Planning and Zoning Commission

Jim Liesen, Chairman Lake Havasu City Jim Harris, Vice Chairman Donald Bergen Lake Havasu City Police Facility 2360 McCulloch Blvd North Lucas Still Mychal Gorden Regular Meeting Minutes - Final Lake Havasu City, Arizona 86403 www.lhcaz.gov Neil Ott Chad Nelson, Alternate Planning and Zoning Commission Daniel McGowan, Alternate Wednesday, March 19, 2014 9:00 AM Regular Meeting 1. CALL TO ORDER The March 19, 2014, Planning Commission regular meeting was called to order by Chairman Liesen at 9:00 a.m. This matter was 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. ROLL CALL Mr. Nelson took the vacant seat. Present: 7- Donald Bergen, Neil Ott, Jim Harris, Jim Liesen, Chad Nelson, Dan McGowan and John Kendig Absent: 2- Lucas Still and Mychal Gorden 4. MINUTES Mr. Ott made a motion to approve the minutes of the February 19, 2014, meeting as written. The motion was seconded by Mr. McGowan and carried unanimously. Aye: 7 - Bergen, Ott, Harris, Liesen, Nelson, McGowan and Kendig Absent: 2 - Still and Gorden 5. CORRESPONDENCE AND ANNOUNCEMENTS Mr. Schmeling stated that at the last City Council meeting, the mayor and council appointed Mr. John Kendig as an alternate member of the Planning Commission. We would to welcome him back since he has served on the Commission previously. Also, the new position for City Planner has Lake Havasu City Page 1 Printed on 5/7/2014 Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting Minutes - March 19, 2014 Final been posted on the website which means that help is on the way. Also, our Consultant, Clarion Associates from Denver, is planning their kickoff meeting for the General Plan update and the zoning code re-write for April 1 which is an evening meeting starting at 6:00 p.m. in this room. The meeting will be used to introduce themselves, meet and greet the general public, and get comments. That meeting is scheduled for about two hours. Also, I was going to use this time to give you a quick glimpse of the City website because we have a couple of new features that may impact your navigation when it comes to finding your Planning Commission information. You can bring up the website and click on the bar on the left for Planning Commission. That will bring up a list of the meetings and you can click on any of them. You can also click on any meeting for other departments and the City Council. It will show a lot of information including the agendas, the minutes once they have been approved, etc. That is one way to get to your information. The other way is to go to Departments on the main screen and go to Community Services where the Planning Commission has its own button which will take you to the same place. The can also be customized for what you are looking for and it will search and research for past actions. It is a good tool and I am sure you will use it more in the future as we go forward. We can also have more training sessions outside of regular meetings if you wish. Mr. Ott asked what meeting details goes to. Mr. Schmeling that will take you to the whole agenda. The ID numbers are each one of your items and that will give you the staff report and the attachments. 6. PUBLIC HEARING ID 14-0165 To amend the pool and spa regulations contained in Section 14.30.090 by adding language to allow alarms as an acceptable enclosure for doors that access residential pools. 14-00500002 - Mr. Schmeling said you should remember this one. We had a discussion item on this at the last meeting, talking about Section 14.30.090 which discusses pool enclosure including doors. After researching several codes, the Commission directed staff to put language in the code which would allow alarms as an acceptable alternative. We took our section and used almost idential language from the other codes throughout the valley and we are proposing to add the language: "or shall be equipped with an audible alarm which shall be listed in accordance with United Laboratories Standard 2017." Mr. Harris asked about the UL standard 2017. Without having the benefit of reading that, what does that entail? Mr. Schmeling said I have not had the benefit of reading that, either. That recommendation came from the Fire Department which would understand what that UL standard would mean, but I noticed that it was in several of the code sections that came from the Phoenix metro area. Lake Havasu City Page 2 Printed on 5/7/2014 Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting Minutes - March 19, 2014 Final Mrs. Garry said she can give information about UL 2017. It is the general purpose signaling devices on systems. It talks about signaling devices for emergency or non-emergency use used at indoor and outdoor locations where applicable. It covers those types of systems. Mr. Liesen opened the meeting to the public. No one spoke. Mr. Schmeling stated that staff recommends that Section 14.30.090(C) 4 be amended to include audible alarms as an acceptable means of addressing doors that have direct access to the pool area. Mr. Nelson