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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2.0 PC Minutes 10.08.2008PC Members Present Jock Jacober Cheryl Chandler Shannon Kyle Greg McKennis Terry Ostrom Bob Fullerton Planning Commission Meeting Minutes From October 8, 2008 Staff Present Fred Jarman, B &P Director Deborah Quinn, Assist Cty Atty Kathy Eastley, Planner Roll call was taken and the following members are absent tonight: Phil Vaughan, Adolfo Gorra, and Sean Martin. All members present tonight are considered as regular voting members for this tonight's meeting. The first item of discussion on the agenda is for approval of the Minutes from the August 27th and the September 10, 2008 Planning Commission Meetings. Terry Ostrom, Cheryl Chandler, Jock Jacober and Deborah Quinn made some suggested changes and corrected some typos. Jock Jacober made a motion to approve both sets of minutes with the needed corrections and Terry Ostrom seconded that motion. The first item of discussion on the agenda is a Public Meeting request to review an application for a Zone District Amendment on parcel number 2409- 273 -00 -002 to change the zoning of a parcel from Agriculture/Residential /Rural Density (A/R/RD) to a Planned Unit Development (PUD). The property is located at 0070 CR 300, Parachute, Colorado. Also under review is a Public Hearing for a Preliminary Plan Application for the Strong Subdivision on this same piece of property. The property is approximately 17.57 acres in size and five (5) lots are proposed. Applicants are George and Leslie Strong. Present for the Applicant is George Strong, Eric McCafferty with Compass Mountain Land Use, and Walt Brown who is the Attorney representing the Applicant. Deborah Quinn will question applicant's representative Eric McCafferty about the noticing requirements that took place. Notice of this hearing was posted in the Rifle Citizens Telegram and the Post Independent. Notice in the newspapers took place on September 4th, 2008. Notice included nature of hearing, the date, time and place of the hearing, and a legal and practical description of the property. All owners within 200 feet of this property were identified and sent certified return receipt letters containing the notice of this hearing on August 29, 2008. Prior to sending the notice out Mr. McCafferty updated the list of property owner information on August 29, 2008. An initial list of owners was complied back in either April or May of 2008. The Clerk and Recorder's Office and the Assessor's Office records were used to compile list. Mineral owner name were also checked for. Certified return receipts were all received back from 1 mail out. Deborah Quinn reviewed the documentation. Deborah Quinn verified with Eric McCafferty that the green cards he gave her represent all the mineral and adjacent land owners. Eric McCafferty said that is correct. Eric also stated that the property was posted by George Strong on September 1, 2008 and the public notice sign is still there today. Deborah Quinn said that notice appears to be proper and that you may proceed with this item. Kathy Eastley is the County Planner and she will review the staff comments and project information. Kathy Eastley asked the Planning Commission if it was alright with them since there are two items here for this applicant she would like to review the Zone District Amendment first and then proceed right into the Preliminary Plan saving the questions until the end of the entire presentation. All Planning Commission Members are okay with that request. Kathy Eastley will enter exhibits into the record. She also handed out two new exhibits tonight which are exhibits X & Y. Exhibits A — Y are accepted into the record. Walt Brown commented that he didn't think that staff should be able to handout new exhibits tonight. Deborah Quinn told Commission that they can determine what relevant these new exhibits have if you choose to admit them. Greg McKennis said he doesn't see how it hurts anything. We understand Mr. Brown's concerns. Don't see how this harms anything in the record. Bob Fullerton said we have had discussions about exhibits being submitted to us very late in the process and he has not read these. Deborah Quinn said you do have the ability to continue the hearing should members of the Commission or the Applicant need time to consider these additional exhibits. Eric McCafferty said to the best of his knowledge the Planning Commission has never made a decision relative to a zoning violation and he thinks it is inappropriate to put this allegation in front of the Planning Commission. Jock Jacober asked why we were given this exhibit. Kathy Eastley said it is her understanding, she was copied on the letter, and that it is relevant to the existing use on the property which will roll into the application that is before you tonight. Greg Me Kennis so this piece of ground that is subject to this letter (exhibit X) of an alleged allegation is part of this larger thing we are dealing with tonight. Yes was Kathy Eastley's response. Greg McKennis said then in his mind it is relevant because it is part of the nature of what the applicant is doing. Bob Fullerton asked why it came tonight. Kathy Eastley said it was written yesterday related to a building permit application that was submitted to Building and Planning. Terry Ostrom said he would like to leave these as exhibits and continue with the public hearing tonight. Jock Jacober thinks it should remain as an exhibit because it shows the condition of the ground as is and it doesn't alarm him that it might take awhile to issue the building permit. Conditions on the ground are relative to the application. 