HomeMy WebLinkAbout230213 Summary Minutes & Verbatim TranscriptTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 1 of 30 FEBRUARY 13, 2023 PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES
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Town of Fountain Hills
Planning & Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes
February 13, 2023
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CHAIRMAN GRAY: All right. Let's go ahead and call this meeting to order. This is
the February 13th version of the Town of Fountain Hills Planning and -- did I say 13th --
Planning and Zoning Commission.
Let's rise for Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence please.
[Pledge]
CHAIRMAN GRAY: All right. Paula, roll call please.
WOODWARD: Commissioner Corey?
COREY: Here.
WOODWARD: Commissioner Dapaah?
DAPAAH: Here.
WOODWARD: Commissioner Dempster?
DEMPSTER: Here.
WOODWARD: Commissioner Kovacevic?
KOVACEVIC: Here.
WOODWARD: Commissioner Watts?
WATTS: Here.
WOODWARD: Vice Chairman Schlossberg? Chairman Gray?
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Here.
Thank you, Paula.
Agenda item 3, call to the public. Paula, any speaker cards?
WOODWARD: No, Chairman.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Bob, anything? All right. Number 4, consideration and possible
action on the regular meeting minutes from the January 9th engagement.
Commissioners, discussion or a motion please? Mrs. Dempster?
DEMPSTER: I will make a motion to approve the regular meeting minutes from our -- I
just lost the date -- January 9th, 2023, meeting.
KOVACEVIC: I'll second.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: All in favor.
ALL: Aye.
WOODWARD: 6-0.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Thank you. And number 5, review, discuss, and provide direction
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only on draft amendments to the Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 7, Parking and Loading
Requirements.
Mr. Wesley?
WESLEY: Chairman, Commissioners, welcome. So I do have a presentation here that I
can go through that steps through pretty much what was in the staff report and the
ordinance. I will want to comment that I did get feedback a couple weeks ago from
Commissioner Watts on what I'd sent out, and if you look closely at the code that was
attached to the staff report, it was slightly different than the one that I sent out previously
because there's some good comments that he made, suggestions, and items that I cleaned
up a little bit based on his comments. And I know there were a few things that he had
that I didn't quite address, I'm sure he's going to bring those up.
I guess I'm saying all that just kind of wondering how much I need to -- particularly since
we have no audience here, I'm not sure that I need to go through this presentation, or how
much, Chairman, you're ready maybe just to see what comments people have from the
review and save, you know, going through the presentation, either way that you'd like to
approach this.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Commissioners, strapple (ph.) presentation or straight to
comments?
COREY: Comments.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Comments.
WESLEY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: All right.
WESLEY: I'm good with that. And I did include in here, because I thought one of the
things -- well, I guess now that I said that, there were a couple things that I had as I went
back through it, and one is this standard about the 50-foot separation from a drive aisle
with a cross drive and parking spaces. As I was thinking about that and looking at some
of these illustrations here in town I wondered if maybe that was a little bit much, if
maybe 30 feet might be better, if I was being too restrictive. But we'll leave that, again,
up to your comments.
And another one that I had was with the electric vehicle charging station. As I said in the
report, and I didn't have anything really new yet, I haven't been able to spend much time
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looking at it, but the little bit I have I'm not really finding anything different. In talking
with Public Works director and some of the experiences he's had in trying to put those in
here in town, there are some challenges. So again, I'm not sure if we feel like we could
get there or not, but those were two in particular that I wanted to highlight.
So and I guess where I was going, is I did include in here the table of the scheduled
parking spaces because I thought that may be one of the places you'd want to go through
in a little bit more detail.
But anyway, with that, Chairman, yeah, whatever questions, comments you want to go to.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Commissioner Watts?
WATTS: John, I'm still in favor of the 50 foot simply because some of the vegetation,
some of the landscaping, a variety of the corners on Saguaro, where I've actually seen it.
WESLEY: Um-hum.
WATTS: And it's been pretty restrictive. If we can get it cut back -- I don't know if
there's a grandfathering issue that some people who have put shrubs in, and now they've
grown.
WESLEY: Um-hum.
WATTS: If we went to the 30 foot, which does make sense except for those areas where
it's effectively overgrown, then how do we police it, how do we either push back on the
50 feet or the 30 feet?
WESLEY: Okay. Yeah, Commissioner Watts, that's a good point. And we do have in
the code in the landscape section the idea that you're supposed to maintain between -- I
can't remember if it's two feet or three feet and seven feet as being open. And
particularly in the sight triangles, they're supposed to maintain visibility. So if we got
issues there, it's probably something our code enforcement officers haven't been paying
attention to, nobody's complained about them, they haven't been thinking about them.
But we could -- because those ordinance requirements have been in the books for quite a
while -- could go back and try to enforce more of those sight visibility issues
WATTS: I think some areas really do have a restriction or very restrictive view. And if
we -- I don't know if somebody has to make a complaint for code enforcement to do
something or how we address that.
.
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WESLEY: They don't have to. It's helpful when they do because --
WATTS: Um-hum.
WESLEY: -- they've got a number things they're working on, and they may not notice a
particular thing somebody else has. It helps them then to focus their attention on it.
WATTS: Okay. Either way, if we could get enforcement, it would be nice. I could live
with the 30 feet but my preference without enforcement would be 50.
The second comment I've got is related to the foot-candle requirements for parking lots.
As I drive around town and look at night, some of the locations that have rather large
parking lots are pretty dimly lit, and I think this becomes a safety issue. And there's a
conflict between Dark Sky, where we want to keep things muted as much as possible, but
also if there's a safety component for some of our citizens. And there is an industry -- or
not an industry -- an association that's called the Illuminating Engineering Society that
the Department of Energy subscribes to, as well as the Association of Energy Engineers,
and they define what the foot-candles should be at the plane of measurement, and the
plane of measurement in this case would probably would be around 48 inches. And it
should be somewhere between a minimum of one and maximum of five foot-candles. So
I think without that, some people are taking advantage of either warn-out lightbulbs,
lamps, or they just didn't put enough in. So I would be still a proponent of saying have
some sort of a standard that we can measure against.
