Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right.

I'd like to call this meeting to order at 6 o'clock on the 10th of September. We do have a quorum tonight. And if we all rise, I'll go ahead and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, this is a business meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission. The town hereby welcomes and encourages public participation. Individuals addressing the commission shall direct all remarks to the commission as a whole and shall refrain from addressing individual commission members, town staff, or members of the audience. Pursuant to the Arizona Open Meeting Law, the Commission is limited in its ability to discuss or take action on matters raised during the call to public. The Commission may, however, direct staff to review the matter and place it on a future agenda for future consideration. Items that are scheduled on the current agenda will not be heard or discussed during the call to public. Speakers are limited to three minutes. Okay, first item is consent agenda. Or item D though, yes. Thank you. All right, consent agenda. All items listed on the consent agenda are considered routine matters and will be acted upon by a single motion of the Planning and Zoning Commission. There will be no separate discussion on these items unless a commission member requests that an item be removed or separate discussion in action. Commission members may ask questions regarding a consent agenda item without requesting its removal. Any item removed from the consent agenda will be considered separately in its normal sequence on the agenda unless otherwise taken out of order. So we have two items, C1 and C2. Consideration of approval of the planning and zoning regular meeting minutes from August 13, 2026. AND CONSIDERATION AND APPROVAL FOR THE PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION WORK SESSION MINUTES FROM AUGUST 27, 2026.

I HAVE A MOTION. I MOVE TO APPROVE ITEMS C1 AND C2 OF THE CONSENT AGENDA. ALL RIGHT.

VERY GOOD. THANK YOU. ANY DISCUSSION ON THE MOTION? No discussion noted. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion passes unanimously. D, new business. Public comment will be taken at the beginning of each agenda item after the subject has been announced by the chairman and explained by staff. Any citizen who wishes may speak once for five minutes on each agenda item before or after the commission discussion. Questions from commission members, however, may be directed to staff or a member of the public through the chairman at any time. So item D1, update regarding the 2015 general plan readoption process and proposed schedule. OK, I'll turn this over to staff.

Oh, OK. So good evening, chair, vice chair, and members of the commission. So tonight's item is an information update in regards to our general plan. The focus of this is to provide an update on what's going to take place over the course of the next 60 days. So our general plan was last adopted in 2015. According to Arizona revised state statutes, the general plan runs for 10 years and depending on your population, It depends on whether or not it needs to be going through a vote when it becomes adopted or readopted. Because our town did not grow above the population threshold, which is 2%, our readoption or future adoption as of right now will not need to go to a vote but what does need to happen is that our town because we are unable to find documentation or locate documentation indicating that our general plan was formally readopted in 2025 at that 10-year threshold we need to readopt our current plan which will bring us through January and then we will begin the formal planning process of adoption once that goes to town council at the end of January. So to give a little bit of background on the general plan and why we've been lightly talking about this is the function of a general plan is intended to guide the development of our community over the next decade and beyond. It's not a law or an ordinance, but a policy document that influences future town actions on a variety of topics. including land development, transportation, housing, and more. Arizona state law requires cities to adopt a comprehensive long-range general plan for the development of the municipality. The law requires the plan to be consistent statement of community goals and development policies, and it shall include maps and any necessary diagrams, statements, or sorry, text settings and fourth objects, principles, standards, and plan proposals. So the plan may be amended from year to year, but state law requires an update every 10 years. And inside of a plan, there's always going to be major amendments and minor amendments. We've had a major amendment with land use back in 2025 when the town did that big parcel exchange between Show Low and some smaller ones in the past. So there are minor and major ones that we've done historically, but nothing in regards to our overall comprehensive plan. So beginning on Monday, we'll start that process for readoption, and that will start with a transmittal letter that will go out to a list of agencies, including yourself and town council, that discusses what the plan is over the next 60 days. At that point, citizens from the community can also reach out and submit comments directly to myself, and I'll be collecting that information. And we may or may not have a work session item depending on the flow and consistency of those documents that are coming in from the community. From there, it will proceed to public notices and finally end on a town council public hearing for consideration for resolution to readopt the town plan. Once that takes place in January, then depending on the council direction, will be the moving forward process in regards to a new general plan. That could take anywhere from 18 months to 24 months, depending on what needs to go through it. So this is just getting us up to... What's the word I'm looking for? um thank you i was trying to search my brain for that one bringing us up to compliancy for our general plan so that way we do have an operating document that we're referring to regularly we'll have some other things some rezoning amendments that will come up in the next couple about six weeks or so so that way it doesn't seem misaligned on those documents as well so tonight is an information session to provide that information of what that process will look like in your packet is a copy of that transmittal letter it's just a generic it's not addressed to anyone in particular but that's what we'll be going out okay very good before I ask for questions from the Commission we do have one individual that wants to speak tonight Robert Ingalls

Welcome.

