What will you tell her.
Yeah I'm ready.
Are you ready, Thomas.
We are ready.
What is the date today.
25th 25th.
25th somehow I thought it was the 24th.
25th all right.
We'll call this meeting to order.
Welcome to the August 25, 2026 city of Grand Junction
planning commission meeting.
A couple of housekeeping items before we begin.
Agendas are available on your way into the auditorium.
And please turn off or silence your cell phones in order
to promote a civil discussion and honor the right to differing
opinions, members of the audience
are asked to refrain from exhibiting expressions
of support or opposition, such as cheering
and yelling, at any point during the meeting.
Please note members of the public,
as well as applicants or commissioners,
may be joining us via the web this evening.
We ask for your patience as we utilize this hybrid system that
helps ensure that all want to participate in this hearing
are able.
Our first order of business tonight
is to review the consent agenda.
Items on the consent agenda are items
perceived to be non-controversial in nature
and meet all requirements of the codes and regulations,
and/or the applicant has acknowledged
agreement with the recommended conditions.
The consent agenda will be acted upon in one motion,
unless the applicant member of the public planning commissioner
or staff requests that the item be removed
from the consent agenda.
Items removed from the consent agenda
will be reviewed as part of the regular agenda.
Consent agenda items must be removed from the consent
agenda for a full hearing to be eligible for appeal or hearing.
Is there a request from the commission
to remove our single item from the consent agenda.
Is there anyone else interested in removing
item from the consent agenda.
All right.
With that, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda.
So moved.
I'll second.
All right.
All in favor.
Aye Any opposed.
All right.
The consent agenda passes.
Do we have 7, 7 to 0.
Public hearings are conducted pursuant to the laws
of the state of Colorado, the city of Grand Junction
and the regulations duly adopted by the planning
commission of the city.
The purpose of this hearing is to receive information
and testimony by all interested parties,
to enable this planning commission to make
appropriate findings and reach the conclusions
required to be made by law.
Both a written and video recording
are made of these proceedings.
Those who desire to be heard must identify
themselves by their full name.
The order of this hearing will be as follows.
An examination of the application
and a determination concerning the adequacy of notification.
A presentation, description and analysis of the application
by staff.
An opportunity for the applicant to present evidence and argument
concerning the applicant's position,
and all other interested parties may address the commission.
Public comment will be limited to three
minutes for each speaker.
The planning commission may ask questions of staff,
the applicant or members of the public after each presentation,
public comment section of the hearing may be closed.
After all public comment has been received,
the applicant will be given an opportunity to respond
or rebuttal if desired.
Staff may, may respond to any statement made by
the applicant, the public or the commission.
The chair will close the public hearing.
No further evidence will be accepted.
The evidentiary portion may be reopened only by a majority vote
of the planning commission.
After the closure of the public hearing,
the planning commission will begin
its deliberation, which will end with the passage of a motion.
So the first item on the agenda this evening
is to consider requests by Martin Mendoza
to vacate a portion of inland Avenue public right
of way, that is, the outlying areas
of a cul-de-sac that about 567 Southwest gate drive
and 569 Southwest gate drive.
The vacation shall be conditioned on the city of Grand
Junction, retaining a 14 foot multi-purpose easement
in each portion of the cul-de-sac
along the remaining inland Avenue right of way.
Staff, are you ready to proceed on this Yes
And is the applicant present.
And would you identify yourself, please.
And are you ready to proceed.
Yes Thank you.
And before we begin, was the required
public notice given on this.
Yes pursuant to the city's noticing requirements.
Yes thank you.
With that, we can proceed.
Could you please introduce the exhibits for the record.
Absolutely let me grab them.
That's OK.
So for the exhibits, we have exhibit one,
which will be the staff report.
We then have exhibit two which will
be the development application.
Exhibit 3 is the neighborhood meeting notes.
Exhibit 4 being the right of way exhibits,
and exhibit 5 being the draft zoning ordinance.
Thank you.
And are there any additional exhibits that were not
included in the staff report.
No perfect.
You may proceed.
Good evening.