WESLEY: Right. And Commissioner, when you suggested that before, again, I didn't
have a lot of time maybe to do the follow up. When we get the photometric plans that
come in and they show us the foot-candles, I don't know if that's on the ground at five
feet up, at ten feet up. I don't know how they do that when they calculate those, if there is
an industry standard for where that foot-candle is, so I need to find out a little bit more
about that. It may already be done at a 48 inch mark. That may be the standard when
they calculate that, I just know.
WATTS: So I think the majority of the lighting plans that come in come in talking about
lumens as opposed to foot-candles.
WESLEY: They're foot-candles.
WATTS: It is foot-candles?
WESLEY: Yes.
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WATTS: Then the foot-candle, the definition of that is the number of lumens at a
particular work plane. Now, I don't think, you know, if you're at a desk, you know that
that's going to be like 32 inches or so. But if you're in a parking lot, we'd have to define
that and say that's where I suggested the 48 inches, basically the hood of a car or where
an access to a vehicle is. So --
WESLEY: We can follow up on that and again, I'll see if we can find out --
WATTS: Okay.
WESLEY: -- when somebody gives us a plan, where they calculate that. Is it the
ground? Is it 48 inches? You know, where is it? What is it, a foot from the light or
what? So --
WATTS: Right. But those the two associations, Association of Energy Engineers, as
well as the Illuminating -- now I can't remember the dog-gone middle one. But it's IES is
who it is, Engineering Society, that's what it was.
WESLEY: I'll see what we can find out.
WATTS: Thank you.
WESLEY: So I guess Mr. Chairman, if you may, just one more comment kind of
introductory here I should've said. You're probably already aware. I had thought I would
be noticing this meeting as a public hearing on this so you could potentially take action. I
got busy. I lost track of the time. I didn't get the notice published, so we're definitely
coming back for at least one more meeting for a public hearing before we can actually
take action. So we have a month, at least a couple weeks before I have to write a report
to look into some of these things and make any modifications.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Commissioner Corey?
COREY: Thank you. Yeah. I just first wanted to comment that the new version reads a
lot better; it's clear; it's simple. Just in comparing the two, I think anybody reading it is
going to get a much better understanding. You seemed to remove a lot of unnecessary
stuff there. So just wanted to say that.
WESLEY: Thank you.
COREY: And then I noticed that there was the term group housing. Did we want to call
that community residence or is that referring to something different there?
WESLEY: So here it's referring to a broader category at this point. Just go back up. So
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when you are in a community residence that's in a single family zoning district, as we
talked about before, is we consider that, for all intents and purposes, that's the same as a
single family home, and so we really can't single that out for different regulation. If you
move beyond that into some of the other types of group housing --
COREY: There we go.
WESLEY: -- such as boarding house, or dormitory, fraternities, then those are different
type of housing. That's what we have listed here.
COREY: Okay. So we still have that term but it's referred to in a different way, dorm,
fraternity, sorority, boarding house. Okay. I'm trying to understand that one.
One other thing I didn't see in here was length of parking. So is that something that
maybe we could address in here, how long? For example, a car sitting on the side of the
road might be parked for a certain amount of time before somebody may come around
and tag it or something?
WESLEY: So this ordinance deals with off-street parking. On street parking is handled
in Chapter 12 of the town code. And there are provisions in there for how long it can be
parked and allows us to sign areas for no overnight parking, that type of thing. Which
gets back to, again, one of the other things I brought up in the staff report in terms of
could we, should we within this chapter do something more to regulate overnight
parking. There being a concern about people that are otherwise shelter challenged taking
a vehicle, and parking in a parking lot, and living there. It's not clear whether or not the
existing town code that we have that says no overnight parking applies just to right of
ways or can also be applied to private property. It doesn't really state one way or the
other. When it was adopted it was only being thought of in terms of right-of-way
parking. Again, it doesn't limit itself in the plain language of the code to do that. And
property owners sure have the opportunity under other provisions of the code to post their
properties for no parking or no overnight parking. So that's already something that's in
the code. Could it be beefed up? Possibly. Is it better in the zoning ordinance or better
in the parking provisions of the town code is a little bit of a question, but mostly
personally think it fits better in Chapter 12 of the town code that deals with that type of
parking issue as opposed to this land use design kind of look at parking.
But I'm always open to suggestions and taking direction from the Commission. So --
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CHAIRMAN GRAY: I'm more interested in the -- I had a similar note, not related to that
scenario, I was more coming from the angle of overnighted or long-term parked vehicles
above a certain gross vehicle weight is something that you see a lot. And I was actually
going to go similar path you did to the Chapter 12, which was you see semi-trailers, you
know, parked in the downtown Overlay District overnight, you know, and over the
weekend. And so you know, I guess I don't necessarily have an issue with it but it's
probably not what we want to be promoting. So maybe we look at Chapter 12 at some
point in the future.
WESLEY: Right. And one of the other things that gets a little bit challenging sometimes
is when you've got a place that is private property and has work vehicles, or storage of
vehicles versus parking of vehicles because they're there for extended periods without
being moved. Then we try to treat those a little differently in terms of them being need to
be stored versus parked, and need to be screened.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Commissioner Dempster?
DEMPSTER: Thank you.
Thank you, John. This was laid out in a great fashion and I appreciate all the work. I
love the addition of the bicycle information and a lot of the visuals, especially the line of
sight visual with the, you know, the two feet of wall and bushes, and then the seven-foot
clearance. I think that was an excellent show of the zone that needs to be kept free and
clear.
