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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOUNCIL - AGENDA ITEM - 11/21/2000 - RESOLUTION 2000-140 AMENDING THE PROCESS AND PROCE AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY ITEM NUMBER: 28 FORT COLLINS CITY COUNCIL DATE: November 21, 2000FROM Pete Wray SUBJECT: Resolution 2000-140 Amending the Process and Procedure for Amending City Plan and the Elements Thereof. RECOMMENDATION: Staff recommends adoption of the Resolution. The Planning and Zoning Board will consider the new process at its November 16, 2000 meeting. The Council Growth Management Committee supported amending the process at its meeting on September 18, 2000. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: City Plan, and the adopted plan elements which comprise the City's Comprehensive Plan,are policy documents used to guide decision-making within Fort Collins and the surrounding area. For the City's Comprehensive Plan to function over time, it must be able to be reviewed, revised, and updated on an as needed basis in order to respond to significant trends or changes in the economic, physical, social, or political conditions of the City. Amendments to City Plan and related elements may be performed on a yearly basis as needed. A separate process for amending City Plan will be conducted as part of a comprehensive update occurring every five years. On February 15, 2000, Council adopted Resolution 2000-33 outlining the process and procedures for amending City Plan and elements of the Comprehensive Plan. Two types of plan amendments were identified with the new amendment process. Minor Plan Revisions are described as housekeeping in nature such as correcting text or map errors and such revisions are subject to an administrative hearing before the Director of CPES. Major Plan Amendments are more substantial in nature such as changes or additions to policy language, land use, and zoning, boundary line adjustments and street alignments. Subsequently, after the adoption of this item in February, staff has raised a concern about the recently adopted amendment process. The concern relates to conducting changes to City Plan administratively. In the past,Council was the decision making authority for all amendments to the comprehensive plan and related elements. Staffs suggestion is to change the existing adopted amendment procedures and return to the previous process where all amendments are reviewed by City Council, following a recommendation by the Planning and Zoning Board. As a result of these discussions, staff has reassessed the available options for describing an amendment process and has prepared an alternative for Council to consider to the existing adopted amendment process. The proposed alternative Appendix C states that all City Plan amendments and elements thereof shall be considered by City Council, after a recommendation by the Planning and DATE: November 21 , 2000 2 ITEM NUMBER: 28 Zoning Board (see Exhibit A to the Resolution). This option was used prior to the recent process adopted by Council, February 2000. The alternative proposed will delete all reference to minor revisions, directing all plan amendments to go before Council. As outlined when City Plan was adopted in 1997 an amendment process needs to be clearly described in City Plan. The existing adopted process that includes administrative minor revisions was originally proposed to streamline the review process for simple changes. Staff supports the alternative because any perceived minor amendment could be listed as a consent item. In addition to amending Appendix C, City Plan Principles and Policies will also need to be revised to delete any mention of minor amendments. Policy GM-10.3 and GM-10.5 would be deleted. The corresponding Policy numbers would be changed (See Exhibit B to the Resolution below). • RESOLUTION 2000-140 OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF FORT COLLINS AMENDING THE PROCESS AND PROCEDURE FOR AMENDING CITY PLAN AND THE ELEMENTS THEREOF WHEREAS, on February 15, 2000, the Council adopted Resolution 2000-33, adopting a process and procedure for amending City Plan and the elements thereof; and WHEREAS, upon recommendation of the Council Growth Management Committee and the Planning and Zoning Board, the Council has determined that the procedure as adopted by Resolution 2000-33 should be amended to eliminate the "minor amendment" process contemplated therein to be performed administratively, and to require instead that all amendments to City Plan shall be made by the City Council following recommendation by the Planning and Zoning Board; and WHEREAS, the Council has determined that it is in the best interests of the City that Appendix C, being the process and procedures for amending City Plan and the comprehensive plan elements thereof be amended as hereafter provided, and that policies GM-10.3 and GM- 10.5 be repealed. