[1:02] All right.

[1:06] I'd like to call the this regular meeting of the planning commission at 601.

[1:12] 6.01, Durham, sorry, 6 o'clock open, please join me for the pledge of allegiance.

[1:20] I think that's the case.

[1:31] Thank you.

[1:35] Rebecca, can we get a roll, please?

[1:37] Chair Geekis.

[1:39] Commissioner Pender.

[1:40] Here.

[1:41] Commissioner Bosch.

[1:44] Bosch.

[1:45] Everything.

[1:46] Oh, I'm sorry.

[1:48] I'm sorry.

[1:49] No problem.

[1:51] The commissioner's leave more apologies.

[1:54] President.

[1:55] Commissioner Hall.

[1:57] Yeah.

[1:57] Commissioner Sparks.

[1:58] Here.

[1:59] And vice chair Burke.

[2:01] Here.

[2:02] And vice chair, you have a corn.

[2:05] Thank you.

[2:06] I've entertained a motion to adopt the agenda.

[2:11] So moved.

[2:12] Second.

[2:14] Move by Commissioner Hall.

[2:15] seconded by Commissioner Sparks. All in favor?

[2:20] Aye.

[2:22] We'll move on to announcements.

[2:25] Thank you, Vice Chair Burke.

[2:28] So to get started with our announcements,

[2:29] we have some upcoming meetings in this room, 341 West 7th Street.

[2:33] Board of Trustees meeting, next Tuesday, January 13th.

[2:37] We have Planning Commission, Tuesday, January 20th.

[2:41] We have the Tourism Advisory Commission, Wednesday, January 21st,

[2:45] at 9 a.m. and the last board meeting will be Tuesday, January 27th and then coming up next week,

[2:52] we have planning Paloza, so be on Wednesday the 14th from four to seven and Thursday the 15th

[2:59] from three to six. It's a great time to engage and learn about upcoming projects in Palisade,

[3:04] such as the Sea.Roundabout, Peachville Park and Veterans Memorial Park. There is a trustee vacancy,

[3:13] See the town's accepting letters of interest for a board term ending in April 2026.

[3:19] Applicants must be registered electors and residents for at least 12 months.

[3:23] Please submit letters to Kay Frazier at townofpalaceid.org by yesterday, sorry, by Monday, January 12th.

[3:34] And lastly, an election announcement, the first day to pick up nomination petitions to run

[3:40] for the Board of Trustees is April 7th, election on the election for April 7th is Tuesday, January 6th.

[3:48] So pick up your nomination petitions please. Turn them in by January 26th.

[3:57] Thank you, Dylan.

[4:00] I have a motion to approve the minutes from December 2nd, 2025.

[4:04] Chair, I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes from December 2nd to 2025.

[4:09] second motion by Commissioner Prinder and second by Mr. Seymour. All in favor?

[4:19] Hi.

[4:21] I'm at this time. I'd like to open up the public hearing for ordinance 2025-11,

[4:28] which is a tax amendment to the Palisade Land Development Code,

[4:32] I'm ending ADU stand.

[4:33] That's going to be my share.

[4:34] We skipped the town report.

[4:36] I'm sorry.

[4:37] Town report.

[4:39] Thank you.

[4:40] Well, they close that.

[4:44] Cool, real.

[4:46] You're all good, Devon.

[4:47] Town report.

[4:48] CDOP project is going to be starting in a couple of weeks.

[4:52] So Excel is finishing up their gas pipeline.

[4:55] And then the CDOP project will start underway.

[4:58] We also have started right away conversations and right away acquisition for Alberta.

[5:05] So that is running with the property owners, but it looks like construction will start to evolve to get great for our busy season.

[5:13] The big thing is planning for loser. We're really excited about that.

[5:16] We're going to have police and fire present as well.

[5:20] We'll be talking a little bit more about logistics and seeing if you all want to be involved as well.

[5:25] And we will be showcasing the game that we'll be workshopping tonight.

[5:29] I'm pretty excited about that.

[5:33] Otherwise continuing to keep our ice peel for grant funding.

[5:38] And we have obviously we have more coming down the line in terms of planning.

[5:42] We'll be picking up the topic of zoning here shortly.

[5:45] So just to give you a little preview there.

[5:48] But that would do it for town report unless y'all have any questions.

[5:52] I don't think so. Do you need any help with the playing polluza one from four to seven,

[5:59] which is Monday. Yes, and I've got a little outline when we go into workshop.

[6:05] We'll think times that if you're willing and available and then we have staff as well,

[6:09] I'll be there for both days. So that's the representation.

