HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/11/2013 - Planning And Zoning Board - Agenda - P&Z Final Worksession Agenda PacketPLANNING AND ZONING BOARD
WORKSESSION AGENDA
Friday, January 11, 2013, noon to 3 pm
281 N. College Conference Room A
Consent (20 minutes)
LUC – Election Signs (Barnes)
LUC – Non-native Trees (Buchanan)
Discussion (60 minutes)
SHAP (Sowder)
SPAR – PRPA Dixon Substation (Albertson-Clark)
SPAR – PRPA Timberline Substation (Albertson-Clark)
Other (15 minutes)
2012 Annual Report
Worksession Project Updates:
Affordable Housing Redevelopment Displacement Mitigation
Strategies (Waido) – 30 minutes
Citizen Feedback -Development Review Improvements
(Burnett) – 45 minutes
CAG Representative – 10 minutes
City Council
2/5/13
2/5/13
2/19/13 1st Reading
3/5/13 1st Reading
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PLANNING AND ZONING BOARD
JANUARY 11, 2013 WORK SESSION
AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
STAFF
Laurie M. Kadrich, Community Development & Neighborhood Services (CDNS) Director
Beth Sowder, Neighborhood Services Manager
Sarah Burnett, Neighborhood Development Review Liaison
SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION
Planning and Zoning Board review and direction regarding concerns about the development review
process
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Over the past several months, issues related to the development review process have been raised by a
variety of individuals. One citizen outlined his concerns about the review process at the August 2012
Planning and Zoning Board meeting. At that time, it was suggested that the Planning and Zoning Board
hold a work session to discuss these concerns as well as those raised elsewhere.
In October, the Neighborhood Development Review Liaison position was filled. A number of unsolicited
comments have been received, as well as comments from individuals contacted proactively after appeal
hearings were completed. At the December 17, 2012 Planning and Zoning Board Work Session, the
Board indicated that they would like to review issues that have been raised at their January 11, 2013
Work Session. The Background/Discussion section below includes themes of comments during Planning
and Zoning Board and City Council comment periods over the past several months.
It should be noted that no formal public engagement process has yet taken place. The issues listed below
have been identified through various communications with approximately fifteen individuals, and, as
such, may not be complete or representative of the feedback that might be received in a public
engagement process.
GENERAL DIRECTION SOUGHT AND SPECIFIC QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED
1. Does the Board want staff to use these themes as a basis to move forward with a public engagement
process to explore ways to improve the development review process?
2. Of the issues identified to date, are there some that the Board agrees with and would like to handle
separately from any public engagement process?
3. Are there other issues to be explored that the Board would like to add to those already identified?
4. What involvement would the Board like to have in following up on these issues?
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BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION
The comments and concerns may be grouped in general themes, as listed below. These issues could be
further examined by staff upon direction of the Board.
1. Lack of Information About Process
Zoning and Land Use Code issues are complex and citizens struggle to know how to participate
and to read and understand provisions on their own.
Citizens often do not know there will be a staff report with a recommendation, and what that
recommendation will be.
Citizens often do not know that there will be a Planning and Zoning Work Session where staff
reviews the project with Board members prior to hearing.
Suggestion: review content of Citizen’s Guide to Development Review, and update as needed.
2. Outreach and Transparency of Public Information
Several have noted that conceptual reviews, neighborhood meetings, staff reviews, hearing
agendas, and documents filed by applicants should be available online, and easily accessible.
Some would like to be able to look up project listings by address, or break up listings by
quadrants within the city, while other prefer looking up projects by project number or name.
Several have noted a concern that scanned (pdf) documents on website are not searchable.
One resident said she stumbled upon the Student Housing Action Plan (SHAP) information one
day on the website, and believes outreach could be improved.
One citizen believes all meetings with staff and applicant should be public.
3. Neighborhood Meetings
A repeated theme is the residents are concerned that input from neighborhood meetings and
citizen comments do not impact proposals, so that citizens are burdened with meetings, but with
no actual beneficial outcome. (What is the real purpose of neighborhood meetings?)
Several have noted a need to “close the loop” with neighborhoods regarding questions that were
not answered at neighborhood meeting, and possibly to consider a way to give neighborhoods
another chance to have more discussion at some point during the review process.