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF FORT COLLINS as follows: Section 1. That Appendix C of City Plan, being the process and procedures for amending City Plan and the comprehensive plan elements thereof, be and hereby is repealed and readopted to read as shown on Exhibit "A", attached hereto and incorporated herein by this reference. Section 2. That Policies GM-10.3 and GM-10.5 be and hereby are repealed, and Policy GM-10.4 is hereby renumbered to become Policy GM-10.3. Passed and adopted at a regular meeting of the City Council held this 21st day of November, A.D. 2000. Mayor ATTEST: City Clerk Exhibit A Appendix C. Process and Procedures for Amending City Plan And Comprehensive Plan Elements Thereof • Exhibit A Introduction City Plan, and the adopted plan elements which comprise the City's comprehensive plan, are policy documents used to guide decision-making within Fort Collins and the surrounding area. For the City's comprehensive plan to function over time, it must be able to be reviewed, revised, and updated on an as needed basis in order to respond to significant trends or changes in the economic, physical, social, or political conditions of the City. Amendments to City Plan and related elements may be performed on a yearly basis as needed. A separate process for amending City Plan will be conducted as part of a comprehensive update occurring every five (5) years. The purpose of this section is to outline a process and procedures for amending City Plan, on a more frequent basis, as well as describe the process for amending the adopted related comprehensive plan elements thereof (See Appendix A - Comprehensive Plan Elements). For purposes of this section, plan amendments include all changes such as minor corrections to text or map errors, as well as more substantial changes or additions to policy language, land use, zoning, boundary line adjustments and street alignments. The process and procedure for making these amendments are described below. Plan Amendment Process and Procedures Exhibit A stablished b Resolution 2000-33, t R 4 '"E Y d.. r.. .Reso[uttp�{k!'� ...z�.') All plan amendments shall be considered by the City Council, after recommendation by the Planning and Zoning Board, City staff, and any boards and commissions that may have a legitimate interest in the proposed amendment, provided that such board or commission is duly authorized pursuant to Chapter 2 of the City Code to function in such advisory capacity. Notice of such Council action shall be given as required for resolutions pursuant to the City Charter. The City Council shall then approve, approve with conditions, or deny the amendment based on its consideration of the recommendations from the Planning and Zoning Board, city staff, boards and commissions, and evidence from the public hearings. Approval of the amendments shall be by resolution. Citizen requests for a Plan Amendment shall be considered by the City Council no more frequently than twice per calendar year (October/April), unless the Director determines the proposed amendment warrants expedited consideration by City Council. Plan amendment requests based on proposed development projects that involve rezonings may also be processed concurrently with rezoning applications (November/June). Plan amendments initiated by City Council, City staff, and boards and commissions, may be processed at any time. Requests shall be submitted to the City's Advance Planning Department at least 60 days prior to the hearing date for the Planning and Zoning Board. The 60-day submittal requirement is necessary in order to permit adequate public notice to be given and to allow adequate time to complete the background work for considering a plan amendment. A plan amendment shall be approved if the City Council makes specific findings that: The existing City Plan and/or any related element thereof is in need of the proposed amendment; and The proposed plan amendment will promote the public welfare and will be consistent with the vision, goals, principles and policies of City Plan and the elements thereof. If adopted by the City Council, City Plan shall be revised to include the changes resulting from the amendment. A letter of notification will be forwarded to the appropriate boards and commissions when the revision(s) have been finalized. Appendix C Amendment Process and Procedures November 21,2000 • " DRAFT MINUTES " The Council of the City of Fort Collins Council Growth Management Committee September 18, 2000 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. Council Liaisons: Scott Mason —679-3466 Staff Liaison: Greg Byrne - 221-6601 Chuck Wenner—484-0810 Karen Weitkunat—229-9774 Planning &Zoning Board Representatives: Glen Colton ATTENDEES: Council Members: City Staff: Chuck Wanner John Fischbach Steve Roy Clarke Mapes Scott Mason Greg Byrne Pete Wray Ted Shepard Karen Weitkunat Joe Frank Gary Diede Patty Storm (recorder) P &Z Boardmember: Others: Glen Colton Shelly Smith—Student CSU Sally Craig - Citizen AGENDA: 1. Review of Draft Minutes—September 11, 2000 Approval 2. Six Month Planning Calendar Review/Comment 3. Campus West Update 4. City Plan Amendment Process Option Discussion 5. Fall Land Use Code Revisions Discussion MINUTES: 1. Review of Draft Minutes—August 14, 2000 There were a few minor changes to the minutes. Page 4— Paragraph 2 under Population Growth Triggers...... we need to concentrate on (add) more than the rate of growth. Page 4 last paragraph — 2ntl sentence ..... that people need to realize it (change won't to can) be a significant time lag ...... City Attorney Roy suggested at the end of the minutes on Inclusionary Zoning to note that the Committee entered into an Executive Session to discuss legal issues. 