I have a couple questions. Just clarification. The one in regards to aircraft, the
suggestion is to remove it. But if that does come up, then what would -- say someone in
the industrial area needs to park a aircraft; would they have to get permission or --
WESLEY: I think, Chairman, Commissioner Dempster, I guess I don't really see parking
an aircraft. I can see storing an aircraft.
DEMPSTER: Or storing, yep.
WESLEY: So I think it's more of looking at our storing provisions, storage provisions,
and how those are treated as we get a chance to look at that.
DEMPSTER: Do we have any provisions?
WESLEY: In the zone ordinance, yes, there are provisions --
DEMPSTER: Okay.
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WESLEY: -- generally for storage. They don't talk about aircraft specifically, but they
do talk about storage of equipment.
DEMPSTER: Okay. And then my other question is the scheduled required parking
spaces. Fountain Hills is not typical with public transportation, and Lyft, and buses, and
Uber. So is that taken into consideration in reducing or making any changes to the
numbers?
WESLEY: So Chairman, Commissioner, so yes. If we look at this page with regard to
the residential, which is where you see it the most, is no, I kept those the same. We've
heard in some of the past site plans that the Commission has looked at where the
arguments have been made, oh, we need to reduce it because we're a little bit higher than
other communities, and we've maybe ended up doing that on a case-by-case basis. But
for the reasons you've just stated, I've not seen us being that directly applicable to other
communities in the Valley because of our limited right options. And as I looked in a
number of other publications as outlined in the report, you see some variation, but this is
really fairly typical, the numbers that we have here. The one modification I did make
was for if it is designated senior housing, is that we can have it. But other than that, I left
them the same.
DEMPSTER: Okay. Thank you. And another question about, let's see, I think this was
in the location restrictions, item 7, within two feet of the nearest part of a fire hydrant. I
thought the distance from a fire hydrant was more than two feet. And maybe I'm
misreading it but if you could clarify that please.
WESLEY: Do you have a section number on that so I can make sure I'm reading the
right one?
DEMPSTER: It is --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: It's in the higher density residential driveway section, I think.
WESLEY: Okay. That's where I was.
DEMPSTER: Or 5 of 30. I have it on 5 of 30. Is it in 10 of 30 as well?
WESLEY: I'm looking for location in 705-A and it doesn't state it there.
DEMPSTER: 703 -- let's see. 703-G and item 7.
WESLEY: I'm looking at the strike through. I probably should go to the clean one,
maybe I'd find it faster. Okay. Now I found it. Okay. So what are we talking about
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here? This is for -- thank you, thank you. So this is where a driveway can be located in
relationship to various things.
DEMPSTER: Okay.
WESLEY: And so it's not parking per se, but it's the driveway. So you must have a
driveway at least two feet away from the hydrant.
DEMPSTER: Okay. Thank you. And then one more I think. No. No. I'm good.
Thank you so much.
WESLEY: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: John, I just have couple notes, none of them significant really.
Just a couple clarifications as I was reading through. The section on residences I think
under 4, that was the only section that didn't specifically call out types of surfaces for
driveways. And I'm in favor of that, I just wanted to make sure that -- so the other
sections all call out impermeable asphalt pavers.
WESLEY: So the surface type material?
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah. That's the only section that doesn't do that. And frankly
I'm in favor of impermeable -- or sorry, permeable surfaces, and you know, native. So I
think that that's good but I just want to make sure we knew that.
WESLEY: Yeah. So we moved that up to 703 for general statement for both, for all
parking and drive locations. So it does keep the requirement for the asphalt concrete and
so forth, but does, in addition to that, give the town engineer a little bit more authority to
consider alternatives in site-specific locations.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay.
WESLEY: So we can get more of the permeable if it's appropriate.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: And then he doesn't necessarily have that latitude on the higher
density commercial locations then, or he does still?
WESLEY: No, it's for all the drives.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: It's for all, okay.
WESLEY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay. And then in the table, just parlaying a little bit on
Commissioner Dempster's statement. The one area that I thought, and I don't know that
this ever plays out from here forward, you know, maybe state land I suppose. But the
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ratio of parking on golf courses seemed really light to me.
WESLEY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: And it says two -- I think it says two per tee box essentially. And
I think by the time you account for the FTEs it takes to operate the course, you know,
plus your score card or your tee sheet is full, you know, plus those that are, you know,
warming up, I think that that ratio probably needs to be bumped up. I don't know what
the appropriate number is but --
WESLEY: I look back at some other examples and see what I can find.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: And then curious among yourself and Commissioners, I find
myself kind of always in favor of reducing the whole, you know, reducing pavement,
reducing heat island. You know, I want to ensure we have appropriate parking when
developments come around but I don't want to overpark developments either. And what
I'm curious about is, do we look at, or can we look at, you know, the scenario where
you've got public adjacency, where you've got planned, you know, where you've got
planned striped spaces, can we look at off loading a percent of your required to that
public allocation? I don't know if that make sense or not. But can you say ten percent of
my spaces I'm able to levy the city spaces that are striped on the adjacent street as part of
my calculation to reduce that pavement footprint in exchange for landscape. I'm not
saying that that allows any other change. I'm not saying that allows for a larger structure
or more structure in any way shape or form, but exchange pavement for softscape by
levying city spaces.
And then just to tie a bow on that, I would want -- if that was something that we thought
was something that could be entertained, I would want to make sure that that spillover
calc did not include anything that wasn't a striped planned space, you know, by the
municipality. So it doesn't extend to the 30-foot-wide, you know, residential streets, or
you know, anything of the collectors. It's just, you know, planned spaces, you know,
along the avenue or wherever.
WESLEY: I thought (indiscernible) going to jump in, I'll make a comment or two and
see where it goes.
But Chairman, just again, just thinking, you know, as you're talking and what the
implications are, the opportunities are, and sort of the primary one is in the town center.
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And when we look at the Plat 208 area, basically we don't require any parking for any
buildings in that area because it's assumed that the common parking behind takes care of
the -- all required parking for up to three stories on each of the lots, except for the larger
corner lots that were required to provide some of their own parking.