2 Bob Fullerton said he couldn't disagree himself. In our training recently, we specifically discussed this exact scenario of exhibits coming in very later and that we don't have to accept them. He thinks the Commission and the Applicant should have the opportunity to fully absorb and incorporate. Shannon Kyle said she agrees with Bob Fullerton's comment. Terry Ostrom thinks the intent of that was for large information coming at the last minute and he thinks we should go forward either way. Greg MeKennis said he would hate to us take positions that one or two sheets of paper that could be a benefit to us or them or no one some how taken into account. Its not reasonable to assume that we won't get information on something that needed clarification right up to the moment before the meeting. Fred Jarman commented that it is very typical for you in a lot of your Planning Applications and review here where we will often times get say letters from the public for example. You have a neighbor that would like to write a letter and they just heard about the hearing today so often times they will email or fax a copy to the Planning Office. You have routinely taken those. It's in the case where you have typically an Applicant's response is one of the reasons you have that in your By -Laws. The staff report has gone out and the Applicant wants to respond to some of our comments. Some of the response may be much more substances that our Engineers have not had a chance to review so we could not provide you the information you need to weigh in on a decision. Fred Jarman thinks this is slightly a different case and that is the reason we put it in the record to give you the current condition of the scenario on the ground. It's a key piece for any land use application you make a decision on. Cheryl Chandler said she is inclined to agree with Fred Jarman. Cheryl Chandler explained the process we will follow for this item. Kathy Eastley presented the project information and staff comments. The Applicant proposes a zone district amendment from the existing zoning of AIR/RD to PUD on a parcel of land that is approximately 17+ acres located south of Parachute on CR 300. Applicant has also submitted a Preliminary Plan Application for review of this same property. The Planning Commission reviewed the Sketch Plan Application for this parcel back in May 2008 for a five lot subdivision in the A/R /RD zone district was requested. Kathy Eastley gave a little back ground information. Both a Zone District Amendment and a Preliminary Plan Application are under review tonight. The Owner and Applicant are George and Leslie Strong, represented by Eric McCafferty of Compass Mountain Land Use. The property currently has a Special Use Permit for a Contractor's Yard. The proposed zoning for the entire parcel is PUD. Access is off of CR 300 and that is located approximately 200' south of Highway 6. Power Point slides were shown of site and surrounding area. Kathy Eastley gave information regarding what is already going on in this vicinity such as the Frac Tech resource parcel, Travelers Highland Subdivision with 3 Commercial General zoning, the Una Gravel Pit and Orchard Unit Compressor Station immediately adjacent to the Strong property. The Applicants are requesting this parcel to be rezoned as a PUD and in their PUD Zoning Document which she will call their PUD Guide, they do identify Uses by Right and what they are calling a Resource Support District but there are no association categorized with the uses. Kathy read those uses into the record. The uses that are being requested as a use by right, for the most part are considered Special Uses in the underlying A/R/RD zone district. Some are not included in the current A/R/RD zoning at all. Applicant is proposing maximum lot coverage of 15% for buildings. The building maximum height would be 35'. The setback from CR 300 for a building would be 25' and 15' for storage. They also list some internal setbacks for fencing. The Applicant's documents state that screening or fencing is permitted but none is required. Outside storage can occur anywhere with the setbacks of the lots. The parking proposed is one space per 200 square feet which excludes storage so that would only be for their office area that they would be required to provide parking. Offices are limited to 1500 square feet per lot. The proposal within their PUD Guide permits for multiple and separate lease hold interests on each of the lots which mean multiple businesses could be operating on each of these five lots. Kathy Eastley gave a little information regarding the traffic patterns in this area. There is a substantial amount of truck traffic that uses CR 300 to access oil and gas related activities as well as the adjacent industrial uses that are occurring in the area. We talked about several issues during review of the Sketch Plan Application that had been identified with a proposal such as this. One of them was the use which may be conflicting with the underlying A/R/RD zone district and that is why the Planning Commission told the Applicant they may want to consider a PUD of the entire development to allow these uses that are Special Uses in the underlying zone district. Staff is still fully supportive of that concept of an industrial PUD at this location. However we can't support the zoning as it has been submitted