2. Six Month Planning Calendar Staffmember Greg Byrne stated that another meeting has been added in October—on October 16'". The agenda on October 9'" is: ❑ Pilot Bus Shelters ❑ Transfort Strategic Plan The agenda on October 16'" is: ❑ Fall Land Use Code Revisions ❑ Annexations Outside the UGA • ❑ IGA— County Land Use Code Amendment (Memo only— No Presentation) Pete Wray stated the East Mulberry Corridor Plan scheduled for November 13'b was just a place holder. It was moved to "Unscheduled Items". Council Growth Management Committee September 18, 2000 Page 2 3. Campus West Staffmember Clarke Mapes stated the direction of the Campus West Plan is still consistent with the last discussion between staff and the Council Growth Management Committee. The Plan will describe a vision for an activity center without recommending changes to existing development. It will however, recommend a few specific, short-term changes. Two key examples are a new cross-section standard for West Elizabeth Street tailored to the constraints and objectives of the Plan, and a new sidewalk project for the south side of Plum Street. It would be partially funded by annual Pedestrian Plan Implementation dollars. Mapes stated the business owners in the community would like the City to go ahead and plant trees, add some lighting and place benches along Elizabeth Street in the right-of-way. The City is not going to do this as it doesn't address the bike lane safety issues. The only reason that Elizabeth Street would be widened is because of the safety issues associated with the bike lanes. The business owners are still interested in some beautification enhancements and having a consistent theme throughout the neighborhood. They would like the City to develop a thematic design that could be used both on properties that redevelop, and on properties that change use over time. The consultants for the project will work on developing a character for the neighborhood. Things like lighting, paving details, and bench arrangements. So a plan will be in place when redevelopment occurs. Councilmember Weitkunat asked about the possibility of increased housing in this area. Staffmember Joe Frank stated the consultants thought there was some potential for some housing; although not significant. Mapes stated they don't know if there will be redevelopment on Plum Street or not. There are those that feel that some day the run-down houses on Plum could be assembled for more urban type of housing. And again, there's always the potential for second floor housing over retail. Staffmember Joe Frank stated the issue on the design guidelines is whether we want to put any more time into designing the streetscape when it doesn't take us closer to our goal, which was to create an activity center. The Plan will go before Council for adoption by resolution as an element of the Comprehensive Plan. This is tentatively scheduled for January 2001. Staffmember Greg Byme stated we will discuss Campus West with the Committee once again in November when the final touches are done. Mapes stated they still need to meet with the Advisory Group and then Boards and Commissions. All Committee members concurred with proceeding in this direction, following additional public outreach. 4. City Plan Amendment Process Option Staffmember Pete Wray stated last February we adopted a process procedure for amending City Plan. Over the last couple of months, staff has been reassessing the process and has concluded that we revert to bringing all amendment items through the Planning &Zoning Board and City Council. Most items would be on the consent calendar, but any item could be pulled for further discussion if a Council member has questions. Council Growth Management Committee September 18, 2000 Page 3 The primary concern was administering minor amendments administratively. Attachment#1 reflects changing some of the language to describe the process where all amendment items would go through a recommendation from the Planning &Zoning Board to City Council. Attachment#2 provides the language of what was adopted last February that had minor and major amendments. If the Committee agrees, this can be brought forward on consent. S. Fall Land Use Code Revisions Staffmember Ted Shepard stated this item is the fall biennial Land Use Code Revisions. Not all revisions are generated internally; some are recommendations from our customers. In terms of substantive policy changes, there are a few proposed changes that may be considered more significant than others. They are: ❑ "General Office" Maximum Parking Requirements The City Manager has appointed a citizens' advisory task force to research this issue. The task force is processing survey data of existing office parks and analyzing the latest trends in the office development industry. Staff expects the work to become the basis for any code change in the maximum parking ratio. Staff has been gathering survey work for the task force. The survey work so far indicates that there is a lot of parking available; it's just not all located close to the entrance of the work place. There appears . to be ample parking in the parking lots of