Planning and Zoning Commission

Lake Havasu City Jim Liesen, Chairman Mychal Gorden, Vice-Chairman Lake Havasu City Police Facility Don Bergen 2360 McCulloch Blvd North Doug Hardy Special Meeting Minutes - Final Lake Havasu City, Arizona 86403 www.lhcaz.gov Dan McGowan Chad Nelson Lucas Still Planning and Zoning Commission Christy Cunningham, Alternate John Kendig, Alternate Allen Windholz, Alternate Tuesday, March 17, 2015 6:00 PM Special Meeting Aquatic/Recreation Rooms 155/156, 100 Park Avenue 1. CALL TO ORDER Chairman Liesen called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Chairman Liesen lead in the Pledge of Allegiance. 3. ROLL CALL Present: 7- Donald Bergen, Jim Liesen, Chad Nelson, Lucas Still, Dan McGowan, Christy Cunningham and Allen Windholz Absent: 3- Mychal Gorden, John Kendig and Doug Hardy 4. PUBLIC HEARING ID 15-0103 Planning Commission Hearing to Receive Public Input on the General Plan Update Mr. Schmeling welcomed the audience and thanked them for coming to the meeting. He stated that contrary to what the newspaper printed this morning, this is not your last opportunity to participate in the General Plan process. Actually, this is one of several meetings that we have had and that we are about to have. We are going to have another one tomorrow morning for those individuals who can’t make evening meetings. That meeting will be at 9:00 a.m. in the City Council chambers. One of the reasons we are here is because the State code requires that when you adopt a General Plan you have at least two public hearings, we have already had several, but we are going to have this one tonight, another one tomorrow morning and at least one with the City Council. The State also requires that we hold the hearings in two separate locations, so being that 99% of our meetings are held in the City Council Chambers we had to find another location. I realize this is not ideal, however; this is the location we ended up with. Lake Havasu City Page 1 Printed on 5/6/2015 Planning and Zoning Commission Special Meeting Minutes - Final March 17, 2015 At this point I would like to introduce Darcie White, with Clarion Associates. That is the firm that we have hired to do both our General Plan update as well as our Development Code rewrite. Some of you have participated in some of the other meetings. We have the two reviews going on at the same time. Sometimes there is some confusion, especially with people in the audience. I see a lot of new faces tonight and I would like to welcome you. Darcie will go ahead and fill in the Commission and the audience members with what we have done so far with the General Plan. She will give you a general outline of the plan. Obviously the idea behind the public hearing is to create some dialogue and garner input from you, the citizens, and once again you have other opportunities to participate as well via the website, emails, and those sorts of things. Darcie will be going over the public participation. Ms. White thanks Mr. Schmeling and everyone for being here tonight. As it stands we have a complete draft of the General Plan update posted on the website. That is what we are here to talk about tonight so what I would like to do is give a brief overview of the process we have been through over the last year. I will talk about what is in the plan and we will see what kind of discussion we have. Ms. White presented a PowerPoint slideshow including narrative and information touching on the following key points: • General Plan Purpose • Current General Plan • New Elements to be Included in the General Plan • Public Involvement Plan • Opportunities to Participate • Opportunities to Follow the Process • Trends and Key Issues • Community Vision (Adopted) • Community Vision (Proposed) • Growth Management • Land Use and Future Land Use Plan • Housing and Neighborhoods • Economy • Circulation • Open Space and Recreation • Public Facilities and Services • Community Safety • Implementation Program • Appendices At this point in the presentation, Ms. White opened the floor for questions. Lake Havasu City Page 2 Printed on 5/6/2015 Planning and Zoning Commission Special Meeting Minutes - Final March 17, 2015 Ms. Diane Klostermeier posed several questions to Ms. White, the Planning Commission, and staff resulting in a detailed discussion including the following topics: • Expansion of mixed-use categories • Expansion of densities • Zoning change impacts • Relaxing standards in allowed heights • Clarification regarding the intent and purpose of the Land Use Map and the Zoning Map • Distinction made between the General Plan and the Development Code as it relates to allowed zoning Chairman Liesen requested Ms. White explain how and why some of the extra elements came into play. Ms. White responded that the new elements are required by the State. Once you hit the 50,000 population threshold your plan has to include all of those elements. As I noted, technically your 2002 plan addressed these in some fashion. We had to explicitly address them in order to meet those requirements. Chairman Liesen referred to the appendices and the public comments. I felt there were a lot of great comments from the community but I was shocked to see how few comments there were. Does this encompass all the comments or is this a highlight of the more interesting ones? I am happy to see the amount of people here today, I did not expect this based on the meetings we have had before. My question is; how representative of a sample are the comments and statements in here? Does each one represent one hundred or one thousand? Ms. White