Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Seven. One on my friend is on there. All right, everybody. It is 6.30. It is July 21st. This is the meeting of the Englewood Planning and Zoning Commission. I would like to call us to order. Can we get a roll call vote for attendance?

Present. Thank you, Nancy. First item on the agenda is the approval of minutes from the July 7th meeting. Those are available. on the meeting page. Hopefully everybody got a chance to review those. Even if you were not here, if you got a chance to review the minutes, you can vote for approval. Did anybody have any additions, corrections, or amendments to the minutes from July 7th?

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to include those in the minutes of the meeting since it wasn't actually presented.

Again, I don't think it's appropriate for it to be an omission to be recorded in the minutes We can send a separate communication a separate action by this Commission to notify City Council that we did not consider those minutes. They were made publicly available to all members prior to

No, I think it would be most appropriate to bring that up in the Commissioner's Choice section of this agenda, and then we can discuss it there and talk about a separate communication.

No, we can put it on the record. It's just not in the meeting minutes from the last meeting. It would be in this meeting's Commissioner's Choice.

That would be my advice. Thank you. Did you catch that, Brenda? He concurred that that would be the most appropriate section to have that discussion and discuss amongst us if we want to make a separate communication.

OK. Any other additions, corrections? or discussion on minutes from July 7.

Alright, while we're changing signs, can we get a motion for approval of the minutes? So moved. Thanks, Michelle.

Sorry, Carl, I'll give you a quick recap. We're just voting on approval of the minutes from the July 7th meeting.

Thank you. We're going to move on to public forum. It's an opportunity for the public to address this body on any issue that is not on the agenda. If it's on the agenda, we'll have an opportunity to speak then. Is anybody in the room or online that would like to address? No. All right. No public forum. We're going to move on to the study session. We don't vote to open this right now. We don't vote to open a study. No, no. OK. Thanks for the reminder. Yeah. So I'll hand it over to staff. Thanks, guys.

Can you just give us maybe a short history of, you know, we were talking about strategic plan about a year ago, kind of got put on the back burner, and then now we've got to get these things in place before the end of the year. Can you just kind of give us timeline and what brought us to this point? Is it just the December 31st deadline that's really re-engaging us now? Are there other motivations? Yeah, just give us a little background on that.

And we can just attach these two elements to the current plan while we complete sort of the refresh of the rest of the plan. Eric?

Carl. So does this have any restrictions on what Inglewood can sell water to other cities? Like we've sold the Highlands Ranch, Aurora, Denver. Is that going to continue that we can do that? I'm not really sure.

Actually, the forefathers couldn't see into the future of right now. Right now, the water is a serious issue. The whole state. And we're pulling water out of Chatfield, which is 59% full. And we're also pulling water out of the Denver Aquafo, which is going down 2 to 10 feet a year. So our water sources are drying up. And Denver is pulling water out of Dillon, which is 77% full. So everybody's having problems. So there's five years. What does it take to do it in three years? I mean, if things change drastically, we need to change it.

It seems like I remember a requirement that developers, if they wanted to develop in an area, and for them to do that, the water, sewer, or storm drain, if it's not adequate, they have to make it adequate.

If they have to replace the water main clear back to the water plant, they're not going to do it. I mean, they'll find some way to get out of it, or they'll move on. One of the two.

I mean, I would just like to add, and I'm sure we can talk about this more, but for a fairly sophisticated definition of underutilized properties, not just density, not just vacancy, but like you mentioned, community benefit, maximizing use of available infrastructure that's already in the area. And yes, we could just put a blanket, like a default list of car dealerships can be defined as underutilized property. So yeah, again, a lot of work to be done there. my personal perspective is to advocate for really a nuanced and comprehensive definition of an underutilized property. Michelle.

Don't disagree, but you know, the market doesn't always want affordable housing, but we do, you know, so that's just, yeah, we're just defaulting to market pressures. Anybody else?

Oh, sorry. Brenda, I haven't seen your face pop up on screen. Is there any questions or comments you would like to add to the discussion?

Carl. On the cars, if the buyer is an Englewood resident, then we get the taxes on a sales tax. If they're not driven in Englewood, then we don't get the gas sales tax, but I'd just as soon have them sit in the driveway anyway, as we got too many cars on the street. But what I was concerned about is if we don't have regulations on our water for development, they may or they may It may be a big target. Englewood could be a bullseye of a target. Englewood's got a lot of water. Let's go in there and we'll build an apartment in there. And there's plenty of water there. We don't have to worry about

So I guess it depends on for what purpose you're asking the question. It depends on what definition you get of affordable.

For CHFA and HUD, we're grouped into the Denver Metropolitan Statistical Area. So it's just Denver AMIs were included in that.

And I think we were talking about this a little bit earlier. How does this stuff tie to a bill about affordable housing? I mean, this is the stuff. If there's not infrastructure, the housing won't get built. That was Carl's point. And so we want more housing. If we have more housing, the housing becomes more affordable in general. And if we're smart about how we're growing and we're smart about how we're encouraging density in the right places around the right infrastructure, all of that is sort of a bedrock for producing that affordable housing that these bills are getting to.

Oh, you know what? One thing, before you guys get up, this was kind of the initial study session for this, but we do like to ask, is there any specific questions you have for us or direction that you would like from us at this time?

Yeah, I would say if council is getting any updates, I would want at least as often as that. So if they're giving you direction, we want to know what that is and be able to be reactive to that. Michelle?

Does that answer question number one for you? Major concerns, we talked about some. I think mine is just, especially with the strategic growth element, that ties into so many elements of the full strategic plan. And I'm just hoping that those conversations are happening in parallel and are speaking to each other. I think it's a really important aspect of it, of what will play into when we get deeper into the rest of the strategic plan. So yeah, just that those things aren't happening in a vacuum.

Your competitiveness is noted, Noah. I do have a question about the state is requiring this to be in compliance. But to some extent, these are sort of aspirational documents. How much do they hold us to these plans? Is there follow up on the back end? Is there any sort of post-compliance?

Yep. Carl. There's a lot of issues with water. It affects everything. So watering in the parks. When can they water every day or once a week or whatever? Affordable housing, can they have a cheap tap fee so they don't overprice themselves out of the residence? Everything's connected to the water and sewer. So there's a lot of things going into this, and it really needs to take time to evaluate all of that. So it's a serious part of the regulations and stuff. So anyway, we've given it some time, so that's good. Michelle.

I hope that wherever this goes, I know that we are... in this drought and in this whole serious scarcity kind of mindset right now. I hope that we're also thinking forward enough that if we do ever get changes to the Oh, my God. I hate when my menopause brain, like, forgets the word. But we're able to build condos again. What is that? Deconstruction defects law. I hope that we stay forward thinking enough that if that ever happens, that Englewood can be one of the communities that starts building condos again instead of building apartments. I want to just be careful that we aren't in scarcity

Yeah. Great. Thanks, Amy. All right. Last call. And I didn't see your light because you're a water bottle. So sorry. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, guys. We're going to move on to the next item of the agenda, which is staff's choice.

Yep. Great. Thanks, Jackson. Commissioner's choice. Let's start on this side with Steven. Michelle.

Carl. Sorry about coming in late. I had about half a dozen things that delayed me, so things you can't avoid.

No problem, Carl. I just want to thank you and welcome both Colin and Dylan to the relatively new positions, and looking forward to working with you.

Colin. All right. And with that, we adjourn. Thank you, everybody. Oh, I'm sorry. Gosh, Brenda, I'm so sorry. The Zoom is hard. Brenda.