Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call this meeting of the Valdez Planning and Zoning Commission for Wednesday, April 8 order. Let the record show that all commissioners are present with the exception of commissioners Molton and Metropa who are both excused. We have some minutes to address from March 25. That's our last meeting. Anybody have changes or comments on those minutes?

Alright. Seeing none, the minutes are approved. Public business from the floor is a chance for the audience to address us on a nonagended item. I assume you're here from the agenda. Okay. And we have nobody online. New business item number one, approval of preliminary flat for Mineral Creek Cook Subdivision, a replat of 7 A Block 8 Mineral Creek Subdivision Flat 2001 Dash 3. We can get a motion on that. We'll take it out.

Motion to approve.

I'll second.

Moved by commissioner Raditich, seconded by commissioner Bindrow. Any discussion?

It looks like a pretty simple class. Yeah. I don't see any anything to ask about. Okay.

Yeah. I'm looking at that lot. It looks does the map show to it all? That lot enough space for everything. Do we wanna address the public comment? Is that something we address in this group?

We could. I I don't know if it's, you know, what what the property owner is gonna do with it. It wasn't part of the packet, and it it's really not something that's germane, I don't think. But if the owner wanted to address it, he could. He certainly wouldn't be required to.

Yeah. I guess the question was, is it gonna be an Airbnb?

Actually, could you come up to the mic if you if you are gonna speak? Just state your name for the record. This is all being recorded. Thanks.

Brad Cook.

Oh, can you press the button so it's red? Not red light.

Brad Cook, property owner. And this will be a residential home

Okay.

For the new lot that we'll be building some, hopefully.

Very good. Any other questions?

I guess the question was he

was wondering if it was gonna be an Airbnb.

No. Not an Airbnb. That's what the the house next door, the red house is half and half. It's a rental basement, and then it's Airbnb on the upper half. That was that concern on that question.

And just to be clear, once we approve this and once the house is built, he may change his mind or he may sell it and somebody else could turn it into a DMV. So it's not something we can really control.

Exactly. Yes. Yep.

It's nice to know that that's his intent, but we really have no control over what happens in the future once we subdivide it. I had just one concern if everybody else is finished. And that is the, existing water service. Both there's two services coming on to the two a. Is that gonna be a problem for staff being that it's two separate properties?

I wasn't sure. I knew it would be if it was a private well, but I don't know with city city hookups if that's a problem that should be addressed.

I'm not I mean, Brad Brad would be able to speak on it.

He works for the water department.

But is

is there two are there two services there now?

Yeah. Okay.

As as far as the subdivision process, if if it was if there was only one service, the the homeowner owner would be required to hook up the city water. But if if the add tapping into the main and adding a service would be. But there are areas for two, that was a rather large lot. Yeah.

Oh, so these are just stub ups. They're not this isn't the service that's connected to the existing house. Is that what I'm hearing is? Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, then that's great. Yeah. That house has its own. Oh, perfect. Yeah. Alright. And then one other is just a comment on the the plat itself before it comes back to us. Ask the the drafter to look into what's across on the North Side of Nabezuma Street, make sure those lot numbers are correct and laid out properly. Other than that, it looks great, and I am definitely in favor of it. Any other questions for the applicant?

The only I just have a comment. There's some big trees in that on the front of that lot there. There there aren't. I must have looked at the wrong place then. Okay. It was last. Oh, alright. Good enough. Thanks.

Alright. Thank you very much. Alright. We'll go ahead and vote on this.

Okay. Everyone who's here is in the room tonight. So all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say nay. With that, we have five yeas, two absent. Commissioner Moulton, commissioner Matroka. Motion carries.

Thank you very much. Moving on to reports. We have the community director's report.

Thank you. I have two items for you tonight. One is a little bit of a delay on an up update, but I'm working with the city manager on a process for a recommendation regarding bathrooms at, Valdes Glacier Lake, which was an item that came up during commission business from the floor at the last meeting. So I know that he wants to get the parks and rec commission involved also. So I'm not sure exactly what the order of operations will be, but I'll be bringing something back to you, in the not so distant future on that matter.