because of the inadequacy of the standards that were contained in the zoning document. Infrastructure may be inadequate to support this development. It doesn't jive with the traffic study which considers one use per lot. Need site specific information in order to determine those impacts of the industrial activities. The Applicant has not provided a mechanism to show compliance with any of the standards that they have provided. There is no Owners Association to maintain the roads, etc. Insufficient information was provided to determine the accumulative impact of the industrial uses over the entire site. The staff recommendation for the rezoning from A/R/RD to PUD is for denial pursuant to Section 4.04, the rezoning is not consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. The site specific constraints for the property have not been analyzed nor have they been mitigated. Traffic impacts have not been mitigated. The uses do not comply with the underlying zoning uses in the AIR/RD zone district. The Plan is lacking in adequate zoning regulations in the review of the impacts. Section 4.07.03 the rezoning will have 4 unreasonable impacts to the surrounding area. That is really based upon the traffic that will be increased by greater than 20% and not necessitate the State Highway access permit for the intersection of CR 300 and Highway 6. Kathy Eastley concluded the presentation for the Zone District Amendment Application. Kathy asked if she could proceed with the Preliminary Plan Application presentation and Cheryl Chandler said no that the Planning Commission will need to vote on this before she can proceed. Greg McKennis asked for a clarification. What he remembers is that the Sketch Plan review did not talk about all of these other uses when we they reviewed that in May. Kathy Eastley said what the applicant had talked about was because of the adjacent uses and industrial nature of the neighborhood there would be special uses that would be requested for each of those lots either contractor yards or oil and gas uses for storage areas. Greg McKennis said he doesn't remember ever talking about five or six uses on each parcel. Kathy Eastley said that was never discussed. Moved to Applicant for their presentation on the zoning next. Eric McCafferty said they have no objection to looking into some of the issues raised by staff but would like to continue with the Preliminary Plan portion tonight. Cheryl Chandler said we have to make a decision and motion on the rezoning before we can proceed. Deborah Quinn said we are in a public hearing because it was properly noticed that way. The PUD Amendment is a public meeting though so that doesn't require public hearing but we sort of combine them and the purpose of going through the notice was to make sure it was properly noticed as a public hearing for the preliminary plan portion. There isn't necessarily a public portion for the PUD. Eric McCafferty wanted to enter some additional exhibits into the record. He has a couple of clarification letters. They are: • Floodplain Analysis Map— accepted as exhibit Z. • Erosion Control Plan -- accepted as exhibit AA. • Letter from Wagon Wheel Consulting—accepted as exhibit BB • Letter from Huddleston Berry dated 10/6/08—accepted as exhibit CC Deborah Quinn asked staff whether they have had the opportunity to review any of these exhibits before tonight. Kathy Eastley said no. Deborah Quinn asked are these the type of things you would ordinarily take a look at and get comments on from other county staff or outside experts. Kathy Eastley responded yes. Especially the floodplain and erosion control we would want our Engineer to review to see if it mitigates any of the issues that were raised. Terry Ostrom thinks we should continue this. Greg McKennis agrees. Jock Jacober asked were these deficient in the application the erosion control plan and the floodplain analysis. Kathy Eastley said yes. Jock asked then how did it get by. Kathy said the floodplain analysis was not determined to be necessary until we received comments from 5 the Colorado Geological Survey review. They also brought up some geo- technical concerns about the site and these are in response to that. Eric McCafferty said they think that staff did not do a thorough job when reviewing the application when the materials were submitted and now we are in a position that we don't want to be in to submit additional information at this time. All of the information that staff has drawn issues are actually in the application or available for the planning staff if they look for it. For example, the flood plain map is available on the Garfield County website and it use to be available in the planning office. He doesn't know where they are kept now. Applicant stated they are not and have never been in a flood plain on this parcel so that shouldn't be issue. Shannon Kyle thinks since we accepted the other exhibits that we should accept these as well. Greg McKennis said it looks like to him that these are things that staff needs to review and respond to so we are educated. Shannon Kyle said but shouldn't the applicant be able to respond to the stuff that we just got. Greg McKennis said then let's take those out. Terry Ostrom thinks the difference is that staff would have an engineer reviewed or had consultants review these things where as the letters don't require review. Jock Jacober said his only concern is if there is some technical data that's beyond his comprehension I am kind of reliant on people who are paid to evaluate