Commissioners My name is Lily Sutton.
I'm a new senior planner with the city.
So this is my official first presentation for y'all.
Tonight's case is regarding the Southwest gate of way vacation.
So this is.
The request is to vacate two existing portions of previously
dedicated right of way, totaling approximately 2200ft They are
the outlying areas of a cul-de-sac
that was never developed, as inland
Avenue is a through street.
And as you can see on the site map,
these are the two areas to be vacated.
One is on the 567 parcel to the South of inland Avenue,
and the other is located to the North of inland
and is located on 569.
The current zoning of the property is commercial general.
The applicant has also put in an application
and is going through the review process
for both a minor subdivision for the 565 property,
as well as the 567 property both to the South of inland
for a future vehicle and equipment storage and warehouse
for the owner's current existing business,
and to expand on these two lots.
And there is also a separate application
for a minor subdivision to combine these two lots together.
The comprehensive plan calls out the future land
use as industrial.
Both the zoning and the future land use
are compatible with the vehicle and equipment use storage use
that the applicant is proposing in the future, but just not 100%
relevant to the right of way, but in the future.
This is an allowed use by right.
And for this is to show this is one of the submittals that
was submitted with the site plan that is currently
being reviewed by staff.
It's just showing the road alignment for inland
and that it is in fact a through street.
And that cul-de-sac and turnaround is no
longer necessary for this area.
And so for the analysis, it is in line
with the comprehensive plan, both in the future land use
and with the overall circulation plan for the city.
The access is not changed considering that the Inland
Avenue is already developed as is, so there are no large scale
changes other than the applicant being able to use both this site
and potentially if in for future development of the 569
site to the North could just be developed
to their full potential.
And based on the finding of fact, the.
After reviewing the request to vacate approximately 2236ft
of public right of way along inland Avenue,
but with the condition that a 14 foot multi-purpose
easement is granted along the remaining
portions of inland Avenue.
Based on the submittals that they have given
the city for the site plan and the subdivision in the future,
they are both showing that 14 foot multipurpose easement.
So staff is finding all of these requirements to be met.
And with that, I will open it up to any questions
that you all might have for either me or the applicant.
Are there any questions for staff at this time.
I have one.
Go ahead.
Yes Lynn, first off, welcome.
Glad to have you here.
In regards to the 569 West gate address, which is
also affected by this vacation.
They have asked, does this have any effect to them.
And for the record, I'd like to just ask that question
and have it answered, please.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's a great question.
The effect that this will have on the 5, 6, 9 property
is that it removes that dedicated right
of way which is on their lot.
So really the only impact is that if they want
to develop in the future, that space is no
longer considered right of way.
And they are able to use that site to its max
layout and Max potential.
So there is an impact, but it's a net positive impact.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
Just piggybacking on that.
Has there been communication with those property owners
to the North.
I have not had direct communication,
but I will turn that over to Kim Kirk.
If there's been any communications
with that property owner to the North, there has not.
Yeah if you could, we'll just turn it over to you.
At this time, I was going to say,
do you have a presentation for us.
And then also could just answer that question.
Not so.
Good evening, commissioners and staff.
Kim Kirk, Kim Kirkland consulting and development.
So I'm the representative for the owner, Martin Mendoza.
So this I'm going to back up and give you
just a little bit of history.
So this project started out with Mr. Mendoza,
went in to apply for a fence permit.
And he owns these two lots at 565 and 567.
So it came about that if he wanted to not
have to put fence through the middle,
he could combine the lots.
So long story short, it ended up doing a minor subdivision,
a site plan review.
And Lily's like the fourth planner,
so she probably wouldn't even know all of that information.
So we got through the subdivision,
we were getting through all the processes,
and then we were notified by the planner.
Previous planner that we had to vacate that right of way.
And they.
So it was mandated to us to vacate that right of way.
I asked the question, how do we vacate something
off of someone else's property.
And they said, that's not necessary
because it's city right of way.
So I didn't contact the neighbors.
That's the long answer.
Thank you for that explanation.
Appreciate it.