There is a concern that neighborhood meetings are not well documented, and that the
documentation is subject to the planner’s discretion.
4. Staff Reports/Recommendations
There is a belief that staff recommendations are a powerful influence on decisionmakers, and that
they are written in such a way that it is difficult for the Board to reach a different conclusion. This
seems particularly important on issues/projects that could be viewed as close calls by
decisionmakers for meeting or not meeting standards.
Why do staff reports not simply state the relevant standards and outline how the developer
proposes to meet the standards?
For more subjective standards and/or modifications, could the report provide justifications for
decisionmakers to approve OR deny? This would provide decisionmakers with a rationale for a
decision in either direction on standards that are more subjective.
Another person suggested that staff should not make recommendations for modifications of
standards, but instead to describe the code, the proposed modifications, and requirements that
must be met in order to approve them.
Staff not perceived to be neutral given actions and recommendations to approve.
Citizens felt betrayed when staff report came out making recommendations to approve, when at
neighborhood meeting, they were told staff was neutral in process.
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5. Hearing Process Concerns
Citizens report feeling disempowered by process; feel excluded from decision-making process
that will impact daily lives.
A concern been expressed about the fairness of staff presentations of projects to Board Members
in Work Sessions.
One developer expressed a concern that citizens who may be neutral or supportive may be afraid
to speak up if their neighbors are opposed to a project.
The disparity in time between City and applicant (often combined for 90 minutes of organized
presentations for a project) as opposed for time for citizens who typically may speak only for
three minutes has been noted by several residents.
The current hearing lacks the opportunity for an organized presentation from a group of citizens.
Others have noted that citizens are surprised to learn that a hearing is not a back and forth dialogue
and that citizens are likely to have only three minutes to speak.
The Planning and Zoning Board members (in hearings) and City Councilmembers (in appeal
hearings) often dialogue freely with staff and applicant, but rarely do decisionmakers ask
questions of citizens.
In appeal hearings when the appellants are citizens, City Councilmembers often ask many
questions and have dialogue with the developer’s representatives, instead of with the appellants.
During dialogue, promises are sometimes made by developers in order to gain approval in the
hearing (or appeal hearing). When these statements are not included in the plan under review or
in the motion to approve, the promises are meaningless.
Citizen letters do not allow for dialogue.
More than one citizen involved with more than one project has cited staff and developer
conferring to plan rebuttal of citizen comments.
Planning and Zoning Board comments:
o There is a need for more neighborhood dialogue before a project reaches its hearing.
o There is a need to set expectations prior to hearings so that the public is aware that staff will
make recommendations.
o Consider adding a pre-hearing meeting with neighborhoods. (A trigger would need to be
determined.)
o In conduct of the hearing, jargon should not be used.
o Consider adding an outline of the hearing process with hearing notices, online, and/or on the
screen at the hearing.
A concern has been expressed about the enforceability of conditions of approval and how they are
documented to ensure that they are (1) unambiguous, (2) include a remedy, and (3) comply with
statutory limitations to vested entitlement.
This concern has been forwarded to the City Attorney’s office for review; the City Attorney will
advise City Council as needed.
6. Connection of the Development Review Process to Planning Documents
What is the connection of the review process to the relevant planning documents?
How can the variety of uses envisioned in City Plan or in sub-area plans be realized when
projects are considered individually? Decisionmakers often cite such plans in their discussions,
but final decisions tend to rest only on provisions of the Land Use Code.
How can the cumulative effects of one type of development in an area (often discussed as a
negative in planning documents) be addressed when projects are considered individually? Recent
examples include (1) high density, short term tenancy housing in areas without grocery retail, (2)
multiple Additions of Permitted Uses for offices in single family areas, and (3) auto-related uses
on North College Avenue.
