor permit to exterminate them before the development can start. But that way you can understand what's in that report and be able to then ask Zach and say, well, Zach, why do we have to send this to the division? Or when's that going to happen? Or what did they say? You know, I've been over there. I know the Eagles used to be over there. What's going on? But you would at least understand what's in those reports and what he looked at and what he's recommending. And then those conditions should also be then in the recommendation from staff. But we would do that for all of the departments that review to give you an idea of whether or not there's any conditions or unique situations related to this development for you to understand that and be able to ask questions about it if you want to get more clarification. So that's the goal of that section. The next section that we have up there then is the review criteria analysis. This is really our standard that you've seen as an ad nauseum for a long time. This is where staff goes through. We give you the review criteria that's required to be met in order to approve the project. and staff gives you our analysis based on the information that was submitted as to whether or not we believe it meets that standard. And so that's where the commission can agree. The commission may determine that a condition is required in order to meet those. individual criteria or that it doesn't meet it and based on the information and stuff that was presented at the meeting that it may need to be recommended as for denied or recommended for denial if it's something that continues up to the City Council, but you would be able then to point to those criteria and say, these are the criteria I don't believe were met by that. So again, but that'll contain staff's analysis based on the application itself. And then we get to the very end here. Again, we have the staff recommendation, which again is a repeat by the commission's options section. And then any conditions of approval would be listed here for the commission to look at. We'll again carry over any that came from those various departments so that you can understand again who made the request that those be a condition so that if you want to follow up with them at the hearing to understand why a condition is being made because maybe the applicant is claiming that they feel that's a little bit of an overreach, that it's not necessary, it's not required, you could at least ask the person and understand who put that in there. And then finally is the attachment section where we'll continue to include all of the attachments for you to be able to take a look at and dive deeper if you choose. So with that, that's kind of the end of the overview. And Chairman Polin, I am here for any questions from everybody and here to get any feedback that you may have.

Okay, thank you very much. We'll go ahead and open up for the commission if anybody has any questions, any comments.

Vice Chair Earle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Don, thank you. This was really helpful. We can tell the work that you and the staff have done. I'm overall really impressed with this. I think it makes a lot of sense. I like just the format and the fact it's easy to tell which sections you're in because of the use of color and everything else. I have three minor comments for you. On the motions area, where you have kind of the approve, approve with conditions, deny, or whatever it would be, I think it would be helpful there to tie it to whatever the PZRs are. So if approve is the motion, then that ties to PZR 1A or whatever it happens to be, I think would be helpful. On your land use and zoning table, I would highly encourage you to include that still, even though you have the map. On a personal note, as someone who is color blind, it's much more helpful to me because the map is sometimes difficult to tell the colors. I also think it's just an accessibility thing broadly. So if you're using a screen reader or something, it's easier to view the table. So I find that incredibly helpful. And then the last one, and I'm really gonna try not to call anything out because this is a fake project. There are acronyms kind of throughout that are never defined. I assume that's just because this is fake, but I would just reiterate that at least the first time it's used, it would be helpful to be defined.

Most definitely, yeah.

No, but overall, I think this is really a big improvement and commend you and the staff for the work you've done on it.

Great, thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Saunders.

Thank you, Chair. I would also like to agree with all of Commissioner Earle's comments. And I want to thank you and staff for putting time and effort into this. Was this fun for you? Because this seems like this was fun for you guys. And I really appreciate seeing it from your perspective. and how you kind of chunk these issues together. And so for me, I do like the banding at the top. I think that helps to sort of chunk them together. Yes, for the images to all be the same throughout. Thank you so much. I agree with Commissioner Earl, too, about the table with leaving that in. I'm glad that he's bringing up the accessibility for being colorblind because that can be very challenging. I don't know if the headers matter to those folks or not. But I like having the headers and the numbers with them so that we can share where we're looking at with the rest of the group. Yeah, I really think this was a home run. I really like the way that it's a little bit more streamlined. And I appreciate seeing, I think the big takeaway for me, the section seven, the review committee analysis. I really do like hearing from the different work groups and what their perspective is, right? Because they're the experts and you see this all day long, right? And so you're seeing those things very quickly and that helps me understand the project because there is a lot of work that goes into these projects and seeing what folks have found. Also with the neighborhood comments, I love that you're putting in that link so that we can just go straight to it instead of trying to figure out where it was or maybe it was in a different place or whatever we're supposed to be referencing. Yeah, I agree. I think this was really great. I hope you guys had fun with this. I think that it helps all of us communicate better because it's a lot of information. So, yeah, I'm high-fiving. I'm excited to try it out and see how it works.