[6:13] Excellent.

[6:15] We'll just a quick question for town report.

[6:17] What's a timeline on Harkie so far was out there today checking out all the progress. A lot of progress being made. It's looking like March.

[6:26] To be, you know, kind of dialed in, then we'll look for high water. See if there's any tweaks that need to be made after high water, but March.

[6:35] I was just having to name myself. It looks great. Yeah. Cool. Beautiful wrap. So yeah, making great progress.

[6:41] Yes, coming in with the expected timeline and budget,

[6:45] so looking good.

[6:46] Nice.

[6:46] We like hearing that.

[6:49] And just a huge shout out to our public work staff

[6:52] and what they're doing, it is truly amazing.

[6:55] Awesome.

[6:57] Anything else?

[6:59] Wish you a backup again.

[7:00] Perfect.

[7:01] Now at this time, I'd like to open public hearing

[7:05] for ordinance 2025, dash 11, tax amendment to the land,

[7:10] and the policy land development code amending ADU standards.

[7:14] Devin, what's the presentation?

[7:16] Thank you.

[7:17] Yeah, we'll keep the presentation pretty straightforward

[7:19] and brief.

[7:21] I really just want to go over that these changes have been

[7:24] reviewed by the Department of Local Affairs

[7:26] and they would make our ADU code compliant.

[7:30] Now, there's a couple of changes

[7:31] that are actually just parking standards.

[7:33] So we'll run over them briefly in this overview

[7:35] and then we'll go through the ordinance.

[7:38] But essentially, we just had to clarify further the ADUs were allowed in all zones by

[7:45] right, except for light industrial commercial business.

[7:48] So that was already part of our existing code.

[7:50] They just wanted further clarifications.

[7:52] And you'll see, we've included definitions that have come down from the state to meet those

[7:56] requirements.

[7:57] We didn't previously have a minimum.

[8:00] The code calls for a 200 square foot minimum.

[8:04] So we've adopted 200 pairs of square foot minimum and this is an interesting one is that basically an 8U has by right can be 750 square feet and less it's larger than the primary.

[8:18] So you could have potentially an 800 square foot home and a 750 square foot.

[8:27] So that's an important distinction here.

[8:30] We are still allowed to maintain our maximum,

[8:32] which we've set at 900.

[8:33] So that is not changed.

[8:34] And we still maintain the 50%

[8:37] the 50% ratio,

[8:39] but it really only matters

[8:41] in between the 750 and the 900,

[8:43] because 750 and less is basically guaranteed by right.

[8:48] There's other things that come into play here,

[8:50] just to lay it out like impervious surface.

[8:52] So if it knocks and impervious surface,

[8:54] this, then they would have to shrink, but just to be completely transparent there. Design

[9:01] guidelines, we didn't really come forward with strong design guidelines. It was really

[9:04] just coming forward and making it more straightforward that they can't be stricter than this required

[9:08] for single family home. So that's no big change. And then lastly, what was included with the

[9:15] last time we continued this public hearing was around the parking, whereas no parking would

[9:21] No parking would be required to be created.

[9:24] So basically, unless they're on a street

[9:27] that does not, they prohibit parking

[9:30] and they have zero existing on-site parking.

[9:34] And so to give you an example,

[9:36] if someone has a two car garage,

[9:41] perhaps just say one car garage or one car driveway

[9:43] and they want to build an ADU,

[9:45] they have two off-street parking spots

[9:47] which is required for their primary.

[9:49] They would designate one parking spot for the ADU and they would not want to create a new

[9:55] off-site parking space.

[9:59] So you can designate a parking space that you cannot require the creation

[10:03] of a new one.

[10:06] Generally, while these are not, didn't come out of, you know, our renovation of our

[10:11] ADU code, I do still feel like they encourage ADUs in town. They don't harm the town and they

[10:20] They basically can lower the construction costs, for example, a parking spot having a designated

[10:27] offsetting hood, knock them out of, setbacks, certain things could make the project infeasible.

[10:36] I have and then it does support affordable housing and allows us to get grant funding to make

[10:43] to lower the burden and then allow more residents to potentially build it if they choose to.

[10:50] Lastly, it doesn't encourage you to build a development that is basically development strategy that we've been talking about the town in fill and the existing infrastructure we have rather than doing new subdivisions and greenfield or in our agricultural zones.

[11:08] So we can go over the ordinate really quick, go over any definitions that will be added

[11:16] as I mentioned.

[11:21] They have been taken from the state.