it. As staff pointed out, the area is appropriate, the uses are appropriate, to him to make a decision that input is important to him. Eric McCafferty said within the application you have in front of you everything in there is an engineer designed such as the ISDS. He thinks the questions raised have been answered. Jock Jacober said this is a fundamental process that we are completely dependant upon staff for most of this information. Jock isn't sure what we should do. Cheryl Chandler said we can use the option that Terry Ostrom made and that was to continue, we can continue this so Eric and Kathy can work out these things so this has been reviewed by the Engineer. Deborah Quinn said she has the Planning Commission By -Laws here and she will read you the section into the record. It is part of the section on additional information or data for an application and it is involving acceptance of supplements. That section talks about continuance and having time to review and comment. Bob Fullerton asked for applicant's opinion on that. Eric McCafferty said George Strong is the applicant but they are talking back and forth and they would like the application to stand on its own merit at this time and proceed and take whatever recommendation to the BOCC. Cheryl Chandler said but if we denied the rezoning we cannot move forward on the Preliminary Plan Application review. Walt Brown said the application is two part. One is the rezoning and the other is the subdivision Preliminary Plan. Cheryl Chandler said and it says right here that the subdivisions review cannot occur if the rezoning is not successful. Eric McCafferty said that staffs opinion is incorrect and it cannot be enforced by these regulations or by law. Walt Brown said you can hear them together and that you 6 just have to decide what the zoning should be separately from the subdivision. We have an existing zone district. If you don't want to rezone then you just say no. That doesn't stop a subdivision review and have any ruling at all. It doesn't say a denial or the PUD rezoning request denies the review of a subdivision preliminary plan review. Eric McCafferty said we can still apply for a subdivision with the underlying zoning and go for special uses. We are applying for PUD zoning to make this a more comprehensive subdivision. Greg McKennis said to Walt Brown with all due respect, the Sketch Plan they way it was presented based on his recollection it never in anyway eluded to multiple uses on any of the lots and he thinks that the staff comments are important in that all of a sudden we have way more accumulative impact that we don't even know what they are based upon instead of maybe five uses we could now have forty -five uses. Eric McCafferty said they are prepared to get rid of that entirely. We understand it has created havoc. We intend to allow only one lease hold per property. There will not be multiple lease holders on one lot. Greg McKennis asked how are we to contemplate that because now you are changing your request. This is getting very confusing. Jock Jacober asked for some clarification from Ms. Quinn concerning process and if they can proceed with Preliminary Plan Application review if PUD is denied. Deborah Quinn said there are a lot of different issues on the table right now. The Applicant is right they have submitted an application for two separate processes. You are a recommending Board on both of those processes. The BOCC can agree or disagree with you on either of these or both on your recommendations. Whether or not their subdivision application has anything left to it for example the PUD gets denied is yet to be seen. Ms. Quinn's recollection from the Sketch Plan one of the major issues was that the underlying zoning (A/R/RD) allowed for residential and the uses being proposed were totally inconsistent with that so a PUD was one way to eliminate inconsistent uses which is one of the reasons for a PUD. Jock Jacober said it sounds like what the Applicant is looking for is for the Planning Commission to make a recommendation for the subdivision application and that would be of denial because it's not compatible with the underlying zoning and the Applicant is willing to take this cart blanch' to the BOCC and she if the Commission has an opinion that the underlying zoning is appropriate or not. Deborah Quinn said the Applicant's are entitled to do that. Cheryl Chandler restated that she believes the applicant still wants to present their Preliminary Plan Application even if PUD is denied. Deborah Quinn said yes they can do that. Cheryl Chandler said we still need to decide whether to accept the additional information that was submitted earlier or not. Deborah Quinn said that was the other issue she was going to bring up. 7 Fred Jarman wanted to add that the information that was tendered to you by the Applicant in this case we would say is Jermaine in both the PUD and the Preliminary Plan. Eric McCafferty said this additional information submitted today is not necessary to make an affirmative recommendation on this application. Cheryl Chandler said if we keep the information you provided tonight then we have to continue this hearing concerning the PUD rezoning. We will accept the exhibits into the record that the applicant presented earlier tonight. Kathy Eastley said all of the comments related to the issues that have been identified other than the PUD zoning issues all are from responses from referral agencies. Kathy is not an engineer so she doesn't try to mitigate or analyze