We always have fun. We love coming to work. You know, that's what I hear about P&D.

We do.

No, we actually, this is all fun.

I'm so glad.

It was actually, again, trying to think about it, not just... doing it because you have to fill in sections, but thinking really about ways to make it more accessible for especially the citizens. As a new person, when you first come on and you're sitting there and you're trying to learn this, and then you think about someone who their whole investment, their home probably is being impacted by this development, but they don't really understand the process and if they haven't reached out to us, They have no real way to understand it. So hopefully this gives them some additional information that they can look at and then be able to understand the process better too. So that's the goal. Make it better for everybody.

I appreciate that because it does. It's right up front of what are the options. Okay, here are the four or five options, and this is what's going to happen. And that code being up right at the top, right in front and center, I think that's also very helpful for utilizing the maps online. So, yeah, high five. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Commissioner Jordan. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Don. I think this is looking great. Thank you. It works really well for my brain where I want to have a good place to pick out all the key pieces. I love the neighborhood's communication summary. That's fantastic. And I agree with my fellow commissioners so far. So I'll skip over any of those. I crossed a few things out because they covered them. On the maps and the pictures, I would just say, hey, It's going to probably depend on the project, honestly, but if the Zoom level isn't standardized across the board, but maybe just within a presentation, because I know sometimes we really want to get in close, especially with the satellite imagery and things like that. It's probably going to depend, but I would say at your discretion, whatever you feel like is most useful across the board. The big thing for me that I've seen in previous presentations has been always include a legend. For the colorblind folks, where possible, and I know sometimes we're using GIS products that we might not be able to change the shading or whatever, but for any maps that are constructed by your staff, it would be fantastic if we could use things that are either using colorblind friendly color schemes or perhaps just like hatching and things like that. But as long as the legend is there, that's the critical piece. for me. You may have already mentioned it, so I apologize if I missed this, but there was a couple of projects that came through recently where there were additional constraints that were either self-imposed or that the applicant worked with the city to agree on that would not be uh, they're, they're specific to that project. It'd be great if there was a, Hey, I can go and see if there's any of those weird, like things that are not really typical, but kind of unique to this one. I think that there was a section that you had mentioned that was like, you know, weird stuff that's specific to this one. Like you mentioned, like if it's an airport use area, Maybe that section could be used for anything like, I'm thinking about the recent one in Bond Farms with the fee simple imposement that was done. I don't know if that was self-imposed or if that was agreed to by the city, but it'd be nice to call out that in a common area of any special considerations. The last note I had was, I've seen a lot of, especially when there's a lot of neighborhood involvement, And I just saw watch that neighborhood meeting on, I think at champion greens. One thing that that one bond farms and quail all seem to have in common was a lot of questions from the neighborhood about, and the commission of how this is going to connect sidewalks roads. And it'd be great to have more attachments, photos or aerial images. That way we're not like, you know, We don't have to bring out the gavel and tell them to stop yelling at us about the sidewalk that is or isn't there. We can just see it on the imagery.

But that was- So would that be helpful if in kind of that map section,

And I mean, like some, some of the projects that come through here, I don't think it would be, you know, applicable, but I know like when we're talking about like annexing those islands and it's like these projects that are going to kind of glom onto or integrate with an existing neighborhood, that seems to be a really big conversational point or a concern point with the public about, you know, what kind of, are they going to drive through my neighborhood? Is the sidewalk going to connect that kind of thing? And it'd be great to see some street view images or more zoomed in kind of thing of saying, okay, here's what this looks like today.

So normally we, in almost all projects, we should have some type of a multimodal transportation plan, a document that shows onsite as well as connection to the adjacent neighborhood. What if we had an optional window for the multimodal transportation plan that If the staff feels like, yeah, this is really important, we could actually insert it into the staff report versus just referencing it as an attachment.