Thank you. Robert Ingalls, 2117 South Penrod Lane in Pinetop, longtime resident, past planning and zoning commissioner, both here and a term in Navajo County, to look at the bigger picture. The general plan, to me personally, is very important. And to have kind of slipped into where, yes, we need to renew the one that was worked on while I was in the commission, now 16, I'm sorry, 11 years back. There were some things that I think are important and apparently not many other citizens do tonight anyway. But the opening of our general plan which was intentionally shortened down to five pages because the old general plan I believe was in excess of 70 pages. And 70 pages is a lot to read and a lot of details that maybe isn't relevant. So when we started our process back then, it became apparent that this is intended to be a citizen's general plan. It was developed by the citizens. It needs to be approved by the citizens and can best be implemented by the citizens. And so tonight, as a citizen, I want to encourage you to, I'll say, do the due diligence, review the plan. It was intentionally shortened down. There's a vision statement in there, and it talks about the qualities in our community that are worth preserving, the needs to grow and provide land use and opportunities for a certain amount of growth, specified quality growth and development, and to try to provide for the needs of a wide base of citizens in the town. So I'm hoping that as things move ahead these next months to readopt this, that some of the highlights that I felt were very important and others did before this was adopted back in 2015 will be reviewed by you as commissioners and either enhanced as we go into the new year with additional ideas that will make a general plan, serve the citizens of Pine Tuff Lake Tide as best as possible. The vision statement that was part of that plan, we are committed to preserving our town's friendly mountain heritage and environmental attributes for present and future generations to share and enjoy, including opportunities for outdoor activities, interacting with wildlife, and enjoying the natural beauty of our lakes, creeks, meadows, and forests. The objective is to provide a growing and diverse economy with meaningful employment opportunities while providing for a unique and exceptional quality of life our residents and our visitors and I think after going through a Labor Day weekend we can see how many people do value the quality of life that we have here and I feel a responsibility to encourage our commission and ultimately the staff and council to move ahead with trying to preserve the quality of life for us citizens here. And I appreciate the effort and the time and the diligence that you as a commission will have the opportunity to look into as this process moves forward. And again, as I said, it's a responsibility of the citizens and yet we need to be included. So the transparency and inclusion through each of you reaching out, staff reaching out, and ultimately the council receiving input from the citizens of our community, we can make this the best community with a good general plan. Thank you for allowing me to address you. Thank you, Robert.

All right. Are there questions from the commission for staff?

I have a lot. Sorry. What happens if we don't do this?

So if we don't do it, well, by state statutes, we have to have a plan, but it would continue to rely on the 2015 general plan. The problem with that is that things have drastically changed, and we currently do run into some consistent... outliers with certain things. We just recently had a redevelopment that was asking questions about, for instance, the land use when it comes to certain town municipalities and things like that. And when we don't have a forward-looking plan, it becomes really challenging to be able to compare it against what the vision is for the community. And so what ends up happening is we start to get some things that don't fall in line with the overall town vision and can become very one vision, one scope of one individual and may not align properly with our intended use. Things that have evolved over time, including how people currently utilize C1 property. We had one rezoning that's coming up and it's hard to distinguish how we're going to GO THROUGH THAT BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING THAT ALIGNS WITH A STRUCTURE AND A FOOTPRINT AND IS THAT PUD IS THAT C1 AND THINGS HAVE UM OVER TIME HAVE EVOLVED AND SO IT BECOMES MORE AND MORE COMPLICATED TO BE ABLE TO ADHERE TO THAT VISION AND GOAL OF WHAT ONCE STARTED OUR TOWN AND SO BY NOT READOPTING IT WE'RE TURNING AWAY FROM BEING ABLE TO HAVE A GOOD STUDY FORWARD PLAN GOOD UM

Will this change then, like it was on the 15, now it was on the 25, will this be now on the 27 and the 37 and the 47?

Yeah, it's every 10 years, so yes.

So when it's adopted, we will move forward from that point and it'll be 10 years, should be 10 years after that.

Correct, it's every 10 years. And if it could, let's think in some hypotheticals, let's say it takes 24 months and we're into 2028, then it would go into 2038. Gotcha, makes sense.

But we can adjust the town plan once a year, right? Is that correct?