said, being a real estate agent, this is a really big problem. A lot of times when a pool is approved, the first thing that goes is the self-closing screen door. I don't see an issue with self-closing doors. My question would be if we could make a differentiation stating that the self-closing doors would remain but the alarms be mandatory on the sliding glass doors. That is really the issue - the self-closing hinges seem to work pretty good. Mr. Harris said I am not sure what your question is. Mr. Nelson said my question is can we make a differentiation if we adopt this code or can we specify that doors still have to have a self-closing hinge? The can put an audible alarm on a door, but the sliding glass door, I think, is the issue, not the self-closing door, so my question is can we make a differentiation there? Mr. Harris said we would possibly accomodate that by having some verbiage that hinged doors shall remain self-closing. I am just suggesting here, but part of the reason for the alarm aspect is that large sliding glass doors cannot be made self-closing. That is the whole purpose for going for the alarm. I don't know of any large sliding glass self-closing doors that have been installed here in town. Typically they try to accommodate it with a screen panel or something like that. When you get into multiple stacking doors, that is hard to accomplish. Mr. Liesen said perhaps we could insert some language that would include sliding glass doors. Mr. Schmeling said, just as an FYI, none of the codes that I read differentiated between sliding glass doors and other doors. They just said that doors shall meet this criteria, self-closing and self-latching or they can be equipped with an alarm. It was an alternative to all or any as opposed to requiring both. You can put both on a door, but none of the codes really did anything to differentiate from a typical sliding glass door. Mr. Harris said I would suggest as a practical aspect to this, most builders or most homeowners are going to go ahead with the self-closing/self-latching hinged doors as opposed to alarming all of Lake Havasu City Page 3 Printed on 5/7/2014 Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting Minutes - March 19, 2014 Final those doors. It is cheaper, it is more efficient and it lasts longer. I don't foresee a problem that Mr. Nelson is alluding to, but it doesn't mean it can't happen, but I think we are covering it here. If we want to do something different, I guess that is ok. Mrs. Garry said if the Commission is interested, we could add some qualifying language that if the subsection A isn't applicable or not possible, then the door shall be equipped with an audible alarm. Instead of giving the option of either/or, we could say they have to be equipped with a self-closing/self-latching device unless that is unfeasible or impossible or whatever language we might want to use, and then, in that instance they may be equipped with an audible alarm. That might cover it. I don't want to get into sliding glass doors and trying to qualify which doors are which. Obviously, we prefer self-closing/self-latching, but if that is impossible, then you may have an audible alarm. It sounds like it will be limited situations where there are extremely large sliding glass doors or doors that do not have the possibility of being self-closing. In that instance, we will give them the option of being equipped with audible alarms. Mr. Ott said I would rather not see a differentiation between the types of doors. I like the idea of either self-latching or you have an alarm system and also from the standpoint that kids are inventive. They are better than raccoons when it comes to opening things and self-latching doors will, at least in theory, prevent them from wandering out into the pool area. Nothing prevents them from finding a way to reach that latch, release it and go on out. The homeowner having the flexibility of going one way or the other is very important. A motion to approve Item 14-0165 (14-00500002) with staff's recommendation was made by Mr. Harris and seconded by Mr. Ott. The motion carried by the following vote: (Mr. Bergen did not cast a vote.) Aye: 5 - Ott, Harris, Liesen, Nelson and McGowan Absent: 2 - Still and Gorden 7. CALL TO PUBLIC None. 8. FUTURE MEETING Mr. Schmeling said we do not have any items for the April 2, 2014, meeting so that meeting will be canceled. I would like to remind you of the kickoff meeting with Clarion and Associates on April 1 at 6:00 p.m. That meeting will be recorded and shown on TV channel 4. April 16 will be the next regular meerting date and we do have one agenda item. 9. ADJOURNMENT Lake Havasu City Page 4 Printed on 5/7/2014 Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting Minutes - March 19, 2014 Final The meeting was adjouned at 9:20 a.m. ___________________________________________________ Jim Liesen, Chairman ___________________________________________________ Jean Vinson, Recording Secretary Lake Havasu City Page 5 Printed on 5/7/2014