I think that would be helpful for me where we feel it's going to be applicable. I think we've certainly seen some projects come through where it's not really been a point of contention as much. Yeah. For those areas where we have one of those islands that we're developing that's surrounded by developed neighborhoods, I think that would be really relevant.

Yeah. I think along the lines of what you just said too, it was talked about with neighborhood meeting. We're probably going to get comments related to traffic and impacts on the neighborhoods. That, to me, lends itself to say we should show how this all works in context to the existing neighborhood, so let's put that plan in there. Yep. Okay.

All right.

Yeah, I know. I think that's actually one that I didn't even think of that's a great idea, so thank you.

All right. Thank you, John.

Commissioner Edgley-Wells.

Thank you, Chair. So my comment is related to comparing Attachment 1, the current example, with the updated example provided. I agree with Commissioner Saunders. The DRC analysis is extremely important. I did notice in my review Attachment 1, it seemed as though the review criteria analysis, which to my understanding is... the meat and potatoes of what we're looking at application um about is on the first half of the current um document whereas on the second uh review provided it's more towards the bottom and so i was thinking maybe switching section 8 and section 7 and keeping DRC analysis but moving the criteria closer to the top half of the of the document would be helpful just for me as a new person understanding that you know the criteria is also extremely important but also wanting still that DRC analysis.

OK. And we can definitely do that. As long as if everybody's good with that, I got no problem with changing it. So we can fix that.

All set? Yes. OK. Council Rep Popkin.

Thank you, Chair. First, I want to commend the applicant for such a thoughtful presentation. I want to commend the Commission for its thoughtful engagement on this, whether you've engaged with this for many years or seen staff reports for many years or in Commissioner Angeli Welles' case for the first time. I appreciate the feedback. I think those are some really constructive suggestions. Some of these changes might have reduced some of the questions that I might have asked you guys when I was on the commission. So I appreciate this. I think this is all moving in a really productive direction. I had one almost procedural question here, but it relates to the chart on page one when you were, I think it was page one. when you were offering like the example, like options basically, or I guess it's page two. Yes. So you have the chart on available motions and this is almost substantive, but I'm just wondering is the desired motion, maybe Jeremy looking at you a little bit here, is the desired motion if there was going to be a tabling or a continuation, Is it a motion to continue the hearing to a specific date or is it a motion to table? If you're providing the guidance on the available motions, let's just get it right now so we don't deal with that later on. What will give you the least heartburn, Jeremy?

Good afternoon, members of the commission. Jeremy Terrell, assistant city attorney. Council member Popkin. I'd prefer to have it as a move to continue the hearing. The term table always gives me heartburn.

Okay.

Because the table, in my mind, means indefinite, and that effectively is a denial. So I really try to frown upon motions to table indefinitely, and instead we prefer a motion to continue the hearing to a date certain or the first available hearing in the month of August or something like that, if we don't have a date certain necessarily.

Sure. Okay. So you do like the language move to continue the hearing there? I do. Great. Okay. I think that was the main clarification that I had. Otherwise, I appreciate the suggestions from the rest of the commission.

Thanks. Commissioner Lane. Along those lines, one of the available motions, Don, you'd mentioned that would help kind of provide a framework, that text there. Do you guys want that somewhat verbatim that you'd say, I moved to approve the conditions of the Sheep Mountain subdivision preliminary plan, overall development plan based on the findings of this, like read the whole thing out or, I mean, and then I think before we had like, it was a, A, B, and C, wasn't it? So are we going to get rid of that? Are we done with the A, B, and C?

You can still have A, B, and C, and we'll actually, based on the comments we got, add A, B, and C for the PZRs down the sides for you so you would know what PZR it is. Okay. Okay. But the way that I've tried to write these is trying to provide... enough information that when and if these get either appealed to city council or hopefully not, but if they go to a court, that there's enough description on why you made the decision that you did within the motion. based on the information presented at the hearing, based on the finding that criteria 2A was not met. But being specific in that wording, if you choose to use other wording, that's fine. I'm trying to give you kind of what I see as a script. And if you decide to go off it, you know what, we're going to be okay. But I at least want you to understand there are some things that will help in explaining to either the counsel or to a court why you made the decision you did. And sometimes those words being included matter.