the office buildings that have been surveyed. Staff has surveyed Interlocken (Broomfield), the Denver Tech Center, and Con Agra in Greeley. Staff has also been working closely with Task Force members who work with Hewlett Packard and Celestica. Philosophically, the task force is divided, but are leaning toward further refining the category of "General Office", and maybe break it down to how offices are physically used on a per square foot basis. They are considering asking an architect to give us a "parking count analysis". It would break down if employees are actually in offices; if so, how large? Are employees in cubicles; workstations, 8'x8' space, etc. How do we translate that work station figure to a gross square footage of the entire building, so it can be converted to parking spaces. Staff is hearing that businesses are leaning toward work stations, offices with walls are rare, and the number of conference rooms is down. The trend is toward "internal employee compaction". If a project comes in for review as an office building, staff will need to know how it will be used internally to determine parking counts, keeping the base standard. They still haven't come to any conclusions. They are still reviewing data. The biggest problem they've encountered with parking is multiple shift changes. Staffmember Byrne stated the data they've gathered on office buildings has been a survey of the lot, the actual number of cars parked in the lot against the number of spaces available against the occupancy of the building at the times the business managers tell us is their highest demand. The supply is every case has exceeded the demand, with the exception perhaps of high employee count manufacturing and shift change. Council Growth Management Committee September 18, 2000 Page 4 The next task force meeting is on September 28 h. o Eight-Plexes in the LMN Zone District Staff is responding to requests from the development community about increasing the maximum number of dwelling units per building in the LMN zone from six to eight. if forwarded for consideration, design standards or guidelines would be recommended to mitigate mass and bulk. Staff discussed this with the Planning &Zoning Board this past Friday. They have been receiving requests from the development community. The requests do not appear to be a coordinated effort, rather, independent in nature. It results in a better product for the architect, for the developer, for the resident and for the property manager to build an envelope that has four units down and four units up, than three units down and three units up. For some reason 3 unit down, 3 unit up design is very awkward from an architectural perspective and from a mechanical engineering perspective. The 6-plex building results in a rectangular building, while the 8-plex can be built with more of a'big house look". Staff is looking at keeping the density the same, but how that density is arranged could be dealt with more flexibly for a developer on a large parcel of ground. Staff is looking at a range of things. If they lean in this direction, staff will develop some standards and guidelines to mitigate the mass and the bulk of what an 8-plex structure would look like. The Committee all concurred with this change. o Noise Mitigation This request came from the Council Health and Safety Committee. The Land Use Code team has been asked to consider provisions that would protect existing land uses that generate noise levels within a maximum allowed for their zone district, but may exceed the maximum allowed in an adjacent zone (residential). This form of protection would require the developer in the lower db (50-55) residential zones to construct noise mitigation measures when developing next to zones (non- residential) with higher allowable db's (55-80). The residential developer is restricted to not exceed 55 db in the residential zone. There are times when a residential developer will develop next to a nonresidential developer where the allowable dbs are 55—80. The residents then begin to complain to the city that the business is exceeding the dbs in their neighborhood. The business is allowed 80 dbs. How do you protect the first guy to come in from those who come to the nuisance. Staff is thinking that the residential developer is instructed who comes later in time, that they need to provide noise mitigation techniques. Councilmember Mason stated he concurs that the developer should provide noise mitigation, since the business was there first. Councilmember Mason asked about#139-Evaluating Code Landscaping Provisions regarding water conservation standards. He concurs with this. He also asked if this would supercede homeowner's association covenants. Staffmember Shepard stated they can probably get this onto the fall schedule. Council Growth Management Committee September 18, 2000 Page 5 • Councilmember Mason asked about#378 Modifying ZBA Standards— Are we weakening the Code? Shepard responded it's a defacto recognition of what they are doing now. They are often faced with a variance that makes a lot of sense that they want to approve it. But it's not going to be "equal to or better than", but it's the only practical thing they can do. This was a requested change. The meeting adjourned at 5:40 p.m.