Then when we look across the street on this side where we have, you know, the Park
Place development going in, and Town Hall, Park Place has already provided all of its
parking, or will as it developed. As we move outside of these areas and the other
commercial areas, so we're talking northside of Palisades, or over off of Fountain Hills
Boulevard with the Safeway and that type of location. I don't know if there's --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah. There's not many scenarios where it would play out.
WESLEY: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: It's just an opportunity to maybe cut into that whole heat island
effect.
WESLEY: Right. And understand that is a, you know, good consideration. You know,
I'm just not sure about what opportunities we would have practically to do something
along that line. But the Commission is interested in that, I'll be glad to take a look and
see what (indiscernible).
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Or maybe there's an opportunity for the city to participate in that
where, you know, maybe the development, you know, or maybe development that's
coming back next month, you know, maybe that's not a good example.
Maybe the opportunity for the city is, yeah, the city could be providing, you know, X
number of spots that are, you know, that are communal use available to the city, you
know, available to the public in exchange for that ratio of soft scape to parking. But
anyway, that was just one thought.
And then kind of in concert with that, if we could, and I realize it's generally probably
cost prohibitive. But I'm really kind of promoting the permeable surface type instead of
the, you know, instead of the traditional asphalt or concrete lots. It was just another
thought.
And then all of the exhibits, I think a lot of those exhibits were in the previous, they were
just really grainy and hard to, you know, hard to pull out. Are we better off to cite or
reference kind of the AASHTO's manual with any of those because I noticed they're all
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exhibits in there but they don't have, you know, references where they originate from.
And you know, you always talk about AASHTO sight triangles and so on. I mean, leave
the exhibits, but are we better to get a statement in there kind of backstopping the, you
know, details, you know, in relation would have to be referenced in AASHTO guidelines,
or the AASHTO book.
WESLEY: Oh, excuse me, Mr. Chairman, the sort of the sight triangle, it does come
from national standards, and that could be cited. I'm not sure if I'd talk to the town
engineer how much -- if there's any variation locally in that basic sight triangle standard.
But just looking quickly through the illustrations and thinking about what's in them, most
everything else just relates back to illustrating what's in this ordinance and isn't really
based on national standard or some other document.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: So we're confident that our details are at that standard or better?
WESLEY: Yes. Again, because they are documenting the words in our ordinance, so
you can see it graphically to help you understand what the words are saying.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay. But the provision on tandem parking, I think the language
is something to the effect of, you know, at the discretion of type of scenario. I think that
maybe that could be strengthened a little bit to, you know, essentially tie that down to a
scenario where the tandem parking would have to be deeded with units, it couldn't be
used in the aggregate calculation. It would have to be, you know, tied to the units type
of thing. So you know, tandem when deeded, if you will.
WESLEY: Right. So for the monthly residents, it does say that they can only be used
when the spaces are assigned for the units, or if it's spillover parking, or something
beyond what's required by code.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay. Just so long, yeah. Just so long as that can't be levied in
the --
WESLEY: Um-hum.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: -- in the aggregate calc and really not made available.
Then the last one that I had was on the alternate curb details, the remove and replace for
driveways. Are those details, are they actually in the code somewhere or is that just at
the engineer's discretion?
WESLEY: Mr. Chairman, so you know, the town does have its standard details for the
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different curb types. And so I guess years ago a lot of these, what are they, B curbs were
put in. That's not really the preference, so as people do work to change out curbs, we
have them put in the standard six-inch curb.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay. Those are my comments.
Commissioner Watts?
WESLEY: So excuse me. I've got if -- you don't mind, that reminded me of one more
that I had. Just to make sure again the Commission is clear on this. One of the items
we've talked about, and it's included in here, is for covered parking. And as it would
apply in a single residence zone, the covered parking is typically in your garage. And so
one of the impacts this would be, if somebody wants to convert their garage into some
kind of livable space and no longer use it to park their vehicles. So they've got their
driveway to provide those two spaces, but they'd now still be required to be covered. So
they would have to put a cover over that, and many times that driveway is not going to be
deep enough to allow covered parking because you'd be in the set back.
So just wanted to make sure you're clear on that if you move forward with including that
requirement for single residents that that is one of the impacts. It may limit conversion of
garages to livable space.
COREY: And that would be -- I mean, that would be preferable I would -- I've seen this
happen around town a few times and it looks like, you know, they replaced the garage
door with sliding doors or something, expand the square footage of their house, but now
the cars have to park very close to the street, and doesn't look as nice as it did before they
did that.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: It's the arcadia affect.
Commissioner Watts?
WATTS: A couple comments and a question for you, John. The first comment is, I agree
that the golf course parking probably is light at two, probably going to go to four at least,
plus an accommodation, and maybe another six for driving range, but you've already
taken into account the employees when you say others. So that seems to be fairly easy to
address. Pretty straight forward.
The other comment was do we by not having a hard surface -- and I agree that it should
be a permeable hard surface like pavers or something -- do we run afoul of Maricopa
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County dust ordinances though? And if we do that, you know, you could grandfather in
the existing lots where houses have used pea gravel, or dirt, or whatever. But do we
really want to expose ourselves to something that we might have county issues with as
well? So comment.
WESLEY: Mr. Chairman, if I may respond to that one. The language that's proposed is
request for use of alternative material must include documentation showing how the
material will perform under normal use, and not result chipping, dust, track out, or any
other issues determined by the town engineer that will adversely affect the adjacent town
right of way. So they have to document or show that they are putting in this alternative
material that won't go afoul of basically the county rules.
WATTS: But that doesn't allow for a softscape dirt, a road. You have to do something
with it --
WESLEY: Right.
WATTS: -- to eliminate the dust.
WESLEY: Correct.
WATTS: I guess that's my point.