responded it would not be thousands. What we listen for are common themes and we had a number of meetings in the fall with our Committee and we are listening to all of those groups and I think the themes I mentioned were neighborhood concepts, revitalization of the island and shoreline, connectivity, continuing to build on the trail systems. While we don’t have a statistically valid number of comments I think what we heard overall were a lot of common themes about what we needed to address in the plan. We always hope for more feedback. I am also thrilled to see this many people here tonight. I think our September meeting where we talked about the vision and we looked to the existing plan we had about the same number but it has trickled down from there. We did get some supplemental feedback through the online comments. There are about eighty people who signed up for direct notification of meetings, folks who got every survey and did we have thousands, no, we certainly didn’t. Mr. Schmeling asked Ms. White to recap what are some of the other opportunities the audience has to participate via the website. Lake Havasu City Page 3 Printed on 5/6/2015 Planning and Zoning Commission Special Meeting Minutes - Final March 17, 2015 Ms. White responded that what we have done after each round of public meetings is we will have an online survey available. The draft is up there, it has been there for the last few months. You can get on there through the City’s website, there is a General Plan link on the home page, bottom left side. If you go to that and go to the General Plan there will be a link there that you can provide comments on the plan. We have relied on that in addition to these types of meetings because some people don’t want to speak up in a meeting, they may be more comfortable typing their comments and sending them to us that way. We are happy to receive feedback either way, and as Stuart mentioned we will have another meeting tomorrow morning and a to be scheduled public hearing with the City Council. In the meantime we are happy to hear from as many people as we can about the current draft of the plan. Ms. Gordon Groet posed questions to Ms. White, the Planning Commission, and staff resulting in a detailed discussion including the following topics: • Density increase • Population growth • Water availability • Economic diversification • Transportation • High-speed, high-performance fiber optic infrastructure • Clarification that the General Plan is a high level umbrella document and not a code book An unidentified resident spoke regarding neighborhoods which included the following key points: • Our neighborhoods are not being kept up • Too many vehicles are allowed to park in front yards • Property values will be negatively impacted with no law enforcement action • Requests to add a code that does not allow parking on the front yard Chairman Liesen commented that the examples provided are really good examples for the Development Code meetings. Mr. McGowan commented that the City now has two full time Code Enforcement officers. Ms. Diane Klostermeier posed additional questions to Ms. White, the Planning Commission, and staff resulting in a detailed discussion including the following topics: • Requested clarification regarding which resources were used to develop the plan update • People that own property on the channel will have every right to restrict the walkway, to develop anywhere from 30 to 90 feet, and eliminate setbacks • Density and mixed-use is being increased • Concern that standards for density are going to be relaxed Chairman Liesen commented that trying to compare the old plan to the new plan, there are not a lot Lake Havasu City Page 4 Printed on 5/6/2015 Planning and Zoning Commission Special Meeting Minutes - Final March 17, 2015 of concrete things and that is frustrating. You want to read a book that says "do this this way" and this is not a code book. For me this is hard to absorb in such a large manner instead of the concrete specific way. There is not a lot I disagree with in here. I want to have a high-tech sector to our economy sector of Lake Havasu, I want to have a beautification area, I think we all do. This doesn’t give you the specifics for the implementation. In the implementation chapter it talks about the actions we have to go through to get them implemented. It is a big document and it took a long time to develop. What I like about it is that we can all agree on a lot of stuff. Mr. Nelson commented that the General Plan gives us a direction that we are going. We are not going to be focused on an industrial population. That we are not going to be focused on industry. There are all different aspects and elements as we grow that will be implemented in the plan to keep this town diversified. It seems like it is blanket or generic but it is also specific that we are not moving towards all recreation or all industry or all high-tech, that we are diversified in building houses and having open space, having some areas that can have high density, having a lot of resort properties. It is general, it is generic, but it is the direction that our town is going and it is pretty much staying the way it was. Council Member Brister commented that you can be assured that there isn’t one person in the City that doesn’t think about the water and that is something that we are all concerned with. It is not just happening here, virtually all over the west coast. You can be assured that Planning and Zoning, the Mayor, and Council are all looking at what we can do to grow our city in a way that is a financial