And then the other item is you'll you'll notice the title 16 draft is not on the agenda tonight, but we have been assured by our consultants that we will receive the final draft this week. So once we have it in hand, we will prep it for the next meeting. It'll depend a little bit on when they get me the final draft, but our intention is to try to publish the agenda a few days early so that you have a little bit more time with it since it is the entire title 16. So it's a pretty extensive revision and also to make sure that the public, is aware of the updated timeline for the public hearing and recommendation to city council. We didn't receive we received only we received public comments from only two people, both of which are engineers that I had reached out to asking for comments.

So those will be included in the packet as well, but we didn't receive a large volume of public comments or any comments from individual members of the public. However, we'll, notice the packet and have the public hearing so that if folks do want to come and provide comment to you during the public hearing that they have that option. So that should be on your next agenda.

Very good. Thank you. Any questions? Alright. Commission business from the floor. Go ahead and start with commissioner Kregerberg.

I have nothing.

Commissioner.

Yeah. This did make me think about I know there's been a lot of work put in toward the Airbnb process and approval. I know there's been a lot of talk about that. And I'm just wondering if there's an update on status of any of that.

Sure. We're finalizing our short term rental application. It's something that's going through our new permitting software. So we're waiting on, some continued, kind of fixes and corrections from the software company. So we're hoping hoping to launch it last month.

That didn't happen. But I'm optimistic, that it will be ready to go likely this month in April. So we'll let you all know when that permit application is live, and then we will so that will launch the short term rental permit that was added in the title 17 zoning code revision. And we'll definitely do public outreach around that because the plan is to give a long runway for short term rentals to apply and be permitted, especially, you know, we're going into their busy season. So the intention won't be to do any type of enforcement until later this year, and we'll do some public outreach and education around that timeline so people know that they have they have some time to get registered and permitted, through that process.

Was there any sort of cap?

I should say it out loud not to shake my head. Commissioner Wade, no. So at the time that title 17 was adopted and, you know, as you all know, there was a a lot of we received a variety of public comments on that topic, and, there's a variety of opinions, I think, on the Planning and Zoning Commission and city council at the time. So the decision was made to try to kind of take the middle path with, the permitting. So there is a permit required.

There's a life safety inspection required, but it's a somewhat minimal process. It's more about registering the businesses, tracking them, and then making sure there's some basic life safety items that are looked at. And so that's that's the process as it stands. There's no cap. There is a portion of the code that references that a cap could be set by city council. So if they were to decide to implement that at some point, there's a mechanism for it, but there's no cap at this time.

Was part of the thought process on that, I think that since we didn't have an idea truly of how many there were that, like, the permitting process got in place and then seeing how many there even are and trying to assess a balance for that, or is that just gonna be enough? Because now that with the permit process, city will have a way to monitor, have an idea of how many we have in town. Yeah.

I think the what I heard on city council at the time of adoption was really split. So there may have been one council member that expressed that type of opinion. It is definitely something that will likely help us pinpoint the number of rentals. We've been doing monitoring using some of the various monitoring services, and that data is incorporated into the housing needs assessment that you received. So I think we already have we have a pretty good sense of the impact on the community, which was analyzed in the housing needs assessment.

But what was also mentioned in the housing needs assessment was that this will, you know, allow us to have more data. And one of the things that we don't know from the data services that are available is whether those units are owner occupied or not. And so that's something that we have worked into the application for the short term rental permit. So starting to you know? Because there's a difference in impact with there's all different kinds of short term rentals, and they have a different impact at least when we're looking at available housing. So that is part of the goal of the permit, to collect that type of data so that we can have more information.

Alright.

Thank you.

Oh, and then, yeah, nothing.

Alright. Commissioner, Gabriel. Nothing. I'm just glad to be back.

It's good to have you back. Commissioner Wade?

No. I'm good. Alright.

And I'm good as well. With that, we'll adjourn. Thank you for being here.