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7. Use of Additions of Permitted Uses
Citizens have expressed concerns about the use of Additions of Permitted Uses (APU),
particularly in Low Density Residential (RL) district and Neighborhood Conservation, Low
Density (NCL) district. Concerns include:
o Staff recommends APU instead of rezoning (and that staff asserts it is not spot rezoning)
since rezoning is difficult to get through. (In some cases, neighbors prefer APU to rezoning.)
o APU grants windfall to property with APU, adversely impacts neighboring property values
(citing example of sale of property immediately following APU on Shields/Mulberry).
o The permanent nature of the APU leads to future uncertainty after sale of property.
o Belief that maintaining low density residential zoning is not a priority of planning staff, and
therefore recommendations to decision makers reflect that priority.
o Perception that concerns were downplayed or ignored (in APU, alternate development must
not create any greater negative impacts than other permitted uses).
In Planning and Zoning Board Work Session discussion, the following questions were raised:
o Should APU be allowed in cases of existing development but not for new development? If
allowed for new developments, should there be higher standards?
o If the approved use is not used for two years or more, should the APU expire and no longer
be allowed?
One citizen suggested that City Council examine reasons for establishing APU. This person
believes it was added to the code with the intent of allowing minor changes to a zone district, but
now that purpose is not being followed. This leads to unpredictability for existing property
owners.
8. Specific Land Use Code (LUC) Concerns (in addition to Addition of Permitted Use)
A need for better outreach and citizen participation when potential Land Use Code changes has
been noted, particularly by staff and Board members.
Suggestion: when Land Use Code changes are being considered, specific changes should be listed
in the agenda, not just “Land Use Code Changes” as an agenda item.
LUC standards in multifamily developments – “if we continue to permit inadequate parking in all
of our residential infill on a routine basis, we will no longer look as we do now”
Concern that no parking minimums in new/proposed Transit-Oriented Development (TOD)
projects will impact neighboring properties adjacent to the TOD, and that the long term density
goals of the City benefit developers while externalizing impacts and harming neighborhoods.
(Concern that staff seems to be focused on achieving City Plan goal of increased density while
overlooking City Plan goal to preserve neighborhood quality and character.)
9. Precedence
One commenter felt staff doesn’t always consider the reason and extensive thought and review
that Land Use Code provisions or changes were implemented (in this case the concern was the lot
size minimum of 5,000 square feet in Neighborhood Conservation, Medium Density (NCM)).
Similarly, another resident felt current practices for proposing Additions of Permitted Use (APU)
were very different than what was presented to decisionmakers when the APU provisions were
added to the code.
There is a concern that granting modifications will set a precedent for future modifications even
though the 5,000 square foot minimum lot size was implemented because it was deemed to be
undesirable in the future.
Another resident was also concerned about precedent-setting. This person believed the approval
of an Addition of Permitted Use (APU) allowing multi-family development in an Residential,
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Low Density (RL) district would be make it more likely that APU would be approved in more
and more circumstances once precedent was set.
UPDATE ON EFFORTS TO INCREASE AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION AND
TRANSPARENCY
Because of customer feedback and CDNS’s commitment to provide accessible information in a timely
way, major efforts to improve the availability of information about development projects took place in
2012. Improvements will continue to be a priority of CDNS staff in 2013. These include:
A weekly development review email and webpage with information on scheduled neighborhood
meetings, Type 1 and 2 hearings, and other development-review related board and commission
meetings.
Complete Planning and Zoning Board packets and Administrative Hearing packets
Improved and expanded access to documents related to specific projects through a newly-
launched current projects webpage.
Updated development review signage, adding a number to facilitate finding more information.
Updated map of current projects, with links to more information about each project.
New index of conceptual review projects to facilitate locating projects. Staff comments will be
added starting in 2013.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1
Citizen Communications
Jan 4, 2013
Dear Sarah Burnett,
I would like to submit the following observations and suggestions to the Planning and Zoning
Board (P&Z) January 11 working session.
We were involved in the appeal of the Regency Development request for an Addition of
Permitted Use (APU). Based on our experience, we think the APU is vaguely defined and
reasonable people can come to very different conclusions on its application. From our
perspective, the best solution is to remove the APU from the Land Use Code (LUC) and use the
rezoning section of the LUC. If the P&Z decides there are uses for the APU, then we have some
specific suggestions.
A Purpose section should be added to the APU that details the intended uses of the APU. Since
the APU section of the code has been amended several times since 1998, this will entail a review
of both the City Staff discussion notes and City Council agenda notes.