benefit for all of us. The input that we get from our citizens about what is important to know is crucial. The meetings are advertised and the more people that come, the more we know what is going on and what they want. They have been working on this forever and holding multiple, multiple meetings. You just have to understand that we are all here doing the very best that we can do trying to keep our city to be what our citizens tell us they want. Obviously we aren’t going to go out and bring in cotton farmers or hay farmers or anything like that, but we do need high-tech infrastructure. So tell your neighbors to get involved. Ms. Cunningham commented that I came before the Council to be on the Commission because I saw that the General Plan update was coming and implementation. I have a public administrations degree and have been participating in the County. I work for Fort Mohave Indian Tribe in Needles. Our whole entire area is going through changes. I agree, it is a general umbrella plan. Planning and Zoning is where it is going to consistently change. I guess my biggest thing is that this is a living document that changes constantly and in the last year I spent more time trying to figure out how it works and what happens in our society as we go forward, not just Lake Havasu but in a world view. I think that we are missing something on the recreation side but we have to grow and I have accepted that. My home was built in 1969 and I am one of the original residents here, I went to high school here, and I think we have to balance it and the more participation the better. I watched Jim and the Committee on Channel 45. There are a lot of ways to see what is happening in the City. I am gone ten hours a day but I am participating and I think that is the best Lake Havasu City Page 5 Printed on 5/6/2015 Planning and Zoning Commission Special Meeting Minutes - Final March 17, 2015 thing. Talk to people and find out what they want and where we are going. It is our lake, let’s keep it. Ms. White continued the presentation to discuss the Vision Statement as it is written in the draft plan and the newly proposed expanded Vision Statement. Mr. Doug Traub provided background for the proposed Vision Statement which included the following key points: • A team of 19 members will be developing the first Economic Development Plan for Lake Havasu City • Process was started with analysis on how to promote our economy • Comparison was made to the original Vision Statement • Identified key missing pieces to fill in the gaps • Enhanced terminology to clarify the intent of the statement An unidentified resident addressed Ms. White and inquired about the difference between a Comprehensive Plan and a General Plan. Ms. White replied that a Comprehensive Plan and a General Plan, depending on which state you are in, are similar documents. Additional discussion continued on this topic, resulting in Ms. White clarifying the comprehensive nature of the General Plan in further detail. Mr. Still posed questions to Ms. White resulting in a detailed discussion including the following key topics: • Resources used to determine the ratio percentages for the densities and land use • Obtaining confirmation of accuracy of average densities in terms of what has happened over the last ten years • Commercial analysis and build-out • Simplification and clarification of zoning districts Mr. Gordon Groet asked Ms. White what the mechanism is to amend the General Plan. Ms. White responded that the implementation chapter outlines those processes. There are major amendments and minor amendments. It talks about the specific requirements or triggers for each of those. Mr. Schmeling commented that the major amendments are taken through a submittal process by staff. We take all of the major amendments annually to the Commission at one time. They review them and make a recommendation and ultimately the decision is to be made by the City Council. Lake Havasu City Page 6 Printed on 5/6/2015 Planning and Zoning Commission Special Meeting Minutes - Final March 17, 2015 Minor amendments that occur, changes in language or something that doesn’t change the substance, can occur anytime throughout the year. The State requires that cities take all major amendment requests at one time so that they can all be considered at once. Ms. Diane Klostermeier asked Mr. Schmeling to explain the voting for major amendments as opposed to minor amendments. Mr. Schmeling responded that the major amendments don’t require a vote. The City Council has to adopt the plan or approve the plan with a super majority. Once the plan is adopted it is required to go to an election to be voter ratified. We haven’t scheduled any of that yet of course, that is at the end of this program. Major amendments to the plan require a super majority of the Council. Minor amendments just require a standard majority. Hearing no further conversation, Ms. White thanked everyone with a reminder that there will be another public hearing tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. in City Council chambers. 5. CALL TO PUBLIC Chairman Liesen opened the Call to the Public. Hearing none, he closed Call to the Public. e6. ADJOURNMENT Chairman Liesen adjourned the meeting at 7:32 p.m. _______________________________________________________________ Jim Liesen, Chairman _______________________________________________________________ Diane Libby, Recording Secretary Patty Mead provided staff with a Public Health Statement, titled "Let's Make the Healthy Choice the Easy Choice". Lake Havasu City Page 7 Printed on 5/6/2015