geologic or flood plain issues. Receiving this information, she doesn't know if we would be able to get it sent out to the referral agencies and get their comments back in time to satisfy all of the concerns that staff has by the meeting next week. That's just a fact of life. The meeting date is in two weeks but the staff report has to be done next week. Greg McKennis said he thinks there is something that allows for the time review. No reason to come back in two weeks if we are still in position we are in tonight. We are not looking to drag this out. Greg McKennis said everybody wants to make this thing work very clearly at the Sketch Plan stage. He thinks they were all in favor of it. Kathy Eastley said as is staff but comments received back from review agencies there were issues that were not addressed by the Applicant. Kathy Eastley said there are still some questions regarding not the legality of the water but the quantity and quality. We did receive some well reports that show that the well pumps but we did not receive sufficient information that the water quality was good. Bob Fullerton made a motion to continue this to our next meeting with a guarantee of them being able to be put on the agenda. Shannon Kyle seconded the motion. Bob Fullerton thinks the Applicant and staff need to meet. If those answers are out there to the degree the Applicant thinks they are then let's get them out and get them resolved. Greg McKennis wants to make one comment. Based upon what you have submitted the staff was talking about more highway usage information. Traffic analysis based upon multiple uses on these lots. If there are going to be multiple uses on any of these lots or a certain amount the staff may well say again that the traffic situation needs to be looked at and that isn't happening in two weeks. Bob Fullerton said the Applicant is ready to stand on that. A vote was taken and all agreed on motion to continue this item to the October 22, 2008 Planning Commission meeting. The next item of discussion on the agenda is a Public Hearing request to review an application for an amendment to the Garfield County Comprehensive Plan of 2000 for 8 two parcels situated in Study Area 1 currently designated as Low Density and to re- designate as Medium Density. The two parcel numbers involved are 2393 - 272 -00 -031 and 2393- 272 -00 -032 and the properties are located north of Highway 82 and the Highway 133 intersection on Red Hill. The Applicant's are Paul and Linda Froning, Donald and Billie Froning, and Karen and John Hatchett. Cheryl Chandler swore in all speakers for this item. Present for the applicant's are Paul and Linda Froning and Mark Chain who is presenting on the applicant's behalf. Deborah Quinn will review noticing requirements for this application and Mark Chain will respond to her questions. Mark Chain responded that the Notice of this hearing was published in the Rifle Citizens Telegram and it occurred at least 30 days and not more than 60 days from this hearing date. The notice included a description of the request, the date, time and place of hearing, a description of the property, and the names of the applicant's. Ms Quinn. asked did you determine all of the adjacent property owner names within 200 feet of the subject property and also determined all miner owners within the subject property. Mark Chain said yes he did on both accounts. Mark Chain used both the Clerk and Recorder's records and the Assessors records to obtain those names. Certified return receipts letters of the notice were sent to all of the names obtained. All of the green cards from mail out came back with one exception from one of the letters that was not picked up. Mr. Chain informed that landowners Attorney that he knew so he knows they received notice. Notice was mailed to the address according to the Assessors office. Certified mailing of notice included the same information as the notice that was published in the newspaper. Mark Chain said he posted the property he believes 32 days before the hearing date and posting was still in place for sure as of yesterday. Proof of publication, certified return receipts and a picture showing the posted notice sign were provided to Ms. Quinn for review. Ms. Quinn said based on the documents provided and the representations from the Applicant's representative it appears that notice is proper. Kathy Eastley is the County Planner for this proposal and she will present the project information and staff comments. Kathy Eastley said there are no additional exhibits other than what was listed in the staff report which are exhibits A- 1. Exhibit A -1 are accepted into the record. The application under review tonight is a Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment for the Froning parcel. It is two parcels that are owned by multiple family members and they are located on Red Hill Road which is approximately Y2 mile from Highway 82 and Highway 133. There two parcels consist of 12.39 acres and 18.58 acres for a total of 30.97 acres. There is an existing single family home on the 18 acre parcel. Access is off of CR 107. The existing zoning is A/R/RD and the existing Comprehensive Plan designation is Low Density Residential which requires 10+ acres per dwelling unit. The request is to change 9 that to Medium Density Residential which requires 6 to less than 10 acres per dwelling unit. The proposed density based on the plan submitted is 6.194 acres per dwelling unit. This property is directly north of the Town of Carbondale. Kathy