WESLEY: Right.
WATTS: To make sure that we don't allow streets and driveways that don't have some
sort of dust control.
WESLEY: Correct.
WATTS: The golf course one I mentioned. And can I get some -- I'm not quite sure I
follow what you're saying about the accommodation. Can you --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: So it's not --
WATTS: -- go slow with that one?
CHAIRMAN GRAY: So I haven't seen this anywhere in the southwest. I've seen it in
other places though where in denser areas you're allowed to take a percent of your
parking requirement if you have immediately adjacent, you know, municipal provided
spaces. If they're just, you know, public spaces, you know, allow, you know, use at
random, you're allowed to take a discount on your onsite provision. And you know, like,
we talked about, there's not probably that scenario that ever plays out here, it's just in my
mind if it would, it's just kind of preparing for the, you know, if that ever were to prevent
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itself, it's an opportunity just to cut down on that pavement, you know. You know, if
you've got 25 spaces that the town has, you know, already as curb parking, whether it be
parallel or pull in, you know, off of existing street infrastructure, you know, at the
engineer's discretion you could -- if they were lighter used spaces, you could pull those
into your equation so you're not, you know, leaving those spaces unutilized and building
out your entire allocation. So yeah. I take it or leave it. It's just a opportunity to cut
down on pavement.
WATTS: Well, it's kind of like the same thing where you can lease parking spaces. But
we have yet to see any development that has come in that has had significant excess
spaces. They're always pretty skinny trying to build out the footprint to maximize their
profit on whatever their project is. So I think that would be few and far between
particularly with the term immediately adjacent. You know, when you have that, that
does a lot of limitations. But I appreciate the clarification. I just don't know if it's -- I
think if you do that you've got to eliminate the ability for a contractor, project developer,
whomever to lease the spaces that aren't adjoining because I think that provision is still in
the building code, if I'm not mistaken.
WESLEY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah. We had that come up fairly recently, right?
WATTS: Yes, we did.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: And I don't really care for that provision at all but this is just an
idea to cut down -- you basically horse trade softscape for hardscape.
WATTS: So should we eliminate the ability to lease parking spaces at this point -- at this
juncture where --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: I just --
WATTS: -- we've got the opportunity to include both?
CHAIRMAN GRAY: I just don't see how the leasing of spaces is sustainable long term.
I don't see how we stay on top of that from a city perspective. But --
WATTS: Well, I think that's up to the plan reviewer to make sure that he validates. If
you require 150 spaces, and he has 100, but he's leased 50 spaces down the street from
Joe's then how are you going to make that accommodation. So --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah.
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WATTS: -- building --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: But what happens to Joe when he wants to sell to Mike, and Mike
wants to redevelop, you know?
WATTS: I guess --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: I just don't know that that gets caught, you know, in the second
and third tier.
WATTS: But then the town has a problem.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: The arm's-length transa -- yeah, right.
WATTS: That's the issue. So --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: So I think your point is, should we eliminate it? And I think
you're probably onto something there. I just don't like the provision in the first place.
WATTS: I don't either. Agree.
Well, John, it sounds like we've thrown it back in your court.
WESLEY: Well --
WATTS: Not that that's unusual.
WESLEY: -- that's what I'm here for.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: So and just one more on the permeable piece. The only
scenario -- I agree with you. I think that -- and maybe we do need to introduce, you
know, something just to catch all 80 EQ, you know, conformants, and really around that
PM10 program, right, is really where we -- that 10-micron particulate.
WESLEY: Right.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: What I was angling for is, you know, there' s a lot of really good,
you know, cellular type, you know, engineer devices now, or engineered fabrics now that
can be laid and then filled with a stabilized EG, and you know, it's a permeable yet
structural surface that, you know, that meets, you know, meets all of those -- ticks all of
those boxes. That's really what I was angled for as a potential alternate, not to get to, you
know, dirt roads because I agree with you. You know, you go to dirt and then you're
immediately in the sights of PM10 program.
WATTS: I think if you had qualifier in there that said you had something like an ICBO
number that would validate the viability of that substrate that may manage the dust. But I
think the caveat here is the wording of dust control, so I would like to see that. But if you
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had an ICBO number that just said okay, it's fine, then I'm good with that.
WESLEY: Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind me jumping in again. I'll sort of look back
at that specific language, it sounds like we can tweak that just a little bit and make it a
little bit stronger. But also from what I'm hearing you say, I'm wondering if I could add
another purpose statement that speaks a little bit to the desire for some flexibility and
creativity in design that would address some of those things that you've been --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah.
WESLEY: -- thinking about. If we put it there, and that way we're not hamstringing
ourselves if anything, or requiring a specific thing. But at least we can plant that seed
and help people think then about maybe more creative ways --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah.
WESLEY: -- to approach it.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: I like that. I mean, you know, I'm not stuck on any one of these,
they're just suggestions. So I like that.
And we're sure we want to get rid of the aircraft piece?
WESLEY: I haven't seen a lot of them parked here yet, so I think we're okay.
DEMPSTER: Hey, you know, I have an airplane in my future.
May I just -- would the Four Peaks Plaza, also known as Target Plaza, be something that
Chair Gray is speaking about? That parking lot seems to have excessive, you know,
excessive parking available. I've never seen it full and there could be -- that could be a
situation where that would work potentially.
WESLEY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah. The challenge there is we wouldn't have the adjacent city
spaces to offset that.
COREY: (Indiscernible) drive all the way down to use it.
DEMPSTER: Yeah. Golf cart, shuttle.
COREY: Just one point of clarification around the parking though. Did we not recently
a few months ago talk about a scaled-down version of our parking requirements? And I
can't remember how it was worded but around the 100 and 125 percent or something.
We --
WESLEY: It's --
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COREY: What was that about?
WESLEY: That's in here.
COREY: Okay.