The prohibited uses for most zoning district are given as those not listed as approved,… with the
exception that those approved under the APU process are OK. Given the vagueness within the
APU, we think explicit prohibited uses should be added for zoning districts. It seems reasonable
that these prohibited uses would be based on characteristics such as density, building attributes,
and other such clearly defined attributes.
Section 1.3.4(C) “Codification of New Use” gives a process for the Director to add a permitted
use to the entire zone district. This should be removed and the section restricted to adding a
permitted use that is limited to development proposal for which the APU was requested. If the
Director wishes to add a permitted use to an entire zone, then they should use the rezoning
process.
We also request that the P&Z recommend to the City Council that the use of the APU process be
suspended until the P&Z review is completed and any changes to LUC are enacted.
Thank-you for considering our comments and suggestions,
Paul L Patterson and Kathryn Dubiel
2936 Eindborough,
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Date: January 7, 2013
To: Sarah Burnett
From: Michelle Haefele and Michael Knowles, 623 Monte Vista Ave, Fort Collins, CO 80521 (970-493-
7898)
RE: Addition of a Permitted Use (APU) in Single-Family Residential Zones
Dear Ms. Burnett,
Please forward these comments to the Planning and Zoning Board for their January 11 work session.
We are writing to ask that the city discontinue the use of the “Addition of a Permitted Use” (APU) in
single-family residential zones, at least until several issues can be addressed, if not altogether.
The APU is itself inappropriate (especially in single-family residential zones), the process is unfairly set
up to favor applicants over residents, public access to information on the process and specific projects is
difficult, if not impossible to obtain, and citizen input is essentially ignored.
While we understand that there might be some circumstances where an APU is a useful tool (allowing
additional industrial uses in industrial or commercial zones for example), it is almost never appropriate
in single-family residential zones. The permanent conversion from single-family residential to
commercial or multi-family property destroys the protection for single-family residential zoning (which
is the most important function of zoning).
Allowing individual property owners to essentially “rezone” their property without going through the
rezoning process has two effects – it gives these property owners an unearned windfall (all such
requests are for conversions to higher valued uses) and it reduces the property values for the remaining
homeowners. We have heard repeated assertions that an APU is not spot rezoning, but the permanence
of these changes has the identical effect on the remaining residential property owners.
It is patently unfair for someone who owns single-family residential property to ever expect to simply
convert it to a more lucrative use. This is essentially an end-run around the zoning, making zoning
irrelevant. As homeowners we expect the city to protect our residential property values and quality of
life. This process destroys that trust.
The process whereby city planning staff cooperate with would-be developers to make a presentation to
the Planning and Zoning Board is unfair. Citizens speaking against these conversions are given only
limited time to speak (often only three minutes). Following citizen input, the city staff (whose salaries
are paid for by these very citizens) confer with the developer to make a rebuttal presentation to the P&Z
Board. Citizens are never given any additional opportunity to speak. In one case it is clear from the email
messages included in the public record that city planners had apparently actually solicited supportive
comments from the developer. This is unacceptable, the city planners should be working for all residents
of Fort Collins and not working to force through such objectionable projects.
The lack of readily available information on APUs and other actions of the Current Planning Department
makes the situation even worse. Citizens who attempt to educate themselves about the actions of the
department are thwarted by a lack of transparency and a dearth of publicly accessible documents and
information. We have been requesting a major revision of the way that the Current Planning
Department informs the residents of Fort Collins about all projects since at least November of 2011
(over a year now). The response of the Current Planning Department has been, thus far, inadequate. All
information pertaining to any action, including APU requests, should be made easily available on-line,
organized by address and project name, so interested citizens can easily keep track of actions in our
neighborhoods. This information should be posted by address as soon as a conceptual review request is
submitted and updated at least weekly.
Finally, recent attempts at reform for the development processes (including the APU) have included
increased neighborhood meetings. However the input from neighbors at these meetings does not, in
most cases, make it into final proposals. In the end neighbors are burdened with additional meetings,
but with no actual beneficial outcome. Input from residents must be taken into account.
It is for these reasons that we are requesting that the APU be abolished or at least revised substantially
(and until acceptable revisions can be made the use of the APU should be suspended).
Sincerely,
Michelle Haefele and Mike Knowles