showed slides of the property and surrounding area as well as the proposed site plan. Table 30 from the Garfield County Comprehensive Plan is utilized by the County Staff to determine appropriate densities. The Low Density Residential designation has some development constraints typically associated with soils and slopes as well as ISDS constraints. Density is normally lowered because of those constraints. The Medium Density Residential lists those development constraints as moderate and that would allow for an increase in density. An existing conditions aerial photograph was shown of the property. This property is also located in a visual corridor as shown on the map. Comments received from the Planning Commission during the Sketch Plan review included the density and that the increased density was not appropriate due to the following reasons: • This is within a visual corridor • This is located on an un- improved gravel roadway • This is in a moderate to high range for fire danger • There are slopes that affect the property This property is located within the two -mile sphere of influence for the Town of Carbondale. The Town of Carbondale did make comments on this and they are included with the staff report as Exhibit H. Some of their comments are that "they strongly support the current land use policies already set forth in the Comprehensive Plan and recommend that the land use at this location not be altered in any way and is inconsistent with the designated uses and they don't want piecemeal change without a broader consideration of the entire area ". Should the Planning Commission consider the additional density appropriate that designation should be increased for the area rather than for one single development plan. Staff does recommend denial of the proposed amendment to the Garfield County Comprehensive Plan of 2000 which requested changing the designation of the Froning parcels an the Proposed Land Use Districts Study Area 1 Map from Low Density Residential to Medium Density Residential including the findings listed in the staff report. Terry Ostrom mentioned the Planning Commission training they had recently with Don DeFord concerning what is legal. Terry Ostrom went on a site visit and he thinks the instruction that Don DeFord gave is that they are not allowed to go on a site visit without the rest of the Commissioners. Terry Ostrom said the site visit occurred at the Sketch Plan stage and that was before our training. Deborah Quinn said she thinks the recommendation was that you not do visits outside of site visits on any application. We all live in this County and we all see things just as we are driving through and sometimes that can't be helped. If the applicant is allowing you to continue to serve then Deborah 10 thinks its okay because it was during the Sketch Plan review and not this Comprehensive Plan Amendment review. Terry Ostrom decided he will not vote on this item. He will stay and participate because he is interested in the outcome. Kathy Eastley said the findings are that the general vicinity has specific constraints that do not meet the suitability analysis for additional density. Second, the process is not meant for further development of individual lots. The request is not consistent with the intent of the Comprehensive Plan. This proposal is not in the best interest of the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Garfield County. Greg McKennis asked Deborah Quinn to talk a little bit more about item two. This Board and the process of the County has been to allow particular owners of property to come in and request Comprehensive Plan Amendments on a site specific basis. That has been the practice here. The points that Kathy Eastley has made are points that are consistent with the idea of a Comprehensive Plan that you do it on a comprehensive basis rather than a lot by lot property by property basis. Greg McKennis asked Ms. Quinn is reason number two above reason for denial. Deborah Quinn said whether or not you amend the Comprehensive Plan is discretionary in your view. Typically Table 30 forms your basis for approval or denial. Mark Chain of Mark Chain Consulting will speak next on behalf of the applicant and then Paul Froning will speak. Mark Chain thanked Kathy Eastley and staff for their time. Applicant thinks that this Comprehensive Plan Amendment should be approved. Mark Chain showed some slides of the property and surrounding areas. There are several five acre parcels in this area already. Larger lots are located in the area that's called the Meadows. We look at this area up here as two different neighborhoods with the five acre lots and the larger ones above. Mark Chain reviewed Table 30. Staff's concern when it gets down to it is a piecemeal approach. Visibility came up a number of times as well as road infrastructure. The Froning's brought this property back in 1985. The zoning on this property was and currently is A/R /RD which allows for one dwelling per two acres. Don't believe that they ever had the idea of 15 dwelling units on this site. They have always thought there should be 3, 4, 5or 6 units in this area and that would be compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. Mark Chain also thought their proposal fit in the neighborhood. Paul Froning spoke next and he wants to give a little history of the project. The Froning's bought the property back in 1985 as an investment. Before they purchased the property Paul Froning came to the County and spoke to Mark Bean in the Planning Department