WESLEY: That's in section 706 just before you get into the table of required spaces, I
believe is where it's at. Whoop, I went past it. I think maybe I didn't.
COREY: I have 704, right?
WESLEY: So it does -- we did have in here that the maximum number of parking
spaces, yeah, 706-G.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay.
WESLEY: 125 percent is the maximum but we did leave the caveat, again, that you
could go above that with permeable surface.
COREY: Okay. But that 125, wasn't that scaled down a little bit from what we had
previously?
WESLEY: No. We haven't had that previously. There's been no maximum previously.
COREY: Okay. Or was there a minimum that we had switched to?
WESLEY: Yeah. The --
COREY: To a lower minimum?
WESLEY: Well, the table that you see here is the table of the minimums.
COREY: Sorry. I can't find 7-6. Can somebody tell me what page this is on?
DAPAAH: It's 21 of 30.
COREY: Thank you. 21 of 30.
WESLEY: In the strike-through version.
COREY: I was in the wrong area. You've got it? Minimum provides. Exceed 125 of
the minimum number required. Okay. Not to exceed 120. So that was new, the not to
exceed --
WESLEY: Yes.
COREY: -- 125?
WESLEY: Yes.
COREY: Okay. I get it.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Any other comments on this agenda item or shall we move on?
WESLEY: I appreciate it, Commissioners. I will take note of those as I then prepare
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for -- bring it back again maybe hopefully for the final time at a public hearing, and we'll
talk about that date when we get to the end of the agenda.
COREY: And just to clarify because I wasn't sure if we made it recommendation on the
required cover parking to include the residential. Were you going to look at that as well?
WESLEY: So it does currently include it.
COREY: Okay.
WESLEY: When I brought up the potential downside, I didn't hear anybody say --
COREY: Okay.
WESLEY: -- no, take it back out.
COREY: No.
WESLEY: So I'll bring --
COREY: I think it's good.
WESLEY: -- it back with that still in there. You still have the opportunity at that point
to take it out if you desire.
COREY: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay. Thank you, John.
Moving on to agenda item 6, discussion of possible revisions to Zoning Ordinance
Section 2.04, Site Plan Review Regulations.
WESLEY: Okay. Chairman and Commissioners, this one is a fairly short presentation
and I think we did a lot of the heavy lifting before we did section 202 with the special use
permits. As far as talking about as we have looked at Chapter 2 of the zoning ordinance,
which lays out all procedures that we follow for rezones, site plans, special use permits,
so forth. And it's a little bit clunky, a little bit out of date, and not consistent from one
section to another about how we handle certain things. So we're taking them a section at
a time, going in, and looking for a way to update them, clean them up, make them more
consistent. We've done 202, that's been approved by Council. That deals with the special
use permits. The other one that we really use the most is 204 with the site plan review, so
that's one we've done second, and then we'll bring the others forward in the future. So
that's what we're looking at this evening.
And so just to step through some of the changes that we had in this section. So again,
we're talking about site plan review, which is primarily done administratively by staff.
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The section A purpose and applicability; added a couple of things there. One of the keys
I think is a reference to chapter 19. People who come into Fountain Hills aren't familiar
with our zoning ordinance, don't really know that you have to dig down quite a ways in
the code to find this chapter that lays out some design guidelines. And so by referencing
this up front that they need to look at that chapter and follow those guidelines that are in
there, I think will help draw attention to that and get some better design for the town.
Currently the code allows site plans to be submitted concurrently with building plan
review. Although in practice we've encouraged them to come in first, and that's been
official and helpful really to every one because often times there will be things such as
the design guidelines that haven't been considered, or some of the zoning standards that
haven't been considered, and they spend a lot of time and money on construction
documents that need significant revision because they haven't addressed these
fundamental requirements. And so by getting that site plan up front gives us that chance
to look at it and get those things corrected before they spend that much time and money
on the construction documents. And the times when we have had site plans and
construction documents moving through at the same time, it gets confusing then about
comments on one versus the other, getting them both updated so they look the same, and
so forth. And so it just really clarifies putting our standard practice into the code so it's
clear for everybody moving forward.
And then I amended the applicability statement to include the expansion and
redevelopment of properties, and that's currently missing from the code. We'll talk about
that more in a minute. We have the standards for basically new site plans, but when
somebody wants to change a previously approved site plan, we don't have anything in our
procedures that tells how to handle that other than as if it were a new site plan.
Then within section 202 that deals with application -- or within 204 that deals with
applications, we have amended that so it follows as closely as it can the application
requirements and procedures in 202. Again, that's one of the goals, was to keep these so
they read as much alike as they can and have the similar requirements. So I've done that.
So similar with the review and approval standards so it lays out on those initial steps of
the staff review, and providing comments back, and then from there working towards
approval. The difference, again, with the site plans, they're approved administratively
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versus them having to have all the notice procedures and requirements going on through
the commission and council.
The section dealing with appeal and expiration have not changed. We did add the
provisions for major and minor amendments with some criteria for what qualifies as each.
The main reason for doing that, having the distinction is for those things that really are
more simple and minor changes, we'll cut the application fee in half, is what we're
proposing because it really doesn't take as much staff time for those more minor
amendments that we would see in the major ones, or they're pretty much back to doing a
new site plan, so charging the same fee there.
And then one other change that we made is with clarification of the language with
regards to the site plan in connection with a temporary use permit or special use permit.
Right now it's kind of difficult to understand and seems to require that you provide the
full site plan at the same time as the special use permit, which is sometimes problematic.
Again, the applicant doesn't necessarily want to go to full site plan drawings until they
know they've got their special use permit approved. That's a waste of their time and
money otherwise, so we're clarifying that.
But then one other issue that we've seen in the past, primarily with the hospital, where we
approve the site plan and then they came back with a special use permit. That was a
challenge. So we're saying if you're going to need a special use permit or temporary use
permit, you need to go ahead and apply for that first or in conjunction with the site plan
so we can either, you know, get that special use permit looked at with a temporary or
consensual site plan, and then come back with a full site plan because it's pretty
challenging the other way around.