You can do major and minor amendments. And as we go through the general plan process, I'm we will be able to define what it what counts as a major plan what counts as a minor plan and it will look back at what we've done already and how to distinguish that I didn't include in the documents because it does become a little bit cumbersome but when we're sending out for rezoning change requests and stuff we're looking at and we're providing both those documents in case that's what these properties or property owners are wanting to do because a minor land our minor zoning map amendment would be some that with general plan could be something as small as one one and a half acres when it becomes major then we're talking things about massive land exchanges and that dramatically can affect land use so for instance the one in 2025 in January when the town was working alongside of the city of Sholo for the property that was over on Penrod, that was a major amendment versus a minor amendment, just to show the scale of the two.

I have just two more questions, sorry. How much did the town grow or not grow?

So it's based off of the 2020 census. So it's been six years. I think we're around, we didn't go over the 2% threshold. We're around 4,000 to 4,200.

2%.

What was that?

2%.

2%, correct. So the town has to exceed a 2% growth based off the last census. So it's been six years. It could have gone up a little bit, but there's a five, is it the five-year census too? The check-in one, like a little bit shorter. Yeah, so it didn't grow enough to go over that threshold. So on a number percentage, I don't know by like actual head count, but 2% of 4,000, Yeah, it's not much.

So we're going to hypothetically, if it's 24 months, we're basing this on a census from 2000, eight years after that happened.

2000 and, correct.

So that to me seems inconsistent. Is there a way we can go back in right after that in 2020 31, 32 redo it where it can pertain to our new census. Because eight years is a lot. It is. It's significant. And a lot can change in eight years. So we're making a plan based on things that happened eight years ago.

Well, right now we're operating off of a plan based off a census from 2010. Yeah. So... We'd want to probably, right now we're trying to get it as close as possible, but I hear what you're saying because in two years you might have a much different number.

Can we eventually adopt another plan that's shortly thereafter the 30, year 30?

I don't know for sure, but I'll look into it. I don't think you can. Okay.

Okay. I mean, it just doesn't make sense.

No, you bring up a really good point.

I mean, I'm glad we're doing something and we have to do something because we have to be forward thinkers. But we're not really being forward thinkers if we're planning something off of 2010.

Yeah, based off of old numbers. And we'd want to look at it too because there is certain parts of the census that don't go the full 10 years and it does do kind of like a check-in at the halfway point. I don't know if it's three years or five years. So we can get a little bit closer to that number so that way we're not – I highly doubt we're off by like, the next threshold I believe is 10,000. So we'd have to grow, we'd have to almost triple our growth in order for the components of the general plan, because it does change as the population goes up. So we'll still be in with the minimum requirements of our general plan, even if we were to double our growth and go up to 8,000, we're still underneath that 10,000 person threshold.

great if we grew yeah double the amount but to calculate work like work based housing and stuff like that based on 2010 when a loaf of bread in 2010 was one price and now it's a different price it's there we're talking two different things yeah and it's it's hard to because we get we get questions about what's your housing density and we can't answer that question right now and we need to be able to yeah Those are all I have. I'm sorry for taking over the meeting.

No. Yes, go ahead, Phil. Just a quick one. 10 years, is that set by law?

It's state statutes, yes.

State statutes. Are we allowed? By concern, I spend a lot of my life in the corporate world. And if you try to run a business on a 10-year plan, I guarantee you, you're not going to make it 10 years. Things change. You know, the COVID comes up. The gas price goes crazy. We declare war on Iran. Things happen that change everything. Is there anything we can do or are doing to, like, every couple years tweak it a little bit?

Yeah, so some of the elements when it comes to the general plan – little less dependent on the economy which is which is important because when we're looking at you know planning and zoning we're really focused on basically if it involves dirt that's kind of like my world kind of revolves in so when it comes to the general plan we're looking at water resources environmental planning growth area housing conservation circulation so you know, how are our road structures set up and where are our outlets and things like that. So the important thing is it's not so heavily, densely focused on economy and commerce per se, but it is a really important driving factor in all the other pieces because Back to Commissioner Cavey's point with workforce housing, that is very dependent on your ability to attract workforce, which has a lot to do with the job market or being able to bring in some revitalization to certain areas such as the town of Lakeside or the Lakeside area and gentrification. So to answer your question, it's not as dependent. It's not solely dependent on economic factors, which is important. But back to Derek's point where he's like, can we look back and revisit it? Because there are certain things that could come up that are unexpected, such as COVID, that can significantly derail a plan component of it, depending on whatever it is. So we can adjust that and look at it as those things come up. And we probably should have in the past historically when COVID changed the way that we do business.

But we can amend it once a year, major and minor ones. Yeah. So that makes sense. Yeah.

So the little tweaks that we do at these meetings, well, the council meetings, that actually is tweaking the plan.

But you can only do it once a year.

Well, I don't think you can do it once a year.