[11:23] They have been approved by both our attorney and make sure that we provide with all of the future

[11:30] projects.

[11:32] So, first off is definitions. This is the definition of native youth from the state. They have defined their exempt, the exempt parcels, which go to call Colorado revised statutes.

[11:46] And it was important that ADUs were administrative and they were done with objective standards. And so the objective standards are put forth here in the ordinance.

[11:58] just

[12:03] to go over again. Nothing is really changing with the zoning. If anything it just gave PDs a little bit more clarity and less ambiguity saying that 80s are allowed in PD and planned developments as well.

[12:17] And we still do not allow 80s in commercial business and by industrial. So no major changes there. Just really more description.

[12:30] Once again, going back to the 750 square feet, kind of as developed by right, that has been added here, and including in a minimum.

[12:46] The design standards just defining that an AU can't be more prohibitive than the principal structure.

[12:58] And lastly, the parking pieces with the exemptions, basically if the lot does does not have an off street parking space.

[13:08] is in a zoning district that requires offshoot parking,

[13:11] which all of our zoning districts do.

[13:14] And lastly, is located on a blockward

[13:16] on street parking is prohibited for any reason.

[13:20] Then you can require an offshoot park to see.

[13:26] That will do it for my presentation.

[13:31] I believe we can open it up to public comment.

[13:34] Thank you, David.

[13:37] This time we'd open it up.

[13:39] The public comment for anything pertaining to ordinance 2025-11.

[13:45] Please state your full name and address for the records, sir.

[13:49] Oh, Matt, paint 3589 to your road, pal.

[13:53] Say gee.

[13:56] At first, when I came here a year ago,

[13:58] I thought I was doing good.

[14:00] and now I realize that the town does not have a concrete plan to deliver enough water relative to the amount of growth that we have currently in the projected growth.

[14:14] The other day water we experienced up on 39 road, a shortage of water pressure.

[14:21] If you go next door, you see a room full of people who seem to be very angry that there is an idea to float annexation of property in the Palatage Heritage area, which is predominantly agricultural production.

[14:41] Mr. Dean, I'm sorry, have I broke the three minutes?

[14:45] Is this one pertaining to the tax amendment for the PDU's?

[14:49] Yes, I'm against this, currently, because the towns is not, in my opinion, have a game

[14:54] plan to support growth of ADUs.

[14:57] So anything as it pertains to making sure we are

[15:00] A concurrent with the law. At the state level does not give me confidence that the town is currently making strides to ensure that we have enough water capacity and capability to deliver water as we grow. The area is very desired. The price of land is high, which is why y'all are talking about 80 years. You're giving people the ability to have info development to give people that might not have the ability to buy land and build a hotel. They can put an ADU in the backyard.

[15:29] yard and get capital.

[15:31] I'm unfortunately disappointed that the town seemingly has not come up with a game plan

[15:37] to secure money that will transition the sewer lagoon that will give us the ability to

[15:42] sustain the current amount of people in the area as well as water users outside of the town.

[15:48] As much as I like working with you guys, I don't think that holistically the town is ready

[15:54] for the growth.

[15:56] Even though I want there to be more affordable living, I desperately want to see the town be successful.

[16:03] I do not want the town to die.

[16:06] However, I am concerned of utility distribution and capacity and capability.

[16:11] We are in a drought year, 2026 growing is going to suck ass from a perspective of water capacity on the mesa.

[16:19] It is to the point where Jeff heard recently tried to pass a bill to give us the ability to collect data about

[16:25] how much water capacity we have on the mesa. I am definitely concerned about this. I disagree

[16:32] with us being able to go forward to add in the capacity inside the town. Thank you very much.

[16:37] Thank you, ma'am. Any other public comment pertaining to Hadoo's standards and ordinance 2025-11?

[16:50] We'll close the public comment for this ordinance and open it up to you board discussion.

[16:55] My

[17:00] only comment would be is we're bringing up two state compliance and I believe that's what we need to do.

[17:06] So no questions.

[17:08] I would just ask.

[17:10] Devin just the language for the text amendment.

[17:14] Was that provided by dolo the municipal league or was it kind of you got to have to craft it from?

[17:21] They did provide templates and then I worked with our existing code incorporating those templates.

[17:26] And then I worked with them to just make sure that this would get us a hundred percent to compliance and got that go ahead. Yes, perfect.

[17:33] So it's safe to assume that outside of, you know, some of the nuances we have in our code.

[17:39] This is going to be, this is going to conform to every municipality of the state.

