Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

It is 6.30. It is September 9th. This is the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for the City of Englewood. I will call this to order, and can we please get a roll call?

Thank you. First item on the agenda is the approval of minutes from August 18th. I hope everybody got a chance to review the minutes posted in the packet. Any discussion before I get a motion? Additions? Corrections?

Thank you. Next item is another approval. This is the finding of facts from case 20-26-06, text amendments for residential nonconforming uses. Again, I hope you got a chance to review that finding of facts, the summary. This is basically the information by which we would base our decisions, future decisions on that case or on that issue. Any discussion, additions, corrections, amendments?

All right. Is anybody here online signed up for the public forum? No. We will skip that. Is the training presentation something we need to open, or is it just? All right. Then there we go. We are ready for this training presentation.

That was a freshman level intro course in 15 minutes. That was fantastic. Thank you. Questions?

Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I mean, there's a lot of background, you know, what we do and what we talk about and what we decide on a monthly and a weekly basis here. I think it's good for all of us to have sort of this base understanding and knowledge of the implications and also that there's often more than one right answer in these questions and there's often less than one right answer in some of these questions. And I think it's great that we kind of get this opportunity to kind of reset and then and remember what we're doing here and the importance of it. So I appreciate it, Collin.

It says we have a final approval on interpretations of code. Give me an example of what that would look like in practice.

Is the violation in that instance just not having notice of the public meeting? Because it's part of the public record if it's an Englewood email, right?

I have a question about how that might tie with ex parte communication. Say a developer reaches out to one of us prior to a case. They reach out, provide information. Maybe we don't respond. Maybe we do respond. What is the trigger there for recusal? Great. Thank you.

Hey, Jackson, one question on the point before you said for the point of appeal. There's not a second action to that. I mean, how does that follow through?

And if the full electronic copy is just a PDF, or is it like access? It's a PDF. Okay. One pager and the full PDF would be great.

Motions have to be responded to. If nobody's seconding or like, what do we need to be thinking about? You know, when somebody puts a motion.

So I would encourage you all not to. And I just think, you know, at the beginning of the meeting when we approve the minutes, especially when we're making actions that have amendments and things like that, that's why it's important for all of us to review and make sure that it's right and that we agree and that we vote for that. That's what we're stamping it.

Yes. Sometimes it's, yeah, because it's the topic on the table.

All right. Next on the agenda is case 2026-11, data centers. Data centers.

Just how I'd like to structure this is maybe first start out with general questions of staff, general concerns or thoughts about data centers, and then move to maybe input on the individual options.

Yeah, I mean, that's I had a point along those lines as well as really the opportunity cost of this land use. It may be lucrative in terms of, you know, tax revenue, but these don't produce any jobs, they don't produce any services, you know, and we have limited industrial if that were to, you know, where they obviously that's if we did allow them and to some extent, that's where they would go, which, you know, would would be forcing out a lot of other beneficial outcomes from other land uses in those areas. So I would be just curious about that, what those trade-offs would be. And then anothe

I'll come back to you. Yeah. And then I just have one last point that actually I'll wait on. So whoever was first, was it Eric or David? Let's go Eric and we'll come back.

That's interesting. There's an important factor here about the regionality of all the municipalities around us taking a different approach. The industry will find the path of least resistance and the community of least resistance to start doing this development. So that's going to inform my preference here that we can talk about in a minute. But I think we really need to consider not just the effects that they could bring, but what everybody else is doing and how that's going to shift and direct where development is focused. Colin.

To do that, we would have to define what we're temporarily prohibiting, right?

All right. Would it be helpful if we kind of talk through opinions on each of these options? So option one is to just don't do anything. Leave it undefined. I'LL TELL YOU RIGHT OFF, I HAVE HESITANCY FOR THIS BECAUSE IT STILL LIES WITH ONE PERSON, THAT PERSON RIGHT NOW IS BRAD POWERS, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S ALWAYS GOING TO BE THAT PERSON, AND THERE'S JUST ONE PERSON STANDING IN THE WAY OF KIND OF, YOU KNOW, REDEFINING THAT. OTHER THOUGHTS ON OPTION 1, DAVID? NEW SPEAKER AGREED WITH WHAT YOU SAID ON OPTION 1. NEW SPEAKER OKAY. SO LEANING AGAINST OPTION 1. THE ONE THAT WAS ON THE FIRST SLIDE

THAT'S A MORATORIUM. WE'LL GET TO THAT. I THINK ONE OF THE OPTIONS IS JUST SAY NO. I mean, I feel like that does limit our flexibility. This technology and this industry is continually evolving. So I would be leaning against that as well.

The next option would be to define and prohibit in all or some. So I guess this was the define and prohibit, but also adds maybe just to prohibit in some districts.

Let's come back to that, because I mean, honestly, I'm leading to something that I think is a better option. And really, it could be. I mean, really, let's talk about both of these. But define and require a conditional use permit. SO, YEAH, JUST THOUGHTS ON THAT OPTION. HONESTLY, TO ME, THIS IS LIKE THE WAY THE REPORT WAS WRITTEN. IT WAS KIND OF LEANING TOWARDS THIS. AS THE ONES PRESENTED IN THE REPORT, IT SEEMS STAFF WAS KIND OF LEANING THIS WAY. I THINK WE ARE TALKING OR HAVE PUT ON THE TABLE THE OPTION OF A MORATORIUM WHICH WASN'T EXPLICITLY DESCRIBED IN THE REPORT, BUT I THINK OF THE ONES

Define what the use is and then require a conditional use permit for it.

Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think therein lies the challenge with data centers and this technology is it's constantly evolving. And so to put them in one category now where we don't want these impacts to happen, yes, but some of these things we won't know. And maybe instead of using water as an evaporative cooling source, there's some other chemical that's not listed by the EPA that they can use that might prevent all kinds of different things that are unknown about this specific technology. And yes, in the future, there'll be other rapidly evolving technologies. And I think maybe Maybe what

Yeah, I mean, to get to that as sort of the unlisted option here, I think for the reasons I've already touched on, how fast this technology is changing, this technology, this industry doesn't need things to help it speed up. It's so incredibly at a breakneck pace. and changing all the time. And then also the other thing I mentioned was about sort of the regional impacts and what other municipalities are doing and knowing that, you know, if we take a, you know, a certain course of action now that could be seen as the path of least resistance that may bring unwanted consequences as well. So, you

Well, that sounds like a start of a motion. Are we not doing a recommendation from this? This was just study. OK. I saw case number, and I thought we were making a decision. OK. Any other questions from us or input that you would like from us on this?

OK. Do we want to recommend how long moratorium at all, or does that? We're not making a recommendation.

I mean, I think similar to what you had mentioned earlier, a six-month moratorium doesn't really get us anywhere.

HERE'S WHAT I WOULD ADD IS JUST A STRATEGIC LOOK AT WHAT OTHER MUNICIPALITIES AROUND US ARE DOING AND KIND OF TRYING TO LINE UP TIMELINES AND TRIGGERS IN THEIR MORATORIUMS. ERIC.

Yeah, I don't think maybe as a part of this, we don't need a specialist to determine a time period for the moratorium, but I would recommend a parallel process for kind of getting us in a better, so we're not starting from scratch when the moratorium is over. All right. Any other thoughts? All right. Well, thank you very much for the presentation. We will move on to staff's choice.

Thank you. Thanks, Colin. Jackson, attorney's choice.

All right. And commissioner's choice. I always forget which side we do. Last week.

And with that, we adjourn. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it.