Yes. Oh, sorry. Do you have a slip? No, but I'll go in.

I just wanted to provide a point of clarity on this issue. The population of the town has nothing to do with the plan or what's in the plan. We're planning for the future of the town. The population of the town has everything to do with, do we have to send it back to the voters if we are going to adopt an entirely new plan? You're not adopting an entirely new plan. You're adopting the plan from 2015. And that plan is based on what we want the future of the town to look like. It has nothing to do with the population census. And just for clarity's sake, a little bit of research. So it's voter ratification. So if we adopt a new general plan, we have to send it to the voters. But under Arizona revised statute, if our population did not increase by 2%, which is what I think Jennifer was trying to say, then we don't have to send it to the voters. We don't have to come up with a new plan. We can just readopt the plan we already had for another period of time. But we can amend the general plan, major and minor amendments, at intervals throughout the year at any point in time.

We can amend it as many times as we'd like, or does it have to be?

With a specific vote of the governing body, which I think is three quarters of the council, has to be able to do a major amendment to the plan. Also, because the question was asked, the town of Pinetop Lakeside had 4,282 people in 2010. And 4,030 in 2020. So our population decreased, which is why we're underneath the 2% threshold to just re-adopt the 2015 plan and continuing to move forward with the work that I believe was 78 pages or something to that degree to begin with. Understood. I just wanted to provide that clarity.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Good point.

So I'm gonna give a homework assignment to staff. As we go into this, I would suspect that there is substantial information out there, which probably AI can harness, to look at the best practices towns have used for creation of the plan And also, what, and I'll use the word trigger points or actions, can be embedded into a plan when it is formed that would take the action for us to look at amending or revising certain sections of the plan. I would suspect that information is pretty prevalent and available. And I think it would be worthwhile as an education to all the commissioners as part of the planning process for us to have that information.

Yeah, I agree. We breezed over that one quickly at the last meeting. In the packet from last time, and I'll resend this out, I put some of the different municipalities. I thought Cottonwood was a really good one, the way that they thought through the whole process. So I'll go back and I'll pull out. That one seemed to be very resemblant of some of the key growth questions that have just kind of circulated throughout our community, things that they want to pursue when it comes to how do we balance tourism, but also be able to afford to live here. So I'll look at the different trigger points and different things that they did there in terms of best practices. I found that one to be the strongest one. And then I'll also resend that out in case anyone's interested in looking at them and how they set it up because they were all significantly different. But they all still have the same four minimum items that they have to have, which is land use, circulation elements. um there is a water resource component that is required so they hit all of those minimum requirements but then also they go a lot on the cottonwood they go a lot deeper but i didn't see anything right off from first glance about trigger points but i really i believe that's a very valid point other questions comments from the commission

I do like that it was five pages. I mean, if we keep it simple. As simple as we can. Yes. I know it's 2026 and we can get complicated with things, but it'd be really cool to keep it simple as possible.

agree and in your Commissioner binders the original 1986 general plan is already in there as well as the 2015 the really long one which is in oh one when when we kind of went under the Navajo County regional plan that one's over 200 pages I'll send that in a digital version so if you wanted to look back at it it goes really deep into some pretty key elements that were running across today currently especially It goes deep into defining the difference between the water districts versus irrigation versus recreation and different things to highlight that as well as circulation. It's too much to print, but I'll send that digital copy too. So then you all have all of them should you pick and choose what you think we need to go deeper and bring back. But to Mr. Engel's point, five pages is really good. And then how can whatever page limit we end up on, how can it be the strongest with the community input?

I'd like to just comment on that. I spent a lot of years in the corporate world, and you send out a letter even that's three pages long, and the people read the first sentence and then read the last paragraph. And the rest of it is just all free. So anything you can do to shorten it will encourage people to go through it.

Yeah.

The point here is it will take you all week to read the darn thing. No one's going to do that.

Yeah, and there's some pieces to it that we want to make sure that it's digestible. It does become our daily operating document in the format, kind of like how we use town code, and as well as the international building code. So there are certain pieces of it that, should we need to be able to defend decisions in the future, we can default back to. So we can have even the core front load, the first five pages, that's more... digestible and then get into the weeds and some other pieces should we feel that the need to and there's a lot of different things that will come up this will be a very very invasive process um you know once after it gets readopted and then depending on the council direction when it comes to adopting a new plan and going into that planning process it's you're going to memorize gp all of us is going to be a nice little general plan talking about it and you know daily conversation, so we'll get really fluent in all the communication and we'll know what we want to really go after. That'd be good.

Very good.

All good questions.

All right, very good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Given there's no further questions, no further business at this point, I will adjourn the meeting at 629. Thank you, everybody.