and told him about their plans and ask about if it was possible to subdivide this 18 acre parcel into 3 other lots for their retirement. He was told that they could not qualify for the Subdivision Exemption process because that had been used up but he did say that he thought 5 acre parcels would be appropriate and if they were willing to go through the process and incur the expense of the subdivision process that we would probably be successful at it. With that they decided it would be a smart financial investment and have potential for their retirement. His parents bought the 12 acre parcel next door which they later decided to give to their three children. We decided that we 11 each wanted our own parcel so now would be the time to subdivide. We don't look at ourselves as developers. We are neighbors in the community so the first thing they did was to consult with the neighbors to see what they felt about it. Amazingly enough all of their neighbors were supportive. Have letters of support included with their application materials. Once again Paul Froning came to the County and spoke to Mark Bean to run this by him to see if this was still reasonable and he said that he still thought that a five acre density is appropriate for your neighborhood and he thought it would be a good thing. Through every step they tried to address any concerns. They think that their proposal is similar in size to what surrounds them already and thinks this is a reasonable request. Mark Chain made some additional comments and showed some additional slides of the area. This property sort of sits in a bowl. A lot of it is actually quite level. About 6% of the property has steep slopes over 40% mostly located on the western side over by the access road to the site is. Applicant's think the interior road of this development is well planned. Will dedicate part of the road to the County for improvements. There is a turnaround for emergency vehicles, Lot 4 itself is one of the lots that would be visible from the top. There rest of the lots 2, 3, & 5 you can probably see from the ridge. Lot 1 cannot be seen at all. Bob Fullerton said his understanding is on these building sites you have placed the envelopes away from where those steep slopes are. Mark Chain said that is correct. Greg McKennis said he has a hard time wrapping his head around this idea that this is not part of whatever this county road goes to one way or another. He is not necessarily having heartburn over your six acre proposal but he is having a lot of heartburn that you think this development has nothing to do what else uses that road. That's just not common sense because the neighborhood is that road. Who's going to pay the piper on that road? Cheryl Chandler asked a question of staff. Is Study Area 1 two acres underlying zoning? Kathy Eastley said the underlying zoning on this property is A/R/RD which requires a minimum of two acres. The Comprehensive Plan designation is 10+ acres per dwelling unit. Kathy Eastley said they could do two acre lots within this development while maintaining the overall density of 10 acres. That's how she believes those adjacent five acre lots were created. Paul Froning said their reasoning for this was to create lots for his brother and sister and based on his previous discussions with Mark Bean it didn't seem that the lot sizes were a concern. Greg McKennis said you can think reasonably that an off the cuff conversation with the Director should guide your financial decision making. Paul Froning said no but we looked at what he said and what existed around us and it seemed to us that this was reasonable and seemed appropriate. Bob Fullerton mentioned conversations that took place regarding development and housing being close to the Town Centers. Fred Jarman said we were contemplating that 12 on much larger developments. Fred said another part of the preference is to have that growth occur in the Cities and Towns themselves. Fred Jarman said he does remember having a conversation with Mr. Froning he thinks several times a pre - application conference where we talked about this potential and he thinks that he gave you different advice from what you say Mark Bean told you. Greg McKennis asked Mr. Froning what he thought about increasing the density that they will be asking for. This property is close to Highway 82 and Highway 133, close to bus services, close to towns and infrastructure. Mr. Froning said he wants to try to keep it like surrounding parcels. Jock Jacober thinks increasing the density is not such a bad idea either. Good access to urban area. Greg McKennis thinks request should be higher than the medium density applicant is requesting because the property is so close to urban amenities. Fred Jarman said everything Greg McKennis and Jock Jacober mentioned are legitimate debates but they are not for today. The whole purpose of what you are talking about is to say how we implement what Bob Fullerton brought up the philosophy of the County in trying to accommodate those growth pressures. You don't do it on a case by case basis. Please don't get confused with the two -acre zoning and the Comprehensive Plan densities. Two -acre zoning is not density. It is the size of a lot. Cheryl Chandler moved out to the public for comments next. Terry Ostrom lives at 901 CR 231 in Silt. He would suggest that this request does fit within the character of the neighborhood. Beyond this property are some gigantic ranches. Within the last three months or so you had a similar request before