So those really are the summary of changes from the current ordinance to the new. You
had in your packet a copy of the current ordinance, the strike-through version with all the
changes and a clean version of the ordinance. So any questions, comments that you have
about the proposed changes to this section?
WATTS: I got one.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Commissioner Watts?
WATTS: John, when the site plan is submitted, does it have to have the approval of the
utilities where points of connection are made prior to being approved by the town?
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WESLEY: So one of the site plan requirements is that they show those utilities and
where they're going to be, and they get reviewed as part of the site plan, at least at that
conceptual level, and then they really finalize with the building permit. At least we can
see what they're intending to do and determine if there'd be any conflicts or issues at that
point.
WATTS: But they're not validated by the utility, like Blue Stake or something? And the
reason I ask is I got caught doing that. Built and had everything done, and the utilities
came in at the other side of the corner of the house, and it was a fortune to get it fixed.
So it helps if the contractor --
WESLEY: Right.
WATTS: -- by making sure it's valid.
WESLEY: Right. That's one of the challenges we have since the utilities are not part of
town organization. Sanitary District is very involved in looking at things.
WATTS: Um-hum.
WESLEY: The water company not so much and electric, and so we don't catch as many
things with those. But certainly Sanitary District looks at the site plans very closely.
WATTS: Definitely to the benefit of the contractor.
WESLEY: Yes.
WATTS: So thank you.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: I concur with that. I had the same -- mine's a little different.
Utility, no objection. Especially for the larger developments, I think that that's good due
diligence for anyone.
John, we reference it within but not on the front end. Do we also need to do it the same
way, when you tie in chapter 19, do we need to do the same with Chapter 7 given all of
the things we discussed in the previous agenda item?
WESLEY: Chairman, that's a good question. Let's look real -- whoops. I didn't get the
one I wanted. Let me go back here.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: There's references to it I think in section D.
WESLEY: It should be --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: I was just looking back here.
WESLEY: -- should be 3, what is this, B-3. That's what I'm looking for through the list
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of things that are required to be submitted, and there certainly is -- I hope not getting too
far out on a limb -- a reference to providing the details on the parking and drive, but I
don't know we specifically refenced chapter 7. That would be an easy add. Yeah. So
item 15 in that list is the location number spaces to which and so forth the parking. So
it'd very easy to reference chapter 7 --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay.
WESLEY: -- right there as --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: And --
ALL: -- as part of that.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: -- just a suggestion. And then along the same vein of
Commissioner Watts, you know, other just good ideas to have in place at that time, and
maybe we just go ahead and ask for them, I didn't see that we called out a topographic
survey. In there, there's reference to cross sections and slope calcs, which are kind of
insinuating that exists, but topo with any proposed cut fills.
WESLEY: Chairman, 3-C --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Did I miss it?
WESLEY: -- Roman I, topographic survey extend 100 feet beyond the boundary of the
property.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: All right. I'll cross that one off. And then kind of going back to
the discussion we had with Commissioner Watts on the last agenda item and kind of
desire to see the shared parking thing maybe go away, title report and ALTA survey?
WESLEY: Yes. I think that's up under B-2-B. Let's see here.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: B-2-B.
WESLEY: Is that not -- you said ALTA survey?
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah.
WESLEY: That was not the ALTA survey.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: I don't see --
WESLEY: Let's see. Well, maybe not. I don't know we ever do say specifically an
ALTA survey. So let me -- that'd certainly be an easy add.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: And then I had the utility NOC. And then D-15, let me find that
one again. I lost it. I think this is -- we don't typically have Roman numerals as our
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enumeration in ordinance, so maybe -- where is that? D-15.
WESLEY: C-15.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: It's --
WESLEY: Let's see where it's at.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Well, okay. So --
WESLEY: It's D-15.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: So --
WESLEY: The image is D-15.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah. So D-15, that was just -- I guess that was just my tieback to
the chapter 7.
WESLEY: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: So forget about that, other than do we use Roman numerals
elsewhere, do we?
WESLEY: Yes. I guess --
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay.
WESLEY: -- we don't usually do this many of them.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay. Okay. Those are my comments.
WESLEY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Commissioner Corey?
COREY: Thank you. Yeah. Just two comments. One, John, was in C-1 in the review
and approve section. I just noticed C-1, the word review is kind of redundant. I don't
know if folks are going to get confused on that process. Says, before initiating review we
will or a designee will review a submitted approval, and then once the review is done
we'll review. Just seemed like -- is there --
WESLEY: We got a special deal on using the word review. I see what you're saying. I
think there is a little bit of clarity that can be added to that.
COREY: Okay. Good. And then my other comment is towards the end I notice that we
removed reference to the planning and zoning commission in this way, it looked like the
P&Z was only involved for appeals.
WESLEY: Yes.
COREY: Whereas the old way it was for we would be making recommendations for
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SUPs. I'm just looking at what was crossed out and what was new.
WESLEY: Um-hum.
COREY: It looks like we're not involved in the SUP. It looks like it goes -- I saw a
mention of it going directly to counsel. P&Z wasn't mentioned in them coming to us for
a SUP in the new --
WESLEY: Okay.
COREY: -- context.
WESLEY: So Chairman, Commissioner Corey, that's part of some confusion that was in
the current code in regard to site plans and SUPs --
COREY: Okay.
WESLEY: -- and what site plans would come here with SUPs and not come here. So if
someone does go ahead and submit their formal site plan with their SUP, the Commission
would see both as part of their recommendation onto the town council. In most cases
though, I think we will see SUPs come with a conceptual site plan.
COREY: Okay.
WESLEY: And you will look at the conceptual site plan, you just won't be formally
approving it, you'll just approving the SUP. And then when the formal site plan comes
in, it will just be reviewed administratively by staff unless there's an appeal, and then it
would come to P&Z.