So, really, you're talking about the option of denying because that's the one that's going to… Even the conditions, potentially.

If an applicant doesn't agree with a restriction on they've got to be for sale, right? If your condition is that you don't believe that they're compatible, the only way it's compatible is by the adjacent properties. The ones that are adjacent must be two-story, right? I mean… That could be another reason for someone to explain it. And so you're trying to provide compatibility with the neighborhood is why we did this condition and so on. You're trying to make sure that the record is clear when somebody reviews it, that they can understand why you put that condition on there and not them looking at it going, okay, nobody ever mentioned anything in all their discussion back and forth with commission about any concern dealing with height and then all of a sudden we've got a condition here. But if you state within the motion, I move to restrict it based on criteria two, compatibility with the neighborhood, that helps us explain it to either the city council or in court.

But in my limited experience, I feel like once a motion's made, then there's discussion, right? Before there's an actual vote on it. So that gets captured. by Jane in the minutes, so that could also be part of the written document. It is.

Yeah. Yeah. It is. And it can be reviewed. But what I'm getting at is that you can agree now. You don't have to add additional information as to why you're putting the condition, because it's already in the motion. I agree with the motion. I believe that criteria 2A was not met. Okay. That's why I'm supporting this motion. I don't need to explain that, you know, we heard from 30 people and their concerns were all related to height, then that's why we're doing this. You can. Right. But you may say, look, I feel that the way the motion was made, it captured the reason why we're putting that condition in there, and I agree with it.

And another thing I've noticed is sometimes people will say, prior to even making a motion, they'll say, for reasons A, B, and C, I just can't support this motion. And then that kind of tips their hand to say, oh, they're a no.

And you could still, during your discussion, obviously, you can say what you want to say. But if that person then is going to make the motion to deny, I move to deny making a finding that this, this, and this, which are required under these criteria, have not been met. And I believe that it was shown when the neighbors talked about compatibility and when the traffic study showed that it's going to fail and that whatever justification, that can be a part of the motion.

Okay. Okay.

Again, we're going to do our best to try to give you kind of the skeleton that you can then try to put in. Okay. Okay. Okay. Peace is on. Thanks.

Commissioner Boone.

Thank you, Chair. I agree with everything that's been said here. So I'm just going to add one thing and thank you very much. This is a lot of work and you guys did a great job. I think the piece for me that's going to be the most helpful is Again, it's a table. The table that has all the different departments and their two-sentence... Yes, this one. Take on the project. And I think what we're going to find is that if we have this in front of us, there's going to be a lot less calling them down from the back and asking specific questions because... we know what they've already looked at. And this is a piece of information that we've never had before. And I think it's really good. And I think it's going to save time at our meetings.

Great.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

Okay, Don. Commissioner Saunders gave you a home run. I'm going to give you a grand slam. This is really good. The planning commission options, I love that layout right there. The project contacts, really big for me. You don't have to remember them. You don't have to write them down as they're saying their names and try to scribble it real quick. That's great. I love the maps, the way it's set up with the three maps right now. I do would like more like maybe Zoom depending on the project, but I think that would be better off in an attachment. Overall, I like the format. It is somehow you were provided more information, but made it more concise. This is just really what I would love to see. The project description, and I do agree to keep the surrounding property land uses and zoning. I love that. And just the other, the way it's laid out, this is really good. You guys did an awesome job on this.

Thank you. Thanks. We appreciate it.

So I really love it. I like the comments we've had from the commissioners. Anybody else have any other further comments, questions? If not, Don, thank you very much for that presentation.

Thank you. Our goal would be, I really appreciate it. The goal would be then, we don't think there, oh, sorry, I'm going to steal all your thunder. We don't believe there's anything for February. Our goal then would be that the March would be the first rollout of this. The only thing that I would want you to think about and that I think we need to think a little bit about internally When you act as board of adjustment by yourself, right, just for variances, we don't make recommendations for you and we only summarize. So that would still stay the same. But if you think there's things that are included in the PZ communication that may help you, in rendering those decisions, if you can just let us know, you know, even in the comments from the commission after a meeting of, you know, it really would have been helpful if we could have had the three maps that we've got in the PZ things, you know, to make that decision or something else. Let us know and we'll modify that one too. But this was truly for the development applications that come before the commission. But just know, that we're intending to get this on the next ones for March. So thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. Next item is, oh, Commissioner Edgley-Wells.