Yes and then I have just a little tiny bit more
to add on these two properties, there are no plans for any type
of warehouse or construction.
This is for a landscaping company owner that wants to park
his equipment there at night.
So the big.
He'll come in the morning, get over whatever equipment
he might need, take it out for the day and return it.
So there's not any development planned on these two lots
at all.
Are there any other questions for staff or applicant.
Just a small one.
It you mentioned the 14 foot multipurpose easement.
There seems to be on the exhibit for the right of way exhibit.
There's a.
It shows a 15 foot utility easement.
Are those also remaining and is that should
those be different sizes.
Or dimensions to the best of my knowledge,
the 14 foot multipurpose easement is called out
separately on the subdivision.
I'm not entirely sure what the difference between the 15
foot utility easement and the multi-purpose.
I can just confirm that the condition is met for the 14 foot
so far on what has been submitted.
Are there any other questions.
Madam Chair, if I may.
Who said that.
Oh, that's James Beard assistant city attorney.
I would just like to clarify some for the record.
Our right of way isn't on their lots.
It's the city's right of way.
They have just been utilizing it because it's never been built
to look like it is roadway.
And so they've been treating it as if it's their lots.
And so basically by going ahead and vacating the roadway,
we're giving them what they believe or would
appear to already be their lot.
Technically it could change something
a little bit for both lots and that now they would be looked
at as those really are fully their lots,
all that area included within their lots.
It may change their tax assessment.
I can't expect that it's going to be a lot,
but arguably that now will be their land
to be considered as all of theirs
and not considered as road right away any longer.
And so we're really giving them what they think they've got.
But at the same time it is city road right of way to vacate
if the city chooses to do so.
We don't have to have permission of the property owner to do it.
We have yet to have a property owner
though complain that we did it.
So I just wanted to clarify.
I think there were two times it was mentioned that it was
their lots and it's not their lots,
it's the city road right of way.
Thank you.
Yes thank you.
And I was just going to say, just to echo Jamie's point,
this is really like a clean it up kind of exercise.
When we do see something like this,
like in what MS Kirk said with the fence permit.
We tried to clean up the record in these types of things
and with this case a paper plat of right of way
that is never actually been used as such.
As plans change with streets and things like that,
we run into these sometimes.
So to clean it up, exercise.
Thank you.
Are there any other questions.
So at this time, we'll open the hearing up.
Thank you, MS Kirk, for public comment.
Seeing no one in the audience.
Do we have anybody online.
We do not.
All right.
Seeing no public and having no public online to comment,
I will close the public comment hearing the public comment
portion of the hearing.
Our let's see.
And we don't need any additional comments to the public.
Comments we didn't get.
Sorry trying to go through the meeting notes.
That's OK.
I thought I was going to ask you who was up at bat.
All right.
Are there any additional questions for staff or applicant
at this time before I close this item for public hearing.
All right.
We will close the public hearing and turn to the planning
commission for additional discussion,
deliberation or a motion.
Motion you better just close your laptop down there.
I'll just make the comment that I did go out and look
at this property and met the people at 569,
and they did have some concerns about what this meant.
They had gotten a postcard that they didn't exactly understand.
There was no posting or anything out there at the time.
And so there was some confusion, but we talked it out
and they feel a lot better about it.
But they did want it on the record
that this was not going to affect their property adversely.
And so they're all fine with it.
And having looked at it, it is a clean up exercise
and make perfect sense to me.
And with that, I'd like to make a motion.
Go ahead.
Madam Chair.
On the Inland Avenue public right of way.
Vacation located between 5, 6, 7 Southwest gate drive
and 569 Southwest gate drive.
I move that the planning commission, for recommendation
of approval to city council of the findings
of fact and conditions as listed in the staff report.
Second, there's a motion.
And second, are there any additional discussion.
All right.
All in favor, say Aye.
Aye Any opposed.
The motion passes 7 to 0.
Is there any other business to be brought before the planning
commission this evening.
All right.
Do we have a motion to adjourn.
So moved.
Second All in favor.
Aye we are adjourned.