COREY: Okay. So perhaps --
WESLEY: There's a little bit of a change.
COREY: Um-hum.
WESLEY: But it's mostly a clarification than a real change because it's kind of confusing
the way it was worded before. When you --
COREY: Yeah.
WESLEY: -- particularly when you took both ordinances and tried to put them
together --
COREY: Right.
WESLEY: -- and follow that search for logic that was --
COREY: Trying to put the --
WESLEY: -- in there.
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COREY: -- new one together. I'm looking on page 168, the area that you have
highlighted in red, it mentions the applicant may choose to have the site plan processed --
WESLEY: Right.
COREY: -- with special use permit considered by town counsel. Did you want to put the
Planning and Zoning commission in there as well so they don't think that it goes right
from the department to the council? That's that red -- yeah.
WESLEY: Right.
COREY: You've got it right there, where it starts with special use permits.
WESLEY: Yeah. I see what you're saying. That may be unclear the way it's worded.
COREY: Okay.
WESLEY: And so it wasn't the intent and so --
COREY: Yeah.
WESLEY: -- certainly glad to adjust that wording to make sure that's clear.
DEMPSTER: I just have one question.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Commissioner Dempster?
DEMPSTER: I just have one question under what falls under special purpose district?
And this is in regards to the payment of the filing fee that's waived. It has school
districts, the town, and then special purpose district.
WESLEY: So Chairman, Commissioner Dempster, I don't know that we have any right
now. I believe that's held over from current language. I think there have been or has
been a special district for, I don't know if it's FireRock or someplace to help cover some
of their infrastructure improvements or whatever. And so again, I'm not aware that we
have any today, but I kept the language in there just in case we might in the future.
DEMPSTER: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Commissioners, anything further? Okay. Thank you, John.
All right. Agenda item 7, Commission discussion, a request for research to staff.
Commissioners, open mic.
Commissioner Corey?
COREY: I do have one thing.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Wow.
COREY: Well, we were talking earlier about charging stations. So I know this is not in
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this plan, but I had heard from some folks that we do have two charging stations in town.
We have the Community Center, I believe there's two charging stations there, and then
down by Fountain Park behind, like, Euro Cafe, there's also two. But I heard that those
are slow chargers and, like, it takes a long time to charge just a little bit. So I didn't
know, is there, like, another strategy for the town for working with the charging
companies to bring those in there somewhere?
WESLEY: Chairman, Commissioner Corey, I don't have really enough knowledge on
that to give a good explanation. Justin Weldy, the Public Works director --
COREY: Okay.
WESLEY: -- is the one that is handling those. And we've put in those couple as kind of
tests --
COREY: Um-hum.
WESLEY: -- you know, see what we can do. We've had some challenges with them for
various reasons. And so where we're really planning to go at this point I'm not aware. If
you would like, I could see if Mr. Weldy's available to come to a future meeting and
provide more information or send you an email description if you'd like of what's going
on.
COREY: Yeah. Maybe start with an email just so we can kind of open that conversation
up and see if that's something that we can influence here. I heard that, you know, those
two that are here in town are the all the way in the center of town, but they may be
utilized more if they were like on Shae, maybe in that Target plaza where folks who are
driving through can use them and use them more quickly. This seems to be for people
that live here and I heard that they don't really get a whole lot out of it. So --
WESLEY: Yeah.
COREY: -- just some feedback that I heard.
WESLEY: Okay.
COREY: And then one other comment on the plaza there, Four Peaks Plaza, is there any
word on any applicant putting something in there? Have you heard of anything?
WESLEY: No. So we've had some discussions off and on over the months with some
concepts.
COREY: Okay.
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WESLEY: Every time we talk to them, they seem like, yeah, they're going to be moving
forward fairly quickly. And then it's a couple months later and we realize we haven't
heard from them. So I don't know specifically. I think the market currently is causing a
lot of challenges --
COREY: Um-hum.
WESLEY: -- for people trying to move projects like that.
COREY: Okay. Yeah. Didn't know if there was anything new. Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay. Number 8, Commission requests from Development
Services Director.
WESLEY: So next meeting in March, we know you have two items on your agenda.
One will be the continuation of the rezoning at Morningside (sic) and Palisades. And
there will be discussion regarding the sign ordinance. Those two may be enough for you,
but we do also have the two items we discussed this evening. Do you feel you could
handle, or would like to have one or more of those on your March meeting also, or would
you rather see those pushed off until April?
CHAIRMAN GRAY: I think if you're ready, let's put them on. Let's put them at the end
of the agenda and if we need to defer them, we'll defer them.
WESLEY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: You know, if we run into a three-hour marathon, then we'd
probably defer them. But --
WESLEY: Okay.
WATTS: You mean a short meeting?
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah, a short one.
WATTS: Just checking.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Yeah. As opposed to the five-hour --
WATTS: Right.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: -- version, right?
WESLEY: Okay. So that's the main thing that I wanted to check with you on because
we need get the notices out on those. If we're going to have them on the March meeting,
have to get that notice out this week. So we'll go ahead and notice them for that meeting
and understand that may get continued, and that'd be fine.
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CHAIRMAN GRAY: They're pretty clean items --
WESLEY: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: -- too. So --
WESLEY: And with the discussion this evening I can hopefully get those changes made
and be ready to go. Okay.
COREY: And I'm sorry if I missed it, but we do have the applicant from behind the
apartments over here that's coming back in March, right, is that what you said?
WESLEY: Yeah. The Mountainside --
COREY: Yeah.
WESLEY: -- and Palisades?
COREY: Yes.
WESLEY: Yes.
COREY: Okay.
WESLEY: Okay. That's it for me.
CHAIRMAN GRAY: Okay. Anything under 9, report? No? All right. We are
adjourned. Thank you, John.
WESLEY: Thank you.