you about two miles east in Missouri Heights and this Board approved that request with the same objections from staff. No further public comments were given so we came back to the Commission. Mark Chain mentioned that this property is not part of Missouri Heights nor connected in anyway. Missouri Heights is a much bigger area and opens up to a lot more parcels. Bob Fullerton mentioned that the public made mention of an application we approved a couple of months ago and he is right. Bob Fullerton said he is in agreement with what Fred Jarman said except for one thing because we argued the exact point of the ripple affect and at that time Bob said he believed there would be one. It was major discussion that said no it's all dealt with on a case by case. Right or wrong that was the discussion held then. Bob Fullerton also mentioned that night that you can have these lots and flip them tomorrow. Cheryl Chandler said the same thought came across her mind that we just did this. Cheryl Chandler closed the public comments portion of this hearing. Jock Jacober made a motion to approve this Comprehensive Plan Amendment and to put a moratorium on future Comprehensive Plan Amendments until we have a new 13 Comprehensive Plan for the entire County. No second was made to Jock Jacober's motion so motion died. Bob Fullerton made a motion to accept the changes to the Comprehensive Plan and accept the application. Shannon Kyle seconded the motion made by Bob Fullerton. Greg McKennis said he feels our land is our most vital resource and when we get land this close to town he thinks we need to go real careful when we change these things because he hopes our philosophy is that we need this kind of growth in our towns. A vote was taken and motion carried 4(Y) to 1(N). Other business. Jock Jacober asked what do other Counties do related to amending their Comprehensive Plan. Kathy Eastley said she worked for Eagle County and never was their Future Land Use Map amended on a parcel by parcel basis. There was no process built in that allowed that. Cheryl Chandler mentioned that all of the Comprehensive Plan Amendment requests seem to happen in Study Area 1 only. Deborah Quinn said the language in the existing Comprehensive Plan did contemplate that it would be revised on a regular basis like no more than every five years and that hasn't happened which creates a need for people to have to come in and say things have changed and this doesn't apply anymore. Cheryl Chandler said the day we finished the Comprehensive Plan we were suppose to go to the Zoning Regulations immediately. It took us four years to work on the Zoning Regulations so that moved the Comprehensive Plan back. Bob Fullerton asked Fred Jarman what his thoughts are on this. Fred said he is all for it because he thinks you are ill equipped. Bob Fullerton thinks we have seen that coming to light now. Fred Jarman thinks there are some massive shortfalls with the document you have and the understanding of those documents quite frankly. Every Comprehensive Plan change that Fred Jarman has seen in his six years here was all tethered to a development project. Fred also said the Planning Commissions primary role is to help direct the front seat of where growth needs to go in this County. Bob Fullerton said he wasn't necessarily not in agreement with Jock Jacober motion of a moratorium he just wanted to be more informed. Staff was planning to come to the Planning Commission this last summer but the timing wasn't quite right. Fred thinks the Commission should really consider that. Bob Fullerton said maybe our second meeting of each month should be for this type of work and not other planning projects. Fred Jarman agrees with Bob Fullerton and said that can be done and staff would support you on that. Mark Chain said a moratorium suggestion caught him by surprise. You would need to have a public hearing and notice to hold a hearing for that request. Some times a Comprehensive Plan Amendment is appropriate. In this case the rest of the neighborhood has the same density. 14 Greg McKennis asked Fred Jarman what can we do short of a moratorium. Fred Jarman said his best advice to this Body is to initiate a moratorium and do it until you amend your Comprehensive Plan in full. Bob Fullerton asked is that something we can make a motion on in a meeting or do we have to attach it to something. Cheryl Chandler asked does that have to go to the Commissioners. Fred Jarman said no because the Comprehensive Plan is your book. We have to do this so it's transparent and the Planning Commission needs to initiate it and support it if you are going to pull through on what I am hearing you say. Bob Fullerton said but if we are going to have a moratorium then we have to have a game plan in place. Fred Jarman said that is correct. Jock Jacober mentioned the possibility of having a moratorium by sections rather than as a whole to start with. Deborah Quinn mentioned that is what they have done in Pitkin County. Fred Jarman said you have to be careful. This is different from the Pitkin County moratorium. We are not taking a persons right to develop away from what we are talking about right now. We aren't saying don't develop we are saying don't change the Plan that we already have in place. Fred Jarman said he would like to run the legal issues by Don DeFord and Deborah Quinn first and then bring back before you with your options and then you pull the trigger on a decision if you want to do that. No other business to discuss so meeting is adjourned. 15