Thank you, Chair. And scanning through from the beginning to the end of attachment two, I noticed that it goes from review criteria analysis eight to staff recommendations 10.

We can fix that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, thank you. We will now go ahead and move to final call invited to be heard for the public. There's nobody on the list. Nobody's walking forward from the audience, so I'll go ahead and close out. Final call public invited to be heard. Next is items from the commission, and I would like to take this time to welcome Commissioner Jordan and Commissioner Edgley-Wells. You survived your first meeting. I cannot promise you that they will all be this quick and this easy, but welcome aboard. Great to see you here. Any other items from the commission? Seeing none, we'll go items from Council Representative Popkin.

Thank you, Chair, and congratulations on your, I guess, re-election as chair with a little bit of a bye week. Yeah. Yeah. I just had to, let's see, two items, I think. I just wanted to note, procedurally, I think last time in December when we were talking about the liaison assignments, I was sharing a couple of the other boards and commissions that I'll also be serving on regionally. One of those, as I found out, is I'll be the alternate for Dr. Cogg, the Denver Regional Council of Governments, when the mayor can't make it. Those are also concurrently on the third Wednesday night of a month. So there's a chance sometimes I won't be here because I will be at that. My understanding is those are not always simpatico in terms of schedule there. So if I am not here, don't take it personally. I'll do my best to be here as much as I can because I enjoy these discussions. The other thing I wanted to share, there are multiple, Actually, let me ask you a question. Grant, did PNZ get briefed on any of the major transportation projects that are happening, like that are planned to happen this year, like in the latter half of 2025?

Not to my knowledge.

It wasn't required. I was just curious if that came up in any of the discussions. Just for the commission's awareness, there are multiple fairly substantial funded projects for road improvements or transit improvements that are coming this year or starting this year. As I said, they won't all necessarily be coming this year, but they'll be starting up this year. One of the biggest ones is the 119 Hover intersection improvements, which if you're not familiar, there'll be a southbound overpass going towards Boulder that will be built. That construction, I believe, will start in April of this year. And according to CDOT, from December, it's due to finish in December 27. That is part of, but not only, the kind of whole 119 corridor improvements that you're seeing for the bus rapid transit lanes and the bike highway. The bike highway, by the way, is scheduled to be open by September of this year, in case you were curious. So just wanted to let you all know that that's going to be a major thing happening. I know PNZ does get questions about traffic and transportation flows very often. Another one that I think is on the docket this year will be the at-grade crossing on Boston going towards, like from South Pratt going towards Left Hand Brewery, hitting that price intersection, that Boston price intersection with like a half stop sign situation. That will also be in the works, I believe, this year. Grant, do you know timeline on that? I don't. I don't. No. So just as you start thinking about some of the projects that are on the horizon and development applications that come through, understanding some of the other regional transportation flows that might be happening, or maybe the public consciousness of some construction traffic that might also be felt. Just figured I'd bring that to your attention ahead of time now. And just as a general PSA, tell your friends and neighbors the speed cameras that are on 119 are now active and not just issuing warnings, they are issuing tickets. If you have not had the pleasure of personally experiencing one yet, hopefully you don't, but let people know that they're active. That's not the city of Longmont, that's just a general PSA. And I believe that's if you go above 11 miles per hour above the speed limit or more.

You'll get...

It's like, it's 10 plus, but yeah. Anyway, I think that's all.

Thank you very much, and welcome back, Council Rep Popkin, though it's in a different role, but welcome back. Next is items from Planning Director Greg Penland.

i will be brief as don already indicated um i'd note unlikely but not impossible uh we may have something for february i'll probably find out in the next week or so but we do have at least a half a dozen in queue so you won't be bored to come this spring so more to come thank you very much and we are in adjournment