[17:43] And then only one other question, just a point of order, it's listed here as ordinance 20, 25, 11 should it be 20, 26, 11?

[17:52] Where is that?

[17:53] I do not believe so because our first public hearing was in 20, 25. This was continued into 20, 26. Okay. Yeah. Perfect.

[18:00] I think the only question I have, Devon, is just making sure that with the increased size of the ADUs,

[18:08] being able to allow for up to 750 square feet, none of that supersedes our zoning as far as setbacks, and those require much correct.

[18:19] All those dimensional standards, yes, that's correct.

[18:21] Perfect.

[18:27] Good.

[18:29] Would you like to entertain a motion?

[18:31] Yes please.

[18:31] I'd like to make a motion that we approve ordinance 2025-11 as written.

[18:38] I'll second.

[18:40] Motion by Commissioner Hall, second by Commissioner Pinder.

[18:46] Need a roll call vote, please.

[18:50] Commissioner Hall?

[18:51] Yes.

[18:53] Commissioner Seymour?

[18:55] Yes.

[18:56] Vice Chair Burke.

[18:57] Yes.

[18:58] Commissioner Sparks?

[18:59] Yes.

[19:00] And Commissioner Pinder?

[19:01] Yes.

[19:02] Vice Chair, that motion carries.

[19:04] Thank you.

[19:05] at this time. We can open up the public comments for anything that is not on the agenda.

[19:14] Thank you, Rebecca. Please keep your comments at three minutes or less.

[19:18] State your name and address. We do have a sign-in sheet up front that Rebecca is getting.

[19:31] Thank you. Mr. Payne.

[19:40] I'm going to start with saying, like, I do enjoy engaging with you guys, I think that

[19:46] you'll do a lot of work to make sure they're successful, and some of my disappointment

[19:51] does not lie with you in the room, okay?

[19:54] I also know that I might have more insight and more experience in other things, and I'm

[20:00] trying to educate you guys.

[20:02] Right now, I know that there needs to be some change in town code to facilitate smart growth, right?

[20:11] I also understand that there is a current social economic situation where we are experiencing some level of gentrification.

[20:21] And I think that we do need to do some polishing of parts of the turd that is this town.

[20:25] Now, the rest of the town is very pretty, the surrounding areas are pretty, there are

[20:30] some places outside of town that are very ugly and there are some places in town that

[20:33] are ugly.

[20:34] And I realize that we need and want to make this place a better place.

[20:40] I did logistics and I facilitated the movement of 4,000 people in one time.

[20:47] I facilitated the movement of many pieces of equipment from one continent to another.

[20:51] I facilitated information movement around multiple continents.

[20:56] My brain and my experience allow me to understand strategic level of shaping of things to achieve

[21:03] strategic input.

[21:07] I know that we are in a law new year, and this is the second year of law new year, and

[21:11] we're going to have low water capacity in the growing year.

[21:15] We have two different water basins that have not come to an agreement around fresh water on the Colorado

[21:22] I want the town of Palatites to succeed, but I am nervous that we are

[21:29] Fixing some low-hanging fruit, which I appreciate y'all going through the deliberation of doing because I think it needs to be done

[21:36] The thing that I'm nervous about are other people that are outside that it might be actors that are not thinking

[21:42] strategically about how to ensure we have success in this valley, in this part of the valley, for the next 100 years.

[21:51] And I think, and I'm desperately going to enforce, based off how many people I got in that other room,

[22:00] that we need to put a moratorium on any production or any building of additional buildings or ADUs.

[22:08] I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it forever.

[22:11] I'm just saying that right now it does not seem like they have a game plan to give us fresh water in 2027, 2028, et cetera.

[22:19] Because right now the serial goom does not look like it's going to be funded.

[22:22] And right now you have a lot of people who are not willing to pay taxes or fees.

[22:27] We are not going to have this successful year in 2026.

[22:29] It's going to be a recession so we're not going to get the fees to fund a lot of things that they want to fund.

[22:35] I don't think that we should be growing right now as much as I think that you all are doing a good job.

[22:41] Thank you.

[22:42] Thanks.

[22:45] Is there any other public comment?

[22:47] For items not on the agenda.

[22:52] At this time, I would close the public comment.

[22:57] And entertain a motion for adjournment.

[23:01] Like to make a motion that we adjourn.

[23:04] Second.

[23:05] Motion by commissioner holes.

[23:07] I could buy commissioner Seymour.

[23:09] All in favor.

[23:10] Hi.

[23:11] Hi, we do have a work session that you're welcome to stick around for as well. This is

Palisade, CO meeting

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